mother of two

After having family in my home for over a week after Parker was born, I started to get a bit worried about what life would be like with a crazy, wild, adventurous almost 2 year old and a newborn baby.  While having company here I felt that at least one person always had to man Colby to make sure he wasn't sneaking outside and running into the street, or just to meet his "help pweese" needs.  Andrew's parents left Monday morning and my parents aren't getting here again (they were here last week but headed to Arizona to pack everything up for the winter) so I have had 2 days with these two crazy kids by myself.  Honestly...not that bad!  Colby is becoming more independent and doesn't need me by his side constantly, although still needs me there most of the time, but at least i'm able to take care of Parker just fine.

Colby is such a good big brother.  He loves to give Parker kisses and squeezes and make sure he has his blanket on.  He's really good about being soft with him and not to hit him.  With everyone coming and going Colby has pretty much been the center of attention and has gotten VERY spoiled, but i'm so greatful for my family and Andrews family being able to spend some time with us helping us out.

Parker is definitely the opposite of Colby, which has thrown me for a loop since I know how to deal with Colby, I'm completely at a loss with Parker.  He has his night and days switched around which makes for two tired parents who get about 3-4 hours of sleep at night.  Luckily Andrew is very good about helping me out.  With Colby he never had to because he would sleep just fine at night, but Parker is a different story.  He eats about every 2-3 hours, and 1 1/2 to 2 hours of that we are trying to get him to go back to sleep.  Nights aren't fun.  Hope he figures it out soon though so his parents can get their sanity back.  I also think he might have some sort of acid reflux problem, he'd be asleep on me and as soon as i lay him down he struggles breathing either from a burp or spit up.  Poor guy looks like he's in so much pain.  Luckily with the lack of sleep I get to take a nap every day, poor Andrew has to go to work.  We do know that Parker is eating very well though, which relieves some pressure off me to make sure this little guy is getting enough.  Nursing is NOT FUN, at least not in the beginning.  There have been many tears, but I think we're both getting the hang of this nursing thing and my pain is going away, and Parker now weighs 5 lbs 11 oz, so he's gained 6 oz since his last appt a week ago.

Our (surprise) baby story

warning: this is a birth story...so it may be TMI for some

Thursday April 5th started out just like every other day.  I got Colby up, fed him breakfast, said goodbye to daddy as we waved to him while he was leaving to go to work, put Colby in the stroller and went for a walk.  Colby and I played until naptime.  Once he was down I went out back to get some of the never ending weeding done.  I had only been out back for 45 minutes when I decided my back had had enough.  I had gotten used to the back pain, but this time it was really getting to me, so I went inside and just laid down to relax.  Colby got up from his nap so we played some more and did whatever he wanted to do in the backyard.  By the time Andrew got home I was complaining about cramping, but thought I just had to go to the bathroom and was joking around about it.  The pain kept coming and I was trying to entertain Colby while Andrew was getting more work done in the backyard, this is when I was really just wanting Andrew to take Colby so I didn't have to hold him anymore.  Luckily it was about 8:00, so we put Colby down for the night, and I had my apple pie (since i eat junk food as soon as the monster goes to bed so i dont have to share :) ) and then i began to immediately regret the decision to eat the apple pie since i thought that made my "bathroom" problem worse.  I laid on the couch and as the cramping came I just stuck it out, secretly annoyed that this small constipation issue was causing me this pain.  Around 9:00 I decided to actually figure out when the pains were coming...they were every 5 minutes.  Around 9:45 I gave andrew a warning...just letting him know that PERHAPS they're labor pains, but I'm definitely not going to the hospital until I know because I didn't want them to send me home telling me I was just constipated (with Colby they sent me home after my water broke and told me I had just pee'd my pants) so I didn't want to go through that again.  We were just watching TV and around 11:00 the cramps were about 3 minutes apart, very consistant and lasting about a minute, but i still wasn't sure (I also hadn't experienced contractions with Colby since my water broke, I got induced, and then got the epidural shortly after).  I decided to call the hospital and let them know I was going to come in.  I still took my time though, not completely sure what was going on.  I didn't want to wake Colby up for a false alarm or make someone come over and watch him in the middle of the night for nothing.  I went into my room and started packing things up for the hospital, and then realized that I desperately needed to shave my legs (yes that actually happened).  I came out of the room from getting ready and found Andrew asleep on the couch, so I put on a movie and started watching, thinking i would give him some time to sleep.  Then i realized my cramping was less than 2 minutes apart and getting more painful where i was having to concentrate on breathing through them, so i finally had the sense to wake Andrew up and tell him we are for sure going to the hospital.  We still had more packing to do for Colby and had to get the carseat ready and all that jazz.  We finally woke Colby up and got to the hospital at 1:33.  The nurse was really nice and I was telling her I hope she wont have to send me home and coming up with small talk while she got everything ready.  She asked me what my pain level was so I told her probably a 4 and that I would like the epidural at about a 5.  She then checked to see if i was dilated and then used the worst sentence ever, "oh honey you're not getting an epidural, you're at a 9" I was in complete shock and immediately started crying (now i know to the mother that was planning on doing a natural child birth I sound like a complete baby - just keep in mind i have never had ANY intention whatsoever to do this without an epidural, I did not have time to mentally prepare myself for what was about to happen).  The nurse ran out of the room (i'm assuming to make sure the delivery room is getting prepped).  I walked on over to the delivery room where i had nurses running all around me, possibly talking to me, i'm not really sure at this point.  Andrew was holding Colby, trying to get ahold of our friends Andrew and Emily to come and get him for us, meanwhile...i'm beginning to hyperventilate, i'm more worried about why my hands are cramping up and why i'm about to pass out than the pain. I really wish I hadn't been as loud as I was for Colby's sake, but he seemed completely fine eating fruit snacks on the couch.  The nurse is breaking my water, trying to calm me down (i think).  Somewhere in this mess the doctor shows up and they want me to push.  I'm thinking "they have got to be kidding, i'm doing everything i can to get through this contraction and now you want me to push?" I'm pretty sure Parker began to come out before i really pushed much, but finally found some strength to push.  About 3 pushes later (and a crazy amount of hysteria from me) Parker Ryan came into the world at 2:12 (yes about 45 minutes after we got to the hospital).  Of course that was not the end to my happy ending.  There is still a placenta to be delivered.  Someone had told me this hurts (if i didn't remembe this small fact, i'm sure the rest of the night would have been very different).  I was tense, shaking, still trying to breathe, and bottom line, i could not get myself to relax and calm down.  They told me my water and Parkers head held open my cervix, so when they were gone, my cervix closed to 2 cm and they couldn't get my placenta out because i was so tense.  Bottom line, they took me to the operating room to perform a D&C to get the placenta out.  I got spinal anesthetic and basically relaxed enough that they didn't need to perform the surgery (thank goodness).

So after this crazy and stressful night, we welcomed our baby boy who weighed 5 lb 9 oz and was 18.5 inches long.  He's been amazing.  He sleeps so well and has the quietest cry i've ever heard (for anyone who knows colby, you know these two things are they exact opposite).  He has his days and nights confused, so he sleeps all day long and i can hardly get him to even eat, and he's awake a lot of the night, so we have some work to do, but he's so much fun to have in our home and we're blessed that he is home with us.

Weekend Getaway to beautiul San Francisco

I know I have mentioned this before, but for a couple weeks Andrew was working tons (like 20+ hour days), so Andrew decided to take a couple days off.  We used one of those days this last weekend.  Andrew, Colby and I took off Thursday night to head up to San Francisco, I was so excited because i had never been, and Andrew hasn't been since high school (Colby couldn't care less where we went). Colby did very well on the drive, although he broke my heart when he was asking for "nigh nigh" through his tears, which is sawed off....which i didn't have since we took it away a while ago.  He got over it though and we had a fairly pleasant driving experience.  Andrew and I were both in shock at the beauty of San Francisco as we drove over the Bay Bridge and saw all the amazing buildings all lit up in the dark.  At that moment I just new i loved that city.

The only plans we really had on Friday was our Alcatraz trip at noon, so in the morning we walked and walked and walked and explored all sorts of things.  We stayed around the piers so we wouldn't miss the ferry, but we ended up walking miles upon miles.  And then we got to Alcatraz and walked some more, but it was so interesting we didn't even realize how tired we were getting (Colby started to remind us how tired he was getting though).  Alcatraz is completely amazing, there is so much history there and it was incredible to see it.

After our Alcatraz trip we began our walk to Ghirardelli Square because that was one of the 'must see' spots.  On our way we looked through a few markets and got some salt water taffy (incredible) and smelled some very good food.  We got our free candy samples, but Andrew and i weren't too intersted in it.  It was just a bunch of shops with overpriced candy, but at least i got my samples :)  We ate at Boudins, so we got our sour dough bread fix, and we also wanted ice cream too, and thought we'd try out some San Francisco ice cream, we stopped at this little ice cream place to get some Mitchel's Ice Cream and it was AMAZING! we both got our two scoops of ice cream and then the lady surprised me and gave me another scoop of chocolate ice cream for my little baby, and boy am i glad she did, that was the best chocolate ice cream i've ever tasted in my entire life!  By this point we were both walking very slowly so we headed back to the hotel room around 7:00 in the evening.

Saturday was our last day there, our only plan was to check out Union Square and to get a better view of the Golden Gate Bridge.  We really wanted to go on the cable cars, but with a huge stroller we couldn't quite fit, so we settled for the nice and inexpensive street cars. Colby enjoyed being on that little "train" so it worked out for us.  At Union Square we were also a bit overwhelmed by the crazy expensive stores we'd never go in, but we did find out way down to China Town and found the most amazing bakery ever (we went back twice).  We wanted to leave to head home around 4:00 so we didn't have too much time to walk around, but we still did our fair share of walking.  After Union Square we didn't have much else we needed to see, so we just ate lunch so Andrew could get his sea food fix (since i will never ever make him fish) and we headed back to the hotel to check out.  We got in the car and found our way to a nice park next to the Golden Gate Bridge (we didn't want to actually cross it because we didn't want to pay the toll, and we were also in a little bit of a hurry to get back home, so we just found a nice easy park to get to). We let Colby run around, which he enjoyed, but he was also getting extremely tired at this point and wouldn't put up with much, but we had some amazing views.

I absolutely love San Francisco.  I couldn't live there, it's much too busy for me, but it sure it beautiful.  I would love to go again and bike the Golden Gate Bridge.  We almost did it this time, but Andrew and Google talked me out of making that journey at 9 months pregnant.  We'll do it some day though :)