Body After Baby

I'm fairly lucky in that my body recovers pretty easily after having a baby. With the first two I never did anything special and my body went back to normal. With it only having been 13 days now, I can't yet say what it will do after baby #3.

3 Days postpartum

I can say that my weight is down and back to pre pregnancy weight and there are a few jeans that my hips can slide into! With it having been over four and a half years since my last baby, I can't remember how long it took for my hips to go back to their pre baby size.

Taken 9 days postpartum.

 I have plans to try some at home workouts once my body has had time to heal and recuperate. Summer is only a few weeks away and our trip back home is in only two months! I'd love to be tightened and toned by then. That's the goal at least!

Here's some more photos I took exactly like my pregnancy ones but 9 days postpartum.

And my least favorite photo. I still have that dark line!

Funny Friday

Christian was saying how he was going to have a baby one day and Alena tells him he can't because only girls can. Gabe corrects them and says that it takes a special ingredient from both the mommy and daddy to make a baby.

Alena - "I know what that special ingredient is!"
 
Hmm, where is this heading?

Alena - "It's LOVE!"

Yes, that's it. Love. These kids never cease to amaze us. :)

Birth in Pictures (graphic warning)

*If you do not wish to see blood or birth, then I suggest you leave the page before you see these pictures.

I'm in the process of writing out the birth story (it's long, emotional, and taking me a while to process everything that happened) so until then, here's the actual birth in pictures. I've been documenting everything about the pregnancy and not holding anything back. The birth isn't any different.

These photos show the raw emotion and pain that was happening in the moment. And that first picture might be my fave! Everything from the pain of pushing, the happy looks on Gabe and Alena's face, to the poor midwife's assistant's face as I squeeze the life out of her hand. I also love that you can actually see my belly getting smaller as he makes his entrance into the world.

My first glimpse at his head.

Get out baby!

One final big push!

Wow, this feels weird. Here he comes!

AHH! There he is!

What a relief!

I did it!

Pure, raw, emotional pain and love.

Thankful

That's how I feel when I see all three kids together. Yes, the baby has arrived!

Noah Alexander was born at home in the water on April 17th at 10:41 AM. 7lbs 3oz and 19in. I'll update with the birth story soon. It was one heck of a ride.

This is from a quick photo session done on Saturday. Noah was 3 days old and not feeling too cooperative. Good thing he's so cute. :)

Pray for TODAY

This week, I hit (according to my cycle dates) 42 weeks. If I want a home birth, it has to happen by my 42nd week.

I've had three close calls where we thought I might be having the baby but every time the contractions end up dying down.

Yesterday, my midwife gave me a small dose shot of pitocin to see if we can trick my body into thinking it was in labor. After an hour the contractions died down. Then in the later evening, Gabe and I went walking through Target and Walmart. I had good contractions going. I ended up with a pain in (TMI) my vagina which was the baby's head descending. Eventually, I couldn't walk through the contractions and a few I had to breathe through.

We came home and they continued. I went to bed and had restless sleep. That was because I was having contractions! At around 5am I woke up actually breathing through a contraction! I kept having good contractions that hurt and that I had to breathe through every 10-12 min. A little after 6am, I told Gabe to stay home from work. This is it. By 7am, they were dying down and fizzling out. :(

The midwife came at about 9am and gave me a shot of pitocin and just like yesterday, they started dying down after a half hour or so. I just received a second dose and am having strong contractions lasting 50-55. Unfortunately, this dose is also starting to fizzle out a little.

Please say some prayers that it will continue and we will soon be holding our baby.

Mr. Lizzy

First off, I'm still pregnant and this baby is just really cozy in there. :)

OK, now we can move on to the topic. Mr. Lizzy. That's what the kids named a lizard that we found and caught outside. That is, after the poor thing's tail came off with our first attempt at catching it. Don't worry, lizards have the ability to regrow their tails. :)

The kids were entertained all afternoon with this thing. I tried to stay back because I get freaked out by them so I only got close for a minute to snap a few pics real quick.

You see the missing tail? EW! Now it creeps me out even more.

I had to keep reminding Christian to keep his face away after he tried kissing it. BLECH! But he loved that lizard and cried when I made them let it go.

Pure joy an this boy's face!

My UBP13 Party Post

I'm joining in on the Ultimate Blog Party 2013 for the first time! Welcome to my blog. I'm so glad you took the time to drop by!

First off, let me introduce myself and what I and this blog are all about... I shall try and keep this short.

I started this blog in 2010 while my husband was serving 18 months, yes, 18 months in Iraq. Unfortunately, I never kept up with it until January of 2012. That was the month we started our journey to become parents for the third time. So let me go back in time a bit...

My husband and I met while stationed together (I was AF, he was Army) and quickly hit it off. We had quite the whirlwind relationship and were married shortly after in July 2005.

Aww Look at us so young and in love!

 We both knew we wanted kids and decided not to wait very long. January 2007, our beautiful daughter joined our family during my husband's first deployment. He was in Afghanistan until December of 2007 and the next month we moved to our current location in southern Arizona.

We quickly became pregnant with baby #2 (we don't mess around taking our time with anything) and he joined the family in September of 2008.

Fast forward to November of 2009 and Gabe leaves for 18 months in Iraq. That was not an easy time for our family but we made it through and came out stronger in the end. We started trying for baby #3 right away. It didn't happen and in January of 2012, we met up with a fertility Dr. After months of treatments, worrying, and letdowns, we became pregnant! TODAY, April 4th, is actually my due date so you're coming here at just the right time! Did I also mention that both my husband and I just signed up to go back to school? Things are about to get crazy in this household!

This blog was created more for myself and our family to document our life (since I'm so bad about scrapbooking and keeping up with the baby books!).  I'm passionate about my family, pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding. I keep it mainly focused on the family life aspect but you will see the other topics creep in once in a while too.

I hope I haven't bored you to death yet and you're still here. If you're interested, I'd love to have you stick around and join me on this adventure we call life!

D Day

Otherwise known as Due Date. Yup, it's today!

My belly bump posts have all been based off of my ultrasound dates but today is my 1st due date when going by my cycle date. Will it happen today? I don't know. Only 3% of babies actually come on their due dates.

I still have faith in my original guess which was April 5th. That's tomorrow!

I had a nice and long prenatal massage last night in an effort to relax and do a last minute preparation for my body. It was hard to relax though because my back has been hurting and the lady massaging me said my back muscles were super tight. She had to work hard at getting them out which meant lots of pressure and pushing on those sore spots. OUCH! We were joking that it was good practice for labor because I had to really try and relax and breathe through that part of the massage. I thought the massage might put me into labor (obviously it didn't) so when I came home, Gabe and I changed out our bed sheets and put down a waterproof fitted sheet just in case my water broke.

All in all, I am ready. We are as prepared as we can be and the longer this baby takes to come, the more time I have to over think everything and cause unnecessary stress and worry. I kind of just want to get this over with. It's such an emotional time for me. I couldn't pin it down to one emotion much less just three. I've got them all!

This baby will be here soon so for now, I will remain patient and cherish my last day/s as a pregnant woman.