I'm back!

As you can imagine, life has been a bit busier than usual around here... Hence the week long break from this blog.

Where do I start?  I know that some of you are die hard labor story fans... without sharing all the gory details (this is a blog for people of all ages and genders) I'll give you a brief summary...

The day after my due date I woke up with contractions-- had them off and on for most of the day but didn't pay too much attention to them as I figured it could easily be false labor.  Went to bed that night... water broke at midnight-- started to have more intense contractions.  Doug called the hospital at around 1:00 am and they wanted me to come in immediately since this birth was going to be a vbac (if you don't know what that means, you probably won't be interested in the rest of this paragraph so feel free to scroll down) and they needed to monitor me and the baby closely.  Went in, even though contractions were irregular at times they still admitted me so that everything could be carefully monitored.  And then we spent the rest of the night and morning making it through one contraction at a time-- not fun.  By the time the morning rolled around, I was tired (didn't get a wink of sleep that night) and not enjoying contractions  so my nurse offered me the gas-- I accepted.  As I start puffing away, Doug asks the nurse if she's ever seen the gas make a woman in labor start laughing-- only once before, she says.  Now she can say she's seen two...  I sucked that gas back like my life depended on it, and at times broke out into uncontrollable fits of laughter during contractions. Doug quite enjoyed this part.  By noon, I wasn't laughing anymore.  Labor sucks.  I had been in labor for 12 hours but wasn't making any progress.  So, even though it can be risky for a vbac, my doctor decided to give me oxytocin to try and speed things up.  As she was telling me about the oxytocin, my doctor suggested an epidural, as the oxytocin at that stage in the game was going to make things pretty intense, and they didn't know how long the day was going to be.  I told them to call the anesthesiologist.  They started the oxytocin drip, things got intense as promised, anesthesiologist arrived an hour later (he was stuck in another procedure).  At that point I was mad at him-- couldn't understand why it was taking so darn long to get it started... worst part of the entire day... having to sit still while they started the epidural.  And 10 minutes after it was in place, I was at 10 cm's and ready to start pushing.  An hour later... Emerson was born.  There were a few crazy moments at the end when they discovered that I'd had a placental abruption (placenta separates from the uterus... blood can't get to the baby, is fatal for the baby if it's not caught in time).  I won't go into the details of what happened as a result of the abruption, but let's just say that it's a good thing Doug has a strong stomach... and that I couldn't see what was happening.  The nurses all told me that it was good that I had gone into labor that day so that it was caught while I was in the hospital.

And that's it!  Within the hour I was up and out of bed, took a shower, and felt amazing!  Again, I will say that labor sucks... but Emerson's birth was definitely much easier than last time around.  When Caleb was born three years ago, I was still in the hospital at this point in the game.  While I still have the usual aches and pains, I can't believe how fast the recovery has been.  I would take this over a c section any day!

Now... let me fill you in on the first week at home with 2 kids!!  For the most part, it was great!  Thankfully my parents were around (my mom is still here until the end of this week) and they were able to give Caleb lots of much needed attention.

I think my Dad took Caleb out to Tim Hortons most mornings.  Caleb wanted to get there at the crack of dawn to make sure he got the "white" donuts (strawberry filled timbits covered in powdered sugar) before the other children took them all.

And here's my parents with their two grandchildren.  Caleb sure loves Papa and Nana... and I'm sure Emerson will too!

Emerson has enjoyed her beautiful room.  She's sure loving her sleep... I can't seem to get that girl to stay awake!  Doug went to put Emerson to bed the first night and totally cracked up when he saw how small she was in her crib.  He decided to take a picture to document the moment...  

Emerson has spent many mornings and afternoons sleeping in the bassinet we keep in the living room... every once and a while she decides to wake up and entertain us.

Caleb has had a pretty interesting week adjusting to life with his new baby sister.  He doesn't seem to mind having Emerson around (even though he was disappointed that he didn't get the baby brother he was hoping for), but is noticing that he doesn't get the same amount of attention.  This has resulted in the occasional temper tantrum.  So, Doug and I have made an effort to get him out of the house with either one or both of us apart from Emerson when we have a few minutes and someone to watch our baby girl.  We've gone for slurpees, to the spray park, out to Tim Hortons... it's seemed to help.  We've also noticed that Caleb seems to more readily enjoy getting attention from strangers when he's in a public setting-- he's become quite the entertainer.  The other day Doug took him along on a trip to Safeway.  Caleb went on to sing the song "Hi... my name is Joe..." over and over again at the top of his lungs-- down the aisles, in the checkout line-- to the amusement of everyone else in the store.

And on occasion, I catch him enjoying his role as big brother.  The other day I walked into the living room to find him "playing" with Emerson-- which means that he was loading her bassinet up with toys.

We managed to get out of the house a few times throughout the week.  My mom took off for a few days to the island... so on Friday night we decided to go on a family adventure.  We made a trip to Ikea (I needed to pick up a few items for my next project... don't worry, I'll show you what I'm up to soon!) and stopped at the mall on the way home.  Emerson got to wear "real" clothes for her first big adventure out of the house.

In the car on the way there, Caleb was quite annoyed with the sun in his eyes.  I finally gave him Doug's hat to wear so that he could cover his eyes.  Amazingly, he sat in his seat with the hat covering his face like this for probably half an hour-- didn't make a peep.

And on Monday I had quite the mommy success... during Caleb's morning snack I managed to convince him that dried apricots (he calls them africots) were an really special treat.  He ate tons of them like candy.  Later on that night, I told him we could have a special picnic snack because he had been such a big help cleaning up the living room.  I gave him three snack options... one-- dried apricots and crackers, two-- ice cream (that's what I was hoping for) or three-- a cookie.  He chose the dried apricots :)

Here we are having a picnic snack in the living room.

Well, that's it for today!  More pictures to come soon...