February 27, 2007 at 10:33 pm (Emma, ladies' man)
emmaan~1
Originally uploaded by hollykr1976.
Lois’ pregnancy buddy had a baby girl yesterday!!
After 36+ hours of labor, Emma Leona was born at 4:24 pm on Monday, February 26, 2007 at 7 lbs 14 oz and 21 inches long.
Congratulations to the new Mommy and Daddy!
As for Andrew, he is very excited about his girlfriend.
There is already talk that this could be the first picture in their wedding album some day!
February 26, 2007 at 5:10 pm (shower)
Ok blog friends, we need some help from the gifted and creative out there!
We never had our baby shower, but have decided (due to some urging by friends) that we need to do SOMETHING and will have a meet and greet style baby shower at the end of March so everyone can meet little Andrew.
It will be not overly formal, but friends of ours really want to do it for us and are being pains about not letting us pay for any invitations and decorations. It’s annoying.
We are doing a book wishing well by putting little cards in the invitations with this poem:
I want to be a bright child
As smart as I can be.
That is why I’m hoping
My mommies will read to me.
If you plan to bring a card
Please take another look,
I would like to learn my ABC’s
From your favorite storybook.
Please sign your name
As your personal touch.
Baby Andrew thanks you
Beary, beary much.
I am also putting on the invitations that we are registered at Babies R Us and www.cordblood.com, but, I don’t want people to feel overly obligated to bring gifts.
Here’s the deal:
Since Lois was on bed rest, we cancelled our baby shower in December. We were going to have 2 showers, but never got to scheduling the 2nd one. Now, we are doing our own thing, Lois’ mother will have a pool party for their family when summer gets here.
Some people have sent us things off our registry or outfits and some have brought gifts or other stuff when they’ve visited Andrew in the past 2 weeks.
Plus, since K* is now 10 months old, we are getting essentially ALL of his hand-me-downs and we are in pretty good shape for clothes.
I know people will not show up empty handed and I hate being presumptuous by even putting where we are registered on the invites – but I know we have to.
Is there some cute way of letting people know that…
1. we really don’t need more clothes ?
2. don’t bring something if you have already given us a present ?
3. is it really tacky to tell people where we would like gift cards if they really felt obligated to give us something (like amazon.com, Target, etc.) ?
Any ideas out there?
February 26, 2007 at 12:07 am (fabulous photography, let's get naked)
We had our first bath today!
Don’t worry, we have given him some sponge baths, but his cord only fell off last Monday and Lois wanted us to both be around to do the bath together.
Plus, we had to buy a space heater so the bathroom was about 100 degrees so our little guy didn’t freeze.
Not that it mattered, he wasn’t the happiest of campers anyway.
Beware, there are some naked baby pictures below – he will hate me for showing this to the world someday.
First bath 2-25 pic 1
Originally uploaded by hollykr1976.
Ahhhh, warm bath water!
fist bath screaming
Originally uploaded by hollykr1976.
I am not having fun at all! Why are my mommies laughing!!?!?!?
first bath 2-25 pic 2
Originally uploaded by hollykr1976.
Are we done yet?
first bath 2-25 pic3
Originally uploaded by hollykr1976.
Phew, that was exhausting.
fist bath 2-25 finally
Originally uploaded by hollykr1976.
Here’s Andrew recovering from the traumatic bath experience that his horrible mommies put him through.
February 23, 2007 at 2:59 am (learning curve)
So, things are going pretty well. I’ve been back at work and crazy busy, so my extra time is a little limited.
We’re trying to figure everything out with our little guy.
He’s pretty good at letting us know when he’s hungry – the sucking on the fist is a big clue.
He screams bloody murder when we are changing his diaper and a few times for no reason at all. It’s tough when we live in a condo with thin walls and don’t want our neighbors to think we’re beating him.
The sleep thing is going fairly well so far. He’s good for 4-5 hours at a shot, it’s finding the secret that puts him to sleep that eludes us now and again.
I like the book The Happiest Baby on the Block. A friend at work also gave me the Baby Whisperer today, but who’s got time to read??!?!?
Right now, we’re trying the Pachelbel Canon in D as a possible fall asleep song.
I’m sure it will put me to sleep first.
February 21, 2007 at 3:04 am (babies babies everywhere!)
She’s here!
The TADPOLE is here.
Congrats to the Frog and the Frog Princess!
February 20, 2007 at 12:05 am (Not yet organized)
We’ve been busy!!!
Sorry for not posting sooner. And I am going to be lazy again and just put the slideshow at the bottom of the post.
We’ve had a bunch of visitors in the past week and a half. And we’ve now been on a bunch of outings!
Lois took Baby Drew to the grocery store on Thursday.
On Friday, we took him to my former place of employment. After an hour car ride each way and about 2 hours of being the center of attention, he was exhausted.
On Saturday, Baby Drew (or Baby Andy as cousin Elliott calls him) got to meet his cousins Elliott and Ben and Uncle Chad and Aunt Nicole.
On Sunday, we went to Suz’ and K*’s and saw the Fedigans, and a bunch of people and kids, and hung out with Harold and K*. It was so much fun!!!
His jaundice is almost completely gone and he’s still eating and gaining like a champ.
More to come later…
February 15, 2007 at 1:29 pm (Not yet organized)
Baby Drew is doing wonderfully! Thank you everyone for your well wishes and thoughts!!!
He had some jaundice, but the levels are low enough that photo therapy is not required. In some pictures, you can tell how yellow he is.
He’s also a big eater. Some babies are picky about binkies, nipples and bottles. Andrew is content with anything. Lois feels like she spends all day either feeding him or pumping. And she finds both quite boring.
Due to his insatiable appetite, the little monster is almost back to his birth weight (which should take 2-4 weeks). He weighed just over 7 lbs at birth on Thursday. On Saturday, was discharged from the hospital at 6 lbs, 5 ounces. Sunday, at the pediatrician, he was 6 lbs, 9 ounces. By Tuesday, the pediatrician weighed him at 6 lbs, 14 ounces. What a little porker!
We think he is the most beautiful baby ever – I think he looks a lot like Lois.
We are having a ball. We had a small breakdown at the hospital where family and hormones came crashing together. Lois’ mother showed her true colors and needless to say, after crying for a few days, we settled on using Lois’ last name for little Andrew, even though we had all along planned on using mine. We are getting over it and at least we can change it in the future when we are ready to deal with the b.s. We are not going to let any of that take away from the joys of our little boy! As for me, I have not been in a room with my MIL since then and it will just take a little time.
As requested, here are some more pictures of the little guy! No clothes fit him! We discovered that some brands make a Newborn size which is 5-8 lbs instead of the 0-3 months which is usually 8-12 lbs. It doesn’t matter, he’s swimming in the newborn clothes. The way he’s eating, though, he’ll be in 0-3 months in less than a week.
February 13, 2007 at 1:58 am (Not yet organized)
Sorry, but it’s a little lengthy!
Many of our friends and family members have told us about how long you have when the labor starts. It’s not like in the movies when your water breaks and you rush to the hospital, taking corners on 2 wheels.
Many women have time, packing bags and watching TV while timing contractions for hours before leaving for the hospital.
Our story seemed a little more like one of those movie scenes.
I guess I had about 8-10 signals at work on Wednesday that he was coming.
Two lawyers I work with made comments about how busy we were and how the baby has to wait a little while to come. Lois’ mother had a dream about her dead father and commented about the meaning of an impending birth.
For 10 weeks, I left work every night with my laptop and everything I would need for a few days, left my To Do list with the status of every file on my desk for my secretary and all of the files put neatly away.
Wednesday night, I was late for dinner with Salina and Ben so, for the first time in 10 weeks, I left completely disorganized. On my walk to the car, another lawyer and I were talking about how I felt bad leaving the office not prepared for the first time and how that probably meant that he would come that night. She laughed and said she was one week early, and like us, had no signs that he was ready to come. Her water just broke and her son was born shortly after.
It was a little prophetic.
When I got in the car at 6 pm, I called Lois, apologizing profusely for running late.
“Hey, it’s probably no big deal,” she said, “but I think I leaked a little fluid today.”
“You think? When? How much?” I asked all of a sudden feeling like this was going to be the night.
“Not much. It might just be urine, I did drink a lot of water.”
“Call the doctor.”
“I don’t want to be an alarmist. It’s probably nothing.”
“Call the doctor, let her tell you if you are being an alarmist.”
“I’ll just wait for you to get home.”
When I got home, Lois announced that we were making it to dinner, she wanted a burger.
We called the doctor from the car and told the answering service that Lois was leaking some fluid. That was at 6:50 pm.
At 7:00 pm, we got out of the car at the Sycamore and I walked around the car to the passenger side to meet Lois as Salina and Ben walked up. Lois was standing outside the car leaning over and holding onto the car door handle.
As I got close, she said to Salina “you know what we were so afraid of happening??? Well, it’s happening!!!”
She turned to me and said “I’m wet down to my ankles!”
We jumped in the car, but not before we told Salina and Ben to order us two onion burgers and some onions rings and meet us at our house.
Yes, even after Lois’ water broke, I guess we thought we still had all of the time in the world.
We headed home because Lois “absolutely had to put something dry on.”
As we got home, she changed and she started using my golf towels as pads.
It was 7:15 pm.
We called the doctor again and told the answering service that Lois’ water broke.
At 7:30, Salina and Ben arrived and we inhaled our burgers, fries and onion rings (not the meal that the midwife had in mind when she suggested Lois eat something before leaving to the hospital).
All of a sudden, Lois’ face changed. The contractions had started.
They were 35 seconds long and less than 4 minutes apart.
We jumped up and got Lois into the car. I put towels all over the front seat of the Lexus and Salina jumped in the back seat.
We called the doctor from the car and said we were on our way to the hospital.
As I decided I had the best excuse ever if I got pulled over, I flew down the highway at 85 mph with Ben having a ball keeping up with me, as Salina timed the contractions from the back seat.
They were about 2.5 minutes apart and 45 seconds each.
We got to the hospital after 8 pm and were in the delivery room by 8:30 (I think).
The nurses didn’t seem to think anything would happen soon and I made some phone calls.
Lois’ labor was all back labor. I felt so bad. Every time she had a contraction, she would roll to her side and I would push into her back. The midwife from our office was teaching a birthing class in the hospital, so she came up and calmed Lois down a little.
The doctor came in around 9:30??? – my time frame is so screwed up.
She couldn’t tell how dilated Lois was due to the scar tissue.
Somewhere around 10 pm, she went in with some long instrument and broke through the scar tissue, breaking what was left of the water.
Shortly thereafter, she announced that Lois was 5 cm dilated.
The contractions and back labor continued. The nurses were so fabulous, one of them actually went to high school with Lois and she came in to help.
During all of this, as we entered the hospital and announced to every doctor, nurse and security guard we met along the way, that Lois wanted drugs, whatever drugs she could have.
Apparently the anesthesiologist was in an appendectomy. Since Lois usually gets through pain by blurting out humorous things, she yelled things like “where the hell is that epidural? Did anyone miss that I wanted an epidural? An appendectomy???? That’s not major surgery! I need the epidural!”
She never got the epidural.
A little before 11 pm, we convinced Lois to get up to use the bathroom and try out their spa shower. She leaned against the wall as she was contracting and the hot jets hit her back.
The contractions were getting harder and quicker. When she was on the machine, they were going up to the high 80s (whatever that means).
The doctor poked her head in the shower and asked Lois if she felt like she could push.
“YES!” was the quick response.
As she continued her diatribe about how where the hell was the anesthesiologist behind the big steel spa shower door, I looked at the doctor and asked “she’s not getting the epidural, is she?”
She shook her head.
“You tell her!” I told her.
She got out of the shower and she was 10 cm. It was just about 11 pm.
At 11:15 pm, she started pushing!
She did wonderful. There was a lot of yelling and F-bombs, but she did so great.
At 12:07 am, Andrew arrived into the world.
It was the most amazing moment of my entire life!!!
I watched him come out and got to cut the cord. I held him for a long time while Lois was getting stitched up.
He is amazing. In every way.
Lois is amazing for bringing him into the world!
 | 2MommiesInWaiting on Birth Story |
 | Mere on Birth Story |
 | Amy on Birth Story |
 | ELLIE on Birth Story |
 | Shannon on Birth Story |
