Introducing Hannah Grace!

This post is long overdue!

Hannah Grace was born on April 1st, 2009, at 11:15 p.m. And no, I couldn't 'hold off' so we wouldn't have an April Fool's baby ;) She weighed 8 lbs, 7 oz, and was 20 7/8" long (which is apparently long for a girl - the doctor said she'll be tall. I guess we'll have to wait and see).

I had a relatively 'easy' labour again. I had been contracting off and on since Saturday (this was Wednesday). At my appointment that Monday the doctor offered to 'stretch my cervix', which he did. At that point he said I was about 3 cm. This was already past the time I had delivered Nathan (he was born at 37 weeks and Hannah at almost 39 weeks) so I was anxious to have her (we knew she was a 'she'). He said that once he did the procedure I would most likely go into labour within 24 - 48 hours. I contracted pretty strongly Monday night ... nothing came of it. Tuesday I was bit crampy but nothing strong enough to worry about. Tuesday afternoon I decided to get on the treadmill and walk for as long as I could. It didn't end up being very long (2 miles with a break in between I think) but I felt better having tried something to get labour going on my own.

Wednesday I went to our church's Mom's group in the morning and complained that I was still pregnant - lol! I wasn't feeling much of anything at that point. Wednesday after lunch the contractions got a bit stronger, but nothing more than I had felt in the previous few days. By the time I left to get Peter at 3:30, though, I was starting to think something might be happening. By the time I picked him up it was getting difficult to drive through the contractions (I don't put much stock in timing them - from Saturday to Wednesday I had periods of time where my contractions would be 2 - 3 minutes apart lasting for about a minute, but they weren't painful). I told Peter what was going on and he suggested going right to the hospital. We had to drop Nathan at a neighbour's house anyway, so I said we should go home and see how I was feeling by then. I felt slightly better once I got out of the car so we decided to make supper. Big mistake! lol. Of course, I picked baked chicken and potatoes, which takes an hour. By halfway through their cooking time I was laying on the couch telling Peter I wasn't sure we could make it until supper was cooked. While it finished cooking I finished packing stuff for Nathan and our stuff for the hospital. As soon as the food came out of the oven we packed it up in two dishes (one for Nathan and one for Peter), took Nathan to our neighbour's house, and headed to the hospital.

We arrived about 6. We were planning on waiting to make sure I was staying before calling my parents to come up. I was pretty sure at that point this was the real deal, but the nurse said since the shift change was at 7 they wanted to wait until then to check me ... agh! I was in quite a bit of pain by this point. Throughout my whole labour, though, all the nurses said I was so calm, which is funny. Anyway, they finally checked me a few minutes after 7 and I was between 5 and 6 cm. At that point I got my fentanyl iv and tried to space the doses out every 15 minutes or longer. The nurses said I didn't have very much of the drugs at all and Hannah didn't need anything when she was born to counteract their effect so I think I took just the right amount of doses :) You're allowed to have a dose every 5 minutes, which I did for the last 30 minutes or so.

My water still hadn't broken and the contractions seemed to be less intense on the monitor once I got the drugs so the nurse was getting worried the drugs were slowing things down. The whole time I was there I still hadn't seen a doctor as she was out on supper break and then something else must have happened as she didn't come in until around 10:30. She was coming to break my water. Before she did I said I had to use the washroom and it's a good thing I did it then. She checked me after I was finished and I was at 9 cm! So, she broke my water at that point, which finished the dilation process, and it was time to push. I pushed for about 30 minutes instead of an hour with Nathan, which was great. I kept worrying because I had a fourth degree tear with him so I was trying to push slowly but my body wouldn't listen to me sometimes! She came out pretty easily, though, and I only had a second degree tear this time.

They brought her right to me this time and I got to hold her while they started to stitch me up. This whole period was such a blur when I had Nathan so it was nice to really feel 'present' for her. At the hospital it seems to be their policy to have the moms shower before going to their room on the ward, so I had a quick shower and we settled in our room for the night. Hannah slept most of the night but I had so much adrenaline in my system I couldn't really sleep.

It was nice that we had her late in the evening as we got to be together just the three of us until the next morning when visitors came :) Here's a picture I took of Peter once we got back to our room.


I also felt better during the recovery period as I had hoped I would. This was great, as with Nathan I was pretty much out of commission for a whole week!

Here's a picture of her today - almost two months old! I can't believe she's already grown so much!

Course #10 - Check

Woohoo! I just finished a decent draft of my paper for my independent study project. This will count for my 10th course (out of 15) that I need for my education degree.

The paper is due on Monday, so I'm cutting it close, but I've found with Hannah and Nathan, plus putting our house on the market, this past month has been crazy! I've probably spent 30+ hours on it just in the past week and I'm so glad to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

I feel that way with the degree as well. Ever since my last year of my undergraduate degree I've wanted to be a teacher if I have to work in the future. Life happens and I didn't actually start my education degree until the fall of 2007, while I was on maternity leave with Nathan. At the time I planned to do 5 courses a year and finish my coursework in spring 2010. Hannah's timing couldn't have been worse for school, as she was due right at the end of winter session and the beginning of intersession so I didn't take any courses last semester and picked up a late-beginning intersession one. I also started this independent study just two weeks after she was born!

After I have finished the two courses I am currently doing I will have 4 courses left to take, all in the fall semester. I'm not looking forward to that as it will mean commuting two days a week and babysitting headaches, but I will be so glad to have the courses finished! Even though I hopefully won't have to teach full-time anywhere in the near future (with Peter's job change comes a huge answer to prayer - I will be able to stay home with our children! Yay!!) I know it is something I will / would enjoy in the future if it becomes necessary that I work. I still have a practicum to do at some point in the future, but we will wait for that until we get settled in our new location.

Peter took Nathan to a local center that allows kids to use their gymnastic equipment for a few hours on Saturday afternoon (for a fee, of course :) ). He really enjoyed it last time we went so hopefully they have a good time. It allowed me to have some uninterrupted time to get my paper finished. I will have to review it tomorrow and do a bit of formatting, but the main body of the paper looks pretty good. Have I mentioned I'm really glad to have it finished??

Peter wants to try a heart attack on the bbq (at least that's what I call it) for supper tomorrow night. To give you an idea (if you didn't click over to the video) the recipe calls for 3 lbs of ground pork and 2 lbs of bacon!! Craziness. Anyway, I'll report back on how it turns out on Monday. Other than that our weekend looks pretty free. I'm really hoping for some showings of the house to be scheduled next week - this past week has been way too quiet.

Off to feed Hannah! And I promise, a proper introduction post of her (with pictures!) is in the works. Sorry for the delay :) As you can see from the above this week has been quite busy!

Running

Twice in the past I've found running to be the most effective thing for me to lose weight. Both times I also followed a 'walk-to-jog' plan to avoid doing too much too fast and getting injured. My favourite part of the link above is when it talks about 'slimmer hips' - that's what grabbed me the first time as my lower half has always been my trouble zone. I would also much rather exercise than restrict my diet too much.

Since it's worked before and since I tend to gain lots of weight when I'm pregnant (and breastfeeding doesn't seem to make it fall off me as I was assured it would!) I knew that once I had the ok from the doctor I would be starting all over again. As of last weekend I had 12 pounds to lose to get back to my pre-Nathan pregnancy weight, 17 to get back to my pre-Hannah pregnancy weight, and 22 to get to my 'ideal' weight. Fun, fun!

I stepped on the treadmill last Saturday for the first time and decided to start on week 2 of the program. Wow - that was tougher than I thought it would be! However, I stuck with it and this morning I started 'week 3.' I'm just going to run every second day and go through the weeks that way. All of my running will be done on the treadmill for the foreseeable future, as it's much easier to be able to go during the day while I'm home with the kids.

The best part of the week came this morning when I stepped on the scale and had already lost 2 pounds! So, that means I have 10/15/20 left to lose. Yay! I'm still in maternity pants almost exclusively but I have one pair of non-maternity dress pants I can start wearing now. Things are looking up :)

Making cookies

So much has happened since my last update ... but I don't feel like recapping it all right now. I'll just mention a few of the major things then move on to what I wanted to write about today :) First, we had a little girl on April 1st (yes, I know, April Fool's baby, but I couldn't 'hold out' that extra hour as Peter requested when it was time to push. lol). Her name is Hannah Grace and I can't believe she's almost 2 months old already!

Second, Peter has accepted a new job that will require him to go away for training for 6 months (he leaves at the end of June). This means we will be selling our house (as we will be relocating at the end of that time) so I'm going to go home to live with my parents for those 6 months. As well, I have officially quit my job since we won't be here when my maternity leave is up, and I am working hard to finish my Bachelor of Education courses by the end of the fall. More details on all that stuff in future posts :)

This morning Nathan (he's 2 now!! eeks!) and I made chocolate chip cookies. It was my first time having him 'help' with cooking and it was so fun. Actually I did try one other time but it was a disaster - he fell off the chair he was standing on!

Here is my favourite picture from this morning. He has just noticed the chocolate chips in the dough he is supposed to be stirring and is on his way to pick one up and eat it. Too cute!


Of course, the best part of making cookies is ...


... eating them!