Sting Like a Bee

Ok... so tonight was trick or treat where my parents lives. And since we were in town for my niece's baby shower, we went to my parents after and I took the girls to a few houses to trick or treat.

So... we're walking along. Cass, my spirited almost-four-year-old is dressed as a bumblebee. We pass a group of people leaving their house to go t or t'ing. Cass walks up to one of them, a big burly black man, and pokes him in the leg and yells "STING!"



Luckily, he said OUCH! and started cracking up laughing at her!


Then she goes up to the house to get her candy. The woman starts to give her something and Cass looks inside the house to the bowl of candy sitting there and tells the lady she doesn't want THAT piece of candy (the one the lady was putting into her bag!)... she wanted another piece. Again, the lady got a kick of out it and let her choose what she wanted. She did it several more times after that at the other houses we went to. Crazy kid.


I'm really looking forward to our trick or treat night now! LOL I think I'll let Andy take her!

Happy Birthday Little Man!

I woke up bright and early on the morning of October 11. My csection was scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Hubby had to get our then kindergartener to her friend's house so they could get her on the bus... and get my then 3 year old to my mother in law's. Then he was supposed to be at the hospital around 8. I managed to get a shower and waited around nervously until the big moment.

Finally it was here. And hubby was no where to be found. But the show had to go on. They wheeled me down the hall to the surgery. It took a while to get everything prepped... and when they were done, hubby still was not there. I wanted someone to be with me so since my parents were there, they started getting my mom ready when finally, along came Hubby! Turns out he'd been stuck in traffic.

The actual csection only took about a half hour from start to finish. And of course, I couldn't see a thing with the lovely blanket they drape up there. Nicholas was born at 8:36 am. My doc held him up for Andy to take pictures... (turned out he had a true knot in his cord which we've got a great picture of) but the doc failed to hold him up high enough for Mommy to see him before he was whisked away to the NICU. Yeah, that made me a little sad.... But when they told me that he was breathing on his own, it made it a little easier. Andy went and got more pictures and brought them back to show me (on the little digital screen) while I was being sewn back up. Everyone kept telling me how absolutely adorable he was. Hey... no fair that they're seeing my sweetie before me!

He weighed a tiny 3 lbs 11 oz! A full half pound lighter than the ultrasound two days earlier had estimated. The nurses commented on what a little fighter he was from the beginning. He did not like the poking and prodding one bit and let them know in no uncertain terms! LOL That's my boy!

I had to go to recovery and then eventually to my room so it was a couple hours before I got to see my perfect (tiny) little angel. Once I could get up out of bed (after the spinal had worn off) they wheeled me down to the NICU where I laid eyes on Nicholas for the very first time. What a little beauty he was!! Soooooooo incredibly tiny and so incredibly cute! He actually had a full head of dark hair and looked perfect in every way.

Here is a picture of me and Nicholas meeting for the very first time...


(forgive my swollen face... pre-eclampsia is not a kind disease! LOL)

And another of him just minutes after his birth...



Happy First Birthday Nicholas Andrew! I cannot imagine life without you... and thank God every day for answering a special prayer.

Almost Time

Continuing the story of Nicholas' birth last year....

So, after being admitted to the hospital Monday night, they gave me medication all night long try to regulate my blood pressure. It kept going up and down depending on the amount of meds they gave me. Mostly, it was up. Surprisingly, aside from the swelling, I was feeling just fine. I even asked the nurse when i was being checked in if it was normal to be this sick and feel as good as I did. She said that it could be.

Tuesday morning, my doc walked in, took a look at my charts, and after a couple minutes of pondering, said, "you're not getting better until you have this baby. So, we going to be delivering him." (or something along those lines)

He then checked to see if I was making any labor progress and being that I was 7 weeks from my due date, I wasn't. So, he decided on a c-section. His reasoning was that it would take 2 days to induce me. And he didn't want to waste that much time. That night, I had my second steroid shot. My section was scheduled for the next morning.

For some reason, even though I didn't want a caesarean birth, I was not upset. And for some reason, even though my baby was going to be born 7 weeks early, I wasn't (that) nervous. The day before his birth dragged on and on. I had several visitors and even more phone calls asking how I was coping.

They monitored the baby constantly throughout the day... and they continued monitoring me too. I sware... I must have given a gallon blood throughout my hospital stay. It seemed like someone was always coming in with a needle! My poor arm was pretty much one complete bruise.

The night before my section was a restless one. Partly because of all the monitoring and partly because of nerves. But I did manage to get a little shut eye.

And before I knew it, Nicholas' birthday was here...

One Year Ago

Last October, I had Nicholas. He wasn't due until November 24 but due to circumstances beyond our control, we got to meet him a little sooner.

Monday, Oct 9 of last year, I went to the doctor. I'd been the Wednesday and Friday before also... and they've found a lot of protein in one of the tests and I was swelling up a storm. But my blood pressure was still fine. SO on Friday, I was given the go-ahead to go to a scrapbook retreat for the entire weekend. My hubby was less than thrilled that I was going because he thought I was doing too much and with all the swelling and protein, he was worried. But being the independent stubborn ole' fart that I am, I went anyways. And got around 4o pages done in my scrapbooks.

Cut back to the Monday doctor appt. My mom had come along with my two girls because I was having an ultrasound to see how big the baby was. We had the ultrasound and the baby measured 4 lbs 3 oz. Then we waited for the appt. When it was time, I went back by myself while my mom waited in the waiting room with my girls.

The first thing the nurse did was take my blood pressure. And unlike the Friday before, it was high- 150/100. That along with the swelling and the protein was not a good sign. They had me lie on my side and took it again a few minutes later and though it was better, it was still high.

The doc came in and told me straight up that I was going to the hospital now. Say what?! Did you say the hospital?! I went outside and with tears in my eyes, told my mom. She and the girls came back inside with me while I got further instructions. I was to go straight to the hospital without going home. Now it just so happened that on that day, I had left the house without my cell phone (and so did my mom!) so we had no way to call anyone. AND it just so happened that my husband was golfing that day at a course I did not know the name of... and he did not have a phone either... so we could not get ahold of him.

The doc office let us use the phone and we called my dad and my mother-in-law so they could pass the word. My dad's job was to get ahold of Andy however he could. My mom and the girls and I headed to the hospital where I was immediately admitted. Eventually, my dad got ahold of my hubby and he got there as quick as he could. My mom left with the girls (and stayed at our house with them until Andy could get home) and my sister showed up.

Up to this point, I was still thinking they were going to let me go home on bedrest. There was no way I was having my baby this soon. That night at the hospital, I got my first steroid shot. Guess I should have figured it out then that I was, in fact, not going home. My sister, who is a nurse, decided she was not leaving me until my blood pressure was regulated so she slept/sat in the chair beside my bed all night long watching my blood pressure every time they took it. Throughout the night, it went up and down. I didn't sleep much with all of the constant interruptions to take my stats...

(to be continued with Tuesday's happenings...)

~~ On another note,

If you've read this blog before, you know how much I enjoy making slideshows. For Nicholas' first birthday, I made one to show at the party. After all the time I've used this particular program, Hubby finally showed me how to share it online! LOL He said I'd never asked! Dork.

Anyways, the original that I showed at the party was twice as long but I had to cut it down to ten minutes to upload it to youtube. The quality of the pictures sucks (they were much better on the original) but when I converted it to an mpeg, the quality went wayyyyyyyyyyy down.

But I did get it uploaded. SOOOOOO... if you're interested, here's the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDvI5Nwph84

Party Time!

On Thursday, my sweet baby boy turns one! Hard to believe!

We celebrated his birthday with our families last night so I thought I'd share a few pics of the festivities!


The party was lots of fun. We ended up doing his cake outside since it was nice... which turned out to be a great idea since it was sooooo messy! I gave him a whole chocolate cake with chocolate icing! LOL

Before the (big) mess...








The end result...



After a quick bath in the sink, my nieces stole him for a few minutes and he came back looking like this...


They said he needed a hair-do to go along with his shirt. LOL



He had a lot of fun opening his presents. Actually, he wanted to play with all of them! Here's a shot of him on his first Tonka...




We'll still celebrate his actual birthday on Thursday! Then Friday, I'm off for a weekend scrapbook retreat! Cannot wait for that!