She's here!

December 22 around 1:30am contractions began, slow at first and progressed to two minutes apart around 4:30. I called the hospital and they told me to come in. When we arrived they hooked me up to monitors to monitor my contractions and her heart rate. While monitoring her heart rate they noticed that it took longer than they wanted for her heart rate to return to normal and even though my contractions were still early labor contractions and normally they would have sent us home to wait longer, we were admitted and so was the beginning of the birth of our beautiful baby girl.

We were put in a labor and delivery room around 6am and they hooked me up to monitors to monitor her heart and my contractions. A few hours later I was allowed to get up and walk around to hopefully get my labor going more efficiently. My mom arrived around 1pm to support and help me through labor. Around 4pm, after ten hours later of walking around and waiting, I was put on Pitocin to help move labor along. Contractions got harder and I was progressing slowly. Around 9pm they broke my water and contractions intensified tremendously to about a minute apart, a minute long, after 4 ½ excruciating hours I got an epidural. This made contractions much more bearable and labor less overwhelming. Jessica arrived around this time, little did she know it would still be several hours till we would meet baby Amelia.

Into the early hours of the morning we went on, trying to sleep, but having little success. Michelle arrived around 10:30am, just in time to take pictures. Then, finally, the time I didn’t think was ever going to come, came, it was time to push. An hour and a half and 9lbs 11.8oz later, we got to meet our beautiful little girl. Amelia Rose born December 23 at 12:23pm. Daddy got to cut the umbilical cord and took lots of pictures as she was being weighed and measured. We all received medical bracelets to ensure that we would go home with the right baby, every shift change they would check and recheck our bracelets. Sure enough, she’s ours! :)

After a couple hours of bonding, skin to skin time and nursing training, we discovered she had a tight frenulum, (or tongue tied) our beautiful baby had a lizard tongue… We were moved to our post partum room which we fortunately had to ourselves. We were visited by a pediatrician and a lactation consultant who clipped the frenulum to the right length and nursing became much easier. In the room, she was given her first bath, which she did not like, as well as tested for all sorts of things.

Later that day, we were visited by Brad’s family to meet the new addition and love on her. We wanted to leave on the 24th in the afternoon but after talking to a nurse midwife about my healing and how she was nursing, they thought it would be better for us to stay another day. Reluctantly we agreed and I’m so glad we did because I wasn’t really ready to go home. We filled out her birth certificate and they did her footprints, our baby girl was now official! My dad and brother came to visit on the 24th. After more rest and another visit from the lactation consultant we were allowed to leave on December 25, we left around noon and began our lives as a family on Christmas day, what a wonderful gift! After we settled in, my sister Jessica and her family stopped by to visit our baby girl and my mom brought us Christmas dinner.

Welcome to the World my darling baby girl!

Amelia Rose Denniston

Is due in 10 weeks... 10 weeks! Oh my goodness it freaks me out! We finished registering today... boy is that a relief! At least that part is done. We bought her first teddy bear today, it's so cute! I love it!

So, at 30 weeks, a lot has changed, for starters, clothes don't fit... again. This is the third time being pregnant that I have been in clothes limbo. Besides the fact that I am huge. In fact, I am so huge that my side to side distance is LESS than my front to back distance. That was kinda depressing to find out. It's for a good cause though, there's gonna be a baby! I am so tired and hungry all the time! I'm not used to these demands. She moves all over, sometimes it is less than comfortable though. She will push so hard it makes me double over. It's positively insane!

I'm working on stuff for the baby shower, which is right around the corner. I am looking forward to it, I hope it is going to be a good time!

I'm still working, will be for about another month. Then, it is so close! Dec 21 is coming, don't look now, it will be here before you know it and little Milly will be joining us in our little family. :)

What's in a name...

Picking a name for Baby girl Denniston has been a feet of strength.  Picking a name and thinking it just might be the one, only to put it aside because it "feels wrong" or Brad doesn't like it or I don't like it or an abundance of other reasons.  We believe a name is prophetic and want to name our baby girl something that she can grow into.  A name that has a backbone. A name that will fit her when she is young and still fit her when she is an adult in the adult world.  Now days we are bombarded with children's names that are cute or fun but when they get to be an adult, it will not be fitting.  For a while we wanted to pick a unique name, a name that she will be the only one that has.  We decided however that part of the fun of growing up is knowing someone with the same name.  Or going to a tourist shop and being able to find your name on the blinking key chain. It's part of being a kid and do we really want to take that away from our daughter because we want a "different" name.  Though the funny thing is, with all the people naming their children less common names, a common name is no longer that. I mean, when is the last time you met a Jane?

All that to say, we picked a name, we love it, we already feel like it fits her personality, even with her still in my belly!

Some thoughts for the day...

Fitting, considering my blog is named... my random thoughts.

1. You know your life is changing when you actually honestly thank God for pooping.  Yup, life is going to be different from now on!

2. I HATE dishes and everything associated with them, specifically washing them. And our dish washer should be called a dish... dirtier/slightly less dirtier.  Clean dishes do not come out of it so I have resorted to hand washing, they turn out much cleaner but take MUCH longer!

3. I can't remember anything, seriously I think if my head wasn't on I would forget it. I forget my thoughts from room to room, that is like ten feet! That's just awful! I should start walking around with paper and a pen so I can remember for more than 30 seconds.

4. I'm 22 weeks pregnant today, that's neat! I'm getting... achm... fat. Well, I am telling myself it's not fat, that it's baby... but still, really just mostly feel fat. Though she moves ALL the time, so that helps reassure me when I look in the mirror, there is something actually in there taking up space!

That is all for now.

It's just life...

So, it's been over two months since I have posted anything, I just haven't felt like writing. It's been a long road these few months. Things are looking up!

So I've come to some realizations... people life on what they have, because they want to or because they have to.  If you make $20,000 a year, you spend $20,000 a year $40,000 and so on and so on. But how much does one REALLY need to live? Not as much as they think. Comfortably?? Probably significantly more. But where is the balance between living comfortably and living below your means. That's how you save ya know. Granted, bills are different for every situation, situations are different, but money is money. It's how you spend it that makes a difference. It's nice to have money, to not have to worry and think every second about that $3 in your checking account and can you make it to the next pay check? That's a rough place to be and a lot of people find themselves there. All that to say, we will be again looking at our money to make sure we are spending only what we need and the occasional want, not the always want.  Because of my job it is giving us the opportunity to pay off our credit card, which is good, we don't want to have credit card debt. It's hard to see that money just "go away" though. Stupid America and buy now pay later mentality... we will follow you no more!

So, my siblings in law are spending the weekend with us, that should be interesting, hopefully I can make it through... this is going to be a long weekend! Practice I guess.

I have to clean my house before they get here so they can mess it up differently... haha, I'm just kidding. Though I like my house to look nice before company comes over, even family company. Funny thing though... it's a lie! That's not what my house looks like always. I mean, it's not stuff everywhere crazy messy, but it's not spick and span tidy either. Maybe that's something I should think about, why it matters what other people think of my house... or, maybe I should pick up more often... :) We shall see which prevails! Off to clean :)

me...

So I feel as though I have left you in the lurch as regards to me.

I'm doing well, the retreat was good for me.

Brad bought me a new sand timer. He's awesome!

I have a new job and I love it.

Why not me?

I suppose that question has been asked by a lot of people over the course of life, "Why didn't I get the promotion?" Why didn't I get the job?" "Why didn't so and so want to date me? Marry me?" Etc, etc, etc. My question that also resonates with a lot of women right now, Why can't I have a baby? It's hard when I think about where I would be, now it's not on purpose, I don't sit down and count and mull over the numbers. No, but there are several people who I would be right along with them. And when they say how far or talk about it, it's like a slap in the face. And ok, I can get over that, there is a reason that happened. But what about now? In the last two weeks I have found out that several people are expecting, none of which can afford it. But I'm supposed to be happy for them, right? Happy that their plans worked out for them. But I'm not. Especially one girl, she is married, her son just turned one and she is living with her dad. She, her husband and baby share one room. She is going to add another to that situation? I guess I'm astonished at her stupidity. How could she think that would be a good idea?

Maybe I am jumping the gun, it could be me, I will know on the 13th for all of you that are keeping track. But I just feel jipped. And needed to rant to the blankness that is the endless space of the Internet and my loyal followers Jessica and Justin. It's not like you haven't heard this already, but it's not about you, it's about me. And this is how I feel right now. Sorta in the pits.

I had a job interview/job shadow day yesterday. They want me to come in next week for a test run before they decide. I've never heard of that before. Hopefully it goes well!

Do you know that I hate hate hate dishes?!?! And my dishwasher which should really be called the dishdirtier, cause that's what it does, I put dishes in, and they don't come out clean, no, they come out worse than when I put them in! The never ending cycle of dishes, I will win, I will!

You know how you have "those" days, well yesterday was one of "those" days, nothing really went wrong, just nothing went right, or how I wanted it to. I thought when I went in for the shadow day, I would be hired and work the day, nope. I drove by my mom's house and she wasn't home. I came home and ate, my tummy started hurting, I laid on the couch. Brad came home, we talked and went to home group. We are watching laugh your way to a better marriage, it wasn't the session I thought it was and was looking forward to. It was still good though. Then I promptly came home and broke the one thing I bought just last week that made me smile every time I looked at it. It was a sand timer, every time I walked by I would turn it over and it was just fun. I bumped it last night and it broke. Sad.

I know this post is kind of depressing, but I feel a little better. :) You know, girls can't handle having thoughts just rattle around, it makes them crazy, they HAVE to let it out somehow. This is how. :) On an up note, I am getting my hair done in two weeks! And lost 3 pounds! Yay!