Sunday, October 21, 2012

Welcome Lucas Lee Walsh - September 17th, 2012

Well the boys are both sound asleep and I thought I would take minute to reflect on my last four weeks of pregnancy and the arrival of our beautiful baby boy.

My last blog entry left off at 34 weeks pregnant and with mixed feelings about whether or not I was ready to be a mom. Obviously I was so excited to meet our baby boy/girl, but I wasn’t sure I would be a good mom. I started to have anxiety about the health of our new arrival and felt scared to bring him into this world outside of utero, where I would not longer be his sole protector. The pregnancy continued and Matt reminded me that no matter what life hands us, we can do it together, we can be great parents and love our little one unconditionally.

The last four weeks baby Walsh continued to kick, throw elbows and hiccup. I learned to actually enjoy the movements. One morning, I woke up to what felt like rhythmic breathing. I woke Matt up and asked him if he could feel it, with great excitement he goggled what it could possibly be, we found a number of articles discussing this rhythmic movement and they stated this was most likely the baby practice breathing, what a miracle.

Pregnancy continued week after week, we walked day after day and Matt and I had nightly talks about all of our excitement along with all of our fears. Saturday before our little ones arrival we walked at 5K at Gallo and Sunday took a three mile walk over to Gramma and Grandpa’s for a quick visit. Sunday night we enjoyed a glass or red wine and some relaxation station.

Around midnight on Sunday , September 16th,, I woke up to what felt like a contraction. The contractions continued over the next few hours and every time my eyes would shut I would be awaken by another contraction. Around 5 a.m. I decided I needed to walk them out. I didn’t really believe this was labor, but knowing I had my 40-week appointment at 10 a.m. I chose to walk them out until then. Upon arriving at the doctor’s office, I was informed I was 100% effaced and 2cm dilated and had a long way to go. We climbed back in the car as tears filled my eyes and I said , “I can’t labor like this for a week, this has to be the real thing.” I had so much doubt. After arriving back at the house I continued to have contractions that were between seven and 10 minutes apart. The contractions grew more intense and I started to doubt that I could have a natural drug free birth. I begged myself for forgiveness, begged Matt for forgiveness and that is when Matt said, “we are going to the hospital.” We arrived at the hospital around 2:30 p.m. My contractions were now 4 minutes apart and I had the joy of experiencing three in the car ride, two in the waiting room, one in the admitting room, one in the hallway while waiting for labor and delivery room ,before I finally got to lay myself to rest on a bed. We handed the nurse our birth plan and with a deep sigh she said, “I will not put this in your file, if I do, nothing will go as planned.” She checked me for dilation and informed me that I was now 6cm and progressing. With that being said, I looked up at Matt and said, I can do this, I will do this without drugs just like we planned for our little baby. Around 5:30 Nurse Dena informed me that I was 9+ cm and that my water was still intact. She decided that if my water broke I may progress faster, with that she broke my water and one contraction later I was dilated to 10cm and ready to push. Dr. Yip arrived and, my mom continued to capture all of the excitement in the room, Matt held me tight and Dr. Yip put my sister to work. After 25 minutes of pushing a little boy was placed upon my chest, our little boy, our Lucas Lee.

Lucas Lee arrived at 6:12 pm on Monday, September 17th, 2012. He weighed 8 pounds, 10 ounces and measured 20 inches long. He was beautiful, he was perfect! I sat there with Lucas on my chest in complete shock, I thought we were having a little girl. I continued shouting, “It’s a boy, he’s beautiful, it’s a boy, and he’s beautiful.” Daddy held us both tight as we took in all there was to take in.

Our birth plan went exactly as planned and our little miracle was healthy as can be.

I am writing this two weeks post partum. I still have a number of aches and pains that take over my body. I have had a number of post partum cry sessions. I cried because I felt like I no longer have complete control over caring for Lucas and protecting him, he is now at the mercy of others. I have cried over the post partum aches and pains, heck, I walked three miles the day he arrived, why can’t I do that now? On a positive note, I have already lost 23 of my 30 pregnancy pounds. My body is definitely not the same, but nothing that I can’t accept. Our nights are very sleepless because Lucas is a ”milk junky”. Otherwise he sleeps, eats and poops. He cries for food and doesn’t make a peep otherwise. We are so in love with our little man. He is truly a blessing and a miracle.













Thursday, August 23, 2012

Becoming a Family of Three

It all started in mid-January; I woke up with some nausea and fatigue, flu bug, right? Wrong. After a visit to the doctor we confirmed that we would be welcoming little baby Walsh on September 18th and that I was approximately six weeks pregnant.

I was so excited to be pregnant and even more excited to spend the next 34 weeks growing and glowing. Well, to my surprise I woke up at six weeks one day with what one may call “All Day Pregnancy Sickness”, no glowing and definitely no growing. It didn’t matter how many funny looking pressure point sweat bands I wore around my wrist, how much ginger I consumed or how fast I could ingest saltine crackers…I was sick and would spend the next 13 weeks sick. Dinners, grocery store trips, family visits and workdays were all cut short due to my sickness. And of all things, the sound of squeaky windshield wipers would exacerbate the sickness making any and all car rides (especially on rainy days) complete torture. As the sickness worsened, my skin started to resemble that of a 15 year old going through puberty and I still wonder if my skin will ever recover from the scars that have been left behind. My only hope was to count down the days until the second trimester (approximately 14 weeks) because rumor had it that the second trimester would become our second honeymoon, if you know what I mean. So…week 14 passed, week 16 passed and week 17. With no signs of relief I started to wonder if this sickness was going to be my new worst enemy for the remaining 23 weeks and I started to doubt if the sickness would subside even after baby Walsh’s arrival.

The start of week 19 not only brought on a new day and a new week, I can confidently say it was now an entirely new and different pregnancy. My skin started to clear up, my belly started to grow round, the baby’s feet started to flutter and most importantly I wasn’t sick. Now I wasn’t quite glowing, but I was on my way. Week 20, we traveled to the Caribbean on a cruise and as you can imagine I had anxiety about motion sickness (which wouldn’t be to anyone’s surprise), but believe it or not I managed the entire cruise without getting sick. Our week 20 Ultra Sound confirmed that baby Walsh was growing exactly as expected, which was such a relief. Baby Walsh also went snorkeling in the Cozumel Sea, now that is a milestone for 20 weeks gestation. With the rough part behind me, it was time to trek forward on this pregnancy journey and try to put all of doubt and hesitations aside and start glowing.

I am writing this today at 36 weeks pregnant and I think I can officially say under my abnormally thick locks of hair, behind my acne scarred skin and watermelon sized belly I can see the pregnancy glow. I am happy to report that I am staying active with daily walks, squats and eating a reasonably healthy diet. I crave salads for breakfast, lunch and dinner and admit my deep love for chocolate ice cream is still with me. I absolutely love watching baby Walsh’s little limbs rub across my belly and feel so connected with our little one. My belly grows by the day now and Matt keeps me on my oil and lotion routine for stretch mark prevention. We have attended 10 weeks of Bradley Birthing classes, watched videos about childbirth from the 1940’s to the present and still remain hopeful that we can have a natural childbirth. Pregnancy has also left my mind a little scrambled. We have found the sugar bowl in the freezer, the car keys dangling in the fridge atop a chilled six pack of beer and I managed to walk right by our garbage tote and proceeded to run over it with Matt’s truck. Yes, I am living proof that pregnancy brain does exist.

We have four weeks to go and the baby is measuring between 6-6.5 pounds with a heart rate of 152. I have gained 27 pounds to date and hope to keep to my goal weight gain of 30. Let the countdown begin!







Another Chapter

This post is long overdo, but better late than never.

Three years ago when the blogging began, my one page to do list was just that, a “one page” to do list. However, time went on, life happened and the one page to do list became the length of a small book and to be perfectly honest, I don’t even know if blogging made it to the back matter section of the book.

So with that being said, I will now attempt to update you on three years of life without boring one to death…

We celebrated our 1st Anniversary in Hawaii, our 2nd in Avila Beach and our 3rd in Morro Bay. In 2010 we moved from San Luis Obispo to Walnut Creek and then to Modesto where we currently reside. We spent a short eight months living with the Hollingsworth’s before purchasing a house, performed a three month remodel with a labor of love so we could call this house our home. We traveled and traveled some more. In the early part of this year, we welcomed the news that we would be becoming a family of three in September. As a result the blogging must resume. Stayed tuned for our adventure on becoming a family of three…

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Honeymoon

Our Honeymoon was our first adventure as a married couple. Now we could have started out like most other couples, traveled to Hawaii and had a relaxing get away, but instead we decided to test our marriage in the first three weeks. I am happy to share that we are still married. Our adventure started on a long plane ride, but first class upgrades for being newlyweds gave us something worth calling home about. We landed in Rome and the backpacking began. We headed around Europe to Rome, Florence, Cinque Terre, Interlaken, Munich and ended in the romantic city of Paris. We celebrated in every city with a glass of champagne and ate our way through Florence(by ate I mean too much Gelato). We hiked our way through the Alps (through the rain and sun) and learned what real beer was in Munich. We walked blisters on our feet through the Florence leather market and could not get enough of the Academia, so inspirational. It was a great way to start our married life together, we survived and now we are submitting our application to Amazing Race. Just kidding. I hope you enjoy our photographic memories, as much as we enjoyed making them.


The Beginning

Our life together began in the Fall of 2003. Our wedding day (June 20, 2009)however was the door to a new advneture. Marriage. It was absolutely amazing...the day could not have been more perfect. It was 80 degrees, high clouds and our wedding was located on the most beautiful walnut orchard in Hughson, CA. We wrote our own vows which truly made the day even more special. The Hollingsworth Family, Walsh Family and all of our friends who poored their heart and souls in to making our day perfect and we thank them for that. Thanks to an inspiring photograph Aaron Draper for capturing each moment.