Life at home

I've got to be honest. I'm really enjoying being at home, but some days it's really tough. Abby cries a lot, although we're working with a few remedies that have seemed to be helping. Caleb has his ups and downs, I just need to remember that he is 2... and just turned 2! It's easy to have too high of expectations for him. But most days, we have fun! We go on outings, we go to the park, we work in the house together.
He loves to help with laundry... He helps match socks ("Same one!"), he uses the laundry pile as a beanbag ("me fall on the laundry! Big pile right there!"), and uses the laundry basket as a boat in the ocean (aka hardwood floors) and as a bed.
He loves to paint with our homemade watercolors. (cornstarch, water, food coloring).
He loves to help make food, especially biscuits. ("me wear apron!")
He loves to dig and scoop ("me dig that right now!")
He loves garage sales ("Garage sale! Me see toys and people!").
He loves his baby sister ("Baby Abby super happy now!")
He loves his car bed and really loves his binkie. ("me have it the binkie!")
He loves the trampoline. ("me jump on the 'camp-o-leen'!")
He loves his trains.
He loves to watch TV or my iPhone... especially Shawn the train, cars 2, sesame street, & Thomas train videos.
He loves to go on walks.
He loves playing with his cousins Mo-mo and Na-na.
He loves seeing his friend Quinn, especially at the zoo.
He loves eating, all the time.
He loves Bible school.
He loves his new friend/babysitter Genesis.
He loves to talk about anything and everything... All the time.

We are settling into some sort of rhythm, but we are not there yet. We're still experimenting with late afternoon meltdowns, Mama's patience, and balancing rest and keeping up with all the other things that demand attention.

Here's some pictures of Caleb & Abby for your enjoyment!

2 weeks old

2 weeks into parenting two children...  and it's like we've always had both of them. It's hard to imagine life without Abby now that she has become part of our family.

We're so thankful for Grandma Cindy coming to help the first week and Grandma Sue coming this past week.  That has allowed me to recover more fully from labor and delivery and also allowed Eric to go back to work sooner than we had planned.  Tomorrow will be my first day on my own with both kids...  wish me luck!  I'm feeling pretty good and am ready to take on the challenge of being an at-home-mom with two kiddos!  :)

We celebrated Caleb's 2nd birthday yesterday.  Here's a few pictures from the party.  He did great and it was good for him to be the center of attention for a little while after the adjustment to sharing attention with his new little sister.  Thomas and Cars were the themes, and he hasn't stopped talking about it yet.  :)

Abigail Dawn Swanson

Abigail Dawn Swanson was born on Sunday, July 1st at 12:00 PM at 1 week overdue. 9 lbs, 9 oz, 21 inches long. We’re all doing great! Caleb is excited about his new baby sister Abby and enjoying some time with Grandma Cindy while we recuperate in the hospital. We're hoping to be able to go home this evening if everything continues to look good for recovery.

We're so thankful for a great birth team - for our roommate Sara's support, for our midwife & nurse's experience and knowledge, for Mark and Sarah taking Caleb during the night and day, and for a great hospital to give birth in just in case of complications.

And for those of you interested in the birth story, here's some more details below the pictures.  If you're not interested, that's ok too.  :)

 


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Stephanie started feeling contractions at about 8PM on Saturday night.  This had been happening all week, so it wasn't surprising but was a little more intense than earlier in the week.  We started timing them around 10 PM and decided to go to bed to see what would happen.  Stephanie woke up Eric at 1AM to tell him that this was different and we needed to pay attention.  By 2:30AM, Mark was at our house to watch Caleb (Thanks Mark!!) and we headed to the hospital to get checked out.

When we arrived, Stephanie was already dilated to 5cm and progressing quickly.  This was GREAT news for us because with Caleb she hadn't dilated past a 4 naturally before having to be on Pitocin.  We got checked in and got to see our midwife, Katie, right away.  Sara (our roommate) came and joined us at the hospital and we continued with natural labor for several hours and continued to dilate but baby's head didn't move down.  Katie suggested that we break the water to make things progress more quickly sometime around 9AM, which we decided to go ahead and proceed with.  After that things got a little easier right away, then much more intense as we moved from "Active" labor into "Transitional" labor.  Sara and Eric were incredible birth partners in their emotional encouragement and physical support (Eric spent much of the day supporting Stephanie's weight in different laboring positions).

At around 10 AM Stephanie was checked and the baby had not only not descended, she had turned her head sideways and probably wasn't going to progress very quickly. At this point we decided that an epidural was needed, and good thing!  As soon as the epidural kicked in and Stephanie was able to relax between contractions, things started progressing much more quickly.  We had the same anesthesiologist as we had with Caleb.  He did a great job balancing pain management with necessary feeling - too often epidurals end up taking away all of the feeling so it is difficult to know which muscles to push with.  Within 30 minutes, it was time to push.

Katie and the nurse (Pam) did an incredible job with the delivery.  5 other babies were born yesterday on the floor, one only 20 minutes after Abigail.  After a challenging and a little scary bit of time where she was stuck and turning blue, Katie was able to deliver her successfully with no trauma to baby or mom.  Also incredibly, they still allowed her to be immediately placed on Stephanie's chest to regain her color naturally and start crying, which she did very quickly.

 She's big, healthy, and we love her!  :)