Life With Ida : 2 Years

I'm looking back at all my Life With Ida updates and loving all the pictures of baby Ida. I'm enjoying seeing how much has changed in the last year and seeing all the progress our sweet Ida has made.

Ida is always making her grumpy face and it's one of my favorite things. She is super grumpy when she meets new people... and it's always a fun surprise when she doesn't have a grumpy face when she meets somebody. Some days she is grumpy and mean mugging at everyone we pass and other days she is smiley and waving to every single person we see.

Ida is getting more and more independent and it is so fun to watch all the things she is learning. This week, she can finally open the fridge and she's constantly disappearing and reappearing with a yogurt in her hand.  One day, I heard her go in the fridge and I told her from the next room "you better not come back in here with a yogurt in your hand" and she peeks around the corner with a yogurt and her sweet little voice was just like "peeeasse!" followed by all of us cracking up. I also love her little voice saying 'thank you' whenever you help her with something.

Ida is really into chanting (just like the rest of our family) and she'll always find something to chant. She was really into her birthday with all the chants of "fashion show" and her name. Sometimes when there is a game behind our house, we'll walk over to grab a little treat from the concession stand. As soon as she hears we're going over, she'll start chanting "treat! treat! treat!" and it is the cutest thing hearing her little voice chanting.

Ida is quite the fashionista. She loves to pick out her own clothes which often includes a pair of sunglasses. Our neighbors gave us a little tinkerbell nightgown hand-me-down and that has been Ida's favorite article of clothing lately. I love seeing the random things she picks to wear.

Ida loves to color... but also loves to be a stinker and color all over her body. When I work from home, she usually colors next to me for a bit. When she's really concentrating on coloring, she puts her hand up to her face and it's the cutest thing.

As always, Ida loves going out on walks. This month, we found a new-to-us discovery garden and our favorite backyard filled with black-eyed susans. Ida is always the first to request to go 'ouside' and runs off to get her shoes whenever we talk about going on a walk.

Happy 2nd birthday sweet Ida! We love watching you grow and can't wait to see everything the next year has in store for you. We love you so much and we're lucky to have you in our family.

When Cora Met Ida

When I shared Ida's birth story, I mentioned I was having a hard time getting these specific pictures off of my camera. Welp, it has been a year and it finally happened. These are some of my favorite pictures in the entire world and they give me all the heart eyes when I look at them.

One of the sweetest things about having a second child is watching my children fall in love with each other. Little Cora was obsessed with babies and was constantly asking for a sibling before we got pregnant with Ida. Cora loved cuddling up with my belly and couldn't wait to meet her baby sister.  When it finally came time for them to meet, Cora held Ida for about 20 seconds while we took these sweet photos. She said "done!" and was ready to run around the room and hang out with all the visitors. 

In the two years since these pictures, it has been so fun to watch their bond grow. Cora has been mostly sweet and helpful with her little sister and Ida is obsessed with her big sister. I love watching these two together... even if they're fighting. These two babes make me the luckiest mommy in the whole world.

C-section vs VBAC

You can read my cesearean birth story with Cora here, and my VBAC with Ida here. This is just my own personal experiences and you should still consult a doctor for the best decision for your own personal health.

Now that I've experienced both a cesarean and a vaginal birth, I get asked a lot which one I liked better. They were both enjoyable in their own way (welp, as enjoyable as the act of birth can be), but they both had their own pros and cons. Every body and birth is different, but here is my experience:

C-SECTION PROS AND CONS

My cesarean had no complications and was overall pretty great.  It was fairly quick and I got to do skin-to-skin with the baby while they were closing me up.  I had no contractions and the whole ordeal was over in less than an hour.... and that is pretty much where the positives ended for me. I got extremely sick from all of the medicine coursing through my body, so I spent most of my time in the recovery room throwing up. It hurt to laugh and I had to depend on other people to do nearly everything for me.  I wasn't able to drive for 2 weeks and was in pain for months. When I returned to work at 4 weeks post partum, I was barely even able to make it through a full day due to pain.  My incision finally stopped being sensitive and tingling when I was about 1 year post partum. It has been 5 years and I still get an uncomfortable sensation in the incision in some circumstances, like when I lean up against something near the scar (which is about the same height as most bathroom vanities).

VBAC PROS AND CONS

I went into my VBAC, with low risk and high determination. My water broke and I had to get pitocin to speed up my labor. After a couple hours, I got an epidural and overall the birth was relatively painless. It was fairly fast and my entire labor (from water break to birth) was about 20 hours. Personally, I preferred the vaginal birth over the cesarian.  I felt more present at both the birth and the following recovery period.

The biggest pro for vaginal birth was definitely my recovery.  I was out of the hospital after the mandatory 24 hours. While my privates hurt (why wouldn't they?!) I was feeling much better after about 2 weeks. I was able to help do school drop off and pickups within a week. A month after birth, I was able to go on a weekend vacation that required a lot of walking, then I was able to help move a bunch of boxes a couple days later when we moved to our new house.

MY TIPS FOR VBAC

Find a doctor/hospital that supports vbacs - Be very clear up front about trying for a vbac. The first appointment I had during my second pregnancy, I spoke with the doctor and let them know I wanted to attempt a vbac. Since I see many doctors within the same practice, I followed up about their practice policy and made sure a VBAC was something they would support. My doctor looked at my reason for a csection, calculated my vbac chances, and let me know it was a very real possibility.

Educate yourself - I spent a lot of time reading and educating myself on different procedures, complications, etc. and made sure I felt comfortable advocating for myself if necessary. We also had a lot of long discussions as a couple about my reasoning for specific decisions so they Ben felt comfortable advocating for me if necessary. Csections are easier for doctors and staff and the only person that can best advocate for you is you.

Assess your risk factors and do what you can to lessen them - My biggest risk factor was my weight. I hadn't lost any weight since my first pregnancy, so I did my best to not gain much during my second pregnancy. I gained about 11 pounds (and half of that was baby) so the doctors felt pretty comfortable that I could have a successful VBAC

Squats.... lots and lots of squats - the last couple months of my pregnancy, I would do about 20 squats every time I went to the bathroom throughout the day... which is a lot. Linking my 'workout' to something I always do (bathroom) ensured it would happen and did a great job splitting it out through the day. Squats are great to prepare you're body for labor and splitting it up this way made the effort pretty minimal.

Visualization - I spent a lot of time from day 1 visualizing myself during birth and having a successful vaginal birth... and also set my mind to baby's birthdate being the 15th. Picturing this end goal was helpful for me, but I also spent sometime 'coming to terms' with the thought of having a c-section. At the end of the day, a healthy baby was our goal and I had to be okay if a c-section happened again.

RESOURCES FOR VBAC

Mayo Clinic - Mayo clinic has a great breakdown of what a VBAC is, why you would chose one, risk factors, etc

ICAN - International Cesarean Awareness Network has a lot of great resources and information. They also have local chapters if that is something you would find helpful. The above graphic is from ICAN and it was one I found helpful to remind myself of my reason to go with a VBAC. I wanted having more babies to be my choice and not one that would be made for me due to my health and risk factors.

BabyCenter VBAC Support group - This VBAC support group was helpful to find other VBAC sources and get encouragement in my goal. I loved seeing VBAC success stories pop up and other posts helped me learn a lot about the different variables.