Three Down: Bo's Room

I didn't get a chance to do a post about the new baby room before Boaz was born, but I did, in fact, have it finished before he so kindly joined the rest of us.

It was the last big project I had on my small, but time consuming, list of things to get done (which included this and this), and I'm quite satisfied with the results.

Bo's room also doubles as the guest room, hence the futon.

It's a nice, big space though so it works.

We found his gorgeous crib at...wait for it.... Goodwill.

It was one of those overstock items donated from Target- it's a Carters, was still in the box, brand spanking new, originally around $200.

At Goodwill it was priced at $100.

..But we bought it during their furniture sale...for $50.

Kinda makes me feel like I robbed the place.

But I love it too much to feel guilty.

The art I painted myself, but speaking of ridiculous deals.. I found both of those canvases, pre-painted blue and brown, at a garage sale for....wait for it.... 25 CENTS each.

UH. Mazing.

I was already planning on making those paintings, and they were going to cost me around 20-30 bucks to make, and instead cost me under 5.

LOVE IT!

Oh, and then I found the brown and blue throw pillow for the chair at a thrift store for a dollar. 

Another sweet victory.

The only unaesthetically pleasing part of this corner is the white and plasticy mobile.

(Why must they all be so white and plasticy?)

But for some reason the combination of rotating stuffed animals and Brahm's Lullaby can keep my babies utterly transfixed by themselves for long enough stints of time to be worth having there.

We have the same changing table in here that we used for Vienna and have never had an issue with it. ($20 on Craigslist. Woo!)

We store Bo's clothes in those fabulous canvas bins from Target, like we did for Vienna, and still love them. It's such a convenient set up.

Yes, there is currently a hot pink bin in there, which still holds Vienna's diapers. I'm hoping to change that with some potty training that we'll be starting soon.

It's time for that girl to start pulling her weight around here!

...beginning with crapping in the toilet.

Above the changing table I hung this fun little initial that I made out of a cheap, wooden letter from Michael's, some paint, a sheet of scrapbook paper, a piece of ribbon, and Mod Podge.

(Um, raise your hand if you're obsessed with Mod Podge!) 

It's one of those absurdly addicting things to work and play with.

Kind of like glue guns. (Don't get me started.)

The POSITIVELY STUNNING bedding comes from my husband's bachelor days.

When we got married, I introduced him to a whole new world filled with down comforters, high thread counts, and duvets.

Frankly, I don't know how he made it for 26 years without me!

Anywho, someday I'll get around to buying new guest bedding, but this works in the meantime.

And then we've got a nice little book case filled with most of the kids books, which we've been collecting since my first pregnancy.

You really should all read/own The Dangerous Book for Boys. It's absolutely darling!

Uh, I mean...manly and cool.

I bought both this one and the female counterpart, The Daring Book for Girls (which is up on a shelf in Vienna's room), years ago when I was single, and loved having them and saving them for my kids.

Both the little wooden blocks and the teddy bear I found at a thrift store, I think for 50 cents each.

And the old baseball was Luke's as a kid.

 And on the wall to the left of the shelf, is my copycat version of something I found on Pinterest.

The original gal who makes and sells these on Etsy does SOOOO much better of a job (For instance, everything is actually even on hers.)

This copy actually started out as my practice canvas, but while I was doing it, I decided that it was good enough for me.

It's a 12x12 canvas so it makes the wall look pretty bare, which is why I'm still planning on hanging maternity prints on each side of it.

I'm overall quite happy with how the room turned out.

I didn't want to be confined to a specific theme or color palette, so I just made it as BOYish as I found possible, with hopefully still making all of it complement each other and leaving me plenty of ways to add and change things.
Plus, I was able to do it all pretty inexpensively, which always makes me feel nifty and accomplished, like I won some sort of challenge.

Anyway, I'm sure Boaz will enjoy it.

You know, in spite of all those ridiculously high standards he has for interior design.

~~~

UPDATE 11/4/12: I was able to finish my maternity pictures project and hang them, making the bare wall not so bare anymore.

It was another Pinterest find, mod podging my prints onto wooden plaques.

I found the boards at Michael's for $3 a piece. Not bad.

I just love the look of them, giving a bit of variation from regular framing.

First I painted them the color I wanted, let them dry overnight, then I mod podged the pictures on.

I'm really happy with how they turned out and I might end up doing one or two for Vienna's room at some point.

A Girl And A Boy

Vienna, almost 3 weeks old.

Boaz, almost 5 weeks old.

Maternity Pictures

Back in July, our amazing friend and photographer, Brittany Kuenne, once again worked her magic during a maternity/family session with us. She was the one who did our GORGEOUS engagement and wedding photos(back when I was skinny and wore makeup everyday), which I wrote about and posted here, and then did our AMAZING family pictures last year for our christmas cards, which I posted here.

Her work is timeless, exquisite, and never ceases to blow me away. Her business, Kuenne Photography, is based mainly out of Colorado, with some availability in Minnesota throughout the year. But I'm sure if you're absolutely dying to have her do your wedding in New York or Guam or wherever, you'd be able to twist her arm to come.

Just tell her I sent you.

These are some of my favorites from our session, and you can see more of her portfolio on her website.

One Month Of Boaz

Today my baby boy is one month old.

It's pretty crazy to think that he's already been here, and yet ONLY been here, for that long.

We've loved every minute with him and have enjoyed the many little faces he makes.

Including, but not limited to, his silly faces...

 ...his cross-eyed faces...

..his terrified faces..

...and his confused/annoyed faces.

Today he's sporting (haha.. get it?) the very first piece of clothing I got for him (and his terrified face), that I bought the day I found out that he was a 'He'.

I specifically took a full length photo to show that he's almost completely grown out of it.

And it's a 0-3 month piece of clothing.

Pff ..3 months, my foot.

Blood, Sweat, and Breast Milk: A Birth Story

[Disclaimer: There's a teensy bit of OVERSHARE going on in this post. Don't say I didn't warn you. ]

Quick Recap of the last week of my pregnancy: I went into false labor...like 3 or 4 times(timeable contractions, fluid leakage, pelvic pressure...yeah.). It made me the most unbelievably cranky, miserable, and heinous human being in existence. I was so discouraged and was starting to actually believe that I was NEVER going to have this dang baby. My best friend, Mallory, and her daughter, Lucy, were out visiting me that weekend which was amazing and so much fun...but probably would have been a lot more fun if I wasn't such a big, fat, overdue stick in the mud.

On sunday night, 2 days after my due date, I had my first contraction at 8:45pm, while we were watching The Deathly Hallows: Part II (My first time seeing it. Not too bad. I must say, some of those kids totally rocked puberty.)

My contractions started out 15 minutes apart for the first hour, then the next couple hours they were 10 minutes apart, and not too terribly painful at this point. About a 2 on that dumb 1-10 pain scale (I hate that scale. I mean really, isn't everything a 10?)

Because of the cruel amount of times my son had pulled The 'PSYCH! You totally thought I was coming today, huh?! HA! Loser...' Card that week, I wanted to be absolutely positive that this was IT before we called Luke's mom, who lives 3 hours away in Wisconsin and was planning on coming up to help us with Vienna while we were in the hospital. 

So after a couple hours of consistent contractions, while I was laying down and drinking water, we decided it was ok to give her the green light to come.

This was Mallory and Lucy's last night in town, and they had to be taken to the airport the next morning around 7. So we just had to wait and see how quickly/slowly I was laboring to figure out how it would work out and who would take them.

During the time it took Julie(Luke's mom) to get here, my contractions were kind of all over the place, 15, then 20, then 10 minutes apart. So while they weren't going away, they weren't progressing.

I was going to be in labor till Christmas. Fantastic.

I called the hospital to let them know I was in labor and ask them how far apart they wanted my contractions before I came in. The nurse on the phone said 5 minutes or under, for 1 to 2 hours. And that I should lay down, preferably on my left side (screw that), and to stay hydrated. Whatev.

Once she got here, around 2 am, we made a plan to just all go to bed until Mallory and Lucy had to leave or until I was ready to go to the hospital, whichever came first.

So I stayed out on the couch, timing my lame contractions with the stopwatch on Luke's iphone.

All of the sudden I woke up, having dozed off, checked the stopwatch and it had been an HOUR AND FORTY MINUTES since I fell asleep.

What. The. ..?

Seriously? No contractions? Or did I just...sleep through them? Is that even possible?? 

After that I had a few more in between 10 and 20 minutes apart, then dozed off again.

Woke up and read on the stopwatch that it had been another HOUR AND TEN MINUTES.

Are you kidding me?!

Forget Christmas, I was literally going to be in labor..for the rest of my life. As in.. 85 years old..on my death bed.. just getting past 3cm. Shoot me in the face.

At that point, I decided to stick it to that nurse lady on the phone and get up and walk around. It was around 6 am, I had been inconsistently laboring for 9 freaking hours and I was going to get this party moving along a bit. 

We made a plan for Julie to take them to the airport and come back here,which would take about an hour and a half. 

As Mallory and I were hanging out while she was getting ready to go, my contractions immediately starting coming every 4 minutes.

FINALLY!

There's us saying goodbye, in between my contractions.

She looks amazing, of course.
I look...well, like anyone does in sweats and a frumpy bathrobe.

My contractions stayed at 4 minutes apart until Julie got back, around 9:30am. And it seemed like as soon as she got back, even though the timing stayed the same, the pain level went from a 3 or 4 to a 7 or 8 out of nowhere. Oh, and did I mention that this was all back labor? AGAIN.Yeah... 

So once I was doubling over in pain, we decided that it was a good time to go to the hospital.

We threw everything in the car and headed on our merry way.
In the roughly 30 minutes it took to get to the hospital, my contractions spread out to 6-7 minutes apart. Which I was cool with since sitting upright in an SUV isn't the comfiest way to get through a solid minute of burning, searing pain surrounding your tail bone.

Once we got there, at about 10:30, Luke wheeled me up to Triage where they were going to go elbow deep in my hoo-ha to check my cervix, to make sure I was actually in labor and not just faking it.

[Let me just add here that with Vienna I consistently labored for 8 hours at home before I was ready to go to the hospital, and when I finally got there.. I was only at 2 cm. And then it took another 13 hours to be ready to push. .. Not. Fun.]

So needless to say, my hopes were not high with this one.
But at this point I was worried about my pain level. It had intensified so much and so quickly that, at this rate, I was scared that I wasn't going to be dilated enough to get the epidural.
I needed drugs, and I needed them NOW.

When we got there I found out that the ONE midwife I had ever met during this pregnancy that I ACTUALLY LIKED was on call, so I requested her immediately and when the triage secretary gave me some BS about me not being on her service, I dished out the necessary sass it took until I got my way.

My little british midwife came in, gave me a friendly little british Hello, slapped a pair of those sketchy gloves on, and plunged in.
She pulled what was probably her entire arm out, and said with a cheerful smile, "Well you're at about a 6. Let's get you into a room!'

This, people, is when I burst into sobs. SOBS. Joyful, elated tears filled with relief and hope. Not only was I OFFICIALLY IN LABOR, but I wasn't just at a 2. I was at a 6. I was going to get my flippin' drugs and then I was going to have this baby.

The next hour and a half moved so quickly and beautifully. They immediately had me into my own room, got the IV going, and started setting up for my epidural, which included getting a fun little catheter put in. (Side Note: What is with the bad rep that catheters have? I think they are TOTALLY awesome. You can just lay there and be completely oblivious to the fact that you're peeing, no fuss about it. Frankly, I would have one in all the time if I could!)

Chad, the love of my life anesthesiologist came in and ran me through all the usual 'Don't Sue Me If This Kills You' paperwork that hospitals make you sign. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah..Whatever, like I care. Give me heroine if you have to. Just make this agony go away already!

Getting this epidural was definitely more memorable than the last time I got one.
With Vienna, at the point that I had the six inch needle flowing with magic happy juice shoved up my spine, I had already endured 20 hours of back labor, most of which were spaced every 2 minutes, before waving the white flag, so at that point you could have hit me over the head with a shovel and I still wouldn't have felt or remembered anything but the monstrous contractions I was coping with.

This time around, I was much more awake and alert, my contractions still weren't super close together, maybe every 5 to 6 minutes, but the pain was definitely at an 8 or 9. I had one or two of them while they were getting the epidural in, which were really treacherous since I had to sit as still as possible through them.

Oh, but once it was over...I was in heaven.

They checked my cervix again right after I got all numbed up and situated in bed, around 1pm, and I was at 8 cm. I was LOVING this.

I called my Mom to tell her how much I was enjoying this baby already and while we were gabbing away, I felt a dam break on my insides and a gush of yummy, warm juices flooding down between my mostly numb legs. I was like "...um, hold that thought, Mommy...UHH, Nurse? Either my water just broke or my catheter bag was a little too full."

Sure enough, my water had broken. Sweet! Just moving this thing along even quicker, fine by me.

It had only been an hour after they checked me last before my midwife came in, checked me again, and said they were going to start setting up to have me push.

Holy crap! This was all going so fast, I was actually getting kind of nervous. Mostly because I pushed for almost 3 hours with Vienna, and I really didn't want to go through that again.

Which is what I told one of the doctors setting up to help the midwife. As she was slipping into what looked like a Hazmat Suit, face shield and all (like maybe she was expecting my vagina to go all Carrie at the Prom on her or something), she said to me with total confidence "Oh, don't even worry, with the way you've been progressing, It'll only take you 4 or 5 sets of pushes to get this guy out."

....

So I pushed.

I pushed and pushed.

I pushed more.

They turned my epidural down(which basically meant OFF) so that I could feel the pressure of where to push, and I pushed more.

I pushed through the searing, burning pain.

I pushed more.

I pushed until I was blue in the face.

I pushed more.

I pushed until my head throbbed.

I pushed more.

I pushed and yelled my way through the pushes.

I pushed until dozens of blood vessels had burst all over my neck and chest.

I pushed and screamed, and begged Jesus to help me.


I pushed and pushed and loudly cried out that I couldn't do it anymore.


For TWO AND A HALF HOURS, I pushed.

And right before I was ready to reach out and punch the Hazmat lady in the face for giving me those cruel expectations...I pushed again..and finally felt the head come through.

I pushed twice more, through the agony and nauseating squirming of my insides..and Luke pulled out our son.

My cries of pain turned into cries of relief as they put him on my chest.

And through tears and laughter I said "HOLY CRAP! He looks Sooooo WEIRD!"

For the next hour, I wept.

I wept that it was all over.

I wept out of love for this perfect little boy, who looked like a crossbreed of a Unicorn and a Smurf.

I wept out of delirium and exhaustion.

Then my midwife came over to us and explained that the reason behind my kid's unicorn-esque feature and why the last 3 hours had been such an unexplainable nightmare was that he was upside AND sideways, which they hadn't known until he came out.

So the big traffic cone on his head was where it was stuck in my now torn-apart vagina.

She said that the position he was in is the hardest/most improbable way to deliver a child naturally and that she, personally, would have opted for a c-section.

To this, I wept some more.

Then Luke went with him across the room to be measured, weighed, poked, and all that other stuff.

I called my mommy and cried about how happy and exhausted I was.

While I was talking to her, Luke called over to me that he weighed in at 9 lbs, 10 ounces and 22 inches long.

"NINE POUNDS, TEN OUNCES?!" 

And my mom was all "Holy Sh**, Elise!! That is HUGE! ...You poor thing!"

I immediately wept some more.

Within just a couple of hours, my ginormous mutant baby had pinked up and his cone had gone almost all the way down.

Julie brought Vienna in to see us that night.

She immediately kissed her new little brother and we were able to snuggle in my bed together, eating snacks, for about an hour before they went home.

Which I cherished, I had already missed that girl.

After they had me all sewn and patched up, the doctors were concerned that the carnage where my pretty lady parts used to be had swelled up a little too much (and when I say 'a little', I actually mean that my junk could probably have been seen from the International Space Station that night) and said they might need to take me down to surgery to get that taken care of.

Thankfully, that turned out not to be necessary and it went down to a humanly size all on it's own.

Boaz was overall a very healthy baby.

His bilirubin count was a tad on the high side because of all the bruising on his head from violently tunneling through me. But we took him into our clinic both days after leaving the hospital to see if he needed to be put in the infant tanning bed to counter the jaundice, but his lab results didn't come back super high and he was gaining weight well.

Breastfeeding went great right off the bat, he latched on like a rockstar and has been on a consistent 3 hour routine since we were in the hospital.

People have asked me if it was a better or worse experience than giving birth to Vienna, and honestly...I have no idea.

On one hand, at least with Vienna..when I went into labor, I was IN labor, and I knew it, without a doubt.

Of course, with Bo..progressing so quickly once I was at the hospital was a dream come true.

And then there was the pushing...and honestly, that was a trip to Hell and back with both of them...and maybe slightly worse with Boaz.

Of course, they're both worth every minute of it... so I guess it doesn't really matter, Right?