Pumpkin Walk

While I was in the hospital Mart, Traves and Ethan went to the pumpkin walk and had a boys night out. Mart said that Ethan LOVED the boards that you stick your face through, so that is what they took the most pictures of.

I know I say it all the time, but Ethan totally adores his dad. He got to play with Kace and Ryan all day the first night we were in the hospital and then hang out with just his Dad and Traves the second night I was there. He was probably in heaven.

Mart has been super excited to take Ethan to the pumpkin walk this year because the theme was "The Magic of Animation" and Ethan would recognize the characters in the scenes.



I'm guessing Ethan thought that this was another cutout that he could stick his head through. :)


Ethan loves the new How to Train Your Dragon movie so he probably loved this scene.


And the rest of these are just Ethan sticking his face through the cutouts.



Traves didn't even know that Mart's face was sticking through on this picture too until he put the pictures on a disk for me. I like his long blonde hair with his beard, very cute. :)

Halloween Sneak Peek

We debated for quite a while on what Ethan should be for Halloween this year. He's not quite big enough to really care, so when we asked him he never responded. We finally came up with something and Ber offered to sew the main part of it for us because I couldn't really use my hands all that well. Pregnancy induced carpal tunnel will do that to you.

Anyway, the first time she brought it over for a fitting ... I guess it was giant on him! She took it back home with some measurements and came back again to see and this time it was much more successful.







He looks so cute! Maybe because all costumes that small are just cute. :)

Anyway, he's going to be the cutest Harry Potter I've ever seen!

Thanks again Ber for making this cute cloak for us!

More pictures to come ... soon!

Birth Story

We were scheduled for Thursday October 21st at 7:30am, which meant that we had to be at the hospital at 5:30am to start all the prep work shenanigans. We were only 10 minutes late, which I was very proud of considering I only got 3 1/2 hours of sleep that night trying to get everything ready for the baby. I knew a good chunk of the time would be gathering registration information but since I had been there twice during this pregnancy I knew they already had it in their system so 10 minutes late was no big deal.

We arrived and they sent me to change into a gown. I poked my head out and told Mart there wasn't a bag in the bathroom to put my clothes in so he went to go find me one. I put the gown on that was on the back of the door and it happened to be too small so my entire butt hung out and it had no strings on it so I couldn't even tie it up even if it did fit ... so I poked my head back out the door laughing and had Mart go locate me a new gown. He walked out of the room laughing looking for a new gown. After I was finally dressed and laying in my bed they came in to draw blood and give me an iv so they could pump me full of like 4-5 saline bags. Well, little did I know I would spend the next 30 minutes with the girl digging around my arm trying to get the iv in. It was totally ridiculous. She FINALLY was able to get it in my wrist...I'm not even kidding, it probably took a good 30 minutes. Mart walked over at one point and said "if she was a guy, I'd have punched her by now for you". I think I was the only one who that it was funny at that point.

Here I am all super uncomfortable hooked up to a gazillion machines freezing to death. It was so cold in that room that I was shaking uncontrollably. The nurses would come in wearing jackets but when I told them I was shaking they asked me if I was nervous. I told them I was freezing, so they finally brought me a nice hot blanket from the warmer and that helped a lot.


While I was getting all prepped, Mart also had to get all prepped up. Although his preparations didn't require getting stabbed by some incompetent lady with an iv needle for 30 minutes. He just had to put on scrubs, a hairnet and some booties. The mask would come later.



We were ready to go and started to head back to the OR at about 7:45. We got back there and I was still shivering like crazy. I sat on the table and this time they let Mart stay in there while they gave me my spinal. Last time he waited in the hall for a good 20 minutes before they let him in. I knew the second it started to work because from my chest down I was no longer freezing but nice and toasty.

Within minutes of me laying down I started to feel funny and got really dizzy and felt like I was going to faint. I am pretty sure it scared Mart because he couldn't do anything about it and just watched me look like I was going to pass out. The anesthesiologist gave me something which helped and brought me around, but then I started to throw up. I threw up quite a few times and felt bad once again for Mart because the poor thing had to hold the bucket for me. After about the 7th or so time throwing up I was finished for the time being and was just waiting now. At 8:03am Lincoln Xander Neel was born! I heard them tell me they were pulling out his head and I asked Mart if he had hair. He told me yes, but not as much as Ethan did. The next thing I asked him was if he was cute. I had been praying I didn't have an ugly baby for months. He told me that he couldn't see him yet, that just his head was out. A few minutes later though he told me that he was out and very cute.

I know this next picture is a little weird and kind of gross, but it's the only picture of have during the surgery. Mart stuck his head over the sheet and took a picture of Lincoln's foot right after he just came out.


He weighed in at 7lbs 6oz and 20 inches tall.


He didn't like the nurses annoying him so he kept screaming at them, but the second they were finished with him, he was totally content.


They brought him over to meet me and asked me if I wanted to hold him. I did want to hold him, but didn't trust myself because my hand was completely numb from my carpal tunnel and didn't want to drop him so I just looked at him while Mart held him for me to see.


After that, the took the baby to do whatever they do with them and I was left to finish getting stitched up. Dr. Craig kept talking to me during the entire thing and part way through she told me that my hernia was the size of a large grapefruit! She also told me that my bag of water was pretty big which explained why he measured bigger but wasn't actually a big baby. She was really cute and just was chatting the whole time. She walked out into the hall with me and told me she'd come see me later and that my baby was so cute and that I did good.

A few minutes later I was moved into recovery. Everything went so much more smoothly this time I think. The spinal started to wear off HOURS faster than with Ethan. I was able to feel them massaging my stomach while I was still in recovery which gave me hope that I would be able to move my toes later that day.

A little while later they brought me the baby and I was able to hold him in recovery. That was nice, I wasn't able to do that with Ethan either.


My mom also made it and was in recovery to hold him and meet him as well


Another change they implemented since I had Ethan was that they give you the option to have the baby washed in your room so the mom can be a part of it too. After we were moved up to my room and about an hour later the nurse brought him in and gave him a bath on my bed.





After that, we were just free to love on him as much as we wanted ... and we took full advantage of that.




He's such a sweet baby who is totally content. All he wants is to be bundled up super tight and snuggled and loved.






This is Dr. Craig. I really really like her and I am glad I have chosen her twice to deliver my babies. She really watched out for me and I appreciate everything she did for both Lincoln and myself.


Mart left for a while to get some lunch and while he was gone I had a little bit of excitement. Back to the incompetent iv lady...they put my wrist band that identifies Lincoln as mine on my wrist with my iv in it. I don't know why she thought it was a good idea to put the stupid iv in my wrist of all places but my wrist band snagged it and ripped it out and I started bleeding all over. Right as soon as my wrist started dripping all over the place Mart walks back in the door and sees me covered in blood. He looked a little startled but I assured him that everything was okay. :) I called the nurse and had to get it placed ... again. I told the nurse about being a human pin cushion earlier so she called someone who was good at it instead of doing it herself (just in case it took her more than one try) and they didn't have any of the numbing stuff so she just jammed it in my hand. She got it the first try and the one time jamming into my hand hurt a heck of a lot less than 30 minutes of poking in my numb wrist.

Later that day Kace, Ryan and Ber brought Ethan to the hospital to meet Lincoln. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with the baby so we didn't push it. I think he was little nervous in the first place because I had an oxygen tube in my nose and I'm sure I didn't look very good all hooked up to machines. The room was weird too so he was intimidated.

That night Mart stayed at the hospital with me. Lincoln kept going crazy because he did not want to sleep in the bed they had for him, so every time I would lay him down he would start screaming. I eventually gave in and let him sleep with me for a little while and he calmed down. I probably only got about 1 1/2 hours of sleep total that night with the nightly vital checks and screamy joe mad about being set down. Needless to say, I was very tired.

The next day we had more visitors and I was able to get my tubes all taken off, take a shower and start to feel like a human again instead of a pin cushion. We had a few visitors and just took it easy the rest of the day.



Ethan came back again that night and had warmed up significantly and even gave Lincoln a hug and a kiss while my Grandma was hold him. Sweet boy!




Mart and Traves then took Ethan and went to the pumpkin walk to give Kace a night off from watching him. Mart stayed home with him that night and I spent our second night there alone, just Lincoln and I. This time I decided I wasn't even going to attempt the stupid baby bed and Linc slept on my chest the entire night and we both actually ended up getting some sleep.

I hadn't heard anything about when I would be discharged so Saturday morning I started asking around. Dr. Armstrong (Linc's pediatrician) cleared him to be discharged that day if it came down to that. I think I wasn't supposed to be discharged until Sunday, but because I had been doing so well and was up and about by myself they were willing to consider letting me go that morning if the doctor cleared it. The o/c doctor came in later and checked everything and told me that if I really wanted to go home, she would let me but I would have to take some blood pressure meds because my blood pressure was still a bit high.

When Mart brought Ethan back that morning to say hi to me before going back to Kacean's house, I told him we could go home and I was just waiting for him to show up so I could have a ride. He was super excited and we started getting everything ready.

While I was gathering everything up Ethan discovered the little clothes cupboard in the corner of the room and climbed inside. He would shut the door and say "Where's Ethan?" until we responded and said "Where's Ethan?" back to him.



Then he would throw the door open and say "There he is!" with a huge grin on his face and the proceed to do it again. What a goof ball.


Here are both of my boys all ready to go home.





I'm so glad that he's here and safe. He's healthy and teeny tiny! When we were discharged from the hospital he weighed in at 6lbs 13oz. He has skinny little legs and arms and all the newborn pants we have for him are giant! He's just a skinny little boy.

I wasn't able to get my hernias repaired at the same time, so I'll have that repair surgery coming up here in the next month or so...then I can start to feel 100% normal again.

The "Plan"

Well, today I met with my doctor for my 37 week appointment. It was a totally hectic day at their office and I was there FOREVER! I waited in the waiting room for about 20+ minutes (LONG for her office), was weighed in and did a urine sample and told to go to room 7. Waited there for a good 15-20 minutes for the nurse to come back and take my blood pressure. She left and while I was waiting I started to see spots in both of my eyes. It was like rotating sparkly fireworks that lasted 30 seconds to a minute. (Not a good sign ...) She came in and I told her how I visited Labor and Delivery on Saturday and she checked out the notes from that and was a little worried about my blood pressure numbers from that day as well as today. I told her about the spots I just saw and she said "Don't tell me that..!" It's not a good sign. I asked her if she had talked to the surgeon yet and she said yes she had, today in fact...both surgeons were in the room and they both flat out said no I needed to wait the 4 weeks after my baby was born to have my hernias fixed. I also proceeded to tell her that my baby doesn't move a whole lot. He hasn't ever been super wiggly but he has definitely calmed down a lot and hardly ever moves now. This also worried her.

She decided to check me and see how I was progressing and then we'd decide what we needed to do. It's not a good sign when she halfway chuckles and says "I can't even feel the head!" in a totally shocked tone. I knew at that point a VBAC was out. She would have been willing to let me attempt it under extremely close monitoring but I told her we could do whatever would be the safest for both my baby and myself. She told me she wasn't worried enough to send me straight upstairs but that we could wait until tomorrow instead. Then she paused and said "or later in the week." I asked if we could do it on Thursday as I was not ready for it to be tomorrow. I still need to do a few things and if we did it Thursday, Mart wouldn't miss a whole week of work. She agreed and went to have a nurse get it scheduled. She also asked if I could stay a little while and get an NST (Fetal Non-Stress Test) to see how my baby was moving or not moving. After 25 minutes she came in to check the results and was happy with what she saw. Initially she had been worried about waiting until Thursday, but after seeing the results she said she was totally comfortable waiting until Thursday now.

So, just after 7:30am Thursday morning ... I will be a mother of 2! It's totally nerve racking but I'm so excited at the same time. I worry about still being able to give Ethan as much love and attention as he needs, as he demands A LOT! I'm glad that this journey will soon be over and my body can start to go back to normal, and then in 4 weeks I will have two hernias fixed and will feel 100x better than I have been feeling. I also have to admit that I'm super glad that this baby will be born in October...because another November birthday is the LAST thing we need.

So, I guess this is it. I have so much I have to/would like to get done before Thursday. I would love to have my house spotless and disinfected before we leave. I hope I have enough energy and no pains for the next couple of days so I can enjoy the last time I have alone with just Ethan and get my house in order!

Also, I plan on taking a laptop to the hospital with me. I will be there 3-4 days because a c-section recovery is longer ... and I have every intention of updating while I am there with pictures. I'll try and keep this as up-to-date as I can!

37 weeks

Yesterday Mart had planned for us to have a movie-night-in with Ethan. We rented How to Train Your Dragon and made muddy buddies and popped popcorn. Those plans had to go on hold for a little while, but luckily we were able to still continue on with them ... just a few hours later than we had planned. We had to delay our movie date night a few hours because sadly, I spent another couple of hours in labor and delivery last night. The good news at least is that I'm getting really close and I'm almost finished with this journey.

Yesterday I had woken up in the middle of the night after having a dream that my blood pressure had skyrocketed. It worried me all day long so when we went to the grocery store later I of course had to check it and make sure it wasn't that high. It was high. Not as high as my dream, but it was higher than it should be. That of course, made it climb even higher. After hanging out at my moms house for a couple hours I decided to take it one more time (as I had to go back to the store, I forgot a couple things) and I thought it would be lower after just resting for a while. Nope. It was still wicked high. That high of blood pressure (160/110) can be very dangerous so Mart and I packed a bag and headed to the hospital to have them take my blood pressure and be monitored for a little while. When I got there it had climbed even more. Grand. They kept me there for about an hour and a half. I had very little protein in my urine and my lab work came back perfect. (The nurse kept ranting about how perfect my lab results were...they must have been good. =] ) and my blood pressure had gone down a bit. Not a ton, but enough to send me home to wait for my appointment on Monday.

My appointment is tomorrow. I think one of the last things she has been watching is to see if my blood pressure climbs. After yesterday, I keep wondering what she is going to decide to do. It definitely had risen a LOT higher than it normally is. My swelling is continuing to get worse so the carpal tunnel in my hands is getting worse. I am VERY ready to be done with this experience and have my baby here with me and start to feel normal again. I feel like I complain a lot, and I really try not to. Some days it is just hard not to when I feel so crumby.

On the plus side, I think Mart and I FINALLY came up with a middle name for our baby. It was really hard, nothing seemed to go well with Lincoln that we liked.

That's about it. Not much else has been going on, just waiting and counting down until this baby arrives. I sure hope I find out more about the "Plan" on Monday when I see the doctor next.

Until then ... Happy Sunday!

(Oh speaking of Sunday ... I forgot to mention that after 5 1/2 years straight of being in either the nursery or the primary, we were FINALLY released last Sunday! This week was the first week we were able to go to classes without sneaking out of nursery on slow days since we were married! It was so different, but really nice. Hallelujah! I loved those nursery kids, but it's definitely time for a break to just go to classes like normal.)

Funny things

(I know this picture is a little goofy, but what can I say? He's a goofy boy and this is a post about my goofy boy!)



Now that Ethan is getting bigger and doing and saying funny things on a regular basis, I'm going to start writing them down so I can remember them. Little kids are so funny and I would love to remember the things he does. Because he still is pretty little and doesn't string things together incredibly well quite yet, the ones I post about now will require a little background to them instead of just funny one liners. :) Here are a couple I can remember from the last few days:

Background Story #1:
We have been trying to teach Ethan who the original Disney characters are because we are going to Disneyland in January and would like him to recognize Mickey, Pluto, Goofy, Donald, etc. and not just Buzz and Woody. We show him pictures of Mickey almost everyday and he's got him pretty much figured out. We have even started renting old Disney movies off netflix that are all about Mickey, Pluto or Goofy. They have been fun to watch for us as well.

The other day Ethan was sitting at the counter coloring a picture with his markers and I looked up from programming and saw the cat was a little on edge and noticed there was a mouse sticking his head out from above my stove (very common occurrence) and so I pointed it out to Ethan and said to him "Look, there's a mouse!" So over the next few minutes every time the mouse would pop his little head out Ethan would yell "Mouse!" and get all excited and then go back to coloring. A few minutes later I was still programming and all of the sudden Ethan started saying "Mickey! Mickey! come here Mickey!" and I looked up and he was talking to the mouse and motioning with his hand for the mouse to come out and visit. It was pretty funny and totally random.


Background Story #2:

Ethan goes in rotations on what movie he really likes at the moment and we watch almost nothing but that movie for about a month straight and then he'll get tired of it and switch movies. Right now his favorite movie is Barnyard. There is a scene in it where 3 boys sneak up on a sleeping cow and tip it over and one of the boys says "That's called cow tipping!" Then does this weird little laugh that goes "Ha! ... Ha! ... Ha!..." Ethan is totally obsessed with the "Ha! ... Ha! ... Ha!..." part of this movie. He gets really into it and will say it to me complete with a head bob and everything. (If you've never seen it, you should look up a clip on youtube or something because it will make the next part of the story even funnier I think)

The other night I was sitting on the couch and had bought a small package of laffy taffy for a treat. I pulled one out of the bag and Ethan was sitting on my lap. I told him I was going to tell him a joke and proceeded to read a joke off of the wrapper. Out of nowhere right as soon as I finished reading the punchline of the joke Ethan looked me in the face and said "Ha! ... Ha! ... Ha!..." It was so random and so funny that Mart nearly spit milk out of his mouth and I just busted up laughing.

And the last one I'm going to tell today isn't really a funny thing he has said but it's something he has started doing recently that cracks us up. If he doesn't want you to say or do something he will point at you and go "Shh .. Shh!" and then keep doing whatever he was doing before. I have no idea where he learned it but he does it all the time!

That's it for today! He's such a goofball and I'm excited to start being able to record more funny things he does. It will make days where he's a lot harder to handle a little more bearable if I can look back and read about the funny/cute moments in his life.

Right hand man

As hard as it will be for me to adjust to having 2 kids here pretty soon and dividing my attention, it is going to be nothing compared to Ethan trying to figure out how to share his Dad's attention. He absolutely ADORES his dad! He'll be annoyed that I will hold the baby, but he'll be livid when Mart holds the baby. He already gets super upset when Mart talks to my belly. Hopefully he'll adjust well and will love having the baby around.

As soon as Mart gets home from work he always has the biggest smile waiting for Ethan. He adores that little boy. I love watching them spend time together. Mart is definitely not one of those dads that are forced to hang out with their kids, he always tries to plan things to do with Ethan so that they can have fun.

Here are just some pictures I've taken of the two of them hanging out the last week or so.

Baking cookies:




...Yes, he has cookie dough on his forehead. :)



This one Ethan likes to call "Oh Moke!" (Which stands for "Holy Smokes!") As soon as he falls to the bed Mart will go "Holy Smokes!" and Ethan will stand up and say "Oh moke! ... Again!" And they will start all over again.








Again!


I totally love my boys and am very excited to add another boy to the bunch!