After taking almost two years off blogging to focus on my family and think about what kind of content I wanted to put out there, I am now ready to be back. I am so excited and have so much fun stuff planned, including some collaborations and I have created an Amazon Storefront to share some of my favorites with you all. (I’ve had so many people ask about certain products I show on my InstaStories, and since I’m not cool enough to have a swipe up, this is the next best thing!)
But my first post back had to be about our birth story with Kaley Kim. (Especially since so many people loved reading the blog post on Braxton’s birth story. If you missed it, click here.) Planning for, and having our second child has been the focus of our lives since I dropped off the blogging world. My last posts were about our amazing trip to Disney World, and that was the start of trying for baby #2. It took from October of 2017 to October of 2018 to finally get that positive pregnancy test.
But it was a worthwhile wait. I got to enjoy so many fun times with just my boy that I wouldn’t have experienced otherwise. We made some new friends in that time and went on lots of adventures with them. Then on October 30, 2018 we found out we were pregnant. I was so excited to tell Blair. I had Braxton wear a “I’m going to be a Big Brother” shirt to surprise him when he got home from work. On Thanksgiving Day we shared our news with our families. For our Christmas Cards that year, we shared our news with our friends and on social media. It made the Holiday’s so sweet and special that year. Then in January we found out we were having a girl with all our friends and family present. It was the most exciting and surprising news ever! We fully expected it would be another boy, which we would have loved, but my heart was happy I got my Disney princess.
We had a beautiful baby shower to celebrate her with all our friends and family, and I had so much fun transforming Braxton’s old nursery into a sweet girl’s nursery with soft pinks, whites and gray’s. (The wall color was supposed to be a true gray, but ended up a gray/blue mix. But the combination reminded me of Bo Peep from Toy Story so I love it even more now.)
In the month leading up to birth I decided to go through the same “preparation” I had with Braxton, which I feel like helped get my body ready for birth, and made labor short. I started eating pineapples almost daily, ate 4-5 Dates a day, walked everyday, and bounced on my yoga ball everyday. (Eating certain foods won’t put you into labor, unless it’s castor oil, but these other foods will help to soften your cervix and prepare your body to go into labor more easily. But it takes time, which is why I start a month out.)
On July 2nd I had a membrane sweep. (Which was not as painful as I imagined it would be.) Then at 3:30am that night I started to feel contractions. I woke Blair up, and he told me to start timing them and went back to sleep. (If only men knew the true pain of labor.) I woke him up a second time and told him we needed to leave. He slowly got up and went to the bathroom. I grabbed all our bags to take to the car. Called my mom to meet us at the hospital to get Braxton. And then went to wake up Braxton to take him to the car. (My mom lives about 30 minutes away from us, and we live 15 minutes from the hospital. I didn’t want to risk not making it to the hospital in time by waiting for my mom so we figured the best plan would be to just go and she could meet us there to get him.) By this time Blair was ready to go.
My mom actually beat us to the hospital and we said goodbye to Braxton. This was harder on me than I thought it would be. (Braxton thought we were going to a hotel without him and he was heartbroken. Which made me heartbroken.) But this distraction actually helped a lot with contractions. When we first checked in, they didn’t think I was in labor because “I didn’t look like I was in pain.” (During a contraction I just don’t talk and close my eyes. ) We actually had to tell them to hurry up getting me in because with Braxton, the labor progressed so quickly and I didn’t want to miss my window of getting an epidural.
By the time we were admitted to the room and I got my epidural, I was already at an 8. Once she broke my water (my water never broke on it’s own with either baby) I quickly got to a 10. After 30 minutes of pushing, Kaley was born at 8:29am on July 3rd. She was 7 pounds, 2 ounces and 18 3/4 inches long. The labor was about the same amount of time as with Braxton, but the pushing was about 15 minutes more then him. But the experience was much more pleasant. With Braxton, everything was crazy since there was only one nurse helping lots of different patients. I felt like I wasn’t a priority, and when it came time to push, she was the only nurse in the room with the OB. I wasn’t given much instruction and they hardly talked to me. I tore badly and it hurt to sit or move for months. With Kaley it was completely different. I had a nurse completely dedicated to me, and she stayed in the room the entire time I was in labor. When it came time to push, multiple nurses were in the room with the OB and I had all the help in the world. It was so comforting, and they talked me through the pushing. I barely tore and it made a complete difference in my recovery. I felt great even a few days post birth. I am so thankful for all the nurses!
Kaley and Braxton have already developed a strong bond, and he’s always the one who makes her smile and laugh the most. We are all so in love with her and so happy to have our family completed. (Which means, no more kids for us, haha.)
So onto our next adventure. Stay tuned for lots more posts coming soon! Trying to do a Monday/Friday schedule but we will see. (I already have some posts planned, and thinking about doing a giveaway if I get enough interest in my Blog again!) Leave a comment to let me know what you’d like to see, (like mom tips, more of our lives, how I’m getting my body back postpartum, etc) and make sure to subscribe so you can be notified when a new post goes live.
28 inches long???? I thought 21 inches was a long baby! Yikes!
Haha oops typo! She was only 18 inches. Big difference. (She’s still pretty short, only in the 11th percentile for height.)