Pumpkin Patch

Family outing at the local pumpkin patch. Does it look like summer? We are all in short sleeves and shorts! ;0) This is our second family outing to the patch. This year Miss E really enjoyed it more than last year. This was Mr. T's first year. E was so fascinated with all of the pumpkins, animals and rides. It was so much fun watching her wonder around, checking everything out. She had a lot of fun.

We are looking forward to carving the pumpkin with her this year. We know she is going to be very inquisitive when it comes to the guts of the pumpkin. She looks at new items, studies them, figures out the textures, how they work, etc. It is great to see how her little mind works! It is such a blessing to get to be a part of it.

Reminiscing

This morning while cooking dinner (yes I cook dinner early in the morning before going to work so that I do not have to worry about it when I get home) I was thinking about how blessed I am. I never used to be a super emotional woman. I guess being pregnant and giving birth has changed that for me. Now I am more like my sister, who can cry just watching a commercial. We laugh about how easily it happens for the both of us now.

I was thinking today about how much I just adore my children. It took five years for us to bring our daughter into our lives. For a while there I thought we might live our lives without children in them. I would have been okay with that, if that was what was planned for my life. But I had hoped that children were a part of the plan. I look at her and think to myself, I am so darn lucky that your birthmom picked me to be your mother! She is amazing! She is doing so much these days and it is so fun to watch.

Then I look at my son and I think to myself, I grew you inside of me. An experience that I never thought I would get to have. When I look in the mirror these days I look like I used to and its hard for me to even imagine my stomach stretched out as far as it was to hold my baby boy. But it was! I am doubly blessed because I was able to be pregnant at the same time my sister was. It was so much fun for me to get to share that experience with her. He is my little miracle. I made him! I was told I could never do that. I look at him and want to cry at the miracle God gave me.

I have a special bond with a colleague of mine and my children. One day, she took me to lunch. She could tell I was having a hard time with the adoption wait. Why was this all happening to us? It shouldnt have been that hard to become parents. At the end of lunch, before going back into the office, she said a prayer with me in her car. That very afternoon we got the call that a baby was being born and the birthmom wanted us to parent her. One evening when our daughter was just a few months old, my friend came over to spend some time with us. We prayed again together and said our thanks for the wonderful gift my husband and I were given. One month later I found out I was pregnant! She is like my guardian angel on earth. I did tell her that we are happy with two kids for now so she can help others now :0)

I am so blessed with these wonderful children. I love them very much.

Family day at the park

Yesterday we decided to go to the park for lunch. It was such a nice day, we wanted to take advantage of the perfect weather and the chance to spend some time together as a family. We took both kids and the dog! It was a lot of work getting us all there and set up, but we had a lot of fun.

Miss E really liked it because daddy took her on the swings. She also played around in the grass. Her favorite thing to do was pick up the acorns and share them with daddy. Mr T slept most of the time. The nice warm weather must have felt good to him. He was even a little less stuffy when we got home.

Here are some cute pictures from our outing:

looking for acorns

here you go daddy

sleeping the day away

being a good girl

6 weeks

Where does the time go? Our son is already 6 weeks old. In a week and a half he will be 2 months old and going for his first check up and his first round of shots. Time has flown by so far. He is definitely a much different baby than our little girl. This time around I am nursing which is a different experience than formula feeding. By this time our daughter was sleeping through the night. Up until a couple of nights ago our son was still feeding every 2 hours. The past two nights he has gone every 3 hours at night. I cannot wait for the night he goes at least 5 or 6 hours. That will be very nice!

He has gotten his first cold already. He has had it since about 2 weeks old actually. There is not a lot you can do for them in terms of medicine at this age. We have to suck the boogies out and we have him sleep with his head elevated. It is really hard to see him not feeling well at such a young age. It makes him a little more clingy and fussy during the day too. He wants to be held all the time since he does not feel well. We are going to try some natural remedies that we were told about by friends to see if that helps. He got his cold from his sister who got it from daycare. She also gave it to mom and dad. The only person in our house not affected is our dog. :0)

We are currently trying to figure out when I will go back to work. I want to stay home until he goes to daycare at 6 months. If we cannot afford to do that I might ask my work if I can cut back on my hours. I go in for my 8 week check up post c-section soon and find out the date my doctor releases me to go back to work. If I go back we will probably put him in a day care close to my work so I can nurse during lunch and then at 6 months move him to the one his sister goes to.

His sister has adjusted to having him in the house. She desperately wants to play with him but he is still too young to play back. It will be fun when he can play with her. I look forward to watching them interact together.

Next week my husband starts coaching again so I will be doing all the work with the kids sine he leaves the house before they get up and gets home after they go to bed. Wish me luck!

baby T's birth story

On Wednesday, July 8th at 2:00 a.m. I woke up to contractions that were starting to come more frequently. The weeks prior, I had had similar nights. I would wake up and feel contractions for a couple of hours and then they would end, allowing me to go back to sleep. I thought it would be the same this time. I left our bedroom, so that I would not disturb my husband, and camped out in the living room. By morning they were coming a lot stronger. At that time I did not think I was in full labor yet.

I helped my husband get E ready for her day at her grandparents house and I got myself ready for my doctor's appointment after they left. As soon as I got there, I started to feel a lot worse. I was pacing in the waiting room. By the time I was called into the doctor's office, my blood pressure was a lot higher from me being so nervous and not able to sit down. He checked me out and I was 4 cm's dilated and 50% effaced. He told me to get to the hospital right away.

I called my husband, sister and mom and told them it was time. My husband left work right away to meet me at our house. We left from there to check into labor and delivery. When we got there, our favorite nurse Kris was working. We were at the hospital by 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday. My mom was already in the waiting room anticipating our arrival. My sister arrived shortly after that.

I was hooked up to all the monitors and got myself ready to wait for T's arrival. I talked a lot with the nurses about an epidural. I had wanted to do a natural delivery, but my chances for a cesarean delivery were really high with my uterine abnormality. I talked to them about the pros and cons of getting an epidural versus waiting it out and getting a spinal block if I had the baby via c-section. In the end I decided the epidural was the best choice. If I needed to be rushed into delivery for any reason, the surgery could start right away. The anesthesiologist would only have to top off the epidural to get me ready.

I was also given pitocin to help the labor progress since I was not moving along as fast as the doctors would have liked. My doctor came by around 6:00 p.m. to break my water. They noticed the baby had pooped, so they started to run some antibiotics through my IV to help prevent infections. I was also starting to develop a fever so they gave me some tylenol.

At 1:00 a.m. on Thursday morning, I was finally 10 centimeters dilated and fully effaced. It was time to push! I pushed for an hour and a half and T just could not make his way down and out of the birth canal. His heart rate started to go up and with my fever the doctor decided it was best to get him out as soon as possible. They began the preparations for a cesarean delivery.

At 3:53 a.m T was born! He weighed in at 6 pounds 9 ounces and was 19 inches long. He scored 9 out of 10 on the APGAR. It was such a surreal moment to see our baby for the first time. An experience, I believed would never happen for us. It was a miraculous moment that neither my husband or myself will ever forget. S got to cut the cord and watch the nurses clean T up. Once he was ready to be taken to the nursery they brought him over to me to say hi. I could not stop touching him and kissing him. The bond was instantaneous! I never imagined it would be like that. So different from the way the bond forms in adoption. Both wonderful bonds. I am blessed to have experienced becoming a mother each way.

Officially Full Term

I did it! Somehow, baby T and I did it! We made it to the 37 week mark and officially full term. My doctor couldn't be happier and more surprised about it.

Yesterday was an eventful day. I woke up to what I thought was my water breaking. It turned out to be my mucous plug coming out. Sometimes they came come out kind of watery. I was asked to go to L&D to be monitored. While I was there, the rest of it kept coming on out. I was also starting to have regular contractions. But nothing that led to anything. And since my water, truly did not break, they eventually sent me home, telling me they hoped to see me back in the next day or two. I hope they are right about that.

Tomorrow is my next checkup with my doctor. I am going to see what his thoughts are. Originally, not knowing how long my body could hold out, he had talked about induction after I was full term. Now that my body is showing signs of being ready I am going to ask if I can at the very least start walking more to see if that helps to jump start anything. Maybe he will want to induce himself like he had said earlier. I will know more tomorrow.

I have had friends lose their plug and go into labor 24 hours later and one exactly 2 weeks later. So far I am about 36 hours later. The nurse did say the longest she has heard of, was 2 weeks past it coming out. At least now, I have some sort of countdown I can go by :0) There is a light at the end of the tunnel. A truly miraculous one, since our son is full term and will be able to go home with us!

Completing unfinished projects

Having time off work has been nice. I have been able to work on some of the projects I started when I was on winter vacation. I have completed the first of many that I had started. It is a scarf for my step-father. I had started it back during Christmas, hoping to get it done pretty quickly so that he could wear it during the colder time of year. Now it is summer where he lives and will be over 100 each day. I don't think he will be needing it for some time ;0) At least he will have it ready for when the cold weather does return.

It has been a long time since I knitted, so I am very happy with how this turned out. My next project is to finish crocheting a baby blanket for a friend. I was on a roll last night and then ran out of yarn, so off to the store I go. Then I need to start quilting a baby blanket for my sister. We found out a couple of weeks ago she is having a baby girl and we are very excited for her! I really love the pattern I found. Finding fabric is the harder part. There is so much to choose from, I am having a hard time picking out colors and themes I like. If it turns out nicely, I will have to make that one for all the kids in our family.