New Arrival

Just a note to let you know that Number 5 arrived Sunday evening. I’ll save you the gory details, but will tell you this –

It’s a boy. He was almost 10 lbs. It was a “normal” delivery. We arrived at the hospital at 5:35 p.m. He was born at 5:56 p.m. He has the coloring of Number 3 (which is different than all the others).

We are all home and it will take awhile to adjust to having a little one in the house again. (Mostly, it is an adjustment for the other kids.)

Status Update

Baby is still enjoying the comforts of the womb. (It must be awfully plush in there. Fed on demand. Constant warm temp. No chaffing clothing. The other kids’ screaming is dampened by mom-body sounds. Just getting a little bit cramped.)

Officially now several days past my due date. The longest I’ve ever had a kid stay inside before this was one day past my due date. I think I’m kept waiting like this because I so dread that one day that is “Labor Day” when the kid comes out. (Ow! Ow! Ow!) I’d much rather be pregnant longer. So, when my due date comes & goes, I become much more willing to go through the pain of giving birth. (Darnnit kid, you’re coming out TODAY. Stop fooling around.)

It feels like I’ve had a stomach ache for about a week because of the Braxton-Hicks contractions. Sometimes they kick up into some serious gut-clenchers, but that usually subsides within an hour or two.

We’re hoping the baby comes out on its own early this week because I really don’t want to contemplate a medical induction. I’d sit it out for another week gladly, but my husband has already informed me that I might be lucky to get a ride home from the hospital (and that’s it) if we deliver on Thursday or later due to his work demands/schedule. As I really need someone to watch the other four kids while I’m in the hospital, this doesn’t appeal to me. (We have a few options for half-day coverage when I’m in labor, but on-going help is scarce as most people have enough kids of their own and can’t easily add four more to their load.)

Completely unrelated story:  I ran into a family (minus the mom) that we are loosely friends wish but don’t see often at the library. I’d seen the kids and mom a few times over the last several months, but neither of us have ever mentioned my pregnancy. I hadn’t seen the husband in a while – which I didn’t realize until he asked if *that* was my kid (pointing to #4) and saying he hadn’t seen him since he was a baby. I think the husband might have noticed that I’m pregnant, but I’m not sure he’ll say anything to his wife as I haven’t gotten an accusatory phone call asking why I didn’t tell her that I was expecting again. (We share the same OB/GYN and our next youngest kids are only about a month apart.) Me? I just look really fat when I’m pregnant.

Hope next post is to announce arrival of No. 5!

Looking for the Eject Button

I’m conflicted. On one hand, I’d like to keep this baby inside for another month. Seriously. They are so much easier to take care of on the inside than on the outside. And I’m so very blessed in the pregnancy category because I have extremely easy pregnancies (only the usual symptoms and complaints) compared to some.

On the other hand, I really thought I was going to have the baby yesterday. I woke up at 3 a.m. (for the second or third time) to visit the bathroom. By 3:15, the “gut clenching” contractions had started. They were five minutes apart and about 45 seconds long for awhile. I prayed for some more sleep, believing it would be a long day. Sometime between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m., they slacked off in frequency and magnitude and I fell back asleep.

We had plans to go to the ‘big city’ since I had a doctor’s appointment that afternoon and we’d get the oil changed on the Toyota Sienna. My spouse had the day off, so it would have been a great day to have a baby. We had lunch while the oil was being changed. We were not talked into a transmission/ differential fluid change or the four new tires they wanted to sell us. We dropped the kids off at my parent’s place so we could try to “walk the baby out” since we’d had such good contractions during the early morning hours.

We climbed over 600 stairs and walked a great deal more horizontal ground in and around the hospital at which I hope to deliver. While the contractions were going pretty good during all that walking and climbing, they slowed down to a trickle once we sat down to wait for my doctor’s appointment.

For a change, they got us in on time (even ahead of time) for my appointment. I went ahead and got my cervix checked. For all that work, I’m only 2 cm dilated. We knew it was no use at that point, declined the stripping of membranes, picked up the kids, and headed home.

We had a very nice, quiet evening at home – making homemade pizza and having birthday cake and ice cream for dessert. You see, yesterday was my birthday. As much as I wanted to have that baby yesterday, I’m relieved to still be at home today taking care of the other four kids while husband is back at work.

I’m no longer looking for the eject button. I’m content to wait to see when this child is going to come out all on its own. Who knows? Perhaps I won’t have to climb another 600 stair steps to get the child out. (My husband’s favorite labor-speeding up process is walking the stairs at the hospital. It has worked the last two babies.) Maybe this labor will go like my first one – quick.

For now, back to the usual. I think I’ll do some mending today as the objects (a couple of buttons to sew back on, some rips and tears to fix, a patch or two to affix) are really starting to pile up. And read several books aloud. And play a new matching game that my six year old made for me that she calls “Indian Checkers.” You know, the usual.

Now, talk to me again when I’m “overdue” to have this baby and maybe I’ll sing a different tune.

The Waiting Game

A neighbor stopped my husband the other night when he was taking two of the children for a walk to ask if we had “a new baby” yet. My husband looked at her blankly for a moment and then curtly said, “no.”

I usually tell people I’m due a week or two later than my actual due date so as to keep this type of questioning to a minimum. The last two children, I haven’t done that and have ended up getting my share of the “haven’t you had the baby yet?” questions. I try to tell people that I don’t go (that) early. I don’t induce early. I don’t schedule c-sections. I usually have the child right before or right after my due date. I use the Prem method for determining estimated date of childbirth (EDC) and I’ve found it is much more accurate (for me) than the Naegele Rule that most people use to calculate an estimated due date (EDD).

The difference for some women is neglible. For me, it can be 7-12 days, which can mean the difference between a doctor pushing for an induced labor or letting the child continue to grow until it comes out on its own. Here’s the difference:

EDD (Naegele rule): Start with first day of the Last Menstrual Period (LMP), add seven days, add nine months. (Assumes ovulation on Day 14.)

EDC  (Prem rule): Start with first day of overall thermal shift minus seven days, add nine months. (Assumes you are charting your basal body temp each morning.)

Most women don’t know their thermal shift (upward basal body temp pattern) or their day of ovulation, thus making it difficult to get an EDC using the Prem method.

In my case with this pregnancy, my EDD is 10 days before my EDC. The ultrasound we had at ~ 20 weeks showed an EDD roughly 12 days before my EDC. I’ve calculated my EDC with four of five children. In three of the four deliveries so far, I’ve been -3 days (vs. +7/+ 5 for EDD) for two of them and + 1 day (vs. + 8 days for EDD) for one. We’ll see how this one turns out.

Either way, I’m in that “waiting” period with plenty of things still on my ‘to do’ list. If I went into labor early, all required tasks are complete. The to do list at this point includes only “nice to haves” that either can be left incomplete or my spouse can do them himself.

I always say that they are easier to take care of inside than they are once they are out! The only thing is planning in terms of taking care of the other children and my spouse’s work schedule. We have contingencies for each, but a delivery within a certain “window” of days (and time of day) is easier.

But we’ll take it whenever it comes out – convenient or not.

Rearranging Car Seats

So, with a new baby coming along, it was time to rearrange the seating in our van. I’d done some switching around of car seats several times this summer to see what worked and what didn’t as far as spacing, good “rock solid” installation between the car seat and the vehicle seat, and who doesn’t do well next to someone else.

In the end, it didn’t help me much because it all came down to what would fit where. You see, the rear seat in our wonderful Toyota Sienna LE van will take three car seats across, but one of the rear seats doesn’t have a rear tether spot or LATCH (I’m 50/50 on LATCH vs. seat belt install – whichever gives me the better install). So, I’d have to put either the new (Chicco Key Fit 30) rear facing infant seat in that spot (driver’s side, 3rd row) or one of the booster seats there. The problem with putting a booster seat in the rear row is that the child will then have to buckle herself in each time and it is an awful tight fit with two other car seats to do that.

In the end, here is how it turned out for my five children (one of which hasn’t arrived yet, but the seat (base) is installed and ready to receive):

Second row will have the driver’s side seat empty in order to allow access to the third row using the tumble seat. (In winter, we’ll remove this seat completely so there aren’t snowy feet going across it all the time.) In the middle of the second row will be a Graco High Back Turbo Booster with Child #2 (age 6, ~ 45 lbs, ~ 48″). Behind the passenger seat in the second row will be Child #4 (age 2, ~ 36+”, 28 lbs) who was just turned front facing in his Britax Marathon – installed with LATCH.

In the third row, Child #3 (age 3 1/2, 38 lbs, ~ 40+”) will be harnessed in her Graco Nautilus on the passenger side installed with LATCH.

Child #1 (almost age 8, ~ 70+ lbs, ~ 53″) will be going car-seatless for the first time. With her buns all the way back in the third row seat, her feet have full contact with the floor and her knees bend nicely over the edge of the seat. I had her in a Graco No-Back TurboBooster seat. We can fit the booster seat in the middle spot, but it does not allow for a good buckle in without lots of wiggling and I’m afraid of an accidental unbuckle because of the angle of the buckle against the infant seat or an unsolid “click” because of the tight fit.

Child #5 will be behind the driver in the third row in our brand new Chicco Key Fit 30 infant seat installed using the seat belt (no LATCH in this spot).

All LATCH installs were tight (although they would have been tighter if I wasn’t super pregnant). I had to check the book for the KeyFit install because I had never used a car-seat-integrated “seat belt lockoff” before. I was a bit disturbed to see that I was not supposed to lock the vehicle seat, but when I followed their directions, the seat was MUCH tighter than I’d ever had an infant seat base installed previously and had much less wiggle than when I’d done a quick “just to see how it fits” install a couple hours earlier.

I just did the car seat rearrangement today, so I still have to see how it goes long term.

I have put Child #1 in charge of releasing Child #3 from her harness and ensuring she is strapped in well. Child #2 is in charge of letting Child #4 out of his car seat, but cannot get him fully strapped in securely at this time. I’ll be in charge of getting his crotch straps clicked each trip and can double check Child #3’s harness at the same time. Child #5 will be easy for now because of the infant seat’s portability. He or she will be strapped in before loading the car seat into the vehicle.

None of the car seats expire soon, so the next major car seat change will be when Child #5 out grows the Chicco KeyFit. I assume that will be when the child reaches 8-9 months old and outgrows the maximum length (height) requirement. Until then, I hope everyone is happy with their seating arrangement.

As a bonus, my biggest offenders in the “rolling down the window” category have been denied immediate access to the windows. This will bum them out as they loved to roll their windows down while we were speeding along the highway at 60 MPH to get a blast of air in their (or someone behind them’s) face. I wish Toyota would have allowed the front row passenger to not have their window control locked out along with the second row windows on the driver’s side override button. It is annoying when trying to get a bug out of one’s (passenger side) window only to find the window control locked due to keeping the children from rolling down their windows in the back.