Wrap It Up, Kids

We did the standard hospital thing for Lola's birth, so I expected to get the standard regimen of "you just had a baby" medications upon discharge. Bryan headed down to the hospital pharmacy to pick up said medications while I finished filling out Fourth Baby's birth certificate. (Although now that I'm sitting here thinking about it, do civilian hospitals have pharmacies that out-patients can use? I can't even remember. Total boon that any prescription we get requires only a short walk down the hospital hallway.)

In addition to the convenience of having your pharmacy right next to your doctors office, the military is pretty good at doling out over the counter medications that a civilian doctor would tell you to march your happy little butt down to Target to purchase on your own. Need some Tylenol? Some vitamins? A little Zantac? Just let the doc know and the pharmacy will fill that for you too. Not gonna complain about that.

Not having any major issues post birth, I hadn't paid much attention to the list of medications the doctor decided to send home with me. So when Bryan came back from the pharmacy, it surprised me that the brown bag accompanying him was stuffed full. What did I possibly need to take at home when I hadn't even asked for acetaminophen while prancing around the hospital room?

It was mostly the standard stuff I had expected - prenatal vitamins, Tylenol, ibuprofen, stool softener and iron. But the piece de resistance was this...

 

Ummmmm...

Alrighty then.

Cause that's totally where my brain is at after popping out Fourth Baby.

 

And five refills? Five?

Someone out there is optimistic.

 

Now who needs some free protection?

Cause the little nugget currently sleeping on me, who abhors being put down, is really doing the trick for us these days.

Welcome To The Family Baby L!

I guess if I get nothing else posted during the month of May, I should at least get this out there...

The "final countdown" is over.
Baby L has arrived!

 

Lola Claire Kubena

 

May 7th, 2013

5:33pm

7 pounds, 10 ounces, 19.5 inches

 

 

A Class For The Big Kids (Where Mom And Dad Probably Learned More)

Several months ago I signed the kids up for a sibling class offered at the hospital. The actual class occurred two weeks ago. The age range for it was 3-8...perfect for all three of our big kids to attend. For some reason, I was super excited about them doing this. Bryan, however, was a lot less thrilled to spend two hours of his Thursday evening at a hospital where he already spends most of his waking time.

We made him go with us anyway.

 

I can't say the kids learned overwhelmingly large amounts of info from the class, but they had fun and got to see the different areas of the Labor and Delivery wing, and if all they really got from it was some extra excitement about the big looming event in our lives...well, that's good enough for me. Plus it was free!

Each kid was asked to bring a stuffed animal or doll so they could practice what they learned on their "baby". That alone had them thinking this class would be a roaring good time.

 

 

 

 

They started out by making pictures of what they thought their new baby was going to look like and then passing them around so all the kids could talk about whether they were getting a boy or a girl and what the names would be.

 

 

They proceeded to making birthday cards for the babies.

 

 

And I caught Braden pretending to be in the family way.

 

The woman teaching the class ended up being the midwife that I've had most of my appointments with. The kids seemed to be pretty comfortable with her since they'd met her before.

She had one of those dolls that looks like a normal kid doll, but then you notice that it has soft spots and an attachable placenta and lots of other features that resemble a real newborn...why don't they sell that crap in Target? It could have really helped me out a few months back when I was trying to explain a placenta to Anabelle.

 

Anyway, after another hour of actual lessons on safety and how you can be helpful to mom even though your inability to read, drive, or operate a stove means you are not actually that helpful, it was time for the tour of the Labor and Delivery area.

 

Otherwise known as....The part where our kids give us a few enlightening things to consider.

 

The kids got dressed up in surgical hats, booties and masks.

 

They were really into this little costume change.

 

 

We spent some time in one of the L&D rooms. As you can see, Braden was taking it all in. My midwife explained quite a bit about the room to the kids, but she also included a few things that the parents would need to know for our delivery. All of it was kid appropriate. However, her last comment was something about how much time you'd be in the room for a c-section vs regular delivery....and I don't know, maybe that struck a nerve with the kid, because 2 seconds later, when she asked if anyone had any questions, Braden raised his hand and asked THE QUESTION that we have been waiting for during this whole pregnancy.

 

"Okay, but how EXACTLY is the baby going to come out of my mom?"

 

 Sigh.

He would decide to finally ask this in a public setting with a ton of little kids around.

 

Now, I don't want anyone thinking that we've avoided educating our kids on this whole pregnancy thing. Actually, I've probably given them way more information and let them look at much more adult content than the vast majority of young kids get in this situation. My favorite pregnancy book is The Pregnant Body Book.

 

I bought this huge hardback shortly after it came out two years ago. At the time we weren't yet decided on a fourth baby, but I just really liked the book. I don't need a What To Expect type read. I know what to expect. This is more of a medical reference than anything else. It has a ton of fetal photography, diagrams out the wazoo, and a heavy focus on fetal development. There's even a splash of evolutionary development! (I'd wanted to get some evo devo books to read during this pregnancy, but short of spending two hundred bucks on a textbook, I couldn't find anything I liked. If you happen to know of any good books in this field of science, I want to hear about it.)

 

I've let all three of the kids look at this book for the better part of nine months, without shielding them from any of the sections. Of course, being three different ages, they each seem to focus on different aspects of the pregnancy, but we have answered every question honestly and usually use the book to help give them a visual with our answer.

(This page seems to be the favorite of all three kids. It shows how the uterus changes over the course of nine months. I guess they like it because it helps them understand why my stomach currently looks like a bowling ball.)

 

Even before Bryan was in the medical field, but especially now, we've approached discussions with the kids about anatomy and bodily functions in a very scientific manner. No, it's not something to joke or laugh about with your friends....yes, you need to know the proper names of everything....there's no reason that even at your age, you can't learn about what is happening inside your body and why.

 

Naturally, we expected Braden to be the most interested in the process of the pregnancy - to ask the most questions and to demand the most thorough answers. And he has. But in concession to his age, there are two subjects that we kinda decided to ignore unless he specifically asked about them...

1. How did the baby get in your stomach in the first place?

and

2. How is the baby going to get out?

 

I have no problems answering these questions if he truly wants to know them, but I also didn't want to press too much info on him that he might not be ready for.

 

He's never directly asked the first question, and since we are long past the conception of this baby, I don't think he will. Now that I think about it though, he does know a bit about DNA and genetics and I know we've discussed how half of the genetic instructions for the baby came from Bryan and half from me...just like it was for him...and that these instructions are being used to make the baby. So maybe all the talking we've done about genes has been enough to satisfy him on how his little sister got a start in life.

 

The other question though....yeah, we knew it was going to come at some point. Especially as we drew closer and closer to the due date. But then he never said anything...and well, I thought that maybe he just wasn't that interested.

Or that he already knew.

Because that's how this kid works. If he has a question where he is uncomfortable with the answer, or already has a pretty good idea what the answer is, but thinks we won't, or don't, want to tell him the truth.....he'll wait and feel us out. It's exactly how he has approached us with the questions about Santa and the Easter Bunny. I'm pretty sure he knows the truth, but he doesn't want to hear us verify it, so he hints around it and never directly asks the questions that could put an end to his holiday fun.

 

But back to the sibling class...

I guess Bryan and I had been lulled into thinking that he just wasn't going to ask how Baby L would get out of my stomach. So color us surprised that he does it in public. I'm sure we were red-faced, but it was a good laugh for everyone else in the room. I'm sure they were glad it wasn't their kid who'd done the asking.

We quickly scrambled to say that we would talk to him about it at home and the midwife agreed, telling Braden that there were too many young kids around for us to talk about it in the hospital room.

 

So the next day, when the girls were otherwise occupied, I pulled out the book and we discussed his question. He already knew about c-sections and how they are done in emergency situations (I had previously explained that, but can't remember why it had already come up). But the old fashioned, vaginal way....news to him. This is one area where my pregnancy book is not super explicit. It shows the progress of birth with diagrams that only include the anatomy of the pelvis and uterus, so it was pretty easy for him not to realize what orifice the baby actually comes out of.

 

His response: "That sounds like it hurts."

 

Well it does.

Since then I catch Braden giving me occasional patronizing looks and saying things like, "I know. I know you have to go through a lot of pain to have that baby."

Yeah, that's not weird or anything coming from your 8 year old son.

 

 

This however, was not the only thing we took away from our evening at the sibling class.

The very last thing on the agenda was to see a brand new baby that had been born that morning. The dad agreed to bring the baby out into the hallway so the kids could look at her. Note that none of us got within four feet of the baby. It was literally just a show and tell for the kids.

 

When the midwife first told us about this, Georgia started to cry. And that was weird. Because Georgia has possibly been the most excited of our kids about this whole baby thing. She is constantly hugging my stomach and talking to the baby through my belly button. Whenever I leave the house without her, she runs over, kisses my stomach, and then tells me I'm free to leave now that she has said goodbye to Baby L.

So given all this, we naturally thought that she wasn't having any issues with her impending role as big sister.

 

We may have been very wrong.

 

When she first started crying, we had yet to walk over to the L&D wing. She worriedly asked if Baby L was coming out now. We told her no, and that seemed to calm her down for a bit. But anytime the midwife talked about the "new baby" from that point on, she worriedly scrambled to find Bryan. We still didn't think much of it, but by the time we were in the hallway and that "new baby" made an appearance, Georgia was back to crying and practically crawling up Bryan's leg to get into his arms. She wanted nothing to do with that newborn. She didn't even want to look at it.

 

Since then she has been much more reserved about her new sister. Georgie will still love all over my stomach, but the minute you talk about L coming out, she kind of shuts down and gets panicky. Anytime I go to the doctor, she worriedly wants to know if it's time for the baby to come out, and when I say No, she is visibly relieved.

 

I've yet to deal with a kid that did not transition well with a new baby coming into the household, but it looks like that situation may very well be in my immediate future.

I'm not even sure how we'll get her to come up to the hospital.

 

Guess I'm just glad that this came to light BEFORE Baby L arrives.

Another Little Star

Several months ago (eh, it was probably last semester), Braden received the Star Student award for second grade. It seems to be the "big" award that kids receive in this elementary school, and it's not really based on academics so much as character traits like responsibility and perseverance. In other words, qualities for which the definition, not to mention the presentation of, tend to be rather elusive to young children.

 

Anabelle, of course, was with me at that award ceremony. Pre-K also has two star students every month, but since they only go for a half day, their award ceremony is not included with the big one that the rest of the school does. So every month Anabelle has sat through a little ceremony for her pre-K friends who were chosen as the recipients for this award. She's watched their parents come up to take pictures. She's watched everyone applaud their efforts.

And she's been more and more irritated with every month that has gone by.

 

Because Anabelle does NOT like to lose.

 

For months I have been hearing about the Star Student award. It started with happy exclamations like, "I can't wait till it's my turn to be the star student!"......to questioning the system, "When is it going to be MY turn to be the star student?"......to outright demands that I do something to rectify her perceived injustice, "You need to call my teacher and tell her that I AM a star student!!!"

 

Unfortunately for this little lady, she does not have that type of parent. I will never be the mom campaigning for my kids to get an award. Not that I don't want them to. I do. But you either deserve it, or you don't, and if not getting the star student award in pre-K is gonna teach my feisty little five year old to keep her shit together at school...so be it.

 

And honestly, I hate to say it, but I can see where Anabelle could rub a teacher the wrong way and not be the pick of the litter for awards like this. She has some wonderful qualities. She also has some extremely frustrating characteristics that tend to come out when she gets comfortable with an authority figure. The kid is stubborn as all get out and will often (very often) refuse to accept help. And she's usually not nice or polite in her refusal (I'm working on that). Not to mention her penchant for being first in everything that she does. I couldn't begin to tell you how many days have been ruined and how much drama I've had to endure JUST over the fact that I let Georgia get out of the bathtub before Anabelle. I mean, is that really something you need to lose your shit over? Apparently, to Anabelle, it is.

 

With the month of April rapidly coming to a close, and a scant five weeks left in the kid's school year, I've been trying to calmly bring Anabelle around to acceptance of the fact that she probably wasn't going to be chosen for the star student award. And that if this was the case, life would be okay.

 

We had not gotten far into those conversations when, low and behold, an invitation to the star student ceremony showed up in her back pack last week. Admittedly, it was kind of nice to inform the kid that her endless harping on this issue could come to a close.

 

The award ceremony was Monday, but a lovely stomach bug hit our family over the weekend and Anabelle had to stay home for two days to recover. Her teacher was nice enough to do a special presentation just for Anabelle this morning, so I was still able to go up to the school and take pictures of the event that may very well be the highlight of her year in pre-K. At least in her eyes.

 

 

Any guesses as to what trait earned her this award?

 

Um, yeah....perseverance.

Oddly appropriate.

I sincerely hope that she hasn't been bugging her teacher about getting the award the way she has with me, but the way she ran over to hug me, glowingly exclaiming, "Can you believe that I'm a star student too!"...yeah, that pretty much made it worthwhile.

 

So we end the year with two star students.

Now if I could just put a lid on that whole first person out of the bathtub drama...

The Sick and Lazy People Celebrate Spring

Yes, this is late. I am behind. Deal with it.

So two weeks (closer to three by the time I get this posted) ago Anabelle started sporting a random 102 degree fever. Oh wait, I already told you that in the post about Baby L's issues. Anyway, the fever would pop up randomly over the course of the following week and Anabelle developed her standard 50 year old smoker/emphysema patient cough. So we knew she probably just had some kind of fun cold virus.

 

Of course, having everyone in the family come down with the same illness over the same week would just be way too convenient, so the germs decided to wait a full seven days before they took out Georgia. Her fever was lower, but she ran it constantly for 3.5 days and literally layed on the couch, sporting a super pathetic expression, for a full 5 days. She spiced things up by deciding that the only place she was really comfortable with a fever at night was in between me and Bryan. Now I know that I'm about to birth a fourth kid that will be sleeping with me for the next 6 months or so, but it's a queen sized bed, and you've heard how big Bryan is....there is no room in there for a thrashing, super hot, three year old.

 

So it probably wasn't a good idea to let George turn our bed into a petri dish for viral cultures, because wouldn't you know, the last three of us dominoes fell on the day that Georgia finally started to perk up.
Now I know this was just a cold, but I'm pretty sure it was a cold virus born in the pits of hell because wow, we did not feel good. Especially me. But I'm guessing that had a little something to do with the fact that, as a pregnant chick, I couldn't take any of the medicine I would normally scarf down to help me ignore the awfulness that can accompany a rhinovirus. Not to mention that trying to breathe in enough oxygen for myself and a 35 week old fetus is down right exhausting at the best of times...but damn near impossible with a head full of snot.

I tell you this because by the time Easter rolled around, Bryan, Braden and I mostly just wanted to find a hole and sleep in it. No one was in the mood to get crazy or festive, but we did our best. My brother was supposed to come in for the weekend to visit, but ended up having to cancel...which is probably for the best because two weeks of people running fevers and blowing noses makes for quite the dirty house, empty fridge, and a last minute dash to the store to make sure the Easter Bunny will actually show up.

And speaking of that, please remind me next year NOT to wait until the day before Easter to get ready for that particular holiday. At least not when you live in a small town that only has a Wal-Mart. It looked like the end of days in the Easter aisle.

Anyway, we managed to throw together some of our Easter traditions so that at the very least, 2013 won't stand out in our children's minds as the year there was no Easter Bunny.

We managed to get some eggs dyed on Saturday. Well, technically, we just dyed the shells. We're not big fans of hard boiled eggs around here, but I have successfully passed on to my children the love of a good confetti egg fight after the easter egg hunt. At the beginning of March I always start collecting the shells from the eggs we eat. It's a pain in the butt to carefully punch holes in the eggs instead of just cracking them, so for this reason alone, I'm always super happy when Easter is over.

 

That night the kids made their Easter nests in their baskets. If the state of Georgia has any wildflowers, we couldn't find them, so I had to use plan B (the same thing we had to do in Colorado) and hit up the grocery store for some cheap flowers.

 

But hey, the cheap flowers worked cause the Easter Bunny managed to show up.

The Easter Bunny mostly brought disposable crap that she knew the kids would love for a few days and could all be thrown away before we moved.

 

Then we all ate sugar for the first half of the day - yes, even me - because every once in a while I have a day where I throw gestational diabetic caution to the wind. Mostly I just get really tired of having to think about what I eat ALL the time. Hats off to you actual diabetics...I don't think I could do this for a lifetime.

I also felt too much like donkey poo that day to really care much about pulling the chocolate and peeps rug out from under my kids.

 

Fueled by large amounts of sugar, the kids proceeded to have a silly string fight in the backyard. I like buying them silly string for occasions like this since it's one of the things I can remember always wanting as a kid, but my parents almost never bought it.

 

Then we ate more chocolate, blew our noses some more, and found a cozy spot on the couch to take a nap.

 

Bryan went to work out at some point. He didn't feel good but he has a PT test coming up, so it had to be done. We figured this was our best opportunity to get eggs hidden. He called me on his way home and I rounded up kids to go get a Sonic drink while he hid eggs and then pretended like the Easter Bunny had come while he was in the shower after his work out.

 

 

There was absolutely no dressing up in fancy easter clothes this year because 1) no one would have seen us to ooh and aah over how cute the kids are, and 2) we would have just gotten snot all over them.

Eh, it saved me money.

 

At this point everyone was hungry - and likely having a blood sugar crash from all the candy - so we headed out for a grand Easter lunch at WingStop. Yes, WingStop. Chicken wings are easter-y, right? They had just opened two days earlier here in Hinesville and Bryan could not be held back any longer. (He almost cried on Superbowl weekend when he was having trouble finding a respectable wing place here.)

Bryan must have done something right in his life because he has been blessed with three children that love wings - especially his daughters. It's uber weird to me. Our three year old will strip a chicken wing completely clean. I find this to be completely gross. I had a salad. And as usual, Bryan pointed out that all my salad eating is not helping our tiny fetus get any bigger.

 

Post wing eating, we went home for the grand finale of Easter...the confetti egg fight.

 

 

 

The egg fight went down in the large field across the street from our house so I wouldn't have to clean it up (don't fret, it was all biodegradable). The last picture is of my stomach. I was cruelly seen as an easy target since running is not high on my agenda these days. They will all be paid back next year. Especially those two boys.

 

That was it for Easter.

We went home, ate more candy, and watched HGTV while we blew our noses some more. Hopefully next year we will be able to make the trek from Oklahoma to Texas for Easter.

 

Oh, and I feel it necessary to throw it out there that 2.5 weeks later...I am STILL blowing my nose. Not cool, germs. Not cool. 

Ending The Week On Decent News

This past Thursday we had our follow up appointment with the maternal-fetal medicine doctor in Savannah. Bryan was able to take the day off from school so he could be with me. I think he was quite concerned about how I would react to hearing really bad news if I was alone. We also had a friend volunteer to go with me if he couldn't, so that was nice.

 

Once again, it was a total pain in the ass to go there just for an appointment. Because we had three weeks warning I was able to get the girls into hourly care here on the base. Unfortunately, between the drive time and appointment time, it meant the girls were there for over 6 hours and that starts to really add up. Hourly care is definitely reasonable on the cost front, but it was kinda painful to pay 50 bucks just for me to go to a doctor's appointment.

 

This appointment went much faster than the last one. It also had better results.

Baby L - commonly referred to as the Nugget - is still holding steady at 11%. Okay, it was technically 10.9, but we'll go with 11. If it helps you to reference that, at exactly 36 weeks most of her little body parts were the average of a baby at 33-34 weeks.
In terms of weight, they estimated she was at 5 pounds, 4 ounces. At first this sounded pretty good...until I remembered that Georgia hit that weight about 10 days earlier in her gestation. If L goes all the way to 40 weeks, it looks like she could get over the 6.5 pound mark, but if she comes around the time George did (which would be two weeks from now) it's hard to see her being much bigger than 6.
Regardless, since she's hanging on to her 11% ranking, they will not induce me at 37 weeks, so yay for that.

Oh, she also appears to have a small head. Like, the circumference of her head only ranked at the 2nd percentile. Apparently that is nothing to worry about though if the rest of you only averages at 11%. Leave it to Bryan to point out that this is probably going to be a good thing for me.

So, the bowel issue...
Basically they were still a bit prominent, but both the tech and the doctor said they looked more in line with her gestational age than they had last time. My amniotic fluid is still at a normal level as well. The doctor felt like everything regarding her intestines is probably fine and gave us the go ahead to have Baby L here at Fort Stewart.

Bryan and I are both happy that we don't have to do the trek out to Savannah for the rest of the pregnancy and that chances are pretty high that the little nugget is fine, albeit tiny. I guess we'll all be on pins and needles waiting for the kid to poo after she's born to verify that her bowels really are okay.

By the way, have I mentioned how much I hate the word 'bowels'?

For now, I am trying to enjoy these last few weeks of my last pregnancy. I can't say I'm doing a good job of it. Physically, this pregnancy has been amazing but I guess it was too much to ask that it continue that way up to the last minute. I think I hit my wall this week. I'm tired, I'm uncomfortable, I'm ready for her to be here so we can all get used to functioning as a family of six.

On Tuesday I have my next appointment here at Winn and hopefully I'll get some details on how they want to approach the delivery. With L doing well, my next big concern is the post partum hemorrhaging and how that will be dealt with.

Cause a quick glance at the next two months of the Kubena family calendar show that I ain't got time to deal with a long recovery from childbirth!



How To Get Ready For A Fourth Baby

Step 1: Throw up the nine year old playpen that you got with your first kid in the corner of your bedroom.

 

 

Step 2: Lysol it. Cause you know, it's nine years old. That's a lot of time for bacteria to evolve.

 

Step 3:........There's no step three. That's about it. Boom.

 

 

Just joking. It was slightly more involved than that.

 

We're also storing a package of newborn diapers on the floor of my closet.

 

 

Okay now...Boom.