Wynn's Birth Story

I can't believe it's been 2.5 weeks since Wynn was born. It seems to have gone by quickly but at the same time it feels like he should be a month old already. Maybe that's just the lack of sleep talking...anyway, this post is all about Wynn's birth.

Thursday, August 28
I started having some pre labor contractions that evening and all through the night, causing me to get very minimal sleep.

Friday, August 29
The contractions continued all the next day but never getting much closer together than 10 minutes apart. I knew they weren't the real deal but they were annoying and uncomfortable nonetheless. In order to keep my mind off things, I decided to head to Chris' football game - the distraction might end up being good for me. Since it was my due date, everyone was shocked that I was at the game and kept asking me to wait until after the game to go into labor. (We did win the game!) Contractions continued to come the rest of the night.

Saturday, August 30
12:00am - The contractions finally get closer, hitting the 8 minute mark. Now we're getting somewhere. Neither Chris or I had really gotten any sleep up to this point and it didn't look like we were going to the rest of the night either. He was helping me get through the contractions with some counter pressure and some other techniques that our doula, Breanna, suggested. Chris remained in contact with her throughout the night, keeping her updated on contraction times and looking for some guidance on things to try.

5:00am - Water breaks. That's quite the interesting feeling! I contact the midwife on call and it is recommended for me to come in once contractions are about 3-5 minutes apart. We knew we had a little ways to go, but that we had 24 hours from my water breaking before a water birth was out of the question. Plenty of time. Ha!

1:30pm - Contractions are coming on strong and hovering around the 6 minute mark. Chris continued to be a great support and helped in any way that he could. We tried a bunch of different techniques to manage the pain. Some helped, some didn't. Around this time, the contractions were coming on much stronger and longer so we decided that it would be smart to start heading to the hospital.

2:30pm - All checked in at the hospital and we are told that I'm dilated 6-7cm and 90% effaced. I felt great about that! Breanna meets us at the hospital and we just start walking the halls to help encourage the labor to progress. Once we get to the hospital my concept of time goes completely out the window. All I know is that I continue to have contractions that are getting progressively stronger and longer. I'm walking the halls, sitting in the water birth tub...whatever it takes to get the show on the road.

Sunday, August 31
Somewhere around midnight maybe I get checked again that I'm at 9cm. I feel good and bad about this - good cause I'm almost there. Bad because it's taking forever! At this point, I'm so tired from no sleep in 2 days and dealing with the contractions, which are now very intense and lasting 2+ minutes. After trying a few more things to get over the hump, I am checked again and I'm still only at 9cm. Now a decision needs to be made.

2:00am-ish - The midwife on call suggests that I get pitocin to help get that last little bit. Chris and I have been against any sort of medications for the birth from the beginning so hearing that put me us both off a little. However, I knew that I was physically and mentally exhausted from being in labor over 24 hours at this point. I really didn't want to give in but at the same time I didn't know if I could go much longer on my own. Contractions on pitocin are much stronger and intense than natural contractions so because of that an epidural was also suggested. After discussing it with Chris (who had hit his limit of watching me go through the pain) and Breanna, we decided that we would go ahead and forgo the unmedicated water birth that we really wanted to have and move forward with pitocin and epidural. I cried the entire time I was getting the epidural. This was not how things were supposed to go. It was such an extremely hard decision to make and I didn't want to end up having regrets about the whole birth experience.

7:00am - I was able to get some sleep thanks to the epidural and finally I feel like I'm starting to get the urge to push. I am checked and finally! 10cm and ready to go.

7:30am - Let the pushing begin!

7:58am - After 32 hour of labor, Chris announces that our son, Wynn David is born. He is placed on my chest immediately and I feel a huge sense of relief and overwhelming love for this little guy. Once Wynn was born, I didn't care what it took to get him here, I was just thankful that he was healthy.

Just a quick note about Breanna, our doula. We could not have done it without her. Seriously. She provided so much support and comfort for both Chris and I. By far one of the best decisions we made and we can't wait to have her by our side when it's time for baby #2. We would highly recommend a doula to anyone!

Progression of a Bump

In honor of hitting the full term mark, I thought I'd share some of the bump pictures we've been taking. So here is how this (not so little) bump has grown...

We are about as ready as we will ever be for this little one to join our family - so now all we can do is just wait!

Decorate Nursery....Check!

Finally! It seems like it's taken forever, even though I'm sure it hasn't, but the nursery is finally decorated. At least about 95% of the way done. There are a few things we'd still like to add but if it doesn't happen, we won't be upset about it. Now, bring on the photos...

The framed prints are vintage United Airlines travel posters of New England, Hawaii and San Francisco that we actually had hanging in our old apartment. We still need some every day things, like a cover for the changing pad, a wet bag that will hang on the side of the dresser and some organizational things. But the dresser is still one of my favorite things in the room - maybe because it looks so freaking awesome and I'm super proud that I made it look like that.

It's a little hard to tell, but the red tub next to the crib has all the blankets and stuffed animals in it. I think this is Chris' favorite. One small addition we'd like to add is a long floating shelf on the wall behind the crib. And my next little project that I hope to do this week is to make a no-sew crib skirt. Lucky for me, I only need to put something in the front since the sides of the crib are solid so it makes the project that much easier.

It took us a while to decide what pictures we wanted to get printed for this room. We wanted them to be of places that we've travelled but thought it might be better to go for subtlety rather than the obvious. Starting from the top left going clockwise, these pictures are from: Cape Cod (from Colleen's wedding); Bodie, CA (an old abandoned mining town); Nashville (the sign/logo of a store there - Antique Archeology); Cabo San Lucas (our honeymoon). That mobile was also something that I put together. It was extremely simple but a great way to add a little more dimension and splash of color to the room.

In the frame under the clock is some word art of a Bible verse that we really liked and thought it was fitting for a nursery. It reads "Be strong and courageous; Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."

So there it is. The nursery. It is now our favorite room in the house. Chris and I might be known to just randomly walk into the room and admire it. Hey, it's a good thing we love it since we'll be spending a lot of time there!

Now, if I can just get the closet and dresser drawers organized we'll be all set!

Nursery Projects

My parents came to visit a couple weeks ago which forced me to have a deadline for some nursery projects.

The biggest project was to refinish a dresser that we got off craigslist and plan to use as our changing station (as well as a dresser obviously). We were going to paint the base white and then put a dark stain on the top. First step - sand the whole thing all the way down. Thank goodness for electric sanders because this part by far took the longest.

Once it was all sanded down I could move to the staining and painting part. I started with the stain first, we chose a Dark Walnut color and finished it off with 3 thin coats of poly.

With the stain done, I could move on to painting. I ended up doing 3 coats of paint+primer to ensure that the wood grain and knots didn't bleed through. Once everything was dry, we could finally move it into the nursery and add the new hardware.

Quite the before and after!

Second project was refinishing a rocking chair that my parents gave us. It was one that they used when I was a baby. It was in desperate need of reupholstery and new padding. I planned to stain the wooden frame the same Dark Walnut. 

The last of the projects was hanging a closet organizing unit. The closet originally only had a hanging bar on either side of the closet, with nothing in the middle. Doesn't make for very efficient storage! Thanks to my dad and Chris, we not have a functional closet.

So with all these projects completed, we now have pretty much all the main furniture items in the nursery - which leaves just organizing and decorating - the fun stuff!

Spring Recap

It's been over a month since the last post and we've been staying busy - so here's a quick recap of what we've been up to.

We were gung-ho to have spring hit and have a yard to do yard work. It's our first spring in the house so we had no clue what was going to grow. We quickly found out that our yard grows mostly weeds - awesome. Only in the past few weeks have we noticed more grass growing. Well, at least the weeds are green! When my parents were here in March (yes, almost 3 months ago) my mom and I built out a small tiered retaining wall. We also had some really pretty azaleas going for most of the spring and the big tree at the front of our yard had gorgeous white blossoms, but unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it. Since this initial weekend of yard work, we haven't done much else. Occasionally weeding (though they seem to grow at an obscenely fast rate) but now that my stomach is much bigger, it makes it harder to do much gardening.

New stone wall

Spring blossoms

We've had a smattering of events in the past month or so - Chris' birthday, Colleen's wedding and a visit from my sister and Hank. In the coming month we have even more, something just about every weekend! This seems to be the norm for us once the spring/summer hits, even though we complain about it every year.

One thing is certain for this summer, we have a lot of work to do to prepare for the babe. The nursery is empty except for the crib and piles of stuff. For the past week I've been working on the dresser and rocking chair; hopefully both will be finished and in the room within the next week. The most recent 'big' project we've done to the house is paint and replace the carpet in the two spare rooms. We'd bought paint for the rooms back in November and we got the same carpet installed that we have in our bedroom. Now, the whole house has new floors - so happy to have the ugly green-brown carpet to be completely gone!

Before and after

Freshly installed carpet

Close up of carpet - looks great with the new paint

The only piece of furniture in the nursery

Sneak peek of the dresser

In other news, I've officially hit the third trimester! I have a feeling these last weeks are going to fly by! 

Halfway....already?!?!!

The 20 week mark has officially come and gone. I'm now halfway through this pregnancy. Holy crap. I feel like it's taken a while to get to this point and also gone by fast - such a weird contradiction. Either way, I'm on the downhill making my way to the finish line, which I know will come up a lot quicker than we realize.

Last week we went for our 20 week ultrasound where they do an anatomy scan on the baby to ensure everything looks as it should. This is also the time that couples find out the sex of the baby - not us! We stood firm and are still proud members of Team Green. It was tempting since all it would take is one peek at the screen while the ultrasound tech did her thing but we both kept our heads turned while she checked out what she needed in that region. The only thing that she said was that our baby is very photogenic and that he/she is not shy. So, who knows what that means!

We haven't made much progress lately in planning, the nursery is painted but waiting on new carpet to be installed next week. Our registry is at a stand still and we're slooooowly checking out daycares and putting those plans in place. The one thing that we have finalized is that we chose a doula who we are very excited to be working with. We met her for coffee one morning and we just felt a connection with her - she's young, enthusiastic yet calming and someone who we could see being friends with which we thought was an important quality to find. We are going to do birth classes with her as well (at least that's the plan) so we can get to know her even better.

I still feel great and haven't had any issues - just a growing belly!

First Trimester Recap

Since I'm now over a third of the way through my second trimester, I figured it's probably time to do a quick recap of my first trimester. Not going to lie, it was pretty nerve-racking. The first 12-14 weeks are the 'touchiest' and the majority of miscarriages happen during this time. Yea, I was pretty paranoid. The worst part, is that there is nothing you can really do to cause or prevent a miscarriage so I felt pretty helpless. I didn't think that God would take our baby away after it taking so long to get pregnant in the first place, but just in case I did the only thing I could do - pray. I prayed almost every day of those first 12 weeks that God would keep our baby safe and that our baby would grow to be strong and healthy.

The good news: by the time I found out I was pregnant I was already almost halfway through the first trimester. The bad news: it seemed to take forever to get to the end.

First look at our little one - 6 weeks pregnant

 I feel really lucky to have had a pretty smooth pregnancy so far. I have not had any sickness, no real nausea and have overall felt really good. It didn't even feel like I was pregnant!

Since we wouldn't continue to see the specialist, we had to chose a new OBGYN practice. My original OBGYN was more convenient to our apartment when we first moved back to Georgia but not at all to our house. Besides location, the other thing we had to consider was the hospital that we wanted to deliver at. I was torn on this. We are equal distance from 2 hospitals - one is known as the 'baby factory' and has an incredible neonatal unit. The other is a smaller hospital but does also have a NICU. On one hand, we knew we'd be in good hands at the first option but wasn't too thrilled about being just another delivery at the factory. The other option would be more personal but we didn't know much about the hospital in general. In the end, we chose optional #2 - North Fulton Hospital. The biggest factor for us was that this hospital has the lowest C-Section rate in Atlanta which was really important to me. They even do water births! Once we decided on a hospital, we were able to chose a practice that delivers at that hospital. We actually have decided to use one of the midwives at the practice and so far are happy with our decision. There are 5 midwives on rotation and we've met 2 so far and have really liked both.

So the light at the end of the tunnel for me during the first trimester was our 12 week ultrasound appointment. It would be the first time we'd really be able to see the baby - and it would actually look like a baby! This would be the reassurance I'd need to finally be able to breathe. But it also was scary because who knew what the ultrasound would actually show.

Healthy baby!!

The biggest question we get is are we going to find out if it's a boy or a girl. The answer: NO! We can't wait to be surprised when the baby is born. We have 2 boy names and 2 girl names picked out and we will decide what names fits the best at the hospital.

The Best Christmas Present Ever

As you all know, we're excepting our first baby! The little one is due August 29 and we couldn't be more thrilled. And scared. But mostly excited. So, let's start from the beginning.

It may or may not be known, but Chris and I had been trying to get pregnant for a while - over a year. As much as we tried to not let it bother us, it was frustrating and stressful and certainly took a toll on us emotionally. Eventually, we decided to let go of the burden and made a consultation appointment with a fertility specialist. We had gone through some initial testing and a follow-up appointment was made to go over all the results and come up with a plan. That appointment was set for shortly after the New Year. We were nervous of course but hopeful that we'd finally get some answers and a course of action. Maybe it was nothing, maybe it was something but we'd at least know.

Enter the holidays. We drove (not fun. never again.) up to Massachusetts to spend a week with Chris' family for Christmas. I knew my period was supposed to come right around Christmas day and all week long Chris asked me if I had started yet, to which I kept saying no. I wasn't super hopeful that this would be our cycle but I had to admit, when Christmas Eve rolled around and I didn't have any of my normal signs that my monthly visitor was arriving, I started wondering if this was actually it. When Christmas Day came and went without a sign, I just had a feeling. So of course, I make up a reason for us to stop at CVS the next day, buy something random along with a pregnancy test and hide it in my purse. Shortly after we get back to my mother-in-law's house, I took the test. I'd taken tests before and always ended up feeling disappointment when the double lines wouldn't appear. I tried not to get my hopes up for this test and even though I had a good feeling about it, I was still in complete shock when the "you're pregnant" line popped up right away. WHAT??!!!?! Was this actually happening??

I had always envisioned telling the news to Chris in a super cute and creative way. But there was no way that I was going to wait until we got back to Georgia to tell him. I can't keep a secret like this from him for that long! So, in a less cute and creative way, I called yelled for him to come up to the loft where we were staying and simply showed him the test. Neither one of us could believe it. So much so, that we stopped by CVS again and picked up another brand of test. You know, just to be sure. I don't think there was any denying that yes, in fact, I was pregnant.

Yes, I believe I'm pregnant

Even still, I took another test the next morning....just to be 100%. Yup, still pregnant. Since we were staying with Chris' mom and ideally we would've wanted to tell her the news in person anyway, we decided to tell her right away. Then we FaceTimed with my parents to let them in on the secret. We told the rest of the family members that we saw in person right away. We told my sister and her husband a few weeks later also over FaceTime and we told Chris' brother and wife shortly after when we saw them for their son's baptism. 

Baby's First Christmas

We got home and I immediately called the specialists office so that they could confirm the pregnancy. I got blood drawn that morning and the lab results back that afternoon - yes indeed, it's official. I'm pregnant. They had me make an appointment for a few days later to come in for an ultrasound. We'd get to actually see our baby!

6 weeks

Ya, doesn't really look like much to us either, but that's our baby! They even labeled it for us.

So that's the story about our best Christmas present ever. Our amazing miracle that we are so incredibly excited about.