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Interesting....

After Reading my friends birth story for her son, and a few others, mine included... isn't it interesting that we as women pass judgement on each other for how we choose to deliver our children, what method we use to feed them etc. instead of uplifting each other and supporting... We need to snap out of it and just love and support. There are enough things going on after you have a baby, worrying about what someone thinks or is going to say shouldn't be one of them. That is why I LOVE my kiddos doctor. At the one month check up he asked what I was feeding him and I said that today was the last day of supplementing with breast milk. I just don't have the supply and its so overwhelming and tiring to pump and remember to pump when you are out and about. I didn't even have to say that last part in my defense he just nodded noting that he remembered me being concerned about my supply and what formula was I using. No judgement, no questions. Just that he remembered (or had read in the notes before our appointment) that I had been stressed about my supply.

He's Just Punctual. (Very Wordy)

I know we are a month out but life gets amazingly busy and lets not even start with trying to find my groove... it's lost and may be forever. That is just how it goes I guess. Especially for those of us that had just found our groove! :) Maxwell Gene is here and I wanted to write a little bit of it down because lets face it I don't remember much of Leland's birth story, although I may post what I remember another day just so I have it!

Let me start by saying I started Braxton Hicks contractions at 28 weeks so I thought I was going to be a pro at this whole labor thing. I mean I never got to prove it with Leland since I only labored for 20 hours and it was mild, and then I went in for a c section. (10 of those hours I was sleeping with the help of some fabulous medicine, so not hard at all.) On top of the "fake" contractions "conditioning my body" I lost my mucus plug 5 weeks before Max was due. That said I felt so dumb as I told everyone I was sure I would have this baby any day SO not only was I disappointed but it seemed everyone else was too! I should also note we induced with Leland, so I had NO idea what to expect with labor and didn't want to be "that" mom who showed up to the hospital sure she was in labor only to be sent home. I would be embarrassed by that, because lets just say I have issues.

So my Mom came a week before my due date, because of a lot of different reasons, but the main one was I was struggling with daily life, let me tell you for those who come early or get induced its amazing how uncomfortable you get in just a weeks time. I for one was amazed at the difference between 39 weeks and 40!

So Tuesday the 27th I was willing to try anything to get this baby here. A lady in our ward swore by Castor Oil... I swear I will never touch the stuff again. Although it was nice to not have to worry about having a bowel movement while pushing, never again I say. We also tried some other things but that's just a TMI so moving on. Nothing happened. I felt out of sorts but the contractions just weren't happening. Around 2:30 on the 28Th, my actual due date, I woke up feeling terrible. Long wordy story short from 2:30 to 4:45 I paced my bathroom as the contractions got more and more painful I finally decided I would wake Brian up and just let him know I thought it was time to go, but I wanted to shower, but wanted someone else awake just in case anything went down. (hey I had just read a friends birth story where she had her baby in her bathroom....)

The shower was uneventful, I know you are all breathing a sigh of relief... But the contractions were coming closer together and were much more painful than before so I went to wake up Mom before getting ready myself. She was a nervous ball of energy excited to meet grand baby number 15. Brian the poor soul was not awake enough to deal with it all and instead of turning onto the right road to take Leland to Amy's he auto piloted towards the hospital. I was mid contraction trying to breath and not berate him, I only slightly succeeded at both mind you, but we got to the hospital after dropping Leland off in record time. Side note if your car has no shocks/ struts the ride is much worse than normal when you are in pain. :)

We got to the hospital around 5:45, got into a room around 6 and got all checked out and I was surprised to learn I was still only dilated to a 1, my first indicator that my body was taking its dear sweet time! I was certain they would send me home, I was also certain that in a few hours the pain would be more than I could handle without drugs. Doing a vbac means I was for sure getting an epidural, just in case we had to do an emergency c section, and I don't do well with pain, so regardless of how much better it is for the mother or the baby I was getting one! It was nice to use that as an excuse though...

My best friend Hope came up after she got done at work around 4ish in the afternoon to do birth photography for us. I am glad I had someone I loved and who loved me back to do that as it is SO personal and so incredibly humbling to have someone in the room who isn't blood or helped you get in the situation ;) I am glad to have the pictures even though I think I look terrible in them all. Let me just say the day progressed slowly water was broken at 10 am, I had the most fantastic nurse named Liz she reminded me of my dear friend Rosie, and when she left at 7pm she hugged us all and asked us to bring the baby by sometime since she was off the next 3 days. by 8 or 9 that night I was at my limit, I was a teary mess, I do not do well with endurance with no sure end in sight. Like if they had said, you will have this baby by midnight, I could have handled that so much better but the waiting was making things so much harder. I talked, scratch that, I cried while my Dad talked to me, trying to encourage me from California that I could do it, I felt better after having talked to him but still wanted a blessing. My greatest fear was that something wasn't going to go right or I was going to "fail" at my vbac attempt and have to have a section anyway after all that. So Hope's brother Ben came up and he and Brian blessed me and after that things seemed to pick up.

It was amazing to me that at 10pm when they said we were ready to start pushing how awake and ready I was to tackle that portion of the delivery. I had renewed purpose and the tears stopped, well mostly. They say its just pressure that you are feeling but even with an epidural pressure "hurts" especially when you are running on low epidural and need a "booster" but choose not to because you don't want to wait another 4 hours to walk. Pushing took 21 minutes, granted it felt like forever, but it wasn't. My nurse Jennifer, or was it Jessica... whatever kept telling me to give her all I had and I finally told her I was and to stop asking for it. That got laughs from some of the people in the room, but so did my repeated use of the word FLIP... Brian assured the nurses I was "editing" because my mom was there, which made all of them laugh. And there you have it. If you want the story of the afterbirth you will have to ask my Mom, she loves to tell the story... and so does my doctor. Fun times!

Maxwell Gene Hamilton born at 10:21 (or was it 10:12, I can't remember :)) 9 pounds 1 ounce 21 inches long. He just wanted to make sure he came when he was expected and join the small percentage of babies actually born on their due dates.

P.S. at some point during the day my epidural came unhooked and the medicine was going all over the floor. The only way we caught it was that I was suddenly in more pain than I wanted to be.... Do I get a discount on the epidural??? :)

Birthday Boy!

Leland turns 4 this month. He also gets a brother... Not sure how he feels about that last one... especially since his brother is due any day, and I personally think it would stink to have to share a birthday with a sibling. I love all of mine but it would still stink... I want my own day dang it! :) I can't believe how big he is getting or how handsome! Sure love this boy!

A few things he loves... Capitan America, Spiderman and above all IRON MAN! He is going to school partial day and learning all sorts of new things. He goes for speech and has a blast. He is one well loved boy and I am thankful for that! Also I love when he plays with his super heros that he talks deeper... thus making duck lips to achieve that goal... its darling!

The Mother of all TMI posts.

No seriously this is a TMI post so you may not want to read... its about labor stuff..... so be warned.

So last night, or really this morning at the unholy hour of like 2 or 3 whenever I was using the bathroom I noticed that I had lost my mucus plug. This is important to note because one I thought holy heck that is disgusting and two I just wanted to get back to bed as quick as possible, hence the reason I could have cared less about what had occurred. I waited till around noonish to discuss this with anyone that would actually know what the heck that is. I talked it over with Brian in the morning and just told him how gross it was etc but still it hadn't occurred to me that this could be the mucus plug, the thing my doctor doesn't put a lot of faith in it to mean labor will be coming within the next few days. So I wasn't too concerned with it. Only then I started noticing everything around the house that needed to be done and started to feel overwhelmed and then the panic kicked in. SO I will say this now. Sorry Mom... if you come and the house is a mess and in need of TLC I promise I have been working on it... but slowly. I was blessed tonight to not focus on that part of it but to focus on the blessing it is to have a baby SO I am working on that. Anywho the doctor did say that the baby could come anywhere between tonight and 3 weeks now that that's happened. I will keep ya'll posted I am hoping to get a few more things tackled and done before but what I really wanted to remember is that 1. Leland was super needy today. I think that was more of him just needing to know that I still loved him and I failed at the miserably for the first part of the day... Lots of yelling and not taking time for him. But by the end of the day I just sat with him on the couch and hung out. 2. My Dad was super proud of the fact that he knew what a mucus plug was, and what it meant (I for the record am super proud of him for that too... since when I talked to Brian about it he made all sorts of faces) and 3. That I have a wonderful sister who is keeping close tabs on me, and making me promise to take it seriously, while still offering any help I could need. She is pretty amazing.

Nerves

My little is experiencing the nerves of knowing something is coming... something big. I have been watching him over the last few weeks and have been amazed at his ability to try and process these things. For example, when Brian or I talk to him about the new baby he seems to be happy, if not a little bit nervous but in general ok with it. When other people talk to him about it he gets fidgety and often leaves the conversation. I don't know that he is quite ready to admit that we are getting a new baby. Among other things he has become overly clingy and has recently rediscovered his bear which has not left his sight the last few days. That was his lovey from a while ago, and for like 6 months he could have cared less where that sucker was. I guess I just worry about him and his reaction. He is what I would like to call my gentle giant, he is somewhat soft with those that are smaller than him and has recently taken a liking in his friends new brother. I just hope I do it right for him, meaning I do the transition right, I don't over baby him or under baby him and that he know without a shadow of a doubt that he will always be my baby. I will just have two of them now instead of one. and I want him to know that I will love him always and forever no matter what.

A few things recently that caught my attention when chatting with him.... Last Sunday the 17th we were talking, he was feverish and just laying on my lap and I was asking if I could get my baby anything. With that he sat up and looked at me and said I'm not the baby (pointing to my belly) that is, I am your boy Mom.

And tonight after a cranky Dad got home from work ( I would SO be cranky too after standing out in the heat all day... especially when at 9 am it was already 92 degrees) and had told Leland to get in bed and stay there I had gone to check on him. I walked in and asked if he was ok or needed anything and he just looked at me with sad eyes and said... "Daddy is ANGRY!" poor kid. I explained that Dad was just tired from work and would have had him come in and back me up be he was already in bed. I don't know that Leland has ever put that together so well before tonight. That when we get stern or louder we are more angry. And maybe he has, maybe tonight was the first time he dared to say so! :)

Random

I need to play catch up with things I want to remember, so while this may not interest most of you it will be a good record for me :)

Leland started swim lessons on Monday this last week, he calls his swim suit his "soup" and his fave part of the lesson is getting the grwings aka Rings that he gets to dive for.

He often tells me he wants to "Squeeze my butts" which translates into squeeze your guts, but it makes me dissolve into laughter every time.

He is obsessed with finding his Dad during the day and often asks me "where is my dad?" and then he tells anyone who will listen the rest of the day that his "daddy is at work" which makes me smile.

He has finally grasped that there is a baby in my tummy and yesterday his baby kicked his head while he was resting on my tummy playing a game on "his Ipad".... I guess I shouldn't have been worried about his dad stealing it after all, it seems I should have been worried about Leland :)

Leland has discovered he loves all Sowa "Soda" and often asks for it and will sometimes even eat something he doesn't want just to get a small glass of it, I have used this trick to get him to eat lunches and dinners, we still haven't branched out from Cereal and Mac and Cheese but we have moved on from Ritz.

He loves loves loves his gold fish, and I love that he does... i often find them stashed in different places around the house and while its slightly annoying I still think its cute.

He LOVES his old Sunday School teacher in our ward and runs to hug her when he sees her, his new teachers seem amazed by him, apparently on Sunday he told them he went swimming with dolphins.... which he didn't. But maybe he had a lovely dream about it ;)

While we were away in Hawaii, Leland stayed with his Mimi and Poppy Hamilton, they set up a tent for him with an air mattress and he was in HEAVEN! He loved it, he called it his cave. They also taught him to tell people where his dad and I were. When asked Leland would respond "Daddy's at the beach, Mommy's at the beach" every once in a while he would tag on "sharks are at the beach and turtles are at the beach but Zebras are at the Zoo". I am pretty sure they also taught him to say the Sun was still awake when we try to put him to bed before 8 p.m. He has also learned in their pool how to use a fun noodle like a kayak paddle when on a raft and can navigate the pool quite well.

On the third to last day of school they sent home a free admissions pass for the Dallas Zoo, Leland finding it in his folder brought it to me and said "look Mom the Zoo! lets go!" I explained that the Zoo closes at 5 p.m. and the animals were getting ready for bed by 7 p.m. he seemed very distraught and wanted to go anyways demanding "Lets just go now!" I think someone misses our many trips to the zoo that he used to have before he was put in school. I may brave the heat and take him for a morning sometime next week we shall see though, I want us both to live longer than next week!

I don't know if its the pregnancy hormones but the amount of love and overwhelming feelings that I am so glad Leland is mine ( I have always been glad, but I needed him to be asleep to feel them so strong ;)) Now I feel them most of the day. This child amazes me, he is growing and learning. He is already as tall as my belly button, and he fits in his almost 7 year old cousins clothes just fine. He is sassy and spunky and just an all around good kid. He loves quickly and if you find favor with him you can do no wrong. He loves his Aunties, both his real ones and his none real ones and often when entering Amy's home yells "Cousins I am HOME!!!!" And when his Hope (I have asked him about this, she is not mine she is his) comes over he says "Yay! Hopie is home!" I am glad he has so many wonderful people that love him and support Brian and I in the raising of him, the free babysitting and the loving on my little guy makes my heart all the more fond of those around him.