Owen is two!

Owen is 2. I can't believe it's already been two years since his birth. He's grown into a such a sweet, loving boy. He loves giving kisses to everyone, including the dogs. He melts my heart every day with his laugh. He loves animals, books, trains, planes and buses.

Owen has grown up so much in the last year. A year ago, he wasn't walking and barely talked. Now he runs and is saying new words every day. He knows colors and animals (and their sounds). He's learning how to catch balls. Here's a video montage of Owen's last year.



We celebrated Owen's birthday a couple of days early. Thankfully, we had planned on keeping it low key this year, as I was on bed rest. Dave did an amazing job of making sure Owen's birthday was special. He bought and prepared all the food. He did the clean up. He picked up the cake. Thanks to my mom for letting us have the party at her house! Here's a little video of the b-day celebration!



 J.B.

Introducing Heidi Noelle

Heidi's birth story: I spent 6 days on bed rest, because of high blood pressure. Even with the bed rest, it wasn't getting much better. Thankfully my urine and blood work were negative for pre-eclampsia. But we still decided to get induced since i was 39 weeks, and there wasn't really any benefit to keeping the baby in longer with the risk of continuing the high blood pressure. So I was induced around 1:30 p.m. I was about 3 1/2 cm. I wasn't sure if I was going to get an epidural or not -- with Owen everything progressed too fast and I delivered him without any pain med. So I knew I could do it. However, since I was getting induced I was afraid the labor would be longer and more intense from the pitocin. The contractions weren't bad until my water was broken at 4:40 p.m. when I was 4 cm. It was a little frustrating that all afternoon I hadn't progressed hardly at all, but I was hopeful that would change with the bag of water being broken.

From then on, labor was really intense. I had a couple of moments wondering why I didn't opt for pain meds earlier, but I was still determined that I could do it. An hour later, at 5:40 I was at 6 cm. 20 min later I was pushing.

The last couple of contractions were right on top of each other and were super intense. They weren't ready for me to push yet, so i was trying to fight the urge to push, which was really hard. She came out in one contraction -- 2 1/2 pushes.

The nurse that came in for the baby couldn't believe I didn't have an epidural...apparently i handled myself well. I know I did better than with Owen -- I didn't cry because of the pain and anxiety, and I didn't scream when pushing either. There was something reassuring about having gone through it once before that labor wasn't quite so scary. Mostly, I knew that it was going to end. The first time, I thought the pain was going to continue forever.

Heidi was super alert when she was born. She nursed right away without any issues, and didn't want to stop. She weighed in at 6 lbs 12 oz and 21 inches long. She's really long and skinny

She's been such a great baby. She still loves nursing. She loves to sleep. She hardly cries. We are all so in love with her -- even Owen.

We went back to the doctor at 6 days, and she already surpassed her birth weight -- weighing 7 lbs 2 oz. Her weight is the 26th percentile and her height is 90th percentile.

Here are a couple of pictures.

 5 days old

 

The sweetest love of all.

I'm here!

 J.B.