I guess our story starts Wednesday morning, when Jason took Halle to school and I went to the doctor for my 36 week check up.  Halle had been complaining about her stomach bothering her that morning, and sure enough she threw up just before she entered school.  Elena had been sick on Monday, but Halle had been sick the week before, so we thought Halle was over it.  Apparently not.  Jason and I also thought we weren’t going to catch it, but about 7pm Wednesday night Jason got hit hard with the stomach bug.  Sick all night, thought he was going to pass out, chills, shivers, the whole bit.  I knew I was next and sure enough around 1:30 am Thursday morning, it was my turn.  By 3:30, I started to get nervous that the violent vomitting could be putting Sonja in distress and I had no way of knowing if her heart rate was dropping.  I thought I was going to drive myself to the hospital because Jason was in such bad shape, but luckily he was feeling just better enough to get up and go to the hospital with me.  So we called his parents, they came right over to stay at the house with the girls, and off to the hospital we went.

Because I was also having contractions, and I was already so far along at the doctor visit Wednesday morning (3 cm, 75% effaced, station 2), they put me right into a labor/delivery room.  They pumped me full of IV fluids, I threw up a lot, and we stayed there all night.  In the morning, the nurse came in and said I was contracting because I was dehyrdated, not because I was in labor.  And the contractions slowed down once the IV fluids got in, so I was going to be sent home.  My doctor came in about an hour later (8:30ish), checked my cervix, told me that I was now at 4-5 cm and I wasn’t going anywhere.  He broke my water right then and said, “Let’s have this baby today!”

With my previous two deliveries, the doctor broke my water and still had to give me Pitocin to get things started.  But breaking my water was all I needed this time.  The contractions steadily started picking up and around noon the contractions started to feel a little painful (about a 2 on a scale of a 1-10).  Nurse checked, I was 6 cm, so we decided to get the wheels in motion for the epidural.  Anesthesiologist came in a little while later and did a fantastic job with the epidural.  Around 2:00 pm, they checked me again and said I was 7cm.  By 2:30 I was calling the nurse button to tell her the baby was very low.  Doctor came in about 2:40 and she was out at 2:43.  Pushed her out in one contraction (4 pushes).  Literally a 2 minute delivery.

Sonja was great!  Looked beautiful, cried right away, passed all the right tests to keep her out of the NICU.  She’s following suit with her sisters by impressing all the nurses with how little she fusses.  You never hear her cry.  She makes the most adorable little noises though.  :)

Sonja Priscilla Konicki was born at 2:43 pm on January 28, 2010 weighing 6 lbs, 4.7 oz and 19 inches long.

I think its funny that since Halle and Elena were both named after my side of the family (first names and middle names), we really wanted this baby to be named after Jason’s side.  Her first name is named after Jason, middle name after Jason’s mom, last name is Jason’s dad’s, and even has her daddy’s birthday.  So I think this mission was accomplished!

Extra bonus for me was that, by being born on the same day as her daddy, she shares a special connection with my Dad too.  Halle has my dad’s name, Elena has his blue eyes, and both my Dad and Sonja were born on their father’s birthdays.

We made it through the first night half with her in here with me, and half with her in the nursery.  I let Jason go home because he really needed a good night’s rest in a real bed.  I knew I could handle Sonja by myself and I could give her to the nurses if I needed help.  She stayed with me until 2:30 am or so, then I let them take her so I could get some solid sleep from 2:30-7:30.

Couldn’t be any happier!  :)

I was so excited when I got home from the hospital today, I asked Jason to take another belly pic so I could compare and see how I’ve dropped.  Somehow that simple request turned into some awesome last week belly pics!  (Correction: Last DAY belly pics!).  My neighbor saw Jason taking pictures of me, and insisted he get in the pictures.  Good idea!  (Note:  Elena has a sticker on her forehead).

Are you tired of seeing my belly now?  Haha.  Don’t worry.. these are the last ones.  :)

No, I’m definitely not ready for this yet.  But look how freaking cute she is about it.  :)

She didn’t go, but she liked being on the potty.   :)

I wanted Halle to take a couple pictures in her new Cars hat today, so I could use them for her birthday party.  She said that was okay as long as she could take some pictures with her new umbrella first.  Here are a few of my favorites.

First of all.. thanks for all the sweet comments on that last post!  :)  And to answer Angelle’s question, no I don’t feel any different this pregnancy.  Except for not having gestational diabetes this time around, I feel like I rewound my life 26 months and am having Elena all over again.  Carrying her low the same exact way I carried Elena.  Only real side effect of the pregnancy has been acid reflux, same as with Elena.  Blessed a third time with no stretch marks (unbelievable).  The early Braxton Hicks, followed by the hospital visit, followed by her staying put and not scaring me for weeks afterward.  I almost expect this baby to be born exactly 10 days before her due date and come out with the same adorable little face that Elena had.  :)  But… I’m really hoping for a baby with a full head of dark hair.  :)

Went to the doctor today.  Since I haven’t had any contractions this week, he didn’t bother to check my cervix, which was nice.  Just listened to the baby’s perfect heartbeat and measured me (37 weeks).  No surprise that I’m measuring big at this point.  Same thing with both my previous pregnancies at this stage.  He asked me how bed rest was going and I told him that I eased up a little on the resting this week.  I told him that I did more around the house but I paid attention to my body and rested a lot.  Since I wasn’t having contractions, I felt comfortable getting up and doing more as long as I took it relatively easy.  He was totally fine with that, so I’ll continue this eased-up version of bed rest for the next week.

I’m SO HAPPY to be off strict bed rest!

Annabelle and Halle had such a great time playing together ALL weekend.  Keri picked Halle and Elena up on Friday at 1:00 because Jason had a call with a customer and we didn’t want the girls to be loud or distracting during that call.  Plus, we were having furniture delivered on Friday and they told us it was “Express” delivery.. so they couldn’t give us a 4 hour window for delivery time.  We just had to be available all day.  (They didn’t end up showing up til 9:30 at night!  But that’s another story).  Anyway, Keri took the girls Friday and said Annabelle had been asking if Halle could sleepover, so we made immediate plans to let Halle spend the night Friday night.  Jason picked Elena up around 6, but Halle stayed over.  They must’ve been playing well together because Keri didn’t end up dropping Halle back off with us til almost 4pm on Saturday.  And, since Halle had to go to Halle’s house, the girls wanted Annabelle to come to Halle’s house too.  All week of school together, all day/night Friday and all day Saturday and they still weren’t tired of each other.  :)  My 14 year old niece Megan was over so I figured that was fine.  If the girls needed anything, I’d have help.  Megan ended up leaving shortly after Halle and Annabelle arrived, but Halle and Annabelle are at an age where they are so easy to watch, that I still didn’t mind having Annabelle stay.  An hour or two into the playdate the girls asked if Annabelle could spend the night (Annabelle: “Can I sleep at Halle’s house?”  Halle: “Yeah!  You can sleep in my room and it can be Halle AND Annabelle’s room!”) and since they were really no trouble at all, I figured it would be fine.  And it was.  It wasn’t exactly bed rest, but it wasn’t too far off.  The girls entertained themselves and only asked for me when they needed a drink, snack or help putting on their princess costumes.  :)

Keri and Keith picked Annabelle up on Sunday morning so she could go to church with them, and then they all came over around 6:30 again to have dinner with us courtesy of Erica.  And dessert courtesy of Justin.  It was a delicious meal.  :)  The girls spent basically the entire weekend together and didn’t get tired of each other.  And Corgan and Elena got to spend a bunch of time together and they were freaking adorable together as always too.   Fun weekend.  :)

Here’s another picture of the girls in their princess dresses.  I love Elena in this one.

I didn’t get any pictures of the delicious food or cake, but here are a few random pictures I took last night.

The boys doing the dishes:

Annabelle helping Erica with one of her Facebook worlds:

Corgan pushing the stroller around the house:

Halle laughing at silly Tio:

Have you guys heard of Pica?  Here’s a description from kidshealth.org:

Many young kids put nonfood items in their mouths at one time or another. They’re naturally curious about their environment and might, for instance, eat some dirt out of the sandbox.

Kids with pica, however, go beyond this innocent exploration of their surroundings. As many as 25% to 30% of kids (and 20% of those seen in mental health clinics) have the eating disorder pica, which is characterized by persistent and compulsive cravings (lasting 1 month or longer) to eat nonfood items.

Pica is most common in people with developmental disabilities, including autism and mental retardation, and in children between the ages of 2 and 3. Although kids younger than 18 to 24 months can try to eat nonfood items, it isn’t necessarily considered abnormal at that age.

Elena has about six months to outgrow her peculiar snack habits before it becomes an actual condition.  I’m not worried about developmental disabilities.  She shows no signs of that.  But here’s a list of some of the things she eats:

couch fuzz
carpet fuzz
hair (from a toy, from my head or from Halle’s head)
dust
tissues/paper
fuzz from the front of her diaper
dog food

She literally picks the couch and eats the fuzz she gets from it several times a day.  It’s a habit and she almost seems to do it without even realizing she’s doing it.  She’s almost compulsive about it.  All forms of discipline we’ve tried haven’t stopped her from doing it again twenty minutes later, although she’s young for most methods of discipline so that may have something to do with it.  It also has nothing to do with being hungry.  She could eat a huge meal, be full and still come over and pick the couch and eat it.  Or yank a handful of Halle’s hair out and shove it in her mouth.

Any of your kids show signs of this before age 2 and then outgrow it?  I know its normal for them to put all kinds of things in their mouth at this age, but I wonder if she really is showing signs of pica.  Halle put normal things in her mouth like toys and even dog food, but not fuzz and hair and dust.

I’m blown away by how effective using numbers is for getting Halle to comply with my requests.

Number technique #1: From a young age, she responded incredibly well to the “I’m going to count to 5″ method of discipline.

Number technique #2: Lately, if I ask her to do something and she says no, I’ll just rephrase it to “Can you (fill in the blank) before I count to 20?” and she’ll happily go do that thing she just refused to do.

Number technique #3: Today since I’m on bed rest and I knew I was going to ask her to do a lot of things in a row to clean up the room, I asked her, “Can you do 10 things for me?”  She happily responded yes and loved keeping track of how many things she was doing.  Everything from cleaning up certain toys, putting clothes in the laundry room, going upstairs and picking out clothes for her and her sister, putting cups in the sink, etc.  All without any fuss!

I’m stealing these from Jessica Claire, but I love them:

1.  Say “yes” to something I would normally say “no” to

2.  Randomly send someone a small item they mention wanting

3.  Have an adventure

4.  Throw a tea party (with Halle, for Halle’s friends)