It's a Bouncing Baby Boy!

Hopefully this isn't news to anyone, but - we had a baby boy!!

Thierry (tea-AIR-ee) James Parr was born at 8:26 p.m. on Sunday, August 15 in Modesto, CA, he weighed in at a robust 8 lbs, 4 oz and was 21 inches long...and he's quite a looker, if I do say so myself :) He has his daddy's lips and chin and his mommy's eyes and long arms/legs/fingers. I stare at him a lot. It's not creepy, though, 'cause he's my baby.

Wait...What's that? You wanna hear about D-Day? Okay! Here goes...

4ish a.m. - I awaken with that familiar middle of the night feeling...I have to pee. Ugh. And what is this crampy ache in my abdominal region? Sweet. Thanks for the pleasantness, pregnancy.

5ish a.m. - I have to pee again. And why does my stomach-area still hurt?!

6ish a.m. - OMG, really?! Pee, AGAIN?! Ow...this pain is not subsiding. Looks like my good friend Braxton (Hicks, that is) is here to ruin my morning. I have trouble falling asleep.

7ish a.m. - I awaken from a fitful doze and in my sleepy haze decide to get up and move around to get rid of these ridiculously strong Braxton Hicks contractions.

So I pick up the house. And, it didn't work at all.

I take Miley for a walk. The pain did not subside.

I stretch. No dice.

I realize...These are not fake contractions.

By this time it is almost 9 a.m. and I use my crack deductive reasoning skills to review the mornings events...I had experienced Braxton Hicks plenty of times before, had even been woken up by them, but they had never felt like this and they always went away as soon as I got off my duff and started moving around. The pain I was experiencing was also pretty rhythmic - coming and going in a consistent pattern, and had gradually gotten worse over the past few hours. Sooo...really?...Great Odin's Raven! I'm gonna have a baby today!

9 a.m. - Tommy began to stir from his rock-like slumber, fighting through a moderate malaise after our big night at karaoke the evening prior.

Me: "Good morning sunshine!"
Him: "(indecipherable grunt)"
Me: "I'm gonna need you to perk up mister, cause we are having a baby today..."
Him: (pause...eyes open...left eyebrow lifts quizzically) "Yeah right."
Me: "No, I really think this is it! I've been having contractions for hours!"
Him: "Really? It's not another false alarm?"
Me: "No way dude, that was amateur hour, this is the real deal, promise."

The malaise disappeared...And so the day began.

(I didn't blog about the second false alarm that had taken us to Labor and Delivery the week prior. I thought my water broke so we got all of our stuff together, grabbed some pillows, stopped at the store for snacks and headed to the hospital only to find out I had merely pissed myself. It's okay...go ahead and laugh. Yep, get a nice hearty chuckle.)

2ish p.m. - Fast forward a bit, we headed to the hospital at about 2 in the afternoon. By this time my contractions were consistently about 50-60 seconds long and coming every 4-5 minutes. We had talked to both of our moms and informed them, much to their exuberance, we were having a baby today. The car ride to the hospital was one of the most painful parts of the whole experience...I dunno why, but I did not like riding in that car. I refused to ride in a wheelchair up to Labor and Delivery...it felt so much better to be up and moving around. I had two contractions in the hallways. Probably pretty fun for the passers-by to witness, haha.

Upon arrival to L&D we went to stop #1 - observation, where they hooked me up to a couple monitors to check the baby's heart rate and the strength of my contractions. It was a paper skirt kind of observation and we were informed that I was fully effaced, already dilated to 5 cm and had a "bulging" bag of waters. 5 cm?? Sweet! Halfway there! I was incredibly encouraged to learn this, as we seriously wanted to have a natural childbirth.

We were quickly escorted to stop #2 - our own personal delivery suite, where I would continue to labor until the baby arrived. Our nurse, Johanna, hooked me up to a couple portable monitors so I could move around and inserted my IV line. It was at this point we made it clear, under no uncertain terms, we wanted a natural childbirth and no painkillers or drugs were to be offered. After about 10 minutes of meandering around the room, I changed into my bathing suit and proceeded to the steamy, relaxing comfort of the shower...where I stayed for nearly five hours.

Tommy was fantastic, to say the least. He was present, but didn't hover, he was supportive, but not in the annoying cheerleader-y fashion, he was happy to serve my every whim and he provided perfect counter-pressure in just the right spot when I had contractions in my back. He kept me relaxed and laughing between contractions, and repeated my mantra of "I can do this...I can do this" with me while I grunted, whimpered and breathed my way through the countless chaotic contractions. Can't say enough good things about the man and his support - especially when the going got tough later in the game. He was definitely my rock.

7:45 p.m. - I had to get out of the shower to get "checked" by the mid-wife, who informed me I was dilated to 9.5 and while she was checking me, my water finally broke. And the real party started.

8:10 p.m. - We started pushing. I'll just spare you the gory details. Quite possibly the most disgusting 16 minutes of my life ensued.

8:26 p.m. - The final push, aaaaaaand...Tommy lets go of my hand, performs some sort of muted jumping action and excitedly exclaims "It's a boy! Oh my gosh, it's a BOY!! Baby, IT'S A BOY!" Seconds later a slimy, whitish creature was placed on my belly, where he promptly pooped on my leg while Tom cut his umbilical cord. Our minutes-old child was then whisked to the corner of the room to be cleaned up, with Tomas close behind. No one bothered to wipe up the poop on my leg, however. They're lucky I had other things on my mind...Well, I suppose they were lucky I was too overcome with emotion to care, would be a more accurate assessment, but whatev :)

The next hour or so is one I will never ever forget for as long as I live. Tommy and I held the baby. And stared at him. Counted his little fingers and toes, kissed his little head and decided which parts of him looked like who. We listened to music (we had downloaded several "baby day" songs specifically for this time) and marveled at the fact that we were now someones parents. We texted friends and family, passing along the good news and sharing first pictures. The baby started fussing at one point while I was texting, and I received my first scolding from Tom to stop ignoring the baby in favor of firing texts :) We did it, and were beyond happy and proud. We made it through the 16 hours of labor beautifully, and had accomplished our goal of a natural childbirth, to welcome a happy, healthy baby boy. The song below is my favorite one from our baby mix, and I'll think of this first hour with our baby everytime I hear it...



10ish p.m. - With mom and baby fresh, clean and diapered we moved on to stop #3 on the Kaiser assembly line - the postpartum room. This is where we would remain until we left the hospital. The baby slept in the room with us in a little bassinet on wheels, I got a sweet hospital bed that moved like those old people beds in commercials at the touch of a button (it was complete with a waterproof covering!), and Tom was stuck on the crappy "pull out" foam pad couch in the corner...his own private post-partum depression.

The first night was moderately exhausting, albeit uneventful. Thierry woke up several times, and a nurse came in to check on us nearly every hour. I was still too smitten to care about sleep, though, and emerged in the morning still wearing a smile. Tom got us breakfast and we hung out with the baby. And hung out some more. And more. And eventually (around 10 a.m., I think) decided we had had enough of the hospital and wanted to get home as soon as possible. Apparently this was odd to the hospital staff, who seemed taken aback when we told them we wanted to head out that day. What can I say...it was boring! We completed all the formalities, TJ and I were both medically cleared to go home, and we made the short trip down 99 to 510 Lottie Ave., and welcomed our baby boy home for the first time :)

And that's the story of how our own little miracle came to be. I hope you enjoyed reading it, we definitely enjoyed living it!

More to come, so stay tuned in - I'm going to do my best to keep the blog train rolling!

CP...Over and out :)

Tasty Treats and Lessons Learned

After a short hiatus from the blog, I'm BACK, and have exciting stories to share! Actually, no, I take that back. Not exciting. Just stories. Absolutely nothing particularly exciting.

Oh my. Except I literally JUST sat back down (the babies needed their dinner) and popped my very first ever Pretzel M&M into my mouth (yes, FB friends I finally found them!)...and yummmm...I'll be enjoying them with a cold glass of milk for the duration of this blog post. Don't worry, I have two bags in case it turns into a long one. :)

So why have I been away so long, you ask? Our July doctor appointment, as they say, rubbed me the wrong way. I was slightly mad and disappointed and didn't want to talk about it and have been on a blog strike, of sorts, for the past few weeks. "But Christa, what happened?" Well, as you may have read we were told by our sonographer that we had a huge baby and there was no way it could be due in September, unless I was incubating a freakishly gargantuan child. We made the mistake of getting excited about this news and were convinced the baby would be born 4 weeks earlier than originally thought.

Our NP set us straight at our July appointment.

Well, kind of.

She was barely there.

Tommy and I headed into our July doctor appointment bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, fully expecting to hear my due date was being moved up four weeks and all of our baby-birthing schedule debacles were soon to be over. The appointment was a joke from the start. The check-in nurse skipped the blood pressure and weight portion of the activities and went straight to scheduling my next appointment (which they usually do after the current appointment.) On the way to the exam room I asked her about seeing how much I weigh (I hate having a scale at home, but am still OCD about monitoring my progress) to which she replied, "Oh yeah..." After we completed the formalities she led me to the exam room (I weighed in at 152, by the way...still 9 pounds away from the gain-limit of 30 I set for myself) brought Tom in immediately and the NP (nurse practitioner) breezed in, talked to us for approximately four minutes, and breezed out.

Tom: "Wait, was that it?"
Me: "Uhhh, I guess so..."
Tom: "What was the point?"
Me: "I have no idea."

Luckily the NP came back in because she forgot to tell us something, and Tommy spoke up about the renegade due date, and we asked to see the ultrasound photos. "Oh...ok...sure...we can look at those." And she basically refused to address the due date change issue, informing us it was too late, and we would have to let it ride. The ultrasound photos wouldn't open on her computer, so that was that. Appointment over. Sweet. Thanks. Catch ya on the flip side Kaiser Permanente healthcare-cattle-call-a$$holes.

After some thought I discovered the reason they were weird and distant and why our NP was unwilling to discuss things. Our appointment was at 11:45, which was a huge mistake because it was the last appointment before they shut down the Women's Health wing for lunch from 12-1. "Did you say shut down?" Yes. They shut the whole thing down. Turn off the lights and everything. The sign on the check-in counter doesn't say "Out to Lunch" it says "GO AWAY."

Okay. So the appointment wasn't really that bad. It's not like they yelled at us. Or laughed at us. Or kicked us out. I basically just didn't get my way. My way being that NP would have agreed with the sonographer, moved my due date up, and baby Parr would have been born...well, now. But it doesn't work that way. And I hate it when things don't just work my way.

But I'm way over it now, and that brings us to today! We had a fantastic appointment today! The baby is going strong and still growing (and so am I...gained 6 pounds in the last 4 weeks...oops...only 3 to go before I reach the limit...fortunately I can't eat too much these days as a result of the large fetal growth currently residing in my abdomen, preventing my stomach from expanding, so we should be good.) It was an exam day...ya know, the kind where you walk in the room and the nurse hands you the paper skirt to wear. Turns out I'm not dilated at all, have started to efface, and the baby is starting to drop. So we're looking good for 36 weeks! I've officially made it to the point in my pregnancy where they'll deliver me if I go into labor. And Tommy and I have reached the point where we get to...(trumpet fanfare)...pack "the bag"! I'm sure that will be a blog in and of itself when we get around to the packing...we already have quite a list of things to pack going.

So I guess that's all for today. I ran out of Pretzel M&M's some time ago (Tommy ate the second bag) and have rambled enough for one day. The morals today kids...when the sonographer tells you something, don't believe them, and never forget that just because they change your due date doesn't mean the baby will actually be born any earlier. I promise it will not be 6 weeks before you hear from me again.

And with that, dear friends, I bid you adieu.

And good evening.

CP