Birth decisions

When we first started talking about getting pregnant again, I was pretty sure that I wanted to use a different doctor's office this time. We didn't have a bad experience with the doctors and hospital we used with Nora, but I'd had several friends switch to a different practice that they highly recommended. I had also been thinking I would like to use a midwife and possibly a birth center this time around. Like I said, we've never had a 'bad' experience delivering in a hospital, but there were plenty of things I didn't love about them either.

With Nora, the nurse on duty for the first two hours we were there was awful, every time she came in our room she was complaining about how much she didn't want to be there. We were super relieved when the shift change happened and we lucked out and got an amazing nurse. With how awful Nora's labor and delivery was, I really don't think I could have handled it without her. She was so nice and genuine and had so many ideas of different positions to try sitting/laying in, etc. to help relieve the back labor I was having. One of the biggest reasons I wanted to switch to a birth center is that I don't want to leave something like that up to chance this time around. I get pretty annoyed with Marc when I'm having a baby (through no fault of his own), so having someone else there that I can rely on during labor is really important to me.

All of T's nurses were good enough, I don't have really strong memories about them one way or another, and honestly everything happened so quickly with Teresa it wasn't really a big deal. Hospital-wise, I am still a little irritated that Teresa very unnecessarily spent three days in the NICU, which was a big pain in the neck, not to mention incredibly expensive for us.

Anyway, I went ahead and had my first appointment with my current doctor, just because I was going to Texas in a week and needed to get my nausea drugs before I left. We returned from Texas under the impression that we would be moving to Georgia sooner rather than later, most likely in April. Since it looked like I wouldn't be delivering here anyway, I decided not to bother switching doctors just to switch again once we got to Georgia.

Then we stopped hearing anything about Georgia at all. Marc kept trying to find out what was going on, as April was fast approaching. Long story short, at this point, it looks like we won't be moving until October-January, if we end up going at all. Things have been pretty unpredictable, so in the midst of all that Army drama, plus with being so sick, I didn't really have much brain power to devote to thinking about switching doctors.

I stopped going to the chiropractor after we got back from Texas because I was too sick - I've thrown up in probably more than my fair share of public places, and the last thing I wanted to do was throw up at the chiropractors office. But finally my back pain started to be worse than my nausea so I had to go. She was actually pretty excited when we got there, because she specializes in pre-natal chiropractic. I was excited about that too, especially when she told me she could pretty much guarantee against having back labor again! She also gave us a pamphlet about the birth center I had completely forgotten about being interested in.

So now I have to actually make a decision about where to give birth to this little guy and it is so hard!

I really, really like the doctor I use now. I've never felt this comfortable with a doctor, ever. But I'm not a big fan of any of the other doctors in her practice. And not switching doctors because I don't want to offend her is like, the worst possible reason to not switch.

On the other hand, I love every thing I've read about the birth center, especially the fact that they will let you go home as soon as four hours after giving birth. And they usually only have 1-2 people there giving birth at a time. They also send a nurse/midwife to your home to check on you three days after you have your baby. The absolute only con I've found is that they don't do epidurals.

My epidural with Teresa wore off when I was about 8 cm and didn't get back up and running until I was being stitched up. And honestly, T's delivery wasn't that bad. I mostly thought it was extremely uncomfortable, but I don't remember it being super painful. But even with Nora's perfectly working epidural her delivery was way, way worse than with Teresa. T was out in thirty minutes, but I pushed for more than two hours with Nora. I know it was mostly because she was facing the wrong way, but I'm still hesitant to commit to doing it without an epidural this time around.

I'm probably just being too picky, because the birth center also has a hospital option if I chicken out, but if I have this baby at a hospital I want to do it at Howard County, where we had Nora, and not at the one the birth center uses. I'm very aware of what a whiny sounding, first world problem this is, btw.

We are planning to tour the birth center in the next week or so, so hopefully that will help with the decision making.

If you made it this far, here are some pictures! T was wearing her super girl shirt last week so Nora wanted a cape as well. They informed me that superheros need to have five pigtails in their hair. Forty-five minutes later their hair was done, and I found myself strangely grateful that this baby is a boy...

                                             

It's a boy!

We were thrilled to find out this week that we are having a boy! Teresa was ecstatic, and I'm sure Nora will come around :).

We had an awesome ultrasound tech. It's crazy how much more in depth this ultrasound was compared to Nora's just 2ish years ago. Our little guy was being a big rascal and not moving around too much, so it was a bit difficult for the tech to get all the measurements she needed. Not too surprising, he definitely doesn't kick me as much as the girls did at this point. She saw right away and asked if we wanted to know the gender, because she already did. I had thought I'd seen something but wasn't sure, so she went ahead and confirmed that it was a boy. A little bit later on Marc asked if we could see the proof, but the little rascal was holding on to it so we couldn't see. She did eventually get the money shot for us, though.

It was amazing to us how much detail we were able to see, even though the tech said he was only about the size and weight of a can of soda.

We stopped on the way home and got the girls some blue balloons.

Teresa was so, so happy about getting a brother. Nora was pretty much just excited about the balloon. I asked her what the balloon meant and she said "it means a baby gir-ul!". She was not happy when I told her she was wrong. 

I take approximately one picture per pregnancy, and here they all are! The first one is with T at about 23 weeks, second is with Nora at 21 weeks and the third is with this one at 19 weeks. If only I'd worn that blue shirt for the Nora picture! Also, I can't say that I'm loving what having kids has done to the awesome-ness of my hair. 

I will be honest and say I was the tiniest bit disappointed about not having another girl. But, I'm also sure that if we were having a girl I would have been a bit disappointed it wasn't a boy.

Now I just have to figure out where we want to deliver him, but that's a post for another day. 

Cherry Blossoms

We took the girls down to D.C. yesterday to check out the cherry blossoms. Apparently they are a pretty big deal around here. They were pretty, but, you know, they were just trees with flowers on them.  I thought they were a little overrated. The girls loved them, though. And it turns out being out walking in the hot sun for three hours means two little people that sleep all night long in their own beds! So, I guess that made it worth it.

There was a nice long walk along the Potomac River from where we parked to the majority of the blossoms, and T and Nora had a blast taking their sweet time admiring the water and picking some flowers. 

She totally posed for this picture. 

Teresa was so cute - there was a nice little breeze blowing, making lots of the petals float down from the trees and she loved running around trying to catch them as they fell. 

What's that? You wish you could have seen it? Well, it's your lucky day, we took a video. 

Cherry Blossoms from Tara Milligan on Vimeo.

Marc took the girls up to see the Jefferson Memorial. 

Here's the T-Bear modeling Daddy's hat.

Spring

We had our first nice warm day of spring, so we decided to put the girls new bathing suits to the test. I got this little pool on super cheap at the end of last summer and the girls were excited to try it out. The box had a picture of 4 little girls about T's size sitting in the pool together with plenty of room, so we were pretty surprised at the size when we finally got it out. T and Nora didn't mind about the size, though, so I guess that's all that matters :).

Poor Nora, I got her Minnie Mouse swim top at the end of last summer too, and haven't gotten her any swim bottoms yet. She made do at first with some regular shorts, but they kept falling down around her ankles so she finally ditched them. Her little bum crack peeking through was pretty darn cute, though.

T had such a hard time picking her suit - they had this cute one with the mermaids, but then there was one with fish and purple sleeves/shorts, and she was so funny trying to decide between purple and mermaids. Major life decisions of a three-year-old :).

It can't all be fun and games...

  

I loved Nora's face when she was able to get the hose to squirt.

In other news, we're having our gender ultrasound a week from tomorrow. Teresa has had her heart set on a baby brother since before I even got pregnant. She used to get so upset if anyone would mention the possibility of this baby being a girl - "But we already HAVE a baby stister, we need a baby brother". We've had a few chats about how it's not our decision, it's up to Heavenly Father to decide who comes to our family and she seems to have come around a bit, though she still says "well, maybe He should decide that we need a baby brother". Nora was on board the boy train at first but has recently switched sides to saying she wants a baby girl. I'm sure baby boys are fabulous, but we've been pretty pleased with our little girls so far, so I'm kind of leaning that way this time around, too. Although, if we are ever going to have a boy I would want it to be now. 

I had been thinking we were having a boy just because with my first two pregnancies I couldn't eat enough fruit. Seriously, I was going through at least 2-3 pineapples a week. But this time around I've mostly been craving salty and sour food, which all those old wives say mean it's a boy. But then all the online gender prediction tests have said girl, and they were right about T and Nora. I guess we will just have to be patient for another week. Keep your fingers crossed that he/she will be cooperative! 

The Bunny Stuff

Against our better judgement, we took the girls to the Easter egg hunt here on base. Nora was pretty excited.

Last year almost all the eggs in the 0-2 group were empty. This year they all had bubble gum in them. I'm thinking whoever puts the eggs together does not have children. 

T was pretty overwhelmed. You can see her there in the middle with all the parents that decided all the announcements saying "no parents allowed in the 3-5 group" didn't apply to them. The kids weren't too bad, but the parents got a little crazy. Teresa was near tears when she got out, but she perked up when she started to open her eggs. 

This is not bunny related, but we finally got a good snow fall and the girls had a blast playing in it. Teresa loved sledding down our little hill, but Nora just said "I NOT do dat again" after I took her down.

T's face was pretty awesome when she saw that the Easter Bunny had come to our house. 

She said her favourite part of her basket was the "giant chocolate bunny". She finally got to start eating him today and thought it was so hilarious once she ate his ears off. 

I wasn't planning on getting them new Easter dresses this year, but they saw these in Costco last week and fell in love.

Nora's at the perfect age for photographing - girl can't seem to take a bad picture these days. T on the other hand...

I used to make faces at them to get them to smile for pictures, but now they just imitate me instead.