Thankful.

The other day, my life-long friend, Kate came over for a visit. She and I have been friends since the 5th grade and although we don't spend a whole lot of time together these days, any time we spend together is like picking up where we left off last time. Anyway, while she was here, she was holding Nathan and gushing over him, and she said, "You must be really happy."

In one short sentence, she summarized how I've been feeling for the last few months. Overall, I'm a pretty happy person anyway, but I have learned a whole new kind of happiness, and for that, I am thankful.

I always knew that I would enjoy being a mother. There's no question that I have always looked forward to being a mother or that I would love it, but I still cannot believe just how much I love this little person, how much happiness he brings me just by looking at him, and how much he would change my life in just a matter of weeks. I am so fortunate to be his mother. When he coos and smiles at me, it just melts me every time. I am so thankful that God chose me to be his mother.

I look at him regularly and think about what a miracle life is, especially in children. God is so gracious to us in the gift of children. I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that I was chosen to be his mother...out of all of the women in the world, God has trusted me with this sweet, sweet baby. I am so thankful to Him for His many blessings, and especially my sweet little Nathan.

I am thankful for this happiness that I feel. There are so many contributing factors to my happiness, but the last year has brought a lot to us in the good and the bad, but for me, the good outweighs the bad, and for that, I am thankful.

I've been participating in the 30 Days of Thanks on Facebook, and I'm sure that plenty of people find that annoying, but I think it's good to really think about what you're thankful for once in a while. Some people have been saying, "Well you should be thankful all the time, not just in November" which I completely agree with, BUT...it's still nice to reflect on what you're thankful for and why...that's what Thanksgiving is all about afterall, right? Being thankful? I mean, let's be honest, we all know that the tale of the Pilgrims meeting the Indians didn't end in a friendly meal together, but that doesn't mean that we can't be thankful for what we have today.

Today, I encourage you to be thankful for what you have. Even if life isn't going the way you would like for it to right now, find something to be thankful for, and if nothing else, be thankful that you've been given another day of life.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! :)

Nathan is here! :)

Ok, fine, he didn't just arrive or anything, but I've been busy!

Nathan is already 5 weeks old, which I absolutely cannot believe! I know that several of the people that read my blog are on Facebook, so I know you've seen tons of my pictures, but I haven't really shared much about the experience.

If you read in my previous post, you know that I was scheduled to have a c-section on September 7th, and we were able to stick to that plan. The night before, I was really focus on getting the house clean one more time before the baby arrives, since, you know, newborns are rumored to keep parents busy.

We went to bed probably around 1:30am and we were awake around 3:45am so that we could get ready and be there by 5am. I took a shower, did my hair and make-up, because I thought I just may be somewhat presentable after the surgery if I did all of this before.

I didn't want to be late, and of course we were anxious, which made us get to the hospital about 20 minutes early. The hospital staff was like, "Um...you're early." Oops. Our bad, yo.

We got into our room and began the process of getting ready for surgery.

OMG, I was ginormous.

The surgery was scheduled for 7am, but there were some setbacks, so we didn't get into surgery until 11:30 or so. The surgery went really smoothly (Travis didn't pass out or anything!) and Nathan was born on Friday, September 7th at 12:28pm weighing 9lbs 3.4oz and measuring 20inches long. I can honestly say that seeing him for the first time was THE happiest moment of my life. I can't describe how it makes you feel, but it's the best feeling ever.

Nathan did have some troubles that we were expecting due to being a bigger baby and because there was a lot of amniotic fluid (which isn't a good thing, but we knew this in advance. The doctor never figured out what caused that though). The first problem is that with all of the fluid. During a c-section, the baby often gets startled when the pull him out, so his reaction is to inhale, getting fluid in his lungs. Nathan did exactly that, so he was put in a special nursery (not quite NICU), to be monitored and put on oxygen. The second issue was that bigger babies have trouble regulating their blood sugar, so they have to stay monitored for that. Because of the breathing stuff they had him on an IV until I could feed him myself, which I was thankful for. 

 

It took him longer to have normal breathing than expected, so around 6pm on Friday they told us that they would have to keep him in the nursery overnight. At that point, I had only seen him for a minute in the operating room, so this was devastating news. I immediately asked them if I could go see him, and they said I could go as soon as I could get out of bed and into a chair without getting dizzy.

My immediate thought was, "Is that a challenge?" and my second thought, in the words of Barney Stinson,

I asked them for a wheelchair and managed to sit up (keep in mind that I had just had a surgery where they mess with your abdominal muscles!), and when the nurse asked if I was dizzy, I definitely lied and said no. I made the transition and we went to the nursery, but we couldn't hold him. He was hooked up to too much.

 

Although I hated not having him with us, the upside was that for my first night as a mother, I was able to get some rest, so I felt much better the next day. Around 10:30am, we were able to go see him again (this time I even walked about 15 steps!), and I was able to hold him for the first time, which was the 2nd best moment in my life.

While we were down there, they took him off of the oxygen because his breathing had regulated and I was able to feed him. I won't share pictures of that moment, but Travis got to give him a bottle of formula as well because they wanted to keep his blood sugar at the right level.

 

We eventually had to go back to our room without the baby, because they wanted to check me and then we had Travis' cousins Jaymi and Kyrie come to visit, so we stayed in our room for a while. Around 4:30pm, Jaymi and Kyrie decided they were going to leave, so we walked with them down to the nursery so I could go in and hold Nathan up in the window so they could see him better. It was at this time when the majority of Travis' family as well as mine showed up. I was holding the baby up so everyone could see him (because nobody had seen him yet without being hooked up to everything) and the nurse noticed the 5 zillion people looking at us through the window. She looked at me and said, "You know, he's doing really well. You can take him down to your room so he can visit with everyone."

Our First Family Photo

This was probably the best thing I had heard that day. She just told me that we would need to bring him back before each feeding to do a quick test. If he passed the next 2 tests, he'd be able to stay with us overnight, and he did. He slept remarkably well on Saturday night, and on Sunday they mentioned that we were ready to go home. You would think that I would have been ecstatic, but this is how the conversation went:

"Today? I figured we were going home tomorrow."

"Oh, do you want to wait until tomorrow? We have the room, so you can."

"Well, let us think about it."

A few minutes later I decided to stay the extra night. I just felt like we needed it since the whole first day of his life we weren't the ones taking care of him. I wasn't ready to give up the extra help. He did amazingly well all day on Sunday, slept just fine that night and Monday morning, we were feeling much more prepared to go home.

Heading home from the hospital!

We are really thankful that the nurse decided at that time to allow Nathan to come with us to our room because he was able to meet Dadow, Travis' maternal grandfather for the only time. Exactly one week later, Dadow passed away unexpectedly, and having the memory of Dadow meeting Nathan has brought us a great deal of comfort.

We have talked a lot about God's perfect timing, and Nathan's arrival is such a perfect example of that. Nathan was originally in the correct position, and for some reason, he turned the other way, which is what brought my doctor to decide to deliver him early. If he had been born on his due date, we would have had to do all of this while coping with a loss, which would have been so difficult. Having Nathan around while we grieved as a family made it a little easier for everyone, and we are so thankful for that.

Now, here we are, and Nathan is 5 weeks and 4 days old. Travis and I are adjusting to life as parents, and we are loving it! Sure, we have our moments (more me than Travis since he's returned to work) but there isn't a moment that goes by that I am not overwhelmed with the love I feel for this sweet baby.  

Here are some pictures from his newborn photo shoot:

And here he is at one month old!

Everyone keeps asking me if I'm ready to go back to work, and the answer is absolutely not. I wish I could stay with him all day! :)

The progresssion of the bump.

I'm not going to like, the last one is awful, but I think it looks more dramatic because of the way the shirt lays on me. I didn't grow that much in just a week. :)

So, we're about to parents, y'all.

How far along: 38 weeks, 1 day.

How big is baby: A watermelon, although my theory is a woolly mammoth. They're estimating his weight at around 8.5lbs already.

Total weight gain: 27lbs.

Sleep: This week hasn't been quite is rested. Last night was probably the worst night I've had in a while. My back was hurting a lot.

Maternity Clothes: Definitely, and those barely fit me anymore.

Morning Sickness: Nope

Food cravings: Nothing special this week.

Food aversions: Nope. I even had barbeque this week.

Challenges: Walking the long hallways at work.

Movement:Always.:)

Boy or Girl?: Boy. :)

What I’m looking forward to: Meeting Nathan, being comfortable again.

What I miss: Being comfortable.

Next appt: Tuesday.

See what I mean? I may be giving birth to a mammoth.

Our appointment last Wednesday brought some very interesting news. My doctor was asking how I was feeling, and I told her that I feel great, but I'm just really uncomfortable, and being back at work isn't helping that very much. She said that since the baby is already so big, we could talk about picking a date to be induced a little before my due date. She starts typing on the computer, turns to me, and here's the conversation:

"How does September 18th sound to you?"

"It sounds like it's 3 days after my due date."

"Wait, I have you as being due on September 20th. Did we tell you differently?"

"We said September 15th at our first ultrasound."

"Oh. I don't know why that doesn't match, but I know better than to push your due date back at this point. Let's do an ultrasound, get his measurements and we'll go from there."

She brought in the ultrasound machine, and she immediately discovered that the baby is breech. Two weeks before that, he was head-down, ready to go, but since it's my child, he's going to my things difficult. His head is up and he's sitting in the politically incorrect position of "Indian Style."

Well, that changed things. We talked about his size (estimated around 8.5lbs with 2 weeks to go) and that he most likely won't flip back, because he's pretty much out of room for acrobatics at this point. We also talked about having her turn him, but he's a bad candidate because his cord is too close to his neck.

She had already talked about the possibility of having to have a c-section because of his size, and now that he's breech, we have to have one, so we're scheduled to have Nathan via c-section THIS FRIDAY!! :)

I admit, I am very nervous about having surgery. I've never had surgery before, but I was pretty nervous about being labor too, since I've never done that before either. I definitely would have preferred to have him naturally, but I'm okay with this decision.

We are so excited to know that we're meeting Nathan in just FOUR days! I am SO ready to hold and love on him. :)

For the sake of our privacy, I'm not going to share which hospital we're using or what time we're having the surgery right now, but we'll definitely be sharing some pictures as soon as we get the chance. :)

Also, if you're bored, check out the progression of my baby bump here. It's kind of mind blowing to me.

37 weeks! Any day now! :)

It's been almost a month since my last post because we have been incredibly busy. I'll start with the 37 week update and then catch you up on the last month of our lives, because I know you're just dying to know.

How far along: 37 weeks, 1 day.

How big is baby: A watermelon. They're estimating his weight at around 7lbs and growing.

Total weight gain: 26lbs.

Sleep: I'm impressed with how smoothly it is this late in the game.

Maternity Clothes: Definitely

Morning Sickness: Nope

Food cravings: Spaghetti.

Food aversions: Nope.

Challenges: Bending over. Walking. Anything.

Movement:Always.

Boy or Girl?: Boy. :)

What I’m looking forward to: Being able to do physical tasks, my feet to NOT be swollen, sleeping in our bed again.

What I miss: Being able to fit into booths at restaurants. I'm a booth person.

Next appt: Wednesday.

It's safe to say that I'm the equivalent of a beached whale at this point.

We moved into the house on August 3rd, which was the same day that I took my last test for my teaching certification, (which I passed, by the way!) and let me tell you, leaving to take a a test in Houston while all of my things were being moved was definitely a test to me relinquishing control. I am an admitted control-freak, and it was hard. I actually find it miraculous that I was able to focus on the test instead of thinking about what kind of disaster may or may not be happening with the move. ;)

Thankfully, we had several people help us get everything moved, and we were and are incredibly appreciative of all of their help. I cannot imagine just trying to do it with Travis and I...I mean, let's be honest, we'd probably still working at it.

On the  4th, the move continued while I had a baby shower thrown by some very sweet ladies at our church. It wasn't until that day that I started to feel a little prepared for Nathan's arrival, so that was a relief. We were given so many great things (and precious outfits, of course!) and it was just one of those things that has humbled me in seeing so much love for our growing family. :)

That week, I just worked on getting things done at the house as well as getting the apartment cleaned up and ready to turn in the keys. If I weren't quite so pregnant, I would probably have a LOT more done around here, but I'll work for a little bit, look down, and see that my feet are crazy-swollen, so I sit down. That's getting old for sure.

On the 11th, we had another shower, thrown by my sister, Sarah, and my sister-in-law, Alissa. That shower basically completed our items-needed list and even more fun, we were given TONS of diapers and a huge array of books to start Nathan's library.

That following week, I managed to get all of his clothes, blankets and towels washed, hung or folded and put away, I made a massive trip to Target to get some items we still wanted/needed, and got to work on the nursery, and this week, it's officially finished. :)

Travis' parents went on a road-trip through California this summer, and put this photo collage together to spell Nathan's name from images they took on their trip.

Nathan's library.

This is one of my favorite things in the room. The picture is the first sonogram, (where I cried like a baby) and the caption below it says "love at first sight." The shoes say "Nathan" and Alissa made them.

I know this one is almost a double, but Ethan painted the picture above the chair for us and I wanted to show it.

A close-up of the picture. He's so sweet. :)

Now to give updates on Nathan. I'm currently measuring ahead of schedule, so they did an ultrasound two weeks ago to get an estimate of his size. It looks like he weighs at least 7lbs, (holy cow!). He has chubby cheeks and he has hair! :) The doctor was concerned though, because he's a little larger than normal and I have too much amniotic fluid. She asked me to come in a few days later to test for gestational diabetes, because that could be a cause for his size and the amount of fluid. This past Wednesday, we had an appointment, and found out that I don't have diabetes and that they've ruled out pretty much anything bad that could cause his bigger size and the amount of fluid. We go back again this Wednesday, and I think we'll do another ultrasound to measure him and the fluid again, to see if anything is changing. After that, we'll discuss options in terms of delivering a large baby. I just hope that we're able to deliver him naturally.

I think that's all the info I have for you all at this point, aside from the fact that the students come back to work tomorrow. I am looking forward to it, but I'm also not looking forward to it. I know it'll be several long days before Nathan arrives, so hopefully my students won't judge me for sitting down frequently. ;)

Have a great week!