Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Doing good....

Here are some more pictures - gotta love digital! If anyone ever wants to webcam, just give us a call!
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by hollydlr

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

He's Too Cute!!!!

After a few days now our little guy has started to look like himself more and we couldn't be more in love with him. We went a little crazy on the picture taking today, so click on this picture to check out a few:
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by hollydlr

In addition to our photography escapades, we had our friend Amber, a professional photographer, come over this morning for a photo shoot. I am sure they will turn out beautiful, but Gregory was not too thrilled about modeling - although he was wide awake he was complaining loudly half the time...Amber was very patient...I'm sure its no different from the usual for a newborn... When they are ready, the pro pics will be available for viewing and ordering online - we will post when we get the link for that....

My milk came in today and he is nursing like a champ, but tonight might be kinda rough with a lot of feedings - have to keep on top of it to prevent getting too engorged. Good thing I can take naps during the day... Dan has to go back to work tomorrow so Greg and I might settle down in the nursery instead - yet another great thing about using a mattress instead of a crib!

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Introducing Gregory Sebastian Fix - born 6/17/07 - Father's Day

Gregory made his entrance today at 8:23am after a brief but intense 3.5 hour labor at home. The vital statistics: 8lbs even, 20 1/4 inches long; lots of blond hair! We were blessed with a wonderful midwife team and my mom in attendance, who just arrived last night around 11pm!! I woke up this morning shortly before 5 with very strong contractions about 5 minutes apart, lasting about 40 seconds each. By 6, they were about 3 minutes apart and a minute to a minute and a half long. Things were progressing very quickly so I called in the midwife and woke my mom and Dan. When the midwife arrived shortly before 6:30, I was getting cleaned up in the shower and was already 6-7cm dilated. Everyone was working quickly to get things set up because things were moving fast and by the time I was able to get into the birth pool I was almost completely dilated. My midwife ended up breaking my water for me, which was helpful because it turned out I had a double membrane that may not have broken on its own! Once that was done, pushing contractions started immediately, but they were more spaced out so I could rest in between. Dan held me up as I pushed a little bit with each one - I didn't want to do too much because it was going too fast and I wanted to slow it down. I went on for about a half hour, and Gregory's head was born. The contraction was over so I sat there that way for a moment and could feel his little ear, and his right hand up at his cheek. Slowly with the next contraction, I felt him turn to my right and then one shoulder and finally the rest of him slipped out. I lifted him up out of the water right away and he gave several good cries and began to pink up. However, the water turned out to be a little too cool for him, so Dan cut the cord after a few minutes and we got out of the pool and got dried off. The placenta came about 30 minutes later and he nursed a little bit shortly after that. I escaped with only two very minor tears requiring one little stitch each - not bad considering how fast he came! It was beautiful and exhilarating for everyone present! Please enjoy the photos - I tried to make sure they were G-rated! The slideshow pans a bit strangely, cutting off some of the pics, but you can go look at the whole album too if you want...



Gregory’s birth

Friday, June 15, 2007

Its gonna be soon!!!

Now I am probably jinxing myself to 2 more weeks of pregnancy, but my prediction is sometime within the next 3-4 days. The midwife was just over and did an internal exam - the first one I've had. I was just too curious to hold out anymore - and I really wanted to know if all the contractions I've been having have been doing anything. Well, I am 90% thinned out and 3 cm dilated (out of 10). For those unfamiliar with these things, that is really moving along - usually by 4-5 cm, you are in labor pretty hard and heavy. So I am totally ecstatic! Of course, it is not unheard of to walk around 3 cm dilated for a couple weeks...but with all the other signs and symptoms, I don't think that will happen. I am just going to put my feet up and rest tonight and try to hold out until my mom gets here tomorrow night, and then maybe on Sunday we'll go play a round of golf and get things really going! We will call the immediate family when we are for sure in labor, unless it is the middle of the night, in which case we'll wait until a somewhat decent hour. And once its all over we'll get the news out as soon as we can... YAY BABY!!!!

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Pictures and Prelabor!

We went out yesterday with the help of our friend Brenda and attempted some amateur portraits. They turned out decent and now we have some nice pictures with both Dan and me - click on the thumbnail at the right to check them out!

After the photo session we went over to another friend's for a birthday barbecue, and a lovely false labor pattern set in for the rest of the evening. I gotta say, it was a little different than the contractions I've been having up to now - actually kinda regular and a bit more intense, causing some pinching and pulling sensations. It didn't keep me from sleeping last night, but on the other hand, its still kinda going on this morning. I am getting excited that things are warming up - hopefully we'll be ready for the real deal next weekend after my mom gets to town!

Sunday, June 3, 2007

38 wks and counting....

The good news is that the baby has dropped - this is a good sign that things will happen in the next 2 wks or so - then again, we probably could have predicted that anyway.... The bad news is that at the moment he is sunny-side up - this could spell a long and painful labor - oh no!!! Thankfully there is still plenty of time for him to turn around the right way, and I am doing what I can to encourage him. The chiropractor might be of some help as well - I have been visiting her weekly lately and she has been such a godsend keeping me comfortable! Maybe she will have a trick up her sleeve to get the baby in the right position??

We did a trial run with our inflatable pool last night - it worked out great right in the middle of the dining room! The dimmer I put in made for really nice mood lighting for a relaxation practice, and I think the dogs were even more hypnotized than me - Lucy was laying completely on her back and couldn't be bothered to get up for over an hour! At least she and Giggles weren't trying to jump in the water with me!

We did our 38 wk belly pics - see the link at the right. I wanted to do some professional maternity pictures, but we are going to save the money for the newborn pics instead. I don't really like the way the ones we did tonight turned out, so later this week I think we'll go to the park and try to do some that don't have the neighbor's minivan in the background! Even though the artistic quality hasn't been great, I am glad that we took the time to document the changes as each month went by. It will be fun to put them all in a row in the baby book.