Meet Aliza

last thursday at my doctor appt, my dr told me that baby girl was head down, perfect position and she thought she would see me over the weekend to deliver. the weekend came and went and i stayed pregnant. given how late jakey came, i wasnt too concerned.  then, at my appt this week on thursday, the dr checked me and felt something weird. she said she thought it was her hand above her head but ran to get the sono machine to make sure. she put the wand on my belly and got a strange expression on her face. "youre never going to believe this. she flipped this week and now she is breech." she went on to explain how this basically never happens, and marveled that i didnt feel her flipping. baby must have done it while i was asleep, or just with all the torso space i have she just wasnt too cramped to flip at will.

basically our option of "wait until labor and water breaking before going to the hospital" became "lets schedule an external version this afternoon because if your water breaks you will have to have a c-section."  she told me there was about a 70% chance of the version being successful, and if it was, we would induce immediately so she didnt flip back to breech again.

i went home and called my mom and jeremy to let them know we were having a baby that afternoon, cleaned the house, packed all the last minute stuff in the hospital bag and did some down dog stretching to try and convince her to flip back around.

we checked into the hospital at 2pm. at 230ish, they checked me and did another sonogram. sure enough, our little gymnast had flipped back around and was head down again, although she had one hand stretched above her head and wasnt in total birthing position. thankfully, this took the idea of an emergency c-section off the table, so we started the pitocin and settled in to wait on her arrival.

just like with jacob, the first few hours of contractions went from barely noticeable to slightly uncomfortable. unlike with him, after they broke my water and increased the dosage numerous times, i didnt keep dilating and she didnt move down the canal to come out. after six hours of labor and one hour of very intense labor, we decided on an epidural. i was compleye exhausted already since jacob had woken us up around 530 that morning and i never really fell back to sleep. the pain was pretty bad and i wasnt sure how much longer i could do it, since i had been stuck at a 7 for almost 2 hours. her hadn was still above her head and she hadnt moved down either. after getting the medicine going, but before it really kicked in, things started happening very quickly. i went from 7 to pushing in about 5 minutes. after maybe five or so minutes of pushing, the doctor called the nicu drs and told them to come quick. she gave me an epiisiotmy and had me keep pushing, even between contractions, because baby's heart rate dropped dramatically and she wasnt moving. finally, after using the suction thing and several more minutes of pushing, she came out. she was a hideous color of purple black and didnt cry at all.

the nicu drs took her to the heat table and gave her oxygen and got her breathing and moving. i was freaking out and jeremy kept reassuring me that she was fine, he could see her moving on the table and to relax while they sewed me up and cleaned everything. finally, they got her to the point where we could have our hour of skin to skin time. it was then that jeremy confessed that he really had thought she might have been gone when she came out and was totally lying to me to help me keep it together, ive never been happier to be lied to in my life. her apgar improved from 3 to 8 and all was well in our little world. her official stats are: Aliza Fern born at 133am on 10/18. 7 lbs, 5 oz, 19.5 in long. We are calling her zz (or zeezee) and her name is pronounced aleeza. Aliza is hebrew for joyful and fern was jeremy's great gma's name.

we moved upstairs to the postpartum unit and tried to catch up on an entire night's worth of sleep, which is hard to do when nurses and doctors keep coming in to take vitals and check on the baby. sigh. all day friday was a parade of people and phone calls, and a lovely flower arrangement from work. jeremy went out to get himself dinner and came back with jacob, so he could meet his sister.
 
he thought it was fun to hold her but was very easily distracted. he tried to share his milk with her, and thought it was pretty silly that she drinks special milk from mommy's chest. given his recent obsession with eyeballs, we had to watch to make sure he didnt try to open hers up to check if they were there.  he kept asking why she wasnt crying(maybe i overcoached him that sister would probably cry alot?) and wanted toput her in the crib since she was obviously asleep. the kid isnt going to win any babysitting awards, but he does love his sister and i think hes gonna be a good big brother.

Baby's Room

Is looking worse than when we started, but real progress is being made. All the trim and doors are painted white. Now we need the four shade of coral and time to paint and we will keep moving. Until then, disaster area doesn't even begin to describe the poor girl's space. Hopefully she hangs out in the womb full term, because we clearly have a lot to do before the end of October!

104 weeks later

i can't believe we went from this guy:

to this guy:

in two short years. our two year old is a mess.  he is running and jumping and hiding. he loves jumping, espcially off of curbs in parking lots and bottom stairs. he hides under his bed, but is so giggly it isnt very hard to find him.

he's talking up a storm. everyone comments on how clearly he enunciates and how easy he is to understand. he likes to say "bless you" when someone sneezes, is learning how to sing the ABCs. he talks a lot about rumpy and cricket and our friend's dog milo, the fire trucks and fire station, and airplanes. he is learning how to count and usually goes something like 1,4,6,8,9,10! with a few hints he can get all the numbers though.

he is starting to talk more about baby sister. yesterday he pulled up my shirt and offered her a bite of his pretend food. it was pretty adorable. he'll hug my belly and say hello to her when prompted to.

he's turning into a good helper too. he likes to help me put clothes in the dryer and put some of his stuff away. he has been getting up on his stool and helping me cook lately. he loves it.  he has a tool kit outside and inside so he can help daddy with any important jobs at the drop of a hat.

his favorite songs are "head, toes, nose" (head, shoulders, knees and toes), ACCs (ABCs), "rocking mommy singing" (Rockabye Baby), "mama broken heart" (your mama's broken heart, miranda lambert), and "town town" (downtown, lady antebellum). whenever we get in the car he immediately asks to find drums on the radio. any song with a strong drum beat and he is a happy kid. he loves playing his drums and piano and can identify all of the pieces of a drum kit. (bass drum, snare, etc.) smarty pants!!!

zoo baby

	Jacob love love loves the zoo. We went twice this last weekend, once for a company picnic and once with our small group. On Sunday he got up close and personal with the gorilla.  Noth times when I asked him what he wanted to see he said "Lions, Tigers, Sheep, Elephants, Fish." Nice mix of the exotic and normal.  He loves the big cats. They were all sleeping both days, but he still got a kick out of them. Feeding the goats and sheep and fish in the American Farms is always a highlight of our trip. He snuggles the baby goats and it is sooo cute. A few months ago we went when they were all practically newborn and now they are more Jacob's size. He gets a little aggressive with his petting but they kept coming back for more. The Sedgwick County Zoo is kind of amazing - if you havent gone, you should, even if you dont have little ones. They have great exhibits of all kinds and lots of opportunities to interact with animals and knowledgable zookeepers.

Our Next Chapter...

Includes a new addition to the family - arriving at the end of October! Yay!

bel aire crime spree

every month we get a newspaper called the bel aire breezw. it is about three or four pages long, and has a few articles and ads, and my favorite, the police report. here are a few of the gems from january's issue:

Jan 20 - Officer Steele found an unoccupied vehicle parked at Eagle Lake Park.

(um... isnt that what parking lots are for? to leave your unoccupied cars in? and someone called this in??? hilarious.)

Jan 17 - Officer Murphy responded to a report of fraud in the 4800 block of North Hillcrest. A resident said he received a call from Peru, saying it was his nephew and he had been in an accident and needed money. The man asked for further identification and the caller hung up the phone.

(no harm, no foul. smart to ask for id. but what exactly did you think the police were gonig to do about it???)

Jan 4 - Officer McCaslin checked on a report of two juveniles playing in the frozen pond in Eagle lake Park. Officer advised the boys to stay off the ice.

(whew eagle lake park is a hotbed of criminal activity!)

and my personal favorite from the month:

Jan 7 - Lt. Griggs responded to a report of a suspicious character in the 6100 block of East Danbury. It was a gas company employee reading meters.

(apparently the uniform, van and clipboard werent enough clues for that concerned citizen. sheesh)

so, while i am poking a little fun at these sily reports, i am thankful to live in a community that has such innocuous police reports. yes, there are occasionally robberies or accidents, but a majority of the reports are unconcerning, if not downright hilarious. thank you bel aire breeze for giving me something to look forward to every month!

surprise!

 my dad celebrated his 60th birthday  this january, and boy did we celebrate in style! first, bryce came into town from LA onnew years eve. surprise! my dad didnt know he was coming! we had funhanging out and opening christmas presents and being together. then... my grandma and aunt came from florida. surprise! my dad didnt know until about two hours before they landed that they were coming. yay! aunt laura got to see snow for the first time in ages. it was hilarious. friday night we went out for hibachi to celebrate max's birthday. delicious!!!!

 saturday afternoon we got a limo to take us to the cirque do soleil show quidam. it was awesome. jakey sat still for *most* of the three hour show. it is insane how those people can contort their bodies!!! how many almost two year olds get to roll in a hummer limo i wonder? of course he had no idea how cool it was. :) then, the limo picked us up and took us to dinner. another great meal with family and friends. all in all, it was quite the celebration for a 60th birthday!

christmas recap

 we had six (or seven?) different christmas celebrations, lasting well into january. christmas weekend we drove up to topeka twice, first to spend saturday and sunday celebrating withjeremy's parents and siblings. seeing family was wonderful, sleeping with jakey in a double bed maybe not as much. he has a hard time sleeping well not in his own bed. :) it was great to stay with shane and darci though and just hang out.

christmas eve we went to church with my family and the opened pressies with them. then, of course, it was time for our tradition of chinese food for christmas eve dinner. last year we went to a really disappointing buffet, so the restaurant choice this year got upgraded and it was delicious.

christmas morning we opened our stockings and jakey opened his gifts from us. he LOVES his basketball goal. the first thing he says to jeremyevery night when jeremy gets home from work is ball? ball? and points downstairs to his playroom.

then, it was off to topeka again for giant family lunch with everyone (including santa!!!), then to gma and gpas house for our stockings. and more food. it truly is amazing that we didnt each gain twenty pounds after that weekend!

you'd think christ celebrations were over, but they werent! bryce came into townover new years for my dads birthday party so we celebrated with him then.

finally,we had a lovely dinner with ed and beka halfway through january. christmas was finally over, a month after tha date!

we received so many wonderful gifts and were able to make many family and friends happy with the things we picked out and, in a few cases, made. i think our christmas schedule gets crazier every year, but since we are spending time with our friends and family, it is totally worth it.