I should be mopping...

I should be mopping my kitchen floor, but I'm not. My house is half way decent and I just don't feel like mopping...or moving for that matter, sooo I figured I'd do a LOOOONG overdue blog post.

Speaking of overdue, guess who is pregnant? Ummm, yeah, that would be me! I'm not over due yet. I am due on May 19th. Its crazy because this page still shows my announcement of Damian's birth if you scroll down a little. Damian will be 2 in just a few short weeks!!! Its crazy that blogging has fallen by the wayside since I've had two energetic boys to chase, but I'm totally good with that. They are my focus. Well, them and far too often Pinterest, but at least I'm usually pinning good food for them to eat or activities for us to do. We keep ourselves busy.
             
I have been realizing that this baby will be here before I know it and I still have a lot to do to prepare. I am so excited to meet this newest miracle and to introduce him or her to the two sweetest brothers ever. My boys are seriously the best of friends and I can't tell you how much I love that. Yes, they squabble, but they truly love being together, playing together and snuggling together. There really is no greater gift you can give a child than siblings. I believe that with all of my heart. I'm so curious to know this child. He/She is already an active lil' one. I can feel the pressure of a little hand or foot pushing against me and I rub it and speak to my lil' one enjoying a bonding moment. Sometimes the baby doesn't move away, but stays and enjoys mama's caresses. Bliss.

I need to start refreshing myself on the Bradley techniques that Paul and I learned during the classes we took two years ago. I can't tell you what a difference they made with Damian's delivery. I never did share Damian's birth story, so I will share a bit of it here now.

Just as a disclaimer, having a drug-free, natural birth was important to me and was initially our reason for taking the Bradley classes, but we ended up not being able to have an intervention free delivery and that was also completely okay, because the only thing that mattered in the end was that our son was born safely. Everyone from the class was awesome and supportive. Even while taking the class we realized that the bigger picture of the class was that we were empowered by better understanding my body and how this whole crazy labor and delivery thing worked, so that my husband and I, working as a team, could do our best to work with my body to help bring Damian into this world as healthy and safely as possible. It was awesome because I felt in control because I had been given the knowledge, understanding and tools to know, as well as I could, what was going on and how to work with my body. I can't imagine how different things could have been if I hadn't been taught what was going on and what to do to about it.  My husband can tell you what a control freak I can be at times and this was the perfect way for me to be able to stay calm and work through all the craziness that was involved in getting Damian out of his watery-world and into our arms.

I began having regular contractions around 9:30 on April 10th, a Sunday night. I could not sleep at all that night and labored at home until the next morning. I went into the hospital the next morning, but was not as dilated as I wanted to be before checking in for good, so I went home to labor in familiar surroundings. By that afternoon I was exhausted and knew that I wouldn't be able to labor at home much longer, so I took a warm shower to get ready to go. I came out of the shower and collapsed with exhaustion on top of my bed. I was still dripping wet and wrapped in a towel, but my contractions had subsided and I slept for about an hour before waking to even stronger contractions. We rushed out the door and headed to the hospital. I had to kneel hugging the back of my seat all the way there because it was impossible to sit.

Once we were in our room, I tried laboring in the jacuzzi tub with Paul holding and supporting me. I had really been excited about laboring in the tub, but as it turned out Damian was posterior (sunny-side up) and I was having such bad back labor that I couldn't get into a comfortable position. Fact: the only place I was comfortable was sitting on the toilet. The nurses were initially freaked out because they were afraid I'd deliver in the toilet, but I promised I wouldn't. ;-) And, just for the record, my nurses were AMAZING. I am not exagerating! They were seriously so incredible and helpful. I am so blessed to have been able to deliver at a small Catholic hospital close to my home, to have Jesus present in the tabernacle downstairs and to have had such incredible women by my side. My mom and Paul were able to make me so comfortable and work with me through each contraction.

I never felt out of control. I was able to stay calm the entire time and work through each contraction, but by Tuesday morning and after 4 hours of intense pushing we were able to have a specialist come in to try to manually rotate Damian. The doctor tried three times to rotate him (still sans drugs), but Damian was stuck and would not budge. There was meconium in my waters by then and I knew we just needed to get my boy out. I knew I needed a c-section and I was fine with that. Once the spinal tap kicked in I was ready to just go to sleep. I kept staring up into the silver shade of the light above me trying to catch that first glimpse of my baby.

The magical moment came when they lifted him over the screen and the first thing I remember thinking was that he had hair and it was dark! All the babies in my family were all baldies and blonde from the get go. I don't really remember anything after they took him from my sight. I must have fallen asleep (I lost a lot of blood and they had to work on me for a while) because the next thing I remember was Paul waking me in recovery to wheel me up to a room and his saying that he thought we should name him Damian. I told him that we weren't naming him until I was no longer loopy, but Damian sounded good to me (I had been expecting us to name a boy Xavier). Paul later ran home to check on Lil' Man and checked online to see whose feast day it was. It turned out it was the feast of St. Damian, Bishop of Pavia in Lombardy Italy. It was meant to be! We also dedicated our lil' guy to St. Damien of Molokai since Paul and I both have a devotion to him. Gabriel was after the archangel, of course. We figured it was a good strong name and our little guy had some strong patrons to look up to.

My labor was not how I planned, but over all it went well and I got the most perfect prize for my hard work. Who could ask for more???? :-)

I am praying for a vbac, but as with all things, it is in God's hands. God has blessed me with a way easier pregnancy this time around and I've been able to exercise more this time, so hopefully baby will be in a good position for things to go smoother. We will see. Please keep baby and I in your prayers.

I will try to at least post once baby is here, if not sooner. Have a meaningful Holy Week and a blessed Easter!!!