The Swaab Family: June 2012

So tomorrow Isaac is 7. In 1hr and 35 mins actually. I can't believe it has been 7 years already. It feels so much longer and so much shorter. I vaguely remember life before kids but it wasn't as colorful (but I do remember uninterrupted nights!).

And tonight as Isaac was biting into some of my dinner (apparently his wasn't enough) his first top front tooth came out. Isaac lost the two bottom front already but that was it. Now one of the top front is out so he looks like a jack-o-lantern. Very cute. He was so excited. I actually had to make him spit out his food because as he took the bite I saw the tooth just disappear. Luckily we saved to tooth and the tooth fairy will be visiting our house tonight!

Happy birthday to the little boy whose birth turned me into a Mummy. I love you so much!

OK - here is the lowdown on the arrival of our beautiful Sasha... Not too gory so don't worry too much.

This time round I made it to 39 weeks! Enough said? Nahhh...

I went from my doctors "problem" patient to the most boring patient on his books. So at my 38 1/2 week appointment he scheduled me for an induction. He determined that it was better to get that baby out than leave it in as I was walking around at 4cm dilated and 80% effaced and he predicted that labor would be quick based on the boys. For some reason he didn't want a fireman (emergency responder) delivering the baby in the living room. So he scheduled me on Mothers Day which I thought was kind of special.

We arrived on Mothers day at 8am. The Dr broke my water at 9.37am and nadda... nothing. So at 11am they started Pitocin (which I wanted to avoid at all costs). The contractions started pretty fast and hit me like brick walls. So the Epi was ordered. God I love the Epidural (it deserves a capital E!). Women talk about how much they love the OB's in their life because they deliver the baby etc... well for me it is the Anesthesiologist. The one that delivers the pain relief.

By 3pm I was complete (10cm) but I wanted to labor down so the Dr gave me another hour to let the baby progress. Also the baby was posterior so the hour was used to try to turn the baby by lying on my left then right then left (etc) sides to get the baby to roll... No luck. I started pushing at 4.05pm and Sasha was born at 5.35pm. Basically the whole time (except the last couple of minutes) I was trying to get her out from behind my pelvic bone. You should have seen what I did to that beautiful baby's head. I can't even call it cone head it was so misshapen. The Dr wasn't ready when she was born and she literally flopped like a fish onto the bed. He was still getting his gloves on.... Mark remarked on how beautiful he was to which I asked "Is it a boy?". Mark replied that he didn't know and the Dr delivered the lower half of her and Mark announced it was a girl and promptly started to cry (tears of joy I hope).

Mum was home with the boys and within an hour Mark went and brought them so they were at the hospital having their first holds and loving their new sister and grand-daughter. While I was waiting for them I fed Sasha for the first time... She nursed like a champ. After some time with the family Sasha went to the nursery to be weighed and checked out, and have her first bath. She weighed in at 8lb 6oz and 21 inches long. Mark went home to get the boys ready for bed. The nursery brought her back to me a couple of hours later. She was all cleaned up and just perfect... Her head was even back to a regular shape - and it wasn't cone shaped even. The stress of that posterior delivery and the time behind the pelvic bone must have helped her avoid the cone head... She had newborn fuzzy hair... She was then and still is totally perfect.

So she is a month today. I can't believe it has gone so fast. She is such a good baby. We have had a couple of bouts of crying with gas recently but other than that she eats, sleeps, poops/pees then back to eating. From the very beginning she has slept incredibly well. She wakes 1 - 2 times a night and is very easy to feed and re-settle. In fact she never had the night-time wake time like a lot of babies had. She has just been good at sleeping at night (and the day for that matter). So the sleep deprivation is not at all bad (where is the wood to touch!). Having Mum around also helps a lot. I don't know how I would have managed the last month trying to organise the boys and feed the baby without Mum's help. The baby cluster feeds in the morning (right as the boys are going to school) then again in the afternoon/evening (from when the boys come home to when they go to bed) so it would have been very chaotic if Mum weren't around. Gotto love that Mum.

A few people have asked me how this experience differs from that of a preemie.... And those people also know how in love and over the top I am with my boys. They are my absolute joy... But having a term baby that you can hold, cuddle, feed, love, care for without any restriction from the moment they are born is a wonderful experience. It is something that I didn't realize I had missed with the boys and something I wish I could get back from my infant days with them. I should enjoy the fact that I got to have this experience with one of my kids.

And about the PINK experience.... Again you all know how much I adore my boys - and I actually thought I would be the mother to 3 boys. Mark was convinced that we were in for a brood of boys. I used to say I wanted to have 3 boys. I wanted to be surrounded by adoring men and the only way that would happen would be if I was their mother. Well it was not to be. But I couldn't be happier to have a girl this time. I was a little nervous about a girl as that is "unknown" territory. But she is so beautiful and I see the way her brothers love her SO much and I know that this is perfect. The way our family was meant to be. When pregnant everyone (with just a couple of exceptions) told me girl - even the guy at the gas station and the lady at the pharmacy who I have met 2 times. It was almost unanimous. And if I am totally honest I thought it was a boy (had to be given past experience and the odds with Mark) but I imagined a girl when I pictured our family in the future.

Anyway - enough ramblings for today. I will post later to catch you up with her one month Dr's appointment and how chubby she is! Love the chubby babies!!!