Snowbound Herpetologist

I'm writing this post on my phone - with one hand - while nursing in the middle of the night, so this will just be a brief update. Mostly, I just want to post to say we are all alive, tired, and positively blissful over here! After three looooong days over which Annika (like her sister before her) lost an ungodly percentage of her body weight and turned bright yellow, I'm so happy to report that my milk has *finally* come in. Of experiences pretty much destined to make a woman who's recently given birth feel like total shit, watching an incompetent phlebotomist bleed your (screaming) new baby for like 20 minutes all because YOUR BODY fails at producing real milk "on time" ranks pretty high on the mommy guilt/failure scale. Annika's current bilirubin level is up over 15, but I am hopeful that filling her belly twice over the last 2.5 hours with a giant milk dump will mean that that's the peak of the accumulation curve and weight loss. Here's to hopi...

Born at 6pm on February 24th (husband's 40th birthday!) by successful vbac after a very long labor and a ton of pushing - we are so excited!

Currently at the hospital and at ~7cm. Tolerating contractions quite well! Way better than labor #1...will keep updated! Should get much harder very soon 

I have just returned from my weekly midwife appointment, and I'm still only dilated to a 3, still not completely effaced, and the baby is still pretty high up - basically there has been no change from last week, despite all the contractions I've had in the intervening time.  My midwife did another membrane sweep, but I'm sitting here on my couch and it hasn't done much.  I think that whatever separation is supposed to trigger some labor magic was pretty much successfully done last week, so there's really nothing left to strip/separate! This left us (husband came to the appointment too) with three options: 1) continue to wait, even though baby is measuring 2 weeks ahead and my odds of a successful VBAC after 40 weeks go down to maybe 50-50, 2) give up completely and schedule an elective c-section, or 3) schedule a "gentle" induction in which they try to jump start labor with as little chemical help as possible (induced VBAC success rates are also maybe 5...

I'm still in pregnancy purgatory, don't get too excited.  I don't have much to report, but I wanted to post for the sake of completeness - if there's one thing I learned from the run-up to Maya's labor, it's that I'll forget (or misremember) everything about it if I don't write it down somewhere. Everything has been pretty much the same for about a week - lots of bloody mucous, contractions that never really stop but also never really progress, and a general feeling of barfiness and intestinal distress...what fun.  So after feeling pretty down the last few days about the lack of progress (especially since I know I'm reasonably dilated already!!), I woke up this morning with a conscious effort to be more grateful and thankful for things.  Today I am very grateful for making it to 39 weeks.  When asked throughout the pregnancy what my "ideal" birth situation would be, my immediate answer has always been that I want an uncomplicated vaginal ...

I again don't have much time to spend blogging since I have about 15,000 outstanding work obligations that I'm supposed to be working on, but you've all (like the 3 people that read this) waited patiently since Sunday and probably want to know what's up! I had bad contractions on early Tuesday morning (maybe 1:30am?) that woke me up, and then I was too excited to sleep since I had lost my mucous plug on Sunday and I was convinced THIS MUST BE IT!  Nope, contractions fizzled by like 5:30 or 6:00am, and I was a sleep-deprived zombie at work the rest of the day.  I made a new resolution not to do *that* again.  Since then, I've had similar contractions most nights that also wake me up, but I give them a big "fuck you" and roll over and go back to sleep.  Word to the wise: If you can go back to sleep, it isn't labor. Yesterday at my midwife appointment, I was measured at (easily) 3cm dilated and I got membranes stripped (with gusto!), so she probably ...

Just in the interest of recording things properly for posterity, I've been losing my mucous plug all day. The last two were HUGE chunks, too - pretty gross (but don't worry, I won't post the photo I took). No bad contractions yet though, just weak and irregular BH like I've been getting for about 6 weeks. I do feel more labor-y than I did before going into labor with Maya, but not incredibly so. I'm trying to hydrate anyway.... I'll update agin tomorrow at some point, just so you all don't worry about me. I'm nervous but hopeful.

NO, I AM NOT IN LABOR.  I could walk around at 3cm for weeks without going into labor, actually.  This is important to be clear about since apparently I wasn't when I told this news to husband over text yesterday, and I totally freaked him out and he rushed home early from work after blowing up my phone while I was happily eating a yummy lunch at a restaurant.  However, I am extremely heartened by the fact that it took me lots and lots of pain and effort (and tears) to get to 3cm with Maya, and now I'm there with no effort at all!  Second babies are so fun :) However, I just wanted to give this super fast update to report that 1) YAY, I'm so happy!, 2) my mom has safely arrived from California, so Maya's officially got her full-time available caretaker now and new baby is 100% authorized to come whenever, and 3) today is my very last day of major responsibility at work, after which actual "in person" things can totally be blown off :)  I had super bad contr...

Yay, we've made it to 37 weeks!  Although I'm still aiming for 39 weeks in the hopes of a primo birth outcome, I am SO HAPPY that my little subchorionic hemorrhage baby with the bad cord insertion has made it to (early) term :)  That way, when Trump screws over the health care system for the rest of eternity, my daughters won't have to be denied coverage because of a family history of pre-term birth...such strange things to be grateful for! I spent most of this week trying to improve my head space and prepare myself for labor, including preparing for another dysfunctional labor, about which I'm trying to get over my fear.  I had an appointment with my midwife where we did a "bedside" ultrasound and confirmed that the baby is a) head down, and b) in a super amazing position for birth, LOA (left occiput anterior).  Now if only she would stay that way until labor begins :)  Maya tells her every day, "New baby!  Tuck your chin!" This week, I've b...