Photoshoot

So I'm not exactly a great photographer, even though I like to pretend I am sometimes.  But we definitely can't afford to have a professional take pictures of our baby, so we checked out a nice camera from the BYU library (I'm really gonna miss living here) and I did it myself.  These were all taken when Coulson was 10 and 11 days old.

I did manage to get some that I really liked (which are on Facebook, but I'll put a few here, too).  Forgive me if you don't like the way I edited them.  I only sort of know what I'm doing, and I don't have Photoshop so I have to use a free online editor.

This was Chrisser's favorite.

Coulson's favorite thing to do besides sleep is stare at the little stars that hang over his Pack 'n' Play (which is also his bed).

I had some fun with a few props, even though some were a little silly.  And they were mostly stuffed animal-type things because a) that's pretty much all we have in the way of props, and b) I didn't want to keep changing outfits because that would wake him up.

Have I mentioned we love minions?

Chrisser gave me that hedgehog for Valentine's Day last year :)

There were also some that turned out quite horribly, haha, either while I tried to figure out all the settings on the camera or while Coulson was being fussy.  Or while I was failing at experimenting with angles.

And there are some where Coulson is just making weird faces...

But I had fun anyway.  And now we have a few decent pictures of our baby, and they were free!

Easter 2015

Our first Easter with more than just the 2 of us!  The Easter Bunny brought us a baby this year!

He also brought us normal baskets, and he brought us a basket for the baby that he brought!  Isn't the Easter Bunny just the best?

Coulson's basket was actually filled mostly with the toys we got at our baby showers, haha.  He doesn't know the difference...  Oh, and they aren't in the picture because I guess I was wearing them already, but there was a pair of bunny ears in my basket as well as the baby's.  It's also kinda funny to notice that Chrisser and I each got each other something with minions :).  We like our minions...

And this picture of our Easter dinner isn't very exciting, but I'm gonna put it in anyway just to remember it.

Just pork chops, hash browns, and rolls.  And fun fact, those are the flowers that my parents brought me in the hospital after having Coulson.  They still look brand new even a week later!

Well, I did it!  Three posts in one day!  I feel so accomplished.

Meet Coulson!

This post will probably take me forever because it is about my baby!!!  I have a baby!!!

So on Friday the 27th I just kinda felt like this kid was coming soon, so I a) spent the day doing baby-related things like cutting the fabric for more pack 'n' play sheets and reading up on labor and delivery in What to Expect When You're Expecting, and b) procrastinated going to bed because I just kept hoping labor would start.  We finally gave up and went to bed at like 12:30 a.m., but I never actually got to sleep because the contractions started shortly thereafter.  I got up and started timing the contractions at about 1:00, and they were coming every 2-4 minutes.  I timed them for about a half an hour and then decided that sure enough, it was gonna be time to go to the hospital any minute.  I started making some PB&J sandwiches to take as an attempt to stall so Chrisser could sleep a little longer, but I couldn't finish them before it started hurting too bad to really do anything at all, so I went and got Chrisser up.  It took him a minute to wake up enough to realize what was going on, haha.  Eventually he did, though, and we gathered up our last minute things, Chrisser finished the sandwiches, and off we went.

By 2:30 I was all checked in and hooked up to monitors, and my cervix was dilated to I think 4 cm.  When they checked again an hour later it was at 5 cm, so they hooked me up to the IV and officially got ready for me to have a baby.  I don't remember all the details of the next couple hours, because a) I was in a lot of pain (I didn't get an epidural), and b) I was so tired that I was actually sleeping in between contractions.  Even some of the contractions only half woke me up.  Thankfully that meant that those couple of hours went by super fast for me.

Then my water broke, and I don't think there was any more sleeping after that since the contractions got like 10 times worse and I was having to concentrate so hard on not pushing when the urge came.  I was only dilated to 7cm when I started getting the urge to push, so I wasn't allowed to push yet so that I wouldn't damage my cervix.  That was seriously one of the hardest things I've ever done, not pushing.  I don't know how long I had to resist, but I was soooooooo relieved when she checked again and said I was fully dilated and that I could push now!

And then of course pushing was another of the hardest things I've ever done.  It took me an hour and a half to get his head out.  By the end his heart rate was starting to drop so they had me wear an oxygen mask.  And on the way out he ended up inhaling a lot of fluid, so after they weighed him they took him straight to the ICU to hook him up to something to help him breathe.  So I didn't get to hold him for like an hour after he was born, but I was so exhausted that I didn't even care, and my whole body was shaking so bad from the shock of what had just happened that I feel like I would have dropped him anyway, and I was pretty busy getting stitched up...

But all the pain and exhaustion and craziness of 8 hours of labor was totally worth it, since it brought us Coulson!  He weighed in at 8 lbs 9 oz and measured 21 inches long.

This picture was actually taken on Sunday, the day after he was born.

And yes, the name is basically after Agent Phil Coulson from The Avengers...  Once upon a time, shortly after we announced the pregnancy to Chrisser's family, as we were sitting around the dinner table we were throwing out names and joking about naming the kid after Avengers characters.  Someone brought up Phil and I said "ew, no."  But then I thought of Phil's last name and, though I don't think I said anything at the moment, I thought it actually didn't sound too bad.  When I brought it up to Chrisser later I made it sound like I was totally joking in case he thought it was crazy (which it was, so yeah) and he was like "haha, whatever" but as time went on the name just kept coming back to me, Chrisser wouldn't really discuss other names, he didn't like anything else I brought up, Coulson grew on him, and by the time the baby was born we just felt like that should be his name.  And it really was the only name we both liked.  Don't know what we're going to do if we have another son...

Anyway, so Coulson was born at 8:48 a.m. on Saturday, and we spent most of the rest of that day still in the delivery room because all the recovery rooms were full.  But I didn't mind not having to be moved right away, and the delivery room was like 3 times the size of the recovery room, so it was actually really nice.  And by the way, I really miss the hospital food...  We live off of mac 'n cheese, basically, and I'm really not a great cook, so it was amazing getting stuff like ham and cheese omelets and penne pasta with alfredo sauce and pizza and a side of fruit with every meal.

Then on Monday morning we got to bring him home.  I had expected to only be in the hospital for 1 day, but apparently insurance allows for 48 hours after delivery so that's how long they had us stay. And it was so nice to get that much time to recover with nurses available to help whenever I needed it.  And that seems to have been just the amount of time I needed to start to feel normal again (other than the pain and swelling in my perineal area, of course; the swelling is only just going down now).

We totally spaced it on taking a picture of Coulson in his coming home outfit, so we put him back in it and took some a couple days later.

Coulson ended up having some jaundice, so we had to keep him on some phototherapy lights for a few days.  You'd think he wouldn't be very happy about that, but it turned out to be the place where he would cry the least other than someone's arms.

I was also supposed to feed him a lot to help the jaundice, but he didn't ever want to wake up to eat.  He loves his sleep, this kid.  He's gotten better, though, and is awake more.  Although he doesn't like to just lie there when he's awake, of course, so I've been wearing him in my ring sling a lot so that I can still do things without making him just cry all the time.  Although wearing him usually puts him back to sleep, haha.  I guess there isn't really much else for him to do at this point.  But he's cute!

Dancesport

A lot of stuff has happened since I last blogged (baby, anybody?), so I'm going to try to get through 3 posts today!  On your marks, get set, GO!

So a big thing that happened was Dancesport!  I may have been 37 weeks pregnant, but Chrisser and I competed Amateur Rhythm anyway :).  I found myself wishing the competition had been 1 week earlier, as I had felt totally fine dancing at 36 weeks but it was getting painful by 37.  After our practice on Saturday I was so sore "down there" that we just kind of marked a couple of our routines in practice on Monday, I refused to practice on Tuesday for fear I would actually injure myself, and the comp was on Wednesday.  Considering that, though, we danced it pretty well.  We didn't make it to the 2nd round (which was the semifinal), but we ended up getting 1 callback in the Cha Cha, 3 in the Swing and the Bolero, and 4 in the Mambo (out of 7 judges).  Here is a video of it:

And since we pretty much knew we weren't going to make it to the next round, we were more relaxed and more able to have fun than normal, so that was nice.

Chrisser also competed in a few other events.  He got 4th place in both his class Mambo event and the Open Hustle event.  For the Hustle, he had me make him some shiny silver pants, and he loved them.  Here is a video of the final:

I'm sure there was more I could say about this Dancesport, but my brain is totally spacing it since it was so long ago and so much has happened since then...  On to the next post!