Anna, Knower of All Things

Anna (talking to Tim, who is holding a hungry and fussing Rose): "Dad, Rose is hungry.  You don't have milk in you though."

Tim: "I don't?"

Anna: "No.  You have juice in you instead!"

No further comment.

Miss Rose Marie!

After 10 short hours of labor, Rose Marie Meyer officially made her appearance on February 11th at 5:49 PM!  Weighing in at 7 lbs 6oz and measuring 21 inches, we are absolutely thrilled to finally get to see her sweet face!  We are all at home and doing well.  Rose is perfecting the art of being a piglet and quickly regaining the 7 oz or so she lost in the first few days.  Anna is adjusting to being a big sister and doing great--she is very curious about Buzzy Bee and all of her noises and various input and output.  Mom and Dad are sleep deprived but feeling absolutely blessed to have two perfect and beautiful daughters.

The story, for the curious:

We went in at sparrowfart on Monday morning and went right to the straight stuff this time (Pitocin), which almost immediately started regular contractions 2-3 minutes apart.  On the theory that slow and steady wins the race, Rose took her time...and mom took the epidural around noon.  Right around this time we also broke the water and drained her pool, only to find out that there was meconium in the amniotic fluid.  This meant that we had quite the crowd there when the big event finally arrived, in order to make sure that she was healthy and did not inhale any meconium into her lungs.  That happened around 5, when after a flip to my right side and 4-5 VERY strong contractions we magically went from 6-7 cm to 10 in the space of a few minutes.  After that, her entourage officially arrived: all of the nurses on the floor, the OB, the pediatrician, the respiratory therapist and probably a few other people I failed to catalog.  After a quick test push we determined it was time to get moving, only to find that the cord was wrapped around her neck.  This meant some very fast and hard pushing to get her out as quickly as possible, but she had a good scream as soon as she came out, which was music to our ears.  In the end, no suction or oxygen required--she was and remains our perfectly healthy little angel.  We checked out of the hospital Tuesday evening and brought her home to begin our lives as a family of four!

More to come of our adventures since then soon...

37 weeks

I haven't posted any belly pictures really (it seems like I posted one nearly every week with Anna, hmmm), so I thought it was high time.  We had our 37 week appointment today and things are looking good! We are dilated to about 2 cm and BB is head down and ready to roll...a prospect that is much less scary now that we are a few more weeks along.  We'll have another appointment next week, and if nothing happens before then we will likely go ahead and schedule an induction for somewhere around the 39 week mark.  That's right, no more 11 [of the most miserable] days [of my life] past the due date for this one! If nothing else it feels good to know we are almost to the finish line...go Buzzy-Bee, go!

Damn you, John Braxton Hicks

They say every pregnancy is different, and we are no exception.  Anna was a laid-back baby even in the womb...the most she ever got really excited about in there was a root beer float, and we pretty much had to kick her out (induce) when she was 11 days past her due date.  Buzzy-bee, on the other hand, seems determined to greet this big world ASAP.  Her daily, normal activity levels rival Anna's best root beer float days and there are times that I (and anyone else in the room) watch my belly contort and just wait for a scene from Alien to replay itself.

Also new with this pregnancy are contractions...which I literally didn't have at all with Anna until we induced.  With BB, this is an hourly occurrence, brought on by nearly anything (standing, walking, sitting :P).  This means that since about 35 weeks I started dilating and have pretty much been on bed rest and unable to do much other than sit...and really wish that I had just painted the darn walls in the living room this summer so I wouldn't now be sitting here staring at them and the huge swatches of different colored paint I put up all over them (my logic being that if I made the swatches huge, they would annoy me enough that I would get the painting done...at least part of that logic was sound).

Anyway, all this "fun" has really made me wonder what John Braxton Hicks was thinking, naming these little uterine miseries after himself.  What kind of sick person wants every pregnant woman in the foreseeable future to shake her formidable, hormone-fueled fist at him?  Talk about a legacy to leave to his (possibly non-existent) children...I know if I ever chance to meet a Braxton Hicks descendant, I will happily thwack he or she over the head with my diaper bag before going back to silently cursing his ostentatious name.  Thanks, sir.  Thanks a lot.  At least, if nothing else, you are notorious.

Mah na mah na (how we say it in Idaho)

We (finally) watched the new muppet movie last night, so I now have the "mah na mah na" song stuck in my head, as does the rest of the family (it would be selfish not to share).  This  has also prompted Anna to have a fit of translation-itis. In an effort to familiarize her with other languages, we try to teach her basic words in Spanish, German, and Italian.  This usually means we spend a lot of time tracking down the various language dictionaries to look up the latest word on her mind, since both of us are a little rusty...due to being in Idaho for too long.  :P

Not one to be left out of the fun, Anna has taken to teaching Mom and Dad "how to say things in Idaho."  Using her reliable copy of an old Hardy Boys hardback she found of Tim's as an "Idaho dictionary," she is happy to translate any and everything to Idahoan.

Anna: "Mom, do you know what 'chair' is in Idaho?"
Me: "No, I can't say that I do."
Anna (consulting the Hardy Boys): "Let's see...looks like chair is 'alumpa'."
Me: "Oh really?"
Anna (flipping to a different page): "Yep.  And 'picture' is..........'alimpa'."
...
Me (in my best Idaho accent): "Mah na mah na....do do do do..."