Welcome ICLW kickoff!

This is my secondary blog to my primary blog, TheNewLifeOfNancy, which I discuss everything. This one is pretty much dedicated to being a mommy and kid updates. In the community we are all in, I thought it was important, to me at least, to separate them. Although I haven't been good in the past week, I try to blog in each one everyday.

Since it's the beginning of ICLW, here is a quick 10 things about me (as it applies to this blog):

1. I've got 3 kids. Ella (5 next week), Allison (3 1/2) and Karl (3 months).

2. My pregnancy with Ella - Easy (still with all normal aches/pains of a pregnancy) yet put on bedrest at 37 weeks for high blood pressure. I was induced at 39w5d due to my placenta maturing too rapidly and my OB was afraid it was going to rupture. I had a ~horrible~ pitocin induction due to my body was NOT ready yet to give birth. I was zero dilated nor effaced. It was horribly painful and I will be anti-induction before your body is ready for the rest of my days. I gave birth naturally, after 22 hours of hard labor and pushing for 45 minutes to a perfectly healthy little girl. Recovery was easy too, as I did not tear nor have an episiotomy.

3. My pregnancy with Allison - Easy. At 39w2d, I went into early labor which continued to give me contractions for 2 full days, all about 10-12 minutes apart. Strong enough to hurt, not strong enough for my cervix to dilate. At 39w4d, my bag of waters was bulging and I was only at 1/2cm so my doc had me meet him at the hospital in 2 hours and he broke my water. Active labor started immediately and I delivered naturally 6 hours later with 17 minutes of pushing. Another perfectly healthy little girl.

4. My pregnancy with Karl. Oy vey. Let's just get this all out quickly - low beta baby (15 @ 11dp3dt), docs said it was not viable but beta kept doubling, doc said it was most likely ectopic but u/s when beta reached 1,073 was in uterus, 12w NT scan diagnosed Velamentous Cord Insertion (very scary, when cord transverses placenta), Quad screen showed high risk for downs, 13w CVS showed chromosomes normal and it's a boy, 28 ultrasounds total watching for VCI risks, at 38 weeks, baby was breech so we had a successful manual version done by OB, water broke that night at 4am, 830a I was 10cm, ready to push at 939a, baby boy delivered 2 weeks early, had moist lungs, but otherwise healthy. 5 minutes later I was in emergency surgery for retained placenta because I was bleeding to death. Stopped bleeding after losing 68% of my blood supply. A few days and a blood transfusion later, I was home.

5. There are almost 16 months between Ella and Allison. There are almost 3 1/2 years between Karl and Allison. Damned infertility.

6. I've got lots of tattoos.

7. I'm afraid my kids are going to rebel against me by hating tattoos, listening to something like Christian rock and go to church.

8. Although if my kids did any of those things in #7, I would hope to be okay with it because I want them to be themselves. They don't have to be mini versions of my husband and I.

9. I pick adidas over nike. In fact, I refuse to wear nike at all.

10. I buy my girls little vans shoes to wear all the time. Yet they like the walm.art princess shoes way better.