Baby Goes to Washington

So we met my family in DC a few weekends ago when they came out to visit. We embarked on our second annual trip to view the Cherry Blossoms!

Many of the family had never rode the subway. I am now an expert at the DC system, don't even have to look at the map anymore (can't say the same for the NYC metro).

We came up Smithsonian station, right on the mall.

We saw the White House, getting ready for the Easter egg roll later in the weekend (I have got to try and get Theodore a ticket next year!).

We saw the new WWII Memorial (well, newish).

The Lincoln Memorial (I made it up all the steps.  C-section pain has subsided).

The Korean War Memorial (one of my favorites-really makes you think about the soldiers).

The often overlooked Memorial to "The Great War"

And finally the Cherry Blossoms!

This year the Tulip garden was in full bloom.

Matthew got this great shot!

It was a fun day, and exhausting! My family had driven the night before, so they were dragging by the time we got back off the subway at our cars. But we made it home to the hotel in time for the basketball games.

7 Week Old Video Clips

My mom forgot her video camera here again, so we have more cute clips!





Here he is mesmerized by his mobile... I wish we would have got this set up earlier. He loves it!




He loves talking to daddy in the morning and when he gets home... he had been going good before I got the camera out.


Watching his mobile again.

And finally tummy time... he'd rather not.

March Madness

It was a hard year to be me...

Last year I went with my heart, and made picks based on who I wanted to win. Not who I thought would win. This year I really wanted to win so I made real picks, hoping to rise to the top of our 70+ entries bracket.

After the first couple of rounds, we were looking pretty good! Theodore's bracket, and mine, were two of only three brackets with all final four picks still in. We were looking pretty good until Syracuse and Ohio State went down. But, I still had Duke as my champion. It was hard to root against Purdue (they went as far as I called in my bracket), but I had to. And then, when it came down to Duke vs. Butler, it was really, really hard to not wish for a Hoosier school's victory! But, I was going to be happy either way. I tied for Second! (prize=$55) I had actually called for W. Virginia to be in the final four, but then crossed it out right before I turned it in... if only!! I would have won by quite a lot if so. Some of my better picks:

• Purdue beating Texas A & M
• Old Dominion beating Notre Dame
• St. Mary's taking out Richmond
• Michigan State over Maryland
• Butler over Vanderbilt
• Kansas NOT making the final four

Rounding out March

Theodore was sad to turn 1 month old :(

But happy to see spring arrive.

And meet his two of his great grandparents!

He looks like such a little man in the new jeans grandma got him!

Crazy Eyes and Crazy Arms

Just a quick clip of his movements at about a month old.

Spring!!! (And St. Patrick's Day)

It was the most beautiful day of the year Saturday, a great start to spring.

We started it with a trip to Babies R Us.  They were having a promotion for a new type of diapers. We got a bunch of the new Pampers with Dry Max feature. And an outfit for baby to wear to his daddy's softball games this fall, a picture will come eventually of that. We also got him some new shades to protect his eyes.

Then we headed to Main Street to stroll, eat, and watch basketball.

We had lunch at Grotto Pizza, and watched Villanova lose.

We then finished walking along Main Street, with lots of people commenting on how cute Theodore looked in his stroller with his shades on.

And then we participated in a 20 year Newark tradition. Apparently, Rita's gives out free water ices on the first day of spring. We stumbled upon the line that stretched at least 200 feet from the counter. I've been wanting to try water ice for a long time, and we liked it, and will need to return this summer. It's one of area's claims to fame, along with pretzels and Philly cheesesteaks.

Earlier in the week, we also made a big deal out of Theodore's first official holiday:  St. Patrick's Day! He wasn't at all excited though :(

Visitors!

Theodore had some more visitors recently...

His grandpa E

Aunt Emily

And Grandma E

He was good the whole time, and even showed off stretching out to his full 22 inches.

3 Generations

Newborn Baby Videos

I will be posting many, many more pictures of the baby boy soon. Here are a few videos until then... Brian has taken over 20. Most of them are of Theodore and I sleeping.

Newborn Photos

For a few more days, you can access our hospital photo shoot at the website below:
http://www.bellababyphotography.com/
Password: 0223theodorejoseph

My friend Ashley also took some AMAZING photos while she was out here. They are fabulous: http://aacook.blogspot.com/2010/03/theodore.html

Feb. 22-23 Getting Theodore Joseph...

So... we have our son! After a long day, with little sleep, Brian and I became the parents of a bouncing brunette baby boy. Here is a breakdown of the timeline:

8:55 pm- We check in at the maternity ward. Actually, they didn't have our paperwork and we had to wait until they contacted the doc before we could check in... I was a little panicked that we weren't going to get to be induced.

9:15 pm- For about 45 minutes we sit in the waiting room upstairs, waiting for a room to open up. The hospital has 16 delivery rooms, we are taken to room 15.11:30 pm- By this time we have received the introduction to the unit, and I'm in bed with my IV in. The first doctor I will see comes in and starts to get me ready. The goal is to get me to 10 cm, and I'm starting at about 2. They do a procedure that should take all night, but I am farther along than they think so I get to 3 cm in a matter of seconds. We are then encouraged to sleep... me in an uncomfortable bed, with monitors attached and an IV pumping me full of fluids. Brian on a small little mattress in a very drafty part of the room. Needless to say, neither of us got very much sleep.

5:30 am- Now the ball really gets rolling. They start me on the oxytocin, which should start my contractions.

8:00 am- I am already having small contractions, and they break my water. I cannot believe just how much water there is!! For the rest of labor I will be releasing more and more water. Over the next hour my contractions get very strong and get very close together! Brian guides me through our relaxation exercises and breathing. As the contractions increase to 90 seconds apart I decide I will go ahead and try an epidural.

9:00 am- Epidural in. I'm asleep within the next half hour.

12:00 noon- I'm at 5 cm. They estimate that I'll be progressing at 1 cm an hour, and should have the baby by 5.

1:15 pm- I'm already up to 7 cm!! I'm very excited that labor is progressing so quickly.

3:00 pm- Still at 7 cm. The doctor starts to suggest we may need a C-section...

4:00 pm- Still at 7 cm. Feeling a lot of pressure with each contraction.

5:00 pm- Still at 7 cm. I puke all over the place! Something is not right between my stomach and bladder... The doctor strongly suggests we go through with a C-section. The baby doesn't be seeming to come down right, which is why I can't get the last 3 cm that I need. I'm pretty upset by this, but am in a lot of pain and very frustrated that nothing has changed in the past 4 hours except the pain getting stronger and the epidural wearing off. We agree to the procedure. There are already a few people in front of us in line, so it is going to be a while.

6:00 pm-The nurses get us ready for the procedure, I receive a spinal, and get sick again from that. Time starts moving very fast!

6:30ish-We get to the Freezing operating room and the c-section begins.

6:47-Brian gets to see Theodore for the first time! Due to his white blond eyebrows, and tints of red in his hair, every nurse and doctor proclaims a different hair color! But everyone tells me how beautiful he is.

6:58-Brian cuts the cord. Theodore has an APGAR of 9. Minus one the for color of his hands and feet.

7:00-His weight is taken... just shy of 9 pounds at 8 lbs, 15.6 oz. He's also 22 inches long!

7:01- I finally get to see my son up close. I am shaking pretty bad, and strapped down to the table, but I can still kiss him.
7:05- Getting his footprints.
7:30- I FINALLY get to hold my son after they have stitched me up (first stitches I have EVER gotten). We then travel to recovery where we spend about 4 hours... Theodore cries quite a bit, but eventually settles down. Brian does a great job with him while I'm still coming out of the shock and numbness that my body has just gone through. He gets to meet his Grandma Knight here.

Around midnight we are released from recovery and wheeled up to the maternity ward. Brian pretty much passes out at this point and doesn't remember much more... however I remember the nurse giving Theodore his first bath, and getting woken up a few hours later for an assessment and meds.
Our hospital does "rooming-in" (no nursery) so from this point forward, we are totally responsible for little Theodore, and our world has changed forever!
*We didn't officially name him for about 24 hours.*

40 weeks pregnant with a 9 pound baby

We took these right before we went in to get induced...

Within a week...

So, no real changes in my pregnancy today, except that this baby seems to be pretty big! My doctor is getting a little nervous about letting me go too long, since she thinks he's going to be so big and have trouble getting out. So, I'm scheduled to go in and be induced Monday, Feb. 22 at 9:00 PM, if he doesn't come on his own by then! I guess we really need to get to work picking out a name now!

She sent us over to get an ultrasound to get an estimated weight of the baby. According to their measurements, he is measuring 40 weeks, 6 days (instead of the 39 weeks, 2 days he's estimated to be). And his weight is 9lb 3 oz +/- 21 oz. Hopefully not on the plus side! The tech also mentioned that my fluid is on the high side, so that is a slight concern.

I love this picture below! His lips aren't really that big, they are pursed because he was practicing sucking! It was pretty amazing to see his little mouth moving like that.

Winter Storm Round 2-Part 2!

The craziness of this winter continued as we received a second snow storm before the first one was even cleaned up. We ended up with a whole week off school, plus more for President's Day.

Book Recommendation: The Time Traveler's Wife

Read the book.

Watched the movie.

Cried too much.

Doc's Apt

Today is the date of our first due date. Our adjusted date is the 21st, but the 10th was our original one.

Yesterday, we had a check up. I'm still the same, and the baby is still really high! I don't see this baby coming for a while still. She also ran a quick ultrasound to make sure he is head down, which he is. Had me a little worried though.

I'm starting to feel the uncomfortableness... and sitting around for three snow days in a row isn't helping anything! I've had to start pacing the house since I don't have any shoes that will fit to walk out in the snow in. I'd rather be up moving than sitting too long, I get very stiff. But if I do too much, then I get pretty exhausted. And I'm not that comfortable sleeping anymore... I must have gotten up 5 times last night.

I just want the baby to go ahead and come soon. To give you an idea of what this little one might look like, I've included Brian and I's baby pictures.

Baby Update

2 Weeks to go!!

So, it's been a while since I've written any updates on this pregnancy. There's actually been a lot going on in the last two months. Here are some of my pregnancy related events:

Right now we are at about 38 weeks, and according to the doctors for the last couple of weeks I've been 75% effaced and 1.5 cm dilated. I take that as a good sign that things are starting to get going. I've actually got another appointment tomorrow, so we'll see if I've had any changes.

My plan is to stop teaching on Feb. 23, whether the baby is here or not. It's the start of a new term, and I figured it would be good to just put a start date on my maternity leave. If I use all of my FMLA time, I'll need to go back for about the last two weeks of school (more if we keep getting snow days :( Right now, I'm counting down the school days left.

Mon. Feb. 8 -CANCELED
Tues. Feb. 9 - CANCELED
Wed. Feb. 10-regular day, plus parent teacher conferences all night
Thurs. Feb. 11- NO Kids in school, parent teacher conferences all day
Fri. Feb. 12- NO SCHOOL
Mon. Feb. 15- NO SCHOOL (President's Day)
Tues. Feb. 16 REGULAR DAY
Wed. Feb. 17 REGULAR DAY
Thurs. Feb. 18 REGULAR DAY
Fri. Feb. 19 LAST DAY!!!

We've started to get the nursery together a little bit. We mainly have the changing table area set up. We need to start working on getting some cool "sea" themed prints up on the walls.
Jan. 2, with Brian's cousin Jessica. She's due a little bit after me.
While we were home for the holidays, my mother took us to her hospital and ran a stress test on us so we could track the babies movements/heart rate in relation to mine. Her nurses also played with their ultrasound on me. We could see that the baby had hiccoughs at the time. I couldn't feel them, but I've been able to feel them since then. It is pretty cool.

I had showers on Dec. 26 (in Ohio) and Dec. 27 (in Indiana) and got a ton of stuff we needed for the baby. Ashley had a really cute posting, so I'll just direct you there for the photos of the Indiana shower.
Ashley's Link
I finally finished up most of my thank-you cards today... while doing so I got to thinking about how many aunts this baby is going to have. According to my calculations, when he is born he'll have... 5 aunts, 18 great aunts, 14 great-great aunts, and at least 6 great-great-great aunts!

I loved my super cute winter pajamas. I'm about 31 weeks here (and looking huge).


We also had an ultrasound mid-December, confirming he is still a boy. They calculated him to be about a week and a half too big at the time.

Winter Storm, Round 2

Beating our record in December, we were treated to a weekend storm of about 2 feet this past weekend. It started snowing on my way home from school Friday, and didn't stop until about Saturday afternoon. It blew quite a bit on Saturday, and our church canceled services for Sunday. Even though we can easily get out of our parking lot and around the streets here, a lot of the housing developments and back roads down south where I teach aren't getting plowed as well. They canceled school Monday, and already for Tuesday! This already makes 4 snow days for us... I was told not to expect many days when I moved to Delaware, but whoever told me that was apparently wrong.

And we're supposed to get more snow starting tomorrow!

Super Bowl :(

Like almost every Hoosier I know, I'm thoroughly disappointed that the Colts lost... I really did not see that happening.

It was a bit of a long game for me, sitting that long makes my back start hurting, so I had to keep getting up and moving around. Cori loved stealing Brian's seat in this picture.


Even though it was just Brian and I, the food is still my favorite part of the Super Bowl.
First, we had left over leg of lamb from yesterday, so Brian wanted to make some sandwiches out of the chopped meat. He wanted to make his own bread, and he did a great job making these Kaiser-like rolls from scratch. They were pretty fabulous, and made the sandwiches great.

Second-we had ham roll-ups, my family favorite. Nothing fancy this time, just ham and cream cheese rolled up together.
Third-we made my Grandma Knight's famous cheese dip. It was pretty close to hers, and was delicious.
The final dish we had were brownies... I thought that I was making these brownies, but it turned out that I made a box of the double-chocolate variety. Brian thought it was pretty hilarious b/c he doesn't like nuts in his brownies, but I do. And I didn't even realize we had two different boxes in the house.
We were going to make a cookie pizza for desert, but we were too full.