Rear-facing Car Seats in Uruguay

We rented our fourth car in Uruguay today. 

We brought Paisley's car seat along for our travels; it is a Diono Radian RXT, which is supposed to be awesome for travel because it folds up, but is actually not awesome for travel because it weighs as much as a car.  (Almost.)  I do feel like it is a very safe car seat, though, which is an important consideration when you're choosing a child safety seat.

Our first car we rented from Alamo when we first arrived, in mid-September.  I may write more about that experience another time, but for now I will just address the issue of car seats.

We had trouble getting in touch with the Alamo office because their number was published wrong online, so we decided just to walk downtown and hopefully figure car rental stuff out in person.  Since it was kind of a long walk, we didn't take Paisley's car seat with us to the rental place.  I halfway forgot to bring it, and halfway didn't want to think about it, because it is so heavy that it is no fun to move.  If I knew for sure that it would be a one-way w alk we probably would have sucked it up and taken the car seat with us along for the walk, but I remember confessing to Jeff halfway there that I guessed it was probably a 50/50 probability as to whether they would actually be there and rent us a car or not.  They were there, and they did rent us a car, as it turned out.

They asked us if we also wanted to rent a car seat for Paisley, for $7/day (I think that was the rate, anyway).  We assured them that we had brought hers even though it wasn't with us for the walk.  They wanted to show us theirs.  It was a forward-facing toddler seat, recommended for kids ages 3 and older.  Yikes!  No, and, absolutely not!  It did look very nice, though, and if I had, say, a 5 year old kid that was going to be forward-facing anyway, and needed that kind of seat, it would have been totally fine.

Our second car was also from Alamo, a few days later, because we traded for an automatic transmission instead of the manual one we started out with.

Our third car we rented from Avis when we returned to Uruguay a week ago.  I think they may have asked us if we had a car seat for her, and we said that we did, and it was actually with us because it went with us to Argentina.  (Which is another story; sometime I should write about car seats on airplanes...or lack thereof.)  Anyway, no car seat rental from Avis.

Today we rented from a guy who has a small local car rental company.  When I talked to him ahead of time he said he had two types of car seats for kids and that we could look at them when we went to pick up the car, and use one if we wanted (and I think that would have been at no additional cost).

We liked the idea of using another car seat because Paisley's seat is so large that without a Radian angle adjuster (which we do not have) it is sometimes very difficult to install properly, and I typically end up sitting in the glove compartment because the passenger seat has to be moved so far forward.  Rear-facing is still an absolute requirement, though, because Paisley is still too small to be forward-facing, even by the most lenient standards.  In the US, babies need to be at least 1 year old AND 20 lbs to be forward-facing, but it is recommended that they be at least 2 (according to our pediatrician).  Paisley is not close to 2, and, the last time we weighed her she was about 18.5 lbs, so she is still well below that guideline.

Anyhow, the guy didn't have two car seats for us to see, he had one.  It looked a little shabby, but I tried not to act like I was better than them or something.  "Can this be put rear-facing?" I asked.  He reassured me that it could.  Doubting his response, I rephrased the question: "This can go backwards in the car?" "Yes, yes."  Huh.

Well, it was smaller.  It wasn't an infant seat or anything, but the angles and the difference in size meant that I could probably sit in the front seat with only a minor adjustment, if any.

"You prove it.  You put her in it."  He invited me to try putting Paisley in the seat in his living room.  So I did.

Then I noticed the straps were folded over instead of flat.  Hm.

Then I noticed that there was no chest buckle harness thing.  At all.

You just put the two little metal pieces from the sides into the crotch buckle, and the kid is supposed to be good to go, even though it kind of looks like they're just wearing suspenders.

I couldn't do it.

"I think it is not that much smaller than ours.  I think we should just use ours."  Jeff and I have talked a lot about how much we don't like Paisley's car seat for our trip, so I knew he wanted whatever it was going to be to work great, but he said the same thing.  "That's not much smaller than hers."

So it was decided that we would just use Paisley's own car seat, which was folded up in the car seat bag.

We did our paperwork for renting the car, and then we went outside to see the new car--which was in this case really a brand-new car, with only 40 kilometers on it.

I started to install Paisley's car seat, and the car rental guy was surprised by how large it is.  "I know.  I want her to be very safe, but it is not good for traveling..."

He became confused when I started to install the (convertible) seat rear facing.  "In all of my years, I have never seen this.  Are you sure this is okay?"  My eyes widened.  OH MY!  His whole specialty is cars...he has traveled pretty extensively, including some international trips which had come up during our conversations.  I said, "Oh, yes, it is much safer."  His English and my Spanish were not great enough for me to explain crash testing,s o I just said, "I will have to show you a video on YouTube."  And I will have to show him.  [This is the video I'm thinking of.]  Several times he expressed surprise and some concern about me putting the car seat in backwards.  Then he told me her car seat is like the Mercedes Benz of car seats.  That made me laugh.  Yeah, it kind of is, but we just really want her to be safe.

I don't know any other people with babies yet, so I don't know how common car seats actually are, or if they really don't rear-face, or if they just don't rear-face convertible seats, or what, but it was a surprising interaction anyway.

It occurred to me later that he must have thought I was asking him whether his car seat could go in the back seat.  It was definitely a forward-facing seat!

Car seat shopping would be fairly easy here, if you are not picky.  Travel systems (meaning, the car seat that pops onto a stroller) are very common here; when I was shopping for used stroller I thought about half of the strollers were actually travel systems that came with an infant seat.  There are some baby stores here--I'm thinking of one that I used to walk past in centro all the time, and there are a couple other stores like that in our local mall--and they each have 10-15 types of car seats, mostly made by bebesit and a couple other brands.  I have not looked at them really closely, but I have noticed that there is not a great variety of brands.  I have no idea what the limits are for forward-facing or rear-facing, although now I am curious.

None of the cars we have seen here have a LATCH system.  It kind of seems silly; I realize it's cheaper to save a dollar on metal and plastic, or whatever, but it is strange to me that they wouldn't make such a minor change for the sake of saving kids' lives.

As of right now, I am planning to swap car seats the next time we're in the US, and pick up a Combi Cocorro.  We'll see, though, depending on when we're actually back, and how Paisley is growing at that point.

Paisley's Birth Story

 All right!  Here is the kind-of-abridged (but still very long) version of Paisley's birth story.

[Jessica took pictures at the birth, and I don't have them from her yet, so I only have one picture to share from the actual birth.  I also have a really bad family picture, which Rebecca took for us when we came home from the hospital.  Maybe I can add more pictures later?  We'll see.]

Tuesday (June 19^th), Paisley was three days overdue so I texted my midwife (Rebecca) and asked her whether we should schedule another appointment.  We decided to meet the next morning at 9 am to invite Paisley to be born, if she wanted to be.  We couldn’t strip membranes, because I was Strep B positive and I was planning to refuse antibiotics in labor, but Rebecca had an herbal tincture that I could drink to encourage labor, and a castor oil rub that could also help.  If those things didn’t work on Wednesday, we would try again on Friday.  Rebecca suggested Jeff and I have a nice evening, and she said that if I wanted I could have fresh oregano and basil, because those are also said to encourage labor.  (“Really?”  “Well, some people say Eggplant Parmesan does it, but they’ve studied that, and they think it’s actually fresh basil and oregano.  So if you want the real deal, you could make Eggplant Parmesan.”)

So, Jeff and I had a nice evening, and I made Eggplant Parmesan for dinner, with fresh basil and oregano.

The next morning, Rebecca called to let me know that she had another lady in labor, so if I wanted to come by sooner than 9 am, she would be able to spend more time with me.  I got to her office a little after 8 am.  We did normal appointment things—my urine test was still perfect; I was dilated to 3 cm, very stretchy, very effaced, and the baby was very low.  That morning I had also had some show, and I’d had a couple contractions on the way to Rebecca’s office.  I drank the tincture, and Rebecca gave me a little cup of castor oil rub to rub on my belly an hour later.  Rebecca guessed that there was probably a 75% chance that we would have a baby that day.

As I drove home, I started having more contractions. 

I never used the castor oil rub.

By 8:45 am I had downloaded a contraction timer onto my phone and I was timing contractions.  I had contractions that lasted a minute to 90 seconds, and they were coming every two or two and a half minutes.  Things got pretty intense pretty quickly.

I was reluctant to decide that I was actually in labor because I wasn’t sure whether the contractions were from the drink or from being in labor.  (Rebecca said, “Could be both.”)  I also thought that first time moms usually are in labor for a long time (I was expecting to be in labor for 11-15 hours or so), and I didn’t want to be a wimp and have everyone come over way too early.  By 10 am, I was starting to have trouble coping by myself, though, and I had asked Jeff to please come home from work, now please.  I had also invited my sister (Jessica) and Jeff’s mom to come over.  Rebecca would join us after she finished the birth that she was already attending.

So, everyone came over. 

My details for the rest of the day are kind of fuzzy, because I was pretty distracted with contractions.  Rebecca said the contractions could go two ways: contractions from the drink could go away after a couple hours, and labor would slow down, OR I would continue to have close contractions the whole time and I would have a shorter labor.  I would have preferred the first option, but I got the second one. 

When Jeff got home, he inflated the birthing tub, and filled it.  The water was not as relaxing as I hoped it would be, but nothing was really relaxing, so it wasn’t any worse than not being in water.

I mostly labored on my hands and knees, because that seemed like the most comfortable position.  Contractions were so frequent that I also labored on the toilet when I went to the bathroom, and I sometimes labored standing up as I was walking to the bathroom.  During my contractions everyone had to be quiet.  Jeff was the one who had the most trouble being quiet.  He was just so excited.  He kept grinning, and he would forget to be quiet when contractions started.  I thought it was cute that he was so excited, but I did remind him to be quiet every time he forgot.

When Rebecca arrived, she asked if I wanted her to check me, to know how dilated I was.  I was curious, but I didn’t feel like I could stand to be checked because I was too consumed by the contractions.  So she didn’t check me.  She had kind of a neat trick, though—each time she checked Paisley’s heart rate, Rebecca noted where the heartbeat was.  It started on the left side, and I guess as a baby gets ready to be born, it moves more to the center, so that right before a baby is born, its heartbeat is found right beneath the mom’s belly button.  Interesting!  So, Rebecca knew approximately how dilated I was based on the location of Paisley’s heartbeat.

When Paisley’s heartbeat was below my belly button and just to the left, Rebecca told me sorry, she needed to check me.  At that point I was dilated to 9 cm and the waters were bulging.  She asked if I wanted her to pop them, and although I wanted to be done, I felt like things were intense enough already, so I decided to hold off on that.

I got back into the birthing tub to keep laboring, and I think within a few minutes I popped the bag of waters from pushing.

Pushing lasted longer than I thought it would, and I hated that part.  It hurt, and I felt like we kept not making any progress.  It took a long time for the baby to crown.  Rebecca had me try pushing on the toilet, and then on the bed, and I think at that point the baby’s head was turned properly.  So, I went back to the birthing tub to finish pushing.  After pushing for a little while longer, her head came out and everyone got pretty excited.  (And that finally felt like progress.)  I thought at that point she would kind of just slide out and it would be easy, but it wasn’t; apparently she has bigger shoulders, so I had to keep pushing.  Pretty soon after that, she was born, at 4:05 pm.  (My labor lasted about 7.5 hours in all.)  I sat down in the tub and someone handed Paisley to me.

Paisley was purple, which I guess isn’t unusual for babies born in water.  She got normal color pretty quickly.  She was quiet at first, but then she cried.  She had a whole lot of hair, which is kind-of two-tone colored; it looks like she has highlights.  I thought she looked a lot like Jeff, and I kept saying so.  Also, she seemed to have big feet and long fingers. 

I asked if she was still a girl.  Nobody had thought to look, so we looked, and she is.

I held Paisley until I delivered the placenta; around then Jeff cut the umbilical cord.  I also thought delivering the placenta would be painless.  It wasn’t.  I had to push, and it came out halfway, and I had to keep pushing to get the rest of it out. 

Once the placenta came out, there was also a big gush of blood.  The pool started to turn red.  Rebecca said we needed to move to the bed, so someone helped me get there.  I started to feel like I might black out, so Rebecca gave me a shot of Pitocin to help my uterus clamp down, and she set up an IV to help since I had lost some blood.

Things were still pretty calm, though.

My sister helped me try to breastfeed Paisley, and Rebecca put in a few stitches to tack down the places where I tore.  I was feeling pretty weak, so I just stayed there in bed with my IV, and other people held Paisley.  Rebecca did the newborn testing that she needed to do—Paisley weighed 8 pounds, 13 ounces, and she was 20 inches long.  Rebecca also checked my pulse and blood pressure regularly to see how I was doing.  They were not bad, and I was still bleeding, but not an unusual amount.

At about 8 pm, the IV was finishing, and Rebecca thought we should see if I could sit up.  I tried to sit up, and even at only a 45-degree angle or about that, my pulse went up to 140, and I started feeling like I would black out.  So I lay back down.  We started talking about whether I should transfer to a hospital, since I still wasn’t in stable condition.  Rebecca gave me a pill (started with “M”) to help my uterus clamp down, and maybe that would make the difference between whether I needed to transfer or not.

It didn’t.  After we realized we’d been discussing the hospital option for another hour and I was still doing the same, we decided to go to the hospital.  If there was a way for me to get out to the car, we would have just driven there, but without even being able to sit up at all it was a pretty lost cause.  Conversation with my insurance revealed that an ambulance was only covered if we called 911; we couldn’t just call an independent ambulance.  So, someone called 911 and I don’t know who all came, but I know there was at least a fire truck in addition to the ambulance.  My neighbors were pretty excited about that, I guess.

Four big guys came in and started asking a bunch of questions about my condition and what happened.  They had the perfect tool for moving me—it was basically a metal person-carrier that split down the middle, so I just had to roll to each side and they assembled it beneath me, and they carried me outside to an ambulance bed, which then went up into the ambulance.  Jeff came along in the ambulance, Rebecca followed, and Jeff’s mom and Jessica brought Paisley in our truck. 

There were two things that could have been my problem: most likely, I just lost too much blood.  We weren’t sure how much blood I lost since I had been in the tub, but the tub was so opaque with blood that someone said they couldn’t read the writing on the bottom of the tub, so I had lost a lot of blood.  The other thing it could have been was that I could have retained part of the placenta; it came out pretty ragged-looking, so Rebecca was pretty sure it was all accounted for, but it was hard to be certain.

So, in the ER, they decided to do an ultrasound to look for pieces of placenta, but first the doctor needed to manually clean out anything that was in my uterus.  He reached (shoved?) his hand up inside me and kept pulling out blood clots.  He told me later that he pulled out about half a gallon of blood clots.  That procedure was absolutely the worst, most painful experience of my life—even after just having had a natural childbirth.  Later we realized he also tore out two of my three stitches. 

They gave me some Cervidil, and a shot of the M drug that Rebecca had given me earlier.  At some point the doctor did that same terrible thing again, but it didn’t last as long the second time.  They did the ultrasound, and they didn’t find anything.  My blood work came back and my hematocrit was at 26.  Usually after giving birth women get down to 32; if someone comes into the ER at 23 that is the number where they automatically will do a blood transfusion.  So, they said that since I was still losing blood they thought it would be a good idea to give me two units of blood.  After the radiologist had a chance to look at my ultrasound, they would know for sure on that too, whether I needed surgery or not.

So, someone moved me to the postpartum recovery portion of the hospital, and that night and the next morning I got the two units of blood, plus at least a couple more bags of fluid.

We stayed in the hospital for the next day and a half; a lot of the time Paisley just snuggled with me.  Jeff was on diaper duty 100% since I couldn’t really get up or use my arms.  Jeff’s mom came to the hospital in the mornings and evenings so that Jeff could go home to milk goats and shower. 

Friday, after we left the hospital. 

On Friday morning, my hematocrit came back as 23, and they were deciding whether to give me more blood or send me home.  I was still pretty weak, so I wanted more blood, but the doctor decided to send me home, since I didn’t have the same problems as I had when I came into the hospital—I could sit up, and I could walk across the room to use the bathroom.  And, because I had received so many fluids, the hematocrit was lower than it actually would be after I got rid of the extra fluids.  The doctor guessed I was actually at about 26.  He told Jeff and I that we should expect my recovery to take weeks, not days.  Great.

Jeff and I were both pretty exhausted from our hospital experience.  We were grateful that Paisley was not a patient in the hospital, so we didn’t have to worry about any interventions with her. 

Now Paisley is about two and a half weeks old.  Jeff had two weeks of paternity leave, so he went back to work this Thursday.  I’ve been really weak and exhausted, but this week was much better than last week.  Last week, when I carried Paisley to the changing table, I had to sit and rest before I changed her.  This week, I can just change her.  That’s nice.

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.

We decided on a name!

(The banner from my baby shower!)

We finally picked a name!

We’re naming our baby girl Paisley June.

About a month ago we decided that would probably be her name, and Jeff and I tested it out for a week without telling anyone.  It was a winner, so we started telling people, just as it came up.  I think most people know now.

We started with wanting to use “June” as her middle name.  June is Jeff’s mom’s name, and we both really like her a lot. I don’t remember whose idea it was to use her name, but we agreed on it right at the beginning.  Since our baby is due in the very middle of the month, she will almost for sure be born in June, so that made it seem extra appropriate. 

We were about, oh, 85% sure we would use June as her middle name, so we didn’t tell Jeff’s mom because we didn’t want to disappoint her if we ended up going with something else. 

For her first name, Jeff and I really liked the name Olivia.  (And Olivia even sounds great with June.)  But Olivia has been number one in Utah for 5 years now.  I’m not totally opposed to popular names, but number one?  Mmmm…maybe not.  It was kind of our back-up choice, though, in case we could never agree on anything else.

I liked the name Isla.  I think “Isla June” sounds nice, and it sounds good with our last name, too.  And, it’s kind of popular (especially in the UK), but not nearly as popular as Olivia.  Jeff worried that nobody would know how to spell it or pronounce it.  He kept singing a Madonna song “La Isla Bonita” and sometimes he accidentally (maybe accidentally?) referred to the baby name as EE-sla (like in The Emperor’s New Groove), which bothered me.  So then I would start calling him “Heffery” because he was pronouncing that baby’s potential name en espanol.  But he said no, really, he was still open to using the name Isla—he just wanted to conduct a survey to see if people knew how to spell it.

So one fine Saturday morning, Jeff conducted an informal survey.  He called several of his relatives and asked them how they would spell Isla.  “I-S-L-A.”  (Yay!) “I-L-L-A” “I-L-L-A” “I-L-L-I-A”  (Sigh.)  The survey was a failure.  I said people will learn.  I said people don’t know how to spell names anyway—Jeff’s name is spelled in an uncommon way, for instance, and people spell my name wrong, and how can anyone spell Emily wrong (but sometimes they do).  It didn’t matter.  The survey was a failure, and that was that.

We kept going over the other names on our list.  Several of them didn’t work with June as a middle name, so we talked about choosing a different middle name.  Eh.

And then, Jeff suggested Paisley.  I wasn’t sure if he thought it was his idea, or if he knew he had already turned it down a couple times before.  (That’s how baby names work; sometimes names grow on you.)

The way it had actually come up before is that my sister Jessica and I have had several conversations lamenting the fact that I named my cat Paley.  Jessica and I both really like the name Paley.  It sounds like a modern girl’s name more than it sounds like a cat’s name.  So Jessica would say, “I still really think you should name her Paley anyway.”  And I would say, “Or Paisley.”  Because they sound similar, and Paisley is actually used as a girl’s name, and Paley isn’t.  And then it wouldn’t be the same name as the cat.

We had also read the name in one of the name books that we went through.

So when Jeff suggested it, I told him what a great idea he had.  We decided we would try it out for a week.  Partway through the week, I had to be honest with him:  “Jeff, I’m worried you’re going to decide you don’t like the name when you realize it is similar to our cat’s name.”  He looked at me and said, “Em.  The cat’s gonna die.”  Whew.  He knew the names were similar.  So, that was that.

After so many months of not telling Jeff’s mom, Jeff finally told her we were planning to name the baby Paisley June.  Get this: he told her over the phone.  When I wasn’t home.  (“Seriously??”)  (“Ohhhh.  You wanted to see her reaction.”)  But supposedly she had already kind of guessed anyway.  Previously when she was trying to help us think of names, I had admitted that we were thinking of using a certain name as the middle name.  I wouldn’t tell her what it was, but I told her it was a one-syllable name, so the first name needed to be more than one syllable.  I think I may have also said we were considering family names.  That narrows it down more than I meant to.  Oh well.  So, she knows.  But she’s already had granddaughters named after her, so maybe it’s less exciting after the first couple times.

So, in case you’re wondering, Paisley is a relatively uncommon name.  My midwife has delivered one other baby girl named Paisley, in 2010.  ("She's a really good eater."  "Hm. Okay.")  In the United States, Paisley ranked #831 as a girl’s name in 2006.  It has been steadily rising since then: 2007 - #613; 2008 - #450; 2009 - #319; 2010 - #237. The statistics just came out for 2011, and last year Paisley ranked #195.  Last Friday at my appointment with my midwife, she had new name lists posted (she has monthly Utah statistics for the top 10 boy and girl names and other birthing statistics, and quarterly Utah statistics for the top 50 boy and girl names).  It looks like for the last quarter, in Utah, Paisley ranked #36 among girl names.  Jeff and I were really surprised to see that.

I keep joking that if she is born in May, we’ll name her Paisley May instead, but we wouldn’t really do that.  So, there you have it.

It feels GREAT to know what we’re naming her, and to talk about her (and to her) using her name. 

Baby Shower!

Last Thursday I had my baby shower!  It was hosted by my sister Jessica, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, and one of my friends from church, and it was at Jeff's parents' house.

Jessica designed the invitations, which were really cute.  Obviously the real thing had last names and an address, so it looked better, but here is the Internet-safe version

I really worried that nobody would come since Jeff is my main friend and he wasn't even invited.  Actually, I think there were 20-25 ladies that came.  It felt great to know that so many other people cared enough to come celebrate with me.  And, a few other people have brought gifts to our house because they were unable to attend the shower.  That's really kind.

I think the decorations were a collaborative effort; there were balloons, flowers, and streamers.  Jessica made a cute banner to match the invitations...with our baby's name on it!  (More about that later.)

Since the shower was held in the evening, they served a light dinner: soups (my MIL asked for some of my favorite recipes), fruit and vegetable trays, and warm homemade bread.  (I don't have any really good pictures of this, or of everyone eating, or even when everyone was there, because I just snapped a couple photos on my phone before guests arrived and finally thought to pull out my camera at the end.  Whoops!)

For dessert, we had cake balls!  When my hosts were planning the shower, they asked what requests I had (for the theme, or foods, or anything) and I requested cake balls--if they weren't too much work.  Jessica said they take some time, but she didn't mind doing them.  So, she did.  They were perfect.  She made pink (strawberry), brown (chocolate), and white (lemon) cake balls, and they were really pretty, and really delicious.

After that, I started opening gifts.  Partway through opening gifts, the guests started playing the "dirty diaper game."  The way that worked was, there were a bunch of diapers that were all numbered.  Inside each diaper, a candy bar was melted, and the guests had to try to identify the different candy bars--no tasting allowed.  It was pretty funny to watch.  All of the guests were smelling "dirty" diapers.  A few of the guests got really into it and tried to compare the contents of different diapers, and discussed them. 

I finished opening gifts.  We got a lot of great stuff!  I kind of wished our baby were already born so that she could have enjoyed the shower too.  I felt like I had snuck into a 5 year old's birthday party and opened all of the presents without him.  (Although, it will probably be a while before she is interested in receiving presents.)  That's okay.  And then we went over the results of the diaper game.  The guests were all asked to write little notes for me with parenting advice.  After that, everyone went home. 

I felt very pleased for the next couple days that I have so many people that care about me and our baby.  Now, I am determined to do a better job of writing thank you cards than I did when I got married.  (In case you're wondering, I've made good progress so far.)

Tutorial: How to Make Nursery Button Art

As I've been scouring the Internet for cool nursery ideas, I discovered button art.  If you want, a few sellers on etsy will make a custom monogram letter out of buttons, to use as art in your baby's nursery.  I thought they looked so cool!  The art has old-fashioned charm, but it seems modern at the same time.  I wanted one! 

The going rate for an unframed piece of button art is $80. 

Having a baby is expensive.  Aside from birth-related expenses, we've bought nursery furniture, and we still have to buy the car seat and stroller, probably an infant seat, a set of cloth diapers, a breast pump, and about 900 other things like a snot-sucker and crib sheets.  So, it's pretty hard to justify spending $80 on a little piece of fabric with some buttons.  (Even a really cute little piece of fabric with some buttons.)

I decided to make one myself.  The supplies would be cheap, and sewing buttons is pretty easy, so how hard could it be?  (Answer: Not too hard, but fairly time consuming.)

I think this took me about 4 hours, and the supplies cost under $10 (or much less, depending on which supplies you already have).  I think my result was not quite as nice as the ones for sale on etsy, but close enough.  (And the baby won't know the difference.)

Want to make your own nursery button art?  Here's what I did.

Supplies:

* fabric - I used linen, which seemed like a good choice.  (My linen was $12.88/yard, and I bought .25 yard for $3.22.  The quarter yard was enough fabric to make five pieces of button art.)
* buttons - Plan to use at least 70 buttons of various sizes.  Buy a lot more, so that you have more choices as you go; I think I had about twice as many as I needed, and that was about right.  I started with little container of pink buttons that I bought at Ross for a few dollars, and when I realized most stores sell buttons a few at a time (or bigger blends in not-pink), I turned to eBay.  On eBay I bought two packs of 50 assorted pink buttons (about $6 including shipping).
* thread & needle - any.  I used an off-white thread that I already had, which matched my linen.  Embroidery floss would also be a good option.
* disappearing fabric ink marking pen - I got one that wrote in purple, and it cost $4.79. 
* frame (& coordinating paint) - to display your button art.  I bought a cheap oak frame from Walmart for $4, and I painted it a coordinating light purple to match the nursery.

Instructions:

1. Choose what letter you're going to do. 

Bold letters work well, and so do fancy frilly letters.  Skinny lines are easier to make with buttons than fat areas.  I downloaded a few free fonts from a free font website online, and I thought about using "Annabel Script Font", but then I ended up deciding to use Georgia font, which was already on my computer.

For 8X10 button art, I printed the letter I was using in 650 pt font.  This would vary depending on the font that you choose and the size that you want it, but the key is to have something that doesn't take up a full sheet of paper, but is large and seems well spaced.

I printed my letter in "outline" style to make it easier to trace.

2. Print 2 copies if you want to try laying out buttons before you sew anything, or 1 copy if you're sure you have the right size.

3. (optional) Arrange your buttons on one of the printouts.

I worried that I wouldn't have the right number of buttons for what I wanted, so I used one copy to practice.  I arranged the buttons directly on one of the printouts.  I had plenty of buttons and liked how it was going to look, so I left the buttons arranged, and planned to transfer them to the coordinating spot on my actual fabric.

4. Cut your fabric. 

Remember, a little too big is better than a little too small.  Iron the fabric.  I also used a little bit of starch to help it stay flat. On a scrap of your fabric, test your disappearing ink to make sure it actually disappears.

5. Put a letter printout beneath your fabric and trace the outline onto your fabric with the disappearing ink.

Since I used linen, I was able to do this on top of a regular table.  If you choose something thicker, you may need to tape your fabric up to a window to get some light coming through so that you know where to trace.

6. Start sewing buttons on. 

I was using regular thread (which is pretty thin) and linen (which has a loose weave), so I quadrupled my thread, because otherwise the knots came right through the fabric.  To do that, I took a long piece of thread, folded it in half, threaded both of the loose ends, and matched them up with the other end.  This worked fine for me.

I had thought that transferring buttons from the arrangement on paper to my fabric would be a piece of cake.  It wasn't.  It turns out, it's pretty hard to sew buttons very precisely where you want them, since the fabric tends to move around a little as you're sewing.  This means, sometimes you'll end up with a little extra space where you didn't want it, and sometimes the buttons will be a little closer together than you meant for them to be.  At first this bothered me, because it wasn't perfect, and then I decided it was totally fine, as long as I didn't have big gaps, or big overlaps.  If I were to do this project again, I would try using an embroidery hoop to keep my fabric flat.  I think that would partially solve this problem.  This is handmade art, though, so I decided it's okay if it looks like a person did it instead of a machine.  Another thing that I think would really help with spacing is to have tiny buttons.  I had small buttons, medium buttons, and large buttons, but I think the people who sell these on etsy have some very tiny buttons.  That would help a lot with spacing.

 

For me, I liked to start with the skinny parts of the letter, where it required small buttons and they had to be in precise places.  Then I worked away from those areas, using larger buttons first and then smaller buttons to finish small sections and work my way out.  I frequently arranged 3-4 buttons to help decide how to best lay them out on the fabric.  Sometimes after I sewed one or two buttons, I would have to decide again, because of the way the spacing was.  So, it didn't end up looking like my original arrangement, but I think that exercise was still worthwhile.

7. Rearrange buttons or re-sew buttons as necessary.

There were a couple buttons that I sewed at the beginning that I decided to adjust later.  And, there were a couple buttons that started to come detached because the knots pulled through from the back, so I needed to re-sew those too.

8. Iron your button art.  Use water to remove any disappearing ink that hasn't disappeared. 

I tried to avoid actually touching the buttons with the iron, but to the extent that they did touch the iron, they were fine.  (Which makes sense, since men's dress shirts are ironed all the time and they have buttons on them.)

9. Frame your button art, and put it on display!  (Note: these also look pretty when they are matted, or when they hang on the wall.) 

That's it!  If these instructions are helpful for anyone else, I would love to see how your button art comes out.

(And yes, we have finally settled on a name for this baby girl, and yes, it does start with "P".  More about that later.)

Pregnancy Photo Progression

I've been thinking it would be fun to share these.  Today I am exactly 35 weeks pregnant.  When I was almost 15 weeks pregnant I decided it was about time for us to start taking pictures to document my pregnancy.  (Before that, I didn't feel like there was much to photograph.)

Since then, I've had Jeff take my picture pretty much every other Saturday morning, before we go to the gym.  A couple months ago I started wearing a different shirt to the gym, but we still do pictures with this one, because it's the one I've been wearing for pictures all along and it makes the transition more interesting.

We also take pictures from the front, but those ones are less interesting.

It's kind of amazing that next time we take a picture I'll be at 37 weeks--full term(!).  And, most likely there will only be two more pictures like this.  Maybe three.  (Although, it seems like I'm getting so big so fast lately that maybe we should switch to doing weekly pictures, just like midwife visits are weekly now.  Or maybe two pictures a week.)

Pregnancy and [Goat] Kids

For a little while now, Jeff and I have talked about taking a picture of me with the goats, since we're all pregnant right now.  It seemed like kind of a funny thing.  By now we're all far enough along that we look obviously pregnant, and some of the goats have started to moan more often, so on Saturday I suggested we finally take a picture. 

Jeff and I feel no confidence whatsoever in our ability to judge when the goats will kid, because last year Caroline seemed like she was ready to kid any day now for over a month.  She totally faked us out.  But, it seemed like there was a good chance that pretty soon not all of us would be pregnant anymore.  And if we were, we could always take another picture later. 

So, we decided to try to get a picture, and this is what we got:

Hm.  Not exactly what I had in mind.  But, they lost interest in our picture, and that was the best that we got.  So, we tried again the next day after church, and got this:

Not really much better.  Goats just are not very good at posing for pictures. They're all too close together, so you can't see that they have huge bellies.  And Tank (the buck) snuck into the back of our picture, even though it was supposed to be girls only.  We didn't notice.

Whatever.

So that was Sunday.

And then, very very early this morning (Wednesday) there were some noises outside and Chalcy started barking.  It wasn't cat noises, but I told Chalcy QUIET and sent her back to bed.  I fell back asleep too.  I woke up at about 2:45 this morning to the same noise, and it occurred to me what it was: BABY GOATS!

Once I figured it out, I was super excited.  I got dressed and hurried outside to see whose babies they were!  And how many!  And whether they were boys or girls!

When I got outside, Mercedes had a baby goat with her, and they were outside the barn, with all of the other goats. 

It was especially exciting, because just last weekend I told Jeff that I wanted a particular young goat from the dairy that we get our milk from.  She was a black goat with white stripes on the side and a brown belly.  Pretty!  But, she is a Drake doeling, which means that she probably costs $400 or $500 at the cheapest, and maybe $900-1000.  So, instead I realized that we have two black goats and our buck has stripes on his sides, and maybe we could end up with one that looked like that anyway.

So, I was really excited to discover that the baby goat near Mercedes looked very similar to the one that I had been interested in.  And?  Was it a girl??  (If Mercedes had a girl we were planning to keep it anyway.)  I checked.  Nope.  It was a buckling.  Too bad. 

Mercedes had been really big, so I was surprised that she only had one kid.  I decided to check the barn and found...

Another one! 

And in another corner, there was another baby goat!

Our best goat gave us triplets!  Awesome.  Hopefully not all boys?  I checked.  Both of the brown kids are girls!  Way to go, Mercedes!

Our buck this year ("Tank") comes from champion lines of dairy goats, and Mercedes comes from pretty good lines too, so it's great that she had triplets--and it's even more great that two are girls--because they will almost certainly be very, very good dairy goats.  It will be exciting to see how they turn out.

Breeding to improve our herd is so much more exciting than just breeding goats to continue getting milk!

Nursery Update #2 - Painting (with Milk Paint)!

Last week I finished painting the nursery!

As I had planned, I used Milk Paint's "Safe Paint".  It came out really well, I think.

At first it seemed like kind of an intimidating project because I was going to have to mix the paint myself, and I'd never done that before.

Our regular mixer was totally adequate for mixing the paint up.  I mixed it up usually about a quart of paint at a time.  It doesn't last well after it's mixed, so you're only supposed to mix the amount you're actually going to use.

The people at Milk Paint told me I should expect to need two coats: the first acts as a primer, and the second coat provides complete coverage.  So, I scrubbed all of the walls, and then I primed all of them.  I finished the white walls first, just because that seemed like the easier part.  Then I put up some painters' tape and prepared to paint the accent wall!

With Milk Paint, there are only twenty colors you can choose from, and none of the color choices are pink.  Instead, they suggested I order one of two red colors: "Salem Red" or "Salmon".  Then, I could add some of the red powder to my white paint powder, and mix it up to make my own pink.  (If I wanted an orange-ier pink, I should choose Salmon, they said.)  So, I ordered Salem Red, and hoped that if I added it to white the result would be a "Little-Girl-Nursery Pink" color.

For the main background on the accent wall, I tried to create a very light pink.  (My ratio ended up being: 8 oz white powder, 1 tsp. salem red powder, 8 oz water.)  I thought it looked pretty nice.  So I went ahead and painted the accent wall.  After I painted it, it occurred to me that it looked kind of like Pepto Bismol pink, so I asked Jeff if he thought that was a problem.  (Nope!)  Fortunately, it dried into a slightly different color.  After two coats, the wall looked great.

My plan had been to use a stencil on the accent wall, and after the light pink dried, I decided I should stick to the plan instead of leaving it plain pink.  One of the nurseries that had kind of inspired me had a dark pink wall with a white damask stencil that covered the whole accent wall.  It looked a lot like wallpaper, but the girl explained that she had stenciled it, and I thought that was pretty interesting.  So, I found Cutting Edge Stencils online and debated which pattern I wanted to put on the wall.  Eventually, I decided to do polka dots.  (Keep it simple.)

So, I ordered the small polka dot stencil.  While I listened to General Conference talks last weekend, I mixed up a darker pink, and I used a (smaller) foam roller to put dots all over the accent wall.  It was so exciting to see my progress.  Suddenly, the ugly 1970's beach room had been transformed into a modern little girl nursery, and that just seemed wonderful to me.

I think it turned out beautiful!

For a little review of Milk Paint: I would probably use it again, although it did turn out a little different than I had thought it would.
1. The paint is quite flat, which seems like not the best choice for a baby's room, since I think little kids get stuff on walls.  Optionally I could have purchased an acrylic finish to paint on top, but when I was ordering I didn't want to spend another $50/gallon beyond what I was already paying. 
2. Especially on the accent wall, the paint formed tiny cracks as it dried.  It is only noticeable if you look very closely, and it is very uniform, so it seems like it could have been intentional.  Based on the instructions, I think this is a result of the milk paint kind of somehow reacting to the old paint, and pulling in different directions as it dried?  (Or something?)  I'm not sure why it was a problem primarily on the accent wall, though.  It wasn't what I wanted it to look like, but it doesn't really matter.  The baby won't care.
3. On the walls adjacent to the accent wall, where I had put painters' tape (especially the kind that is supposed to keep paint lines totally sharp), when I removed the tape it pulled up a bunch of my white Milk Paint. Maybe I needed to use delicate painters' tape, but I didn't know.  So, it was a bit of a pain to touch up.
4. Milk Paint was very easy to mix up and the "recipe" for mixing paint seemed fairly forgiving.  I used a calibrated mixing container so that my measurements were close, but I'm sure there was some variation especially among the many batches of white, and it really didn't matter.
5. Milk Paint was very easy to clean up.  I didn't even bother to put plastic down.  The room has a fake wood floor, so once I was done painting, I just used a wet washcloth to wipe the floor all the way around the room.  The few drops that had gotten on the floor washed off easily.
6. The Milk Paint really didn't smell at all.  It had a slight milky odor while it was wet, but definitely no chemical smell. After it dried, it didn't smell like anything at all.

To finish the nursery, I think I will...
- Set up the crib.
- Make a curtain to hang in front of the closet, since the closet has no doors and it has not-baby stuff in it.
- Make curtains for the window?
- Finish the fairy tale paintings.  (They've been on hold during the room painting project.)
- ???  Not sure what else.  I would love to do something with the baby's name, to really personalize her room.  Of course, it's hard to do that without picking a name!
(- Do NINE MILLION other crafty projects in my free time that I wish I had: make a mobile! make a button monogram thingie!  sew a pillow or stuffed something from a fairy tale!  re-upholster the glider! etc, etc, etc)

At a minimum, we should probably at least set up the crib.