When Sean turned a year old, we decided we wanted to try again for another baby. Both of us wanted them close together (around 2 years apart) and were overjoyed with how much Sean brightened our lives, that we couldn't wait to have another little one around. Things happened quickly again, and we became pregnant again in February when Sean was 14 mo. old. My due date was November 14th and we were thrilled. I called the dr. the day I found out, because I wanted him to write me the prescription for progesterone again and start taking it right away. However, the insurance company didn't immediately want to pay for the medication (Jon had switched jobs and was now working for Rubbermaid in Huntersville). The medication was classified in their system as an "infertility treatment" and wouldn't pay unless they had documentation that I was already pregnant (not needing help conceiving) and that it was necessary for me to take it. So, the nurse had about 3 conversations back and forth with the insurance company giving them my medical history of miscarriage and that when I took it with Sean, things were fine. Thankfully, the dr.'s office had some samples I could take until the insurance company cleared the payment two days later and I was able to get the 3 months supply for I think $14 instead of the $200 something dollars I would have had to pay!
We did share with our Sunday school class about our new expected addition a bit earlier than I told work. I believe we announced it when we also announced that we were moving to a new house and would need help packing up the moving truck on one day and unpacking the truck on the next day! This ended up being quite a crazy time for me because I get stressed out so easily. Thankfully, we had a buyer for our house very quickly (the first person to look at it made an offer!) but the rest of the story wasn't so smooth. Our first house had been new construction, so we were unaware of the inspections on both houses, negotiating repairs on each house, coordinating the timing of both closings so we wouldn't be homeless, etc! On top of all that, our buyer was VERY picky and was demanding things that really were not necessary (for example, Jon had put shelves up in the attic which created a lot more storage space, but since the inspector said they shouldn't be up there, she demanded they be taken down--her loss because Jon ended up with the wood and she ended up with little to no storage up there--only a huge space of rafters up there in a space as large as the living room downstairs). Anyway, the few days before closing, we weren't sure she was going to go through with it because of some issue with those same rafters up in the attic. Our realtor had to get an arcitect out there to write a review saying that they were repairs correctly from where the builder had not put "shims" in or something. All I remember was crying and crying and my hormones were NOT helping any at all!
Sean vacuuming when we were packing up at our old house (he still LOVES to vacuum!)
At least I had a good little helper! (I mainly added this picture b/c of his "little ladies man" shirt :)
So, during the most tiring time of pregnancy (the first trimester) we were packing up boxes and trying to throw things out along the way. I didn't mention it in Sean's story, but the progesterone I had to take with each of my pregnancies had several side effects, including even more tiredness than normal pregnancy would bring, and extreme moodiness--just ask Jon!
Our new house- we moved out of our old house April 30, 2008 and moved into the new one May 1, 2008.
Unlike my first pregnancy, I didn't have an early ultrasound to make sure that the pregnancy was going well (I guess they figured since things went well with Sean that they didn't need to). I was disappointed not to have that early glimpse of the little life inside me and to have to wait until 18 weeks to get a peek! I was SO SURE, however, that we were going to have another boy. I'm not sure if it was because I wanted so badly for Sean to have a brother or whether it was because he was such a good baby, but I was determined that I wanted to have another boy. (I now know this was unreasonable of me to expect and that given the history of pregnancy losses I shouldn't have felt this way, but it was a sinful attitude of my heart that I let take over me). At this same time, I was scared to death that we were having a girl...mostly because I think deep down I knew she was a girl and I didn't want to face the inevitable. (I know some of you are sitting here reading this in disbelief, but I am just being honest and hoping that by writing this if there is anyone else that ever felt this way that they would know they are not alone.)
There were many reasons I was scared of having a girl. 1- have you ever heard a pre-teen girl talk incessantly in a high pitched, fast-paced voice?? I have--I worked with them, afterall. 2- have you ever thought of how much more expensive a girl is---with all the clothes and shoes, etc., etc. 3- I am not the girly-girl type. I didn't wear makeup on a regular basis until after I graduated college and started working...I didnt' spend hours in the bathroom getting ready...I didn't care about my nails unless they had to be trimmed, much less painting them. The list continues. On top of all of that, there is the fact that the relationship with my sister and I is not the greatest, in fact, I haven't been able to talk to her in about 2 1/2 years...and I had a constant fear that if I had a girl she would have to face the reality that other girls are mean to each other, not just sisters, but in general they can be cruel. Also, I knew that I wanted more than 2 children, and I had a fear of not only having one girl, but the possibility of 2 girls frightened me to pieces...
So, when my appointment for an ultrasound was scheduled and the lady asked me if "Friday, June 13th" would be a good date, at first I didn't want to tell her yes! Who wants to go have an ultrasound on Friday the 13th when they are scared of what they will hear?? However, since I don't believe in superstitions such as that one, I went ahead and scheduled it for that day anyway. Now, I think its quite comical and makes for a good story, but I know I will have a lot of explaining to do to Lilly in order to let her know that she is VERY loved and that it was not really a horrible day at all when the ultrasound tech started scanning the wand around and said, "it's a little girl!"
After she told us that both Jon and I were kind of quiet just letting it sink in while she was looking at everything else. She could not get a profile shot, and told us if she hadn't looked to see the gender at the beginning we wouldn't have been able to find out because she couldn't ever get her to go back in that direction. I think she could sense from the silence that we were kind of surprised because she said, "let me just try to look again to make sure..." I was always disappointed that I didn't get a good profile pic because they look so much more like a real baby in those shots than this face front one. I had this in a little frame sitting on my desk at work and everytime I looked at it, I saw a little skeleton like she was trying to say, "boo! I scared you!" Again, this was being selfish on my part...wanting a cute little profile shot that I could at least look at and think was a cute picture.
Though I had long since picked out the name Lilly after my grandmother (though her's was spelled Lillie), I had to convince Jon that he liked the name too. He thought there were too many L's and that it was hard to pronounce with our last name. I thought it flowed well with our last name as though you don't have to pronounce 2 y sounds...just say it once. But, Jon joked, "our name isn't "oungblood" I even tried looking at different girl names (hesitantly, because I absolutely loved Lilly) and even considered the name Allison. But everytime I looked at her little skeleton ultrasound picture, I knew that she was my little Lilly. Jon (being the wonderful husband he is) agreed to Lilly in the end, especially since she wouldn't have her full first and last name said all the time, and her middle name (Anne) would give a nice break in between. I have always loved the name Anne from Anne of Green Gables...."Anne with an "E"!" :) Jon's mom still loves to call her by her first and middle name, which I think is cute. As it turns out, Jon's great-grandmother's name was Lillian, so it worked for both sides of the family to have her named after someone special.
So, once again, I was reminded of how thankful I was that I went with yellow and green for the nursery with Sean, because I was able to keep everything the same for Lilly's room. These are pictures of the nursery at our new house:
Around this time, we were blessed to have Jon's parents buy us a playset from Sam's for the backyard. Jon put it together (of course) and Sean enjoyed playing on all the pieces while he assembled it.
I love our backyard and am so glad we have it so the kids can run around and get out all their energy!
We got out all of the baby stuff from the attic, and though I shouldn't have been surprised that Sean didn't remember any of it (he was a baby when he used it, after all!) I was surprised that everything seemed so new to him! He wanted to climb in the car seat and bouncy seat--we only let him once to take the pictures and then explained that he was a BIG boy now, and that he can walk and play on his own but that the baby wouldn't be able to do anything but lay down and sleep and eat for awhile after she was born.
At this point, summer time was drawing to a close (and so were my part-time hours since I'd agreed to go back full time for the next school year) and the pregnancy was going by really fast--a lot faster than I remember before! I barely took pictures of Sean during the months of August-October, much less of my huge pregnant self (I gained 27 pounds with Lilly and ended up about the same as I had with Sean since I had gotten back to pre-pregnancy size, but not pre-miscarriage size). We finally took some pictures on a nice mild day in October...this was 3 weeks before Lilly was born. Note: white makes a large pregnant woman look even larger...
Sean was going through his "cheese" phase
Huge watermelon...
One of my favs
At my 36 week check-up I was 50% effaced and 1 cm dilated, which was so different from the 90% effaced, 1/2 cm I was with Sean. I was having the off and on again contractions with Lilly just as I had with Sean, but they weren't doubling over painful, and I think it's because of the difference of effacement. No doctor ever told me this time around that I would go early (and I wouldn't have believed them anyway after my hopes were dashed before) but I still hoped she would come early to alleviate the aches and pains. And I am one of those people that absolutely love being pregnant...the wonderful feeling of a life inside you moving around...knowing that you're doing something so wonderful and special that God has designed you to do. However, despite the joy of being pregnant, the last month is still a hard time to endure. Though this time around I reminded myself how I wished I had treasured the last few weeks with Sean, which helped me to try to stay patient and savor every little kick and squirm. I especially love the memory of how I could tell exactly where her little feet were because she had bony little heels.
I had a regularly scheduled doctor appointment on my due date (Friday, Nov 14th) and I asked Dr. Sweeney to check me because I had been having so many contractions. To our surprise, I was 5 cm. dilated and 75% effaced. He asked us, "How far away do you live? You might want to stick close by today." He obviously thought I would go at any time. There are so many times since then I wished I had asked him if I could go ahead and stay and have them break my water...because of what you will read next...
The next day, Saturday, I was still miserable, but the contractions still were not regular. I begged Jon to order me some Kung Pao chicken (even though I don't like spicy things) and that only made me pretty miserable. That evening, while I was sleeping I guess I started having pretty regular contractions, but didn't realize it until I woke up and they were very strong. I woke Jon up and then I started to try to call the dr.'s office to see if they wanted me to come in. I say TRY to call the dr's office because their answering service WAS NOT picking up! It would go to voicemail to leave a message for the nurse, even though I had selected the option that I was in labor! So, Jon started trying to call on his phone too. He also called his mom to come on over to stay with the kids (it was about 4:00 am now). So, we're waiting and waiting to get the answering service--I was yelling at the phone and couldn't sit down because of the unbearable contractions. Somehow I finally got an answer and the lady asked me all the normal questions about how far apart they were, etc. Even though they hadn't gotten to 5 min. apart yet, they were over 2 min long each. She put me on hold and talked to Dr. Godsey, and then said, "ok, he said to come on in since they're so long."
Well, then we had to wait on Jon's mom--20 minutes seemed like an eternity when she showed up. Oh, and we were using our little Pampered Chef kitchen timer, which I now find quite hilarious because quite often when I'm cooking something in the oven I think about pushing that button over and over and the sound just reminds me of being in labor!
When Rita did show up I could barely talk--and to sit in the car was absolutely horrendous. I tried to get comfortable, but the only way I was bearing the pain at home was leaning against the wall with my head down--sitting or laying down just made things 100x worse.
So, I get to the hospital and they know it's me. Remember in Sean's story where the nurse went through a bunch of paperwork and questions with me--well, aparently I couldn't answer them, and I didn't even remember her trying. Jon says he tried to answer most of it for her and he signed the form of consent for me and said she wrote under the reason I didn't sign it as "pain!" So, instead of discretely changing into my gown as I had with Sean, the nurses just stripped me down and got the gown on me since I was doubled over and then---they made me lay down, a no no for the pain. The nurse checked me and said, "oh, honey, you're already 8-9 cm...you aren't going to have time for an epidural!"
That just threw me in a tailspin (just ask Jon!) I started screaming, "I can't do it without it! I just can't! I can't believe this!" I was still laying down and I remember just squeezing the side rail to the bed so hard I thought I was going to break it and poor Jon was just standing there trying to do what he could, but I just told him, "I didn't want this to happen! I can't do this! Please try to get an epidural, please!" Apparently the nurse had already paged the anesthesiologist, and Jon said that they were getting the fluid I needed inside my IV (which I don't remember them putting in!) by putting a blood pressure cuff over the bag and were squeezing it in through the IV as fast as they could. I don't even remember the anesthesiologist coming in, but Jon remembered his name so that I could tell my friend Karen, the nurse anesthetist. Instead of having me sit up and lean over a pillow as they had with Sean, they just let me keep laying on my side (still gripping the side rail with a death grip) and I remember telling myself, "stay still, stay still! don't get paralyzed by moving!"
Well, he got it in there, but the nurses told me, "honey you can start pushing if you want to." I said, "no! no! give it time to work!" (I'm sure I was embarassing Jon half to death because I was freaking out so badly and screaming everything.) Well, I did start to feel a little bit of the pain ease up (enough to help me stop yelling, but the pain was still really bad). Dr. Godsey came in and they got me ready to start pushing. I remember the nurses laughed when I said, "Are you sure she's coming out the right way??" (implication--she'd be coming out a different way---that's all I'm saying because it felt totally like she was coming from somewhere else!) Well, I only had to push about 2-3 times before she just came right on out. Lilly Anne was born at 6:02 am on Sunday November 16, 2008. She weighed 6 lbs 15 oz. and was 19 3/4 in. long.
Dr. Godsey told me, "you can say that you did that without the epidural because it really hadn't started working yet." Well, I'm claiming that because it definitely only helped with after she was born to numb things a bit while they were finishing up. The nurses said that she looked like a "c-section baby" because she came out so fast and her head was not misshapen at all.
She has the dimple too!
Daddy's little girl
The main thing I felt when I was in the hospital with Lilly was how much I wanted to go HOME! Firstly, the room they put me in was the last one available on the hall and was the one right by the main front doors. All night long (and day) I would hear the doors slamming, "wa-BAM!" Plus, the nurses' break room was right across the hall and I would hear everyone talking loudly and that door slamming too. It was a very large room, however, but I would rather have been able to rest peacefully at night without all the door slamming.
Secondly, I wanted to go home because I missed Jon and Sean so much! When Jon first brought Sean up to see us, I wanted to cry because he seemed SO BIG compared to the previous day and it felt like my little boy had disappeared. It's hard to realize your baby isn't a baby anymore and it made me want to keep him exactly as he was right then and hug him and not let go! I didn't want him to think that Lilly was replacing him, but that I still loved him just as much! Some of my favorite pictures from the hospital were with Sean meeting Lilly--he loved her right away!
My dad holding Lilly
Pictures of Lilly's first year:
One month old
First Christmas
2 months old
Sean "feeding" Elmo
3 months old
This next one was taken the weekend before I returned to work after my maternity leave with Lilly. I was trying to recreate the shot of Sean at the same time, but Lilly wasn't holding her head up as well as he had:
She was a much chubbier baby than Sean ever was! Look at these cheeks!
Lilly- 4 months
Lilly- 5 months
Lilly- 6 months
Mother's Day
Lilly- 7 months
Sean & Lilly's last day of preschool (one of the most wonderful days of my life!)
Lilly- 8 months
Lilly- 9 months
Lilly- 10 months
Lilly- 11 months
Lilly's 1st Birthday
Her first baby doll. She could walk holding onto the stroller, but didn't start fully walking without help at 13 months--the week before Christmas.
What a wonderful first year! It flew by MUCH quicker than I expected and she is still growing like a weed! I'm planning to update this blog frequently to document all our kiddos' happenings!
We found out when Lilly was 11 months old that we were expecting baby #3 (a few months earlier than we planned)...that story will be next!
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