If I had thought to get my pregnancy journal, I could have written about every day of my first pregnancy.  I’m thinking after I’m done talking about my second, I might take a look back and throw you some random baby days.

I got a book called “The Pregnancy Journal” and insisted on getting and writing in the same book with my second child.  I am the youngest of four and while I understand how hard it is to balance family and pregnancies, when my grandmother passed (it means died, not gas), we spent a week cleaning out her house.

What we found was about 6 billion pictures of the first born, 4.5 billion of the second, 2 billion of the third and approximately four pictures of me.  Four pictures.

My baby album, while adorable, actually has pictures of my sister in it because she and I looked so much alike at birth.  If I wasn’t told differently (by her), I would still believe it was  me.   It also contained pictures of my teenage brother skateboarding.  He must have needed an album to put pictures in and mine had plenty of space.

Not having any pictures didn’t diminish the love I felt growing up.  What it did was remind me when I got pregnant with Joshua that I needed to treat the pregnancies the same. (more…)

Telling the story of my first trimester from having Joshua doesn’t start the best way.  I actually got pregnant before I was pregnant with him and since I wished that I was able to tell my family about my first pregnancy in person, I decided to take my son on a twelve hour road trip to Syracuse to be able to have the experience I always wanted.

That pregnancy made me pee a lot and I refused to stop every thirty minutes and wake my two year old up so yes, I totally rocked the depends.

Let me tell you, that is SO WEIRD.  I’m a huge fan of peeing in showers (and certain bar sinks where I just can’t go near the toilet) and in bushes and I heard I once peed while standing in line to get in a bar (it was in a cement thing with bushes in it.  My 30th birthday.  Four Irish Car Bombs.  I woke up the next morning with leaves in my panties) but for some reason peeing in a giant pad while driving at night just weirded me out.

I still did it though.  A bunch of depends and a grocery bag and I peed every half hour.  I had to.  It never stopped being weird. (more…)

Remember the popping sound and the “Oh shit” that came out of my mouth at the stroke of midnight that I happened to mention in part one of my labor?

Here’s what happened next-

I get out of bed and hobble into the bathroom but nothing’s coming out so I figure I just have to pee.

I peed for 45 minutes.

Somewhere during that time my husband heard the panic attack I was having.  I didn’t think I was in labor but I could NOT stop peeing.  After an hour and a half, he suggested we call the doctor but I said I didn’t want to be one of those women who just called and went in for no reason 10 times.

After almost two hours of peeing, I strapped a baby diaper to me under my jeans, walked to my parent’s door and immediately started crying.  Something about mothers, you can be as strong as you want but when you need your mommy, nothing can stop those tears.

I composed myself as best I could and popped my head in (about 1:15AM now) and said “My water might have broken but I’m sure it’s nothing at all so I’m just gonna head on over to the ER real quick and I’ll call you if I need you”.  After I was asked if I needed company that I declined, I grabbed my packed bag (that was useless, by the way) and headed out the door to sit in the car while my husband took the trash out (Classy). (more…)

Everyone knows there’s a WHOLE lot more to having a baby than the three posts I’ve written about my three trimesters with my first son.  If I was to tell every story, which I might eventually do, it would take forever.

So what I did was highlight the first three and now I’m going to tell you about Jake’s delivery.  It is just SO ME.

The next part in this series will take you through my second pregnancy and then, well, that’s it because I had my uterus ripped out.

So here is my delivery.  I can actually make a vague attempt to find the baby book I wrote in every day (I did it faithfully with both kids, because as a 4th child I know kids can feel a bit like “Why is my sister’s baby picture in my baby book?”) and in it, you’d see that I wrote out my dream labor.  With the exception of one error on a total d-bag’s part, it was spot on.

The morning of April 10th, my friend “AllisonWonderland’s” birthday, I remember feeling like a miserable bitch.  While not typically out of the realm of possibility, it absolutely wasn’t me because I never talk back to the older generations and I remember having an attitude.  A foul mouth may exist here on this website and when I’m with my friends, but it doesn’t with my parents or their friends.

So I believe we all went to a softball game that day and I was HOT.  I had just seen my stunningly beautiful friend who can pop a kid out and look like a supermodel as she’s walking out of the hospital and all I wanted to do was kiss her sweet loving face and go cry in a corner.

I wanted this over.  I was SO done.  I had nine days to go – that’s right, my due date was 4/20.  Those of you who actually know me and those of you who have figured that out are saying “Of COURSE that would be your due date”.

So we get to my house.  I park myself in the leather rocker/recliner and pout.  I’m offered my favorite foods and I push them away.  It’s blamed on heat stroke even though I spent most of my time in the shade and it was April.

Miserable, I head to my room and start reading my book.  A few hours later, I finished the book (James Patterson’s “Honeymoon”) and turned the light off.

I rolled over to put my arm around my black lab, Tribute (he’s not the greatest dog in the world, he’s a tribute), and I watched the clock go from 11:59 to midnight and I heard a very loud pop.  Like when you pop your thumb out of your cheek.  Tribute heard it, too.

As usual, my first words are “Oh shit.”

******PART TWO WILL CONTINUE THURSDAY*****

First Pregnancy - Seven Months

I’m starting this off by telling all of you that I AM NOT NOR WILL I EVER AGAIN BE PREGNANT.

I believe I’ve been lucky enough to get some newer readers who missed the whole ripping of my reproductive parts out so I’d like to begin with a no, I’m baby-free and if I somehow got pregnant, I’d probably end up on Oprah or end up being worshiped in an unfamiliar country.

What I’m doing here is re-living parts of my pregnancies.  I have a series going about the finding out, trimesters and then labors of each child and today I’m talking about the third trimester of my first born child.

For this reason alone, I had a breast reduction.

This is where the hunger began.  This is where my boobs grew to proportions no one knew existed.  I’ve always been a “healthy” girl and started my pregnancy a size six but a 36DDD.  My “girls” are what I’m known for.  They’re so nice, I’ve been asked if they were fake my whole life.

Then I hit the third trimester.  Suddenly, I can think about two things.  The ravenous hunger taking over my body and the massive discomfort of my boobs getting ready to feed this little guy. (more…)