Sorry for the delayed email. Jen and I are proud to introduce Adam James Kitchen. Adam was born today at 5:27 PM and weighed in at a whopping 9lbs 15.1oz (just shy 10 lbs). He is 21 1/4″ long. Baby and mom are both doing well and are together in the maternal child unit. After delivery when I escorted Adam to the nursery for his checkup the nurses informed me that he was the current record holder for the day as far as weight goes. Who would have thought that such a big thing could come out of such a small person?

And what kind of parent would I be if I didn’t have a photo album setup already?  Check it out here.

Tomorrow’s the magical “EDD.” The E stand for estimated, and apparently 3.0 didn’t get the memo that I’d like him out by then. I don’t know why I’m so antsy about it all now - I know life will be hard with 3 of them and I should enjoy every day I have with just the twins. And I’m trying. Truthfully, I feel guilty a little that our little threesome and daily routines are going to be so disrupted, and I’m nervous about how I’ll handle it all. And I did say for a long time that I wanted to wait until after Easter for him to come. But I’m also ready to meet the newest member of our family. So I sit here, anxious, uncomfortable, and impatient and wondering if labor will start before next Wednesday at noon, when we have to be at the hospital for the scheduled c-section.

I had my last doctor appointment yesterday. The good news is that baby is big and healthy and looks good. I’ve had a couple of 8 pound plus estimates, and I certainly feel overstuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey. But she basically apologized before telling me my cervix was still totally closed. That was really disappointing to hear - I was hoping for maybe a centimeter or something telling me my body was at least trying to get ready for labor. I really want a VBAC and really don’t want the recovery from another c-section. I just cannot imagine trying to care for the twins and a newborn alone while still in pain from surgery. So I went and did a few laps around the mall while buying Alex some new shoes to see if walking would help. I am having lots of little contractions, but I’ve been having them for a week now, so I don’t think they are doing any good. My aunt Jimmie emailed me today that Friday is a full moon, and I’ve heard that brings on labor for many women. Here’s hoping…

We had a pretty exciting Monday evening. Thought 3.0 was coming and got to do the middle of the night run to the hospital and everything. But alas, here it is Thursday, I’m 39 weeks along, and I’m still pregnant.

It started around the twins’ bedtime, when I just wasn’t feeling well. I was going to make dinner for Don and myself, but told him I felt like I needed to sit down for a few minutes first. Within about 45 minutes, I had a full blown stomach issue going on with vomiting and diarrhea and that led to some contractions. At first they were irregular, but by 11:30 they were steady every 3-6 minutes, my stomach wouldn’t stop, and I was really thinking this was it. Don was great - from when I first told him I was concerned, he cleaned the whole house, installed the infant seat in the car, helped me pack a bag, and kept checking on me. We finally called my dad and Nancy around midnight or so and asked them to come out because the OB on call had told me to come into the hospital. It was Don’s biggest worry that we’d need someone in the middle of the night, but thankfully they came through for us in a huge way. By the time they got here and we got to the hospital, I think it was almost 2 am. They hooked me up to monitors and did an internal. When the nurse told me my cervix was still high and closed, I knew this wasn’t real labor and felt terrible for keeping Don up all night, making my Dad and Nancy drive to us in the middle of the night, and basically I felt like a dumbass who couldn’t tell real labor from something fake.

But, as it turned out, the baby’s heartrate was dropping after each contraction, so they decided to give me IV fluids and some oxygen to see if that would help. They also had me flipping from my right side to my left and back again depending on what his reactions were. If he hadn’t improved, they’d have done a c-section Tuesday morning. Finally by about 6:30, the doctor was happy with his heartrate and we were sent home, doing the walk of shame from the hospital with no baby. We were home in time for Don to be here to wake up with the twins - he only got maybe 30 more minutes sleep than me, but was a saint and let me go to bed when we got home. The doctor released me back to regular activity with instructions to stay hydrated, which has been hard. I still feel completely nauseated and am having stomach issues, and some contractions again today.

I can only hope this is gearing up for the real thing very soon. I never thought I’d say that, but although I’m not ready to be done being pregnant, I am ready to be done being THIS pregnant, if that makes sense. I could be 25 weeks forever, but 39 is kicking my ass. I’m a little worried that if he wasn’t tolerating the contractions the other night, that he might not tolerate labor well and I might end up with another c-section instead of a VBAC, but as long as he gets here safe and sound, that’s what matters most. So let’s all just hold hands and send good quick labor thoughts to me, ok?

There are so many times that I think to myself, “Hey, I should put that in a post.” But lately it just hasn’t been happening. So here are a few little things:

New Baby
Things are good with him. I’m almost 37 weeks, he’s head down, and my due date is rapidly approaching. He’s crazy active almost all the time. I’m starting to be really uncomfortable, and heartburn has been a major issue the last week or so. The twins always want to sit in my lap, but I don’t have a lap anymore, which makes things difficult at times. I’m doing weekly appointments now and at the last two, the doctors told me I needed to get onto the c-section schedule at the hospital in case I don’t go into labor on my own. So I finally pulled my head out of the sand and called today, and if I don’t go into labor on my own before then, Dr. P will go in and get him on March 26th. I could have gone a bit longer, but then I wouldn’t have been able to get the doctor who I like who also happens to have delivered the twins. I am still hoping for a VBAC, but know that what will be will be, and as long as we get a healthy baby and mommy out of it, we’ll be happy and manage the difficulties either type of birth will create.

Avery

Avery is so smart it’s scary sometimes. Well, lots of times. She says the cutest things - the latest includes “Here ya go, honey” and “Thanks, honey.” She also loves to wrestle with Daddy and will go up to him and say “Bodysam? Peas?” when she wants him to throw her around. Not so cute is “NO WAY!” which is her answer to even her favorite things when she’s in a mood. Can’t imagine where she gets that attitude from! She’s still in love with Mickey and Pooh and can name all the characters from those two shows. She knows her colors, can sort of count to ten (1,2,3,2,3,2,3 and then eventually if you give her 4,5, she can do the rest,) and can say most of the ABCs. She’s been having some trouble with bedtime the last few nights, screaming when we leave the room and/or playing for up to an hour after lights out. Not sure what’s going on there. I worry a lot about what her reaction will be to the new baby. She loves the idea right now, but of course she has no idea of the reality of it, and she’s stuck to me like glue most of the time. Like, she literally has to be touching me most of the time. I cannot imagine the NO WAYs and worse that will happen when I’m trying to nurse or hold or do whatever with her new baby brother. Her little world is just going to be rocked. And I feel a bit guilty about that.

Alex

Alex and Daddy are best friends these days. He wants to do everything Daddy does - helping him build and fix things, following him around with his tools, asking for him as soon as he wakes up. It’s very cute. He’s really gotten to be pretty independent and doesn’t mind spending time playing on his own with his trains or vacuum or whatever. He LOVES to be outside and throws a fit anytime we drag him in, no matter how cold it is out. In the last couple of weeks, it seems like he’s realized that people communicate by talking, and while his vocabulary isn’t nearly as prolific as Avery’s he is starting to put two words together at times, and he babbles up a storm. I very often comment that I just wish he spoke English. Lots of context is helpful, since things like Colby (Cubby), cup (cuppy) and glove (gubby) all sound nearly identical. He loves to tell you what noise something made, even if you were right there to hear it. So he’ll say something like “Cubby *blech*” when Colby coughs, or “Daddy wzzzhhhh” when Don is using some nosy tool. Our little reporter.
He’s still doing well with the potty and us not pushing full-on training. He usually sits on it after breakfast, after nap, and before bed and at least pees every time. We have a really cute word book about a mouse named Maisy, and in it there’s a picture of a bull going poop. That seems to inspire him to go, which is very funny - he asks for the Maisy book and the poop page and then he goes. We had one incident last week when he woke up dry from a nap and I wanted him to get on the potty but he didn’t want to, so I told him he could have a piece of candy if he went. That worked like a charm - he got one M&M for peeing. Unfortunately, it backfired quickly when he wanted another candy and I said they were only for going on the potty - he ran right back to the bathroom and threw a fit when I wouldn’t help him get back on. The tantrum lasted 10 minutes and I decided candy was not going to be a good motivator for him for the potty - he got part of the logic but not enough of it for it to work.

Other

We’re still working on getting everyone in the house well again. I posted before about Avery & Alex being sick. Since then, the they both got another cold, and we had Alex at the doctor on Friday to make sure he didn’t have an ear infection. I hope they are getting it all out before their brother comes, but in reality I know they are just little petri dishes of funk at this age and there’s not much we can do. I’ve finally made some new mom acquaintances in the area thanks to storytime at the local library, so we’ve had some playdates and that’s been a nice break for us all. I get adult conversations and the twins get some interaction with other kids as well as out of the house once in a while. I think we’re all ready for spring and better weather - being cooped up sucks!

Don is finished the guest bathroom project he took on 3 years ago, and it was worth the wait. It looks amazing, and I’m so proud of him for doing it all himself. We spent lots of time at Lowe’s and Home Depot this weekend getting things to do the kids’ bathroom on the main floor, which is really the only room left that we haven’t redone in this house. We just had french doors installed in the basement to replace the slider that was rotting at the bottom by the “pros” at Home Depot. Yeah - it’s neither square nor plumb, the caulk the guy did at the bottom on the coldest day of the winter never set and ran out when it rained two days later, and there are holes big enough for mice to come in through and air to flow through on all sides. I don’t know why we bother - every installation experience from them has been awful. The installer said it was how all the doors from this manufacturer are, but how much can you trust someone who installs a door without ever using a level? At any rate, the manufacturer has been out and given us a written report that it’s HD’s fault, so now they have to come reinstall the door and I will be bitching to get a refund of our hefty installation fee. And we’ve learned that while it might take Don longer to do something, he always does a better job in the end and we’ll be sticking with that in the future, I believe.

And with that, I believe we’re caught up!

Wow, here we are with 29 days left until Baby 3.0’s due date.  It’s hard to believe he’ll be here in a month!  I can’t lie that I’m definitely getting more nervous as the time gets closer.  I think at this point it’s more an issue of dealing with the possibility of Jen going into labor early in the middle of the night or something.  Before Alex and Avery it really wasn’t a problem because we can just jump in the car and go.  Now with these guys to worry about I’m in a panic of what we’d have to do with them.

We’re also realizing now that we should probably get a back packed in case the time does come early.  I think we’ve both just had it in our minds that he’ll come on time and everything will go exactly as planned.  We were even talking the other night about possibly going to visit my dad before 3.0 comes and quickly realized we probably shouldn’t put ourselves in a situation where we’re 3 1/2 hours away from home.

What I’m NOT nervous about is having a new baby.  Before Alex and Avery I had zero experience with tiny babies, changing diapers, etc.  At least now I’ve got that level of confidence where I don’t have to constantly ask myself if I’m holding the baby the right way, if that noise he made is normal, etc.

But please don’t get me wrong, I’m still a paranoid person (parent) in general.  For example, Avery recently had a small scab on her head that neither Jen or I knew how it got there.  It just seemed to show up one day out of the blue.  At first we weren’t sure if it was a scab, a mole or what.  So we kept watching it and it didn’t seem to be going away.  So I started to think man, it’s probably a mole.  Then I thought, wow, if it’s a mole we should get it checked out in case it’s like cancerous or something more serious.

It turned out to just be a scab that Jen was able to pop off with her fingernail.  But, it just goes to show the process I went through in my head of “no big deal” to “we should get it looked at”.  I’m sure that will happen less and less as I continue to get more years of parenthood under my belt.  I’m sure once the big bangs/bruises (i.e. skinned knees, etc) come I’ll definitely brush such things off much easier.

Sorry there hasn’t been much posted up here in the blog lately.  We’ve been super busy and have been trying to get things ready for the new baby.  It’s hard to believe that we’re less than 2 months away (50 days).  That’s scary!  For a while we (or at least I know I) kept saying “well, hopefully when the baby comes the kids will be ____ by then.”  Well, I can’t say that anymore as I really don’t see them changing all that much in the next 50 days.

I guess other than Jen wrapping up tutoring, us getting our glider delivered and just getting into March so our childcare situation will work I think we’re close to being physically ready.  Now, am I mentally ready for another new tiny tiny baby to come home?  Not really.  It’s going to be tough for sure!  My main concern is how Alex and Avery will react and me/us trying to find the balance between the new baby and them.

I might even say that our picture taking has been a little light this month too.  I guess compared to all that happened in December with the holidays, the output from that month was much more than usual.  Unfortunately our photo album part of the site has been acting up, and is running super slow.  We haven’t uploaded January’s pictures yet this month, and will try to do that.  If you want direct access to our picture sets, you can use this link directly.  This will take you to Flickr, the photo hosting site we currently use (I’m going to be switching them to Google soon).

Other than being sick at the moment, Alex and Avery are doing great!  Avery is talking more than ever and now can belt out whole phrases of 2+ words.  She’s a little parrot and shows more and more of her personality each day.  She’s such a sweet and fun little girl and as smart as a whip!  Alex is doing even better with his potty adventures and has even become the proud owner of a few pairs of “big boy” undies.  He’s still fulfilling his role as the house helper too and is ready to tackle any little job you can give him.

I’ll save any more updates on the kids for Jen.  I just wanted to throw out a quick post to let you all know that we’re still here.  We’re all doing well and we’ll get those January pictures up this week.

The halfway point for baby 3.0 has come and gone. Jen had another bi-weekly sonogram and our boy is still doing great. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to make all the sonograms that Jen has had this time around due to work and babysitter constraints. It is nice though to see the pictures and know that he’s growing like a weed in there.

From what Jen says and I’ve felt this little guy is super active, especially at night. Part of the power behind his kicks may be this long femur that they caught on the sonogram at Jen’s appointment this week.

He actually looks like a little Karate kid in this picture. He probably just finished delivering a crane kick to Jen’s belly. If he’s half as active when he comes out as he is inside Jen’s belly we may be in big trouble when he teams up with his older brother Alex, who is already trying out some wrestling moves on Avery (which she doesn’t find amusing, at all).

It’s funny because this baby coming really only seems 100% real when I lay next to Jen and occasionally feel him kicking. At that point I quickly start thinking how hard it’s going to be and how I don’t know how we will manage everything. But it doesn’t take long for me to get to thinking about how wonderful Alex and Avery are and how much fun they have, and the fun we have with them. And it makes me excited to add another member to the gang and think about how much fun Alex and Avery will have with their new baby brother.

You can see all of the sonogram pictures for 3.0 here.

We had our 20 week sonogram yesterday and our boy seems to be doing great. He was very active just like every other time we’ve seen him. It’s amazing to see these sonograms and how much room he has compared to when Alex and Avery were in there. He doesn’t know how good he has it! Or, maybe he’s lonely and Alex and Avery kept each other company. If I had to guess, based on all the head kicks Avery seemed to give Alex, he’s probably better off

It’s hard to believe that we’re halfway there already. March seems so far away but I guess with as busy as we’ve been time is just flying by and it’s only right around the corner. We’ve got to get some furniture for this kid or he’ll be sleeping on the floor

Here’s a good profile shot from one of the sonogram pictures:

Do you think he’s sad because we haven’t given him a name yet? We’re working on it, it just hasn’t been easy to decide.

That’s right. “She” seems to have grown a penis! Our latest 16 week sonogram shows that he’s definitely a boy!

These kids…they get cuter by the day, I swear! The things they come up with just make us smile all the time.

Today, Alex (AKA the child who would rather wear the same dirty diaper for 4 days than be still for 30 seconds for you to change it) decided he needed a diaper change. He was barely wet, mind you. Plenty of mornings I chase him around while his soaked diaper hangs down to his knees, making him waddle, and the front of his pajamas are wet from it too. And this diaper today had been peed in maybe once. But he wanted a change for some reason. So he went around the corner and got the wipes box and a diaper and brought them to me. I thanked him and smiled, but didn’t move to change him. He then proceeded to lay down in front of me, on his back, and put his legs up in the air! Don and I just cracked up laughing. I had to change him at that point, wasted diaper or not. I have no idea what got into him…

And Avery - she’s just talking up a storm, repeating everything she hears. She’s a genius, of course. I made a list of the words she uses regularly, and it’s 15 or more without counting her names for Don, Alex, or me. New favorites include No no no! and Yucky! Just today, she started saying Yay! She also knows the sound for letter h. See, I told you she’s a genius!

They both are just so amazing at communicating what they need or want, either with signs or gestures or words.

We had their 15 month appointment last week, and they checked out healthy. Avery weighs 24lbs 6oz and is 30.5″ tall. Alex weighs 24lbs 11oz and is 31.5″ tall. They still have big heads - Alex’s is way off the charts. Did you know there’s a condition called familial macrocephaly? Literally, your big head is because of your family. Don and I have larger than average heads, so Alex does too. Poor kid…

Finally, everything is going well with 3.0. I had a sonogram last week and Don will scan and add the pics at some point. I’m feeling well, though MUCH more tired than I ever was with the twins. I’m starting to show already. We keep saying we’re going to start taking belly pictures but never quite get to it. Whenever we do, we’ll add those as well. I like to pretend we have a very long time before we need to worry about getting a new crib and figure out sleeping arrangements, but I know March will be here before we know it. *gulp*