The most amazing day of our lives, husband edition.

Hey folks, husband here with a different, but in many ways the same perspective on the birth of our child. As the wife indicated in the previous post, she was going to a regularly scheduled doctor's appointment with my mother in-law and I was to stay at home and work. The girls planned on having lunch afterwards and I was looking forward to the possibility of them bringing me something to eat.

I was on a conference call for a meeting I was running and my phone rang. It was my mother in-law, but being busy I sent it to voice mail. Then a text arrived from the wife stating that her water broke and it was time for childbirth.

"Jumping Jesus," I cried out. "I'm going to be a daddy. I gotta go." The others on the call ordered me to hang up on them and get my ass to the hospital. This was around 11 am.

I called my wife and she sounded happier than I've ever heard her before. She asked that I grab some last minute items and hurry over to the hospital. I took a quick shower, got dressed, scrambled around the house, double and triple checking that I had everything, loaded it into my wife's car, and drove like I was part of the Andretti family to the Centennial Medical Center.

I arrived and gathered belongings and made my way to my wife's room. She was sitting up with a pleasant look and seemed excited about the upcoming event. I take note of the environment we were in, and made sure I was aware of the surroundings. I made a mental image of where everything was going to happen and tried to prepare myself for my first child.

Hours go by and visitors came and went. Finally after much discussion, the wife decided an epidural was in order. The anesthesiologist appeared and discussed the process with alarming detail. We were told all that could go right and wrong, and even got a little chemistry lesson. He urged me not to look at her back while he's injecting the needle, as he assumed I would pass out. He told me how many fathers go limp when they see a syringe the size of a javelin in her spine. I took his advice as he repeated the warning multiple times.

The wife hunched over and the doctor did his thing. Sadly the needle went too far into her spine, so the labor pains were gone, but she got a terrible headache and had some back spasms. It was so bad the nurse had to come into the room every half hour or so to turn her to a more comfortable position.

The hours went by and I realized this will go well into the night, if not the early morning. Family started to arrive and I prepared them that if they stay there will be no sleep for anyone involved, which turned out to be true. The wife's headaches and back spasms got worse and we were moving her with more frequency.

I did little errands such as grabbing ice and popsicles, the only nourishment she was allowed, as I drank enough coffee that would normally kill a horse. The wife, her friend, my sister in-law, and my mother in-law all speculated on her dilation and kept trying to guess when exactly the baby would arrive. This discussion went on for what seemed like forever, until the nurse finally came in and checked the wife. She wasn't near ready just yet.

A few hours roll by and more discussion between the ladies ensued about my wife's cervix. The wife was still uncomfortable do to her epidural side effects, but thankfully the nurse checked her again and decided it was time to have a baby.

Now during the childbirth class the instructor informed the men how the days of pacing and chain smoking in a waiting room while the wife gives birth are over and that we'll be required to be a coach to our better halves during the process. In my mind I pictured me holding the wife's hand and giving breathing cues, just like in the movies, but nothing could be further from reality.

Two nurses came in and kicked out everyone but my mother in-law and myself. They prepared for the pushing and ordered my in-law and I to grab one of my wife's legs and push it up against her, which proved to be a nice little workout. The nurses monitored her contractions, told her to push, told us to start pushing her legs and coax her into pushing harder, wash, rinse, repeat.

One of the nurses decided it would be a great idea to start a tug of war. She grabbed a bed sheet and tied a knot in each end and threw one to the wife while the nurse grabbed the other. A contraction hit and they tugged for a bit, then the nurse stated she was too old to be doing this and threw her end of the sheet to me.

Ye gods I was to be tugging on this? I'm stronger than my wife, so I imagined my wife letting go and sending me flying into medical equipment behind me with scalpels and what not being lodged into my throat, but thankfully this did not transpire.

This was the first time I was about to see my daughter's exit point. Now I was always worried how I would react to see my wife's nethers being stretched to the point that may seem almost inhuman. Would I pass out? Would I run out of the room screaming gibberish and pouring liquid soap into my eyes?

Actually it wasn't bad at all. I knew what to expect and knowing that I was about to see my daughter for the first time really made every aspect of this experience wonderful. As I was informed earlier, the technology behind child birth really hasn't changed in forty years, so everything was going normally. That being said my nerves really started to get the better of me, and this is where my wife and I differ. A mother only worries about the safety and health of her child during birth, whereas a father worries about both the mother and baby. The terror of the small possibility of losing them both was starting to rattle me, even though the probability was slim to none, it still made me want to steal some medical morphine and inject it under my tongue.

Finally we could see the top of my daughter's head. The nurses called the doctor at the unholy hour of 3:30 am. We waited for the doctor to arrive and I sat there wondering how my baby's head was doing. The OBGYN finally came into the room and prepared for the delivery. The wife pushed a bit more and the doctor turned my daughters head and pulled her out.

It was then my nerves peaked. My daughter's not saying anything. Is that normal? What the hell was she doing to my baby girl? Should she twist her head like that? Do I have to punch someone? Finally Kenadie took her first breath and cried her first cry. A rush of adrenaline went through me and I felt higher than Keith Richards ever could attain.

Kenadie wasn't exactly camera ready at that point, as she was covered in dark liquids and looked all alien like. They placed her on my wife's belly and cleaned her up, then took her and cleaned her some more and checked vitals and what not.

The adrenaline finally wore off and I got to take in all that was happening with a somewhat sound mind. My baby was finally here after so much waiting. She was healthy and beautiful. My wife was happier than she'd ever been in her life. The nurses handed my little girl to me and I got to hold her for the first time. I looked at my wife and realized how lucky a man I am. I've never been more proud of her.

I looked down at my little baby and saw some traits that she got from me, which was surreal, but amazing at the same time. She was now our little baby, and we're no responsible for her health and welfare.

To be continued....

"On the one hand, we'll never experience childbirth. On the other hand, we can open all our own jars." - Bruce Willis

The most amazing day of our lives!

December 9, 2011 was the most amazing day of my life! 

The last trimester was pretty rough for me as I was extremely tired, had horrible heartburn, could barely breathe and it took so much energy to roll over in bed it was exhausting. I was counting down the days until I could deliver my sweet angel into this world, so I could have my body back and get out of bed with more ease.  I loved being pregnant don't get me wrong, but by the end, I was wanting to get her here already.  I had no patience, what is new right?  haha  It all started Thurs December 8th at a routine doctors appointment @ 10:00a.m. I was 38 weeks pregnant.  My mother wanted to go with me since we were going to go eat lunch and have a girls day after the appointment.  We were anxious to see if I had progressed more and to see if we were one step closer to meeting our little one. I remember saying that it would be nice if the doctor just sent us to Labor and Delivery after the appointment to get the party started, while I knew that wouldn't happen, it was still nice to dream since I was so uncomfortable.  While mom and I went to the doctors appointment, Erik was working from home and was in the middle of conference calls.

I went in the exam room to see Dr. Elliott and she did her exam and accidentally broke my water!  O... M...G...  It took me a couple of seconds to realize what had happened and that I hadn't just peed on myself.  Thank goodness, that would have been mildly uncomfortable and embarrassing.  I was so excited, I looked at my mom and said, " My, my water just broke, we are going to have a baby!"  I couldn't wait to call Erik and let him know that he was about to be a daddy!  I called Erik and he didn't answer since he was in meetings, so I text him and told him that my water broke and he was going to be a daddy and to come to the hospital right away.  He later told me that he interrupted the meeting by saying, " Jumping Jesus, I am going to be a dad, I gotta go!"  Erik scrambled to get the last minute belongings and rushed to the hospital to meet his little girl. 

They took me to Labor and Delivery and got me all hooked up to IV's and such.  After a couple of hours, I decided that an epidural was in order and asked to meet my best friend and hero, the anesthesiologist.  They sent him in and he took his sweet time administering the epidural, he ended up going too far and hit spinal fluid and that resulted in a spinal headache and back and neck spasms.  The labor pains were gone, but the epidural issues were horrible.  This resulted in the nurse having to turn me over every 30 mins, since I couldn't feel ANYTHING and couldn't move.  My poor nurse..  After 17 1/2 hours of labor, it was the wee hours of the morning on December 9, 201. They called Dr. Elliott at home and she came up to the hospital to safely bring our precious bundle into this world healthy and happy.  We were all exhausted, but were on a high like we have never experienced in our life. We are totally in love,  we were parents!  I can't believe I am a Mommy and Erik is a Daddy. The most amazing title and job we will ever have. What a special blessing from God! I hear people say it, but now I know it is so true.  I never thought I could love something so much!  Thank you to all our family and friends that were there at the hospital that night to meet little Kenadie and welcome her to this world with open arms.  I will never forget it!  God is truly Amazing..

Kenadie Fae Wilson
December 9, 2011 3:59 a.m. cst
6 lbs 15 oz 19 3/4 inches long

The last leg..

Hey folks, Husband here with tales of child rearing from a male point of view. As most of you are aware the wife and I were pregnant and gave birth to a healthy baby girl, but there's so much to tell about the trials and triumphs of pregnancy to childbirth. While pregnancy was no picnic, I shall chronicle the things I miss about it:

1. Sleep: The third trimester was kind of a chore when it came to sleeping sound as the wife was up multiple times relieving herself, but I could get a full eight hours of sleep, where now I'm lucky to get four.
2. Eating whatever the hell you want: When you have a pregnant wife you must get her the food she's craving if you're interested in peace. That gives you an excuse to eat till your heart's content, because no woman wants to see their man consume a low calorie salad while they eat waffles covered in bacon syrup.
3. Watching your wife enjoy a fine meal: When you have a pregnant wife, watching her eat the food she's craving is akin to seeing a child open their Christmas presents. Rarely will she look more happy.
4. Playing video games/reading/watching moves the wife hates: When the wife was pregnant, she would like to sleep as much as humanly possible. This left me with all kinds of time to play some games, read books, and/or watch films she has no interest in seeing. Now that I have a baby my first priority is to get sleep whenever possible, hobbies and entertainment be damned.
5. The ability to leave the house in a timely fashion: When the wife was pregnant, going somewhere wasn't much of a chore. Now that we're parents we have to double and triple check each and every item we will be bringing with us, because leaving an important item at home could prove disastrous.
6. Working from home: Before when I worked from home and was on a conference call, the only interruptions I really had to worry about were my dogs. Now I have a baby crying whenever she wants something, on top of dogs who choose to bark at their own shadows.

"I am not finding pregnancy much of a joy. I am afraid of childbirth, but I am afraid I can't find a way of avoiding it." - Brigitte Bardot

Our baby girl!

3 Weeks ago, I was so excited to go to the Imaging office and finally find out what was rolling around in my tummy.  I got on the table and Erik and My mom sat at my feet waiting anxiously.  The sonographer squeezed that cold jelly on my stomach and moved the wand around and finally told us what we were having.  “It’s a Girl” she says.  We were so excited it was hard for me to stay on the table.  We always knew in our hearts we were having a girl.  Maybe a mother just knows??  Erik and I have decided to name our little bundle of joy Kenadie Fae Wilson.  Fae, being after my great grandmother Ila Fae Boyd, may she Rest In Peace.  We have finished our registry and my Mom, “Gigi” and I have shopped till we have almost dropped for this very special little girl.  Her closet is full to the rim and we are getting some wonderful gifts from our friends and family.  We are so very blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives. I can feel her kicking already and it is the most amazing feeling in the world.  I play lullaby’s in the car for her in the mornings on my way to work since she can hear in the womb now.  I know it seems silly, but I feel like I am bonding more and more with her.   Now, the time has now come where we are ready to prepare our little girl’s nursery for her arrival in a few short months.  We have the bedding and the furniture all in her room, now all is left is the painting of the walls and final finishing touches with Decor.  The bedding is the Cocalo Couture Harlow Collection.  Yes, her colors are Black, White and Lime Green.  I hear it all, “that is interesting”, “different”.  I get it, it isn’t the usual baby pink, but I didn’t want the typical baby bedding for a girl.  I wanted something unique and a little more daring.  I am adding some hot pink to the room, so it will be bold, but yet classy.  If you are wondering, all her other colors, like blankets and typical baby stuff will be pink.  J   This upcoming weekend will be busy, but productive, where I hope by the end of it, I will be able to post some pictures of Kenadie’s Nursery.  I have no doubt she will love it!

Welcome to Summer in Texas!

As you all know or have heard, summer in Texas is miserable.  It gets to be a scorching 110 degrees and you just want to crawl in your freezer and hang out for a bit.  It is almost June and it is in the mid to upper 90's.  This is nice weather to us Texans, a tad warm but we are all bracing ourselves for the heatwave that is to come.  With Summer comes a lot of changes, along with the heat come the bugs.  If you know me, I am not a bug fan.  I would rather put needles in my eyes than have to go near a bug or much less squish one and have to hear that crackling/pop sound they make. Ugh, can you say Heebie Jeebies??   If one of the bugs were to touch me, I might have an accident.  I am the one who uses the vacuum cleaner with the attachment on it to get as far away from it as possible to suck it up and make it disappear to die a slow death in the vacuum cleaner or I drown it in an entire can of raid.  I know that most of them can't hurt me, but hey, I am a chicken and don't want to chance it, I admit it.  Plus those Texas sized cockroaches, those mothers can FLY! No thank you!  Thank goodness I married a man who will be the hero and will do the bug killing for me.   Yesterday, when I pulled in the garage after work, I get out of the car on my merry way inside the house.  I see something dark right in front of me.  My instinct tells me to stop and see what it is instead thinking it was dirt.  I open the garage door again for some light only to find a massive beast of a spider with it's beady little eyes looking back at me.  I about drop my purse and almost have a heart attack.  I scream for Erik and tell him to come out and not to let the dogs out in the garage.  I go around my car and give him the bug spray.  He drowns it in bug spray and it starts to crawl.  He then stomped on it and kicked it out of the garage.  Whew!!  Crisis averted.  I go in and get ready as we had plans to be somewhere.  When we got back in the car, I tried to run it over one last time to make sure it was dead.  Turns out it was a Wolf Spider, they do bite and will inject venom, but it isn't deadly.  Erik and I agreed, it is time to call the pest control man!

Guess What??

As a lot of you all know Erik and I have been trying for a baby ever since we tied the knot.  We both knew that a family was the number one priority to both of us and we didn't want to waste anytime.  Just a disclaimer, (but don't tell any of the high schoolers this) but my teacher in sex ed class lied.  It isn't that easy to get pregnant.  The stars have to align just right in order for it to happen.  Some of my friends had it so easy, where they just looked at the opposite sex and wholah!  Preggo!  Erik and I had our frustrating moments where we questioned if it would ever happen for us.  Everything was so easy for us, meeting and falling in love and everything happened right on time because it was meant to be. We were just wondering when it would be our turn.  It never fails, every time we would turn around, someone else was pregnant. While we were so happy for the people that were pregnant, we just wanted the chance to be a mom and a dad ourselves.  Wednesday, April 6, 2011.  I went home and decided to take a test.  After all, I was used to this by now and I had taken several in the last 8 months and I was expecting the same negative result. After about 3 mins, I looked at the test and was not sure if my eyes were playing a trick on me, so I asked dear hubbie to come look at the test.  Erik said, " I think there is something there but it is too light to tell."  I have seen evaporated lines in the past, so I chalked it up to nothing and went to bed.  Thursday, April 7, 2001 I woke up at 5:45 in the morning and thought, hmm I want to take another to make sure I wasn't going crazy.  I was still half asleep and almost immediately, there is was the most beautiful plus sign in the world!  I opened the bathroom door and yelled at Erik to get his butt out of bed and come look!  I thought I had lost it and I was still asleep and dreaming.  Erik walked in stumbling and can barely see, but said that he sees the same thing.  Our prayers had come true!  We were pregnant!  We were both so happy! I went to the doctor that next Monday and it was confirmed that I was indeed with child.  Erik and I were so excited and we couldn't wait to tell our parents and close family and friends.  We knew we needed to keep it from the whole world for a little longer to make sure that everything was ok.   Thurs, April 28, 2001.  Erik and I went back to the Doctor to have our first sonogram.  I was 7 weeks pregnant.  The Sono Tech looks at my belly and we couldn't believe our eyes.  That precious heart was beating and we could see the little heart flicker!  GOD is good and we are so blessed!  The baby is actually measuring 6 weeks and that puts us at a Due Date of December 23, 2011.  What a Christmas Present!  We are so happy to become parents and can't wait to hold our little precious bundle of joy this winter! I will keep everyone posted on the pregnancy.  Here is our sonogram at 6 weeks of Baby Wilson.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leW9xucF_6Q

What a weekend!

As you all know, my 30^th Birthday was this past weekend.  Here is the play by play of what happened.

Thursday, it was a great day!  I went shopping at Old Navy, took a 2 hour nap!  Gotta love naps, they are quite possibly the best things ever and have become a hobby over the years!  Thursday night, Erik and I met Jackie and Matt at Chuy’s in Plano.  This Mexican food place has the best Salsa and Boom Boom sauce.  No, it is not something that your husband does in the privacy of his own bathroom.   If you are curious about Boom Boom sauce, go to Chuy’s and check it out.  It will change your life! We had a wonderful time laughing about silly things and enjoying “adult time”.  You see, it was their first time in a long time away from the kiddos.  Yes, we missed seeing the kids, but it was nice having adult conversation without constantly being interrupted as that is what all kids do best.  Friday morning also known as “My Birthday” or, “The Day that I ate so much, not sure how I did it”.  Hey, after all it is my birthday and I should be able to do what I want right? First, we went to good ole’ Whataburger and had breakfast.  Then we were on our merry way to The Dallas Zoo.  We pull up and hear Erik’s and my favorite song that we have sung several times over the past year.  “Welcome to the Dallas Zoo, Welcome to the Dallas Zoo”, yes we are children.  We first decide to go to the exhibit that was just renovated last year called “The Giants of the Savannah”.  This was by far the most interesting and most fun exhibit at The Dallas Zoo.  We should have saved this for the end, because of all its awesomeness.  It was early about 9:30 in the morning, so all the animals were out and hungry!  We go up to the Giraffes, my personal favorite and we see a booth where you pay $5 bucks to feed the giraffes.  How freakin cool is that?  I have never fed a giraffe before.  I look at Erik and we both think, Let’s do this!  We get our two pieces of Romaine lettuce each and head over to the balcony to feed the long necked beauties.  The Giraffe named ”Jade” eagerly comes up to us, all the others seemed afraid, but she was hungry and ready.  Erik snaps a pic of me feeding her.  She comes up and is so close, I can literally pet her on her head, but I didn’t want to scare her away, so I refrained.  She did however decide to wrap her black tongue around my hand to get the lettuce.  Seriously, the coolest thing ever!  Erik feeds her too and I take a pic.  We went around the zoo and checked out all the animals and left to go eat lunch!

 I thought it would be cool to take Erik to a place where he hasn’t been before.  We decided to go to S&D Oyster bar in Downtown Dallas.  We go in and it is a cute little place with Fried everything! Of course, that is what the south is known for.  Erik had some Fried Oysters and we split the Fried Shrimp meal then, followed by some of the best bread pudding I have ever had. 

Then, we decide to head back towards our end of town and stop to run a few errands.  I get the bright idea to go get my car washed and take it to a dealership and see how much they would give me for my car.  A little background…  I own a 2001 BMW 325ci.  I LOVE THIS CAR!  I bought it in Dec 2009.  I hadn’t had it long, but as you all know BMW’s are EXPENSIVE to work on.  I have put a ton of money into this jewel and she was nearing 124,000 miles.  We wanted to see if we could trade her in and get something while she was working and in good shape. We also wanted something that was good for our future plans to have a couple of rug rats running around.  Last time I checked 2 door vehicles don’t exactly scream practical for a big car seat in the back.   I had seen this Mitsubishi Outlander online the week before and wanted to check it out.  We pull up in the dealerships parking lot and I see it.  It is beautiful and has the wonderful New Car smell.  We test drive it and it is smoother than the BMW.  I can’t believe it.  I felt like I was sitting in a Lazy boy recliner and could totally see our family taking long road trips in this thing. We were a little concerned at first at how Angry the grill looked in the front.  Yes, it is different and I wanted something a little different than the rest of the standard crossovers.  We still fell in love with her and we decided to name her Angry Anna, because she looks so pissed off.  Hey, maybe people will decide to yield to me when I am exiting the highway like they are supposed to do in Texas.  We signed our life away and I really didn’t get to say goodbye to my beloved BMW, but as Kristy told me, sometimes it is better that way.  We now are the proud owners of a Mitsubishi Outlander and she is a Beauty.  After buying the car, we rushed home and got ready and went over to my grandmother’s house to celebrate mine and Erik’s birthday (his was the week before).  We had yummy food and homemade cake and ice cream.  We were exhausted, came home and passed out. 

Saturday, was a day to catch up on laundry and relax.  We watched some movies and I tried to mentally prepare myself for the next work week.  All in all, I had a WONDERFUL 30^th Birthday and it was the best one I have had in a long long time.  I owe my husband big time and he is the reason why it was so very special.  I enjoyed it so much that I didn‘t even have time to dwell on the fact that I turned 30.