amelia elizabeth

amelia (mia) was born september 26 at 12:11am. she was 7 pounds, 5 ounces and 20 inches long. when they told us she was here, she immediately shouted back at them with blood curdling screams that lasted for well over 10 minutes. she was ours, she knew how to scream :)

my birth experience with amelia resonates with me as a relatively calm, peaceful one. i was scheduled for a c-section on september 26, but my water broke the night before. my mom had just flown in to town to stay with henry, so the timing couldn't have been more perfect. when joey and i arrived at the hospital, they ushered us immediately to labor and delivery, and i felt like we were on a smooth little amusement park ride from there until we came out the other side in a sweet corner hospital room with a baby girl in our arms as our fuzzy prize.

since mia's birth, we've kept our little family of 4 as active as can be. joey went back to work the day we got home from the hospital. henry went back to daycare the following day, and a week after we got home from the hospital we hopped on a plane to minneapolis to spend some time with joey's family.

somehow, through the fog of midnight feedings, caring for a spicy-as-ever henry, and trying like crazy to keep up with the laundry that is now laced with spit-up and pink - so much pink! - we've already found ourselves a month in to this new version of life. last night, the one month anniversary of her birth, mia slept 5 hours. total. which was a not so welcomed surprise for her mother, because generally she's a pretty decent sleeper. last week she decided she'd only nurse a select number of times in a day, and all other nutrients would need to come directly from a bottle - thank you very much. she's relatively tolerant of her brother, and the reciprocal is probably true... sometimes. although, in the first days mia was home henry wished her back into mom's tummy several hundred times, and he can never be trusted for more than a fraction of a second alone in the same room with his beloved baby sis for fear that his "love" will translate into a violent display of non-affection/torture.

in celebration of mia's one month of life, here are some traditional pictures (link: henry at 1 month) in a white onesie for comparison.

to birth a henry (part 2)

see part 1 here

i should clarify that when my positive amnio test came back early that morning, traces of amniotic fluid in the test were probably essentially zero, because let me just say (with an inappropriate amount of detail)... my comfy labor bed turned itself right into a modified kiddy pool of warm, gushing amniotic fluid during every. single. contraction. and the "semi-regular" contractions i was having after my water broke were actually really dang painful and essentially back to back, with a slight break after 3ish contractions. my nurse, who i will declare here and now a complete saint despite her charming bluntness, did little to affirm my agony.

nurse wonderful: okay, the bad news is these contractions still don't seem to be doing much. they're still mild to moderate, although they're coming relatively close together, so i'm increasing your pitocin level again.
jamie: mild to moderate?! really?!?! (while silently half-breathing/half-passing-out from the steak knife driving itself into my abdomen with vicious fervor)
n.w.: honestly, yes
j: (probably not very nicely with zero tact and quite a bit of sass) then i'll take that epidural now.

because my contractions (although apparently just weak little tinges of pain!) were coming so closely together, my epidural was administered while the gripping waves of labor continued to lacerate my body/sanity. am i being dramatic? absolutely. but i will tell you that in the 10 minutes it took the epidural to sweep over my body and turn those "virtually painless" contractions into prickles of warmth, and then absolutely nothing, were some of the most celebrated minutes of my labor experience. i also declare any woman who has, will, or has even considered delivering a child without the miracle drug to be my new and forever recognized greatest-woman-on-earth. because, ouch!

once the epidural was rushing through my veins, the time fu-lew by! before i knew it, we were creeping up on midnight and my midwife f.i.n.a.l.l.y. gave me permission to push. and push i did for an hour and a half, until my eyes popped out of my sockets and my toes locked permanently in the curled up position. joey was incredible, counting down through every push, providing ice chips on demand, and reaffirming every effort i gave. my nurse was the most energetic and supportive woman i could have asked for. my two labor coaches, they were fabulous. by the end, i was exhausted, but i would have pushed for hours. my mind was set, this baby was coming out of me right now... how ever far away right now happened to come. to the last minute, my nurse continued to sing my praises and coach me like she would coach a fighter going in for the last win. she convinced me that she knew i could do it, and so i pushed like he was already almost there, despite my midwives skeptical stares. but for all of our hard work, mr. henry refused to budge even an inch. he was locked into my pelvis with his head slightly tilted, making his escape completely impossible no matter how long we decided to trudge on.

the decision to deliver henry via c-section was surprisingly very painful for me. there is something beautiful about the natural process of delivering without surgical intervention, however medicated i had chosen to be. in my mind, i had a vision of how our delivery was going to play out. i knew our baby was stubborn, as demonstrated by his semi-dramatic refusal to excavate himself from my quarters, but i never imagined his birth to be anything but the old fashioned way. until it wasn't.

henry was born at 2:43 am on a friday. his squirmy body lifted high above me wailed with the brightest hello i could have wished for. his limbs were bright red and waving. his voice stretched across the operating room and bounced off the cold metal surrounding his entrance into the world. i saw him for only a second and then i could see only blurs of him through tears that crept on slowly and then took over in a sweeping release. my body was shaking so uncontrollably my teeth chattered together with a force i thought would surely make them crumble. i was completely overcome. he was what we were waiting for. his life marked the beginning of ours in the most literal sense, and from the second i saw his soft, rounded face i knew he would always be mine. his pain would be mine. his smiles would be mine. his struggles, his victories, i would share in them as a secret passenger on his journey. because he was it. this kid. he was what we'd been waiting for.

henry wakes up every morning blinded with hunger, as if he and his mama hadn't spent the night fighting sleep through almost bi-hourly feedings. his weak sighs and forceful grunts accompany his every sleeping breath. and when he wakes, those piercing dark eyes capture his mama's heart while we share smiles, stories, songs, and prayers together. nothing prepares a naive, excited new mama for the role she will play when her little one finally comes into the world. henry was more than i could have ever hoped for. he was more than i will ever deserve. henry richard larson, with my whole heart, i love you. I LOVE YOU.

we spend our mornings chatting about life's wonders. this kid... i can't get enough.

our first attempt at a family picture. we're working on it...

to birth a henry (part 1)

impatiently waiting for strong contractions. silly girl!

there are moments in life that hang in the air like the smoke shadows fireworks leave in the sky long after they've sparkled. henry's birth will always be one of those moments for me. and although i will try to capture the magnitude of that night, i will inevitably fail to accurately describe even a sliver of what it felt like to be there birthing a new life, bringing new breath into a room full of bright lights and sterile metal.

for two weeks leading up to my due date, my midwife confirmed noticeable and progressive cervical dilation.  i was becoming increasingly effaced and babe was head down and engaged by week 40. all good signs that birth was coming... soon! yet, it wasn't. i was already almost a week late and babe was just getting bigger. so at my last prenatal appointment (5 days past my due date) we scheduled my induction date for friday, nov. 8, exactly 1 week past due date. i couldn't wait.

my mom flew in on wednesday night and we chatted over pizza while making plans for the following day. we still had at least 35ish hours to kill before anything with babe was going to move ahead, and this girl was restless. the next morning joey woke early for work, and since sleeping in our bed with a 50 pound bowling ball in my stomach had become about as much fun as sleeping on a tree trunk i woke up with him and headed to the bathroom (for the 20th time in the last 12 hours). when joey got out of the shower we chatted about christmas logistics, our induction the following morning, and plans for the evening with my mom. before he left i let it slip that i felt like maybe... perhaps... but actually probably not... my water could have just broken. of course joey semi-panicked and requested that i call the doctor, which i did after sending joey off to work with a kiss and promise that there was (probably) absolutely no chance my water had broken and that i would keep him updated once i called our midwife.

the call to our midwife resulted in me pessimistically driving my enormous self to the hospital, just in case. baby hadn't moved since i woke up and that increased her concern, especially if my water had really broken. because i didn't want to jinx it, i left our packed hospital bags at home but didn't waste any time getting to the hospital. in the back of my mind i knew baby was fine and my scheduled induction for the following morning would be the true start of the labor i was sooooo ready to have.

i checked in at labor and delivery with my tail between my legs. i'd heard and read so many stories of women who show up at the hospital far before they need to and get promptly shown to the door. to keep me moving towards the l&d desk, i replayed my midwife's words in my head and tried hard to convince myself it was worth knowing the status of baby, who still hadn't moved all morning. after check in, i was surprised to be shown to labor triage and thrown into a gown. liquids were drawn, fetal heart rate monitors were hooked up, and i texted joey a quick status update. baby's heartbeat continued to sound in my ear as i waited for labs to confirm my morning scare was all just a sign of impending (but still not present) labor. at this point i was having steady but completely painless contractions (as i'd been having on and off for the past few weeks), and my midwife came in to check my progress - none since my prenatal appointment the day before. she assured me baby was just fine and warned me that chances were high i would soon be released since her intimate examination revealed in-tacked membranes (i.e. no water breakage yet!). with spirits low, i texted joey to let him know i was being discharged and to stand down for the rest of the day. i texted my mom to confirm our 11am pick-up date and waited impatiently as ever for labs to arrive.

thirty agonizingly long minutes later the nurse came in with her phone to her ear. i overheard her mention something about a positive amnio (a test used to determine if amniotic fluid is present in the urine), but assumed she was semi-rudely discussing the results of another patient's good news in front of me. instead, she looked over at me with a smile and a wink (darling nurse, she was) to negate my suspicions. positive amnio for this girl, we were staying!

i texted my mom and joey to let them know the change of plans and promptly got a call from joey demanding clarification and direction. although this stubborn babe of ours was due almost exactly a week ago, the idea of labor actually, really being here... as in right now, was completely surreal to us both. i don't even remember what we said to each other as we feigned a cool conversation (while both completely freaking out in our heads) about getting my mom to my car, so she wasn't stranded at her hotel while we were at the hospital, and joey to the hospital with our bags.

40 minutes later i was in an expansive and actually pretty luxurious labor suite, hooked to monitors and an iv of very-slow-dripping pitocin that took 3 painful pokes in my "excellent veins" to get right. joey arrived shortly after, and then we waited. and waited. and waited. i'd been at the hospital since around 7am, and by 3 that afternoon all we'd accomplished were some pretty raggedly distributed contractions that were clearly doing no good, and i was starving! at 5pm my midwife came in to break my water and hopefully get the ball rolling. a half hour after my water broke (the most disgusting feeling in the world, by the way!), i was having excellent (and increasingly uncomfortable) contractions semi-regularly. we were finally moving!

read part 2 here.... but first, pictures of henry to tide you over...

this face. after every meal.

only slightly tolerant of his mama after bath time. but that hair!