Life is SOOO different now...

Well apparently I thought I'd have all the time in the world to be blogging, posting pictures, eating bon bons, and watching soap operas being a mom... I was wrong. My life is SO busy in SUCH a different way. I went from working 9 hour days, running errands, ironing clothes, making dinners, going out with friends to movies, cleaning the house, working out at the gym, fun vacations with Brian to now only having 1-2 hours at a time to get anything done (while Carter naps). And let's be honest, when Carter does decide to nap, the last thing I want to do is exercise or blog haha. I'd rather take a nap myself take a much needed shower, or eat a quick snack. I barely have time to check emails these days. BUT I will say with 100% certainty, I have never been happier. I love my new life.

Loving Carter is a completely new kind of love. I am head over heels in love with Brian and he is my everything. But Carter is a whole new bag of tricks. A whole new kind of love. I finally feel what my mom and dad feel for me and my sister. I finally feel what all my other mom friends feel. It's fantastic!

Carter is 5 months old today. That blows my mind. Time has completely flown by. But I can say that Brian and I have relished in every single moment. We took 187 photos of his first bites of cereal. That is crazy. We take Carter and Penny for a walk together as a family every single night. Carter sits in his bouncy seat while Brian and I eat dinner at the kitchen table every night. We feed Carter his last meal of the night in the nursery together - while one of his gives him his bottle, the other is reading a night time story. We say our prayers together then put our little man to bed. Carter and I have lots of fun during the day when it's just us, too. We go to a mommy & me playgroup with 4-8 other babies and mommies a few times a month - these are some moms that I met while doing prenatal yoga. Carter and I go to a story & song playgroup at the library once a week. We run errands all over town together (usually only having time to run one errand at a time haha). We splash around in the baby pool on our back porch. We go for a morning walk with Penny in our neighborhood. The list goes on. I am soaking up every precious moment.

Carter is doing great. He has a WONDERFUL personality. Brian can make him laugh SO hard just by making silly faces or noises. Carter doesn't cry too much and when he does it's very obvious why - "I'm hot", "I'm tired", or "Don't change my diaper" are the usual reasons. He is doing SO well with sleep training and now sleeps 8 hours solid at night. I realize this may not be as wonderful as other babies that naturally sleep 10-12 hours from the day came home from the hospital haha. But Carter has come a LONG way and to be sleeping 8 hours solid is pure Heaven on Earth!

Alright, photo time...

Lydie came to meet Carter when he was just a few weeks old :)

My parents hosted a Sip n See when Carter was one month old for all my friends and family to meet our little guy. This is a pic with my teacher friends from work :)

I'm telling you, Brian can make Carter laugh like no other!

We took Carter to Santa Rosa Beach with my family when he was just 6 weeks old

our little family of 3
his first beach experience
dinner out as a family - we took turns holding Carter throughout the meal
Carter's first dip in the pool :)
meeting Aunt Chelly
meeting Aunt Emmy :)
tummy time with William, our bff

our 3 month photo shoot
me and my little 3 month old boy :)
bffs
Mary Catherine came to meet Mr. Carter :)
playdate with Everett (2.5 weeks older) and William (12 days younger)
4 months old
Happy Father's Day!
Carter LOVES bath time!
Uncle Marcus came to meet Mr. Carter & brought him this adorable outfit!
4.5 months old
eating rice cereal for the first time & loving it!
CiCi made us this adorable outfit
5 months old

How is our baby boy already 7 weeks old?

Time has FLOWN by. Carter is already 7 weeks old and I am having a hard time coming to grips with that. Some days have crept by slowly when I am watching the clock tick and it reaches 6pm and I am asking myself, "Where is Daddy? Hurry home!" But then most of the time, I am relishing in every sweet moment with my baby boy.

Brian and I are baffled that Carter is already 7 weeks old. It is just wild. We have experienced so much life and love in these past few weeks. I have been a bad blogger, so I will try to catch everyone up. The first few weeks of recovery for me were VERY difficult. Having the last minute c-section was really rough. Brian stepped in and took COMPLETE control. He had to tend to not only me but to Carter, too. I had absolutely no ab muscles (still don't, let's be honest!) and Brian had to lower me and lift me off the bed at night. Along with not being able to take care of my own self, I had a VERY difficult time just sitting there knowing that I couldn't help Carter either. I couldn't lift Carter out of his crib or bend over to change his diaper or burp him because his legs would hit my stomach and could only nurse in certain positions. It was heart wrenching. BUT having the most wonderful husband in the world definitely made it easier and I was able to fall in love with Brian in a whole new way. I LOVED watching him take complete care of Carter - changing diapers, burping, swaddling, rocking, singing, and bathing. I am forever grateful that Brian was able to take 2 weeks paternity leave and be at home with us.

The day Brian went back to work was VERY tough and as you can imagine I cried. I still wasn't "up to par" in my own personal recovery so my wonderful mom, who Carter will call CiCi, stepped in. CiCi and I have spent A LOT of qt together these past few weeks as we both tried to tackle the day "shifts" until Brian got home. CiCi has been a HUGE help with cleaning, laundry, dishes, making meals, letting me nap in between feedings, and giving Carter some special grandma love :) I am trying to "wean" off CiCi and am now spending most of each day alone with Carter. I still need her help for a few hours each day so I can shower and nap (gotta love my once daily nap!!).

CiCi is VERY in love with her grandbaby

Papa and Carter wearing matching shirts

Aunt Deb and Carter

Mimi was thrilled to be in town for the birth and actually won the "bet" we had and chose April 7 as his due date!

Carter is TOTALLY the love of our lives. He is beautiful and perfect and we find ourselves staring at his precious face all the time. We discovered that he has reflux :( and is now on Prevacid every day. The meds as well as propping up his mattress and holding him upright after each feeding really seem to help. He has his nights and days figured out and ON AVERAGE will sleep from 930p-7a and only waking once to eat. Obviously it'd be much nicer for him to not wake at all to eat, but I'm not complaining at all!! Anything is better than those 1 hour "naps" we used to get at night! At our last doctor appointment, Carter weighed in a 9 pounds 14 ounces and was at the 50th percentile. He is a long and lean boy with Brian's body type for sure. We have also been taking Carter to see Dr. Salminen (my spine doctor/chiropractor who practices NUCCA) and he has been adjusting Carter. Dr. Salminen diagnosed Carter with torticollis from the c-section but with just two adjustments Carter is "perfect" now :)

wearing a cute little onesie
I am SO in love :)Penny is VERY protective of her baby brother

We have had SO many wonderful friends and family over to the house to visit and meet Carter. I will put pics of all our visitors in another post. Carter also has quite a few friends his age nearby - Abigail (born in early March), Everett (born in late March), and William (born in late April). We have had SO much fun hanging out with his baby friends and I have certainly enjoyed the "mommy talk" with each of those moms. I feel like I bore my friends who don't have kids to death with all the baby talk. I can attest to that because when I wasn't a mom and would have to hear all about my friend's child's sleep schedule or eating habits I was a bit bored. So it is quite nice to have a mommy to bounce ideas off of and chat with! Although I will say most of my friends who aren't moms have been WONDERFUL and have crocheted blankets and made little onesies and brought over meals and loved on Carter. Obviously, I have fabulous friends!!!

Looking back on these past 7 weeks, I am shocked that we have made it this far. Carter is a WONDERFUL baby and we have been truly blessed to have been given a healthy, happy boy. I will try to blog better from here on out, but just bear with me, I'm a new mom :)

Newborn Photo Session

We had a WONDERFUL 4 hour long newborn photo session with Elizabeth Smith, who owns Libbie Wicket. She did a fabulous job and Carter was on (semi) good behavior. We were immensely impressed with the images she captured and had a very hard time deciding which images to purchase. Here is a link to Elizabeth's blog about us and our photo shoot :)

Carter Matthew Hake has arrived :)

Reader beware: This is a LONG and detailed blog entry. Read at your own risk.

We went in for our regular 39 week appointment on Wednesday, April 6 with Dixie (one of our favorite midwives) at 11:20am. I had still been having the random contractions off and on but measured at only 1cm and 0% effaced. Brian, Dixie and I had a long discussion about our options and how I was feeling. Dixie said that "my emotional state trumped all" and if I was ready, then let's do it. So we scheduled my induction to begin that night. Brian and I were SUPER excited and of course very anxious. We were sent home and told that Northside Hospital would call us when they were ready for us to check in.

We got a phone call from Northside at 7:30pm and they told us to arrive at 9:00pm. Brian and I finished packing up our last minute items, tidied up the house, grabbed some Chick Fil A for dinner and drove to the hospital. It was hard to believe that it was actually going to happen!

We got admitted to our room A1 at 10:00pm and began filling out stacks and stacks of paperwork. I got my IV put in and let me just say this may have been one of the worst parts of the whole experience. It took 2 different nurses, 45 minutes, and 3 different "stabs" to get the IV in. Of course, I almost passed out and began to cry. Christine, another midwife that some of my fellow pregnant friends (Allie and Mandy) really like, came to our room and checked me. Still only 1 cm dilated. Christine inserted the Cervadil around 12midnight. Brian and I were left alone in our room from 12midnight to 4:00am to try and get some rest. I was hooked up to the machines that showed my contractions and Carter's heartrate. I was having contractions that were VERY random but were on average about 5 minutes apart. Some of my contractions lasted 8-9 minutes long. Please imagine. Yikes. I slept in the hospital bed (and Brian on the "sofa") from 12-1:30am and also did a lot of praying. I had to keep waking Brian up to take me potty and help me unplug from the machines. By 1:30am there was no more hope of sleeping for me (sweet Brian kept on snoozing), so I watched tv and played on my phone. At 4:30am, I was having some low back/buttock pain so the nurse gave me a shot of pain meds. At this point, I was told I only had 30 more minutes to eat "my last meal" so I sent Brian to get me a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit from McDonald's. Yum.

It is now, of course, Thursday April 7. My nurse, LaShonda (who we really liked!) came in at 6:05am to pull out my Cervadil and gave me the sad news that I had no change in dilation or effacement. Frustrating!

Every 12 hours, we got a new nurse. Goodbye LaShonda. Hello Kathy B.

The nurse put in the Pitocin drip at 7:00am and a blood pressure cuff on my arm that would automatically take my BP every 15 minutes (quite annoying). I was told no more eating and only clear liquids. If you know me, you know that no eating is a tough thing. #1 I love food. #2 I am hypoglycemic and need to eat every 3 hours.

Christine, the midwife, came back at 8:00am to check me. After being on the Pitocin for only 1 hour, I was still only 1 cm dilated but now 70% effaced. Brian and I got really excited at this point and started having some hope! Maybe my early morning prayers had worked!! Christine told me at this point no more liquids and I can only have ice chips! AHHHHH

By 8:30am, my contractions were now 1-4 minutes apart and getting more painful. At 10:00am Christine came back and gave me Fentanyl (pain med) in my IV to help me relax and then proceeded to break my water. LOTS of water. This didn't hurt as bad as I was expecting, just more pressure. My contractions started to get MUCH more intense after my water broke.

My mom arrived at 8:45am and my dad arrived at 10:15am. I was happy to see them and have their love and support. I didn't let them stay in the room for long - too much going on, but I was glad to have them close by in the waiting room.

I got checked again by Christine at 10:30am and was now 2 cm dilated and 80% effaced. WAHOO! Brian and I got even more excited. All of this stuff (waters being broken, Pitocin drip, Cervadil over night, etc) was working!!

30 minutes later, the nurse gave me another dose of Fentanyl (to calm my anxiousness) and then inserted the epidural with the help of Dr. Meredith. Not gonna lie, the epidural was a bit painful. I started to cry as I leaned over the side of the hospital bed and Brian and the nurse had to hold me down so I wouldn't jump. Brian did a WONDERFUL job of calming me down. He rubbed my shoulders and scratched my head and whispered sweet words to me. Again, I would die without him.

It only took about 15 minutes for the epidural to kick in. By 11:35am I was numb and started to fall asleep. Thank God! The contractions I was feeling and struggling through before now felt like light pressure. Thank you God for drugs like that!

I woke up from my nap at 1:30pm. Christine (midwife) and Kathy (nurse) were in the room checking on me and Carter's heart rate began to drop quickly. It dropped down to 60bpm. Brian watched as Christine and Kathy begin frantically flipping me from side to side (as I was numb and couldn't move myself) trying to get a good read on Carter's heartbeat. I was given an oxygen mask and looked over at Brian's face and he was white as a ghost. I started to cry and Brian began to cry. Thankfully, after a few scary minutes, Carter began to recover and his heartrate came back up. SUPER scary moment. Again, I am so glad Brian was in the room with me at that moment.

Kathy put in my catheter and Christine checked me again. I had reached 4cm and 90% effacement and a -1 station. WAHOO!! So even though we had that scary moment with Carter's heartrate, we were headed in the right direction.

Christine came back to the room at 4:00pm and sadly, I was STILL only 4cm and my contractions were still not "regular" enough. Once they stopped the Pitocin, I wasn't having contractions on my own. Also, Carter was "locked in place" but facing the side (ideally, he should be facing my back). What in the world? So Christine recommended I have a C-Section. Brian and I agreed and decided whatever the doctors recommend I should just go with. Of course, we had planned on a vaginal delivery, but I was having such a tough time and Carter was too, we decided a C-Section was the way to go.

30 minutes later a new anesthesiologist named Victoria (loved her) came in and gave me MULTIPLE doses in my epidural while testing me at the same time to see how numb my abdomen was getting. I think she gave me 5 extra doses. Listen, I didn't want to be able to feel a thing! The nurses came in and gave Brian some scrubs to put on over his clothes, shoes, hair and even a face mask. My parents came into the room to get all of our bags and I could tell my mom was freaked out. I couldn't even look at her because I didn't want to get more worked up and scared than I already was. My mom and dad kissed me on my forehead and left. I was wheeled up on my hospital bed to OR Room #2. Brian had to wait out in the hall while they prepped me for surgery. I hated this part because I had to be away from Brian. Christine (midwife), Dr. Jill Henke (a doctor from my OB/GYN practice), the anesthesiologist, and about 5 or 6 other nurses were in the OR with me getting me prepped. It was SO scary being hoisted from the hospital bed to the operating table. I could hear everything they were saying but I couldn't move because of the epidural. The set everything up and draped a sheet in front of my face so I couldn't see anything. Brian was allowed to enter the OR and was told to come sit by the head of the bed and not touch anything. I was freaking out and VIOLENTLY shaking all over my body uncontrollably. Brian, again, did a phenomenal job of calming me down. He didn't show any signs of fear (even though I know he was scared), kept his hand on my shoulder/head/face the entire time, and talked to me in a calm sweet voice. After 5 minutes of VERY intense pressure/pushing/proding that I could feel up in my chest and entire abdomen area, they pulled Carter out. Brian stood up and started snapping pictures of Carter. Brian started crying first, then I of course joined in. Brian wiped away my tears for me. Carter's official birth time was 5:09pm :)

While they stitched me up, the nurses were cleaning Carter. I could feel TONS of pressure as they stitched me up. Gross. They finished cleaning Carter and laid him on my chest for me to kiss him. I loved this part and hated it at the same time. I loved being able to feel him on my chest and kiss him but I hated that I couldn't move my arms and hold him close. Complete torture. The nurses then gave Carter over to Brian to hold and they snapped some pictures of my 2 men together. Brian then followed Carter and a nurse to the recovery room where they weighed, measured, and bathed him. Carter's official birth weight was 8 lbs 4 oz and his height was 21 inches :) They gave him a shot of Vitamin K and Erythromicin for his eyes. I, again, was left alone. I am not a fan of these moments. The doctors finished stitching me up and wheeled me to the recovery room to meet up with Carter and Brian.

The recovery room was total madness. We were surrounded by 6 other moms/babies/dads and separated only by a curtain from each other. So we had the pleasure of hearing all the other babies crying. That was crazy. A few nurses came in to push on my stomach (ouch) and a few other recovery things. They wheeled me in my hospital bed and Brian pushed the bassinet with Carter and we went to our room #191. I was hoisted onto my new hospital bed (where I have been for 3 days now!) and about 3 different nurses started running tests on me (vitals mostly).

It was now 7pm and Michele and Victoria (new nurses) told me I was allowed to have liquids. GLORIOUS! I noshed on ice chips and sipped on water. It was heavenly! Michele and Victoria tried to help me with breastfeeding and pushed on my stomach. Both of which were very painful. They also ran a few tests on Carter.

My parents, my sister Deborah, and Brian's mom came back to the room and took turns holding Carter for the first time. I was VERY out of it but I know that everyone fell in love instantly with Carter!

So even though our labor/delivery turned out completely different than we had hoped for, it was a beautiful story with a perfect ending. And although I am in severe pain with recovery of a C-Section and Brian and I are exhausted beyond belief, we have the most beautiful and wonderful son. We are in love with Carter and are thrilled to have him in our lives now. We have been blessed beyond belief and I know that our lives will completely change. But all for the better.

Welcome to the world Carter Matthew Hake. We love you SO incredibly much!!!

Carter's Nursery

Well after MANY months of shopping, planning, organizing, dreaming and prepping... we have finally completed Carter's nursery!




Oh and now we can finally officially announce his name - Carter!!! We had been keeping it a secret (most family and friends knew) up until now for many reasons... one it took us a while to decide on a name and two I was getting tired of fellow teachers and their comments. When we were tossing other names back and forth and I would mention some of our top choices to a fellow teacher I would hear comments like, "UGH I had a child with X name last year and he was such a pain," etc. So we decided to keep it hush hush until I was on maternity leave and could be away from all the comments. But we are SO happy with our choice in names :)