I forgot to post here on my blog thing….how I forgot I don’t really know. I seemed to have posted/emailed it everywhere else but here Plus, he’s already 5 weeks old! Where did that time go? I have lots to update about but really no time..can’t believe he’s sleeping right now for this!

Sooo Merrick Conner was born April 29th @ 2:43 - 9 lbs 1 oz. and just shy of 22 inches. At his 2 day check up he was 8 lbs 9 oz. At his 2 week check he up to 9 lbs 15 oz and 23 inches long. He started rolling front to back just shy of 2 weeks..SCARY but typical since Braysen did it too. I guess we aren’t meant to have non-mobile kiddos. I’m just hoping he isn’t so quick to crawl and walk like his older brother was!

Here’s a pic then birth story (if not TMI) cut to save ya!

pic of him in the early days after he was born

cute pic of face

one of the boys laying next to each other from this past week

great hair pic of him while on his tummy

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Yep, I called/cried ..you name it wolf….

So after a few days of feeling like things were coming soon, having all the impending labor signs - .Monday the contractions got to a point where I was timing them.

They lasted 2 hours easily 5 mins. apart but weren’t necessarily the most painful. Around 8:30 I figured they were easing up so I took my unisom and headed to bed. At 11:15 I woke up to major contractions & pain so went to the bathroom and then tried to sleep them back off thinking they couldn’t be strong enough at first. Well they got worse and I gave in, woke up DH and called L&D. They told me to come on in and get hooked up to see if we were in active labor.

When I got there I was consistently having them every 5 minutes and increasing in pain, checked me and I was at 3cm but close to 4cm (I was at 2cm @ 36 weeks/2 weeks ago). She told me to walk around a bit and they’d check me in 2 hours. Well after an hour and 1/2 of walking the halls, stopping when the contractions came because they were definitely noticeable and hurting..I gave up walking and just wanted to lay down a bit. I got hooked back up on the monitor and yep they were 3-4 mins. apart increasing in pain. She checked me again @ 2:30 and NO PROGRESS WTF!!!

She called my midwife back and I was given 3 options 1) go home with a mild pain killer to try and sleep but come back if it got worse. 2) walk/lay in L&D for another 2 hours to see if things got stronger 3) get morphine to let me do “tranquil therapy” basically, see if my body could rest and maybe it’d kick into full blown labor. Well, considering how quick my active labor was with my 1st DS, we decided I’d stay at the hospital and try the morphine then she’d check me at 7:30 to see where we were.

7:30 rolls around and no progress…I’m frustrated, tired and sore from all the internals. (I have a very hard to reach uterus so every one was painful!) I get sent home to rest and it’s a waiting game. If I was 1 week further they could’ve broke my water or started pitocin but nope….I’m just under the bubble. (today I hit 38 weeks and would be in the clear most likely for them to “augment’/break my water/start pitocin if it happens again)

I’m so done and ready for this all to be over. I went back to work on Wed., continuing to work this week away and have been just doing the good ol’ waiting game. I get a feeling things are happening then bam…it all stops again.

This baby is seriously testing my patience before he comes into the world and boy is he a stubborn one already…or maybe it’s just my body being a pain in the arse!

The thing is - my contractions were more painful this time and looking great on the monitors/timing close together but my body just wasn’t progressing yet. I had stronger contractions then I remember from being induced with my 1st so I thought for sure we were good to go…boy did I feel like the pregnant woman calling wolf!

So, we have a new car, a 2008 Buick Enclave that was picked up last Wed. I’m in love and it’s the perfect non-minivan family car for us!
(pic thumbnailed below so you can click on it to see more pics of it)

While doing the deal with the sales guy and setting up the turn in for our Mazda 6 we mentioned how we had some damage done to the car that needed fixed before turn in and how we wanted to get it cleaned/detailed etc. He said it shouldn’t be a problem to get taken care of and that they wanted to make things as easy on us as possible. Well, when Patrick took the Mazda in, they looked at the damage done to the car. (I’ll explain the damage in a second) and said that it would need to be something his body shop guys would look at and we may have to pay some for it because it was more then he expected. We got the call yesterday with the estimate - $1200!!!!!!!

Basically, a dog chewed up my car. He chewed up the paneling around all 4 sets of wheels, around my exhaust pipes on the back and around the front bumper. Now, can you believe a little dog did $1200 worth of damage to my car? Here’s the funny part - I got backed into by a pickup truck at a stop sign (about 6 months ago, this guy pulled too far out into the intersection and then decided to throw his truck in reverse and smashed into me). The damage done by this truck backing into me was about $100. A dog can do $1200 worth of damage but a truck can do $100. It baffles me and upsets me.

So here I am yesterday upset because we have all this stuff to buy for baby to come. (Breast pump $230, Sling so I can hands free nurse while having kiddo run around me $90, new bras, stuff for after the baby is born for recovering and really the list could go on a bit. I have an Excel Spreadsheet with everything itemized, expenses listed and totaled. I’ve been marking off things as we’ve slowly got them.) I’m 33 weeks along now and we are hoping I’ll keep him cooking until 37-38, if not longer! I went on bedrest with Braysen last time and In the back of my head I’m hoping it doesn’t happen again but 3 weeks from now is about the timing of when that happened the 1st time. I DO NOT want to send Patrick off shopping for things like oh nursing bras and random other embarrassing items. These are things that I need to go out and get by myself but they are not quick close shops, they involve driving 45 minutes into actual shopping areas. I’m getting to the point where spending hours in the car and shopping just makes me feel miserable so I don’t really want to keep putting things off. I called up my parents upset just needing to cry and let things out. I don’t cry very often to them, I don’t cry very often period but damn these pregnancy hormones!

I’m stressed about the “list” of things I have to do. Our nursery is basically painted but has nothing done in it. I really was looking forward to doing an actual nursery this time before he arrives because last pregnancy I didn’t get to do the nursery until Braysen was nearly 6 months old due to the move up here and our transition to the new house. I feel like I missed out on that part of the pregnancy fun. This time I can’t even dive in and go buy the fun stuff for his nursery that I had envisioned. I’m stressed about the $$ we have going out. I’m trying to not stress because that will only increase the chances of the whole bed rest/blood pressure scenarios but it’s not easy.

On top, I’m trying to start planning a 2nd birthday party (small get together) for Braysen who’s bday is on Easter but I’m looking to have it the weekend after since Easter weekend is going to be pretty busy. Our neighborhood has an Easter Egg hunt going house to house on that Sat. which was the day I thought of having a party.

Then in April, Patrick turns the big 30 - which I want to make sure he has a good celebration of sorts, even if he doesn’t want me to do anything big for him. I’ve got that in the works (can’t say more about it!)

*tries to relax*

I didn’t disappear off the face of the earth! ? Thanks to those that asked! I did however disappear from online / the computer for a while and I’m still scarce to be honest. I realized that when my own grandma and mom were writing me asking me how I was doing, that I basically had dropped off the face of the earth a bit or so it had seemed! Basically, before Christmas things got hectic with the trip to KC for family and then on top we found out that I had signs of protein in my urine (way early for this to happen). I’ve been watched carefully since and so far things are ok but it is very likely that this baby will come early like Braysen due to Pre-eclampsia. I’m due May 1st but April is looking more likely. I have an appointment next week with my midwife again. The last thing I need is a bunch of worrywarts so please let the issue drop ? and I’ll let everyone know If something changes!

Our KC trip for Christmas was chaotic but relaxing all at the same time. I miss my family dearly and I miss those big family holidays. I haven’t had one in years (4 I think?) and to say it had been too long is an understatement. I have family that hasn’t seen Patrick and I since we got engaged, let alone even meeting Braysen. He got to see his Great Grandparents on my step-moms side and oodles of aunts, uncles & cousins. What a character he was and it brought a smile to my face to see him interacting with everyone and how easy going of a kiddo he was around that many new faces. He must’ve known that he was in a loving place! He quickly picked up names, Papa, Nana, Justin, Molly and struggled a bit with Christina/Stina (who I tried to get him to just call Stinky! hehe…mean sister that I am!) He points them all out to me in the pictures we have in our house and on my background for my computer. I can’t even describe how sad I was to leave behind my family again and know that I won’t see them for a while or they won’t be part of Braysen’s life as much as I wish they were if we were closer. I really did move off to the farthest place west that I could go (as my parents joke) besides going off to say Hawaii or another country! There is nothing like a big family for the holidays imo!

Christmas Pic of kiddo

The rest are off in my gallery.

I’ll cut the rest for those that are interested in random house junk– I hope everyone is doing well! I’ll probably be typing up a Braysen & baby mumbo jumbo post here soon but I’ll cut things so it’s not sooo long for those that don’t want to read about braysen happenings or baby stuff! I need some place to put all my ideas and lists at that are taking over sticky notes on my desk and in my purse!

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to spend money, get caught up in the rush and stress of the holidays, have weekends booked with events of some form for weeks on end and lastly try to take a break to enjoy some of this time with our family and be thankful for what we have in our lives.

So a lot has been going on but I keep forgetting to update my blog and write out the craziness of life. With the holidays approaching there isn’t a slow down in sight and then of course the baby coming in May is going to keep us on our toes as we progress through the new year. Last but not least there’s the ever so adventurous toddler that rules the house, who wouldn’t allow us to slow down even if we wanted to!

ALL of our holiday shopping was finished early after my Black Friday shopping trip. I can tell the little man is going to be thoroughly spoiled this Christmas (mainly by everyone else but I will admit to a small part in it). We decided early this year that the almost $1,000 plane tickets out were well our present to ourselves in some sense and then there’s the new king bedroom set we bought at the end of the summer and toss in a PSP slim that Patrick got for his business traveling trips and we exceeded the budget a bit! It’s amazing how many presents you end up buying people when you have a large family, it gets to be overwhelming to say the least and we set ourselves up a certain $ / person limit early on and had a number in our heads that we’d end up at. We pretty much were right at that number to my surprise! I’m just glad the shopping is done and we can stop watching the bank account go down. Well, I did go FINALLY buy some maternity clothes last night and spent money on myself! We got kiddo his holiday dress up clothes for KC visit too but I’m just very hapy to have new clothes that fit and are comfy + cute. I found way more things at the motherhood store then I should’ve and had a hard time narrowing my decisions down. Thanks to a very patient mother in-law we spent a long time trying on nearly every shirt in the store. I walked out with shirts, a DRESS!, some slacks and the lovely new bra that I was dreading having to buy.

Now onto some Braysen stories or funnies (he’ll be 21 months on the 23rd of December):

He is addicted to Tigger and Friends Super Sleuth, he “bounces” just like Tigger around the room. Both of his feet off the ground and all hopping from here to there. If Tigger ends in the morning, he tells me “Tigger go bye bye”. (he watches from 8:00-8:30 before I take him to daycare so I can finish getting ready!)

He came running in the kitchen the other day and tackled our cat, Xaria. She started meowing of course and he starts going “meooooooowwwww” really loud after she would cry out. I had to get him off of her but she is very tolerant and lets him pick her up (or attempt to) and tackles her on a regular basis. He also tells her “down kitty” when she’s up on the counter or “bad kitty” when she’s up there. He’s also quite aware of her litter box in the laundry room (that is gated off from him) and points to it then says “kitty poop”. If he is looking for his kitty he walks around with his hands shrugged up and says “whereareyou kitty” (all one slurred word) and then makes the clicking sound with his tongue like I do when I call her.

For some reason he has a thing for the word “broken”. If anything isn’t working the way it should be or doing what he wants it to do it is “broken”. He comes running in the other day to tell me “broken broken broken” and he has the little Pooh window clings I bought for him to put on and off the windows. Apparently he took it off the window and couldn’t get it back on so it was “broken”. If the huge ball won’t fit into the tiny container like he wants, it’s broken. Where does he get this stuff?

We haven’t had any major cuss word problems…yet. Patrick said something was “crappy” the other day and Braysen started saying “crappy” but that ended after about 30 minutes and we have yet to hear it again thankfully. He is a little Parrot though and will repeat

He’s got a slew of new phrases.
“I see snow” after Patrick showed him snow Sat. morning for the first time. He says “I see…..” all the time and it’s so cute. Again, where did he get that phrase? LOL
“Go boo boo house” means we are going to grandpas house. For some reason my father in-laws name is “boo boo”. I can’t even try and list all the words he has honestly. He can pretty much point to and say each name of the objects in his picture books without much problem now. The kid has diarrhea of the mouth now a days and is nonstop talking.
(more random braysen ahead) (more…)