Growing.

Here is our beautiful sleeping Izzy. Speaking of sleep, she has finally been doing a lot better in that department. For the first 5 months she did not nap well, which made for long days for me. It did not give me much time to have a break or sneak in a nap. Especially with Erin running around, if I wasn't able to coordinate naps, then no nap for me!

Izzy is still mostly a lump. She can roll from her tummy to her back, and just recently she discovered that she has feet. Who knew so much amusement could come from grabbing one's toes? Other than that she is starting to scoot around the crib by arching her back and pushing off the crib railings, but nowhere close to crawling or sitting up. By contrast a friend of mine from our ECFE classes has a baby about a month and a half older than Izzy and she is crawling all over the place and even able to walk by holding onto things!!!

Erin didn't crawl until she was 9 months, or walk until she was 15 months, so I'm not worried. Izzy has been experiencing some teething symptoms, but none have shown up yet. She gets fussy and her cheeks get bright red, but no teeth.

Izzy has become much more attached to me and I am loving it. She just beams at me when she sees me and smushes her face into mine. She likes to snuggle into my neck and just be close to me. It is much more rewarding than the newborn stage where they can't interact with you much at all. She also LOVES Erin and loves to watch her!


Izzy also greatly enjoys snuggling with Daddy. Whenever she hears him talk she looks all over for him.

Erin got her first haircut at a salon. Her hair is so straight that any mistake I might have made would have been so obvious. I just didn't have the heart to give her a bad haircut. So I took her to a salon and she did so well. We cut off a few inches, but it was getting stringy at the ends anyway. She is starting to look so grown up.

The horse is a toy that she borrowed from a friend. She has played with and carried it around non-stop! She has me make little lassos out of yarn that she leads (drags) the horse around with. She also found a little stuffed unicorn that she has and dubbed it the horse's baby.

Isn't she gorgeous! We are finally falling into a routine with her and it makes life so much easier, and I get more sleep at night too! I like routines, I know what everyone needs when we go by one. The girls do better with them too. They are fed and rested and healthy when we stick to a routine. By routine I mean a sequence of events not a strict time-table.

Erin's smile when she is trying. So cheesy! I try to get her to say something silly instead so I get a real smile instead of cheeseville!

Scott with Izzy and his brother David with their new baby Aubree. My babies get soooo chubby. I love it!

Babies!

Babies, babies, babies!!! These are the recent additions to Scott's side of the family. The chubby girl in the pink is our little Izzy baby. The head-full-of-hair boy in the middle is Chase, Scott's sister's baby. The tiny baby girl on the end is Aubree, Scott's brother's baby!

All the fun doesn't stop there. . . another baby is due in July of next year from Scott's oldest brother. That baby will make 8 grandchildren on that side of the family with Erin being the oldest. She will be 4 when the 8th is born!!!

And why stop at 8 when 10 is better!!! Both of my brothers are now expecting babies next spring!!! One is due on my birthday June 13th!!! The other is due in August!!! I'm glad that they are having babies now, they will be close enough in age to my babies that they will be able to play together.

So this coming spring/summer will be full of birthdays!! We may have to just throw one huge one as they babies get older. . . who knows.

Hospitalization #7

Scott Kuglin (my hubby) seems to be the opposite of a good luck charm when it comes to me spending time in the hospital. Let me explain. . .

Six months after we started dating we were involved in a car crash and I was his human cushion. He walked away with a little bloody nose and I got an ambulance ride because my left arm broke clean in half.

This broken arm refused to heal and I could bend my arm in a place it shouldn't be able to bend for 8 months, when I finally decided it was enough and scheduled some surgery to have them repair it.

I kept the substantial hardware in my arm for a year, but one of the screws that have nasty cutting tips on them was all the way through the bone and poked in my arm on the other side. It caused me enough grief that I had surgery again to remove it.

A few years later I was pregnant with our first daughter Erin, and at 33 weeks I went into labor. I spent a week in the hospital on a magnesium drip to keep the little punkin in.

Four weeks later I gave birth to that punkin. Granted this was a planned hospital stay, it still was a result of having Scott Kuglin in my life.

Three years later, I was pregnant with our second daughter Izzy, and made it to 36 weeks of pregnancy and went into labor. I was far enough along that they didn't stop later, even if my midwife would have preferred to.

Three months later, what I thought was the stomach flu turned out to be gallbladder attacks. On our way home from a vacation in the Dells, the pain became overwhelming and even brought me to tears! I tried to hold on until we could make it to Rochester, but we ended up in the Lacrosse ER where they gave me some pain medication. Finally some relief. I guess generally once they get the attack to stop they send people home and let them decide on whether or not to have their gallbladder out. Generally they are able to prevent additional attacks by limiting fat in their diet. However, in my case the pain was not going away and the attack was not stopping. So they sent the surgeon my way and we decided to go for it and just get it out.

Lo and behold a sneaky little gallstone had escaped the gallbladder and become lodged in my bile duct. Most likely the culprit of the ongoing pain. So instead of being an outpatient, I was fortunate enough to undergo an additional procedure the next day to dislodge the sneaky little gallstone. With the endoscopic procedure that was used there was a 1 in 100 chance of me developing pancreatitis. Apparently I should play the lottery more often because I did develop it. Normal numbers for pancreatic enzymes are from 40 to 100, and my levels were in the thousands. Let me just tell you that the pancreas is NOT an organ that you want to anger. It is extremely painful and pain medication isn't always that helpful!!!

So by my count that is number seven. Seven hospitalizations in 6 years of marriage. A few planned, most not. Maybe I should get out while I can!!! If I didn't adore him so much I could consider it.

Where do I start?

Life is going by at lightening speed and I have so many ideas for posts than have never been written. So where do I start?? With all the ideas I have it seems like an impossible task to do all the posts I want to do and keep up with all the new things that are happening. I also don't want to do one super huge post and hit people in the face with a wall of text. Perhaps I should do a mainly picture post with captions. Everyone loves pictures! I believe that may be my best solution. Thank you for letting me work that out in blogspace with you. =) She here goes!

When I first saw this in the middle of my kitchen floor my response was annoyance. Then I asked Erin why the vacuum was on the floor with the blanket on it. . . "I put it night night" she responded to me. Instant anger melt.

This is the scene I happened on at 5 am, the catch. . .I didn't take this picture. In addition to this mess the refrigerator door was open and that package of cookies was on top of the fridge!

Erin documented the scene of the crime and the loot herself with our camera. Safe to say our camera is 3 year old user friendly! I am happy to report that this was one of the last middle-of-the-night wanderings. At least this one wasn't her on the roof holding a bottle of Tylenol. No that is not just a random example. . .

Our trip to Kenosha and the Jelly Belly factory.

Auntie Connie looked hungry so Erin felt it her personal duty to remedy.

You have to love the hats. They also make some amazing saltwater taffy in a plethora of flavors!

My little jelly belly standing on the big Jelly Belly! And for any Harry Potter fans they have their own line of Everyflavor beans, though they are called something else. There is vomit, pencil shaving, and the infamous ear wax to name a few. I was not bold enough to try them.

Izzy enjoying some snuggle time with Auntie Connie. Our visits renew her decision to keep waiting in the "I want babies" department. Babies are exhausting! Incredible. . . but exhausting.

A picture of the sisters. I am very much looking forward to seeing how sisters interact. I had brothers and a half sister that lived a state away, so I'm not sure what it will look like. So far Erin is very loving toward Izzy, and I want to do everything I can to ensure a close relationship for them. . . especially if we choose not to have any more babies.

It went from summer to spring to summer to a few hours of fall to winter. We really love having a fire in our fireplace. Although when we lost power in the random snow storm where we got 4 inches very quickly we didn't have heat or water since our well pump is run by electricity. All of this would have been fine if we didn't have the girls. So we packed them up and stayed at grandmas along with the rest of the grand kids that happened to be spending some time there as well. A full house it was! And to think we add one more grand baby before Christmas!!! That will make 7!

Our sweet Izzy princess. A very happy baby! We are battling thrush still!!!! I'm so tired of it!

Erin thought it was pretty cool to have this clip on her tongue. Silly girl. She is slowly but surely settling down in her tantrums and able to listen better. I am doing better at remaining calm when she loses it and doing my best to help her work through it all. She also started dance class and has her second class tonight! She looks so cute in her leotard and tights!

Erin showing the camera her red spot from having the clip on her tongue.

Such a pretty girl!

Someone has to take pictures of me with the baby or I will not exist in our pictures!

Goozo Fraba

If anyone has watched Anger Management with Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson, then they will understand the title of this post. It is the little mantra that is taught to the anger management students to diffuse their rage. I have found the need for it a lot recently while raising my 3 year old. It's either mumble nonsense words to myself, or duct tape my daughter to the wall.

Here I thought that laying all this wonderful ground work during her second year of life would translate into an easy transition into 3 and 4 and so on. I was mistaken. The "terrible twos" really aren't that terrible. Three has catapulted us into a war zone that I didn't see coming. Erin is a strong willed child (aren't they all) and now that she is three she seems to want to exert that at every turn to subdue the enemy into letting her stay up later, watching more TV, eating chips and chocolate and using all the soap in the bottle of hand soap to wash her hands. . . once.

I've been told several times by several different people that you can't show them what makes you angry because then they know what button to push. NOT GET ANGRY??? So when she is spitting her juice across the floor as if she were a sprinkler and I tell her to stop and she just smiles at me and keeps on keeping on I'm not supposed to grab her juice cup, chuck it across the yard so hard it makes my shoulder hurt, and drag her to her room to sit in a chair???? Goozo Fraba, goozo fraba. . .

Now Erin has also been testing the limits of bed time. We can get her there easily enough, but now the excuses to get out of bed have started. "I need to go potty, I need to go poop, there's a moth in my bed". . . Not only that, but she has started getting up in the middle of the night and wandering around the house. One night I found her in Izzy's room, another she was hiding under a blanket on the couch. I think the scary thing is that she is getting into stuff she shouldn't like eating chocolates and filling the toilet with toilet paper. It's the medicines and cleaning products that I worry about. I just need to find something and lock it all up before something disastrous happens.

It doesn't help that I have to get up at night to feed a newborn so I am so tired that I hardly hear her. Like now, I put her to bed an hour ago and I can hear her bouncing around in her room!!!! GOOZO FRABA!!!!

What's up?

I wonder sometimes if I only do this blog for myself, or if anyone (besides Vanessa) reads it. I don't think it really matters that much to me because I do enjoy blogging and being able to look back 3 years now to what was going on in my life at the time.

Things are a lot different then. Scott and I were first time parents with Erin. We have changed cities. We have also added another baby to the family and gotten rid of the cats. My life is a lot busier, but mostly a good busy. This really is exactly what I want to be doing right now in my life. It is a TON harder than I had imagined it would be, but I'm happy.

I like the stay at home mommy thing. . . for now. There are a lot of other things that I would love to do. I'm sure I'll be going back to school at some point, or points. For what. . . well I have my eye on some culinary schooling, agricultural schooling, maybe even some healthcare schooling. I just haven't decided what I want to be in my next life (after I don't have to take care of children full-time).

I love having my babies and I'll be sad when they are gone, but I find my self looking forward to having some time to myself and time to pursue the things that I enjoy. I hope the future holds a lot more travelling for me as well.

The biggest question of the moment is. . . When are we going to stop having kids??? Is two enough for us, or will I always regret not having more? If pregnancy wasn't so hard on me I'm positive we would have more. . .but it is wretched for me. There might be a few weeks in the second trimester that I enjoy, but that's it! Izzy doesn't scream like Erin did, but newborns are still a lot of work. Then there is my age to think about and how long to wait if we decide on another baby. Too big of a question right now. . . I think that one is going to have to wait to be answered.

My Girls.

I just found these pictures on my camera when I was downloading others onto my computer.

Aren't these sisters so cute together!!



Izzy just loves looking at her sister. . .
How did I get such beautiful girls??!!

I'm going to eat you!!

No, I'm going to eat YOU!

Oops, I think Izzy is done with cuddle time.

Nope, she's okay.. .

Bonding.

I was looking forward to my time in the hospital to bond with Izzy. However, she was born at 2am and we didn't get to our room until 5:30 am where the sun was coming up. A short few hours later family was arriving to meet Izzy and then there were doctors, nurses, neonatologists showing up seemingly every 20 minutes so there was very little down time for us. Once we were back home we needed balance the needs of the new baby with the needs of the new big sister along with getting some food and sleep. All of this made it very hard to feel a bond with Izzy and not just see her as one more thing I had to try and do.

I didn't know what was wrong with me. With Erin we bonded the very first night! I felt like a bad mom and wondered if I would always favor Erin now. It's not like kids can't see if someone favors someone over them. I voiced my fears to my husband who assured me that I was not a bad mom. I felt a little better and tried to just trust that it would happen. At my six week postpartum appointment with my midwife, I brought it up to her. She said that what I was feeling was perfectly normal and happens a lot with second babies. With the first baby every thing is new and exciting and you can sleep when the baby sleeps and all that. With the second baby, you have already done the newborn thing and lets face it. . . it is A LOT of work! Plus you have the first child to take care of as well so you can't just sleep whenever the baby is sleeping! I felt so much better after talking to my midwife.

I finally was able to relax about the whole situation just in time for Izzy to start smiling and cooing at me, which is great for feelings of bonding. Taking care of her is still a tremendous amount work, plus diffusing three year old tantrums. Seriously, why on earth is three worse than two???

Picture Post!

Alright, the story is going to have to wait. Time to get some pictures up of this gorgeous girl!!!

Mama and Izzy.

Izzy's first bottle given by big sister Erin!

Snuggle time with Uncle Ben.

This is a common scene in our house. Daddy and Izzy napping together.

I love sleep smiles!

Izzy's first bath, sponge bath of course since her cord hadn't fallen off yet.

Strategic placement of the washcloth for discretion and to keep the little punkin warm.

Izzy.

Well we came home from the hospital the next afternoon. We could have stayed another day, but we had already been there a long time and we missed our Erin. So I think we made it home around 5pm and grandma brought Erin home.

Erin was very very happy to be home, but she had been throwing up all day. She wasn't running a fever and was fine inbetween vomitting episodes, but she couldn't keep anything down.

Izzy was jaundice and they wanted us to make it back to see a doctor for her on Friday to check her bilirubin levels. We were able to make an appointment here in town so we didn't have to make the hour drive, which I don't think I could have done anyway.

So three days after giving birth we head downtown to get Izzy checked out. First off let me say that the pediatric area in the clinic is amazing! They have a little TV, a place for the kids to run around, a huge aquarium with the coolest fish, and crayons and pictures to color everywhere. Erin had a great time there and played with a bunch of kids.

The downside to this trip was that my husband, who had been doing an amazing job of being a daddy of two so far, got into work mode and kind of autopilot and just found some place to park on the street without giving much thought to it. Now I had no idea where the building was so I just went with it. I figured that the closest building that we had parked by was where we were going. Imagine my suprise when he walked right past it. He carried Izzy in the baby carrier and I was pushing Erin . . .slowly, in the stroller. It was blazing hot out and it turns out the the building wasn't anywhere close to where we parked. I muttered all kinds of hateful things under my breath directed towards my husband. Out loud I asked what the crap he was thinking, I just pushed a baby out three days ago!!! When we finally made it to the building there was a parking ramp. . . under it!!!!!! I was furious and I let him know it!

The pediatrition that we saw for Izzy was from South America so when she said "Isabella" it sounded musical. She said that Izzy looked really good except for the jaundice and that she definately wanted to get a blood draw and check the levels. As long as she was under 15.5 on the scale we wouldn't have to put her in the hospital to be under the lights they use to help babies process the bilirubin. So I left Scott and Erin to play in pediatrics while I took Izzy downstairs to the lab. Turned out that her levels were 12.5 and that they wanted us to come back the next day to possibly check her again. However, I wasn't worried. My milk was already in and she was eating great. There were lots of wet diapers so I felt confident that if anything her levels would go down by the next day.

Safe to say that I made my husband walk to the car and bring it back to the building and promise to park in the parking ramp the next day. The appointment the next day went well, the pediatrition that we saw wasn't worried and Izzy had gained another ounce from the previous day. She said if we were worried to bring her in on Monday. So we did not have to do another blood test and poke her little heels anymore.

I have to say that parking in the ramp was much easier than walking a mile!

More of the adventure to come when I get some more time, and my internet stops hiccuping!

My Birth Story. . . Part 2.

Almost two weeks later and I think I may finish the story this time.

So since I was a generous 5cm dilated and was staying at the hospital we of course. . . did more walking. We stopped walking to get some dinner and then I decided to spend some time in the whirlpool. After I was done in there we relaxed in the room for awhile. I found that the best thing for me to keep the contractions coming was to stand and sway.

My midwife came back around 7 pm and was going to check my cervix again. I was at a generous 6 this time so she decided to break my water. I was nervous because when my water was broken with Erin some really REALLY painful contractions started nearly immediately. After my water was broken my midwife and husband sat there looking at me and the monitor waiting for the same thing I was waiting for. .. pain. It didn't happen.

I decided I wanted to get on the birthing ball for awhile and see if that helped Izzy drop some more and encourage my cervix to open. My midwife gave me a great back massage after I got on the ball and then left and gave me an hour for my contractions to pick up. Well one hour turned into two and then they started the pitocin. My contractions were starting to finally pick up after 2 hours, but since I had been there for over 24 hours already my midwife didn't want me to be in labor forever, hence the pitocin. They turned it up ever 30 minutes until I was contracting at a decent pace.

I stayed on the birthing ball for a couple of hours and did well breathing through the intensifying contractions. My midwife came back in and told me they wanted me to climb into bed and lay on my side to encourage my sunny-side-up baby to rotate. So I relaxed in bed and fell asleep between contractions when I could.

Getting closer to 2 am and my contractions started to get very painful and I started having some that I wasn't doing such a great job breathing through and mostly moaned through. One of these was pretty loud and my husband bolted out his chair and ran over to me. My nurse also came back in and I had a few more that were not nice, so I asked her what else I could have besides an epidural. You see I wasn't sure how long this new phase was going to last. With Erin is lasted two hours and it was horrible! My nurse said she had to check me first and I told her to jump in in between contractions, and there wasn't a lot of time in between contractions anymore. She declared me an 8 and went to get the meds. When she asked me how much I wanted I was a little perplexed because I didn't know the dosing of Nubain. Silly nurse. She said I could have 5mg or 10mg. I told her 5mg because narcotics and I aren't the best of friends. She waited for another contraction and started to push the meds. I felt a little tingly and warm, but as far as pain relief. . . nothing.

A few more minutes passed and this intense bearing down pressure appeared out of nowhere! I grunted to the nurse "I have to push!" which caused her to run for my midwife. I had ahold of my husbands thumb and shirt and was letting out some pretty loud noises. Everyone (and I'm not sure who "everyone" was) was busying themselves in the room and my midwife asked me if I wanted to roll onto my back. I quickly said no through my moaning and grunting. So people helped me hold my legs up and my midwife starting asking me if Erin had a lot of hair when she was born. Apparently she could see the top of Izzy's head already!!! Keep in mind I pushed for two hours with Erin. Some more grunting and people saying stuff to me, which I could hear none of over the top of my own voice, and Izzy's head was out. Then with one maybe two more pushes she was out because it hurt A LOT to get the rest of her little body out of my body and I wanted that over as soon as possible!!!

When she was out I said "Thank you!" over and over and completely forgot that my baby was here! The nurses had me turn over onto my back and put her on my stomach and cleaned her of a bit and we just snuggled. She was born at 2:10 am and was 6 lbs. 5 oz.

She nursed great right from the start, had only a little trouble with jaundice, and so far has been a pretty calm baby. Which I would say that we deserve after Erin, with her screaming for 6 months. Now all my updates can be about the new baby!

My Birth Story. . . Part 1.

Finally. . .

So we get settled into our room a bit and they put my IV in because I was GBS positive and they wanted at least two doses into me before I had Izzy. I also changed into my charming hospital gown. After the IV was in I grabbed the pole and Scott and I started our laps around the L&D floor.

We made countless rounds around that place for the next 30 hours. . . yes it would be 30 hours later before Izzy came.

As we were walking the contractions were still coming and they were intense enough. I felt a lot of pressure in my lower back and my midwife believed that was due to Izzy being in the "sunny side up" position. That meaning the back of her head was pushing on my lower back, and she eventually needed to turn face down to make it into the world.

The midwife we checked in with was done with her 36 hour shift at 8pm and the midwife that I had seen for all my appointments was on for the next 36 hours. She suggested that since it was getting late to rest awhile and if I was able to get some sleep for the night. She didn't want to push things too fast because I was early and they needed to get at least that second dose of antibiotics in.

I was able to sleep pretty well for the night. Contractions woke me up here and there and nurses came in to give me a new dose of antibiotics every 4 hours. At about 2am Scott and I were awoken by emphatic screaming from the delivery room next door. And I'm talking about the kind of screaming that you see in movies! Then she started yelling about the baby coming out and then we heard the baby cry. No joke. . .she screamed probably 7 times at most, then we heard the baby cry.

So since we were awake and the kitchen was open, I ordered some food. I got pancakes, hashbrowns, and a slice of ham. The pancakes were gross, hashedbrowns were good, ham was okay. And then I went back to sleep.

In the morning my midwife wanted to check to see if I had dilated at all during the night, then put me on the monitors to monitor how many contractions I was having and decide what to do next. When she checked me I was a little over 4cm, so there was some movement and then I was having contractions every 4-5 minutes still. So since there was some change in my cervix and I was still having consistent contractions she decided to keep me until the afternoon and see if anything changed.

Commence more and more walking. Eat lunch. More walking. Midwife checks me at around 1pm. I was SURE she was going to send us home. I thought she would check me and I would still be at 4cm and she would send us home. However, I was 5+ and she said she could not send me home. Also that she had talked to the OB on call and that they felt okay about breaking my water once I made it to 6 cm. . .

And now we break for me to get some coffee and breakfast before the mini-squish wakes up and wants more milk. With a birth story that spans 30 hours, you knew it was going to have to be told in parts.

Installment #2

I have a few free moments since Scott took Erin to the grocery store with him and Izzy is only grunting here and there and thinking about waking up to eat. . .

The Friday before turning 36 weeks I had my mom come for a few days to help me with some stuff around the house and with the garden. Scott had hurt his back severely enough to be off work on workers-comp and was unable to assist me in much of anything.

I had found a post on Craigslist for someone needing to get rid of some straw. . for FREE! So I enlisted my mom and our truck to get a load and use it to drown out the weeds in the garden. We picked it up and worked on it the next two days a couple of hours each day. We had enough to cover the rows and such and a little around the mounds of cucumbers, melons, and pumpkins. Another load of it could have been used, but we were too tired to get more.

We tackled that on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday we took it pretty easy. My mom and I were talking during Erin's nap and as I sat on the couch I though I was noticing that I was getting contractions more than normal. So at 2pm I started timing them. Sure enough they were coming between 4-5 minutes apart. Not painful, just happening. I timed them for the next couple of hours and they kept up, but I didn't want to call in yet until they started to feel different because last time for Erin we got to the hospital and then they stopped. . . . So another hour or so of contractions and they started to intensify so I called in to Labor and delivery and they asked how long it would take me to get there and I let them know an hour, which sounded like they were a bit worried about, so they told me to come in now.

Scott then scurried about grabbing bags of stuff and packing it in the car as I was breathing through some contractions and trying to calm our near 3 year-old because we were leaving. The ride was uneventful besides the contractions thankfully and when I got there and was checked I was nearly 4 cm. . . and there I leave you because the squishy is full-on hungry and awake now!

Installment #1

Last time I left off I was only fingertip dilated and going to go visit my dad. Izzy is now two weeks old so I figure I've got some catching up to do. . .

However, I don't have time to do it in the detail that I would really like to. One, because I know lots of people love birth stories. Two, I have a two week old and a three year old and don't have the time. If I didn't at least get started now I would put it off forever. So I need to do installments and hopefully tell the tale coherently enough.

I came home a day early from my dad's because I had a worrysome episode one evening and did not want to give birth early away from my care provider. I was having way too many contractions for my own comfort level. I was very careful the whole next week I was home because I would not be able to stay with the midwives if I went into labor before 35 weeks.

At my 35 week appointment my midwife and I were very pleased to see I had made it that far without incident. She checked my cervix again and I was a little over 1cm dilated and 50 % effaced. She thought I would make it to 37 weeks no problem. And that is all I have time for. . . this time. Pictures are from our Kenosha trip.