Time to Catch Up...

...on the entire last year. Unfortunately we lost pretty much ALL of our pics from the time Abby was a tiny thing, up until the month of February. We are still attempting to recover them, so until  then, I'll try to fill in the blanks without pics for those months:

November:
Being a bit of a germaphobe, I was terrified to have a new baby come home to a house where the carpets weren't super cleaned, so the weekend Nate ended classes for the Thanksgiving break, we cleaned almost every inch of carpet in our house. It's amazing what an 8 1/2 month pregnant lady can do when 'nesting.' It also helped get my body going, since Parker was born only 4 days later.
We had Thanksgiving dinner at the hospital, thanks to Nate's homemade tasty turkey sandwiches. While I was at the hospital with Parker, he was getting his first big dose of a single dad lifestyle with taking care of Abby. He did a great job, but hopefully we'll be closer to family for the next baby :)
It was so fun and a bit scary to bring home a newborn to our cold, drafty home. It's always funny - that moment you're in your car, leaving the hospital, thinking 'they're letting us take him home?'
And it felt so strange to have 2 kids in the back seat!
Abby was in heaven with 'Baby Punker', wanting to love on him and give him toys, not understanding why he wasn't ready to play with her yet.


Birth Story :
I was absolutely convinced that with this delivery that I was going to go as natural as possible. No epidural, no pitocin. I'm a strong, brave woman, and if others have gone without that epidural, so could I.
On Tuesday I had a doctors appointment and was a bit surprised to hear that I was dilated to a 5. My Dr wanted to admit me, but since I was going to have to cancel our Thanksgiving Day plans with friends, I was NOT going to miss our pre-Thanksgiving dessert night with another friend that same night. I convinced the Dr that I would come get checked again the next day and be admitted if anything changed. I was mildly contracting the rest of the day, but got to enjoy our dessert night.
The next day, I was dilated to a 6, and got settled in to our nice, cozy, and sterile feeling room (I'd been concerned about that). Being that I wasn't contracting much, we decided to start with a low dose of pitocin to get things going. The pain wasn't too bad, and I was still sure I wouldn't need the epidural. 3 hours later, we agreed to break my water, and then all hell broke loose. Nate was sweet, attentive and understanding, but I was MISERABLE. They aren't kidding when they say that pitocin can be a terrible thing. I was begging for an epidural, and feeling as though I was the weakest thing on the planet- I was one of those crazy ladies you see in labor on TV, saying things that both embarrassed and entertained Nate and the nurses. Luckily they were able to give me an epidural quickly, but before I could even lay back down, Parker was descending. Even when he was crowning I was certain that I wouldn't be able to continue. I made sure everyone knew it so that they could figure out another way to get him out - and of course at the time, this rationalizing made perfect sense. So almost exactly 15 minutes after I received my epidural, our sweet little man was born. And from that moment on, all that misery has been worth it to have him in my life.
Needless to say, I will NEVER go without an epidural again!!