The past week has been quite eventful, as I started labor on Thursday, Aug. 26th, we prepared by stocking up on groceries and taking our last sunset picnic as a family of three.  Of course, I had no idea at the time that I would be delivering a baby within those next twelve hours, it all happened so fast after that.

We continued our typical routine of putting Noah to bed that night, when contractions really hit home around 11pm.  By 1am, I was kneeling on all fours, calling our midwife to hurry on over, and the birthing pool was just filling up.  By 2am, we were still debating if the water was warm enough, but the baby was already crowning, and by 2:25am, I delivered her in lukewarm water, which was brilliant, since we really hadn’t considered how messy it would have been any other way.

If I only realized how great it was to crawl back into my own bed that night, I would have done the same with Noah…but then again, there are always things you would have done differently had you only known right?  Like choose another major in college, or not dated that jerk back in high school.

So, Naomie Eden Joie Wang is her name.  It’s a mouthful, but Jon and I felt the only compromise was if we both got our way.  So, she gets the same initials as Noah (N.E.W.) and she has a variety of nicknames from Mimi to E.J. to anything in between and each name is most definitely feminine, not ambiguously gender unspecific like Alex or Morgan or Reese.

As for me, I’m struggling to adapt to her sleep schedule, which ranges from sleeping for a 30 minute stretch to three hours, with constant nursing in between.  Not sure when this will even out, but I really hope it’s soon.  I’m tired and it feels like my boobs are on fire.

Noah has also felt a shift in responsibility and its obvious sometimes his feelings are hurt.  He started to ask me to put baby aside and pay attention to him, so Jon has had to pacify baby with his pinkie fingers until she realizes she’s been had.  But Noah has his loving moments too, throwing kisses her way, no matter how many germs he probably has from school, but then again, the whole family is coming up with some bronchial infection and she’s been immune to us so far, but being sick and recovering from pushing out a 6lb 11oz baby is no fun.

Besides these transitional moments at home, we are all very thankful that Jon has moved his office to El Segundo, dropping his commute to 10 minutes, instead of the hour he used to spend driving each way to Santa Monica (not to mention the drastic reduction of homeless and recovering alcoholics that used to loiter outside his door).  Just makes life that much better, even though we will never leave Southbay at this rate.

Looking forward to getting through these first postpartum weeks until I feel up to leaving the house.  Until then, I’ll have to live vicariously through everyone else this Labor Day Weekend…

Welcome Naomie! She comes well equipped with 10 fingers and 10 toes, weighing in at 6 lbs. 11 oz. born at 2:25 a.m.

Looks like Naomie is going to stay inside just a little longer than expected.  Here we are on August 25th, no signs of labor and nothing left to do but wait.  I have to admit, I’m more than anxious to kick start this process, though I know life is only going to be turned upside down, with nights becoming days and days becoming nights, with loads and loads of laundry piling up from cloth diapers and cloth everything else.  Curses!  I asked for it.  I wanted to go the eco-mom route.

One late evening, as I lay in bed, I was compelled to get up and throw all of our plastic tupperware, melamine kid dishes and #7 bpa-leeching Nalgene bottles in the recycle box.  Determined to replace everything with glass or stainless steel, I suppose my nesting instincts are just a little more than extreme right now.  Just took down all the drapes to dry clean, after however many decades they’ve been up thus far, and have been replacing all disposables with cloth, including Noah’s pull up trainers, in hopes that they don’t leak through the night.

Speaking of Noah, he has been making tremendous strides this past month, letting us know when he needs to go potty, negotiating “one last time” and “one more minute” deals, hugging and kissing and praying for soon-to-be-baby-sis, striking basic yoga poses and (oh, I’m so proud), climbing the pole, almost all by himself…

Maybe the car accident a few weeks ago freaked Naomie out from coming out into the world…here’s me hooked up to a fetal monitor for our non-stress test.  Really, it wasn’t as bad as it looks.  I was just being overly dramatic.  But I did feel very guilty.  Like a bad parent…

Jon has been super supportive this week, taking a whole week off to work from home, helping me out with errands and taking care of Noah, which is exhausting in itself.  So grateful we have each other…

Anyway, my spirits are high that Naomie will make her appearance soon.  We finally settled on her full name last night, which is a huge relief, but I’m not sharing it until her arrival!  The Braxton-Hicks contractions are happening more often, and I am hopeful she arrives before Week 41 comes along.  Keep us in your thoughts! XOXO!

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy…it’s a girl! Or so we are told…I went to my 20 week ultrasound yesterday and even tho the images were vague and abstract, the technician assured me that our dear baby is a girl. That might explain the drastic difference with this pregnancy and my severe mood swings, mostly in the downward direction, changes in diet, ugh, a vegetarian that craves chicken without a second thought? It’s certainly felt like an internal battle these past couple of months. Halfway there, we’re going to relish the next 20 weeks before baby comes, with camping trips and our last few activities for a family of three…

We’ve sure been busy!  But it’s really no excuse.  Between trips to SF, the aquarium, farmers markets, Sunday school, and countless days that blend into nights and weeks, Noah has started to potty train (hence the mountain of underpants we’ve had to stock up on), choreograph his own dance routines (around a pole, no less!) and help with chores around the house, like doing dishes, throwing things in the trash and sweeping the floor!  So proud of our little man.

Aside from all that, Mommy and Daddy have been busy too.  We’re now ready to share with you that Noah will be expecting a sibling later this summer, end of August, to be more exact.  With all the baby drama we had last year, I had a lot of hesitation (some might call DENIAL) for many, many months, fighting off bad dreams and invisible fears, as well as worthless doctors that force fed insecurity and doubt into each appointment with their recommended (but optional), statistical (yet seemingly hypothetical), peace (with stress) of mind type of tests to test your will as a parent.  It didn’t take much to convince me after the war I felt I had to fight to have a natural birth with Noah that the hospital was nowhere near where I wanted to be this time around.  After asking for doctor’s support for a home birth, I received none.  And so my resolve to find a knowledgeable, understanding and experienced nurse-midwife began.  Though I still want to visit the doc to get an ultrasound (some mysteries I just can’t wait 9 months for), we are ready to have this baby at home if all goes well…

So, stay tuned for more jelly belly goodness, as we get further along.  Till then, here is some entertainment to keep you rolling!