There\’s no place like home

Tabby just started her first class. She’s been asking to take ballet for about a year and we finally got around to signing her up. She ran off without a backward glance:

Lorelei is getting so chubby and interactive. At four months she can roll over from her belly to her back. John thinks its more like falling over. She gets her big head going and the rest of her just follows. She looks surprised every time she does it. She laughs and giggles at us and when we aren’t paying attention to her she’ll call until we look at her. She loves talking and will have long conversations with herself. She is learning to use her hands and loves to grab at things. The kids find it hilarious when she tries to grab stuff on the iPad. She sleeps pretty well (next to me of course), getting up a few times at night to nurse. Her nursing sessions are pretty short but for some reason I stay awake through them. With the others I always slept through them. She also likes daddy so much more than any of the others. She lets him hold her much until she gets sleepy and needs a nap. She’ll also lay on the floor or couch for long periods (well 15 min is long for us) of time looking around. She no longer needs me to hold her while we’re sleeping either so I probably only hold her for 10-12 hours a day now. It’s kinda strange. She’s still very hyper constantly kicking, moving, and wiggling. She often ends up half dressed, kicking herself out of her outfits. I’m completely loving every little minute of it because soon enough she’ll be running around.

My little Gnome:

Half Dressed as usual:

Clear shot of her Mohawk:

It’s amazing how quickly things become a tradition. Here is our tradition for news year. We order pizza and watch 2 movies. At the 10 p.m. we count down to new years, have a parade banging pots and pans, and then shoot off silly string. It’s such a mess that this year I bought popper instead. That really didn’t fly for the kids. Silly string is TRADITION!

Where was Lorelei through all this?

Johnny got up early but the rest of the kids slept until 9! The kids were very excited about their christmas presents.

Well not Lorelei so much:

For Christmas Eve the boys went to the Christkindle Market with Daddy this time. Tabby and Lorelei stayed home with me. I finished Lorelei’s Stocking just in time.

I barely managed to get our traditional Fondue dinner on the table since I still had to lie down every couple of hours.

The boys spent quite a bit of time tracking Santa.

Finally we played opened and played a couple of new games Jenga and Risk.

Each pregnancy I’ve had has been progressively worse to the point where I ended up in the hospital for four days this last time. So I decided that this would be may last pregnancy and since birth control doesn’t work so well for us (I’ve been pregnancy 7-8 times in the last 10 years even nursing my kids for 2-3.5 years), I decided I wanted a tubal after the birth. I know there are other options but this made the most sense to me.

Well during the 17 hour labor the OB I had happened to spend most of his time in the family planning clinic doing research in contraceptive methods. He has worked extensively with the Essure method. Basically what they do is put a small stent in your fallopian tube that causes scarring which blocks up the tubes. I had initially objected to it because I figured it couldn’t be as effective as a tubal (it’s more), it was too new (it’s been around for 10 years), and I was worried once you started scarring it would just keep going (he said he’s seen more problems with a tubal and scarring). So he convinced me however I forgot about my biggest objection which was once the baby comes out I’ll forget how bad the pregnancy was and not want to get the procedure done.

So fast forward three months. I manage to convince myself after numerous assurances from John that we could adopt to go through with the procedure. I was nervous about leaving the baby but decided that if John didn’t come with me I would probably chicken out at the last minute. I also planned it on 12/22 thinking John had the day off (he didn’t) and they assured me that I would probably be fine after I sleep off the sedative. Well things were going along fine. I think they started the procedure around 1:45 or so. I barely felt anything until suddenly they were pulling things out and wheeling me to another room. Apparently they had seen my colon on the scope which is very bad. I was still sedated at this point but the doctor is telling me they poked a hole in my uterus with the camera and were going to transfer me to the hospital to watch my blood counts over night. I said NO. I have never left the baby and I was certainly not going to leave my three month old overnight! I figured John could observe me and we would sign out AMA if we had to. John actually wasn’t there at this point (he went out for lunch since they told him it would be at least an hour and a half) and he probably could have talked me into staying especially if he pointed out they were watching my blood counts to make sure I don’t bleed out. At this point the doctor said if I wanted to go ahead and do a tubal they could then go in and cauterize the hole and as well and if things looked okay I could go home afterwards.

I jumped all over this idea! So off we went through the tunnels of Northwestern to pre-op and after a few papers I was suddenly in the operating room. I think they started cutting at 3:30. Next thing I know I was waking up in post op. I remember it being about 5. They had cauterized my tubes in three places on one and four on the other and my uterus. Apparently it was “oozing”. The doctor said he though that I probably would have needed surgery one way or another since the hole wasn’t scabbing over. By 6:30 they were discharging me and by 7:15 I was in my own bed.

The chances of this happening: 1 in 1000! I actually laughed when they mentioned it when I signed the consent papers. I mean my uterus managed to keep Lorelei in as she tried her hardest to punch and kick her way through. We’re going to have a little talk during the follow up when I’m not doped up.

The moral of the story. I should have done the tubal right away and don’t schedule your Essure procedure for three days before Christmas!

We were suppose to go to the zoo lights tonight but see next post!

They picked Howl’s Moving Castle this year. I really meant for them to watch “The Christmas Story” but Thomas really didn’t want to.