Baby Nathan's Story

Our little guy arrived on June 21 at 12:28am. He weighed 6 pounds 6 ounces and is 19 ½ inches long. So this is Nathan’s birth story from my perspective. If Quinn has a minute at some point I’ll see if I can get him to write up the story from his perspective. If you don't find birth as amazing and fascinating as me you might find this kind of long and boring, so please feel free to skim, skip, or not read it at all! But I wanted to post this because I know at least a good handful of you will be interested in the small details. For my fellow hypnobirthers or other natural birthers, I just have to say I'm now a little sheepish that I was freaking out at the end instead of remaining calm and serene. Oh well.

I need to start by saying that with Caitlyn, I had a condition called cholestasis that can lead to stillbirth, so they always induce you early if you have cholestasis. Our awesome doctor, Dr. Holmes, knew I was hoping to have a natural, unmedicated birth with no interventions that weren’t necessary. So rather than giving me pitocin to induce labor, he broke my water at 37 ½ weeks and I immediately went into active labor. So I was at the hospital right from the beginning and didn’t experience the part where you labor at home and have to decide when you’re far enough advanced that they’ll admit you at the hospital. With Nathan’s pregnancy cholestasis never came up, so I was excited to have the whole experience and find out how this baby would decide to come on his own without being induced.

We moved to San Diego when I was 35 weeks pregnant, and I went to great lengths to get in with the UCSD Midwives even though they normally only accept transfer patients up to 34 weeks. They deliver in a Birth Center right in the UCSD hospital so you can give birth with midwives in a home-like atmosphere and yet have everything you need two floors down in Labor and Delivery in case of any complications, which Quinn especially liked.

I had been having gentle contractions for weeks, which was great. My parents came down on Friday the 17th and will be able to stay until July 2nd. So I was hoping Nathan would decide to arrive after they got here and could be right at our apartment with Caitlyn when I went to the hospital, but soon after they got here so I could actually have their help for a good two weeks after the baby came. Happily, on Saturday the contractions started to get more regular and feel stronger. But after going to bed and waking up Sunday morning they had died off. All day on Sunday and all through that night and the next morning the contractions were on and off – strong and regular for hours, and then would stall out.

I had an appointment with the midwife Monday morning and she said my cervix was already dilated to a 3 or 4 and 80% effaced. After my appointment the contractions resumed every 10 minutes. Now they were getting really strong and taking more focus to relax through. We went shopping at the Asian grocery store and had lunch, and I tried to chase Caitlyn around and be as active as possible to encourage labor to progress. When we got home I really needed a nap, having not slept a whole lot the night before. When I woke up the contractions had slowed down yet again. Darn. So my mom and dad and I took Caitlyn on a walk around our condo community and the contractions started to be 7 to 8 minutes apart. I just leaned on my dad’s shoulder to relax through each contraction.

By Monday evening the contractions were 5-6 minutes apart. Looking back, I think “Duh!! At this point you really should have called the midwife!” But the contractions had stalled out so many times that I kept thinking, “I better wait and make sure it’s for real. I’d hate to make Quinn drive me the half hour to the hospital only to be sent back home.” Even more significantly to me, my water hadn’t broken, and since that was the first thing to happen in labor with Caitlyn I kept thinking I needed to wait for that to happen before I knew for sure I was in true active labor. So instead of calling the midwife…I went on another walk with my mom at 8:30 while Quinn gave Caitlyn a bath. When we came back I laid down with Caitlyn for a while as I was putting her to bed. When I did, the contractions slowed down again to 7 to 12 minutes. Disappointed, I decided not to get my hopes up and just plan on not getting to see my baby for at least another day.

Now, I’ve been describing the contractions as “strong” and saying I just relaxed through them, so it sounds like no big deal. But actually it does take a lot of focus to stay relaxed so they’re not extremely painful. So after a whole day of employing my utmost mental and physical discipline to relax through continuous contractions, I was a little tired. And now, with the contractions having slowed down again, I was pretty discouraged to think that all that may not even have been true active labor. Sensing my discouragement, my blessed mother pulled out her peppermint foot massage stuff (inspired!) and tub of warm water, sat me down, and gave me a foot massage. Um, HEAVEN!!!

Now that I was just sitting in heaven and totally relaxing, I realized that the contractions were 3-5 minutes apart and that I could actually feel my cervix opening with the contractions, much like what I felt at the very end of labor with Caitlyn. “I think I better call the midwife!” I said as I got up and started to get dressed and get my carefully pre-packed hospital bag. When the midwife got on the phone I had a contraction and asked her to wait just a minute. We talked for a minute and she asked if my water had broken. I told her no, but that I really felt like I should come in. She said I should trust my instinct. Before we hung up I had another really strong contraction and I had to ask her to wait a minute again. When I hung up the phone, it said our conversation had lasted 4 and ½ minutes…and I had had two really strong contractions within that time! Now alarmed, I told Quinn we’d better go right now! It was now midnight.

I had to stop about every 30 seconds for contractions on the way out the door. In the parking lot on the way out to the car I had to kneel down on the pavement on my hands and knees for a contraction and was shocked to suddenly feel the urge to push! Quinn was still behind me coming with all the stuff and I yelled, “Quinn, PLEASE RUN!!!” We got in the car and I told him, “Ok, please go the speed limit because we do not have time to get pulled over, but please get us there as fast as you can!” As we drove I increasingly felt the urge to push. I told Quinn he better call the midwife and tell her to have someone waiting at the Emergency Entrance. I didn’t really know it at the time because my mind was on other things, but while he was on the phone with her we missed the exit for the freeway we needed to connect to. Oh. Dang. I was now sort of singing/groaning, trying to let the urge to push come up out of my mouth so I wouldn’t push. But if you’ve ever given birth without an epidural, and unless you’re one of the few who don’t feel a strong urge to push during birth, you know that you can’t not push when you have that Natural Expulsive Reflex (NER) as they call it. You cannot stop your body from pushing. I was doing my best not to push, so he was definitely descending more slowly than if I had been intentionally pushing, but I could feel him descending and I was starting to feel a growing sense of panic. What if he was born in the car??? I wouldn’t know what to do! What if we accidentally hurt him somehow in the process? With my next contraction my water broke…finally! So it turned out that was definitely not the best gauge for whether my body was in active labor. “My water just broke, just so you know.” I said to Quinn. He didn’t say much, but I heard the car rev as he pushed the pedal to the floor.

After what seemed like forever we finally got to the exit for the hospital. But in our state of panic, we turned on the wrong street and for about 30 seconds had no idea where we were. At this point, I felt Nathan’s head emerging. My panic increased and my singing/groaning turned into yelling/screaming—not out of pain, just sheer panic. Suddenly “It’s 1st Street, not 4th Street” flashed through my head, I yelled it to Quinn, and he sped to 1st Street and around the bend to the ER door. A man came walking toward us with a wheelchair, but I said (screamed) “His head is out! I can’t sit down in that!” He told Quinn to pull around to the ambulance entrance and I could see a team of people waiting at a door with a gurney. I was so afraid of hurting the baby that it took us a minute to get me out of the car, and it wasn’t until I felt a sudden flood of calm that I simply let go of both the men trying to help me out and propelled myself out of the car onto the gurney.

As they wheeled me in the door I shut my eyes tight so I could just focus on feeling my baby and what was happening with him. About 30 seconds after they’d got me into the emergency room I eased Nathan the rest of the way out and heard him start to cry. I can’t even describe the relief I felt to hear him cry. “Is he alright? Is he ok?” I asked, (or yelled, rather, because I was still kind of in a state of panic). I opened my eyes and was surprised to find about 12 people standing around me. A nurse later told me that it’s rare to get to see the birth of a baby in the ER, so when it happens just about everybody in the whole ER excitedly gathers in to see. And that nurse was right – as soon as Nathan emerged it was like a party! Everyone was congratulating and smiling, remarking on his size, asking if this was our first, etc. In addition to the ER people, an obstetrician and a pediatrician had been summoned. I was still sort of hyperventilating, but so happy to have my beautiful, warm little baby lying on my tummy.

What an adventure! Nothing like I had so carefully planned and prepared for -- a peaceful delivery in the Birth Center. But all's well that ends well, right? :)

I think he looks a bit like Quinn’s newborn pictures. Anyone else agree?

Quinn

Nathan (I know it's kind of hard to see, you can click on the pic to enlarge)

Coast to Coast

It's been over a month since I even looked at this blog because since the last blog post we have taken finals and graduated from the Tax LLM (ok, just Quinn did that--YAY QUINN!!!), packed up our apartment in Virginia (I did that while Quinn did the first thing), driven across this entire country with Quinn in the moving truck and Cait and I in the car, been incredibly good little travelers (that was Cait), lived in a motel for a week and a half while we looked for an apartment, found an apartment, unpacked all our things into our new place, and started our first for-real job (Quinn again), all the while getting set up with new midwives since I'm 37 1/2 weeks pregnant now. Whew!

Here are some thoughts about all this:
First, there is nothing, nothing, nothing like family and good friends. Our friends in Virginia helped us so much on that end as we were getting ready to leave. We will miss them so much. I have a goal to be that kind of friend here in our new location. Once here, my family and Quinn's went way out of their way to help us get settled. I really don't know what we would have done without them.

Second...um, San Diego is paradise. I LOVE IT HERE!!!

Third, the Lord gives you strength to do what you need to do. Packing up and cleaning an apartment, sitting in a car driving for days on end, living in a motel with a 22 month old, uprooting from your prenatal care on one end of the country and getting all set up with prenatal care on the other side, and moving into a new apartment all in your last few weeks before giving birth? Not the easiest thing we've ever done. And yet somehow it all worked out and we're all still alive and happy!

Fourth, the Lord loves to grant the desires of our hearts in even the smallest ways to bring us joy. While we were still in school it was so scary to be graduating in this economy and not have any idea if and when we would find a job. We often joked that if we couldn't find a job maybe we'd move to San Diego and live in a tent on the beach--might as well be in paradise if you're going to be homeless, right? And then of all the places we could have found a job, here we are in San Diego. Then in our housing search we looked and looked and looked and looked and looked for a place we felt good about. We discussed the things that were most important to us in a home. Long story short, we found a condo within our price range that is everything we were looking for, and it's in a beautiful, peaceful, quiet little community outside of the city with a landlord who just bought this condo and is 300% excited about making sure it's in great condition for his tenants. I could turn this post into a novel writing all the little ways I feel like the Lord has shown us that He knows us and loves us, but I'll stop there. This is not to say we haven't had our share of tests and trials and mixed in with all this, or that EVERYTHING always works out just the way you want it to when you want it to, but that's just part of what this life is about. I'm so thankful that while we're learning and growing through tests and trials, the Lord finds big and small ways to bring us joy.

So San Diego, here we are! And now that I'm starting to feel a little more prepared for baby boy to join us, maybe the next post will be a birth announcement! :)


Cait in her favorite spot in our Virginia apartment -- "helping" Daddy study.


Cait modeling her self-constructed outfit at the motel where we stayed.


Cait and Pooh getting some fresh air and passing some time outside our motel room.


Cait writing in Daddy's journal on Sunday morning in our new apartment.

Ode to Triple A

Quinn and I are always super careful about making sure we have our keys in hand before shutting and locking the door to our house or car. I seriously check like three times before I shut the door just because getting locked out of the house or the car with Caitlyn--or worse, locking Caitlyn inside the car--would be a total disaster. However...last Saturday I ran to the store with Caitlyn to get a few last ingredients for a BBQ and Easter egg hunt with some friends. When we drove up to our apartment I threw the keys in the diaper bag and then decided it would be easier to get Caitlyn out (we have a 2-door car, so between that and a growing belly, that in and itself can be quite a task) and then go around to the passenger side to get the diaper bag and groceries out rather than reaching all the way across to pull them out while also holding Caitlyn. So I got Caitlyn out and walked around with her to the passenger side...which, I discovered was locked. No problem, I'll just go back around to the driver's side and unlock it. Except the driver's side is locked too. Oh. Crap.
It was a really hot day, so my first thought was how incredibly grateful I was that I had gotten Caitlyn out of the car before shutting the door. Legend has it that our retired-cop next door neighbor is a pro at getting into locked doors. So I ran down to his apartment and explained what had happened. He grabbed some tools and came up with us to the car, took one look at it and said, "I can open just about any house door, but I'm afraid I'm going to do some damage to your car if I try this." Since we just spent $500 getting the electronic car window fixed, that didn't appeal to me so much. Visions of flushing $90 away on a locksmith while the sirloin, bacon, asparagus, and Faje yogurt rotted in the hot car began to float through my head. "Do you happen to have any recommendations for a locksmith in the area?" I asked our neighbor sadly. "Hmmmm....do you belong to Triple A?" He asked. Ding!! Why yes! Yes, we do! We joined just before driving across the country to Virginia last summer and have never had to use it for anything car-related, so it didn't even cross my mind! Bless our neighbor for being inspired to remind me!
So we called them up and a guy came about 10 minutes later, unlocked the car (for free!), and drove away about 20 seconds later. Yippeeeeeeeee!!!! Dear Triple A, I love you!
And I am still so, so thankful Caitlyn wasn't in the car when I locked it. The End.

Things to Do, Part III

It takes me forever to get around to doing posts that require me to get videos off Quinn's phone. But the other night when I finally found a minute to do it, it only took me about 3 minutes. I'll try and remember how easy it is so next time it doesn't take me a month to do a post with videos that are 3 months old...
Anyway, when I went to the Hypnobirthing Certification one of the women there mentioned a book they use at her preschool called "I Love You Rituals" and couldn't say enough about how much it helped with the children's behavior.

When I heard another woman talking about the book about a week later I decided to get it. I LOVE it. The author, a Ph.D in Early Childhood Education and Developmental Psychology, has changed the words of nursery rhymes from negative or scary to positive and nurturing. She also has interactive actions you do with the child(ren) while saying the words. Her theory is that these rhymes as well as the other interactive finger plays and games in her book prime a child's brain for learning, enhance attention, cooperation, and self-esteem, help children cope with change, help busy families stay close, and affirm the parent-child bond that insulates children from violence, peer pressure, drugs, etc. (That's what it says on the back of the book.) I loved reading the first part of the book, which expounds on her theories and the effectiveness of the "I Love You" rituals. Her perspective on discipline and power struggles, meeting a child's emotional needs etc. really rang true to me.
Caitlyn loves doing these with us, too. I often do them with her when she's cranky and it really is amazing the effect they have. The author says that these moments of unconditional love invite cooperation into your home, and I usually find that to be true!
Here is a video of just a couple of the rhymes. We did other videos but accidentally made them too long to post. :(

Again, I'm not getting anything for sharing this book on my blog. I've just really loved this book and thought some of you might be interested in it. (Not that there's anything wrong with commissions for advertising good products on your blog, I just felt like I should clarify.)
p.s. Anyone who has or gets this book will see that I'm doing the actions to Mary Had a Little Lamb a different way--Caitlyn didn't like it when I tried to follow her hand around with my hand so I had to adjust. I think the actions in the book on this one might work a little better with an older child.

Things to Do, Part II

One week at playgroup at the church, they decorated enormous cardboard boxes and then played in them. I needed to go to the store that morning, so we got there for the second hour and missed that part. But when I saw what they had done, I commented on what a good idea it was. The lady who had been in charge of the activity started telling me about what a good activity it is for a child's development, as well. She said putting stickers on and coloring on it with crayons develops their fine motor skills, and if you use a smaller box and pull them around in it it develops their balance and larger motor skills as they use the necessary muscles to stay upright in the box. Cool! So on an evening soon afterward, Caitlyn and I busted out another cardboard box, her Disney Princess Collection book that was filled with sticker pages in the back, crayons, and a piece of large ribbon. We colored all over the box and then I let her peel the stickers off the page and put them on the box, as many as she wanted, wherever she wanted to put them.

This kept her fascinated for a good 30 minutes (anyone who's ever had an 18 month old knows that's a pretty big deal). Finally, I poked a couple of holes in the front, strung the ribbon through, and tied it together. She loved sitting in it, riding in it, and putting her toys in it and pulling them around.


And I loved having a fun, easy, and developmentally stimulating activity that took up most of the evening while Quinn was at class. (Note, there isn't any sound on these videos because I took them with our camera instead of Quinn's phone.)

Things to Do

So these videos are a couple months old now because, well, that's how long it takes me to get around to posting on the blog. But I've been meaning to post about a few things we've done that turned out to be fun. And since we were cooped up inside most of the day for several months straight (minus trips to the mall, store, library -- anywhere to just get out of the house for a bit), I was on a mission to find some fun indoor activities. Nothing spectacular, just simple but fun.
By way of introduction to this first activity, some of my favorite memories of growing up are of Family Home Evening. My mom was a superstar about not only getting us all together every week for FHE, but also coming up with really fun activities and refreshments. I remember obstacle courses, team races, treasure hunts (with the refreshments as the treasure), other fun and funny games, crafts, service activities, etc. One of the refreshments I've never forgotten was that she made "hamburgers" with Nilla Wafers as the buns, grasshopper cookies as the hamburger patty, coconut with green food coloring as the lettuce, and I can't remember what else. But I can still remember how excited I was about my little "hamburger". These are the kinds of memories and bonds I hope to help create for my own family now.
I bought a book online that looked promising, "Family Fun Nights:140 Activities the Whole Family Will Enjoy".


A lot of the activities I'll have to save for a few years down the road because they're a little beyond Caitlyn's age right now. But there were some ideas that I thought would be fun for her, like this "Family Band" idea. So we gave it a try. Although the book suggested using your kitchen pans and dishes, I opted for cardboard boxes in an effort to avoid giving Caitlyn the idea that pulling all my pots and pans out on the floor for a band performance everyday would be fun. She actually got really into it for the first little while and played a mean drum and spoon, but by the time I decided to get it on camera she had mellowed out a little in spite of Quinn's best efforts to get her going again.

And another one, just cause I know a little girl whose grandparents like to see videos of her.:)


Anyway, here's one idea for FHE or just something fun to do sometime if you have little ones. Before Caitlyn came along Quinn and I usually focused on the lesson more, reading talks and scriptures together and taking as long as we wanted talking about it. Now we're working on short but meaningful lessons (like acting out scripture stories or showing a picture and telling the story the picture is about with a time limit of about 30 seconds), and fun activities. We haven't actually ventured into the refreshments much yet, but I'm sure when Caitlyn and new baby boy are a little older that will climb itself a little higher onto the priority list.
More activities soon!
(Oh and p.s. in case you're wondering this is not a paid advertisement and none of the other family activities I post about will be either. I wouldn't even know where to begin doing paid stuff on this blog -- it's just a regular old blog for our far-away-family and friends to see what we're up to these days.)

Of Kidnappers, Korean treats, and Kake

Ok, so it's actually about cake, not kake, but the other things started with a K so I thought I'd just keep going.

Last week we had just finished family home evening when there was a knock at the door. I looked like crap so I asked Quinn if he'd get it. He had a funny smile on his face, but he went and looked out the peep hole and then said, "I think it's for you, hon!" So I opened the door and there stood some of my close friends from our last ward. "Hi!! Um...what are you guys doing??" was all I could think of to say. They had come to kidnap me for an early birthday night out with just the girls (they planned to come late so everyone's husbands could just put the kids to bed). Wow, how nice and how fun! They took me to Shilla, a Korean bakery and we had Korean shaved ice and Boba smoothies. Yuuumm! That's something I really love about living out here, is that there's just about every kind of food from every country you can think of, right at your finger tips. Anyway, it was so fun and relaxing to just hang out and talk and laugh together about our lives. I love my friends so much.


On my actual birthday we had a bunch of friends over for cake and ice cream. Quinn and a couple of our friends had tried doing something as a surprise for me but I kept ruining their plans by asking too many questions (it's hard surprising somebody with OCD who has to try and plan every detail of her life a week or so in advance). Martha Stewart (aka Minsun) made a Boston Cream Pie cake, Tiffany brought brownies, and Pauline's mother-in-law who is here from Texas for when their baby comes, made a yummy Philippino dessert (the name of which I can't remember). I made a chocolate cake recipe from a family friend, the Bishoffs, that I'd been craving. I tried a new frosting recipe and it turned out gross -- it tasted like a mouthful of butter with every bite of cake. Oh well, good thing there were other treats to enjoy! And I had fun making the chocolate shavings on the top, so...that's always good.


It was a fun night and a memorable birthday.






The best part of my birthday was that Quinn and Caitlyn love me. :)