Wellllll I am trying to kill some time... Matt is over at the Ketah's helping Dave with the house, and I am about to go grocery shopping sans baby.

Anyway... I don't really have much to blog about, but life is finally settling down for me and after a week of stay-at-home mothering I am beginning to understand what life will be like with a baby. So far this has been a pretty smooth adjustment for the most part. I have been lucky enough to (mostly) escape the baby blues. Sure, there have been a few trying moments and tears shed, but given all the crazy hormones, recovery from childbirth, and dealing with a newborn, I'm pretty sure our transition has been smoother than most. Also, it gets easier with every day and as I gain more confidence (and lose more of those crazy prego hormones).

Part of my speculation about parenthood was a fear that I would never have time for myself anymore (or Matt for that matter). The last few weeks have been pretty Kisa-centric, but already I am starting to think about my personal goals and interests, and how I can make time for things that are important to me. Matt and I have been talking about my returning to work: a decision that, initially (as in pre-baby), seemed like a no-brainer to me, but as time goes by is becoming more of a question mark than a certainty. I'm feeling extremely conflicted about working... there are very clear pros and cons. I feel like my job is an opportunity for me to have some independence from my family. It's not a job that I love, but I do like the people I work with (well... some of them, anyway), and I like getting out and socializing and having a place where I am not serving the role of wife/mother. (That sounds really negative and I don't mean it to sound like I don't absolutely LOVE being a wife/mom, but hopefully people understand the point that I am getting at.) I also really struggle with the idea of not contributing financially. I know that being a stay-at-home mom is a full-time (and exhausting) job, not to mention that parenting is valuable in and of itself. Still, having the opportunity to stay home with my child seems like an incredible luxury to me, almost to the point of laziness. I know that I am capable of working and being a wife and mother. So choosing to do less work than I know I am physically able to do... that bothers me.

On the other hand, the hardest part of returning to work would be that I would be leaving Matt and Kisa for a significant portion of the time that we should be spending as a family. Especially with Matt, I feel like my time with him is limited already and I hate the thought of limiting it even more... giving up an evening or weekend together to go to a job that is, really, just a job... and not a career. It's not even something that I really care about.

One thing I have discovered in the last few weeks is that parenthood has not destroyed my quality time with Matt like I feared it would. In fact, in a way it has almost made things better. I think when you have less time, you tend to make more of the time you do have. Plus, after a week of taking care of Kisa alone, I am so excited to have him home with us all weekend. Parenting involves so much teamwork (i.e. you hold the crying baby while I brush my teeth, and then we'll switch) that I find myself really thankful for him and I feel like we are a stronger team than we were before.

Anyway... that last paragraph probably seems like a direct contradiction of the one before it, but the point is, family time is really precious to me, and time alone with Matt is precious to me, and I don't want to cut into either of those things.

Okay, it's time to do some shopping.

you know you are a mom when you blog about diapers.

Seriously though, I LOVE our diapers. I wanted to do cloth and Matt wanted to do disposables, so we compromised with g-diapers. They are environmentally friendly diaper hybrids; which means they have a cloth outside and a disposable (actually, compost-able or flushable) inner liner.

I was worried about whether or not these diapers would actually work... there was the potential for a huge mess and a lot of wasted money if they didn't. But they do and I love them. I love that we don't have poopy diapers sitting around our house. I also love that I am not throwing anything in a landfill. It also seems like they work at least as well (if not better) than the disposables.

So anyway, I am one happy mommy.

I have been waiting nine months for THIS DAY.

Perhaps it is silly and superficial but probably one of the most difficult things for me about pregnancy was all of the weight gain. What was even more frustrating was that it came at a time when I had just put a good six months into getting my body into great shape, and nine months later I am not only back where I started a year and a half ago, but I weigh more.

Oh well. What I gained is in the past (and it was the right amount, so I have no regrets). But I have been eagerly anticipating the day when I could get back on a regular diet and exercise plan. I don't expect to immediately shrink to my pre-pregnancy size, but I at least feel better about moving the scale in the right direction (aka down instead of up).

So anyway... today is the day I have been waiting for! I just re-enlisted in Weight Watchers. This time I am going to do it online instead of attending the weekly meetings. It's much cheaper that way and will probably be a lot easier with a newborn. They have meetings specifically for new moms, but it just sounds a little overwhelming to commit to being there every week (you have to pay for it even if you miss a meeting). Plus I am already in love with the online tracking system. Sooooo much easier than carrying around the little booklet, looking up all the points values and writing them down. I basically just enter the food and it calculates the points for me. I can even save stuff as favorites so I can quickly add stuff I eat every day.

Anyway... I'm kind of nerding out about this, I know... I'm just really excited to get started. I have a feeling this will be much easier the second time around because I know what I am doing... plus I get to eat a ton more food cause I'm breastfeeding, which is awesome.

Okay. The end. =)

MY labor story, sort of

For the moment I am enjoying some peace and quiet in our house! Kisa is down for a nap and Matt and I passed out with her... unfortunately I woke up, but oh well. I am feeling well enough rested for the moment.

I'm sure Matt will write a great blog with all of the details of delivery and our hospital stay, so I will just say a few things.

First, I feel incredibly blessed to have had such an amazing labor and delivery experience. I feel like everything went not only as I had planned but even better than I had hoped. I remember that I kept being surprised by the news the nurse would give me. She'd come in and give me an update on how far dilated I was, and I'd think, "really? Already? Wasn't it supposed to be hard?" I woke up from a nap at noon and was told (to my surprise and pleasure) that I was ready to push! I felt like I had barely even pushed and pretty soon they were calling in the doctor, and then before I even realized how close we were, they were putting my daughter on my chest!

When we got home and unpacked all the bags we had brought to the hospital, I kept pulling things out and kind of laughing to myself that we had never used any of the stuff we brought to cope with labor. We literally slept right through it. All I can say about that is God must love me, and I sure love epidurals.

Also, Matt was great and that made the whole experience so much easier than it could have been. He held my hand and encouraged me and even held his breath with me while I was pushing. He anticipated all of my needs and then met them without me having to ask. It was perfect. Over the last three days I have been thinking over and over how blessed I am to have him because he has been so good at taking care of me and Kisa. I really don't think I could have done it without him... which is a totally cliche thing to say, but true nonetheless.

Anyway, little Kisa is pretty much amazing and definitely the cutest person I have ever seen in my life, especially when she is sleeping or nursing or cuddling. When we were in the hospital we sent her to the nursery so we could get some sleep, so yesterday was our first night with her at home. She kind of gave us a run for our money. We had to call in my mom for backup. But today I am feeling a little more confident and well rested, so hopefully tonight will go a little more smoothly.

I don't really know what to say about Kisa. I feel like I am still getting to know her and I'm still kind of shocked that she is actually here. But I am also really proud of her. She is beautiful and she is doing so well. She seems to be eating, pooping and sleeping like she should be, so I'm not feeling very anxious about her the way I thought I would be. Plus, I just can't describe what it feels like to cuddle with her or nurse her to sleep. I guess other parents understand that feeling, but I can't put it into words.

Well, I should probably stop writing and see if I can catch a few more z's before the rest of the fam wakes up.. it could be another long night.

Selena Grace

Last night I went to the hospital with my mom to visit one of our friends who had JUST given birth. The couple just moved out from the midwest a year ago so they don't have a ton of family and friends in the area, and she delivered 2 weeks early so the family hadn't come out to visit yet. Consequently, my mom and I were probably the only two people to visit them yesterday.

I have hung out with them a few times over the course of my pregnancy, and it has been cool to know another pregnant mom... our due dates were only two weeks apart and we're both having girls, so it's been fun to compare notes. I was so excited that I got to visit them in the hospital and hold their newborn baby! She was probably only two or three hours old when we got to see her.

That was an incredible experience. I have never been in the hospital to see a baby before, and I have NEVER in my life held a newborn. This baby was also one of the cutest babies ever. She looks exactly like her parents already. It made me so excited to meet our baby and see her little face for the first time! What does a combo Matt & Ciara look like anyway? I guess we will find out soon enough...

I am getting pretty excited again. Every day that passes is one day closer to labor, and every day my chances of going into labor that day increase. No matter what, even if I go way overdue, there's a limited amount of time this can last. So, that is good. And pretty soon I will be holding MY daughter instead of someone else's. Yay!

I'm too lazy to think of a title for this blog post.

Well, these past few days have actually been pretty decent, considering. I am trying to keep myself busy in the last week of pregnancy. Every day I wake up with a huge list of things to do, spend all day doing them, and then go to bed at night with a new list. Yes, a lot of these things are very basic (like washing our bedding or taking out the trash) but it is extremely important to me that the house is as clean as possible every night when I go to sleep. I just keep thinking that if I don't do it now, I won't be doing it for a month, so I have to seize the day.

It's really hard to maintain the same level of preparedness/excitement for a month, so I'm having to be intentional about making sure we are prepared to leave at the drop of a hat. Because it really feels like it is never going to happen. And I don't say that to complain, I just say it because after a month, you get tired and stop focusing on things as important as your baby entering the world. Seriously, it is just impossible to be excited about that every moment of every day. Which I am glad of, because it makes the emotions a lot easier to deal with. I am sure we will get excited again pretty quick when I go into labor. But for now, we are just doing the same stuff we always do. (And with my luck, I will go into labor at three a.m. on the ONE DAY I didn't put the dishes in the dishwasher and forgot to switch my laundry from the washer to the dryer. I know it is weird that I think about that, but I do. So I have spent my days doing things like cooking 15 freezer meals, running random errands, and making sure everything I am responsible for in this world is up-to-date, paid, cleaned, or otherwise taken care of.)

I'm also finding that it is about ten million times easier to be super pregnant when the weather is cool than when there is a heat wave. I think I cried every single one of those ten or so days. Now, for the most part, I am feeling much better. I won't deny that late pregnancy is still very uncomfortable (my back and feet have been killing me lately), but it is soooooooo immeasurably better than being trapped in the heat all day that I really have no (okay... minimal) complaints.

One thing I have been REALLY thankful for this week is that I am not working. Today was supposed to be my last day of work, and I honestly don't know how I could manage even just four straight hours on my feet, let alone eight. I guess I had assumed that since I am young and generally healthy I would not be affected as badly, and all the other pregnant women and doctors were exaggerating when they said many women couldn't work in late pregnancy because their feet and back hurt too much. I was WRONG, I will admit it. Now I know better. Luckily for me I got to learn this lesson from the comfort of my house instead of from trying to work all day on swollen feet and a sore back.

All of this just makes me so excited to not be pregnant anymore. It seems like it has been so long that I have actually forgotten what it is like to not have a huge belly or carry around a ton of extra weight... it will be cool to lose weight again and feel like I at least have a vote about how I look and feel.

Well, that's all for now. Matt and I have a dr. appointment later today (which I'm sure will be the same boring stuff it always is) but I have some stuff to get done before then, including taking a nap, and blogging wasn't on my list for the day, SO. I'm already behind.

HAHAHA

My friend Kristin shared this story with me today... which is worth reading if you ever plan on having kids because it is hilarious (but beware the f-bombs). Anyway, this is my favorite quote:

Marlo's due date was June 14th, and nine days before then my mucous plug came out. In fact, I twittered about it, meaning I told the over one million people who follow me on twitter that a giant wad of snot came out of my vagina:

The fact that I knew that a million people would read about my mucous plug DID NOT STOP ME FROM WRITING ABOUT IT. This is what Jon has to live with. Please send him flowers.

Many people wrote to tell me that this meant I was going to give birth RIGHT THEN. Or at least within the hour, right? Maybe later that day? And then I didn't go into labor right then. Or even that day. Or even that week. And in the middle of all my positive visualization my Hamilton brain took over and started going, YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO GO INTO LABOR. Also, you're going to die. And your hair is ugly.

I had to physically push all these negative thoughts out of my brain because people were sending me stories about women who had gone, like, 18 days past their due date. 18! OH MY GOD! Can you even believe that? Men, you don't understand this, but that number is just incomprehensible. Because once you go A SINGLE DAY past your due date you are suddenly unable to count past one. What comes after that number? Nothing, right? Because I can't go another day. I cannot walk, and my face is retaining so much water that I cannot lift it off this pillow, it is so heavy. Wait, two? There's a number two? TWO?! THEY NEVER TAUGHT ME THAT IN KINDERGARTEN, THOSE BITCHES!

And suddenly you think, that's it, I'm going to be pregnant forever. Ask any woman who has ever been pregnant and they will tell you that they have had that thought. And then followed that thought with a giant bowl of chocolate ice cream. And then some uncontrollable flatulence.