Happy due date to you, darling Grant....

Grant's due date is officially today, the 29th. It's so great to have him here, unbelievable he'll be 2 weeks old tomorrow! He's such a sweet little guy.

Without further ado, I present Grant (6 days old) and Lincoln's photo session last week at Kiddie Kandids.

The birth story post

I think birth stories are usually pretty cool. I'm gonna tell Grant's now. I'll leave out any details that are too gross or just TMI. And if you don't like birth stories, skip this post and just look at the next one whenever I get a chance to put another one up.

Well.... you can read my previous post, that's how it began. Monday morning started with early labor pains that were usually not very evenly spaced but still pretty intense beginning at 3 AM and dying off about 7 AM. I felt very excited that the baby was probably coming soon, but also annoyed that there were some plans I'd probably have to rearrange for the week. I called my mom (the designated Lincoln- sitter during my hospital stay) and told her the baby would probably be coming in the next few days. She was very excited, told me to make sure I had the things packed for me and Lincoln and the baby and then "Take Lincoln on a walk or go mop the floor or something. Then the baby will come!" I was pretty annoyed that she seemed so very excited about these gross and painful symptoms coming so early. My mood for the whole day was just generally annoyed. I used the day resting a bit, finishing up some things and packing.

Contractions started again at about 6 PM, a little before Mike came home on a work break. Our microwave broke while he was trying to heat up food, and I just had to go upstairs and deal with the pains in bed. Can contractions be stress induced? I don't know, but it certainly didn't help.

After Mike left at 7 and I'd been timing the pains for a while, I decided they were exactly 8 minutes apart for one minute . I'd called in earlier that day and confirmed that my dr. goes by the "411" rule- contractions 4 minutes apart, 1 minute in length, for an hour. Then you head to the hospital. The last thing I wanted was to go and be sent home, so I decided Lincoln and I had to go to the grocery store before they got any worse or any closer. Nesting instinct, we were out of milk.

We went to the store for a few necessities, with Lincoln riding in the front of one of the toy car/grocery cart things he loves, pretending to drive. And me pushing the heavy thing keeping an eye on my cell phone, keeping track of the contractions. I noticed in passing that exactly in between the 8 minutes- at the 4 minute mark- I'd feel a little bit of tightness but not any pain really, and it was only for a few seconds. I was sure that didn't count as a real contraction. But every 8 minutes it was "Oh wow.... I'm gonna have to stop... and sit on this stack of canned food... wow I'm sure glad they put that here."

My mom called when I was almost home and told me she thought I should go to the hospital while I could still manage to drive there (pulling over every 8 minutes) and she'd meet me there to get Lincoln. I told her, "Well, I still really don't want to go just to be sent back home and then I'd have to arrange for Lincoln to come back to me.... no, I think if the pains are still this bad- and even if they are still at 8 minutes- when I have my appointment tomorrow at 11:30, he'll send me to the hospital to finish it. But I'll let you know if we don't wait until then."

I got home, slowly put groceries away, and let Lincoln fall asleep watching TV. Mike got home a little after 11 and asked if I thought we should go. "No, these stupid contractions hurt sooo much but they're too far apart!!! You time them for a while!" He verified that just as I thought, 8 minutes still. To cope with the pain I did some of the natural child birthing positions I'd read about. After all I've heard about the wonder of 'going natural', I'm surprised at how much they only helped a little bit. At about 2:30 I tried the bathtub, I've heard that can be even more effective. It didn't help me at all.

About 3 AM I told Mike I was going to call the dr. on call and ask him if every contraction had to be equally intense; because it was every 4 minutes really and has been for hours, but only every other one is bad. Mike suggested I just wait until my appointment time. I suggested that he.... well, I suggested something not very nice. I talked to the dr, but only for a minute before another one started and I just threw the phone at Mike and said,"You talk!" The dr said there's actually nothing magical about the "411" rule in his opinion, and if it's really that bad I should of course go in.

So we (mostly Mike) got Lincoln up, got our stuff and drove to the hospital. To get to Jordan Valley hospital we drive right past another hospital, one we live just a few blocks away from. As we drove past it I whimpered and mumbled,"Let's go there instead." Mike chuckled and drove on past. We met my mom at the hospital doors, got poor tired Lincoln into her car, and got me inside with a wheelchair, writhing in pain.

I realize this is where many birth stories begin, with the arrival at a hospital. This one is almost done actually. Once I got into a room with a hospital gown on, the nurse checked me and said with surprise,"Oh, you're at 6 centimeters." I groaned. No wonder it hurt so much!! I looked this up a few days later to confirm this fact. Early labor is about 1-3 cm dilation, and active labor is 3-7 cm. So I had gone through almost all the active labor in my own bed and bathtub. Needless to say, when the next sentence from the nurse was,"Would you like an epidural?" I said,"YES! Soon! I've done enough natural childbirthing at home."

She ran to the hallway and it seemed that 10 seconds later the room was full of people hurriedly putting in an IV, getting me ready for the epidural, assisting, taking notes, whatever. They quickly got me hooked up to antibiotics when I confirmed I would need them and shouted at one of the staff,"YES! I need the Group B strep medicine now! I need the antibiotics! HURRY!" She kinda flinched and said,"Well, we'll do it as fast as we can...." I tried to apologize through a contraction. Mike explained for me that the labor went too fast last time to get through the entire dose. To appease us, it was put on the fastest flow possible and good news is we finished it this time.

The epidural went in me really fast while I tearfully clung to Mike and sobbed from the pain and fear. See, I totally love the epidural. It helps so much. But I still have a fear of an anesthesiologist getting it just a tiny bit wrong and paralyzing me. Luckily, it went in just fine again and the only problem was my already low blood pressure took a sharp dip. The anesthesiologist ran out in a panic to get a medicine into my IV to stabilize it, and it worked out just fine.

I was checked immediately after the epidural and had dilated to 9 cm in those few minutes. As the staff was walking out to let us get some rest before the pushing stage set in, I asked the nurse to notify my dr that I wouldn't be at my 11:30 appointment. I was assuming that whichever dr was on call would be the delivery doctor. She smirked at me and said,"Dr Epstien will be here within the hour for the pushing stage, and to break your water if necessary. He knows." I wasn't feeling any of those massive contractions anymore, so Mike and I got some rest for about an hour and notified some family that the baby would be a little early and would arrive very soon.

So Dr Epstien came, broke the water for me, and about a half hour later my gorgeous baby boy was out! I was so happy to have him out of me, in my arms looking up at me with that angry little face.

He's only a week old today and it's already like we don't know what we did without him in our family. Well, we got more sleep, that's for sure! He is beautiful and amazing.

Grant Reed Christensen

I'll post more pictures later, but here's just one for now. OK, two.



Grant at the hospital.

Grant at home.


He looks EXACTLY like Lincoln as a newborn, but with a rounder fatter baby face. He is totally gorgeous, absolutely one of the cutest babies I've ever seen. We are so glad to have him here!

Grant Reed Christensen was born Tuesday September 16th at 9:04 AM at 7 lbs. 5 oz. and he is really healthy and beautiful! He spent 1 1/2 days in Level 2 Nursery due to low blood sugar and swallowing too much blood/birth fluids. But he got to come home with his parents Thursday morning and is just eating and sleeping up a storm, as newborns do.

I have this whole birth story that includes not realizing I was in the grocery store Mon. night in active labor, and us not getting to the hospital until I was almost done, but I'll make time to post on that very soon. And pictures/info on how Linc's doing being a big brother. All that fun stuff.

Best laid plans go to pot once again

So this time, hoping to avoid what happened last time I delivered a baby, I persuaded my dr. into scheduling an induction date for me a week before the 40 week mark. I was really not excited when I thought about managing a willful 3 year old while huge and in early "walking" labor. That's the awful type of labor that can come and go for days or even over a week with intermmitent and unpredictable contractions, sometimes weak but sometimes strong enough to make you cry. The kind they won't admit you to the hospital for.

I got through 4 days of that last time before the dr finally, FINALLY just saw how I was being tortured and admitted me to the hospital. I'd tried about 3 times to get in over the previous 3 days, being sent home each time. And when I finally got admitted and started active labor, the laboring went faster then they expected and I didn't complete the full dosage of IV antibiotics I was supposed to have for Group B Strep (a very common strep strain they test for in the last trimester). Luckily, it seems I was close enough to finished to avoid infecting Lincoln with anything, but if they would have just let me in the night before when I was absolutely begging them to.....

Oh well. This time it's a different dr, different hospital. I thought perhaps on the 22nd I could go in for my induction and complete the antibiotics before they even break my water, and the early labor contractions will not last so long and will be carefully monitored from the onset. I've totally planned this week out around the 22nd being delivery day.

And what actually happens? Along with some other early labor symptoms I won't gross you out with, significant early labor contractions began at 3AM this morning, then tapered off to nothing a few hours later. Yes, 2 full weeks before the due date! So much for planning!

I feel yucky, it's hard to eat much, even more difficult to sleep. Another baby subjects me to the joys of "walking labor". This boy clearly has exit plans of his own. I still don't know when, but it's looking like before the 22nd.

So Merideth, our boys birthdays might be real real close, with you delivering just a little late and me just a little early. Hope I get one as adorable as yours. :)

I'll write again when I have the baby pictures. Wish us luck!

Beginning with the most exciting news for me......

The end is in sight, there is a light at the end of this 9 month tunnel! My dr. has kindly agreed to induce labor on Monday, September 22. That's only one week before my EDD of the 29th, and although I would have liked an induction date of.... oh, this weekend instead, this is as close as he'd let me get. So if the baby hasn't decided to appear by then on his own, the 22nd is his birthday like it or not! I am very excited to have him here and hold him in our arms and look into his sweet little face.

Also.... we've told some people our name selection already, but kept it on the down low from others. In the last few months,if we've told you our definite name choice, just to inform you..... we've changed it, we're not doing that one anymore. Back to the drawing board. It's also, like Lincoln, getting used too commonly these days. At this point, I think the decision won't be made until we're at the hospital.

I totally feel like Lucy Ricardo. I saw the episode of I Love Lucy last week where she was giantly pregnant with the future little Ricky, and she spent the whole episode constantly changing her mind about the names. Without the benefit of ultrasounds, she was coming up with the names in gender sets. "It'll be named either John or Mary..... no, wait...... Edward or Madeline....." and her poor husband just had to deal with all of these quirky pregnancy behaviors Mike has also been dealing with. Poor husbands.

Well, on to the main event. Here's pictures from Thursday, Linc's first day of preschool.



After awaking Lincoln and giving him his tasty toaster waffles breakfast, we got him ready for school while Daddy was gathering his school things also. He had to be in the bathroom with Mike to 'shave', like Daddy. He's such a Daddy mimic, I shoulda foreseen the upcoming problem we had......


Lincoln spent some time stalling and wanting to stay home and play trains instead, but once Daddy said "Lincoln lets go to school" and went to the garage, Lincoln ran to the door with his bookbag and glared at me like,"Why are you taking my picture? It's time to go, Mama!"

Then we drive to SLCC, drop off Mike in the parking lot. Lincoln looks heartbrokenly at his beloved Daddy going into a building without him and screamed and cried. "I need to go to school! I need school! I need big school with Daddy!!!" is what I got to hear the whole car ride over to preschool. Apparently when we made a big deal of going to school and Daddy driving him to school to learn things, he didn't think he'd have to be separated from Dad. Here's his picture on the way over.



When we got there I sat with him outside and calmed him down, telling him how much better his school is with friends and crayons and toys. I let him know he'd have a lot more fun here. It's a good thing we were early. When he wasn't so distraught, I took a few more pictures outside while we waited.


About ten minutes before class starts, the teachers opened the doors for us. We'd been there before a couple times, but just to help him I gave Lincoln a short tour again of the bathroom, the drinking fountain, and his classroom.


And this was their first activity, sitting in a circle on a rug for music time. Since I was encouraged not to linger esp. on the first day, that's all I photographed of the actual class time.

I have to say, after Linc's fit in the car on the way over, I saw no reason to add any emotions to it. So thanks to him, I was really pretty calm in dropping him off and leaving him for 2 1/2 hours. He's just growing up so fast and I'm so proud of him! I couldn't remain entirely stoic while I waited at Village Inn for 'the boys' to be done, but Linc saw only my excitement. It's better for him that way.








And here's the first of many triumphant exits he will have from this preschool as a CLEAN AND DRY boy. Yes, there were no accidents on the 1st day, prayer really does work.

The exhausted boy fell asleep on the way home. I almost did too. That's all till next week.