Down on the cape we had some more shots with Ewan included on our windy morning on the beach. Josie took some time to make another picture this year for the lifeguards on the beach. She did one last year too. She’s always a fan of talking to life guards and the teenage girls are usually quite fond of little girl admirers! Ewan just wanted out of the wind.

Super cute feet on my 2 year old! The  toes look so perfect they look painted!

Celia tried  to convince us multiple times that she didn’t need sun block because she had the sand to cover her and then she’d proceed to bury her legs in the sand. Which made the sunblock application… oh so much fun. We got the hang of it by the end of the two weeks at least!

We had visited the local beach to do some art work in the morning. It was super-super windy, Ewan was not pleased. It was hard to even keep the blanket and the papers from flying away while they tried to do a little painting. At least my shoes provided some entertainment. When Celia realized we hadn’t brought a bucket and shovel she was DONE and thought it was time to go home. At least everyone but me and my mom got a little break from the kids.

I had fun in cape cod in our bedroom, dramatic light to say the least. I was trying to capture a range of emotions.

don’t squeeze too hard!

Josie had her first day of kindergarten yesterday and she said she liked it! This is literally the best picture I could get of her that morning though, somehow this expression was fixed on her face. Big day!

She remarked today though that they haven’t ‘really’ taught her anything yet. Except a new song about fish with their hands in their pants pockets.

Celia loves the big swings at Josies school!

Got a few more in the afternoon!

We’ve been gone for two weeks to cape cod. Over 1000 pictures I’m trying to work through but we had some nice lazy days enjoying the pool, the sun, the beach and each other. We ate a lot of ice cream cones.

Oh my I’m a little behind, but hey I had a baby only two days after Celia’s 2 and 3/4 years of life after having lots of pre-labor labor, and now said baby usually keeps me on the couch every evening feeding him until we both go to bed. As for Celia she keeps us hopping all day long from when she wakes us up in the morning till she drops at night.

Celia has now taken the crown as person who talks the most in our family, and that’s no easy feat considering Josie talks almost constantly as well. It is very loud at our house and can be hard to get a word in or get someone to listen to you. We’re still working on teaching her the skill of not interrupting.

Celia is loving our new addition to the family. She’s not too frustrated with him yet and asks to hold him at least 5 times a day. She gives him lots of kisses and hugs and is always asking ‘where is the baby?’ Ewan in return gives her open mouth kisses trying to see if she will nurse him. She’s excited to be big, but also likes to pretend to be the baby too in her pretend play a lot. Josie often plays the part of the mother in this game.

Fruits and vegetables are Celia’s favorite foods, to the detriment of trying to get her to eat anything else. It provides good nutrition so long as I can get some protein in there too with cheese, beans or eggs, but often hard to get her to eat enough calories to keep her from getting hungry before the next meal or snack. She loves tomatoes and I serve a side of those with most every lunch and dinner.

Celia is not very interested by art these days, finishing up her projects quickly, she’s much more interested in big active movements. She’s very much looking forward to starting gymnastics again this fall. She loves to dance to the ‘movement songs’ we got from Josie’s preschools, hopping around on the inflatable horse we have, and riding her bike all over the place. She rides the little red balance bike we’ve got all over the place, to Waldo, around the cemetery and to Quebrada. She rides up and down the hills and glides her way all over town keeping up with Josie on her pedal bike. She could possibly even use a real bike at this point if we tried, but I don’t think I’d quite trust her common sense and judgement yet.

At home, Celia loves to read and to play dress up and pretend. She pretends almost every day to be going to gymnastics, including the outfit changes and the car rides. She also plays doctor frequently or ballerina. As always, very active and always moving. She has a hard time sitting still, normal for a two year old, even when eating.  She will sit still to read which we do frequently while the baby is nursing. She’s also taken a big interest in having her own ‘reading lessons’ like Josie and so I’ve started her on the book of learning to read, it just starts with memorizing poems about letter sounds. She has also completed a few cutting books and is an excellent scissor user, following directions and cutting complicated patterns. We’ve also started a book on tracing, which is beginning lettering as her hand control is improving. I can also make her letter tracing patterns on the computer as she wants to be just like big sister and write. She recognizes a few letters and very much knows the number 7, as that’s when she’s allowed to wake us up in the morning in addition to being the number on the bus (77) that most frequently is by our house.

She has thankfully gotten past the toughest part of the 2.5 stage, just shy of 2.75 years old. She’s often frustrated and disappointed still that the world isn’t going her way, and I have to physically reinforce the rules a lot which now that I’m not pregnant is thankfully not so bad. But she recovers from her disappointments a bit quicker and can regain her composure to have a discussion at times. All in all she’s still an enthusiastic kid, loves to play with the big kids at the park and gives lots of love and cuddles. I’m so very happy she fits back into my lap again. We will be starting homeschool preschool with our same family friends that I did it with Josie two years ago with our second set of kids while the first-borns are in school and I think she’s going to do great.

• Size/weight: 3T and 4T, ~31 lbs
• Favorite foods: tomatoes, cheese, most fruit in general
• Favorite toy: leotards
• Favorite book: the little engine that could
• Favorite activity: riding her bike, playing with Josie
• Sleeping: bedtime ~8; nap is gone except for occasional car naps, gets up between 6:30 and 7
• New skill: using the toilet, recognizing numbers, excellent scissors and beginning writing
• Teeth: all 20
• Vocalizations: most vocal person in the family certainly, says ‘him/her’ instead of ‘he/she’

All three kids together down at Magnolia park last night!

Still a bit disheveled and trying to figure it all out, but now we are five!

[Credit to my dad for snapping the photo once I set it up, tripod is too much of a hassle right now]

This is the story of Ewan’s birth, not super graphic, but it’s got the basic details of timing and parts of labor. Read at your own discretion.

Last Friday the 19th I had another biophysical profile exam, which did not go as well as they had hoped. We had a less than friendly ultrasound technician. [Note to other future parents, for a valid exam the tech must watch your baby for 30 solid minutes looking for movement, this one tried to quit and fail us after 12 because I guess she had better things to do. Then she tried to insist it had been 30 minutes.] Never the less things looked less great than they did on Wednesday, namely, like my last two births the amniotic fluid was low.

I had been having contractions every night, for hours, as close as 6 or 7 minutes apart but they’d generally fizzle by morning. Very frustrating and tiring. Seemed like my body just couldn’t quite get pushed over the edge into labor. They had wanted to induce on Wednesday and so by Friday we were willing to consider induction if the test results looked worse after those two days. After a non-stress test that also looked slightly less reassuring than Wednesday’s we decided that today would be the day and we’d start the induction as soon as possible.

We sent the girls off with my mom to go to swimming lessons for the morning. I had made it through every lesson but the last one.

We had some lunch, and they tried to start an IV. It took three people and six attempts to get a working IV. I have a big bruise on my left arm from them unsuccessfully digging around for a working vein. I’ve never had this kind of problem before, eventually they got one settled in my right elbow.

The labor and delivery room with a better tub wasn’t quite clean yet so we walked around the hospital and I did the four flights of stairs to try to help the baby move down and hasten labor.

At 1:40 they hooked up the pitocin and my labor kicked off immediately. I had to wait hours for it to take effect with Josie and Celia, not in this case. I was right back into my normal nighttime pattern of labor I’d been having for the last week. I hung out on the ball, tried to do my squats, anything to get this baby moving on out. My doula was on her way and showed up a bit before 4. By that point my contractions were very much 2 to 4 minutes apart and required full concentration. Mostly I just want to be left alone during labor and not spoken to or touched much. I was trying to wait it out a bit before getting into the tub for the relief I had well anticipated.

By 4:20 I called uncle and decided to get into the tub as the only method of pain relief I had planned. The relief was instant and wonderful. The weight was off my back and the nurses were happy too because the monitors were doing a better job of watching the baby who was still doing well. After a while I even got enough of a break between contractions to fall asleep between a few of them.

Somewhere past 5, the nurse came in concerned that the contractions had slowed down some, but after she arrived the contractions picked right back up again and didn’t stop. Can we all say transition? I complained that they had turned up the pitocin, but they hadn’t, so I was hopeful I was indeed in transition. They actually turned the pitocin down because the contractions were just one on top of the other. I tried to move around in the tub to get things to progress again and by 6:18 I was starting to feel the urge to push during contractions a bit. My doula noticed, the nurse offered to find the midwife to check me and went out. I agreed to be checked. Next contraction or so, that’s it, I’m pushing, my doula goes running out of the room. She’s telling the nurse who is trying to page the midwife that I’m crowning, i.e. baby is coming NOW. Lots of people come running back in, trying to drain the tub and get me out. Because of the pitocin I’m not allowed a water birth. I stand myself up and enjoying the nice steadiness of the tub bars try to convince them that birthing standing right there is a good idea.

The midwife arrives thankfully and says that yes I can just have the baby right then and there, they just had to keep the baby from touching the water and everything is ‘ok’ on their end. The head is out, without any ring of fire pain. The midwife is nice and calm, tells me to give a little push to turn the body. I try to give a little push and ok the baby is born! 6:23. 5 minutes from when I started to feel like pushing. I turn to look and tell everyone ‘It’s a boy!?!?’ I was surprised. The midwife literally got to catch the baby in my case this time.

The cord was really short and so the midwife felt she needed to cut it so I could move out of the tub. Jordi cut the cord and they brought Ewan to the warming table to rub him and he was crying very quickly and loudly before even leaving the bathroom.

I got over to the bed and we all got in some good snuggle time. He wasn’t particularly interested in nursing but we spent some good time keeping warm and cuddling. Our doula Maria went home and we started settling in for transfer over to recovery. My parents arrived with the girls and Josie got to come in and meet Ewan. Celia was asleep in my dad’s arms even though it was only a bit past 7, it had been a big exhausting day. Jordi brought Ewan (yet un-named) over to the recovery side and gave him a bath and they did his initial examination.

I got moved over to recovery and waited for Jordi to get back with Ewan and my parents and the girls waited with me too. Once we were all together again we settled in to start to get to know one another. Josie held Ewan while Celia declined to leave my dad’s lap, she was still exhausted though awake.

We sent them all home to rest, the girls were out in the car ride home. Jordi and I tried to settle in for the night, even with the constant temperature, blood pressure and other hospital requirements. We woke up in the morning and started in on trying to get out of there! Plus we decided on a name. Took us until 7pm though to get home, lots of other people checking out the same day. He passed his hearing test too.

Still here. Looks like this baby just doesn’t want to compete with the also-soon-to-be-born-Monarch of England and will let it go first.

As compared with 28 weeks here.