We’re all healthy and we got out ASAP and made it home about 3:30 today, not too shabby considering all the hoops they want you to jump through. It’s great to be home and have gotten a nap in our own bed and stop being bothered for constant questions and checks. Hopefully we can get things back to normal for Josie, or at least the new normal.

Our lovely second daughter, Cecilia Charlie (a.k.a. Celia), was born today October 17th, 2010 at 12:46am. Mom and baby are tired but both doing well. Jen, using the amazing strength I knew she had, succeeded at natural child birth. We haven’t been able to get much rest yet. Hospitals just aren’t designed for rest. Thanks for all the well wishes.

So my fluid level is low, seems to be that my water broke somewhere up high and is leaking very slowly as opposed to the dramatic one last time. I’m having contractions that are stronger, but far apart and some other signs of early labor. But given the low fluid, we’re in for an induction again, hopefully it won’t take much this time and we’ll have the kid a lot faster. Like today would be nice, please? Josie told the baby to hurry up too.

It’s Friday! I’m tired. Have a good weekend.

So I may be running out of things to say here. Let’s get the important stuff done up front, the non-stress test yesterday and ultrasound today all showed a healthy baby and me. So the medical profession doesn’t demand to see me again until Tuesday unless things happen before that (please). Next week though I’ll be seeing them Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and ultimately Friday for an induction at 42 weeks.

Today I’ve been a bit more tired and sore but I’m feeling good about myself as a mom. I figured out the library book interloan system and got a big pile of books for Josie delivered to our local library that she has been dying to read (more Elephant and Piggie, Cat the Cat, Clifford the Dog in spanish, etc). Took Josie to sing-a-long and then after nap spent a solid three hours in child-led play including making a cool Halloween/fall themed art project. We don’t get too many afternoons where I can totally ignore the house (I figure I better practice ignoring it now for when I have two) and not take breaks from playing. I even got the camera out and took some pictures. And I got dinner on the table, which Josie rejected except for the cheese, but Jordi and I enjoyed.

We’re still here waiting. Had the acupuncture today and she went all out, I had needles all over the place, which was  fine with me. Then she took a few of them and ‘stimulated’ things more, i.e. circled them around a little which is less comfortable but no biggie. No major changes, I’ve got some lower back pain with contractions, but I also stood up for two hours afterwords playing with Josie at the park and outside which also tends to cause that. We’ll see.

Tonight I also got some good news/bad news is that our favorite Chinese restaurant, Qingdao Garden, is under construction until November.  Which is good because they haven’t answered the phone the last two times I’ve called so now I know they haven’t closed, but bad because I wanted Chinese tonight. Chinese food seems to cause contractions in me, I don’t know if it’s the salt or MSG or something, but I was hoping to piggy-back on the acupuncture to get things started.

Exactly tonight in my pregnancy (40 weeks 6 days) my water broke with Josie at 2am following a birthday dinner for our friend Wing at a (now closed) chinese restaurant. You can bet we’d have been back if they were still open. You may also remember though that that labor lasted for 42 hours from water breaking to birth, so we’re hoping for a non-repeat in that aspect.

Today Josie’s gymnastics classes started up again. Today she took both the little kids class (1.5-3) and big kids class (3-5) to see how she’d do. The parents participate in the little kids one, but don’t in the big kids class although we’re still nearby. Most of the kids in the big kids class are 4, so a good chunk older than Josie. Josie spent most of the little kids class asking ‘what’s next?’ as I tried to keep her entertained. She used to just run around and do things. She was excited for the other class and jumped right in.

A few things were very clearly different with the second class. She was younger than everyone else by 9 months at the least. Her usual non-stop talking, actually stopped and she listened to the teacher whereas older girls had trouble keeping their comments to themselves. (I expect Josie to be like that by age 4) She listened but mostly was following along with the group to see what to do. She was clearly thinking about the instructions and trying but had trouble with the multi-step ones (i.e. do the somersault and then sit on the beam), she’d just go do the last step and wait. She also needs to work on her waiting in line for a turn as opposed to jumping into an activity already in progress. Plus we need to work on playing red-light/green-light as she totally missed the point of that.

But she thoroughly enjoyed herself and said she wants to do the big kids class rather than the little one. She also didn’t block anyone else from fully participating in the class or disrupt it so I’m fine with her joining in. I just may have to step in occasionally to make sure she gets the full experience by helping her through the multi-step parts!

Me? I’ve felt really good today compared to most days, except my hips feel like they’re about to split in two. Maybe that’s a sign? Because apparently frequent contractions, back pain, front pain, spinal pain, heartburn, gastrointestinal distress, and moodiness are not, for me anyway. Tomorrow we try acupuncture.

Anyone else found the broccoli crop this year to be overwhelmingly crummy? I try to buy it in the store, it’s already floppy and not worth buying. Or else I do find some that is ok, but it’s going brown within days. It used to be a nice hearty vegetable and this year has just been terrible it seems. My neighbor Christina agrees as they are big broccoli fans too! Not so much this year though.

Tonight’s broccoli went into this General Tao Tofu recipe which has become a staple in our house because it’s actually pretty good imitation and fried (golden brown and delicious as Alton Brown would say). Plus it’s vegan so my mom can eat it too.

As for now, time to sit down with some more carrot cake.

Would have been a cool birthday but it looks like Oct. 10, 2010 is passing us by with still no baby. On the plus side, I tried to tempt the kid out by baking a birthday cake. I made a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. I won Jordi and Josie over and I liked it a lot too but no particular action from the impending arrival. Maybe I need a second piece.

And just like my first child, my due date has come and is about to be gone with no new baby. Today has been even particularly quiet for contractions. We made a night of it though and I took Josie into harvard square on the bus (“it went bump!” – Josie) and we had dinner with Jordi at the Border Cafe to get our salt intake for the week and followed it up with ice cream at Lizzy’s for Josie and chocolate at Burdick for me! Josie loved the cow on top of the ice cream store, but she wanted it to lick the ice cream (it was a statue obviously). Her ice cream cone per usual managed to melt and drip and be tossed before we all finished it.