We're Moving to Virginia!

    Happy National Doctor’s Day! It feels like we’ve been on this medical journey forever. Or at least that I’ve been complaining about it forever. Billy didn’t know he wanted to be a doctor before we got married. He mentioned he might be interested in medicine, but he was still working towards his Bachelor’s degree and still had some general studies classes left. As a naïve 20 year old, I figured there was plenty of time to talk him out of it. Then all of a sudden, he’s signing up for Organic Chemistry classes and scheduling a date to take the MCAT. I remember I thought about having a surprise party for him with all his friends and family right after he took the MCAT. That’s how you know we got married too young, because now that we’ve been married a little longer and I know him so much better, I know he would absolutely hate a surprise party in his honor. He hates large groups of people in general. And now that we’ve had quite a few “8 hour tests that seem to determine the course of our whole life” under our belts, I know that all he wants to do after them is relax and then sleep. And then wait 6-8 weeks for the test results. These tests are all done online, so I still don’t understand why the results take so long, but we only have one more of them to go, so I’m guessing I’ll never find out. 

     Billy acts like he’s dragged me to live all over, but I am so grateful for all the places we’ve been able to live. I think I’ve learned that I can really live anywhere, and it’s made me appreciate the times when we do see our family that much more. Billy’s last year of training ends in June of this year. As we thought about where we wanted to live next, it felt so overwhelming. We’re used to being told where we are living—for med school, it was the only place he was accepted. For clinicals, we had a tiny bit of choice, but ultimately got our second choice. For residency, you make a rank list, but really you are a slave to the Match algorithm. Now all of a sudden, we can apply to jobs anywhere in the world?!? I was, of course, looking up jobs in Hawaii and Dubai and England. Our kids are still so young, so we’re not too stressed about good schools or being settled yet. I actually feel like I’ve loved everywhere we’ve lived because I know it’s temporary. The idea of living in one place for more than 3 years kind of terrifies me. I think I could happily move every 3 years if I knew it wouldn’t be so hard for my kids when they’re older. 

     Anyway, after a wonderful trip out to my parents’ house last year, we both felt that our next stop should try and be at least within a day’s drive of family. Seeing our kids with their cousins was just too special to pass up on. So Billy applied for some jobs in Virginia, North Carolina, and Colorado. After getting down to the finite details of each job, we really got the most excited about one job in particular in Chesapeake, VA. So, Billy’s mom flew out to watch the kids while we flew out to the in person interview and fell in love with the place. We joked that we had to remain neutral, because we probably would have fallen in love with a job in the Sahara Desert just because it was a kid-free trip. But we got along with the doctor and his wife really well and we really love the style of the practice and how Billy can still work in a hospital in order to keep his inpatient skills. We love that it’s a rural area but with 20 minute access to city amenities and 30 minute access to the beach (and it's the Atlantic Ocean so the water is waaaaay warmer than our California beaches). We kept wishing we had brought our boys, because there are so many ships and bridges and different rivers going every which way, and we just felt like it was every little boy's dream. We especially love that it’s only a little over 3 hours from my parents and 2 of my sisters. And as if we didn’t love the area enough, when we were looking up what we could do on our last day there, this is what popped up on our google search: 

     We felt like it was a sign from the heavens that we’d be really happy there, especially with our Komodo dragon loving boy. But it's more likely, our google algorithm just knows us reeeeeally well. We will miss our life and all the people in Redlands so, so much. But we are really excited to finally have Billy be able to work somewhat normal hours and to be able to start paying off those loans. And you better believe we’re going to have a guest room for everyone who wants to come visit us!

We went to the Nauticus museum and toured a naval ship. Our boys would have loved it!

We went to a concert! Can you tell how tired we are?

Tried to photoshop that guy out, but I actually kind of like him there

View from our hotel

First Landing State Park

Even growing up in Virginia, I had never actually been to Virginia Beach. We always went to the Outer Banks instead.

Ships and bridges everywhere!

Charlie is Almost Two!

    In the first two years of his life, I think I wrote a blog post about Emmett every 2-3 months because I loved watching him learn and grow and develop and wanted to embrace and remember every minute. I still want to do all that with Charlie, of course, but now I literally do not have the time or energy. Poor Charlie only has a few blog posts and he's almost 2! Most days, my kids are barely surviving. I really don't understand how people have more than 2 kids. 

These are some of the things I want to remember about Charlie forever:

    Poor Charlie was thrown into a crazy world--I call him my Covid baby because he is a homebody who doesn't want to leave his mom's side. He never really left the house for the first year of his life, so I don't blame him. But it makes it pretty annoying when I need to run errands and he just yells at me "I wanna go home!" He's got a 30 minute limit for errand running with his mom (just like his Dad).

    He loves to make us all laugh--especially Emmett. His go-to joke is "Emmett's a poo poo butt". And if I tell him to try and make Emmett laugh, he picks up one leg, cocks his head to the side, sticks out his tongue, and says "laaaaaa". It might not always work on Emmett, but it always works on me. 

    He's pretty tough, thanks to his big brother. Sometimes I'm shocked he's still alive after some of the things done to him. Although, he does get his feelings hurt pretty easily (also by his big brother). No one can make him as happy or as sad as Emmett can.

    He knows what he wants and knows how to get it. Which usually means yelling at me until I cave.

    When Emmett is at school he yells at me for the full 4 hours, "Where'd Emmett go? I miss Emmett!'

    He gives the best unprompted hugs. He'll come up out of nowhere and say "Mom, need a hug", and I'll pick him up and he'll rest his head on my shoulder. I hope he never stops doing that. 

    He loves Vivo and Cocomelon and The Sand Lot. We really need to start showing him some more Disney movies to get him ready for Disneyland this spring. He's gonna have no idea who any of the characters are. Watching him watch The Sand Lot is especially cute

    He gives the best side-eye glances. If he's happy, his smile looks like he's flirting with you. If he's grumpy, he looks like the most annoyed person on earth. There's no hiding his mood.

    He still loves to dance. He'll bust a move to music he hears in the grocery store. And he has already learned to yell at Alexa in the same demanding tone we all do, (although, she can't understand him yet).

    He started biting us a while ago and I had the bright idea of teaching him to lick instead of biting. He still gets the same shocked reaction, but it's a little less violent, so I guess it's better? Although maybe not in this health climate.

    He is a champion sleeper. His nap schedule is all wonky because Emmett's school goes to 1:30. So, he usually naps from 2-4 and I have to wake him up so it doesn't affect bedtime. But he still goes to bed at 7 or 7:30, no problem! He even tells me when he's tired. "I go night night" and then gets so happy for us to put him to bed. He'll say "Mom, laugh!" and then I need to do something to make him laugh before we put him in his crib. Then, he'll say "Mom, kiss Dad" and watch Billy and I kiss each other and laugh, drunk with power. And then he says "Lick Emmett" and we'll lower him down so Emmett can lick his face. Brothers are so weird.

    He has really bad separation anxiety. We'll all be playing outside and Billy goes inside to get some water and Charlie sobs, "Daaaaaad!" like he's abandoning him on the side of the road. I'm guessing it's from covid and never meeting another human being until he was 1. We've left him with a sitter a few times, and he cries for a solid 30 minutes before he calms down. We still haven't been able to leave him in nursery. Even if we try to sneak out, he looks for us every few minutes. I used to be a little offended that Emmett never had a glimmer of separation anxiety. Like, he could have been kidnapped at Charlie's age and I swear he would have just joined another family and been fine. He never gave us any acknowledgement that he actually needed us. But Charlie won't even let me workout at the gym for a half hour. There's gotta be a happy medium somewhere in there.

    We have to call him Curious Charlie so we don't call him naughty. I love watching him explore and investigate things, but man does he make a mess! His brain works so differently than mine or Emmett's. I'm convinced he's how Billy was as a child. He has to open every single door and dump out every single item to go through it all. He likes to push things to the limit. All of our kid's books with the little flaps are completely ripped off cause he likes to see what happens when he pulls them off. He better freaking discover the cure to cancer or something with that inquisitive brain, and then maybe all the messes will have been worth it. 

    He tells us whenever he poops, but I have a strict no potty training before 3 rule. He's probably not really ready, because whenever we change his diaper, he gets a goofy grin and says, "I go poop!" and tries to push out a poop or pee to freak us out and then laughs his head off at our faces. 

    He has kind of a sick sense of humor. He'll run out into the parking lot and turn around to see my panicked face sprinting towards him and laugh his head off. We created this human, Billy. Taking any and all advice on how to make him afraid of things like cars or falling off things.

    He loves to chant phrases, especially around meal times. He'll say "Bottle time, Bottle time, Bottle time!" or "waffle time, waffle time, waffle time!" to hype himself up for his meal.

    He calls all chicken, "chicken nugget". Like yesterday, I made chicken tikka masala and he ate all of it and then yelled "mo chicken nugget!" He loves eating. I was worried Emmett's pickiness would rub off on him, but it hasn't yet. He'll eat whatever Billy and I do. I have so many pictures of him eating, because I love the little faces he makes. He gets really into it and kind of furrows his brow so he can open his mouth as wide as he can and get the biggest bite. Kinda like how a bear would eat, I imagine.

    He's got some anger issues. I think that all the times that Emmett bullied him when he couldn't fight back are finally catching up. He gets a rage that comes over him and he growls and fights back and it takes everything in me not to laugh.

    I really hate when people say this, because gender is just a social construct, but he really is all boy. Or all what you think of when you think of a stereotypical boy. He's obsessed with balls, cars, trucks, airplanes (basically anything with a motor), sports, climbing, and wrestling. He's into whatever makes his momma the most worried about his safety. When I give him a bath, he thinks it's funny to stand up and then jump and land on his bum and get water all over me and the whole bathroom. He also thinks it's funny to climb out of the tub and run around the house wet and naked. If I ever forget to put his pants back on him after a diaper change, his diaper will be off in 2.5 seconds. 

    He's already had stitches and he's not even two yet. I need to brace myself for more ER trips in my future. We have a horizontal filing cabinet in our kitchen that we use as a microwave stand/snack drawer (#apartmentliving). But Charlie started putting toys into the microwave and turning it on. Some of which were made of metal. So, I quickly moved the microwave to a higher countertop. And literally the next day, Charlie is climbing on the filing cabinet to look out the window and see our trash truck empty the dumpster. He slips and smacks the bridge of his nose on the edge and needs stitches. When Emmett was little, we baby-proofed our apartment as soon as he was mobile, and then quickly learned that we didn't really need to--he wasn't trying to get into every drawer and cabinet. He was content going after his toys and the remote. 

    But with Charlie, we need to go above and beyond babyproofing--that next level is Charlie-proofing and its virtually impossible. We have locks on every drawer that is his height. We have locks on every single door. We have cleared every shelf of anything breakable, and we have just given up to the fact that most days he will be on top of the kitchen table. I have locks on our stove nozzles, because he has caused a gas leak before. I have a lock on my dishwasher, because he'll open it up and grab the knives out. Every few days, he'll come hand me some scissors that he isn't supposed to have and I still don't know where he gets them. If I can keep this kid alive until he's 18, then you know there really is a God, because he has no sense of self-preservation. 

    He is 100% Billy. I have diagnosed Billy as an enneagram 5. He hates big groups of people, it drains his energy so quickly. The other day, we went to a Friendsgiving dinner at a park. There were a lot of kids there. Charlie takes one look at the playground swarming with children and turns around and starts walking back to the car "I go home". Which is even funnier in comparison to his big brother who sees a swarm of children and lights up and is so energized by it. Love my little introvert and extrovert. 

    He has so many words, it's kind of crazy to me. For a while, I was worried because he wasn't keeping up with Emmett's ability to speak sentences at 18 months, but he has so many words now, I kind of wish he'd stop! Except when he says "what the heck?!?", it still makes me laugh every time.

We love our little Chucky who is not so little anymore!

I gave birth to my husband.

Notice how he's balancing on the ledge and lunging forward? He loves to torment me.

Whenever he sees an elephant, he now yells "Epetan, Halloween!"

I wish I could hike on someone's shoulders.

Meeting his new cousin--baby Jackson! He was so proud to not be the baby of the Strongs anymore.

Jackson loved being licked like a puppy. Sorry Trav and Court!

The climbing is out of control

Waiting for his stitches

That guilty grin is because he pushed the Code button and got all the staff to come rushing into our room. Fun times. 

Not a fun day for either of us. Having to hold your baby down while he's sobbing and looking at you "Mommy! All done! All done!" is my new least favorite thing to do.

Those faces

Just one of his many car seat naps when we travel

If he's not on top of the table, he's under it.

Never messes around with food or "nacks"

I hear the phrase "You have your hands full" so often that I should get it tattooed on my face

Always just trying to be a big boy

Blowing on his pepperoni so he can eat it more quickly, obviously

Best brothers who have such intense love/hate for each other.

We had to stop bringing the boogie board to the beach, because all he wants to do is ride it

Another "Epetan Halloween!" one cause look at that face.

Very disinterested in Convict Lake

Taking after his Great Grandpa Owen

Obsessed with his brother

Cheeeeese

Couldn't get him off the choo choo train

Has to climb on everything with an engine

6 months of Charlie Owen

Charlie Owen is 6 months old. Time sure flies when you’re born right as a pandemic is starting. He is such a sweet and smiley baby. He’s the perfect calm to his brother’s storm. Sometimes he just stares wide eyed at Emmett, trying to figure out where all his energy comes from. He can roll from his tummy to back, which he does almost immediately after you put him on his tummy. He has rolled a few times from back to tummy, but he doesn’t seem particularly eager to master that skill yet. He’s not sitting up yet, which is normal for my babies. When your head is that big, it makes you a little top heavy. His head is still in the 99^th percentile and he is 18 lbs 10.5 oz and 27 inches long. He blows raspberries and screeches like a pterodactyl. He’s loved every food we’ve given him. He lights up at any type of music--even when I just sing to him (which is not a pretty sound). He started waving back at us this week.

He has this way of smiling that just lights up his whole face and it’s impossible not to smile back. He will happily sit and play in his car seat for an hour or more while Emmett and I swim. He’s a great sleeper, but I think his natural wake time is 6 AM and the rest of our family’s is more like 8 AM, so we’re trying to bring him over to the dark side. I treat his 6 AM waking like a night feed and then he’ll sleep till 8.

He grabs everything within arm’s distance. But he has really long arms, so I keep thinking things are safely out of his reach and then he finds a way to stretch and grab it. Might need to start training him to play first base like his momma. He’s almost ready for size 4 diapers and he’s in 12 month clothes. Emmett is still in size 5 diapers, for reference.

When I was pregnant with Charlie, I didn’t worry about loving him as much as Emmett. I knew I would. But I was worried that I wouldn’t like his personality as much as I like Emmett’s. I thought I was really unbiased in thinking Emmett’s fun, outgoing, crazy personality was actually the best there was and I knew Charlie would be completely different, so would I think all the stuff he did was as funny or as cute as I think Emmett is?  And then would I subconsciously give Emmett more attention and give Charlie lots to talk about in therapy later? I’m only 6 months in to this multiple kid gig, but I can already answer that I am, in fact, totally biased and think that both my kids have the best personality--even though they are polar opposites. Emmett loves his little brother so much, but he has had a really hard time with the attention we’ve had to give Charlie. He’s so used to one of us being able to help him immediately, so he gets really mad when he has to wait because I’m nursing or changing Charlie. He also has a personality that thrives on attention, so when he doesn’t feel like he gets enough attention or he doesn’t like what I just told him, he’ll just come up and smack me. We are working on his patience and talking through our emotions and not hitting me. Luckily, he has never taken it out on Charlie. It’s been pretty hard for me because I’ve been dealing with some postpartum depression (that isn’t helped by a pandemic and being so far from family), and Emmett just seems to be getting harder as he tries to adjust to not being the center of our world. I keep reminding myself that he’s only 2. He has a better vocabulary than some adults and he is learning his letters and planets and constellations, so it’s hard for me to remember that he still is so young and doesn’t have a full grasp on his emotions. And neither does Mommy. We are all trying to figure out this new life as a family of 4. But the best part is that Emmett and Charlie are starting to play together and it completely melts my heart and I start crying every time.

After Charlie was born, we had a bit of a scare. This is probably a pretty boring story, but it was part of my life for the first couple months of his life, so I want to remember the good and the bad. One of his newborn screenings came back slightly elevated. It was for detecting glutaric acidemia. It’s an extremely rare organic acid disorder. If he had it, it would mean that his body doesn’t make enough enzymes to be able to break down certain amino acids. Then the build up of the amino acids in the body can cause brain damage. The disorder is treatable with a very strict diet (low in lysine, and supplementing with carnitine). I first heard the news over the phone. The doctor wasn’t our normal pediatrician and she said that she wasn’t too concerned, but it was something they had to look into to rule out. They set the detection levels really low so they can catch every instance of the disorder. For this particular test, the limit they set for a positive result is .5 and higher and Charlie’s level were at .54. So, she recommended that at our already scheduled doctor appointment, we just try and get a urine sample from Charlie. I honestly wasn’t too worried about it until we get to the appointment and our actual pediatrician was really worried about it. She was telling me all about the specialist we would need to get in touch with and saying that since I was breastfeeding, I’d have to be on a special diet. She wanted to get a urine sample and then some blood tests from the hospital. Turns out, getting a urine sample from a 4 day old is harder than you would think. They have a special plastic bag for collecting it inside a diaper, but we waited a half hour and he never peed. And then he peed as soon as we took the bag off, of course. Our doctor also thought he looked pretty yellow, so we gave up on collecting the pee and she sent us to the hospital to get his blood drawn. So we drove over there, had to wait in a room full of sick people (it was only in January, but I was already worried about covid) to get registered and then they pricked his foot to test his jaundice levels. The levels came back high, but not enough to admit him, so we were ordered to put him in indirect sunlight as much as possible. The next day, we went back to the pediatrician to have his urine collected and I waited an hour for him to pee but no luck. Then, they took the bag off and he started peeing and we scrambled to catch the last part of it. There was basically pee everywhere. They got enough of a sample to test it and send it to the lab. The results took over 2 weeks to come back and I was a nervous wreck. I would just start sobbing out of nowhere. I was already so intimidated about having more than one kid, but then to have a kid with a super strict diet that we probably couldn’t afford to give the best treatment to was just all so overwhelming. I know there are worse things, but when you’re getting a few hours of sleep a day, and you just gave birth, and you are trying to take care of two kids all on your own, every little bit of added stress can be such a trigger.

After a long 2 weeks, we got his results back and most of his levels were normal—which ruled out the glutaric acidemia. But this time, his carnitine levels were a little higher than they would like to see, so the metabolic specialist wanted to do another blood test. He said he didn’t think it would be a carnitine deficiency, but he needed more info to rule it out. This time, they needed more than just a foot prick, so I took him to another branch of our doctor’s office and they drew a full vial of blood from him. If I thought getting his urine sample was hard, getting a vial of his blood was impossible. His veins were so tiny and he was a surprisingly strong newborn, so when he got poked, it was really hard to keep him still. I held him in my lap and held his legs down while a nurse held his arms still and another nurse tried to draw his blood. It wasn’t hot in there, but we were all dripping sweat. It took over an hour to get enough blood because it was so hard to find his veins and he kept moving and then his blood wasn’t flowing quickly enough so it kept clotting. At one point, it was after 5 PM and they asked me if I wanted to come back and try again another day. “And have all of this poking and crying and sweating be for nothing?!? No way!” So, the sweet nurses stayed late to finally get enough blood so we wouldn’t have to come back and do it all over again. They tried both arms multiple times and then finally had the best success in his tiny little hand.

Those results took over a month to come back and they came back completely normal. Except when they called to give me the results, I was at the park with Emmett and Charlie so it was a little hard to hear. I thought the woman introduced herself as “Jenny from the Epilepsy Center”. So, for a half second I was sick to my stomach that they found something else. But then she told me that his results were great and he was a perfectly healthy baby boy. I openly cried with relief at the park. We are so lucky to have this beautiful healthy boy as a part of our family!

Charlie's Birth Story: Part 1

I just went to post this and saw that the last blog post is when I announced I was pregnant. Which makes it seem like that pregnancy flew by--when in fact it felt like several years. But Charlie is finally here and he’s a dream baby and we love him so much and I am ECSTATIC to not be pregnant anymore. That last month of pregnancy (Billy would argue the whole 9 months) I was such a whiner and could barely function. I was pretty sure I had cholestasis again, because I had very itchy hands and feet, but I kept getting blood tests and my bile acid levels were never above 10 which is how my OB wanted to diagnose me. If I was diagnosed, he said he’d induce me at 37 weeks since cholestasis is very dangerous for the baby after 37 weeks. Since I had all the symptoms, I was just waiting for my levels to rise. At one point, they got up to about 6.8, so it looked like I was heading towards a formal diagnosis, but on the next test, they went back down again. Since they looked like they were rising, my OB ordered twice a week NST’s to monitor the baby, so that helped lessen my anxiety a little. But my OB with Emmett was willing to induce me at 37 weeks without my bile acid levels rising, and just based on my itchiness (my levels spiked really high at 36 weeks, so he ended up inducing me even earlier). So, I was kind of expecting that same treatment. My OB was not willing to do that, so 37 weeks came and went and it was the worst. To have an end date in sight and then to have it not really be the end is pure torture. Plus, with Emmett, it was an emergency to get him out as quickly as possible because my body was actually killing him. So, it was hard not to have that same mindset again and to tell myself that he just needed to cook longer. My OB agreed to induce me at 39 weeks if my levels never spiked. There’s actually a lot of research that shows that being induced at 39 weeks lowers the risk of having a C-section. I have lots of friends that are all about letting your body naturally do what it needs to and I totally respect that, but (as someone who went through 6 years of infertility) I actually am of the opinion that sometimes nature sucks at doing things naturally and science should intervene when it can.

On New Year’s Eve (38 weeks), I went to bed at 9 PM. I had barely been sleeping because of how anxious I was and I felt a cold coming on and New Years Eve is the most overrated holiday ever, so I didn’t feel bad about it. But at midnight, I woke up with very painful contractions. They were 8-10 minutes apart and super strong and I could feel myself dilating. We had some friends who could watch Emmett but we weren’t gonna wake him up in the middle of the night and take him over there unless I was really in labor. So, we were waiting until they were consistently 5 minutes apart. Billy went back to sleep, but I couldn’t sleep because of how painful it was, so in between contractions I cleaned the house and did some laundry so I wouldn’t have to bring our new baby home to a pigsty. At around 6 AM, the contractions stopped completely. I was so mad. Luckily, Billy didn’t work until that evening, so I could get a little bit of sleep before resuming Mom duties.

One of my childhood friends is a doula and later that day, she was giving me all this advice to help me get labor going again. My contractions never started up again, but her exercises totally made Charlie drop the next night. And then I had Billy check me to see if labor made me dilate and he said I was at a 3 or 4. Side note: I do not recommend having your spouse check you, even if they are a doctor. For some reason, I could not make eye contact with him and I learned that I’m not a fan of mixing business and pleasure.

Anyway, we kept thinking labor would start up again soon, so we called Billy’s mom and asked her to come out to help with Emmett just in case. She was a champ and cut her vacation short and was on our doorstep 12 hours later. And of course as soon as she got there, my contractions became nonexistent. I had a doctor’s appointment on Friday the 3^rd, so we were waiting to find out more about my induction then. But then on Thursday, I get an email that my appointment has been cancelled. So I call them up and they say that my OB is actually going to be out of town for the next 2 WEEKS and since they had a new system, his days off hadn’t transferred over and it had accidentally been scheduling him for appointments. I was livid. First of all, my OB knew exactly when I was due and when I wanted to be induced and he never once mentioned to me that he was going to be gone during that time. And he had said he would induce me at 39 weeks, which was in a few days (the office actually had my due date 2 days earlier than what it really was but I never corrected them because I wanted to get that baby out ASAP). So I started chewing them out and telling them they needed to find someone to induce me next week because he PROMISED me. Hell hath no fury like a pregnant woman whose induction date has been taken from her. Luckily, they put me on with my favorite nurse and she walked over to his partner and got me on the schedule to see him on Monday the 6^th. Still not ideal, but better than nothing. So, I went to see him, he checks me and sees that I’m 3 cm dilated and about 70% effaced and the baby is very low. He agreed to induce me, but his next day in the hospital wasn’t until Thursday. But I’ll take whatever I can get at this point. He also added that he’s not sure I’ll even make it until Thursday, which was fine by me.

Later that day, I got a call from his office telling me that the hospital is all full Thursday morning, but they’ll bring me in on Wednesday night to start the induction and then Dr. Qalla will deliver the baby when he gets there in the morning. Even better! They tell me to call the hospital at 6 PM on Wednesday to make sure they have room for me to go in at 7 PM. So Billy leaves work a little early on Wednesday and we go get dinner at Café Rio with Stacy and Emmett. Café Rio before or after labor is somewhat of a tradition in my family for some reason. We eat our delicious dinner and I call the hospital at 6 on the dot. They tell me they’ll call me back to let me know. I start to get a sick feeling that this may not happen tonight. At 6:40, I still hadn’t heard from them, so I call them back and a nurse tells me they don’t have room. I ask when they think they will have room for me, and he says “I don’t know, but I would just go home and try and get a good nights’ sleep”. That felt like a dismissal to me and also made me think they had no intention of calling me if they did have some beds open up. I was devastated. I started bawling right there in Café Rio.

Billy had the great idea to just go show up at the hospital and see if someone else had a different story. It’s harder to turn someone away when they’re an actual person right in your face. So, we go to the hospital and walk up to labor and delivery and ring the little doorbell. After explaining what we wanted (to get this baby out) to the intercom, the nurse who answered very rudely said, “Aren’t you the woman who just called us twice?” and Billy said “yeah, but we didn’t feel like we got a straight answer”. I felt like we were in trouble, and I really hate breaking rules, so I just let Billy do all the talking. They sent out the charge nurse to deal with us in person. She explained that they didn’t have any beds at the moment but they would call us as soon as they did. She told us to go home and wait for the call. Billy pushed back and asked if anybody on their floor had just had babies and she said that a few had, but their rooms needed to be cleaned and then anyone who came in who was actually in labor would get priority over me, so it could be several hours. We had just passed the waiting room and no one who was in there was in labor. I told her that we weren’t going home, but we’d just wait in the waiting room, because I wanted her to know that she couldn’t just not call me. I was not losing my place in line. As we walked away from her, we heard the “Lullaby Song” playing over the speakers, which means another baby had just been born. We go sit in the car for a minute and I cry some more and then decide to go see a movie while we’re waiting. I told Billy that they’ll probably call as soon as we buy our tickets. We go to the 7:40 showing of Uncut Gems and then they call me at 7:45 right during the previews. It was the same nurse and she said she finally had a bed ready for me (it had only been 30 minutes since we spoke to her in person). I shrieked “okay we’ll be there in 10 minutes!”. We ran out and then Billy started to get a refund for our tickets (I’m an anxious wreck and telling him to just forget it, we have to gooooo!) but he was acting much more rationally than I was. When we got up to labor and delivery, the floor was EMPTY. There were maybe 4 other women laboring and they had at least 10 rooms that I could see. The nurses were all just standing around doing nothing, and they were quiet as we signed in. No small talk, didn’t even ask my name. Just handed me a clipboard to fill out. They 100% had all been talking about us and how pushy we were. Billy was so mad. He thinks they for sure had been doing nothing and the only reason they called us was because we showed up and forced them to do their job. How else did they have 6 rooms open up within 30 minutes of when they turned us away? The nurse in charge of me wouldn’t even make eye contact with me. I didn’t even care though as long as she gave me Pitocin and ordered my epidural.

I finally got started on some Pitocin at 9:30 PM. I was still dilated to a 3. They wanted me to start slow so that I could make it until Dr. Qalla showed up at 7 AM. But by 1:00 AM, my contractions were painful enough that I was ready for my epidural. My nurse made me wait a half hour because she hated me (or else the anesthesiologist was in the middle of another one). I was dilated to a 4.5 and finally got my epidural at about 1:30. For some reason, I was really nervous about the epidural this time. Maybe because they made Billy leave the room and with Emmett they let him stay in there because they knew he was a medical student at the same hospital. Like I was convinced I was going to be permanently paralyzed after she punctured my spine. Anyway, it felt amazing once it kicked in. I was just about ready to fall asleep at about 3 AM when I started getting super nauseous. My nurse gave me some Zofran and that helped for a little while. I was able to sleep for about 45 minutes even though my blood pressure cuff kept waking me up.  At about 4:30, the nurse checked me again and I was at a 7. At about 5:00 AM, I started getting super nauseous again and ask if I could get some more Zofran. Another nurse came in and told me it’s probably cause I’m in transition and sometimes Zofran won’t do anything for that, but she’d check with my nurse when she’s done with another patient. My nurse came in a few minutes later and said she couldn’t give me anymore Zofran because I had only had it a couple hours ago. She asked me if I’m having pressure in my butt and groin and I told her yes. She asked if it was constant, and I told her that it comes and goes. She told me to call her when it gets more constant and doesn’t even check me to see how dilated I am. She leaves and about 3 minutes later at 5:15, my water breaks. I call her to come back and she checks me to see how dilated I am and then asks me to try and push on my next contraction to see if I’m ready. I push and the baby starts coming down, so she tells me to stop pushing and wait for the doctor to get there. Which is easier said than done when your body is telling you to push that baby out. They start scrambling and trying to track down the doctor on call. That was the longest 5 minutes of my life! I had never laid eyes on her before in my life, but she was taking my baby out, so I didn’t care. “Nice to meet you, thanks for coming, just pull him out of my vagina please and thank you!” They finally let me start pushing at 5:20. His head came out after two pushes and then Dr. Cheatham-Lott told me to stop because the cord was wrapped around his neck. I’m not sure why my babies love to get so tangled up in that cord, but they just like scaring me I guess. She cut the cord while only his head was out and then one more push and he was born! 5:36 AM. I honestly can’t believe how quickly it all happened. With Emmett I pushed for 3 hours because I was fighting the cord and it didn’t feel that long to me, so this literally felt like 30 seconds.

They put him on my chest and he had so much of the vernix all over him, it was actually pretty gross looking. The nurses were rubbing it into his skin like lotion and it was all absorbed after probably an hour. They let us have what they call the “golden hour” where we just do skin to skin and spend time alone with him and see if he’ll breastfeed. I was shocked at how he just found his way to my nipple and started breastfeeding like a champ. And it was painful at first suck. He was so strong from the beginning, especially compared to Emmett! I guess that’s the difference between a baby born at 36 weeks and a baby born at 39 weeks. I felt like a brand new mom all over again because this experience was the complete opposite of Emmett’s birth. It was so nice to be able to spend some time alone with him and Billy without having him poked and prodded and then rushed off to the NICU. They didn’t even weigh him or measure him until he was already an hour old. When they finally did, he weighed 7 lbs 5.5 oz and was 20 ¼ inches long with a head circumference of 14 ¼ inches. He wouldn’t be my kid without a head size approaching the 100^th percentile.

We were a little quicker naming him than we were with Emmett—we only waited an hour and a half compared to Emmett’s 12 hours of being nameless. Which is weird because Emmett’s name came to me as soon as I saw him and Charlie’s did not. I think it’s just because we were way less stressed so we could actually have a real conversation about what we should call him. We named him Charles after Billy’s great great grandfather on the Strong side. And Owen after Billy’s grandfather on his mom’s side—Owen Wright. Billy’s grandpa died in a car accident years ago so I sadly never got to meet him, but everything I’ve heard about him is wonderful. Billy says he was his grandpa’s favorite and to me that’s just how a grandpa should be—to make every grandchild feel like they’re the favorite. After we got home, Billy’s mom told me some more history about Charles Strong—apparently he died in a wagon accident! So we inadvertently named our son after the two relatives who died in moving vehicles. My Charlie is never going to be getting his license or getting on an airplane.

After the golden hour, they rushed us up to the Mother and Baby ward where we had nurses who were actually really nice to us and excited for us. Again, complete opposite experience from Emmett’s birth—I LOVED my labor and delivery nurses and my Mother and Baby nurses treated me like crap. Charlie was wide awake for a few hours, and looking all around with his big sweet eyes (while Billy slept). Grandma Stacy was home with Emmett and brought him over to meet Charlie at around . Emmett burst into the room and didn’t even acknowledge me—just went straight over to Charlie with the biggest smile on his face. And the first thing he said was “He’s so cute!”.

I didn’t cry during the delivery at all (I didn’t with Emmett’s delivery either). It’s so weird, because I cry at everything in real life. I cry at commercials. I cry when I see other people tear up without even knowing the context. But I don’t cry when I meet my child for the first time? There’s probably something wrong with me, but I don’t have any time to go see a therapist to figure it out. But when I saw Emmett holding Charlie for the first time, I was a blubbering mess. I’m tearing up now just thinking about the bond that these two will have for years to come. That moment just filled me with so much love and so much excitement for the future. And even now that Charlie is a little older, Emmett plays his role as big brother extremely well. If I take a little too long getting Charlie when he’s crying, he yells at me, “Mommy! Go get him!”. Charlie got a little cold when he was only a few weeks old and I had to suck out some of his snot and it was pure chaos—Charlie was screaming bloody murder, I was about to pass out from sucking so much snot out with the Nosefrida and Emmett was yelling in my face “Stop, Mommy! That hurts him!”.

We spent the rest of the day trying to sleep and Facetiming family. That first night at the hospital, we didn’t know what to do. We had never had a 15 hour old baby that we were in total control of with nurses coming to check up on both me and him every few hours. With Emmett, we would go into the NICU to visit him and try and feed him but then we would leave to go sleep and eat and nurses didn’t check up on me all that often. The nurses in the NICU would soothe him if he was fussy and change all his diapers and rock him to sleep. When we finally had Emmett on our own, he was on an awesome 3 hour schedule. Billy asked the night nurse how we could get Charlie to sleep and she was so confused saying “don’t you guys already have a kid?” as if we should know what to do. We didn’t sleep much that night until the nurses came to give him his first bath. While we loved having our tiny newborn to snuggle, we hadn’t slept at all the night before, so we took turns rocking him to sleep while the other one got an hour or so of sleep. Charlie was immediately a good eater and could get a full feeding in a half hour. It took Emmett an hour to get a full feeding at that age and he didn’t get any faster until he was about a month old.

We were cleared to go home at about 2:30 PM on Friday the 10^th—we weren’t even there a full 48 hours. It felt so good to bring Charlie home and not be interrupted every few minutes by nurses. We just traded those nurses for a busy toddler. We were so lucky to be able to have Billy’s mom come stay with us and keep things running for Emmett while his exhausted parents tried to sleep whenever they could. She would get up with him in the morning and even get up with Charlie sometimes. She saved our lives! Especially since Billy only got 4.5 days off of work (and 2.5 of those were already scheduled as his days off, so he technically only got 2 days of paternity leave that they told him he’d have to make up later on. Residency is so much fun.)

We love our Charlie boy so much. He is the spitting image of his dad. Seeing how much he looks like a Strong baby makes me think that Emmett looks even more like a Griffith. Multiple people have told us that Charlie looks like a wise/grumpy old man (I think it’s the large nose) and he has the personality to match it. Calm and sensitive. Serious, but gives the sweetest smiles. He is our second miracle baby and brings so much joy into our home. We love you Charlie Owen!

PS: I spent way too long trying to get these pictures lined up and then when I published, they got all wonky again, but I'm not spending another second on it. So, sorry they are all over the place. Just take it as symbolic of how chaotic our life is at the moment.

So happy to be admitted. And so puffy and swollen

Dr. Strong checking out my contractions. I think it's cause he didn't believe I was actually in pain

Waiting...

Holding my sweetie for the first time

Took to breastfeeding like a champ

I finally let Billy hold him after a while

Finally cried at this moment. Emmett had just woken up for the day and wanted to see his baby brother.

 

                    

Grandma Stacy meeting Charlie Owen

        

Billy as a newborn and Charlie as a newborn

                       

Poor guy was exhausted after that grueling labor

  

Was not happy to get in the carseat

Home, sweet, home

His first doctor's appointment

Since he was so yellow, we had to go back to the hospital to get his levels tested

Trying to get rid of the jaundice

He came out such a serious soul

At home in his own crib (pack n play)

Grumpy old man

Scrawniest, skinniest babe

Saying bye to Grandma

At the doctors