Life is *so* good.

Here I sit, on the eve of my 35th birthday, and I can't help but reflect and take stock on my good, good, life.

Two beautiful daughters.
A loving, supportive and appreciative husband.
Family calling and coming over to spend time with us.
Friends bringing us dinner.
Friends visiting to ooh and aah over our wee one.
Sweet little packages arriving in the mail from far and wide.
Hand written cards with lovely, joyful messages to our little family.

Big Sister Sadie is taking beyond beautifully to her new role.
Little Lilah is sleeping 4+ hour stretches at 2 weeks old.
Dishes are getting done, laundry hasn't piled up too badly yet.

Sure, I'm a little tired but oh, so full. So full of love energy.

Today I took time for chalk drawings and reading insect books with Sadie while Lilah snoozed.

Our days creep by; sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly. I am loving the opportunity to just soak it in and spend my time doing nothing but caring for my family.

I gaze adoringly at Sadie while she stands on her stool to talk to Lilah as she lies on her changing table. I watch with intense pride as she kisses her brow and talks sweetly to her sister - using a new, high pitched but very soft voice. I share her amusement as she tells me what Lilah is doing or thinking at any given moment.

I smile reflexively when my milk drunk babe's mouth twitches into an involuntary but deliciously organic smile. She is happy. She is basking in this new world, this new experience; this warmth of love we give her unconditionally. It is feeding her little soul and keeping her at peace. I can feel it; her 8.5 pound body "heavy"in my arms.

Oh, life is just *so* good.

Bun is Born!

She's here!

Lilah Frances Evans joined us at 4:43 on Friday April 9th, 2010 (although she wasn't named until Sunday morning). She was a full 12 days past her "due date". Maybe we should have named her Patience. ;)

She weighed in at a modest 7 pounds and 13 ounces and was measured at 19 and a half inches.

It was another marathon labor and delivery. Who says second babies come faster? I was up at 5 am on Thursday with irregular but intense contractions which continued throughout the day and into the evening. We put Sadie to bed at about 8:30 and decided to commit to getting labor going in earnest.

Boy howdy.

Long story short, I labored at home with Andrew and our FABULOUS friend and doula extraordinaire, Kerri Kastle until about 3 AM. Unfortunately, I was struggling. I was shaking, having hot & cold spells, and vomiting after particularly long/hard contractions. Off to the hospital we went.

I was stoked to learn that I was at 6cm once we were all checked in and assigned a room. By 8:00 am, I was at 8.5 cm and ready to meet this baby.

Apparently my womb is a pretty chill place, because Bun did not want to come out. We finally allowed a Pitocin drip, which kicked my contractions up a few notches (I don't want to talk about it) but the baby still was not "coming down". Eventually someone had the genius idea to break my water, which put me into overdrive and she literally shot out in 2 pushes. It was INSANE. But I survived. ( I'm not gonna lie; those last few minutes there, I kinda thought I might die.)

So there you have it. There are more details, etc. but I needed to post something before more time slips by.

We are hunkering down and trying to figure out this family of 4 thing. Big Sister Sadie is amazingly sweet and excited about Lilah, and the little one is sleeping and eating like a complete champ.

We are blessed and we know it.

more pictures at j9evans.shutterfly.com

in the last few days before our Bun arrives...

I thought I'd post a few pictures of our little family of 3 before this baby arrives (who is currently 10 days "late")
Here we go:

Daddy + swing = happy girl!

Walking with Uncle Justin and Daddy

Sadie with her cousins Lucy and Annie on Easter

40 weeks and 8 days

a kiss from big sis

when it's 75 degrees in March...

you've just got to:

Good or Goody Two Shoes?

"Is she always this...sweet?" asked the lady at the hospital gift shop when Sadie calmly put the toys back on the shelf when I told her it was time to go.

"She" would be Sadie, and the answer is...um, yes.

My question is, Is that unequivocally a good thing?

I keep hearing about and witnessing nightmare toddler meltdowns but for some reason we just haven't been hit with those. Yet. I keep saying "yet" when it comes up because I don't want to jinx myself.

So far, we have not seen the Jekyll/Hyde phenomenon of when a 2-3 year old simply loses it over some seemingly insignificant thing like being offered the "wrong" towel after bath time or cutting apple slices instead of giving it whole, etc. (knock on wood)

Don't get me wrong - she does get frustrated when she "can't" do something like get the cap snapped back on her marker, or untangle the string from her Trader Joe's balloon. In instances like those, she has strained her voice and stamped her feet, but I just tell her, "Hey, don't freak out - do you want me to help you?" (sometimes yes, sometimes no) and it's done.

She also has what I would consider a pretty normal amount of difficulty with adversity. If a kid takes something away from her or gets on the gym/playground equipment that she had her eye on, she will sometimes burst into tears. Again, though - she's so easy to calm down or distract that it never really amounts to anything.

I'm starting to wonder if maybe I'm making her into too much of a "pleaser" and somehow stifling the need we all have sometimes to "lose it" over something that, although most others can't understand, is important to us in the moment. All of the research I've seen says that kids this age simply need the little storms to get over things that upset them - that the release is good for their development, both cognitively and emotionally.

Am I suppressing that innate need for her? I know that she picks up most of her ideas from me, as I'm with her basically 24/7, so I need to keep myself in check so that she doesn't automatically acquire all of my opinions, judgments, feelings, etc. She's very in-tune and doesn't miss much. If I so much as sigh in frustration at say, having missed a green light, she is right behind me, asking "what, mommy, what?"

Just the other day, we were in Babies R Us shopping for a couple of friends' upcoming baby showers and a very young girl (about a year old, give or take) was wailing. Sadie said, "she's crying, mama. She's crying." Yes, honey, she is. "Why is she crying, mama?" I'm not sure honey, I said, while quickly wheeling our cart away so that the other mom wouldn't be self-conscious. Maybe she's tired, or hungry or wants to be held.

Sadie thought about it for a second and then said, "Or maybe she's just being a brat."

Um, gulp.

When did I "teach" her that (sometimes) crying is being a brat? I honestly don't remember doing that, but I must have said it about someone, somewhere, sometime. Maybe I'm laying on the "be a good girl/nice girl" thing way too thick. I know that at some point in my early years, a mantra that my mom bestowed on me was that "a nice girl is a pretty girl; a pretty girl isn't always a nice girl." Good advice, on the face of it, I think. But I'd be lying if I said I haven't wondered over the years why I am obsessed with people liking me and why all of my mad crushes turned into best friend-type friendships versus boyfriends.

I guess there's my answer - only time will tell. But I'm still going to try to watch what kinds of lessons I'm inadvertently teaching her about how to behave - especially when she's upset.

Any advice, mamas out there?

with one week to go...

I'm officially 39 weeks pregnant and it's kind of funny to see the reactions on people's faces when I tell them that I'm due "next weekend". Hee.

I don't think I've "dropped" yet. I'm not waddling or icing my back for sciatica or anything like that. I am, however, having a bit of difficulty sleeping. Not because of discomfort, but because once I wake up, I can't settle my mind back down.

Labor looms.

You see, I'm super duper ultra incredibly whole-heartedly determined to birth this baby without a bunch of medically unnecessary interventions. I keep telling people that sure, if my L&D had gone smoothly last time, epidural included, I'd probably be on board to do it again that way.

But it didn't.

With Sadie, I labored at home for something like 16 hours - from waking up at 4 am with the most intense cramping I've ever felt to progressing to the point of vomiting after really big contractions by about 2 PM. By 8:00 that night I decided to go in - mostly thinking that getting an IV for hydration would be wise. To say that I was discouraged to learn that I'd only dilated 3 cm when I finally did check in is a gross understatement. I didn't realize that my mind and body would freeze up and "stop" my labor once I got crossed the threshold of the automatic doors at the hospital.

Let me tell you that being told at 6:00 AM - after 24 hours of laboring successfully with Andrew and our awesome doula - that I was "no longer in active labor" and my "choices were A) go home or B) get induced to get labor going again" was not cool.
I now know with firsthand experience that first babies normally, naturally and typically take a really really long time. Oh, how I wish I'd had the wisdom and fearlessness to say really? you want me to go home or let you pump me full of chemicals that will give me artificial and insanely, mind-bogglingly more painful, artificial "contractions"?! Okay, see ya! and walked out the door.

But, alas.

I was 12 days "late", and scheduled for what I thought was a mandatory induction in less than 48 hours anyway. I caved and let them start the pitocin drip. I still can't adequately describe the blinding and utterly shocking difference in the quality and quantity of pain I experienced between my own, natural contractions, and the ones that kept coming wave after wave through that little plastic tube into my arm. I lasted about 2 hours on that before starting to vomit again. And again. And again.

Frustration times a million. Tears. Profanity. White-knuckling the tray I was bent over for support. Defeat.

Epidural. (after 2 unsuccessful attempts - don't even get me started on that)

Brief numbness. 2 hour nap. Needed that. Wake up to dead, heavy legs and pain, pain, pain in my abdomen at every contraction (which are coming one after another now, as they cranked up the pitocin while I was asleep) Unable to move or change my position was surreal. Almost claustrophobic in a way. Not to mention frightening as the pain progressed and the staff tried to figure out what to do. It's not a good feeling knowing that the head of Anesthesia has been called for a conference in the hallway outside your room.

Talk of C-Section. But how to numb me? I have a well-documented but rare, funky allergy to anesthesia(s) - specifically one used in "quick/emergency type surgeries". Anesthesiologist has concocted a special serum just for me, just for this scenario.
But I don't want a C-Section. No.

Andrew almost shouts, Everyone can just STOP saying C-Section RIGHT NOW.

I love my husband. Oh how I love my husband.

Meanwhile, my mom has been insisting that someone check my progress for several hours, to no avail.

Can't I push yet? Will someone please check me to see if I can push yet?
Finally someone checks. "Oh, she's at 10." Looks at me, surprised for some reason. "Would you like to try pushing on your next contra-"

YYYYEEEEESSSS! And Sadie emerged at 9 and a half pounds about an hour later. Indescribable relief, exhaustion.
And love at first sight, of course.

So, yeah. Labor looms. In both good and bad ways.

I think I'm equal parts eager/excited and anxious/worried. I'm trying hard to find time each day to calm my mind and think deeply on the fact that I can do this. It's just too bad that these moments seem to come in the middle of the night when I wake up to roll over or get up to go to the bathroom...again. The variables attributed to second and subsequent births make it hard for me to feel totally confident and prepared, but I'm working on it.

I know that I'm not reinventing the wheel. I love the simple, beautiful fact that millions upon millions of women have done and continue to do this every single hour of every single day all over the world. (just not-so-much in America! the stats on birth in this country are astounding, but I won't get into that)
Suffice it to say that I only know a handful of women in my own social circle who have done it. So to me, in a way, it's a prestigious club that I admit - I want to join.
Yeah, I've heard the whole "you don't get a medal" rationale, and I already know not to allow myself to feel like a failure if I don't manage to do it, but still...

I really, really, want to. That's all there is to it.

Then and Now

Bean Belly Paint (Sadie) July 2007

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Bun Belly Paint (yet to be named) March 2010