Busy

This past month has been a blur. This little man is keeping me busy, busy, busy. Right now I think he's going through a growth spurt so he's a hungry fellow. So that explains the lack of blogging. 

We've come to realize that he loves it outside. The first sign of fussiness we can just take him outside and he instantly falls asleep. Kind of a crutch right now, but you do what you have to do! 
That's all for now, hopefully I will be able to post more later.

Happy Father's Day

First Bath

Evan's umbilical cord finally fell off so we gave him his first real bath. Obviously he loved it. 

Would you just look at that tummy, adorable.

Things have been going pretty good this week. I'm still adjusting to being home all the time and I'm trying not to go stir crazy. We have ventured out a few times to go to the grocery and to visit grandma. I really do enjoy spending my days with this little guy and watching him grow. I feel like he's already changed so much. 

Evan's Slideshow

Evan's First Week in Pictures from Kelly Marsh on Vimeo.

Bath Time & Tanning Beds

Something about how teeny he looks in this picture compared to Todd's hands  - I just love it. I think it's my favorite photo I've taken so far.

We gave Evan his first little sponge bath. He didn't mind it at all. 

This is his little tanning bed for the jaundice. Hopefully we will only need to use it for a day or two. He doesn't seem to mind it too much either. I imagine he thinks he's at the beach. We take him into the doctor in about an hour and they will test him again. Fingers crossed his bilirubin will be normal.

And yes, it is sitting on my coffee table. 

Not much else to report today - we are getting more and more acquainted with the little guy and feeding is going much better. 

Getting to Know You

Things have been going good for us since we brought Evan home. It's been full of ups and downs. We've had some sleepless nights and some trouble with feeding but I think we're working our way into a routine. He and I are learning together, I really had no idea how hard nursing would be. I figured feeding him would be the easy part. But we're on Day 5 of being home and we're getting the hang of it. 

We took him to the pediatrician yesterday after we notice his eyes and skin were looking a little yellow, which the doctor warned us could happen. They ran a bilirubin test and he's borderline jaundice so they ordered us a set of lights for our house. They were delivered today and he's currently soaking up the sun. Hopefully he'll be back to his normal pink self by tomorrow or the next day. 
The pediatrician also did his one week check up and everything is looking normal. Good to hear, since every time he gets the hiccups I'm sure I'm doing something wrong. 

As far as how Todd and I are doing we are figuring it all out little by little. Todd has been great, especially by forcing me to go to sleep when I need it. I'm really not looking forward to him going back to work on Thursday.

But we really wouldn't be doing as good as we are without everyone's support. And to all our friends that have brought food I don't know how we can repay you. Seems like the simplest thing but it has made a world of difference and we are so grateful. We didn't eat this good before Evan was born! Thanks again guys. 

Hospital Stay

All in all I'd say our hospital stay was pretty good. Although I was a zombie pretty much the whole first day and would practically fall asleep while talking to people. Not very smart when nurses are giving you all sorts of instructions that you will need to remember.

During our stay it was a revolving door of visitors, nurses, aides, doctors, housekeeping and food deliveries it's so nice to be home where it is relatively quiet.

It was nice to send Evan to the nursery when I needed an hour or two of sleep though!

Here are just a few pictures we took during the two days at the hospital.


Daddy and Evan

Me and my little squish face.

We appreciated so much all the people that visited us.

Grandpa

Grandma Sherry

Ken and AdrianeUncle Dale and Aunt Lisa

And so many more, thanks everybody.

On our 3rd day it was time for pictures and for us to be discharged. This was a crazy day.

Daddy dressing Evan up for his pictures and for the ride home.

Seriously, how cute is he? Am I just really that biased?

It was a long wait to say the least. My doctor had to discharge me then Evan's pediatrician had to come by and discharge him.

We waited and waited for what seemed like forever.But finally at about 2:00 they wheeled me out with Evan and said "good luck" and we were homebound.

I'm not going to lie and say I wasn't freaking out. Such an overwhelming thing to me. But now that we're home we are adjusting and figuring it out.

Evan's Birth Story

I'm setting out to write this in its entirety but a certain little man may not let me - so here goes while he is napping.

June 2nd, 2009

After a day of feeling kind of off physically, as if gravity was just pulling my belly towards the ground, I decided labor may be a possibility in the next few days. So when deciding what to have for dinner I thought we'd test out the theory that spicy food can bring on labor. I thought BW3's hot chicken wings sounded pretty good.

I actually had the medium wings and one of Todd's hot wings. The medium are pretty spicy though. After that we went to Target and walked around for about 5 minutes before I decided I didn't feel very well so we headed home. I went to bed when we got home at about 10:00pm.

June 3, 2009

At about 1:45am my water broke. Some people say it's a trickle - not like in the movies where it gushes. Well I'm here to tell you it gushes.

There was no question I would be having my baby today!

I woke Todd up immediately. I think he said "you're kidding" but I can't be positive. He quickly dressed and ran around the house packing up the few things that we had left to get ready. I was really excited at this point to get the show on the road.

At about 2:00am we were on our way (after I insisted Todd take my last belly shot, albeit hard to tell in my giant t-shirt).

I checked in and was sent to triage. A couple of nurses hooked me up to a fetal heart monitor and asked me about a hundred questions. They checked my dilation and I was still 2cm. Then the great fun of starting an i.v. The size of the needles they were using were like garden hoses. I swear. They tried to get a couple of veins in my arm but one vein rolled and the other was dry. The only alternative was the hand and thank goodness they switched to a somewhat smaller needle. At this point I started to feel minor contractions. They were relatively mild, maybe 6 or 7 minutes apart.

After triage I was sent to my labor and delivery room. They said I could have my epidural as soon as I wanted it so I told them to go ahead and do it. I started to feel the real deal contractions and decided they didn't seem like too much fun.

To my surprise the epidural was not as bad as I expected. I felt a small pinch in my back from the local but other than that I felt nothing.

So once that was in place it was just on to waiting to see if I dilated at a reasonable pace. I called my parents and let them know what was going on. My brother was already in the waiting room since I called him on our way to the hospital.

At around 7:30am they started me on Pitocin to get things moving. I had only dilated to 3cm.

At 9:00am I quickly progressed to 7cm and Evans head was really far down. The nurse told me it was about time to push. No matter how many times I had imagined hearing those words over the last 9-1/2 months, nothing really prepared me for how they would make me feel. Knowing that in a few short minutes I would actually push a little person into the world I was incredibly scared and excited but most of all I wanted it to be over with and I wanted them to hand me my baby.

It actually wasn't until about 10:50am that they said I was 10 cm and I started pushing.

It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. I was already tired from being up all night and I was feeling a lot of pain from the contractions which made me miserable. Even with the epidural I could feel the contractions and the pressure. They just block out the sharp pains. I really wish I'd known this to prepare me.

After nearly 40 minutes I had made a small amount of progress. At this point the doctor came in and it was go time. No more fooling around I was getting this baby out! The next twenty minutes I channeled something in me that I'm sure could only be summoned in a situation like this. It was an indescribable feeling.

As was the first time I saw him.

He's a beautiful perfect 7 pound 8 ounce boy. It was absolute love at first sight. I took one look at Todd and one look at our little Evan and knew every second of pain was worth it.

I held him for about a minute and then I had to give him up so they could weigh him and do the Apgar test.

They handed him to Todd and seeing him hold him for the first time is something that I'll never forget - what a beautiful moment.

I loved this moment too, so even though I was being tended to by the doctor and about 5 spectators I told Todd to hand over the camera. He's all - "hey you, you're awesome" in this picture.

After I was all taken care of and put back together I invited my family to come meet Evan. Another amazing moment. My poor mom has pneumonia but by God she wasn't missing this!So in about 10 hours we had our little family. I love so much about Evan already. I'll be posting more pics soon!

Welcome Evan David!

We welcomed our son Evan David yesterday, June 3rd. He weighs 7 pounds 8 ounces and is 20 inches long.
I'll post his birth story whenever I find the time :-)
For now, we are all healthy and happy.