So sleepy, so in love, so anxious

Is being anxious at night part of parenthood? The last few days have flown by with happy memories, a sleepy baby, a loving husband, and accomplishments like getting better and better at nursing. But come nighttime I get so anxious to put James in his crib and go to sleep. Having him sleep in my room is no easier, every sound he makes, or lack there of, sends me into a tailspin or worry. I just hate bedtime. I hope it gets easier.

That said, daytime is wonderful. I can't believe how busy I am. James is a great sleeper, but it seems like there is always something to do. E has taken paternity leave and has been by my side since last week at this time (when I was going into labor!). We've been learning things together, like how to change a dirty diaper, how to bathe a screaming baby, and how to sleep with a newborn in the house.

We've had lots of visitors, went to two Thanksgiving feasts, and set up or Christmas tree over the last few days. Life is wonderful, if it wasn't for those darn anxiety filled nighttime hours.

I snapped this photo of James today with his eyes open, but the lighting was horrible and the colors were all off, but it does look pretty good as a black and white.
And here is one in color. E says James's eyes are "beautimus", I agree.

Little feet

So much love

As I proclaim readily on my blog, I'm not much of a crier. Boy, has that changed. Yes, it is due, I'm sure, to the huge hormone influx that's been going on since giving birth, but boy can I tear up easily now. I think about how much I love my husband and start crying. I think about how much I love my son and tears burst forth. I sing "You are my sunshine" to my crying baby and can't get through the line of "you'll never know dear, how much I love you" and even as I type this blog entry I am boo-hooing like there is no tomorrow. Tears are literally streaming down my face.

There is just so much love in my life right now, I can't seem to keep a cap on it, or my tears. I'm not sad, like postpartum sad, but more happy. So happy that I don't know how else to express it than to cry.

I uploaded a few more photos today and looking at them threw me into a whole new wave of tears.

So much love.

10 things to be the most thankful for

Happy Thanksgiving. This Thanksgiving is a year I will never ever forget. I have so so many things to be thankful for, I am truly so lucky. I will finish up with my birth story later this weekend, but for now, since it is Thanksgiving, I must list the ten things I am most thankful for:

10. Ten perfect fingers and toes.

9. Photos of funny first moments. This was James's first bath. I laugh so much at this. His little hands look like he's a dictator or something.
And someday soon I'm sure I'll not find this photo as hilarious as I do now. James is perfect, a great sleeper and not much of a crier. When he gets going though, it just make me smile, he's just so mad. Love him.
8. Lots and lots of aunties and uncles to love.



7. Great Grandmas that proclaim that James is the cutest baby in the world.
6. The most wonderful caring fantastic husband I can imagine. He was so loving the entire time I was at the hospital. He never left my side, and snuggled and kissed his little son so much.
5. Black mohawks
4. Meeting the big brother and sister.


3. Three Grandpas


2. Two Grandmas

1. And a perfect baby boy. I can not tell you how happy I am to have a healthy little son. I am so so thankful. I love him so much. Happy Thanksgiving.

Announcing James Alexander to the world

Today has been beyond exhausting, don't ask me why I'm still up. But today has also been one of the most wonderful days of my life. I saw E bond with his tiny son, I cried while holding my son for the first time, and I had a pretty easy labor, with less than an hour of pushing!

I have had an amazing day with family, my husband, and my new son. I will type up a more extensive post soon, of course, but for now, I'll leave you with a few photos:

Daddy and baby meet at last.
Mama and James, true true love.
Isn't he wonderful? He has a full head of dark hair!
He is so sweet and little. 7 lbs. 13 oz.
And a total sleepy head. I've had a little bit of a hard time getting him to nurse, he seems to latch on and then promptly falls asleep!

Cervix and I decided to make a truce

I'm back at the hospital. Wow, what a crazy 12 hours it has been since I last updated, feels like a lifetime ago.

E and I grabbed burgers for dinner and headed home to watch an episode of Lost. While watching, contractions started again, and so I decided to start timing. They were somewhat intense, but not horrible. By the end of the show I would have to consciously breathe through them and walk while the peak of the contraction hit. They were timing 6-9 minutes apart and at this point the morphine from earlier had worn off, and I could feel that they were growing in intensity.

I wanted to try to sleep but after doing our bathroom routine I realized there was no way I could sleep through one of these. I asked E if he would mind sleeping in the guest room (this is the first time I've asked him to sleep apart from me the entire pregnancy!) and told him to get some rest. I then walked and tried to deal with the contractions the best I could. They were getting stronger and stronger, but not getting closer together.

I was exhausted from the day's events, but each time I tried to lie down I would have to pull myself out of bed, quite painfully, to walk through the contraction. I then decided to take a hot bath, thinking that might slow them. Instead they continued to intensify.

By the time I was out of the tub, I was having horrible pain with each contraction, and the pain would not ever completely go away between contractions. I was walking and breathing, and trying to stay calm. I needed the contractions to get closer together before we headed to the hospital a second time, and they were still timing six minutes apart.

After two hours of this, I woke E. I told him I didn't care that the contractions were not five minutes apart or less, I needed to get an epidural, now. I told him he needed to get up and drive me to the hospital, asap.

I've always thought I had a high tolerance for pain, but I had never ever felt something like this before. I stumbled out to the car and E drove quietly and quickly, not wanting to upset me. I huffed and puffed through the contractions, cried out, and tried to focus. They felt like menstrual cramps from hell.

Once we finally pulled up to the hospital doors the pain was so intense the tears started to come. I barley could stand, sit, walk, move, or think. Never ever had I been in so much pain. I walked into the labor and delivery unit in a daze, signing all the paperwork to allow me a room.

Once they placed me in a room I started to pace, in more pain then I'd ever dealt with. E was trying to be so kind and wonderful, not sure how to help me. I told him not to dare touch me, so he just sat down in defeat and said "ok".

Finally the nurse arrived and I told her I needed an epidural, that I had no idea how some woman did this naturally. She checked me over and decided to admit me (yea!) and then called for the anesthesiologist. He arrived and asked me to curl into a little ball and hold really still. I was doing okay until another contraction started, where I had to use all the focus in the world to stop from crying out and writhing in pain.

But, as soon as the epidural was placed my entire world shifted. I was able to breathe again, able to see, and most importantly, able to rest. The nurse helped E make up a bed in the room and I we both were able to sleep from 2:30 am to around six am.

When morning arrived I found out that I had dilated more (up to six centimeters) and that they were guessing that Baby November would be here in early afternoon.

In the last four hours my water broke on its own, the baby has moved from -1 station to +1 station, and I've dilated all the way up to 8 cm (you need to get to 10 before you start to push), getting ready to make his entrance into the world.

Right now I feel overwhelmed, but in a good way. I have more tubes and crap sticking out of me than I care to count, but I'm happy, and pain free, and I'm going to become a mama today, something I've wanted for my entire life.

I can't wait to tell Baby November how much I love him.

My cervix is a ho

I'm quite frustrated with my cervix at the moment. I was really hoping that the previous post would be the last one on this blog about what is going on between my legs, but, no, of course not.

I started having contractions last night at 8:00 pm and was able to breathe through them and was getting so excited. The time between them was about six and a half minutes, so at bed time I decided to take a Tylenol and try to sleep. Nothing much happened overnight, but when I woke this morning, contractions picked up again.

E went to work, and I started timing. They went from seven minutes apart down to around three minutes apart in the four or so morning hours! I took a hot shower, took a walk, and ate lunch, trying to see if they'd go away on their own (as they sometimes do if you are having false labor), but instead they were growing more intense and more frequent.

This was it! (How horribly wrong I was...)

E came home, we packed up the car and said goodbye to the kitties. We were off!

At the hospital they checked for dilation and hooked me up to two monitors, one that tracked contractions, one that tracked the baby's heart beat and movement. And then we waited. And waited. I was having contractions, but they seemed to be slowing. After about an hour the nurse came back to see if I was getting more dilated. Nothing, nada, zip, nope. I was still dilated the same as two weeks ago, I'm only 2.5 cm. All the contractions were causing me quite a bit of pain, but they weren't doing what they were set out to do, dilate me. Damn.

The nurse called my doc to see what she wanted: did she want to induce me since I was already overdue, or just send me home, and hope the false labor turns into true labor soon? My doc said she wanted to send me home. Damn! I was so excited, so happy to finally be at the hospital, willing to go through hell and back to meet my baby boy. Now I was packing up my things and putting my clothes back on.

So, after a huge shot of morphine, they sent me home tired and grouchy and still experiencing painful contractions. Since then I've rested, ate dinner, and the contractions have continued to slow. So that's the update: my cervix is a ho.

(Also, small side note, I've been super lucky that nobody has slipped and spilled Baby November's name on my blog comments yet. Some of you know what this little fella is going to be named, but I don't want to post his name until he is here, so keep calling him Baby November here and on Facebook. Or, if you'd like, The Stubborn One. That is all.)

This was what I was hoping to be the last photo in my pregnancy photo series. E snapped this of me before I hoped into bed with my super attractive hospital gown. Taken at 40 weeks, 5 days, and with a cervix like a rock.
Once in bed, and attached to the baby monitoring device, and as soon as they did so, Baby November decided to take a nap. They gave me a popsicle hoping the sugar would wake him up a bit. I worked. And the read-out from the second NST is that he's happy in there, and not at all willing to leave.

Operation: Get this baby out

Everyone I know has been giving me some wonderful ideas of how to get labor started. Unfortunately, Baby November is really really happy where he is. He proved this today by doing an entire tap dance routine on my rib cage. He's just a happy little man.

That said, I'm not happy about where he is. I want him out. I was telling this to our kitty Rumpus, and Rumpy decided to give this labor inducement thing a shot. He'd like to meet his new brother soon too.

Here is how it went down-

Operation: Get this baby out
Commander and Chief: Rumpus
Step 1 - Introduce yourself. "Hello Baby November, I'm your big brother Rumpus. How are you? Mama says you are very cozy in there."
Step 2 - "Nudge him just a little, so he gets the feel of me."
Step 3 - "Nudge him some more, and mew over and over again, telling him to come out."
Step 4 - "Really really love him, tell him it's time to see the world, and tell him Mama's tummy can't take much more of his kicking assaults."
Step 5 - "Give up. This guy's not going anywhere."

Haven't popped yet

Nope, no baby yet. I'm getting more and more anxious to go into labor, and each day that passes is so hard to sit through. I just want it to start already.

I went to the doc today, and there was zero change in my cervix, so that wasn't fun to hear. They did a fetal non-stress test (NST) to see if Baby November was as anxious as I am; nope, he's has happy as can me. I was hoping they'd tell me I needed to get induced today, instead they sent me on my way, saying all was well with him.

Originally I thought that I'd want to get induced the day after Thanksgiving, not any longer. Each day I wait is not fun, not fun at all. So, I called my doctor the other day and begged that the induction be moved up to Wednesday, the earliest possible that they'd induce me. She agreed. So now I'm just assuming I will not be having Thanksgiving at home. But it will be worth it. Let's just hope it won't come to that...

40 weeks, today is my due date!

Today is my due date. Alas, still nothing. I feel huge-er than ever, and more uncomfortable too. I want this baby to come. Now. Please.

Onto the weekly quiz-
How far along? 40 weeks. I'm ready. Let me pop.
Total weight gain/loss: Last week at my appointment they weighed me and in one week I had gained five, yes five, pounds. Lovely. I'm hoping it is all water weight...
Maternity clothes? Yep. And I forgot to mention last week that now my fingers are too fat for my rings, so off came the wedding ring. Now I look single, pregnant and uncomfortable. What an awesome combo.
Sleep: is horrible. Pain everywhere, even my ears hurt. But I'm trying to cherish these last few nights of real sleep before I have a newborn.
Movement: He's slowed down a little, but not that much. He still loves to kick the heck out of my ribs.
Labor Signs: I wish.
Pregnancy Symptoms: Yes. All of them.
Food Cravings: Nothing new. I'm trying to eat spicy food to get my labor kick started, and it tastes great, but not something I'm craving, per se. I am however really craving sushi once I'm no longer pregnant.
Belly Button in or out? Turkey timer has popped long ago.
What I miss: Walking without pain. Life without pain. (Haaha!! I sound so morose!)
What I am looking forward to: Telling Baby November how much I love him for the first time in his life. Seeing E hold his son for the first time. Just thinking about it gets me all emotional and teary eyed.
Weekly Wisdom: Having your membranes stripped really really hurts.
Best moment this week: Realizing, again, that I love my husband more every day.
Milestones: I've reached my due date! Yea me! Now get this baby out!

Weekend at home before the baby

E and I spent another lovely weekend at home. The entire time I was hoping and hoping for contractions to start, but alas, Baby November is happy where he is.

So, instead of dwelling on the fact that the little man isn't going to grace us with his presence any time soon, E and I stayed somewhat busy. On both Saturday and Sunday morning we made a big breakfast at home. This is something we hardly ever do in the warm months, but seem to really enjoy once it gets colder. E made a new recipe he's been eying called Cornflake encrusted french toast. It was amazing. First you dipped the bread in an egg, sugar and cream mixture, then into crushed cornflakes. Then he fried them in his cast iron skillet, and made eggs, hash browns, coffee, and juice on the side. The entire breakfast was divine.

On Saturday it snowed and snowed, our first real snowstorm of the year. E and I decided to trek out into the storm and visit the Free Mason Temple of Utah. As you might know, the Free Masons are a fraternal organization that try to better the world through service and such. Well they are also considered a "secret society" which is something E has been interested in since since I met him, way before it became popular. Anyway, we decided to tour the huge Salt Lake Temple for the second time, we'd visited together about eight years ago with a college class of mine. The temple was quite interesting, as I remember, and lots of the symbolism E remembered from our first tour, and could point out to me.


The rest of the weekend was consumed with a family dinner with E's family and another fun one with my family. We also packed our hospital bags, finished last nursery "to-dos" and tried to stay positive about the fact that I might be in the hospital on Thanksgiving.

And, now, two days later, there is still nothing much to report. No contractions, nothing. I'll update again tomorrow with my weekly pregnancy quiz, unless, my some miraculous event, I'm in labor!

Remember our rain chain? Well with the storm this weekend it froze, and was beautifully stunning on Sunday, when the sky turned from gray to blue. It was awesome to watch it melt slowly.