William's Visitors

William has had lots of fun friends and family visit him! Here are just a few:

 Uncle Mikey!

 Aunt Liney, all the way from Chicago!

 Laurie and Fr. Mike Michie!

 My dad, who's grandpa name is TBD. I'm pushing for Buzzy or Mugsy right now.

 MeMe!

 Aunt De, all the way from Austin! And you can see Uncle Warren in the background.

 There's more of Aunt Liney!

Nana all the way from Willis!

 Kate and Nora! (Dustin and Asher were there, too)

You can tell Nora is a big sister, she's a pro at baby-holding. :)

Uncle Steve, a two-time grandpa, is a feeding expert! And he's also great at helping W get out the farts! Ha!

Plus we've seen but haven't taken pictures with Melissa and Judith, Kevin and Kelly, David and Edith, Chris and Kristin, Marissa, Doug and Jenny, Leslie and Reece, Kerry, Megan and Austin, Casey, Tilly, Katy, and Celine!

William feels the love and so do we. Thank you all!!! :)

Going Home!

We got discharged from the hospital on Thursday, June 28. Because the hospital was so full, we never got a room in the postpartum unit, instead we stayed in our labor and delivery room the whole time. I thought it was great! The room was bigger, the nurses were wonderful, and since the nurses usually deliver the babies and say goodbye, William was the star of L&D for a couple days!

Here's the little guy, all strapped in and ready to go home!

William's Birth Day: Part Three

Disclaimer: I want to write down my memories of William's birth mainly for me and my memory; that's the topic of this post. There are so many options these days with regard to the birth process and even more opinions on the matter. These are the choices that David and I made, with the guidance of our OB and our own research. I want to be straight forward and note that these are not the choices for everyone so please don't think I'm pushing these choices, nor am I interested if you don't agree with our choices. Thanks!

So when it came time to push, we learned that Mr. William, who had been in the right position for birth for every sonogram, had decided at the last minute to rotate the wrong way. Which made for a much longer delivery than anyone expected! We started at 8pm, and William didn't make his arrival until 10:04pm Tuesday night. I pushed for about an hour before they called in Dr. S and the nursery nurses to prepare to deliver our sweet boy! At one point, one of the nursery nurses started laughing and said that she thought he was hanging on to my ribs with his toes. I think I would have laughed a little more then if I wasn't so exhausted!

But little William was worth the wait! He weighed 8 lbs, 11 oz. and was 20 and 1/2 inches long. I remember the nurses putting him on my chest right after he was delivered, and I was sort of in shock that it was all over and he was here! David cut his cord, and then they put him under the heat lamp to take his measurements and do some routine tests.

Here's a picture David snapped during the process:

We were all laughing that he had his little hand on his head, like he was saying Geez! My head sure does hurt!

Here's the first picture of our little family of three:

After he got cleaned up, they gave him back to me and he talked to me for about an hour. It was soooo sweet, like he was telling me all about his journey to birth!

Then the family came in to see their grandson/ nephew! We were all so excited and thrilled to finally have William here, to hold. He's such a cutie!

Here are some more pictures of William's first few hours:

William's Birth Day: Part Two

Disclaimer: I want to write down my memories of William's birth mainly for me and my memory; that's the topic of this post. There are so many options these days with regard to the birth process and even more opinions on the matter. These are the choices that David and I made, with the guidance of our OB and our own research. I want to be straight forward and note that these are not the choices for everyone so please don't think I'm pushing these choices, nor am I interested if you don't agree with our choices. Thanks!

On Monday, June 25th, David's parents arrived in town and we went out to dinner. Prior to that, David and I were supposed to meet our pediatrician, or so I thought! I apparently mixed up the dates and we never got to meet Dr. T prior to William's birth. But that's ok, she came with glowing recommendations: thanks Kate and Stacy! We had lunch at one of my favorite spots: Cafe Brazil! Where I ate my "last meal" of sorts: a BLT, fries, and fruit. And it was William's last meal attached to his mommy!

At 3:30 we went to the OB's office where they checked my BP (it was a little elevated- I was getting nervous!) and to see if I was dilated. I was at an inch and with my BP, they told us to head on over to the hospital! David and I stopped at home one last time to pick up some forgotten items and then we headed to the hospital to start the process of meeting our baby boy.

A little after 5:30 we checked into our room, Labor and Delivery #6 (I'm impressed I remember that!) and the first of many wonderful nurses checked me in, asked me a million questions, had me sign a bunch of forms, and we as had me change into the wonderful hospital gown I got to wear for a good 24 hours. For the record, the last time I spent the night in a hospital was the day I was born. I had some stitches in my chin when I was five but with the exception of that minor incident, my only hospital experiences have been as a visitor.  So when my IV was being put in and the pressure caused a cap to pop off onto the floor, my nurse called to ask another nurse to help. I had been very focused on not watching, but I looked over to see what was going on and saw some of my blood coming out of the IV. I hate blood, especially seeing my own, and this caused me to become light headed. David said I looked like I wanted to jump out of the hospital bed, and I sure did! I kept thinking: Nevermind, I don't want to do this! I'm going to go back home! But after turning on my left side the feeling passed and I got my IV and settled down into the rest of the beginnings of the process. Two monitors were strapped onto my belly: one to monitor contractions and one to monitor William's heart rate. My sweet mom also came up to visit. I had told her not to worry about visiting (I had also told David to go home and sleep in a bed and not at the hospital) but I was soooo glad to see my mom and have David spend the night! I was pretty nervous about the whole process.

Next, Cervidil was given, which is to help soften the cervix and help induce labor. It looked like a little piece of paper with a string attached and was placed right up next to my cervix and had to stay there for twelve hours. It made me feel crampy, but it could also cause me to go into labor, so that's why I got to stay at the hospital the night before my true induction started. While the Crevidil didn't bother me beyond making me feel a bit crampy, William's heart rate monitor did! Although my sweet night nurse turned down the beeping, while I tried to sleep, if I moved or William moved and she couldn't see his heart rate she had to come and adjust it. Sooo annoying! I didn't get a good night's sleep at all that night!

The next morning, bright and early at 6:30am, the Cervidil was removed. We found out that my cervix had only dilated another half inch, which made me really nervous that the induction wasn't going to work. I knew that with my water broken, the timer had started and if he wasn't here within 24 hours, I would have to have a C section. And I did NOT want to have a C section if didn't have to have one. I didn't want one because I didn't want to have a surgery and go through the recovery process unless it was absolutely necessary. Next, Dr. S came in to break my water. She used this tool that looked like a long knitting needle, and my water breaking was such a weird feeling! I felt like I had the fullest bladder ever and I just wet myself! And every time I moved water continued to come out. But it really didn't hurt at all, it just felt weird. And wet.

We had to wait an hour between the Cervidil and the Pitocin, so between the two my parents came up to visit. I think at some point I had a Popsicle too. I was allowed to eat ice chips and Popsicles that day. And David found the "nourishment room" and was in heaven with an endless supply of snacks and drinks. :)

Around 8am we got a new nurse and they started my Pitocin, which would make my contractions start. Every 15 minutes they would increase the dose of Pitocin which would make my contractions stronger. I'd heard mixed things about "Pit" and was sort of apprehensive about it, but honestly it wasn't bad at all. The anesthesiologist also came in that morning to introduce herself and told me that "whenever I was tired of being uncomfortable, to let her know." She was really sweet and friendly! So I relaxed in my bed (which, by the way, apparently I am taller than the average pregnant woman because my feet hung off the bed the whole time!) and I must say that L&D bed is sooo uncomfortable. It was like sitting on a rock!

Nurse G would come in periodically to increase the Pit, and eventually I became uncomfortable to the point where I asked for some IV pain meds. Those sure knocked me out! I had a good nap, with visitors sprinkled in between. David's parents, my parents, my brother Michael, and our good friend Chase all were waiting to meet William and came in to visit from time to time. At some point I developed a fever (I didn't even notice!) which is apparently really common and they gave me some antibiotics in my IV. I think I would have been more concerned if I wasn't already in the hospital, hooked up to all sorts of monitors, in the care of some wonderful nurses and doctors, and fairly loopy from the IV meds! Eventually the IV meds started to wear off, and I started to get uncomfortable. Nurse G gave me the second half and let me know that there were a lot of scheduled C section that day, so stay on top of my pain and anticipate a potential hour wait for my epidural. The second round of IV meds didn't help too much, so we decided to go ahead and ask for the epidural, expecting it to take awhile.

Well, that hour was really just about fifteen minutes, and soon I was sitting up on the side of the bed with a pillow in my lap, leaning over and preparing to get my epidural. The actual process of pushing, being afraid of not being able to stand the pain of contractions, and the epidural were the three big things I was concerned about as I became anxious about W's birth. The epidural felt so weird when it went into my back! It was like an electric current running up and down my spine, which is what it's supposed to feel like, I guess. It went in really quickly and almost immediately I could feel it working as my lower half started to sort of fade away. I started to feel sleepy, which apparently meant that my BP dropped after the epidural was administered. I didn't really know what was going on, but they gave me an epinephrine shot in my IV and that helped a lot.  At this point they also put in a catheter and a heart rate probe for William and an internal contraction monitor for me. I must say how excited I was to get to monitoring belts OFF!

With the epidural in place, the nurses would come in from time to time to turn me from side to side to make sure the meds got distributed equally. With the exception of that, I pretty much slept for the following five hours waking up from time to time to talk to family as they came in to visit. I was pretty out of it, but it was interesting to watch the monitor as my contractions got bigger and more intense but really not feel much!

Eventually they checked my cervix again and I was dilated to 5 or 6, not nearly what they wanted. I started to get worried that the Pit wasn't doing what it was supposed to do and I would potentially have to get a C section. Nurse G also told us that my contractions weren't as regular as she would like to see and she was concerned why they weren't becoming more regular. She felt the top of William's head and said that he had some hair! But would most likely have a cone head for a little while and she was concerned that he seemed to be a little off center, he wasn't quite nose down like he was supposed to be.

As the day progressed, I became uncomfortable again but luckily the next time Nurse G checked me I had progressed to an 8 1/2! That made me really happy because it seemed like we wouldn't have to face a C section after all. This was about 6, and they decided to have me "labor down" by lessening the amount of Pit given and letting me rest a bit, hopefully then I would dilate and be ready to push!

Here I am, totally passed out. Apparently I was twitching and Michael and David were entertained by it!

As nice as the laboring down process sounded, it did the job of getting ready for William's arrival because I became more and more uncomfortable. At one point I got really cold, started shivering, and became nauseous. I told the nurses and they gave me some IV meds for the nausea, but at that point I had moved from being nauseous and knew I was going to vomit. And that's what I did! Orange Popsicle all over the floor! As fun as that was, the nurses were excited because they said that meant it was about time to go! They checked my cervix again and I was fully dilated and effaced and ready to go!

William's Birth Day: Part One

Disclaimer: I want to write down my memories of William's birth mainly for me and my memory; that's the topic of this post. There are so many options these days with regard to the birth process and even more opinions on the matter. These are the choices that David and I made, with the guidance of our OB and our own research. I want to be straight forward and note that these are not the choices for everyone so please don't think I'm pushing these choices, nor am I interested if you don't agree with our choices. Thanks!

Due to my potential risk for developing preeclampisa due to blood pressure issues during my pregnancy, we decided that scheduling an induction two weeks before William's due date would be a good idea. The date was originally set for Wednesday, June 27th, and one of the three OBs at the practice would deliver William. That doctor was different than the doctor we had been seeing regularly, so about six weeks prior to June 27th we asked if we could move the date to June 26th so that "our" doctor, Dr. S, would deliver William. The office had to schedule the induction with the hospital thirty days prior to the induction date, so we were told that they would call us when we got our day! And then we waited. And watched my BP stay in the "good" range, which was really nice.
Like my good blood pressure, with the exception of pain in my right hip, the last six weeks of my pregnancy were fairly uneventful. I felt good most of the time; the only problem I really had was that I woke up frequently to use the restroom at night. Like, every two hours all night long!

Four weeks before June 26th, our OB office called to say that I got a spot on the waiting list to be induced on June 26th. First alternate, if you will. I didn't worry too much about this because I figured the likelihood of someone going into labor prior to the day (including me!) was so high that I really didn't need to worry. I did ask what would happen if I didn't get a scheduled spot, and Dr. S told me that she would "make something happen" if needed. Ha! So, I decided not to worry, there wasn't too much I could do about it anyway.

Less than two weeks prior to William's new date of arrival, I had one last sonogram with our awesome sonographer and we learned that William was measuring at 7 lbs. 14 oz.! I got a little nervous at this; how big would he be when he was born!!! And how big would he be if I wasn't going to be induced!!! She had a really hard time getting a good picture of the little guy because he was already fairly engaged in my pelvis and she was mainly looking at my placenta and his size. He was healthy and just ready to start his exit!

At my 36 week OB checkup, we learned two things: I was about a half inch dilated and still no movement on  on the waiting list for a spot at our hospital for our scheduled induction. I asked what we should do for the next visit (which was going to be a Monday, the day I was meant to check in at the hospital!) and Dr. S jokingly told me that I needed to get my BP up when I came in the following week. She was just kidding, but I asked if I should go see Prometheus, the Alien prequel, prior to my appointment. Ha! She assured me that if anything, we might just have to wait a day to have William, which again was just fine with David and me.

Later that day, however, the OB office called to say I had a spot! Hooray! I was told to come in Monday, June 25th, for my scheduled appointment at 3:30pm, then plan on going to the hospital at 5pm to begin the induction process. I was also told not to eat or drink anything after noon on Monday. I remember thinking: this is it! William's impending arrival was made much more real when I knew for certain when I was going to check in to the hospital, that I had a spot, and the process, which we had discussed months prior, was being discussed again with a much greater sense of reality.

So, that week we made final preparations: bags were packed, rooms were cleaned, last minute purchases were made. I finished a few nursery projects like William's yarn wrapped letters over his crib and set up a small side table and lamp. Sunday night we had dinner with my parents and my brother and we prepared for David's parents to come to town Monday. I also have to note that my parents had spent the month at their cabin in Colorado and returned on June 23rd. If you know my mom at all, I think it is amazing that she was able to be away so close to our due date! Good job, Mom! ;) And of course I had to talk to her daily and report any and all contractions, labor pains, etc. ;)

I must say it was a strange feeling knowing that William was coming instead of going into labor spontaneously. As a planner, it definitely helped curb feelings of anxiety because I like to be as informed as possible. If/ when there's a Baby #2, I wonder how different it will be if I go into labor without being induced.

I've posted this picture before, but this was me three weeks prior to William's birth:

So that's about it in regards to what was going on leading up to William's birth, stay tuned for the actual birth story. :)

Getting Ready for Baby!

I'm not sure if anyone is ever ready for a baby, but I tried to do everything I could for his arrival! We got his pack and play, swing, bouncy seat, video monitor, stroller, and car seat put together:

I'm a HUGE nerd (or just waaaay over prepared!) and packed three different outfits for him to come home in. Why? Because he was measuring so big I was afraid nothing would fit. And yes, everything I brought for him ended up being too big. Ha!

Option One: Bears (this is what he wore home. It was a newborn size and still too big!)

 Option Two: Bunnies (this was 0-3months and while the shirt fit, the pants were not working!)

Option Three: Giraffes (this was a three month size. What was I thinking???) 

And two and a half weeks later, all three hats are still waaaaay to big for him!

And finally, I packed my hospital bag and a bag of snacks just in case. I actually think I did a fairly good job packing for myself and didn't bring a whole lot of unneeded items.

 Again, most of the snacks ended up coming home with us because the hospital food was so great! Who would have thought?

William's Nursery Tour

I've had such a great time getting William's nursery ready for his arrival! Originally, I wanted to go with a color palette of khaki, cream, white, and aqua and have some woodland animals for bedding. I had a hard time finding bedding I liked that wasn't too loud and bright. I even considered making my own! But then I found a precious set from Pottery Barn Kids that wasn't quite woodland animals, but it was the right colors and super sweet. Special thanks to my parents who have helped us so much by purchasing most of the nursery furniture. They have been such a blessing! And David's parents got us the very exciting video monitor, which has been a source of entertainment for David and my brother the past couple of weeks.

Here's a little look into William's nursery, as it's been functional for two and a half weeks now!

When you first walk in, you see his dresser with his changing pad on top. And we got this great mirror with lambs jumping and are trying to find the perfect height for it. It's a little high right now, and was too low before. We'll get it eventually! :)

Next to the dresser in the middle of the room is probably my favorite piece of furniture: the rocker/ glider. William and I, as well as William and David have already spent some serious time in this chair! I love how it's by the window and we can hear birds chirping during the day. It makes for a calming meal time!

Opposite the changing table is William's crib. We haven't slept in it yet, but I do put him in it from time to time if I need to get supplies and William is on the changing table. William already rolls (he's advanced! ;) and our pediatrician told us already we couldn't leave him anywhere!!! Ha!

 I made the letters above his crib by getting plain letters at Hobby Lobby and then wrapping them with yarn. I think they turned out really cool and have a beautiful texture!

Here's a close up of his quilt. I love it!

So, that's William's sweet little nursery. We love it already and are excited to use it more as the little guy gets bigger!!!