Oscar Quincy's Birth Story

Just like with Xander, I spent a month in prodromal labor with pretty severe HG symptoms controlling my life. On two different occasions we shipped the older two kids off with friends so we could head to the hospital, only to have contractions disappear as soon as the kids were gone. On Tuesday Aug 1st, Chou called my doctor and begged them to put me out of my misery, as I was contracting but getting nowhere and no longer able to eat or drink. They sent us to the hospital (so, again, we dropped off Xander. E was on vacation with my parents) who was not so compliant, but eventually gave me 2 bags of fluid, some Zofran, and sent me on my way. On Thursday, the midwife sent me back to labor and delivery due to a high fetal heart rate. While on the monitors for hours, baby's heart rate stayed around 170 with very occasional dips down to the 130s. After this pattern continued, the OB was fairly certain that the high readings were simply accelerations caused by excessive movement, and that 130 was the actual baseline heart rate, and she once again sent us on our way with instructions to come into the office again by Monday. Friday night around midnight I felt a few contractions, but nothing more than I had been feeling for a month. Around 2am I decided that we should probably make sure we could get ahold of friends to take Xander just in case things progressed. At 2:30 we packed the car, dropped Xander off, and headed to the hospital. We think we arrived around 3:15am. We parked and took a good 10 minutes to walk 3 steps, contract, walk 3 more steps, etc. etc. and eventually make it to the door. Chou checked us in and I headed to the restroom to sit and work through some more contractions for another 10 minutes. By the time I came out, they asked me if I wanted a wheel chair, and I gladly accepted their offer. They wheeled me back to a room (no triage this time, praise Jesus!) and gave me a gown and motioned to the attached bathroom for me to change. I decided that right where I was, still sitting in the wheel chair was good enough, and Chou and the nurse helped me put on the hospital gown and then hop over to the bed where they hooked up the monitor.  I was getting uncomfortable and mentioned I that an epidural sounded like a great idea, and the nurse said, "well, let's make sure they're going to keep you first" before she left the room. Chou applied pressure for the next contraction or two, and I told him I felt like we needed people in the room, like we shouldn't be alone. He asked if I needed to push, and I said not yet. The doctor came back with the nurse and checked me. I was 9cm, he felt it was too late for an epidural, and the baby was still too high to break my water. I was fine without the epidural knowing I was at 9cm already and clearly not still in prodromal labor, but bummed he couldn't break my water. I generally get stuck at 9.5cm until they break my water. With E I stayed there for 6 hours before they broke it! Regardless, Chou applied pressure with the next contraction, and the OB took a few large steps back, informing Chou he was about to be showered with the water breaking. Sure enough, the next contraction broke my water at 3:42am, mere minutes after we made it back to the room. The nurse declared she was giving up trying to get an IV in my arm. I pushed with the next contraction and everyone in the room yelled at me to "STOP PUSHING!!!" The baby's head was out revealing the cord tightly wrapped around his little neck. The doctor clamped the cord, cut it, and then I pushed his body the rest of the way out at 3:44am. I asked if it was a boy or girl, and the oh-so-helpful doctor replied that he had no idea. Chou checked and announced it was a boy! Baby was incredibly blue and bruised from his quick entrance and unfortunate cord placement, so I kept picking him up off my chest to make him cry just to make sure he was breathing.

He was born so fast he didn't expel any amniotic fluid, so he spent the first 12-13 hours refusing to suck or eat until he eventually spit up enough to make room in his small tummy. The nurses and pediatrician reassured us it was no big deal, so we just held him while he slept his first day of life away. He was born nameless (seems to be a trend) but we eventually settled on Oscar (meaning God's spear) Quincy (just cuz we like it, nod to John Quincy Adams). He goes by Oscar, Oscar Quinn, or just Quinn.

Oscar weighed 8 pounds even at birth and was 21 inches with a head circumference of 14cm. 

Xander Turns Two!

Xander Zekiah is two. Well, he turned two two months ago, but... life happens. Middle child problems, or something like that.

He's all boy. He loves to be outside playing with sticks or in mud and testing his strength and balance by climbing and jumping and running endlessly. He is LOUD. He barely talks, although he communicates quite well, but he is loud! He's sweet, a total mama's boy, and a hot mess since Oscar arrived. I'm a little over the kicking, hitting, spitting, and full body meltdowns. Transitions are hard when you're two!

He loves to snuggle and often still falls asleep in my arms at naptime. He sleeps with E in her bed at night, and is still a great sleeper! 

Xander is currently into dinosaurs, cars, trains, puzzles, and books! He has always loved to read, and would be happy to have me read to him all day every day. He particularly loves the How Do Dinosaurs books. A few tickles can completely change his mood, and he loves to chase and be chased. He can be bribed to do just about anything for a pack of fruit snacks (not that I would...) He loves riding rides at Dutch Wonderland, although he often looks unimpressed, bored, or even terrified. Without fail, he'll ask to do it again and again!

He has a spectacular sense of humor. The boy has been cracking jokes since he was 15 months old, and he still thinks he's absolutely hysterical. Normally I agree.

He was off the bottom of the growth charts for close to two years, and then all the sudden in January he started to grow! He's gained almost a pound a month since then, and all his jeans are suddenly too short. He's 25 pounds and 33 inches tall. He insisted he weigh and measure himself at every single OB visit I had this year.

We decided to take his 2 year pictures and he was NOT having it.

He asked to sit in the car, so we went with it.

He spotted animal crackers, and suddenly all was right with the world.

I am so very thankful for this sweet little boy! I love watching him grow, learn, and smile!

Xander Turns One

Hair: light brown

Eyes: dark brown

Height: 27 inches

Weight: 17 pounds (best guess) 

Teeth: 6

Words: mama, dada, Elli, poppop, dog, bye

Foods: whatever anyone else is eating

Favorites: wrap naps, animals, Elli, splashing in baths, showers, pools

It's time to: cruise, climb, clap, wave, splash

Personality: sweet, laid back, joyful, silly

Fun with the camera... and lights!

We've had such a wonderful holiday season, and have truly enjoyed having Chou off from work for more than Christmas day and New Years day, and we've packed a lot into this month. We've celebrated the birth of Christ as well as Chou, E, and my grandmother, baked dozens of cookies to share, attended several Christmas parties, hosted Christmas Eve dinner, shopped/made and wrapped countless gifts, visited with relatives near and far, learned a few family recipes, ate way too much, frolicked in snow, enjoyed one of our all-time favorite sermon series at church, and we have enjoyed every minute! However there are still a few things we're trying to sneak into the last few days of vacation time. I've been meaning to let E play with Christmas lights and snap a few fun pictures for the past several weeks, but with all that's been going on it just happened this past weekend :)  We're also making handprint and thumbprint salt dough ornaments tomorrow on New Year's Eve. Better late than never! They'll still serve their purpose: next year we'll unwrap them to hang on the tree and marvel at how small E was a year ago. Pretty sure she hasn't grown that much in the past few weeks. But I digress.

Last year my due date with E was December 2nd, and everyone who heard my due date said, "Oh, fun, a Christmas baby!" As a mama who was ready to have this baby as soon as possible, I hated these comments! I was due one week after Thanksgiving and three and a half weeks before Christmas. I was not having a Christmas baby! She did indeed arrive one week after Thanksgiving and didn't make me wait til the 25th (thanks, baby girl!) This year, however, I'll embrace my December baby as a Christmas baby and have extra fun with all the decorations and lights :) Here are a few of my favorite shots of my one year old!

And here's my favorite. Mostly because I tried repeatedly to get some pics with the hat and she kept taking it off and throwing it to the ground. As soon as I forgot about the hat, sat it next to her and let her be, she put it on herself and I snapped this :)

A Year Full of Teddy Bear Pictures

This past year we had a lot of fun measuring E's growth next to a teddy bear. Starting when she was born, we took a picture every month on the same chair, sitting with the same bear. It's been fun to see her growth and how her features and expressions have changed over the past year. Some months we captured better expressions than others, but that's the joy of life with a baby :)

It's so hard to believe that the bear was actually bigger than her in the first few pictures.

She's still such a peanut, but she really has grown. If you look closely, you'll notice she's in the exact same dress in her 3 month and 12 month pictures. She hasn't grown too much :)

Here are our favorites from every month:

*age in months

I plan to keep taking these every year on her birthday :) 


Thanks to Shelby Blevins Photography for months 0 and 3! I'm still in love with the picture of her yawning.

Fresh Fruit Birthday "Cake"

Fruit Birthday Cake

We kept E's first birthday really simple and low-key. All our friends and relatives came out for Chou's big party, and E won't remember this one anyway. We had my parents and grandparents over for food and gifts.

At one year old, E has never had refined sugar or grains and we're hoping to keep that up for the next year as well. Standard birthday cake wasn't going to happen, so we had to get creative. We were originally planning on a bowl of whipped cream and fruit, but Chou had the genius idea to make a cake out of fruit! I loved the idea and the execution!

Chou carved a pineapple into a 3 tiered "cake", and then decorated it with cut up blackberries, strawberries, kiwi, grapes, pears, and a little freshly whipped cream. Not only was it adorable and free of any refined sugar and flour, but E loved it! She adores fruit, so she didn't miss having a real cake one bit. We cut up some extra fruit into a fruit salad for the rest of us.

Playing with grandma and her balloons

We put her highchair in the living room so that we could all comfortably observe :) You'll have to excuse my lovely TV in the background of most of the following pictures.

Here you go!

E tried a little bit of everything, including the whipped cream. Her favorite fruit was the blackberries (obviously, since she was on my light carpet) :)

She ate what she liked and literally set the rest aside (notice the nice little pile of pears next to her plate below).

And then the best part: she put everything back on her plate and pushed it aside when she was done. Love it! I'm a proud mama!

All done! (This is unfortunately the only picture of the pineapple base)

Then we got changed and opened presents! She really loved playing with her new toys and, of course, the boxes and paper as well.

I'm kinda loving these Chinese blocks.

 And within a few minutes of everyone leaving, she caught a little nap :)

this post has been entered in Real Food Wednesdays

Favorite Things Friday - Birthdays!

This week is a little heavy on birthdays in our household. Chou and E's birthdays are one day apart and this year is 30 for Chou and 1 for E. Both pretty big birthdays!

I love that each of us gets one day a year to feel extra special! Chou didn't grow up celebrating birthdays and he's not even certain that his celebrated birthday is indeed the actual day he was born. Crazy! But he's completely embraced the tradition and would be happy for the entire world to stop and recognize him on his birthday.

We had fun celebrating Chou's birthday with friends. We did it a little early so that he would be completely surprised and to give him his own day apart from E's without feeling like he was stealing the spotlight. It's not going to be like this every year, but totally worth it for his 30th!

So for now, Happy Birthday, Chou and Happy Birthday, E! Hope you both feel special, loved, and appreciated today and everyday!!

E's turning 1!!

It really feels like we brought E home yesterday. I'm not quite sure where this year has gone!

After the initial newborn fussy stage for the first month, E has been an incredibly happy kid and is such a joy to have in our lives. Parenting her is such a blessing!

A few fun facts about our 1 year old:

She's right around 16 pounds right now and fits perfectly into 6 month clothes.
I'll add her official stats from her 12 month check up at the end of December. 

She absolutely loves to people watch and is always content when we are out of our house.

She loves dogs and puppies and can spot one half a block away.

She has 5 teeth, all of which have come through in the last two months.

She crawls everywhere and has very little interest in walking. This is surprising to us because she was much more interested in walking than crawling six months ago. At about eight months old she resigned to crawling and hasn't thought much about walking since then.

She's incredibly stubborn just like her mama and daddy.

She will eat absolutely anything! Her current favorites are chicken, beef, peaches, apples, carrots, broccoli, or whatever I'm eating. The only food she doesn't like is bananas; she stopped eating them a few weeks ago. I have no idea what they did to offend her, but she won't go near them any more :)

She says mama, baba (daddy or puppy), and kitty cat. She signs more, please, bye, milk, and water and she's working on apple.

Here are a few pictures of the past year. It's been the best year of my life!

Day before E was born

5 Days

2 Weeks

4 Weeks

2 Months

3 Months

5 Months

6 Months

7 Months

8 Months

8 Months

9 Months

10 Months

10 Months

11 Months

12 Months