Asked and Answered

My dear friend KK, who also happens to be Annie's other Godmother, is currently 31 weeks pregnant with baby Marshall. This is her first child and being that the end is in sight, she sought guidance from me and Annie's other Godmother, Stephanie, regarding exactly how this child birth thing will go down. Like really. Not all that "it's a miracle" crap. So since I have had one child and am clearly a birthing expert, and have access to a public forum, I figured I would use the blog to respond to her inquiry.

I would like to say here that this is not going to be a very pro-natural childbirth post. More power to the women that were able to pull that shiz off, but I am NOT ONE OF THEM. I would never go to the dentist and have a procedure without novocaine. I know it's not necessarily apples to apples, but I am of the mind that if there is something that makes things less painful, it should be brought quickly in my direction.

My memory of the whole event is somewhat skewed by my adoration of my baby girl, but I will try to be as honest as possible. The IV hurt like a bitch, and I was annoyed by the little heart rate monitor they had on my finger. It sucked to not be able to eat, but my body had saved up an entire pregnancy worth of heart burn for that very moment, so eating wasn't high on my list of priorities. The constant checking of the baby's position is invasive and uncomfortable and is a bit pinchy, for lack of a better term.

Like an idiot, I wanted to see how the contractions felt (mistakenly thinking I might be able to go without drugs). Let's just say there's a reason so many women opt for the epidural. Imagine the worst gas pains and cramps you have ever had, except the gas bubbles feel as if they are full of white hot lava that is slowly filling your lower extremities. Rinse and repeat.

My advice is to order the epidural about 30 minutes before you think you are going to need it. After that, things got much better and all the checking, poking, and prodding didn't bother me one bit. I was able to rest (not sleep) and regroup. I was worried about the catheter, but with the epidural, you really can't feel a thing. I guess the down-side is that you can't really move around much after you get it, but you will feel so great, this won't matter. Some people worry about the administration of the epidural itself, but I just felt a little pinch and kept my eye on the prize that was relief from my crazy lava gas pains. Highly recommended.

I don't know if I am just dense or have no forethought, but I honestly hadn't dwelled too much on the physical act of pushing a baby out of my vajeen. I had seen Chaney do it and it seemed manageable. That is, right up until Dr. J told me to start pushing. I nearly broke down at that point. I remember the tears welling up in my eyes and developing a serious lump in my throat. I remember being terrified of all the unknowns that were about to become very, very real and the absolute hugeness of the coming moments. Thankfully, the doctors and nurses don't give you a lot of time to dwell on those pesky little issues and it was time to get to work.

As I posted in my birth story, my pushing went fairly quickly. The physical act of birth was probably the easiest part of it all. I delivered the placenta (sorry to any males reading this) fairly quickly and didn't really even feel that happen. I was pretty worried about Annie during all of this and wasn't really sure what was happening. I know I got a few stitches and they removed the catheter and all that good stuff. Again, felt nothing.

After the epidural wears off is when things get real. Dad, Patrick, Mr. Erwin, you might want to stop reading now. There is lots and lots of bleeding. This can keep up to some extent for as long as 6 weeks. There is passing of blood clots. These are not your run of the mill clots. Like, I thought part of my insides had fallen out. My nurse confidently informed me that they don't worry about clots unless they are larger than an egg. Mine appeared to be the exact size of an egg. A clot the size of an egg. No big deal. There are ice packs on your lower business and lactation consultants on your upper business. Most people have their babies in the room with them to offset the obsessing about the bizarre state of your body, but I didn't have that luxury. The checking of the state of your baby-maker does not stop with the birth of the child. I recommend being very clear about when you want visitors and who you want to visit.

Don't be a hero about the medications. Stay on top of it and you will be fine. Since KK has stayed in shape, I don't think she will have any problems. It really is one of the most crazy and miraculous (I had to say it) experiences I have ever had. Any by far, the most rewarding. I would do it 1,000 times over to get our sweet Annie.

Just have Dave watch the bumps on the ride home.

Half a Year!

Dear Annie,
You turned six months old almost a week ago. Thanks to the Thanksgiving holiday and tons of family time, I did not have time to blog about it in real-time. This is becoming more and more of an issue, but I am doing my best to stay current. Between work when I am at work, work when I am at home (both at night and in the day), and making you a priority when you are awake, there is not much time for silly things like, say, a BABY BOOK! Yes, that is correct. You don't have one yet, so I am hoping this blog will serve as a bit of a stand-in as long as I continue to keep things updated. Then I don't have to get all crafty with a baby book. Rest assured I have all your important items filed away to be carefully assembled somewhere around the year 2030 (originally typed 2020 but felt that was a bit optimistic).

You, my dear, are part of the reason there is no down time in these here parts. You are on the move! You are the ultra-marathoner of rolling. If they made a California King Crib, I would buy it for you (assuming we could get it up the stairs in our mini-house) so you could be the free range baby you so desperately want to be. Until someone takes up the cause, you will have to settle for rolling into the sides of your crib on a nightly basis. You have also started sleeping on your tummy, which has taken some getting used to. After 6 months of hearing about how stomach sleeping is akin to a death sentence for babies, we are supposed to release all that fear now that you are capable of rolling yourself over. Well, we are not that relaxed over here. The first few nights we would catch you on your tummy, we would rush in to rescue you from your certain demise and gently roll you back over, only to find you back on your stomach before we got out of the room. We did not sleep well.

Over the past week or so we have come to accept that you just prefer this and that as long as you are not clutching bunny in a wad against your face, you are ok. We will still probably flip you back from time to time though, just because we are crazy.

In the last week you also started saying "Da-Da (dadadadada)" and I swear one day you said "baby". We call you "boo-boo" or "The Boo" the majority of the time, and you are coming closer and closer to being able to say this. You are big on funny faces and noises and love it when we make them back at you.

Though it's probably not wise, I still hold you to put you to sleep at night. It only takes a few minutes and is just less painful than setting you in there when you are awake and listening to you be upset. You are able to settle yourself when you wake up in the night, so that's really what counts, right? Selfishly, this is my favorite time of the day and I will do this until you leave for college if you will let me.

You are now in a size 3 diaper, but that's a bit of a stretch. We got them from generous Grandpa Erwin, so there's no way we are going out and buying any more, but you would still fit in a 2 if we had them. We have tried to feed you regular baby food (turkey, chicken and rice, and peas) so far, with little to no success. You also won't take your rice cereal with formula still, though you take a bottle of formula a day. And yes, I am still mostly breastfeeding you. I think once I made my public declaration that I was going to quit almost 2 months ago, it sort of took the pressure off somehow. I also cut back and am only pumping 1-2 times a day, which has made a huge difference.

Here are some pictures from the Thanksgiving holiday:

Sporting your First Christmas PJs (along with the rest of the nation, we just glazed right over Thanksgiving and went straight to Christmas)

In an effort to assemble things for your baby binder, we thought it would be sweet to get your hand and foot prints at 6 months. I imagined tender moments of pressing your sweet hands onto a sheet of paper. Instead I was wrestling a paint-slicked little person that wanted nothing more than to shove her paint soaked hands and feet into her mouth. Thankfully someone had the presence of mind to give us non-toxic paint. If I had to do this over again, I would probably not do it right before we headed over to the parent's place for thanksgiving and the associated thanksgiving photographs. Lesson learned.

Uncle Happy came in for the holiday!

The boys were in charge of dinner on Saturday night, which involved everything being fried. There are not enough Weight Watchers Points in the world to cover the damage that was done.

And as it always goes when the family gets together, you spent lots of time snuggling with Chaney and your cousins.

It's gone by so quickly and I can't believe your first Christmas is right around the corner. I remember being pregnant at this time last year and trying to imagine what our life would be like with you. I remember thinking how you would still be a baby, but that hardly seems to be the case any more. While you are a baby, you seem to already understand so much and want to be so busy. I promise to try to slow down and enjoy this time with you. Maybe you can help me put that baby book together.

5 months-under the wire

How's this for last minute? Here are some of my favorites from the last month:











She's not 6 months old yet, so it still counts.

Baptism-aka Family Festival of Fun

According to an African proverb, it takes a village to raise a child. In our case, it takes a village converging on St. Louis to baptize a child. We received news a few months ago that my grandfather, great aunt, and two cousins were coming to St. Louis for a visit. Then I learned that my brother was going to come into town to see the visiting family. It seemed only right that we hijack this visit and turn it into Annie's baptism weekend. I know myself, and if I didn't get this done on this particular weekend, it might never happen. GB got all hyped up on the idea and the ball was set in motion.

Gaddy (grandfather) and Annabelle (great Aunt) arrived late Thursday night. They toured the City Museum and Annie and I surprised them for the visit. Jay and Elizabeth (cousins from Atlanta) arrived on Friday and Annie and I headed from the Museum to pick them up from the airport. Annie greeted them to St. Louis by screaming her head off at poor Jay the entire ride to the house. Friday night was spent eating and drinking (reoccurring theme for the weekend) and awaiting Patrick's arrival from San Fran. Saturday was spent recovering and then bustling around to Parker and Chloe's various sporting events. We celebrated David's birthday on Saturday night. Rick and I bailed early as I was seriously afraid of being hung over for Annie's big day. It appears that we made the right call as there were tales of fire pits into the wee hours of the morning. Thankfully everyone arrived at the church on time, which in our family, is quite an accomplishment.

I don't have any photos of the actual event as we were somewhat occupied what with the service and all, but Annie was a perfect angel. The thumb was firmly implanted in the mouth during the baptism and she didn't even flinch when the water was poured on her. We may or may not have been practicing this move in the bath tub in preparation for the big day. Looks like that paid off.

This was the spread at Mom and Dad's. As usual, GB went over the top with great food, drinks, and everything was beautiful.

Yummy desserts supplied by Chaney.

The family checking out a video we made of Dad and Gaddy's trip to Africa.

Annie and Uncle Happy getting some hang time. She's grown quite a bit since his last visit!

David and Shisha. David appears to have reached his girlfriend family threshold at this point. He's a real trooper.

Rick made sure to get in some Annie time when she wasn't being loved on by other family members. You had to act quick because she got snatched up quickly!

This beauty is cousin Elizabeth. She's gorgeous, smart (a lawyer, good to have one in the family), and one of the nicest people you will ever meet. If she wasn't family, I would probably hate her.

Annie and Grant Horten. Grant is the son of Stephanie and Matt. There is a rumor of an arranged marriage. I think they make a lovely couple.

Annie with her Godparents, Stephanie and Matt. They drove in all the way from Chicago for the event! It was so special to have them and their three beautiful children there to celebrate with us.

Annie spent lots of time with her great grandfather, Gaddy, over the course of the trip. Gaddy is a master of the bottle feed thanks to all the deer and lambs he has nursed back to health at his ranch. Though he never has to burp the wild animals, you would never know it from the massive ones he got out of Miss Annie!

She was clearly a big fan of his.

It was a beautiful weekend and the weather was excellent for mid-November. It meant so much to have so many special people travel so far to celebrate our baby girl's big day. It was such a thrill to have four generations together at the same time. It truly was a weekend full of blessings.

Call off the Search

I guess in light of recent child abductions, I shouldn't make statements like that, but we are all present and accounted for over at Casa de Erwin.


Oh my Dog, I just typed out this whole thing about how Annie is not sleeping and it's making me crazy in the midnight hours and Rick probably hates me and blahblahblah and then my computer ATE IT! Maybe for the best because it could have probably been used against me in a court of law and did not do anything to promote my mother of the year status. To sum up: Annie is not sleeping well, I am not handling it well, and Rick is a saint through it all.



Certainly no time to re-type any of that so I will leave you with this adorable picture of Miss A.

I know you all are anxiously awaiting a summary of the baptism activities. I promise to get that to you this weekend. SPOILER ALERT: it happened.

24 weeks-The One Where She Grows Like a Weed

Yes, it's been 24 weeks. I double checked. Though it has been quite a while since I was pregnant, I am still pregnant in most of my dreams. I have suspected that I am a bit slow for a while. Now we know.

I had heard parents talk about how they wake up one morning and their child is instantly bigger, but I seriously feel like that happened this week. Rick and I went in to wake her up and this is what greeted us:

She's got all the official baby business happening. Invisible band around wrists...check! Super chubby cheeks....check! Soft baby pads on the back of hands....check!

The growth spurt was confirmed when we went to try on her christening gown on Sunday. This dress was my grandmother's and Annie and I are now convinced that children were smaller 100 years ago when she first wore it. Hopefully this is the first and last time she tries on a dress and finds that it is too small. Best to get it out of the way early on. It was really the sleeves with no elastic that did us in. We also have a bit of a sweet, sweet Michelin Man thing happening on the arms. It's almost too much to handle. Thankfully they now make dresses with elastic in the sleeves and tragedy was avoided.

Perhaps this was the cause of the growth spurt? No, Child Protective Services, we are not giving our toothless child a cookie. This is a Mum-Mum, given to Annie by our Jen for Halloween. It's some sort of food sorcery. It's a banana flavored rice cake that dissolves in the mouth. Like cotton candy. I wonder how many redneck babies have been given cotton candy?

Annie also appears to be giving us the finger in this shot. One perfect chubby finger.

Halloween Terror

Ok, so not really terror, per se, but it wasn't our finest moment. I was frazzled after an unexpected pre-bottle poop happened just before we left for the store to pick up goodies. I should mention here that these rice cereal/formula (she's getting one bottle of formula a day now-longest.wean.ever) poops are no joke. And because they are not very frequent, they tend to bring the quantity when they do arrive. So there was that. Oh, and I couldn't find the straps for her car seat, which her dutiful father had decided to wash the night before because they were caked in spit up. Has anyone seen my parent of the year award?

Other than a 15 minute cat nap after her bottle at 4:15, she hadn't slept since 1:00 and the poop thing sort of put her over the edge. Then I had a rookie Mom moment when I realized that her Halloween costume was a sack that she had to be zipped into, which means she couldn't wear it in her car seat. Awesome. She was still comatose by the time we got to Jen's for this photo op:

These little angels are Jen's girls. They are the sweetest things ever and love Annie. Ladybug (I haven't really told Jen about the blog, so I feel strange using their names) was thrilled with the fruit chews I gave them for halloween and appears to be pulling the finger-in-the-cheek move on her older sister.

We then unzipped Annie from the Pea Costume of Torture and headed over to the Hagemann's. I had to get her back into the damn thing before we walked in the door, to find that we interrupted their sit down dinner (people still do that?). I think my pictures of Annie and the girls are on my real camera, so I will have to get those up later. We caught Shisha on our way out and she snapped these pics.

She's smiling, but inside she's thinking, "I am going to get you later for this...".

Family photo op. I will say, Annie has learned early to smile pretty for the cameras. It might also be because I was making sweet cousin Parker jump up and down for her off-camera. No matter. In this photo I can clearly see that Annie has my corners of the eyes. That's about it, but I'll take it.

Aaannnnd...off came the Pea costume (brought to you by Guantanamo Bay Clothing) again to get in the car to go home. By this time it was soaked in baby tears and crying-induced vomit. So it should be no surprise to anyone that we decided to nix the neighborhood trick or treating and head straight to feeding and bedtime.

Naturally, Annie was a bit wound up by this point and wasn't really feeling the sleep thing, so bedtime stretched out for about 1.5 hours. Thankfully Rick took over the last leg of the crib watch so I could eat something other than the bars of chocolate I had been living on all day and relax for a minute.

So all in all, not a huge success, but thankfully Annie won't remember it and we'll make up for it next year. My Mom always says that it's not how you start the race, it's how you finish it. Since we finished the day with one frustrated parent and a child that fussed herself to sleep, I would like to modify the statement to "It's not how you finish the race, it's about how cute you look in the pictures", because despite everything, that is still one cute pea in the pod.