Piper Renee

Welcome Piper Renee Mercado

Our sweet little Piper arrived on February 19th, 2013 at 1:24pm,  7lb 11oz and 19.5in

I'll never get over the fact that this little baby was INSIDE my body only a few short minutes before this picture was taken.

 Piper was born 5 days later in my pregnancy than both Emma & Levi. Ever since my run in with the flu at nearly 37 weeks pregnant, I was experiencing contractions. I was getting very nervous I would go into labor at any moment and wanted to be sure Emma & Levi were taken care of. After my 38wk check-up on a Monday, the doctor said I was already 3cm dilated & 80% effaced and she thought I would go into labor before Friday. Friday came and went, and we still had no baby. However, Jackie secretly made plans with Felix to fly up here and surprise me. I was so happy to see her!

I continued to have contractions, heart burn, nausea, and some may say I was in a permanent bad mood. By Monday night I had enough. I woke up at 4am Tuesday morning for my usual bathroom run and was in a lot of pain. The contractions continued to be painful but were about 14min apart, so I assumed they were nothing. By 6am I was so frustrated with the pain that I turned the light on in the bedroom, paced around the room and told Felix I was calling the doctor to get induced! I originally planned to wait to call until the office opened at 9, but by 7am couldn't take it anymore so I called the on-call doc. He said it could be false labor but I should come in to the ER, and if possible they would induce.

So, as I continued to deal with the painful (and what I assumed were just braxton hicks) contractions, Felix went upstairs to get the kids settled with Jackie since we had them signed up for a class at the Y for that morning. By the time everyone was downstairs having breakfast, I was yelling at Felix & Jackie, abbreviating curse words in front of the children, and getting angry they were just fooling around making fun of my bad mood. Felix was toasting a bagel & said he wanted to stop at Dunkin Donuts to grab a coffee on the way to the hospital. It was around this time I had to grab onto the wall for the next contraction and have Felix support me. Little Levi was holding my leg as well, not really knowing what was going on.

Yet still- nobody thought that perhaps I was in labor. It wasn't until we were about to walk out the door- I was holding on to the entry table when a big contraction came and Jackie said "woah, I think she is having a contraction". These were getting closer and closer. We decided to skip Dunkin on the way to the hospital.

We arrived and I was 7cm dilated. Definitely in labor. THANK G-D!

 

 After 3 attempts to get my IV in and me biting my tongue to not be rude to the nurse, they were wheeling me up to the delivery room. I considered not getting the epidural since I was already 7cm....but then I had another contraction and changed my mind! I was surprised to actually get the epidural only 45 minutes after we had arrived. I was soon very relaxed, and the nurse advised we wait as long as possible to push the baby out to make things easier. I kept getting nauseaus when on my back, but other than that, Felix & I relaxed and waited about 4 hours together relaxing as last-time "parents of two" before little Piper arrived after 3 short pushes.

As she was coming out the cord was wrapped around her neck, so the doc asked for scissors. Nobody told me the cord was around her neck- and I thought she asked for scissors to cut ME! As soon as she came out, Felix & I both saw at the same time that she was a girl. I remember looking right at him saying "it's a GIRL!" with a huge smile and I saw his familiar teary eyed face, same tears he had when both Emma & Levi were born. And they handed her to me, and she didn't make a sound- and they said she was perfect, and she was :)

 Piper was born just before 1:30pm, but my epidural took so long to wear off- I wasnt able to move my left leg until about 5pm! After passing the "mobility" test, they finally let us get settled in our postpartum room and Jackie brought the kids to meet their new sister. My heart absolutely melted to see how sweet and caring Emma was with her. Levi was really interested in checking out all her different parts, along with all the buttons in the room and my dinner tray :) And they both kept fighting with each other to be the one to hold the baby.

 When Emma was holding Piper, they just stared at each other. One of the few moments Piper actually had her eyes open. It was the sweetest thing ever.

 Felix took the kids home to get ready for bed, Mom & Dad flew in and drove straight to the hospital to meet Piper, and Jackie actually stayed with me in the hospital snuggling Piper until 1am when I was able to finally walk on my own.

We had a pretty good first night. I got about 2 hours of sleep simply because I couldnt stop staring at her and just didnt want to put her down! She was such an unbelievably good baby- didn't cry at all. I couldnt believe it!!

Around 5am the nurse came in to give Piper her first bath.

 The next day everyone came back to visit us in the hospital for a bit and then I took a nap for a few hours while mom stayed with me and Piper. We had another good night for our 2nd night, and Felix came back in the morning to bring us home. After I showered and got dressed, I said to Felix I thought my face looked really bad with welts all over it and I was itchy. My loving husband said he didnt see anything and thought I looked great.

 But later that night at home, my parents noticed my face was swelling and I was extremely itchy. We couldnt think of anything that was causing the swelling so decided to wait a day or two. The next morning, I looked even worse! I could barely open my eyes as you can see in the pic below!!!

Luckily, that morning was the worst of it and it gradually got better throughout the day. I guess we will never know what caused the reaction!

Mom, Emma & Levi made these signs to welcome us when we came home. I had to take a picture and save them- Emma drew a picture of me pregnant with tears because the baby was hurting my belly. My sweet big girl :)

Jackie couldn't wait to snuggle Piper. She only let me hold her when it was time to nurse ; ) I let her fight it out with Emma & Levi for holding rights. At one point, Jackie actually hid the baby under a blanket when Levi was coming down the stairs so she wouldnt have to share! 

Oh how we love our little Piper Renee. I feel so lucky that she is such an easy going baby. I can't get enough of her, she is an absolute dream baby (so far) and while I'm excited for our family of 5 and what the future holds- I wish I could freeze this moment in time!

I said Yes

Seven years ago today, I said YES when Felix asked me to marry him!

And here we are now.

Happy Valentines Day!

Now, dear sweet baby #3.... GET OUT!

Surviving!

We have been really busy. I have been feeling stressed out for a while, and there really is no need to be stressed! I'm not sure why I feel this way, it seems like we just "need to get through" a week or certain event and then everything will be more relaxed- but I'm realizing there will always be "events", so it's time to just start rolling with the punches!

I was inspired late the other night when I came across a TV show on TLC "pregnant at 50, 60, & 70". I typically hate watching reality TV, but this one caught my attention. And the 50 year old mother said she thinks she is an even better mother now than she would have been 15 or 20 years ago because she doesnt sweat the small stuff. I decided to listen to her advice. Except for the part about spilling a drink on the couch....we just bought a new couch.

I came across these pictures in my "to blog" folder on the computer. They were from the holiday parade we went to in our town before our month long vacation to FL. It was COLD. And honestly....kind of boring, hah!

 The highlight of the parade was one of the cars in the "car show" section. Both kids thought it was straight from (one of their favorite) movies Annie.

 Levi eventually got bored and started playing tackle with Felix. It was more like he was throwing himself on the ground, pretending Felix was tackling him.......

 The dentist strolled by in the parade, and instead of throwing out candy he threw out sample sized floss. Emma decided to show Levi how it's done!

 Fast forward a month or two, we enjoyed a lovely trip to FL in December. We really had a great time and made an effort to plan as much family fun as we could while Felix was with us. We took the kids to Lion Country Safari, the Miami Childrens Museum, playgrounds, visited friends all over, lots of cousin time, and Emma even got to see a special Little Mermaid play with Ava and my parents. Felix & I enjoyed a weekend alone as well, and all we wanted to do was sleep! We did enjoy a night out for dinner, lots of walking, a movie, and our 2nd night we went out to a comedy club- one of our new favorite date nights :)

Upon our arrival home to beautiful New England in the winter, we were welcomed by our mail that had been waiting for us at the post office for a few weeks. And in there was a notice that our homeowners insurance had been canceled, I had been selected for jury duty, and I was also given a fine & my drivers license was suspended for lack of response to a ticket I received prior to going to FL(expired registration). In addition to this, our dishwasher was broken. And a couple weeks later we woke up to a frozen kitchen sink pipe, leaving us with no water in the kitchen, followed by a week later where I discovered a frozen, and now broken and cracked pipe leading to our outdoor hose that was gushing water outside like a waterfall!

I'll spare you the details, but in the end, everything (as usual) turned out fine! The homeowners insurance was simply a miscommunication between our bank & insurance company, I postponed jury duty until after my due date & Felix is out of season, my drivers license was reinstated & fine removed b/c I DID try to take care of this prior to our trip to FL and was told I had time to do so upon our return, the dishwasher was fixed by Sears, Felix & our neighbor defrosted our sink pipe without any damage, and I became supermom with no fears & rushed into the basement to shut off our exterior water once I realized we had a busted pipe flooding our backyard.......so ALL IS WELL!!!

And it was time to get the kids haircut after several comments about "my beautiful girls".......even IF Levi was a girl, there is no way someone would call him beautiful! He is a stud.....but my broad little man definintely does not make a good looking GIRL!

This is what I walked out to see when Felix was down in the basement trying to defrost the sink pipe. The kids are dying to go down there....little do they know how pretty it is down there :)

 In other news....we are 38 weeks along with baby #3 on Monday! I gave birth to Emma & Levi at 38 weeks & 3 days, so I'm expecting to meet this new little bundle any day now.

Which brings me to our next fun adventure we just got through. This picture is from 36 weeks pregnant, and I was on my way out to teach my 1st of 12 Munchkin Movers classes at the preschools. I was really excited to teach and had 3 classes scheduled each day Monday thru Thursday. On Monday, after teaching 3 classes I went to work that afternoon for a few hours (I have been working on Monday nights for a pilot program my old job has been testing). I was exhausted!

 Here is a fun shot of the kids working on gross motor skills. They were choo choo trains pushing their "coal" from one basket to another. This was one of their favorites. I haven't asked for approval to post these pics of the kids, so this one is blurry and I scratched out their faces in the next one.

 Here we are doing our "signature rope dance". The kids love it, and we get to work on cardio & balance in this section. We are balancing on one foot in this picture. This was taken on Thursday- my 1st class of the day. I then taught 2 more at a different preschool, after which I came home and slept the rest of the day- didn't even eat dinner.

 And when I woke up Friday morning, I felt horrible. I went to the doctor only to find out I tested positive for the flu! I was in total shock! Ever since we came back from FL I was being so careful not to bring the kids out to many public places, using tons of hand sanitizer if we were out, etc. I didn't want them to be sick with the new baby coming soon. So, I was told to use a mask if near the kids and to spend the week resting in bed staying hydrated.
Felix has been my superhero lately, and immediately came home from work to help take care of the kids once I found out I had the flu. I took the meds the doc gave me, was in bed sleeping, only to be woken when I projectile vomited all over the place. Thankfully Felix heard me & came in to help since I could hardly move my big pregnant belly to sit up & get control of myself! And the day went downhill from there. Eventually we found ourselves in the ER having contractions every 4 minutes due to severe dehydration, nausea, and a 103 fever. Nothing a few bags of IV fluids, nausea meds, and tylenol couldn't fix :)

 Needless to say, Felix was absolutely amazing. While I was creating a permanent indentation in our bed confined to our bedroom for 5 days, Felix was doing as much work as he could at home and only leaving me to coach practices. Emma caught on quickly, and set up her own "office" in the living room to do her work :)

 By Wednesday morning I felt much better and was back to my normal self- running errands, taking care of the kids, cooking, etc. On the menu that evening was a cobb salad, and I decided I was going to give the same to the kids. I was SO PROUD that they actually ate their "salad"!!! I deconstructed it for them into sections, but they ate (most of it) all up! I had to take a picture!!

 Just as we were getting back on our feet, we got news of BLIZZARD 2013 heading our way!! The whole town was in a panic, so I figured we should go shopping on Thursday for a few necessities. By Friday morning it began to snow. This now marks almost 2 weeks of not going to the gym and (the kids) not really getting out of the house. The thought of being snowed in for a few days was not fun. But the kids made the most of it. They set up their "bed" all by themselves on the big window behind the couch so they could watch the snow, and Felix made it home from work just in time before they implemented the driving ban!

 And this is what we woke to on Saturday morning. This is actually our front door (we never use). Lots of snow piled up! If I wasnt 9 months pregnant, I would have gone outside with the kids to go sledding down our little hill in front- there was plenty of snow.

 And here is a shot of the back deck, as Felix was starting to shovel. 7am. While it was still snowing.

 Digging out a path so we could get out the door & off the deck!

 The kids watching Felix shovel the cars and part of the driveway. Eventually we bundled them up in their snowsuits & let them play on the deck. They loved it! Eventually, they lifted the driving ban and Felix had to go back to work since they were hosting their first tournament of the season.

 AND.....back to being stir crazy inside. Good thing they have each other! Ariel dress-up time. Although, Levi was running around saying "arrrrgh" like a pirate as Emma, the drag-queen mermaid, chased him.

 My friend Keri told us about making ice cream out of snow. I never pass up an opportunity for ice cream, so we had to try it out! Felix ventured outside and got a bowl full of snow for us while we mixed the cream, sugar, & vanilla (plus cocoa powder, or course!).

 It was actually pretty good! VERY sweet, and almost the consistency of a Wendy's frosty.

 "it needs chocolate chips"!

SO, all in all, we have been having lots of fun. I have completely cleaned out the house- even down to organizing our tupperware cabinet- in preparation for baby #3. I finally packed my hospital bag, and feel that we are ready to meet this little love that has been kicking me all over from the inside- not to mention/complain about the sciatica pain, indigestion, and recent nausea it has been causing as well! Come on little one....we are ready for you!!!