more pics...

The Birth Center

What an experience.  Delivering at a birth center is so completely different than a hospital.  I started going into labor around 6:30 PM on Tuesday the 6th.  Contractions were fairly far apart, but by about 8:00 or so they started to become more intense so I called Brad and told him he might be in for a three hour drive.  About 30 minutes after I hung up with Brad the contractions were coming every seven minutes, so it was inevitable he was going to have to drive!  Around 10:30 I called the midwife to tell her my contractions were five minutes apart and had been lasting at least a minute for the last hour she said, "call me back when they're about 3 to 4 minutes apart and lasting 90 seconds."  I'm thinking, "she must be crazy."  I remember at the time all I wanted to do was get to that birthing center and get into the giant jacuzzi bath tub. Luckily about ten minutes after I called the midwife my contractions went from five minutes apart to two minutes so she told us she would meet us there.  Perfect timing because right after we got off of the phone with her Brad arrived and we left for the center.  As soon as we got there I got into the tub and it seemed like the contractions were coming every two seconds... maybe every minute?  Who knows?  I stayed in the tub for what seemed like ten minutes but was probably about an hour.  By the time I got out I was to eight centimeters.  I then just labored in the room some and in the bathroom a little more.  at 2:30 my water broke and at 3:45 I started pushing and little Eli was born at 4:23 Wednesday January 7.  

The birth center was such an intimate setting and I think the environment really helped me get through it.  We got to go home five hours after I had Eli and even went to the pediatricians office later that day.  It was so much easier to adjust this way and it just seemed like such a normal thing... and it is a normal everyday thing.  Women give birth everyday.  I'll be honest, there was a time there at the end where I just wanted to leave and go to the hospital and have them get the child out of me, but I wouldn't have changed my experience for the world.  It was wonderful and we are so blessed with our beautiful baby boy... all nine pounds of him:)

Absentee Shower!!!

I have to say that we have the best family ever.  Even though this is our second child... and a boy no less, our family has gone out of their way to make sure that Baby Eli is taken care of and to show that he is cared for.  Mom Dickinson put together a wonderful absentee shower and collected money for the jogging stroller we wanted.  It was such a generous gesture and a generous gift.  I am so thankful that mom put it together and so grateful for the family that attended and helped make such a gift possible.  

Jude loves his new stroller so much that he wanted us to put it in front of the TV so that he could watch his videos.  Hopefully he won't be opposed to sharing this with his brother in the very near future:)

Blessing for Baby Eli

We did a blessing ceremony for Eli on Saturday the 15th.  It is a Native American tradition.  It was such a nice experience and it was really neat to meld our faith with this tradition.  It was a beautiful afternoon ( a little hot) and I got to be surrounded by women who inspire me.  Jude was a little afraid of my belly but then he was calling it a pumpkin.... from the mouths of babes.

Profile (8mos) w/his little mouth opened
w/his foot by his head

We had another sonogram done Friday (11/7) to check Eli's positioning.  He's getting big!  Apparently he has a lot of hair.  I think he looks just like Jude, but I guess we'll see soon enough:)

slacker:)

If you regularly look at Jude's website you might notice that I have not been updating anything. Sorry.  There is no excuse other than being busy and tired... wait, that sounded like an excuse!  

So, we finished our birthing classes and I am now starting my two week appointments.  Eli moves a ton and I get a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions which I never had with Jude.  I feel pretty good just uncomfortable with this belly.  It's amazing how you forget how hard it is to move around with this giant thing in front of you.  One of my friends told me yesterday that I look like I'm getting smaller... she is now my new best friend!  We still don't have all of the stuff ready in the house and I move to Orlando in a month.  I have two more weekends at home before "moving" and they are both fully planned, but we'll get it done:)

Registry #2

So, we've decided to give cloth diapering a whirl this time.  Who new that making the decision to cloth diaper would require so much thought and research?  Anyway, I have given the thought and done the research and I finally have a registry.  The registry seems like a lot of stuff but it's supposed to be enough to get us through about a year of diapering  and the theory is that we can reuse this stuff with future babies.  Since Brad wants enough for a soccer team who knows how many of our children will benefit from Eli's diapers?!