Chickity China The Chinese Chicken

As of tomorrow it will be a week since Ailbe has been born. Of course time has flown by and it seems like she has always been here. So far our daily life really hasn't changed much except that Grandma was here for a week. It's mostly felt like a long weekend to me. Since I am still recovering from the c-section I have alot of the same limitations I did when I was pregnant and on bedrest, so it probably hasn't been that different for Rooney either.

Ailbe has been a great baby! I hate to even say anything in fear I might jinx it. Since she was born she was a champ eater and seemingly a good sleeper. As I've told everyone I was really worried at first. When she was born she came out crying. She didn't have the low cry that Rooney had either. It was full lunged. I kind of thought "Crap, we're in for it". However after she ate that day she became a little dreamboat and hasn't stopped since.

Ailbe has basically been sleeping through the night. It was hard to gauge in the hospital because they want you to wake the baby every few hours plus the nurses are in your room every couple of hours so they wake the baby. When we got home my mom took Ailbe for the first night. I think she was awake, not crying, for a couple of hours and ate a ton. Once she was finally full my mom reported that she slept pretty good. I think she slept 3-4hrs straight that first night. Sadly, by the second day my mom started feeling a cold coming on so we thought it was best to have Ailb's sleep upstairs with us. She only woke up once that night. I think she slept 4-4 1/2hrs straight that night. The next night and last night the same thing only waking up once but the stretches have been longer each night. We are ever so grateful thus far.

Unfortunately we were up 3-4 times with Rooney last night because he had an upset stomach and started throwing up. Several jammie and bedding changes later he finally got settled down and we all slept until 9am this morning. He's been such a good kid through all of this. Grandma said he was just wonderful for her when we were in the hospital and he has just loved his little sister since the day she was born. He gets so excited to help me change her diaper or feed her. He always likes to know where she is and will often rub his cheek on her head. Rooney really seems to love being a big brother and I haven't seen any jealousy yet, except from Courage and Rocco. No, they've been good boys too but maybe we should have taken them to Build a Bear also.

And Baby Makes Four!

Today was kind of a big day. After a restless night's sleep, Susan and I came to the hospital to welcome Ailbe to the world. Everything has gone very well; Ailbe was born at 8:07 this morning, tipping the scales at a svelte 6 lbs, 15 oz (the parents and doctor were shocked; we thought she would be bigger) and 19.75 inches.

So far, she's done a lot of sleeping, something that she has in common with her big brother. The poor guy has been fighting sickness the past 5 days or so, and fell asleep right before Grandma Peggie was going to take him to the hospital to visit Ailbe. He eventually woke up, and although he still said he was sick, managed to cowboy up enough to come in for a visit.

Rooney absolutely loves his sister. He likes holding her and looking at her. She may be in the top 3 favorite things to watch in the whole wide world, but unfortunately she still seems to be running well behind the old boob tube.

Susan is doing pretty well. Because of her itchiness the last time around, she didn't get any additional pain meds during her spinal block. Post surgery, the nurses had some problems getting her fentanyl drip started. They pushed some morphine into her IV to try to get her ahead of the pain. Eventually, she got to be relatively pain free; but then she had to compound everything by turning on "Little People, Big World." When will she learn?

Ailbe has been a very good sleeper, and a decent little eater. She's been a little bit rude to her guests (show a little couth, girl: you can't fall asleep while company is visiting you), but I think they seemed to be pretty forgiving. We were initially worried because she came out very loud and squally, but she's been pretty calm since then. Perhaps she'll let Mom and Dad catch up on some sleep tonight? More photos available on Flickr.

Nesting

Less than 2 days to go and Ailbe will be here. Now that's we're so close it's so weird to think we'll have another kid in the house. It's just been Rooney for so long. I'm pretty ready to have her out though. Late tonight my mom comes in to help us out. We were hoping for some good sleep before the baby arrives but between late arrivals and Rooney coming down with Croup a couple days ago we don't think that's going to happen. Mike ended up keeping himself up this morning worrying about it. Poor guy missed out on several hours of sleep and of course Rooney was showing us no mercy by getting up at his usual time. Here's hoping tomorrow morning goes better.

The last couple of days I have been trying to get everything in order. I created a list of activities for my mom to take Rooney to plus his usually scheduled ones. We got all the laundry done, bassinet set up and the house has been cleaned. We're still working on the guest room (aka our office) but I think it should be ready by the time my mom comes in tonight. Maybe it's a good thing she is coming in late. Tomorrow my family will come over to celebrate my birthday. It will be the first time in 14 years that I've had any type of birthday celebration with my mom. It's a little stressful (and late) to be doing this being as it's the night before the c-section (we have to get up around 4:30am) but it might be nice to have a distraction.

I really should get that bag packed!

The Final Countdown

For the last few weeks we have hurriedly been trying to wrap up alot of house stuff before Ailbe's arrival. With little time to spare we finally got the nursery 100% finished, painted the living room and dining room (thanks Jim and Liz), sold Rooney's old clothes, bought Ailbe some clothes (and bought, and bought and bought). We've made several trips to Ikea for odds and ends, got Rooney all enrolled in his activities, Courage got his crisis out of the way (the stitches were taken out this weekend), the house cleaners are scheduled to be here this weekend, after tomorrow 2 birthdays will be done for the month and the dogs even got a bath today. What could be left? ALOT!

With everything going on we wanted to take the time before Ailbe comes to spend a little special time with Rooney and have him do something fun for him and Ailbe. Yesterday we took Rooney down to Build A Bear to make a little gift from him to Ailbe and then make a special bud for himself. Rooney picked out the animals and we recorded messages for each one. Rooney even got to name the new buds. Rooney chose a little dog for Ailbe in which he named Huggles. He also recorded a little message that goes inside Huggles that says "I love you Ailbe". For himself he picked out a Teddy Bear with Peace signs all over it. I was a little surprised by his selection because I thought for sure he would pick a dog for himself but he was immediately drawn to the blue bear and was very satisfied with his selection. When Mike and he were trying to figure out what to name him, they were reading through a name suggestion book. The name Elvis came up and Rooney really liked it so the name was chosen. However, it was also easily forgotten because Rooney is still asking me "What's his name again?". Strangely something I found out the day before on Wikipedia- Elvis is the anglicized version of Ailbe. Ooooooo eerie. There will be more on the myth, mystery and folklore of Ailbe in the next post.

Despite all the house getting ready stuff we've been doing I've also been trying to get Rooney out as much as possible to see his friends since we were cooped up for so long. Last week we had the most gorgeous weather and took our annual trip to the pumpkin patch for pictures and pumpkin fun.

Unfortunately mom wasn't nearly as much fun this year and didn't feel she could wander for hours in the corn maze or take a very bumpy hay ride. Thankfully April was there to give wagon rides. The kids had a great time playing in the pumpkins, rolling them around and Rooney even had us recreate a picture we took a year or so before. This kid has a real steel trap memory.

I'm 38 weeks pregnant now, so c-section or not, Ailbe will be here very soon. This time around I feel physically much better than I did at this point with Rooney. I'm ready to be done being pregnant but not with the same desire that I had 4 years ago. It felt like we waited so long for Rooney to finally make his appearance but this time we're scrambling. Like I said she's coming soon regardless so I might need to add "pack bag" to my list.

Summer At The Lake

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Originally uploaded by Q

As promised I was going update what's been going on over the last couple of weeks in separate posts. If I tried to create one post it would be too long and I know some of you stop reading after the first paragraph.

This summer marked the 3rd Annual Summer Visit by Rooney's Grandma and Grandpa Wade. Over the last 3 years they have rented a lake house not far from Aunt Annie's house. The house has a beautiful yard and lake front property, however, due to the off season renting of the house it has rarely been really warm enough to enjoy the lake. That is...until we had our September heat wave this year. Thankfully this has coincided with Rooney's first real ability to utilize the lake with his new swimming skills. Both of these events really provided for some great memories for the Roonster.

To enjoy all the great photos of our time at the lake and to see Mike wearing a neon green inner tube check out the Flickr Photo Set: Lake Morton.

Mile Marker 25

Seems I might have left the blog and you guys hanging after the last post. We've been busy little beavers over here trying to get it together before Ailbe's arrival. We're losing the battle so far but we've been getting some help so there is still hope.

Since so much has happened I will post several posts to cover all the bases. First let's talk about the ECHO appointment. We saw a Pediatric Cardiologist on Sept.14th and after nearly an hour long scan the cardiologist said Ailbe's heart looked great and he also feels that the "mass" that is appearing on ultrasound is just the thymus gland. Whew! The hospital will still do an ultrasound on her chest when she is born but I think everyone feels pretty confident that there isn't anything to worry about. Thankfully I am still scheduled to deliver at Valley since everything looks good.

The picture above is of me today at 36 weeks (soon to be 37). As of Wednesday I have been cleared by the specialists at Maternal-Fetal Medicine and told I could do jumping jacks now if I wanted. Also, I have now been taken off all the meds (other than vitamins) that they had me on. Since I did not go into premature labor, since I did not end up needing the cerclage and since I was thankfully not labeled as having an incompetent cervix (there are probably so many jokes in there), if I were to get pregnant again, my pregnancy could be totally different and may or may not involve bedrest, talk of premature labor and they would not immediately want to do a cerclage. So that's good news. Also after my last OB appointment I found out the baby was engaged at +2. What does that mean? I wasn't really sure so I had to look it up. It means she is in the head down position, in my pelvis and pretty low. That would explain why I have some of the weird pains I have every once in awhile. I believe I read that when the baby is ready to be born they are at +4. The OB didn't seem concerned about early labor though so the plan is still set. She did say if I did not already have a scheduled c-section she thinks I would do fine with a VBAC. I let her know that I'll keep my c-section date and was in no way interested in a VBAC. She said she'd probably feel the same way. It's nice to be on the same page as your OB. She also assured me she would not look at me like a drug addict if I asked to be sent home with Percocet and Vicodin (which is what I had after Rooney). Another whew!

Everyone says to me this must feel like the longest pregnancy ever but it really hasn't. It has actually gone really fast. So much has been going on this last 9 months that even though I was on bedrest for 3 of those I was busy. Plus having a 3 year old I could hardly fixate on what was going on in my belly. This could be the reason that will only a couple weeks left we are running around like a couple of chickens with our heads cut off.

Hopefully Dana doesn't read that last line.