Oh he will be late, I know it...

... Not!

My son, my sweet little son decided he wanted out on his due date, at midnight on the 16th I was just getting ready for bed and my water broke, To be sure I woke and told hubby and then laid down for 10 mins like we're told by the OB to make sure it's your waters breaking and yep, sure enough within 2 minutes of laying down they gushed again. We phoned the OB and she told us to head on in to the hospital and get checked over and admitted even though I wasn't feeling any contractions at that moment. It's a good thing we were getting ready anyway like she said because I hung up with her and seconds later my contractions started, probably about 7-10 mins apart which quickly got to every 3-5 mins apart once we were in the car. We got to the hospital parking lot and started the short walk into the ER as it was after hours and the main entrance to labor and delivery was closed at 1am. Well we tried, I got 2/3 of the way to the ER doors, stopping every few minutes as a contraction hit, not painful at that point they just glued me to the spot, doubled over until it eased up 30 seconds later. which was just enough time to cross a small road and get a few feet before another hit, thankfully the security guard saw us on his first pass around the parking lot and when he made his second sweep he brought out a wheelchair and took us up to L&D. Hooked up to monitors for half an hour we could see the peeks and falls of contractions (well I could feel them anyway) and we could see the trace on Aiden, they did tests to see that it was my water that broke and after a quick exam (2cm dilated) we were admitted and taken to my delivery room. at 3cm I was given an epidural whilst the anesthesiologist was there doing one in the next room, which helped for a while but by the time I was 7cm dilated it was not helping as Aiden's head pushed down it showed that the epidural hadn't taken in some areas and I felt everything. Well turns out it didn't have a chance to be topped up as I went from 7 to 10cm (well 13cm to fit his head LOL so fully dilated) very quickly and I was ready to push... The staff however weren't ready, my OB still wasn't there at 7.15am ish and I was already pushing. she got there around 8.30 and Aiden was born at 8.34am!

Introducing Aiden Owen Steib, 8.34am, 7lbs 14oz, 19.25 inches!

baby shower fun and the end of line club...

My sister in law and ladies from Church arranged a wonderful baby shower to celebrate Aiden in February, We were overwhelmed with the outpouring of love and generosity from family and friends, we felt and still feel so blessed to have such a wonderful community to welcome Aiden into. I even managed to find a dress that still fit at 34 weeks pregnant haha

 
I was also able to get the rest of his room finished, I tackled that ugly closet and it ended up looking nice and bright with colors...

We still have some decals to put up on the back wall (behind me as I took the last photo) and the lamp I moved to the corner behind the bed. Aiden has also outgrown the napper in his pack and play already so its not in there anymore. The next few weeks I did the usual nesting, washing his first size clothes and trying to stay somewhat active even though I had pain from his head being engaged. Went to Downtown Disney to meet some friends at 37 weeks pregnant, omgosh the walk, I mean waddle was torture, what sould have been a 5 min walk was a good half hour! and then again out at 38 weeks with friends to Company D the cast member store. after that I could barely walk down the stairs every morning and up them to bed every night, in fact the 15th of march I was delaying going up those stairs in every way possible, I even managed to paint my toenails a nice gold color in case I was still pregnant on st. Patricks day (the day after my due date). I'm pretty sure thats what set off labor, well breaking my waters at least. We'll save the rest for tomorrow!

The adventure continues

At our Sequential screenings they did blood tests on me and then did specific scans on baby at 12 weeks gestation, these were to screen for markers of diseases and illnesses like spina bifida, downs and various other syndromes. Having anything 'wrong' with baby wouldn't change our decision to keep him so as the screening was covered by our insurance, we took it as another chance to see our little bundle of baby.

He pulled some jazz hand moves mid scan!

The Dr then switched to get a more detailed view of baby's spine and he flipped to facing down. never been so proud of a sweet looking spine haha! He gave baby the all clear as far as the scans and said he also thought it was a boy but also wouldn't confirm and had us make an appointment for the follow up scan and tests for 18 weeks.

They even gave us a dvd with his scan, I can't tell you how many times I played it over and over.

Towards the end of September we had another visit with my OB, she confirmed that he was a boy... we didn't wait on shopping and stopped on our way home to buy his first outfit

October rolled in and we had my older brother visiting from the UK, we went to Disneyland and enjoyed seeing all the halloween decorations, when we went shopping that week (17 weeks pregnant) we bought a baby pumpkin!

We also took my brother to our second set of tests and scans for the sequential screening, everything went well and the Dr discharged us back to my OB and confirmed for sure that it's a boy, also told hubby to never go against a mum's instincts as I had said from the day we got our positive test that it'd be a boy lol. Here's the video instead of posting all of the pics from it, once again we loved that they gave us a dvd of the session.

At this point his kicks were strong enough to be felt by hubby, it melted my heart when he first felt baby kick. we also narrowed down the name choices for a boy, we had initially set on Aiden Nathaniel, but neither of us were feeling it anymore, we finally figured out that we still loved Aiden just not the middle name so together we decided on one of hubby's picks of Owen as his middle name and to keep the rest as back ups incase the names didn't fit once he was born. We started to work on his room just before thanksgiving and we donated a ton of old movies and cd's, books, clothes and other little and not so little things. We bought his pack and play and put it up in our room, moving my dresser to Aiden's room seeing as I had donated away 80% of the clothes I had in there it was of little use to me and we needed somewhere for the mounting piles of clothes friends and family were sending over for him.

That ugly looking closet behind was my next mission, but first my parents came to visit for Christmas and New Years so we put decorating his room on hold as they were staying in there, we had decided back when we were at the OB office and seeing a flyer that our Christmas gift to each other would be a 4D scan session at a local office. We planned it so that my parents would be here to see with us, hubby's mum and sister came along too as well as one set of Aiden's Godparents. Seeing Aiden's face not just in profile but in 4D/3D blew us away, it's one thing to see your unborn baby's face from side shot and front on where you mostly see their skull shape not really what their features look like. A certain secret santa bumped the dvd package we had opted for to the 2 visit one too so we got to See Aiden at 28 weeks and then again at 32. 4D is amazing, people say oh it's not worth it, you'll see your baby anyway in x amount of weeks, I beg to differ! It offered our families who aren't always able to come visit at the drop of a hat to see what their future grandson/nephew looked like at that moment, a bonding moment that could not be replicated by a 2D scan (we had an OB appointment that morning and Aiden had his back to us, head down and hiding so they saw his feet and back, back of his head and not much else LOL)

Anyway a few choice from 28 weeks

and 32 weeks.

We went on a few road trips with my parents to Pismo and Monterey and then to Palm Springs, a lot of walking for a pregnant lady but we had a blast, we especially loved Monterey where we met up with our friends from Modesto and enjoyed some yummy pizza after spending the day at the wharf with them as my parents took a whale watching cruise. My parents bought Aiden his stroller system and hubby's parents bought Aiden a video monitor. We spent Christmas cooking for my parents and we enjoyed the day together as our last big holiday sans baby, and very sad when my parents left in January to go home. but it also marked the 3 month mark until Aiden was due!

To be continued....

The adventure begins!

Almost a year ago, we started our whirlwind adventure that would bring us our adorable little boy, Aiden!

We tried the whole anticipation of waiting to test and buckled and took a test early to a faint but very much there positive line the day before 4th of July. We told our immediate family members straight away and hubby corralled me into telling everyone else... with the reasoning that if something were to happen, that at least we were able to celebrate the tiny, precious little life we'd created together. We did save our friends and family of seeing posts of the positive test although I'm pretty sure a photo of it is still on my old phone, I had to prove to myself it was real!

Roll forward a few weeks to friends visiting out of town, we went to Disneyland to make the dreams come true of a dear friend who had never been and is still battling cancer, we had a great weekend and even got to dine in Club 33! (itty bitty dot of a baby got to share a fantastic meal with me lol). I was careful and didn't ride any of the 'big' E-Ticket rides and felt fine. A few days later when I was getting ready to go to the movies with hubby I had slight cramping when I woke up and to my first-time-mum-to-be horror some bleeding. So it was off to the Hospital instead of the movies and numerous tests later we were told it could be a miscarriage, the scan the ER performed showed just the amniotic sac and the yolk (it feeds baby until the placenta grows) at almost 6 weeks along. No fetal pole or heartbeat observed at that time but the measurements they took matched with our dates, they sent me home on bedrest and told to come back in two days for repeat blood tests. Those repeat blood tests were so much more relieving as they not only doubled, they almost tripled! (cue family and friends suggesting twins haha). After that we had to wait to have my booking appointment with my Obstetrician, two long agonizing weeks wondering if baby was doing ok...

So our fears were settled down and we saw our little guy properly for the first time, we both welled up when we saw him and heard his heartbeat. I was taken off bed rest and could resume activities slowly. We started talking over names we'd previously thought of and settled for Amelia Rose for a girl and Aiden Nathaniel for a boy (yep we reneged on his middle name several times). Passing several baby stores on the way home we resisted buying anything baby related and nicknamed baby sonic because he was all curled up in a ball for his scan.

We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary a few days later and thought over how the next anniversary we have, we could have a 5 month old baby if everything went well. We went about normal business on buying gifts for each other and decided we wanted a funky new purple toaster and a dish chair, exclaiming on how we were sure I had a tiny 8 week bump starting to show. and how bad my morning sickness was getting, thank goodness for Zofran that the ER sent me home with and my primary Dr wrote me several prescriptions for!

We relaxed for the next few weeks, taking trips to Disneyland and I behaved again, we took our cousin's eldest daughter for the day and had a blast, I know it made me even more anxious to have a safe and healthy pregnancy, I so could not wait until the day we get to take our baby there and various other places. at the end of the month we had my second visit (almost 12 weeks) to the Obstetricians and she did another scan, not so much a sonic the hedgehog anymore, he even waved his arms around.

Our Obstetrician said don't go running out and buying blue, blue blue but it did look like he was a boy but she wouldn't confirm and gave us a referral to get sequential first trimester screenings done at the office in the next building over the following week (more scans yay!)

To be continued...