The week I drove nearly a 1000 miles

So I have a pretty good reason for missing last week. I was out. And by out I mean I was in New York. I unexpectedly ended up doing a fair bit of traveling. Scott, Addie and myself drove down to Queens to spend Easter with my Nonna. It was my little family, plus my sisters and dad all squeezed in Nonna's apartment. We drove down Saturday morning. Then we were pretty much just hanging out and watching movies, while Nonna fussed over Addie (no one can resist the urge to kiss her pudgy cheeks). Then Saturday night was when my uncle's family came over and great quantities of food were eaten. Sunday was more hanging out, this time with Easter candy, then just like that it was time to go! 

  

This is actually from Christmas, but I can't help but love this picture of Addie with Nonna.

Then less than 36 hours after getting home I got a text from my aunt asking if I wanted to come out for a visit while she was on spring break. I jumped at the opportunity to have a mini vacation-ish-type-thing. So Addie and I drove out to my aunt's house in the Hudson Valley for a few days (again New York, it's upstate...in a good way). It was perfect timing, I needed to get off the beaten path for a few days. I was getting a little nutty from all the day to day crap. My aunt's house is a good spot to catch your breath, good people, good food, pretty surroundings, all the essentials.

I will leave you with a song that I simply couldn't stop listening to all week.

-M

Adeline

So I find myself wanting to talk about my pregnancy, but honestly even though it was only 7 months ago, it feels so much longer. It is pretty unbelievable just how fuzzy my memory is on this. I have a handful of particular memories, but overall I had to consult Scott on the experience. Also, full disclosure, I was a fairly consistently unhappy pregnant woman, with maybe the exception of the second trimester. I'm going to boil down those 9 months without blathering on too much. 

In the beginning I had the hardest time wrapping my head around being pregnant. One moment there was nothing, the next there is something, just like that. I think I must have gone through all the cliche cycles of emotion, but under all of that excitement, terror, and wonder, was a kernel of complete disbelief. It wasn't until I became a slave to morning sickness (insert all day sickness joke here--once I ended up in the ER to be rehydrated--did I mention I was an unhappy pregnant woman?) that I was able to accept that something I have thought about since I was a kid had come to life. Scott, who has known he wanted to be a father since he was very young, was completely beside himself. He went through a true whirlwind of emotions that ended with him suddenly deciding he had to go to the grocery store that very moment, that I needed superfoods! Thinking about it still makes me laugh.

Our announcement 

The second sonogram where we found out we were having a girl!

Like I said earlier, the second trimester went by without any major issue. We found out that we were having a little girl! There were so many people who thought we would have a boy, but oh well, the Lietz clan got another girl! (Scott's brother has 4 girls.) When I was talking with Scott about it earlier, he described the second trimester as "all midwife visits, pizza and calamari". The only other thing I would include in the second trimester synopsis is the love affair I had with strawberries. For a while, I would eat at least half a pint of strawberries a night.

The third trimester was a different ballgame, that's when things suddenly got very very uncomfortable. I'm a tiny gal. So that combined with summer and extra amniotic fluid made me, well, a bit of a bitch. I felt like I had gone from nicely pregnant to comedically disproportionate. At least it wasn't an excruciatingly hot summer. We got to have a couple of really great beach days and I got to rock my awesome maternity suit.

Then at 35 weeks (fyi, average gestation is 40 weeks) I started to go into early labor. It through Scott and I for a loop. We were so unprepared. We hadn't packed a hospital bag, for God's sake, we didn't even have diapers yet! I left work to go to the hospital, and there we sat, for hours, the contractions slowly becoming more painful, the two of us trying to stay calm. After some tests it was concluded that I had a minor infection which was causing the labor. I was given antibiotics, was told to be careful, and was sent home. Scott packed our hospital bag that night.

The reality that our baby girl could come at any moment started to mess with us. Suddenly the waiting became unbearable. After the 35 week scare everyone just assumed I would not make it to my due date. That surely I would have this baby this week, if not tomorrow! But, Lord, they were wrong. I still had 7 weeks left after that scare. That may not seem very long to the average person, but the combination of desperately wanting to meet the little wiggly baby I was carrying and my general level of discomfort, made 7 weeks feel like an eternity. I remember being told to just try to enjoy the end of my pregnancy while I could, that I would miss it. I wanted to punch that person in the face.

40 weeks - full term

Despite all of that, I was determined to wait as long as was allowed until I got induced. (I know I could have put off induction, but that would have involved staying in the hospital and being constantly monitored. I'm just not about that.) So at 41 weeks, 6 days I went into the hospital to be induced. And that in of itself is it's own post for another day. But nearly 48 hours later my beautiful baby Adeline was born.

Minutes after being born