Finley Jennifer

Our sweet little Finley Jennifer made her way into the world on November 26, 2019 at 1:52 pm. She weighed in at 7 pounds 8 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. We are so grateful to have this beautiful little soul join our family.

Here is an account of her birth with lots of pictures we took during our hospital stay :)

BIRTH STORY

Finley's due date was on December 8th, but we wanted to be prepared a bit earlier because Eloise was nearly two weeks early and we weren't sure if our second baby would follow that same course (spoiler alert: she did). After a few unprepared trips to Labor and Delivery when I was 37 weeks pregnant (see this blog for more info), we were finally mostly prepared to have our girl. Babysitting was set up for Eloise, the newborn clothes were washed, and the hospital bag was mostly packed. Both mine and Dustan's moms had already bought plane tickets to come visit one after the other, Dustan's mom first. She was going to be coming on December 3rd with the hope that baby girl wouldn't come late. So just like with Lou, I desperately hoped I wouldn't go past 40 weeks--but honestly, what pregnant woman doesn't hope that?

Dustan and I went to bed on Monday night, quite comfy and relaxed on our new Purple mattress in our new house. At about 2:30 am on Tuesday, November 26th, I woke up very suddenly with the feeling that I had just wet the bed. It wasn't any huge amount, but enough that I quickly jumped out of bed and ran to our toilet, dripping a little on our carpet and tiled bathroom floor. As I sat on the toilet, I yelled at Dustan to wake up. He was obviously very confused and quite shocked when I told him that I think my water had just broke. Again. My water had broke to jumpstart labor with Eloise as well, and apparently the odds of this happening to the same woman for multiple pregnancies was pretty rare. I'll take it though!

There wasn't a huge gush of liquid like I experienced with Lou. As I sat on the toilet, I seriously wondered if my water had actually broken, or if my pregnant self was finally incapable of holding my bladder and I really had just peed myself. But as I got up and started walking around, I was still leaking. This made me feel a bit better, haha. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to go all the way to L&D and realize that your water hadn't actually broken, that you had just wet the bed?!

Anyway. We called our babysitter/wonderful friend and she came in the middle of the night with her baby and slept at our house to keep an eye Eloise. I took a quick shower while Dustan grabbed the last few items to put in our hospital bag. We cut ourselves a giant slice of pumpkin pie and covered it with whipped cream to eat on the drive over. Then we jumped in the car and made our way to Tucsons Northwest hospital, arriving at about 3:45 am.

Because we had already made multiple hospital visits the week before, we were already pre-registered and knew where to go. We were quickly checked in and went to triage to make sure I was actually in labor and my water had broke. I was still only dilated to a three, but my water had indeed broke and I was having inconsistent contractions that I couldn't yet feel.

From there, we were led to our hospital room and got all set up. My nurse came in to give me an IV to get me started on fluids and pitocin and antibiotics for Strep B. My nurse spent a few minutes trying to find a good vein, but seemed to be having some trouble. She stuck me once in the hand, but it didn't quite work right. She called in the head nurse to try. They had me chug a huge cup of water and packed my arms with heat pads. She also stuck me once--this time in the arm--but also wasn't successful. Both admitted that this never happened to them, they hadn't had a hard time getting an IV set up in years. They ended up calling in an anesthesiologist, who finally got an IV in my right hand. He also admitted thought that my veins were very uncooperative, haha. Overall, it took about two hours to get the IV and I had started feeling regular contractions and they started me up on the Strep B antibiotics.

Dustan and I tried to get settled in and began alerting all our families about the situation. He gave me a blessing that all would go well, and soon after he was able to get in a very short nap. About an hour later (it was about 8:30 am at this point), my nurse decided that I wasn't progressing fast enough and started me on a tiny dose of Pitocin. I also ate a very delicious popsicle :)

At 10:00 am, I was checked and I was dilated to a five, so making progress! At this point, my contractions were getting closer together and very painful, so I asked for an epidural. The anesthesiologist made his way back and again had some trouble. It took nearly half an hour to get the epidural in and going. But then I felt amazing! This epidural was much better than the one I had with Lou. That one was way too strong, I couldn't even feel my legs or move them at all. This one, I was numb enough to not feel the pain or contractions, but still was able to move my body. I was able to doze off a little here and there once I got the epidural.

My nurse came back around noon and I was dilated to an eight! Things were going quickly at this point. Again, we let our families know the progress. The nurse again came back around 1:15 pm, and I was dilated to a ten and ready to have a baby! Woohoo!

We got the room all prepped to have a baby and let the on call doctor know. My nurse convinced me to have a mirror put at the base of bed so I could watch my progress and my baby being born (this ended up being pretty cool though also really weird at the same time haha). Then it was 1:30 pm and time to push.

When I started pushing, I fully expected to it to take at least an hour or two if not more for my little babe to be born. Eloise took about four hours of pushing to get out, because she got stuck in my pelvis area. We aren't sure if that was because of the shape of my body or the angle she was trying to come out. We didn't know if this would happen again. I just hoped it would be a little faster.

I'm not sure what was different this time. Maybe it was because the epidural wasn't as strong. Maybe it was because I had already had a baby before and my body knew what it was doing. Maybe it was because our baby was coming out at a different angle. Who knows? It could have been any manner of reasons. But I am so grateful for whatever the reason was, because I only had to push for twenty minutes!!

Our baby girl was born healthy and perfect at 1:52 pm on Tuesday, November 26th. She was immediately placed on my chest while the nurses vigorously rubbed her down and got her breathing and crying. Dustan cut the cord and admired our little girl with me :) We were so in love already!

We got in some good snuggles and tried out breastfeeding while I was stitched up (one small tear). The nurses grabbed baby at this point to get her measurements. Dustan followed baby girl around nonstop the next day while she got all her testing done--though she passed them all with flying colors! And we very much enjoyed the free parents meal!

It took us about a day to officially decide on her name, and we've grown to love it more and more as she's gotten older. We didn't stay in the hospital as long this time, only about a day and a half after she was born. We felt more experienced this time around and wanted to get out of that cramped and uncomfortable hospital room as soon as possible (we just had to wait for Finn to pee before we could leave, haha).

We are so grateful that our Finley Jennifer joined our family. Eloise was so cute with Finley when she met her for the first time (outside of the hospital the next day), and immediately wanted to old her and giggled as Finnley's flailing arms hit her in the face. I can't wait to see their sister relationship grow. We just love adore our new, beautiful girl!

Third Trimester with Baby #2

The FINAL COUNTDOWN!! Our lives are so busy right now that I almost wish we had more time before baby girl's due date, but also very excited to not be pregnant and just be with our baby instead. So conflicting, haha.

I'm starting to write this blog post at 30 weeks and will continue to update it throughout the last couple months of my pregnancy. So far, the heartburn hasn't gotten too much worse in the last month or so, which I'm very grateful for. The stomach is starting to become cumbersome though, making it difficult to put on shoes and pants and pick up things from the ground. I'm feeling like I have about five items of clothing that fit and that actually look okay. I haven't had any extreme back or pelvic or leg pain yet, which I got often toward the end of my pregnancy with Lou. I am weirdly exhausted, and often feel like I did during the first trimester again. I have fallen asleep on Eloise's floor multiple times while she plays, and even while trying to read books to her. I'm not sure if this is due to low iron, or if I'm just more tired as I near the end.

34 weeks here! I got started on some supplemental iron pills about a week ago and I think that they are maybe helping just a little? But I also have gotten some more sleep in the last week or two than I had been before, so it is hard to tell haha. But I have been falling asleep on Lou's floor while she plays less this week than previous weeks, which is good. I'm getting many Braxton Hicks each day, and they are only a little uncomfortable. When I look at pictures from my pregnancy with Eloise, it actually looks like my belly is smaller this time around and I have gained quite a bit less weight overall, which is a bit surprising to me. The heartburn also isn't as bad, I'm only needing about one to three Tums a day, whereas with Lou towards the end I was maxing out at five to eight each day with some discomfort still (maybe this baby will be bald?!). Definitely feeling more discomfort and some pelvic pain, but really not too terrible yet. And I'm generally still sleeping well. I feel like it was harder toward the end with my last pregnancy, though hopefully I'm not speaking too soon haha.

Now that I'm finishing up 37 weeks, I have officially reached the terribly uncomfortable end of pregnancy stage! I'm glad it held off for this long. My back is often sore, the pelvic pain is especially bad when trying to turn over in bed or put on pants, and my hips feel like they're completely out of place. We also had an interesting last week. I was experiencing super bad upper back pain and chest pain and difficulty breathing one evening, so we ended up heading to Labor & Delivery to make sure everything was okay with baby. We found out I was dilated to a three (woohoo!) but I wasn't actually in labor, so I was sent over to the ER instead. Where we found I have pneumonia, which apparently you can just get in your lungs without being sick at all prior (am I the only one that didn't know that?). So I've been on antibiotics for that. Then a couple days later, I had my regular appointment with my OB and my blood pressure was too high, so I was sent over to L&D once again. I was monitored for a couple hours and my BP went down so I was sent back home without needing to be induced, which was good. So now we wait! But after those two incidents, we finally got our crap together and got prepared for the baby by washing the newborn clothes, packing the hospital bag, and setting up the bassinet and rocking chair. We've got this!

Here are some maternity pictures taken at 37 weeks :)

Lou is TWO!

LOVES:
 - Bike rides with us (especially on her new Mac ride)
 - Buckles
 - Fruit (berries and grapefruit are her absolute favorites)
 - Anything ice cream and chocolate
 - Playground
 - Back tickles
 - Nursery rhymes - "Skip to My Lou", "Ring Around the Rosie", "Baa Baa Black Sheep", and "Old McDonald" are her all time favorites right now
 - Music - "High Hopes", "Thunder", "Bad Guy", "The Fox"
 - Balloons and balls
 - Stuffed animals and baby dolls
 - All things water related
 - Nursery at church
 - Riding her bike
 - Pandas and sloths (she's my child)
 - Having the Google Home make animal noises
 - Breakfast foods

DISLIKES:
 - Vegetables and most meat
 - Loud, sudden  and unknown noises
 - Dustan making creepy noises (AKA monster noises to Lou)
 - Boogers in her nose
 - Sharing her toys
 - Tomato sauce (yes, this includes pizza and common spaghetti)
 - Getting her hair rinsed out during baths/showers

NEW SKILLS:
 - Jumping with two feet off the floor
 - Complex-ish actions along with songs like "Wheels on the Bus" and "Patty Cake"
 - Speaking in sentences
 - Recognizing many colors and shapes and letters
 - Counting to three (though not always correctly assigned to three objects without repeats/skipping)

RANDOM NOTES:
 - Still a fabulous night sleeper! Typically sleeps 11.5 to 12.5 hours each night without needing anything from us. She does have the occasional nightmare she needs some comfort from, but that's rare. Naps have improved and are almost always at least an hour long, often close to and hour and a half.
 - Whenever she drinks milk, she holds it with her right hand and twirls her hair with her left.
 - Throws some impressive tantrums by screaming, stomping, and even throwing herself onto the floor.
 - Has all her teeth through her first set of molars.
 - Has gotten better about trying new foods, though still is quite picky.
 - Not yet very interested in any crafty type activities like coloring yet, but still loves books.
 - Has gotten so good at imaginary play, and most of her time playing involves her babies/stuffed animals/action figures doing different things around the house.

I'm going to end the blog post with just a few funny things that Eloise has done regularly in the last few months that I very much want to remember forever:

Whenever Lou puts something on her head, she calls it a hat. Then she says "Happy Day!" and insists that I sing the "Happy Birthday" song to her. Every time. I'm not sure how this started, but it makes me laugh every time. She also regularly insists that I sing "Happy Birthday" to her stuffed animals, cars, etc.

Also with hats... Whenever Eloise puts on sunglasses and sometimes hats, she will slowly nod her head and say, "Ohhhh yeahhhh" in a gangster way haha.

We sing "You'll Be In My Heart" by Phil Collins every time we put Lou to bed. Lately, she has been loudly repeating the last word of each line and laughing as we sing. Then once we start walking out of the room, she usually yells out, "Bye bye Daddy! Bye bye Mama!" on repeat until the door shuts. Sometimes she'll say "I love you!" on repeat instead.

Whenever Lou hears that Dustan has come home from work when the garage door is closing, she yells, "Daddy! Hug!" and sprints toward the garage to give Dustan a hug. She usually asks to go on a bike ride at this point too.

When Eloise cries over something, she has started to ask herself the questions that we typically ask her when she's upset. She'll ask herself or prompt us by saying, "What happened?" and "You okay?". Sometimes she'll even tell us, "I'm sad, I'm crying...". These usually just makes us chuckle if something serious isn't actually wrong.

We are so grateful for our happy, healthy, beautiful, and energetic two year old! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BABY!!