Trying this again

So it was apparently too late last night to realize that it was 3 months since my last blog. And obviously the pictures didn't show up. So we'll try again today.

The Dude's newest obsession is bubbles. He's a pro at spotting bottles of bubbles. Every time he sees a bubble wand or a bubble solution, he flips. The kid loves bubbles. And books. He's not so great at letting me read to him, but he likes to sit down on his chair and kick back with a book and look at the pictures. I'll take it for now.

His language recognition is crazy good right now. You can have a great one-sided conversation with the kid. He can tend to seem bratty now, since he knows what you're asking, he'll pretend like he's going to do it, then run away laughing like the crazy dude he is. He's definitely a stinker.

We tried getting him in to the baby pool in the back yard today, but he kind of hated it. To be fair, the water was really cold. And before taking him out, my spray on sunscreen was clogged and when it finally came out, it sprayed him on the chest and freaked him the crap out. So he was traumatized before we ever stepped foot in the little plastic pool.

Anyway, pictures of The Dude in the last 6 months, since that's pretty much how long it's been.

At the Easter Parade with Nana

Going for Easter Bunny pictures, which turned out...great

He loves his hat

Easter with Grandpa and Grandma

J Biebs

Somebody went bankrupt on Wheel of Fortune

Just like his daddy- can't take a serious picture and his tongue has to be sticking out

All about straws now

With Nana on her birthday and the marathon relay day

Catching up on gossip

Rare picture perfection (by John's boss)

He fought me for that broom

At the Beatersville Car Show, cause he's cool
Honestly, it's my favorite picture of him right now

What The Dude looks like when he's sick

Back in the saddle

So I haven't been great with the phone. This is my second post in 2 months. The Dude is totally getting big. I'm contemplating potty training soon. I think it could happen. I'm determined that the child will not be 3 and in diapers. It's late, and I tried to post 2 pictures so we'll see how the pics works out. I'm going to make a more concerted effort to actually write in this as it is pretty much his baby book.

It's been awhile

Due to limitations beyond my control I mainly have to update this blog via phone, so we'll see how often I update from now. The Dude is growing quickly. He's saying mama, dada, a ball, apple, Angie, suzzy, and "In Dogs!". And the dogs actually listen to him when he calls them in! He already has more respect from them than me and John do. :)

The Dude is also a dancing fool. I need to upload some videos to YouTube and then I can post the dancing fool videos for you. He had also started running although that's more due to our slanted hallway. You can see the look on his face when he starts gaining momentum. Luckily the carpet stops him. But damn, it's the cutest thing ever.

The last thing that blew my mind is that somewhere, somehow the kid figured out that he needed to turn around and slide backwards, feet first in order to go down stairs, get off the bed and get off the couch. I'm super glad he learned it (its a lot better than a faceplant on the floor- yes, it's happened) but I don't know who taught him. None of the grandparents claimed it.

I guess that's it for now. I'm going to get in the habit of updating this more often. I've never fille out The Dude's baby books so this is pretty much it for the first 15 months of his life.

Jude loves Yo Gabba Gabba

The world stops when this show comes on. And my heart melts when he starts dancing.

I call this one- Jude is bowled over by Yo Gabba Gabba

Mentally Preparing...

The day after The Dude turns 14 months old, Stem and I are taking a week-long vacation to Las Vegas. I am super stoked about the trip, but I am so nervous about leaving The Dude here. He'll be rotating with the grandparents, so he'll be in good hands- so I guess I'm more nervous about how Stem and I will be without The Dude for 8 nights. That's a long time. We've done weekend trips (one with both of us, and one for my company retreat), and on both trips, we were dying by the second day. I really just don't want the trip to be miserable because I'm missing the little one.

Seriously, 7 days without this face:

He put his sock on his head, and he thought it was hilarious.

The rest of the last week in pictures:

Taking a bath at Grandma E's

I had fun with his hair. He peed on the floor right before he got in the tub. His (all girl) cousins thought it was hilarious. :)

The baddest accessory a badass little dude could have.

 The Dude made friends with the cops at Panera last night:

Dropping The Dude off at El Grande Papa's (aka Cozy D's) house last week

Birthing The Dude- Day 3!

So, my whole plan went to shit. I obviously didn't write out Jude's birth story on his birthday. But anyway, here's day 3.

To be honest, the night between day 2 and 3 (wednesday night) was frightening. It was by far the toughest time in the hospital. They had me laying on my left side, because that's where Jude's heart rate was the best. There were a few times that they let me flip to my right side. It was sweet relief each time, but each time it was short lived. Within a couple of minutes of switching sides, the machines would start beeping, and the nurses would come rushing in. Jude's heart rate dropped every single time on my right side. And it was just too much stress for him, so we stopped trying. Once we realized that I was stuck on my left side, I tried to get some sleep. Unfortunately, that was also interrupted. I started to get a fever and they said that my body was trying to make it uncomfortable in there so that Jude would want to come out. (They were kidding, right?) So I was fed more medicine. Then they had to start pumping fluids into me because it had been more than 24 hours since my water broke and they were worried about infection. By this point in time, I was a science experiment gone bad. I was on my 4th or 5th bag of pitocin. I was on my third doctor. I was on my 4th nurse (although the ones that had to leave did call in to check on me to see if I had had him yet- they were very sweet there).

Finally, at 6 am, I was at 8 cm. EIGHT! I was so excited. Family members started coming back to visit. (Only now on reflection, do I remember that John was the only one that stayed Wednesday night, and he slept through all the craziness. I think my family decided that I was never going to have the baby and was just going to live in the hospital, therefore, quick visits in the morning were all that were needed.) Needless to say, the adrenaline had dwindled for everyone. But it picked back up when I told them how close we were to meeting Jude. And three hours later...nothing happened.

I was still 8 cm. 8. Just 8. They gave me a deadline. I had one hour to progress. If I was still at 8 cm at 10 am, then I was getting a C-Section. I was so pissed. I had not gone through all this work and all this time to have a C-Section at 10 am on Thursday. No. I was pissed, but I was also so tired I just didn't really care anymore (except I was more pissed that if I had a C-Section I couldn't eat solid food for another 24 hours. No. Way.)

**Interjection in the story- I can't remember when exactly this happened. I know it was towards the end of my labor. The doctor was very adamant about doing a C-Section. The nurse knew I didn't want one and told the doctor to give her some time. I think this is the nurse that was with my overnight on Wednesday night because she wasn't there when I delivered, but she was there when I was 8 cm. Anyway- that nurse saved my birth story. She single-handedly bought me the time that I needed. If not for her, I would have had a C-Section. So, super important interjection in the story, but I just can't remember where exactly it goes. (Which is why you don't wait for a year to write down your birth story) I also know that nurse said she had done that with several other patients. It was her specialty.**

Somehow, it happened again. When they came to check me at my deadline, she said the most beautiful words I had ever heard. "You're ready to push!" I honestly never thought those words were going to come out of a nurses mouth. I had my family come in to give a quick good luck, and we got set up. I was already in position when there was a knock at the door. My sister had just shown up and wanted to come in and see me really quick before we started. I said no. Which is really my only regret out of the whole birthing experience. I should have let her come in and say hi before I started pushing. I still feel bad about that.

As I was starting to push, I said to the nurse (in between the pushes) that I couldn't believe we were at that point and that "at this time yesterday, I thought for sure I'd be having a C-Section." She replied with "we're not out of the woods yet." To that, my exact thought was fuck that. When they told me I could, I pushed as hard as I could. I could feel everything on my right side, but nothing on my left. It was a good balance to keep me in check and letting me feel when to push but not being in insane pain.

They told me that at some point they may have to lay me back in order to get his shoulders out, which ended up happening. Because he is an exact replica of his dad, who has really broad shoulders. After 30 minutes of pushing, my little cone-headed bean was out. It was incredibly surreal. I didn't cry. I think I was in shock that he was finally here. I felt like my labor would never end, and after 30 minutes, it was done. I still had to get put back together but it was done. I could see my son. He was puffy from fluids and, seriously, had the biggest conehead I had ever seen, but he was beautiful.

I was super jealous that John got to see Jude while I was getting stitched up. Luckily, the doctor had him get the camera right before he came out, so he got pictures of Jude fresh from the womb (that sounds so gross) and was taking pictures of him being weighed. He was a good photographer! I was happy that my nurse came in with TWO diet cokes for me. Sweetest lady EVER.

It took almost an hour for everything to be settled back before we could have visitors. When our families finally came in, they were most definitely more emotional than me. I think they all cried. It was pretty amazing. That, and the fact that I was on my 4th diet coke in an hour. The worst part was when the families dispersed and the nurses took Jude to the nursery to get all clean. I didn't want to let him out of my sight, but quite frankly I was so exhausted, that I didn't really care.

I could write a whole book on the hospital stay, but I'll leave it at this for now. Hell, it literally took me over a month to write this one post. (I'm not a very good blogger. I need a laptop.)

Fresh out the oven

Once the fluids calmed down

My glowworm

13 months old

What a cute stinkin' kid

The face of a stinkerbutt

Birthing The Dude- Day 2

But of course I didn't have time yesterday to do Day 2, so I'll just segment the writings today, or write Day 3 tomorrow. We'll see how the day goes. :)

Back to the story...
Around 5 or 6 am my dad called, panicking, worried that he missed something. Nothing had changed (still 1, maybe 2 cm at this point). I told him not to panic and to take his time getting back up to the hospital. Less than an hour later, he walked in the door. By this time, I think I had already started my second bag of pitocin. They were also worried because my contractions were frequent (as in, they never stopped. 20 seconds in between the end and beginning of each one, at the most) but they weren't hitting the intensity they wanted. They gave me more stadol and I passed out again. When I woke up, I noticed that both times I had been given the stadol, my contractions slowed down and weakened. Considering how slowly I was progressing, I didn't like seeing that. I decided not to take any more stadol, and only go for the epidural if I really needed it.

Somewhere during this day, I think early in the morning, they broke my water. It hurt like hell.

In the early afternoon, the doctor told me that if I didn't progress in the next hour, that I was going to have to get a C-section. They had already turned up the pitocin to near max level in order to try to get my contractions going. The stadol set it back, the fact that my body just wasn't ready to be in labor set it back. But they only had 2 more strength levels to go before they hit the max level. (You can't go over a certain level, because otherwise, once you deliver, the pitocin won't have any effect and the contractions won't continue and they need to in order to shrink your uterus back down- I think that's how she explained it.)

**This will be jumping ahead, but it doesn't really fit anywhere else. At some point, The Dude went into a bit of distress. They practically stopped the pitocin to calm down my uterus for a bit. Since they knocked it down so much, they were able to slowly build back up and that solved the pitocin problem mentioned above.**

Anyway, at the news that I was probably going to get a C-section (Let's be real, in 17 hours, I had progressed ONE cm. It was going nowhere.) I was devastated. I didn't want a C-section. For one, I wanted to be able to eat, 2, I didn't want to be completely numb and have to wear the compression boots, 3, I wanted to eat real food-not jello for 24 hours, 4, if you have a C-section, you are pretty much always going to have a C-section, 5, I have a tattoo on my lower stomach and hip, and a C-section scar would have totally ruined it. The last reason sounds silly, but I love that tattoo and yeah, I didn't want to have a scar going through it. I was so bummed at this point. I knew that when they checked me at the end of that hour, I was going nowhere.

Luckily, when they checked, I was at 3 cm. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough to keep me from having a C-section. Pretty soon after that, the rest of my water broke. I was miserable at this point because Jude would only let me lay on my left side. His heart rate dropped if I tried to lay any other way. The contractions were still not too intense, but were so frequent. They literally didn't stop. I was having one, continuous contraction. At hour 19 after being induced, I finally asked for the epidural.

This was a big step for me. I am so claustrophobic and I have Restless Leg Syndrome and I absolutely freak out if I am held down or can't move a part of my body. Knowing that with the epidural I wouldn't be able to move my legs ALMOST kept me from getting it. If the labor hadn't been so drawn out, I might have endured. But I wanted the damn meds. It was a great feeling to be able to relax. It was also great because I couldn't feel the pain in my left side from having to lay on the same limbs for hours.

At 6:24 pm (thank you facebook status updates), I was in hour 21 after being induced, on my 3rd bag of pitocin and still had my trusty oxygen mask on. A couple of hours after this, John and his mom were in the room. I fell asleep with a neck pillow on (you can see it in the post before this one) and with the full-on oxygen mask. When I woke up, I forgot that the epidural had been administered. I freaked the eff out. I couldn't move my legs, I had a huge plastic mask on my nose and I had that damn pillow wrapped around my neck. I threw the neck pillow across the room, pulled the oxygen mask off and started crying. I begged John to come move my legs. He sat at the end of the bed and moved them in a bicycle motion for me. After about 10 minutes, I finally calmed down. I also felt kind of crazy. But can you blame me? No food or water for a day and a half, I couldn't get up out of bed (I think I got up twice to use the restroom but once I got the epidural, I was bed-ridden) and the labor was going nowhere. The nurses came and talked to me and told me to just let the epidural wear off a bit and I would be able to move a little. Wiggle my toes, etc.

I got a bit luckier (?) than that. Since I was stuck on my left side, the epidural drained to my left side (yes, gravity pulls it down). This left my right leg able to swing freely. It was the greatest feeling in the world. I could only barely feel the contractions, AND I could move one of my legs. This also left my left side completely numb, but I didn't care.

Finally around 10:30 pm, I hit 4 cm. The nurses and doctor all got excited and said labor usually progresses very quickly from that point. I got kind of excited but was beyond getting my hopes up. When I was induced at 8-9pm on November 30th, all the medical staff said "Oh! You're going to have a December 1st baby." John's mom (jokingly- at least, I hope) said, "Can you hold it for one more day, so he can share a birthday with his dad?" When she said that at the beginning, I just looked at her and laughed. "Absolutely not." Well, when I hit just 4 cm at 10:30, I knew that The Dude was going to be sharing a birthday with his daddy. Happy birthday sweetheart!

So by midnight of Day 2, I was celebrating that fact that I had progressed 3 cm in 28 hours, and that my son and my husband would share a birthday. And, that I had managed to escape a C-section for the moment. That night was pretty restless and scary, but I'll get in to all of that on the Day 3 post (later today?)