I have been contemplating a blog re-creation for a while now, but ever since Annalee was born, life has not slowed down enough for me to sit at the computer with my eyes fully open to do so. Last night, though, I slept for five whole hours...in a row! So, today was a great day and now, at 9:30 p.m., both kids are sleeping and I have a small window to fill the interweb up with what has been happening around here.
Since she has been around for a month now, I really need to document our new little girl's birth story. Annalee Therese Knollmaier was born on 10.18.12 at 7:38 p.m., weighing in at 8lbs 3ozs. Her story, for posterity, goes like this:
Around noon, I started feeling contractions. I had lunch plans with the woman who was going to be helping out in the office while I was on maternity leave, so I pretty much ignored them. Around 3:00, they started coming at 8-10 minutes apart and speaking during them was getting tough. At 3:30, the men in my office were heading home and strongly suggested that I do the same. Though I had planned on leaving at 4:30 and meeting Ryan at home to head to the hospital, I complied. On my drive home, I called Ryan to tell him my plan and my mom to fill her in on what was going on. At 4, I called my midwife. She said to come in when the contractions hit 6 minutes apart. Since they had been about 6 minutes apart since I left work, I called Ryan and said that he should probably leave work and come home. Emily agreed to head over and pick Jack up from daycare, so we were just going to hop in the car once he got to the house and go. I packed everything up between contractions and had it all by the door, ready to go. By 4:30, I was once again calling Ryan, however, the urgency in my voice was much more apparent (I may have sworn a couple times!). He rushed home and managed to get me into the car. As we sped through rush hour traffic, the contractions continued to get harder and stronger. I really don't recall much from the ride, aside from Ryan asking if we needed to pull over when he saw a police officer and ask for an escort to the hospital (more profanities may have come from me, but who really rememebers that?).
Ryan kept a cool head during the drive and pulled into the emergency room drive at 5:15 p.m. As we walked in to the ER, a strong contraction came on and I had to stop and bend over the nearest chair. Just then, a group of young Somali girls walked past my screaming self, and I am sure they thought I was dying. A kind security guard took our car keys and promised he would find Ryan with the keys after he parked the car. They immediatly got me a wheelchair and we took off to the maternity ward. Apparently, people in the ER don't like women in labor down there...minimize exposure to germs and whatnot.
The next two hours were, quite possibly, the longest, most painful hours I have ever experienced. I had requested an epidural upon arrival in our room, but was told that we would have to wait until the
anesthesiologist
finished with an emergency C-section that was just starting. When he finally came with the epidural, I was having a moment of calm strength and told the midwife on duty (Elaine) that I thought I could do the labor and delivery without the epidural. Though in hindsight I am very proud of myself for getting through labor with little drug help, I think it may have been a crazy person moment, and one that I would never go through again. By 7:38 p.m., only two hours after arriving at the hospital, I was holding our perfect little baby girl. By 9 p.m., I was up walking around and ready to eat dinner. Twenty-four hours later, we were headed home.
People have been asking how Jack has adjusted to having Annalee home. He is fine. He has embraced the fact that she is sticking around and has recently started getting really worried when she is either not in the room with us or when she is crying. We have had some minor incidents, where he has gotten himself in big trouble, but we have all worked to minimize his bad boy opportunities and that has helped. He now wants to see her right away when he wakes up and give her kisses when given the opportunity. Jack is such a little man now that both Ryan and I have had small moments where we realize that our baby boy isn't such a baby anymore and it makes us sad. He is so much fun, though, that we get over it pretty quickly. He and his daddy recently started swim lessons and he is loving getting out of the house for some one-on-one time and he seems to really enjoy the water. His vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds too, and we are sure he is going to wake up one morning quite soon and be able to put complete sentences together. When that day hits, watch out! The kid is going to be a talker.
With the holidays fast approaching, I am going to try to keep up with this blog. I am hoping to document much of Annalee's first year the same as I did for Jack, as, in looking back on the old posts from his blog, it reminds me of things that otherwise might have been forgotten. Check back often and I will try my best to tell good stories!
I will no longer be posting to
www.jackthomasfultonknollmaier.blogspot.com.
Happy Thanksgiving!
