Late Summer Tahoe Trip

Big Sister-Little Sister

Besties on a hike

Bucket Heads

Kaitlyn turns 8!

Can you believe it? She is such a big girl now. Ceci loves her oldest cousin sooo much!

Piper Rose Biagini

Birth Story:

After weeks of thinking I would go into labor early, due to contractions and being dilated 2 cm, I made it all the way to my induction date. I was scheduled to be induced (due to gestational diabetes) at 39 weeks. Early Tuesday morning I called to make sure they had room for me, and they told me to come in. So off we went down to Stanford. I was admitted at 8:15 and by 9 they had me hooked up to the IV (for fluid). They decided to start me off with a small pill called misoprostal (sp?) since I was already dilated and having contractions pretty regularly. At 10:20 I had 1/2 a pill and we were to wait 4 hours to see if it got things going adequately. It didnt really work to do more than make my contractions a bit stronger and closer together but no active labor. So then I was to get Pitocin. They had some Pitocin shortage and I had to wait until around 4pm to get hooked up to the Pit. The Pitocin definitely increased the intensity of my contractions and at 5pm I was 4cm dilated, so my doctor broke my water. After that things started to get a little more serious, contractions that hurt, each one worse than the last. I was trying to make it until I was checked again, but around 6 I could not take it anymore and decided to ask for the epidural. It took a long time to get the epidural in place bc my contractions were coming very close together and were very painful. Finally at 6:30 it was in and the contractions started feeling better. 15 mins later they actually started to hurt again. They thought they might have to come back to adjust the epidural a bit, I was NOT excited about this. And I started shaking uncontrollably and feeling very emotional. And this was all during shift change for the nurses. At about 7:15 or so the new nurse checked me and I was complete! She paged my dr. and set things up to start pushing. We did a practice push and she told me to stop, bc the baby was right there. I was excited but it was very hard not to push. The contractions were hurting a bit but that was good bc I could feel them enough to help with the pushing. Once my dr. got there I was able to push and gave about 3 pushes per contractrion. 3 contractions and out she came, all beautiful and screaming. Piper Rose, 7#7 oz, 19 3/4 ". They put her on top of me and she nursed right away. We love her so much!

Happy 4th of July

Summer Days

My darling

Enjoying the afternoon sunshine

Cutie pie in braids

Making lemonade with our Meyer lemons

Patriotic with a princess mask

Butterfly crafts

Painted faces

Dancing Queen

Presidio Stewardship Day

Cecily helped out planting trees at the Presidio Stewardship day with her preschool. Then had fun playing with her friends at the playground. It was a chilly May day!

 

Third trimester

At Kaitlyn's First Communion on May 1st. I asked Cecily to give her baby sister a "kiss", but she looks like she is biting her. A sign of things to come....?

So I am now officially in the third trimester. 28 weeks down, 12 to go. This pregnancy has been a little more complicated than with Cecily. Nothing too serious, just feeling very heavy, achey, tired, anemic (taking iron) and was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes which came as a little shock. So now I have alot more appointments, with the endocrinologist, the nutritionist, and extra ultrasounds. I also have to eat a fairly regimented diet and poke my finger 4 times a day to test my blood sugar.

But for the most part things are good. The baby girl is moving ALOT and seems very healthy. I had an ultrasound on Tuesday to check on her size and she was measuring 2 # 10 oz, which was right around 50th%. So she is right on track. The ultrasounds consistently put me as a few days further along, showing a due date of 7/28. My doctor says because of the GD I wont go past my due date, and she might induce me the Thurs or Fri prior to my due date, but we will see.

Here are the ultrasound photos, you can see her cute little face pretty well.

Morning Routine

Every morning we pretty much have the same routine. Cecily, acting as our alarm clock, wakes us up at 6am. "Morning Time". Then she asks if she can watch something. I tell her it is not the weekend, so no. Then Greg gets up to take a shower and Ceci and I go downstairs and make breakfast. She feeds Luca (only 2 cups! she always wants to give her extra) Then, as I enjoy my morning coffee and watch her eating waffles, I start to dread the next step in our morning routine: Getting Dressed. First of all, she only wants to wear dresses. All the jeans, cute pants, skirts we have, forget about it. Even jumpers are not acceptable. Then there is the leg covering. In San Francisco in April it is still pretty chilly. Today it is pouring rain. She likes tights alright but leggings are a challenge. Then the shoes. She has rejected many of her shoes because they are too dirty, and she wont wear dirty shoes. (Yet she jumps in puddles and mud and sand as soon as she gets the chance). Her favorite shoes are these black patent ones from her cousin. They dont really go with anything but I have given up. Then, the hair. I dont even want to talk about the hair- its too painful.

And I wonder why I am late for work every day.

At the zoo with Dad

The carousel-she rode it six times that day

Enjoying the beautiful springtime bloom

Cecily took this picture of her Daddy

IPOD Obsessed

So Greg gave me an IPOD touch for my birthday, and I downloaded some kids games on it. Now Cecily is a little computer game addict. She knows how to turn the phone on, unlock it, select which game she wants and navigate through all the steps. I was trying to make her stop playing so she could try on some new shoes I got her and she pleaded with me "Please, the game is waiting for me". A little bit too much like me and my Mario Brothers days.

Easter Cookies

We worked diligently to make bunny sugar cookies for the preschool for Easter. I thought they turned out pretty cute.

5 months

Whats in a name?

That which we would call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Ah, the naming process for the second time. Unlike with Cecily, I dont really have another name stored in the back of my head that I know I really want. I have told Greg that this one is his to name, since I pretty much bullied him into going with Cecily (which now he loves of course). I got myself another-updated-copy of the baby name wizard book, the best one I still think, at least for my type of persual of baby names. I do think this time I might be a little less of a stickler on the "anti-popular" name. I was so opposed to anything near the top 25 last time, having had one of the most popular names of my peer group growing up. But there is something to be said for having a name which is a sign of your time, environment, etc. But still, I love the name Olivia, but I dont think I could do something THAT popular.

Greg has yet to weigh in on this, he is waiting until 'After Busy Season' (when he is going to do everything else he has been ignoring the last couple of months). But Cecily has an opinion.
Her suggestions:

Rose Lollipop
-or-
Rose Rainbow

Addison's Birthday-Tinkerbell party

Cecily enjoyed Addison's 3rd birthday party, complete with facepainting, flower cupcakes and tinkerbell!

Bring on the Pink

Here are the sonograms of our beautiful little girl- at 19 weeks. We were already convinced it was another girl (since they pretty much told us at 14 weeks) so it was not much of a shock to know that our lives will continue to be filled with pink and butterflies and rainbows (I guess this one could always be a tomboy-unlike her big sister) Cecily will be moving into what we now refer to as the "Red Room", our guest room (which has red and gold wallpaper). I am lettting her make some decorating decisions, which of course is leading to the room being painted pink. As for a "theme", she is going with Rose-Fairy-Princess right now.