Chronicle of Our New Life- Pre and One Week Post

Get settled in because it will be a long one. Parts of this might be TMI for some. We begin with a picture of the nursery as it was before we left for the hospital.

And now for the story of labor and delivery...3: 50 pm Monday, July 6th- Just a regular weekly Dr. appt. but when I got there my blood pressure was high and I was preclamptic. Dr. Norwood did not play around: Total bedrest with bathroom privileges only. 11:30 pm Monday, July 6th- Blood pressure still had not come down so, Ben calls the Dr. He said to head to L & D for observation. (Terrific...my hospital bag was not completely packed yet). 4:30 am Tuesday, July 7th-Blood pressure is perfect (of course) and I am released to come back home. Wednesday, July 8th-Blood pressure up and down, but an uneventful day. 8:00 am Thursday, July 9th- Back at Dr. Norwood's office with through the roof blood pressure and increased protein, sent directly to L & D for induction (Lovely, I always wanted Pitocin...but we were prepared and had the hospital bag with us)

Our plan was for a natural delivery. It did not include a continuous monitor and being confined to a bed with an IV of Pitocin AND Magnesium at the same time. God is in control...So, with loved ones(Ben, Mimi, Amber, and Leigh Ann) surrounding us and our doula (Melissa) assisting, we set in for 9 LONG hours of natural labor. FYI: Pitocin is supposed to increase the strength of contractions to spur labor along, but magnesium can stall labor because it keeps you a little out of it so that you will not have a seizure and cut off the oxygen supply to the baby, therefore up the Pitocin to overcome the effects of the magnesium...FUN. After 9 hours of natural labor, still dilated at a 3, Dr. Norwood (and by this time, I'm all for it after the disappointment of only 3 centimeters dilated) tells me we're doing an epidural to see if that will help. Once again, an epidural was not in our birth plan. God is in control...After several hours on the epidural and STILL no progress, Dr. Norwood says C-section is the only way. WHAT!!! That was definitely NOT in our birth plan! God is in control...Ben and Mimi scrub in and go to the OR with me and we soon become the proud parents of the most perfectly precious baby boy that God could have ever given us (not biased, of course). Now that all is said and done, we find out that my perfect little boy spent all day long trying to get through the birth canal, but I have a cupped sacrum that blocks entrance to the birth canal. Result: C-section and a conehead.

So that I do not terrify anyone, all of these pictures are post-epidural...much more tame.

Once we were moved upstairs to postpartum, we continued to feel so blessed by loved ones who cared enough about us to visit and meet our precious new bundle. Some of whom had already spent the entire night of L & D with me!

I just couldn't resist putting this one of Cam in because it was hilarious!

Pay no attention to how bad I look, still swollen from Head to Toe!

After arriving home, Mimi was waiting for us with baby boy ribbons on the mailbox and back gate and Leigh Ann had lunch ready for us, too. We are so spoiled! The next day, Mimi and Leigh Ann worked together and this precious stork arrived in our front yard.

I had to include Daddy's favorite picture. He thinks our child is so advanced that he is about to roll over and already smiling. I think it might be gas...

I also had to include this one of Jill, Cam, and Mimi. Jill really wanted Cam to hold Ethan, but he was terrified. Mimi took care of that...she just walked up and laid him in his arms. Daddy was ready with the camera!

Now, this...this is Mommy's favorite picture of my perfect little angel. I could hold him and stare at him all day long.

Ethan Brewer

July 10, 2009

6lbs 3 oz

18 inches

Do dogs have a paper deficiency?

We have been so proud of our high-energy puppy because it seems that she is beginning to calm down a bit...or so we thought. When we first got her we crate-trained her and it has worked beautifully. Here we are a year later and she's doing so well, so of course it is time to allow her some freedom when we leave. We started allowing her to stay out when we left for short periods of time to run to the store and she has worked all the way up to 4 and 5 hours at a time! We are so proud of her...she's such a good girl! She doesn't get on the furniture, she loves laying on her bed, she plays with her toys and doesn't chew things that don't belong to her! She's such a good girl!

Having said all of that, I've been working on Thank You notes and I am so excited because they are almost finished. They stay on "my" chair and every day I sit and write a few. The other day we left for an hour and a half and when we returned, Lucy had EATEN the gift log that I had recorded everything in, several of the Thank You notes, and way too many envelopes to count. I mean shredded, ripped to pieces, digested, strewn all over the floor, and tore pages clean out of the book. You don't want to know how the hormonal pregnant lady who can't remember anything and had almost gotten all of them written reacted.

Summertime Bedrest

You would think that since I am out of school now and my lovely doctor has requested that I stay off of my feet for several boring hours a day that I would be blogging all the time. I do think about it, but it seems that bedrest lends itself to procrastination...not at all what I was thinking it would be like. I was thinking that I would be reading, reading, reading, writing thank you notes, and spending a lot of time on the computer. Not so much, I am actually doing less reading than ever which really isn't good considering that I have several baby books that I am supposed to have FINISHED before our son arrives. We have less than 5 weeks and there are still way too many things on my baby to-do list for my comfort level. That doesn't stress me out at all, yeah sure! And there are a couple of things that STILL need to be done in the nursery before I post the final pics. Does it ever all get done? Or will he arrive first...

Boys and Their Toys

I am a firm believer that every weekend should be a 3 day weekend with a 4 day work week. I think everyone would get on board with me. It was such a relaxing, beautiful weekend (if you missed the rain)! But somehow Monday felt like it should have been the beginning of the weekend...not the day before we turn around and start the week over again. Even so, we spent Sunday after church and Monday on the lake with friends. By Monday afternoon, the boys decided it was time to really get down to business and do some serious water sports with their toys. The perfect solution...a low-key boat for the girls to watch them and get some sun and a high speed water sport boat for the boys. Ben had a blast wake-boarding and I loved cruising around the lake at a much more desirable speed for my pregnant belly!

The Dreaded Maternity Photos

So, we did it. We had maternity pictures made. I had been dreading this for months. Having pictures made of my swollen face, big belly, fat feet, large arms, and thick legs is not my idea of a fun afternoon. Not to mention the scary maternity wrap that shows WAY TOO MUCH skin for my taste. But Ben was excited about the pictures AND the wrap and his perception of me is much better than my perception of myself at this point, so I went along with it. Of course, all of the pictures of him turned out great! His 5 a.m. workout physique looks way different from my 31 weeks pregnant physique. I must admit that some of the pictures did turn out better than I thought they would, though. It was really a very sweet and endearing photo session and tears came to my eyes when I realized that this was the first time that we had had pictures made of us since we got married 8 years ago. Nothing more than snapshots, anyway. In the age of digital everything, we got to preview them before we left and the photographer even put together a little video set to music of some of the pictures that made me cry (gotta love the hormones). All in all, it really wasn't bad. Here are just a few of them...Sorry, I really don't think you want to see the maternity wrap!

The Nursery is Painted--Finally!

After a month of working on weekends, Ben has paint and chair rail up. The nursery is not finished, things are still sitting around, nothing is on the wall yet, and we are waiting on a few pieces to go in his room. But the crib is put together, his bedding is in it, and the dresser in in there. I can't wait to get the letter tiles on the wall above the crib and the blue and lime shadow boxes hung up! Here are a few pictures of the process so far.

Nursery News

So, the painting has begun. I have had stripes in my mind from the very first thoughts of decorating the nursery, EVEN before we had bedding. I had these glorious visions of a chair rail separating a solid color on top and stripes below. After we chose the bedding, the colors were simple to determine because we decided to use the 3 colors that we compromised on for the bedding; baby blue, lime green, and white. We chose to paint baby blue above a white chair rail with 10 inch stripes alternating the 3 colors beneath it. So...last weekend Ben and our great friend Rodney got started. They did a fantastic job painting the nursery baby blue. This week, Leigh Ann and her amazing family that we love dearly came over and we outlined the stripes, determined the pattern, and put up painter's tape. Amy, Rodney, Samantha, and Ally were pros and we couldn't have done it without them! They even talked me out of painting a white stripe because we have already have so much white trim in the room. Ben LOVED them for this because that cut his work in half! Since the room was already blue, all he had to do was the green stripes. This morning when I left for school, I was so excited because I knew that Ben and Rodney were going to paint the stripes today, then all we would have left was to put up the chair rail! Well...I got a call at school this afternoon from Ben. He said that our yellow stripes looked great. So back to the drawing board to find the perfect green to complement our bedding. Oh, the woes of painting. Pictures to come later...