3.75 Lyra

My sweet Lyra is almost 4! Oh how I love my girl. She's so helpful and caring, wild and fun. Lyra has really turned a corner in listening and helpfully helping. She seems to enjoy having a baby brother a lot more these days and will play with him more often. She still will carry him to the other side of the room when he tries to play with her dollhouses, but she's gentle about it. She wants so desperately to help and I'm trying to give her more opportunities to do this without stressing so much about her accidentally strangling Rodrick or laying a wake of destruction. Lyra has always adored having an older brother and still does. She and Rowan are inseparable most days. They play together super well most of the time and are little side-kicks to one another. They're almost always better as a pair than separately. Rowan adds some reason and honesty to the mix so they aren't constantly getting into things they shouldn't. They do fight and WOOF, it kills me sometimes. I've discovered physically pulling them apart is an instant tempering of emotions whereas my previous method of shouting "STOP" a whole bunch was wildly ineffective.

She still has her wild side for sure. She gets more berserk and hyper the tireder she is and then she'll turn super violent once she passes over the hyper-stage of exhaustion. Like a cat violent. She'll suddenly slap you across the face and then hide away. When she gets really upset, she'll run out of the room to go find a place to calm down. It's actually pretty emotionally mature of her to do this without prompting and I'm grateful so came to it naturally. Speaking of things coming naturally, she really is easy in so many ways. Lyra can self-play with toys for HOURS. Uninterrupted hours of her just playing contentedly by herself. I'll join her sometimes, but she seems to enjoy her own creative time. 

Lyra is so social! It's just amazing to me how drawn to people she is and how much she enjoys being around them. The other day on our way in to church she saw a little friend of hers and started running after her in her little Elsa heels "Sunday! It's me! It's Lyra! You know me!" and then caught up with her. She also has a razor sharp memory for names of friends. We saw another friend on our way into a playgroup before the world ended, someone she sees every month or so and yelled out the window "Lydia! It's so nice to see you again!" She has ZERO fear of talking to people and often will beeline it anywhere there are people. We went to the park today and some older teenage boy were playing basketball. She zoomed off that direction, walked up to them and said "I want to play, friends!" I hustled her out of there real quick. She can be so incredibly endearing because of her friendliness, amiability, humor and kind-heart, but PLEASE exhibit some caution in life, child. 

Lyra is so smart and so busy. I bought a book from The Good and The Beautiful to do with her when I'm doing homeschool with Rowan. It's really cute and focuses on just learning the alphabet and numbers. She has a lot of trouble sitting still and simply doing the book for the sake of doing the book. I've had to be way more creative to get her to start to recognize letters. She's improving, but still has plenty of learning to do (don't we all). It's been a real learning experience for me to see how different my kids are in the way they absorb information. Rowan's always loved a good educational-geared game, but he also really thrives on check-boxes and prizes. He wants to go exactly in order in his book and do everything on the page to perfection. Lyra wants to color on whatever page she wants and if she doesn't care much for a game, walks away to play with something else. She's young, but Row was already getting into star charts and such at this age. A good illustration of their differences are the way they run and use their money. Whenever Lyra has even a little money in her money jar, she would like to go shopping at Target. Immediately. Rowan will hoard that money in there for years to fill it up to the top. When they run on the treadmill, Lyra will set it to 10 and sprint until she can't anymore. Rowan sets it to a 4 or 5 and makes sure he finishes exactly when he completes whatever number of laps he decided to do. Lyra also is a really gifted little singer. I hope to help her with this as she grows since I'm not. I'd also love to put her in gymnastics, but we've worried before about her spina bifida occlude. If she were to land on her back in a bad/weird way, it could be crippling for her potentially. It's hard to brush it off and let her pursue it (Because I think she could be SO good) when I know I'd just worry the further she went in the sport. 

Speaking of Target, this girl was born to shop. She LOVES it. She'll just throw any toy, purse, dress, make-up, shiny thing in the cart and ask me relentlessly for everything in the store. She has a really good eye for fashion too. I'm always a little impressed with how she owns her little style. Lyra is the girliest girl out there. She already has a multi-stage outing routine. She wants to put on all the make-up, paint her nails, wear high-heels, put some fancy shades on, accessorize. The only thing she really hates doing is her hair. It makes me sad because her hair is finally getting long enough to do more styles with, but she'll stare at me defiantly and pull it out the second I'm done. I think it hurts her a little so I can't really blame her. Her hair is still super fine and doesn't grow much on the top of her head. 

One of the things I love most about her is how she rubs my arms when I'm cuddling her or sad. She's just so tender and loving. She's had a nurturing soul since she was itty bitty. I try to realize often that all she wants from life is to be with me, play with me, cuddle me, talk with me. Her needing me shouldn't feel burdensome, but a privilege. My heart aches for the day she won't want me first. I don't want to regret not living fully in this precious time of her life with her. I can already feel time slipping  through my fingers like sand. Slow down please!I think often of Lyra's blessing day and how Mike and my Dad said she just smiled up at the ceiling like she was beaming at heaven the whole blessing. She is a special little girl, pleasant and charming and unique. I love that Heavenly Father sent this little spit-fire to me.

Lyra had so much fun at Disney! She loved the roller coasters the most and princesses second. She got this cute little makeover and it was a dream come true. She was being so goofy though and her fairy godmother had to ask for my assistance getting her to sit still more than once. eye roll.
Lyra had gone up to a cute little girl at Disney Springs a few days before our Magic Kingdom trip who had clearly been to the boutique and complimented her on her dress and makeup. The girl was so sweet and gave Lyra the make-up they send them home with. It changed Lyra's whole world to get make-up from someone. I told the girl she was a true princess because she was kind.

I love this picture so much! I know I should crop out the part of it being a screenshot, but I'm lazy and tired. I love how free she seems running barefoot in her cute cream dress with little pom-poms on it

She can love aggressively sometimes. This is her kissing, hugging and licking me a whole bunch the other day 

Rocky Road 10 months

Rodrick Royal is almost 1! It breaks my heart I haven't kept up on my journaling here about him. I've gone back so many times to compare the older two kids at their various stages based on the info I put in my blog and I won't have that with him.

He does so many sweet, adorable, perfect things that I never want to forget. He calls Mike AND Rowan Dada. It's so cute! He's starting to make sounds that are sooo close to the word. I'm pretty sure he said bird the other day and gets really close to saying fish. He signs open for everything under the sun. It's shocking how applicable it really is for so many different things. If you're going to learn one sign as a baby, open is a pretty good one. He signs milk, but sometimes just open (your shirt). All animals are either a bird or a dog right now. He is learning lots of signs everyday and it's so fun to see him get to interact back with us. Right now he consistently and correctly signs, milk, open, dog, bird, baby, book, binky, and sucker. He gets SO excited when he sees animal and whines constantly until he can touch them. We saw a squirrel the other day and he was determined to track that guy down and give him a big squeeze. Rocky loves babies. If he sees them, he needs to be by them and touching them and slobbering and clobbering them.

He's really close to full on walking. He can take a few steps at a time before falling down, but it's not his primary mode of transport yet. He's started to do this funny bear crawl because he doesn't want his knees to touch the floor, but he also can't balance perfectly yet to master walking. He's a pro at climbing and scarily can climb on all sorts of things. The other day, he pulled himself onto the top of the handle bar at chick-fil-a and clung there until I forced him to get down. He used to climb on to the top of our entryway desk until Mike smartly put up some netting to keep him from perching up there with his gift cards. Rocky loves to have a handful of plastic. Give him all the credit cards and gift cards and you've got a happy baby on your hands.

He loves to be part of the action with his siblings. If they're wrestling, he needs to be wrestling them too. He'll just crawl his little baby bum all over them and sit on their heads while they try to "gently" push him off. They honestly do a really good job with him and both usually crack up when he joins their fun. Rocky also looooves when I run with him after them. He'll kick his legs and laugh so hard. Lyra loved that too, but really loved when I'd have her sit on Rowan's shoulders or bop him on the head.

His soft, down-feather hair is so sweet. It grows like Lyra's. Nothing on top and so much on the back. Both could really rock a natural mullet.

I love my 10-month old little boy

The Fantastic Fives

Rowan is FIVE (and a half- I started this in August) I can’t really process the memories of my tiny baby boy with the long, lean little boy that he is now. How can they change so much and still be so much the same too? Rowan is an angel child a lot of the time. He’s obedient, helpful, honest, sweet, sincere and happy. It makes me a little sad to read the since he's changed a bit since I started. He's going through a rough patch where he is more defiant, angry and unhappy. He struggles to fall asleep sometimes at night. He's really good about staying in his bed, but Ill find him awake up there an hour or more after we put him down. He’s always had a temper. I remember tiny 7-week old Rowan pulling his head away from me with a tiny vein bulging from his forehead because he didn’t want to nurse. I remember him eating solids for the first time and popping out of his bumbo growling that it was gone. He started preschool this week and had a bit of a rough start with his temper, but he’s done so much better the past few days of school. He really seems to love going and tells me all about recess, snack and the toys he got to play with. He’ll tell anyone who he meets his birthday, how to spell his name and his siblings and their birthdays and what street we live on and city we live in. Haha it's good he knows it, but WHOA on the information to strangers kid. He’s such a funny kid because he has a little social anxiety in big groups, but going someplace he’s used to will mean he goes and talks to random strangers without hesitation. He tends to seek out adults to chat with more than kids, but he does play really well with kids too.

Rowan asks for the same thing for breakfast every morning, chocolate chip oats with half an apple. He usually gets about 5-7 chocolate chips in his oats and that’s enough to sway him to eat a whole bowl. He really loves having his routine be the exact same. Rowan is so good at getting ready by himself, but it takes a lot of prompting to keep him focused. Row is a chatterbox and likes to give long rundowns of switch games or detailed descriptions of pretty much anything which again, makes the whole process of literally anything he needs to be doing extra long. He hates being late places, but we cannot manage to get anywhere on time ever.

Rowan adores his brother and sister. He loves to talk with Rocky and sing made up songs to him. A constant original hit by Row is “I’ll love you Rodrick forever because you’re so cute! I’ll love you even when you’re a grown up!” He and Lyra certainly have sibling  squabbles, but they tend to get along most of the time. If I can keep Rowan distracted from  "being bored" (aka just don't talk to him for five minutes), he and Lyra will go off and play for hours. They do a lot of make-believe and role play. Rowan likes to make up elaborate games that no one knows how to play and he’ll get so frustrated with Lyra when she can’t figure out his list of 100 complicated rules of how to win. They still do a lot of rough and tumble games and Row is mostly mindful of how gentle to be with her. When he does get mad at her, I know he’s going to try and hurt her when he sings this frantic tune. It’s always the same rhythm and he usually tried to squeeze her really tight. It makes me so upset, but he’s getting better at getting a grown up to help when Lyra  inevitably takes his toys or does something to get him to that point.

He's incredibly selfless and thoughtful. He lost his first tooth the other day!(this is a pretty dated post) He had killed one of his front teeth falling on our stairs not long after we moved here. He called it his golden tooth and it didn't really bother him, but we were supposed to keep an eye on it to make sure it didn't develop an abecess. I feel so lucky he got to keep his tooth as long as he did because he isn't too far ahead of his peers in losing a tooth. He was really brave going in for the extraction and told the dentist the shot felt like when he eats pineapple. The tooth fairy came and he immediately felt sad the next morning upon finding a dollar. "Mom! How will I be able to buy a candy cane for Lyra and me with one dollar?" He is so quick to share and be good. It's what makes me most sad about his rage fits. People who don't see him normally only get this tiny snapshot of his wild behavior and assume he isn't the tender-hearted little boy he actually is. He can rage for hours and it's pretty overwhelming to handle. It's sadly getting worse and not better lately.

Rowan is growing quickly in his physical skills. He's always had a pretty good handle on his body, but he loves a good challenge especially if it involves using his body. He loves competition and beating himself or others. He's a really good sport too. He doesn't rub it in faces if he wins, but he does loose his cool if he was trying really hard to win. One sad/funny thing happened the other day when we were playing Mario Party for FHE. Mike creamed us all and Rowan thought the character Mike was playing was his. Row cheered at the end and then realized he had lost and erupted into tears. He ran from the room and when Set when to talk to him, Row said through sobs "I thought I was doing so good, dad" Poor kid. Hopefully, we can help curb his perfectionistic personality a little and channel it to help him succeed.

I decided to pull Rowan from his preschool last month. It was a wonderful school and he loved his teachers, but our mornings consisted of me rushing tired, hungry kids out the door and lots of shouting and fighting. We also were supposed to do a lot of traveling over the next few months. I just didn't feel like we were living our best life and it was something we could cut out for now. We started doing "homeschool" and I love it so much. It makes my parenting feel so intentional and I just love the time we spend together for the lessons.  Rowan is doing AMAZING at reading and math. It's truly like magic watching him learn these things and progress. We've been using the 100 Lessons book and Rowan is on lesson 76 as of this week. I can't wait for him to dive even deeper and be able to start reading recreationally. I already know he's going to love it so much! And wow! His math skills always leave me impressed. The other day we were practicing problems in the car and he said mom "2+2+8=12, right?" I know it seems simple, but being able to do  that at his age is awesome. I think math might end up being his favorite subject based on his personality.

The other day at the store, Rowan asked for a candy bar. I told him we didn't have enough money for it, to which he replied "Mom, I think it's time we get rich" Amen, kid. He also obsessively says "I love you mom or dad" over and over throughout the day. I think he does it most when he's stressed about us being upset with him. It is a good defusing method, but it's funny too because he says it so often that I don't even think he knows he's even talking. When we were driving the other day he said "I love you mom!: and I replied "I love you too buddy!" to which he replied, "What did you say mom?" I told him I was just telling him I loved him back and he said "Oh, I didn't know I was talking out loud" hahaha. Such a chatterbox

Even with his tantrums, freak-outs, yelling, kicking and raging, he's a really good kid. I love him so very much. I'm grateful for how helpful, thoughtful and sweet he is. He talks often about wanting to marry me which always makes me laugh. He actually started crying the other day saying "I just have to marry you mommy because you're just so pretty and I already love you so much" I sometimes do a ten-finger thank you list to them at bedtime and Lyra and Row both sweetly want to return the thank-you's. This was Rowan's to me the other day

"Thank you for making me food, thank you for having pretty hair, thank you for having a pretty face, thank you for being nice to me, thank you for not yelling at me today too much, thank you for letting me eat dessert, thank you for letting me have screen time. thank you for being nice to look at, thank you for being beautiful, thank you for being pretty" He loves me for my personality clearly. Haha, nothing like a tender five-year-old to make you realize how loved you are. I love Rowboat

 He's so cute. I hardly ever can get him to look at the camera AND smile. I just love his face and expressions so much

 Baby Rowan showed up on my newsfeed the other day and tugged at my mom heart. Funny thing about his hair. Rowan has wavy hair or had you could say. His hair has gotten so incredibly thick that I think it doesn't have enough space to have movement anymore (if that makes sense). His hair is as thick as dog fur. This particular picture doesn't show his wave very much, but boy do I miss his superman curl sometimes.

 He is a natural protector. He takes care of this little sibs of his

Rowan has told me a few times he wants loads more siblings. Six total babies at minimum. He just loves them so much. When I asked Lyra if she wanted anymore siblings, she asked if we could sell Rocky. hahahah so that's a hard no from her. 

Rodrick Royal 3 Months

Rodrick goes by Rocky about 60% of the time. I love it. I sometimes punch his little fists in the air and yell "Yo Adrian!". He's also built rock solid (in that perfect squishy, baby way) and has hands and feet that are gigantic. I'm fairly certain he'll catch up on the growth charts with our other kids. He's stretching out of his 3-6 month clothes and looks deliciously chubby. 

He does a lot of unblinking staring. I love startling him. His already wide-open eyes get HUGE. I can't handle it. He is starting to smile so much more and does these adorable breathy giggles. He has a perfect, full mouth like his father and brother so when he smiles, his mouth gets gigantic. It makes me want to eat him. Actually, everything he does makes me want to eat him. 

He's been a bit more fussy than I remember my other two being. He really loves being held. I know that's not unusual, but I think he realizes he is in mortal danger in our house the times he isn't being held. If he's being held, he's pretty content. Rodrick can roll over, but has only done it a few times. He is intent on sitting up. It's so funny. If he's in a reclined position, he crunches right on up to sitting then immediately falls over. It's funny because he was doing little crunches in one of his early ultrasounds and we joked that he knew he had to prepare to be Lyra's little brother. Too true. 

Rodrick seems to have some tummy issues. My other two never projectile vomited, but Rocky does. He's done it a handful of times and it's shocking each and every time. The volume and the force behind it is impressive. 

He loves being outside. He'll calm down really easily if I take him outside for a few minutes. Rodrick blissfully takes a binky! It makes it so much easier when they do. Driving in the car with him is painful. He hates it. He cries constantly. We made the 14 hour drive from Omaha to Utah with him and it was better than I imagined, but still painful. He's starting to get really interested in toys and we luckily brought a baby toy that got us through a lot of the trip. 

I like being able to tell more and more what makes him happy. He will pull off over and over again while nursing when he really needs to burp. I can tell every time and I love being able to know what he needs without words. I've started signing milk each time and I'm already getting grateful all over again for sign language. He makes cute little desperate sounds when I ask if he wants milk to acknowledge in the affirmative. 

He sleeps really well and that makes all the difference. He starts in the pack-n-play around the kids usual bedtime 7/8pm and joins me in bed around 4am. I couldn't be more grateful for sleep. He takes a consistent morning nap an hour after he wakes up for about an hour and the rest is still just whenever he can catch one. 

The kids both still love him. Lyra is getting so much better at actually helping. She loves changing his diaper. They both sometimes fight over helping which is...unhelpful. BUT I'm not going to kill their helpful spirit. Rowan tells everyone about his baby brother and how old he is and that he likes him. They both do a good job holding him, but are luckily asking for it a little less than they did at the start 

Rocky also loves: bathes, when Lyra and Rowan make faces at him, having his warm, soft head rubbed,  cuddling with grandparents, a colorful bunny rattle, fans, sucking on his hands and feet

Rocky dislikes: getting changed, getting out of the tub, riding in the car, Lyra's voice (it's sad because she is so sweet and loves being able to help him, but she is SO loud)

Rodrick Royal Birth Story

It's already been three months since our littlest boy joined the clan. He is as sweet as they come and I've never wanted a baby to stay little more than this one. I just want him to stay so snuggly and soft for as long as possible. He's absolutely perfect in every way. He eats great, sleeps great, and is a content little thing. Time is determined to race ahead of me this time. I feel so sad I was more diligent in recording more information about Rowan and Lyra from the start. I've looked back on their posts multiple times since having Rodrick to compare since it's so easy to forget so much. I have a book for both of my older two that has pictures and blog posts about each month of their first year and I already missed out on it for Rodrick.
SO I'll do a three-month post right after I finally get his birth story down.
His birth was different in a lot of ways than our other two. 

I had geared myself up for a beginning of April induction, but at my next OB appointment we found out little mister was flipping around again. He was transverse which felt way more hopeful to me, but my OB still felt like he could go back to being breech. He wanted to schedule an inversion/induction, but I was so on the fence about it. I was really feeling at peace about letting this pregnancy go until 41 weeks. We had family coming then, Sel would be off and we would know he was pretty darn cooked in there by then. I was thrown about scheduling an induction before I was even 40 weeks and didn't really know what to do. After hours of discussion, we asked my mom if she could come twice and be here right before the inversion/induction. She could! Sel could get the day of and after off. So we decided to schedule the induction for 39 weeks and 4 days. We spent so much time fasting and praying while he was breech. Though it was a smaller worry than many have, it still stressed me out. I am grateful for the sweet moments that drew my family and I nearer to God as we sought peace to know what we should do.

I was told the hospital would call me the day before to let me know what time I needed to be there. 

By 4:30pm, I was wondering if they forgot about me. Sel encouraged me to call and I'm so glad he did. My OB had not actually scheduled me for an induction that day. He had scheduled me for the following week when NO ONE would be around including Sel. It was comical when we were originally trying to sort a time where Sel could actually be there for the birth and not surprising in the least bit that our OB had gotten confused. After a bunch of calls, we finally sorted it out and luckily got a spot for the next day. With both Rowan and Lyra, I had to go in the night before to get cervical ripening started. I hated it both times, but was super confused why they weren't having me do it this time. I was just as dilated at this point as I had been with Rowan and Lyra (aka NOT dilated at all), but the OB didn't feel like it was necessary.

We woke up early and drove to the hospital. They checked us into the room and I loved my nurse right away. She's a country girl who entertained us with her stories of hunting the evil beaver that lives on her property (that means exactly what I said it does), her son that is obsessed with fire alarms, and showed us pictures of her gorgeous 5 acre property. They did an ultrasound to confirm he was breech. He flipped! I was so incredibly relieved. I had been stressing over the idea of getting an epidural before I even started labor since my OB recommended it for the inversion. I hate being chained down. Even staying at home and watching Netflix longer than 90 minutes drives me bonkers. I started cleaning in the room where we are watching TV so being strapped to a hospital bed for an indeterminate time sounded like torture to me. My nurse was adorable and squealed and jumped for joy. They started me on pitocin quickly and told me to walk the halls.
I was JAZZED. I was super confident and happy that my body was going to do what it was supposed to quickly this time. We jammed out to Imagine Dragons for an hour of walking. I started to get tired and wanted to go back to the room. There was our nurse, a nursing student and a med student studying my contraction monitor. They just stared at us for a bit and told me to keep going. I was super confused. It turns out, Women's only assigns their nurses to one patient so I was today's only entertainment. All three of them were there to study JUST me. It was overwhelming and I hated it. I do not like attention especially when I'm in pain. I had a whole entourage who had nothing to do but stare at me allll day.

They told me to keep walking and they would just hang in our room studying my monitor for me. K.
So different than my other births where they acted like I was super high-strung when I insisted I walk around instead of lay on the bed all day. We walked around for a total of three hours and the contractions were really picking up. At one point, Mike sat on this little window ledge while I did step ups on it.  I finally decided I didn't care anymore that they stared at me because I wanted to watch some Netflix and bounce darn it. They checked me around 11:00am and I was a 3!! Wahoo! It normally has taken me about 12 hours to get to a 3. We were SO hopeful and optimistic. Sel was planning dinner with my mom and the kids that night since surely the baby would be here soon. Little did we know we still had 12 more hours ahead of us. I progressed slowly the rest of the day. I can't remember much of it now which is sad. I know we talked lots to my medical fan club, I didn't get to watch any of The Office like I envisioned, and I had lots of contractions. Around 6:00pm, I asked for an epidural. My nurse had me sit on the bed to wait while they gave me the necessary bags of fluid for an epidural. I sat on the edge of the bed and waited. And waited. Annnd waited. I had to pee every 15 minutes which was cute. They all stood in a circle around me while Sel hung out in a chair (he was very supportive. I was just super irked that I didn't also get to just stare at my phone like we had both planned) and assisted me to the bathroom. Every time a contraction came I would close my eyes so I wouldn't have to look at them looking at me. They would respectfully stop the conversation and wait for it to pass. Sometimes I would leave my eyes closed longer than the contraction because I seriously did not want them to look at me or touch me anymore. I got a little snippy at one point and my nurse pointed out to the students it meant I was getting close to transition.

After 90 minutes of waiting for the anesthesiologist, she called and we realized the message to him had gotten lost in translation somehow. He had not actually been paged and so we had to watch the screen that showed how far behind in line I was at this point. It was far. I tried not to despair. I had talked quite a bit about not getting an epidural this time around, but certainly hadn't done much to prepare for it. I knew I could get through contractions on my own, but pushing terrified me. I had heard from all my un-medicated friend/family births that pushing was the worst part and as fun as it sounds...oh wait! It doesn't. The anesthesiologist finally showed up and was cranky. I didn't love him. He was older and talked a bunch about golfing and how he'd love to be out on the green right now. Me too, brah. And I don't even like golfing. He was also not super nice to my nurse who was amazing. Not cool. He kept telling the nurses my back wasn't curved enough, but kept poking the needle in anyway. Super duper painful. My other ones were not painful at all, but this was enough to make me cry. Once it hit, I was loopy. I fell asleep really fast and my three observers went off shift. My new nurse came on shift and was equally wonderful, but luckily didn't want to stare at me the whole time.

They checked me again around 9:30pm and I was maybe a 6cm. Explosion of tears. With both Lyra and Rowan, I progressed really fast after the epidural. Within maybe a half hour of getting the epidural, Lyra was out. They had me do the leg raise, side-laying stuff and I started to feel really uncomfortable. Around 10:00pm, I told my nurse I was in lots of pain. She told me I would expect to feel pressure. Nope. I know what pressure is, this was pain. I mentioned it again a few minutes later to Sel that I was really, really not feeling well. It hit FAST. All of a sudden, I was in the worst pain of my life. I can luckily not remember much of it other than I know it hurt and I was delirious with it all. I wasn't screaming like I envisioned it would have been. I was just so. so. sad. I cried a lot and felt so awful. Not shockingly, I was at a 10cm and crowning. They told me not to push a lot and there was absolutely no feeling to do so. I was neeeevvver going to push. No natural instinct to push washed over me like I've heard happens. There was no way I was subjecting myself to more pain than I was in. That baby was staying in until someone could remedy this. It's blurry, but I distinctly remember Sel holding my arm telling my nurse he should have realized earlier how serious I was about it hurting. The face of my rescuer is super sharp too. He was Asian and incredibly kind. He grabbed my face and told me everything was going to be alright. He was right. He fixed it super fast and I finally felt like I could push. My OB was there and ready. He had been out to dinner earlier and debated about drinking in honor of his father-in-laws birthday since he was certain I would have had Rodrick earlier. Nope. 11:00pm exactly was when this little guy fiiiinnnally came. I blissfully felt nothing after the bolus and got to enjoy those first moments of cuddling his tiny, screaming self. He came out SO angry. Rowan was our quiet one. Lyra and Rodrick share being equally enraged at being pulled out of their warm home. I remember being so in love immediately. He smelled incredible and his skin was perfectly smooth.
He was 7 lbs 9 oz. I could tell before they weighed him that he was tinier than my other two. I felt a moment of guilt for having induced him before he was maybe ready. Luckily, he latched quickly and slept solidly for five hours. I needed that sleep. Poor Sel had to drive the 40 minutes of home to go to sleep and had to round the next morning.

The rest of the hospital stay was really nice. I had not forgotten how uncomfortable you are after having a baby. You just feel beat up. Or at least, I do. I ache all over. I feel exhausted. The beauty this time around was how much I appreciated the stay. I felt so taken care of. It almost felt like a spa stay with all these people taking care of me and cleaning for me and cooking for me. It was pretty amazing. I'm SO grateful for my mom and Sel taking over my usual life of taking care of small people and the house. Meals started the day we got home and didn't stop for weeks. I was so filled with gratitude. Rodrick brought such a sweet, easy-going spirit with him. He looked so much like Rowan at the start, but then sort of (and still does) look like a blend of both of our older two.
He is such a blessing to us and I couldn't love him more.

Flippin Amazing

First things first, this baby boy FLIPPED! It's a nothing short of a miracle for me. 

I'll relay the whole story for anyone that cares to hear it momentarily. I've been thinking a lot about miracles in 2019. We've been studying the New Testament this year and my children are fascinated by the miracles Christ performed. They have such a sweet faith and spirit about them as they learn about all He did in his mortal ministry. What is more miraculous to me than walking on water, calming a storm, healing the sick and afflicted, causing the dead to rise, and all His other beautiful miracles, is how he acted and what he taught. To imagine myself being able to change to become truly meek, humble, forgiving, unconditionally loving, slow to anger, and utterly selfless is far harder for my faith to cling to. I struggle minute to minute to hold onto becoming that new creature I know I can be through Christ. It feels absolutely impossible most days. I find myself waking in the morning re-commiting to being better than I was the day before. To spend more time listening and less time talking. To remove "I" and "me" out of my vocabulary and mentality and add more "they" , "he", "she" and "you". Slow to anger has been such an embarrassing struggle lately. I find myself following that funny, but also sadly true meme of the cheery and kind Mary Poppins when telling my children to do something for the first time then morphing into Batman's deep, scary voice by the end of it. The miracle for me comes when I do receive that strength to be just a bit more patient in the moments I feel like being so the least. I know until that day my faith makes me wholly that person I want to be, I can still be of good cheer knowing it will happen someday. My kids will probably be adults, BUT it's going to happen. 

Now on to that miracle that happened with baby boy flipping head down. I was SO anxious about him being breech. I feel like I'm particularly anxious while pregnant no matter what, but this just drove me crazy. I was incredibly touched by how many people reached out to me to comfort me and offer advice. It was such a relief to me and made my heart burst with gratitude and love for those who took the time to reach out for something that might not seem like that big of a deal to most. We found out at my 36 week appointment he was breech and were told 1/8 babies turn on their own past this point. I'd known he was breech since week 34, but didn't do much past a few spinning baby moves because I wasn't worried about it yet. I was super taken aback by how quickly we were talking other options at my appointment because I had barely let it cross my mind he wouldn't flip. 

If he didn't flip by 39 weeks, I would have to be scheduled for a c-section. There were risks in letting myself go past 39 weeks that he might have a short cord and that stillbirth risk of breech babies past a certain point went up significantly. I was scheduled for an external version for March 11th, but Sel and I had decided against it after a bunch of research. I'd talked to plenty of people who had successful ones, but we just didn't want to risk the chance of having to have an emergency c-section if things went wrong instead of just having a scheduled one. My OB does an epidural for eversions simply because of the risk and because it can range from being mildly uncomfortable to more painful than actual childbirth. We decided to try everything we could and just hope he turned by 39 weeks. I did a bunch of headstands off the couch, had Sel prop me upside down on an ironing board (which was terribly uncomfortable), went swimming, rubbed pressure points, put an ice-pack on my tummy and played music downstairs. My SIL even made a fun playlist to draw him down under. I scheduled an appointment with a chiropractor (who Sel was adamantly against having me see) and was looking online for acupuncturists (shhhh my husband would equally dislike me seeing one of those). I was such a hot mess during the days following my appointment. I was talking to everyone I possibly knew about their experiences with c-sections/eversions/breech babies. I made a trillion threads on social media and got tons of responses. It was almost more confusing to sift through those because so many people had such varying experiences. Since I already don't sleep great for physical reasons (tiny bladder, giant belly, sore back), I was now barely sleeping at all because my brain wouldn't shut down. People were way too nice to me in my fragile mental state. It wasn't even like there was anything that serious going on, but I was seriously going nuts. 

The miracle came in such a dramatically beautiful way. We went to a session at the temple and the MOMENT I was done and changing in the dressing room, he moved in this weird, painful way and I felt a tiny gush of fluid. I was so confused and uncomfortable, but moved on. The next day he kept moving in weird ways which was always accompanied by some more fluid. I started googling things wondering if maybe I was leaking amniotic fluid. After reading a bunch of things that described water breaking as a trickle instead of the dramatic movie gush, we decided I should just go get checked out at L&D to make sure it wasn't. The first test strip they did had two positive drops on it. The second strip was positive for amniotic fluid. They made me stop drinking water and said there was a chance I would have to have a c-section THAT night. I started to freak the freak out. I had left Sel at home with our sleeping kids and who were we supposed to wake up at 11:30pm to come over to be with our kids? I hadn't really packed anything but my contact case and was NOT ready to have a baby. Baby boy was so incredibly high up that they couldn't find his heartrate most of my stay there because he was up by my sternum. I know now he was transverse and trying to turn which is why his heart was jammed so far up there. They decided to run another test that was more accurate and I had to wait for the lab to send the results up. It was just so frustrating. I feel like this whole pregnancy has had really random, really weird happenings to it. Things that border on being potentially serious, but aren't as obvious that way and not things I could just dismiss. Finally, she came back to let me know I was clear and gave me an entire cup of delicious ice-chips to chew. I went to my OB the next day to find out he was all the way head down. Sel had even come (his first appointment probably since we had Rowan) because we figured we would be trying to sort out our options and it would be nice to be together for that. It was a blissfully anticlimactic appointment. 

I do not find it a coincide he decided to start to turn in the temple. I had a friend later tell me she had put my name on the prayer roll that afternoon and I'm positive that was a factor. I'd felt so much peace after Sel gave me a blessing that everything was going to turn out okay no matter what. I was feeling calm about a c-section or not. I just kept feeling like my answer was "wait" and now I know why. I also feel really grateful for this brief period of worry. I was moaning about going over my due date and having to be marathon induced (since I go in the night before my inductions to get cervadil) and NOW I am so incredibly looking forward to the 41 week scheduled induction. I know I'll have people to care for my kids, I know what to expect, and I'm not left waffling between all these choices with unknown consequences. Things can always go different ways for birth, but if things follow the previous pattern, I'll be zero percent dilated at 41 weeks and never experience a contraction until I'm pumped chock full of pitocin. AND NOW I'M SO HAPPY. Life has such a beautiful, strange way of teaching me things.

36 Weeks Pregante

Have you watched the video yet where the guy reads a bunch of online questions about pregnancy? I laugh until I can't breath every single time. It has over 28 million views, so I hope you're one of those privileged millions to have laughed about it. If not, join us in the cool kids club https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EShUeudtaFg 

The misspelling in today's title is brought to you from said video. 

Oh my. I'm so done. I still have FIVE weeks left. I try not to focus on the negative, but I've done this twice now and I'm terrified of the next few weeks. I know what's ahead. Every day is about a week long. I also remain incredibly bitter about all those women who get to have babies between 38-40 weeks without being induced. I love you in the way that I love all mankind, but I also despise you. Gah. I can't get over it. Can you even imagine what it would be like to have a baby in TWO weeks instead of FIVE? It's about as unrealistic for me as getting crowned the Queen of England. I am pretending I'm not secretly hoping to go into labor on my own before April 1st, but I'm a fool (get it? Cause I'm scheduled to be induced on April Fools Day). It would be SO impractical for me this time around to actually have a baby before my induction date. Sel has a crazy work week the week I'm due and fo sho can't get anytime off that week. He has a blissful week off work starting 04/01. We also live 40 minutes from the hospital and how would I find someone to watch my kids plus another individual to drive me to the hospital? I don't even know what real labor feels like. No one from our family is getting here until then either which makes me crazy for hoping this boy opts out any earlier than 41 weeks. I AM crazy though. I own it. 

My poor kids and family. Lyra was being her typical tornado self yesterday. She colored on the ottoman, took one of my favorite lipsticks and flattened it in an artistic design on the kitchen floor, peed on the bathroom floor then used her clothes and an entire roll of toilet paper to clean it up (props to her for being resourceful and cleaning it up without me asking her to) then scattered ponies and scrabble pieces all over the playroom. This is a typical day for us by the way. Messes are regular occurrences. I was trying to get us to the library for an HOUR while she rampaged. It also always takes us an hour to get out the door no matter what. Lyra is always defiantly ignoring my demands to get ready and Rowan is usually busy fighting someone/something in his mind and has very little idea what's actually going on around him. I asked them to get their shoes on for the eighth time then just started crying when they didn't. I sat on the kitchen floor and let it all out. They were so disturbed. Sweet Rowan started assisting Lyra in her required clean-up and even brought me my tennis shoes and tried to help me put them on. He said he knew it was hard for me to bend over because of big baby brother. I just cried harder while they both tried to sit on my lap and comfort me. My shining knight of a husband found a gift card to Chick-fil-a and let me know I didn't have to make dinner or clean-up after it because we were going out for some gourmet grub. He also did bedtime and rubbed my back. I have the best people. 

My body is falling apart swiftly. I've felt honestly pretty good until this point. I ran a mile this week under ten minutes. I can sort of jog right now, but it's sad. I went to Zumba today and felt awesome for two songs and then wondered for the entire rest of the class how realistically I could fit my body on the locker room benches for a brief nap. Before this week, my skin started falling apart. My hands looked like a 90-year-old woman and then I got this ridiculously annoying (and painful) red mark behind my leg. It was frustratingly confusing. Since we know I have a mild clotting disorder, we weren't sure if the red mark was indicatory of a clot. The placement of it and symptoms were vaguely like one, but since I'm pregnant, it also could have just been pregnancy related. I spent a Friday debating whether I should go in or not. I had some kind other residents look at it during an HOAA event and gathered opinions on whether I should get it checked out. OF COURSE it was the weekend by the time I called the OB office and they told me to go the ER. We only ever have weird medical things happen to us on the weekend. I hated going, but I knew I would regret it if it was a real blood clot. Luckily, it was just some odd bodily failing due to pregnancy. It cleared up after a week and my skin in general is only mildly dry.

I wake up about every hour during the night to roll to the other side or to pee. I get SO tired during the day. I keep falling asleep when I'm supposed to be parenting. I've been  giving myself some slack in the entertainment department and letting the kids watch shows/play games while I nap on the couch. I'm trying to not feel guilty about it by dragging them about when our driveway isn't coated in 8 inches of snow and doing things that make me feel like they are living happy, productive childhoods instead of being enslaved by technology. My mental state struggles near the end of pregnancy. I just cry a whole bunch or get irrationally angry. It's frightening to feel so out of control. My baby maker feels like Stone Cold Steve Austin sucker punched me there about 5 times in a row. I keep getting these 5-10 minute round ligament spasms. I remember having them somewhat with Rowan and idiotically thinking they were Braxton Hicks and believing I was going to be SO good at having a baby from all the practicing my body was doing. Nope. Contractions don't last ten straight minutes or are on one side of your body. I had to pull over today and breathe through the terrible pain. I used to believe I could birth a baby without an epidural, did you know that? I really, really believed I was going to give birth to my first baby without any pain medication. I cry when I stub my toe. I'm a pansy when it comes to pain. 

There are lots of positives to be seen when I can dig myself out of my woe-is-me pit. Sel is a rockstar. He is so mindful of my feelings and never treats me like I'm nuts. He's so gentle and patient and perfect. My kids are so sweet beneath their age-appropriate behavior. They are both SO excited to have another sibling and spend a lot of time talking about him and to him. It's darling and makes me crazy excited to see them both hold him for the first time. Lyra the other day started by kissing my belly, then blowing raspberries on it and laughing, then morphed into cat scratching baby brother, pushing him and growling at him. It's about what I expect for the beginning of their relationship. Rowan just likes to stare at the 3D picture and say "he looks like me!" and kiss my belly and ask if baby bro kissed him back. I always say yes. 

I honestly don't feel THAT bad. Mostly I'm just constantly a little uncomfortable. Sacrificing comfort for the opportunity to have another baby is a super small price to pay ultimately. I'm so grateful I get this chance to be pregnant and have a healthy pregnancy. I am so excited to hold a sweet new baby boy and watch him grow.

The maybe blood clot

Old lady hands