Birth story: Baby X

I thought I had it bad with Joel, who was born a week late. I tried to prepare myself for Baby X to come late. I had my mother schedule her flight out six days after his due date, knowing it was likely. But in spite of all my "preparations," I grew more and more disheartened as I passed 40 weeks. My mother arrived, and still no baby. 41 weeks, still no baby, and no signs of labor. My midwives started preparing me for a possible induction at 42 weeks, which was NOT what I wanted. Needless to say, there were many prayers and tears over the past few weeks!

After nothing and more nothing, I finally started having some contractions on Sunday evening. They were sporadic and light, but they were something. Monday morning, October 12th, the contractions started to seem a bit more promising. I had a non-stress test scheduled at noon, to check the baby's heartrate and make sure he was doing well. I figured if my contractions progressed, I'd get checked while we were there. When it came time to go, James and I went ahead and packed up the bag with my labor supplies and the infant car seat--just in case.

We headed to the birth center--the Women's Birth and Wellness Center in Chapel Hill. The NST took FOREVER. I was hooked up to the monitors for nearly two hours. (The test is supposed to be 20 minutes.) First of all, Xander was a wiggly monster. Secondly the nurse couldn't get him to react well to stimuli, which is one of the major things that determines his well being. I know it was necessary, but it was still majorly frustrating! Especially because I was having contractions the entire time.

We visited briefly with the on call midwife, who gave us some options. We decided to go get some lunch--we were starving!--and then come back to get checked. It was about 2:30pm when we got back to the birth center. The midwife, Allison, checked my cervix. To my utter astonishment, she announced that I was dilated to 7-8cm and had bulging waters! James and I were totally stunned, but elated that I was having a baby at last. I was admitted and we got settled into our birthing suite.

We went for a couple of walks around the grounds, then labored in the tub for awhile. The contractions stayed pretty consistent, getting a bit stronger. It was about 5pm when I requested another cervical check. It's not routine for them to check, but I wanted to know if I was progressing, to be able to pace myself. Allison determined that the baby's head had dropped a fair bit, but I was still at about 8cm. That was a little disheartening. She suggested changing positions--all fours, or on my knees over the edge of the tub--to help him move into position.

So we kept working. James and I were left mostly to our devices, except for a nurse coming in every half hour to check the baby's heartbeat. It was not quite what I had expected, but I actually rather liked it. It might have been different if this was my first delivery. But James and I knew what to do, and it was nice to just do it, the two of us. I labored all over the place--multiple positions in the tub, leaning on James, standing and bracing on the sink, and later others. I loved the freedom to do what my body wanted to do.

I think it was just before 8pm when I had James bring Allison in. She watched me through a contraction standing, then suggested I try the birthing stool. I had never used one before. It really increased the sense of pressure. I labored there for awhile. When things got more intense, Allison suggested moving to either the pool or the bed--she wanted a gravity-neutral position for the next part of my labor, in the hope of avoiding tearing like I had done previously. So I moved back to the tub.

Contractions got much more intense. I didn't actually feel the urge to push. I felt pressure, but nothing like the urge to bear down like I remember feeling with Joel. But it felt like time, so I just started trying to push, to see what happened. And it was definitely time!

Pushing took what felt like ages. Xander was positioned at an odd angle, so I had to change my position several times. My water broke there in the tub. Shifting during that part was agonizing. The worst was when Allison said she wanted me to get out of the tub and move to all fours on the bed. At several points along the way to the bed, that seemed like an impossible request. For several contractions I stood at the edge of the bed. I thought my legs were going to give out! He crowned there; Allison suggested lying on the edge of the bed, saying that movement would probably pop him out. She wasn't far off. I lurched rather awkwardly onto my side. Lying on the corner of the bed with one leg up in the air, I gave two more pushes and out he came!

His cord was very short--they could only get him to my tummy, I could only see the top of his head. They ended up having James cut his cord right away so we could move. But while still in my awkward edge-of-the-bed position, I suddenly expelled about a pint of blood. James was a bit alarmed! Apparently it was just the result of my placenta shedding, and the placenta itself soon followed. But I hardly noticed most of that, because I was enraptured by my beautiful baby!

That full head of dark hair makes me so happy. He's got long Holley fingers and toes. Of course his size was immediately noticeable--a little while after the birth, they took his measurements, which were astonishing--9lbs 15oz, 22 inches long, 15.75" head circumference. The best part was hearing that I pushed out a baby just shy of 10 pounds with NO TEARING. Hallelujah! And I can tell you, there is a world of difference in how I feel postpartum.

We got settled in. James went and got us a pizza. Xander nursed for the first time. Once we were all cleaned up, measured, fed and squared away, we attempted to get some sleep.

Unfortunately, that's where things went downhill. But that story shall continue in another post. I would like to remember my triumphant delivery of Alexander Lee Holley independently of what followed. It was a wonderful, empowering birth.

To be continued...

Our Musical Nursery

Baby X is due in less than 8 weeks! People keep saying to me, "Wow, coming up fast!" To which my response is usually, "Not fast enough for me!" Mostly because I'm very excited to meet our newest munchkin. (Also because pregnancy sucks.)

James and I have had some serious back-and-forth debates about baby X's room. The biggest question mark has been his bed. Joel slept in our room in a pack & play for his first four months or so before transitioning to his crib in the nursery. I fully anticipate doing similarly with baby X, except that there is no crib waiting in the nursery for him.

Joel will be almost 18 months old when X comes. At the moment, Joel is nowhere close to being ready to transition out of his crib. Meaning that baby X won't be able have the crib for an undetermined period of time.

James and I debated maybe just getting a second crib. The one that we have, which we love, can become a toddler bed, and eventually serve as parts for an adult size bed as well. But this didn't seem to be the right solution for our future plans. So baby X gets to stay in the pack & play, whether in our room or his own, until Joel is ready to move to a big boy bed. Then baby X will inherit Joel's crib.

I decided to set up the nursery with the pack & play there, even though it will be moving into our room when the baby actually comes. This nursery is not as elaborate as what we put together in Utah for Joel, but the little details please me greatly nonetheless.

Baby X's nursery is music themed. While it's mostly just the basics in place, there are some fun touches that we have included:

Curtains

Thanks are due once again to my awesome mother, who created these curtains for baby X. From a distance, it's hard to tell, but up close, the fabric pops with colorful music notes! Super fun.

James and I are in love with this clock! It's not actually as hard to read the time as I feared it would be when we ordered it. It's beautiful, and we love the personal touch. :) You should know that we had a great debate over whether to use the baby's full name on the clock. But we already refer to him almost exclusively by the short version (he is baby X, after all, not baby A), so that's what went on the clock.

Last but not least is a little design of my own which I painted above the dresser. While it's not perfect, I am still very happy with how it turned out. Can you determine what the song is?

The only thing left to be added is to bring up my armchair from the living room, which will once again be a comfy spot for me and the baby to nurse. We're leaving it downstairs for a couple more weeks.

All in all, I am feeling much more prepared for baby X's arrival!

Holley House tour!

As I have mentioned before, I really enjoy unpacking. I have found that I am fairly unusual in this regard. There is something very satisfying, for me, in organizing and finding the new "homes" for all our belongings. In all of my past moves, I have never taken very long to unpack and get everything set up, and I didn't really expect this move to be very different.

That said, about three days into unpacking, James and I had gotten all the necessities squared away, and there was definitely a "hump" feeling--nothing else needed to be unpacked, and it would have been very, very easy to delay dealing with the rest. It certainly didn't help that the Little Monster sooooo enjoyed putting things back into the boxes as we tried to get everything out. It was at that point that I gave myself a deadline: every box to be unpacked by Saturday. Otherwise, I fully expected that we'd be moving some of the same, unpacked boxes three years from now when James graduates.

We did it! We weren't quite finished by Saturday, because we still had to hang some of the artwork around the house. And then I was just a slacker about taking photos of everything. But, at last, I get to present to you, the Holley House at Stoney Drive.

Exterior at sunset

Front door + little greeters

When you walk in our front door, you can go one of three directions. If you turn to the left, you will enter our comfy living room:

Living room (view from the front door)

TV in the living room, on the interior wall

Mantle (I love actually having a mantle for the first time in my life)

Living room (view from the kitchen)

Upon entering, if you turn to the right, you will enter our cute little sitting room. The previous owner used it as a formal dining room, but I am enjoying my little "formal" area very much. I would say this my second-favorite room in the house.

Sitting room (view from the front entryway)

Sitting room

If you proceed straight in from the front door, you will traverse a little hallway, with stairs to the right, and a half-bath to the left. You will then enter our kitchen!

Kitchen (view from the living room)

That doorway straight ahead leads into our garage. PS: Parking in a narrow one-car garage can be a little scary.

Just outside of the sliding glass door in the kitchen is our little covered porch, which we LOVE. It leads into the backyard.

View of the backyard from the porch

Our backyard

Incidentally, James and I have decided not to build a fence, which was our original plan. (The fence you can see in the pictures is actually our next-door neighbors'. Our yard is not fenced.) However, given the expense involved, and the fact that fences are actually really unpopular in our neighborhood, we reconsidered. Fortunately, Shadow doesn't tend to wander, and he minds well. Our children will be so young while we are here, that I don't really envision them playing outdoors unsupervised, which would be another reason to have one. It's a bit of a pain not being able to let Shadow out unsupervised, but it's working okay so far, so we're going with it for now.

Now, the upstairs!

Stairwell

At the top of our stairs is a small landing. Straight ahead is our laundry closet. To the right is Baby X's room, which shall remain unphotographed until I figure out what I'm doing with it. :P To the left is Joel's room!

Admittedly, we miss the ninja chibis very much. However, Joel still has a strong ninja theme going in his bedroom. It's a good-sized room, too, which is nice. We only decided to separate the boys' rooms because we have the space in this house, and might as well.

Down the hall from the boys' rooms is our guest bedroom. It's a bit full with all the furniture, but it works great as a guestroom.

So...if any of y'all want to come stay...you're invited!!!

If you go back down the hall, you'll pass the second bathroom (already known, in my mind, as the boys' bathroom). It is what I consider to be a standard bathroom.

Boys' bathroom

To be compared with our lovely master bathroom:

View from our bedroom

Dual sinks! This is a favorite feature of James'

MY GLORIOUS TUB

Huge walk-in closet, which you get to through the bathroom, which I find a little odd.

Re: the tub. So, I don't normally take many baths, EXCEPT when pregnant. Especially toward the end, my back just kills me, and hot baths really help. My parents have a jetted tub that I made frequent use of during my pregnancy with Joel. Knowing I would not longer have access to theirs, I was really hoping we could find a house with a nice big tub. (Our house in Orem had a standard tub: see the boys' bathroom for reference.) I am SO HAPPY with our tub! I have already used it a couple of times, and it's wonderful.

And, last but not least, our master bedroom. Easily my favorite room in the house.

View from the hallway

Our bedroom has taken over as our Taekwondo shrine, and it makes me pretty happy:

We got new sword racks so we didn't have to pound a gazillion holes into the wall. With 8 swords apiece on the wall, almost all of our swords are hung. ;)

That's about it! We are thoroughly enjoying our new home. It certainly has little quirks. But overall, it's feeling very comfortable for us. It's nice to feel as though we are settling in. It lets us start really figuring out our new life here in Durham!

Check!

We're Here!!!

We're here!!

It's been a pretty crazy week. Monday and Tuesday were mostly spent packing and cleaning. I hate packing. I would so much rather unpack. Unpacking is fun for me, finding all the new homes for things. But packing is torture. So I was very grateful to my husband, and my awesome parents who came over and helped with those Augean tasks.

Tuesday evening we were joined by many wonderful friends, family, and ward members to pack our moving van.

Thanks to everyone who came to help! Loading up went super fast, and it was nice to be able to visit with everyone before we left.

Wednesday was Travel Day 1. James and his brother Matthew drove the moving van. I had the car with my mother-in-law Charmaine, Joel and Shadow. The plan was for James and Matthew to drive nonstop, switching off driving/sleeping, while Mom and I followed more slowly. We actually stayed pretty close together Wednesday--over the mountains into Colorado, the van wasn't able to go very fast, so Mom and I were able to make up for our extra stops. We all had lunch and dinner together, which was nice.

Mom and I drove until about 2:30am before calling it a night, while James and Matthew pressed onward. We spent the night at a hotel in WaKeeney, Kansas.

So, I have decided that traveling with a baby (Joel-baby, at any rate) isn't so bad. But traveling with a dog is not so fun. First of all, pit stops take SO much longer, because of Shadow's needs, and because we had to take turns going to the restroom and whatnot, because one of us had to stay with the dog. Secondly, we decided to sneak Shadow into the hotels we stayed in, and that was super stressful! Fortunately, Shadow was an angel, and spent the nights quietly in his kennel. And we did our best to make our pit stops pleasant for all.

Thursday and Friday were travel days. Mom and I took turns driving. We made good time, all things considered. Thursday night we stayed in Paducah, Kentucky. When we got up on Friday morning, it was to the news that James and Matthew had arrived at the house in Durham. They crashed for a few hours. My father-in-law was already on a flight to Raleigh, and when he got there late in the morning, they started unloading the moving van. Meanwhile, Mom and I got to enjoy a scenic drive across Tennessee. The Smokey Mountains are beautiful!!

Close to midnight on Friday, Mom and I finally made it to Durham. We put Joel straight to bed. Shadow, on the other hand, ran crazy circles around the house and yard for awhile! He was clearly ecstatic. The guys had gotten everything into the house and returned the van. The furniture was more or less in place, and the beds were all set up. Shortly after Mom and I arrived, we all crashed for the night.

My in-laws left at about 1:00pm this afternoon for the airport. We are sooooooo grateful for all their help and company!

Shortly after the family left, James and I were treated to lunch by our new next-door neighbor Eileen. Talk about Southern hospitality! She came over this morning to say hello and invite us out. For lunch she took us to this fantastic Mexican place attached to a Mexican market. It was delightful, and we were so impressed by her generosity and welcome.

From there we went shopping. After Home Depot, we went to Costco and purchased our first membership! We're going to try it out for a year and see if it's worth it for us. I love Costco, we'll just have to make sure we don't waste too much.

The rest of the day we spent unpacking. Joel enjoyed collecting the plastic bags we'd used to cushion dishes and things as we worked, it was super cute. We finished unpacking and organizing the kitchen, yay! We also got most of Joel's room set up, we'll finish that tomorrow. There's still TONS to do, but it feels good to have made this much progress.

Tomorrow we get to go to our new ward for the first time, and we're very excited. The next few days have a lot of unpacking, plus getting other things settled from moving. On Tuesday I have my first appointment at the birth center where I'll be delivering in September. There will be lots to keep us busy!

Much love to you all!

Saying goodbye to BST :'(

I'm feeling rather emotional today.

This is my last week of teaching at Beyond Sports Taekwondo.

We'll be there for color belt testing next week, and the Leadership Retreat the following week. So there will be chances to say our goodbyes before we move on the 8th of July.

But this is my last week of teaching. I have been teaching at BST for nearly 6 years. I took over my first class as a head instructor in August 2009. Two other instructors were getting married and so weren't going to be teaching anymore, and there was one class that Master Sorenson didn't have anyone to teach--so she asked me. I was a first degree black belt, I had just come back from a 3+ year hiatus, and I had only ever assisted other instructors a handful of times. When I think of the trust that she displayed in me, I am so grateful.

Since then, teaching Taekwondo has become an integral part of my life. In addition to my own training, there were several years in the middle where I worked full time at the studio--teaching a lot, plus managing the office. I cut back when James and I started preparing for our family, and cut back a bit more when baby Joel arrived. But my heart has been invested at the studio, more than may be usual for a place of employment.

I have fallen in love again and again with my students. I have trained for them, cheered for them, studied for them, sweated for them, cried for them, prayed for them, and done everything in my power to help them become the best Black Belts--the best people--that they can be.

I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work at BST. I am so grateful for the people I have worked with, and the students I have trained. Every year at Black Belt Testing, every quarter at Color Belt Testing, every tournament I attend with my students, I see their growth and achievements and I feel grateful all over again for the privilege of working with such amazing individuals.

This is definitely the end of an era, for me. While I know that there will be other studios and other students, the last 6 years have had an immeasurable impact on my life. I love this place, and I will miss my students dearly.