Halloween Festivities

I have had a cranky baby on my hands the last couple days so I have been unable to blog. I am actually conducting an experiment. He's been pretty fussy since Halloween and I've been eating a lot of chocolate since then; coincidence, I think not! So I am not eating any chocolate to see if that improves his fussiness and gas. This may be the worst day of my life; I love chocolate, a lot!

2 weeks ago we went to the pumpkin patch. Claire loved playing on the playground and the hay fort. Her and Levi roped some cattle and she did surprisingly well. She also enjoyed riding around on the mini tractors and petting the animals. Then we took a stroll through the corn maze. As far as corn mazes go, it sucked. There's no real beginning or end, just several places you can do either. The best corn maze (by far!) is the one out at Sauvie's Island, especially if you go at night for the haunted edition. But Claire enjoyed this corn maze. Last year she took a bite out of the corn and started bawling, probably because it tasted so awful! This year she attempted to take a bite but we stopped her just in time. Claire got a little too cranky so we didn't pick out pumpkins and the pumpkins looked pretty sad anyway. Will pooped, ate and then slept the rest of the time we were there. All in all, we had a fabulous day!

Last week we headed out to the Oregon Gardens in Silverton. I had purchased a Groupon a couple months ago and we just hadn't had a chance to use it. I can't believe we've lived in Salem for over 6 years now and have never toured the gardens. We've been out there twice, once for a banquet for a company party of Levi's and then another time for a concert, but we weren't able to tour the gardens either time. It was so gorgeous this time of year! The leaves have all turned colors and many trees had either begun to lose or already lost all of their leaves. The fun thing about this time of year is that people and businesses make scarecrows for the garden. Claire really enjoyed pointing out all the scarecrows and seeing the different ways they were dressed up, super cute! We started out our tour by taking a tram ride through the entire park. Then we stopped to take a couple pictures and (not surprisingly) we spent the rest of our time there at the children's area. It was a little chilly so we were ready to head home after about 2 hours. But we cannot wait to head out there again in the spring or summer; I can't imagine how beautiful it will be then!

And then to wrap up our Halloween festivities we went trick-or-treating (after eating some yummy mummy dogs, thanks pinterest!). Levi's parents joined us and we had a great time. It seems like not as many houses were participating, but we got our exercise that way. Claire dressed as a witch (thank you grandma Debi for making her beautiful costume!) and Baby Will dressed as a dinosaur. We practiced with Claire what to say/do for trick or treating; she did pretty well but needed a little cuing. After the first couple houses she would run back to our group yelling, "I did it, I did it!" and then later on in the evening she would run back to everyone else and say, "Flash it, flash it! Look at all my candy!" By flash it, she meant with the flashlight, just thought I'd clarify. :) Levi's pumpkin is the far left (don't you think it looks like the character from Nightmare Before Christmas), then mine (I am so not creative!), Claire drew on hers with a green marker and Baby Will's is spitting up, hahaha.

P.S. I apologize that the photos are all over the place. I usually use Windows Live Writer to write blog posts but we just got a new computer and haven't installed that yet.

Baby William’s Birth Story

I was due Sunday, October 13th. Well October 13th came and went, I was pretty disappointed. Anyone that goes past their due date understands how much of a bummer it is. Monday (Levi’s first day post-academy, woo hoo!) came and went. Tuesday I had a doctor appointment. She said I was 3.5 cm dilated (I was 3 cm last week) and she went ahead and stripped my membranes. I was a little crampy after that but nothing exciting happened.

Wednesday morning I had a super hard time getting out of bed as I had slept awful. At about 8 am I felt a menstrual type cramp (but nothing super painful) and wasn’t sure if I was going into labor or if my stomach was just upset from Buffalo Wild Wings the night before. I texted Levi just to let him know I thought it was starting and to be ready. At 9 am I called him and told him he’d better head home. By 9:30 am my contractions were about 5 minutes apart. Levi got home, we packed some last minute things, dropped Claire off at Toni’s and then headed to the hospital. We got there at about 11 am and they took us back to a triage room. They hooked me up to the contraction monitor and the baby heart rate monitor and checked me and I was 5-6 cm. Within a half hour we were given a labor and delivery room and at about noon I was started on the IV fluids and antibiotics I needed since I was group B strep positive.

I got in the jacuzzi tub pretty soon after we arrived and stayed in there for a good 45 min. This is when my wonderful husband decided to leave me to go get food as he had not eaten since super early that morning (I like to give him a hard time about this but really I was quite comfy in the tub and I’m glad he went then and not later). The doctor came in to meet me; super nice guy, I liked him instantly. Why is it that both times I have never met my doctor before labor and delivery. Levi said we should guess what time he’ll be born; I said 4 pm and Levi said 5 pm. I was feeling quite a bit of pressure at this point (maybe 1 pm) so the nurse checked me and said I was about 6-7 cm. I was so disappointed as I thought for sure I was closer.

After that I was on a giant exercise ball for a while and that is when my contractions intensified. This is about when Levi piped up with, “I had a really bad stomach ache last night so I totally know how you’re feeling right now.” Not funny at the time but super funny now! He kept saying how fast this was all going compared to last time but I felt like it was taking forever. I was checked again at about 2 pm and the nurse said it felt like my water was about to break and I was 9 cm. She paged the doctor and while he was checking me my water broke. My contractions were unbearable at this point. I wished I would have had a refresher course on breathing and coping techniques; 4 years is too long to remember all that stuff. My sweet husband tried to distract me by telling me they’re getting blankets and stuff ready for our baby.

The doctor emptied my bladder to make room for the baby to come out. This is about the time I was screaming “I can’t do this” and “HELP, HELP, HELP!” Levi responded with “what can I do?” and I screamed, “get this baby out of me!” Right after that I started pushing. On the 3rd push, baby’s head came out. The doctor had to rotate the baby’s head a bit and then on the 4th push his shoulders and the rest of his body came out; I was so glad to not have to push for 45 minutes!

William Boyd Fergus was born at 3:07 pm, weighing in at 8 lbs 13 oz and measured 21 inches long.

 

 

 

 

To be honest, he didn’t have a name for a good hour and a half. We had such a hard time with boy names. He had a good, healthy cry for the first couple minutes and would not open his eyes for the first few hours. We were surprised to see lighter colored, almost blonde, hair on his little head. He does have a bit of an old man hair line, longer on the back and sides and super thin on top. He is so handsome and we are so blessed to have him in our family.

Claire came into the room at about 5 pm. She was really hesitant and looked like she was going to cry. I think she was really freaked out by my being in a hospital gown and bed and hooked up to an IV, etc. But she got over that pretty quick and then was just a super sweet and proud big sister.

 

 

 

 

Because I did not have the antibiotics in my system for at least 4 hours before I gave birth, we ended up having to stay 48 hours to make sure baby wasn’t showing any symptoms of the group B strep. I was so ready to go home after 24 hours, it’s amazing how much better I felt this time around. Again we had wonderful nurses and doctors in the hospital!

 

 

 

 

Our labor and delivery nurse spotted just after he was born that he was tongue tied. I had never heard of this before and was a little freaked out. The nurse explained that baby Will had an unusually short frenulum, a membrane connecting the underside of the tongue to the floor of the mouth (Google “tongue tie” if you still have no idea what I’m talking about, kind of crazy looking). I have a giraffe tongue (as does Claire) but Levi on the other hand can barely stick his tongue past his teeth, his was not clipped, so we knew exactly where this came from. She said it would be an extremely easy procedure to clip it but in the meantime it could cause problems breastfeeding. And boy, was she right! Since he could not stick his tongue out, he was unable to suck properly causing a lot of pain for mama. Thankfully we were able to go directly from the hospital to the Ear, Nose and Throat doctor and have his tongue clipped. They numbed him up with a topical, gave him some sugar water, snipped it, he let out one cry, it bled a tiny bit and that was it. What a difference that has made!

Claire had a lot of fun visiting us in the hospital. She played in the play room a lot, put the bed up as high as it would go, she went under the bed and said she “fixing” it, had a ton of fun with the cow balloon, danced in the hallways and our wonderful nurse Jenny even let her “play nurse” with the stethoscope. 

After a week he was already up to his birth weight, he is a champion eater. You may remember that Claire would go a week without pooping as a newborn, well that is definitely not the case with Will. Let’s just say he is definitely a boy when it comes to that department, EXPLOSIVE.

I really wasn’t sure how Claire would react to all of this. She has been the only child for nearly 4 years and she’s a kid that demands all of the attention. But I could not be more pleasantly surprised with her. Every morning she asks, “Can I hold my baby?” and she has been so great with sharing her stuffed animals and even her special blanky when he gets upset. I love my sweet little family so much!

We got all packed up and ready to go and snapped the picture on the right. We couldn’t help but laugh remembering Claire did the very same thing!

Levi’s Police Academy Graduation

It’s finally here! Levi graduated Police Academy and I could not be more happy or proud. It was a long 16 weeks, especially with me being very pregnant and working full-time. There were many weekends that he did nothing other than eat, sleep and study. He did extremely well on all of his tests, scoring in the 90’s on all of them. He also ended up getting the marksmanship pin. To receive the marksmanship pin, the officers must shoot perfectly during 5 different shooting activities. It makes me feel really good that he is such a good shot; he’ll get the bad guys quickly if need be. ;) For the next couple months he will be having another officer ride with him to make sure he is doing everything correctly. Doesn’t he look so handsome in uniform! I had to include the picture of Claire crying, she was really upset about something.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hopefully the next time I post is because I had a baby!