One week ago today

So it's been one week since I went into labor. It all started around dinner time. About 5:00 Wednesday evening I noticed that I was having contractions pretty regularly. I'd been having maybe about 5 a day for the last month but these kept coming and were more like 5-6 and hour. They weren't painful but it made me think that I should probably do all the last minute things. As the night wore on it became apparent that I would end up in the hospital sometime that night. By about 10:00 the contractions were getting a lot more painful so I labored at home for a while and at 1:30 we dropped of the kids at Alice's and headed to the hospital. It was perfect I got all checked in, they handed me the gown, I got dressed in it - twice (I put it on backwards the first time) and then I went to sit on the bed and my water broke. At this point it was 3:00 and I was at a five. By 4:00 my epidural was under way and at 6:00 I was at an eight. Everyone figured I would have the baby around 8:00. But then everything halted. I stayed at an 8 for another 6 hours. They gave me pitossin to get my contractions to be harder in the hopes that it would help me progress. By noon I was fully dilated but Desmond was still quite high up. We tried pushing but it didn't do anything. My doctor checked me at some point and determined that his head was cocked to the side and it was preventing him from coming into position. We figured we could just keep going and hope that he moved into position. About 3:00 my Dr. came back and said that we would try pushing again and if that didn't work he would use the vacuum and then if that didn't work we would have to do a C-Section. At that point I didn't care what we did I was done. We got all geared up to push and after one push John, the nurse, and the Dr. all exclaimed wow, great, etc. After 2 pushes John said "the head is out!" Next push he was born. We were all shocked and I couldn't have been happier. What a great ending to the very long process. I've never had the pushing go so well and it's always my least favorite part. So although the whole process was very long and I had a little break down about half-way through I feel like I can't complain because the end went so quick. Little Desmond came out looking a little rough and had a side cone head but he was in great shape otherwise. Throughout the process he never showed any signs of distress and seemed to be just a happy little camper hanging out in there.

So far I've been taking it very easy and figure I'll just allow myself to heal before taking on life fully again. I sit around a lot and spend a lot of time feeding Desmond and holding him. My mom decided at the last minute to come into town to help out and it has been so wonderful. She takes care of the other kids and the house so that I can just rest. It's also nice to have company around so I don't start feeling too cabin feverish. We'll see how I do when she leaves but for now I'm just taking advantage of having her here.

Desmond is doing great. He's a great nurser and does great at sleeping off and on. Enough to feel like I get some occasional good sleep. He's not a cryer yet and he's a great snuggler. So far it has been a good week.

This is what Collin likes to do with the baby. Overall he is so good with him. He frequently comes up and just pats him softly on the head and talks to him.


P.S. Many people have asked where we got the name Desmond. Apparently there is a show called "lost" with a character on it named Desmond. We don't really know anything about that but we both really like the Beatles song "OB-LA-DI, OB-LA-DA". It talks about Desmond and Molly and we just fell in love with the name.

It could also be that we've watched every episode from a certain show and think there's a guy on there with a really great accent and fantastic hair and we just HAD to name our son after him. Or maybe we just liked his name.

2 + 2 = 4

2 girls and 2 boys and we are so happy to have our new little Desmond Parker John Holman.

More on the story will be forthcoming but he was born at 3:33 pm on January 22nd. He was 7lbs 9oz (our smallest baby yet - I thought for sure the whole pregnancy that he would be the biggest.) He was 20 1/2 inches long and he's a fantastic baby so far.

The girls are loving having him around and are constantly asking questions like "why is his skin so dark? will he grow up light?" "Was Collin's belly button thing the same color?" "can I hold him for an hour?" They love him and he happily lets them hold him all the time. Collin is a little unsure what the heck is going on but thoroughly enjoys pulling his pacifier out and putting it back in. Which incidentally Desmond loves the pacifier and is by far the most adept at sucking on it than any of my other kids. So far he's a great sleeper and eater.

Minutes after he was born. He's a little bruised and battered but still a cutie.

This is the "pacifier" from the hospital. They don't have any so they make one by putting a sticker on a bottle nipple. He didn't seem to mind at all.

This is an attempt to show you his hair. He and Bridgett are the only ones to be born with a significant amount of hair.

It's a ...!!

Oh wait, we don't actually know yet. I'm still sticking around waiting to have this baby. The truth is I finally feel mentally ready to have it and I also feel like I have some affairs in order, particularly my house. At least it is to more of a degree than it has been in the past week or so. I went to the Dr. today and sorry if this is too much info for some but he said I was "at a 2 and still pretty thick." He did strip my membranes but he didn't seem too hopeful about it working. He said the fact that I've had other kids increases my chances but I don't think I was too far progressed so we'll see what happens. Obviously it didn't work for me today since it's been about 8 hours since he did it but I'm still hopeful it will happen in the next few days. I was totally ok with it not happening today or not so I feel like I'm in a good place. The bummer is he's going out of town this weekend so hopefully it won't happen then. We also set my inducement date for next Wednesday so I know I'll have a baby in 10 days at least. I've set an inducement date with all of my kids and not been induced onced so we'll see if that holds true. Anyway, it's crazy to see that I have only 4 days until my due date, maybe I'll actually have a baby early this time!

My Grandma, Florence Irene McCormick

My grandmother passed away 3 nights ago. She was 98 1/2 years old and had lived a great life. Although she had a rough last week dealing with shingles and a broken ankle she died very peacefully in her sleep. As a child we spent almost every summer making the 3 day drive to Portland to visit her and my Grandpa. We loved going to her house and playing in her attic bedroom and walking to 7-11 to get slurpees. I remember she always had cookies in her cookie jar and her bedroom dresser was always picture perfect with everything arranged on it perfectly. She was a hard worker and always kept her house so clean. She only had a claw foot bathtub with no shower so we always got to take baths and thought it was great fun.

She was married at 24 and a widow for 24 years and married for 50 years. She was always really close to her sister, Ethel, and they have lived together off and on for all their lives. Aunt Ethel never married and they have been taking care of each other their whole lives. They had a great relationship and you can really tell how much they care for each other. One year we spent Thanksgiving at my Grandma's house. We had a wonderful dinner and had sat down for some delicious pumpkin pie that Grandma and Aunt Ethel had worked on together. I took my first bite and wasn't sure what was going on but it wasn't very good. With each bite I included more and more whip cream so that I could get it down. All of us were eating it and finally my Grandma sat down for her piece. After the first bite she exclaimed "Ethel didn't you put the sugar in this!" Aunt Ethel quickly replied "I though you put it in!" We all laughed and gratefully pushed away our plates.

I have a lot of good memories of my Grandma and am happy to have known her. I'm glad we spent a lot of vacations visiting her so that we could develop a relationship with her.

The day we found out that she had passed away Madison was saying her night prayer and this is how it went. "Please bless Grandma McCormick that she can do good in heaven. We're thankful that we can all die and be resurrected and come back to earth with perfect bodies and everyone can be nice to us including all the animals."

37 1/2 weeks

Because the most frequently asked question to me these days is "how are you feeling/doing?" I decided that I would just answer - truthfully. My answer always is just "good." So here it is. I feel like I have a big, very active baby in me and to be honest I'm not sure that I'm ready yet to have it come out. Generally at this point I'm chomping at the bit but right now 2 weeks sounds pretty soon. Physically I feel fine. Yes, I'm uncomfortable and not sleeping well at all and my back does hurt frequently but overall I feel fine. Where the real problem lies is in the fact that I have NO desire to do anything. I don't want to clean my house, cook any meals, go to a store, pull out baby clothes, etc. I think I could be content to just sit on the couch and do nothing (except eventually my legs would get really restless and my back would really start to hurt!) Anyway, I'm hoping this is temporary and goes away quickly because it's not really helping me to get ready for this baby.
I went to the Dr. today. In a nutshell he said he would strip my membranes at 39 weeks and schedule an inducement for sometime between 40-41 weeks that day also. So basically by Jan 30th I'll for sure be at home with a new bouncing baby. Had he said he would strip my membranes today I probably would have just done it but he didn't and there really wasn't any kind of let down feeling. Overall I think it's time for me to fully embrace having a newborn around and do what I can to be prepared. Maybe tomorrow...
And that folks is how I'm feeling/doing.