Happy, Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you Moms and Grandmas out there! Mother's Day makes me miss the good old days when my babies were really babies. So I thought I'd share a few memories. This is a novel I know, but bear in mind I'm doing this blogging thing for journaling purposes too!

Isabella was born 4 weeks early on January 4, 1998. We went to the hospital on Saturday morning and they gave me an IV of drugs to stop the labor since I was only 35 weeks and 6 days pregnant. I went home after and ended up back in the hospital that night and they let me stay since they figured I'd be 36 weeks when she was born (as if 24 hours would have really made that much of a difference!) So after sleeping through the night with an epidural, she was born in the morning weighing in at 6lbs 13oz. She was so tiny and had trouble figuring out how to do a lot of things when she was little so I often wondered if another week or two in the womb would have helped with that. She cried a lot as a baby. I think it was sort of a double whammy. She was a fussy baby with clueless parents. I was scarcely around babies before I had one and had no idea what to do with the little thing, even though I read lots of books on the subject. One example of how stupid we were as new parents is how excited we were to start having quality family time together. When Isabella was 4 months old Spring was here and we went to the store and bought a bike seat. We asked the guy in the bike shop if they had any bike helmets for babies. He said no, of course and looked at us and our baby as if we were idiots. So we went home and put the bike seat on Brent's bike, deciding we'd get a helmet just as soon as she was big enough. We took her for a ride that lasted about fifteen minutes and she screamed the whole time and was kind of slumped over in her seat. When we got back we felt terrible and didn't take her for another bike ride until she was about eighteen months old.

Isabella~Our first Baby!

Zoe was our second. She was born 2 weeks early on September 29, 1999, and was the most exciting birth of the three. I remember going to the bank in the morning while having contractions and hanging out at home, not wanting to make Brent leave work earlier than necessary or make Cathy, my mother-in-law, leave her job teaching high school before school got out (she was going to watch Isabella). When I got to the hospital I was crying and the nurse said she could tell it would be soon just from the look on my face. Zoe was born 30 minutes later, weighing in at 7lbs. 3 oz. I didn't have time for an epidural but they did give me a shot to numb the pain. It was the most painful thing I'd ever been through but when she was born I thought it was the coolest experience I'd ever had! I was so happy afterward to have experienced natural childbirth (for the most part anyway). She was a good baby and slept through the night on her own from an early age. She was very happy as a baby and had this funny laugh that she still does every once in a while. Later when she became a difficult (but lovable) pre-schooler, I was often shocked because she had been so happy as a baby!

Zoe sucked her thumb for almost eight years and was even
doing it in her ultrasound picture!

Noah is the baby of our family. After the great experience I had having Zoe I wanted to do the natural childbirth thing so Brent and I took a Lamaze class. We were, of course, the only couple in the class who already had two kids. We went to the hospital 9 days before Noah's due date. The natural childbirth thing didn't quite work out. We walked around a few hours before I gave in and got the epidural around 2 am. I was really tired and they wanted to put an internal monitor on Noah and attach it to his head because the nurse said they couldn't get a good reading on his heart rate when I was moving around during contractions. It's kind of hard to sit still during contractions! So I got the epidural because I didn't want anyone putting probes on my baby's head. Well Brent fell asleep for the next few hours and I laid there with my legs feeling really weird because of the epidural. I couldn't sleep and sat there watching the movie "Footloose" on TV with no volume because it wasn't working for some reason. Finally around 7 am it was time and poor Brent had to wake up from his nap and Noah was born pretty quick. I don't like the expression "popping babies out" but that's what it was like with him. Two pushes and he popped right out, weighing in at 9lbs 2oz. He was so big and looked like he was two months old on the day he was born! We decided he had better be the last because if we had anymore this one would wait for the due date (couldn't have that!) and would weigh 10lbs! He was a sweet, cuddly baby and I really enjoyed my time with him as a baby, knowing he would be the last one.

Noah was one freakin' cute baby boy!

Me, pregnant with Isabella. Second trimester, all cute and glowing. Never suspecting I'd gain 50lbs with each pregnancy and never be "cute and pregnant" again because I'd look like I was four months pregnant a week after the pregnancy test in subsequent pregnancies!;)

I actually like this picture of me in the hospital right after Isabella was born, all looking like a pizza face. I was blessed with reasonably easy pregnancies with nothing worse than a little sciatica here and there. But the picture shows how we all sacrifice for our children in one way or another to bring them into this world. For me with Isabella it was horrible acne and rosacea (I still have a bit of the rosacea) and people asking me on a daily basis: What's wrong with your face? Why is your face so red? Have you tried anything for that? To which I always answered, "No, I haven't tried anything. I don't even ever wash my face!" One person even used it as an opportunity to try to sell me Amway!