Hooray!!!! She is here!!!!

Well it finally hapened, my sweet little baby girl was born. I guess I shouldn't say finally since she was 13 days early, but since she weighed in at 8 pounds 10 ounces I sure am glad she was as early as she was. Let me tell you she is perfect! I am so happy to have her, having a new baby is soooooo much better than being pregnant. Labor and delivery went really well, all except the part where my epidural just stopped working when I was at 8 centimeters and going through the transition stage, I really wanted to die, but when it came to pushing all it took was one and a half pushes and she came right out. No pain, no stitches, it was great. It is funny to me that once you get pretty good at the whole labor and delivery thing you are done having kids. I wish it was the other way around, delivery getting harder each time. Then when you got to the 4th you would for sure know that you were done with it all. Really though we are done, but it does make me sad. Holding your brand new baby up against your chest while she sleeps is really one of the most wonderful feelings in the world, and since I was feeling so awful at the end I find that I am sleeping much better now and I feel much more rested durring the day. I really am soooo much happier now. I can bend over, I can breathe, I don't have crazy weird feelings, and I have a sweet little baby to hold and hug and kiss and just plain love to death. So thanks to you all for listening to me complain my head off these last nine months. Oh and yes all my kids had that much hair, and yes my husband has dark hair. These are questions I have answered on a daily basis with each of my previous three children, they all have hair like this, in fact she actually has less than the last two had.

false labor

well it happened to me, every woman's nightmare, going to the hospital thinking you are in labor and then being sent home. Really it is just the perfect "almost ending" for a really piss you off kind of pregnancy (excuse the language but I am soooo freakin grumpy). Well I have been having tons of contraction all week, at my appointment on Tues I was dilated to an almost three and 80% effaced, but I really knew that all the contractions weren't real. However, at about 2 o'clock this afternoon I started to just feel not good, kind of sick but just not right and then boom contractions every three minutes, you could have set your clock by it. So after about 40 min I think to myself these aren't hurting terribly bad, but I just don't think you can ignore contractions three min apart, plus I was having lots of pressure down "there". So I call my doc and give the nurse all the details, so she says I better go in to the hospital. So I call my husband and he heads home, it was of course right the time that I needed to get my kids from school but my mother in law said she could grab them on her way over so all I needed to do was wait for everyone and try to get my three year old to stop screaming at me. So my husband gets home and we sit and wait for my mother in law, and wait some more. My husband is getting anxious cause he has the number one fear of all husbands of pregnant women, not that the baby will have problems, or that his wife is going to be hurt (all though those are huge fears of all husbands), but the fear that he will have to deliver the baby himself. I tried to tell him to calm down cause all though my contractions were still coming 3 min apart they weren't hurting nearly bad enough to get a baby out. I just kept saying "hon, I am not yelling, screaming, crying, or moaning we have a while to go before she comes out". Besides I told him I knew they would take a while to get home cause as I have posted about in the past our eight year old is notoriously slow. To which he said "if I have to deliver this baby cause she is slow then she is so off my list of favorite kids". So anyway they eventually get there and off the kids go happily to Grandma's house and off we go anxiously to the hospital. Now at this point my husband asks if I am nervous and I honestly reply that I am not, cause I really don't know if this is real labor. Now you would think that by my fourth kid I would know when I am in labor, but you see previous to today I have been one of those really lucky women whose water has broken before I went into labor. When your water breaks you just know it is going to happen it is great, they can't send you home. All though with my first they did try to send me home. You see my water broke as I was walking to the hospital with a big gush, really it was just like the movies. It felt like I had just broken a water balloon between my legs. So we went to the hospital and the nurse that checks you in just didn't believe that my water had broken cause apparently right after it did my daughter jammed her big head into the birth canal so that no more water leaked out. It took me quited a while to convince the nurse that yes my water did break and no I didn't just pee my pants. Really she checked me with an ultrasound machine and didn't believe me then had to use some of that ph paper which I guess was the last one in the box and old so didn't work but I refused to go home so she opens a new box and checks again and said "oh ya your water did break", stupid nurse. So anyway having your water break on its own is nice and because it has happened before I just don't know what it is like to go into labor the good old fashioned contraction way. So we get to the hospital, get all checked in and get wheeled up to the maternity floor and into the room where they check you to see if you are really in labor or if you are so desperate to get that baby out that you are faking it hoping you can trick them into inducing you. Then we just sit there and wait for about half an hour. I really didn't mind waiting cause my contractions weren't hurting to bad and I don't know anyone who is super excited about putting on one of those lovely hospital gowns. So about a half hour later the nurse comes in and her first question is "do you feel like you need to push" which seems like the dumbest question in the world to me. I can guarantee if I had been needing to push for that last half hour I so would not have been sitting quietly in the intake room. Then it made me wonder if there are women out there who are so tough that they can sit there quietly while they dilate all the way to ten waiting patiently for someone to find the time to come see them, if there are women like that I don't want to hear about it! So I say no, change into my stylish gown and get hooked up to the monitor. At this point what do you think happened, if you guessed that my contractions went cold turkey on me you are right. They pretty much stopped. I went from every three min to two in twenty min. I don't think I have ever been more angry at my uterus, and let me tell you have spent a lot of time angry at my uterus lately. So after twenty min she tells me to get up to walk around for an hour. So we walk and immediately I have a big old contraction then they keep coming every three min again, and better yet they start to hurt, not super painful but enough to remind me why women love epidurals. Then I meet my doctor, you see when you "go into labor" on memorial day weekend the chances of having your actual doctor deliver you are very small, you are probably going to get the on call doctor. Which my docs office has started to share their call rotation with another office so not only do I not get my doc, but I get a doc I have never even laid eyes on. However, I didn't really care cause he said two wonderful things to me, one that he doesn't care when I get an epidural, and two that if I can just get to four centimeters he would do whatever was needed to get things moving along. So I immediately fell in love with him and wondered how I had lived my life so far without him. My contractions were coming pretty regular and getting harder so I thought no prob, I can get to a four. So after an hour of walking and walking I was getting tired and it was time to be checked again, so what do you suppose happens the min they put the monitors on, that is right nothing happened, all of a sudden my contractions are 7 min apart and don't hurt and while I was now totally effaced I was still only at a three. I was tired and so mad and felt like a stupid idiot for coming into the hospital with false labor. The nurse was really nice and kept telling me that it could be pre labor and that I would be back the next day but really there is nothing you can say to a woman in this situation. My poor husband was just really quiet and looked kind of afraid of me at this point. As we were walking out of the hospital I had my hardest contraction yet. I just thought "how come I am having pain and walking away from the hospital". So I came home and got into bed at 8 and now I am up at midnight venting my heart out in a blog. Oh and another annoying part of all this was that we missed a church activity tonight that I was of course in charge of and now I am going to have to go to church on Sunday and deal with all the "I thought you had your baby", "what are you doing here", "that is a good way to get out of your church responsibility" and so on. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I am so annoyed! I have really always felt so bad for all those women out there who deal with the get sent home from the hospital thing, and now that I have joined your ranks I feel really bad for myself!

you know you are DONE when...

So I was reading one of the many pregnancy advice books out there
and there was a section talking about the signs that labor could be soon.
Like contractions are so far apart, you have lost your plug, etc. So I
started thinking about the real signs for us women that are sooooo ready to be
done with it all. So here goes

You know you are done with pregnancy when

10. You cry every day, but for different reasons each time.
The other week I really did cry every day. These are some of the reasons I cried.
Once cause I was so flippin tired I just couldn't help it. One
day I was reading a magazine about delivery and there was a part that said
when the baby is born she will cry because she is cold and not used to the
bright lights. I started crying my eyes out cause it made me so sad to think that my baby
would be cold. One day I cried because I was absolutely convinced that no one, not even my husband would lift a finger to help when the baby was born (which I know isn't true but that day I was sure of it). One day I cried cause I was sure that I hated my husband so much and then ten minutes later I was crying cause I love him so much and couldn't imagine my life without him. Then of course there was the day I looked through my other three kids scrap books, I for
sure cried my eyes out that day.

9. You are convinced that you really would sleep more once the baby was out of you and waking you up every three hours cause right now either your bladder or you pinched nerve in your arm is waking you up every hour and a half.

8. You can't tell people you were tossing and turning after a bad night sleep, instead you have to say "I was slowly and painfully shifting and rolling all night".

7. You feel so much pressure "down there" that you are convinced the baby is just trying to fall out of you.

6. You find yourself walking through Walmart giving your uterus a pep talk that if your water would just break you could be done with this, you are wondering if you focus hard enough on your water breaking if it will happen, mind over matter and all (I really did do this and unfortunately it turns out that I don't have any special mind powers where my uterus is concerned).

5. While you are at Walmart and you walk past the optometry department you wonder if you offered enough money if the optometrist would break your water.

4. When the optometrist says no you find yourself in the craft section looking at crochet hooks wondering if you could break your water yourself (I had my water broken with my last baby and that is really what they use, a big long plastic crochet hook and a rubber glove).

3. You find yourself avoiding all social functions because you just don't want to hear IT any more. By IT (I am definitely not referring to Bill Clinton's definition of the word) I mean "wow you have gotten big all of a sudden" (I really am measuring big now but do you think I want to hear it), "how much longer", "you know it is easier to take care of them now then when they come out" (have any of you ever known a woman who after she had her baby said "gee I wish this baby was still inside of me"), and my most hated comment "you look so cute" even if you think it I disagree completely and I DON'T want to hear it, any of it!

2. Your maternity clothes that when you hold them up look big enough to hold a three ring circus don't fit when you try to put them on.

1. And finally, you know you are done when you wish the mild contractions you are having every day would start to hurt. I mean really who wants to have something hurt them, but I find that all these mild contractions annoy the heck out of me. I just want to scream "EITHER START HURTING AND GET THIS BABY OUT OF ME OR JUST GO AWAY AND STOP TEASING ME". Last month I was reading a book about labor just so I could brush up on all the awful things that were going to happen to me, and after reading the chapter and remembering it all I felt kind of sick and had no desire to do any of it. Now however I am sooooo looking forward to it and welcoming it with open arms. I swear I will gladly go through it all just so I can get this baby out of me and see my toes again.

So there is my list, if any of you can think of any I have forgotten please post it in the comments after so I know what else to watch for.

it is 4:50 am and all is NOT well

I am really tired, but here I am writing a blog. Is it because I am so devoted to blogging and getting the real life experiences of a crazy pregnant woman out there for the world to see? No, it is because of my stupid nerves, and when I say nerves I am not referring to the stage fright kind, I mean come on what pregnant woman is afraid to sleep. Next to toaster waffles sleep is my best friend. No I can't sleep due to those little nerve endings found throughout the body. Well apparently there are a lot of these nerve endings in the armpits and the nerves in my right armpit have decided to take exception to having the life squeezed out of them by swollen lymph nodes, increased blood flow through the blood vessels and the increased size of other parts of my body if you get my drift. So this is how pretty much every night goes. I go to bed around nine because I am super tired, then about two hours later I wake up for the first bathroom trip and and this point my arm is usually numb, not asleep and pins and needley, but numb. So I get back in bed, prop my pillow under my arm and go back to sleep. Around two I usually wake up for my next bathroom trip and my arm has moved on to a dull pain which is usually alleviated by walking around a bit and getting a drink. Then four o'clock comes and the misery starts. This is when I am woken up not by my bladder but by the burning pain felt all throughout my right arm. So I try the usual go to the bathroom, get a drink. When I get back in bed and lay on my side, apparently laying on the side puts all the wrong pressure on the nerves, and boom the pain is back immediately. So I try propping my assortment of pillows around me in different configurations, sticking my arm straight above my head, hanging my arm off of the side of the bed. I have even thought of trying to hang something from the ceiling that would hold my arm up in the air, kind of like when a broken leg is in traction. Nothing works! So I bawled my head off about it to my doctor the other day cause I am sooooo tired! She referred me to a physical therapist saying they might have some exercises I can do to make it feel better, but as much as I complain I think I will just tough it out. Seeing a physical therapist means making an appointment and organizing baby sitting, so in other words it means making an effort which I am so not good at right now. Plus the good news of the whole appt is that they are going to induce me a week early since I have gigantor babies so now instead of having 3 weeks and a couple of days left I have 2 weeks and a couple of days left. That seems a lot more doable on no sleep. I do find that I am looking forward to having the baby cause I really think I will sleep better. I also think I need to start taking naps whenever I get a chance whether it is 9:30 AM or 5:00 PM. I mean I am having a baby I should just say goodbye now to a normal sleep schedule, and that is why I am blogging at 5 AM.

could i get away with...

The other day I was at Walmart and after I checked out I ran my credit card and sat and waited for it to process. I looked at the little screen and it said "give card to cashier to check signature" so pretty standard procedure every couple of visits or so. So I went to reach for my card when the cashier just pushed the button gave me my receipt and said have a nice day. So I figured he just didn't feel like taking the time to check. So I went on my merry way limping out of the store, oh did I mention I pretty much walk with this combination limp shuffle or liffle now. You see nobody warned me when I was dating and deciding who to marry that I should pay attention to the head size of the guy I wanted to be with. You see we Davis's all have HUGE heads. Really in high school and college a lot of girls would be all flirtatious and take a boys hat and wear it around, well I could never do that cause my head was so big. Most guys hats just kind of rest on the top of my head, kind of like a beanie. So when I started dating my husband and amazingly his hats fit my head my mom should have warned me right away not to marry him because I would have very large baby heads to cart around inside of me and to attempt to push out of my body. So anyway this large headed baby of mine was causing me to do my liffle out of Walmart when I set off the security beeper as I walked out the door. So I stopped and realized immediately that it was the baby monitor I had just bought. I turned around and looked at the greeter to explain, she took one look at me and said "go ahead, don't worry about it". So I turned around and left. As I was liffling out to my car I realized I was getting some extra special treatment because I am sooooooo pregnant. I mean I had a full cart of bags, I could have stolen an I Pod, some drugs, a small tv, and lots and lots of cookies, but because I was pregnant somehow I am more trustworthy and less likely to steal stuff. Maybe they figure I am so slow I could never get away. So as I was driving home it hit me, what am I thinking telling people I am fine when they ask when really I want to scream. I have given up my body for 9 months, I should be taking advantage of any and all "fringe benefits" I can get. I thought I should speed everywhere I go and take all traffic laws as suggestions. If I get pulled over I can just say sorry I wasn't paying attention cause I was having a contraction. Or I could steal whatever I want and if I do get caught, which apparently isn't likely to happen, I could just play dumb and say I didn't realize I hadn't paid for it cause I am so busy thinking of this baby that is about to come out of me, or if all else failed I could just start crying. I find that there are few people who are immune to a woman who is pregnant and crying, it is like a combination knock out punch. Then I really got to thinking. You see my little sister is also pregnant right now, she is about 6 weeks behind me. Anyway she is about 5 feet tall and is super cute, young looking, and has huge blue eyes. I think she got pulled over about 150 times in high school and would just well up some tears in those big blue eyes and she NEVER got a ticket! So anyway I think the two of us could team up and knock off some banks and jewelry stores. Think about it who would suspect two pregnant women, one of whom is really little and cute (obviously my sister) and the other who walks with a liffle and is HUGE (obviously me) knocking off a bank in a white minivan. For added measure we could bring along my darling three year old daughter to distract the security guards while my sister and I collect the money then we could speed off into the sunset where if we got pulled over we could just pretend that we were both in labor. It is a fool proof plan!

HOW DARE YOU!!!!!

So I made the mistake the other day of looking at a website that showed diagrams of what the baby looked like inside the mommy week by week. So I rapidly clicked on week 34, week 35, 36, and so on until 40. Let me tell you it was not a good idea. At week 34 the baby looked pretty squished (and I can assure you that it is by the way that I feel right now) and then it kept getting worse and worse. I think I was probably a little pale at this point as I was realizing what is going to happen to me. That is when my husband came in the room and I told him what I had just looked at and that I was afraid, to which he replied "you have done this three times before why are you surprised". Ah the voice of reason. Really when is he going to learn that reason goes out the window the minute two lines appear on that test. So I say that ya I have done it before and that I had forgotten and that if you didn't forget the world would not be populated right now. So for all you women out there who are thinking of getting pregnant AGAIN let me tell you that my ribs hurt to the point that I walk around with my back arched hoping to make more room then I end up with a back ache. Also maternity clothes are getting too small for me so they are constantly uncomfortable and I am living in a state with the longest winter EVER so I can't wear any of my dresses or skirts which are much more comfy. Oh and lately every night my arm falls asleep and is constantly waking me up, that is when I am not being woken up by the need to use the bathroom three times a night. Then there is the constant ache in my lower belly and my ligaments (I feel like a barbie that can just have her legs easily snapped off at the hips). The baby is sitting so low that crossing my legs is not possible and really I just want to sit with them sprawled open which really doesn't work too well at church. My hands and feet puff up without any notice and I am really running low on energy. I am hungry all the time but sick of cooking, oh and I would give ANYTHING to be able to sleep on my tummy, I miss that so. So if that last paragraph isn't good birth control I don't know what is.
It is kind of funny cause two weeks ago I was really feeling pretty good, comfortable, lots of energy. So it makes me pretty sure that this little baby of mine has gained 3 pounds in the last week. Now a couple of pounds may not seem like a lot until you relate it to something. Like the website I read saying a 4 pound baby is about the size of a cantaloupe. Then I think of my first daughter who was 7lb 10oz and I think I had two cantaloupes in me plus a placenta, water, and an umbilical cord. My son who was 8lb 8 oz would be two cantaloupes and 3 bananas and my third kid who weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs 2 oz was a watermelon, really watermelons are that size. I remember they gave her a little pink shirt that said "I was born at St. Pete's" and it kept rolling up her fat belly because it was too small, it was soooo cute. So anyway the rapid increase of my belly recently has made me very fearful of having an even bigger baby, so I have decided to ask my doc tomorrow what her policy is on inducing early (on a side note my babies have all come early and still been big pieces of fruit). So I am hoping that she will say "sure I will induce you a week early". The interesting thing is the reactions I get from others when I tell them I want to do this. What is it about pregnancy and babies that makes people SO JUDGEMENTAL. I had one friend talking about another saying the girl had been induced early and she just didn't see why anyone would do that (oh course she has all her babies three weeks early so I don't think she has room to talk). So when I told her that I was going to ask my doc about it she just said "oh". Then my sis was telling me about a blog she had read about women who feel that they are judged badly by others because they bottle feed instead of breastfeed. Then there are the total strangers out there who stop me in the store and ask me how much milk I am drinking to make sure that I am treating my baby right. We pregnant women get judged for not exercising, for exercising too much (I so don't fall into that category), for having an epidural or going natural, really the list goes on and on. I wish I could say that we are only judged by men who don't know or people so old they have forgotten, but unfortunately I see women who have had babies recently themselves giving pregnant women the hardest time. Why does this happen? Maybe it is because we think everyone should do it our way cause if they do it different and it works out that means that we have somehow done it wrong. Or maybe we feel such a huge sense of responsibility towards our own children that we feel we have to watch out for all the children out there too. Who knows why, but I hope I can learn from these experiences and support all pregnant women out there. Except I will always take exception to women who smoke when they are pregnant, cause come on that one is pretty obvious! So anyway that is my little soap box for the day, or one of them anyway, I am in my last month anger and outrage come easily to me, teehee!

FAT

Well somewhere in the last two months it happened. I got fat. I have not gained 50 pounds, and I don't think I will, so I am not completely depressed... but I am definitely fat. How did this happen, I was doing so well. For the times I wasn't doing well the pneumonia and multiple bouts of stomache flu kept me on track. I wonder... could it be the mint chocolate ice cream, maybe the oreo cookies, then there was that cheesecake that one time (man that was good). So really the culprit is that sometime in the last two months I officially got my sweet tooth back, and I think it felt like it had some catching up to do. Now some of you out there will be like my husband and say "you're not fat your pregnant". Well that is a nice thing to say, but I am not carying the baby in my rear end and that part of my body has grown faster than my belly. So these are the ways I have been forced to end my denial and realize that I have truly gotten fat. Ironically I don't know that I am fat from stepping on the scale because quite honestly I avoid that like the plague. When I see my scale I usually nudge it under the counter, put it in a closet, or try and flush it down the toilet, but it always comes back. The times that I am forced to step on the scale (dr. office) I have a list of excuses that pop into my head before the nurse stops tapping that stupid weight continuosly to the right (just once I would like that weight to be tapped to the left). Like "wow I am retaining 10 pounds of water", or "oh no I shouldn't have worn my lead underware today". On a side note as uncomfortable as it can be to get swollen I am pretty sure all pregnant women are greatful for the whole water retention thing so they can always have that excuse at weighing time. So no the scale doesn't tell me I am fat. One way I know that I am fat is that my children have told me. My three year old is really into that size comparison thing from watching kids shows. So these days if something is small she says it is little like her and if something is big she says "that is big, like mommy", never that something is big like daddy. Then there is my eight year old who said the other day "mom, it is a good thing you are pregnant or I would think you are really fat". We all know that kids don't lie, so I have to accept their words as truth. Another way that I know I am fat is that my maternity clothes are not tight on my belly, but some of them are sure tight on my legs. Also if I kneel down on the floor it feels like there is something wedged between the back of my legs and my calves, this is not too comfortable, so when I look to see what this offending material is so that I can remove it I realize "oh ya, that is just my fat and unfortunately it can't be removed easily". I was making my bed the other day and I noticed there is definitely an indentation in the matress at my hip butt thigh area, it was not a pretty sight. It reminded me of a Simpsons episode where someone invades their house and the thing that Homer is most horrified about is that they ruined his "butt groove" on his couch (they used a different word on the show but I try to keep things clean) so I, like Homer, have a butt groove and any comparing of one's body to Homer Simpsons means that you are officially fat. I also realized that I have deffinite signs of fat old man syndrome, you know every time a fat man gets up he has to pull his pants up (which my husband pointed out we are grateful they do), well whenever I stand up I have to give my pants that tug, and not just a little tug but a tug in the front, the back and on the sides of my pants.
This whole pregnancy thing really isn't fair. We women give up so much for these children, our figures, our sanity, our ability to have a normal adult conversation or to leave the house with just a cute little purse. What do we get in return... no sleep, blow out diapers, cholic (for us and the baby) oh ya and a cute addorable little baby (so ya I know it is totaly worth it). So this time around rather than get depressed about the fattness I have decided to embrace it. I LOVE MY FAT!!!!!!!!! Okay so maybe that is a lie. I am trying to not let it get to me and just accepting it as part of what my body does when I am pregnant. The other night my husband was reading the paper on line and there was a bunch of articles on pregnancy so he says "do you want to know how many women gain 40 or more pounds in pregnancy?" so I say sure thinking the number will make me feel better about myself. So he clicks on the link and is silent for a moment and says "are you sure you want to know?". So I say "just tell me" 20%!!!!!! Can you believe it!!!!! My first reaction was to cry or to throw something (it seems these days my first reaction is always to throw something). So I only have 20% of pregnant women out there to keep me company in my fatness, whats the deal? But then I remebered the whole "not overreacting deal of it being part of my pregnancies blah blah blah". So I nonchalantly said "oh that is interesting". Really who cares, I only have six more weeks out of this and as long as I get a healthy baby I will be okay with a bunch of extra fat thrown into the deal (but really I am almost positive that it is ALL WATER).