Some photos from "back at the ranch" (as Grandma Joey would say...)

-- Grandma Brenda came to visit Kate --

-- I'm ready for my close-up --

-- Sleeping is my favorite --

-- Copper loves Kate...and is very protective of her! --

-- Mommy sneaks a picture during a 3:30 am feeding --

-- Waiting for my lotion bath --

-- Feeling a bit wild in animal print --

We also had the hospital photographer take some pictures of Kate during our time at the hospital.  If you'd like to look at them, just do the following...

- Go to www.andersonhospital.org

- Click on the "Newborns by JDA Imaging link on the left hand side

- Choose Anderson from the listing of hospitals on the JDA homepage

- Enter October 20, 2012 as the event date

- Choose jessicasny as the event

- Enter kate as the password and include your email address (I've done this several times and haven't seen anything from JDA in my inbox, so don't worry about that)

- View some pictures of our little bug!  They aren't Inspired Images...but they'll do for now :-)

We'll keep putting up pictures!

Getting to Know Each Other

We stayed in the hospital until about 7:00 pm Sunday night.  During this time we got to know our little pumpkin, and started learning what it meant to have a new little one.  The staff at Anderson was wonderful, and we had a few visitors who stopped in to meet Kate.  As it worked out, we were able to bring Kate home on our anniversary.  When we got married we never imagined we'd be bringing a little peanut home one year later.  She was the best anniversary gift we ever could have gotten. 

-- Proud momma --

-- Daddy and Nurse Melissa get Kate ready to put her footprint on the wall --

-- Some one was not a fan of cold paint on her foot --

-- This looks like a good spot! --

-- Kate Louise leaves her mark! --

-- Posing with her footprint --

-- Wide awake --

-- And very sleepy --

-- Look at all that hair! --

-- While we were getting to know Kate, we also celebrated another milestone--our first anniversary!  Yea for anniversary cake and good friends who pick it up and keep it in there fridge for you! --

-- Brandon cuts our cake --

--Getting ready to go home --

-- All dressed in my going home outfit--

-- Daddy gets Kate ready for the car --

-- Snug as a bug in a rug --

-- And away we go! --

The Big Debut!

Wow!  Our last posting was a week ago!  And as many of you know, A LOT has changed!  Let's back up a bit...I'll give the abbreviated version so we can get to the good part...pictures!

Brandon and I waited to get the results of the lab work Dr. Owens had ordered.  Because it was early afternoon on Wednesday when everything made it to the lab, the doctor didn't make a determination until Thursday.  And when she did, we were pretty surprised--although everything had come back at safe levels, she wanted to go ahead and induce us the next morning.  Although this wasn't exactly the way we had envisioned things going, we knew that Dr. Owens was doing what she thought was right, and she, after all, is a doctor, so we certainly weren't going to argue with her.  We spent Thursday night trying to wrap our heads around the idea that it was our last night as a family of two (three if you count the furry baby Copper), and getting things situated for the following morning.

Friday morning we left for the hospital at 5:00 am, stopping first at Scotty and Robin Hayes' house to drop off Copper, and then continued on to Anderson for our 6:00 am appointment.  By 8:00 they had started me on Pitocin, shortly afterwards I began having contractions, and by 10:30 we had started the epidural process (I know people have very strong feelings on whether or not birth should be natural.  I'll admit, I was torn, but decided to go with the drugs.  And I sure am glad that I did!).  The epidural really kick started my labor, and I went from 3-4 cm dilated to 7 cm dilated extremely quickly.  Our little Bean wasn't too thrilled about the speed of the change and she began reacting negatively--her heart beat began dropping very, very low each time I had a contraction.  Because this is the Cliffs Notes version, we'll just say that we had almost seven long and scary hours where the doctor and nurses tried to calm the baby down.  I was given drugs to counteract the Pitocin, and when Bean finally did stabilize I continued to have contractions, but had stalled out in all other aspects.  By the time the day shift left at 7:00, Brandon and I were pretty convinced that the Bean was going to enter the world via C-section.  However, someone was watching over us, and sent us a fabulous OB nurse by the name of Sammie.  Sammie did her thing (and, as Brandon says, sprinkled some magic baby dust), and a little before 9:00 she had me ready to push.  Dr. Owens was called in from home, and four pushes later at 9:29 pm, our beautiful Kate Louise Snyder entered the world.  She weighed 6 lbs 10 oz, and was 18 1/2 inches long. Her little baby cry was one of the greatest sounds we've ever heard!

Here are some pictures from the day....

-- Early Friday morning....hoping we'll have a baby before too long! --

-- Daddy is all set, just waiting on Baby Bean --

-- After a whole lot of work for Mommy, and a whole lot of worry for everyone in the delivery room, Baby Kate finally joins the world--

-- Kate looks like she had a rough day --

-- I couldn't stop looking at her! --

-- Daddy is so in love --

-- First bath --

-- All prettied up with a bow in my hair --

-- Spending some time getting nice and toasty under the warmer --

-- All tuckered out from a difficult journey --

Another Tuesday Appointment

This morning we went to the doctor for another appointment to see if anything is progressing...and, surprise!  It's really not.  We're pretty much still stuck at that 2 cm (give or take, but mostly take)/50% mark.  She also confirmed that I am having contractions, which is great because I was starting to think I wasn't.  They aren't terribly strong or noticeable, but they actually are contractions.  The doctor did notice some change in another area as well--my blood pressure.  It's been going up pretty consistently for the last two weeks, and it sparked a little concern with her.  She's on the lookout for preeclampsia, which she says isn't unusual in first time moms at this point in their pregnancy (we could have reminded her that I'd already been diagnosed with this....and miraculously recovered!), so she sent me to the lab for some blood work and I get to collect all my urine for the next 24 hours in a giant jug we'll keep in the refrigerator.  So that's exciting.  She also gave me a listing of things to look out for, like headaches or blurred vision, that would result in her bringing me in immediately to be induced.  I'm still feeling good physically, so I don't really expect that to happen, but the results of the blood work and/or urine test may still cause her to bring us in to be induced.  But if everything comes back alright, we'll just keep cruising along until October 24.  This is the magic cut off date.  If we reach this point, Dr. Owens won't let us go any longer.  We've still got the option to call and her tell her that we're ready, and she'll bring me in to get the little Bean out, but we're still going to try and hold off on that.  We'll see what the test results bring and where we go from here.

We'll keep you updated...until next time (probably tomorrow!)...

40

Today is October 15.  This means that yesterday was October 14, or as it was more commonly thought of around here, the day.  Baby Bean's due date.  And while we knew there was a pretty good chance it would come and go without incident, it has, and, I'll admit, I'm not taking it well.  Maybe I'd be doing better if it seemed like there was something going on, but I feel exactly like I did four weeks ago--except know it takes me about ten minutes to get off of the couch, my hips crack and pop like someone much older than me and it's virtually impossible for me to put my left shoe on (for some reason I can still reach down to the right--it's not easy, but it's doable)--and I'm getting very frustrated.  Brandon has remained continuously upbeat and excited, while I have become increasingly moody and crabby.  We go to the doctor yet again tomorrow morning.  I actually had to call and schedule this appointment.  The listing of pre-scheduled appointments I was given months ago didn't extend past the 40th week.  We couldn't get our regular time in the late afternoon so instead we have a morning appointment, which is good because we'll be able to get in there much earlier and see if anything has changed.  And despite the fact that I'm becoming terribly unpleasant to be around, I still don't feel willing to talk about inducing.  While another ten days seems like a life time, as long as every thing's going ok I plan to continue to soldier on (and poor Brandon will have to suffer through my mood swings).  We'll see what the day brings, and what Dr. Owens has to say tomorrow morning.

Until then...

Week 39.5....so close to 40!

Another week, another appointment...and still, no progress!  Seems that we have a little slowpoke on our hands.  I think she takes after her daddy...it took him six years to marry me...Baby Bean seems to be in no rush to make major life decisions either :-)

Despite the fact that we're still sitting right about where we were last week (and the week before for that matter!), everything is going well.  The doctor is pleased with my health and pleased with Bean's health, so we really can't ask for more at this point.  She's very gently asked if we'd like to discuss induction--at this point, we don't.  Even though I'm pretty huge and kind of uncomfortable, I'm still healthy and so is Bean, and we haven't even hit our official due date yet.  So we're going to hang in there for now.  The doctor is guessing that she'll be about 7 pounds.  It'll be interesting to see how close that guess actually is once she decides to come.

We're using our extra time to do some of the last minute things we hadn't done before...buy a new toaster oven (I'm sure this will make the transition to parenthood much easier....like it matters!), do some more baby laundry, eat at some of the restaurants we'd been meaning to go to but hadn't gotten to just yet.  We've been practicing with our new camera so we can take lots of shots of our little peanut once she arrives.  Copper has been the subject of most of our pictures, since he actually moves around, can't talk and tell us he doesn't want to have his picture taken (like I do when Brandon tries to take pictures of me), and is just so darn cute, but we did take the camera along with us to celebrate little Ronan Hayes' second birthday over the weekend.  I also managed to get some good shots of what I think could quite possibly have been one of the happiest days of Brandon's life since we've lived in Illinois...the day I finally agreed to let him trim the willow tree.  Allow me to explain...

We have a willow tree in our backyard that I absolutely love.  It's branches, of course, touch the ground, and make it very hard to mow under, and occasionally, we lose the dog under there for short periods of time.  Brandon has been wanting to trim the branches FOREVER, but I haven't agreed.  I think that it makes the tree look like it has a bowl cut, and, as a former victim of the bowl cut (thanks again Mom...pretty sure I'm scarred for life), I just couldn't agree.  Well, I finally figured 'what the heck' and Brandon went to town on the tree with the electric hedge trimmer.  When I went into nesting mode, I cleaned the baseboards and the deep freezer.  When Brandon went into nesting  mode, he samurai-ed our landscaping with power tools.  Oh, the differences between men and women :-)

-- Brandon is nesting --

-- Once Brandon is finished going samurai...our tree with a bowl cut --

-- Copper says "no pictures dahhhling" --

-- I should have followed Copper's lead but instead I'll make a dorky face...notice the super-pregnant lady hand placement on the small of the back --

-- Brandon and I at Ronan's birthday party...my favorite part of this picture is the half eaten cupcake I'm holding behind Brandon's back...I couldn't even wait until the picture was taken to dig in (they were delish!) --

More to follow soon!

Update

So we visited the doctor on Tuesday with high hopes that she'd tell us we were a little more dilated and effaced than we had been the week before.  No such luck.  In fact, we were at exactly the same point we had been the week prior.  She reassured us that the baby is well engaged and we were right were we needed to be.  So we're still waiting.  I haven't started eating nothing but pineapple, spicy food and balsamic vinegar (all said to be labor inducing!) yet, but I've been a little more eager to take walks and sit on my physic-ball (also said to aid the process).  In the meantime, we're taking care of those last few things we hadn't really gotten to yet, like replacing our built in microwave and going out to eat at our favorite spots (yes, I know you can still do that with a newborn, it just gets way harder!).  We finally purchased our fancy camera and we've been reading up on how it works--it won't do us any good to have it if we can't figure out how to take a picture!  Even though I'm just learning how it works I feel like a rock star when I use it--the picture quality is amazing.  We're thinking we'll try to snap a few end-of-pregnancy photos to share with everyone.  This weekend was our huge subdivision garage sale so we figured we'd walk around and see if we could find any good baby items.  We ended up getting something totally unexpected--cloth diapers!!  I'll admit, I do my fair share of talking crap on people who do things that are a little different...and we know a couple (not exactly our favorite couple) that uses cloth diapers, and I've done some smack talking with my girlfriends about it.  It wasn't something that Brandon and I had even thought about, let alone seriously considered.  But last week, someone knocked on our door and asked us if we minded if they set up in our yard to participate in the garage sale.  We weren't planning on selling anything so we told them to go ahead.  Turns out, the girl who asked owns a cloth diaper supply business, and as a thank you for using our grass, she gave us some products for free, promising that even if we weren't interested in cloth diapering they could be used as swim diapers or as training pants during the potty training stage.  Since we were completely clueless, we asked her to explain to us how they work, and during her explanation, she kind of intrigued us.  Yes, one of the selling points for cloth diapering is the fact that it keeps all of those disposable diapers out of the landfill.  And that's great, but honestly, we were more interested in the money saving factor.  Potentially, they can save a TON of money.  So we figured, what the heck?  We'll give it a try.  If we don't like them, she'll buy them back.  So stay tuned on this one.  Maybe we'll love it, maybe it'll be the worst decision we even made.  They are WAY cuter than regular disposable diapers, and it was fun to pick them out.  We do feel a little green and hippie-y for taking the leap in the first place.  And I still kind of can't believe that we did!  I suppose time will tell...

-- Our impulse buy...cloth diapers....are we turning crunchy and green (but you have to admit, they're super cute!)?? --

And Now We Play the Waiting Game

So, we've finally entered October.  And by finally, I really mean holy cow, it's October.  For seeming like it would take forever to get here, October sure arrived quickly.  I'm not really sure exactly how that works--how can something take so long and go so fast at the same time?  Anyway, our due date is less than two weeks away.  I'll admit, for a quick second I thought maybe our little Bean would make an early appearance.  However, I've since changed my mind.  I'm kind of thinking she likes it in there and she'll probably take her sweet time moving out.  And who can blame her?  It's nice and warm, fairly quiet, she's well feed, and there's no shortage of organs and bones to kick, punch and play with.  I know it's a little cramped for her, but some people live in studio apartments for years, so I don't think that's a determining factor quite yet.  I, on the other hand, think I am ready to meet the little lady.  I know Brandon sure is, and he's not even suffering from constant heartburn and feeling like his skin can't possibly stretch any further.  Sometimes I wonder if our eagerness to meet her will bite us in the butt--hopefully we're not so overwhelmed the first time we can't get her to stop crying that we wish she'd stayed in there for a bit longer.

Today we have our third weekly appointment.  Brandon has been able to accompany me to all of them, which is nice because he wasn't able to make too many of the bi-weekly ones.  These are the appointments with the actual exams where the doctor lets us know how things are progressing.  They're a bit more exciting because we never know what she's going to say.  At our first appointment she let us know that I was 1 cm dilated and not much else was going on.  By week two we'd managed to progress to almost 2 cm dilated and 50% effaced.  Progress, but nothing too exciting (which I quickly realized after reading that some women are 2 cm dilated for WEEKS).  So we'll see what this afternoon holds for us.  Despite  the slow movement, Brandon has been busy telling everyone that we could "go at any minute".  I keep telling him that I think he's being a tad optimistic, but secretly thinking that maybe I wouldn't mind so much if that were actually the case...then I could stop popping Tums like candy.  We did get some exciting news at our first weekly appointment--I won a giant Enfamil gift basket!  Or so the receptionist at the doctor's office claimed...I don't remember ever filling anything out for a drawing for the giant gift basket, and I'm pretty sure they just gave it to me to make up for the whole bed rest fiasco.  Regardless, it was a pretty nice basket, so I accepted it without complaint.  Now we've got lots of canisters of formula, just in case we need to supplement, and some cute little carrying/storage bags to use for bottles.

Aside from our weekly appointments, it's been business as usual around here.  I've started working from home full time, and I think that Copper is thoroughly enjoying it.  I feel like I've gotten most of the projects I wanted to finish completed, and have actually been at a bit of a loss lately when it comes to keeping myself busy.  Brandon keeps telling me to sit down, relax and take a nap, but sleeping hasn't been the easiest task for me for the last few weeks.  So instead I just kind of putz around.  We're hoping to buy a nice camera this week, and to go to our big subdivision garage sale this weekend.  And other than that, we wait...

My mom mentioned to me that she barely got to see what I looked like pregnant because I never took any pictures.  This made me feel kind of bad.  We're not big picture takers to begin with, and I feel like I exited out of the cute pregnant lady stage about 15 weeks ago.  But I'll try to take a few pictures this week, just so everyone can see how giant I ended up.  I have found that the big pregnant belly is good for giving me a place to balance my dinner plate, and for providing cute little babies with a comfy place to sit.

-- Julianna says "Who needs a Bumbo?" --

I'll do another posting once we return from the doctor, and will try to get a few more pictures taken and put up for all to see.  We're in the home stretch!  I haven't exactly been a crazy blogging fool, but I've done ok for my first time!  I promise to try and keep it up until we bring that little one home!

Until next time...