Thomas Meet and Greet

We have been so blessed to have so many visitors since Thomas arrived.  Our little dude is pretty popular already!  I have tried so hard to take a picture of him with all of his fans, but I know I missed some.  At any rate, here are the visitors I did get pictures of!

Some of the very first people to get to meet Thomas at the hospital were his grandparents...from both sides!  Lala and Poppa and Mimi and Poppy are all pretty smitten with our little guy and I think enjoyed getting to see him right away.

While meeting the grandparents was definitely important, the MOST important meet-and-greet was with this sweet little girl!

Matt's parents arrived in town before our scheduled induction so that they could help take care of Katie Wynn.  We had no idea beforehand if she would get to meet him on Sunday (his birthday) or if it would be on Monday.  We wanted her to stay on schedule as much as possible so if he didn't arrive until later in the evening, she would have to wait another day.  But, since he arrived at 3:36 in the afternoon, there was still plenty of time for her to come for a very quick visit.  We are so thankful that Matt's parents were able to bring her!

Overall, her first visit went pretty well.  She was shy, just as I expected her to be.  She touched the baby but then noticed our hospital bracelets and got way more interested in them.  At one point Thomas started crying so she did too.  Her visit was short and sweet which was fine since we knew she'd be back the next day (also because my legs were still very numb and dead and she kept crawling all over them!).  

Here are William and William getting to know each other.

Just like with Katie Wynn, our friends Jenny and Darrin were the first non-family guests to meet our new addition.  This time they had sweet Henry with them!  The boys don't look excited in their picture but we feel good about them being future BFFs.  On the right is Thomas (Brother Tom, our preacher) meeting our Thomas.  He stopped by on Monday morning and offered a prayer for us and Thomas.

My two boys...

On Monday afternoon, Anna and Wyatt got to come by to meet their new little brother.  I love this picture because everyone is smiling and looks happy, but I also hate it because Katie Wynn's not in it!  Unfortunately, her visit didn't overlap with theirs so I'll have to get a picture of Matt with all four of his kiddos later on.

The men of the family all crammed onto the tiny couch for a picture together.  I almost wrote "four generations of men" but I guess Wyatt and Thomas are the same generation?? Even though they're 14 years apart?  Yea, I don't really know.

Anna loved getting to hold Thomas!  She's so good with both him and Katie Wynn.

Later that day, Katie Wynn was back for another visit (and yes, back in her Big Sister shirt again).  I was so glad to see her; I had missed her so much already!!  Since she was only at the hospital for a short amount of time the day before, we saved her presents for Monday.  "Thomas" gave her a big bag of Mega Blocks as her big sister gift.  I don't know why it surprised me that we had to dump them ALL out onto my bed.  I should've seen that coming.

This guy.  I think he's pretty proud of his new son.  :)

Katie Wynn sat on the couch with the boys and her Poppy helped her inspect her new baby brother.  She was especially interested in his booboo after she saw his umbilical cord!

You would think that after giving her a brand! new! baby! and a bag of 86 mega blocks, that I would've totally won the gift-giving contest with Katie Wynn, right?  Nope.  Not even close.  In fact, it was my friend Jenny that won and she wasn't even trying!  She brought this bundle of balloons to us on Sunday and when Katie Wynn found them on Monday, you would've thought she won the lottery!  She squealed and shrieked as she batted them across the room.  I'm sure the people in the room next to us were glad when she left.  :)

Here is my brother Ben and his wife, Erin.  When Katie Wynn was born, I forgot to get pictures of the two of them when they visited her.  This time, I forgot to take pictures of my brother Nick and his wife, Beth!  Grrr, so mad at myself for that.  On the right is Allison who stopped by for a quick visit on Tuesday morning.

The visitors didn't stop after we left the hospital!  One day my friend Dana stopped by with her two kiddos and was even sweet enough to bring us dinner too!  

The Reginelli sisters stopped by to meet Thomas and even brought a gift - a new baby doll! - for Katie Wynn.  This picture on the right shows the one bad part of having so many visitors - Lolli thinks everyone is there to see her and jumps all over them.  :(

Last Sunday morning, Allison brought the rest of her family - her husband Chris and son Everett - over to see Thomas and even brought us a delicious breakfast.  

It's really hard to get a good picture of two toddlers, ya know?  I love the one on the right from when we asked them to hug.  Everett gave the ol' toddler lean so that Katie Wynn could hug him if she wanted (she was too shy!).  

That same Sunday, the Washburns brought over dinner.  Maybe I should have babies more often so I can see my friends all the time!  Wait, no...

Wesley was able to hold Thomas all by herself.  I can't believe how big she's gotten!

My grand mother was at my parents' house for a cookout one night so we took Thomas over so she could meet him.  She loved getting to hold and kiss him!

I know I've missed several of our visitors (not just Nick and Beth).  My friend Emily stopped by as well as Katie Wynn's old babysitter, Mrs. Kim, and her two girls.  Other friends to stop by included Kim J, Tracy and Olivia, and the Schwartzes.  Our cleaning lady even dropped by to bring us a gift!  Two of my mom's besties, Jenny and Leslie, came by and while I didn't get an actual picture of them, they're represented by the popsicle in the picture to the left.  They brought a whole box of them for Katie Wynn so we've been enjoying cold treats on the patio every night!

We have a Sip and See scheduled for the end of the month so we look forward to getting to see even more of our friends there!

The Day Thomas Arrived

Sunday, June 1, 2014...day of induction

12:36am   I'm wide awake.  I felt certain all day long that contractions would start on their own, but they never did.  I should really be getting as much sleep as I can, but there are too many thoughts.  Mostly about Katie Wynn.  Her world was about to drastically change and she had no idea it was even coming.

2:00am   All I can think about now is the red gatorade in the fridge.  I'm so parched I could chug the whole thing in one swoop.  Would they be able to tell if I drank it after midnight?  The possibility of bright red throw-up (would I get nauseous?) keeps me from breaking the rules.

3:30am  Matt's alarm goes off.  It's finally time to get this process started!  I hop in the shower first to start getting ready (still no contractions).  He strips the bed so our sheets can be washed and starts loading the car with some of our stuff.  He also moves small pieces of furniture into our bathroom since our carpets are being shampooed while we're at the hospital.  

4:05am   One last weigh-in before delivery: 155 pounds!

4:29am   I choke back tears as I check on Katie Wynn in her crib.  She is sleeping peacefully.  I promise her I'll be back home soon.

4:30am   Matt's dad is downstairs to see us off.  The car is loaded up and we make our exit.  Lolli is very confused about why we're leaving and not putting her in her kennel.  She gives me the saddest face as I close the door.  Her little world is about to change too!

5:00am   We arrive at the hospital right on time and get an awesome, up-front parking space.  Not many people out and about this early on a Sunday morning.  There is one family in the waiting room and that's it.  I sit down at admissions to get check-in and then we have a short wait.  

5:20am   We are settled in in L&D room 6.  My gown is on and the monitors have been hooked up to my [enormous] belly.  Still no contractions.

5:45am   A nurse arrives to put in my IV.  She has to draw blood first.  She pokes around on my left wrist to find a good vein, pokes in the needle, and draws blood.  As she flushes the tube, she realizes she has busted my vein and the fluid goes into my arm.  Holy cow, that hurt!  I held on to that bruise for a couple days.  Thankfully, she does a better job with the second stick and IV fluids are started.

6:10am   I am finally checked for the first time and I'm still just at 1 cm, same as my last doctor's appointment.  No progress has been made at all!  Pitocin is started to get the ball rolling.

7-9:00am   The 7am shift change brings in our new nurse, Laura.  She's nice and informative but awfully chatty.  It's only bothering me because I'm sleepy.  She catches on and lets me rest for a while.  Contractions have started but are totally manageable.  Matt runs to the hospital cafeteria to grab some breakfast.  He sits outside to eat and rushes in when he sees my doctor pull into the parking lot.

9:00am   Dr. Cole arrives to check on me.  I've only progressed to 2 cm.  She literally climbs onto the bed with me to break my water.  With Katie Wynn, I already had my epidural when this happened so I couldn't feel it.  This time I'm very aware and it feels like a huge gush of water.  Smaller gushes continue for several minutes.  I finally ask nurse Laura if I'm peeing on myself.  Nope, just more amniotic fluid.  Dr. Cole estimates maybe a 6pm arrival time for baby.  She has another delivery in progress at a different hospital and is jumping back and forth between us.

9:30am   I didn't last very long before requesting the epidural.  With my water broken, the contractions were immediately intensified.  Mev, the CRNA, arrives to give me the epidural.  He has a thick accent and is hard to understand.  Nurse Laura tells me that he was a "real doctor" in his country (don't know which one) and that in the United States he is only certified as a CRNA.  I decide that Mev hates his job as he is not very happy and bubbly at all.  Either way, the epidural goes in and the pain slowly starts to lessen.

10:20am   We've been at the hospital for 5 hours and have had pitocin going for 4.  Nurse Laura checks me out and I'm at 4 cm.  She says that's good progress.  Just like with Katie Wynn, I have a hot spot that is not being numbed from the medicine.  It's in the same spot, too - right side lower abdomen.  She asks my pain level and I tell her I can handle it as long as it doesn't get worse.  We both know it's gonna get worse so, with her help, I roll to my right side to see if the medicine will make it's way over there.  It works!

12:00pm   I'm up to 5 cm now so Nurse Laura ups my pitocin drip.  My mom and dad arrive!  Mom pats my right foot and I ask her to stop - it's too weird knowing she's touching it but not being able to feel it!  

12:10pm   I have spent too much time laying on my right side and now all the medicine has traveled over there.  My hot spot has switched to the left side so nurse Laura and Matt help tilt me back over that way.

2:15pm   Dr. Cole stops by for another check and I have progressed to 7 cm.  She says I'm making good timing!  Matt notes the time and writes it down in the notebook I brought with us.  Dad left the room before I was checked and I don't see him again until later in the afternoon.  Rumor is he took a nap on a couch in the main lobby.

2:30pm   My sister-in-law Beth arrives for the delivery.  She joins Mom on the couch to wait out the baby.  I hope it won't be much longer because I hate that everyone is just sitting around waiting!  Nick and their kids have joined Dad in the lobby.

3:15pm   As we sat and visited, my pain began to worsen.  Now I was able to feel the contractions all the way across both sides of my lower abdomen.  Nurse Laura came in so I told her my pain level was at least at a 6.  We talked about my options - spinal tap, more epidural medicine - before she checked me again.  Ten centimeters!  In just an hour, I had made it the rest of the way.  She called Dr. Cole to let her know it was baby time.  As for my pain, we decided to push the epidural medicine one last time and if it didn't work, I'd just push through the pain.  Either way, my baby was about to be born!

3:30pm  Dr. Cole arrived and we did a practice push to make sure it really was time.  When a contraction came on, I took a deep breath, pushed for a ten-count, and then repeated two more times.  After one set of pushes (3 x 10 count), Dr. Cole got suited up in her gown.  It was go time!

3:31pm   Everything about having Dr. Cole for delivery was better than using the on-call doctor with Katie Wynn.  She made me feel very relaxed and not nervous at all.  As she got everything set up, we placed bets on what the weight would be.  Beth guessed 7 lbs, 3 oz; Mom guessed 7 lbs, 9 oz; I said 7 lbs, 10 oz; and Matt threw out 8 lbs, 2 oz.  Dr. Cole looked at me and said she'd be very surprised if he weighed that much since I looked so little.

3:32pm   On Dr. Cole's command, when the next contraction came, I took a deep breath and pushed for a ten-count three times like we had practiced.  She told me one more push would get him there if I could do it, so I pushed for the fourth ten-count.

3:33-ishpm   After seeing his chubby cheeks, Dr. Cole tells us we're probably gonna get that weight we guessed!

3:36pm   William Thomas was born and placed on my belly.  We immediately exclaimed how much he looked just like his big sister!

3:40-ishpm   In a surprising turn of events, Matt decided to cut the umbilical cord.  He did not want to do that at all for Katie Wynn so my mom did, but this time he felt braver! :)  

I love these two pictures below.  Thomas came out pretty ticked off at the world.  He was screaming and very unhappy!  My mom obviously had sympathy pains for her newest grandbaby.  She didn't like that he was crying!

I have no concept of time for the rest of these events.  It's funny how, during childbirth, everyone is crowded around the mom until the baby arrives and then they all shift over to the baby bed and the mom is just left to hang out.  

I listened as Matt, Mom, and Beth talked about how big he looked.  After a few minutes, the official weight was announced...8 pounds, 4 ounces!  I am currently holding the record for biggest grandbaby on my side of the family and I'm pretty proud of that!  I think it justifies how miserable I felt in the last couple of weeks.  :)

This is the look of relief.  Relief for a big, healthy baby, relief for a smooth delivery, and relief that he was no longer in my belly!

After he got wiped down and weighed and wrapped up, Matt got to hold him for the first time.  He also got his official "I'm the Dad" bracelet.  

We had a proud daddy and a proud Mimi in the room!  Beth got to hold Thomas too (I think?) but I unfortunately don't have a picture of her.  Special shout-out to her for taking pictures period and helping us document Thomas's big day!

After what felt like an eternity, the doctor was finally done with me and I could have my turn to hold my son.  What a precious boy he is and what an honor it is to get to be his Mama.  

5:30pm   I am so glad I did not have any complications afterwards this time.  Thomas, however, was having high respirations (normal range is between 30-60, he was at 100) so we had to wait awhile for him to calm down so they could drop to normal range.  He cried a LOT during his first two hours so calming him down wasn't the easiest task ever!  They finally dropped, though, so we were allowed to leave Labor and Delivery and head to our postpartum room that we would call home for the next two days.

Overall, everything about Thomas's arrival went so well.  We are so, so very grateful that he is here and that he is healthy.  LOTS more pictures of him (and all his visitors!) coming soon!

He's Here!

We are so pleased to introduce the newest addition to our family...

Thomas is here and he's perfect.  It's crazy how much we already love him!

Everything went really well with our scheduled induction and I'm slowly making my way through the 500+ pictures from our hospital stay so that I can write about it all.  We have been home since late Tuesday afternoon and things have been going pretty much as expected.  We're trying to adjust to having much less sleep and figuring out the likes and dislikes of our little boy.  Katie Wynn is trying to adjust to sharing our attention.  She loves her baby but is not so sure about Mama and Daddy spending so much time with him.  :)

Hopefully I'll get a post with lots more pictures up sometime this weekend.  That's the plan, but I know y'all will understand if it takes a couple extra days!

Memorial Day

This year my parents were out of town for Memorial Day, but my brothers and I still got our families together to celebrate!  Mom insisted that I take lots of pictures for her since she was going to be absent.  I didn't even have my real camera with me but I did manage to get a few decent ones on my phone.  

My brother Ben and his wife Erin have a pool at their house so we've started making it a tradition to spend the holiday cooking out and splashing around there.  Their pool gets lots of shade so the water is always COLD early in the summer!  Doesn't seem to bother the kids and the boys though!

Katie Wynn fell asleep in the car on our way there so we had to wake her up for the festivities.  It took her a few minutes to shake off her sleepiness.

After being there just a few minutes and warming up in the sun, it was definitely time to change into our swimsuits!  I packed our patriotic ones so that we'd match Erin's flag decorations.  :)

My goals for the day were to stay hydrated, stay un-sunburned, and stay pregnant.  I found a seat in the shade and parked it so Matt was on full-time duty in the pool with Katie Wynn.  She didn't want to swim in her float...why would she when Daddy could hold her?!

K-dubs and her cousin Ramer were King and Queen of the shallow-end ladder.  They rarely strayed from it unless it was to go in the water for a few minutes at a time.  

We took a break from swimming to enjoy a delicious spread that Erin had prepared.  Chip and dip, slider burgers, barbecue chicken, baked beans, fruit, and homemade ice cream had all of our guts sticking out a little further than usual.  :)

Before everyone could get away that afternoon, I took some group pictures to send to our parents.  It's hard to get 5 kids to sit still for a picture when there's a pool and water guns right in front of them!

There was a family picture taken of us too but bad hair plus no makeup plus nine months pregnant plus a polka dot swimsuit equals no chance in hell it's getting posted here!  I try not to be too vain but I don't want to scare any readers away.  I'll just post the one without me in its place.  :)

That was our last family get-together with Katie Wynn being the youngest grandchild.  Next time there will be one more wiggly boy to try to get a smile out of in the group picture!

School Of Fish

I'm embarrassed to admit that this project took me forever to complete even though it was really fairly easy, but I guess that's the way it goes when you're big and pregnant and chasing a toddler.  I am waiting for one final piece to be completed next week before I reveal the full nursery for our baby boy, but this is what I made to hang above his bed.

His crib is centered on a really big wall, so I knew early on that I wanted more of a grouping to hang above it rather than one big piece since there's a good chance something else would hang to the sides of it.  Didn't want it all competing, ya know?  It took me a while to come up with an idea, but I eventually settled on fish.  Lots of fish!  

When I started, I didn't know exactly where I was going with it.  I just kinda worked out the details and ideas as I went.  I started by drawing out a fish shape that I liked (I actually drew three and let my Mom and Matt vote) and then cut it out of paper to use as a stencil.  Then, I cut several of them out of a scrap piece of 1/4" thick wood using my Dad's scroll saw.  

After cutting out a few of those, I searched around the woodshop for more scrap pieces so that I could have more fish of different thicknesses and textures.  I used some beaded board (and cut fish out with the stripes both horizontal and vertical), some peg board, and a piece of 3/4" thick wood.

I was ok with  how things were going, but had no idea how many fish I needed!  I took a break from cutting them out of wood and started cutting them out of paper so I could play around with them on the wall.  On the left is 25 fish which is how many I had cut out of wood at that point.  I didn't think the school looked "full" enough (maybe enrollment was down?) so I kept cutting them out and adding them to the wall until I was happy with it.  Thirty-six (I think!) ended up being the magic number.

Random arrangements are so incredibly hard for me.  I tend to make things symmetrical without even realizing it.  But I knew I wanted the school of fish to be random so I tried really hard not to put too much thought into it.  I texted pics to my mom occasionally to get her opinion.  We debated between having a straggler (on the left) or a slight leader of the pack (on the right).  The leader formation won out as we decided it would send a better message to our little guy.  :)

Eventually, I made my way back to the woodshop to cut out an extra 11 fish.  I had some thin metal that I was able to cut with scissors so I added some out of that.  In the end, I had 6 different "species" of fish.

Then I had to figure out what to do next!  Paint them all the same color?  Paint them all different?  Pick a few colors and divide into even numbers of each color?  After some debate, my mom and I decided that each "species" should be its own color, so we picked out five different colors of paint (the metal ones weren't getting painted).  We landed on two shades of blue, white, cream, and a dark brown.  My mom was super kind (as usual) and painted them for me while I was at work.

Then what?  I thought maybe distressing them would highlight the textures and give them more character, so I hit them with our hand sander.  I'll be honest, there was a big part of me that thought this was not going to turn out very well and I was just wasting my time since I hadn't really thought through it from the beginning, but I kept going anyway.

After the fish were sanded, my mom finished them off with a quick coat of matte polyurethane.  

Finally, I could start putting them on the wall!  I had left my paper fish up which ended up making it really easy to hang up the wooden ones.  Anna and my mom both helped me and we hung up a species at a time.  It was easy to just pull down a paper fish and replace it with a painted wooden one.  Just one velcro command strip on the back of each fish was enough to hold them up.  (The fish are really light weight and should be ok when little hands eventually start grabbing for them.  Katie Wynn pulls her alphabet letters off occasionally and with the velcro, they're really easy to pop back up on the wall.  We did intentionally hang the metal ones a little higher since they could potentially hurt little fingers.)

Oh, and yes, I climbed into the crib to work.  I think my Dad did a good job putting it together because it didn't fall apart with me (and the baby) in it.  Or when my other little helper climbed in with me!

This was another one of those times when I struggled to be random with the placement, but between me, Mom, and Anna, we got them all up on the wall in an arrangement we all liked.  They are mostly random with a couple of the same species swimming together here and there.  And thankfully, I really liked how it turned out so it was not a big waste of time!

(Sorry for the poor quality phone pic, I plan to take better pics with the real camera when I photograph the whole room.)

So that's the school of fish we created to swim above our sleeping little boy!

Here are some bonus pictures of another project we knocked out this week.  I didn't take in-progress photos but Matt took these with his phone when we finished with it.  These are shelves we hung on the wall - to the right of the crib and school of fish - that we dressed up with some rope and dock cleats.  I saw several different versions of this on Pinterest so we just whipped up our own version.  The shelves themselves are anchored to the wall since they're slightly heavy, so the rope is mostly cosmetic.  

I've already had fun filling up the three shelves with fun stuff for his nursery.  I'll show you what made the cut to go on it in the full nursery reveal!