Introducing...

The second time around it takes a bit longer to get organized. It's now been 3 weeks since baby Zinnie was born and I'm only just starting to send out photos and birth announcements. If that wasn't bad enough, we realized that a lot of our close friends didn't even know I was pregnant! Yikes. We're definitely lagging here. But anyway... I hope to make up for all that spotty communication by writing (at least more or less!) regularly on this blog again and sharing photos, news and videos of little baby Zinnie and big Mr. Quinn.
So here we go!

Zinnie Lyse Houben-Wilson was born on February 7th at 5:06 a.m. weighing in at 4.2 kilos (9.25 lbs). Quinn was born 3 weeks early so we started expecting Zinnie near the middle of January, but she had other plans and ended up arriving exactly on her due date. By the end of my pregnancy I was pretty huge. I hadn't been sleeping well for a couple months because of my enormous belly, the crazy amount of peeing I had to do at night and the fact that I could hardly breath through my nose anymore. I was also desperately bored. I had worked up until the mid January and I managed to get some nesting and resting done at home after that, but after two weeks of cleaning, reorganizing, sewing etc. I started to get the feeling that I was never going to give birth.

The day before

The afternoon of the 6th I had an acupuncture appointment with a midwife who I'd seen once before. My doctor had suggested getting acupuncture done in order to ripen my cervix since they knew I would be having a big baby. Since it was the day before my due date the midwife asked me if I'd like her to do a cervical sweep to get things moving. I of course said YES! She told me as I was leaving that the "sweep" might be quite effective and indeed as I walked home that afternoon I started having more and more contractions. By 6:00p.m. they were coming quite regularly and were getting stronger. By midnight I was having contractions every 2 to 3 minutes and Jos was by my side pressing with all his might on my back as soon as said "NOW". We left for the clinic in my parents car (they had conveniently arrived just that morning) It's a 10 minute drive to the Matérnité des Lilas where Quinn was also born. It's a fantastic, tiny birthing center that has always striven to make childbirth a human rather than a medical event. Sounds obvious, but in France there aren't that many places that operate with that philosophy. They showed me into the very same birthing room where I had Quinn... 5 hours later Zinnie popped her head out into the world. I was on all fours on the bed and only ended up having to push twice before the midwife asked me if I wanted to catch my baby. I put my my hand down and felt as her wet head and back come out into the air. The whole team there was shocked and amazed that I'd opted for a natural birth. They said that hardly anybody does that in France anymore which I found slightly amazing especially at a clinic like Les Lilas.

At the clinic

I spent three nights at the clinic resting and being taken care of. On the afternoon of the 10th my brother James picked us all up and brought us home. When Quinn first met Zinnie at the clinic he was a bit nervous and shy, but once we brought her home he was really excited and so sweet with her. He gives her little pats and kisses on the head and genuinely seems proud to be a big brother. We'll see how things continue... I'm sure there's bound to be some jealousy down the road, but so far things are going pretty smoothly. Of course smooth is a relative term in a 3 year old's world, but let's just say we're surviving!

Getting to know each other

Miss Zinnie is pretty calm for the moment. Of course there's not a whole lot going on in her world besides sleeping and eating... both in great quantities still. Bizarrely I actually feel more rested now than at the end of my pregnancy. Or maybe I've just become very very used to interrupted sleep.

I'm looking forward to seeing who Zinnie becomes little by little as she spends more and more time awake and active. I'll keep you all updated here as things progress.