Hospital Pictures!

Okay, so these are tons of pics from the hospital. The top one is the last one taken before we took Brendan home. There are tons more but my husband made me use discretion... even though I vetoed some naked baby pictures too. More to come tomorrow but it's late and Brendan is hungry. Oh, and my favorite is the one with Brent and the pacifier, too cute!

He's here!!!!

So I'm sure some know by now... it definitely was my water breaking. So that was at 10:15 pm on June 17th. Brendan Daniel Bean came into the world at 1:25 am on June 18, 2008. It was crazy! I didn't get to have ANY pain medication at all cause it went so quickly. Not the way I would've chosen to give birth to my first but it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. Plus now everyone keeps telling me how amazing I am :-) I have broken blood vessels in both eyes to prove just how tough I was, lol. So if you see some creepy pictures of me, that's what that is. Brendan was 7 lbs, 1 oz and 20.5 inches long. He is absolutely adorable!

We came home yesterday after what seemed like the longest discharge process ever! We're all very tired but enjoying seeing lots of family and friends. Brent is doing great and is such a proud Daddy. He's taking good care of me and Brendan. I'm experiencing the joys (and pains) of breastfeeding. And Brendan is doing his best to not let us sleep at night. We're all learning from each other and while it is very tiring, it's been an amazing experience so far.

Water Broke?!?

We think the water just broke....We are going to the ER to check.....more updates to come...maybe. lol

At most 1 more week!

Our appointment went well today. We told the doc that I had been having more cramps/upper uterus pain in the past couple of days. And I am 90% effaced and 1 cm dilated! I can't believe it jumped that much again. So I went from 0% to 50% to 60% to 90%. The other news is that if Brendan decides to stay in just one more week, we are going to induce next Tuesday. And those who know me well enough to know my birthday... that's next Tuesday. Some people would say "aww, that's exciting!" but since I am a middle child and love to get attention when I can, I say "but that's MY birthday!". I told Brent that if our son loves me, he won't want me to be in the pains of labor on my birthday, lol. But I also noted that most of the major dates in my life have occurred on even numbered months, days, and years. Though Brent quickly reminded me that we started dating on an odd month, day, and year. So who knows? What we do know is that I am definitely close to having labor start naturally and that we hope that's what happens but if not... we'll have a baby by next Tuesday (or Wednesday). My guess is that it will happen before next Tuesday honestly. So I'm really glad Mom, Brent, and I worked really hard this past week to get things washed and put away in the baby's room. Now we just need to catch up the rest of the house!

1 week left?!

Monday's appointment went well. I am now 60% effaced and a little less than 1 cm dilated. My doc said he thinks I'm only going to carry this baby for another week! Crazy! So I went ahead and decided that I needed a day to organize the baby room and wash and that I needed my wonderful mother to help me. So that's what we're doing tomorrow. I told her and Brent that knowing me, as soon as I get that done (and our bag for the hospital packed) I'll probably relax and then the baby will come, lol. Brent told me I should've made today the organizing/cleaning day so the baby would come tomorrow. Tomorrow is Brent's dad's birthday.

The church shower was wonderful! We got so many presents! I went through all of the clothes that we got from all 4 showers to see how many we had in each size. We definitely have plenty in the 3 month, 6 month, and 3-6 month size. And the majority of what we got were onesies. Which will be good for this summer. I'm also excited cause we have 3 outfits to choose from for Brendan to wear on the 4th of July. Which I guess we can take him to the festivities? We'll probably see how we're all doing first. I'll have to invest in some sunscreen for the babe too, cause since he's our child, he'll be a fried bean if we don't protect him from the sun!

I think that's all for now. So I'm hoping that I continue to get as good a night's sleep each night as last night up until the little bean decides to pop out! We will keep you updated!

Exciting gift news!

I just heard about an exciting gift to buy for yourself, grandparents, father's day gift, etc. from a fellow mommy-to-be. At her hospital they offer a kit from Build-A-Bear to record the baby's heartbeat so you can then take it to Build-A-Bear and forever immortalize your child in a bear (or whatever stuffed animal you choose). I don't know yet if my hospital offers this and yours may not either but not to worry! In doing a few quick searches I discovered that people have been doing this for a long time without the hospital's help and that it was a hospital in the northeast that actually started this $30 kit idea. They offer the sound recording and like a hospital t-shirt or something like that. So the cheap and easy way to do this is to go to Build-A-Bear and buy their "Build-A-Sound" kit for $8 and take it to your next appointment to record the baby's heartbeat. And then of course go back to put it in a stuffed animal.

Anyways, I thought this was one of the cutest and most unique ideas I'd heard of so I thought I'd pass it along.

Things are progressing nicely

So yesterday we had another appointment. The doctor said that I am 50% effaced now. Last week I was 0% so I guess the kid is getting impatient, lol. I also got the results of the Strep B test and it was positive. All that means is that I am a carrier and so I'll have to have antibiotics during labor so I don't pass it on to our son. It's no big deal and is actually fairly common.

We asked the doctor to clarify what he had said last week about the due date. He explained the due date to us being like an airport. You are scheduled to land on the due date but you might sit on the runway for a while or circle the airport a few times, etc. But he still thinks the baby is going to come early. He said since he's probably about 7 pounds now that the closer we get to the due date the bigger the numbers are going to get. He said we'll probably talk in a couple of weeks and see what options we have. He did say that obviously the best way to give birth is naturally and that you can deliver an 8 pounder but there are options and we'll just decide what's best for me and the baby at that point.

In the meantime I'm starting to feel a lot more pressure, especially when I stand up after sitting for a while. I finally asked about taking Zantac and the doctor said that was fine. I finally slept through the night last night without having to wake up and eat Tums 1 or 2 times. That's the first time that's happened since around week 27 or so... I honestly can't remember when it was but I know it's been a while!

I just realized that I have yet to put the poor child's name on our blog! It's not like we've been keeping it a secret but it's just not been published anywhere (with the exception of shower invitations). His name is going to be Brendan Daniel. The only story behind the name is that Brendan is a name I read in the Lois Duncan book A Gift of Magic when I was in Junior High and it's stuck with me ever since. I actually discovered when I went looking through the book that it's spelled differently in there but I like it better this way. And Daniel is Brent's middle name. My dad and I both have looked up the meaning of Brendan and we came up with two different things. Dad found that it was derived from the Welsh word meaning "prince". When I looked it up I found that it was Irish and meant "little raven". I just looked it up again and in England it means "sword". I think "prince" is our favorite so far. It fits since he's the first grandchild on both sides of the family and will be spoiled rotten, lol.