Tears of Joy: A first for me

Timeline of Monday, October 10, 2011 (due date +7 days)

(sorry if this is TMI)

1 am, 2 am, 3 am, 4 am - I woke up so excited/nervous I could hardly wait

5:30 am - We checked in at the hospital - I made cookies the night before to take for the nurses. (I found out today that we were the talk of the labor and delivery unit . . . my friend is a nurse there and said the nurses loved that I brought cookies for all of my nurses)

6:30 am - Dilated to a "tight 1" (aka not really dilated yet) they began the oxytocin drip 

7:30 am - The doctor broke my water 

Sometime in the am - The bird pictured below ran into my hospital room window. 

It took him a couple of hours, but he eventually came to and flew away

10:30 am - I got the epidural (greatest invention ever!) and Allen almost passed out : ) 

12:45 pm - Dilated to a 5

2:30 pm - Dilated to a 9! The nurse started to get everything ready for the delivery

Allen practiced sitting down next to me in case he got light-headed during delivery

3:30 pm - Dilated to a 10 and started to push

3:48 pm - The doctor was pulling on his scrubs as he came rushing to the room

3:51 pm - Caleb was born! (8 lbs 2 oz, 21.5 inches) 

His dad cut the cord and grandma took pictures as they took Caleb to suction the meconium out of his lungs.

The doctor talked to me while he stitched me up but I have no clue what he said because I couldn't stop staring over at the little miracle on the NICU table. 

 

What seemed like an eternity later, as I watched Allen carrying Caleb to me, I was so excited to hold him in my arms for the first time. 

I had eagerly awaited this moment for nine months . . . then as he handed Caleb to me, I felt an overwhelming sense of love and joy. 

I can say this was the first time I have ever really cried tears of joy. There are moments that I came close to tears of joy: when Allen proposed to me and when we were married - but in those moments my joy and excitement made me laugh instead of cry (he actually asked me what I was laughing at after he proposed, I was just so happy).

 Little did I know in the moment that I first held Caleb that this would only be the first of many times I would cry tears of joy over the next couple of weeks. For the first few days we were home, I cried tears of joy each time I would kneel to pray before going to bed (and by "going to bed", I mean taking a 2 hour nap before the next feeding). Each time I felt the same sense of love, gratitude and joy for the precious baby God has blessed me with and the husband I am blessed to have at my side through all of this.

Family cuddle time

 

Proud Dad with his baby boy

Proud Grandma

Going home outfit! So cute!

The never-ending belly button

I never thought I would see the day that I would see the end of my bellybutton! As my belly has expanded throughout my pregnancy, my innie kept turning out more and more, but it wasn't until the end of week 39 that the end (of my bellybutton and pregnancy) was in sight.

Three days overdue!

In case you can't tell, Caleb has not yet graced us with his presence. Unless there are some dramatic events today, we will be going in to be induced tomorrow 10/10/11 (Columbus Day) at 5:30 am!!! Even though this morning was my last morning to sleep in for a LONG time, I couldn't sleep because of the excitement!

Mom and Dad flew in to Houston on October 3, Caleb's due date. Dad left Wednesday morning without getting to see Caleb and Mom has extended her visit because she was supposed to leave tomorrow morning. While Dad was here, we went to Lupe Tortilla (to enjoy some "preety good food" con funny menu), took pictures at the Houston Temple, looked up YouTube videos on how to bring on labor and tried almost all of the suggestions . . . minus castor oil.

We had our house inspected on Thursday and while the inspection was going on, Mom and I cleaned for three hours so I'd have less cleaning to do when we move in with a very new baby. Good news on the house: things seem to be going forward pretty smoothly! We should close on October 27th! New baby, new house . . . October is turning into a busy month.

Allen in our entryway

Dining room to the left of the entry with doors going into the kitchen

View of the living room from the kitchen

View of the kitchen from the living room with Allen going out the back door

The game room upstairs, I didn't take pictures of the rooms or bathrooms.

View of the living room from the walkway

Kitchen from the dining room - without the light on

 

The living room with the 1/2 bath and master to the left.

Mom and I have gone to fabric stores and worked on projects (quilts, Christmas presents, Halloween costumes, etc) to keep busy during the waiting time in addition to going on walks. Friday, our walk ended up being about twice as long as we planned. We didn't turn on the street I thought we were going to turn on and ended up walking 3.4 miles in about 70 minutes. That sure brought on some contractions, just not strong enough to convince Caleb to enter the world! 

Caleb's Halloween costume! His little legs will just tuck up inside of the jack-o-lantern, he'll be so cute!

Side shot . . . 5 days overdue

Yesterday Allen and I went to the Senior PGA tour Insperity Cup at The Woodlands Country Club. It was fun! I'd never been to a golf tournament before and it was even better because of the "tent" we had access to. I forgot to get pictures of it, but we got free food and drinks as we sat at tables overlooking the 18th hole. We had at least five people stop us while walking on the course to ask if Allen brought me to try to walk the baby out of me.  Now I know that I at least look 9 months pregnant. As of last week Caleb hadn't dropped yet and nobody believed I was 40 weeks along.

The weather was perfect! Mid 80s, slightly overcast with a nice breeze. This group had a golfer with the last name Allen and someone else sponsored by Adams golf . . . I had to take a picture of Allen with them teeing off (hole 10 I believe)

Watching the 17th hole from a beautiful grassy knoll (I got bit by ants there) 

Someone teeing off at 18

Soccer, "Bread Bowls" and General Conference

In case you were wondering, we have 2 days until the due date . . . Monday! . . . and no baby yet. I hoped my attempt to play soccer this morning might help speed things along, instead my pubic symphysis just hurts a lot. In all actuality, I was just going to watch Allen play pick-up soccer this morning but my mistake was that I wore exercise clothes because I was going to walk some laps while I watched them play. They were short on players and I ended up trying to play. 

 

"Trying to play" is a gross exaggeration of what actually happened. It makes me laugh just thinking about it! There are not words to describe how pathetic my attempt was. I never passed the ball harder or more accurately than a one year-old, my "jog" was a sort of speed walk with my arms swinging fast to pretend like I was running, I never played defense, . . . funny stuff! If I had a video of it, I would post it on here for you all to laugh with me. 

First of all . . . I just love General Conference! (For those of you who don't know what that is, two weekends a year the LDS church has worldwide church meetings where we listen to church leaders speak.) And since it is general conference weekend, I just finished listening to four hours of talks that make me want to be better and do better. 

A couple of posts ago I wrote about how I worry and today Carl B. Cook taught an important principle about looking up to the Savior. I will paraphrase some of what he said that touched me: Most of what we worry about is not of eternal significance. Release your worries and burdens to the Lord. Look up (to Him for help). Step up (and do what you need to). These will cause you to cheer up. 

And the bread bowls . . . hahaha! Friday I decided to make a delicious creamy corn chowder for dinner. I had made it before and knew it was good. This time I tried to make the bread bowls instead of buying them from the store. They ended up as bread plates! The bread tasted good so we just dipped it in our soup rather than having it hold our soup. It was almost as funny as the failed bacon gravy attempt earlier this week for biscuits and gravy! 

Here's the soup and the bread plates.

In my defense, the bread plates tasted a lot like Macaroni Grill's bread . . . I should have just whipped out some olive oil and balsamic vinegar and had it as an appetizer to the meal.