Sabrina Lucia

Well the elevated feet and crossed legs didn't work. Sabrina was born the following morning just hours before the Lorelei's graduation ceremony and the school performance. We were fortunate to have the grandparents here to take them and Maria shot some video. Jenna took photos for us, too.

Lindsay, always my go to photographer, took some shots of Sabrina. So far I just have this teaser one, but it is a beaut.

It is now 2 weeks later and Sabrina is an easy baby so far. She just eats and sleeps with very little awake time. Of course she wakes doesn't sleep for long stretches at night yet, but it is mostly manageable. Compared to Emma's eating schedule as a newborn, this is luxurious. Sabrina had her 2 week appointment with Dr. Finer yesterday. She is growing just fine. She eats about 2 oz. at a sitting. I looked back through my journal and found that at this age, Emma was drinking 3 1/2 oz. at a sitting. No wonder Emma gained 2 pounds above her birth weight in the first two weeks! Sabrina now weighs 8 lbs. 6 oz. ( up from 7 - 10) and is 20 1/4 inches long. That puts her smack dab at the 50th percentile for both her height and weight. Her head on the other hand..... at 13 3/4 inches is somewhere in the teens. I guess she's got a tiny head like her mom.

Who does she look like, you might be wondering? At times I see shades of each of the girls at the newborn stage but so far it is hard to tell. At other times I think she looks like no one else. She has a head shaped like Emma (and me), a nose that is straight with no little ski slope to it like mine of the other girls, dark hair like Emma had as a newborn (but of course it fell out and was replaced with blonde hair), curl to her hair - like Lorelei? (hard to say because Lorelei was bald for so long!), slate blue eyes that will inevitably turn brown on me, long fingers, feet and toes and a svelte little body. Wait - I haven't mentioned her perfect ears. Seriously. Her ears are absolutely perfect. I think that they are small like mine, but on the head of a baby it is hard for me to tell what is big and what is small.

Contraction Action!

I may or may not have said this before, but this pregnancy has just been so different in some ways from the other two and that has left me confused at times. With Lorelei and Emma I started having some cramping a day or two before they were born. Contractions started at some point the day before and were in earnest by midnight. I think I went to the hospital with Lorelei at 3:30 in the morning and maybe 2:30 am with Emma. And then they were born around the noon hour that day.

Well this time is different. I started having contractions 10 days ago. I seriously thought that the baby was going to be born on Thursday. But no. Then things calmed down for a few days (thankfully because Andres' parents hadn't yet arrived to care for the girls!) Then the night before the grandparents arrived the contractions kicked up again. That was the start of what has been an entire week of having sleep depriving nights that convince me that the hospital trip is inevitable, followed by a day of sporadic contractions. Finally yesterday morning I called the doctor's office to see if they could see me or tell me something reassuring. They sent me to the hospital for evaluation. Of course I had NO contractions of note while hooked up to the machine, but I was relieved to hear that all was well with the baby and that I was dilated to 2 cm and 50% effaced. I was sent for an ultrasound. All seemed fine except for the fact that she was so low in my pelvis that the technician couldn't really get a measurement of her head. And then I went home. Well, actually then I tool Lorelei to an appointment. Oh, how I was suffering with contractions and back pain. By the time we made it home I didn't think I could walk up the stairs to the apartment. Being stubborn came in handy and I made it. Straight to lie down in bed. I went against the medical community and took 800 mg of ibuprofen (it just felt so much like the worst menstrual cramps ever!) and things calmed down. I felt so much better that I remember thinking that I actually felt "drugged". I slept a few hours last night before the incredible back pain and contractions kicked in again. But nothing regular or particularly close together.

This morning I wasn't sure that I would make it to my 10:45 appointment, but I did. I am now 3 cm and 80% effaced. The baby is coming for sure. My doctor assured me that this labor would be much faster than the other two. It couldn't be I rebutted. I have already been in labor for a week!

Tomorrow is Lorelei's preschool graduation and end of school show. Emma has a special starring role and I would really hate to miss the whole thing, so right now I'm hoping that for having already been a prolonged process, she will wait until at least tomorrow afternoon once the show is over. Keep your fingers crossed. I'll keep my feet elevated and my legs crossed.

False Labor Scare

Wednesday evening I started having true contractions that continued through the night. At a point they were coming about 6 minutes apart. I thought for sure that our little one was going to be born on Thursday. The first thing I said to Andres when he opened his eyes was that he needed to install the car seat in his car and pack his bag for the hospital. He nodded sleepily. "This morning," I emphasized. His eyes opened wide. He was ready to call in to work, but I was less convinced that it was going to be imminent. I was thinking in the afternoon at the earliest or maybe not until the wee hours of Friday morning, but it was only a scare. Once I was open and moving around getting the girls ready and off to school they became more sporadic and stopped entirely. I can only hope that it will mean a slightly easier or faster labor when the day does come.

In addition to the panic I was feeling at not having Andres' parents here yet to stay with the girls, or my bag packed for the hospital I was super stressed about not having had "belly photos" with my amazing photographer friend, Lindsay. So early Thursday morning I called her and asked for an emergency photo session just in case we didn't make it to our scheduled family session for Saturday (today as I write). She came and did just an amazing job. Way more then what I had in mind or could have expected. I'll post a few samples here, although Lindsay doesn't like that these are the completely untouched photos. They'll be even more spectacular once they take a turn through Photoshop.

Since it turned out to be a false alarm, we went ahead with our plan today and she met us bright and early for family photos. Again, a really spectacular experience. Just a taste for you.

So until Tuesday, when Andres' parents arrive, I am on light duty. No cleaning, stooping, lugging groceries or children or running marathons. Darn. But come Tuesday.....

Making Space for Baby

We spent time this past weekend digging out baby stuff from storage. We are very fortunate to also have a source for new infusions of baby clothes for little one #3. She may have so many options that she won't be able to repeat any outfits before she outgrows them!

We aren't really setting up in any kind of permanent way for baby girl because hopefully we'll only be here in the apartment until she is about 1 month old. Then we'll get to move into our newly renovated house and set up for "real". So in that vein, it feels weird to not be preparing as nicely for her arrival. We set up the pak n play in our bedroom for her sleeping delight and I put the changing pad on top of my dresser. I bought some cloth boxes to sort her clothes and that is about it.

At my last appointment I asked the doctor for an exam. I just wanted to make sure that everything was still sealed up nice and tight and that baby girl wasn't getting too anxious to make her entrance into the world. The doctor understood that I was being paranoid, but she obliged. Lorelei requested several appointments ago that she be allowed to come along to an appointment again to hear her baby sister's heartbeat, so tomorrow I am taking both of the girls with me for that purpose.

Baby girl is giving me all kinds of physical reminders that she is riding low now such as the teeny tiny bladder space, the more pronounced waddling, the sharp pelvic shots of pain and the low throbbing of inner thigh strain. She also has plenty of space for the kicking and elbowing that she likes to do. I feel like someone out of Alien with this thing writhing around within me.

All in all we are well and counting down the days.

Ultrasound Shot

Here is a profile of baby girl from the ultrasound two weeks ago.

One Month To Go and Counting

Today is exactly one month from our due date. I am surprised to find that I haven't shared any news or photos for over a month, so let me see if I can summarize. (I never know if I should put the photos in order or backwards. Here they are chronological from week 32 to week 35.) Weight gain has slowed down most likely due to 24 hour heart burn and a tiny squished up stomach. The day or so after my Week 31 appointment, I felt babygirl drop. When I say "felt" I mean that the shooting pains low in the groin began in earnest which is what I associate with dropping. Also there was a sudden increase in the violence with which I was being bumped from the inside out. In my mind that made sense that she had just given herself some additional workout space. Now I get elbows and knees constantly. There was no accompanying lessening of the squished stomach syndrome however so I was anxious for my week 33 appointment to see what the doctor thought. At that appointment, sure enough my stomach was measuring small. Not just small, but smaller than two weeks prior so just to be sure all was well I was sent to have an ultrasound. The ultrasound showed everything to be within normal ranges so we are operating on the assumption that she has dropped.I now have more maternity clothes that don't fit than ones that do. I am rapidly depleting my clothing options. I'm afraid that I'll be down to underwear and a t-shirt by the time we make it to the hospital!

Everything else progressing along just fine. I am now to the point where I get to go to the doctor's office every week. That means an hour wait followed by a seven minute appointment. Yippie! Lorelei has been disappointed that she hasn't been to an appointment with me in a long time to hear the heartbeat so when I make my next appointment, I will do so thinking to bring the girls along for a listen. Both of them seem very excited about the prospect of having their baby sister on the outside. Emma really enjoys the idea of being bigger than someone else in the family.

By the third daughter, we really don't need much of anything other than diapers. I did realize last week that the $10 messenger style bag that we bought to use as a secondary diaper bag (that then became the one and only diaper bag while the $50 bag that I had labored over choosing sat unused) finally fell to pieces. So I bought a new diaper bag. It is red. Lightweight. Lots of pockets. Can be worn messenger style and seems like it will wash well in the machine. Soon we will have to get into the storage unit to dig out the baby clothes, the bottles, the bibs, the pillows, you know the "baby stuff". Unfortunately it will all be coming home to the apartment, but hopefully not for too long before we will finally be able to move into the house.

This past weekend we celebrated Mother's Day on my favorite beach, Siesta Key. It was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Wide, fine, white-sand beach with shallow water for a long way into the ocean with only gentle waves. It was warm but not blazing and there was a bit of a breeze. There were also no jelly fish to contend with this time. I really didn't want to leave - ever.

3/4 ths of the Way Toward Goal

This week marks 30 weeks. In my mind that means the big mile marker of 3/4ths of the way to the end - or 75% of the way. That sounds impressive, right? Only 10 weeks to go! Of course when I think about it in terms of days (70) it doesn't seem quite so close. Today we spent some time at the beach. It was lovely after a fairly disappointing past couple of months - cold and rainy - to be at the beach. Unfortunately there were a million man-o-wars washed and continuing to wash up on the beach so we didn't get to actually enter the water, but we still had a great time as you can see.