The Miles Rausch Family Website

It’s been a while. Sorry about that! I’ve got legitimate excuses, but they don’t matter.

Ian’s two years old now and growing so much! In length, (not weight) and in his brain. He learns so quickly and is very curious. He loves to help, even when we don’t want help. I’m using this to my advantage on new Saturday morning cleaning times. Last weekend he helped me sweep and wash –and dry– the kitchen floor. Next time I think I’ll hand him a duster. I hope that this time invested in showing him how to clean will pay off when he’s a little older and needs no guidance with how to help. Some day he might be able to show his little sister the ropes!

He’s stringing several words together now into near-sentences (“Ian all done supper”, “mommy supper all done too”). “Nian”=”Ian” and “all done” is basically one word when he says it, “ah-done”. I’m not sure how he learned the concept of “too” or to say “go away” instead of his previous “go”. I think he picks up most of his new language from hearing conversations at home and daycare.

He is very focused on the concept of possession. Not just the typical toddler “mine” but pointing out my clothes vs. Miles’s clothes when doing laundry. Or whose milk glass belongs to whom. “Nilk.” Mommy’s or daddy’s car. And saying bye bye to each item as he stops thinking about it or it leaves his sight. “Bye bye daddy water”.

We’ve recently gotten out the baby pool left us by the previous homeowners. Ian likes playing in it, and I like sitting in it. Though I wish I could float around in it.

Baby sister is kicking and squirming and growing and all things babies do when they’re not ready to join this world quite yet. We’re looking forward to meeting her, and I’m feeling quite anxious about how her arrival will change our family. Ian puts his hands on my tummy, though he hasn’t felt her moving yet. He’s excited but also doesn’t understand and sometimes will say “no, no baby” when we’re talking to him about her. He’ll be a great older brother and an eager helper when she arrives.

Below are some myths, wives tales and anecdotes that I’m either confirming or busting based on our experience as parents so far. I know many parents who have experienced the opposite of what we have, and that’s why I italicized “our”.

Myth: Women forget how painful labor is.

Confirmed. Almost immediately.

Myth: If you don’t get hemorrhoids during pregnancy, you will get them post-delivery.

Confirmed. What a pain in the butt. (I’m hilarious.)

Myth: It takes about 6-8 weeks to recover from delivery.

Busted. Coming up to month 9 and still not declared healed, and sometimes it’s still quite painful. I wish I was kidding.

Myth: In children, everything is a phase.

Confirmed. (So far.) Some phases last months, though, and they don’t feel like just phases when you’re in the middle of it.

Myth: New parents take their baby to the doctor for every little thing.

Plausible. We don’t take him in for every little sniffle, but we take him in a lot. Because he’s sick a lot.

Myth: A sure-fire way to get a baby to sleep is to take him/her on a car ride.

Busted. Ian screamed and cried about 75% of the time he was on a car ride for the first 6 months. Even still, he often fusses when we put him in the car seat. If he’s hungry as well, then look out. But he’s gotten much better and has been known on occasion to fall asleep, if we time the trip right.

Myth: Breastfeeding is natural and easy for mom and baby.

Busted. It’s only natural because our bodies were built for it. Other than that, babies don’t come out knowing how to latch on and moms don’t always produce milk and sometimes the coordination just doesn’t work. We got lucky, and I still attribute our “success” to a few visits to a lactation consultant in the first two weeks. It’s hard work and painful and sometimes annoying. But it’s also hard work and painful to ween….so….

Myth: The weight will melt off your body if you’re breastfeeding, even with no exercise.

Busted. I believed it in that first two weeks. I lost about 10 pounds in 10 days (not including the immediate weight loss from birthing a baby). I was ecstatic. Stepping out of the bathroom and announcing that I’d lost 3 pounds since the day before yesterday. Now, almost 9 months later, I know that it wasn’t breastfeeding. It was fluid-loss from the several days following delivery. I haven’t lost any more weight since then (unless you count when I caught the flu in October)…in fact, I’ve gained a couple pounds since this summer.

Myth: You should sleep when the baby sleeps.

Confirmed. This is really great advice. But stop giving me “the look” when I say I don’t do it anymore. Because here’s the deal: I work full time, people! I cannot nap in the morning and afternoon. At night, though, I’m in bed usually within 30 minutes of Ian falling asleep. And on the weekends, I’ll occasionally take a cat nap when possible. It helps, especially on maternity leave.

Oh, and the next time someone says, “I slept like a baby”, what they mean is “I fought sleep until the bitter end and then I was fitful for much of the night,  until it was time to wake up. Then I wouldn’t open my eyes for anything but food.”

I honestly thought this baby would be born with snow on the ground. We had so much of it, I just figured it would take forever to get warm enough for it all to melt. Never did I imagine we’d have flowers blooming in our yard!

As we’re quickly approaching the (supposedly) last week of pregnancy, I’m finding it difficult to not be anxious about those things of which I have little-to-no control over. When will labor start? What will it feel like? What kind of delivery will I have? Will he be healthy? How quickly will I recover? What kind of baby will he be like? Will nursing be difficult for us? And so much more…

I anticipate that once I’m admitted to the hospital, a lot of my anxiety will be relieved since right now the biggest question for me is: When? After that, most of the questions will be answered within hours. And I’ll find new things to be anxious about. So far, we’re just taking it day-by-day. Every afternoon I send an end-of-day email with every project I’m in the middle of, where to find the documents, and where I’m at with the project. I’m working on school assignments early, to hopefully get some things done before the baby arrives, rather than needing to ask for extensions later. I’ve had several days of feeling “crampy” and thought each time that maybe it was pre-labor so that has kind of motivated me to be on top of things as much as possible, even though these aches have not amounted to anything.

Many people have asked about visiting us in the hospital, etc. We’d like to keep hospital visitors to a minimum for several different reasons and so we ask that only our parents and siblings visit during that time. However, anyone is welcome to come meet the baby once we return home. I’d ask that you call or email us first, so we don’t have a lot of people showing up on the same day, unannounced. This way, we also can let you know if it’s “not a good day” without turning you away on our doorstep. But seriously, come meet the baby. We might have an informal “meet the baby gathering” this summer in Sioux Falls, but I’m not ready to commit to anything at this point.

We’ll post updates, pictures and video of him online (nothing gorey, no worries) so in addition to this blog, I would suggest checking out my Facebook profile, Miles’s profile or the Dear Future Kids page–as well as my Flickr stream and Miles’s Flickr stream or Miles’s Twitter feed. We aren’t making any guarantees on who we’re texting immediately after he’s born, so many of you will probably hear it first through one of those avenues. Unless some interesting new information reveals itself in the next couple weeks, this will probably be the last post before the baby arrives!

For your listening pleasure, there’s a new Dear Future Kids podcast available, DFK 105: Math is Hard.

I kept thinking we’d get around to recording a short DFK podcast, but we haven’t yet. So here’s an update…

Good news! The ultrasound at 32 weeks showed that he’s right on track. In fact, he’s in the 52nd percentile in all of his measurements (weight, head, abdomen, length, etc.). This basically means out of 100 healthy babies at random, he’s bigger than 51 of them and smaller than 48 of them. It doesn’t explain why I’m measuring so much bigger, but we’ll take it. Of course, I’ve heard they can be off by as much as a pound on ultrasound measurements, (which would make him much much larger) but I’m choosing not to linger on that. Bonus: more baby pictures!

My appointment this week at 36 weeks went smoothly. I’m measuring at 38 weeks, but two weeks ago I was measuring at 37 weeks so I might be starting to level off. Looking at my pregnancy journal, I can see that it’s actually taken 12 weeks for my uterus to grow the equivalent of 10 weeks. At 24 weeks, I was measuring at 28 and at 36 weeks I’m measuring at 38. This makes me less concerned about measuring big.

I’ve gained a lot of weight. Like scary close to the weight I was before I lost all that weight. And if you remember how many pounds I lost, then you can guess within 10 pounds as to how much I’ve gained during pregnancy. They give you a weight range to try to stick to in gaining (based on your pre-pregnancy weight) and I flew by the high end on that range weeks ago. And I mean flew. And I mean weeks ago. I know in an instant I’ll lose like 10+ pounds with the baby and everything else that, umm, comes out. It’s just a mental thing. It confuses me because people tell me I look small. But I’m measuring big and weighing in big. So maybe people are just nice. But at my last appointment my doctor said “your blood pressure, your urine and your weight all still look good” so…we can add that to the list of things I love about her. I now will be going to appointments on a weekly basis until the baby comes.

Looking at my class schedule, it reminds me just how close we are to his arrival. I give a group presentation less than two weeks before our due date. It’s just weird to think about. Being two weeks before our due date pretty soon. Then, after my due date there are 3 classes left. Not really certain how that will all work out as I don’t know what my recovery will be like, but the professor said we’ll just play it by ear and work it out however we can. My hope is to only miss one class and then sit in class for the remainder of the weeks and just take notes – and then have Miles bring the baby half-way through the class (it lasts 3.5 hrs) so he can nurse before bed. In theory, it makes sense to me, but we have no idea what to expect. I do know that we have a final exam, so I am planning to at least be there for that.

Miles’s cousin Amber and aunt Karin threw a shower for the baby last weekend. We had a really good time and it was great to see everyone who came – many of whom I hadn’t seen in months! The baby scored a lot of loot and is loved already. We’re so excited to hold him and wrap him in all his new blankets and clean up his spit-up with all the new burp rags and dress him in dino outfits and change his diapers on his little butt. I’m obsessed with thinking about his little tiny hiney. Is that weird?