Sister love 💕

Maren is an amazing big sister. She has occasionally been sad about wanting us to play with her or pay attention when we can’t, but overall has been surprisingly positive. Surprising to me anyway - I imagined far more tantrums and negativity, but all has been pretty great. She constantly gives Linden hugs and kisses, and says how much she loves her baby sister. It is incredibly sweet. Getting photos is not so easy, but here are a couple of attempts from this week:

Noisy breathing projectile pooper; super helper big sister

We have been having a pretty good transition to life with Linden. First, some notes about our first few days:

Labor and birth went well. I may give details of the birth story at some point, but for now it is enough to say that things were fairly relaxed and there were no big problems.

When we were transferred from the labor and birth unit to the mother baby unit, the nurses immediately noticed a potential problem with Linden’s breathing. It was noisy, and her cry was weak and laboured. She was transferred right away to the special care nursery, and from there went to the NICU. She spent about 36 hours under observation, and came away with a diagnosis of stridor (which just means noisy breathing), likely caused by laryngomalacia, or “floppy larynx,” which in most cases doesn’t cause serious problems. I will let you look up the details of laryngomalacia on your own if you want, but the short story is that Linden is gaining weight well, doesn’t seem to have trouble getting enough oxygen, and will most likely not need any treatment. She will probably grow out of her condition by 18 months of age.

Functionally what this means currently is that she is a noisy little beast, which is charming most of the time but bothers Maren when she can’t hear the book we are reading, and bothers me and Jeff when we are trying to sleep. Also adorable except when it is happening is her propensity to poop in the middle of a diaper change. Several times she has pooped explosively while her diaper is off, launching her poop as far as several feet. Other than this she is a very mellow baby so far.

My mom has been here to help since the night before Linden was born. She is leaving Tuesday morning, and hopefully we will manage okay without the extra help. Maren has been a super helper, and has started wanting to help with making dinner. She is really taking to the role of big sister, and of big kid in general. It’s been amazing to see how much she loves her little sister ❤️

Big Sistersaurus

On Friday March 1 at 11:02 a.m. Maren became a big sister. We welcomed Linden Theia Klest Loucks to our family. She weighed in at a healthy 8 lbs 14 oz.

Life has been a bit busy since then, but I will post more soon!

39 weeks and counting

I am really ready for this baby to be born. I feel like my body is continuing to deteriorate, and will start to improve as soon as I get this little kiddo out. I’m tired, swollen, congested, and carrying an extra 40 pounds. I have been the same amount of weight as I did with Maren at this point, and I lost all that weight so I am not too concerned and neither is my obstetrician. But all the extra weight is making it harder to balance and get around. Also, I think I may be developing carpal tunnel syndrome in my left wrist in addition to the cubital tunnel syndrome that I’ve had in both arms for a while. So I’m feeling pretty ready for this pregnancy to be done.

At the same time, I want the baby to wait until it is ready to be born, and I am hoping that labor is a little bit easier this time than it was last time — last time my water broke but contractions didn’t start, my blood pressure shot up and there was protein in my urine, so they were concerned about preeclampsia and I was induced with Pitocin, which led to a long and challenging labor. I have been offered induction due to the baby measuring very large, and I don’t want induction if I don’t have to have it. So I just want labor to start spontaneously very soon :-)

Maren is doing well, and having a good week, despite me being tired all the time. Also despite some seriously cold weather that has been keeping us all indoors most days. It is shaping up to be the coldest February on record in Saskatchewan. Yesterday we decided to try to go outside and go to the sledding hill at the warmest point in the afternoon. When we left the house all was fine, but within several minutes it became clear that we were heading into a snowstorm with high winds. So Jeff and Maren went down the sledding hill one time and then we turned around and went home. We were near frozen by the time we got home and had some hot chocolate. It was one of those moments where hot chocolate had never tasted so good, and a fire in the fireplace had never felt so warm. Every once in a while I think it’s worth it to go out in terrible weather just to have those experiences :-)

Head down!

So long story short, I didn’t have to go through the ECV because the baby turned head down on its own. Hooray! We went to the labor and birth unit at the hospital where the doctor was to perform the ECV. There were many delays, but as I was finally being prepped, they did an ultrasound to get the exact position of the baby. And at that point the procedure was called off because baby was already head down. Yay! As Jeff and I left the hospital, the song Head Down by Soundgarden was playing on the car stereo, just by chance. 

I have spent altogether way too much time at labor and birth in the hospital this week. Yesterday I noticed a marked increase in the puffiness of my legs, and my blood pressure was really high at the pharmacy with repeated tests. I called the nurse hotline and was told to head to the hospital. My blood pressure was substantially lower at the hospital, but still borderline high. Several hours later I was sent home, but told to come back today for repeat testing. So this morning my blood pressure was down into the normal range, but it still took a couple of hours for them to clear me to go home. Adding it all up, I’ve been there a total of about 9 hours this week, all to be told multiple times that the baby and I are healthy and fine. Ah well. So goes the end of pregnancy. 

Maren has been really good throughout all this. I think it’s hard on her, having mommy disappear to the hospital for hours at a time, and I know that in many ways it’s about to get harder. Everything about her life and routine is about to be disrupted. I just hope this baby hangs on a little longer, so that my mom is here to give Maren some attention when the baby comes. Due date is March 1. My mom arrives on February 26 late at night, so fingers crossed that the baby doesn’t come until at least the 27th!