Asa Joel

Asa Joel
Sunday October 23
11:53am
8lbs 13oz

21.5inches

The story: Saturday, Andrew and I took the boys to the zoo.  It's a ton of walking and lots of hills, so I was hoping it would speed labor along - and it did!  I felt very normal the rest of the day, though.  Around 11:30pm, I woke up with an upset stomach and bad nausea.  I was up for probably an hour with a few hard contractions and then went back to sleep.  I woke up a little after 1am feeling the same way.  When I laid back down, the contractions got harder - 10 minutes apart.  I woke Andrew up on the third one because I couldn't handle the pain of the contractions in my back.  I got up out of bed and they got closer together - like 4 minutes apart.  I knew this had to be real!  We talked to the on-call nurse in Labor & Delivery (Andrew talked, I couldn't talk) who said to come on in.  I tried my hardest to talk Andrew through what we needed to take while not falling on the floor in pain.  :)  Thankfully, my bag was already packed.  Our sweet neighbor came to stay with the boys and off we went.  On the way, the contractions went to every 2 minutes ... I thought I was going to die from the pain.  When they first checked me, I was still a loose 1cm and 80% effaced.  I was devastated!!  I couldn't believe what a wimp I felt like, but all the pain was in my back.  So the OB on call said to admit me around 5:30 or 6 and I got some pain meds that just made me feel drunk.  They did mostly take the edge off the pain.  We got in a room around 7, I think and I got the epidural around 8am.  Right after that, I was 3cm and they broke my water (I changed to 4cm then).  Less than 2 hours later, I was at 6cm and an hour after that it was time to push!  I couldn't believe how fast it went.  I think we started pushing shortly after 11am and it didn't take even an hour to get Asa out.  He was much bigger than the OB and nurse thought he'd be!

I had wanted this whole time to go into labor on my own so that I'd have a chance at a VBAC.  I'm so thankful that God gave me this opportunity.  I had a million reasons for not wanting to be cut open again and, after just a few days of recovery, I can say I feel very justified in ALL of those reasons!!  I'm still amazed at how fast he came and how fast we got to come home.  Asa is such a sweet blessing and Aidan & Jordan are really doing pretty well with having him here (it's still early, though!).  More pictures later!

Dry spell

I'm not going to apologize for not blogging any more!  I'm just going to trust that you all know that I have kids to keep up with.  :)

Right now, I'm praying the 3rd comes any day (minute) now.  Asa is measuring a week ahead and last week (at 36 weeks) he weighed in at 7lbs 3oz.  So he's done cooking and we're ready for him to be here in our arms!  My belly is tired  :)  Friday at the OB, I was 1cm dilated and 25% effaced.  I had an appointment today, but had to cancel because Jordan woke up early this morning throwing up.  He's seems better this afternoon, so I'm calling it a bug (and a thankfully short-lived one) and waiting to see if Aidan does it tomorrow.  Anyway, about Asa... I'm pushing my OB for a vbac, so I have to go into labor (or at least significantly progress on my own) before the 39 week mark.  Otherwise, it's a repeat c-section and I'd really rather not.  I cannot imagine not being able to pick up A & J for 6 weeks after Asa comes.  I think that would devastate all of us.

I wanted to post before Asa comes because I know I've totally neglected this blog in keeping updates about the boys!  Here are my favorite sayings right now:

Aidan: "uh-oh! what gonna do now?"  -- usually talking to a car on the edge of some surface, hilarous!

Aidan: "bye-bye! have a good day!"

Jordan: "um, nope" which has developed "uh, wah" which means 'yes' or 'uh, yeah'

Jordan: "Aidan Jordan get out their beds, Mommy lock door"  -- ok, longer explanation... We had been locking their door for months because they were coming out just to come out in the middle of the night.  Then they started laying in front of the door calling for us or just banging on it (thankfully, not in the middle of the night, but at bedtime and at early-wake-up-brother rising).  So we switched it to a baby gate with the door partially open.  We spent many weeks with them hanging out in front of the gate calling us or just standing there waiting to see us walk by before they understood they were really supposed to stay in bed.  So then the gate came down and we would just pull the door to (ok, I don't know how to type that - "pull it to" - do y'all say that?  pull it to what?  it means that I don't actually shut the door, I just leave it mostly closed...).  Which, by the way, is what I've been doing at naptime for months!  And it worked well for a week or two and now we're back to night-wakings and sometimes just rebelling at bedtime.  Well, we have 2 year olds - can we really expect much more?  Spanking is not worth it at bedtime and I don't want to leave a day on that note, so we threaten to lock the door instead of spanking if they get out of bed.  So there's the long explanation.  I just was amazed that he used the word "their" last night.  And Aidan doesn't use 's' if it's at the beginning of a word.  So we don't swing, swim, or slide... we 'wing, 'wim, and 'lide!

Our dynamic of which twin is in charge is so weird.  Aidan now has at least an inch on Jordan, maybe an inch and a half, and I think he knows it.  He's been pushing a lot lately.  He pushed Jordan down yesterday because he was frustrated with him.  Usually, he just likes to mess with Jordan - tackling and roughhousing - but we've got to work on not using our strength against our brother.  Jordan, on the other hand, bosses Aidan constantly.  He's the more verbal one, so it's "no, Aidan, do this" a lot.  The other day at Andrew's parents' house, Jordan was fussing at Aidan about being in "mine" car.  And while we were trying to explain that we share everything and both cars are just fine for either boy, Aidan got out of his car and got in the other one.  I'd love to know what his motivation was.  I mean, I'm all about keeping the peace, if you really don't care which toy you have.  But I don't want Aidan doing what Jordan says just because Jordan said it.  And it doesn't make sense when Aidan can form-tackle Jordan the way he does.  It's a very interesting relationship.

 Jordan stealing Mommy's laptop

 J & A at the Botanical Gardens in Hsv with my family

 gotta love tire swings

 Aidan laughing at Jordan being a gnome

 

We had a day where we just played in Mommy's old dance shoes and Aidan clearly didn't like the flash on my camera.  He started smiling like that in all the pictures because I was laughing at him  :)  And then he wore those yellow ballet slippers the rest of the morning.