Off with the boys!!

Last Saturday, my mom and I ventured off with both boys. I had to go to work for a little while so I asked mom to go with me to help with the boys. While I worked, mom and Brody walked around outside my work. My office is located off San Pablo, so it's pretty well shaded and Brody had a blast just being outside.

Once I finished there, we headed to Stein Mart - not sure what I was thinking taking both boys - but I was getting stir crazy being in the house for so long. This was the first time for Brody going shopping and not in a stroller (my new double stroller hadn't come in yet). Brody was doing pretty good and he loves the shoe department. He loves to go around trying on different shoes and he usually is pretty good about putting them back - yes they are usually girl shoes - Jason loves that :). Anyway, I saw Brody walking away but figured he was going to another shoe aisle - needless to say he wasn't (oh yeah he didn't have any shoes on either). I guess he took off - he realized what freedom felt like. Mom and I didn't panic too much - I was really too mad to do that. I headed to the front once mom saw him towards the middle of the store (but thankfully she left the discipline up to me). I saw his little legs hiding under one of the boutique racks at the front of the store. At that moment, all the past instances of moms yelling at their kids in stores flashed before me and I didn't want to be that mom. Instead I yanked him up so fast and headed out the front door. I still tried not to yell too much in order to not cause too much of a scene but I thought he got the point.

We went back inside to see how he would do, but he started hiding in the clothes right next to us so he and I went outside to the car while mom shopped. He screamed the whole way out "I not want to go to the car". Such a fun day - I can't wait for my double stroller to come in. Hopefully things will be easier.

Almost Finished!!

Well, we are so close to getting this addition finished. The brick is almost complete if we can just get them to work a whole day!! It's amazing how some people work... The sheetrock is finished and the ceiling went up today. My goal is to have the entire thing finished next Friday. It's a tight goal, but I have to have something to shoot for. Here's a few pictures of the progress so far and of course our MESSY backyard. I dread the cleanup when all of this is done, but I am so excited about the BIG playroom for Brody and Trevor and of course my BIG closet for storage.

Almost 2 weeks old

WOW, what a past 2 weeks this has been. Thank goodness Jason stayed home from work the first week to help out. I wasn't ready for him to go back though. The hardest part of this past week was trying to keep Brody entertained. It has been so hot outside that I didn't want him playing outside - since I couldn't be out there the entire time with Trevor. I felt so sorry for Brody at times because he just wanted our attention and wanted us to color, play trucks, or play in his room with him. We have tried to drop everything and pay special attention to him, but I still feel sorry for him. He has been such a great big brother so far - he is a BIG helper - throws diapers away and brings me things when I can't get up to get them.

A sweet big brother

Trevor is doing great. We went to the doctor this past Monday and Dr. Connelly said he was back at his birth weight and everything looked great so it wasn't necessary to come back for his 2 week checkup - YEAH. It's amazing how different we as parents are with the 2nd child. If they had told me this with Brody I would have freaked out, but Trevor we are just excited because we don't have to spend extra money for another appt. Trevor is sleeping pretty good at night. I feed him around 11PM and for 3 nights straight he slept until about 4:30 and then ate again and back up around 8:30. I definitely can't complain. He is so sweet but seems to love to be held. We are working on that so hopefully he'll learn to fall asleep by himself this week.

All ready for his first doctor visit.

Things are quite different with the 2nd child. With Brody we could just turn on the lights in the middle of the night to change his diaper or let him cry himself to sleep. With Trevor we don't want him to be too loud so to not wake up Brody. As a result, we do everything in our bedroom. Trevor loves to sleep in the papasan, which was a wonderful gift for Brody as well. Trevor nor Brody were big fans of the cradle but we are working on that.

Trevor loves to sleep on your chest - sweet times with Papa.

I can't wait to see what God has in store for us this week - should be interesting!!

A No Pain, No Gain Monday

Monday, August 3 started out like every other work day for me - up at 5:30AM, out the door at 6AM, at work at 6:40AM. As I drove to work, I actually felt a little back labor coming into play which got me a little nervous that the delivery was getting close (little did I know). Seeing that I never felt contractions with Brody I didn't really know what to expect, so where does one go to get info - the internet. I did some research and I realized I was indeed having contractions as my belly would tighten. However, the contractions were so sporadic throughout the day, I didn't think too much about it. I just did a lot of work from my chair. My goal for the day was to get one last payroll done just in case something happened that night. I worked until 4:30 that day and had 3 contractions on my 40 min drive home - nothing too painful.

About 6:00 as I was hanging over the arm rest and Brody was rubbing my leg saying "It's otay momma", Jason thought we should start tracking the contractions. I thought I just needed to go to the bathroom (no one told me before this that this is what labor feels like). We tracked for about 30 minutes and I decided to get a shower just in case we headed to the hospital. That shower felt so good, but of course once again no one told me that a warm shower speeds the labor process up. Jason rushed me through the shower so I could hurry up and call the doctor and of course they said to come on in since the contractions were about 6-8 min apart by now - every 3 or so lasted about a minute but other than that they lasted only about 30 sec. My dad came over to get Brody - it's amazing how God works because usually around 6:30 if Brody hadn't had supper he would be screaming - "I want somfin" - he never once said it. He was so calm.

One last picture as we walked out the door.

Jason and I headed to St. Luke's around 7pm. I was calm and the contractions weren't that bad so I really thought they would send us home so when Jason called to tell people we were on our way, he just said we would call them back once we got there and they checked me. I made my call to Judy Rogers, who is in charge at St Luke's Birth Place to let her know we were on our way. Judy taught me piano for about 4 years when I was young so it was nice to know someone in high places. She called back a little later and said we were in luck because Holly Bowie was in charge that night and she had me a room ready. Holly goes to our church and Jason plays basketball and softball with her husband. It was their 14th wedding anniversary that night, so it was unusual for her to be working, but once again isn't it amazing how God works EVERYTHING out!!

They put me in triage at 7:51, but Holly quickly said no need for triage since I had Brody so quickly. On the way to the room, I had a contraction and had to stop. I climbed on the bed at 8:07 and while they were hooking up the monitors I had another contraction. Needless to say these were less than 3 min apart. Holly checked me and i was 7cm - WHAT!!!! I couldn't believe it, and of course my first comment/fear was NO EPIDURAL - are you crazy? Holly "tried" to convince me that I could still get one and the anestheologist had been paged. I even signed a consent form but as I was initialling something a contraction happend and the pen went flying. Right after she checked me, my water burst and I was in shock that this was going SO FAST!!

Holly and Jacquelyn (my labor and delivery nurse) weren't quite prepared for that and as they were trying to get all the necessary supplies and people in the room for this QUICK delivery, Jason had a heart to heart with me as tears came down my face over the fact that I was about to give birth with NO PAIN medicine. He kept telling me that I could do this - it was very sweet (it may have been his way of trying to protect himself for what was about to happen). I've been such an advocate of the epidural and I've never wanted to try and prove myself by doing it natural because for goodness sakes I just carried the baby for 9 months.

Holly checked me again and I was 9 cm - I couldn't believe how fast this was going. Oh yeah, have I mentioned my doctor yet or any doctor for that matter? - no that's because mine hadn't made it and the on call doctor couldn't be reached (his cell phone was dead to find out later). As it looked, Holly would be delivering our baby :) There was no holding this baby back and I didn't push - it just came. However, it HURT and I SCREAMED a couple of times pretty loud as Holly was telling me to CALM down. Who tries to tell a screaming delivering mom with NO pain medicine to calm down? In one of the last screams, I pulled Jason so close to my face, I think he saw a part of me that he doesn't care to see again.

With all of this said, at 8:19PM (12 minutes after I sat down on the bed), Trevor Mason was born. He weighed 7 lbs, 2 oz and was 20 1/2 in long. My doctor did finally arrive in time to stich me up a little. She hung her head as she walked in because she missed Brody's birth for being out of town and she knew she had better be here for this one. I told her she needed a faster car - but she does have a Porsche so how much faster can you get? I am very thankful for Holly being there. We were so happy that she was just working that night - who would have thought that she would actually deliver our baby.

We had no camera in the room for delivery because the plan was for Jason to go back out to the car and bring everything in later once they checked me out - no time for that though. This would be one of the first pictures around 9:00.

One proud Big Brother.



Dr. McLanahan who didn't actually make it for the delivery, but I still love her!! She says if we decide for #3 then I'll have to stay at her house so she'll be sure to not miss that one.

Since this was so fast, no one was in the waiting room when the actual birth occurred, they all arrived shortly after. Jason went out to the waiting room around 9:00 or so to tell them it was a boy, but of course we hadn't come up with a name. Coming up with a name was a BIG ordeal. We had our list of names out but I couldn't think straight seeing that I had just given birth the natural way (so not how I had planned). About 10:00 or so, we finally decided on Trevor Mason. Trevor we just liked and Mason is my Aunt Yvonne's married last name (she is my grandmother's sister).

Finally everyone was able to come back and see little Trevor. This is a great thing about St Luke's, that it really doesn't matter what the time or how many visitors you have because the room is so big and they don't take the baby out to do any tests. Brody, both grandparents, Bryan and Tara, Cruce's, Walsky's and Sherri, Jenny Beth and Tyler Ard were all there. Brody did great. He was pretty excited about his little brother and being the big brother. They stayed for about an hour or so and then it was time for Trevor's bath. Of course, Holly gave him his bath (she did the same for Brody). One good thing about no epidural is that I could feel my legs afterwards and was able to get up and take a shower and watch the first bath. I'm not sure if all that out weighs the benefits of getting an epidural :)

Holly giving Trevor his first bath.

As I look back at the whole scenario, I am amazed to see God's hand at work in every aspect. He will take care of everything if we will only trust Him.