Month: January 2017

This is the first post I have written since New Year’s Day so I guess a new one is long overdue. Liz was instructed only to post it if I died during childbirth so I’m happy to say you don’t get to read it. Haha. My morbid outlook is one of Liz’s least favorite things about me but she’s learned that it comes with the territory. I know all too well how fragile life can be. So through tears streaming down my face I wrote about being scared of giving birth again and I wrote about how much this blog would mean to me if I did die because the boys would have a piece of me. I wrote to Liz and the boys and this new little one about how deeply I loved them all. And I wrote funeral instructions to Liz (she has actually requested this before – because I’ve had these conversations with her so many times).

I’m happy to report that I’m sitting here on 1-23-17, on Christian’s 2-week birthday, staring at him in awe. Growing and birthing a baby is an amazing miracle. We could have 100 kids and I would never quite get over it. I went into labor on Sunday afternoon 1-8-17 and Christian Drennan Bisland was born at 2:21am on 1-9-17. Another boy! Our #allboysclub was meant to be. I was only in labor for 11.5 hours with this guy compared to 30+ with McKay. I didn’t use pain meds with McKay and I wanted to give this baby the same experience. Against Liz’s urging to take Fentanyl if I didn’t want to do the epidural and our nurse checking in on whether I wanted it multiple times I held strong (stubborn). No paid meds for this lady. I realize there are no extra points awarded for this feat…but that has never mattered to me. The sense of strength and power I have felt by delivering my kids naturally is all I need. It was so f-ing painful and yet, I’d do it all over again. Women are strong as shit. Don’t forget it McKay, Gabe, and Christian.

There was a moment in the delivery room that could be a future SNL skit. If any of my guy friends are reading this post now you might want to skip to the next paragraph. Anyway, with all of the extra amniotic fluid this kid was floating around in they were worried about what would happen once my water broke (cord prolapse among other things). It did break toward the end of labor right before I started pushing but it wasn’t quite the mini Niagara Falls they were predicting. That’s because right at the end of pushing, as Christian was coming out, amniotic fluid literally sprayed my doctor and one of the nurses. When I say spray…picture what happens when there is water built up on the side of the highway and a car drives through it. Except instead of the opposite side of the highway getting hit with the water, the doctors face, glasses, hair, etc get hit with it. Liz actually said out loud, ‘Oh My God’. Our baby was literally coming out of me and she stopped and uttered that statement. If I had the ability to feign embarrassment at that moment I would have done it. Thankfully our doctor took it all in stride. Christian, you made a big splash into the world.

In my heart I knew that this baby was going to be a boy, that Liz and I, we were meant to have all boys. Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved a girl but once this beautiful boy came out and I held him in my arms there was no turning back. Once you are in love you it’s over. Liz got into the bed with me shortly after he was born and I passed him over to her. As she held him she started to cry and so did I. He was here. We talked about how perfect he was…isn’t that what all new parents do?!

My favorite moment of the day came a little later. Liz left to pick the boys up so they could meet their new little brother. Working on no sleep and crazy hormones someone could have sneezed on me and I would have started crying. But when our big boys, and man did they look big now, walked into the room to meet our little boy emotion hit me like a wave. Liz and I had already decided that 3 was it for us. With that in mind my whole world had just entered the room at UCLA. The boys sat in bed with me and stared in awe at this new little boy of ours and I looked over at Liz, tears welling up in my eyes, and barely choked out the words. “Thank you for giving me all of this…” I’ve never felt more grateful in my life.

The transition with the boys has been unexpected but pretty remarkable. I anticipated some jealousy, mainly from Gabe, that we were spending too much time with the baby. They love this new little addition and have been insanely cute about him. They are in his personal space at all times…kissing him, touching his face, holding his feet. Gabe calls him ‘my baby’ and McKay calls him ‘little dude’. They like to hold him and talk about how cute and little he is. They discuss his noises and how much he likes milky. Although they throw stuff and punch each other and are all boy in so many ways, they are very gentle and sweet with their little brother. When McKay and Gabe go into nurturing mode with Christian it makes me feel like we’ve raising them right.

Christian is 2 weeks old now and Liz went back to work this week. Although I’m not sleeping much I’m starting to come out of the fog (and pain) of childbirth. Organizing 3 kids and getting them out of the house every morning is a bit chaotic. I have no doubt that there will be many moments over the next year or so where we ask ourselves what hell we were thinking having 3 kids. But I also know there will be many happy life moments that greatly outweigh the hard moments. These 3 beautiful boys are more than I could have asked for. We are blessed and life is good!

Ps. How cool is it that Christian can say he was born in Santa Monica, CA?! Our little California Boy!

Today is New Year’s Eve Eve. Our last few weeks have been a total whirlwind. We flew back into LAX from the east coast on a Sunday night at 9pm…the day before Liz’s first day of work in downtown LA. For those that have been following along, Liz quit her job in Maryland in June for us to move here. She interviewed and found out she’d gotten the job within a month of us being here. Let’s just say the next 5 months have been filled with red tape. Six months on one income in California makes us extremely excited that she’s finally getting started.

Monday was a blast (insert sarcasm) …Liz left at 6:45am to catch the train. I had a 7:15 and 8am conference call that I hid in the guest room to take while PBS cartoons babysat the boys. I walked the boys to school since I had turned my car in 2 weeks earlier when I started traveling. So I stashed the stroller in the courtyard and took an Uber to work. Having been away for a week I had about 700-800 emails to work through…. it’s the kind of ‘clean up’ work that makes me want to punch myself (or the email senders) in the face. My boss had sent 65 of those emails. Yes, I took the time to count.

The rest of the week was filled with doctors’ appointments and every single kid drop off and pick up. I shouldn’t complain…Liz has done it 85% of the time on her own since school started in September. Shockingly I didn’t have to show ID when I dropped them off. Tuesday’s doctor’s appointment led to a full day of appointments on Thursday because the baby was measuring big and there was extra amniotic fluid. The doctor basically diagnosed late term gestational diabetes but ordered the 4-hour glucose test and an appointment with the nutritionist to be safe. Friday was the last day of school for the kids so they had their holiday Hannakah celebration. I took my first of 6 calls for the day in the parking lot at their school, popped in for their celebration, drove to the office for all of my other calls, and then drove like a maniac to get back for pickup. It’s days like this when I do know if I should consider myself super mom or half-assed employee/mom. On my way the doctor called…gestational diabetes test negative. Back to the drawing board.

That first weekend back we got our Christmas Tree in the 60 degree California weather. A little different than what we are used to but the boys were so excited for Christmas it didn’t matter. Liz drank warm apple cider and whiskey (jealous), we listened to Christmas music, Gabe put 15 ornaments on one branch, and the kids were inspired to get naked and decorate. It was a great day.

The kids winter break is two weeks long so the week before and the week after Christmas school has been closed. Not exactly feasible for Liz to take weeks #2 and 3 off to watch the boys so we have been supplementing new babysitters and our good friend Anne for a few days each week while I make frantic attempts at catch up and pretend to be deserving of my paycheck.

One of the toughest things right now is how physically limited I am and how active the boys are. Week one I took them to the aquarium and my baby doctor visit. Let’s just say 5 hours at the aquarium with them was more bearable than the 10 minutes the doctor was in the office with us. The boys asked the doctor for rubber gloves to play with, McKay snatches one of Gabe’s gloves, Gabe screams and cries at the top of his lungs, I lay on the table with sonogram gel on my belly and shoot them the best ‘Mommy is PISSED’ look I can…which they are apparently impervious to. Friday December 23^rd will not go down as my best day as a mom. I’m upset about their behavior at the doctor, hormonal, impatient. Santa threats of ‘you will get nothing’ fly out of my mouth at record numbers.

Christmas Eve was a good one. It’s strange to be spending it with only the four of us…typically Christmas Eve has been with my family and I have hosted the last 3+ years. I have always tried my best to recreate the Italian Christmas Eve that my grandfather’s heritage brought us. It has evolved though the years but began as the 7 fishes. This year I let McKay make the marinara sauce and the meatballs. We kept it pretty simple since it was just the 4 of us. After dinner the boys opened a Christmas present from Liz and me…superhero PJ’s and we baked homemade cookies for Santa. Just before the kids went to bed Liz pulls out a giant red velvet cupcake with bright red icing on it for the kids to split. She knows I hate anything with red dye in it and I remember her exact words while they were eating it “I love to mess with you about this stuff”.

We spent the rest of the night playing Santa and wrapping all of the presents. The anticipation of their excitement brings back all the joy I remember about Christmas when I was little. Exhausted we headed off to bed knowing we’d be up early.

The next morning sometime just after 5am McKay woke up. He was ready to see his presents but I made him promise we wouldn’t go downstairs until the sun was awake. He told me his belly hurt, an assumed ploy to go check out his gifts. He went into his room only to return a few minutes later visibly upset…” Mommy, I threw up on lamby”. I hurry into his room to find bright red #40 throw up all over the grey carpet in his room. Now, my gag reflux isn’t strong to begin with, but cleaning up red chunks of throw up at 9 months pregnant wasn’t a pretty sight. Liz and Gabe woke up as McKay was starting round 2 throw up…on my feet. Merry Christmas! After 5 throw ups he was good for the day. The boys loved all of their presents and were so excited to put them all to use. We made the most out of technology by talking with my in-laws, nieces, sister in laws and my mom via Facetime.

This week has been marked by the ‘oh shit we have a baby coming any day now’ vibe. We put together a new dresser/changing table, retrieved boxes of baby ‘stuff’ from the attic, put the rock and play (where our kids sleep for 3 months) together, and did plenty of newborn/blanket/bib laundry. This baby doesn’t have a nursery or his/her own room because selfishly we want to keep a guest room/office. We will see how all of this plays out over the next year or so.

These couple of weeks’ home with the kids have been exhausting and rewarding all at once. You don’t realize how much you miss out on until you get this kind of QT with your kids. There are plenty of completely frustrating moments surrounded by special moments you would never get without the time. I would have missed car conversations about cranes and the Goodyear blimp, questions about how trees stand up, why ice floats in water, and how buildings stay up straight, and serious conversations about God, death, and black jaguars (not necessarily in that order). The boys blew bubbles in their underwear on the beach, we baked cookies and made dinners together, we grocery shopped, tried out a new restaurant for lunch, went to doctors’ appointments, got our hair cut, played soccer and follow the leader at the park, and watched Christmas movies while we snuggled on the couch (pre-pregnancy Angela doesn’t sit down much—ever).

As my due date draws near, I’m acutely aware of the dynamic that is about to change for the 4 of us. The sudden shift from man to man to zone defense, the diapers that haven’t been in our house for a year, the infant naps that lock you in the house vs. the active toddlers that need to get out and run, and a totally new Biswold personality that will make us a party of 5. McKay has been saying it’s a girl my whole pregnancy and is still holding strong. Gabe says he’s getting a brother. We’ll see…14 days to go!

Thank you for all of your love and support during our big changes in 2016. We wish all of you a happy and healthy 2017! Love, Angela, Liz, McKay, Gabe, and Baby #3…