The Birth of my Little Man

Baby Bam Bam

So this week has been a bit busy. About 4 hours after I wrote that last post I went into labor with my little man. After a long labor he was born on 10/5/10 at 3:11pm weighing 7lbs 9oz and 20 inches long. The labor, birth and reality of having a son have rocked my world. I feel so incredibly blessed right now.

Birth Story-Long version ** I am a doula and I go into detail here so if you don't feel comfortable reading the birth story from my perspective do not continue**

Monday morning I woke up about 4:30 shivering uncontrollably. I went to the bathroom then came back to bed to get under as many blankets as I could. About a half hour later my contractions started. They started out about 5 minute apart lasting about a minute each, I jumped in the shower to see what would happen. They got a bit more intense and the hubs popped his head in to see what was going on and if he should go to work that day. We figured it would be a good idea for him to stay home, and called my awesome doula, Mama K at about 6 am, and did a few laps around the block. We lapped the block a few more times, watched Flight of the Conchords and I took alot of showers. It started to get pretty intense at about 11:30 am and I felt best laying in bed; the contractions were about 2-3 min apart. The hubs called the midwives and they said to head on into the hospital.

I was extremely anxious about going into the hospital; terrified of having unnecessary procedures, of having my blood pressure go up because of anxiety. The whole hospital part of the birth scared the tar out of me and I think the decision to go in then stalled me out a bit because after that the contractions spaced out again at around 3-4pm. We ended up going out to dinner and while there they picked up a bit then we went over and walked the mall, then we headed home. Mama K headed home to see her little guys for a little bit with instructions for us to call her when things got going again.

They did start picking up again around 10pm, and at about midnight we headed to the hospital. My thinking was that I would sit in the parking lot until I just couldn't stand it then head in, and maybe walk around the parking lot in the meantime. Well it was raining and freezing so that made that difficult, the hubs and I did lap the hospital a couple of times but ended up going home again as the contractions seemed to space out again.

When we got home, I tried to sleep. The contractions were making that impossible, I was exhausted and in a good amount of pain. I called my mom for her advice knowing that if I got too tired there was no way I was going to be able to push this kid out, she basically told me the same thing. What finally made up my mind was that if we got to the hospital and things petered out at least I could get some sleep if they didn't then woo-hoo baby time. So we called Mama K and headed on in. I had to be on monitors for 20 min out of the hour but for the other 40 minutes I was able to labor in the shower, walk around, use the birth ball, listen to music,etc. The 20 minutes in bed were the hardest for me, the contractions just slammed me with back pain. Mama K and the hubs were wonderful in here; offering counter pressure, sips of water, walking with me, distracting me. It was funny I would be doing one thing then remember, hey if I were my doula this is what I would say and it would really help me, the one thing that really helped was the vocalizing making the low hmmmm noises and focusing. I remember during my contractions in bed I focused so hard on the bassinet which was directly in front of me. Towards the end I was so tired I was delirious, I remember just mumbling gibberish then realizing it was gibberish.

Here is the timeline for my dilation during all this at 4 am they checked me and I was 4 cm dilated, at 0 to -1 station and 80% effaced. Then at 6 am I was 6cm and 90 % effaced, at 8 am I was 8 cm and 90% effaced (see a pattern here??). At 10 am I was still at 8 cm and 90% but by noon I was at 9.5 cm with an anterior lip and 100% effaced. The midwife asked me if I wanted to have my water broken at this point and we decided that it probably would just help move things along. She broke my water at 12:30.

At this point we had that lull that they promise every laboring mom. Oh it was so appreciated as I was so incredibly tired from being up since about 5 am the day before laboring. The nurse walked in at one point here and I jokingly asked her if I could have my epidural now. She did such a double take cause I did it with a smile on my face calm as can be, lol. I was pretty happy because this was the only point that I asked for anything and I was just kidding around. What really helped me with this was I requested not to be offered any type of pain medication, they abided by my wishes and my stubborn Irish self wouldn't ask to save my life :).

I started pushing at 2:07. Wow, NOTHING could have prepared me for that. The midwife gave me full discretion to push in whatever position felt good to me and it seemed to be hugging the back of the bed on my hands and knees. I just remember while pushing having such doubt if he would ever come, if I could do it. I started praying in between the contractions asking God to help me, to give me strength, to get this baby out of me! The nurse told me later that I also politely asked the baby "Get out of me! Please!!". After pushing in that position for awhile I moved to stand next to the bed bent over the bed pushing, I kept feeling the midwife underneath me putting the monitor on my belly to get the heart rate and wondering where the heck she was to be doing this. At this point they realize that my hep lock (port for IV) came out so they were trying to clean up the blood on my arm from that, that gave me something else to focus on while pushing so that was good. I could feel his head coming out but no one was saying anything so I figured I was wrong, I was having so much self doubt here. I remember thinking if that isn't his head this labor is going to kill me. The midwife said for the next contraction she wanted me in bed using the squat bar so I did that and his head came out on the next push. She wasn't ready and didn't have her gloves on so she was yelling at me to stop pushing!! I started crying because its impossible to stop and I thought there was something wrong with him (ie cord wrapped around his neck, not breathing). Oh I was soo mad when I found out that it was just because she didn't have gloves on!!

All that was quickly forgotten at 3:11pm when she placed my sweet man on my stomach. I was so overcome with emotion, I couldn't do anything but just cry. I was so in love with this little baby boy and with my husband, I couldn't believe that one room could contain it.

Nursery Update

We bought a crib today! Yay, well more specifically my parents bought a crib for us! Woot Woot thanks Mom and Dad!
Its this one

Which can be found here
I'm surprised it took this long for me to find one I like but apparently I decided to become ridiculously picky about this which is pretty out of character for me. The hubs might be rubbing off on me, as he once spent 2 YEARS looking for brown dress shoes (side note when we found the "right" shoes I wanted to buy like 15 pairs). Anyway I ended up going through Babys R Us shaking all the cribs and this one was the nicest one that endured my shaking test. This reminds me of my parents story of buying their kitchen table, they were VERY rough in the store as they had six kids and wanted to make sure that it would last (to the point where I believe one of them was standing on it or something but I could just be making that part up who knows). That kitchen table is just as strong as it was when I was little though so I guess its good to do things a little goofy when buying furniture.

We aren't doing the whole traditional nursery thing where we're redoing the whole room. Our guest room was painted a nice pale green color when we moved in (with future babies in mind) and we'll keep the current furniture in there. The furniture that is there is from my great grandparents and matches the crib. My idea is to still keep this as a spare room/baby's room. The baby will most likely sleep with us for the foreseeable future and just use the crib sporadically for naps and such for awhile. When he's sleeping a bit more we'll move him over to the crib and then when he is old enough we'll transition him into the big bed that is already there and keep the crib in there for future kidlets. With that in mind we got a pretty gender neutral bedding set that looks like this

Actually the walls in our room are a similar color and I got a dark blue comforter for the bed to "boy" up the room a bit.

I am excited to set up the crib and do some rearranging in the room. We might have to move one of the dressers out for space issues but we'll see. Mostly I just need to sell some stuff before this baby comes so we have room for him. The hubs and I have collected some crazy stuff that we don't use but could bring in a pretty penny on Craigslist.

Its a Boy!!!

We had our ultrasound this morning. I couldn't sleep all last night I was so worried/excited. Everything went so well though, the baby is measuring perfect we watched his little heart pump away. He was moving and jumping all over the place so much so that the hubs was like "WHOAH DO YOU FEEL THAT?!", the look on his face was priceless. I just fell in love with little Bam Bam that much more watching him move around and wave to us. It was so amazing to be able to count little fingers and toes right on the screen. I'm so amazed and so thankful for our little boy!

Office Makeover

I was asked to show you the pictures of our famous Office Makeover and have been seriously neglectful. To be an effective before and after I would have before pictures. I was ashamed, soo ashamed, too ashamed to take pictures of the before. It was bad. This is the only thing I can find and it really doesn't do it justice.

So I'm going to need you to use your imagination. First the desk is empty, it was never empty imagine it filled with paperwork and computer parts that if you moved anything something would fall off like those games at the shore where you drop a quarter trying to get piles of quarters to fall (anyone know what I'm talking about? no.. just me..) You see in the corner of the picture there you can see a lime green futon. Now if you can imagine a huge futon with a ridiculous amount of stuff piled on it to the extent you can barely see that its LIME GREEN and there is no way you could possibly sit on it. Now the floor, you can kind of see the floor, well now imagine that being completely covered in papers, and the closet just jam packed. Wherever there wasn't a pile imagine some type of musical equipment. There, now you have a mental picture of before we reorganized our office.

Now for the after
This is our new desk, the hubs and I are sharing the office so we do have two printers. The walls are all him though. He loves Blues Brothers so theres a good amount of Blues Brothers paraphernalia. There's a painting that I painted for him for his birthday inspired by The Flight of the Conchords. The hubs has a good amount of equipment in here for work to enable him to work from home, so its hard to pare down too much, but it seems workable.
You can see his video conference setup, our printers, a stool and our bookcase (all technical books). What you can't see is even better, no piles on the floor. Also you can see our filing cabinet which we're now using.
We moved a corner piece from our couch up here and its perfect for me to come and sit and talk or for him to play guitar on.

This is a view from the door, we have guitars hung from the one wall, with the closet near the window (which is organized but don't have pictures of). And of course kitten cat snuggle fluffle pants had to get in on the action as he's NEVER allowed in this room.

No TV?!?!

Yeah we're thinking about it. Thats right taking the plunge and getting rid of our cable and possibly our tv. Its just a thought right now but one we're giving serious attention.

Our current contract is up on Jan 14th and as it looks now we'll be getting rid of the cable. I found a high speed internet and phone bundle thats $55 a month, currently we're paying $125 for our Phone, Internet and Cable (plus a DVR). So just by cutting the cable we'd be able to put $70 more a month towards our mortgage which adds up to a whopping $840 for the year. We do have our laptops so we'd be able to catch some shows on Hulu and we do have Netflix (for now) so I don't think it would hurt too badly. The main thing would be that the hubs wouldn't be able to watch sports.

As far as the tv, we have one of the flat screen wall mount jobs and I think its just too much for us. If we don't have high definition channels I don't think its worth it to have the tv either. If we sell it now I think we'd be able to get a good amount of money for it to also put on the mortgage. I have a very romantic idea of not having a tv in the house and how much I would get done in a day. I have crazy notions about a good amount of things though so we'll see if it comes to fruition or not. The hubs is still on the fence so I guess I'll let you know what we decide. We're going to have to figure it out soon!

Anybody gone and rid your house of the tv? cable? What are your thoughts

Happy New Year to Ya!

Hope you guys all had a great and safe new year! The hubs and I did, we were able to spend it with good friends. We made some goals for ourselves as a couple and as individuals this year and posted them by the bathroom mirror where we see them twice a day. I don't want to call them New Year's Resolutions because people never follow through with them but they are our goals and where we'd like to see ourselves by the end of the year.
Our goals as a couple are:
1. We'd like to walk together at least 5 nights a week.

We want to be more physically fit as a couple and regularly walking would be a good
start. It also gives us a chance to talk without getting to distracted by tv or the computer.

2. We want to pay off 50% of the remaining debt in our second mortage

I've been reading so much about setting up a financial plan. Generally, the hubs and I
are pretty good with money and budgets. I tend to be the spendier one in the family but neither of us is a fan of debt. Our only debt right now is our mortgage but we have two of them. I'm praying that we are able to pay off our second mortage within this year but the goal is just for 50% of our remaining debt in our second mortgage to be paid off. Once we have it completely paid off we're going to go aggressive on our first. If I had to do again, I think I would have rented and saved up to flat out buy our first home no matter how long it took. Live and Learn right...

3. We want to read through the Bible as a couple.

With this we both want to grow as Christians and as a couple. This will be a great way to grow and challenge each other. I'm so excited to do it!! It is a pretty aggressive reading to me but I'm excited for the challenge.

Anyone else setting some goals for this year??

#2 Day of Thankfullness-I'm playing Catchup!

I think one of the things I'm most thankful for is... Yes, you guessed it. My husband. Its not a secret that I think he is all around wonderful. The most supportive, kind hearted, smart, wise person I know. What I'm thankful for today is his sense of humor.


An example of this would be a couple of years ago I got it in my head that I was going to make sock monkeys for all my nieces and nephews. At the time there were 7 nieces and nephews I wanted to make sock monkeys for and I decided this about 2 days before Christmas. Needless to say, I made myself crazy. There was crying involved as I sewed into the wee hours of the morning trying to get these silly sock monkeys done for children I had already purchased presents for. The husband patiently told me that he would give a big fat resounding NO if I ever decided to do this on such short notice (I'm prone to over-commitment), but its what he did the next morning that really gives you a picture of what it is to live in our house. This is what I came downstairs to.

blogging monkey

Guitar Monkey

Joy of Cooking Monkey

Video Game Monkey and Praying the Rosary Monkey

This sense of humor is so appreciated as it makes our house that much more joyful There are always silly, goofy things we are doing for each other. They say laughter is good for the soul, and I know it has done my soul good. Oh and by the way, its been requested that I make another batch of sock monkeys this year...

My Amazing Husband Pt 3

So, yes, I am a lucky girl. This morning he ran down to make breakfast and this is what I came down to. He had the idea then when to Crate and Barrel for the execution. What a sweet sweet man I have :)

My Amazing Husband Pt 2

So I may or may not be slightly addicted to Facebook tetris. The husband accepts this of me and loves me despite it.
So you may realize why I thought this was probably the best Valentines Day card EVER!
I love the hubs mad Photoshop Skillz.

My Amazing Husband Pt 1

So we ended up being up until after midnight last night so we exchanged our valentines gifts and cards. I got him a thirty pack of Star Wars Valentines and wrote 30 reasons why I love him on them as well as a new guitar for Rock Band and some gum. He got me Smittens. As you might have guessed, this gift rocked my proverbial socks off. His wonderfulness did not stop there :)

Yes, we are that couple.

Chinese New Year Parade

On Sunday I took my sick self out to China Town in Philly for the New Years Parade. It was pretty interesting to say the least. The parade itself was 6 or so dragons going around from store to store looking for these. Yes, thats a big long chain of fireworks with a head of lettuce on top.

Once they found them the dragons would dance around


When the fireworks start going off they "watch" them then eat the lettuce

I have no clue what this all means, but it was pretty interesting to see and a great way to take advantage of the 60 some degree day.

The hubs spending quality time with a dragon.

Raw Smoothie Week

So I've been catching up on some books that I've wanted to read lately.  I just finished Green for Life and I'm about midway through Gorgeously Green. Between those two books and some conversations with Mama K I'm inspired to try going Raw for up until dinner this week.  Being the ridiculously supportive husband that he is the hubs is jumping on the bandwagon to help me.  I just spent about an hour blending all the smoothies for us for tomorrow.  We have a Chia Seed, Apple, Lemon, Kale blend; a Blueberry, Banana, Celery Blend and a simple Banana, Spinach blend.  I tasted them all and they are pretty good.  We'll see how filling they are as the week goes on but I'm excited to try it at least.  

Its been pretty interesting reading in depth in Green for Life on some of the points brought up in the book about PH levels in your stomach and stomach acid in regards to how you absorb nutrients.  Also the comparison to a typical American diet to that of the closest animal to us in genetic composition the Chimpanzee, was pretty intriguing.  Gorgeously Green has some great tips on finding health and beauty items that are good for you, some great tips on getting my body moving and I'm sure alot more but I'm only halfway through that one.  Being a part of a local coop has really helped me switch most of our bath and body products over to healthy choices but there are some holdouts (deodorant is the big one) that we just haven't found a good alternative for.  Its been inspiring me to examine that a bit more. 

As far as getting moving I got my butt kicked by Leslie Sansone's Walk and Fit which tells me that I need to do it some more. I threw in some pilates beforehand but only got ten minutes in before I had to call it quits on that.  The hubs and I have made a promise to each other to do some type of workout three times a week together as I realize I'm less likely to quit doing it if he's doing it with me and he feels the same. 

I literally feel like a page is turning in my life and there is a gorgeously blank slate set before me.  Everything in my life has changed recently but for the first time in weeks I'm kind of seeing some good come out of it.  

Weekend Goodness

We went over my brothers house to babysit my adorable nieces this weekend. It had been awhile since we'd seen them so we were soo happy to do it! They are both ridiculously funny. At one point we asked my niece Gracie (5 yrs old) who her favorite uncle was, of course she said Uncle J. So being the loving sister I am I called my brother and put him on speaker and asked her. She pointed at Uncle J but said Uncle Wil, the little stinker :) We read them books, ran around the house, went on a treasure hunt, played eye spy, played red light/green light, played dress up and generally had a very busy weekend, lol.

Meggie wearing the tutu I made her

My pretty princess

She asked Uncle J to read her a book

but didn't like the view sitting next to him

Me and my Gracie, I look surprised here about something!

Meggie cheasin it up for the camera, love the pig tails!

Update-Projector Pictures

Looking at the back of our family room behind the couch is our toy center which is why this is Hannah's favorite room. She was very upset that the toys were all covered up during the movie.

This is the projected image, the hubs of course chose Star Wars as his tester movie, lol. After this he moved it back so the screen was about 9 feet wide and 4.5 to 5 feet high. He also hooked it up to our sterio so the sound was pretty good too :)

We watched a movie Sat night then again on Sunday night. Its such a good rainy day thing to do, I definitely want to make it a special treat for us to break it out so it doesn't get old. :)

Fun Freebie

So the hubs is one of those smart people and because of this works in a smart people field. Well his company just switched offices and was getting rid of a TON of things. He brought home a bunch of computer equipment and while explaining their very specific uses my brain exploded due to non-understandiness. One thing that he brought home though I am interested in, it's a VERY nice projector, one that basically turns my family room into a movie theatre. He's working on setting it up for a nice rainy day movie for after we are done our chores. The cat is in heaven because right now it is projecting his computer screen on the wall and let me just say that pointer that was moving across the wall is VERY tempting to my little kitten cat. He just jumped 3 feet up in the air to attack it and slid down the wall. Seriously I'm in tears its cracking me up.

We were out and about all day, had to get brakes for the hubs car, pick up his front forks for his motorcycle, check out wood flooring for our house, stop at Lowes to get stuff for Christmas and a pedestal sink for the downstairs bathroom. We found Teak flooring that we're going to put in the Kitchen, Hallway, Living room and Dining Room. We have to wait till January for it to come in though. Thankfully my family is going to help with installation so the price won't be too bad.

My Christmas adventure this year is going to be soap making. I was having a hard time finding Lye anywhere but after some searching online I realized that Lowes sells it as drain cleaner. The hubs doesn't understand how drain cleaner will make soap I told him its like a chemical peel but cheaper, LOL I'm horrible I know.

Some Good Dinner

Last night I was soo close to ordering out, I was just tired when I got home and didn't feel like cooking. I stopped at my sister in laws house and took in some of the cuteness that is my niece. The pit stop fueled me on and gave me the boost I needed to make some dinner. So I made some roasted potatoes, chicken and asparagus.

We had a lovely dinner with a stimulating dinner guest, Kitten Cat Snuggle Fluffy Pants III (we're trying to rename him because his name now isn't safe to say in front of children, he got the name from his love of jumping on the dining room table).

The hubs was REALLY happy I made asparagus.
I also made a Cranberry Lemon Cake from A Hippie with a Minivan's blog and it was goooooooood

Happy Halloween

Check out the hubs and my pumpkins for '08.

As you can tell we have some fun with these :)

Mine is Frankie and Jason did Mac. 

Hope everyone has a safe and fun day, I will update after the PARADE!!!

Wooooo Go Phillies!!!!

Hawaii Day 4 Pics

So here are some pics from our Day 4, our spa day. We had such a relaxy day with a HUGE breakfast then swimming all day then off to the spa for couples massages. I wish I had a picture of where we had our massages. It was literally a 3 sided grass hut with the open side overlooking the ocean. The last picture was in the separate spa area that you sat with your robes looking out over the ocean and in our case the sunset.

One of the surfer guys that we were watching (if you would believe it I'll pretend it was the hubs)

The beach, totally reminds me of Gilligans Island. :)

Ginger Flower

Plumeria, as you can tell I fell in love with the flowers and was sooo close to getting a plumeria tattoo but as normally happens when I want a tattooo; I changed my mind.

Sunset

Hawaii Day Three Pics

This awesome old Theatre had about 5 events for First Friday including a pretty good musician. Old Theatres are also probably my favorite places to explore SCORE!!

This was the childrens area of the Bishop Museum. I love that the hubs and I can just be silly and have a good time together. Its nice to be able to do things like this with your best friend.

The hubs taking stock of his surroundings on his trusty steed.

This was a wind wall, I just liked the way the picture turned out.

This was a VERY small museum dedicated to Hawaiian pop culture, I just liked the way this display of drink stirers looked.

Hawaii-Day 2 Pictures

We woke up to watch the sunrise over the ocean (yes we woke up that early!) From there we headed to the Dole Pineapple plantation, where we saw these two adorable birdees.
While at the Dole Pineapple Plantation we dined on delectable Pineapple Ice Cream

and Pineapple Juice

Then we went out to do the Pineapple Maze (the worlds largest maze). When I say we did it I mean Jason got us through it and I took pictures of pretty flowers.