Presenting: Caleb's birth story!!!

In honor of Caleb's 1 year birthday this week, I am FINALLY posting about his birth. So, ready or not, here it comes!
Here I am the night before I was scheduled to be induced feeling like the bun was definitely done cooking in the oven:

12/10/08 (Wednesday)

5am-David is off to work at the hospital. Here is our whiteboard interchange that day (some days this is the only type of communication we have)

10pm-David is on call at the hospital. I'm scheduled for induction at midnight, so I'm busy packing my hospital bag and getting ready to drive myself to the hospital

10:30pm-my water breaks during my hospital packing, "Oh, shoot," I think. "Now what do I do?"

10:32pm-I call David, "You'll never believe this, but my water just broke. Don't worry, I think I can still drive myself to the hospital in 10 minutes after I take a shower and shave my legs." He wisely tells me that's crazy, instructs me NOT to get in the shower, and calls a friend to arrange a ride.

10:33pm-I get in the shower anyway and set a world-record for fastest leg shave, getting dried off and dressed before my ride gets to the house.

10:36pm-I'm out of the shower and having my first contraction, "Ooo, that's uncomfortable," I think.

10:39pm-another contraction. "Um, that seems really close to the last one."

10:40pm-Our good friend Talana arrives and loads me and my well-packed suitcase into her van.

10:42pm-another contraction. Talana does a great job making conversation and trying to keep my mind off of my mounting discomfort level as she drives in the pouring rain at this late hour. David is calling me every 2 minutes to see where we are. He assures me he will be waiting at the hospital entrance when we arrive. Contractions are coming every 3 minutes with each one getting more painful.

10:55pm-We pull in to the hospital and see David standing there in his white coat waiting with an LSU double-wide wheelchair (apparently, the only kind they have). He helps me in to the wheelchair and I quickly realize that someone for whom the chair's width was designed must've used it and caused the seat to angle precariously downward. As an added bonus, the foot rests were broken (did I mention that I delivered in the ghetto?) so it was a fun ride to the labor and delivery unit as I tried to use my contracting abdominal muscles to elevate my feet off the floor while firmly gripping the armrests to keep from sliding out of the chair and onto the floor. This picture really doesn't do the wheelchair justice!

11:05pm-safely in my hospital bed and in a SIGNIFICANT amount of pain. I decide that delivering naturally is NOT my preferred method and ask the nurse how quickly I can get an epidural. She breaks the bad news that hospital protocol requires I go through 2 IV bags of fluid before I can get one. "Well, what the heck are you waiting for???" I ask, at which point she sticks me and hooks me up to the IV.

11:10pm-1am on 12/11/08 (Thursday)-I watch each drip from the IV bag with concerted effort as I empty the contents of my stomach and pray for fast-acting drugs. David is technically on call until 6am and his pager is going off every few minutes. He is running in and out of the room answering calls until I scream for him to get in the room so my fingernails can dig in to his supple flesh. He takes it like a man for each 60 second contraction then runs back out to take another call. He sees his co-resident, Jeff, in the hall and after hearing about the madness Jeff insists that David relinquish the pager to him, a HUGE favor!!! Here I am between contractions:

1:45am-I see the final drop from IV bag #2 and plead with the nurse to get the anesthesiologist. He arrives, and within minutes I am a different woman. Dilated 4cm at this point and they estimate another 12 hours before delivery.

2-6am-Heavenly bliss as I continue to dilate while NAPPING! Hooray for drugs! Before napping, however, I feel a sense of urgency to call my sister Tiffany who is 2 weeks away from her due date and planning a medication-free delivery. It is 12am Malibu time (2am Shreveport time) when I wake her up from a sound sleep and plead, "Tiff, DON'T do it, DON'T do it! It hurts SOOOOOOO bad!!!" She ignored my admonition and fared beautifully well...what a woman!

6:45am-The nurse comes in to check me and after lifting the sheet says with great urgency, "Um, whatever you do, DON'T push." As she hurries out of the room, I hear her say, "He's got a full head of hair." Dilated 10cm and he was ready to come. Our hands are showing "10" (just to clarify since it looks like we're doing spirit fingers):

6:52am-They transfer me to the delivery room, I push through 1-1/2 contractions.

6:59am-We hear the voice of our perfect little miracle for the first time (and then KEPT hearing it non-stop for the next 7 weeks, but that's a WHOLE separate story!)

Here's David cutting the umbilical cord:

Our little family (and David's stylish hat):

Sporting some nice Donald Trump hair:

Here we are a day after delivery feeling blessed to have Caleb in our life

Some of the residents stopped by to see the newest member of the ENT department.

Back in the double-wide before driving home:

The drive home from the hospital:

Showing Caleb his house for the first time:

And that's the story of how our family of two became three...one year ago.

A November to Remember!

November week 1: Caleb and mommy escaped the unbearable arctic temperatures of Louisiana and spent a week basking in the UT sun. Caleb got to spend countless hours playing in Grandma Costley's kitchen sink and pointing Grandpa Costley in the right direction while they were out walking.



The reunion with cousins was the perfect opportunity for a nakie baby photo shoot and here are some of the resultant gems. Featured in these pictures are Caleb and Luke (2 weeks apart) and Donovan (6 months younger).

Week 1 also included a visit with the Draper Ludlows where puppy Lewis gave Caleb a crash course in how to not get your nose chewed off by a puppy. Fortunately, he passed!


November week 2: Caleb continued to inch ever-so-close to the milestone of taking his first un-aided steps (which is no small feat for a baby with a body in the 5th percentile, and a head circumference in the 75th percentile). In the meantime, he practiced with his baby walker.



November week 3: the first mommy/baby overnight separation when I headed to New Orleans for a conference leaving Caleb in the capable hands of Grandma Ludlow and his daddy. So while I was off strolling through the trees at Oak Valley Plantation and dining at 2 out of 3 of Emeril's N'Awlins restaurants....



Caleb was in Grandma heaven



November week 4: brought Thanksgiving and the perfect excuse to make another pilgrimage to Dallas to spend the holiday with my brother, Cory, and his family where there's never a shortage of laughs, love, and WRESTLE mania!

Happy Halloween!

The idea for this year's Halloween costumes began as a tiny seed exactly one year ago and has been sprouting ever so slowly for 364 days in the fertile soil of my brain. Not everything went exactly according to plan. For example, I envisioned David being "bald" and found what looked to be the perfect product:

But then David put it on and exclaimed, "I don't look bald AT ALL!!!" Talk about false advertising:

So we abandoned that detail, but managed to pull off the rest including forearms bulging with "muscle," a can of spinach, and a pipe (aka scoop from baby formula):

So thanks to my mom's willingness to give me telephone tutorials on how to make ruffles and operate my sewing machine, and an extremely indulgent husband, I present to you Popeye...

...Olive Oyl...

and the ever so sweet Sweet Pea.....

A Popeye family portrait:

After a great night of trunk-or-treating at the church, Sweet Pea was all tuckered out!

But David managed to stay in character all the way home:

With so much effort devoted to our church activity the night before Halloween (which won us the1st place prize for Most Creative, I'll have you know!) by Halloween night neither David nor I had the gumption to dress up again. However, we didn't want to rob Caleb of the chance to go door to door (translation: we wanted candy) so we borrowed a costume from a friend (thanks Katie!) and headed out for Halloween pillaging.

Here's our little guy BEFORE the pillaging (not too thrilled about being dressed up in a ridiculous, movement hindering costume):

But here he is AFTER the pillaging (starting to realize the benefits of wearing a ridiculous, movement hindering costume):

Mamma's little Tigger!

Now...what to be next year..........?????

Getting back on the horse

As my astute older sister declared in a recent phone conversation, "Girl, you've fallen off the blogging horse!" Fallen I have, but I am attempting to remount the horse and hope I don't end up with saddle sores!

Our baby boy is becoming more of a man every day even if the pediatrician's growth charts don't show it. His new-found hobbies include:

***looking out the window to
a)watch the incessant rain drops
b)scare the deer that roam our backyard forest so they don't poop all over the grass
c)wave to cars that drive by our house and then not take it personally when they don't wave back.


***taking notes as we watch General Conference


***pushing buttons which includes remote controls, cell phones, TVs and best of all...DVD players. It took about 2 minutes of exploring the player to figure out which button gave him the most bang for his buck.


***"Reading" copious amounts of books.


At least once during the day he crawls over to his book box and spends in excess of 20 minutes looking at his favorite books. It's the best. A few minutes into this morning's reading session, he crawled over to where I was working on the computer and I saw this:


As we all know, when there's curdled milk on a baby's chin, there's a big mess somewhere else. But where could it be? Tile floor...clear, computer keyboard...clear, Gossie & Gertie book...NOT clear.

Poor Gossie got totally slimed by puke. Thank goodness for board books which can be easily cleaned with Clorox wipes!

Maybe I haven't forgotten how to ride this horse.

Where to begin???

Hello, out there to all those who have not yet deleted me from your Google Reader accounts!!! It's been so long I'm not even sure where to begin playing catch-up. How about with a recap of our adventures during July/August?

Caleb and I were quite the traveling duo driving to Dallas then flying to California, Nevada and Utah. Before sharing the highlights from each of those trips, I must first say thank you to the person who made this whole trip possible: the inventor of the bungee cord! Because of you, bungee cord inventor person, I was able to single-handedly trek through six different airports with the following gear in tow: 1 pack-n-play, one gigantic 49.9 pound suitcase, 1 infant car seat, 1 jogging stroller, 1 diaper bag, 1 adorable 8 month-old. And it was all made possible by you, bungee cord inventor person!


OK, now on to the highlights...

CALIFORNIA
We had an awesome visit with friends from our Stanford days including Howard and Helen...

...Clarence...

...and the Dements who were SO hospitable...THANK YOU!!!


NEVADA

Next, it was on to Reno for the Ludlow family reunion where Caleb touched sand for the first time...

...was stroller buddies with his cousin Trystan...

...chilled on the beach at Tahoe with his cousin Ellie...

...used Uncle Dan as a substitute for daddy...

...and had his first taste of black licorice from Grandpa Ludlow!


UTAH

Highlights in UT included a visit with great-grandma Costley (here's our 4 generation photo)...

...being reunited with David for a few days (pictured here with Uncle Joey and cousin Luke, with a guest appearance by cousin Ryan)

...being mascot for the "red" team at the Lynch family reunion

...convincing cousin Donovan that he should be Caleb's body guard once he can hold his head up and control his limbs (he's 6 months younger, but longer and nearly as heavy as Caleb)

...getting "kissy sandwiches" from mommy and Aunt Ali.


DALLAS

We finished off our travels with a few days taking care of the Costley cousins in Dallas where Caleb was showered with attention (and given an infinite number of rides in the pink and purple Jeep)


If those travel details weren't sufficient, Caleb will enumerate our adventures in his own words in the following video clip: