Week One-Three

So, we have survived our first few weeks as new parents, and are doing great! Beckett is such a joy to have and even though we are exhausted, we wouldn't trade one single minute of it!!

Our first week home was made easier because Jamie's parents came to stay with us which was an enormous help! Just having another set of hands to help with Beckett, the cooking and cleaning allowed us to settle in better. Beckett is sleeping really well during the night. We get about 5 hours of sleep which is great! He is almost back up to his birth weight and is eating like a champ.

Here is the recap of labor, delivery, etc. On November 2 at 1:15am my water broke...and there was no mistake it was my water:) We called the doctor on call, got the rest of our stuff together (dog included) and headed out to Aurora to Rush Copley Hospital. At the time I didn't think I was having contractions, but apparently I was! I just could not feel them - that didn't last for too long! For the first 4 hours I was not allowed out of bed because they weren't sure if Beckett was breech or not ,so we had to wait for the ultrasound tech who was caught up in the ER. Finally at 6am the u/s tech came in and gave us good news - Beckett was head down and pretty low, so that was good:) Dr. Ford (the on call doc) let me walk around for two hours before starting pitocin to see if I could get things started naturally.

Unfortunately, nothing happened, so pitocin was started at 8am and by 10am I was feeling the brunt of the contractions. They weren't too bad initially, so I did not have any pain medication. As the day progressed, the contractions came closer together, but I was not progressing. By 5pm I was only 1.5cm dilated and 70% effaced. At this point the contractions were coming so close together and were lasting about 1.5 minutes long. I looked at Jamie and told him there was no way I could go on like this for another possible 9+ hours. So, I requested an epidural. And yes, by this point, I was screaming/crying through contractions. Luckily I didn't have to wait long because the lovely anestheisiologist was already in L&D, so he came right in:) BTW - is there a rule that they have to wear Coke-bottle glasses? It is a bit unsettling! Anyway, it took a while to get the epidural going because my contractions were so close together. But by 5:45pm I was well on my way to happyville:) Dr. Embry (who is my obgyn) came to check in on me at 6pm and told me she thought I would be pushing by midnight. At that point I told her this baby was coming out by 11:59pm so that he could be born on my grandmother's b-day. I was determined:)

Well, we wouldn't have to wait that long. At 7pm my wonderful nurse Jen came in for one last check before shift change, and low and behold, I was 9.5cm and 100% effaced. All of a sudden there was a flurry of activity in the room as 3 people came in and started setting stuff up. Jamie called our parents who were having dinner and told them to get back to the hospital, and Jen went to call my Dr. (who is amazing btw) to come back to the hospital. Dr. Embry arrived at 8pm, said hi to the parents, kicked them out, and checked me. She had me do a couple of practice pushes and she went to get changed into her scrubs. 20 minutes and 4 contractions later, Beckett arrived and I turned into a complete sobbing mess.

After everything we had been through in the past 4 years, I could not believe that we had created this little miracle and that he was here. It was so surreal and beautiful. Jamie was equally as emotional as me, and we just kept looking at each other and at Beckett and cried. It was quite emotional. Amazing is about the best word to describe it and that doesn't do the moment justice.

Anyway, enough rambling! Beckett continues to do well and he is getting lots of visitors. This weekend he is meeting his cousin Timmy for the first time (they are about 1.5 months apart in age) which is exciting. We are looking foward to celebrating our first Thanksgiving as a family:) And how thankful we are for him!

Here are some photos from Beckett's birth (g-rated) and his first weeks at home. I kind of went crazy, so if there are too many, I apologize:)

Beckett Collage

Announcing the Newest Michel

Jamie and I are overwhlemed with joy to announce the birth of our son Beckett Edward Michel who was born on November 2, 2008 at 8:35pm. The birth went great and I will post more details later after we settle in a bit. Beckett is the picture of health and is doing awesome!

Here is a picture of our pride and joy at one day old:

We have more pictures which we will post when we update later! Now I am going to try and get some sleep:)

37 Weeks

We finally made it to full term this weekend:) On Sunday I reached 37 weeks which means that if Little Michel came into the world now, his lungs would be mature!

We had our 37 week doctor's appointment last night and there is not too much to report. I am doing well, and the baby is doing great. His heart rate is great and my doctor thinks that the baby will most definitely be in the 8lb range. I am dilated about 1.5 cm and apparently my cervix has started to thin out which is good. Progress is a good thing:) His head is definitely down, so things look good. My doctor does not think that I will go into labor this week, but like she said, anything is possible. I think he will wait until November sometime. He seems pretty happy where he is at!

Our next appointment is on Monday Nov. 3 and hopefully I will have progressed farther! We will keep everyone posted! I still can't believe that we are only about 2.5 weeks away from having the little guy - we are so excited!!!

Odds and Ends

So, I know I have been terrible about updating the blog and I apologize, but there never seems to be enough time in the day! And I know that is not going to get any better once the baby arrives:)

My pregnancy is going very well still. He is still quite a mover and shaker in there:) I am now 36 weeks, so I am in the home stretch, which is crazy! I can't believe how fast it all goes. I had my dr. appt. last week and she is estimating the little guy will be in the upper 7's to the lower 8's weight wise, and he is head down!! I was very excited to hear he was head down, because I wasn't convinced he was yet. All is well so far and I have my next appointment in a week.

Also, earlier this month my sister threw me a beautiful baby shower. It was great to celebrate the upcoming event with all of my family and close friends. I appreciated everyone coming and it was a great time! Here are a few photos from the shower:

Otherwise, there is not too much to report except that last Wednesday, October 15th was my last day of work...for a while! Jamie and I have decided that it is best if I stay home with the baby:) I am very excited about my new job in life and can't wait to get started. In the meantime, I am filling time by getting the rest of the nursery together, packing bags for the hospital, and making sure everything is ready to go! And now that I have more time on my hands, blogging should be much easier and more frequent.

Where does time go?

So, I feel like I just posted yesterday, but it has already been over two weeks! I think part of it is that I am working my summer hours, so I get home later, and Fridays are always full of errand running and trying to get things done!

It has been busy around the Michel household! My last dr. appointment on the 15th went well. It was the dreaded glucose test, and let me tell you, that stuff you have to drink is horrible. For one, I cannot stand orange flavored things, and of course the only flavor they have is orange. Then you have to suck it down in 5 minutes. Good times:) If you pass, then you only have to do this once and luckily, I passed. On the down side, I am slightly anemic, so now I have to take iron pills throughout the last trimester and beyond.

Other than that, I have been feeling great! I am officially in my last trimester:) I can't believe how fast that went. I am starting to get a bit uncomfortable depending on where the little guys is sitting, and the heartburn is still killer, but I really don't have any complaints. I am hoping that as the iron pills kick in, I get some of my energy back! The baby moves around a ton right now but he still doesn't keep me up at night - yet! From what I am told this will be short lived, so I should enjoy my sleep now!

The past two weekends have been busy! We celebrated my niece Maegan's 3rd Birthday on the 17th by going to Blackberry Farms in the west suburbs. We had a great time riding the merry go round and the train. Maegan got a kick out of seeing the baby goats and chickens:) Her most prized present? I think it was the Scooby Doo coloring book she got from Grandma Ginny and Grandpa Bernie. She literally hugged it!

Jamie and I also got some baby stuff done last weekend! We finally updated our registry. Most everything we had on there was geared toward the adoption, so we had to add some newborn friendly items. As overwhelming as it was trying to figure out what to get for the adoption, it was twice as overwhelming for a newborn!! There is truly an amazing amount of stuff out there...some of it necessary and some of it not. Luckily we know a lot of people who have/or have had babies and they steered us toward the items we couldn't live without.

Labor Day weekend has been busy as well. We had a dog trainer come in on Friday to help us with some issues with Ryno, then Sat. we went out to my sister's (Jamie has his fantasy football draft) and got to see our nieces, which is always fun. Then Sunday, we went back out to the suburbs to see my parents for my Dad's birthday. Today we had brunch with our good friends Ethan, Jill and their son Henry. And now we are just chilling out.

From here on out, it is going to be busy between work, getting ready for baby, etc. But we are looking forward to it:)

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!

Recap of the past 6 months

Well, life definitely throws curveballs! As most of you know, after being knee deep in the adoption process, Jamie and I discovered we were pregnant. Talk about shock and disbelief. I still have days I don't believe it...but then I look at my ever growing belly and realize it is real:)

So, I know I have been out of the blogging world (although I am still keeping up on my blog reading) and there is so much to recap, but here is the short take on the past few months. But first I want to thank everyone who left comments on our voyage2vaughn.com blog about our pregnacy. As always, your supports means so much to us!

March:

Well, on March 12th we learned we were pregnant. I don't think I have ever been so shocked in my life! Needless to say, I was crying and shaking. I called my sister because Jamie wasn't home yet, and I had talked to her right before I took the test. I just cried and cried and she said, "Oh my God, you are!". I went to go pick up Jamie and told him we were pregnant by giving him a card, and his first words were "You weren't supposed to take the test yet!" and then he cried. It was very emotional for us.

March 15th, my wonderful in laws threw a surprise baby shower for me and Jamie in honor of the adoption. Needless to say I was surprised...more because I thought they knew I was pregnant! Then I was horrified because I realized it was a baby shower and I felt so guilty about not telling them we were pregnant, but it was too soon. However, we did find out that our sister in law Erin (Jamie's brother's wife) was pregnant and due in September. Secretly, Jamie and I were really excited about the kids being so close in age.

My doctor was very proactive and did blood tests on me right away to make sure all my hormones levels were good. Luckily, we were off to a good start. Then, on the 27th when we were 6.5 weeks pregnant, we had our first ultrasound although we almost didn't make it because of inclement weather! I was so nervous at what it would, or would not show. Jamie saw the hearbeat before I did and when I finally saw it, I didn't think there was anything better in the world. I didn't realize how scared I was because after the u/s was over, I sobbed and sobbed at the end of the bed from relief.

April:

April was a big month because that is when we started to tell people. We told the parents after our 9 week doctor appointment and I heard the baby's heartbeat:) Again, something I will remember forever!

We told my parents over brunch on Saturday, April 12th. I thought my mom might actually have a heart attack! We gave them this picture in a frame:

It took my mom a few minutes to register what was going on. She thought we had received a travel date for the adoption. Once she realized, she screamed (and scared half the restaurant) and was crying. Both my mom and dad gave us big hugs and were crying and of course, they are very excited for us.

We told Jamie's parents on Sunday, April 13th. We gave them the same picture as above but put it in a double frame with a picture of Andy and Erin in the other side with their due date. Again, it took my mother in law a few minutes to process what was going on. She was crying, then Anna (Jamie's sister) was crying, and then I think we were all crying.

Both moments were extremely special to us. Little by little we started telling others as well. Then came the big question, what to do about the adoption?

May:

So, at the beginning of May, I called our agency and spoke to our case worker, who was fantastic. We were told we would be able to put the adoption on hold for a year, which made us very happy because we still want to adopt. It is in our heart and soul and something we know we want to do. In less than a year, we will be heading down that long road again:)

Toward the beginning of May, we had a 13 week ultrasound for genetic testing it was amazing to see how big our baby had gotten! All of the numbers looked great and we were almost done with the first trimester! Whoo hoo!

Mid May Jamie and I went to San Francisco for a short weekend and had a great time! Then we celebrated our 6 year wedding anniversary Memorial day weekend with our in laws at Erin and Andy's in OH. Everything had been going great thus far in the pregnancy and I was feeling great!

June:

June was a fun month. Jamie and I went to Puerto Rico for a long weekend (Jamie had a conference there). We went hiking in the Rain Forest, spent time on the beach and just relaxed:) Our very good friends, Ethan and Jill had their baby boy, Henry. We got to see him a day after he was born and he is adorable! Our goddaughter Natalie turned 2 and we went to her birthday party and had a great time! She is going to be a big sister in just a few weeks:) I can't wait!! We found out that Andy and Erin were having a little boy, so we will have a nephew which we are so excited about!

On the pregnancy front, all was well. I felt great except for the occasional heat waves we had, I really didn't have any problems. I was just getting bigger and bigger! I had lots of people ask me if I was having twins!!

July:

July was very exciting because we had our 20 week ultra sound on July 3rd. And yes, we found out what we were having. More so because we had been so far along in the adoption process (we were adopting a little boy) and wanted to know if we had to redo the baby's room. Well, luckly we did not have to redo the room because we found out that we were having a baby boy!!! We were very, very excited!! All was well with the baby too. Nice and healthy and on his way to being a very big baby!

We do have a name picked out. Some of you might be wondering if we are going to use Vaughn as the name. Jamie and I decided that we are not going to use Vaughn as we have that set aside for our son we are going to adopt. Something about using it didn't feel right to us. I think I will wait until the baby is born to reveal his name:)

We told both of our families that weekend what were having and everyone is really excited. Jamie and Andy are already planning camping/hiking trips with the boys when they are older! We had Erin and Andy's baby shower July 4th weekend, and it was wonderful. My in laws did another great job of planning a shower:) My mother in law and sister in law (Anna) put together a "diaper cake" for Erin. It looked like a 3 tier cake but it was made by rolling up diapers! Then they included some wash cloths, burp cloths, attached some pacifiers, teething rings, etc. I loved it!! Here is a picture of the 4 parents to be from the shower:

And here is a picture of our little man at 20 weeks:

We can't wait to meet the little guy!!!

At the end of July we had our first real scare regarding the baby. On Monday, the 28th I woke up with a lot of pressure in my lower abdomen which made walking very difficult and the baby had not moved a lot since Sunday evening. I called my doctor's office and they wanted me to come in that afternoon, so Jamie and I went. The concern was that my cervix was softening. Fortunately, my cervix was fine but she did feel that he was laying immediately to the right of it, causing all of the pressure on my cervix. We also did fetal monitoring to make sure he was moving around okay, and he was doing great:) So, all is well that ends well, but it was very frightening!!

August:

August has been pretty uneventful so far, which is good:) We are busy cramming in the last of summer activities and seeing friends and family.

I just had my 27 week check up and all is looking well. Baby M's heart rate is nice and strong, I am measuring right at 27 weeks, blood pressure is good. Now I just have to wait for my glucose results. I am not really concerned about it though because I have not had cravings for sweets during my pregnancy and haven't (at least I don't think I have) eaten foods with a ton of sugar. But we'll see. The only other issue I have been having is ridiculously painful heartburn!! I have heard it is worse with boys, and obviously I have nothing to compare to, but boy does it hurt!!! Luckily my doctor said I can take Pepcid now, which I think is going to be a blessing!!!

So, that finally brings us to date. We are now just anxiously awaiting the births of several friends' babies that we are so exicited about!! I think we know at least 4 people all due in the next 3 weeks!!

Thanks again to everyone who has read about our adoption journey, and thank you to those who want to follow along on this new journey. I know it has taken far too long for me to get this posted, but I will now post more regularly!!!