have another baby

Yes, I wish I was at least pregnant already. However, I see the importance of losing my 30 pounds first. I did really well with weight gain and loss after my daughter. Anyway, I think that siblings are important and I love being a mom. Even now that she’s two and won’t do anything I ask.

I will be 41 weeks pregnant tomorrow!! I just want this kid out….NOW NOW NOW!!!!!

:o(

Here are some snapshots from last night; Shawn is two days old in these.

Shawn snoozing on the bed

Close up, so peaceful.

Groggy, half awake.

and…

back asleep

My last pregnancy photos. Tommy snapped these the day before Shawn was born – his due date, May 24th.

From the side

and

from the front.

Shawn Charlton W. was born last night, Monday May 25th 2009, at 9:15 pm.

It’ll be a long and exciting birth story when I get to share it (my mom rated it as “very dramatic!” as far as birth stories go) but I unfortunately don’t have the time to type it all out right now.

I’ll have photos soon enough too for anyone interested.

Be back as soon as I can. Thanks in advance for any well wishes. (:

I had my IUC removed today and figured out when we want to concieve. I’m so excited, I’ve been completely baby crazy for months! I just cant wait!!!!

The waiting is getting kind of hard… Even Tommy said to me the other night “ANY sign as to when that kid is going to make an appearance??”

Nope… just lots of braxton hicks and a kicking little child who has been head down for months already… Could be tomorrow, could be next week, could be into June. Clearly this baby wanted to be a Gemini and NOT a Taurus, so you can be born any time now, child!

On the other hand… these are the last few days of this amazing and sacred state for me… I’m cherishing this. It will probably be years before I can feel a little one moving around inside again. I’m not uncomfortable – I’M STILL NOT WADDLING! lol – and s/he’s not even “overdue” yet, so it’s just impatience on our part. With Gabriel I started obsessively “nesting” (frantically cleaning the house and trying to make sure everything was ready) and I could hardly sleep two weeks before he was born. Not so with this one… yet, anyway, lol!

My mom is kind of being stupid, saying the baby can only be born between _ and time, during and _ days so she can be home to sleep and doesn’t have to be up at inconvenient times through the night. Well, she can just stay home then, can’t she.

This is just the perfect time to work on a few other things I won’t be able to accomplish so easily when s/he is here.

Gabriel and I watched birth videos on youtube yesterday, and he really enjoyed seeing the baby born. I’d say “there is the head… do you see it? That’s the baby’s head and look! look! That’s the shoulders, look at the baby! The baby is born! We’re going to have one of those!”

His whole face was just radiant and awestruck. Regardless… Tommy is bringing his laptop and a couple of dvds that Gabe can watch if he gets bored. :P

And we still don’t have a name picked out! For a girl, we have a first and middle name, no changes, no doubts. But for a boy, we have a concrete middle name, but we’re unsure of the first name. We have two picks and we’ve flip flopped this whole time. We had picked out one in the beginning, and then changed it in January… and now we still aren’t sure! We agreed if it is a boy we’d wait to see him to name him. So come out so we can name you, kiddo!

I’m officially pregnant with baby #2!! Now just hoping for a healthy pregnancy! YAY!

Okay, so maybe not EVERYTHING…

I got my bloodwork results back today and FINALLY I am at an acceptable level for hemoglobin and ferritin. It’s still not sky high, but it is in the normal range. Very very pleased!

After the floradix, I started taking a supplement called Ferrous Sulfate which is a MUCH higher concentration. I’ve been taking one three times a day.

Here are some things I learned along the way:

This one is common knowledge, but is worth repeating anyway. Always take iron with Vitamin C. Vitamin C helps your body to absorb iron, which seems to be very difficult to absorb because of a variety of iron absorption inhibitors.

The culprits are surprising! Considering that the nutritional information on the side of a box of Raisin Bran says it contains 50% of your daily intake of iron… learning that the phytates in bran readily block iron is kind of like having a campfire in the rain. Add to that that calcium is very very effective at blocking iron absorption, and this is even more frustrating! In fact, a high fibre diet in general makes for a low iron intake.

Soy products are also good at blocking your iron intake… so soy milk on cereal isn’t exactly a great option either!

Coffee and tea (specifically the tannin in them) shield your body from absorbing iron. And this is what puzzles me – when I was the most deficient/anemic I ever was this pregnancy, I CRAVED COFFEE LIKE CRAZY. I guess because fatigue is a result of anemia, and coffee has caffeine… but still! How strange! Usually your body will crave what it really really needs… I should have been drooling over the idea of steak! lol

Speaking of steak, that brings me to my next point: the difference in heme and non-heme varieties of iron rich foods.

Heme foods are more readily absorbed by your body and less likely to be blocked by inhibitors – so I guess a steak with a glass of milk isn’t so bad. The downside for anyone who is vegetarian or vegan (both of which I am NOT) is that heme foods are only found in red meat, fish/seafood and poultry.

The best sources for iron in heme foods are any of the organ meats, like liver and kidney; beef, the dark meat of turkey, and clams, oysters, shrimp and sardines.

Non-heme foods are a lot harder to absorb, so be careful to not take these with a known inhibitor. One source I read said that only 3-8% of the consumed iron is absorbed!

Non-heme foods are dried fruit like dates, figs, raisins, apricots; blackstrap molasses, kidney beans and pumpkin seeds. Spinach is NOT that good for iron, and neither is broccoli. I read that spinach is actually an inhibitor!

Further frustrating is that a high fibre diet is really important to maintain to avoid one of the most common symptoms of iron supplementation – constipation. While I’m thankful I have had no such problem, what are you supposed to do if you ARE affected by the iron?

There is just no winning, is there?, though keep in mind you don’t necessarily have to eliminate these from your diet, just eat them at different times. How far apart? Good question, but I’ve heard at least an hour.

Another thing that doesn’t seem to be greatly known knowledge is that folic acid and Vitamin B12 complex are important to have in order to build up hemoglobin, not just iron.

Anyway… hopefully that was informative to anyone who can benefit. I’ve been meaning to do this for awhile. (:

Currently at 38w,3d, which is when Gabriel was born. (He turned two yesterday, lol.) I’ve been getting more “braxton hicks” contractions (aka non-painful contractions, or “trial” contractions), and the other night I had one that just wouldn’t end. I went to bed figuring that I’d wake up at some point in the night in labor, but nope! It made everybody BUT me freak out, and my mom has been asking me frequently since then “ANY CONTRACTIONS!!!!?” in addition to fielding phone calls from my grandma and my mom’s friends if there is a baby yet.

You’d swear it was all of them going to give birth. They are all panicking! I’m the relaxed one! lol! I sent my mom off on a mission to youtube to watch birth videos so that MAYBE she will finally stop sweating about the idea that she might have to help with the birth if he comes too fast. I told her she’d be freaking out so much that I’D just do it!

Though… about a week before Gabriel was born, I DID get a bit scared. I’d heard so many negative things from people and it finally got to me… probably a good bit was pre-labor hormones, too. So I sat down with a notebook, and wrote out a bunch of positive affirmations. Even just writing my name helped me focus and regain my confidence. I wrote out everything from “pain is a state of mind”, “a moment in time”, “the journey will be over soon” and “you can do it” to “faith”, “joy”, “love”, “positivity” and “confidence”, among many many others; just anything I could think of that cheered me. I ended up with a HUGE list! And it worked.

My birth supplies are all together and ready to go. (My mom insisted she buy a new sleeper for the baby, which was really nice, but took us all over town and two days of shopping to accomplish. How hard is it to find a newborn sleeper?! Goodness sake! We tried five different places!)

So now we’re just waiting for the little one… and every chance we get, Tommy and I try to naturally induce labor, heeheeheehee. Clearly so far it hasn’t worked, so I tell him we have to try harder! (;

I DON’T have to have a hospital birth after all! THANK GOODNESS!

I don’t get my homebirth though, either… but something that is pretty darn close. Gabriel was born at the midwives clinic, and that is where this one will be, too. It’s a home setting, it’s just not our home. Fine by me! I like the idea of both children being born in the same spot. Anything to stay out of the hospital!

Yeah, that water birth idea? HAHAHAHAHA! The hospital doesn’t even have a bathtub to go in, and they don’t “allow” water birth. Oh I can have a shower... like that will help with back pain. ::eyeroll::

And Gabriel wouldn’t be allowed at the hospital, either. MY OWN CHILD ISN’T ALLOWED TO BE WITH ME. I am limited to two people as well – Tommy and ? My mom wants to come, my sisters both want to come, my grandma would like to be around (thought not in the room), so HURRAY HURRAY HURRAY, I can stay out of the hospital! I wonder if I would be “allowed” out of bed, too, or eat, or drink, or go to the bathroom, or…

I’m SO relieved!

Tommy has told his boss that when I’m in labor, he won’t be in to work. —Is this uncommon? because she replied that he would take a “point” – a mark against him for missing a day without a reason. He said I know, and she said “well, it’s up to you.”

???? WHAT? Is it normal for fathers to miss the birth of their children because work is just tooooooo important? He isn’t in the military!

For those who are interested, click the links for the photos. I understand not everyone likes pregnant tummies (there is something wrong with you!) so they are neatly tucked away for your convenience. (:

Click here

This is from a month ago – 32/33 weeks.

Click here

And this is from a few nights ago – 35 weeks. STRETCH MARKS! lol