I'M SO HAPPY TO BE PREGNANT!!!!

I just spent a few minutes writing a post (below) about how terrible and awful I feel, and how I'm having a very difficult time being pregnant.  It is awfully hard and tough at the moment, but it is also, AWESOME!!!!!!!!!

I am soooooooooooooo excited!!! :)  I am overwhelmed a lot lately with all the 'hard' that comes with this time (that will hopefully be finished soon!!), but it feels like I have a bunch of layers of hard, starting at the outside - physically it's so hard, I'm so sick, then there's the next layer in of emotional hard - hard not being as 'there' as I want to be for the children, hard not looking after my husband and making his food the way I like to, hard being completely helpless and reliant on others to get my children to school, etc., being so useless, bla bla, bla Actually I think the emotional hard is a few layers all on its own.

But THEN, inside of me, right at the centre, surrounded by all the hard, is a sparkling ball of excitement and anticipation and wonder and gratitude and thrill and SO MUCH LOVE, that sends shivers and happiness through all my other layers when I can push aside the 'sick' and 'guilt' enough to let it!!!

Because we're having another BABY!!!!

We have 4 so far and there's not one among them who isn't AWESOME and AMAZING and INCREDIBLE, and one of the BIGGEST BLESSINGS OF OUR LIVES!!!!

And those little angels are sure excited about the baby in my tummy!!  As often as I can stomach it they are lying beside me rubbing my belly and talking to the baby :)  They can't wait to find out whether it's a boy or girl (tiebreaker round!!! ;)), and see it and hold it and cuddle it!! The girls are way too excited about how fat I'm going to get again!! ;)

Lately as I lie on the couch almost constantly, watching the children play, I often find myself just grinning at their awesomeness.  I love the way the girls are joined at the hip every second they're not in school.  Their imaginations are fabulous - they're mermaids, or princesses, or teachers, or pirates, or fairies, or doctors, or Mums, or aunties, or whatever the day brings.  They look after each other, and they look after me.

In this whole long journey so far of me basically being almost completely useless to these girls, they have not waned in their wonderful and helpfulness.  I am completely amazed at how incredible they've been - and I expect them to be good - they usually are!! :)  But they are soooo thoughtful and sweet!  They pray for the baby and me, they ask if they can get me anything, they look after their little brothers, they help out whenever they're asked cheerfully, and without complaint.  I seriously can barely believe how wonderful they are.  And I'm so grateful for them, and grateful that they're not just sick of me being sick and frustrated with the whole business and just wanting more attention.  They are the exact opposite, and have been so comforting to all of us!!  I never want to treat the girls like they have responsibilities like James & mine.  We are the parents, and it's time for them to be children and enjoy their time.  We definitely teach them to work and look after their things and look after each other, but not in a way that makes it their 'role' at this time.  Their role is to grow and learn and progress and love and build beautiful relationships and be happy and feel free and safe.  They'll be parents and homemakers of their own homes one day, and hopefully they will love it like we do!!  I don't want them to have a bad view of having children or a home to look after through any negative connotations of growing up in a big family and having big burdens placed on them through me not doing my job properly, if that makes sense.  Anyway, they have 'stepped up' at this time so beautifully and eagerly, without even being asked, and though they're helping me at times with things that I normally would never ask them to do, I'm so grateful that they're so kind and excited and happy to help, and they have seriously made this hard time so much easier for me by being such angels!!!  I can't stress how awesome they are.  And how cheerful and sweet!!!  And they have been such comforts to their brothers when I am being sick or something and they've led them away to play and distract them while I sort myself out!  Ana cleans the entire house every day she is home.  Without me saying a word to her I'll suddenly notice that they toys are all gone, and she's gone about and tidied everyone's rooms and made their beds.  What 4 year old does that?!  And Maggie gets home and assumes a place as everyone's entertainers and defenders, and reads to her siblings and thinks of fun games for them all to play together while I try to pull myself together.  They are both angels.

And then I watch the boys play.  And they're soooo so different to each other.  SJ is so quiet and sweet, and he has his own little world of cars and planes and dinosaurs, and he likes to share it with people, but it's special for him.  He loves giving cuddles and kisses and grins shyly when he comes and 'plants one on me' ;)  Christian just walks around trying to discover and destroy anything he can get his hands on at this stage, and he's so neverendingly cheerful and persistent and bouncy and loud, and loves being the center of attention!!!  They, unlike the girls, have spent this time fighting hard to get a bunch of attention from me.  If one of them is cuddling me the other will inevitably try to cuddle me too! - It has been very difficult for me when I'm super sick and it's really hard to have them crawling all over me, but what a blessing!  I have these 2 completely perfect and adorable and so different sons, who are so happy and sweet and loving, and love crawling all over me lol.  And SJ is starting to talk SO WELL, and loves testing out his language progress, and Christian is just so ridiculously confident in every way, nothing is a boundary to him.  Watching them makes me feel so happy - until the terror of them both thundering towards me for some quality cuddle time when I feel like I'm going to be sick comes round again ;)

It's been my longest ever break between children, and I am SO EXCITED to have a newborn baby again :)  I'm so excited to hold its tiny hands, and snuggle it all day long!  I'm so excited to feed it and look after it, and be awake feeding it in the middle of the night like we're the only two people in the world who are awake at that moment.  And I am SO excited for the love it's going to be getting from every angle around here!! :)  SJ seems to understand this time that there's a baby in my belly (he was 100% oblivious with Christian lol), and he has been soooo gentle and sweet patting my belly, and the girls are all over it.  They have been super big sisters/mother hens for a good 2 and a half years now (longer for Mags!), and are VERY excited for the new addition to our family.  They are having fun anticipating whether girls or boys will overtake the other in numbers around here, and keep chatting about what all of it's physical features will be, from the curly/straight hair debate to whether one of the children will have 'matching green eyes like Mummy's', or continue the 'brown eyed baby' trend the rest of this family follows :)

And of course James is super excited as well :)  At the moment he's all business trying to get us through this hard time and look after me and the other children, but he is the most incredible dad, I am so grateful he is my husband and our babies' father!!! They are soooooo blessed - we all are! - to have him!!! :)  Sometime in the first few hours after bub is born, we always manage to have some time up at the hospital while our other children are with our mums, and I will rest while James holds the tiny new baby in his arms and gets to know him or her.  It's such a beautiful time for both of them and I'm excited to see him bonding with the next one!!! :)

I know it's going to be hard/busy when bub is born next year.  When we had Christian last year and suddenly had 4 children 4 and under it was struggle time for me - I think it took me about 7 months to feel like I got my head above water again!!! But what a blessing of a challenge!!! By the time this 5th one is born Maggie will have turned 6 already, and she and Ana will both be in school full time, so I'll just have the 3 at home each day.  Every baby we have had has been such a happy, wonderful miracle in our lives, I really can't express how happy we are to know there's another on its way.  We feel sooo blessed!!!  When we were first married and it took us a long time to finally get Maggie, I don't think we could have imagined how blessed we would be to be surrounded with such beautiful children so quickly afterward!!

Oh and I know I said it but I'm so excited to have a newborn!!! I've always thought newborns were kind of boring, but since I've had mine, I've realised they're the most interesting, beautiful little things in the world!! :)  I will happily spend hours just staring at my baby, laughing every time it yawns, excitedly pointing every twitch out to James, or whoever is 'fortunate' enough to be nearby ;)  Babies are awesome.  They have no downsides.  Unless you count sleep deprivation as a 'downside', which you might be justified in doing ;)  But they are just perfect, and straight from God, and it's so exciting to be holding in your arms the tiny bub that's been chilling out in your belly for 9 months!! And so exciting for all of us to shuffle down to a 'new normal' in our family, with another little bundle of fabulousness.

So although I mentioned 'the hard stuff' in this post, and in great depth in the post below this one, if you look at the video in the post below that one, you'll see how excited I am ;)

LOOONG Catch-Up!!!!!

Hey little personal blog/journal!!

It's been a little while since I've written anything remotely interesting on here, and I'm going to unashamedly blame it on being pregnant once again!!! :)  Yay!! :)  I'm just over 16 weeks now though, and have been getting better over the last 4 weeks - I've been pretty great for the last 2, but I'm tired a lot, the usual :)

Since I've been well again though, I've been spending my more awake time having lots of fun and outings with my fabulous girls, who were so patient with me for all those weeks when I lay on the couch uselessly, asking them to be gentle with me and basically being no fun at all!!  I am so GRATEFUL that James took a month off work completely during uni holidays, and got us through the worst of it, and by the time he started back full time (between work and study) I was getting back into it.

It's funny how hard morning sickness hits.  I guess a lot of people never get it, and if you're not grateful for that, you should be.  Because it's awful! - You just feel like you're dying!!! I kept saying to James "This is MUCH worse than the other two times - I'm dying!  This is awful!  I can't do this for 8 more weeks" and so on, but he just said "It's exactly the same sweetie, you've just forgotten!  But you'll get through it and you'll be okay" :) .  He took care of absolutely everything for us - meals, cleaning, looking after the girls, looking after me, running around town trying to satisfy my horrible cravings (I don't have fun cravings.  I've mentioned this before on this blog.  But it's more like "I need a Red Rooster chicken drumstick now or I'll die!" and less like "Hm... I'm craving chocolate.  Please go and buy me 3 blocks and I will eat them and chill out :)).  I was also probably insufferable to be around.  I devoured I don't know how many books, until I ran out, and became bored and more miserable.  I watched a bunch of movies and then got sick of them all.  I watched the entire first 4 seasons of Chuck.  Bless funny, random, light hearted shows you've never seen before for trying to take your mind off things!!  I felt like such a bad mother.  The girls ran riot if James ever went out, and I just felt sooo bad for them! - Bored and cooped up all the time! I'm so glad James was around to take them out and do stuff with them.  And he and Ana developed a wonderful relationship - the kind he's always had with Maggie but Ana's missed out on a little in her early days, because he was home a lot more when Maggie was born and has been a lot busier since Ana.  But they really bonded and it's wonderful to see now :)  She just adores him, and he her.  And Maggie loved having her main man around all the time!

By the end of the sickness, I started to feel like I was crazy, and maybe it was all in my head?  Maybe I was just lazy?  So I'd try to do more, and fail miserably, and end up in bed, much worse than before.  I just felt like I wasn't being a very good person.  And I never wanted to go out and do anything!  I would make plans with friends and then cancel cause I wasn't up to it, and I felt like such a bad friend!   But then I started to have days where I was actually well, and then you realise "Oh, I'm not a bad person - I'm not just lazy!  I was actually really, really sick!!!  Oh my word I feel great today!! I am going to clean my house and take the girls to the park!!  And catch up with friends!!  And make dinner!!" and it's just the most incredible feeling ever.  I keep saying to James "I just can't describe it.  It's like you're in this horrible black hole and you can't get better no matter what and then you start to doubt yourself and you don't know if you're lazy or what and then suddenly you're better!  And you realise that health is the most incredible blessing, and you don't ever realise how wonderful it is until you're stuck in that black hole for weeks on end, terrified that this time it won't end at 14 weeks!"  I don't know how the wonderful strong women (like my mother, who had 7 of us!) who are sick for the entire 9 months manage!  I find it extremely difficult to get through the first three months.

But as a result of that time, the last few weeks have been absolutely fabulously blissful.  I'm back!! And the girls and I have been having a lot of fun, and making up for all our time lost.  They are SUCH great girls, and I feel so lucky to get to hang out with them all day long!  They are the funniest ages and they have me in stitches all day, and they're so sweet and kind and funny!!!  And James and I have been leaving the house again - we even went to the temple last Friday night, and we're going to our Stake Ball tomorow night! - I don't know how I'll go fatigue-wise, but I'm super excited.

As usual, I put on WAY too much weight during trimester 1, but I've evened out a little just in the last couple of weeks, and I've come to terms with the fact that to help me feel a little better during that time, I just have to constantly eat, and to me it's a LOT easier to work out and lose the weight afterwards, than to try and stop myself from eating whatever I want during trimester 1!!  But hopefully I can repeat Ana's pregnancy, not the 30+kg's I put on with Maggie!!

And I am starting to get INCREDIBLY excited as I enter trimester 2, realising that I'm really going to be able to have another baby!! I'm always a little too nervous during the first 12 weeks to let myself be really excited, in case anything happens, but yesterday I went to the hospital and heard this little baby's heart beating for the first time, and in a few weeks we'll be able to find out whether it's a boy or girl, and I can't WAIT!!! That is my favourite part of pregnancy.  I love knowing what we're having.  It really helps me bond with baby.  We name it and talk to it, and I buy it pink or blue (pink so far, but it could be blue this time?! :)) and get everything ready for it, and it feels so much more real.  I can't wait!! James is pretty excited too :)  And so are Maggie and Ana.

So basically everything is complete sunshine at the moment, especially compared to being so sick - ugh!

Random bits and pieces:

• The fabulous Stacey came over the other week, and introduced us to 'Monopoly Deal', the card version of Monopoly.  Games only take maybe 15 minutes max. each, and it's a lot of fun.  I bought it for James for D.A.D (Daddy Appreciation Day) recently, and we've played it so many times he's sick of it, but I'm totally addicted!! :)
• My friend Estelle came over this afternoon to have some stamping fun with me, and she brought us dinner - uncooked.  I'm always saying I wish I were more confident cooking fish cause I love it, so she brought me the uncooked ingredients, and helped me prepare the fish for cooking, and all I have to do is chuck it in the oven half an hour before we want to eat!! Isn't that sweet?!  Dinner and a cooking lesson!! :)
• My Dad got broken into at his office again the other day.  It's happened a lot in the last year, and caused him a lot of grief and business loss, and it's really upsetting for our whole family I think.  Dad is just such a good person, and he works SOOOOO HARD and has my whole life, to support his family, and to have people just break in and take so much from him, is so hard to see.  They've been installing all sorts of security measures over the last year, and they just keep coming back.  This time, they actually like, dug a hole and broke through the bottom of a wall, and like, climbed in underground?! - Who does that?!!!  Anyway, they've had builders reinforce it all and I think they're putting in a new alarm system this time.  We are all praying that they stay away and that this break-in doesn't cause too much more grief than replacing all the valuable things in the office.
• I had to quit netball when I was only a little bit pregnant :(  I really, really wanted to keep playing, and stay fit during this pregnancy, but even though I switched out from Center and started playing on the wings, I was sick and fainting after games, and then you know, spent a really long time in bed doing nothing but being sick, and now I can't go back during this pregnancy.  I guess I'll save the organised sport for between pregnancies!
• James is in his last 6 months of uni.  Can you tell I'm grinning like a cheshire cat while I write this?!  Who knows where he'll be working this time next year?!!!! He has certainly worked hard for this degree, I'm so happy and excited for him, and for our whole family!!!  He will be so relieved to have a break from assignments hanging over his head all the time - I still seem to remember that feeling with perfect clarity!!
• This baby is due, 4 days before Maggie's 3rd birthday.  I'm guessing we won't be throwing her too big a party this year - I might miss it!!!
• Mum is currently designing her and Dad's new house.  I can't wait to see what it ends up looking like!! I couldn't do all the planning she is.  Well, at least, I really wouldn't want to.  Fortunately James will be just as keen as she is in that department - I'll just give him a list of what I want and let him do what he thinks with the rest of it when it comes our time!  Mum always makes things so beautiful though, so I can see why she'd want to do it herself!!  Meanwhile they're in a cute rental, and our childhood house is long sold to a young couple who are just starting a family.  I haven't driven past since they sold it.  I was so sick I didn't even take photos in every room and do any sort of 'goodbye wonderful house I lived in for 17 years!!' tour - which I SO would have done otherwise!!
• Elders Ben and Oliver have been on their missions for a year and 4 months now.  Isn't that crazy?!  They'll be home apparently before I know it, but it seems to be going awfully slowly!! We all miss them like crazy, but we're so proud of them.  They are working so hard and being so faithful and good!!  They make us smile whenever we think of them.  I still can't believe they haven't met Ana!!
• James is working with Dad at the moment. I like to think of them working together - My two favourite guys!!  :)  He's also coaching 3 teams at JPC and helping out with some of the PE classes there.  He's loving what he's doing, but it's certainly keeping him busy!!
• I lost some of my all time, FAVOURITE maternity clothes, and I'm devastated!! James thinks I must've accidentally taken them to Vinnies, and I just want to cry when I think about it!  Went maternity shopping the other weekend and found nothing.  I wish I had my pretty clothes back, sigh!!! 
• The J's live down the road now!  First I was sick, and since we've all had sick babies, but we're going over tomorow for a fun play (Jessima's put together a 'safari' which sounds fun!) and are happy that they're in our ward and we see them more often!! :)
• Baby Hallie = SO CUTE!! :)  And Beth = earth mother!! : ) We're planning on a visit next week - even though she's a lot closer now, the Gold Coast seems so far away at the moment! - But they do live pretty far south.  Hopefully more catch ups soon :)
• Ana and Maggie are so cute.  Did I say that already?!  They're best friends, they are both chatting (Ana only says a few intelligible words, but she's expanding her vocab rapidly(!) and Maggie will talk your ear off, all day, about everything :))  I'm in parenting heaven.  I'm so grateful for them and can't wait to find out what this baby is and then meet it in a few months!!! :)

Okay, My fish is going in the oven, so I'm going to go and watch it.  Hopefully I'll update more regularly soon, but I'm happy to say our little family blog is going strong, and I've been posting weekly on our new creative blog, so I'm sure enough of our little family history is being recorded - maybe just not giant posts about how awful morning sickness is, and how great life is afterwards :)  

Have a fabulous Thursday!!! :)  (Don't you love Thursdays?!  They're definitely one of my favourite days - so much hope on a Thursday I think!! :))

xoxox

Gripped with Excitement

I'm bouncing off the walls with excitement.

I don't know if my reasons would justify this state of being for everyone, but they seem to be working for me. Here are some of them:

• Christmas. In 6 weeks and 5 days. YAY!!!!!!! This is more exciting because I am on top of the Christmas shopping, YAY!!! :) And we are going to NSW to spend Christmas with all James' family down there for the first time, so I get to have pre-Christmas with my family up here, yay!! :) (I'm totally going to pretend it's Christmas Day! And then I get 2 of them! :))
• I also get to visit Beth & Robbie in Sydney for a few days at the end of the trip, YAY!! :)
• And we are going to James' mission reunion in Sydney, yay!! (more for him, but, happy husband happy ... life? And wife... It'll be fun for both of us, anyway :))
• Elders Boliver in Japan are doing GREAT :)
• Maggie and Ana are soooooo cool :) I seem to have been out of the house so much lately, yesterday and today at home with these girls have been so wonderful!
  
• James is finishing a big prac, tomorow, his final exam on Thursday, and 1 more assignment next Wednesday. Then he is OURS again!!! He'll go back to work, but he won't have any school homework until FEBRUARY, YAY!!! :) It feels like Ana hasn't bonded with him at this age as much as Maggie was able to cause he's been so busy, so I'm excited for them to be able to spend more time together especially :)
• Ana's new Bumbo arrived this morning, yay! Maggie has been sitting in it all morning. She loves it. It's a little odd that she's still fitting into it easily at almost 2, and Ana will probably get to fat for it before she does!
• Ana is deliciously chubby - she's just so healthy and beautiful! :) And such a sweetheart, we love her. Cooking up a pot of potatoes to mash and freeze for her today, bring on SOLIDS!!!! :)
• Netball tonight - I love playing.
• Mum and Dad getting there with their house to put it on the market! This one's mixed excitement and 'you can't sell our house!!!!' :p
• We get our two absent sisters back early next year!!! - Beth's coming up from Sydney (with Robbie, and her baby belly), and Tammy will be DONE with EFY!!! After 2 years I never thought it would happen! Pray for not floods in January, yeah?! :)
• JACEY was born on Friday, and she's so sweet and beautiful!! - Yay for gorgeous nieces and nephew! Jessima does SUCH a good job :)
• Bethany finds out whether her little soon-to-be firstborn is a boy or a girl in 3 weeks! YAY!!! :) (think female thoughts! :))
• I'm making roast for dinner tonight - that means I won't have to cook for at least one night after tonight. Bless leftovers!!! :)
• Maggie's talking all day long. SHe's so sweet and fun, we LOVE her!!! :)
• I have been playing with my early Christmas present from James :) It's a Franklin/Covey planner. I have big goals and plans for next year to be a super efficient Mum/Housewife/Person, and this is part of my master plan. James has let me have it now cause the earlier I start the better the lead-in to my year of efficiency. I am LOVING it. I am so pumped! And the binder I got? Totally cute :) You'll hear more about this later.
• Next year James and I have tickets to all the Harvest Rain Shows - I won them, YAY!!! :)
• For my birthday, Tammy gave me tickets to go and see Tim McGraw & Faith Hill in concert with her next year, and Jessima is taking me to the Power of Mums retreat that's coming to Australia in March!! WOW!! 2 HUGE presents, and both happening in March! SO exciting to look forward too!!! :)
• For HER birthday, I'm taking Tammy to go and see 'Annie' in April!! By July I'm going to have been to like 7 or 8 shows/concerts!! So many fun outings!!! :)
• In January, Jessima's parents are going away and we're able to go up and house-sit for them if we'd like to. They live in Caloundra - one of my favourite places in the whole world!!! I hope we can sort it around James' work - it's a happy year that includes a good Caloundra visit!! :)
• I was thinking about houseboats the other day. I love them. I want to go on another houseboat holiday with our extended family, if we can find a fabulous big one. I can't wait! :)
• I just sent off 4 birthday cards - 3 belated :S But at least now I'm up to date! Hopefully we can stay this way!
• I just got the pictures from my fabulous surprise party and Tammy's fabulous Halloween party off her camera, yay!
• I have been to some sales recently. I LOVE sales.
• I made a new slow cooker recipe the other day, a chicken and potato curry. It was aMAZing, and gave us days of leftovers!! The best bit? I don't like curry at all!!! I just made it cause James likes it and I've never made it before... But I loved this one!!
• It's our Anniversary in 2 weeks and 1 day. I LOVE James! :) And we've nearly been married 4 years! SUCH old timers :) Every other year we've gone away for our Anniversary, but this year we managed to go to Aunty Leah's fabulous wedding in Adelaide instead. Maybe we'll go out to dinner or something. When the tax return came in I bought a few cheap nice meals at restaurants with Spreets, so maybe we'll use one of those :)
• Today I checked the mail, and we got the Bumbo, some little nappy covers I ordered for Ana a week or two ago, an engagement party invite, and a camera cord (I lost mum's :S But found a replacement well priced online thank goodness). End of mail. NO BILLS!!!! :) And nothing awful or unexpected. Lately I'm kind of nervous to check the mail, so that was exciting.
• James helped me run a weekly grocery shop last night. I don't have to run out to the shops anymore this week, yay!
• Maggie and I got up early this morning (definitely her idea!) and made pancakes for James! Yay :)
• Yesterday morning I woke up at 4:30am and realised Ana hadn't fed! So in my haste to make sure she was alive I woke her up and fed her. This morning I didn't feed her till Maggie and I got up just before 6. Awesome :)
• I borrowed some of Mum and Dad's CD's and talk tapes. I LOVE listening to them around the house.
• I am getting a tiny bit more up to date with my housework now that I'm home and focused on being efficient :) BIG yay!! :)
• I am not humongously pregnant!! I don't know how long it will take me to stop being excited about that one..
• Maggie's cold is finally clearing up, and none of the rest of us caught it, YAY!!! :)
• Mums & Bubs Christmas BBQ here Saturday - we have been so much less regular this year with all being pregnant and sick and having second babies, so it's nice to get together, and with our husbands too! Last week at Amy's house the toddlers were playing on Elijah's awesome new outdoor equipment. These ex-bubs are so big and wonderful! And we sat on the back veranda with the second babies :) It was nice. These girls have been such a wonderful and unexpected support base and friendship group since we started meeting. I'm so grateful for them! And Maggie loves them too :)
• I've been completely useless helping my parents with getting their house ready to sell (this isn't one of the things that's exciting.). We go over and I seem to make more mess with the girls than I'm cleaning up, and spend all my time worrying about them making mess and feeding them, etc. But I married James, who has been a MUCH bigger help. I'm so glad I married someone so willing to help and hard working!!! :) And who can' TOTALLY lift a fridge by himself (only single door though, right, Tammy?) lol.
• I am teaching a lesson at church on Sunday. I'm teaching Relief Society. I've never taught adults in my life, so it's kind of scary. But it's EXCITING because I have not taught for a loooong time outside the girls, and being a teacher, I've kind of been craving it. So it'll be fun to prepare a lesson. There'll be visual aids. - I don't think I'll ever let go of some of those primary school teaching bits inside of me.
• I have a treadmill. I know, I've had it for a long time, but I love it. I love using it. I love the results. I love my treadmill!
• Maggie's currently putting Elmo in the Bumbo. I keep walking in on her sitting at her little 4 seater table and chairs talking to the bears who she's placed on the 3 other chairs. I LOVE that she's becoming creative and imaginative and having so much fun playing alone as well as with other children.
• Speaking of which, Maggie and Jordan are AWESOME friends. They LOVE getting together. I don't know about Jordan, but for Maggie, I never see her play the way she plays with him, with anyone else. They just seem to 'work'. Like they read each other's little minds and know exactly what they're both going to do, and then they're off! They run around screaming, jump on and over things, into things, under things, with things, they run into each other, and they giggle the whole time. I love it :)

See wouldn't you TOTALLY be excited too?! So many reasons... :)

I'm off to clean up the traces of pancake evidence, put the roast on, and bounce off the walls a little more. Maggie'll probably participate. She loves to get excited just for the sake of it too. We'll probably have a dancing marathon while we work - we're good like that :)

Just turned around to see she's already started on the folding. What a helpful soul :)

xo

Up and Back Again!!! And a new Personal Best :)

I did it! I gave birth, again. Last time I gave birth I wrote about how I felt like I'd conquered Mt. Everest, because childbirth has terrified me my whole life - sooo not keen on pain! :P Now I feel like I've done it twice. It's the most incredible thing to go through, but the view from the top totally rocks!! (as in, the baby you give birth to..).

I really dislike reading other people's 'birth stories' because they are not pleasant and they freak me out and are often way too detailed. Maybe I won't mind after I've given birth for the last time, but while I know I've got several ahead of me, they're like horror stories that could quite possibly happen to me, so I'd rather not entertain thinking about them. If you're anything like me in this regard, stop reading now! (Although this was a pretty awesome labour...) I'm probably not going to read back on this too often, but I found with Maggie that when I wrote out my labour experience in my journal, it was like therapy, and then I didn't have to think about it anymore, but typing's faster, and I'm going to write about what happened, here.

***TO SKIP THE BIRTH PART AND JUST GET TO THE BABY BIT, STOP READING NOW, AND FIND ANOTHER BIT LIKE THIS FURTHER DOWN!!***

So at 32 weeks I was sent to get a growth scan because the doctor wasn't sure the baby was as big as she 'should be'. When I got the scan, they said she was in the 3rd percentile for size, and was about 2 weeks behind in growth. At 20 weeks she had been kind of average, so they decided to do weekly scans and make sure baby was still growing. By 36 weeks (going to the hospital twice a week for scans and appointments) she had reached the 19th percentile in size, so they stopped scanning me, although I still had weekly doctors appointments at the hospital. They decided to do a final scan just before my due date, because if she was still small they didn't want me to go too far past my due date without being induced.

I was due on Monday 9th May, and on Friday 6th I went in for my scan. James had been to I think every appointment until that one, but he had a prac lead-in day, so he didn't make it. In the scan I noticed that baby was measuring about 35 weeks, and then when I saw the doctor and he graphed her growth, he looked alarmed, and said she'd barely grown since the previous scans, and that he wanted to induce me as soon as possible. He went to check with 'the bosses' when they could book me in, and I sat there freaking out and thinking how much I wished James had come with me!! When the doctor came back he booked me to come in on the Sunday night, to be induced then/Monday morning. He told me all about being induced and then sent me on my freaking out little way.

It was kind of good in one sense being booked in, because James was starting his big teaching prac on Monday 9th, my due date, so at least he could tell the school for sure which days he needed off, instead of being on call for the first part of his prac, which may have been distracting.

I spend the weekend freaking out, then on Sunday night James gave me a blessing, we dropped our precious Maggie girl at Mum and Dad's for her first ever sleepover (she loved it of course!), and headed up to the hospital.

They began inducing me Sunday night with the gel, which some women go into labour from, but I didn't (I couldn't stop shaking all night I was so scared - my labour with Maggie was a little tiny bit awful and long, and just sitting there waiting for it to 'kick in' was terrifying for me!). Just after 6am they took me into the birthing suite, and broke my waters. By 7:30am I was starting to have some real contractions, and at 7:50 they started me on 'Synto' which is a hormone I think, which makes your body really go into labour. At least it did with me! The midwife started me on a dose of 3ml/hr, then went up to 6ml/hr at 8:20, then turned it off completely at 9:05 because my contractions were going insane. He said though, that he had a lady at 72ml/hr the other day, so those were pretty low doses. Apparently each labour, you need less, because your body makes more, so if I ever get induced again, I'll ask for none!! :)

Anyway, I don't know what time, and I can't remember whether or not I already had the Synto in me, we were sitting there having a nice old chat with the midwife. I had just found out I was 4cm dilated and was ecstatic, because with Maggie it took me 2 days of waaaaaay worse contractions than I was having to get me to 4cm, and I was totally handling it, thinking 'Heck! I won't need any drugs if this keeps up!'.

[Side story: We actually noticed the midwife's surname was Allred, and he had a pretty religious first name too, and he was from America (everyone from America seems like a church member... plus he was clean cut and wearing a wedding ring lol), so we asked him if he was any relation to Sylvia Allred. He leaned back and said 'Noooooo.. but I enjoyed her last talk at General Conference' lol. So we asked what ward he was in, and he's in the next Stake over, and we told him our ward and he mentioned he was the Stake Executive Secretary in his stake, so he had wondered how we were members whose names he didn't know cause he knows most of the names in his Stake, and then James said 'Hey Abby's uncle is Stake President of that stake' and I clicked, and it turns out he works with my uncle a lot, and he said he actually met Dad the other day, and I had a moment of 'Oh no, I could see this guy again one day and I have to give birth in front of him! And it's a him!' but don't worry - by the time I was giving birth I was dying so much I didn't care, plus he was an awesome midwife, so it was great, and just nice to know he knew where we were coming from a bit. And he was totally not weird. Plus he was like a buddy for James - they enjoyed laughing at me together when I got really high on the gas..]

ANYWAY, so there we are having our chat, and he was asking about my previous labour, and he asked at what stage of the labour I had the drugs (I had a lot of everything), and I told him how long I'd been in labour and yadiyada. The contractions were getting worse quickly, and then I went to the bathroom, and I had 4 death to the world contractions, and came out begging for the epidural.

At this point I kind of felt like I'd failed, because I needed it already - it had come on soooo fast!! But the midwife was like 'I'll send for it right away, it's okay Abby we're all about helping you with the pain here!' but I kept apologising but begging for it too lol. They put me on the gas right away while I was waiting. I didn't like the gas at all when I was in labour with Maggie, but the epidural this time seemed to be taking ages, and my contractions were going nuts and I was sitting on the edge of the bed ready for when the epidural came, and I heard Israel say 'Take a deep breath now, Abby... and another... and another', and it was like a little thing I could concentrate on, so I suddenly got super high, and clung to the gas like crazy. Apparently I was saying a lot of pretty crazy things to everyone in the room. The midwife said 'Do you know what planet you're on, Abby?' and I remember thinking 'Is he stupid?' So I told him I was on Earth, duh.

A doctor came to tell me risks or whatever and I told him in no uncertain terms that I wanted it, no matter what, now. Then finally (after lots of desperate begging on my part, - they had to call him twice) the anaesthetist came but it seemed to be taking forever for him to get ready. My room was being renovated, and a couple of things he needed were missing and they had to send down to the pharmacy for something, and then it seemed to take forever for him to put it in! So I was sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to hold still, while I was going through awful contractions, and I kept thinking surely it would be the last contraction I'd feel! The epidural with Maggie seemed to take 2 seconds - it was all done between 2 contractions I think, so this was agony!! I was dying. And James said I was very blunt, and kept calling out 'Epi Man! What's the problem?!! Why can I still feel everything! I can still feel everything, please hurry up Epi Man, please hurry up, hurry up!!' Which probably didn't help the poor guy!! :S When he first arrived I told him I loved him though. I also, in my very high state, told one of the midwifes who came while my midwife was on a break and was telling me to 'breathe' to 'Shush!!', I told the other two that I liked them a lot. I told them I loved Maggie and the baby, but 'James the most!', and apparently I got very protective of the gas and wouldn't let anyone touch it even though I kept declaring I hated it and couldn't imagine why people got high because I felt awful and like I was going to be sick. Apparently I also made James hold my feet, and then kept kicking him in the face during contractions and a bunch of other weird stuff.

Anyway, when the guy finally got the epidural in my back (second time lucky apparently - he put it in once and it wasn't right so he did it again, eek! And I was having crazy contractions so I was moving a tiny bit, as hard as I was trying not to, I feel so blessed I had no bad effects!!), they all helped me turn so they could hook it up to the machine, and then the head midwife lady (who James thinks our midwife called because he was worried I was going to get paralysed by the epidural guy) said to our midwife 'She's pushing!!' and then they ran around and threw a couple of things to each other and the head was out, and then they said to push, and I could hear James saying the head was out, and I said 'Are you sure?! Am I dilated?' and they said 'Yes, push!' and then the whole baby was suddenly out!!!! (I gotta say, 3 and a half hours, even without the epidural, TOTALLY rocks compared to 3 days with all the drugs!! Posterior babies are awful to give birth to, I'm going to be a crazy sit forward person every pregnancy from now on)

And then they put her on my chest and I burst into tears and for the next 5 minutes I kept saying "Oh I love her so much! Where's the epidural?! She's so beautiful, but I can still feel everything! Where's the epidural!!" and I think it took a few minutes for the gas to get out of my system and for me to get over the fact that the epidural never got hooked up, and to realise that my wonderful, perfect, beautiful daughter was really there, all born, finished!!! Also, the horrible pain was gone, because I was no longer in labour lol.

***YOU CAN START READING NOW, I'VE HAD THE BABY...***

She was born at 10:52am, and we named her Anamaria Sophia. We named her Anamaria because James wanted a Maori name, and I don't know the language or anything, but most of the names were difficult to pronounce, and I didn't want her to have to repeat it for everyone a million times her whole life, I wanted people to be able to say it. Anyway, the name is used by Maoris, and it's the exotic pronounciation, although already most people call her Anna instead of Ana, which I guess she'll get her whole life after all :P And Sophia is James' Mum's name. Everyone thinks we're into Spanish names lol! :) But there it is.

Ana was 6 pounds 13 (only half an ounce less than Maggie - so not underweight!) and healthy and strong. I remember James crying out to me "She's crying right away! Abby, she's crying!!" which is exciting because Maggie had to be resuscitated, so it was awesome that she was all good :) Her head circumference was 34cm, and she was 49cm long (2 and a half shorter than Maggie). Although Ana's not as startlingly like James, she looks a lot like Maggie, so we think people will definitely be able to tell that they're sisters, lucky because I think they're both beautiful :)

I don't usually put photos on this blog (I can invite you to my private blog for further viewing if you let me know!! I will soon be flooding it with Ana pictures :)), but here's our new little family:

We were so fortunate in our midwife! At the end he even pulled a few strings to let us stay in the birth suite for an extra hour so Mum could bring Maggie up to meet her little sister, because visiting hours in the wards were over. Maggie was wonderful, and she adored Ana from the start. She's uber over-protective, and the first one to make a move if Ana starts crying! The only problem is that Ana needs to be subtlety rescued from being completely smothered quite often, because Maggie just wants to lie with/on her and cuddle and kiss her.

I can't even tell you how happy we are to have little Ana join our family - we really, really love her :) How awesome is having a family?!! :)

I'm worried this entry is jumbled and I may come back and edit it later but I just wanted to finally get it up. We are so happy and we love our little baby girls so much!! :)