2 months!

How has it gone so fast???

That means only 1 more month until I go back to work! #dreadingit

Luckily (or not) I'll be working from home 4 days a week so I will get to see this delicious little cookie all day long!

xoxo,

Shay

Baby's Day Out

Today was our first solo "running errands" trip! And Nicholas was soooo good!
I managed to hit 3 places before heading home... the post office (which is NOT recommended at Christmas time), the bank, and my favorite store ever, Target.

Short of me not having the stroller (it was in hubby's car and he was at work)... it was a pretty easy trip. Though, I gotta say, it took me a half hour to pack up stuff for baby (that we never even touched, but I'm thinking that was a good thing). By the time I got the baby bag, carrier with him in it, my huge Coach tote filled with my purse and 100 baby annoucement cards and myself down 3 flights of stairs and into the car, I was SWEATING.

Then on the way back up, I had all that PLUS 2 target bags... yup, all the way back up 3 flights of stairs. #betterlosebabyweightfast

All in all, it was a good trip. Nicholas slept from the minute we got in the car thru most of the errands. Though he did wake up once we were in Target for a tiny bit. Then again, who wouldn't want to look around the amazingness that is Target... and then he was passed out again til we were pulling into our development.

Even though I don't think I'll be taking him out too much since it's winter and I'd rather him not be around tons of people while he's so little, it was nice to know that I COULD do it.

The Birth Story, Part 2

So, I had been on the Pitocin all day, and into the night, I started feeling very uncomfortable... the whole day I had been having contractions, but they weren't consistent and they didn't feel very strong. By midnight, hubby was asleep and the intensity began to increase... the monitor showed they were coming every 2-3 minutes. I began breathing through the pain and thinking to myself, wow this could be it... my second thought was, wow, i'm so tired, how am i going to do this?

And then.... i fell asleep. Yes, passed out, fell fast asleep, had a one way ticket to la la land.

When I awoke a few hours later, the contractions had almost stopped completely. I was now actually pumped up to the max dose of pitocin (20mL) and barely feeling a thing. The pain was on par with light period cramps... say what!

Dr J was back on call for the weekend and she came to check me. Another fun internal (note the sarcasm in that) revealed NO progression. Still only 3.5 cm dialated and only 50% effaced. I was presented with 2 options. They could give me a bit of a break, then go in and break my water and restart the pitocin and hope that breaking my water would give me a better outcome, OR i could opt to just go for a scheduled C-section. The dr and nurse left hubby and me to chat about what we wanted to do. Let me say, this was one of the hardest decisions I had to make. This entire time the words C-section had never even crossed my mind. But at that point, it was Saturday and I had been in the hospital since Wednesday, basically just "hanging out"... After talking to a few mommy friends for their opinion, I made the decision to just go for the C-section. It was time to get this baby out. My reasoning behind my decision was that Baby Camb was behaving perfectly... everyone said his heartbeat and movements were text book perfect. What if I opted to break the water and he went into distress? He was happy as a clam in there, so why not just go in and get him out and not stress him out... and in the end, that's just what we did.

Once the decision to do the C-section was made, things moved quickly. Forms were filled out, scrubs were given to the hubby and we walked down to the OR. I was scared the spinal block was going to hurt, but I had a great anesthesiologist and it really was no big deal. It's basically the same kind of procedure as the epidural, they shoot you up with some lidocaine and then administer the block. Then they laid me down on the operating table and waited for me to numb up. There were a bunch of people in the room, my dr, an assistant OB, scrub nurses, neonatologist and finally hubby at my head.

The whole experience of a C-section is completely surreal. The fact that I knew I had legs, but couldn't feel them was wild. It's like when you go to the dentist and get novacaine and feel like your lip is huge. I felt like I had elephant legs... and I knew they were there, but when I tried to wiggle my toes, nothing happened! Soon they were cutting into me, and I felt all kinds of tugging and pressure, but no pain. After a while, I felt lots and lots of pushing on my chest/stomach area... like someone was literally standing on me jumping up and down... I started mini freaking out and hubby was quick to calm me down and told me that I was fine and to just look at him and our son would be there soon. And then.... a very loud wail!

Our son was finally here. Cue the sobbing from both the hubs and me. They cut his cord and whisked him over to the neonatologist while he screamed his head off (a very good sign!). After a few minutes, hubby was able to go over and see him and they brought him over to me... and he was perfect in every way. 10 fingers, 10 toes, chubby little cheeks, and a hell of a wail! He measured a 9 on the Apgar scale and weighed in at 7lbs, 5oz and 20" long. In that moment, I fell in love...

After letting me see him for a few minutes, hubby went with him to recovery, while they put me back together - more pulling, poking, pressure. Then finally I was wheeled to recovery for some skin to skin with my son.

The Birth Story, Part 1

While Baby Nicholas takes a snooze, I figured I'd try to get in writing his birth story (before I forget the details, yes I'm {happily} sleep deprieved!)

So, it all started on Wednesday, November 5th. I was exactly 38 weeks along and had a routine appointment with my OB for a growth ultrasound. I had worked from home that day, and around 2pm went off to my appointment, figuring I'd be home by 3:30 to continue working... how wrong I was!

At the ultrasound appointment, the tech took her time looking at baby. She said he looked great, had a strong heartbeat, and didn't like the probe since he was flipping all around when she'd press it on my belly! Then she started to measure the fluid in the amniotic sac. The levels concerned her and she told me not to be nervous because he looked great but she needed me to go back out in the waiting room because she needed to show the doctor her report. After about 10 minutes, I was in another room and hooked up to the NST monitor. After 30 minutes on the monitor, Dr J came in and said baby looked great, however, the level of fluid concerned her. She wanted me to go to the hospital for some futher monitoring and for another BPP (biophysical profile). At this point, I still didn't think Baby Camb was on his way... Once I got to my car, I got on the phone with my hubby and was surprised when I saw the Dr beeping in... she told me there was a change in plans and not only did I need to head to the hospital, I would be spending the night there. I was allowed to go home to quickly grab my things, and then headed with my mom to the hospital.

Once we were checked into L&D, things were pretty quiet. Hubby was on his way home from work to spend the night with me... and basically i was just going to be hooked up to the NST monitor for the night and then would have the ultrasound the following morning.

We spent an uneventful night in the room, listening to Baby Camb's heartbeat on the monitors, and then first thing in the morning were sent downstairs to ultrasound. The techs down there deemed no change in the fluid and actually said to me, wow looks like you're going to be having a baby!

Once we got back upstairs to meet with Dr J, she told us that since baby's fluid was so low and that i was 38 weeks, full term, she would feel more comfortable if we started the process of getting him out. This meant induction. She gave me an internal, I was only fingertip dialated (which is like nothing) and gave me a cervical softener (which looked similar to an IUD) to get things started. The softener would stay in place for 12 hours and I could just hang out and wait for it to work it's magic. That was noon on Thursday. They checked me around midnight that night and inserted a second softener since there wasn't much progress. Hubby and I just continued to hang out, watch tv, and ordered some food. I wasn't feeling any pain or discomfort and still had no idea what lied ahead.

The following morning Dr R was on call and came to check my progress... which ended up not being much. He removed the softener and instead put in a cervical balloon to try to stretch my cervix and encourage dialation. Yes, this was SUPER uncomfortable, but I progressed to 3cm... by 9am, the pitocin was started and I thought for sure things would get moving. Throughout the day, they increased the dosage of the pitocin to try to increase the contractions, and would check me every few hours. By that night (Friday), I was given my last meal, and they figured with the pitocin working overnight, things might get moving. But boy were they wrong....

Baby Boy Has Made His Debut!

I will try to get back to posting his birth story soon, but he is here!

Introducing Nicholas Gary  •  Born November 8, 2014, 2:26pm  •  7lbs, 5oz  • 20" long

It's an understatement to say, we are in LOVE!!!

Last Minute Odds and Ends

Well here we are... almost at the finish line...
I'm taking advantage to blog a little before Baby C decides he wants to join us!
I just can't believe we're near the end. Tomorrow is 38 weeks people! Amazing! And yes, I'm SO ready for him to be evicted. The word uncomfortable doesn't even describe how I've been feeling. And once I get the ability to easily put on my socks and shoes back, I swear I will NEVER take it for granted again! #sadbuttrue.

I know I haven't done an update in a while, honestly my mind is a jumbled mess lately. So I'll just give you some of the highlights of the last couple of weeks that I can remember...

• Everything baby is ready to go! The room is done (as I showed you last post), we have all our supplies ready and waiting, our bags are packed, complete with nursing essentials, camera, and i'm praying hubby does not forget the phone chargers. The birth plan is done (which, i didn't do an extensive one, i downloaded one from the bump, it was a really nice easy checklist), and now all we need is a baby!
• My 36/37 week appts were for the most part uneventful. I did find out that I tested positive for the Group B strep (bleh), which they say is not a big deal... other than that in the words of my dr, "your kid looks like a rock star" -- all of my NST's have looked great so Baby is just jammin' away in there.
• We took our infant care class a couple of weeks ago... it was great to learn about baby and what to do for him. Hubby was awesome and asked questions and was really involved... makes my heart smile to see how excited he is for his son to get here and to be an involved dad.
• We took a private breastfeeding class with a lactation specialist on Sunday. She was awesome. We nicknamed her the Baby Whisperer. She was so knowledgable and supportive. Hubby now really understands what a committment breastfeeding is going to be and is 100% on board with trying to help me as much as possible.
• Work has been Cah-ray-zeeeee. I decided to work up until Baby C gets here... and its taking way more of a toll on me than I would have thought. However, I just felt that I needed to be in the office as much as possible and get as much crap done as possible. I have a freelancer taking over for the next few months that I had to train, so at least we're moving along on that and now I feel confident that they'll be fine for when I'm out. It's still stressful though... This week, I'm transitioning to working from home 3 days a week and only going into the office for 2 so hopefully that will help me out.
• Other than that, have just been trying to get in some last minute dinners with all my girlfriends, that's been fun! They are all so excited for me, and it's been nice to hang out with them before my whole world changes.
• Contractions have increased... at my appt yesterday I had 2 on the monitor, hubby was floored! You could see the contraction monitor # increase from the 70s all the way up to the 190s! He thought labor was coming, but since the dr told him i still had a smile on my face, it was only some BH ones and that once I'm in REAL labor, i won't be smiling. LOL!

That's all i can think of off the top of my head. The next time I blog I might have a son! Eek! So exciting!

Nursery Reveal

Well folks! I finally did it! Got my camera and took some pictures of the nursery...

i'll let the pictures do the talking...

once baby gets here, we'll hang his name in the light blue stripe.

the letters are ready and waiting in the closet but we haven't hung them since we've had friends and family at the house wanting to see the nursery!

changing area... door on the left connects to a bathroom...

our awesomely comfy glider from Babies R Us...

and baby's basket of books that people gave us at the shower. 

he has quite the library already. i can't wait to read to him!

scooter loves hanging out in baby's room...

#photobomb

we love the theme of puppies and sports we went with!

the first gift we received for baby from my awesome BOFF jenn!

fun wall decorations!

overall, i'm SO happy with how everything came out! hubby did such an amazing job with the painting and i'm so glad we decided to replace the carpets. though i miss my make up room, i'm over the moon excited for this to be baby's room.

The blog is always the first to be neglected!

Yup, that's it... this poor blog of mine has been severely neglected these past few weeks. Work (and life) has been insane (in the membrane!)

But, i'm back to write a quick post to let y'all know that i am still here and waiting for Baby boy's arrival!

So, where are we now? Wednesday I was 34 weeks!

I probably mentioned in my last post that my shower was a few weeks ago, and it was fabulous. I'll try to do a recap in a separate post (promise) if i ever get the pics off my phone.

I had 2 dr appts, we're now on the 1 a week appts and i get hooked up to the NST every week. Last week I did have a BH contraction while on the machine, but i actually never even felt it.

Baby boy is a wiggly worm and he's definitely going to be a good sized baby in the dr's words.
And surprise, he'll also most likely be making his debut early according to the dr since my hypertension makes them much more cautious. He said it's unlikely i'll go to 40 weeks.

In other news, the nursery is complete! We have everything done including the set up of the pack n play in the bedroom which we'll use for the first few months. Pics of the nursery to come soon!

We also put the car seat bases in and I went and got them inspected at the Sheriff's office. They tightened them but otherwise they were in correctly.

Oh and we had our maternity shoot, one word, ah-may-zing.... i'll leave you with a sneak peek!

isn't my photographer amazing? she did such a great job. we went to a local park (yes this IS jersey!) and shot there. it was so much fun and i'm so happy i'll have these photos forever to document this wonderful journey.

next on the agenda, mama's getting the grays covered tomorrow and then next weekend, infant care class!

*s

31 Weeks and Going Strong!

Hi Friends!
Here we are at Week 31... I can't believe we're getting closer and closer to baby boy making his appearance. This weekend is my shower and we just got a call that the nursery furniture will be here on Saturday! Perfect timing!

Here's my bumpdate in bulleted points, because, well because i'm too lazy to go find the template. LOL!

• This week baby is the size of a pineapple! (wow!) According to our 3D/4D ultrasound he is weighing in at just over 3lbs. From this point on until delivery his weight should just about double!
• Clothes are getting tighter... some of the jeans i've been wearing have gotten tighter so I dropped some serious moola at Motherhood Maternity and got a couple new pairs of much comfier jeans. Thinking though now that it's chilly in the mornings I might have to go back for some longer sleeve tops.
• Total weight gain has been approx 23 lbs. Still not stressing over this and just ENJOYING every minute of this pregnancy that I can.
• No gestational diabetes! How floored am I? I was really scared that I had it, but at the dr appt last week they let me know I was in the clear! Bring on the sweets! LOL!
• However, its not ALL smooth sailing... i've been having major tendinitis issues in my right wrist, which i mentioned last time... it got so bad I begged the OB to go get a cortisone shot. They begrudgingly agreed... the shot was EXTREMELY painful... but the pain has already lessened substantially, and should be gone by the weekend. I have de Quervain's Tendinitis in case you were curious. And its common in pregnancy... yippee. getting every side effect possible indeed!
• This week started out on a total high with our 3D/4D ultrasound... it was so amazing to see little Baby Camb in there sucking his hands, thumb, and making some funny faces! We even (maybe) made him cry #oops #badparents. I'll put some pictures below.
• We got the stroller system from my family on the West Coast... and have been practicing by pushing Scooter around. I think he likes it #crazydogmom
• Our maternity shoot is scheduled for the 29th and I'm psyched to get some good pics. I've been a pinaholic trying to find pics to show the photographer.
• Baby Camb is super active flipping around all the time! Wondering how he'll be outside of the womb!
• I cannot cannot finish reading "Happiest baby on the block". Yes, i know EVERYONE and their mother RAVES about this book. I'm still half way thru it and have been reading it for over a month. Hopefully I'll finish before he makes his arrival. What is wrong with me? LOL
• Starting to have MAJOR anxiety about how this baby is going to totally change our lives. Future post to come? 

Deep in thought!

Sucking his little thumb!

For our ultrasound we went to Love at First Sight in Union, NJ. I highly recommend it if you are from Jerz and want a sneak peek at your baby!

I'll be back soon with pics and recap from my shower and nursery pics!

xoxo,

*S

Bumpdate: 29 Weeks

Happy 3rd Trimester! 

We made it (ok, it was last week, but then i got insanely busy with work).

OK, here we go with the bumpdate for Week 29!

How far along:  29 weeks exactly

How big is baby?:  According to the Bump, he is an Acorn Squash...

Weight gain:  21 pounds... and holding steady... for now. Just trying not to stress about the weight and focus on having a healthy pregnancy.

Symptoms:

These are a win-win. Fresh breath and indigestion relief!

• Heart. burn. People, i didn't even know what heartburn was before this. I actually had to google it. But oh my word! It BURNS! Luckily my OB told me i could take some OTC Pepcid and that seems to be keeping it in check. I also eat Tums like candy.
• Pregnancy Rhinitis. Hubby is still dealing with my snoring and then my sniffling in the mornings. I'm sure seasonal allergies are also contributing to this. I gotta try and use my Neti pot a bit more often.
• Tailbone Pain. Ouch! Still rocking the inflatable donut for my ass at work. #hotstuff

• Wrist Pain. This one is new and excruciating. My primary seems to think its tendonitis... and obviously i can't take anything... so basically this is my worst/most severe symptom right now, and it sucks. I have a wrist brace and am icing it when i can, but it's been 3 weeks with NO relief. Baby boy better appreciate all this!
• Lots and lots of movement! Rolling, kicking, punching, tap dancing on my bladder... its fun to watch, though hubby always misses the big alien like waves going across my belly!
• Oh and the gagging/dry heaving continues... same old story...

Sleeping: As good as I can hope for. Still get up 1-3 times in the middle of the night to pee, but i'm kind of used to it now. I actually can get to the bathroom with only 1 eye open now! However, sometimes after I get back to bed, baby boy decides he wants to party in there so its getting harder to fall back asleep.

Food cravings: Last week it was burgers... this week, nothing major. I've been eating cheddar cheese and triscuits like they are going out of style.

We love our cheese and crackers!

Food aversions: Fish. Bleh.

Miss anything?: My 2nd trimester energy! Being bigger is definitely starting to effect me! I have to take a dozen breaks. Cook dinner, lay down. Clean up, lay down. Do laundry, lay down. See the pattern?

Gender: Baby boy! Daddy's little Jets Fan!

Wedding Rings on or off?:  Off. Since pretty much the beginning of summer. But hubby bought me some nice fake bling that i've actually gotten SO many compliments on! haha, not bad for ten bucks!

Looks like some real bling from far away!

Maternity Clothes?: Absolutely. 100% and some are starting to get really snug!

Movement: See above, but yes! Little acrobat in there!

What I did/got for baby: We've been holding off on buying stuff since my shower is coming up. We did get a bouncer and exersaucer from guests that can't make it though. We also got the glider this past weekend. Scooter seems to think it's his!

What I’m looking forward to: Our annual tailgating/first game of the season is this weekend. Jets v Raiders, the weather should be nice. And although i'll be tailgating sober, hubby is setting up a feast for us! Also looking forward to our 3D/4D ultrasound in 2 weeks, hoping Baby Camb cooperates for us!

Best moment of the week: Meeting the last OB at our practice... two words, loved her! Now i can really rest easy and know that whoever delivers our baby is going to be someone i feel 100% comfortable with.

So that's pretty much it... things i skipped over... glucose test... fail. i had to go for the 3-hr one last week as a follow-up so we'll see if i pass it. #fingerscrossed. We went to childbirth class a couple of weekends ago. So that was good, we are prepared for all the horrifying amazing things my body will be doing to push this baby out! We also decided to replace all the rugs in our house and get a new couch. That was money well spent and now we're all set for visitors for when Baby Camb gets here. And... hmm, that's about it for now. I'll leave you with a couple of recent bump pics!

27 weeks

These were all 28 weeks, 3 days!

Hope you all had a great and relaxing Labor Day weekend, bring on September! 77 days to go!