One month has past...

Ian's first bottle

It's been a month since Ian was born. It's hard to believe because it went by so fast, I guess that's what happens when you throw Christmas and New Years in the mix.

It's been an amazing, life changing month.  Ian is a very sweet, quiet baby.  He fusses but only when he is in need of something.  He loves to kick his legs and swing his arms.  Sam and I keep joking that he's going to grow up to be a swimmer.

You never would have know that Ian was born with a cone head, as the doctor said, "it's perfect and beautifully shaped head..."

The first couple of weeks Ian slept most of the time, but towards week 3, he started to look around more and respond a lot more to our voices.  He loves our room because of the big windows that the sun shines through.

He has managed to meet all of his cousins.  Ben (my nephew on Sam's side) came down for two weeks to meet Ian.  Ben is a WONDERFUL cousin and very loving.  He was a great help with Ian by holding him and signing Oh Canada every time Ian started to get fussy.  Ben, David and Andrea were here for Christmas which was especially nice for Sam and I to have Sam's family represented at my parents house for the holiday.  Not to mention, my family spoiled Ben with presents, that I have a feeling its going to be very hard to convince him that not all Christmases can be spent in Reno.

New Years was very quiet and sober.  Ha!  Shane, Courtney and Clive came over for dinner and I was in bed by 10:30 (oh how the times have changed).  I did manage to get up to the sound of the fireworks, kiss Sam and Ian and go right back to bed.

Family resemblance?

David, Ben and Andrea holding Ian

Meeting his best buddy Clive

Ian with Grandma Ottosen

With GGma (great grandma) Win

His favorite spot, on daddy's chest

Ian with Grandpa Tim

Ian with his Grandmas

Telling dirty jokes while being "courageous"...

**Warning may be a little to "personal" for some reader....I mean, this is the story of me having Ian!


One morning Sam and I were talking about the "plan" of when I go into labor.  I mean, its a talk that all soon to be parents have, we just had ours almost every day for 3 weeks because we were told by our doctor that Ian could come any day.  All signs pointed to him being ready, I just needed to go into labor. The promise I made to Sam was that I would CALL him and not text message him if I thought I was going into labor.

December 5, 2013,  started out like any other day, I got up, dressed and went to work.  At around 10:30am I started to feel contractions, these weren't anything new, I had been having contractions for awhile.  The difference, these didn't go away after an hour or so...wondering if I was just playing mind games with myself I went into my friend Lisa's office and asked her what the "real" ones should feel like, yep, they felt like that!  I then TEXT message Sam, "sooooo I think I'm having contractions...I think I should go home." He replies, "WHY ARE YOU TEXT MESSAGING ME?!"  Valid point.

Fast forward a few hours (5pm to be exact), since I had been in and out of the hospital a few times, checking in seemed sorta lacklustered.  The only difference, they put us in a room with a way different set up then before.  This room had a labor bed, overhead lighting etc.  "This is the real deal Sam!"

The nurse walks in, checks me and tells me I haven't progressed passed 4cm (which I was for about 3 weeks).  "You might have to go home." I thought, not again.  She then tells me she will wait an hour since the contractions are more frequent and they seem to be getting stronger.

An hour passes and she comes back, "you are, ummmmm, almost at 4.5-5 centimeters...let me check with the Doctor and see what he wants to do...."

I'm sweating bullets by this point, I do not want to go home, I knew that these contractions were in fact labor contractions.  I started to get upset and then the nurse comes in again and tells me that they are going to keep me and that we are going to have the baby!

I get all set up, Sam and I call everyone to tell them.  A nurse comes in and asks me what my birth plan is, "plan? I have no plan..." I say, "Great, ok, well do you want a natural birth?  We will be giving you pitocin so do you want an epidural?" The nurse asks.  "YES!" I say.

Now don't get me wrong I admire people that do it naturally, but I wanted to be very calm and relaxed during the whole thing.  As all of you know, I'm loud and I swear, A LOT.  I didn't want that....so the epidural was my "get out of jail" card, and I took it!

A few hours later my mom and dad arrive, I'm sitting in the bed, hooked up to everything, Sam is sitting in the chair and we are watching Sound of Music (live).  My mom looks at the monitor, and sees that I was having a contraction right then and there, I don't flinch, she then looks at me and asks, "you can't feel that?" I said, "feel what?" she then strokes my arm and says, "you are so courageous!"  Ahhh the magic of drugs!

Around 2:30am, Ian kicks me really hard, my water breaks....3:00am the nurse informs me that I will start pushing very very soon...she wanted to wait until I started feel the urge to push so I wasn't pushing for too long....3:30am the urge kicks in.  I start pushing.

Our nurse was amazing, she was so cool, calm and sweet.  We started telling funny stories and jokes.  Most of them dirty and all of them badly told.  At around 4:45am the nurse tells me that soon she will be calling the doctor, "but there are two things I have to tell you...one) I think the umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby's neck, it wasn't a concern because his heart rate isn't spiking a lot, but I want you to be prepared....two) you son's head isn't straight so every time you push his head is getting "stuck", I'm going to try and turn his head, but when I do and he comes out, he will have a cone head.  Don't worry it won't stay like that, but I want you to be ready when you see it so you don't freak out."

Of course both of those situations are scary, but the nurse was awesome and upfront that we weren't all that scared.  A couple of minutes later the doctor comes in.  He's a nice man but very dry and very serious.  We inform him that I had been telling dirty jokes this whole time and he says, "oh yeah, tell me a joke..."  I tell him the joke and he looks at me and says, "that wasn't very funny...."  BOOOO to the doctor, 10 minutes later  (5:20am) I push one last time and Ian is born.

Now, you think of a cone head, you think a little pointy at the top of the head, let me just tell you, Ian didn't have that, what Ian came out with was a second head on the side of his actual head.  It was a sight!  The doctor also had to cut the cord because it was in fact wrapped around his neck.  When that happened he didn't get that final flush of fluids so he was very pale and very lethargic.  I held him for about a minute and then they put him under the heating lamp. Nothing seemed to make Ian perk up so they had to take him to the NICU to try and get an IV in him.  This was the worst part for me, I had been waiting so long to meet Ian, then to work that hard to get him to come into the world, I was a little frantic on where he was....I was finally able to see him a few hours later in the NICU, his head was still cone shaped but not nearly as bad and he was finally pink!

The whole experience was so surreal.  For 9.5 months I had been wondering what Ian looked like, sounded like and all of sudden here he is, was born with a good head of hair and of course he has his mommy's eyebrows but the rest of him, well he is a mini-Sam, facial expressions and all.  :) His stats, Born December 6, 2013 @ 5:20am, he was 7lbs 14 ounces, 22.5 inches long....the nurse told us he probably would have weighed over 8lbs had he not taken a major poop on the doctors shoes right when he came out, I laughed and told the nurse that the doctor deserved it for not laughing at my joke.

Finally out of the NICU!!

Sweet little baby boy.

The outfit Ian is in, is the SAME outfit Sam came home in...Ian barely fit in it....