Awe

Just an update. Winston and I are doing good. I'm slowly healing but feeling a little better everyday. Winstons head looks so much better. I seriously cannot get enough of him. I just love him to pieces. So far he has been such a good baby. He sleeps a ton and does not fuss much unless he is hungry. We are trying to work on breastfeeding. It's pretty painful, but hopefully we will get used to it soon. Anyway, I just wanted to give an update and share this adorable picture of him!!

The Big Debut

Well most of you may know the traumatic entry little Winston had into this world, but many do not. Before I start I do want to say that everyone is fine. It was scary for a bit, but everyone is ok now.

Let's start with the labor. Going into induction on the 22nd of April at 5 am, I was not too scared. I knew I was getting the drugs, and I really just felt like it wasn't going to be that bad (haha). I also was prepared to have a long labor, I wasn't expecting anything less than 12 hours, but I was hoping I would at least have him on the 22nd. Oh was I wrong. It was not what I thought it would be. At first things weren't so bad, I started patosin, and didn't feel much. When I was dilated to a 3 (7 or so hours into labor) they broke my water. Right after that I made sure they got me that epidural. Anyway, as I kept dilating, I knew my epidural was working, but I was in a ton of pain cause of the pressure. I know people told me I would feel pressure, but this was so painful. It was awful. Then I got a fever. Since the babies heart wasn't being effected we just continued on with the labor and I got antibiotics. After some serious torture and pain It finally came time for me to start pushing, I started and after 2 1/2 hours he wasn't budging any further. When the doctor came in, I think the babies heart started increasing and things became crazy. All of a sudden Winston was getting vacuumed out of me. It was awful.

So 20 hours later, He was finally here. Not on the 22nd but the 23rd.

Well as soon as he got here, he had some complications. He had a fever, he wasn't crying, and had his cord around his neck twice. The nurses revived him, and then took him to the nursery. It was so good to hear him start crying.

In the nursery, they checked all of his vitals and ran some tests. The tests came back good. But the scare was now his head. He had major swelling in his head. It was a combination of being in the canal for so long, he was also face up, which put him in a bad position. But I think what made it worse was the vacuum. They wanted to keep him in the nursery to keep an eye on his head.

my poor baby

Well later that morning, they ran a cat scan on him and his brain had swelling as well as blood around the brain.

Here is a picture of the big bruise the next day :(

Well because of the cat scan results, the doctors thought it was best for little Winston to get moved over to BAnner Dessert where there is a better Nicu, They wanted to monitor him closer and check to see if the swelling goes down.

I finally got to hold him, and I just fell in love. He is the sweetest boy ever. (check out my swollen hand below)

The good thing is that neurologically, he was doing great. His behaviors were all completely normal.

Here Winston is before they took him over to BAnner Desert. It seriously broke my heart.

Look how precious he is.

When he got to the new hospital I was still at the other hospital so I didn't get to be with him. Nate and his mom were so great and stayed with Winston while my mom came and stayed with me

In the Nicu, his chest got cold and Nate didn't have any of his clothes with him, The Nicu is not used to having babies his size, so they had no clothes his size. They did find this huge onesie though. It was so funny to see him in it.

Well after 2 more cat scans, the doctors were able to see that his brain swelling went down and that the blood around his brain was significantly improved as well. They finally let us take him home. We were so relieved, thankful and happy.

It is so nice to have Winston home. We love him so much. He is such a good boy. Very calm, loves to eat and sleep, although we're working on getting him to not use the bottle and use mom instead. Hopefully he'll get a hang of breast feeding soon.

I can't tell you how grateful we are for all of your prayers. Thank you for all your support. We are so blessed to have so many good friends and family in our lives.

Winston, we love you and are so excited to have you in our lives.

9 months pregnant

Here I am 38 weeks pregnant and ready to pop!

UPDATE

WOAH! Does that foot belong to a 500 lb person or what? Someone even told me they thought it looked like a baby foot with the rolls and everything. The truth is, that is MY foot! Are you kidding me? I hate being swollen. As if being pregnant isn't uncomfortable enough, being swollen on top of it makes it even worse.

Well if you haven't heard yet, this swelling along with high blood pressure and protein has led me to be put on bed rest for the last 3 WEEKS! I meet with the doctor 2 times a week and get to do all sorts of fun tests and stuff. I have mild pre-eclampsia. It's pretty scary, but I really think that everything is going to be fine. I'm so grateful that it is just mild and that I did not have to be hospitalized. That would have been awful. As you could imagine I have been going crazy being all cooped up. I've had a few melt downs, but thank goodness for family and friends. It really helps to have support from them. My mom and Nate have been so so good to me. They help clean, in fact my house has never been cleaner. Nate even puts up with all my crazy food requests which include a bag of sonic ice every few days. As well as treats and candy that he hates getting for me, but is afraid to say no, for fear of how I may react. I've had good company too. It is so nice when people stop by and visit and even bring me food :) Thank you!!!

OK so the updates of all updates......


I'm getting induced this Wednesday April 22nd 2009. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Winston will finally be here. I will be exactly 38 weeks. On Monday I got an ultrasound and the technician was so nice that when she was done doing the measurements and stuff, she put in on 3D so I could have a picture of him. It was so fun. Check him out. He is Nate's little clone. That is Nate's nose and lips for sure. He looks so peaceful and boyish. I'm so excited to meet him.



At the same time, I am so not ready for this. It's crazy the mixed emotions that you feel.
I'm cool with any and all advice. Please let me know if there is anything you wish you would have done or that you did. Any secret mommy or birthing tips?
Yes I'm getting the epidural and Yes I'm planing to breastfeed.

Baby Shower/ mini wedding

WOW!!! I am seriously so thankful for everyone that came and helped throw me the greatest shower ever!!! I can't tell you how awesome it was to be able to get all my friends and family together to celebrate this special occasion. There is one thing for sure, Winston is very popular already and he has a lot of people who love him.

Here is a recap of this wonderful day. PS. the reason I call this my mini wedding is cause I got a little out of hand on the guest list. I think all my friends especially Laura had heart attacks when they saw how big it was going to be. oops! Here's my mom above and my sister Marlee below. They were such big helps at puting this all together.

Here are just some of the millions of clothes that Winston got. One things for sure, this baby is not going to be naked much.

So here is where I have to brag about my sister Marlee. She is so talented and went ALL out on this diaper cake and basket as well as these amazing cupcakes.

So, Marlee and my mom went in on this diaper cake full of goodies. They had so much stuff that they ran out of space on the diaper cake and had to come up with the basket shown above in order to use all the fun toys and accessories that they bought. The picture does no justice unfortunately.

Marlee also made a hundred of these adorable animal cupcakes. They were yummy too. The poor girl had a back ache for days after making each of these.

The Elephant

The lion

The monkey

Here is Nate and I before the shower started.

Me with Nate's mom. She is so great!

There were so many adorable babies there too. Winston is going to have so much fun playing with all his little buddies when he gets here.

Here is Annabelle, Lynn girl. Lynn and Annabelle came all the way out from California to help throw my shower!!! How nice is that? Thanks you guys so much.

Carrie and Leah

Kristen and Karis

Sarah on the right was visiting her family from NY. It was so nice theat she could come .

Here's Heidi, Stacy and baby Eli

Kristen with her raffle prize

Me with Desiree, my sister in law. She was at lunch break from work, while I was getting ready to chow down on that plate of food. Ok let me take a minute to brag about the food. I still have dreams about it. It was AWESOME I was in pregnancy food heaven!

Vanessa with Emily and baby Jace

Heather and Jenn. Brielle stayed home with dad.

Me and two of my oldest friends Jess and Nichelle. We go way way back. Especially Nich and I.

Tricia and Kristen and Karis

Lynn and Marci. (PS Marci is responsible for those amazing crepes which were to die for. Lynn made the carmel chocolate pretzels. Oh my gosh I'm so hungry right now. Can you tell?)

Me with my mom and Marlee

Me with Laura and Rachel. Laura, thank you so much for everything you did to put this together and for coming from Tuscon to go to my shower. Rachel, thanks for coming all the way from Utah just for this. You are the best.

I know I keep saying it, but thanks again to everyone. I seriously had such a good time. I felt so loved and blessed to have so many great friends and to have such a supportive family. I love you all and can't thank you enough.

February

Well I really need to get all caught up, especially since this baby is going to be here in no time (NEXT WEEK to be exact. I know I am lousy at keeping you updated, but I'll tell you all about it in my next post, let me take care of this first).

Ok so Valentines weekend Nate took me on a not so romantic get away to Prescott. The reason I would not refer to this as romantic is that we were there to support his 2 brothers in their State wrestling tournament. It was fun to be there with family and watch all their matches, but I will say it is no fun to travel while being 6 months pregnant. It really isn't fun to sit all day in bleachers either, but I survived. It was snowing there, so that was fun.
Nate went to college at Embry Riddle in Prescott so he took me around a little bit. We stopped at the mall one day and I got to learn something I never knew about my husband. Apparently, in college he worked for a short time at the mall. And of all places, he worked at Things Remembered
HAhahaha, I was laughing so hard. He went up and was trying to see if they remembered him, (he only worked there for like a few weeks) He kept telling the sales lady that he was the one that engraved a bunch of the displays.

We got home from Prescott on Sunday in time for my mom's Valentine's dinner. She loves decorating and doing fun stuff for the holidays.

Here's everyone that was there besides Nate and I. I felt so miserable and ugly that night that I would not let anyone take pictures of me.

Us getting ready to eat.

Brielle with her Valentines rose. How cute is that?

mom and daughter

My mom with Brielle

Here is me that night. This is why I did not want any pics of me. I felt like a cow if you couldn't tell by my body language. If I could go back, I would tell myself to just wait cause that was nothing compared to being 8 and 9 months prego.

A few weeks later, I was actually feeling good so I took some pregnancy pics.

Here I am at 29 or 30 weeks

The week after, I took some more pregnancy pics. This time we tried to be all fancy. I made Nate join me.

First we compared tummies, Nate's still trying hard to keep up with me.

I made Nate do the heart on the tummy pic cause I think its so cute. His heart shape is a little deformed though. At least I got him to smile. He was so mad the whole time that I was making him take pics with me. He hates taking pictures.

Here I am 30 week pregnant

My mom's uncle Lud came into town again. He is so cute. He is 88 and looks amazing. I hope I take on his genes.

That's a wrap