Ode to Lance and Nursery Reveal

Lance. My husband. He’s a character. He’s a great dad. He’s intense about supporting his losing sport teams (ie: the Twins, the Vikings and ISU). He’s probably the most honest person I know. Lance is kind and patient (especially with strangers - he has a tendency to think his massively pregnant wife and needy three year-old son are a bit needy). He’ll stop by the side of the road and help push a car off to the side, offer to try and diagnose a problem or simply ask if they need a ride somewhere. Sometimes in the evenings he’ll get home late and I’ll ask him if work was busy or if traffic was bad and he’ll tell me that there was a car off to the side of the road with its emergency flashers on and he stopped to see if they needed help. Lance is that Good Samaritan that Jesus talks about in the Bible. 

Above all, Lance is hardworking. He cares about doing a good job. To the point of anal retentiveness. BUT this does ensure that things are done right (rather than the slipshod way I have a tendency to do things). Case in point: both of the baby nurseries. With Lucan’s nursery, Lance begrudgingly put up wainscoting. It turned out fantastic and is a great addition to the room. Except for the one part where Lucan, as an 18 month old, repeatedly tore off the wall during nap time. Lance meticulously cut out all of the pieces and trim work and made a great baby nursery. This time around I requested a wall of stripes. Lance happily complied (I think he was relieved that I didn’t ask for more wainscoting). True to Lance’s nature, he meticulously taped and re-taped and used his level to mark off the stripes. 6 hours, 4 stripes and 1 wall later, he was done. And it was fab. He’s vowed that he will never do stripes again. Ever. Even when I asked really nicely if he thought it would look to cool to do stripes on the opposite wall. Sometimes you have to know when to stop asking for favors :)

 

 

The theme of Gracelyn's nursery is repurposing. Or gray and pink. We repainted the walls gray and did a gray and white stripe accent wall with pink accents.

 

I really tried to repurpose stuff we already had and spend minimal on things that would make the biggest bang. We reused Lucan's crib, the rocking chair and cushion, the end table, the floral shelf, the dried flower window arrangement and the changing table pad.

 I recovered the pillow you see in the rocking chair with a remment I found at Hancock Fabrics. It cost something like $3.50 and took me 15 minutes to sew. The gray knit blanket was a baby shower gift from my small group friends.

 



The dresser/changing table is actually the dresser that goes with Lucan's bedroom set. But because this dresser is bigger and Gracelyn's closet is filled with my clothes (yes, I know) we decided to use this dresser in Gracie's room. The changing table pad is from Target. The pink polka dot curtains are supposed to be blackout curtains. They aren't really. They're from JcPenny. I had fallen in love with some from Pottery Barn Kids (go figure everything from PB kids is fab) but they were more than double than what I spent at JCP. I think I spent a total of like $60 on curtains, which was one of the bigger expenses for Grace's nursery.

 

 

The laundry hamper is from 3 Sprouts, purchased off of Citrus Lane. I guess a partial theme is pink polka dots :) Lance thought it was ridiculous that Grace needed her own laundry basket because Lu already has one and so do we. Am I the only person where everyone had their own dirty clothes hamper? I just imagine everyone's clothes in a heap in the corner without one.

My favorite thing in the nursery, hands down, is her crystal raindrop mobile. It's so pretty and girlie.  For the longest time I was just going to make a simple mobile because I was too cheap to order this one. But my mom really wanted to buy something "fun" for Gracelyn and we both decided this fit the bill. I ordered it from the etsy shop, the Mobile Maven. We ordered it on Black Friday and got a killer discount from being a FB follower. Love, love, love.

Oh this pink elephant. I purchased this elephant probably eight years ago in hopes that someday we would have a daughter. God heard my wish. The shelf was an impulse purchase made at the Container Store pre-budget. This is the first time we've actually used it. The vase is repurposed from IKEA.

I purchased new pink and gray sheets from Target on sale. The crib skirt, which is hard to see, is just a plain white, three tiered skirt also from Target. The sleep sheep is from Lucan's days and was a dollar at a garage sale.

Aren't Lance's stripes pretty and very well done? Yay Lance!
The circle garland I made from pink and gray paint chip samples and a circle punch I borrowed from my boss. I sewed all the circles together with just a long stitch on my sewing machine. Easy- peasy because all I can sew are straight lines.

 

And lastly this is a dried floral arrangement I made back in my 4-H days. Really, all I can take credit for is arranging the flowers as my dad sanded and did the crackle painting of the window. But that's neither here nor there. If you ask most 4-H parents, they would admit to "helping" their kids with their projects.

 

This concludes the grand tour of Gracelyn's nursery. Consider yourself toured :)

Gracelyn's Birth Story

Labor and delivery.

If there is one thing you can count on about birthing a baby is that you can’t count on anything (is that an oxymoron?) Seriously, the only thing to expect is the unexpected. With Lucan’s birth, I arrived at the hospital at 10 cm, missing my epidural and pushed for four hours. AWFUL. At my 39 week appointment, my doctor was asking me about Lucan’s delivery and when I relayed that tidbit to him, he put it at the top of my chart as a warning to whichever doctor was on call for this baby. It was a good thing that he did too. But we’ll get there.

Per my SOP, my plan was to work up until the very end. I asked my doctor at my 39 week appointment if he thought I would make it to my due date. His guess was no, but it was a very reluctant no because there’s nothing so inaccurate as a due date. Because I went into labor with Lucan on my due date, I really had zero guesses as to when baby girl would make her arrival which caused all of us much trepidation. There was part of me that hoped I would have her over Thanksgiving while all our family was in town and we wouldn’t have a last minute scramble to find care for Lucan. But of course that wasn’t the case.

I went into work bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Monday morning and worked a normal day. When I went to pickup Lucan from daycare at 4:30 I was starting to have “twinges.” Then at 5:30 pm I called Lance and told him not to dilly-dally around work and to get his butt home. Of course at this point I was finishing up supper and trying to finish packing the last of our stuff to take to the hospital. Lance scurried home and I told him that he needed to text our friends to come and watch Lu. Then I told him that he should call my parents to let them know that they would need to come back to Des Moines tomorrow to pickup Lu from daycare. We finally got a hold of our friends who were going to watch Lucan and scooted off to the hospital. I had a hard time leaving our house in a mess (I really wanted to clean up the supper dishes and change the sheets on the guest bed) but in the midst of contractions I knew better.

My OB had told me that second babies always go faster than the first ones so if I wanted my epidural to not wait around at home like I did last time. Lance called our OB’s office to let them know we were headed into the hospital and to also find out which doctor was on call for the evening. Going to a big practice, I had no idea which doctor would be on call when the time came. I was delighted to find out that it was actually a doctor I had seen before – Dr. McEntaffer. When we arrived at the hospital around 8:45 pm there were three of us who were checking in all at the same time. The nurse asked how far apart my contractions were and said that based on that info I still had awhile. In my head I skeptically commented that we would see. One of the other “women” (she was 18 but I suppose if you’re going to have a baby you get to be a “woman” and not a girl) was fairly frantic. I later found out that she had been into the hospital six other times in false labor and wasn’t actually in labor that night either. I couldn’t help but feel bad for the girl because if she was frantic in false labor, real labor was not going to be good. 

They finally got me settled in a room and finished the check-in process. The nurses have to ask what your highest level of education completed which I remembered from the last time. But this time I had the sense of humor to ask what that had anything to do with having a baby. The nurse had no good answer for me. At this point Dr. McEntaffer arrived, asked me a few questions and then checked me to see how far dilated I was. She had commented that when she was reviewing my chart she had seen Dr. Osborn’s note about me arriving at the hospital dilated to a ten and knew she needed to hustle her buns to the hospital. She was surprised to find I was dilated to seven based on how well I was taking contractions. We talked about my birth plan because Lance had left the camera in the car and had already made one separate trip and inadvertently my birth plan had also gotten left in the car and Lance was not about to make another trip.  I was still on the fence about the epidural because I knew I was capable of having a baby without one and because I knew that my hospital bill would be cheaper without one (Lance later told me that the money reason was not a valid reason to forgo the epidural). The doctor advised me that she thought that if they broke my waters I would go fast enough to not need the epidural. So I bravely went without. Famous last words.

Fast forward an hour and a half. Lance tried to get a cup of coffee. Instead he received a death glare from me and was told he could drink odorless water. After she broke my waters, labor started progressing a lot faster and contractions started hurting more. A lot more. Not enjoyable. Then it came time to push. Pushing sucks. Plain and simple, sucks. I know I’ve heard from other women the act of pushing has been a relief because they feel like they’re finally getting somewhere. Let it be said, I am not one of those women. After two pushes I started panicking. Panicking that I couldn’t do this. Fortunately my doctor swooped in and said that I would not be pushing for four hours with this baby, that I would push four TIMES. She wasn’t quite right, but that was the motivation I needed to meet my daughter. One more push and Gracelyn Elizabeth made her way out into the cold, bright world. APGAR score of nine!

But we’re not quite done yet.

There was quite a bit of bleeding that continued after Gracelyn arrived. To quote my doctor, I was “gushing” blood. A lot of blood. They checked my placenta to make sure it was intact, but they couldn’t pinpoint why I was losing so much blood. So they gave me two shots of something, one in each leg to help stop the bleeding. I also got three bags of pitocin. This was in the midst of being stitched up from my second degree tears. I didn’t remember the stitching hurting so much with Lucan. But it was at this point I used a couple of expletives. But the thing that was the worse: uterine massage. It’s one of the things they do to help decrease bleeding. Don’t be fooled by the word “massage” though. It really just means the nurses are basically punching you in the stomach. It hurts like a bee-otch. And when I say hurts like a bee-othch I mean it. This is coming from the lady who has done two natural childbirths. I was fine with the world until they started my “massages.” Sadly I had almost three hours of being punched after I delivered Gracelyn. Three hours of massage at five minute intervals is no picnic. During the punching period I gripped Lance’s hand for all I was worth. Lance thought I was going to break his fingers.

Finally at 1 AM they released me from the labor and delivery floor and let me go down to the Mom and Baby floor to recover. But my fun wasn’t over. Somehow the nurse thought 1:30 AM would be the perfect time to go through a hospital questionnaire. It wasn’t. Lance was super ticked. He just wanted sleep. We both wanted sleep. I would have thought sleep would have came naturally to my poor exhausted body, but with all of the nights antics sleep would not come. I was awake until 6 AM, tossing and turning and praying in vain for rest. And that is the story of Gracelyn’s entrance into the world!                                                                                                                                                    

First moments in the world.

APGAR 9!

Dr. McEntaffer and us girls

The following photos were taken by my coworker, Crystal Newcomb - check her out at crystalnewcomb.com

Gracelyn - One Month Old

Gracelyn Elizabeth celebrated her first month on this earth in a big way – Christmas, New Year’s, traveling to Grandma and Grandpa’s and Grandma and Papa’s house in her first road trip – meeting all of her cousins – lots of fun firsts!

Baby girl came into this world with a bang! I’m working on her birth story, so look for that in coming days. Gracelyn was born December 1, 2014 at 10:12 PM, three days earlier than her due date. She tipped the scales weighing in at 7 pounds, 4 ounces and 20.75 inches long. She weighs a full pound less than her big brother and is more petite just in general. Not to mention having a MUCH smaller head. Gracelyn is derived from a combination of my middle name (Linn) with one of my favorite girl names “Grace.” Elizabeth comes from my grandma Elizabeth. Nicknames: Grace, Gracie, floppy fish, sister sister and chickie.

Many have asked me how things are going now that I have one baby under my belt. I think that I can pretty accurately say that the things that were hard with Lucan (breastfeeding) aren’t so hard this time but instead there are new hard things to deal with (gas and not pooping). As I had feared, Lucan ruined us with his great sleep habits as he started sleeping through the night around five weeks. We’re definitely not there with Gracelyn. Not even close.

My parents stayed the first couple of days after Gracie was born and then Lance’s parents came for a couple of days. Lance took the first two weeks off while we all tried to adjust to life as a family of four. We’re keeping Lucan in his daycare routine as we have to continue to pay for it. Lance drops Lu off in the morning and I continue to pick him up in the afternoons. It’s a luxury that I’m thankful for as it gives me lots of time to bond with Gracie. I also have to admit that Lu would probably be bored staying home with me and would be watching wayyyy too much television. Our friends from church have blessed us with many meals, which are a life saver in those early days. I don't know what I would do without our friends.

Eating. My milk came in around day four or five, which was early in comparison to Lu. But this time I was ready and totally fine with supplementing with formula until my body was ready to breastfeed. I remember feeling like such a breastfeeding failure with Lucan when we started giving him a bottle. I also remember feeling really stupid because he was crying endlessly – because he was STARVING. Duh Kara. Choosing to give Gracelyn a bottle was a no brainer, no one wants a hungry baby. Once my milk came in we switched to nursing and we’ve been doing really well since then. She’s by no means a fast eater, which is similar to Lucan. I also have problems with her falling asleep in the evening feedings, but she’s not nearly as bad as Lu was. I do find myself having to tickle her to get her to wake up enough to eat. Silly baby.

Wearing. Gracelyn has been able to wear newborn clothes and newborn diapers for a full month which is almost two weeks longer than her brother. We actually don’t have that many newborn clothes so we’ve been repeating the same six outfits. That’s okay, I’d rather having more options in bigger sizes. I’m loving pink. And headbands.

Routine. We follow the basic three hour routine of Eat – Play – Sleep – repeat. With the exception of nights, I wake Gracelyn every three to three and a half hours to feed her. It’s a good routine for the most part. At the end of the first month we moved into a pretty predictable routine of having to get up once a night between 2:00-3:00 AM to eat. The first half of the month was pretty rough … Poor Gracelyn is afflicted with really painful gas problems and would choose to cry most nights for about a four hour stretch. Lance and I would take turns staying up with her and trying to comfort her. She has the most ear piercing cries. We both spent a lot of time on the couch sleeping/holding Gracelyn at 3 AM. Not fun. Our roughest time of day is definitely the evenings. Unfortunately Grace wants to be held from like 5:00-10:00 PM. It’s really hard to get anything done at night. But as a benefit for me, after her morning feedings she’s pretty happy to go back to sleep without fuss. This means I get to catch up on my much needed sleep.

Sleeping. I’m just a much lighter sleeper since having kids. That being said, it’s really hard for me to get any sort of non-anxious rest when sharing a room with my kids. Gracelyn has been sleeping in her room since like day five. We were fortunate to borrow a Rock and Play sleeper from some friends, so that’s been really nice to have. It takes up less room then the pack and play and is nicely portable. The only potential negative I predict is the transition to the crib. The Rock and Play cradles her and keeps Gracelyn propped up at an incline. Not so much with the crib. But right now I’m closing my eyes to future problems and just going with the status quo. I think that Gracie’s sleep position is in someone’s arms or on someone’s chest. Again, not a long term solution. We aren’t swaddling Gracelyn. Stop the presses, I know. We were such adamant swaddlers with Lu, it even surprises me.

Pooping. This girl doesn’t poop. It makes her unhappy and it stresses out me. You can always tell when it’s been three (or four!) days since she last pooped because she gets squirmy and unhappy and her cries are shrill. She’s on a regular routine of gas drops, colic drops (actually for the probiotics) and a periodic dose of gripe water. We do tummy massages and bicycles in hopes of getting things pushed out. I’ve dialed down my dairy, caffeine and broccoli intake. It’s a sad life for both of us! (One thing that surprises me is often the topic of poop comes up now that I'm a parent. Poop for life!)

Already a daddy's girl

Squishy newborn faces.

Grandpa and Grandma were some of the first hospital visitors.

Uncle Donkey.

Mr. Josh

Miss Sarah

Miss Jessie

Auntie E and Mr. Ryan in from Sioux Center

Favorite sleep position

Grace has the same newborn hair as her brother. Shaggy on the sides and balding on top!

Cousin Brooke, born Oct 7. Girl cousins unite!

Resting peacefully with Grandma

Christmas tree shot with brother bear.

Merry Christmas!

Peek-a-boo! I see you!