Our Little Bruiser

Please note her black eyes (that's right, plural… the has had 2 black eyes on the left eye in the past 3 weeks)… plus one heck of a bloody nose.
I’m telling you, Mallory is the most rough and tumble kid around! She is not what you would call ‘dainty’… not by any stretch of the imagination. It is both fun and nerve-wracking to have a child that thinks falling, jumping off or banging into things is how you have the best time ever. She is a constant sores of amusement for us, as we watch her bounce around the house (sort of like a pin-ball meets a bull in a china shop) banging of this wall, falling off that chair, hitting her head/eye/face/leg/arm/bootie on this or that. Most of the time she bounces up and is no worse for the wear… other times she has to cry for a few seconds before continuing on her path of mass destruction. She is so much fun, and we are looking forward to watching her play sports (and probably tear through the opponent without blinking an eye). We are already thinking about what sort of signing bonus to ask for.
Another fun little thing about our ‘little’ Mallory Rose is that lately she has been really into people’s names. She can remember all sorts of names and then will tell you a story about what that person did when she saw them. With all the guests that we have had over she has picked up a few funny little quirks; like the other day I walked into her room and she looked up and with a big grin said “Jesssssssiiiiiieeeeee!” I have to now keep reminding her to call me Momma, not Jessie. Also, she and I were talking about her Daddy the other night (he was at Rugby practice), when she blurted out “Matthew, Big, Strong Man!” She even made the flexed muscle arm gesture… don’t ask me where she learned this, but I was dying! Don’t get me wrong, it’s true, he is a big, strong man, but why would she know that? Too cute.

Pregnancy Differences

All during this pregnancy I kept thinking how very different
it was then the first… so I thought that maybe it was because it was a
different gender, but I never really documented all the differences because I
was afraid to jinx it. Now that our little man is here I can write about all
the differences (not that anyone else really cares, but I want to remember).

Mallory: 3 weeks of morning sickness
Wesley: 10 weeks of ALL the time sickness, especially when
it came to meat
M: Heart burn
W: Liquid fire-like heart burn from everything I ate
(lettuce, bananas, pasta, butter, water)
M: Never had to shave
W: Had to shave ever 2-3 days
M: Gained 35 pounds all in the first 2 trimesters (including
a J-lo like bootie/hips/thighs). Carried her wide
W: Gained 28 pounds throughout the entire pregnancy (and
lost 2 pounds in the last week), never really got the dreaded ‘bootie.’ Carried
him like a soccer ball under my shirt, all out front.
M: NEVER wanted sweets but always wanted peanut butter and
veggies.
W: ALWAYS wanted sweets (still do) and pasta.
M: Only had 2 emotional/hormonal breakdowns.
W: Seemed to breakdown once a month… at ‘nothing’ in
particular.
M: Didn’t mind many smells.
W: Would gag at just the thought of smelling alcohol
(especially beer), meat, or anal glands.
M: REALLY sleepy… practically comatose.
W: Just tired.
M: Developed the Linia Nigra (the line down the tummy)
W: The line never showed up.
M: Clear completion
W: Totally broke out during first trimester.
M: Water broke but no contractions
W: Contractions but no breakage of water (prior to it being
done for me/him)

It seems like the only similarities were that there was a
baby inside me, and I ALWAYS had to pee.

Little Man

I know that all parents must think that their offspring are the best… but in my case, it’s true! Wesley is such a wonderful little man. He is mellow, relaxed, and all around content with life. He is only getting up 1-2 times a night to feed and goes immediately back to bed! He is happy just swinging/hanging out as we play and read with Mallory and doesn’t ever cry when she ‘pats’ him a little too hard. He is such a joy and blessing to our family. I am amazed at the depth of the love that I feel for him, while at the same time still constantly increasing my love for Mallory, it’s like I am going to over flow with bubbly, squishy, lovey-dovey-ness.
Mallory has been AMAZING with her little brother. No animosity or resentment towards him at all. It’s been ‘my baby’ this and ‘my brover Wessssleeeey’ that. It’s too cute. The one thing that has been a little challenging is that for a week (+) our house has been like a revolving door of visitors. Every day we have tons of people stopping by, bringing gifts, love, cards and food… what a blessing. But it has made things tough for Mallory (who needs a little more structure and discipline) then she had been getting from all the playmates that have stopped by. So needless to say we are working on getting her back on track and reminding her that we are in charge… not her (despite what she thinks). But all in all I can’t complain, our family has transitioned from a threesome to a foursome relatively seamlessly!
Here’s the Garage Photo Collage… ok, how silly would it have been if Wesley was a little girl… good thing we all knew he was a boy! (I think we lucked out on that one).

Birthing Humor

I know that what you all really want are more cute pictures of our newest addition and I promise they are coming (because he really is getting cuter and cuter my the second)… but I wanted to write down one more part of the birth story, before I forget about the humor of birth!
Matthew is an amazing partner/coach. Really! If there ever was a supportive husband of the year award he would get it. He was great at letting me lean, hold, squeeze, hang, breath on/with him through all of labor. He could tell when a contraction was coming on and was totally flexible to whatever it was that I wanted or needed for those eternal seconds. But there was one point towards the end of my whorl-wind labor/ delivery that I was totally zeroed in on the mirror and all my focus and motivation was watching and touching the baby’s head as it move down. Matthew, being the ever level headed and supportive guy that he is knew that I should be breathing more and doing the short, burst-like pushes that I was asked to do by the midwife (not doing the long, hard powerful pushing that my body was screaming at me to do). So he was leaning over the edge of the bed in my ear/on my cheek ‘demonstrating’ how I should be breathing. All I could feel though were these hot bursts of warm sticky air hitting my face, TOTALLY distracting me. For some ‘odd’ reason I couldn’t think of the words “please stop breathing on my face,” so in the heat of the moment my only form of communicating my displeasure which what he was doing was to turn to him, look him straight in the eyes and zurburt (or Raspberry) they air, spraying spit all over him in the process!
Needless to say I got my point across and he stopped! Much to his credit he didn’t even retaliate (which would be considered typical Matthew fashion).
Thanks My Love, you were wonderful!
Sorry!!!!!

Wesley Robert Klein

Ok so here it is; Wesley’s birth story… I know a few of you have already heard it, so feel free to skip ahead to way cute pictures. I just want to get this recorded for memory sake (since it seems that with each kid I am losing my mind more and more).
I had a baby doctor appointment on Monday at 11:30am, so I left work for a early lunch and met Matthew and Mallory at Kaiser. The midwife (Loren) listened to the baby, measured my tummy and then checked me. I was 3 cm dilated and 70% effaced. She did ‘muck’ around a little and then gave me intrusions to go home, have sex, take a brisk walk and maybe a hot shower. I only had one appointment booked for the afternoon, so I thought that I’d just take the rest of the day off (since Matthew had the day off too and we wanted to obey the doctors orders). We went home gave Mallory lunch and put her to bed…then listened to the doctor’s orders. After or romp, I took Sonny out for the brisk walk and contractions immediately started! They were about 6-7 minutes apart and not that exciting, but contractions nonetheless. I called mom (who was about the leave for work) and she agreed to stop by the house and ‘check’ me again. I was now 3 ½ cm, so making progress, but not enough to head into the hospital. Over the next hour I tracked my contractions they were now 4-6 minutes apart but only lasting for 20-30 seconds and still not supper exciting. The thing is, with Mallory my water broke, so I KNEW to go to the hospital. This time I was left wondering, ‘when do I go in, at what point are contractions ‘real’ and ‘strong’ enough to warrant a hospital?’ (Since heaven forbid I deliver the baby on the newly shampooed carpet). I called mom… again, who told me to keep waiting, because they didn’t sound strong enough or long enough. So over the next 2 hours I tracked them until they were coming every 2-6 minute, but still only 35-45 seconds… though getting more intense with each one. At 7pm I told Matthew that I thought we should just go in. His Mom and John were at the house already so they stayed with Mallory until Thomas showed up to watch her.
When we got to the hospital Mom had just gotten rid of her last patient so she ‘took’ us!!!!! What a blessing that was. I mean to have your own mom caring for you in this very personal and intimate time is like a dream come true! She once again checked me, and I was now 4cm… not dilated enough to officially admit me (5 is the magic number they wanted me at). Sad. MY midwife was actually on that night (how perfect was that), so she said for us to hang out, walk around and I’d be checked again in 2 hours. So mom asked us all the official hospital questions (basically all but admitted us except for putting in an IV catheter and running the labs). Then we walked. Mom gave us the tour, stopping to let me lean into Matthew as I would breathe through each contraction.
At 9pm I was checked again… fingers crossed that I was now 5… but nope, I was only 4 1/2. Once again the midwife said lets check in 2 hours, so I still wasn’t admitted because the labor hadn’t actually started. Sigh! But the contractions were strong enough that I really didn’t want to go home. So we walked some more, talked, contracted and waited for those 2 hours to pass. Just before 10:30 Matthew went down to the car to get my slippers, when all of a sudden my contractions changed, my breathing changed, my whole body changed! Mom recognized it right away and started placing my catheter and got the labs sent out. Just as Matthew was showing back up (and heading straight for the bathroom to pee, totally oblivious as the the change that was taking place), Loren (the midwife) was checking me. I was now 6 cm, 100% effaced and my water bag was bulging. I was NOW finally considered in labor! Loren popped my water bag as Matthew come out of the bathroom. She told him that she thought that I would deliver within an hour and to call his mom (who I had invited to be part of the delivery). Matthew was pretty funny about it though, because he kept feeling like the whole time we were riding the fence as to if we were even going to be admitted into the hospital and now, all of a sudden we are going to have a baby… in and HOUR??? He called his mom, who said she would come down right away.
The next part all happened SOOOO fast that I don’t even remember it all. It was time for moms shift change, so she got to transition from my wonderful nurse into ‘grandma’ mode in the nick of time. In a mater of minutes (literally) my contractions changed again and people were moving all about. Moving in trays, putting on gowns, I was now on the bed breathing…breathing and getting pretty close to feeling like I was needing to push. The mirror was brought in so that I could see my little baby, the bed legs dropped, and Joyce came in (just in time)… because now I NEEDED to push! 8 minutes later a perfect head was out and Loren told me to reach down and pull my baby out (which I had asked her to let me do! With one more push the shoulders were out and I was lifting this wet, warm, slippery body onto my chest! I kept waiting to hear Matthews voice telling me if it was a little boy or girl that I was holding in my arms… but apparently he (once again) couldn’t tell… but this time it was because of all the hands and the cord that was in the way. So impatient me, reached down, hiked up a wiggly wet leg and saw I was holding a SON! We had a SON!
So after only 57 minutes of true labor and 8 minutes of pushing we had a baby boy! What an awesome labor! On our own we could not have created a more perfect day, with all the different players and all the perfect timing. It was all planed perfectly by God.
We got to snuggle our little man for about 2 hours before they bathed, measured and weighed him. And though we didn’t have a name yet, we now knew that he was born at 11:35 pm on February 13, 2012 was 6 pounds 14 ounces, 19 inches long, had a 13 inch BLOND head and absolutely perfect! He has large hands, feet and toes and long thin limbs. Despite being 19 days early he is PERFECTLY healthy, latched to the breast like a pro, and kept shocking all the doctors with his strength, weight, input and output!
We named him the next day. After reading through the ‘bazillion and one’ baby name book we had narrowed it down to three names. We liked them all so we did the most logical next thing, looked them up online in terms of popularity (not wanting to chose a name that lots of other little boys have). One of the names was #9, one was #22 and one was #244 (and that one just so happened to be my all time favorite, since it is my Dads and Thomas’ middle name). The middle name is Matthews’s middle name and his fathers’ first name.
Wesley Robert Klein. Our perfect little son.

It A Boy! more to come....

37 Weeks = TERM!

Well, we made it! 37 weeks! Officially BB is now term! Hooray little one. GAME ON! You can come out and play any time. These past few weeks have seemed to drag on and on. All the laying low and staying clam has been driving me nuts and making the hours just tick slowly by. It did its job though, BB stayed put… but I think it did its job all too well… the wonderful, powerful, multiple an hour contractions that I had been having, have all but dwindled to a few ho-hum non-eventful ones a day. So yesterday at the 37 mark I went full-bore. I started the morning with a ‘romp’ in the sheets then I went and had a hectic day at work, came home and helped Matthew finish shampooing the carpet (which had been my ‘I want to get done before the baby comes’ goal for the past 6 months), ran errands, went on a 30 minute walk and went to the park… still no baby. Sigh. Today I SCRUBED the bathrooms and floorboards and I just need to dust, then the house well be all spick and span. I’m not sure if I’m actually ‘nesting’ or if I’m just finally getting to do all the things that I have been wanting to for the past few weeks… either way the house is looking good! Matthew even dusted all the light fixtures, fans and picture frames (all without being asked)!
At 37 weeks my uterus has finally stopped growing (thank goodness) and now BB is just packing on the pounds. BB should be about 19-20 inches and weight 6 (+) pounds (so just about the same as last week… hence to picture), and have about 16% body fat. Its lungs are fully functional and all its doing is just cooking.
Tomorrow I have a baby doctor appointment, I might see if she wants to ‘muck around in there’ and see if she can get things movin’. I know that I still have 2 weeks and 6 days until D-day, but I am ready to meet this little one. I am ready to be able to inhale fully, eat anything without worrying about heartburn, put on my own socks without feeling like I might pass out, pick up Mallory and mostly not have to worry that my water is going to break each time I squat down in front of my clients!!!! Oh yeah, and I am really ready to hold this little bundle in my arms!!!! I
know, I know, it’ll come when it’s ready; but patience has never been a virtue of mine.

Sprinkle

Mom and Joyce (with the perfect party planning touches from Michelle) threw me a wonderful Sprinkle this weekend! I just wanted a time to get together with a group of ladies, eat , chat… and have them all sign the guessing the weight/gender board and touch my belly. Being the ever so clever ladies that those three are, it was all that and MORE! About 30 ladies showed up to give BB and me love/support, we enjoyed a lunch of 6 different types of quiches, croissants and fresh fruit salad. There were cute obvious and subtle bird decorations all over (to go with the bird theme room) and a few play-if-you-want types of games (like frost the sugar cookie-baby-feet in pink or blue and other cute little things). As far as the gender/weight guessing board goes, everyone but FOUR people guessed that BB is going to be a boy!!!! I’m not sure why… even my midwife said a boy…we’ll see. Then they brought out cupcakes from one of those fancy-shmancy all the rage cup cakeries... WOW! Nummy!!!! It was such a wonderful Sprinkle, I felt the love!!!! Thank you all that were involved, I appreciate all the hard work/time that you guys put into it. It was perfect! I love you all.

36 Weeks

So the excitement for this week is that the baby has actually managed to stay inside for another week… much to my discomfort! Way to go kid-o. Now at 36 weeks our little BB should be around 19 inches long and weighing in at around 6 (+) pounds. All of the lanugo (hair) that it had spent weeks accumulating should now be in the process of shedding rapidly. As it accumulates more and more body fat it won’t need all that hair to help keep it warm. It is roughly the same size as our Milwaukee power drill (with a hecka long drill-bit added on). Yes, and I am pretty sure that the term ‘hecka-long-drill-bit’ is a common term that contractors like to throw around.
I’m feeling pretty good. I am starting to have some pretty good contraction, in terms of strength, but they are still only coming about ever 20-25 minutes, so nothing to get all excited about. The under-carriage pressure is getting pretty intense at times though, like it’s not always fun to be sitting (if you know what I mean)… and if you don’t…. lucky you. It would be nice if BB wanted to cook for another 6 days, putting him/her at 37 weeks, but we’ll see. I’ll be trying to take it easy until then.
I need to blog about the WONDERFUL Sprinkle that Mom and Joyce threw for me yesterday, so I’ll try and do that soon. Also, Matthew, Mallory and I took ‘Belly pictures’ today, I’m not going to post them, but I’ll be making another Belly Book, so if you want to see them, just ask (which means coming and visiting for some of you!!!!) But here is one (since it is time for my 9 month picture).

Jeff and Lindsay Visit

January is over and I never blogged about one of the best things that happened… At the beginning of the month Jeff, Lindsay and their soon-to-be-born baby boy came to visit! It was wonderful, though each time I get to see them it just makes me remember how much I love being around them and how much I miss not getting to see them. Sigh. Anyway, Lindsay’s mom and friends threw her a wonderful baby shower! Yummy food, a great turn out, some cute games and wonderful gifts (you should see the things that mom knit them…. AMAZING)! The next day Lindsay and I drove a couple of car-loads of people around for wine tasting. That was fun too… though wine tasting is just not the same when you CANT actually partake in the tasting. We went to a handful of Santa Rosa wineries, which was very different… both in the wine and how the business was run/tasting were done (compared to Healdsburg)… but it was so nice to get to spend some extra time with Jeff and Lindsay. I can’t believe that a month has already gone by since they left! Time is flying!!!!