Paisley's Here!

I never feel like I have the energy to blog about Paisley's birth, but I should at least mention that she was born, right?

Paisley June was born on Wednesday, June 20th, at 4:05 pm.  She weighed 8 lbs 13 oz, and she was 20 inches long.  We had a water birth at home, and then I ended up transferring to the hospital several hours later.

Friday, June 22nd

Paisley is really sweet, and she likes to cuddle.  She has long hair for a newborn--about an inch and a half long!  (That kind of surprised us, but it's really cute.)  She is very healthy and strong, and remarkably well developed.  She hasn't had any problems (not even jaundice), and she can already hold her head up really well.  She can also halfway roll over, which doesn't seem like a trick that a newborn would be able to do.  They say you're supposed to put babies on their backs to sleep, so whenever I put her in the co-sleeper, I lay her on her back.  I always come back and find her on her side. 

I have high hopes of eventually blogging about how the birth went, or posting about just how much this little girl looks like her dad.  This is a good start, though. 

Still Waiting.

Paisley was due on Saturday.  The way things worked out, it would have been a great day for her to be born--Jeff and I just had a pretty relaxing day.  She wasn't born, though.

40 weeks + 1 day

On Friday I had an appointment with my midwife.  Things are progressing.  We did a nonstress test, which was kind of interesting--I relaxed on the couch for 20 minutes while the machine measured the baby's heartbeat and my contractions, and continuously printed them on a graph.  My midwife told me all about some of the different things that show up on the graph--like, the graph makes kind of a V shape with a shoulder when the baby bumps her cord.  She said the nonstress test is my "taste" of the hospital experience.

Then, after my appointment with my midwife, I went up to Salt Lake Prenatal Massage for, well, a prenatal massage.  Even though Paisley is not stressed, I have been (mainly because of work), so Jeff offered to buy me a massage.  (Nice.)  I decided to go with a "labor stimulating" massage, which I was allowed to choose since I was past 39 weeks.  In case you're wondering what the difference is, with a regular massage, (if you're pregnant) the massage therapist avoids touching certain spots, because certain accupressure spots can start labor.  In a labor stimulating massage, they incorporate those accupressure spots into the massage on purpose, and they use special essential oils that are also known to encourage labor.  So, that happened.

The therapist also put dots on me so I could keep pressing the right places after the massage; the more I do that, the more likely it is to work.  I got three dots: one on my hand, on the web-area between my thumb and index finger; another dot not quite centered beneath my ankle; and the final dot was four fingers up from my ankle, on my calf.  I asked her if she knew how likely it was to do anything.  She said she didn't know; they didn't keep any kind of statistics, and people usually don't call to report back.  She said she knew there were at least like 4 or 5 ladies who went into labor the evening of the massage, and a lot more within the next few days.  Here's the thing though: only 4 or 5?  For a place that specializes in prenatal massage?  These are ladies that are already at least within a week of their due dates--some of them are already overdue--so, I would expect a bunch of them to go into labor with or without massages!  But, whatever, it was still a massage, and I was grateful for it.

That was Friday. 

Saturday was pretty relaxing.  Jeff and I went up to the new City Creek mall that evening to go walking.  I had a bunch of contractions, which resulted in nothing.

Sunday I also had a bunch of contractions that resulted in nothing.

People are starting to come up with some really clever jokes for me:
1. "You may have to name her Paisley July!"  I probably would have though this was funny a month ago or something, but now it just isn't.  First of all, July 1st is past 42 weeks, so it is very unlikely that she would actually be born that late, and if she was, we wouldn't be able to have a home birth anymore.  Second of all, suggesting that I might have to stay this uncomfortable for that long is really not funny at all.  It's kind of mean; although, I'm sure the people who have made this joke really just thought they were being funny.
2. "When are the babies due?"  Get it?  My belly is so big that now I must be having twins.  I think these sorts of comments are just because most pregnant ladies are not at the very end of their pregnancies since pregnancy lasts so long.  So, compared to ladies that are 4-7 months pregnant, I look big.  There are probably some full-term ladies that are smaller than me, and some that are larger, but I suspect I'm pretty average.

I try to remember that people are taking an interest in me and my pregnancy, and I can appreciate that, even if their jokes kind of bother me.  (I'm just being moody.)

I am tired of being pregnant.  I keep having contractions and thinking THIS COULD BE IT.  So I wait to see whether they intensify, and they never really do.  It's kind of frustrating to keep being disappointed.  Also, it makes life kind of hard to schedule.  And, it makes me feel like I don't know my body at all, since I just never know what's going on.

Now that it is getting to be summer, I feel like a sausage.  Or a marshmallow.  Or a balloon animal.  I am very puffy and swollen all the time.  I can't wear shoes anymore, which makes me feel excessively casual at church (and when I do property management work).  I also get awesome cramps that cause me to basically double-over in pain when I walk around.  That's great.  At least now that the baby dropped the heartburn has mostly gone away--that's an improvement.  So, I think all of the contractions and cramps indicate that my body is getting ready to have a baby, even if it keeps not having one.

Want to see our semi-complete nursery?  It's as complete as it is going to get for now.

In the lower left corner (the red thing), that's her swing.  Then right above that (the black thing with a white thing on it) is the pile of birth supplies--the black thing is the birthing tub, and my birth kit is on top of it.  Then, there's her crib, which has blankets in the drawer beneath it.  Next to the crib is the hamper and her dresser (which has newborn-3 month size clothes in it).  The baby bathtub is between the dresser and the changing table.  The changing table is my Baby Stuff Storage Station: it has our burp cloths, receiving blankets, breastfeeding stuff, diapering stuff, etc.  On the right side of the picture, there's the wet/dry bag for cloth diapering (which we're not starting yet), the diaper genie (which we'll use for a few months), a boppy and the glider.  So much baby stuff!

So, that's how things are.  Eventually I'll probably put things on the walls, and finish her curtains.

For now, please think nice thoughts about us having a baby sometime soon. 

Waiting and Baby Stuff, etc.

Well, we're pretty much ready for Paisley to be born.  She's due in 5 days, which doesn't mean a whole lot, since most babies are not born on their due dates.

I think we have all the stuff we need.  My midwife came for our home visit a few weeks ago and she brought a birthing tub and a birth kit, so we've had those things around for a while.

We ordered all of the baby stuff that we think we need, and we had a week that felt like Christmas because Amazon split our huge order into about 11 shipments.  That was fun.  Now the nursery is full of baby stuff and mothering stuff.

My shopping spree was a big success except for one thing: sheets.  I found these really cool crib sheets where the top zips off and you just zip a new one on when you need to, instead of having to remove the whole mattress to replace the sheet.  Apparently it's something nice to not have to do that.  I was feeling great about this discovery until my "sheets" arrived.  I guess for this particular brand, the "sheets" are the replaceable zip panels that go on the top of the mattress.  They are not a "sheet set" that would include the part that you zip the panel to.  So, I ended up with two panels and nothing to zip them to.  Oops!  Now I need to order a "sheet set."  (Really not urgent, though, since she'll she'll be sleeping in a co-sleeper in our room for a while.)

There are some things we're waiting on: I got a case of newborn disposable diapers, because we're planning to cloth diaper, but we'll wait until she's big enough to fit the "one-size" cloth diapers to try them out and decide what we like.  We're waiting on a high chair because we don't know when we'll actually start feeding her at the table anyway, and storing it will take up a lot of space in the meantime.

We didn't buy any toys.  We're just no fun.  I think we're going to have her play with cardboard boxes and wooden spoons and those sorts of things.  Neither of us feel any urgency about getting "stuff" for her.  We did receive one toy that I actually registered for.  It's pretty cool.  It's a soft shape sorter so, when she is approximately 9 months old, she will be able to put the red ball that rattles into the red circle hole, and the green triangle that crackles into the green triangle hole, etc.  It looks like a lot of fun.  When I squeaked the squeaky shape, Chalcy got excited.  It made me wonder how we will help Chalcy know not to steal baby toys since they seem pretty similar to dog toys.  Chalcy is good about leaving our human things alone, but she sometimes guesses that dog toys are hers and she'll start playing with them before I actually give them to her.  They're irresistible!  So, not sure how big of a problem that will be, or what we'll do about it.

We're also waiting to buy a stroller, because we decided not to get a travel system, and because Jeff and I don't agree on [and, let's be serious, we're clueless about] what we want in a stroller.  I really hate junk.  I like things that do what they are supposed to, and perform well.  Sometimes (but not always) this means I like expensive things.  I'm fine with buying used stuff that is in good condition, but price is almost never the deciding factor--reviews are.  Who cares if I can get a stroller for $50 if I have to hunch over to push it, and the wheels get stuck whenever I go over a crack in the sidewalk, and it takes many attempts to get it to fold up properly, etc?  Why pay to have a terrible experience every time I try to use something?

I've done research, and I think I want a BOB Revolution SE stroller.  Jeff thinks I would never use it.  He thinks we'll use a stroller about once a month--at the most.
"Where do you think you're going to use it?" he asks.
"Oh, lots of places," I say.
Him: "Give me some examples."
Me: "Uhhm...well...we'll use it for walks, and when we go places--like when we go shopping, and maybe I can do races with her.  We want her to be active..."
Him: "Don't you have some kind of baby carrier for those places?  And do people even run with strollers anyway?"
Me: "Oh, they totally do!"

Jeff has a point though: I have two products for baby-wearing (a Moby and a Maya wrap).  If I actually use those (and I think I will), when will I want the hassle of using a stroller instead of just wearing the baby?  For running, but otherwise probably not very often.  (Or maybe just when the baby is bigger?)

But here's the thing: even though I really like running, and I do think it would be fun to do races with the baby, I usually run at the gym.  Will having a fancy stroller really make me start running outside regularly?  Eh.  It's not something to bet hundreds of dollars on. 

So, we'll wait and see how important a stroller seems later. 

But anyway, we feel like we have all the baby stuff that we think we'll need.

And the nursery is about ready.  Actually, it kind of isn't, because I can think of so many crafty projects that I would like to do, but they're pretty low-priority.  The furniture is all set up, and the baby stuff is all washed.  So, that's fun.

We installed Paisley's car seat in my truck.  I'm really worried that people are going to give me dirty looks, because we put her in the front seat.  (Aren't babies supposed to be rear-facing in the back seat?)  The truck manual says that's the place to put a car seat, though.  And my front passenger seat has a LATCH system specifically for installing car seats. So, I turned the front passenger airbag off, and that's where she will be.

I've had a few times now where I've had contractions that seemed like they would either fizzle out or they could become more intense and we would have a baby.  They've always fizzled out, though.  It kind of makes me think of our goats, and how last year I kept thinking Caroline was about to have her kids (!!) and then she wouldn't.  That happened a few times, and I wonder if she was just as confused about it as I was. 

Pregnancy is getting really uncomfortable.  So, any time now would be fine, thanks.

I think that's everything that's happening here.