Sunday, October 11, 2015

Ross Edward's birth story

Ross, your birth story begins with your older brother. From my very first doctor appointment with you, we were on high alert that you might be a very big baby. Logan was 9 lbs, 13 ounces and babies usually get bigger with subsequent pregnancies. I carried you just like Logan - straight out. I felt huge but you were measuring right on track the whole time. When I was 38 weeks pregnant with you, we did an ultrasound to estimate your size. Your head was so big that the doctor couldn't get an accurate measurement because babies with heads that big have already been born. They estimated you were 9 lbs, 5 ounces. We decided to let me go another week and determine if we would induce then.

Three days before my due date with you, the doctor checked to see if I was close to being able to deliver you. I was 3 cm and 70% effaced - woohoo! That was a Wednesday and we decided to induce labor on Friday at 10am. My due date was Saturday.

Back to big brother... Thursday night we decided to go have a nice family dinner together and then get good rest for our big day. Around 3am, Logan woke up crying. Daddy and I went to him and he had had diarrhea in his bed. While we were cleaning that up, he threw up his dinner... everywhere! Needless to say, we were awake from 3am-6am cleaning up and getting Logan back to sleep. So much for a restful night's sleep!

Friday morning, I got a call at 7am telling me that the hospital was full but to call back at 10 to see if any beds were available. We called back at 10am and were asked to call back at noon. I was trying to stay positive that we would get to meet you this weekend. I decided to take a nap while big brother napped (remember, no sleep the night before) and about 20 minutes after dozing off, the hospital called and said they had a bed for us and to come on in! We called Logan's babysitter to come on over and we checked into the hospital at 2:30pm. 

We were put in a room and waited. Eventually two nurses came in, Rebecca and Susan, and got my IV started. Around 4:30pm we started the antibiotic drip because I was group B strep positive. Or so we thought. This drug needed about 4 hours to work before we could start pitocin that would start labor. The nurse came in to check on us at 6:45pm and noticed the antibiotic bag was still full. One of the nurses had hung the bag, and one of them had clamped it closed so it never dripped! Argh, that set us back two hours! We finally got that settled and relaxed and rested until 10pm, when we would start pitocin. The nurses changed shifts and Obi became our new nurse. 


While we were relaxing, I started noticing I was having regular mild contractions. This was a great sign that my body was ready anyway for you to come! At 10pm, we slowly started the pitocin until I was having regular, uncomfortable but not painful, contractions. At 1:30am, Dr. Chan came in and broke my water. So much water. About 2 lbs of amniotic fluid came out. No wonder my belly was so heavy! I was 4-5 cm dilated at that point. After that my contractions really started picking up and became so painful. Ouchie! Daddy tried to help but I just needed to not be touched. Around 2:15am, I asked for the epidural. The anesthesiologist comes bounding in and what do you know, it was Daddy's BSF leader! We were praying it would be him! He was so nice and made me feel soooo much better. 

The epidural kicked in around 2:40am and mommy could finally relax. Ahh! As soon as the pain of contractions went away, I started noticing a LOT of pressure on my cervix with each contraction. They checked my cervix again at 3am and I was already 8.5 cm! So close! The doctor said to give me a "few more minutes" before we started pushing. Obi was busy getting everything set up for the delivery. Poor Daddy, the sight of all of this kinda made him feel queasy. He had to sit down for a few minutes.

At some point they checked my cervix again and decided I was complete and ready to start pushing. Obi held one leg, a baby RN held another and Dr. Chan assumed his catcher's position. Daddy was at my head. I started pushing at 3:55am. I kept hearing the doctor and nurses saying things like "op baby" but I didn't know what that meant. 

Pushing is hard. Especially in the beginning when you don't make a lot of progress with each push. They would have me push 3-4 times with each contraction and I would be so out of breath when it was over. But the doctor, the nurses and Daddy were so encouraging each time. "Harder, sweetie, harder!", "that's it, that's the push", "good job, Chrissy, you're doing great!". Eventually I could feel your head getting further and further down the birth canal. At the end of a push, I could feel you at the end of the birth canal but then you'd slip back in a little. But with a few more pushes, you would be at the end and stay at the end so I knew we were getting close. That was really uncomfortable and it was hard to not push at that point. Then at 4:34am, a contraction started and I pushed and the doc said "you can stop pushing now" and the nurses and Daddy started exclaiming, "his head is out!" and then your shoulders were out. I reached down and grabbed you under the arms and pulled you onto my chest!!! 


Welcome to the world, Ross Edward! Being the second baby, it was so natural to start talking to you and telling you how proud I was of you for making it here and how happy we were that you were here. I loved you immensely and immediately. You were, and still are, so beautiful. You barely cried but the nurses seemed okay with it. They rubbed on you to stimulate you and you started breathing on your own. 

Daddy declined the option to cut your cord. Apparently it's not quite like cutting through paper and he didn't care to do it again. They took you to the scale and weighed you... 8 lbs, 5 ozs! You were diapered and brought back to mommy's chest. After a few minutes we decided to try nursing and you nursed for a whole hour, 30 minutes each side! Champ!

It turns out you came out of me face up or "sunny side up". "Op baby" means occiput posterior where you were facing my abdomen instead of my back. It's much more difficult to deliver a baby in this position because your head and neck can't bend quite the same to get down the birth canal. Most women push for 2-3 hours and most op babies end up in a c-section. So 40 minutes of pushing doesn't seem so bad! I guess we have big brother and his huge head to thank for that!

As for your name, Edward is your maternal grandfather's middle name. We are proud of the legacy you will carry on with his name. Ross is a name that mommy and daddy like. We think it's a masculine name and fits well with Martin and with Logan. Turns out that coincidentally both Logan and Ross are Scottish names. There is a Scottish Clan Logan and Clan Ross. Cool!


We love you so very much and are so thankful that God chose us to be your parents. We look forward to watching you grow, learning your personality, your interests, your likes and dislikes and seeing how you're going to positively impact this world. We noticed in the Bible that one of the ways God would choose to bless someone is by giving them a child and we definitely see you as a blessing. Thank you for being ours!








Monday, January 5, 2015

Another great Christmas for the books!

Christmas 2014 was awesome, just a great time with our beloved friends and family. We spent one week with my family, one week with Mitchell's family, one night in Austin without Logan, with several hours of travel in between. Overall the trip went really, really well. Logan adjusted to sleeping in three different places much easier than I thought he would. I think if you just run them to exhaustion then it's easier to get them to sleep wherever, haha. I have learned that Logan wakes up at night and normally puts himself right back to sleep but in a new place, he gets disoriented and cries for us. I had his pack-n-play right next to the bed at night so whenever that happened I'd just "shh" him and he'd lay back down and go back to sleep. There were a few hard moments as I had two minor colds and Logan got a cold that resulted in a fever, coughing and lots of snot. He slept in our bed for a little bit of the night and I learned that co-sleeping with a toddler = no sleeping for me.

Here are some of the highlights in pictures:

Earning his frequent flyer miles
Playing with Uncle Billy and Uncle Ricky
Mimi put these goofy things on him
Visiting an animal shelter with Aunt Liddy on her birthday
Swinging on a swing across the street that my dad built
Holiday baking!
Logan likes queso
Meeting one of my dearest friend's baby, Caleb
My bestest buds
Logan and Santa - eh?
Reading the Night Before Christmas with Daddy
Christmas morning with the Schoelmans!
My mom and brother, Billy
My dad
Aunt Liddy
Christmas morning with the Martins!
Opening gifts!
Logan and Grandpa time
Epic shark hat from Gram, awesome Hot Dog book from Aunt Katy
The Martins and our little Farmer Joe
Driving with Grandpa
Sliding with Aunt Katy
Logan's first rib
Playing with Alicia and Daddy at Aunt Susie's
Park time with Aunt EA!
Aunt Katy helping Logan open up his stocking
"Hug Simba"
Visiting Mama (Logan's great grandmother)
Playing with a track set at Uncle Richard and Aunt Shirley's 
We had lots of puzzle time at Aunt Susie's. Logan "helped".
Swinging with Aunt Susie
Cheesing with Aunt Katy
And that's a wrap, folks! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Monday, November 3, 2014

Halloween 2014

Halloween was such a blast this year that it is blog-worthy. I just have to say that doing things with kids makes it so much more fun. Logan was still pretty itty bitty last year during Halloween so having a walking, playing, interactive kid this year made it so much fun!

Halloween 2013
Trick-or-treating with friends on Halloween last year
Let's start with his costume. There are not many 14 month olds that are still bald so we decided that we wanted to capitalize on the baldness with this year's costume and who better to dress a bald baby as than Charlie Brown! It was perfect and so recognizable to everyone we saw. 

A friend's Halloween party (10/25):
The first occasion to dress up as Charlie Brown was at a friend's Halloween party. Mitchell and Logan BOTH dressed up as Charlie and it was awesome!


Boo at the Zoo (10/30): 
We went to the zoo's Halloween event with our neighbors. It was threatening to rain on Halloween so I think an excessive amount of people showed up to the event the night before. It was so jam packed and kinda not worth it. There was trick-or-treating at booths, a magic show and dance party. We enjoyed all of these things but were ready to be done after being there only an hour and a half.
Noah and Logan
Boo at the Zoo
On Halloween!
We started the morning off right with a free scary face pancake at IHOP.


Stroller Strides: 
I have been participating in Stroller Strides and have absolutely loved it. The workout is great (not just walking with strollers), it's a fun play time for Logan and an opportunity for me to meet and talk to other moms. Well, Stroller Strides had a big Halloween event, including stroller trick-or-treating.
Half the group and our instructor
Our treat we gave out - cheese balls
stroller trick-or-treating
with his loot!
Halloween play group:
We have been blessed to spend our Fridays with our play group that we have gone to before Logan was even born. We hosted this play group and as always, it was crazy busy but a blast!
Treats!
My attempt at a giant spider web
Cutest kids ever!
Halloween crafts!
Trick-or-treating!
We rendezvous-ed with our friends in their neighborhood and went out for some trick-or-treating! Eight kids and eight adults. The rain held off and we had a blast! Logan loved trick-or-treating. He waved at everyone to say thank you for the candy. 





Such a fun Halloween making special family memories! :)