Natalie's Birth Story - April 25, 2014

First let me start that our journey to have a baby started a few years ago. We had trouble conceiving and finally reached our to Seattle Reproductive Medicine for some help. We feel completely blessed with Natalie and God's timing was perfect for having this baby.

I would say the story should really start as of April 23^rd. We had our week 39 doctor appointment and my doctor (Dr Fallah) recommended “stripping my membranes” at this appointment. If you don’t know what that is look it up but I was terrified about that recommendation – mainly because I was uneducated of what that meant. I asked family and friends about it and whether they had that done and then agreed that it may help spur on labor earlier…which I was fine with J  So Wednesday, April 23th I had that done. Dr. Fallah thought for sure I would have Natalie either Thursday or Friday of that week.  

Last baby bump. The morning of April 25th

On Thursday I had some minor contractions throughout the day but nothing crazy. I decided to let work know that, that would be my last day and that I was going to start maternity leave a day early. I just wasn’t sure if the contractions would progress and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t in limbo on any projects. Well Thursday came and went and no baby.

Friday morning around 2:15am I started having contractions again. I just kept looking at the clock every time one would happen and all of a sudden it was like they were happening every 6 minutes or so. They weren’t that painful so I still wasn’t sure if this was the start of labor or just more Braxton Hicks contractions. After about an hour, I turned my bedside lamp on and woke up Ryan. “Ry you should get up and we should start timing these contractions.” The response I got from Ryan? “Ugh – I just finally got into some sound sleep”…or something to that affect. I made sure he knew I wasn’t joking around so then he got out of bed and the next 4 hours we watched two movies (Just like Heaven with Reese Witherspoon and Spanglish with Adam Sandler) and just enjoyed our morning around the house. I sat on a exercise ball and breathed through the contractions as they came and intensified. I still thought they were completely manageable though as I breathed through them. Each ranged from 5-8minutes apart or so and lasted approximately 40seconds each. I still never really got to the 5-1-1 that they tell you about in labor class (5 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute, for 1 hour).

Before we left the house

 

 

At 7:30 we agreed it was time to call the doctor’s office and see what our next steps were. We called and they said to come in. So we got ourselves ready and took our time making sure the house was in order and the cats were taken care of it. We were very calm and relaxed which was great – I wasn’t sure I was going to be.

We got to Evergreen Hospital and checked in at the doctors office. Unfortunately Dr. Fallah had off that day so I was seen by another doctor. I wasn’t that impressed with this particular doctor but that’s ok. She checked me out and I was 3 centimeters dilated and 90% effaced. She wasn’t sure if Dr. Fallah would have admitted me at 3 centimeters but I told her we should wait and that Ryan and I would walk around the hospital a bit and wait it out.

We hung out and had breakfast all while having contractions in the hallways of the hospital. I tried to be discrete as people were walking by J.  After 1.5hours we went back to the doctor office and was checked out again. It was a “go” this time – I had reached the 4 centimeter mark that I had read in all the books as the key number to hit.

We walked over to the maternity center and got checked in – by this time it was 11am. The cool part about this is the nurse we were assigned to, Sara, started her shift at 11 and she worked a 12hr shift – so it was pretty likely that she would be there the entire labor and delivery of Natalie. I loved how that worked out!! By the way, she was a fantastic nurse!!

Our room was 2121 – which was a huge room and I guess considered a favorite because it had a huge long hallway and really you could fit a large viewing audience if that is something of interest to you – that was not something I wanted!!

 

I had let Sara know that I was interested in getting an epidural but not until I was at 6 centimeters. Mainly for two reasons – 1) the contractions still were very manageable to me. I was breathing through them and honestly they weren’t that bad (or I have a high tolerance of pain).  And 2) I didn’t want the epidural to wear off too soon and leave me feeling everything during the actually delivery. Well it turns out that I wasn’t able to wait until I dilated to 6 cm. There were two other women who had recently come in (one having twins and one that possibly would have a c section because she had a previous c section) so that meant the two anesthesiologists on staff would be ‘busy’ when I might need my epidural. So after being checked one last time and being at 5cm I was feeling better about getting it done right then.

The anesthesiologist came by and started their work. First epidural did not take. I prayed through the entire procedure as he was doing it because I was very nervous about this. I’m not a needles person and wanted to make sure it went smoothly. It’s awesome to pray to God and trust in His plan. Once the epidural was completed,  I could still feel everything. So the anesthesiologist had to come back, untape everything he did and start over. I swear the untaping of all the stuff on my back was the worst part of the day so far – NO JOKE! I could handle the contractions but pulling the tape off my skin was horrible. The second epidural only really affected by left side so they pumped more drugs in me and eventually I was completely numb from the waist down. Like literally numb! I could not feel any sensations, no pressure, no touch! It was rather strange at first and they had a really hard time turning me from left to right so Ryan had to step in and help the nurses since I couldn’t help at all no matter how much I tried.

I got a little concerned about not being able to feel anything and possibly not being about push effectively for when the time came that I asked them to turn down my epidural. I was completely fine feeling pain…and I kept telling them that so that they would know I was ok with that. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t cause any unnecessary complications for delivery.

In between the first and second epidural, I did feel a POP and gush of water – YAY my water broke. I actually leaned up in bed and exclaimed “I think my water just broke” so that was an exciting moment for sure. That meant things were moving right alone for Natalie.

After the epidurals, etc we were in waiting limbo. My mom was there and Ryan and I tried to all sleep or relax during this time to save up energy for delivery. It was nice and relaxing.

The epidural did start to wear off in one small place on my body – right near my left hip. It was so weird. I could feel the intense contractions coming through just my hip area and had to really breathe through them as if I had no medication. So in a way I feel like I had a small idea of what completely natural child birth would have felt like. What was great about this is that this one area of pain helped me realized when I was having contractions so I was able to use that to assist in delivery for when to push. And that time was coming quickly.

The nurse checked me out around 5:30 and was like “whoa – ok I better call the dr. You are ready to have this baby.” We actually did some practice pushes as well because she wanted to see how easy Natalie was going to start coming out. Once she saw that her head started to come rather quickly we stopped “practicing” and waited for the Dr Caldwell to arrive.  As we waited I kept saying how hungry I was so Sara called in my dinner order so that it would be ready by the time I had this baby J. We weren’t sure how fast that would be but she must have known it was going to be pretty quick because I had dinner waiting for me by 6:30.  HAHA!

Once Dr. Caldwell got there, delivery was pretty much like clockwork. Ryan and my mom were on either side of me holding each leg – the doctor didn’t want to use the stirrups or even break down the bed to prepare for delivery. My mom and Ryan would say ok ready PUSH – then they would count to 10 and I push as hard as I could for this 10 seconds. We did this about 7-8 times or so and this latest about 20 minutes. Then all of a sudden I felt like my beach ball stomach deflated and I looked up at Ryan and he had tears in his eyes – Natalie had just made her first appearance in this world at 6:09pm (April 25, 2014). I was all smiles and out of breathe but when they placed Natalie on my chest it was beautiful. I just held her and watched as they took her temperature and cut the cord. She was beautiful to me. Ryan got a lot of this on video which is a priceless memory to take away from this day. I’m so glad he captured it!

 

 

 

 

Getting her footprints done

It was a very long day for us but it was beautiful. I wouldn’t have changed anything or experienced it any different. It’s our day…our birth story and Natalie was perfect. She came out 6lb 12oz, 19 inches long. She had beautiful brown hair and a tiny body. We loved her right away and just knew she was perfect.

 

In Honor of Wanda Ficker

What can I say about Wanda. I can't believe I'm writing something to remember her by. I feel like she is still with us. It's surreal that she is gone. I still can't wrap my head around it. She was a wonderful person and was so looking forward to being a grandmother to our baby girl.

She always accepted me as one of her own children. I have many great memories with her and was looking forward to making many more. God had His own plan that I will never understand but I know He has perfect timing and I trust in Him. I truly believe her purpose in life was to take care of Carl and once he was gone, her task in this life was completed as well.

Cancer took her so quickly. It was literally two weeks when we found out the diagnosis until the day she passed. During this time, I also gave birth to Natalie. Natalie came a week early which was truly God because Wanda was able to meet her. If she had been born on her due date of May 2nd that wouldn't have happened since Wanda passed May3rd.

We miss her dearly and I'm still at a loss for words.

 

 

 

In Honor of Carl Ficker

One week ago yesterday we said goodbye to Ryan's dad, Carl. We were woken by a call at 1am by Ryan's mom Wanda letting us know of his passing. We had been anticipating that call. His health had declined rapidly in about a week's time so we knew it was a matter of days when he might pass. I got to say hi/goodbye on Saturday when I stopped over to their house. It was hard to see him in the shape that he was in so, for me, I know he's in a better place with no more pain.

Carl was a quiet man the years I knew him. I've been with Ryan for 13 years and will be married 10 of those years this year. Carl was diagnosed with Parkinsons a few years before I met Ryan I believe so I never really knew him without health issues...though back in those days when I first met him, he was doing very well and honestly didn't really pay much attention to the disease. Parkinsons was not something that defined Carl. It was just something that eventually took over like any neurological disease does.

Carl loved playing cards with Ryan. I probably will never be a card player but it was great to see them bond through playing Cribbage and other games (games that I have still yet to learn). I know it was something Ryan loved to do with his dad and I'm sure he'll miss those times.

Over the last 1.5 years we wanted them to move closer to us (they were living in Eastern WA) to be able to help them more when needed. We were so fortunate to have that work out and have them within 4 miles of our house. It was all God's timing as well. There was one rambler left in a new development neighborhood and if the house wasn't purchased that weekend there would have been no way to do some custom changes to accomodate a wheelchair after that weekend. It was a true God thing that we found this house (with the help of my good friend Leah who works for the builder). We were able to request a ramp to be added to the garage, a sloped front entrance instead of having stairs, a roll in shower with no tub in the master bath and wider doorways in some of the rooms....all things the builder did for no extra charge! Everyone was thankful it all worked out.
We have neem thankfuul for the time that we had with him and know he is walking and running around in heaven in a healthy body.

Toy Box Re-do

So I have this old toy box from when my sister and I were kids and I really wanted to reuse it. It's pretty ugly and not well taken care of so I knew I wanted to recover it. I searched Pinterest for some inspiration:

I like how this one has legs on it and two different fabric choices.



I liked how this lid was filled in so it looked softer in case it slammed on your fingers.

 

Well after looking at some inspiration I shortcut what the Pinterest folks did because I was short on energy and just wanted the project completed :) I can always make changes to it later since I only used inexpensive fabric and a staple gun.

Here is where I started.

The toy box is mostly made of particle board so I was afraid if I took off the vinyl fabric the whole thing would fall apart - it is from the 70s/80s so I wouldn't have been surprised. So I decided to re-cover the box right over what was there. That made things super easy!


 



Here is the original box - I forgot to take a pic of it with the lid on before I started my project. It had little bears all over it and a sort of plaid design.



You can see I found this gray outdoor fabric that I decided to use for the bottom of the box. It was on clearance so I got 2 yards for $9 - great deal!

I took off the hinges that connected the lid to the box and put the box on the fabric as the above picture shows. I then decided to cut out squares along each corner so that I could wrap the fabric into the box and not have a horrible looking seam. I had to google how to do this and found some good YouTube videos that gave me the idea. You can kind of see what I cut out in the above picture and below picture as well.

I was playing around with the fabric in this picture and clipping the fabric around to make sure it was going to turnout how I wanted it to. I didn't want to start stapling and have issues.

Final project after folding the fabric into the box and stapling around the edges. I had about 2-3inches where I used the fabric inside the box and stapled it rather than cutting the fabric and stapling right near the top edge of the inside of the box (hope that makes sense). I only had the very small seams on the ends where I folded in the fabric but I think it looks really good!!

Next I had to figure out what to do with the lid. It definitely needed some additional cushioning so I added a piece of 2inch batting to the top (I didn't glue it down or anything - again I was short cutting everything). I just laid the lid down on the batting and then on new fabric I bought (which was also on clearance).

I starting stapling the fabric around the lid  making sure I knew where to screw the hinge back in (in this picture I had just screwed it in). I had left over batting so I added to the inside of the lid so that it wasn't hollow any longer. I think took an extra piece of the fabric and stapled that across where I but the batting.

Another picture of be working with the fabric. What I like about this fabric is it had a lot of difference colors in it so I could use it with a variety of things.

AND THE FINAL REVEAL...which really didn't take me that long in total time even though I did this over several weeks.

I had bought furniture legs to add to the bottom that I was going to screw in and paint but I decided to take those back. I think it's fine without the legs but I can always add those anytime if I want to. I think it turned out great for how easy it was to make! Can't wait to use fill it up and start using it. 

Thankful for...

We have so much to be thankful for this year but one thing in particular is that we have been blessed with a miracle! We are HAVING A BABY! We are super excited about it. AND...we are having a GIRL! We both secretly wanted a girl so it was exciting to find out that it was a she. I got to find out really early (14 weeks) because I did a special blood test called the Harmony test. One of the items they can test for is gender (they pretty much check my blood to see if I have a Y Chromosome in my blood which would mean I'm carrying a boy - there was no Y). It's 99% accurate so I was excited to find out early. Otherwise I would have had to wait until our 20 week ultrasound. The blood test also let us know that we have a healthy baby with no chromosome issues!

Since I was told the gender on the phone I got to do a fun gender reveal for Ryan. It took everything in me not to call him as soon I as found out the news. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops but I calmed myself down and came up with a plan.

I ran out to a local cupcake shop at the mall. I was just going to get a cupcake with pink frosting on the top BUT they were nice enough to make me a gender reveal cupcake while I waited. They put the pink frosting inside the cupcake so Ryan would have to take a few bites to get an answer :) I then went to Babies R Us and got  a cute outfit to wrap up in a gift bag for him to open. Here are some of the pics from that day.

Of course I bought one for myself to eat as well. YUMMY!

This is the card I wrote for Ryan to open first

 

Here he was opening and reading the card. He had no idea what was going on since I didn't tell him I should be getting the blood test results back today!

It took more than a bite or two to get to the frosting but there it is - PINK!

 

And I couldn't resist this cute set of outfits with little pink pants. So sweet!

We also were super motivated so we have made some progress on the nursery as well. That will be on the next blog post but here is a preview - I'll post more on how we got to this point in another post!

 

More posts to come...

I haven't posted in awhile but I'll have a bunch of updates to post over the next week so be on the look out. I'll link my posts to Facebook for easy access! :)

More to come.

Quick trip to Reno/Tahoe

I had never been to Reno - and you may be asking why would you even want to go to Reno? It wasn't so much to spend time in that small city but to venture out and really see the area and drive out to Lake Tahoe. It was great!

The weather was perfect - super sunny and warm. We brought our tennis rackets in our suitcase and found a park along the Truckee River and played two different mornings on our short trip. We also walked about 2 miles to get to a beautiful park near the Univ of Nevada and really loved checking that out.

We did gamble a bit and went through all the casinos in Reno...nothing special but some of the city has been redone and is super nice - near the Truckee River.

Then on Sunday before we left we drove a little over an hour to Lake Tahoe and spent some time in South Lake. South Lake borders CA and NV. It was actually really nice so we are thinking the next time we visit this area we'll definitely stay near by and spend more time in this area. It's more expensive then staying in Reno but it's so beautiful.

Here are some pics from our short trip.

Ryan had a free 5 minutes of playing this slot and if he was in the top 5 highest scores for the day he would win something. Sadly he didn't make the top 5.

We walked to this great park from the hotel.

 

Beautiful Lake Tahoe!

 

 

Heading over to Lake Tahoe. Beautiful mountains.