Link's Birth Story Part I: Before the Hospital

Link's due date was August 3rd 2013.  Having this date in mind, seeing my ankles and feet swell beyond recognition, and with the agony of warmer and warmer days to come I was dead set that he would come in July. NOT August.  I did not want to walk around as an elephant any longer than absolutely necessary in the summer.  In fact, I had a date in mind from the beginning.  I just knew he was going to come on our anniversary, July 22nd.  Which is twelve days "early" (anything after 37 weeks was just fine with me!)  I just knew it.

On Saturday, July 20th my bestie Leah and I went to get manis and pedis.  I was very thankful I got this one last thing done for me, it made me feel pretty in the hospital (mind you I could not actually see my own face.) That night around eleven while I was in bed I noticed some very slight sort of cramping feeling in my lower abdomen.  I knew this was it.  It was the beginning.  I knew the baby may not be here for quite a while, but I could tell it was real.  The cramping would come and go every 7 to 10 minutes, and last 10-20 seconds.  Overall I was very happy and excited I might get to meet my baby boy soon.

I had been disappointed at my last two doctor's appointments.  At 36 weeks when I was checked there was no dilation or efacement. Zero.  Not what a woman who was hoping to have the baby at 38 weeks wants to hear.  At my 37 week appointment, again, no dilation.  He said my cervix was a little thinner, but that he didn't think baby was coming sooner than my due date.  Shucks.

So Sunday morning, July 21st, I woke up (Chris had already left for work at 5 that morning.) I went to the bathroom and noticed (TMI warning!) some slightly pink mucus.  Yay! He was definitely on his way.  I called Chris and told him so he was on the heads up and so he could let his work know in case he needed to leave.  By eleven am, I wasn't feeling any more cramping, and was feeling well the rest of the day.  I went to the grocery store to get a bunch of food to make and store in the freezer for after baby comes. (We bought a stand alone freezer for our garage on Friday, July 19th - just in time!)  I can not remember at all what Chris and I did that night.  We just went about our normal routine.  We both had work in the morning and I had my 38 week appointment before work.  In bed again I noticed the cramping coming around every 7 to 9 minutes, still very light, not painful, just definitely there.

In the morning July 22nd, again, I had a slightly redder mucus when I went to the bathroom.  I remember looking in the mirror and saying to myself, "this really is real."  I went to my appointment, proclaiming to the nurse and my doctor that I had been having activity and would be having this baby soon.  He looked at me, happy, but I could tell he was thinking I was probably jumping the gun.  I was, after all, a first-time mom and had been having no movement downstairs at all yet.  He checked me and I could see the surprise on his face.  I was dilated 3 cm and 85% effaced.  Guess I wasn't lying.  He said it looked like I would be having this baby in the next day or two.

I called Chris on the way to work to let him know about the progress but that he should be fine to stay at work (he got off at 2:30).  I went in to work around nine and did some office stuff for a couple hours while keeping track of my contractions, they weren't painful or incredibly regular (9 to 13 minutes apart) but they had been steadily coming as opposed to the previous day where I wasn't noticing them during the day at all.  Thankfully work was really low key since my boss was on vacation for the week.  Around eleven I decided to go home.  My goal was to get the house cleaned up a bit and maybe take a nap.

Chris got home around 3pm and that's when I noticed the contractions getting a little stronger, but still very mild.  Porter had been sort of limping after he had been lying down for a while, at first we thought he just had a stiff leg or hip, but it had been going on for a while.  So we had a vet appointment for him scheduled at 4 that day.  So we packed him up and headed to the vet.  My contractions were definitely getting more consistent by then.  I had three contractions during the twenty minutes we were in with the vet. (The vet thinks Porter has either a strained or torn ACL, oh no!)  Next, we needed to pick up the freezer.  So, with Porter in the back seat, we loaded the freezer in the back of the truck.  On the way home I noticed my contractions getting quite a bit more uncomfortable.  Still I wasn't alarmed.  I figured we would go home, get some dinner, pack up, finish cleaning the house, and spend the night just trying to stay comfortable and go to the hospital in the morning.

Well, we got home and while we were waiting for Chris's brother and father to come help unload the freezer I went to the bathroom.  (TMI Warning!) when I sort of stood up/hunched over to wipe (can't really bend at this point) there was a small gush of warm clear liquid.  I sat back down and contemplated this.  Welp.  Guess this is going down tonight.  On our anniversary.  Good thing we didn't have anything planned.

I yelled for Chris, when he came in I told him my water had just broke, which meant we needed to get to the hospital now.  Things were a little frenzied.  Chris called his brother again to ask where he was (turns out he was just turing into the neighborhood, and was like "chill.") As he pulled up, Chris was frustrated his dad wasn't with his brother so he couldn't just leave the project to them while we got ready to leave.  So while Chris and his brother dealt with the freezer I packed a bag and gathered things we would need for the baby. Chris hurriedly fed the dogs and explained to his brother how to take care of the dogs while we were gone (including giving Porter the medication we had just gotten for him.)  Overall it was really overwhelming.

Finally we said goodbye to the dogs and were on the way to the hospital.  Since, obviously, Chris's family would know we were going to the hospital we decided to call my mom and let her know we were going as well.  Of course she offered to come down and wait (this is why I didn't want to tell anyone too early!) I was like "NO!" I love my family, but I didn't need anyone waiting on me while I was in labor and I only wanted Chris in the room.  Besides, it was 6:30 by the time we were going to the hospital, and chances were this baby wouldn't be born until the wee hours of the morning anyway.  People just needed to relax.  Meanwhile, I was not relaxed.  The contractions were becoming very uncomfortable on the car ride.  We arrived to the hospital.  We hadn't had dinner.  It was hot.  Happy Anniversary.

Catching Up: The Baby Shower

My sister and my best friend Leah threw me a wonderful baby shower on May 19th, 2013 at my Aunt Nita's house.  Picture dump:

 Awesome diaper cake my sister made - seriously the best

the great food

cute whale cupcakes

Believe it or not, I was only 29 weeks along at my shower.  I got told several times MONTHS before my due date that I must be ready to pop.  Nope, still have a ways to go.  Having a rather short torso, the baby really just stuck right straight out from pretty early on. So basically they were just pointing out how huge I was.  Thanks.

Me and the beautiful hostesses

Me and the grandma-to-be's

With the great-grandmas

Catching Up: And It's A.........

BOY!!!
On March 14, 2013 at the 20 week appointment we found out we are having a little baby boy.  I am super excited.  I felt like it was a boy the whole time and I love the idea that any/all of my future children will have an older brother.

 Forgive the crinkled-ness, Porter got ahold of some of the pictures. :)

Yup.  That's all boy.

Catching Up: Spilling it

On December 18th, 2012 we had our first ultrasound appointment.  We had decided to use the very first picture of the baby as a way to tell our families for Christmas, since the timing just happened to work out so perfectly that way.  Here is little baby at 7 weeks 3 days:

Chris's family was going to Jackson Hole for the holidays, so we had an early present exchange.  That night we had Chris's mom and mine along with his siblings over for the gift exchange.  We made sure to have the Grandmas-to-be open the frames at the same time.  They were very excited.  We told my dad two days later at his birthday celebration (his birthday is the 19th).  I gave him a little snow globe tree ornament that said Grandpa on it.  It did not take long for him to catch on.

It was a time of excitement for the future.  I definitely feel so blessed to be near so much family and to be having the first grandchild on both sides of the family.  This child will definitely be very loved and very spoiled!

Guess What?

We found out on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, November 24, 2012.  The feeling was indescribable.  Just all giddiness, excitement, and thoughts of the future.  We couldn't have been more happy.

I had expected to start my cycle on the Monday or Tuesday of that week.  Nothing.  Not even that feeling, you know, that it's on its way.  I kind of felt like this was it and by Thursday (Thanksgiving) when it had not arrived I knew.  I knew we were pregnant.  BUT I didn't want to take a test first.  I didn't want to get my hopes up or risk a false negative by testing too early.  Friday, still nothing.  I resolved that if in the morning nothing had started I would take a test.  Saturday morning arrived and I was elated that it was still more of the same.  I took the test.  The second line crossing the control line to create the positive outcome started appearing almost instantly.  I refrained from calling Chris at work immediately.  I really wanted to tell him in person, maybe just by showing the test.  But then he called.  He knew I was late and pretty much the first thing he asked me was if it had come yet.  I said no - still not planning on telling him yet.  But then he made some comment about not wanting to get his hopes up, we had been trying for over a year and he had been disappointed seriously EVERY single month leading up to then. I couldn't keep it from him.  I said, "well, I took a test."  His reaction was assuming that it had been negative (probably since I hadn't told him immediately jumping up and down - though I'm really not a jumping up and down kind of person)  and I said: "It's positive."

He was silent for a little while.  I wish I could have seen his face.  Darn, that's why I wanted to tell him in person.  I don't really remember what he said then, but I could feel his happiness.

Later that afternoon after he got home we went to my aunt's house for a (third) Thanksgiving dinner.  It was hard not spilling the beans, especially around the holidays, just thinking about how there would be a new little human with us next year.  Chris said he almost told like three different people.  But we kept it together.

Over the next several days I took like five more tests.  Not because I didn't believe the results or needed to make sure it was true. I knew it was real.  I just liked seeing it turn positive every time. It just made me happy.

Catching Up: Porter turns 1!

Now that porter's second birthday just passed, I'm finally getting around to writing about his first birthday.
Not that there;'s much to write about.  It's not like I'm one of those crazy people who throws parties for their pets.  We didn't do anything but I did take some pictures to mark the day.

Oakley and Porter when he was 8 weeks and at 1 year.  They've switched!

Catching Up: We finally got a fence

One of the reasons we wanted a house was so that we would no longer have to escort our dogs outside to go to the bathroom.  It's kind of lame.  Especially when it's raining, snowing, freezing, and early in the morning when, you know, you don't have clothes on.  Also the idea of being able to just kick the dogs outside and let them run around and entertain themselves when they're being rambunctious was heavenly.

Fast forward to buying a house, it was almost perfect.  Almost.  There was even a great little park outside past our yard for the neighborhood to share.  Problem with this shared park is that there is an ordinance that there are to be no fences to be built around the park.  NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

When we first looked at the house we met a neighbor and asked him if we were allowed to build a fence, he said it wasn't allowed but that they had discussed changing that at some of the homeowners association meetings.  So we had hope.

We had been in our house for about a year and we were SO over this no fence business.  Especially with Porter puppy who was quite a handful in the potty-training department.  So we went through the process of writing to the HOA and filling out the required paperwork, then we waited.  And waited.  Finally, we got a letter in the mail.  We were approved!

(Am I the only one who always hears the Target lady's voice when someone says "Approved!"?)

Anyway, we were underway.  We bought our fence at Lowe's and with the most generous help of our friends Chris Heinz and Josh Thomas it was built in no time.  Thanks guys!

Here is Chris and Leah's son Owen standing in a hole for one of the posts.

Here it is finished, a nice black aluminum fence so it still feels open.  Looking at this picture it kind of looks like a doggy prison, but really it's nice.  Promise.