Ruby Jewel Polehn

It's been almost 3 months since our second daughter arrived in this world. October 11, 2012 at 8:56 pm. My children will never do things the way that people tell them and quite frankly I am not surprised. I mean if you know Daniel and myself than you know its in their genetics to question and do things on their own terms. This proved to be true once again with Ruby. We thought that Ruby's birth would be uneventful and scheduled, but she had her own idea. Since her sister, Lucy, was born via c-section I was a repeat scheduled c-section with Ruby. I was scheduled to come in at 6 am on 10/12/12 to be prepped for delivery at 8 am. Since I had experienced a c-section I knew what to expect and figured that it might even be less of a hardship since I wouldn't be laboring for 18 hours before. So on 10/11/12, the day before she was told she would arrive, we decided to have one last day as a family of three. We took Lucy to Momma janes for pancakes and then to Shriners farm across the river to look at the animals and then brought her back and put her down for her nap. Now a word of warning this next sentence may not be appropriate for readers under 16. Daniel and I then decided to have one last "alone time." Well about 15 minutes later my back really started hurting, but I kept cleaning and getting the house spik and span. You know, the last bit of nesting. This started around 3 and I kept telling Daniel that I was pretty sure I was in labor, but I wasn't really sure what to do because I knew I wasn't supposed to progress too far. Around 5 my momma came over to talk about when Lucy was coming over the next morning and I told her that I was having constant back pain, but nothing too painful. She told me that I needed to call the nurse because she was certain that I was in labor. So we called and she instructed us to go to the hospital and at least see if I was contracting and to be checked. We arrived at 6:30 and I went into my room and was hooked up. Sure enough I was contracting every 2 to 3 minutes. Unfortunately my doctor wasn't the doctor on call until the next morning so I really wanted to wait it out. Well after an hour I was still contracting 2 to 3 minutes and she told us she was going to check me and if I was 3 cm or more that they would need to get me back to surgery. She checked me and I am was 3 cm and thinned out. We were having her that night. I was excited, especially since they told me that they had called my doctor and that he was going to come to deliver her. After 4 tries they finally got my I.v. in and I was walked back into surgery and waited what felt like hours for her cries. At 8:56, 10/11/12 she let out her first small cry, at least compared to her sister ;) I was surprised that I was just as emotional if not more this time to have brought another beautiful daughter into the world. 6 pounds and 15 oz. 20 inches long. Looked just like her big sister. We got to spend the first night totally alone with our little Ruby since we wanted Lucy to be the first one to meet her and she had gone to bed by the time she was born. I think that it tortured the rest of my family, but it was so awesome to spend time alone with her. The next morning Lucy came in and was the first to see her new best friend and it was amazing. her

What we did today

I think that this is a great place to journal what fun things we do each day. I mean after all when you get the privilege of staying home with your children you should be able to come up with at least one fun activity a day.
So today we went to toddler story time at our local library. Lucy was pretty shy at first, just watching and taking it all in. Then after the first story they sang the head, shoulders, knees, and toes song and she decided that it was okay to have fun. After all of the stories they had some foam blocks we built with and Lucy learned triangle today. :)
The other fun thing we did was play in shaving cream. This is such a fun, and entertaining, textural experience for anyone really. Especially for a toddler. She ram her hands through and through it and started to tell me she was making animals. Those experiences may seem small and trivial, but Lucy learned today and that is something that should always be exciting. If its not than as a teacher and parent we're doing it wrong.
Until tomorrow! Amanda

Lucy's big girl bed!

Lucy reached another milestone in her life, she started sleeping in a toddler bed! This came rather quickly if you ask me. It seems like yesterday I had to rock her to sleep and not so long before that I had to nurse her and hold her through her entire nap! After the first year of sleep struggles and trials I am VERY proud of her for being ready for this milestone. Lucy didn't sleep through the night until she was 9 months old and didn't sleep in her own bed until that time either. Then she wanted to be rocked and rocked, but now she says, "Night, Night." and gets a kiss, rolls over with her pooh and piglet in her arms and falls asleep. Now that Lucy can get in and out of her bed she spends a lot more time in there playing, almost as if its finally a room and not just a sleeping place. So far we are on night three and she hasn't once gotten up, not even during nap time!
Some people may be curious why we decided to transition her so young. Well with the arrival of her new sister in October we thought it would be a good idea to not throw a bunch of new things at her at once. We are also adding on to our house, which means that Lucy will have a new room soon too. There are a lot of big changes coming up for our little toddler, but she has taken this one with great stride!

Lucy getting ready to go to sleep in her bed!

Lucy playing while we turned it from a crib to a bed.

It's a.......GIRL!

We are happy to inform you, people of the world, that Lucy will be a big sister to a little sister! We are so excited to have another sweet girl joining us in October and cannot wait to start gathering new items for our little Ruby.  Ruby was very shy with showing us, but we finally got a shot that determined that she was not a male :) It took the ultrasound technician about 40 minutes because our little Ruby was very uncooperative. (Go figure!). Later that night we had invited our family and good friends to our gender reveal party. Most people were on team blue and were hoping for a boy, but we revealed to everyone, including Lucy, that it was Ruby and not "baby boy" Polehn!
Lucy already loves her new "sisser ubee"! :)

The gender reveal cake

Little Ruby laughing

Jonah and Lucy riding cars at the gender reveal party

Keeping up!

I really should write more blogs. I mean after all its a great way to "journal" for my family. If I tried to go back and fill you in over the last 20 months I think you and I would both be bored. So I will write about whats happening tomorrow.
Tomorrow is a very exciting day for our family. We (cross our fingers) get to find out if our new baby is a he or a she! I think I am way more nervous this time around then I was with Lucy. For some reason I just knew Lucy was a girl, I just was waiting for someone to say, "Oh your right! Its a girl!" With this baby I go back and forth, back and forth! I really wouldn't place any bets either way! If I was being honest though, I would kind of like another girl. I know most people want one of each, but I would be perfectly happy with two sweet girls. If this baby is a boy though I will be just as happy, but I think that it will be a new journey that's for sure! So lets cross our fingers that our baby doesn't cross its legs tomorrow! Night!

The birth of our Lucy Lynne Marie

The birth of our little baby began on Thursday, September 23rd at 6:30pm. Daniel and I decided that another day had passed and no signs of labor so we went to a movie. Well the movie was over and we were on our way home when I suddenly had a contraction. Jokingly I said to Daniel, "Hey maybe well have a baby after all." He was like,"Oh yeah? Did you have a contraction." "One," I replied, "but it was the worst one yet." Then all of a sudden I felt it, my water had broke. "Uh, my water just broke!" I calmly said to Daniel. "Nu-uh." he replied. "No seriously." "Well do I need to go to the hospital?" "No lets go home I have to change my pants!" So we went home and I decided since the contractions hadn't started yet to fix my hair and look presentable before labor started in full gear.
We arrived at the hospital and the contractions had started, but they were bearable. They cleared a room out for us and we checked in and settled in for a word from our doctor. We had to wait until they knew for sure that it was my water that had broken and that we would be staying until we had our baby. When they knew that it was my water they checked me and I hadn't changed since my last appointment and I was still only 1.5 cm dilated and 90% effaced. He told me that I would probably be laboring for the next 24 hours. Then the contractions kicked in HARD. On top of the contractions I also had terrible back labor. For the next few hours I labored naturally, but when the Jacuzzi didn't even begin to take an edge off I asked if I could have my epidural so that I could sleep. When he came back in to check I was fully effaced and 5cm. I received my epidural at 1:30am and we slept for a few hours. Then at about 7 am September 24th he came back in and I was at 9 cm and she had turned and we were almost ready to push. Two hours passed and it was time to push. He told me that it would take an hour to two hours of pushing and our little one would be here. Well two hours of pushing had passed and there was still no sign that our little one was even close to arriving. He told us that we needed to try some pitocin to help the contractions be more productive and if she still didn't descend that we would need to have a c-section. Now for those who knew my plan I had plan for an all natural birth, with the very last option being a c-section, so I was determined to get her out! Alas, another hour and a half had passed and she was stuck on the pelvic bone and she couldn't work her way around it. So I was wheeled back to surgery and at 1:07pm Lucy Lynne Marie Polehn took her first breath of life. She was 7lb 12oz and a tall 21 in. The perfect size. After her quick introduction, Daniel followed her to the nursery, while I was being fixed up and shortly after, I was reunited with my new love. She is the most perfect little thing I have ever seen and I can't believe how hard I have fallen in love. She quickly learned how to feed and is doing amazing! We are so in love!

What?!?

Okay so... so far I have felt ahead and fairly prepared for the birth of our daughter, but in like the last week I have realized that I don't think that I can fully be prepared and thats kind of freaking me out a bit. I mean I knew before getting pregnant that you can never emotionally, mentally, and physically be completely prepared for having a child, but I thought that I could be the exception for that rule. I even decided to go get an early childhood education degree so I knew all about development and care before I had one of my own; but I am not so sure if its really going to help. I am going to be 100% responsible for another persons life. I will be their source of physical care, emotional well being, in charge of filling their brains with knowledge, and making sure that they grow up to be a well rounded person. Common isn't that something that you can totally freak out about? I think so! Just saying I think that I am finally scared. I know that I will be able to do it with the help of others, but I am scared. Just thought that I would let everyone know. :)

Update on life for the past 7 months!

Well well well... I guess I'm not a very good blog updater :) Its been since January when I wrote about our baby Jude. A lot has happened since then! Life has a funny way of working things out.
I wrote about how on new years eve we picked up our little ones ashes from OHSU; well its amazing how God works things out because on January 1st we conceived another baby! Of course we didn't get a positive test until January 12th, but sure enough we were expecting again! Daniel and I decided that we were going to wait to share this until we cleared our first trimester ultrasound, but we were confident and so were the doctors that trisomy 18 would not affect our next baby. Our first trimester screening turned out great with no large bladder and a correctly sized fetus! We also had a quad screen test, which would screen the likely hood of having a child with a chromosome abnormality, and that test came back with negative results! We had finally made it past 14 weeks, which was when we lost Jude, and were relieved! We were able to start sharing the good news with our family and friends!
On May 11th, a week before Judes due date, we found out that we were expecting a little girl and she was as healthy as can be! So far this has been a picture perfect pregnancy with no complications. We are now 31 weeks and have 68 days until Lucy Lynne Marie is due (September 26th)! Daniel and I are so excited and it has been so amazing to be blessed so quickly after a hardship. I still don't know why we lost our Jude, but I do know that God has a plan and if it weren't for our loss than our little girl would not exist. So always keep hope because his plans are much greater than ours. Until next time, Amanda

Our Baby Jude

This is one of those things in life where it took me several times to actually sit down and write it out. Putting yourself out there and exposing your heart to the world is never easy, but I feel like its only fair to share my experiences with others not for sympathy or attention, but in hopes that it may help someone through their tough time or it might help me find someone to help me through. So here is what has happened in our lives this fall and winter.

September 7th I found out that I was pregnant. This was so wonderful because we had been trying for a while. I was so excited I took the test out to Daniels work and showed him and went and told our parents that night. Of course they were all so excited, but I was reserved and told them that I didn't want to tell everyone until we had made it through our first trimester. I don't know why, but I was nervous about shouting it from the rooftops. I felt as if there was a lingering voice telling me that I shouldn't get too excited. I knew the statistics 1 in 4 women loose a baby. 1 in 4! I felt that those were really high and even though you never want or could imagine that it could be you the reality is that someone has to be that 1. I as still doing all of the fun and exciting things that a new mom should do; take pictures once a month of my growing belly, crave foods such as bbq sandwiches, complain to her husband about all of the gas, and hug the toilet every morning. Our first ultrasound was scheduled out to be on October 28, but due to some bleeding I went in on the 23rd. The baby was alive and dancing up a storm almost as if he were saying look I'm already an entertainer. It was right on track growth wise and by this time he was two and a half months old! The doctor reassured me that there was no immediate danger and that they would see me on the 28th for a more thorough first trimester ultrasound. When the day finally rolled around I was so excited for Daniel to be able to see our little baby. We never expected anything, but more dancing. It only took the doctor all, but five minutes to say that the baby's bladder was too big and that she was going to send us to OHSU to have it better looked at. She said that she had never seen a bladder as big as our babies was at eleven weeks. Leaving that day I didn't know what to think there was hardly any information given about what that meant, so we had to sit around and stew and wait until November 5th, a whole week later, to find out.

When we got to OHSU I was still hopeful, maybe it was nothing or at least fixable with all of the new technology. We were there for about an hour they were taking tons of pictures of our baby, who had the hiccups that day. But when it came down to it to big black space in my babies abdomen, where there should have been beautiful body tissue was bigger and the cyst that was on the umbilical cord had turned into two. They then took us into the other room to fully go over what we saw on the screen. Our babies bladder had gotten so big and backed up that it had caused the kidneys to swell past the point of them being able to function if it was born and eventually the cysts would start cutting off the blood supply to the baby. They said that they were amazed, by the progress of the dis-functioning system and were impressed that our baby was still alive. We were still in disbelief and confusion and didn't want to ask the question that needed to be asked. Is our baby going to survive? As gently as they could put it the answer was no. It was only a matter of time, but our baby would not live to see this world. Our baby had a chromosomal abnormality that is called trisomy 18, it was a non-genetic abnormality, which means that it could happen to anyone at anytime and there is no explanation for why. We were then given some choices we could wait for another three weeks and come back and see what was going on, wait to see if it even made it that long, or medically interrupt the pregnancy. With any of these choices we still wouldn't win, the outcomes were all the same we would not have a bouncy baby in our home in May. I wouldn't wish the amount of emotional and spiritual devastation on even my worst enemy. On November 13th our baby went to see his Savior and we went home empty and with utter sadness. He was 14 weeks, just beginning his second trimester.

Daniel and I decided to name our baby Jude. This was the name that I had picked out for a boy since the beggining and I just kept telling Daniel that we didn't even need girl names because this was going to be a boy. Although no one from the outside world couldn't and wouldn't have known that a baby existed inside of me, we knew and we picked up our baby Jude's ashes on December 31, 2009. I acknowledged this with a tattoo of our babies name over my heart because my baby who didn't have the chance to live in this world will forever live in my heart.

April

So April 2009 was definately the best month of the year.
I started my practicum in March, which is like student teaching except with younger children. I was in the 12- 18 month old room at Great n Small. It was fun and I really like spending time with little ones.
Besides school Daniel and I went to DISNEYLAND!! Wooo hooo!! We took a road trip down through California and took several stops along the way. We visited our friends Brittany, Joel, and Brian and then stayed in Bakersfield. On the way down to Bakersfield Daniel and I smelt the worst smell we have EVER smelled in our lives!! It was so bad that we couldnt stop laughing out of shock! California STINKS!! Anyways after we were done sleeping in Bakersfield we made it down to Disneyland for four days!! It was so much fun!! We then drove up and stayed in San Fransisco for the night and then in the Redwood forests! It was a blast!! Oh yeah and I forgot that we also ended up in the Urgent care the fifth day of our trip because Daniel caught the swine flu right when the pandemic started. The silly thing was it didnt last long!!
Also in April Chewie turned one! So that was April in a nut shell! Check out May!!