You're a Mother of 2 If...

1-You've discovered 45647 things you can do with a baby attached to your boob;

2-You feel like you just joined the gym, for all the extra activities during the day;

3-And just like joining the gym, it's TORTURE at first, and then slowly your energy level increases by the demand (much like breast milk);

4-In order to accept the fact that you'll always have a kid glued to you 90% of the time, you learn to think of them as your new animated body parts;

5-Your first kid now looks HUGE;

6-You realize what a whiner you were when you only had 1 kid;

7-You've let go of your "too much TV will give my toddler autism" fears;

8-You worry about preventing sibling rivalry several times a day;

9-You sometimes wish your older child didn't like the baby quite so much, especially when he's sleeping;

10-Your toddler comes up with every possible need the moment you start nursing (bringing you back to number 1).

Yes, There IS Life After 2 Kids :)

Guess what: I had a boy!! And his name is Andrew David Prado, born on January 25th, 2012 at 8:35 a.m.

Sorry I haven't posted anything earlier - I'm amazed at mothers who blog from the hospital room and register every new emotion of having their 2nd baby. I mean, when do you sleep?? Or pee?? My mom's here from Brazil to help for the first month, and still, everyday at some point I feel like I'm about to lose my mind. Or at several points :).

Don't get me wrong - whenever both kids are fed, clean and happy (or at least "ish"), it's heaven. It really is all of those cheesy things you see in Lifetime movies: the wonder of becoming a bigger family, and your heart's about to explore with pride. I told David the other day that it often feels like I won't need any other kids, because these 2 are already so wonderful. Why test the blessing, right?

But other little reason why I might be done having kids is because this delivery was THE hardest I ever, ever thought I'd have.

This time around, I wasn't too afraid of giving birth. I'd gone through it once, survived, and realized it would'be gone even smoother if I hadn't feared it so much. So this time I was determined to be as relaxed about it as physically/mentally I could be.

Which, if you know me, you know it isn't much :).

Let's start from before the beginning, when my due date came and went, and I felt fainter and fainter everyday from carrying this ENOURMOUS baby. Seriously, the impression I had was that I was going to die from carrying him. Like my belly would end up exploding, or my legs would give in or something. From week 38 on, I started begging the doctor to induce me. At a 36 week ultrasound, they already said Andrew weighed 7 lbs and 11oz!!

I kept telling the doctor I didn't want to deliver a 9lbs baby - not (just) for fear of how much it'd hurt, but because I knew of all the complications it could bring. I'd watched a "One Born a Minute" episode where the baby got stuck in his mom's vagina and when they finally pulled him out, he was BLUE and didn't show signs of breathing for several seconds. I don't cry much watching tv, but I couldn't help but tear up when the baby cried and everything turned out okay. And I prayed that I'd never, ever have to face a situation like this.

Another thing I hoped not to face was a surprise c-section. Now, I'm not against them - thank God someone came up with a way to take a baby out if his or the mom's life's at risk. No wonder in the old times lots more people died giving birth. Both my sisters had to have c-sections and turned out okay, so I knew the world wouldn't end if I couldn't do it through my hoo ha.

But what I didn't want was to push for several hours, experience the painful ordeal of birthing naturally, only to be told "never mind, you're going to have surgery NOW". I imagined that would be so scary and stressful that I'd be really disappointed.

So guess what ended up happening to me. I got not one, but BOTH of my two labor fears. Three, if you count going overdue. They started inducing me on January 24th's afternoon, but nothing happened. Then the doctor gave me (or herself :) a break for the night, and it felt wonderful to be off of pitocin AND sleep soundly with the Ambien they gave me.

What I didn't expect was to wake up 3 to 4 cm dilated, and only a couple hours after that, already 8! I pleaded for the epidural, but they said there was no time anymore. The pain at each contraction felt scary, like the baby was going down but there'd be no room for him to get out. I SCREAMED like women in labor do in movies - gosh, I think I yelled at every single person who passed by me. This nice little nurse was trying to introduce herself and I just shouted, "yeah, yeah, yeah, HURRY". Lol, so much for my plans to 'be cool' :).

But the one positive side of this was that, to my surprise, when the doctor said we'd have to do a c-section, I only felt nervous for like a second. Then I thought, wait, going numb belly down?? Count me in! What I actually said was, of course, "HURRY!!!!" Another lady was filling out forms for the c-section (oh, c'mon, give me a break) and even jumped at my cry and went to do what she had to away from me lol.

I remember I hated getting the epidural when I had Melissa - it was one of the most painful parts of the process, probably because they had to try it 3 times before getting it on the right place. But this time I was so grateful to be receive any relief that I did MUCH better than before, with being still and all. Everyone seemed surprise that all of a sudden I'd stopped shaking like a crazy woman, but my mentality was, if you stop this pain, I'll do whatever you want! :) I might've even found strength to do a little dance lol.

The c-section felt weird, but not nearly as much I thought it would. The absence of contractions was WONDERFUL. My body relaxed so much I had a hard time staying awake. The excitement of seeing Andrew helped, but after they took him, my eyes were shut and I rested until they took me to the recovery room and I could finally hold him.

Nursing went about a million times better than it did with Melissa at first. But it was hard to enjoy it with these awful headaches I kept having because of the spinal anesthesia. Don't ask me how it works (I was too out of it when they explained it :), but for some reason my head would HURT when I'd lift it, and only go back to normal if I laid it flat. The first time it happened, I wondered if that was how a seizure felt like. Even opening my eyes felt excruciating. At least it usually didn't last an entire day - mostly just in the morning, but it could last for several hours. Which made nursing a challenge to say the least.

I don't want to go on and on about the first days' hardships (even though I just did hehe). Of course, I'm still on the first days - Andrew's only a week and a half old. But I can say that things have already gotten a lot better. We're still figuring things out, but the headaches seem to be all gone, THANK GOD. I'm not yet 100% sure how in the world I'm gonna take care of a 2-year-old and a newborn once my mom leaves, but I try to remember I felt the same way after having Melissa, and somehow we made it 'til here. As much as the hard times can feel harder than ever, the good times are also better than we've ever had before. And just that makes it all worth it.