Vivian Lucille

We recently welcomed Vivian Lucille Butt into the world. She is a darling and sweet girl. She is hardly fussy and very adorable with the one unfortunate problem that I am unable to get her burps out and so Kyle has to do it.

At this point I can honestly say Vivian has the most exciting birth story in my family. My contractions started early in the morning. Meghan and Adelaide took a couple of days of slow, irregular contractions so I prepared myself for a long haul. I ate well, took a nap and spent most of the day trying to relax. By evening my contractions hurt a lot, but I wasn't going to rush to the hospital for several reasons:

a) the sooner you go to the hospital, the more likely you are to get medical intervention you don't really want like pitocin and c-sections

a-i) I wanted minimal intervention

a-ii) I REALLY wanted a VBAC

b) I dislike hospitals and they make me tense,

b-i) if you're tense things can take a lot longer

b-ii) the longer you're there the greater your chance of intervention

c) My contractions are always irregular and this freaks the nurses out. Their solution is to pump up the pitocin

c-i) Pitocin hurts A LOT

c-1) I hate pitocin with a passion

c-a) No, really, I HATE the stuff.

d) I didn't think my contractions hurt all that badly yet.

d-i) Sure I was unhappy and groaning and telling Kyle that I never wanted any more kids, but they weren't as bad as the contractions I had with Adelaide

d-1) It didn't occur to me that those contractions were with Pitocin

d-a) Oops.

I have had several reports that many people thought it was time for me to go to the hospital at least by 10:00 that night. I have other reports that more people thought I would wait too long. By 11:00 I was having inklings of it too, but I thought I'd hang on a little longer. By that point I was very tired and I'm pretty sure my brain wasn't working too well. You know, when you get into that living moment to moment experience and acting on instinct.

12:30-ish I woke up Kyle who was trying to make sure he was rested for the hospital (ha ha ha). By 12:45 it was too late. Vivian was born in the bathroom into her Nana's hands. Two irresistible pushes and out she popped. The paramedics arrived shortly after and rushed me to the hospital. I hear that it was quite the scene outside with a firetruck, patrol car, ambulance and a big crowd but I was unaware of most of it. I had lost a bit of blood and things were going fuzzy as the paramedics carried me down the stairs. After the baby came out that was about the only thing I could focus on.

At the hospital after stitching and putting me on pitocin (AAARGH - I thought I had escaped the nasty stuff by birthing at home!) they tried to move me from Labor and Delivery to the Maternity ward. I passed out in the wheelchair. Consequently, I spent most of the day in Labor and Delivery with really painful cramps thanks to the pitocin. Like make me cry painful cramps. I blessed the kind nurse who had mercy on me and turned the stuff down to practically off once it was clear that my body was doing just fine with the bleeding and shrinking down. My blood counts were low and I didn't pass their blood pressure test so they gave me a blood transfusion. I couldn't even nurse the baby because they were concerned about me being too weak. Kyle really stepped up to the plate and was the best dad and husband ever - he changed every diaper, held her every time she cried and nursed her - just kidding. He fed her formula until I was given permission to nurse. After the blood transfusion they got me to Maternity ward where I spent a long time resting in bed and Kyle was able to get some sleep after all that hard work he did.

I don't think I was ever so tired after having a baby. Even after the C-section I was more perky and capable of movement. But I guess blood loss will do that to you. So I spent a lot of time in bed and boy does that make you sore. Here is me in the misery of my confinement.

OK, it wasn't that bad. I had a beautiful baby girl and suddenly all that hard work and exhaustion was worth it. I promised Kyle that I would consider having another baby. After all, this one was so cute.

I consider myself fortunate that the doctor released me Monday evening instead of waiting until Tuesday morning. My girls were needing me at home and, like I said, I don't like hospitals that much although it was fun getting to watch TV all day and have Jello with every meal.

Meghan has fallen in love with Vivian. She wants to hold her and take care of her and have her be HER baby. Adelaide couldn't really care less. I ended up throwing away my favorite old, comfy pajamas, at least one towel and my quilt is going to end up as a dog blanket at best.

I am still spending most of my time resting but I am getting stronger. I even cooked breakfast this morning! I will be forever grateful that Kyle's mom was here before, during and after the event. She has helped me so much and more than she ever really intended to. And I am so happy to have such a beautiful and sweet spirit join my family.

So now I've had a c-section from a failed home-birth, a hospital birth with an epidural and an all-natural unplanned home-birth so I've had quite a variety of experiences. I know there is a lot of to do about how wonderful a natural birth is but having done it I'm not sure I really see the charm in it. Its just as messy and still pretty painful. Modern medicine is a useful tool for those of us with strange and unusual birthing patterns. My hope is that next time I'll get to the hospital at just the right time. At least I have a better idea of when that time might be thanks to Vivian's Whirlwind Adventure.

And now for some more cute pictures.

Beanbag Buddies

Meghan and Addy love watching movies. Addy frequently asks for "move-move" and tries to help herself to the DVDs.

Girls Under The Stairs

The girls love playing under the stairs with the food storage. Whenever toys, sippy cups or clothes are missing this is where they inevitably end up.

Biker Boy

For Father's Day Kyle got some bike clothes like he always wanted. OK, I admit it was a bit before Father's Day and Kyle tried on and purchased them himself. But something like bike clothes they HAVE to be there to get them in the correct size, right? Right?

So for Father's Day he took the girls for a quick ride which they enjoyed very much. They called me on the phone when they reached the bay and I chatted with the girls while Kyle drove them home. At one point, the call got disconnected, but the girls were clever enough to call me back.

Driving the Car

While we waited outside of Fry's for Meghan and Dad, Adelaide had fun adjusting all the car's settings and trying to drive. While Addy kept herself entertained, I experimented with the camera to see if I could get a shot of myself that didn't look terrible. It is mildly unfortunate that when I look back through my saved pictures I never have any of myself. I don't want my children to wonder what I looked like when they were young.

When Meg and Dad came back, they had something fun for us.

So despite the late hour we went home and watched Toy Story.

Rengstorff Park - The Big Slide

So at Rengstorff Park there is a big concrete slide that you ride cardboard down. I generally don't allow the girls to play on it because we never have cardboard. But the other day a group of young girls (probably 4-7 in age) brought some cardboard and were riding down the slide. Meghan watched them for a minute, then fetched a piece of unused cardboard and tested it out. After that, she would do nothing else and out slid all the other little girls.

Bubbles

Blowing bubbles is one of the few things we can do on our tiny patio. Since Meghan loves to be outside much more than I do it is something that she does a lot.

Chilling Together

Serra Park

At first glance, Serra Park seemed like it was a perfect park. Fenced off from the road, swings and playground equipment, a pretend town and steamship, sprinklers and even a little creek to play in. Plenty of shade, but enough sun as well. But then as we played there I realized that this park was designed by someone who had heard of how to have fun as a kid, but never actually done so.

The giant steamship and pretend town has nothing going for it. You can walk up the one set stairs and then walk on the top deck. Yippee. No slides, only one wheel to turn, no pulleys or a million other things that you could put on the equipment for the kids to actually do. Yes, I know the whole "Kids have lots of imagination so you only need to supply the place" argument. But it obviously didn't work. My girls walked up there maybe once, looked around and came back down to play in the sand. In fact, I saw hardly any kids playing on the big steamship except the older kids who took over the playground with their nerf war.

The playground equipment they do have is small, but its better than nothing. Except the slide is metal (ouch, burn). And for some reason all the swings swing crooked no matter how hard you try to get them to go straight.

And this was my biggest pet peeve. The cutest little creek with stepping stones and just the right height of water to play in without fear of your kids drowning. But what does the sign say? No Wading. Good grief. Why have a little creek if you're not going to let kids wade in it?

The sprinklers were fine, if a little weak. And there were lots of shaded, pretty paths to walk. But that was about all this park had going for it. And it had sand. You can't go wrong with sand.

Perhaps it would be lots of fun with more friends to play with but that is true of any park.

739 The Dalles Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA

Washington Park

By special request, another park review!

Washington park is near the library. We go there every time we go to the library. It is a very nice park. There is a fenced area for young children - we play here most of the time so I don't have to chase the girls all over if they wander a little further from me. It also has bigger equipment outside of the fence - a medium one and a big kid one. The only thing that bugs me a little is the water spout that kids can turn on inside the baby play area. There is ALWAYS one kid playing in it and making mud and personally, I don't often feel like my kids getting muddy. Its usually not a problem because Meghan spends most of the time finding rocks for her treasure box and Addy will swing until the cows come home.

840 West Washington Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA

A Short Weekend Visit

Kyle's family came to visit over the three day weekend in May. Since it was only a short visit we had light entertainment. We took a trip to the park.

Have I mentioned before that Kyle thinks playgrounds are for him?

We also took a tour of Google.

Here are the kids in the Google Ball Pit. We also found the tube slide that goes from the 4th floor to the 3rd floor of one of the Google buildings. It was way fun. I even went down even though I was 8 months pregnant. I couldn't get out by myself at the bottom but it was an awesome slide.