Highlights of the Last Two Weeks

I always used to wonder what happened to people after they had a baby.
As an online looker I would wait and wait for weeks for pictures and updates to be posted about my friend's babies after they were born. I swore that I would be different. I would surely find time to post, facebook, and blog all the adorable photos I would take and let everyone know how things are going. (Because I know you all are on the edge of your seat in anticipation of my updates ;-)

Then I had a baby. And I realized that even if you do have enough energy to be awake when the baby is napping your time is not spent blogging. It is spent calling people, or cleaning or giving cleaning instructions (as I am lucky enough to still have my mom here to help), or planning meals, or hey showering or taking a bath, or eating. Definitely not blogging or posting the pics that I have yet to take.

Sometime around the beginning of the second week I found time to take some adorable pics and post them on facebook. I thought it would only take a few minutes more to post them on my blog. Several days later I found a few more minutes. Yesterday I spent my extra minutes talking on the phone, today I spend them posting. I have no idea when I will have a few extra minutes again, but I think that is part of the fun of having a crazy schedule.


So here's the update:

Being a mom- awesome.
Being an eternal family- rocks my world.
Sleeping in 1-2 hour segments for the last two weeks- hard but not impossible.
I am thankful for husbands who let you cry for no apparent reason, boppy pillows, grandmas and grandpas, fiber pop-tarts, ipods, and sleeping on my slightly smaller belly.
I cannot even begin to describe Bradley. He is happy to sit and look around for hours. Pretty good at sleeping for 2ish hours at a time, and the best snuggler I have ever met. He also likes to make dinosaur sounds. He does a great pterodactyl and t-rex impression.

One week old!

Brian eyes!

Snuggling with Dad.

Home for the first time.

First bath! I couldn't honestly say Brad enjoyed it.

I am so happy I'm not 9 months pregnant any more.

Bradley Video

Courtesy of Grandma Lou (if you were curious whose voice this is).

Bradley Brian Saponas is Here!

He is 7 pounds 4 ounces and 19 inches tall. Enjoy the pictures and feel free to pass them on!

Mom and Baby are Okay

Brian told me that when ever you have some unexpected medical news, you have to start your conversation with the current status. So last night he called both of our parents and began the conversation with "Mom and baby are okay..."
Now if that was the first thing you heard, where would your head go? Delivery? Some dramatic line of events that lead to a successful c-section?

Let me start my post with: Mom is still uncomfortably plump and baby is happily kicking away in-utero.

I hate when they give me an OB appointment in the afternoon. I nearly never remember it. Thus, I took extra care to remember my 3 pm appointment yesterday. My morning/afternoon ended up rather busy so by the time I was on my way to the OB I had the dog in the car with me. My normal appointments are hardly even 20 min long, which is not great but a reasonable amount of time for the dog to wait in the car. (Yes the windows were cracked and it was not hot outside. I even changed parking spots twice to make sure she was in the shade.) But we got there a few minutes late, so I ended up waiting 20 min in the waiting room anyway. When they took me I kept my mouth shut because southern people love to chat, and I only asked two well planned questions, as to make my appointment as short as possible.

note- the next part may be a TMI moment if you are squeamish or a guy.

All week long I had been looking forward to seeing if I was making any progress towards labor...

So she "checked" me to see if my cervix was dilated. She happily announced I was 1 centimeter, then she took her hand out and I felt an odd sensation of other fluid come along with her hand. Did she break my water? No. That would have been awesome.
Apparently in the check she had poked or scratched or something a little too hard, and rather suddenly I began to in her words hemorrhage blood. Fun. Now I'm bleeding, a lot, and have people opening and closing the door with my legs spread eagle while they run to get more supplies to suture the tiny tare causing the problem. And my poor dog is in the car.

The wonderful part was, I did not have to ride in an ambulance to the hospital like my OB wanted, because for some reason Brian came home from work early. So he was able to come and take me and take care of the dog.

After a super fun night of observation in the hospital, I stopped bleeding, did not go into labor, and had a low but survivable blood pressure. So they released me this morning.

What have I learned from this situation? Bring lots of pillows when you have to go to the hospital, don't take your dog to doctor's appointments, and you must begin all phone conversations with your current medical status.

Sadly, after all the craziness all I can think is "Dang it! We were so close!!"
Maybe at next week's appointment she will break my water instead of poking holes next to my cervix. ;-)

Happily Brian learned that hospitals are boring and he gave me my thanks for carrying my child gift early... I am now the proud owner of a sweet iTouch. I love you honey.

Shower!

Last night I got an odd call from Brian. He was at a mutual activity with the Priests so I expected that he needed something he forgot at home. Our conversation went something like this:

Brian - Are you respectable?
Me- What?
Brian- Are you wearing respectable clothes?
Me- I guess. Why.
Brian- Something to do with the Young Women. I think they are coming over.

Luckily I had cleaned earlier that day so I wasn't worried, but I was wearing basketball shorts and a shirt that didn't entirely cover my belly. So I went upstairs and changed and by the time I was ready a Young Women, Kelcie, was at my door with Sister Walsh. They had a totally convincing story about how I needed to come to the church. So sneaky. So I willingly went.

In the car another young woman, Madison, was waiting and looked annoyed to be there. She gave us a story about how some guy friend punched her that day. I was quite alarmed about the whole situation but no one else in the car seemed to think it was a big deal. This too was a fake story, however I totally fell for it.

Finally we entered the church and wouldn't you know it, nearly every single young women and their moms! were waiting to throw me a surprise baby shower in the relief society room which had balloons and all sorts of decorations. This was truly a surprise. I can't believe they kept it a secret! 20 plus young women and half their mothers all managed not to say anything about it for apparently at least the last month or so! Kudos to you girls. I would have never thought you were all capable of holding a secret for so long.

So here is some of the gear that I took away from the night. I combined all the gifts into a few pics.

Special thanks to the Mia Maids for planning it!

Amazingly enough, there were no repeats of lotions or shampoos!

Thank you Beehives for my baby tub and goodies!!!
Thank you Beehives for all the sweet painted toys! I am using them as Christmas ornaments!

The Laurels did an awesome job with the diaper cake (I've always wanted a diaper cake ever since I saw my mom make them for her friends. It has been a life long dream really.)

All the cute clothes!!!

Paint Trials

I have a few goals to get through before the baby comes. Brian and I had a very productive weekend in terms of these goals. We painted our bathroom and the baby's room. Bathroom- looks great, a much needed improvement to the previously bland yellow walls. Baby's room- umm better, but not great. It is no longer a dark green cave. I would say it is now a neon green cave with one beautifully brown wall.

We have now painted the family room, living room, kitchen, stairwell/hallway, master bedroom, master bathroom, and baby's room. We have used three different brands of paint, painted six rooms, and only used four basic colors: green, brown, blue, and orange. Aside from re-painting the baby's neon room, I think I am content with the rest of the colors in the house. Though the downstairs bathroom is a nice color, it is an old paint job and may need to be fixed soon!

During the last few months of painting experiments I have learned:
1. Always use a drop cloth
2. If you are picky about a precise shade, get the little tester cans and see what a big swatch looks like.
3. Tape everything off you can and press the tape down hard with your nail.
4. Buy a tester of trim colored paint so you can fix ceiling and trim bumps with the roller.
5. Paints with a glossy appearance may look nice, but they are the hardest to roll and you can ALWAYS see where you touched up the paint. The flatest/cheapest paints may look cool and modern but they marks the easiest and the marks will not come off. Go for an in between. All touch ups blend in very nicely on semi flat or eggshell finishes.
6. Finishes vary brand to brand, so look at the samples and get the finish down from what you think you want. The samples are less shiny in the store and way more shiny on your walls.

Behr Paint in Satin (Master Bath blues) - thick, shiny, harder to roll, shows brush strokes veeery well, good thick coverage but paint is so thick you have to be careful to get down in the grooves.
Glidden Paint in Satin (Baby's room brown & green) - thinner, semi shiny, easy to roll, easy to paint with a brush, good coverage goes on smooth, beware of drips.
Valspar Satin, Eggshell, and Flat (Master bedroom blues & grays) - My fave is the "flat" finish which is on all but the stripped wall is not fully "flat" in finish, medium thickness, medium easiness in rolling, easy to paint with a brush, great coverage.

In the end I will get Glidden for any future jobs because I think it is a little cheaper than Valspar.

But as I am hugely cheap, I am using the left over neon green paint and mixing it with other left over brown paints to make a darker color for the baby's room. I'm sure that professional painters would be horrified a the thought. But the Glidden paint covered so quickly without a second coat that I have plenty of paint left over for another round!

If it is successful... pictures will follow.

Goodbye Grandpas

September thus far has been a very very busy month for me. Sadly, Brian and I each have had a Grandpa pass away this month. Both grandparents were in poor heath and so it wasn't un-expected. But that doesn't take away the sadness from missing them.
I'm sure my sister will read this and laugh. I have a way of attending funerals and not crying through the whole thing, whereas I'm sure Heidi could attend a complete stranger's funeral and use a whole box of tissues. But just because I can get through two funerals with the use of one tissue doesn't mean I'm not sad and don't miss them. ;-) I think that having an eternal perspective helps me not be super super sad because I know. I know that families can be together forever. Though it is sad that I cannot see and talk to my grandpas (Brian and I have no more living grandpas!), I have so much more joy with the knowledge that I can see them again and spend the rest of eternity with them as a family. What is sad about that!

On the plus side, I got to see both my families!! For the last few months I've been feeling like Georgia is on the other side of the world from Oregon, and I had such a big desire to see my family again one more time before the baby comes. I don't know why. I just wanted to see them. I am so lucky that I was able to attend both funerals and even get to see all of Brian's extended family. I find such comfort in having family around, and feeling the love that is present when everyone gets together. Both sides of my family have this quality about them. Even though I was only able to stay a day in Colorado, visiting with Brian's whole family, the love and support that is there feels exactly like it does in my own family. I am so lucky.

This is my Grandpa Earl Asmussen last Christmas

This is Brian's Grandpa Pony Saponas a few years ago.
(I stole this from Scott's website, I don't have any pics of him on this computer.)

And this is me, two weeks ago. 8 weeks to go.