4 Major differences in Preparing for the 3rd Baby

My hubby and I are crazy fools and we really, really love being parents. I type this as both my children scream from their rooms during "nap time" so obviously it is not the ease and grace of parenting which cause us to delight in our roles as Mom and Dad. We decided to have a third baby for lots of reasons but the biggest one is that the pros of child rearing always, always, always outweigh any con that we might think of (or experience on a daily/hourly basis).

Now, we're not Catholic so having a baby every 1-2 years is not an indefinite thing to us, but we love seeing our family grow and take bringing a child into the world very seriously-- even though I love to say, "Who is allowing us to make decisions like this? It's insane!" when I am asked (often) if we will have more after this one. I can't believe this is a decision we are entrusted to make especially as we tend to err on the irresponsible side of life: i.e. remember that time we bought a puppy when our daughter was 6-weeks-old? Or how we have moved twice while I was in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy? And today for lunch I ate an entire box of assorted macaroons from Trader Joe's so I am obviously not the wisest among women.

When preparing for this little child to come into the world-- any day now says the doctor, likely I will have to wait another four weeks says Twisted Fate-- there are a bunch of differences between this pregnancy and my first. Any mom would surely agree!

For kicks and giggles (and to escape from aforementioned screaming children) here are a few to share that have been on my mind.

1. Weight gain:

1st Pregnancy-- When I was pregnant with Emmy Lou, I obsessed over how much weight I was gaining. I felt totally out of control watching my body grow-- although if I had stopped eating onion rings and milkshakes EVERY SINGLE DAY I might have felt more at ease. I weighed myself each morning and constantly told my friends how I was doing and asked people if I should worry about how big I was. When I got to the doctor's office for my check-up, I would take off my shoes and coat to make sure they weren't getting faulty information that could cause concern.

2nd pregnancy-- I kept losing weight in the 3rd trimester because Mike worked out of town 6 days a week and we were moving to a new town with a sweet toddler in tow. I felt super stressed and when it was all said and done, ended up gaining half as much as my 1st pregnancy.

3rd pregnancy-- Where is the scale? Did we leave it at the old house along with that 36 inch tube TV? The night before my doctor appointments, I sit on the couch eating nachos joking to Mike that I am gearing up for my "weigh-in" the next day. Weight gain rarely crosses my mind, and when I step on the scale the nurse usually has to remind me to put down one of the two children that are tagging along with me (is there anything more fun than bringing two toddlers to the OB office?)

I think I took this picture around 12 weeks

...and this is like, the next day. You grow really fast with your 3rd!
(jk, it's today, and the stain on my shirt is sour cream from the Taquitos I just ate) 

2. Nursery prep:

1st pregnancy-- we were so precious. I am pretty sure I threatened Mike's life to make sure he had that crib set-up by the time I was 20 weeks. As soon as we found out the baby's gender, I sighed with relief that I could now move forward with the carefully assembled Pinterest Board I had in place. There were many nights spent by the sewing machine (as I stood over my mom's shoulder, shouting fabric placement commands at her like a Martha Stewart Nazi) and searching online for the perfect coordinating curtains.

Here I am, in the lovely room where my child went to resist sleep

2nd pregnancy-- we used some things we found around the house to give Mack's room a country western/hunting/fishing/chevron theme. A few months after he was born, we moved again into a townhouse so the beloved child slept in a walk-in closet inside a pack n' play for 6 months.

3rd pregnancy-- here is the beautiful nursery which also duels as the room where we air out our hockey equipment (I bet you $1,000 my husband has more hobbies than yours!)

I hope I finish doing laundry before the baby comes so it has a place to sleep. There is no crib because I learned my lesson after the first two that it is so much easier to keep them next to you for as long as possible to prevent having to actually get out of bed in the middle of the night (the baby and I will sleep here for a couple weeks before joining Daddy in our room across the hall. Life is so much better if one of us is rested! And the man works 12 hour days, don't judge him :)

Again, we used things from around the house to decorate. If the baby is a boy, I'll turn those pottery farm animals around so you can't see the porcelain lace. Since this ain't my first rodeo, I am tuned into the reality that this room is basically a 12 x 12 space for our new off-spring to cry, poop, and nurse around the clock. Keeping it real!

The only new purchase was the dresser-- when I told my husband we needed one he said, "Can't you just use a duffle bag or something? Baby clothes are really tiny and don't take up a lot of room." I stared at him for a long time thinking to myself, "This man seriously needs to do more laundry."

3. Baby gear:

1st pregnancy-- buy it all! Research every item! E-mail all my friends who are moms-- then make them come with me to the store! Obsess over registry!

2nd pregnancy-- you've learned your lesson that the baby will probably hate that $300 swing. Sell it on Craigslist and use the money to stock up on diapers and onesies, the only two things you really need!

3rd pregnancy-- "Who is bringing me food and do I have enough yoga pants to make it through the Winter?" Seriously, all I care about is having a stocked freezer and comfy clothes. I have figured out that these children are not going to be taking care of me anytime soon so it's every man for himself around here. Anything else we are missing, I will send Mike to get at Walmart on our way home from the hospital.

4. Delivery:

1st pregnancy-- I literally sobbed on the floor when I realized I would have to get the baby out of my body. I begged God to intervene. I read several books, interviewed Midwives via skype, and had a LEGIT birth plan-- the core of it being that my mother was to bring me a turkey sandwich because I read that the doctors don't let you eat during delivery (*which did not matter because a. Emmy Lou came too fast and my mom didn't make it in time b. I threw up with Every.Single.Contraction). One of my biggest fears was that I would forget to tell the delivering doctor I did not want an episiotomy, or that during labor I would be unable to pronounce the word "episiotomy."

2nd pregnancy-- Please let the baby come out quickly and let my husband make it on time to see him born (here is Mack's birth story).

3rd pregnancy-- I can't wait to stay in the hospital and have a break from my adorable other children. I just hope I deliver while there is a Jimmy John's open so I can have a sandwich right away when I'm done (<-- a serious common theme in this post/my life).

Some quick similarities:

1. I still google EVERYTHING, all day long.

2. Every night when Mike gets home from work, I give him the full recap of what my body has been doing that day-- he loves it! "Let's have more children soon." he says!

3. I worry, worry, worry about the delivery, and not just the food aspect. I am praying that:

Mike makes it on time (he is about 1 hour and 40 minutes from the hospital) 

That I get to the hospital quickly and safely (I am also 40 minutes away, because we're dramatic like that) 

The baby is healthy, healthy, healthy! Sicko Internet is always telling me sad stories and I read them and cry-- and then Facebook targeted advertising shows me more sad stories. Vicious cycle! As always, I will be amazed if God chooses to give us the gift of another sweet baby. 

In some ways, I am even more excited to have this baby because we don't know the gender, and I know how wonderful it is to have an infant and raise a child!

**PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: if you are out of your mind like myself, and are in discussion about going from 2 children to 3, I don't know anything about that but I can tell you to take the pregnancy part seriously (probably a big DUH to most people). But I genuinely thought pregnancy was something you progressively got "better" at. This is a FALSITY. It gets much harder no matter how you breezed through the first two pregnancies, get ready because your third might be a bit of a...doozy. Nobody warned me, I started asking around about 12 weeks in and all the 3+ mamas said, "AMEN."

Suuuuch a long post, the littles finally fell asleep and I am avoiding "some" dishes in the kitchen.

The Story of Mack

Gather more than one mother together, and something will remind someone of their child’s birth story.

“Oh, you’re eating a sandwich? Let me tell you about how sandwiches remind me of when I was in labor with Penelope and I wanted to eat a sandwich. ” “You have a green shirt on today and it’s so funny that you’re wearing that because I was wearing green when my water broke with Micah…” 

Every birth story is amazing and miraculous and somewhat horrifying, and my story of Mack is all those things but, it is also slightly ridiculous.

We decided to move in February, on a whim, to follow Hubby to his next job. So we merrily packed our organized boxes and smiled and held hands and sang hymns and it was the best of times. False. But we got where we needed to be in order  to be closer to the next bridge project so that he would come home at night, so moving seemed like a major win.

Until, there was some kind of natural catastrophe that prevented said bridge from being started, so he worked on a different project that was even further from our new home (3 hours).

So there I was, 36 weeks pregnant and alone in a new city, terrified that I would go into labor and have to bring my one-year-old with me to the hospital because I had no friends to watch her, my family lived 5 hours away, and Hubby only came home on weekends. I explained this to my newest and bestest friend in town, the OB nurse, and asked her if I could have her number so I could call her in the middle of the night if I needed to. True story.

There was ONE week that worked in our timeline for Mack to be born, the week my mom and sister, both teachers, had Spring Break and were visiting me. Thursday morning arrived, they were leaving Friday, and Hubby called from the other side of the state to ‘encourage things along:’

“Hey, it’d be really great if the baby came today because then I could take the weekend off and be around.”

Me: “What? Why? I'm not due for two weeks and the doctor said I don’t look ready to go anytime soon. And can’t you get a few days at home to help after he comes?” (The first time we were having a critical conversation, last minute of course, story of our marriage)

Him: “No, didn’t I tell you- I can’t take more than one day off because of how delayed this project is?”

I hung up on him.

I had no signs of labor at this point which was opposite from Lou where I walked around for weeks thinking she was about to just fall out of ‘there,’ huffing and puffing and yelling and saying, “This is IT, we should go the hospital!” And we went three times, no baby. I cried wolf so much that by the time we really DID need to go to the hospital, Mike didn’t believe me and I almost gave birth in our bedroom.

So my mom and sister took Lou to the park that March morning, I hung up on Hubs, and then I prayed, “So help me Jesus, I know this is not always how things work, but please bring this baby today.” I texted my prayer posse and asked them to pray too. And I KID YOU NOT, I had my first contraction.

But I was not sure it was actually a contraction so when my mom came back, I said, “Hey, let’s take a walk.” She gave me a suspicious look, I did not want to tell her I was in labor because I knew she would ask me lots of questions and jinx it. So we walked to the park. The one that was 10 blocks away. And when we got there, I said, “I think I’m just going to sit down for a minute.” Then on the way home, I had this crazy stomach "cramp" every five minutes, and I would have to stop and bend over and my mom would look at me all crazy-eyed.

Next I called my two baby mama’s who know lots more about labor then I ever will. The one we affectionately call the Baby Whisperer calmly said, “Yeahhhh, I had that too with my three. You will probably have it on and off for a few days.” Okay, bummer, but that made sense. Then I called my other (more erratic and dramatic friend, the one who had convinced me to go to the hospital 2 out of the 3 false alarms for Lou) and she said, “OH MY GOD. You’re having a stomach pain that makes you unable to walk everyone 5 minutes? YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE THAT BABY ON THE TOILET. GET TO THE HOSPITAL NOW.” And because I didn't want her to be mad at me, I believed her and called my husband and told him to start driving. The second miracle of the day.

I then decided to tell my mom that I “might be in labor.” I crawled around the bedroom floor, packing duffle bags for Hubby (and OF ALL THE THINGS, I forgot his socks, Heaven forbid, I heard about it the entire weekend).

I drove myself to the hospital, and it was a really nice Spring day. 60 degrees, sun shining, the perfect weather to take a little nap in the parking lot. That annoying stomach pain would wake me up, and then I would doze right back to sleep. Finally, I realized I was getting hungry and I had better check on this whole labor thing before I went to Jimmy John’s. I was about to get out of the car, but looked in the rear-view mirror. Sheesh! I looked rough! So I spent another 15 minutes sitting there, putting on my make-up because a woman’s gotta look presentable in case she has a baby.

I walked into the hospital and denied the wheelchair they offered me (because I was CLEARLY in labor and everyone else knew it but me) and walked myself to the OB department (ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HOSPITAL) stopping for a “breather” every now and then.

I arrived (30 minutes later) they checked me out, rushed the doctor in, and told me that baby was going to be there WITHIN AN HOUR. “Wait, what?!” So I called Baby Daddy and told him to drive realllly fast. And he did, and there are other details which would stress my current pregnant friends out but everything went “fine” (as fine as natural, unexpected childbirth can go) and as chill as ever, our precious baby came into the world.

 Michael Thomas, we call him Mack.

To this day, he is still chill as a cucumber (thank the Lord Jesus who brought Him to us because his sister is a traveling circus in a two-year-old’s body). Although, we will hold it against him that he woke up every 2 hours through the night until he was 10 months old...

Content, loving, snuggly, adorable Mack.

People warned me about having two babies close together-- after I was already pregnant—but the best thing in my life is watching these two toddle around all day.

Happy Birthday Mack!