A lot has happened since my June 23rd post and as to be expected it's been a little hard to get on the computer and reflect on just how much has transpired since coming up for air after Haven's surgery. On July 20, 2013 we welcomed Tommy into the world and here's a brief of summary of how that all came about over the past two months and how we got to being a family of five this go around.
- The last two weeks of June, Haven got a special ed placement based on her heart condition and some of her gross motor delays and was assigned to an integrated classroom at a Boston Public School. My little three year old, just two months out from open heart surgery, commuted across the city on a school bus to her pre-k classroom from 8am-3pm for the last two weeks of June. Words cannot express how mind blowing it was for both Brian and I to see her recover so fast and then try something so new and so grown up in just two short months. She loved it. She'd get on the bus everyday and I'd lift her into her bus seat (which looked enormous in comparison to her little body), she had her little backpack with her, never cried a single tear, only waved and smiled and looked so proud of herself, and so excited for this new adventure. She is nothing short of amazing. She is such a tough kid, so willing to try to new things, so social, and trusting of new experiences (likely because of everything she has had to endure), and feeling as good as she does with this new circulation of hers -- she was READY to get out of the house and go learn, and run, and play with other kids. Putting her on that bus everyday and watching her wave back at me with her head barely reaching above the window and watching her venture off into the world already...well? It was crazy. Made me crazy proud and crazy wowed. "She's going to be ok" I'd tell myself as the bus pulled away with my precious cargo in it and I would walk back alone into the house without her and then I would think no...she IS ok. My kid, who has been through so much, is ok. It's really and truly finally going to be ok.
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| Here she is eating her breakfast on the front steps waiting for the bus to pick her up. |
- Having Haven in school gave me some much needed one-on-one time with my little man, Ronan. Knowing that Baby #3 was a mere six more weeks away before Ronan was shoved into middle-child status. Those last two weeks in June gave me the opportunity to spend some really awesome quality time with Ronan. Without Haven. Now, I love Haven more than words -- but that's just the thing -- she says about 300 words a minute, is an unbelievable chatterbox (not surprisingly if you've met me or Brian) and so Ronan can easily get crowded out given that he doesn't walk or talk as much as she does. At 21 months -- this kid was SO frustrated with the fact that he doesn't have the walking down and he cannot for the life of him come up with any other words besides basketball, hockey, baseball or soccer ball to describe anything. I'm not kidding. He would try to tell me he wanted an orange and kept saying "basketball" over and over and over again until tears were streaming down his face with frustration. It is true that basketballs and oranges do look somewhat alike -- but this poor kid literally can ONLY describe things through the lens of sports balls. He is all Brian. I can barely identify the name of the right ball with the right sport. And it makes me laugh that I gave birth to a kid who is so sports centric when I know literally next to nothing about sports. But the limited sports vocabulary combined with only being able to scoot or "walk" on his knees made our scared one-on-one time a little challenging for both of us. He is so clearly ready and desperately wants to walk but he's just not there yet and therefore he is SO FRUSTRATED. And honestly, being 9 months pregnant -- I'm pretty much frustrated all the time too. So the end of June and most of July was a little brutal on the Ronan front. If sports are literally the center of your universe....you can only shoot hoops and dribble from your knees for so long before having a nervous breakdown.
So, I'll be honest....as awesome as this video is (let alone the fact that he always scores when she shoots...literally almost every time -- and yes, I realize he is dribbling a baseball or softball or whatever it's called) it doesn't quite capture the frustration Ronan has been going through while transitioning into a toddler. Let's just say these were not Ronan's best months as a human. I'd like to say he beautifully emerged from his cocoon of babydom into a gorgeous butterfly -- but it was more like a scene from the exorcist watching this metamorphosis happen. I called him an asshole in my head more than once. I did. I admit it. I absolutely hate the developmental transition into walking and talking. I might be outing myself as a terrible parent here -- but I gotta be honest -- trying to be an active (let alone positive) participant in helping your child become a walking and talking human is nothing short of excruciating. There is hardly anything you can do to help them. They just have to work it out, on their own and in their own time. That could take two weeks or 12 weeks. And it's just not practical or safe to wear earplugs all day long while minding children. Here's a PG video of Ronan being slightly miserable during this transition. The rated R videos that I keep in the vault I would rather not share for fear of social services taking him away from me for how poorly I handle this stage of parenting:
Thankfully, fast forward six weeks later and Ronan has made incredible strides -- he's talking, he's walking -- he's so much more content, happy, and totally not an asshole anymore. He has transitioned to the other side and is literally the cutest most adorable almost two year old money can buy. He is simply wonderful and we are LOVING this new little man in our lives and just want to eat him up he's just so damn perfect....see for yourself.
But getting here was a bumpy ride. That's for damn sure.
And guess what? We get to do it all.over.again. Because we have another human being to raise and help make it through all these same transitions.
His name is Tommy and he arrived two weeks earlier than we expected. Not in the "oh-my-god-my-water-just-broke-I-think-I'll-call-the-neighbors-and-take-a-cab-to-the-hospital-and-birth-this-one-myself-since-it's-my-third-and-it'll-probably-just-fall-right-out-of-me-in-the-cab-on-the-way-to-the-hospital-anyway" type arrival I was expecting. Oh, no. Instead, I show up at my 37 week appointment, find out I haven't gained any weight in like a month, the baby is fine but my placenta might be "getting old" (seriously, I think that's literally what they said me -- the doctor straight up disrespected my old ass placenta right to my face in the doctor's office) and said --- while the baby is probably fine at this point it's better "out than in" and we're going to have to schedule you for an induction.
Awesome. Okay -- so what like next week I'll come in for an induction? (secretly giving me time to start pushing when the kids aren't looking and try to go into labor on my own). Ummm, no. Like tomorrow. We want you to come in tomorrow for your induction. Oh boy. So, I gotta call my husband and tell him we're going to have a baby by the weekend? Yes. You should call him. We'll see you back here tomorrow night to start the induction. Jesus. It's game time. We're going to be a family of five sooner than we planned.
Ugh. On the one hand it was a good thing that I could make arrangements for the kids, get my shit together for the hospital which - who am I kidding -- if I didn't have time to gain weight during the entire nine months of the pregnancy -- you can imagine I didn't exactly have a bag packed for the hospital even though I was full term and 37 weeks. So, I guess a healthy diet of string cheese, goldfish, and a grand total of about 16 prenatal vitamins that I barely remembered to take over the course of the entire pregnancy didn't really put me at a healthy pregnancy weight, eh? Hmmm, that's so fascinating. I thought our bodies were meant to do this stuff? Poor kid is probably starving in there let alone trying to survive off the grandmother of all placentas hobbling around on a cane inside my uterus.
Now, don't get me wrong -- I was a little worried for the baby. Especially after everything I'd been through with Haven. I sure hope the baby IS actually ok. I hope the reason I'm so small and didn't gain weight doesn't mean there is actually something wrong with the baby that they can't see. But given during Haven's pregnancy I was eating freakin kale, and flax seed, and drinking organic water for christ sake and she came out with half a heart -- I can't assume that I completely screwed this kid's chances because of my far less healthy lifestyle due to chasing two toddlers around was going to make or break this pregnancy. So I have to assume everything is going to be fine and just accept the fact that I have to be induced.
It probably won't take long anyway. They'll just give me that cytotec pill thingamajig and I'll have the baby in like three hours. Having had a natural child birth with no meds in 2010 and again in 2011 -- I sure has hell can get the job done here in 2013. I'm a pro at this point, right? Who's with me?!?!?
Just another lesson in things NEVER turn out how you think they are going to when it comes to labor and delivery -- or hell, I guess in life in general at this point. Multiple rounds of cytotec 36 hours later I still hadn't had the baby. I was exhausted. Meanwhile, Brian was getting the hospital version of a resort vacation. I mean, when in the last three and half years have we been anywhere without the kids for 36 hours where the main task was to get as much rest as possible before active labor started and to order room service every 4-6 hours for our meals. I mean, even for me -- as exhausting as the induction was -- this was as close to a vacation as we'd had since we got married. Sad, but true. So...here I was waiting and waiting and waiting for labor to start and Brian was getting like the best nap of his life. It pretty much went down like this:
Freakin finally, active labor started, and three hours and three pushes later, Tommy finally arrived:
He was clearly just as annoyed with the induction as I was, but he was healthy and minus being a little jaundice -- he's pretty much been sleeping off the 36+ hour induction since he arrived. And given the fact that his actual due date was August 4th -- we're VERY lucky he's so sacked out and sleeping pretty much around the clock so we can adjust to being a family of five. Obviously, WE aren't getting nearly as much sleep as Tommy is -- but all things considered and given he hasn't really woken up yet as a baby -- we are doing really well given the insanity of having three kids under three and a half.
In saying that though, the cumulative exhaustion is starting to mount, and he's waking up a bit more day-by-day which will undoubtedly only make things harder for the next three or four months as he settles into the beginning of babydom. And given our track record with the last two -- he'll start scooting at some point, need early intervention services, and refuse to walk until he's two -- but I digress. But all-in-all, somehow, we've survived the surgery, we've survived Ronan's metamorphosis into a toddler, and now we've survived the labor, delivery and first few weeks with the newest member of our family.
What a freakin marathon of a year, of three years, of a life it's been. Thank god it's a good life. A wonderful life, really.
We did it. We made it. We're here. We've arrived.
So, with that monster of an update -- I'm off to sleep....for the next two hours anyway :)
THIS IS SO GOOD! XOXOX
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