Parker's Birth Story

Wow, it's amazing to think about how much my life has changed since I last blogged. That's because I was finally able to cross an item off of my bucket list; I had a baby! Here's how it all started:

Around midnight on Sunday, April 11th I was once again hit with another round of insomnia. So, I got up and got online to see if my sister was on messenger (which she was!) I chatted with her for a bit until I felt I was tired enough to go to sleep. Unfortunately, once I hit the sheets, I was wide awake again. I had taken some cute maternity pictures a few days before so I decided to get up and try to post my favorites on my blog. Blogger had other plans though, and I eventually gave up. I posted them on facebook, instead! By then it was almost time for Greg to wake up, so I went ahead and went down to the kitchen to make his lunch and breakfast (yes, I am that kind of wifey!) Once I was finished I felt that I was finally tired enough to get some shut eye. However, once I hit the sheets, I felt it. A sharp pain in my stomach. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was 5:55 A.M. About ten minutes later I felt it again. When Greg came in the bedroom to tell me good-bye I told him I thought I was having contractions but that he should go to work since I wasn't sure. They didn't exactly feel like what I expected them to feel like. They hurt, but they weren't unbearable. And I also was told that your whole stomach gets hard, which wasn't the case for me. It felt more like a menstrual cramp. As the morning progressed, I continued to get the pains. I began keeping track, but my times were all over the place. Sometimes I would have contractions for 6 minutes then they would spread out to 10 minutes apart.

The funny thing about the whole situation was that the day before we moved our fifth wheel to a piece of property on the side of a busy highway so it could get better exposure since we are trying to sell it. Go figure my cell phone is the number we used on the signs. All morning long I kept getting phone calls. The last thing I wanted to do while I was in labor was talk to people about our camper!

Around 11:00 A.M. I called Greg and told him he needed to come home so we could go to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 12:30 P.M. and they hooked me up to a machine to make sure I was having contractions. Sure enough I was. But I was only dilated to a 3. So they told me to start walking. I'm curious how many miles I put in walking around the hospital that day. The funny thing about it was that one of the girls that was in my birthing classes came in having contractions as well. So we walked the halls together. I'm sure we were a sight to be seen. Her carrying around a barf bag, and myself stopping during each contraction to sway and do the typical "hee, hee, whoooo" breathing technique.

As the day progressed I didn't seem to dilate any more, but I was still having contractions and my blood pressure was rising. So the nurses decided to go ahead and admit me rather than sending me home. As the night dragged on, I did begin to dilate, and I also began feeling quite a bit of pain. At 4 centimeters I opted for IV drugs. By the time I was at a 6 (I think) it was time for the epidural. I was scared to death! I've heard so many horror stories about epidurals that I was shaking like a leaf once the anesthesiologist arrived. Luckily, it was totally painless! Afterwards I'm pretty sure I dosed off because the next thing I knew a nurse informed me I was 7 centimeters. Then what seemed like 2 minutes later I was told I was at a 10.

However, my water still hadn't broke. Which lead the midwife to ask me if it would be okay for her to break it for me. This was another situation that I was scared to death of. So before I could even give her an answer, my impatient husband said, "yes!" And once again I was surprised by how quick and painless the procedure went.

From there it was time to push. I knew from doing a tour of the hospital prior to going into labor that the hospital had a mirror if a mother wanted to watch her delivery. Believe it or not, I requested the mirror! I really wanted to watch Parker being born. Once the mirror was in position, I began pushing. Let me tell ya, it wasn't easy. I had Greg holding one leg and a nurse holding another. Then there were so many do's and don'ts. Don't make grunting sounds because it uses up my energy. Do pull on my knees to help make the push stronger. Don't tense my face up because "What to expect when you're expecting" says you'll get bruises. Do push just using the lower part of my body. And on and on. The only thing encouraging me was seeing Parkers head peeking out. Unfortunately, when it came down to actually delivering him, I had my eyes closed, so I still missed out on his actual birth. I pushed for 1 hour and 5 minutes putting my labor at a total of 21 hours.

It is true when you hear people say that once a baby is born the pain is automatically forgotten. At least that was the case for me. I've always been the type of person who is grossed out by blood or anything gross. So I was a little apprehensive about my blood, and who knows what else, covered baby being laid on my stomach as soon as he was born. However, that flew right out the window. In fact, I didn't think he was bloody and gross at all (the nurses were doing a great job of wiping him down!). Throughout my pregnancy, my sister kept harping on me to smell him as soon as he was born. She was never able to do so with her two kids since she had a C-section with both. She had heard that a newborn baby smells exactly like baby lotion. I kept telling her I didn't think I would want to smell him since I don't even like the smell of baby lotion (and he would be bloody). But, that flew out the window as well, and as I took a long deep whiff of him I was pleasantly surprised to discover that he did smell like baby lotion and that perhaps I had been wrong about the not liking that particular smell all along.

With that being said, we welcomed Parker John (we'll sometimes call him P.J. for short) into this great world at 2:50 A.M. on April 13th, 2010. He weighed 7 lbs. 4 1/2 oz. and was 18 1/2" long. He has tons of hair (thanks to both parents), adorable dimples and long eyelashes (thanks to Daddy) and a cute little button nose (thanks to Mommy).

Life has been pretty different for the past two weeks. First of all, we were in the hospital from Monday until Thursday. Mainly because Parker wouldn't eat very well, and also because of some of my blood work. I still don't understand what was going on with me, but I'm fine now. Parker on the other hand, would like to scream and cry all night, and when I tried to nurse him, he would fall asleep. When we finally left the hospital his weight was down to 6 lbs. 11 oz. It is normal for a baby to loose weight after being born, but they felt this was a little much. The day after I got home I had a lactation consultant stop by the house. She weighed him as well and he was down to 6 lbs. 6 oz. This caused her enough concern that she told me I needed to be nursing him every hour and a half.

My next week was basically spent nursing. As soon as he was finished I would have maybe an hour before I had to feed him again. Luckily we had family that came to visit and they helped me out by keeping the house clean. The following Monday I took him to the doctor and he had gained a little bit of weight back, putting him at 6 lbs. 10 oz. However, they were still concerned and wanted me to come back for a weight check the following week. As the week progressed, Parker did begin to nurse much better. In fact, almost too well. He would literally take an hour to nurse. I knew this had taken a toll on me when several nights in a row I would turn the alarm that I set for myself to wake him up to feed him (he doesn't wake up on his own) off in my sleep. I know my body needed the rest, but it still made me feel guilty. A few days ago I decided to stretch out his feedings to 2 hours. However, I learned that I was timing my feedings wrong. Before I would wait an hour and a half after a feeding. I learned I was supposed to start my count from when I started feeding. So basically even though I'm doing 2 hours, it still adds up to about the same times.

At his weight check this past Monday he was up some more, at that point up to 6 lbs. 14 oz. However, I told the doctor that he was spitting up all the time and that it was always chunky. I told him the feeding schedule he was on and how long he nursed and the doctor said he thought I was over doing it. He wanted me to visit with the lactation consultant the following day. That night I nursed Parker on one side at a time. I had tried doing that a few days before and he threw a hissy fit. But, for some reason, that night it stuck. I've continued doing that since Monday night and he is spitting up less often. I was able to have him weighed again today and am proud to say that he is now up to 7 lbs. 1 oz. He will be weighed again on Friday and hopefully by then he will at least be up to his birth weight.

So there you have it! Life with a baby boy is exhausting and a little stressful, but I wouldn't trade it for anything else!

Sesame Chicken, How I Love You So!

For the five of you who regularly read my blog, I figured ya'll might get a kick out of Part Two of my sesame chicken cravings. As you know from the post below, I was left defeated when it came down to crunch time and was unable to satisfy my gnawing hunger pains for the yummy Chinese entree. Well, let me tell ya, things didn't get much better. On April 1st I remembered that the restaurant was finally open for business again! I begged Greg for us to go and he begrudgingly agreed (he likes the other Chinese restaurant much better, but like I said, their sesame chicken is spicy. Gross.) Now, as you know, my husband works as a wind turbine technician. That means the wind blows pretty good here in the little ole' town of Lamar. That day was no exception with wind gusts of up to 80 MPH (yes, this information is relevant to my story. I promise.)

We pulled up to the restaurant and there were surprisingly a lot of cars there for dinner time. We went inside and the one waitress that was working seated us. And then we sat there. For a good ten minutes. She didn't even bother to come take our drink order. Mind you I was trying to be as patient as a starving pregnant lady can be...which wasn't easy. As we were sitting there, the restaurants phone kept ringing. We heard someone yell from the kitchen why the waitress wasn't answering the phone and she yelled back that the wind was messing up the phone lines and if she answered then she would just get a busy signal.

At this point Greg and I were giving our waitress the death stare in hopes that she would remember we were sitting there and would come wait on us as well. This meant I didn't miss a beat when she told the table she was visiting with that the phone problems were probably affecting their credit card machine as well. Go figure. All Greg and I ever carry on us are our debit cards. We were screwed. Not only did our waitress seriously not know how to do her job, we couldn't pay for our meal even if she did. So we got up and walked out. Oh I was so close!

The following Saturday my friend Nelle was in town for the weekend. I called her to see if she wanted to go eat Chinese lunch buffet and she agreed! Yay! As we approached the restaurant I could literally taste the sesame chicken in my mouth! And there was no wind that day so I knew nothing could go wrong! We walked into the first door, only to be greeted with a sign on the second door that said the credit card machine was down. I was back to square one and all Nelle had on her was a credit card. She asked what I wanted to do and I immediately replied, "go to the ATM!" Nothing was going to stop me today! So we loaded back up and drove to my bank. The funny thing about this town is despite the fact that it's so small, my bank happens to have two branches. Luckily one of those branches was just a few blocks away from the Chinese joint. Unlucky for me was discovering they don't have a ATM machine. Are you serious??? What bank does not have an ATM machine? Off to another bank we went. By the time we got back to the restaurant fifteen minutes had passed and if I wasn't 9 months pregnant with huge swollen feet I probably would have literally leaped out of the vehicle and ran to the door.

As we walked in I noticed the sign on the door that said that the credit card machine was not working was removed. I pointed it out to Nelle and the hostess/waitress over heard me and said, "Oh yeah, I saw you guys leave and figured that was why. I forgot to take it down yesterday." I had a quick mental image of me screaming in rage and tackling her to the ground screaming, "why didn't you stop us???!!!" But instead I smiled and said, "No problem", and headed straight to the buffet where I loaded my plate up with a big scoop of sesame chicken.

The piece de resistance

Out of all of the rooms we've remodeled in our house, this is definitely the one that I'm the most proud of! The only thing if needs is a cute little bundle of joy!Without further ado, I present The Nursery:


The closet is filled with clothes! The ones hanging are all 0-6 month! Courtesy of my sister and gifts from loved ones!



I put stuffed animals from both mine and Greg's childhood in the crib for our little boy to snuggle up with!




There is the rocking chair that my mom and I refurbished! (Greg did his part, too!)



Another DIY project that I forgot to take a before picture of. This platter was actually a yellowish color and said "Believe". Greg spray painted it for me and then I free-handed Parker's name on it with the same paint we used on the walls.


It took a lot to bring these curtains up to par. For one, they were way too long, so I had to re-hem them. Then the valance was too long as well so that had to be taken care of also. The finishing touch: silver star Christmas tree ornaments sewen onto the valance! Sometimes I amaze even myself!

A Visit From my Parents

Once again I've been a bad blogger. And it's a good thing I already wrote teasers of upcoming blogs, or I would so not be writing. Believe me when I say pregnancy has given me a serious case of lack of motivation to do....anything. Blah.

My parents arrived right around dinner time on a Thursday evening. And of course, I was in the middle of a cooking catastrophe. I had planned to make meatloaf (one of my favorite meals) that day and when hubby called and asked what we were having, after I told him, he made the comment that he sure wished he could help me with the menu planning because he can always count that at least one night a week we have meatloaf and another night we have grilled pork chops. Now, one reason why I hate Monday's is because that's the day I go to the grocery store. It also happens to be the day it literally takes me two hours to come up with a menu for the week. And I'll admit, yes, I'm guilty of making the same things repetitively. I can't help it! However, I don't beat myself up because I know if it were up to Greg we would have tortilla soup and chicken burritos at least once a week! But, I digress. Back to the meatloaf. Since he made that comment I decided to make the meatloaf like one of his grandma's makes. It happens to be the recipe on the back of the Lipton onion soup mix. I thought I had all of the ingredients. Until I started to make it. One ingredient was ketchup. I had ketchup...just not enough ketchup. So this is how my parents arrival went:

Note: a prior phone call from my mom, who was lost in my neighborhood (seriously who would name all the streets in a neighborhood the same name?) resulted in me telling her to just "come on in because I'll have raw meat all over my hands" when she got to my house.

Mom: "Hello, we're here!"

Me: *frantically* "OK, I'm having a little catastrophe! I don't have enough ketchup! *banging of ketchup bottle on the counter top*

Mom: "Uh-oh"

Me: "I gotta go to the store! Make yourselves at home!" *dashing out the door*

Yup, that is what life is like in my house. Sounds exciting, huh? Needless to say, I finally got the ketchup and dinner went off without a hitch. Oh, except Greg decided that he liked the old way I make meatloaf better because it's less greasy! (I am proud to say that I haven't cooked meatloaf since then! I'm working on it!)

The next day, Friday, Greg and I had a lot of errands that were pertinent to be taken care of. Unfortunately they took up most of the morning and my parents had opted to stay at home. That afternoon we just hung out around the house. I did ask my mom to help me with a project though because *surprise* I just wasn't motivated to do it. I know I could have, but the idea of having my mom help me just sounded much more appealing. That project was to make new pillows and pillow coverings for a rocking chair that Greg and I were refurbishing. The rocking chair has kind of a funny story. I'm probably about to get in trouble by Greg's side of the family for telling it, too! But, years ago Greg's dad gave us the rocking chair that his mom used to rock him in when he was a baby. Greg told his dad that he didn't want it, but his dad wouldn't hear anything of it. We both thought it was ugly (sorry) and therefore we always kept it in the garage of every house we ever lived in. Let's just say that by the time it arrived in Colorado it had definitely seen better days. The fabric was covered in dust and I was a little scared to sit in it because the bottom was made with lawn chair strips. But, Greg and I decided to give it a little TLC. We ripped all the fabric and cushions off and chucked them. Then, I wood filled all the holes and marks that were in the wood. Next, Greg sanded it and painted it white. He also re-stapled the lawn chair strips to make them sturdier. After that it was up to me to make pillows. That was easier said than done because the rocking chair is kind of an odd size. I did find one pillow that worked for the back and ended up just demolishing an actual bed pillow to make the seat cushion. The hardest part was finding upholstery fabric in this little town. In the end, I got creative (which is a stretch for me) and bought a fabric shower curtain and just used that!

By the time my Mom was at my house I had partially finished one pillow. All I needed to do was stitch the fabric closed. Luckily, my mom saw what I was about to do and told me how to do it so it would look more "professional". I knew there was a reason I was procrastinating! I let her take over the actual sewing and went about tearing up my bed pillow. We worked on them for a little while longer and then decided to finish them up the next day. My parents are pretty cute in the sense that despite the fact that they are in their 70's and late 60's, they go on a date every Friday night. Usually dinner and a movie. So Greg and I thought they might enjoy going to the one screen movie theatre here in town. I was a little worried they would have already seen the movie playing, because movies don't usually show up here until they've been out for a month or two. Luckily, it was a kid's movie, "The Tooth Fairy" so they hadn't seen it. It was actually pretty cute! After that it was time to go home and hit the sack!

Saturday morning was again a lazy day at the house. Luckily, it also gave my mom and I chance to finish the pillows. I was beyond happy! It felt so good to have another piece of furniture in place in the nursery before my baby shower the next day!





That afternoon I drove my parents around to do some sight seeing. We went to the wind farm south of town (Greg opted to stay home...that's the last thing he wants to see on his day off!). Not because my parents hadn't seen one before, but because at this wind farm the property owners put wooden windmills next to the big wind turbines. It's kind of funny! I always think, "past meets present" when I see it.


From there I took them to Two Buttes. From the highway it looks completely flat (like all of SE Colorado) but once you get in there it drops down to a canyon and there's a water hole there. It was a little chilly out so we didn't last there for very long. I forgot my camera, so here's a pic I took at "the hole" the first summer we came to town. If you look real close, you'll notice that's actually a person jumping off of the cliff into the water. Legend has it that divers have gone down and cannot find the bottom of this water hole. That's what all the locals say anyway!



The rest of our day was spent at home hanging out. If you read my blog about my baby shower, you already know that on Sunday we took them out to lunch then came home for the festivities. The baby shower was a lot of fun and I was happy that my mom was there to celebrate it with me.


They left early Monday morning. If things work out well, they will be making the trip back up here in just 5 weeks to meet my sweet baby boy!!

P.S. In case you're wondering why I didn't post any pics of the completed rocking chair...that's because I forgot to take one of it by itself. And a before picture would have been nice, too, huh? Oh well! I finished decorating the nursery this weekend so stay tuned for pics and you'll see the rocking chair there!

My Colorado Baby Shower!

This past Sunday was my Colorado Baby Shower. I think most people may only have one baby shower, and I was fortunate enough to be blessed with TWO. Not only that, but they were both FANTASTIC! It was actually held at my house, which I thought would be a neat way to show off my almost-finished nursery. Also, some folks that I invited had never even seen our house, so it was fun being able to give people a tour of where Greg and I call "home". However, since it was at my house, my friends who were hostessing kicked us out so they could decorate! My parents made the journey from Oklahoma to be with us in Colorado so my mom could attend the shower, so Greg and I took them to a restaurant in Holly (a town about 30 minutes away) to eat lunch. Unfortunately, we couldn't find much to do afterwards to kill time, so we ended up coming home early and I just closed my eyes and Greg led me upstairs to our bedroom where I just relaxed until the festivities began!

When I was finally allowed to come downstairs, I couldn't believe how cute they had decorated the dining room and kitchen! Every detail was perfect! One of the hostesses, my friend Cathy, is a follower of my blog (thank you!) and she had noticed that whenever I wrote a post relating to my pregnancy I always label it "pea in the pod". So that was how they came up with the theme! And, for those of you who don't know, I'm doing a star theme in the nursery. The girls had actually found star shaped glassware to place on the tables. Too cute!



Here's a pic of me with my lovely friends/hostesses: Brittney, Me, Christina, and Cathy.


The yummy snacks! And see that punch? I had asked Christina if she would mind making my grandmothers Ruby Lemondae Punch way back before I knew my Mom was going to be at the shower. I figured it would be a good way for my family to be there in spirit! An added bonus: it was the same punch Greg and I served at our wedding. Awww!


There were even party favors for all the guests!!! Cute little baby socks filled with candy and a lib balm with the date of my shower on the lid! So creative and so cute! However, I have so many lip balms left over I can already picture me applying some to my lips during Parker's High School graduation ceremony! ;) (Not that I'm complaining!)



After all of the guests arrived (unfortnately, many people weren't able to come, but we still had fun with the ones who were able to attend!) we began to play some games! The first game: The Dirty Diaper Game! I had never played this before and it was so funny! Basically, the girls squished different candy bars into diapers and you had to open the diaper up and guess what candy bar was used.



The Winners! Karen, Nelle, and Bri...hey, three heads are better than one when it comes to games like this!


Afterwards, we played a series of games that were printed on a fold out. The front of it had a little poem and was personalized just for my shower. It was too cute! It had games in it like: Which child belongs to the Celebrity parent, What is Mommy Wearing, Pregnancy Facts or Myths, etc.



The Winners!



After all the games it was present time! After everything I received from my Oklahoma Baby Shower and from the goodies my sister gave me, there was really only one thing I wanted. So, everyone either gave me this:

or this:

so we could buy this:


Needless to say, we're pretty stoked that we will now be able to capture Parker's birth, along with all those other milestones he'll cross during his first year and the years to follow!

After presents it was time to cut the cake and eat! Isn't this cake adorable?? We were scared to cut it!!



After snacks I was presented with the big surprise that my hostesses had in store for me. Once again, Cathy was inspired by my blog. In my Goals for 2010 post I mentioned how I screwed up my wedding book by not having newspaper clippings from that day. Apparently that gave Cathy the bright idea to create a time capsule for Parker! My hostesses brain stormed a list of suggested items for all of the guests to bring to put into Parker's time capsule. After my shower my mom gave me her invitation so I could see the instructions that my hostesses had put inside all of the guests invitations. I was blown away by the amount of creative and brilliant ideas they had for what to put in the time capsule! Some of the itmes included: newspaper articles, cell phone ads, vehicle ads, a burned CD of popular music, stickers depicting this years famous cartoon characters, pictures of Parker's hometown, etc. Granted, everything that was suggested was not put in there, but I plan on adding items to it myself. I am so excited that they came up with something so thoughtful and fun for Parker to check out on his 18th birthday. What can I say? My friends are AMAZING!



After everyone ate their snacks the guests began to leave. And it wasn't until only the hostesses and my Mom were left when I realized I forgot to do something that was extremely important to me. Just like at my Oklahoma shower, I forgot to take a group picture! Ugh! I was so disappointed. Luckily, I was able to drag my hubby into the kitchen for a quick photo opp instead. Sadly, this is what my husband does 99% of the time we take a picture. Apparently I have really yummy ear wax!

Watch Me Grow Part II

At 26 weeks! Can you tell I'm a little tired?


My 27 week belly is getting a sweet kiss from my niece Zoe!


28 Weeks! The beginning of my third trimester!


29 Weeks with my fellow preggo friend Leslie! She is scheduled for a C-Section the day before my due date and is also having a boy! It's funny to see how different we are carrying our boys!


Do horizontal stripes make me look fat? Or just 30 weeks pregnant?

Procrastinators Unite!

I never used to be a procrastinator. I promise. In fact a lot of times in college my mantra was "Why put off until tomorrow what can be done today". Wasn't it Ben Franklin that said that? Anyway, those days have apparently left the building and bolted the door shut. You may recall when I posted my Goals for 2010 that one of my goals was to finish Parker's Baby Book. I am very proud to say that I have started writing in it! Yay! One page has a family tree and I distinctly remembered having a similar page in my wedding book. I figured the easiest thing to do was to get the wedding book out and copy the names. I know it's horrible that I don't automatically know the names of all the Great Grandparents. Sue me.

I proceeded to get the wedding book out. Being a day dreamer though, I can't just take something like that out and flip to the page I need and shut the book. Nope! I sat down, and opened it to page one and began to read the entire book. Do you know what I discovered? I NEVER FINISHED MY WEDDING BOOK! UGH! There were so many pictures that needed to be taped in and parts that needed to be filed in. Including, you guessed it, the family tree! So much for my wedding book being helpful!!! The thing that really gets me is I never wrote in gifts and who gave them to me. I think I have one list from one of my four showers. But other than that I hardly remember what most people gave me. Great. Granted, I've learned from my lesson and I am going to start writing the list of who gave what present to Parker in his baby book today. Or....tomorrow.

Parker's First Package!

Two big packages arrived in the mail from one of Parker's great aunt's a few weeks ago! I was so excited to dig in and see all the goodies he received. By the time I was finished going through everything, I felt as though our house had been visited by Santa Claus! I mean, look at everything! Afterwards I sat in a chair and just stared at all the cute baby items for about twenty minutes because I was so overwhelmed. Blankets, bibs, pacifiers, jumpers, shoes, you name it: He got it! I have a feeling he is going to be one spoiled bundle of joy!

My First Baby Shower

A week ago today I went to my very own baby shower. It was held in Oklahoma and it was so nice to be able to spend a few short hours with many friends and family members. I had four amazing friends (Amber, Shannon, Kayl, and Misty) host the event for me.


I actually hadn't seen Amber and Kayl in almost two years so it was nice to reconnect with them. It was also a chance for me to see one of my former college roommates (I hadn't seen her in over a year) and one of my friends since I was six years old (I hadn't seen her in over four years). It is truly nice knowing I have such long term, life long friends!

The shower itself had a "Fill Her Nest" theme, complete with birdhouses, bird statues and feathers. It was pretty darn adorable! My cake was fantastic! A chocolate chip cake with rolled fondant icing. It tasted as good as it looked, if not better!




I received all kinds of useful presents!!




One thing I do regret is not getting a group picture of every one who attended before my guests began to leave.

My awesome day was also very bittersweet. That's because I had to say an actual good-bye to someone for the first time in my life. It was this gal:


My amazing sister. She's moving to China in March. Needless to say, the waterworks started, and things weren't quite the same after she and our mom left.


Speaking of my sister, because of their big move, she loaded Greg and I up with all kinds of baby essentials, toys, and clothes. We honestly had to rent a U-Haul trailer just to get everything back home. I still need a few baby items, but overall I feel completely set to bring Baby Parker home in a few short months!