Family

It's been a month now since I last posted, but alas this month has been busy. Christmas is now upon us, and I'm finally able to get out into the hustle and bustle.

Anywho...here are some family pics that we just took with our amazing photographer, Megan.

Enjoy!

He has Arrived!!

I'm happy to announce that I have a new son, Mathias, which means "Gift of God"

born November 14, 2009 at 6:16 p.m.

Weighing 7 lbs, 10 ounces

Measuring 21 inches long

Maternity Photos

Here are a few of my maternity photos. I was 27 weeks in these pics.

These photos are the work of Megan Parker at www.meganparkerphoto.com/

She's amazing as you can see!

And now, a few maternity photos from my last pregnancy!

Yeah, I know, I'm a bad blogger. I stick my head in about once every two months for an update, but what can I say? Life's busy. Especially now when I've got a toddler with mounds of energy and a new baby to plan for.

I am excited so that's why I'm posting. My husband and I, with our daughter, just got back from our maternity session with the best and most pleasant photographer in our city. I want to post some of the pics here, but I need to make sure I have persmission first, so here is the link to her blog with a few of the photos posted.

http://meganparkerphoto.com/blog/
Just scroll down to the August 15 post.

I cannot wait until the newborn session we'll take with her once Mathias is here.
I've got 13 more weeks until due date and I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!

My cup runneth over.

Interesting Childbirth article

If you’ve read my blog and/or clicked on my links then you know I’m an advocate for natural childbirth. It’s the most effective and safest way to give birth and I’d personally rather weather the storm of labor pains than to increase my likelihood of caesarean section or worse.

Anywhoo…here is an interesting tidbit I’ve learned from Midwifeinfo.com. What do you think?

I for one am all for alternatives to epidural anesthesia. Also, if it doesn't take the pain completely away then your body can still respond to the contractions, thus allowing a mother to effectively push her baby out. This would result in fewer c-sections and less inductions (which are the devil I tell you!).

As Ms. Rooks notes in her editorial in the March 2008 edition of the journal Birth, "most U.S. women also lack access to many non-pharmacologic methods to cope with labor pain that, although less effective than epidural analgesia, provide sufficient and satisfactory pain relief to a significant proportion of the women who use them during labor." American women might be surprised to learn that "nitrous oxide is used by the majority of women in many countries
that are relatively similar to the U.S. in general socioeconomic and medical standards,” including 48 percent of the women who gave birth in Finland (2005), 46 percent of those who gave birth in New South Wales, (2004), forty-three percent of women birthing in British Columbia, (2004-5, either alone or with other agents), and fully half of all women birthing in the U.K. (2000). So what happened here, where nitrous oxide was once commonly used in hospitals around the country? Ms. Rooks faults "the evolving epidural monoculture in some hospital obstetric units" where the options for women have become, effectively, an epidural or nothing, perhaps a bit of synthetic narcotic (usually promoted by the nursing staff to get the patient through until she can have her epidural). The complete editorial, entitled "Nitrous Oxide for Pain in Labor--Why Not in the United States?" can be found in Birth, Volume 34 Issue 1 Page 3-5, March 2007.

So, we had another ultrasound this morning….

And we were blessed to find out that I am indeed having a baby boy!

His baby boy parts were very evident on the screen so I can rest assured that there will be no confusion on the day of his birth.

I am so excited because now I can go shopping!!! I truly felt like I couldn’t shop right. I will forever hold to my assertion that shopping for yellow and green isn’t nearly as fun as shopping for pink or blue. And since I have no patience whatsoever it was imperative that I find out the sex as soon as possible.

Now, I can shop in pink, size 2T for my daughter and shop in blue, all sizes for my son. Wow. My son. That’s soooo cooool! I’m so on cloud nine right now.

If you haven’t been reading my posts, the reason I knew it was a boy was only because of the name I found.

My daughter’s name is Anaiah, which means “God has answered”. She was an answer to a prayer. When I got pregnant with her, I had several boy names picked out: Isaiah, Elijah, and Micah. All biblical, but I had no true connection with the names. I also wanted a biblical name choice for a girl, so when I found Anaiah, my hubby and I quickly agreed that it would be the one.

Hubby and I both hoped for a girl, but I didn’t want to claim it because I was too nervous. He said that he knew all along.

This time around, when I found the name Mathias, which means “Gift of God”, I knew from that moment on that he was a boy. Since he was a surprise baby, he's like a present that someone knocks on your door to hand you that you never knew you always wanted. Call it coincidence if you like, but I call it FAITH. God certainly knows better than I.

I knew that the same way Anaiah’s name is a testimony to her life, Mathias’ name would be a testimony to his.
Do I have to tell you how long the 12 week wait was to find out? It felt more like 120 weeks.

Mathias, I can’t wait to introduce myself to you as your momma!

Photos

I wouldn't be me if I didn't post my pics at least a month late.

So, better late than never, here are a few pics of my family this past Easter. This was also my husbands 33rd birthday. We had just come back from Orlando (Disney World).

Love makes me choke

But in a good way, though. Right now, my emotions are stitched on my sleeve. I can’t help it either. Anything that pops up on TV that has the smallest hint of love, or charity, or compassion, makes me blubber like a baby. I guess it’s fitting.

Yesterday, for the millionth time, I watched one of fav movies, Practical Magic. I love Sandra Bullock, don’t you? Well, in the end when she sacrifices for her sister and cuts her hand and says “my blood, your blood” I got sooo choked and tears began streaming down my face. (Oh no, it’s happening again!). Nevermind that I’ve seen this movie a gazillion times. Nevermind that I know it’s coming. It still got me.
And that’s not the worst of it. I boo hoo’ed one day watching HGTV. This poor girl bought her first house and later found out that the contractors who built the basement apartment did a shoddy job on everything and she had to spend $40K to fix it. Then, the new contractors she hired didn’t fix it and took her money. So she called HGTV and they came out with their lifesaver contractor crew and fixed it right for another $40K. While she told her story, she was crying like a baby and if I had her number I would’ve called her and told that I definitely could feel her pain. I’m a total sympathy freak right now.

But, I guess things could be worse, right?

I could be having daily conniptions over food. Wait, a minute…that’s already happened. Yikes!

Remind me one day to tell you about the hamburger fiasco.

LOVE/HATE

Only in pregnancy can a person have a true love/hate relationship with food. Those of you who have carried a baby in your tummy know exactly what I’m talking about. For those of you who have yet to enter into motherhood, or who are male, let me elaborate a bit for you.

When you are pregnant, you are in the process of creating a new human being on the earth. This new mass/matter does not come without other new mass entering into the woman’s body (i.e. food). It’s the first law of thermodynamics: Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. So, basically in order for a baby to grow, you need to create tissues. In order to create tissue, you have to EAT mountains worth of food. Well, not really mountains, but sometimes it sure feels like it.

So what does the body do? It makes you eat. It makes you eat, by making it extremely painful for you not to eat. Do you know why? Well, because if our bodies didn’t have some sort of mechanism by which to make us (or in other words remind us) to eat, then we’d just go about our busy little days and never nourish ourselves. How many of you, in your rush to get the morning started have ever skipped breakfast? Exactly. But the thing is, when you’re pregnant, this type of behavior goes out the window. If you do not eat, you will experience horrible, horrible consequences.

So that’s the Love part, believe it or not. You live for food. You live to find the next morsel of something you can tolerate so that you can pop it into your mouth and savor it. Food begins to sum up your existence on this earth.

But what about when you’re hungry (and sick as a result of the hunger) but can’t find anything, absolutely NOTHING, within reach that you can eat? Or better yet, what if you simply CAN’T eat?

Again, let me clarify. Sometimes when you’re pregnant, you get that familiar tug in your tummy that reminds you that you’d better get some food (and quick!) or else. But, because we are those busy little bees, we don’t always do what we’re told. Sometimes, we push it back a tad longer. And then what happens? Well for me, it’s morning sickness (as if I didn’t have enough already!). Scientifically, when you are pregnant, certain hormones (namely progesterone) are present in abundance so that the uterus can remain strong and the lining of it can remain thick enough to keep the baby safe. As a result of this, it also creates an excess of stomach acid which in turn causes more morning sickness (a very queasy, nauseous feeling for me). (There is also another theory regarding HcG, but we’ll save that for another day, shall we?). So when you feel morning sickness, sometimes it makes it impossible to eat at all. And other times, because of your body’s needs, you might be craving the one thing on the earth that you can’t find or just can’t have.
For me, it’s tuna. I looooove tuna when I’m pregnant. But, with tuna being a rather large fish, it also has an abundance of mercury (Hg) in it so it is not recommended to eat more than 8 or so ounces a week. I could down that in one sitting right now.

So that’s the hate part. You live to eat, but sometimes you just can’t. Which means that food further runs your life and now you’re a slave.

Okay….done with that lecture. Now on to cravings…..(I could so write a book).

Random Musings

Ooh la la, it’s my favorite day of the week! And you know what? All I want to do is SLEEP! I haven’t been getting enough Z’s all week and it has really been catching up with me.

I have a friend whose daughter has just been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes and went to see her in the hospital yesterday so I didn’t get much shut eye last night. After I got home (which was after 10pm) I couldn’t stop thinking about and praying for this little girl so that kept me up a little longer. She’s such a little lady, and she’s going through the hardest time of her life right now. It’s hard for someone so young (she’s 11) not to feel like life is unfair. I sat with her and parents as the nurses came in to prick her fingers (for the millionth time) and inject her with insulin. The poor thing had throbbing little fingers and I know it was so hard for her mother to bear.

I bought her High School Musical 3 today…she said she knows 1 and 2 by heart, but has never seen 3. I thought it was a golden opportunity to show this little girl how much she’s loved and to hopefully allow her a couple of hours to check out of this world and jump into an imaginary one. She is so much like me when I was her age. She absorbs books like she’s a sponge, and she loves the same kind of cute, rinky-dinky movies that I did. (Of course, for me it was Grease 1 and 2…can you say “cool rider?”)

The baby in my tummy (thinking of Yo Gabba's song, "there's a party in my tummy" as I say this) is making me the hungriest chick on this side of the Ohio River. I can't seem to get enough of it. So far, luckily, I have managed not to put on any weight, which is really good. At one point, I even lost 5 lbs (just couldn't eat) but have since gained that back. Maybe it water weight, who knows. I think this baby is a boy. Why? Just say I have a divine intuition. God said he will give us the desires of our hearts, and not to mention that we've picked out a name that is a testimony to his presence in our lives. If it is indeed a boy, his name will be Mathias. It means "Gift of God" which is absolutely perfect. I can't remember if I told you this or not. But either way, boy or girl, this baby will loved fiercely, and wholeheartedly every single day of his/her life.


My little toddler has been keeping me on my toes as well. She’s saying all kinds of words now and we’re having a ball listening to her sweet, little melodic voice.
This is a list of her vocabulary as of yesterday:

Wow Wow (from Wow wow wubzy, a cartoon show)
On (she says this everytime we turn on a light or when she gets in the car and wants the backseat DVD player on)
Dora (need I say more?)
Door (she points to the door when we open it)
Bye (such a simple word, but it melts my heart when she says it!)
Hey baby (we greet her like this so now she says it to us!)
Dog, roof, roof (learned this at daycare)
No
Daddy
Mama
nose (points to her nose, but when she says it, it actually comes out like nor)
I (we’re trying to teach her I love you, but she’ll say I, but then she won’t say love)

Maybe this list isn’t very impressive (I honestly have no idea one way or the other), but let me assure you that the child knows and understands everything we say to her. It’s amazing really. Finally we have our little go-getter (or fetcher, whatever you want to call it). “Go get mommy’s glasses, please” and she’ll go straight to my glasses on the ottoman. “Go get the diaper and baby wipes” and she’ll bring that to you to. Needless to say, she’s fetched the remote more than once.

*Life Update*

So life is going really well right now. My cup is overflowing and I am reveling in it. I’ve begun the early symptoms of pregnancy, such as tiredness, massive hunger, some morning sickness, but nothing too horrible. It’s funny b/c in my mind, since I’ve done this once already, I assumed that I’d be more patient as the days/weeks/months droned on. Um, not the case. I’m almost 7 weeks pregnant and I am subtracting from 40 thinking that 33 weeks is FOREVER away. Ugh!

So, other than being impatient at how long it will take for my little blessing to arrive, I’ve been at my happiness (although laziest) in a long time. We had to hire someone to help us clean the house last weekend. Yes, it had gotten that bad. It was a friend of mine and even with her help, it took me and my hubby pitching in hard core to get it all done. I am rather ashamed to admit this, but we actually had to take our clothes to the Laundromat in order to get it all done. You know, they’ve got those ginormous machines where you can get like 4 loads of clothes in at a time. Yeah, that was us on Sat. Now that we’re caught up, we should be okay. Or at least I should say, my husband will be okay. I DO NOT DO LAUNDRY. I hate laundry and feel that it is not my God-given talent and we must, absolutely must, operate within our God-given areas in life! If I have on clean clothes, 99% of the time, it’s b/c of my wonderful, patient, sexy husband. But just so you don’t think I am this spoiled doll living inside a bubble, I clean the kitchen and I mop and sweep and stuff (occasionally….joking!). How’s that for domestication!

Anaiah is growing like a weed. She’ll be 18 months on Monday and I just realized that she needs 24 months onesies now! OMG! This child is going to be tall. Tall runs in the fam, although it skipped us, so it’s no big surprise.

Oh the irony!

Okay, so last week I was I was on this workout kick, right? Well, I joined a gym, hired a personal trainer, got my mind right for the rigorous weeks ahead. But now, all that has changed.....drumroll please......because my husband and I are expecting a new addition to the family!

Although this wasn't planned, I'm thrilled about it. We weren't really planning to have another so soon after our daughter, but God definitely knows better than we do so I might as well revel in his infinite wisdom.

It's really early and most people don't believe in sharing the news this fast, but I don't believe in superstition, only God's sovereignty.

More on this later. I just wanted to share the good news.

Pics for fun

My husband Dexter playing at a Jazz Lounge in DC on January 19th, 2009. There was a musicians jam session that we happened upon. He was geeked!

Me, my husband and my younger sister in DC this January for the inauguration.

Me and Dex in line for our inauguration tickets. It took us four hours to pick them up. The line was wrapped all the way around the federal office bldg. Whew!

This one was of my husband in December when he graduated with his Master's in Curriculum and Instruction with Licensure in Elem. Ed. Go Dex!! Supastar!

Me and Naiah-bean at the graduation. Right after this, she threw up a gallon of oatmeal all over me. The organic milk that we had bought for her was spoiled (even though it wasn't expired!) and made her sick. After she threw up in front of the entire graduating class and their guests, she was back to normal. Mommy, however, wasn't too happy.

Can you tell I love pics?