I ordered a birth pool today. If I can’t have a home waterbirth, at least I can have a home water labor! I just hope I get the opportunity to use it. I also bought a nifty sink-hose adaptor so I can use warm water straight from the sink. It sounds heavenly! 😛
With this being a VBAC, I want as little opportunity as possible for them to turn it into another c-section. I am staying away from the hospital til I can’t stand it any longer! Just wish I could check myself for dilation so I’d know when to go! I also need to read up on the safety of laboring in water after your water breaks… the pool will be brand new so should be pretty sterile itself. Doubt I’ll have time to boil 106 gallons of water, lol.
You guys get to look forward to a moment by moment labor story. I haven’t held anything back yet and don’t plan on starting now.

OMG! Brendan did something I’ve been just waiting patiently for… totally unprompted, he pulled off his own pants, climbed onto the toilet and peed! DH was in there brushing his teeth and didn’t do a thing! Well, except slyly run the water to help give him the urge, lol.
We praised and praised and praised and praised some more til the kid glowed!!!
I guess we’ll start asking him if he wants to go potty during the bedtime ritual and maybe another time during the day when he is still dry but been eating and drinking. I want him to continue to lead the way if he will. Famous last words?? 😉

24w0d. Very glad to have made it this far. LBB has been a wild wee beastie lately! Last night he kept me very well entertained by his constant rolling and thumping.
As for my weight, I really have not gone overboard at all so I have no clue exactly how I am gaining so rapidly. My total weight gain isn’t astonishing or anything (10 pounds from low point, 7 from the beginning) but I’ve gained it *all* in the last 6 weeks. Doesn’t a 10 pound gain require eating more that usual? The only things I eat a bit more of are fruits and veggies. I have always had a dessert every other day or so and lately it has been a 150 calorie reduced fat cone from McDonalds more often than not. I am afraid this child is 3 pounds already or something! Ahhhhhhhhhh! My only real craving lately has been cake and I have only made cupcakes 2x since my morning sickness left. That, peoples, is being GOOD!
Anyway, I have 8 pounds left to gain in 16 weeks. That’s 1/2 a pound a week. Sounds simple but my body is doing its own thing. I read in a book that you gain about 50% of pregnancy gain in weeks 20-30 with 25% before and 25% after. Six more weeks til I am out of the crazy-gain period, I guess.
Next OB appt is in 2 weeks and I get to enjoy the glucose screening. Oh joy… that syrupy gunk makes me sicker than a dog.

23w6d. TMI ahead. I’ve noticed some “crumblies” on my nipples lately and when I shiver I get a strong tingling *zap* from each of my nipples. It’s been going on for about 2-3 weeks now along with some more soreness the past couple of days. I shivered once last night and went to investigate… sure enough, there were 3 miniscule drops of clear colostrum on one of my breasts! Exciting but annoying!
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Bren’s first Little Gym session was last night. It went… about as well as I should have expected but definitely not as well as I had hoped. He flat out *refused* to participate in the whole class activities such as ringing bells, singing, coming forward to jump into a circle (ha!) and doing different things with pretty scarves. We sat on the sidelines, all 3 of us, and alternated between encouraging him to participate and just letting him watch. It was frustrating. Any time an instructor tried to offer him something he would shake his head and hide his face.
The 2nd half of the class was more of a free for all on the different equipment centers around the room. He loved swinging on the bars and tried out a balance beam. At one point the instructor demonstrated a heel swing on another bar where she had the child hang by the arms and then pull her feet up to the bar and hang. We separately did that with Bren and he liked that. Then then class was given some balls to play with and Bren played with a ball and began to come out of his shell. They were put away all too soon though. He really acted more normal at the end though when the instructor blew bubbles and all the kids ran up to pop them. He ran right up and joined in. Then the class was over and he did allow us to sit in the circle though not to sing.
At one point in the class, Bren got mad and started crying so hard that we left the gym and spent a minute with him in the outer room. He jumped down and raced right back in. And at the end he cried because it was over. So, apparently he liked it even though he found it difficult to deal with. I felt so discouraged in the beginning of the class but by the end I was hopeful. If this wasn’t hard for him, it wouldn’t be of much help to him. I signed him up for the rest of the semester (til the end of May) but lost all hopes of putting him in the “on your own” class for now. And I was right- the kids do have to be fully potty trained to go to the summer camp classes. Darn.

23w1d. It’s a 2 in 1 baby bit. Son #2 had his first bout of hiccups (that I felt) and the first movements that could be felt above the belly button. Wheeeee! He’s a-growin’.
Goin’ shoppin’ for the baby bedding tomorrow with Aunt Cathy. Wheeeee some more! 😀
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As for Brendan, I get a kick out of hearing him say sure- “shore!” 🙂 And yesterday he started getting my attention with “Pssst! Mama!” Haha.
Speaking of kicking… I need to kick myself. How long ago was it that I won the playstation Sesame Street Sports game for him on Ebay? He played it for the first time last night and loved it. It’s perfect- no skills needed. Time to get out the V-Smile again too. It’s been almost 4 months and I hope he’ll understand it now. I want to try Candyland as well but I just can’t see him leaving the pieces on the board. :/

DH wanted me to call this entry “Tit-bits.” Hahahaha.
It was interesting. Not as many people as I thought (about 7 of us including the leader) so there wasn’t any sitting in the back. I only got overly emotional once- pat myself on the back.
There were 2 mamas with 2 month old babies. One was a BFing pro, the other was there for serious help. The 2nd lady’s baby wasn’t too keen on BFing for more than about 5 minutes. The leader, Desiree, helped some as she worked on feeding her during the class and asked anybody who wanted more help could stay after the meeting was over. Unfortunately, she left right away. I have a feeling she won’t be back and don’t really understand why she took the big step of coming if she wasn’t going to stay for help. The leader said she was fairly sure is was a bad latch problem and the baby could be totally off formula in about a week. She was a bit sad as well.
The remaining four of us were pregnant. One is due next week, one the next month, one the next month and then me in August. So there should be a new baby in each of the next 4 meetings or so. Should be fun!
Tonight’s main topic was weaning and low milk supply. Well, considering the crowd, we hardly touched weaning. Honestly, we talked about whatever issues we needed help with. It was nice that way. We got a few handouts. We chatted about how childbirth and interventions can affect your breastfeeding success… lots of other stuff.
I was the first one there since I had to search for the room and arrived early. The leader and I had just gotten into why I was there and I had told her just about anything she could name was a problem I had encountered when others started arriving. So over the course of the meeting we talked about various problems and I mentioned how difficult it was to get nurses and the like to stay away from bottles, how we syringe-fed him for a few days and how he had a tight frenulum that I had to wait 5 days til I was out of the hospital to deal with because my pediatrician didn’t believe in frenulectomies. But I don’t think she was suitably impressed with my dilemmas until I mentioned after class, as I hung around waiting to borrow a book or two, that I also have inverted nipples. She so understood that because the first thing she said was “Don’t give your new baby a bottle! Babies with tight frenulums have a really difficult time going back to the breast afterwards.” She had nicely summed up the beginning of the end of breastfeeding with Brendan.
I did learn about one thing pertaining specifically to inverted nipples- something called the piggyback hold. When you compress the areola, my nipple moves inward. I mentioned before that pushing the breast back into the chest helps to have it stick out more. Apparently, also holding the upper breast tissue, close to the areola, in a two finger pinch works too. You’d think it’d hurt but it doesn’t. Makes me think of a cat holding her kitten by the scruff of the neck though, lol. Can’t find anything on the net about it at all, curiously. Maybe I heard the name wrong.
This should be fun for all of us. I get adult conversation and much needed encouragement and help. Bren gets to play at an awesome indoor McDonald’s playplace nearby (seriously- the thing had 4 separate entrance towers just to get up into it!!) with other kids and DH gets to enjoy his enjoyment and read magazines. This particular night started with a comedy of errors though. Brendan fell asleep on the way to the restaurant. He had just woken up and got into the play tubes when I called saying my meeting was over. So, he wasn’t particularly thrilled to be taken away. So we went back afterwards and he got to run around with lots of other little boys that were surprisingly all around his age while I ate. He loved it!! And Lord help me but McDonald’s will now dip your ice cream cone in chocolate shell and it’s GOOD!

My LLL meeting is tonight and I am nervous. I don’t know why really… lol… I guess my nightmare is being asked to stand and introduce myself or something- you know AAish-like or something.
“Hi, my name is Jen. I am a BFing failure and will most assuredly need copious amounts of help and hand holding soon. May I suggest weekly meetings this August? All in favor say “Aye!” My story is too long for one meeting. Let’s just say everything went wrong so don’t ask me for advice- ever. BTW, can my son come to meetings anyway even if I don’t BF him?”
Bwahahahahaha. I really have no idea what to expect and just hope I can find the room and a seat near the back.

I saw the brand new version of The Nursing Mother’s Companion on my library’s shelf so I checked it out. I really like it compared to other nursing books I’ve read. You know it’s up to date when it mentions Lilypadz! LOL. Since I don’t own it, I am going to put the excerpts I want to remember here for future use.

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We went grocery shopping last night- just a short trip. We had previously decided that we were going to use the stroller religiously again since lately Brendan has been either running off or sitting down and refusing to move. So we got out the stroller and made him get in it and strapped him in. He cried, whined, pleaded to get out. 10 minutes into the trip and he was still complaining. So, I pulled him aside and told him the rule- he must hold mommy or daddy’s hand at all times or he’d go right back in the stroller. And it worked! Having the empty stroller there just waiting for him was the key. He was really good walking with one or the other of us for the remaining 10 minutes. If he let go, we’d immediately tell him to get in the stroller and point at it. He’d reply “no…hand!” and hold our hand once more. In the future, I may extend this rule to holding onto the cart.
Oh- one more thing… emptying his bedroom of every single toy or plaything has made time out much more effective as well. All of his toys are in our large living room now.

Bren is scheduled to go to an introductory Little Gym class at 6:30pm next Tuesday! It is a parent & child class. I hope he really takes to it. My hope is to do 2-3 parent & child (45 min) classes, 1-2 child only (1 hour) classes and then dive into once a week 3 hour long summer “camp” classes. The camp classes have weekly themes and they run for 10 weeks from June 11 to August 11. In case you are interested, the normal classes run about $12 each or $240 per 20 week semester and the camp classes are $22 each or $95 for any 5 classes.