Some things never change.

Pregnant women seem to be known for their uncontrollable, raging hormones cravings.  While I didn't have any of the stereotypical cravings in either pregnancy (uh-no thank you, I think I'll pass on the pickles in ice cream), I did have some consistent cravings in both pregnancies.  I am always a big fan of Mexican food, but with Jake, it was all that I wanted to eat.  For every single meal.  (Jake is now also a big fan of Mexican food---coincidence?  Perhaps.)  There was one isolated incident where I HAD TO HAVE KFC mashed potatoes.  As in, Brian turned around from being almost home and went to get them for me.

And SWEET TEA.  OMG the sweet tea.  From a carton at the grocery store, from McDonald's, I didn't care.  I just wanted it.  I can distinctly remember waking up on a number of occasions at 2am, and being in bed thinking, "wow....I would kill to gulp down a sweet tea right about now".  Totally normal behavior at 2am, right?  I still like a sweet tea now and then, but nothing like those urges. 

With Liam, I skipped over the sweet tea and headed straight for the Dr. Pepper.  While I thought Dr. Pepper was ok before, once I got hit with that craving, it was like the best thing in the world.  If I walked into a restaurant that served it (which is sometimes hard to find!) it was like I had hit the lottery!  It's probably a good thing that the place I work only has Pepsi products in the vending machines, I at least stood a chance of being able to resist the urge to down one every day.

The other thing I fell in love with?  Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies.  I know, I know....so weird and random.  But I was walking waddling by them in Target one day, they were on sale, I was all like, "oooh....childhood food memories, come to mama!" and that was it.  A beautiful relationship was born.

Why am I thinking about all of this?  Well, because one day last week, it was like deja vu....there I am in Target, grabbing a gallon of milk out of the cooler, and I turn around to find the same type of display, once again....Creme Pies on sale!!  I stood there, staring at the rack.  I hadn't had any since I was pregnant; I deserved some, right?  Before I could regret my choice, I threw a box in my car and raced to the register.  Embarrassing moment confession: I ripped into the box while still in my car, and proceeded to eat one while driving.  Second confession: it was still so, so, so very good.  I had another one later that evening.

That box is long gone, it stood no chance against me.  Lesson of the week: I cannot buy those to keep in the house, I just don't have the willpower to not eat 2 at a time.  But it does prove that both of my cravings from my pregnancy with Liam have stuck around....I still feel giddy inside when I see Dr. Pepper anywhere that I can order it.

Happy Halloween!

Our little penguin made his rounds on Saturday....first, we went to a neighborhood pre-trick or treat party. Here is Jake, looking at a bit nervous about a kid wearing a Spiderman mask that was sitting next to him during the story that was being read:

Next, it was off to do the real thing! We weren't really sure how he'd do and we really only wanted to take him to a few houses of people that we know and show off his costume :) For someone who has never had candy, Jake very quickly caught onto the fact that when he held out his little bag & said "Treat!" he would get something. He'd get so excited and take each piece of candy out to inspect it (fortunately for mommy, he seemed to be drawn to the bright orange packaging of Reeses Cups...mmm....my favorite)

After hitting a few houses, we headed back to our house to warm up and pass out candy....he was, quite possibly, even more into this activity. He handed out the candy to each & every trick or treater that came to the door (even the tiny infants and the moms and dads who were trick or treating....don't even get me started on this, grrrrrrr.....)

Here's a look back at Jake, over the last 3 Halloweens:

2007 (about 6.5 months pregnant....Brian refused to dress as Kevin Federline, I'm not sure why....)

2008 (9 months old)

2009 (21 months old)

Is that a line?? Do you see a line??

That is what I was frantically asking Brian 2 years ago today after taking a pregnancy test...at 6am, trying to wake him out of a dead sleep to examine the test. I'll spare you the pic of the actual test...but obviously you can take my word for it that there was indeed a line. We were beyond excited and the next few months were a whirlwind of morning sickness, nursery decorating, baby showers and all of that fun stuff. Before we knew it, I was waddling around with a big belly getting ready to give birth :)

Here is Jake one year ago this week:

And here he is this year:

Hard to believe that 2 years ago he was just a teeny, microscopic thing that we lovingly referred to as "Peanut" for so many months, anxiously awaiting his arrival. And now he's our loveable, funny and adorable little boy.

Giving credit where credit is due....

While I feel I gave Brian all of the credit in the previous post about the house updates and he appreciated the fact that I didn't try to pass it off as any work that I had done, he felt that I should have mentioned what I was doing while he was out doing back-breaking labor in the yard.

98% of the time, I was sleeping.

But-let's keep in mind that most of this work took place when I was in my 1st trimester of pregnancy last summer, thus, I was in a coma the majority of my days. As Brian puts it, he would be out in the yard doing his thing and would peek in through the living room window to check on me....what he would normally see was me passed out on the couch, drooling on a pillow with some mindless TV re-runs on the screen. ahhh....those were the days.



I would also like to point out that I did help out one day (the week before I found out I was pregnant; which, had I known at the time, obviously would have given me a "get out of manual labor free" card)....I started the day off by spray painting an old set of table & chairs.



You can tell by the picture that I'm really passionate about my work. Later that day, I pulled a bunch of ivy that was taking over every square inch of our house and fence. It's harder than it sounds, that stuff is serious business. Brian claims that after doing this for an hour or so, I found him in the front yard & made a dramatic announcement that I was about to fall over and die and I was done for the day (this was around 11am).

That was pretty much my first (and last) experience with manual labor in the yard. I did plant some flowers this year, which I feel is a step in the right direction. we'll see, maybe I'll go crazy next year & help spread mulch...(don't hold your breath though!)

IT'S A BOY!!!

It's hard to believe that 1 year ago today was the day of our big ultrasound, where we found out that we were expecting a little boy!! (and even more importantly, that everything looked perfect on the ultrasound and he was developing right on track) I remember being SO anxious and excited to get to that appointment in the morning, I was like a little kid the night before Christmas & I couldn't sleep (thus, the exhausted look on my face in the picture below) Here I am that morning at exactly 18 weeks pregnant:




Everyone was guessing that we were having a girl, so to a certain degree I was surprised that we were having a boy, but at the same time, I was also expecting it. Let me explain...I have always said that little boys made me nervous. I didn't know what to do with them. They get dirty, they're rowdy and they're loud (and yes, I realize that is completely sexist and stereotypical of me to think, but that's the image I had in my head!) Thus, I figured that I would have a boy first so that God could prove me wrong and make me tougher :)

While I'm still nervous for when he gets older & is running circles around me, needing stitches and beating his friends over the head with a matchbox car, I can't imagine my life without a little boy in it now! I am hoping he is well on his way to being a mama's boy (a well adjusted one, not one of the super needy/creepy ones who can never have a normal relationship with any other women because of his mom!) But you know, if he wants to go to college within a 30 mile radius of our house, that's just fine by me....

Jake's Birth Story

 

I know this is way late, but I keep thinking that I should write down his birth story somewhere before I forget the details...but my handwriting resembles that of a 2 year old, so typing is much easier for me. Thus, I'm just going to post it here if I'm going to type it out! So cuddle in close kids, it was a wild ride. (this is very long!)

I've had high blood pressure for about 5 years now, but in my first 2 trimesters, it dropped so much that I didn't need my medication. However, right around my 7th month, it started creeping back up...slowly at first, but then went pretty high, followed by mass amounts of swelling in my face, legs and feet, and an unbelievable amount of water weight (one time I gained 4 pounds in 3 days!) After a scare in Magee triage being monitored one night, I started going to the dr twice a week for non-stress tests (for those of you not familiar with these, they basically hooked my belly up to a machine for a half hour or so and made sure Jake was moving around and that his heartbeat was ok) Thankfully, it always was and they sent me on my merry way. This went on for about 3 weeks and I had a few ultrasounds done in that time to check his growth and my amniotic fluid, which was always perfect as well.

Other fun activities during this time period included urine spot checks, home blood pressure checks 5 times a day, and being constantly worried about the baby and what my crazy blood pressure was doing to him.  And sometimes it included not being able to fit my feet into any shoes at all.  No really, sometimes they were so big that they physically wouldn't fit.  Or they would fit in the morning, but by afternoon, I was rolling around my office in socks. 

Here is the last belly picture I had, it was new years day, so I was around 37 weeks pregnant (I'm kicking myself that I didn't take one on our way to the hospital when I went into labor!)




Fast forward to Monday, January 14th...went in for my 8am non-stress test as always...only this time my blood pressure was through the roof and Jake was very slow to respond on the monitor. (even after they had me chug about 30 ounces of Coke...that always got him going!) So...it was off to the hospital for further monitoring...fortunately, he was fine when they examined me there (the monitor was also showing contractions as 10 minutes apart but I couldn't feel them), but it was decided that he was going to be served an eviction notice. First, they told me they wanted to induce by the end of the week...then they called me back and said nevermind, we want him out tomorrow night!!! I almost peed myself (well let's face it, I almost peed myself every day at that point in the pregnancy, but that really came close!) I was so excited and nervous and the fact that I now KNEW when I'd meet him made the whole thing seem so real.

I went about my business that day but by late afternoon, I noticed that my contractions were about 8 minutes apart and I could actually feel them...they weren't painful, but definitely noticable. Though I was totally in denial that this could possibly be labor (even as my mom hinted to it) I must have had some type of instinct that it was the real thing because I did what any logical pregnant woman does and started cleaning the house. I tried to relax later on that night by watching TV but I was so distracted from timing the contractions. We decided to try and go to sleep around 11, but within minutes of going to bed, they started getting painful...at that point they were 5-7 minutes apart and about a minute long. I called the doctor who said come on down! I was the next contestant on "time to have a baby!" So...around 11:30, we loaded up the car, said a tearful goodbye to Gracie (well, it was tearful for me anyway-Brian had to drag me out to the car)


Getting to the hospital is not at all like it is in the movies...there was no rushing me back to a room, no one yelling "STAT!" or anything like that....nope, we sat in the waiting room for about 40 minutes until they took us at the registration window. It was at that point that I first asked for my epidural....I was informed that I had to be admitted first. which would possibly occur once I was examined. (Much love to those women who choose to go naturally....I couldn't even make it a few hours into labor without it!) Once I made it into the triage, they offered me Stadol to take the edge off...sweet relief! Once the dr made it in, he determined that I was 3cm dilated (I was 1.5 that morning) and 100% effaced, so they admitted me! (this was around 2am)

Once I got settled into my labor and delivery room, I inquired about the epidural...this time, they said ok! I was very nervous for the epidural after hearing horror stories of the size of the needle they use...I didn't even look at the needle, but I honestly didn't think it was that bad. A big pinch and a burn, followed by a LOT of pressure in my lower back, but not too bad (either that, or I was so grateful for it by that point that I just didn't care!)

While all of this excitement was going on, they were also continually checking my urine for signs of pre-eclampsia...unfortunately, shortly after my epidural was in place, they came in with the bad news that I had developed it. I remember tearing up when the doctor was explaining it to me, because I had gone all these months without getting it and here I was in the home stretch, only to be told that there could be complications for my baby. When you develop pre-e, they give you a magnesium drip through an IV to prevent seizures during delivery. The doctor warned me that I would hate the drip and she was right...it made me feel so loopy & completely out of it. I'm pretty sure I was drooling on myself at one point.

After that drip was put in, it was pretty much a matter of sitting around and waiting for progress! My water never broke on its own, so she came in and broke it, though I'm not sure what time that was, but I know it did help to speed things along. Around noon, I started being able to feel my contractions....no pain, but just the sensation of having them, so I asked about getting "topped off" on my epidural. Shortly after that, I suddenly felt like I was going to throw up and got the chills...the nurse told me this was a good sign that I was probably close to being ready to push...she went and got the dr and I was 10 cm! It was time for the real thing, kids!! Much to my dismay, the dr said no more epidural for me! (boo, hiss!) She said due to the mag drip make me so out of it, she wanted me to be able to feel the contractions so that I would stay motivated to push.



 I won't lie, the mag drip was just as awful as everyone said it is.  It made me groggy (so much so, that at one point in between contractions, the nurse yelled "we're losing mom, she's nodding off on us!"...yeah, that's just a whole different level of grogginess if you can nod off in the middle of pushing out a baby), and it also messed with my memory.  The whole time period after I got it is a big blur, I have relied on Brian and my mom to fill me in on things, but I just can't remember much of it myself.

I'll spare you the rest of the gory details and skip to the best part of this whole story...I pushed for about 45 minutes and every single minute was well worth it to see the most perfect thing I have ever laid eyes on come out screaming into the world. I could not get over just how beautiful he was. And tiny! I just remember thinking that he looked so tiny and fragile! The nurses told Brian that he received the highest scores in complexion (whatever that means) he didn't have a single bump, bruise or red mark on his body. he just had this fuzzy hair, big feet and the most alert eyes. Here are some of the first pictures of him (6 lbs 2 oz, 21 inches long-I'm not sure what the numbers on the scales mean in the picture below)




The next day or so was kind of a blur; I had to stay on that drip for 24 hours after delivery, so I was bedridden and still quite groggy from it. (and STARVING, I couldn't eat real food until they took it out!) the first thing I did was order a late lunch when they finally took it out, here is me enjoying my first taste of food in almost 48 hours:



The other negative aspect of the mag drip was that Jake was exposed to it as well, which meant he felt similar side effects.  I know all newborns are sleepy, but he was even more so, with no interest in eating at all.  With the help of a lactation specialist, we were able to get on a pump/syringe feed/breastfeeding training regimen in  the hospital that we then continued for a few days at home.  Thankfully, he got the hang of it after that!

In the end, the pain, stitches, starvation and grogginess were well worth it. Jacob Charles was the greatest gift we could have ever received and we have been grateful every day since!!