Photo Blast

Since you voluntarily visit our blog (as opposed to Facebook, where someone might not come seeking photos of me or my children, in particular) I feel like it's okay to post a bunch of cute photos once in a while. And since this is my second blog post today, I don't have much to say, except to explain in captions why these photos feel worthy of a photo blast.

Actually, I should say (since this is my first post since Nate went back to work) that life with three is way better than I expected. We're in a routine and I'm not making very elaborate meals. It also helps that Peter loves his pacifier and is a pretty easy-going 10 week old. Knowing that he likely will be my final little baby, I'm able to appreciate his sweet cuddles...slowing down to study his eye color and encourage him to smile. You are loved, little Peter boy.

He's a big boy...weighing in at 14 lb 7 oz at 2 months

Helping mom with the laundry

Peter's interpretation of tummy time, under a blanket from Grandma Joanie

Smiles in an 9-month sized outfit from Aunt Grace

Roses from Karen's garden, shared for our Easter dinner

A lovely latte I enjoyed last week when Nelly was with the kids

She thought you could just put stickers on the paper for fun, without earning them

Looking like a big girl with her new haircut

Cora prefers hats to hair clips and ponytails to keep her hair out of her face

The Dollar Tree mermaid lost an arm, but Louisa had a quick fix

Family Time in Tahoe

During Nate's last week of paternity leave in late March, we drove to Tahoe City, looking for snow. This post won't be chronological in relation to the our other posts, but I wanted to save some memories and photos before they slip out of my sleep deprived mind forever...

A few weeks before our trip, I searched for a vacation rental house on VRBO. We needed a place that allowed dogs and had at least 2 bedrooms. Our preferred location was the north side of the lake, because we had heard that north Lake Tahoe was more laid-back and outdoorsy. Surprisingly, this search only brought up 3 options in our price range, but one looked fantastic, so I booked it right away.

Because we were traveling with a newborn, almost-2-year-old and almost-4-year-old, we kept our expectations for the week low. The cottage and the lake was enough to make the trip fantastic. I had heard that Lake Tahoe was beautiful, and it is! Gorgeous, blue and still.

A small beach, just a short walk from our cottage

Ries can no longer see the beauty around her, but she can pose in front of it

On the first day, we took a gondola ride up to Snow Camp at Squaw Valley. This was the only time we touched snow in California. I don't mind, but Nate probably would say that it made him miss Wisconsin. The girls had a blast throwing snow balls, making snow angels and a snowman, and we enjoyed a picnic lunch in the heavily carpeted, brass accented ski lodge on the top of the mountain.

On day two, we went to a great park downtown Tahoe City, where the California drought was oh-so-visable. Nate packed another picnic lunch for us that we enjoyed near the lake after playing on the playground and before heading off to CVS to buy coloring books for evening entertainment. The cottage had a hot tub which also provided entertainment (and relaxation)!

The last day, we went for a tame hike near Emerald Bay. This excursion really made us question why we haven't made it up to the mountains way more often while we've been living here. Such perfect weather (sunny and 65 degrees) for hiking and gorgeous views.

Taking the hike very seriously and keeping her hands warm

A family photo in front of Emerald Bay

Fancy Louisa...hiking in a dress and beads

Hipster Cora sportin' the slouch hat style accidentally

Teaching how to age a tree. I like my man in pink

A silly highlight of the trip was the HGTV shows we watched each night, dreaming about the day we can renovate (read: afford) a house...

Sleep, Precious Sleep

All of my children are sleeping right now. I feel amazing. Well, amazing except that I have a lingering sore throat and probably could do with more sleep at night. I was talking with a couple of different pregnant friends about pregnancy-induced insomnia versus the lack of sleep that you get with a newborn. I've decided that if I had to choose one, I'd pick the latter, because at least going to bed earlier pretty much guarantees that you'll get more sleep, whereas not being able to fall asleep is so frustrating.

In an earlier post, I said that people were more often asking about the two-to-three transition than about Peter's night sleeping. Well, scratch that. All of the sudden, it's all about his sleep. So how is it? Not terrible, but not great. He wakes up around 1:30 am and then again around 4 am. I'm trying to just accept it, but since I have the book on my shelf, I'm going to take a refresher course in sleep training. Specifically, I want to know when it's okay to let our sweet baby Peter cry it out a bit.

So while they sleep, I'll sooth my throat with hot water with lemon and honey and read my book, wearing my Badger shirt, of course!

Not long into my study, I read that babies less than 12 weeks old don't know how to self-soothe, so there's my answer!

This post is a bit disjointed. but while I'm here, I share a couple of photos from Easter, which was lovely. We enjoyed a breakfast potluck at church before the service, then came home to prepare a scrumptious feast that we enjoyed with our pastor and his family, Megan and Ty and their family, and Melissa and her son. Nate did double duty cooking all the food and entertaining kids with cookies to decorate and eggs to hunt. I guess I can tie it all in and wrap this post up by saying that the weekend was wonderful yet exhausting, so no wonder everyone is sleeping so well!

The Transition, Sort Of

After Louisa was born, the most common question people asked was, How's she sleeping? After Cora's birth, it was, How's Lou doing? Is she jealous? Now with Peter, it's a most often about the transition from two to three kids. Most people say something like, I've heard that the transition from one to two is harder than two to three. What do you think?

Fortunately, I don't have an answer yet. I say fortunately because for the 5 weeks and 2 days since Peter was born, I haven't been alone (i.e. without another adult) for more than 2 hours. We had a Belle Mere, a Papa and an Oma for the first 3 weeks and then Nate's been home since Marcia left. I will say that despite the extra help, the girls have shown their fair share of frustration/jealousy, but it's nothing that can't be remedied by some 1-on-1 attention or extra sleep.

Cora insists that saying "hi" to Peter includes touching him

She also really wants to give him blankets, toys and stuffed animals all the time

I'll also say that those two hours when I was alone with all three kids, I had a panic moment when I noticed the disaster that was my living room at the same moment that Peter was crying and Cora was crawling all over me while I tried to read bedtime stories. But I quickly lowered my expectations (i.e. a clean house is not necessary) and remembered that babies will cry. So far, Peter has proved that he can really wail, but thankfully it's not nothing-will-make-him-stop crying.

I'm happy to postpone my answer to I've heard that the transition from one to two is harder than two to three. What do you think? Of course we're experiencing that transition as a couple right now, but I fear my answer will be much different once I'm on my own. The way I've dealt with that fear is just to ignore it and appreciate the help while he's not working. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it, right?

So in the honeymoon phase of this transition to three, we've been trying to take advantage of some of what California has to offer. The highlight of the past two weeks was definitely our visit to Ano Nuevo State Park. On Wednesday morning I told Nate I might want to go to the beach instead of going on a hike, so he found a beach hike to view the elephant seals. Very cool day trip! The most impressive fact I learned during our guided hike: baby elephant seals, called weaners, are 75 pounds at birth, only nurse for one month, but gain 200 pounds in that time. The mother's milk is 50% fat, compared to human milk, which is 4.5% fat. I thought Peter's 1 pound in 1 week weight gain was impressive!

Lou hiked an impressive 4-miles...Only held for photo opts or for a better view

Going down is much easier than going up: a convo we had a few times during the hike

The dark structure out on the point was a lighthouse keeper's house, now entirely occupied by seals

Peter did a great job of sleeping the entire 3 hour hike

A male elephant seal and some "weaners" or pups

Nate and his pups. I'd call them weaners, but Peter is still nursing exculsively

Monkey see, monkey do

Family shot!

What the beach looks like at prime mating season, December-January-February

Peter Lawrence Bosscher

You've no doubt heard the news via phone call, text, Facebook or email, but our blog wouldn't be complete without a nice long post about little Peter!

On Wednesday, February 11 (8 days past my official due date), we all woke up, a bit disappointed that there wasn't any baby action in the night, but with a "distract and enjoy" plan of going to the beach after naps. The beach was lovely and although there wasn't a long shore line for me to "walk the baby out," I did walk a bit, feeling some contractions, but nothing intense or regular. 

We had dinner and then drove the windy, 35-minute drive back to Campbell just in time for the girls' bedtime. At 8:30, the girls were in bed and I told Nate and my mom that I feel a bit different tonight, although I'm not making any promises that this is it. I turned on an episode of Call the Midwife, a great BBC drama about midwives in a poor part of London in the 1950's. Over the next hour or so, my contractions quickly went from 9 minutes to 3-4 minutes apart. They were also more of the "brace yourself and breath" type contractions, so I was pretty sure it was time. I texted my doula, Tracie and Nate put our stuff in the car. Around 10:30, we were back on highway 17, headed back to the beach.

Two days earlier, I was 3.5 centimeters dilated, so I had great hope that when we finally checked into the hospital, things would move faster than Cora and Louisa's births. Tracie arrived shortly after we did and immediately started massaging my back during contractions. My acceptance of her hands-on approach helped Nate to immediately get involved, either supporting my body weight as I tried to find the best position for each contraction or applying pressure to my lower back. During my other labors, I don't think my contractions ever got closer than 4 minutes apart, whereas this time they seemed to be about 60 seconds apart.

Shortly after settling into our room, I was six centimeters, which was music to my ears. Things moved so quickly that there was no need to talk about pitocin, and around 1:15 am, I begged for drugs. You don't really want drugs, do you? Nate asked. Yes, I do, I mean, no I don't really, but I do! was my answer. My midwife, Timmi, who happened to be on-call for births only on Wednesdays, said I have an idea. Let's do an exam to check your progress. She announced that I was 9.5 cm dilated, then paused, and said okay, you're complete!

WHAT?! Crazy. Amazing! Hallelujah! Too late for drugs. Crazy fast labor. I was super-excited. The pushing wasn't easy, and I was not quiet about it, but it only lasted about 15-20 minutes. I couldn't stop saying oh baby, baby, whoa, whoa as I held our little (big, actually) slimy baby. Everyone else was apparently very concerned about my blood loss, but I couldn't care less...it was over and I wasn't totally exhausted. In-fact, I felt something of a runner's high from the shock of how quick and intense it all was.

Peter spent the first two hours of his life on me, teaching himself how to nurse. It was a beautiful distraction from the aggressive pushing the nurses were doing as they were trying to stop my bleeding. Removing some clots and giving me pitocin got everything under control and we were left in peace around 4:15 am.

My mom brought Louisa and Cora around 11 am the next day. Later Louisa told me, Mom, on the way to the hospital, I was so excited to see Peter, I could hardly stand it. I smiled, then she asked, what does 'stand it' mean? Oh Lou, I love listening to you talk.

Both Louisa and Cora are totally in love with him and whenever they see him, they touch his head and call him by name; Baby Peter according to Lou and Didi (i.e. baby) to Cora. I think he looks a lot like Louisa did when she was born and my guess is that he'll have light brown hair, possibly with some red. Nate's hoping for blond hair so we have one of each.

We took advantage of every last minute we were allowed to stay at the hospital. No, the beds were not nearly as comfortable as our bed, but room service, cable t.v. and really sweet nurses made for a pretty relaxing stay. Plus, they were closely monitoring my blood pressure, which was totally normal throughout my entire pregnancy until after delivery. The same thing happened with Cora and after a week or so, it was fine again. At my last check on Wednesday, it was down to 130/87, which is still high, but much better than the 150s/90s they were seeing in the hospital.

We came home from the hospital on Valentine's Day and my mom prepared a sweet little party for Peter's "zero" birthday. The last three pictures perfectly describe Peter's first week at home. I really did forget how much newborns sleep and love to be held. The last two pictures were from his afternoon sun time today...one little way to encourage more night-time sleeping. The first few nights he was  waking to nurse every 1-2 hours. Whoa. Exhausting. But last night was a lot better and we're hopeful that he'll follow in his sisters' footsteps and be a good sleeper. Either way though, we're thrilled you're finally here little mister!

The Last Place You Look

I'm truly not going crazy with every overdue minute that passes, but it is fun to read about and try to induce labor, old wive's tales or not. Most of them I find harmless and actually healthy, so I've been checking things off the list.

Here's what I've done:

Tuesday (39 weeks): foot massage with my good friend Heather
Thursday: ate an eggplant sandwich
Friday: ate another eggplant sandwich
Saturday: prenatal yoga; pineapple smoothie
Sunday, Monday: pineapple smoothies
Monday: induction massage (heavy on the feet pressure points!)
Tuesday (40 weeks): pineapple smoothie; swimming laps
Wednesday: prenatal yoga; pineapple smoothie, pedicure with foot massage
Thursday: induction acupuncture; pineapple smoothie; ate (somewhat) spicy black bean soup

Then there are a bunch of things I've done daily, like sitting on a yoga ball, dancing, walking, drinking raspberry leaf tea, cleaning and organizing. I've also heard that eating extra salt can help because you actually want your body to retain fluid. So I've been trying to enjoy salty things. And constipation is a labor killer, or so an acupuncturist told me when I was pregnant with Cora, so extra fiber and aloe vera juice (a gentle, natural stool softener) have been on my daily menu. You might be wondering what I think about evening primrose oil. I took it from 38-40 weeks (half the recommended dose of 1000 mg per day) but stopped when my midwife told me I was almost fully effaced. It seems to be well documented that EPO won't induce labor, but it will prepare the cervix by thinning/effacing. The only thing I won't try is castor oil. I've heard it just wrecks you.

Yes, of course there is a rumor about sex, but because this is a family blog, I won't recall when or how often we've tried that.

Nate asked me today if I'll swear by acupuncture if I go into labor tonight. It made me think of a funny story from a family friend who was looking all over the house for something and when she finally found it, she exclaimed, it's always in the last place you look! That's how I feel about my induction attempts...it's going to be the last thing I try. May blogging about induction be the last thing I try!

Au Naturel, Little Mister?

I'm not sure I should actually try to articulate these thoughts on what could be the eve of our baby's birthday, but I want to. What I want to think through and share is why a natural childbirth is important to me this time around. The danger in doing this publicly is that I could offend someone who doesn't find it important. Another danger is that I'll read this after choosing drugs and feel guilty. The benefit, though, is that perhaps when the going gets tough, as I know it will, I might feel compelled to fight a little bit harder.

It's funny though. I don't regret choosing an epidural with Cora for a few reasons. First, I don't think there were any negative effects to her or me. Second, I'm glad to have experienced birth both ways. And third, well, let's be honest: from 5:00 until 10:03 am the morning of her birth, Nate got to rest and I felt like I was floating on a super-comfy cloud.

So why do I feel stubborn about avoiding drugs this time? I guess I want to see/confirm what my body is capable of and to push back, very privately, against the notion that a laboring woman is sick and births must occur quickly and on schedule. I want to know if my body can birth this baby without pitocin, something I have yet to do. And to me, accepting pitocin causes my mental strength to diminish pretty darn quickly and is the point during my labor with Cora that I adamantly requested the epidural.

I haven't been thinking about all of this for very long. We do have a doula and we have been planning to use Hypnobirthing since September or October, but when I thought about epidurals and other common interventions, I sort of brushed if off, saying hopefully not, but we'll see.

But just today, I went to a prenatal yoga class that really brought "interventions" to the front of my mind. The class was half discussion/education and half yoga. I've purposely avoided this type of prenatal yoga class since my pregnancy with Louisa, feeling that I was too informed for something so first-time-pregnancy-related. I love how God humbles me while providing for me. My mom arrived last Wednesday night, so I wouldn't have been able to go to this particular class last week. And obviously I wouldn't have gone to the class if I had the baby on time or early. But he's comfy in there, I'm looking for things to fill my days, and my mom was here to watch the girls....so I went...and what an amazing blessing it was.

A literal blessing. In all the classes I've attended with Nanci, my awesome yoga instructor, I've never seen her give a blessing to someone who most likely won't be back for another class before she has her baby. She didn't mention it on Saturday, which I thought for sure would be my last class, nor did she do it for Charity the Saturday before, when she knew she'd be induced on Monday. So anyway, I just totally see it as a God thing...a way for him to give me patience and peace (two things I've been praying for a ton) as I prepare to meet this little Mister.

I wouldn't guess that Nanci is a Christian even, but her blessing felt so prayer-like that I was able to bask in the moment in the same way I did last week at my Bible study when they prayed for me, the delivery and the baby. And she prayed for all the things I'd choose in an ideal birth: patience, strength, courage when things get tough. She prayed that the baby would be born and be able to come right up on my chest and nurse right away, which is a very vivid, beautiful memory I have from Louisa's birth. I'm not often moved to tears by things like this, but I was so touched, surrounded by 10 or so pregnant ladies, being led in prayer by a pretty awesome yoga instructor that I only met five months ago.

This beautiful yoga experience, followed by a wonderfully relaxing pedicure, really helped get me through post-due-date-day-one.

With all this being said, I feel like I also need to acknowledge that while I want to remain a bit stubborn, I can't write off interventions altogether, because I don't know what turns the birth will take. If the baby is in danger, the birth plan goes out the window and I follow my midwife's recommendations, whether it be pitocin or a c-section.

All Nested Up

I remember one of my last posts before Louisa was born: I commented that my urge to nest was no indication that my sweet baby was coming soon, because I'd been nesting since I was born. When I wrote that in April 2011, I was 37.5 weeks. Today I'm 38.5 weeks and I feel the same way. I still love to "nest" and I'm running out of things to do. It's true that I only have 2 lasagnas and 2 dozen pumpkin chocolate chip muffins in the freezer, but our freezer isn't actually that big. Oh, and this weekend, Nate added 10 calzones to the stash. I also added to my short list of things to do, including clearing out the files from office at DreamWorks. Sad news came Thursday night: they're closing their Redwood City location, where I've worked once each week since Cora was born.

Other preparation activities taken care of: Cora has officially moved into Louisa's room, although she still naps in her old crib for it's quietness and darkness. But at night they are sharing a room, which has created two giggly sisters. Closets are organized and the baby has tons of wonderful hand-me-down clothes from my sister, Sarah and friend Amanda, who both had two boys and feel fairly certain that two kids is plenty!

Cora enjoys her new "bunk crib"

Move over Lou...here comes your sister

Sock baskets, which get taken down daily for "dress up", especially by Cora

Silly pose by Louisa, showing off the baby's room, which doubles as our guest and storage room

On Friday I took the girls to Marshall's so they each could pick a present for the new baby. Cora had an easy time picking a superhero monkey, but Louisa was much more contemplative. She picked a couple of pink dolls and I struggled with how to say that boys don't usually like pink dolls as much as girls do. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have cared? Next she picked pacifiers, which I said was a great idea, so she popped them in the cart and said but that's not a toy so I'll find a toy for him too. I explained that she only got to pick one gift for the baby, and it didn't have to be a toy. The pacifiers went back on the shelf and she considered a blue bunny blanket before putting that back and finally settling on the pacifiers. She definitely gets her indecisive shopping from me!

Today I bought little gifts for Peter to give to the girls and a "zero" candle so we can all have a little birthday celebration together at the hospital. Speaking of celebrations and preparations, Nate and I had a wonderful double date with our friends Brad and Karen on Friday night and then on Saturday night, my friend Tina hosted a "pre-baby girls' night" for me. There were six of us and it just so happened that five were pregnant. The only non-pregnant one was gracious in letting us talk about pregnancy and birth before and after watching and laughing at a pregnancy-centered romantic comedy, Away We Go.

We're ready for you, littlest one!