Hooray!

We have made it one whole month with a new-born!

One month later

 

The nine months that it took for my little bundle of joy to enter this world were the longest/shortest of my life. Some months would just crawl by, but the last two went by way too fast.
My little Lex was born on the 23rd of January at way too early in the morning. We thought that he would have been here on the 22nd since I went into {real} labor at about 2 in the morning that day. No such luck. I actually went into labor Monday afternoon, but the contractions were in my back and every 20 minutes lasting forEVER. Yeah, I mean I would have back pain for about 6 minutes until it subsided. That was no fun! Anyways, we called the hospital around 11 that night because the back pain was really bad and the pain was every 3-4 minutes lasting about 2 minutes each time. The nurse told me to take a bath and see if the pain stopped and to call back in an hour. Sooooo I did. And the pain stopped. It was relief and frustration all at the same time. I was glad the pain stopped, and glad that I wasn’t in labor because I was starting to get a little freaked out. It was frustration because I just wanted this baby to get out of my body. We went to bed, but my back pain started. I forced myself to go to sleep because I knew the baby was going to come soon and I needed all the rest I could get. At around 2 in the morning I woke up to a text from my sister {really, who texts that early in the morning?!} asking how I was doing. Then I felt it. Not only was I having INTENSE back pain, but now the pain was in the front. And holy cow did it hurt. I got out of bed and walked around a little… went to the bathroom… and came back to bed. I woke up Josh saying “hey. the baby is coming today. get as much sleep as you can.” Josh just grunted and then fell back asleep. But the sleep was short lived because at 3 I woke him up because the pain was so bad. We called the hospital again around 4 after tracking the contractions and they told me to take a bath. Well the bath subsided the contractions for about 10 minutes and then they came back in full force. We called back and I pretty much insisted that we were going there to get checked out. The nurse wasn’t happy about it, but whatever. She wasn’t the one in labor.
We got to the hospital around 5 and they checked me out… I was only at a 3. Ugh. So they had me walk around the maternity ward for an hour. My contractions were still every 3 minutes and they hurt … so many bad words were said that day. After the hour they checked me again and I was still at a 3 so they sent me home. They gave me some drugs to help me sleep a little bit when I got home, and that was amazing. We got home. The nurse said that the drugs might make my contractions go away, or they might get more intense. I slept for about 3 hours and then woke up to REALLY INTENSE CONTRACTIONS! That was at around 10:30 in the morning. We tracked the contractions and it got to the point that I couldn’t walk or talk through them and I was in the worst pain I had ever felt in my life. Josh had to call the hospital for me and they told me to come in right now! As Josh was getting everything in the car I decided that I needed to pee. As I was walking up the stairs I called out to Josh that I peed my pants a little bit. But it turns out that I didn’t… I went pee but more than pee came out. My water broke. It was the weirdest feeling to have water come out of my body that wasn’t pee, and I knew it wasn’t pee. The time was close at hand that the baby was coming.
The second hospital trip was way better. I was at a 4.5 and the nurse checked to see if my water had really broken or if I just had a lot of pee. It really did break. My contractions were still extremely intense, but breathing through them helped. Not a lot, but I was able to take my mind off of the pain. I would think about other things as I was breathing and that REALLY helped. Josh holding my hand helped too because I was able to squeeze his hand a lot… poor guy I almost broke his fingers off haha. I was “admitted” to the hospital at around 1 in the afternoon.
When I was moved to the birthing room I immediately asked for some kind of relief from the pain because it hurt so bad. I was given some narcotic that I can’t remember the name of, and it was the best feeling ever. I felt so much relief and I fell asleep almost immediately. My doctor and I had decided that my epidural was going to be given when I was dilated to a 5. When I got the epidural I was at a 6 and that was at 3 or 4 in the afternoon. My doctor came to see me after he was off work and finished with a meeting … and so I didn’t see him until around 8 at night. I was checked again and that time I was at an 8. They were surprised at how fast I was progressing for being a first time mom, but I was glad. I wanted it to be done because I was so exhausted. Luckily it was a Tuesday that I was in the hospital so I was able to watch some of my favorite shows like New Girl and Parenthood. I was checked again when Parenthood was finished at around 11, and I was at a 9.5. Turns out that the baby was posterior and that was why my contractions were hurting so bad so the nurses did some tricks to get him to turn around and move down a little bit more and they worked almost immediately. 11:30 rolled around and I was fully dilated so they called my doctor and then told me to start pushing. I looked at the nurse and blurted out “I am not ready to push!” but she insisted that I do it… so I did.

I pushed. And pushed. And pushed. For 7 minutes less than 3 hours. It was the most exhausting thing I had ever done. Ever. Only later did I realize that most women don’t push for that long… but my poor little guy got stuck “comin’ around the corner” as my doctor put it. :o) The vacuum was used to get him out. One of the nurses made a big stink about it saying that it shouldn’t be used until a certain point, but my doctor put her in her place and I am thankful that he did… I really did not want to have a C-section if I could avoid it… not after going through all of that stress of trying to push a baby out only to have my body sliced open. I would have consented if it was necessary of course, but I wanted to avoid it at all costs. Anyways… the Doctor made sure I was okay with him using the vacuum, I looked over at Josh and then looked at my Doctor and Josh and I pretty much said at the same time “as long as it gets him out it’s okay.”

He finally arrived, and it was so exhilarating. Because I had the epidural I couldn’t feel the pain, but oh my word could I feel the pressure of him coming out. It was relieving, and beautiful. I can remember thinking that it was the most beautiful feeling in the world… to feel this little person being born into the world. A little guy who grew inside of me. He was here, he was coming. It gave me the strength to keep pushing. He came out and only cried for a few seconds. They put him on me and I cried. Josh {sort of} cried. Lex calmed down. He was so beautiful, large cone-shaped head and all. They took him away to clean him up, and he cried again. He actually tried to army crawl out of the bassinet they put him in to clean him. That was a weird thing to witness.
I felt so relaxed after Lex was born. And so incredibly happy. After he was cleaned and weighed and measured he was placed back in my arms, and he really hasn’t left since. :)

7 weeks left

And it’s a little scary to think about! I am meeting with my doctor every two weeks now, and soon it will be every week! I can’t believe this is happening already. I don’t feel like I am ready for this, but I am sure that I am. Maybe. At least my Father in Heaven thinks that I am ready. I hope he’s right.

Things have been going well… and Josh and I are enjoying these last few weeks together as just the two of us. Josh couldn’t be more excited to be a dad, he has wanted this for so long. And I know that he is going to be a great dad, too. And thinking about him holding our son makes me weepy… and excited. I just can’t tell you how excited he is. He loves to touch my stomach and feel the baby moves {which happens a lot now-a-days}, and talk about how awesome our son is going to be and how cute he will be. I just hope that he looks like his father when he father was a baby. Talk about a cutie pie. And probably one of the chubbiest babies ever.

Our little one likes it when I play loud music. At least, I think he likes it because he always kicks to the beat {no joke. I am absolutely serious here… is that normal?} and he moves like crazy. Some songs he doesn’t like, but that’s alright. He really likes Ed Sheeran and Muse, so that’s good. He also likes M83. And so do I!!! This little one has good taste in music. At least what I think is good music haha

Pretty much nothing exciting has happened in the last month. Oh well. I am going to try to be better about blogging, though, now that the time is coming closer.

This is the song that little Lex likes the most {and his momma does, too}

The past couple of weeks

We haven’t done much, I tell ya.

my dad had surgery on his foot. I had my gestational diabetes test.
Surgery went well. And he gets his hard cast on Thursday. Thank goodness, then it might be just a little bit easier for him to get around. The doctors told him to STAY OFF HIS FOOT… but my dad is a 64 year old man who is impatient and stubborn. So sometimes he walks around on it just to test it out… see how badly it hurts. It’s a little frustrating, but I can’t do anything about it. He’s my dad.

The test really wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I got the lemon lime drink and it was ice cold. It was like a sprite without the carbonation. I kind of felt a little bit gross after I drank it, but it passed. Then I had to sit for an hour and wait until they called me back to draw my blood. Yay! More blood!

OH I also found out that my cat peed on a lot of my clothes. That snuggly little thing. I just about killed him. Now I have to re-wash all of my clothes. WHY he did that, I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever know. It’s unfortunate that humans and animals can’t communicate with each other.

AND that is my life. There is a baby shower for me on Saturday … so hopefully I will have so many pictures from that. Yay!

Oh, Monday

It’s been a crazy week.

My dad broke his leg/foot on Thursday so Josh and I have been taking care of him for the past few days. He is completely immobile, which is unfortunate for him, but it’s okay for me because I get to spend a lot of quality time with my dad right now.
He has to have surgery {blah} in order to fix it completely, soooooooo that’s what we get to do. It’s been a fun few days.

Other than that this last week was really great. Josh and I have been able to spend a lot of time together {thank you, dad} and the baby has been kicking and moving a lot! {again, thank you dad, and paramedics… Even inside the womb Lex thinks you are all amazing}

Unfortunately, that is my life right now … there is nothing else happening. The End.

Seattle

We went to the King Tut exhibit for Josh’s birthday a couple of weeks ago, and had a blast. Unfortunately, I didn’t take very many pictures of what we did after we toured the exhibit, but I do have a few.

Happy Monday!

Things have been so great lately. Josh and I just moved {yay!}, we are getting Alexander’s nursery set up, we went to the King Tut exhibit, and … um … probably other stuff but I can’t remember it. Story of my life.

I don’t have any pictures of my new place because it’s not quite ready yet. It’s getting there, though! The kitchen is teeeeeeeeny tiny, but I really love it. Green counters and all. It’s nice to be on our own again. It’s just so quiet, and when Josh is at work there is nobody to talk to. And time goes by a lot slower … It’s tempting to just drive over to Josh’s parents house just to hang out so I wont drive myself crazy with the silence.

The King Tut exhibit was AMAZING! It was so fun. I have lots of pictures. Here, look at them.

{why yes, that is an ancient toilet seat. Neat, eh?!}

I had no idea that King Tut’s whole name was Tutenkhamun {pronounced “Toot-en-common”}. So I then asked my husband, “why do we call him King Tut? Shouldn’t his name be King Toot?!” Josh thought it was funny, but I am serious. So that’s what I call him now.

That’s pretty much my life recently. Life is so great right now, it’s a little bit ridiculous.