Inessa Turns One

Purple Girl

Despite the reality of hand me downs from big sister, I hoped to have a few things that Nessie could look back on as uniquely hers. To differentiate, I've been inclined to go for things that are purple rather than pink even though she looks just as lovely in pink as Ellie did.

Some time ago, I was given a bag of yarn that included a couple of skeins of purple wool, almost a lilac color. It seemed the perfect yarn for the first handknit for Nessie. Given my current state of continual interruptions, a lace knit didn't seem feasible so cables it was.

Nessie's Antler Cardigan:

These buttons have been in my stash at least since we moved from our old house. I'm so pleased that there were enough to use here. I'm not particularly happy with how the placket turned out but you learn something with every project, right?

What's in a Name

We have gotten a lot of questions, quite justifiably, about how we came up with Inessa's name. After all, hardly anyone has heard of it.

We started out with a set of criteria that we use for naming all of the kids.
1. interesting, preferably spiritually oriented meaning
2. alliterative first and middle names
3. classic or traditional but not particularly common; naming statistics over the last 100 years gets consulted frequently
4. fits in reasonably well with the other kids' names
5. contains a nature reference that may be somewhat obscure; Elanor is a flower from LOTR and Peter means rock
6. doesn't sound too weird with our last name; everyone else's last name sounds so much easier to match than one's own--but they feel exactly the same way.
7. Minimal unfortunate nicknames. This is impossible to avoid entirely of course--someone will always think of something.

Jonathan starts connecting with the baby by browsing through name lists pretty much as soon as we know that we are expecting. I prefer to wait until we know the gender to start narrowing things down. So around the beginning of January, we were both on the hunt.  Irene had been on our short list of girls' names for Elanor because Jonathan liked the meaning (peace or peaceful) and I had liked it ever since reading George MacDonald's Princess and Curdie as a child. We went through some lists to find another name starting with I to match it, coming up with some real gems like Iphigenia, Ingeborg and the oh, so popular, Isabella. We were starting to wonder if either Irene wasn't a good choice or we would have to drop one of our criterion.
When I came across Inessa, I was initially hesitant because I had never heard it before--something that Jonathan has had trouble accepting in the past. However, the sound was lovely and the meaning was interesting--it is the Slavic variant of Agnes, which means pure or chaste. More people have heard of Inez or Ines which is the Spanish version. Jonathan liked it so we rolled Irene Inessa around in our mouths and ears for a few days. After a while, it occurred to us to switch the names and we both decided that we liked the sound of Inessa better as the first name.
In the final part of the evaluation process, we did a search for Inessa to check to make sure that there weren't any terribly unpleasant associations or people with that name. When first item that came up was a link for a butterfly entomology site, we discovered that Inessa is a genus of skipper butterflies--a perfect way to fit in that nature reference and one last confirmation that this was the right name for her.
We planned to call her Nessie but didn't think of Miss Loch Ness Monster until after she was born and the paperwork submitted but I don't think that we would have changed our minds at that point anyway.

And after all that, Ellie insists on calling her Nugget.

Peanut and Nugget

Welcoming Inessa Irene

Now that Inessa is two months old, it's time to introduce her.

Working on those smiles!

Because everyone loves a detailed and personal birth story, right? For the record, I am now three for three with the water breaking prior to onset of labor (PROM, for the technically minded).

Just as with the beginning of labor with Peter,  we had lain down for the night and were chatting before praying and turning out the light when, oh dear, that tell-tale little gush that signals that the night is not going to be as peaceful as we had thought. Mindful of the frantic cleanup and mad rush to pack the birth center bag from last time, we had agreed to pack ahead of time (mostly done!), put a towel in the bed (just in case!) and finish whatever prep before labor started (even if it meant a hour less sleep for everyone). So we paged the midwife, called Elsa to come on over and then waited for contractions to start. We woke up (!) the next morning, feeling a little sheepish that nothing had happened and we had hauled Elsa over here without needing her to watch the kids overnight. We spent a lovely, peaceful day going to our midwife's office for a NST (during which she was so active that she kept moving away from the monitor and, while it was clear that she was doing fine, we had a hard time getting a good trace) and a discussion of our options while the kids went to the zoo with auntie, having a last lunch out together at Cedars, emailing friends asking for prayers and afternoon naps all around. I was, of course, convinced that nothing would be happening for a couple more days and we would have to go through all manner of interventions to get labor going but for that day, we would just let things go however they were going to go. While out walking, we saw a beautiful Painted Lady butterfly and felt that this was one last confirmation that we had chosen the right name for our little daughter--more on this later.
Elsa surprised me by making dinner and I felt that I was ready for a little bit of alone time after an involved day so I went off into the office to watch the second half of Bend it Like Beckham which I had started a couple of nights previously during one of my bouts of late pregnancy insomnia. After realizing that I had counted five or six contractions over the course of those forty minutes, I came to the conclusion that I would, after all, be in the 86% of women who go into labor spontaneously withing 24 hours of PROM. By the time that I emerged from my movie to rejoin the family, I was having to breathe through the contractions, a sure sign of real labor for me. I was in no rush, thinking that it would be a few hours before we would even need to consider going to the birth center for active labor and delivery but as the kids finished dinner, Elsa whisked them off to my parents house, leaving us free to concentrate.
One of the things that I appreciated about this labor was being aware of the progression of each stage. I have a distractable phase, a breathing phase, a singing or humming phase, a rhythmic phase and then pushing--which has its own set of sounds. I know that by the time that I hit the humming phase, I am definitely in active labor and the rhythmic phase with very little break between contractions indicates transition. So we didn't really have to wonder about when to call the midwife and let her know that we'd like to go over to the birth center and we didn't feel nearly as rushed or anxious about how fast labor was progressing--it was fairly clear the time frame that we were on as things unfolded. No wild speeding on the freeway this time!
We checked in with our midwives a couple of times before agreeing that it was time for some supervision and that it would be better to be in the car at this stage rather than any later. With the midwives coming from Seattle, there was just that bit of extra traffic for them to work through and we needed them to be there to let us in and get things set up. We left for the birth center (30 minutes away) around 8:00 and pulled into the parking lot just as I switched phases into transition.  Getting through the doors and into the warm water was wonderful! I didn't realize how much Jonathan was concentrating on driving and helping me get through the contractions until we got there and realized that he needed to take a short break so that he could be there when the baby was actually born. Fortunately, one of the midwives was able to lend a (literal) hand to keep me on track. Our baby girl was born after approximately 30 minutes of pushing and about an hour after we arrived. The first thing out of the water that she did was sneeze!

Freshly born

Meeting Daddy

Cozily dressed for the car ride home

If everything is going normally, it is customary to go home from the birth center within several hours after delivery so we headed home around 2:00 am. It is a little strange to make a car trip so shortly after giving birth, with a new baby in the backseat no less, but so wonderful to be snuggled up all together in our own bed and able to relax. I don't know that it is wonderful enough to make me ever want to just have the baby at home, but I don't miss the hospital stay one bit.

First morning at home

The older kids (so strange to think of them that way!) spent two days playing and wearing out my parents before coming home on Saturday night. They were excited to meet their new baby sister but even more excited to see their own beds again.

Our family of FIVE!

Welcoming the unexpected

I'm pretty sure that everyone who reads here is also a friend via FB (really, how else do we see each other's cute pictures of the kids in a timely manner), so the news that we are having another baby is pretty much out. I'm 12 1/2 weeks (yes, I'm claiming the survival of those extra few days!) and the baby will be arriving mid-May if all goes well. Since I have delivered either on or very close to my due dates in the past, we may very well be celebrating mother's day with another birth.

Here is the rest of the story. Ellie was almost 2 1/2 and Peter was coming up on his 1st birthday. My brother and his wife had just announced that they were having their first baby in the spring. Along with their announcement, I had just a fleeting moment of wishing that we were in a position to make that announcement too. We suspected that we weren't done with growing our family but with so many things still to be settled from our move this spring and the neediness of two still quite small children, we were actually pretty content with where things were. My first criteria for deciding we were ready to try for another baby was for Peter to consistently sleep through the night--something that was occasionally tantalizing me with the whispers of what it might be like to have a full night's sleep for the first time in over a year (darn pregnancy insomnia) but had yet to occur with any kind of predictability or regularity. Even as we contemplated reaching this milestone within the next couple of months, we weren't sure that we were going to be ready even then. Jonathan was working a ton of extra hours to get major projects at work finished, we were still unpacking and getting settled after a summer of playing outside and ignoring the inessentials inside and I was enjoying teaching the kids new things and watching them develop into little people--something that I knew I would be distracted from by the inevitable travails of my pregnancies.

One day, a couple of weeks before Peter's birthday, I pulled out some pregnancy tests for a friend who I knew was hoping to try for another baby this fall. I buy the cheap ones in bulk (why pay $10 apiece when you can pay $0.60 apiece) so there are always extras to share around. We keep track of my cycles and fertility signs so I knew that I was on day 26--well before I would have even expected my period. But, on a whim, I decided to take one anyway. Call it quality control since these were left over from Peter's conception and the expiration date was only 8 months or so away. I occasionally enjoy that reassuring single line towards the end of my cycle too (see cheap and abundant tests). But on this occasion, there were unmistakeably two lines. I knew that there had been occasional issues with other lots of this test giving false positives. So I took another one. Still positive.

Jonathan was at work so I had the afternoon at home to process this and figure out a way to tell him. With the other kids, we waited until I was at least a couple of days late to test together and by then we're pretty sure what the answer is going to be anyway. So now I knew and couldn't pretend that I didn't for the five days or so that it would take for him to decide that something was up and we needed to check. I took a picture of the positive test and snuck it into our weekly Friday night fun time together by way of a review of the pictures I had taken of the kids over the previous several weeks. You know that you have two shocked and pensive introverts when the rest of the evening is passed in complete silence.

Over the next couple of days, we reviewed the previous month looking for a way that we could have made a mistake in our tracking or preparation but no obvious moment appeared. There was no room for recriminations or blame anywhere. In the end, we were forced to the conclusion that we had simply been one of those couples for whom God decided on the timing of the child without our involvement.

For many people, an unexpected pregnancy is something that is built into their expectations about marriage and family life. This has never been the case for us. We are planners--sometimes to ridiculous degrees--and we prepare for change by going over all of the possible processes and outcomes well before we put them into effect. When it came to my next pregnancy, we knew that it would be a challenging time physically for me and emotionally for the whole family. With Peter, we were at some level able to prepare for that and set ourselves up with ideas of how to entertain Ellie, feed ourselves and structure the schedule so that everyone got most of their needs met. I also knew that I was not in as good shape as I would like to be before embarking on another pregnancy so we were working on a plan for me to leave the house to get some exercise without the kids this fall so that I would be stronger (and a bit more trim) when the time came. Yet here it was, without any of the grand ideas for smoothing out the process having been implemented and roughly a week to prepare for my significantly reduced capacity which would last anywhere from four to six months.

We have been blessed in some really incredible ways over the last couple of years. Jonathan was hired for a job that he loves doing, we don't have to send the kids out to daycare, we have family close enough to visit frequently, and we were provided with a house that was one of the best that we looked at during our nearly year-long search and, incredibly, was in our price range. And we have two beautiful children. There is a common theme here, however. We planned for them. We prayed for them. We worked for them. We thank God for granting them to us, recognizing that they are still gifts given beyond all earning but we were aware of our participation in the process.

There is a lot of faith involved in praising God in difficult circumstances. I don't want to diminish this reality and I've even been there a time or two. What I didn't expect was the faith involved in thanking God for a blessing that we didn't ask for.

It is one thing to subscribe to the belief that all children are precious and a blessing and sometimes another to accept that God and not you decided that they were the blessing that you were to receive at this particular time. At the beginning, I confess to a wild wish that we could undo this, somehow go back to the way things were with our carefully ordered future. Of course, that isn't possible and we're coming to a place of anticipation, thankfulness and maybe a little bit of extra interest to see this child that God thought we should have so particularly. We're talking about names, how to shuffle the sleeping space and putting on hold some of the things that I don't have the energy for. I can't say that I'm enjoying the pregnancy side effects any more than I usually do but we're surviving most of the time and, as usual, Jonathan is rising to the occasion of my lessened availability and effectiveness in a wonderful way.

I hesitated to share any of this beyond the crazy story of how we found out that we are having our third baby. After all, so many of my friends have lost babies or haven't been given the ones that they prayed for. The pain associated with your surrender isn't something that we've experienced. It sounds ridiculous to even have this struggle when there are so many others who are faced with an unexpected pregnancy in far less ideal situations. So I hope that my story of another kind of surrender isn't hurtful. We're thankful that most of the people we've told who would be concerned for us have mostly squashed their worries and expressed at least some pleasure that there will be another member of the family. We hope that you will join us in praying for this little one and the family that it is expanding.