Home at Last

So today after everyone got checked out and released from the hospital we prepared to head home. My amazing midwife Linda came in to say goodbye. Linda is one of the most amazing women I know and I think she is probably truly one of the best midwives in Michigan. I love her and am so thankful for her and her calm personality. I know we were able to successfully get through the delivery because she was totally in control, totally calm and reassuring. I am so thankful for her. 

Here is a close up of the little guy in all of his knit wear ready to head home. I did not stop at the sweater, once I realized he was not coming any time soon I got to work and finished the had and then the booties too. I also made the baby in the knitted clothes. I do good work. 

Here little B is with Daddy, all ready to go home just waiting for the nurse to come and tell us we can go. 

Snuggled into his car seat. I am so excited to head home and snuggle this little guy some more. We are both exhausted, it has been a long few days and he looks a little tuckered out. I think it must be hard work being born.

See you at home!

Birth Day!

So, Kev and I woke up this morning knowing that we were to report to the hospital at 8 A.M. for an induction and that we would return home with a new baby. There is something strange about having an induction date set for almost a week. All of our children were scheduled for an induction before they were born. With Bean I had been dilated to a 3 and at 90% for over two weeks, I was swelling like crazy and my BP was going up so our Doc scheduled her induction for the next morning at our last Dr's. Appointment-she was born 5 hours after my water was broken to start the induction. With Peanut I was dilated to a 5 and at 80-90% for about 2 weeks and I begged him to induce, he did that morning, we literally walked over to Labor and Delivery from his office and he broke my water-Peanut was born 2 hours later. Bug was scheduled to be induced and he was our one child that had his own plan my water broke the day before I was scheduled to be induced, my labor with him was 7 hours but we had a really awful midwife and a pretty awful experience and we are pretty sure he should could have born faster. And here we are again. 

This time we scheduled the induction for a number of reasons:

I am strep B positive and need 4 hours of antibiotics

I have a history of fast labors and we were fairly sure this guy would be born in less than 4 hours.

I also have a history of having meconium in the amniotic fluid (all of the other children have had it) and with strep B it is an additional risk.

I was dilated to a 3 and at 80%

My midwife was on call and I was most comfortable with her.

I do not mind being induced as long as they break my water, I had not idea what to expect this time so this morning Kev and I loaded the bags into the car, said goodbye to everyone and headed out to the hospital. I was thrilled when we went to leave and Kev shoveled the driveway, I love snow and felt this was a good sign. I really enjoyed the drive to the hospital in the early morning light and the snow with Kev. I love Kevin so much and I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful and supportive husband. 

We arrived at the hospital, I was informed that they were going to start me on pitocin and start the antibiotics, we had a conversation about how I really only go into labor when my water breaks, the nurses called the midwife and said that she would be there around noon to break my water, that would give us time to get the 4 hours of antibiotics in before. I had Kev snap this picture right before I changed into my awesome hospital gown. This is my pregnant for the last time. 

From 8 A.M. the nurses were awesome, they kept checking on me and the baby. I continued to get pitocin and antibiotics. I think it is safe to say pitocin does not so much work well for me. I think I had a total of 8 contractions in the four hours or so before my midwife showed up. Awesome. 

I got a fair amount of knitting done and really enjoyed my time to snuggle and hang out with Kevin, my Mom showed up too so we had a good time talking and just waiting around for something to happen. I think boring would be a good way to describe the morning. Not a lot was going on. I was not allowed to eat and that was honestly the worst part-from my hospital room I could watch the amazing snow and see one of my favorite restaurants. So... Not... Fair!

My midwife showed up and broke my water and within min. I was having regular, hard, fantastic contractions. I asked her if the water was clear and she laughed at me and said "not a chance." Kev and I had expected as much and within seconds I was hooked up to an internal fetal monitor and we were in business. The most interesting thing that happened was that I had planned to have an interthecal form of pain relief, I was told this would be a better option than the epidural and I would recover faster, so my midwife and I had planned to go this route. Within a few min. of my water breaking my midwife informed the nurses to "prep her for the epidural." I looked her and reminded her that was not the plan, she looked at me and told me I would want it and basically that plans had changed. I am not anti-epi so we prepped for the epidural. I am not going to lie, the contractions were about 2 min. apart at this point and coming strong and fast, it was such a relief to get the epidural. As my labor quickly progressed the nurses were moving my position about ever 2 seconds because the baby was having a constant drop in his heart rate and the midwife stayed and was constantly working on me. I would say in less than an hour after she broke my water I had gotten the epidural, had been moved about 100 times and we had started pushing. Good times. Quickly I realized that every time I pushed I could feel it and it HURT like crazy. I had never had quite the same experience (even with Peanut and I did not get the epi

Awesome. 

What does my sweet husband do, laughs and grabs the camera. Awesome again. 

 Pretty sure he took this right after a choice gesture from me. I love that guy! Note also that this is the position every woman wants to be in with a room of people totally staring at her. Yup, totally Rad! I rolled back over a few min. later and at some point my midwife had informed us that there may be some slight incompatibility with the position of our little guy and my pelvis. She explained that he was face up and that his little head was trying to come out almost at the widest part. I told her our last kid had a 14-15 inch head and she told me no way. I have never had such a difficult delivery and even with the epidural, it was so extremely painful. Well, after 45 min. of pushing, a lot of moving around and scrambling by the nursing staff, the NICU team and a very focused and intense midwife our little guy was finally born.

The picture of him below is pretty cute and he looks pretty good. Let me tell you that if there is meconium in the fluid then they have procedures, they have changed a few times with all of our children, but this time we were informed that they would do nothing with him and move him right to my chest if he took a breath right after he was born... he didn't. The NICU team took him and immediately began working on him, within a few min. my blueish little guy was looking pretty good. 

Once the NICU team had helped him out, suctioned him out, cleaned him up, and made sure that he was doing okay they passed him over to me for some skin-to-skin time, it was glorious. After a long time where all I needed to worry about was snuggling this guy we handed him back over and he got his first bath and got completely clean and snugly. Grandma had some time to hold him before she had to leave. 

After Grandma left and we had some alone time Bean and Peanut came in to meet their new brother with my sweet friend Sherri who spent the day hanging out with them while her girls hung out with Bug. 

I was exhausted and had a separated pelvis, but it was totally worth it!

Welcome Basilio! 

We love you!

Last day as a family of 5!

This is a picture of my little Bug. I know that when we come home from the hospital in a few days that he will look HUGE compared to the tiny baby. I know that we will leave our baby and come home and he will look bigger. I know this and I know there is nothing I can do to stop this from happening. We will leave in the morning and his life will change forever.

What a bitter-sweet moment for a mommy, wishing I could freeze time.

By this time tomorrow we will be a family of 6!

Ready to POP!

We are totally ready to welcome our new little guy into our family. A friend requested a preggo picture of me, so this is for you HP. I am HUGE! I think it is safe to say that we are really ready to welcome this little guy into our lives. There is a part of me that is also a little sad to know that this is it. I am trying to enjoy every last moment of being pregnant knowing that this is our last one. I am thankful I have been a part of this miracle four times and a little sad that this part of my life is coming to a close. We have an induction scheduled for Sunday, just a few days to go!

Knitting for Baby!

I have been knitting like crazy. Jim and Robin are awesome and gave us the yarn for the baby blanket I wante to make. It was a perfect gift, I got my favorite yarn and I got to make my favorite blaket for my little guy. I fniahed the blanket over the weekend and decided I wanted a sweater to bring baby home from the hospital in. I found some yarn that I loved (also a gift from Jim and Robin) and cast on for a wee sweater, I started it yesterday and finished it in the wee hours of the morning.

Now that his sweater and blanket are finished our little guy is welcome to make his arrival at anytime.

Water Main Break = Awesome!

Today our day was pretty low key, we were just hanging around at home enjoying one of the few times it has snowed this year. Kev looked out the window and noticed that our street was FULL of water. We made a call to the city and reported the water main break and they said someone would be out as soon as they could get there. Several hours later a crew showed up. My children were THRILLED to watch the BIG trucks and the men digging a huge hole in my neighbor's yard. I was secretly just thankful it was not my yard (awful I know).

Hours of entertainment and only an hour without water for our little family. Not a bad day-for us. The poor men on the crew told us were were the 4th water main break they had repaired today and I believe they said they had one more to go to after our road. It was cold, dark and miserable and I felt awful for them all. I am glad it was fixed fairly promtly and our road should be an awesome sheet of ice by morning.

These are the Moments I love!

Bug fell asleep today with his Harry Potter glasses on and when I moved him from my arms to his bed and the glasses shifted he was VERY upset. I readjusted the glasses and he went right back to sleep. I will never understand this kid, but I sure have a lot of joy in my life because of him.

Hilarious!

Baby Shower for Gavin

We hosted a Baby Shower for our friends today. Our friends are having their first child (due two weeks after us) and Kev and I were excited to be able to host a shower for them.

I am not a big fan of the traditional baby shower games, many of which seem bent on embarrassing as possible for the mother-to-be. We decided to have a couples' shower so that we could include the father-to-be in all of the fun. Why should the guys miss out right?

I went to the wonderful internet and was able to find a game called Break My Water or something like that, but basically you feeze these plastic tiny babies in ice cubes and the first person's to break free wins. I also made scratch off tickets for Kev for Father's Day last year from Peanut and I thought it would be fun to have scratch-off tickets for each guest and all of them will have one baby name, but only one of the tickets had the Gavin's name on them, so the person with that ticket won. For prizes we had the parents' favorite cream soda/root beet and a handknit exfoliating soap cover-thing. They were pretty cute. I was pleased with how everything turned out, the shower seemed to be a success with lots of yummy food and good company.

Bug totally dug the cupcakes and even learned a new word "cupcake." I am so thankful that this boy makes me laugh all of the time. =)

Cute Prizes!

The games. Wahoo.

Now we just need to get through the next few weeks and we should be wecoming our new boy into our family. =)

A Wonderful Surprise

Today there was a knock at the door and to my surprise my friend Jenny's good friend Tracy was standing at our door with a box of Sweetwater doughnuts! What a wonderful surprise. Tracy is someone that I really think is amazing and though I have only met her a few times she is kind, loving, and just plain wonderful. It was a joy to see her for a moment and to let her meet our new little guy. If Jen could not be here, she was the next best thing. 

We snagged a picture of our sweet boy's general cuteness. 

Bug was totally digging the doughnuts. 

There is not a lot going on over here at our house, but we are totally loving life. Can you tell?

Saying Good-Bye and a Funny Boy

Today was a sad day. We are always bummed out when we have family in town and then they leave. Jon and Rina were in town with the AWESOME J. When they left it was totally a bummer and of course as we were eating breakfast I realize I totally did not take any pictures. Bummer. I got this one of J, totally love this kid he is hilarious!

We got the house put back together, took a nap or something and then while Bean was off with friends we picked up some Burger King. Bug totally thought it was great! We have hilarious pictures to show for it. I totally love this kid!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Bean made her own New Year's glasses this year. Bean was lucky because she got to go downtown with our friends Joe and Becca and go to the New Year's Festival. We were lucky to be able to celebrate with friends, play games and eat good food.We were also lucky to have Jon and Rina here to hang out and play. I am hoping that 2012 will be an amazing year and that it will be much better than 2011 because that year was rough.

Hope your 2012 is Awesome!