She's a porker!

Ok, so I know Natalie (sometimes referred to as Ali) is not actually a porker. She is still in the 10-25th percentile for weight. But when I compare her nursing habits and weight gain to that of Molly's, it is night and day! With Molly, by her 5 day appointment she had lost 1lb 3oz! And it took her a whole month to get back up to birth weight.

At Natalie's 5 day appointment she had lost 7 ounces and by 11 days old she was already 2 ounces above her birth weight! At her 2 week appointment she weighed 6lb 14.5oz and was 19 5/8inches long.

She is nursing like a champ. We don't have yeast/thrush, at least not yet, hopefully not ever! She eats every 2-3 hours. During the day I have to wake her up but at night she lets me know she's hungry.

The difference is amazing! I'm liking it much better this time around!

Natalie Leonard Duncan

Ok, I know 2 weeks have already past and I'm just now getting to posting about our labor/delivery! But, as you can imagine, I've had other things on my mind. :-D

So, Friday evening (the 20th) I was super crappy. Exhausted and somewhat nauseous. We went to dinner with my parents and my dad even commented to my sister later that night how awful I looked! That night I went to bed around 8:30pm trying to get a good nights sleep but that just wasn't in the cards. I ended up throwing up around 11pm and then not really sleeping much after that. I started having some contractions that would be probably about 30 minutes apart if I had been timing them. Finally, around 5am I woke Todd up. Contractions were anywhere between 8 to 15 minutes apart. I ended up throwing up again, passing out, then throwing up again around 5:30am. We went ahead and called my parents to come on over and calling the midwife on call to see if we should head to the hospital. She told us to stay at home until the contractions were closer. Since my parents had plans to go to Winston-Salem to watch my niece and nephew's basketball games, they took Molly with them. It was really nice not to have to worry about her while having contractions.

Once the contractions got to about 5-8 minutes apart we headed to the hospital. We were the only ones on the ward the whole time and that was fabulous! Of course the nurse checked me and I was about 4cm, and she talked about sending me back home! The nurse let me walk for an hour around the ward before she checked me again. Still about 4cm but since the ward was empty she let me relax in the tub for another hour to see if that would help things along. Luckily, at the end of that second hour the midwife called and said she was in the neighborhood and asked if I wanted her to come and break my water. After discussing it with Todd, we decided that yes, we would like her to break my water.

Ok, I know this has already gotten super long so I'll try to speed things up. I was 5cm when my midwife broke my water and 4 hours later I had a baby! I pushed for probably 15-20 minutes and she was out. No epidural and only 1 stitch! And let me tell you, if you have heard that pitocin contractions are worse than non-pitocin contractions......SO TRUE! Labor was much easier this time around.

But in the end I was holding the most beautiful (I can say that cause she looked just like Molly!) baby girl! 6 pounds, 11 ounces. 18 1/2 inches long. Perfectly petite.

Baby Avery

Well, baby Avery finally decided to make her appearance three days after her due date! I was due on a Wednesday, and I went into labor late Friday night/early Saturday morning. I went to the doctor on that Friday afternoon and was still only 2 cm but was about 80% effaced. I still was not really having any contractions at that point though, and I actually commented to Tom that I felt like I was closer to going into labor a month before. Patience is not my best virtue, and I was ready to meet my little girl! I could not sleep that Friday night because I was having a lot of pressure in my back and it made my legs ache. Still no contractions though. Around 3 or 4am I started having what I thought might be contractions about 7 minutes apart. But they weren't very strong and I couldn't decide whether they were actually contractions or not. Then they stopped completely after about 30 minutes. I went back to sleep for about 2 hours, and at some point during that time I dreamed that I had the baby. Well, at about 6:20am I woke up with really strong, no doubt about it contractions that were 3-4 minutes apart. My doctor had told me to call when I had contractions 10 minutes apart for a whole hour, but we apparently skipped that part of labor. So I called the doctor and headed to the hospital. And we did make it to the hospital in time, despite the 45 minute drive to get there! I was about 5-6 cm by the time I got there and got an epidural around 11am. By 1:30, I was still only about 8cm and had not progressed much in the couple of hours before, so we thought we were settling in for a while. At about 3:15 the nurse came in because the baby's heartbeat got really faint on the monitor due to the baby having moved down. The nurse tried to locate it better in a couple of places but couldn't get a good read. So she said she would check me and then call the doctor in. But when she pulled the blankets down, Avery's head was already out. No wonder she couldn't find the heartbeat! Before the doctor could even get in the room from down the hall, Avery just wiggled herself the rest of the way out--no pushing required. I guess I had a really good epidural! It was actually quite perfect though, and I felt like it was pretty natural (other than the epidural) because there were no bright lights, no mirrors, no stirrups and nobody yelling at me to push. When the doctor came in a few seconds later, I was already holding little Avery! So I guess I am good at having babies, but my doctor was about 7 months pregnant at the time I delivered and I'm pretty sure she hates me right now because I had such an easy delivery :)

I am trying breast feeding again. The first week and a half was pretty dicey, with tons of pain. I had a cracked nipple on one side and had to stop nursing on that side and started pumping. Then I got a blister from pumping. And then I was just in a no win situation for about three days until all of that healed, so I loaded up on ibuprofen and shed a lot of tears. Things are finally going a little more smoothly now, so hopefully the worst is over and it will be smooth sailing from here out. The good part is that Avery really likes to sleep at night. So she hasn't really been waking up much during the night. I am still waking her up a couple of times a night right now until she gets some good weight gain, but sometimes she is only interested in sleeping. Not a problem for me :)

--Amanda

Past Due

I am officially past my due date now and not even a hint of a contraction (or any other sign that this baby is coming soon). Will induce next week if the baby is still not here. Wish me luck getting through the next few days. This is not fun!

--Amanda