Wednesday, March 30, 2011

crosby catherine

May you always walk in sunshine.

May you never want for more.
May Irish angels rest their wings right beside your door.

finally, more photos of our wee little one, arriving just after st. patrick's day. i've always wanted to be irish. can i live vicariously through her and a birthday close to the irish holiday?

Photobucket

this little beauty- i simply can't take my eyes off her. her fingers. her feet. her nose and ears and bow mouth. her dark blue eyes. after initially thinking that she wasn't a developing pregnancy because the doctor couldn't locate her heartbeat on the very first ultrasound, through 38 weeks of absolute ups and downs and worry, to a long 19 hour labor, she is absolutely perfect. nary a flaw to be found. she's our second slice of heaven, alongside her big sister, and bears an uncanny resemblance to miss harper. i could swear sometimes just looking at her that i'm back to july 2008 and home on maternity leave with our first born.

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

she was born, set immediately on my chest, and the first words i said to her were, "hello my little firecracker." but this feisty little being that stretched and twisted and pushed and kept me up many nights is nothing like it outside the womb. she has a calm, peaceful personality that magically relaxes. she seems to bring on an aire of contentment around the house and to everyone she meets. she hates being swaddled, and we've finally discovered that she prefers to be in her sleep sack allowing her arms to rest up towards her head.

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

getting dressed to go home...

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

we've already taken to calling her many nicknames. cici. c-roz. baby bee. blondie. in general, she's my little miracle and my second angel sent from above.

Photobucket

and just in the nick of time, my beautiful girlfriend christina met up with us to shoot some maternity photos, a mere 4 days before crosby arrived. so, so happy with the results. these are amazing photos that i will cherish for always. she captured a moment in time that i can't ever get back, and i am overly thankful and appreciative. much love, christina. you are gifted.

and with that, a fond good night to all...

Photobucket

big sister

i am in awe of how grown up harper became once crosby arrived. she is no longer a baby, but she'll always be my first born and the one who made me a mommy. and she has impressed us with her innocent and unconditional love that she has shown for her little sister.

i can't deny that i really wanted another girl. i hate to say it again, but i really wanted another girl. i wanted two girls to share the sister relationship that i am lucky to have with my sister. not to say that they'll always get along, but to know you have someone on your side through anything, well, there's nothing better. someone to laugh with. someone to cry with. someone who knows all your secrets, even the ones mom doesn't. it's a special thing. and so when i see the sparkle in harper's eyes and the lighted smile on her face already when she sneaks in some extra kisses and hugs with her baby sister and tells us that she loves her crosby, it simply melts me.

harper meeting crosby for the first time...

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

harper ready and willing to hold her baby sister...

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

opening her presents from crosby...

Photobucket

Photobucket
yup, the handy manny singing toolbox. girl loves her handy manny.

watching crosby through the nursery window...

Photobucket

Photobucket

and helping to wheel her back to our room...

Photobucket

Photobucket

she's such a big helper with the pacis and nappies...

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

i'm looking more forward to seeing these 2 lovely beings grow up together and share that magical bond of sisterhood. it's something i value more than anything, and hope they will, too.

Friday, March 25, 2011

underappreciated

it's time to take a second and give a big shout out thank you to the people who make a difference in our lives and don't often get recognition for it. recently, for us, it was our amazing nurses at st. joe's who kept this mama going during a long and difficult labor, brought our baby girl safely into the world, and helped us adjust once again to life with a newborn those first couple of days in the hospital. we were so lucky to have such amazing nurses and we can't thank our lucky stars enough for these wonderful women.

(side note- please disregard the lovely days of pretty hospital hair, makeup and clothes. i obviously was not camera ready!)

first, to tina, who came onto her shift and into my room. i was her only patient during her 12 hours and she was amazing. she spent all her time with us, sharing her knowledge, getting this little tiny bundle moving so that we could meet her, reassuring me that all was ok and encouraging me to keep going. i can't thank her enough for everything she did for me and for my family.

Photobucket

second to marie, who was hand-picked and passed on to us especially by tina when her shift was ending. marie got me through the long exhausting night, the epidural, the last painful contractions and the miraculous first meeting with our little angel. crosby was born 30 minutes prior to her shift ending. she spent her entire shift with us, and i can't thank her enough.

i also can't forget to thank dr. a. out of 8 doctors in my practice, she was the one on call when we arrived. she also was 30 minutes from the end of her 24-hour shift when crosby arrived. she provided me the encouraging motivational words to keep going through just one more contraction, and brought our little girl safely into this world and into my arms.

Photobucket

and last but certainly not least, was our mother-baby nurse, molly. as i was getting wheeled down to my room, i passed molly in the hallway and we immediately recognized each other. i glanced at the board in the nurses station as we passed, and saw that our room number was written next to molly's name, and my heart jumped for joy. molly was our mother-baby nurse when harper was born. she was an angel and got us through those first 3 days of harper's life when michael and i had no clue what the heck we were doing or how to handle this new little life that we had just brought into this world. she made such an impression with harper, and i was forever sorry that we didn't exchange contact information, so i was thrilled that we had her again. she was with us all 3 days again with crosby, and on our last day, we hugged and cried and promised that we would always keep in touch. i am so thankful that fate brought her back to us. this woman exudes strength, calm and grace. she was an inspiration and cared for our entire family with such amazing compassion. and we aren't letting this second chance of her coming into our life pass again. we'll be seeing her soon.

Photobucket

here's proof that she cared for harper, too. we rummaged through our computer photos and pulled this picture out to show molly.

Photobucket

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

love times two

introducing our newest addition, a little baby girl, making us a family of four.

Photobucket


crosby catherine petrous
born 6:31 am wednesday, march 23rd
5 pounds, 10 ounces
18 inches long

we are tired after a long 22 hours of waiting, inducing and labor, but we are all well. crosby looks just like her big sister, harper, only tinier. more pictures to come.

Photobucket

what did my hands do before they held you? sylvia plath

Monday, March 21, 2011

life as we know it

it's about to change. we're on the brink of a world we know nothing of yet- one with 2 littles. i'm excited and nervous and happy and sad all at the same time.

it's 3:01 am as i sit and type this. and it's been a month from tomorrow since my last catch up post. crazy how the time recently has just flown. i can't tell you how many times i've come to this blog ready to post some photos and thoughts, only to be stolen away for being way too exhausted or having to pick up another mess or needing to snuggle with my so-close-to-being-3-year-old-it's-scary. there's been lots going on that deserves to be written down for harper and soon-to-be new little one to look back on, but such is life.

mainly, i am up right now because this thunderstorm that's rolling and flashing outside our windows has me up in a panic. only just this friday, as i met with my doctor for my weekly check in, did i ask what the likelihood of me going into labor from the full moon this weekend would be. he assured me that there have been studies that didn't correlate a full moon to an increase in the number of mommies-to-be showing up in labor and delivery, but that a change in barometric pressure did. and thus, our thunderstorm. so, i'm up, writing down my thoughts and sharing pictures because i'm nervous this might be the last time i'm able to sit for a while and jot down the million things running through my head. that, and harper called out for me to lie with her in her bed for a bit. i really don't mind her nightly calls. they're few and far between, and i love getting the chance to snuggle with her. i have to get used to being up again a million times in the middle of the night anyways, so i guess she's just preparing me.

another big event that happened at our friday appointment was an unlikely turn of events. at my 34 week appointment 4 weeks ago the doctor informed us that the baby was breech. this baby with the april 1st due date just kept us on our toes yet again; such a practical joker. i had such a great labor with harper, and i was really hoping for that again. i had to slowly come to terms with the fact that it might not. i am the epitome of a planner. and if things don't go the way i had them laid out, i stomp my feet (not always literally), huff and puff, and then get to work on developing and accepting a new plan. so, i resolved myself, after some crying and complaining, that this baby might just be born via cesarean. and eventually i came to terms with it, but not without trying to get it to flip. i didn't go overboard, but i did do some strange things. mainly this... (set on top of pregnant belly so the head would turn away from the cold)

Photobucket

and this...

Photobucket

Photobucket

yes, michael is burning my toe (see the steam in the second photo?). i met with an acupuncturist so i could learn the ancient chinese art of moxibustion. basically, a moxa stick is placed at the pressure point in your pinky toe, lit and let burn until the pregnant woman feels the ouch of the burn, and then it's snuffed out and done again 6 more times. and this is then to be done 2-3 times a day, ideally. the premise is that the energy from the burning moxa is sent up through the leg to the womb where it spins the baby. sounds crazy, and even the acupuncturist warned me that it was weird stuff, but i believed and honestly, this baby moved a whole lot more following the first burn of each evening. so that, along with a one time visit to a chiropractor (which made me more nervous than i originally thought and thus i refused to go back), sustaining a position on all fours with my head on the ground for a few minutes a couple times, and physical therapy to help realign my sacrum so i could stop limping around like an 80-year-old woman.

something must have worked, or else the baby just really wanted to keep us guessing, because the doc informed us friday that baby was now head down. and for that to occur at 38 weeks, when there really isn't much room to do lots of flipping and spinning, is a miracle in itself and not something that i thought would really happen. but i was elated. so, our c-section that was scheduled for march 31st will just have to be given away to some other mommy. i'm not taking it. we're back to wondering when our little one will arrive, and loving every minute of the waiting game.

so this life as we know it now is going to change soon enough. and i look back at this last month at what we've been able to enjoy...

morning coffee in a sunny, yellow cup while we sit and put 40 piece puzzles together for the umpteenth time to go along with the sunshine and slightly warmer days that have shown up on occasion and slowly melted away the mile high snow banks that have been surrounding us for so many long, cold, dark months.

Photobucket

piggie tails, when she allows me to actually do her hair.

Photobucket

open preschool gym with our friends, kellie and anna, during our mid-winter school break. so looking forward to our weekly play dates again this summer, and perhaps while i'm off on maternity leave, too. we had good intentions to keep it going through the school year after our every tuesday meeting last summer, but somehow, life slipped in there and we didn't meet up as often as these mommies would have liked...and needed. i hope i'm instilling in harper how important girlfriends are. i don't know where i'd be without the amazing ones in my life. and how cool will it be when harper and anna can grow up and be able to say to everyone- hey, our birthdays are only 15 days apart and we met through our moms when we were 3 months old!

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

celebrating a first birthday, along with 3 pregnancies and a newbie. tina (on the very left) and i are due merely 2 weeks apart, and jeni (second from left) is due in june with her third. candice on the right welcomed baby reese in december. us girls met through our husbands, who were fraternity brothers in college, and have become very close. we've celebrated spartan victories and losses, college tailgates, new years weekends, plain-old-get-togethers and bbqs, bridal showers, weddings, knitting nights, girls night poker 101 with a hired in scary casino dealer so that we could actually play with our husbands, first births, second births. the list goes on and on.

Photobucket

so that was the past month, and this weekend brought even more. harper and i got to model for some maternity photos with my very good friend, christina, saturday morning. so fun! i attended a bridal shower saturday afternoon, and when i got home, i walked in to harper post-nap, the sun shining and my new upgraded camera body just waiting and begging to be trialed, so we quickly got ready and headed up to the park. talk about life as we know it. what a difference a winter makes- our little cautious one has turned into the one that's willing to try anything and wants to do everything herself. it had us smiling and laughing and running all over the playground just to keep up with her energy. she wanted to climb up structures that were quadruple her height and walk on wobbly bridges and scale the rock wall and slide down the big twisty slides all on her own. and i attempted to figure out my new d90 that i am just (in my best soprano voice) looooving to capture her in all her glory!

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket

we also got to escape to a tropical island for breakfast sunday morning-banana pancakes made with coconut oil. it's the closest we'll get to palm trees and the ocean waves for a long while, but when i closed my eyes and opened the magical (and healthy) jar of coconutty goodness, i swear bob marley and a steel drum band were whispering sweet melodies in my ear as i sipped my pina colada.

Photobucket

and this doesn't fit so well, but just can't be left out. because we've been able to spend more time outside, meaning bikes are finding their way out of the garage again, the helmet has become more than just a means of safety while pedaling away. just last year, it took lots of convincing to get her to wear it. not this year. nope, it's meandered into the house and become the latest fashion accessory. wake up, put on helmet with pjs. change into clothes for running errands, put on helmet as we drive the 1/2 hour to costco. take off helmet because mommy and daddy would prefer not to lose it in the store. try on the million other helmets that we locate as we peruse around the sporting goods store while daddy picks out his golf shoes. cry at dinner out with the family for nana's birthday because the helmet isn't covering her head. oh, it's too much. but i'm glad she's learning the term safety first!

Photobucket

and there you have it. a brief (ha!) little catch up to our life the past few weeks. can't promise that posts will be happening more frequently- i have no idea what the next couple weeks will hold, but you can bet i'll keep coming back here, to this beautiful little life of ours. and with that, i'm back to bed to catch a couple more hours of snoozing before the alarm rings and it's up and at 'em for work and school and the life that keeps us marching on.

Photobucket