1 week old

Parker's original due date was today, 1-29. His induction date was 1-26. He was born on 1-21. See, he is totally my kid, better early than late! That is my way of life.

This has been an exhausting, exhilarating, busy, exciting, scary, emotional, crazy first week. We came home on Monday and my mom was here. She stayed from Monday to Thursday. I thought I would be okay with her leaving, but I was definitely an emotional mess that night.

Sleep is something I really miss. I seem to get enough to survive, I guess. I just miss sleeping for 7 or 8 hours...I wasn't really doing this the last month of pregnancy either. I think the difference is that I could lay in bed and think about not sleeping and now I have to get out of bed and function enough to change a diaper and feed a baby. *sigh* I do love those moments though. It's quiet and it's just him and I in the rocking chair while he eats. I love it.

I try to stay awake until his last evening feeding around 11-ish, then it is bedtime. Right now it is 11:40 and he needs to eat and get into his sleep sack. That is how I hope he knows it is bedtime! We'll see.

I can't believe how in love I am with this little guy.

Baby Parker is Here!

It was a long process, but here we are! After making my decision to stop working after Tuesday, things really began to happen. Wednesday was a nice relaxing day at home. There was snow that began that night, and it snowed, and it snowed, and it snowed. Mr. S. had this feeling that he should get a start on the driveway just in case. I just laughed at him and said we would probably be waiting until his induction date the next week.

Thursday at 1am I woke up to some contractions. I didn't think much about it because it had happened before. I started timing them and also realized I couldn't sleep through them. At 5:50 I woke Mr. S. up and told him about my contractions and that I was going to call Labor and Delivery to see what to do. They weren't really consistent so they told me to wait about an hour and see how things were going. I waited and things weren't changing, so I called my doctor and they told me to go on to L&D.

Mr. S. went out to scrape the driveway of the 7-10 inches of snow we got overnight. Ugh! We got to L&D after a slow drive. I was in pain with my contractions, so they let me in a room and started monitoring me. They decided to keep me because of the weather and the fact that I was in early labor. This was at 10am, so I had been in early labor for about 9 hours.

I went through contractions all day and night. At about 2am I received an epidural. At 5am they gave me pitocin to get my contractions to do something consistent and closer together. I wasn't dilating past a 5 and there were some other issues going on, so we had to make the decision of a c-section.

At noon they wheeled me in and by 12:35 we had welcomed Parker into the world. I have never been happier. He is a bundle of adorable joy!

Decision Made

I am at home...in the middle of the day...which means that I made yesterday my final day at work. I think Mr. S. would have kicked me if I continued working. He said he was going to barricade the door so I couldn't leave....haha! So, I told them that yesterday was my final day and now I am here at home.

Probably a good idea to be here since there is snow moving into the area. My last day was going to be Friday anyway and there is probably going to be a snow day at least tomorrow if not tomorrow and Friday...so yeah, it worked out well.

Now I am 7 days out from my induction date. This time next week I will be in the hospital awaiting Parker's arrival. It is quite surreal. I can't believe I am going to officially be a mom. Wow.

Decisions

Yesterday I went in for my 38 week appointment and had to go over to L&D due to high blood pressure. They ran labs and monitored me for a couple of hours. If it didn't drop they were going to induce, if it did drop then I would go home. Obviously I am typing this, so I am home.

I can't lie. I really wanted to just have him yesterday. The emotional roller coaster is going full steam right now and it is getting hard to go from day to day. My contractions have started hurting, my patience is gone, and I am exhausted.

I know that my blood pressure had to have gone up because of work. I started feeling crummy at about 1:30 yesterday. I ended up with a headache, was SO hot, and just done. With everything happening yesterday I feel like I need to make a decision about work. I planned for Friday to be my last day, but with this happening, I don't want to push it and make something bad happen. Mr. S. does not want me going back to work. I want to make it easy for me and just stay until Friday, but I don't know if this is realistic at this point. I think there will be some snow days at least on Thursday, so that might help...I just don't know what to do at this point. Everything in my head tells me that it is time. I need to go in and talk to my principal about it. Ugh...decision making is not good for an indecisive person!

Like right now, my contractions are 7 minutes apart. But they will eventually taper off. *sigh* I'll figure out something.

10 days...

...until Parker is here. That is, if he doesn't make his own appearance first. I wouldn't doubt that happening either. I have been having contractions all day every day for the past...like...3 or 4 days. Ugh, they are exhausting. Last night they actually started to hurt. One had me doubled over and hanging on to the refrigerator door handles. I thought that was THE ONE. It wasn't. I'm still here, and there is still a baby in there. I think his head was maybe on a nerve.

I bought the last of the baby supplies yesterday, had my final baby shower at work on Thursday, and there are clothes in the dryer to fold to put in his room. I had a burst of energy when we got home from Mr. S.'s holiday party last night and we put together the last of the items I bought. Now we are ready. Well, as soon as I fold the last of the clothes and blankets.

It is hitting me that my induction date is 1-26...just around the corner. My last day at work (as long as he isn't here before!) is 1-21. This Friday. I am nervous, scared, excited...a bundle of nerves. I have wanted to be a mom for a long time, but I never really thought about it REALLY happening. Here we are, a week and a half out. I am so...overwhelmed, but excited. I can't wait to meet the little guy...

I went from this to...........................................................this! WOW!