Grayson's Birth

5:40 am

I am ready to go to the hospital after staying the night with friends in Kenai, 100 miles away from home.  I have chosen to be induced 3 days after the baby's due date rather than driving all the way home and waiting any longer.

I know pitocin means reaching my goal of a "natural" birth more difficult, but I'm still determined to try.  We go to the hospital and I am 2.5-3 cm dilated, but the baby is too high to just break my water and let things happen on their own, so I get all hooked up.  I have to have antibiotics anyway for group B strep and we start the pitocin drip.  The doctor says it may take 3-5 hours to start working, but I know it won't because my body seems to just wait for the littlest hint of pitocin to start pulsing through my veins before it takes giving birth seriously.

Regular contractions begin within minutes.  Unlike my past inductions, these first contractions are mild and easy to deal with.  Surprisingly, the nurses let me order breakfast and eat.  I'm glad I won't have to starve through this labor.  Soon after, my friend and mother of 8, Nikki arrives to help me through labor.  She, myself and Ben talk and joke through the first few hours.

Then slowly the contractions begin getting more intense.  The doctor breaks my water, which was torture, and things begin moving faster. We turn off the TV and turn on the calming music we brought.  Ben and Nikki continue to talk between contractions, but I find it hard to focus on anything they are saying.   They are such a comfort to me though and I appreciate the understanding and experience Nikki brings.  They begin applying pressure to my hips and feet and holding my hand during contractions while I close my eyes and focus on the music.  I find special comfort in the pieces that I had played on the piano before as I can picture myself playing the music; a welcome distraction from the pain.

Then the contractions really start picking up and I can't help but make loud, moaning sounds through them.  The baby starts to stretch out, putting a lot of pressure on my ribs and I am in constant pain.  We remember the labor tub and decide to move there.  

The water feels so good, but the hard tub is a little awkward and uncomfortable.  The warmth of the water helps me relax somewhat and the contractions intensify again.  I am now vocalizing loudly through each contraction and falling into a sleep-like trance between them.  They check my progress and I am only 6 cm!  I know things will go quickly and with intensity from here on and I can no longer cope well.  I know I still have time for an epidural and my resolve fails.  

It takes half an hour plus to get enough fluids in my IV to administer the epidural, then we must drain the tub, get out, walk back to my room and wait for the epidural to be prepared and administered.  These are the most difficult contractions mentally.  I don't want to do it anymore, but have no choice.  I can not stand on my own whatsoever as the contractions come again and again regardless of what I am doing.  I am completely dependent on Ben.  He is my world.  I can not bear a single contraction without his hand in mine and he is there - watching, holding, comforting, loving - every step of the way.  I am so thankful.  

Then as I sat hunched over on the bed, waiting for relief, practically suffocating into a pillow as each contraction came, the doctor prepping my epidural answers his cell phone and proceeds to discuss salmon fishing and the proper test lines to use for fishing king salmon!  Ben puts his arm around me in an attempt to comfort me and the doctor throws his arm off me while still talking fish.  We are all horrified.  He finally asks to call his friend back and finally gives me relief as I sat on the brink of mental breakdown!

I lay down and let the warm numbness come over me as they check my progress again.  I am at 8 cm, but the doctor says she can stretch it to a 10 and I can begin pushing any time.  I can still feel the pain of each contraction in a triangle on my right side, but ask to rest for a few minutes to recover from the intensity of it all.  I don't regret the epidural, not one ounce.  I relish the relaxation that finally comes over me and feel ready to push soon after.

After 4 pushes, Grayson is born.

I look at him, I look at Ben and I am full of joy.

Gray Heaven

Our family has caught a glimpse of heaven and his name is Gray!

Grayson Steven was born Saturday at 4:05 pm

8 lbs 14 oz

20.5 in.

He is perfect and everything went well.

He has the most amazingly thick, curly hair!

And he was met by a whole bunch of people who sure love him.

Welcome to our family my little angel.

Pre-School Graduation and Still waiting...

Today is the baby's due date and I'm still at home waiting for any sign of impending labor.

So I figure instead of going crazy, just waiting, I'll update the blog!

Russ had his pre-school graduation last Thursday.  He went to a great little Christian pre-school called Seeds of Faith.  It was a great year for him.  They had the cutest little graduation and somehow actually got all the kids to willingly wear caps and gowns.  They sang a bunch of songs for us and it was SO CUTE.  And Nana and Pop-Pop got to be there for it too!

Here's Russel with his teacher Miss Anne who is retiring.  All the kids got a little folder with pictures and mementos from the year as well as a gift; a little Noah's Ark sticker set. 

He told me afterwards that he was so so so so nervous that he didn't even want to be there!

I told him I couldn't even tell because he did such a good job and I was proud of him for doing it even though he was nervous.

I'm so proud of you my Russel!

And this is what our Mother's Day looked like up here in crazy Alaska.

AHHHH!!!! MORE SNOW!

It snowed the whole 3 hours during church, I couldn't believe it at all.

My poor parents.  We'd been having nice weather forever and I just couldn't fathom more snow.  But sure enough as soon as they got here, it snowed a little every day for 5 days.  They were frozen.

But we still had a great Mother's Day!  We celebrated with a nice steak dinner and those little boys of mine were sure cute and extra nice all day long!

Little Learners

I just have to quick take note of my little learners!  

Tucker has shown an interest in numbers and letters since very early on.  He loves any books or shows about them.  He actually knew more numbers and letters than Russ for a while, but don't tell him that.  Now they're pretty even.  Just today he asked to put on a movie and he chose a Baby Einsteins about numbers.  I said, "you want to watch this one?" and he said, "yeah, because it has numbers!".  Lol, then he sat there and narrated the whole thing, telling me what number they were showing and counting the objects on screen.  And it's about the cutest thing in the world when we sing the ABC's together.  He has such a funny, little, low voice singing "Now I know mine ABC's...".  He was in a play group this last year, but we quit half way through because he started hating to go.  Hopefully he'll get more comfortable socially over the next year like Russel did.

Russel has been in preschool this year and it has done wonders for his tolerance level of structure.  Because of that, we have finally been successful with his reading lessons.  We have been using the book, "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" (I'm sure many of you have heard of it).  

(via)

We tried twice unsuccessfully in the past, but I guess the third time's the charm!  We are more then half way done now and though I'm not so good at getting a lesson in every day right now, we are still plugging along.  When he completed lesson 50, it was just in time for the ice cream shop opening for the season.  So we took him there and talked to him about how proud we were of his accomplishment.  He just beamed and it was good to see him feel good about working so hard!  And Russ just tries to read almost everything he sees, it's so cute.  He read "Reese's" off of a peanut butter egg at Easter time.  He's working on reading some Bob Books at bed time some nights, and just yesterday he read "Wilcox" off of our 5 dozen eggs.  It's so exhilarating to see him excited about reading. 

He also loves to learn about animals and dinosaurs.  He asks to look at pictures online all the time.  When we were in Florida, we went to a local marine center and he got a little pamphlet about Florida wildlife.  He studied that pamphlet!  In the car we were talking about birds and fish, etc.  and he says some fact about a shark.  Then he says, "And I didn't say that because I'm such a smarty pants, I read about it".  We all laughed and told him, "But you ARE a smarty pants!". 

Having Babies in Alaska and Fighting Zombies

Look at those brothers!  Enjoying some pbs kids on the computer together.

We are still doing well!  I'm starting to get a little more cranky in general, but hey... who wouldn't when it feels like your bod's about to split in half all the time, right?

 Ben got the trailer out of the snow and ice.  It's amazing.  Some friends came and helped us move a few of our larger items out to the trailer and it really feels like we're making progress now!

My parents get into town Wednesday, so I'm actually hoping this baby stays in a little longer.  I've been 1cm dilated for over a week now, so the doc asked me to plan on staying in town after our appointment next week.  You see, we have to travel 2 hours to get to a hospital that delivers babies!  So we're planning on staying with some friends from church that live over there.  The only thing is that my next appointment was scheduled for Wednesday morning, before my parents got in.  AND Russel's pre-school graduation is the next day...  So I called and moved my appointment to Friday, lol.

Let's just hope this kid can wait!

Another exciting thing about having a baby in Alaska is that during all of this, when I could go into labor at any moment, there are nightly road closures along the way to the hospital due to bridge construction.  And there's no such thing as a detour in Seward, Alaska.  There's only one road outta here! I called the police department and they said to just call them before we left if we needed to get through, so it's really no big deal.

And Ben's had some serious sore muscles for the past month because of all his shoveling and moving stuff.  So once in a while, he'll just lay there and let the kids beat it out of him.  Really, the kids are just gradually taking over as Ben and I both slowly become zombies.  But look at those guys!  They love fighting zombies, so it's all good!