Excited to meet our son!
8lbs. 1oz. 20 inches
Excuse my hair! It was all fixed, then I started pushing and was sweating
like crazy!
Proud Daddy
Our little family!
On July 13, 2011 our lives changed drastically once again, we welcomed our son into our family. It was definitely a wild, crazy, unexpected day. I had a doctor's appointment on July 1st and was found to be 2.5 cm dilated and 50% effaced. When I was pregnant with Izzy, I had an appointment on a Monday, was 2 cm dilated and had her that Saturday. I was thinking we'd follow the same path with this pregnancy, but he stayed in a little longer than Izzy did. Since that July 1st appointment, I had some lower back pain off and on and definitely more and more Braxton Hicks contractions, but nothing regular. Everyday I kept thinking, today will be the day!! Work was getting harder and harder on me, so I would pray every night before work that I would go into labor so I wouldn't have to go to work that next day! On Tuesday, July 12th, I had a pretty busy day. My mom and I took my nephew Robert and Izzy to an indoor bouncy place (karli was sick), and you better believe I joined them on those bouncys to try to get things going!! Later that day, I went outlet shopping with my mom and that night we had a baby shower at our lifegroup meeting. It was a long day, but I didn't feel any different than I had been feeling.
I woke up Wednesday morning around 6:45 am with some pretty strong cramping pain in my abdomen. I didn't think too much of it, but quickly realized it was coming at pretty regular intervals. I woke Jeremy up and we started timing them and they were coming about every 8 to 9 minutes. We already had an appointment with our OB that morning at 9:30, so we just decided to go ahead with the appointment and see what was happening. However, in those next few hours leading up to the appointment, my contractions were getting progressively stronger and closer together. It wasn't long until I realized that today was going to be the day! We got ready and put the bags in the car, we were pretty sure we wouldn't be coming home. By the time I got to the office I was in pretty bad pain and contractions were coming every 3-5 minutes. I went right up to the window and said, "is he backed up at all, because I'm pretty sure I'm in labor." Needless to say, they brought me right back! Within minutes the doctor checked my cervix and I was 5 cm dilated, 100% effaced and had a bulging bag of water! He told us to go straight to the hospital and I better not sneeze on the way because we'll have wet seats!
I was settled into my room by 10:00 am and let them know I was definitely ready for my epidural. My contractions were 2 minutes apart and getting stronger and stronger. My mom, sister and Jeremy were in the room with me. At first I was talking and laughing with them in between contractions, but eventually I was curled up and in tears with pain. They kept telling me they had put a call into the anesthesiologist and he was on his way, but he just wasn't showing up!! Around 12:15 my doctor comes in and is pretty upset I hadn't gotten my epidural yet. He checked me and I was at 7 cm. at this point and in a tremendous amount of pain. He went and got the doctor himself and by 12:30 I had a spinal done. It was supposed to work faster than an epidural, but only lasts about 3 hours, but my doctor was certain I would deliver before then.
I finally was getting some relief, and I was 8 cm. about 30 minutes later. I was resting comfortably, until I started feeling a lot of pressure. I let the nurses know and when they checked I was completely dilated! By 2:00 I was pushing and my doctor was in place. We knew pretty quickly this was going to be a bigger baby than my 6lb 4 oz. little Isabelle!! However, I gave it my all and he was born at 2:20. My spinal was wearing off right at the time that I was delivering so I felt a lot of pain. However, it probably helped me to know when to push. The doctor had to use a little bit of vacuum to help with his shoulders, but he came out healthy and crying! On one hand I was surprised that he was 8lbs. 1 oz., but on the other hand I wasn't surprised since I was soooo huge!
In any case, we were in love at first sight. We are so thrilled to have our precious baby boy in our family. We are thankful to the Lord for a safe and healthy delivery and baby...God is so good!!!
Isabelle has been so silly and so funny lately. Her personality is totally coming out more and more everyday. We are amazed at some of the things that come out of her mouth lately. In the picture above you can see the mess she had made on our living room floor. I swear the girl is a human cyclone! She can destroy a room in a matter of minutes. However, we are working very hard on cleaning up one mess before starting a new one! As you can also see in the above picture, she's sporting her straw hat. Lately, every morning when we come into her room to get her she has taken out her basket that has her hats in it and she's wearing one. She then proceeds to make Jeremy and I wear one of her hats as well (too bad I don't have pictures of that!)
If you look closely at this picture, you can see that Isabelle has her travel neck pillow around her waist and says it's her boppy like mommy! She puts her baby on it like Logan lays on my boppy when I nurse him. Surprisingly, she hasn't tried to actually nurse her baby dolls yet! She likes to say that her boppy is "Izzy sized!"
It is not uncommon to see Izzy sitting in this swing, or Logan's bouncy seat, or lying on his playmat. I understand there are probably some jealousy issues going on and she wants to be the baby. However, she is getting better with this, and thankfully she's light enough to not break his things yet!
Jeremy's mom was here for most of the summer and actually just went back home to Erie today. Mary drinks decaf tea everyday and Isabelle has joined her in this ritual. She has her pour tea in her little tea cup and Isabelle insists they put their cups on napkins. 
