as we grow: November 2012

Well this is our first Thanksgiving not really doing anything special. I was going to cook but Clint's mom had the great idea of ordering us a meal from The Fresh Market so I wouldn't have to cook. It was wonderful. We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, green beans, rolls, gravy, and of course pumpkin pie. Thank you Susu for spoiling us and making my life much easier today!!! Clint thinks we should just order our thanksgiving meal every year but I told him I missed cooking, however, I didn't miss cleaning up.

I made this Thankful banner to hang up this year, I love it and Sawyer loved having ABC's hanging above our door

A few days ago Sawyer and I made our first Thankful tree. She loved doing it and I love teaching her to be thankful for all our blessings. I pray she continues to have a thankful heart and that she will grow to give thanks to God for everything!!!

Here's our little turkey. He's doing so good. He is on a pretty good schedule. He eats, I keep him up for about 30 minutes and then swaddle him and put him down for a nap. I usually lay him down and let him cry for a few minutes and then I have to go in there and hold in and he will fall asleep. I'm really looking forward to just letting him cry it out until he falls asleep but I still think it is early to do that. I'll wait a few more weeks to start that. Sawyer LOVES her baby brother. Seriously, I don't think she could be any better with him. I am so thankful for that. I pray for their relationship everyday.

The weather was beautiful today. We went for a long walk to a park. Sawyer got to swing and she was loving it. Here's a pick of Clint with the kids, it's not the best but it's all I got so I'll take it =D

And I'll end with a pic of Clint and Jameson being sweet. Clint is such a great daddy and I am so thankful for him. We make a great team and I look forward to meaning more years serving along side him.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We missed our family but it was nice celebrating with just our little family of 4. How blessed we are!

*This post is lengthly with details for me to remember, it might be boring for some of you!*

So I have been meaning to sit down and type this out so I don't forget how sweet Jameson came into the world. Right now he is sleeping and Sawyer is out and about with my parents. Thus creating the perfect time for me to tell the story!

First off, we were praying and praying that this boy would come when Clint's mom, Susu, was here. But this boy and God had other plans. Susan was due to fly out early Sunday morning October 28 and my mom was flying in that morning as well. Because of a Hurricane heading towards the Northeast Sunday was the last day to fly out of Philadelphia. Susan was going to change her flight to Monday because I was having TONS of contractions all day on Saturday, so we thought he was going to come soon. But because of Hurricane Sandy she couldn't change her flight. So off went Susan and in came my mom. By Sunday morning I wasn't having any contractions and I was feeling a bit discouraged. My mom, Sawyer, and I ran some errands Sunday afternoon and when we got home I heard this loud noise coming from my tire. Clint came to check it out and thought the tire was going flat so we took the car to our car place for the night in case we got a flat we wouldn’t have to drive the car with a flat. So now we were down to one car. When we got inside our apartment I went to sit down and my friend Elise called me. I was talking with her and telling her how I wasn’t having any progress, and then all of a sudden I started to feel my water leaking. I got up and went to the bathroom. More and more water was coming out. Elise started freaking out and was telling me to get to the hospital. I got off the phone with her and told my mom and Clint. I was excited but then my nerves started kicking in. I put on some makeup and packed up our bag. I called the doctor and it took them FOREVER to call me back. So we ordered pizza, ate dinner, and finally talked to the doctor and decided to head to the hospital. Sawyer was excited for us to leave, but I don’t think she realized I wouldn’t be coming back for a few days.

Clint and I arrived at the hospital and went to triage where they made sure my water was breaking. By this point it’s around 8 in the evening. We get checked into our room and start walking around the hospital to get things going. I was having super irregular contractions. By 10pm my doctor said she wanted to start me on Pitocin. I did NOT want this, I started to tear up and my sweet nurse said I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to. So I decided to wait a few more hours and hope that my body would start having regular contractions. Clint and I walked around again and then came back to our room to take a nap. Clint fell asleep and I was getting ready to. I started praying and kept telling myself that God knows how this boy is coming into the world and I need to trust that. Shortly after praying I began having contractions!!! With each contraction more and more water would come out and the contractions would get more painful. I couldn’t rest so I waited a little bit and then woke Clint up. By this point I think it was around 2am. The doctor checked me and I was 5 cm dilated. The nurse said this is the point where I should get an epidural if I wanted it. I told her I wanted to labor a little longer before getting one. She left the room and I was just pacing around bearing with each contraction. Well they started to get bad and I was feeling tons of pain. I told the nurse I was ready. She had to start the fluids and we had to wait for the doctor to come and put in my epidural. After the epidural I was 6 cm dilated. Once I got the epidural I started to feel relief for about 30 minutes. Then all of a sudden I started to feel TONS of pain and pressure down low. I called in the nurse and told her I needed a stronger epidural. She checked it and said I have a really good epidural. I went on about how uncomfortable I was during each contraction. She said I should get checked again to see how far dilated I was. Well…I was ready to push. That’s why I was feeling so much pain and pressure. I started pushing around 5am and we had little baby boy at 6:10am. Pushing this time around was much harder than with Sawyer. Towards the end I didn’t know if I could continue, but obviously I could and did.

The next few days in the hospital were nice. We watched hours and hours of the Hurricane coverage. The hardest part was knowing that Sawyer and my mom were without power. By Tuesday evening they realized they couldn’t stay the night in our house because it was too cold. Our great friends, the Rogers, hosted them for the night. Sawyer did great sleeping in a new place without mommy and daddy. And thanks be to God our power came on late Tuesday night, just in time for us to come home the next day. This was such a relief. We were going to have to go to a hotel once we left the hospital. The thought of bringing Jameson home to a hotel was a little overwhelming. But we didn’t have to do that, whoo hoo!

Since we’ve been home things have been great. He so far (fingers crossed) is much easier than Sawyer was as a baby. He does great during his awake time and sleeps good too. He still doesn’t fall asleep on his own, but he’s not even 2 weeks old, I have to keep reminding myself of that.

I took him to the doctor today and he is past his birth weight. He now weighs 7 lbs. 15 ounces and when we left the hospital he weighed 7 lbs. 1 ounce so he’s doing great! He is about average when it comes to height, weight, and head circumference. He does have a knot on his head that is filled with fluid and blood. This will eventually go away it will just take time, it could months! It is not harmful in any way, just looks kind of silly =D Overall, he is wonderful and we love being a family of 4. So thankful for this new gift and trying to treasure all the moments, even the difficult ones.