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The last few days, Meredith has slept in her own bed. She did once a few days before we left on holidays, but then was in our bed again the next few nights and then we were traveling. But this week she has wanted to go to her own bed every night. She’s woken up each night around 1 or 2 and at that point I’d bring her into our bed with us and we’d all sleep there until morning.
Then yesterday, she woke up in my bed and asked why she wasn’t in her bed. It caught me a bit by surprise and I told her I’d brought her into our room when she’d woken up. She told me she wanted to sleep in her bed all night. So last night, she fell asleep once again in her bed. She woke up at 4am and I went in there and asked if she wanted to come back to my room with me. She said no. She needed to pee, and then we cuddled and nursed a bit and she fell back asleep. She woke up again around 7am and it was so bright in her room at that point that I did bring her back to my room (which she was okay with) and she fell asleep again there, cuddling with me, which was nice.
It’s weird for me, not having her in our room. A very small part of me is sad, and I wonder if she feels pushed or replaced in any way (though I can’t think of anything specifically that we’ve said or done that might cause her to think that). I really enjoy having her in the room, and cuddling with her in the middle of the night. I miss waking up next to her in the morning and just snuggling and chatting and giggling for a half hour until one of us needs to get up to pee. We haven’t been able to do much of any of that with a new baby in the room, especially since the baby normally wakes up before her. I know that as Fiona grows and becomes less needy it will be possible again, and then I’ll have two little girls to snuggle and giggle with.
The rest of me is partially excited that she’s showing so much independence all of a sudden. While I don’t really care what other people think, it is always nice to have my opinions and thoughts proven this way. I have been accused of making her dependent and anti-social, neither of which seems to be true at all. I’m glad I trusted myself and Meredith.
I’m also really glad that I’ve never done or said anything to try and push or coerce her into her own room. Though I did occasionally put her in her bed for naps when she still napped, I don’t think I’ve ever so much as mentioned that she could sleep in her bed over night. She hasn’t always been in my bed recently, as we would often start her off in the night in Kris’ side. But she was always welcome to come over to my side if she wanted, and often she did. If she wanted me to cuddle with her, I always did unless Fiona was awake, in which case she could cuddle with Kris or come and lie with me and wait for Fiona to be done nursing. To my knowledge, no one has ever told her that her bed is for big girls or that she’s a big girl now or anything along those lines. I feel really good that this move (if it’s permanent, as I realize it could just be her experimenting and next week she might be back with us), is completely of her own volition.
I guess it’s another one of those bittersweet milestones that seem to come all too quickly.
So, it’s been 6 weeks since I’ve posted. We’ve been really busy as the weather gets nicer: planting, walking, playing at the park, and all sorts of other fun things. I’m really enjoying Fiona and having two little girls. Sitting in the house in front of the computer just really isn’t on the agenda. I do want to start posting again though, even if it’s just short posts, as I want to be able to look back for things for baby books and such. Of course, I’ve said that before, so we’ll see.
For now, I thought I’d post a code for a free one year’s subscription to the digital version of Mothering magazine. Go to this link and enter the code CDIGM when you check out. You don’t need a credit card or anything.
I have been very much enjoying having a newborn around again. I forgot just how precious a tiny, squishy baby really is. We’re nearing the end of Kris being off of work and I am sad to think we won’t have him around all the time soon. It’s nice just because we like having him around, but also because it gives Meredith a chance to get both of us one-on-one a lot. It also means I can nap in the afternoons if I need to.
Meredith still seems to really enjoy Fiona, though for this past week or so she’s been quite clingy to me. I feel like she’s going through a bit of a mourning period for the relationship we had (where she basically had me all to herself), and it makes me sad sometimes to think that we never will have quite that same relationship again. The last day or two though she seems to be back to more normal and she hasn’t ever seemed to hold any resentment towards Fiona at all, thankfully. She loves to tandem nurse, still likes to hold her, and will come and stroke Fiona’s head or hold her hand while Fiona is nursing or just lying and looking around. She likes to hold her hand in the car seat too. Luckily Fiona seems to be a pretty relaxed baby for the most part, and I’ve been trying to give Meredith lots of time with me to herself. We cuddle and nurse and play games while Fiona sleeps on Kris, and when Fiona wakes up she is quite happy to sit on the potty for a few minutes and then just relax and look around before she starts rooting. So we can give Meredith lots of warning that Fiona will need to nurse soon, and except for once or twice she’s been quite happy to stop whatever she’s doing with me when Fiona needs me. She often will stop and tell me “baby’s turn now, Mama” or “Mimi wait for baby to nurse”.
EC is going amazingly well. I don’t know if it’s because we started earlier (we started with Meredith at 3 weeks old), because Fiona has more clear signals, or because we’ve done it once before (or likely, a combination of all of the above), but we definitely have more “catches” than misses. She’s often in the same diaper all night long and there have been quite a few days where we’ve had her diaperless/coverless most of the day or she’s in the same diaper all day. Actually, the only thing really keeping us from having her diaperless more often are the little tiny squirts that babies do. We put a little piece of terry in her diapers so we don’t have to change the whole diaper each time, but that doesn’t work so well when diaperless. Those are getting less and less already though. She definitely seems to have some control already, and will often go as soon as we hold her over her little potty or the sink and signal.
She is still a great nurser, and was able to nurse side-lying from day one. Kris’ mom, who was out visiting for four days, told me she has one of the strongest sucks of any baby she’s ever known. (And she’s a foster parent, so she’s had a lot of babies in and out of her house.) I have to say though, that I love having a toddler around to nurse. It’s made things so much easier, since I have an overactive let down and oversupply. Meredith was constantly spitting up as a newborn (literally after every nurse in the beginning) and would choke and gag frequently while nursing. Now if I’m overly engorged or feel like my let down is too much, I can have Meredith nurse and take some pressure off. For an idea of how strong my letdown can be though, there have been times that Meredith has had to stop nursing or the letdown has caused her to choke a bit. Most of the time I am still really enjoying nursing Meredith too, though I have to be honest that there are times I wish I could sit down and relax for a minute without having someone attached to my breasts lol.
One unexpected thing is that Meredith seems to have night weaned, literally over night. The night I went into labour she didn’t wake up wanting to nurse even once. Not entirely unheard of, but definitely unusual. Since then, she’s been quite happy to fall asleep in Kris’ bed and normally if she wakes up in the night Kris will cuddle her into him and she’ll fall right back to sleep. Some nights she has asked to nurse, though so far if Fiona is nursing at the time she hasn’t had any problem waiting for Fiona to be done before having a turn herself. We haven’t ever told her she has to sleep on Kris’ side, or that she can’t nurse at night, or anything like that. I’m very careful that I don’t want her to feel like she’s been replaced by Fiona. I have been nursing her to sleep on Kris’ side, or if she falls asleep downstairs I’ll put her to bed on his side, but if she asked to come on my side I would certainly not tell her no. She is pretty flaily in her sleep so I wouldn’t want her next to Fiona, but prior to Fiona her and I often slept back to back anyway since I was so big and pregnant, so I would have no problem doing that. She’s only come into my side with me once since Fiona was born though. Maybe she likes having someone to really cuddle with, rather than being back to back? When I nurse her to sleep at night, if she comes off awake and wants to cuddle to sleep I have been lying with her longer than I did prior to Fiona being born and really trying to get lots of snuggling in before I sneak away.
The other night she asked to nurse to sleep in her bed in her room. It’s the second time she’s asked that. The first time was a few months ago and she still woke frequently in the night to nurse. If she had actually fallen asleep that time, I would have moved her into our bedroom once she was asleep. This time, I’m not entirely sure what I would have done. I think, considering she asked to lie there to nurse with no coercion on our part, that I would probably have left her there, with the monitor on, and if she had woken up in the night gone to her and brought her back to our room. It’s a bit bittersweet to think about though, she’s never not slept with one of us. She didn’t end up actually falling asleep in there either time though. There are no drapes in the room right now and a street light right outside the window so it’s very light in there even when it’s dark out. Not sure if that has something to do with it or not but I do need to get drapes in there.
Anyway, this has gotten long but I wanted to post somewhat of an update. I’ll try and post some pictures sometime in the next few days. Bed time for me now, both kids are sleeping and I should take advantage. 
Fiona Siobhan was born this morning at 10:39am after an intense labour! Contractions really started/picked up at 2am, they were less than 2 minutes apart and over a minute long by about 4 or 5 (and checking myself I guessed I was probably 6 or 7 cm dilated already), then they just petered out and around 6 they were only 8 minutes apart or so and Kris and I were dozing between them. I checked myself again and I was down to 4 or 5 cm. Around 7 Kris called the midwife. I was really discouraged that once again it was just fake labour (and so close this time!), since I’ve been having so much prodromal labour, and she reassured us that it didn’t sound fake and to lie down to rest and we’d likely be having a baby later that day. Just before we laid down I went pee and felt a small gush, and had some bloody show. I checked myself and commented to Kris that I could feel lots of hair.
We went to try and lay down, but though the contractions stayed quite far apart, they were suddenly quite intense again after my water breaking and so we didn’t actually sleep, but we dozed for an hour or so until Meredith woke up at 9 (she had slept the whole time until this point, straight through the night except for stirring once and was settled easily back to sleep by Kris!). We got up and the contractions started again almost immediately. Kris called the midwife to ask her if it was okay to use the same water that had been in the pool all night now that my water was broken, and she said it was fine. I was having a contraction while he was on the phone and she asked if she should come. I said something along the lines of “I don’t care, whatever you want” lol. Kris emptied the pool a bit so he could reheat the water, and meanwhile my contractions were quickly becoming more and more intense. I’m not sure when they started coming right on top of the other but it wasn’t long afterwards. I couldn’t believe how fast it went from every 8 minutes to transition. And it was very intense/painful. Meredith’s labour had been painful, but in a different way. Lots of back labour, but not nearly so intense. Probably because it was longer. I was very loud, way louder than with Meredith. I’m sure the neighbours heard lol.
Through this Meredith was standing by the pool feeding me frozen grapes (thanks to Paxye for this idea, they were the perfect labour food), stroking and kissing my head, and doing her own thing quietly. She apparently asked Kris to watch a movie at one point and he told her I didn’t want the TV on and she said “oh ok Daddy” and went and found something else to do.
I’m not sure what time it was when the midwife and her student showed up, but I was very close to pushing. The time was actually kind of perfect as Kris and I had had all night to do our own thing together, but when it got really intense and difficult for me (and just when he was wondering how he was going to do things like reheat the pool when I refused to let go of his hand), they showed up. The midwife listened to a few contractions and commented that it sounded like there was a little lip of cervix blocking the baby. I have no idea how she would know that from listening to me! Anyway, she asked if I wanted her to check and potentially hold it out of the way a bit. She did mention that she certainly didn’t have to and it would get out of the way on it’s own if she left it. I had originally told her I didn’t want to be checked at all, but at this point I was feeling like I wasn’t coping very well and I remembered how much I enjoyed pushing with Meredith. I asked her if she did that if it meant I would push sooner and she said yes, probably, and I was like “do it, I want to push!” (I also made her reassure me that she’d stop immediately if it hurt or I wanted her to, which of course she did.) It ended up making the next contraction better and there was a lip, that the head managed to slip past.
The contractions really slowed down at this point, but when they came they were intense. I was yelling very loudly with each one and saying things like “I don’t want to do this anymore”. I had made clear how much I was looking forward to pushing, but when the pushing started I hated it this time for some reason. I really enjoyed pushing with Meredith. Anyway, once I started feeling pushy there was no stopping me lol. I wanted her out of there. I only pushed for 9 minutes and then she burst into the world and Kris caught her and put her on my chest. Meredith came over to check her out and then climbed into the pool with us. We sat and rested for a few minutes and then checked and saw that Meredith had a little sister.
My only real regret about the whole thing is that the water had got cool in that last little bit and I’d been too out of it to remember to mention it and they hadn’t noticed. Her cord was a little short. It wouldn’t have been a problem if the water was nice and warm but because it was so cold I was having a hard time keeping her out of the water enough that we could wrap her. I also couldn’t easily have gotten out with the cord still attached. She was nice and pink and noisy when she first popped out but after about 10 minutes in the tub she had gotten quite quiet and was turning a bit blue. We tried to wrap her up on my chest but I just couldn’t keep her out of the cool water and agreed to cut the cord. I had wanted to wait until the placenta came out to cut it but it had been 15 minutes at this point so I agreed that I was okay cutting it a little sooner. Meredith ended up being the one to cut it, and we tied it off with a braided tie I had made (I had actually made two just in case and am wearing the other around my wrist now  ).
They took her while I got out and decided to give her a little puff of room air, which worried me a bit seeing them put the little mask on her, but the midwife assured me it was mostly precaution and that she was just fine. She pinked up really quickly with the air and started squalling. Because I hadn’t pushed for long she was still a tad gurgly but nothing that concerned the midwives at all. I didn’t want the oxytocin shot, and at about a half hour after she was born my placenta hadn’t come out. I was lying on my back with Meredith nursing and holding the baby on the other arm, so she asked if I was willing to squat or change position to see if gravity would help the placenta out at all. I don’t think she was worried about it yet but wanted to be proactive. The placenta came out pretty quickly after I changed positions. Kris passed her back to me and she started rooting and latched on and nursed like a pro. I actually am amazed at how well she nurses; her latch is pretty much perfect already and she’s got a powerful little suck. I’m kind of glad I’m used to a toddler nursing already lol.
Meredith was fascinated by the placenta and the midwife showed her how it worked and how the cord attached to the baby (and where). About an hour after she was born they weighed and measured her. We all guessed how much she would weigh and everyone else was guessing under 7 pounds. I guessed 7lb 6oz. She ended up being 7lb 8oz so I was pretty close. (Maybe even right on if we had weighed her before she nursed. )The midwives left soon after that and Kris and I talked about names and settled on Fiona Siobhan pretty easily. We made our phone calls and have pretty much relaxed and just enjoyed our baby the rest of the day. Unlike Meredith’s labour, where I hadn’t slept in about 27 hours and so slept that whole day, I was feeling pretty good and only had a short nap in the afternoon when Kris and Meredith went out for some food.
We will be EC-ing with her as well, and we’ve already caught one pee and one of her meconium poops today, which is kind of neat.
I’ll post more pictures when I get a chance, but here’s one of Fiona. I was right when I had checked myself, she has tons of hair! It’s so strange to not be pregnant and that I have another little baby. Very surreal, but I’m loving it again. Meredith adores her right now and wants to hold her and touch her constantly. They were both nursing and looking in each other’s eyes while doing so, with Meredith’s hand stroking her head. I wish Kris had been around to get a picture. I hope Meredith continues to enjoy her so much as she realizes how much time and attention she will take up for a while.
…Though the prodromal labour is driving me batty. I may or may not be in early labour right now. Since about 2am I’ve been having contractions off and on that I really have to concentrate through; the intensity level has definitely gone way up. They were every 3-4 minutes for a while in the early early morning, but today they’ve been ranging from about every 4 minutes to every 10 minutes, so I don’t know if they’re real or not. I wish they’d just make up their mind! I’m really hoping this means a short active labour this time though. I say Meredith’s labour was long, but I’ve actually had way more contractions this time than with hers. I’ve been having regular contractions off and on for about a week, some of which can be pretty intense, and the prodromal labour started two weeks ago. I’ll be surprised if I’m still pregnant on at the end of the weekend. The ticker on the right is now counting how far overdue I am, by the way, not that it matters as I don’t really consider myself to be overdue until I’m 42 weeks. Though I am surprised with how much better this baby is positioned and all the prodromal labour that I’ve gone later with this baby than I did with Meredith.
As a distraction, a friend pointed me to the direction of a giveaway for a Nikon camera. I’ve actually had this blog on my newsreader for a long time, but have been pretty behind on reading blogs and didn’t notice it until my friend pointed it out to me. If you’re interested in photography at all she has some great tips and gives away free templates and papers and stuff, so it’s nice for scrapbookers too.
I searched last night for a dairy-free recipe for banana muffins, and the ones I found just didn’t seem to be what I wanted. So I ended up playing around with a couple of different recipes to make one dairy free. Always dangerous, especially if you’re not a baker. But they actually turned out really awesome so I need to write the recipe down before I forget what I did.
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1-2 tablespoons mayo + enough rice milk to fill 1/2 a cup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup mashed ripe bananas
- 3/4-1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. In another bowl, combine the egg, oil, mayo, milk, and vanilla. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in bananas and chocolate chips. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake at 350 degrees F for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.
I’m hoping these freeze well too. I doubled the batch and now have a bunch in the freezer for after baby comes.
I spent the morning baking apple cinnamon muffins and oatmeal apple-raspberry crisp, both to freeze. While searching for my apple crisp recipe I realized I’ve never shared it here and it’s one of my favorites, so here it is! No pictures again, since I haven’t actually baked it this time. I’ve substituted the brown sugar with sucanat in the past with good success, and because we’re dairy free now I use coconut oil in place of the butter.
- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
- 3/4 cup oats
- 3/4 cup brown sugar, divided
- 3/4 tsp cinnamon, divided
- 1/2 cup chilled butter, cut into small pieces
- 6 cups chopped, peeled Granny Smith apples (about 2.5 lbs and I rarely bother to peel them)
- 1/2 cup raspberries (frozen works well in the winter)
Preheat oven to 375°.
Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Combine flour, oats, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon in a medium bowl; cut in butter with a pastry blender or 2 knives until mixture resembles coarse meal.
Combine 1/4 cup sugar, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, apples, raspberries in a 13 x 9 inch baking dish (coat with cooking spray if you need to, ours are glass so I never do). Sprinkle with oat mixture. Bake at 375° for 30 minutes or until apples are tender.
Yield: About 10 servings.
Tomorrow I plan to do some banana chocolate chip muffins or loaves and cookies, as well as some cranberry, orange, and chocolate chip muffins. Yum!
We spent this past weekend cooking up a storm. I’m actually impressed with how much we managed to get done. We made chicken and beef broth, chili, steak and mushroom pie, prespiced whole chickens, wontons, yam and bean and beef and bean burritos (with homemade tortilla shells and everything), hamburger soup, shepherd’s pie, lots of meat pasta sauce, and tons of meatballs. Over the next week I want to make some muffins and loaves to freeze, and some cookie dough. I also still want to make some soups, and probably some chicken curries. But even if I don’t get to those I feel like we have a good supply of food frozen for after baby comes. Everything turned out so well, and all of it except the pie shells for the steak pies is completely from scratch and dairy-free. I wish we had a vacuum sealer, but I’m thinking it will all be fine for 4-6 weeks regardless. There’s more food than this in the fridge freezer, it just wasn’t frozen enough to stack yet. Once everything is completely frozen we’ll be reorganizing the freezer a little better.
Considering that we went to four different grocery stores on Saturday, spent the whole evening cooking, then spent all day Sunday and I spent most of the day Monday cooking, Meredith was so patient. She mostly was happy to entertain herself and seems to realize that something is going on. I had a dream about the baby last night (I dreamed it was a little girl and I gave birth to her in water), and then the first thing Meredith talked about this morning (after asking if Daddy was home, which is always her first question in the morning) was about how the baby was a girl. I hadn’t mentioned the dream to her at all, so that was a bit odd. I still have a feeling the baby is a boy though. Not sure why. I don’t think I put much stock in all those old wives tales, but if you do, most of them point to this baby being a boy. So maybe subconsciously I believe them more than I think. We’ll see in just a few weeks or less at this point. (My ticker on the side is almost down to single digits, eep!)
I got a package in the mail yesterday that’s making me really want to have this little tiny baby to dress him or her in these adorable, tiny clothes. They’re from my sister-in-law. I have a few more shirts in the works too and another pair of pants, plus I am making a shirt for Meredith and one for a friend’s son and hopefully a few as gifts too. I’m not sure they’ll all get done before the baby gets here, but it shouldn’t be too hard to sew at least a little bit with a newborn in a wrap. On my to-do list for this week though is the baking, Meredith’s and my friend’s son’s shirts, and trying to clean out our study so we can move the change table down here. I’d like to get at least one more coat of paint on the kitchen and our living room painted this weekend, and then I feel like we’re mostly pretty much ready for baby to come whenever.
I’ve always wanted a spring baby. The weather has been absolutely beautiful and it looks like I’ll get my wish, even though it technically won’t quite be spring yet.
I’m in the process of trying to move my blog from our crappy, slow, loud server that’s in our house, to a nice fast server we don’t have to pay the electricity for. I’m not going to have time to do it all at once so in the meantime if my blog looks/acts funny, my apologies. Hopefully it will all be up and running smoothly again soon.
I have been doing some sewing for the baby. I always meant to get some done last time but worked full time until just before I was due, and really had very little energy to do anything once I got home. It’s nice having the extra time and energy to get some things done this time. I’m still feeling mostly really good. I want to make a chiro appointment, but I’m really not that sore. Mostly I feel awkward. I’m finding it extremely difficult to bend over too. I don’t remember that at all with Meredith’s pregnancy, I think it might be because of the different positions of the two? I’ll often do things like have Meredith in my arms and go to pick something up and then have a really hard time standing up again, I have to put her down.
Anyway, here are a few things I’ve made recently for the baby. The first are some wool soakers made from a recycled sweater. I used this pattern and they were super fast and easy. Click to see them bigger.
 
I also wanted to make some kimono shirts, because the one I had last time was one of my favorite shirts for Meredith. So much easier to get on a little baby than anything that pulls over the head. I found this pattern online and it looked perfect. While searching for the pattern, I also found some pants and kimono shoes too so of course I had to make them as well. The last piece is a matching prefold diaper. My sewing machine started jamming in the middle of making these. I was so upset, as we really don’t have a lot of extra cash right now to get it fixed. My sweet husband spent his whole evening on Google and with the manual, taking it apart, cleaning it out, fixing tensions, etc., and did manage to get it fixed and so I finally got these done today.
These ones are flannel, but I bought some cotton fabric too and I plan to make a few more tops, and hopefully a couple more pairs of pants. I want to make more prefolds too, since baby will likely be coverless a lot and they’re so easy and cute. The shoes were a bit of a pain to make at first, but now that I have done a pair I think the rest will be easy. If I have time I might make a few more of them too, but I don’t think they’re very practical (they’re liable to just be kicked off), so I’m not going to go overboard on the shoes. I think I have to make the next ones bigger too. They are size 0-3 months, but we all have big feet. I compared the shoes to the imprint of Meredith’s feet we have at around 12 days old and they’re almost too small already. Her feet at that age were bigger than her cousin’s feet at 8 weeks (we have a little magnet of her cousin’s feet on the fridge so I compared lol).
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