Transitions

For those of you who didn't know, I used to be a real estate agent. I did it for about 2 years with my last closing being about 3 weeks before Evan was born. I tried to get back into it when he was about 4 months old, but it was just too much to handle. Since we weren't crunched for income, I decided to give it up.

We've been in our house for 5 years now and knew it wouldn't be the house that we grew old in. We decided that this was the year for a change. Now that we have 2 kids, and with Jack self employed and working from home we have grown into the house. We don't have a guest room now, but have several guests during the year. And we don't really have a back yard but we have a very active Evan, and Liam will be next year!

So in mid-May we started a hunt for a 4-bedroom +office with a back yard. Seems like an easy enough request, right? Well the first house we looked at, we fell in love with. I had been following it online for 3 months while we were getting our own house ready for the market. Wouldn't you know it got a contract on it the same day we saw it. 12 more houses and nothing seemed quite right for us. Then there was Lucky #14 (last time we house hunted when we bought our house, we looked at 14 houses). It was way overpriced and new on the market so if we had any hope of getting it for a decent price, we had to wait until we had an offer on our house. So we waited, and waited. We got a contingent offer (our buyers had a house to sell) but in the meantime, so did Lucky #14. Their agent didn't seem too confident in the salability of the other buyers' house, so we decided to keep waiting until we had a non-contingent contract before we tried to compete. (these contingency contracts leave the house open to secondary offers)

In the midst of all this house hunting, we listed our own home For Sale By Owner (FSBO or as we agents call it Fizbo). I was an agent for 2 years but I actually never had my own listing before. I had only worked with buyers. So a lot of this was new to me and I was thrown into the deep end without an office full of agents to turn to. Aside from the incompetency of Housepad (the company that gets FSBO's up on the MLS - Multiple Listing Service so that agents can find it), it really wasn't too overwhelming to take on ourselves. 7 weeks, 38 showings, 100+ flyers, a contingent offer and a non-contingent offer and while the details are still being sorted by the attorneys at the moment it looks like we finally have our buyer.

We were so excited to move forward on buying our house, but were heartbroken to find out that the other buyers' house had indeed gotten a contract and was set to close today. There was no way we could beat that when our contracts are still being sorted by the attorneys.

So here we are, selling our house with a closing date of September 14 and no where to move to yet. I know we won't be homeless and I'm trusting God that neither of the houses we fell in love with we're the right ones for us, and He has the perfect one out there. I know we have family and friends we can turn to, and we can always get a short term rental if necessary. While not ideal, we will at least have a roof over our heads and warm beds for our kids. So if you think of it, please pray for our anxiety and that God would line up the perfect living arrangement for us, however it will work out!

Here is our listing

He's here!

Liam Patrick McDade finally arrived! Though the labor and tardiness were not as dramatic as his older brother (41 hour labor and one week late), Liam was 3 days late and a 26 hour labor!

Contractions started around noon on Thursday 4/5. They would get regular if I stayed still but once I got up and moving they'd space out and get less intense, so I just tried to relax and help them along. We sent Evan to sleep over at Jack's parents' house just in case we needed to leave in the middle of the night. I went to bed for about an hour and a half and then couldn't get back to sleep. They finally picked up in intensity and were about 4 minutes apart by 2am. I called the midwife and she said to head on in. So I woke up Jack, we had a quick bowl of cereal and headed to the hospital around 2:30am.

They observed me for a bit and the contractions got stronger. I was 3-4cm and 50% effaced at the time. After about an hour and a half they admitted me and we moved to our LDRP (labor, delivery, recovery, post partum) room, where we spent the entire hospital stay. It was spacious and new with a gorgeous soaking jacuzzi tub, which I never ended up using! I got asked a thousand questions and signed a bunch of consent forms (didn't I pre-register?) but fortunately my labor was progressing slowly and I wasn't at the point of chewing their heads off yet! I not-so-subtly hinted at my desire for an epidural but was told I should progress more first so I got a shot of nubane to help take the edge off and sleep a little. I was halfway between sleep and awake the whole time but I think it helped me rest a bit. And Jack was able to get some sleep.

By about 8am I had progressed to 6cm and they called in for the epidural. The anesthesiologist was in surgery so I had to wait a bit for the epidural. We watched Scrubs and I enjoyed it in between contractions. Around 10am, the anesthesiologist finally arrived. I am SO glad I got it. It was way stronger than my epi with Evan and I could only move my toes about half a centimeter. With Evan I still had control of my legs. I was completely numb but could still feel the slight pressure of contractions. I thought it was too much but the nurse talked me out of asking them to turn it down and I'm so glad she did!

I drifted in and out for a few hours and by about 12:30 I was at 9cm. The midwife had to head in to help with a c-section so we prayed that Liam would hold out for her return! I labored down with the epidural, which is why I'm so glad I didn't ask them to turn it down. My contractions did most of the pushing work for me! When the midwife came back at almost 2, she prepared me for pushing. I was gearing up for it to take a while but 2 contractions later, he was out at 1:58pm! And I barely felt it from the very strong epidural! Thank the Lord!! When they told me he was out, I said "Seriously!? That's it?!"

They cleaned him up and tucked him in my gown to snuggle, and snuggle we did for over an hour! It was so wonderful and amazing. He didn't seem that much bigger than Evan when he was born, but he weighed in at a shocking 8lbs 14.5oz! Evan was 7lbs 11oz! They measured his length at 18.5 inches, which we didn't believe because he was so wiggly. At his first doctor appointment a few days later he measured 21 inches. That's more like it!

He's been a very chill baby for the most part and very sleepy. We had a rough night a couple nights ago but we're still getting used to it all! He can really shriek when he's not happy but fortunately that seems to only be when he's got a dirty diaper or hungry.

Evan has adjusted very well. He's had to learn to be flexible about certain routines, like sometimes Daddy has to read bedtime books instead of Mommy, but he's learning to deal with it and we're trying not to change too much for him! He really loves Liam and loves giving him several kisses and snuggles all the time. He can't wait for Liam to be able to play with him. He asked Liam to chase him yesterday.

We love our family!

My growing belly

Sorry I haven't blogged, to anyone who might still check in and see if I post anything! Life and this pregnancy are pretty routine and when I think of how long it's been since I've blogged, it leaves me even less motivated to sit down and blog when something out of the ordinary does happen. But I find myself before the computer with some time on my hands and access to my belly pictures, so here goes an update on the pregnancy.

It has been so completely different from my pregnancy with Evan. It has it's own challenges, but overall I think I feel much better this time around. I had and still have some occasional morning sickness which I think is a result of dehydration and too-hot showers. I haven't had many cravings. The only significant ones being hot tamales (the candy, not the mexican food), Oreos, and Moe's. I've been eating much healthier this time, since Jack is counting his calories (and has lost 12ish lbs so far!) so I haven't gained crazy weight this time. I think chasing Evan helps too! I'm still about 20 lbs under what my final weight was with Evan, so even though I have 6 weeks to go, I should be under the crazy weight gain of last time which I know has contributed to feeling much better this time around. I don't have much hip pain (last time it was excruciating), but I do get sciatic pain if I try to do too much. No swelling (yet).

Baby boy seems to be growing out faster than up. He still hasn't reached my ribs yet and is always pushing out right above my belly button. But according to the ultrasounds, he's right on with growth, so he's just taking up different real estate than Evan, I guess! He's crazy active, especially when I'm going to bed or not ready to wake up in the morning, of course. I guess it's all practice for when he's here! He's way more active than Evan ever was in there. We got a video of Evan moving a lot once and "happened to catch it at the right time". I could record this one every evening. He puts on a show and gets hiccups several times a day.

My midwife practice has changed a bit. They left the practice I've been going to for years after a multi-hospital merge took place in the area. Not sure of their exact reasons, but they left and started their own midwifery (sounds ancient, right?). I loved their care so much that I decided to follow them there. It was bittersweet though, because I had gotten to know the nursing and reception staff at my old practice and it was sad to leave them. Their new office is in a sweet historic home in Troy and I've started going there for the last few visits.

As for names, well we thought we had one and after sharing it with family, we started having second thoughts. It's looking like we're going to have to go to the hospital with a short list and try them all out on him before we land on one! Makes me a little nervous that we won't have the right name, but I'm trusting God will bring it to us!

So the nursery is a disaster right now. After moving Evan to his new room and taking on some house projects, it became a storage room of sorts. Once we get that room cleaned up I will be READY for this baby! I'm so excited! :) 6ish more weeks!!






Sabina and I at Christmas, due a month apart. Sabina is 31ish weeks, and I'm 26ish weeks. Our babies will be... first cousins once removed I think is the correct term? We'll probably just stick to "cousin".