Annie in a toddler bed!

So the other night when it was time to go to bed, Annie climbed into her toddler bed.  Thinking "we'll see how long this lasts" we let her go to sleep there.......and she slept there the whole night without getting up!  Shocking!  She actually fell out of bed at some time during the night and continued sleeping on the floor (we have guard rails up now.)  She has continued sleeping there every night since without getting up......I guess when she makes up her mind to do something, she does it!  I've said this a million times and I'll say it a million more: Annie is so different from Madelynn!

Are you going to try for a boy?

I've been asked this question a lot lately.  I'm not sure how to answer. I usually say something like "we'll be excited with whatever God gives us."  I've been thinking how God has given us an absolutely perfect, complete family.....very different from what I had originally 'planned'.  I had 'planned' to have 2 boys first, then maybe a girl....or a third boy, then just one girl.  Yet, now I can't even imagine life any different from 3 perfect girls.  Would I one day like a boy? Yes....I think....I'm actually not even sure anymore. I could imagine life absolutely perfect with more girls too. You may be thinking "but, what about Jake?"  That is actually another comment I get frequently, "your poor husband."  I don't think Jake feels like he is missing anything. He feels as complete as I do.  He rough-houses and plays sports with the girls just as much as he would with a boy.  And the girls just absolutely adore him!  Jake can't even go to the bathroom without them banging on the door asking if he's done yet.  When he comes home they scream at the top of their lungs as they nearly kill themselves racing to hug him.

I don't think I'm going to 'try' for anything. I'm going to continue to have faith that God knows exactly what is perfect for our family.

Here is a great article I read about another family of 3 girls. While it's not exactly like our family (the first daughter is adopted, she had lost her son, and they are Jewish;) it still holds the same sentiments I feel about having a family of girls.

It's Not About A Boy

November 5, 2010

by Carrie Goldman of "Portrait of an Adoption"

We did not find out ahead of time the gender of our new baby. It was fun to speculate with Katie and Annie Rose about whether they would end up with a little sister or a little brother.
Annie Rose expressed a preference for a brother. Halfway through my pregnancy, she declared, “If the baby is a girl, I will respect her, but I won’t love her.”
“Respect is a good place to start,” I told her.
Whenever I was out somewhere without the girls, strangers would notice my big belly and ask,
“Do you know what you are having?”
“We’re not finding out. Keeping it a surprise.”
“Is this your first?”
“No,” I would reply. “My third.”
“Oh, what do you have at home already?”
“I have two little girls.”
“Maybe this time you will get a boy!” was always the response.
The above conversation played out countless times over the past nine months. It astonished me how many people assumed I was hoping for a boy, expecting a boy, needing a boy for our family to feel complete.
The baby was born three weeks ago. She is most definitely not a boy. And we are delighted with her. In fact, when she was born and I saw that she was a girl, I realized that a girl was exactly what I wanted. (I think if the baby had been a boy, I probably would have felt that a boy was exactly what I wanted).
Quite simply, I want whatever I have. I once had a boy. My first pregnancy was a boy, a desperately sick little boy. I do not have him now.
Every time someone asks me if I want a boy, I think about my first baby. When people comment that our family only “makes girls”, I remember him and I know that in an alternate universe, we would have a 7-year-old son right now.
I have several other friends who also lost their first babies. Curiously, each of us has gone on to have single-gender families, with our surviving children being the opposite sex of our lost children.
And frankly, we all want what we have. We are grateful to be parents, and we would never trade the children we have for those we lost.
Cleo is the ninth girl in a row for my parents. My mom and dad have four daughters and five granddaughters. There are no sons or grandsons. Although my parents would have gone a little crazy buying blue things if Cleo had been a boy, they don’t love her any less because she is a girl.
I am actually relieved that Cleo doesn’t have a penis, because I didn’t have to deal with a bris (the Jewish circumcision ceremony on the eighth day of life). The postpartum hormone drop was formidable between days four and eight, and it would have been quite a feat to pull off a bris. I could barely make it through breakfast without crying.
For those few days that I had the baby blues, I wept at just about anything. I cried because I was in pain from the delivery and breastfeeding; I cried because my older girls were being difficult. I cried because Cleo was up all night (and still is). I cried because I couldn’t find time to write or paint or shower or clean my house. I cried because Cleo would be my last baby and as miserable as I felt, I was still sad that she was already starting the irreversible process of growing older.
But one thing I did not cry about is the fact that Cleo is a girl.
I look at my little trio and I see years ahead of ballet recitals, princess costumes, pink ribbons and braided pigtails. But I also see years of soccer games, Star Wars toys, softball tournaments and rough-housing. For the past two years I have coached Katie’s soccer team, amidst a sea of male coaches, and it has been great fun to watch my little girl learn to play the sport.
During the years that my parents were raising four daughters, they spent evenings and weekends at our basketball, soccer, softball and baseball games. They attended track and cross-country meets, and they watched tennis matches. In fact, they came to see us perform at far more sporting events than dance recitals.
It is too soon to say what my little girls will want to pursue for their serious extracurricular activities, so right now we dabble in everything. We cart the girls to piano and ballet lessons alongside swim, soccer and art classes. Yes, they do gravitate towards glittery, pink clothes, but we give them the opportunity to embrace so-called “boy clothes” too. Katie loves her White Sox shirt. Annie Rose prefers nudity.
When people say, “poor Andrew” about my husband who lives surrounded by females, I know that in reality Andrew loves being the king of the house. Katie idolizes him so completely that she won’t tell me what she wants for breakfast until she sees what Daddy is eating, so that she can eat the exact same thing.
Andrew and Katie attend White Sox games together and play catch outside. And I don’t think he ever laments the fact that it is a daughter and not a son who joins him in cheering on his favorite teams.
And now that Cleo is here, Annie Rose assured me that she does love her. She calls her the “sweet chicken” and smothers her with kisses every chance she gets. Ironically, Annie Rose loves Cleo but does not respect her personal space.
Once I was going to be a mother of a son. Now I am the mother of three daughters. If we had not lost Matthew, we would have never adopted Katie. Our lost boy’s legacy to us is that he set us on a course to bring our first daughter into our lives, and she was meant to be with us. Our second and third daughters are icing on the sweetest cake ever created, and our family is complete, even without a boy.

Carrie is an artist and a writer living in Evanston. According to her, ‘I was actually trained to exercise the other half of my brain and worked for years in the Financial Services sector after receiving an MBA in Finance from Kellogg. But I had a change of brain after going through the harrowing process of adopting our daughter Katie, and I could no longer think in columns of numbers. I thought instead in splashes of color and shades of light and dark.’ When Katie was nearly a year old, Carrie left banking and started her own oil painting business, Artwork By Carrie. Working as an artist has allowed her to create a flexible schedule to spend more time with Katie and her second daughter, Annie Rose. Read her blog, Portrait of an Adoption.

Baby Joy's Birth Story

Joy’s Birth Story

          On Monday, October 18, 2010; at about 4pm I started having those “wow, who stabbed me with a knife” contractions.  After about 20 mins, I had another. After about 5 of them I realized this is starting to form a pattern of coming every 15-20 mins, maybe I should warn Jake. I call Jake and let him know that he should probably go ahead and be prepared to take Tuesday off. 

At about 8pm the contractions were becoming closer together at about 10mins apart. We go ahead and warn our parents that it looked like this was going to be the night.  We put the kids to bed, and started watching episodes of Eureka (yes, we’re geeks.)  Jake times the contractions for me. 

At about 10:30pm the contractions start becoming very regular and hard at about 5-6mins apart. We go ahead and call our parents to come on in.  We call the midwife at about 11:00pm when the contractions are about 4-5 mins apart (sometimes 3mins when I stood up to walk) and was getting chills at times. 

The parents arrive at about 11:30pm. Jake’s mom and dad watch the kids for us, while my mom comes to the hospital with us. Only a few traffic laws were broken during the ride to the hospital (construction had blocked our usual path.) 

We arrived to the hospital at about midnight, where after being flagged down in ER to provide insurance information (we firmly stated that they would have to wait…..in which they waited 30mins before calling to insist Jake come back down with the information) we arrived at the L&D floor to find me at “a solid 5cm and cervix very stretchy.”  My midwife Jeanean Carter, CNM (very awesome) arrived shortly after and stayed with our team the entire time. Every 30mins or so they would need to move the continuous (still a VBAC) outer fetal monitor lower as the head quickly slipped lower -that was so gratifying! 

After about 2 hours I started vomiting and feeling the urge to push. Jeanean stated I’m at about 9 and a half now (with just a small lip left) but I can go ahead and push and if I don’t want to use the stirrups I don’t have to- love that woman! I start pushing and use the stirrups just at the end when I needed stabilizing.  While pushing I feel a pop, then hear a splash across the room. Apparently, my water broke and just missed the midwife’s head as amniotic fluid shot across the room. Quite the unexpected, though very comical twist (Jake says "now I have a story!")  After pushing for about 20mins, the head and shoulders emerge and I get to pull Joy the rest of the way out. Jake cuts the umbilical cord again (he’s getting to be a pro at this) and Joy is born! We got to have some time alone with her before the RN team arrives (“She’s born? Why didn’t you call me? I just heard crying and came to see…”) It was a very wonderful experience- I got to have my home birth at the hospital!

Her official birth stats: 

Born: Tuesday; October 19, 2010 at 2:27am

Weight: 8lbs 10oz

Length: 19.5 inches

The nursery RN’s say that with the cold front and rain coming in (weather pressure shift) a lot of women went into labor and had very quick labors that night.  Out of 6 babies in the nursery they say Joy is by far the loudest. I guess she has to be with 2 sisters to talk over ;)

They also say she was born at just the perfect time.  Her umbilical cord was starting to wear very thin at the belly button. They had to clamp low on the cord so that it wouldn’t rupture.

Joy is another cuddle bug, she loves to rock with me and is a wonderful breast feeder…..however, she takes very long feedings (I suspect she enjoys the alone time.)

Joy had bad baby acne right after birth, but after coming home it has cleared up quickly. While this could be from hormones, I suspect it’s more from very sensitive skin.

At the 2 week checkup, Joy is now 8lbs 13oz and 20 ¾ inches long. The pediatrician says “she is absolutely perfect!”

Raising Children

I found this article on another blog. I loved it and thought I'd share:



Raising Children, by Anna Quindlen

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief.
I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast.Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like.
Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.
Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon, and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages, dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, and finally what the women on the playground, and the well-meaning relations — well what they taught me was that they couldn’t really teach me very much at all.
Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything.
One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2.
When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow.
I remember 15 years ago pouring over one of Dr. Brazelton’s wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.
Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made.They have all been enshrined in the “Remember-When-Mom-Did ” Hall of Fame.The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs.The times the baby fell off the bed.The times I arrived late for preschool pickup.The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp.The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, “What did you get wrong?” (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald’s drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?
But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.
I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.
Even today I’m not sure what worked and what didn’t, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I’d done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top.
And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity.
That’s what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me awhile to figure out who the experts were.

A photo for now, birth story later

Abigail Joy Wells born October 19, 2010 at 2:27am. 8lbs 10oz. 19.5 inches.

Cervix of Steel

So Joy's head is between my knees, but my cervix is as stubborn as all my kids (must get it from Daddy- haha!) I'm actually a little grateful I get at least another week to wrap up loose projects before having a crying, hungry infant strapped to me. Last weekend was my last day at work for 8 weeks, so it helps to have this extra weekend at home too. Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to hold my precious baby to my chest, and rock her while she does all those cute baby squirms and fist sucking (oh, I miss the cute fist sucking!) I'm just a very goal oriented person, and it drives me nuts if all my goals aren't completed before baby arrives. Poor daddy, as I get bigger his list gets longer too....I just have to add to the end of the list all the reasons he married me. ;) Are kids a good reason, or bad one? haha- just kidding!

Getting ready for Baby!

I went to my first weekly OB appt. yesterday. Wow- can't believe I'm already at that point! Madelynn and Annie both did great! We had a backpack of supplies which lasted them the whole 2 hours. I was alittle worried because while I get the nonstress test (NST)and Biophysical Profile (BPP sonogram) done, I'm strapped to a chair and table and cannot attend to them. Madelynn did a wonderful job helping Annie look through books and play with stickers. I'm so very proud of both of them! Hopefully this will last through every weekly test..... ;)

So the baby is VERY head down now. In fact, the sono tech couldn't even get a profile picture for me because the head is so low in my pelvis (guess that explains the reason I have to pee every 5 mins.) Also, she showed a really good clear picture of the baby parts; and let me say this baby is DEFINITELY at girl! No mistaking it! I'm thinking we are going to have a huge tomboy on our hands- should be lots of fun and keep us in shape! ;)

So we started getting serious about names. I really like the name Joy and Jake really likes the name Abigail. We thought about naming her Joy Abigail Wells, but it just doesn't flow as nicely. So we are naming her Abigail Joy Wells, but will be calling her Joy. Jake has always liked being called by his middle name, so she might like it too.....

Well, I guess that's about it on the baby....I mean on Joy ;)
Let's see.....with Madelynn: she is really into reading lately. She is almost always with a book in her lap looking at the pictures, or 'reading' from memory as she turns the pages. I'm really excited that she loves books so much! She is also into hiding things under pillows. I find the funniest items under all the pillows in the house. Socks, toys, sippy cup, just to name a few.
Annie is walking more and more everyday! She just decided on Monday that she would walk more. She still crawls most of the time, but I'm excited that now she is walking at least 25% of the time! She also copies Madelynn on everything! Even tries to copy what she says. Annie LOVES to sing! She will 'sing' a song, then clap and clap! It's the cutest thing!

Well, that's about it for now. I better try to get more done while my nesting hormones are raging! ;)