Tales from the Swamp: January 2014

This is us!

We are Jon, Carrie, Alex, Kaitlyn, Isaac and Evan

Jon is, in the simplest terms, an engineer. This is his profession but he is also a blog and news reader extraordinaire, robot vacuum/mopper pro, and the best dad on the block. He likes learning new things and I'm always amazed by how much he knows and informs me of!

Carrie is an aspiring crafter and apron maker, lighting enthusiast, entertainer of the children, and, on good days, a housekeeper.

Alex is our cute 5 year old. He goes to preschool, is learning to read and is very creative and artistic, which Carrie is thrilled about. His favorite things in life are Mario, drawing machines and coloring, his scooter, playing in the mud and being outside.

Kaitlyn is our adorable 2 year old. She loves doing anything that Alex is doing, eating, doing things just to push his buttons, and playing chase. Her favorite things in life are Alex's toys, Carebears, her binky and blanky, markers, and milk.

Isaac and Evan are our precious angel twins born prematurily in April 2011 . We miss them every day and wish they were here with us.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Addilyn's Birth

May 4th, 2012

The Sunday before I had Addilyn, I had had a lot of pretty decent contractions. Nothing painful and they stopped when I went to bed that night. I thought that maybe I'd go into labor in the next day or two. I went to a midwives appointment on Tuesday and they said all seemed fine.

Finally, on Friday May 4th, four days before her due date, I woke up to a contraction at 6 am. I went back to sleep and was going to see if I had more. I had a couple more in the next 30 minutes, so I decided to get up, walk around, drink some water and officially time them so I could tell the midwives where I was at. I called the birthing center at 6:50 and they told me to come in. I woke Jon up and called my mom. We got the last of our things put in our bag and left our house at 7:15. Thankfully, there wasn't much traffic on the way to the birthing center! We got there at about 7:40 and I told them that I would love to get in the tub ASAP as my contractions were pretty intense at that point.
When I got into the room, they checked my temperature and blood pressure and listened to baby and then checked my cervix to see where I was at.
I had a lovely Hispanic midwife named Ester and the student was Lea. They both checked me and wouldn't you know, those intense contractions had me fully dilated with just a little lip left. They had started filling the tub, but it would be another ten minutes or so before it would be ready (like I said, they should have started filling it right when I got there).

After they checked me I laid on my side and the contractions got super intense and my water broke. At that point I knew there was no way I was going to make it to the tub. I couldn't walk at all! Sad moment for me as I was really hoping that the tub would make the final part of labor a little easier and more relaxing for me.
A few minutes later I was pushing. I am a crappy breather because I was hyperventilating like I had with Kaitlyn which resulted in my appendages being numb from the lack of oxygen.

She was born at 8:06 am after very slow and gradual pushing (no tears!), so about 2 hours after I woke up with my first contraction. SO CRAZY!!!
I was hoping for the 3 hour births I had with Alex and Kaitlyn so that I would have had a little more calm labor, but apparently getting to the birthing center means I will have a baby thirty minutes or less later.
She was a little low on her inital Apgars, but did perfectly on the 5 minute ones.

After she was born, we still had no idea what to name her. We had a long list of names that we liked, but nothing we necessarily loved. My favorite names were Lucy, Addison, and Adelyn. Jon's favorite was Hannah. I didn't really like Hannah and Jon didn't really like Lucy and we both liked Addison and Adelyn enough that those went into consideration. I wasn't sure I wanted an AdeLYN and a KaitLYN and sometimes I still wonder what we were thinking there.
But I do like the more feminine version of the name with the lyn ending and I like the meaning of Addilyn more than Addison (noble vs. son of Adam).
We Googled all the different ways to spell Addilyn and found the spelling we liked best. We also both really like Addi as a name/nickname, so that works.

We named her just in time to head home!
My mom brought the kids over and they were so adorable. Kaitlyn was a little unsure at first and then was so excited that there was a baby there. Alex was just happy to be there.
As soon as they got there we checked out and all five of us got in the van and left, just a just a few hours after we had arrived, when we were still a family of four.

It was SO nice to go home and snuggle up in my bed with my brand new baby and be where my kids could come and go as they pleased.

It was a beautiful birth despite the speed and Addilyn is perfect.