What a Difference a Year Makes...

Today we are celebrating THREE YEARS as husband and wife...really?!  & what a difference a year makes.  Last year when Jake and I were on our anniversary vacation in Nashville, we were walking around on Broadway one night popping into bars here and there and stopped in at a piano bar.  There was a blank song request paper on our table, and since it was so loud that we couldn't really hear and talk to each other, we started writing. 

We wrote down a wish... "Here's to hoping that next year on our 3rd anniversary we will be a family of 3..." 

Little did we know, we would find out that we were pregnant just days later.

And here we are.  Our little family of 3. 

It's been a wild year that I don't really think you can prepare for, no matter how ready you think you are to have a child.  But we wouldn't have it any other way :)


[and yes, I still have that paper!]

 

Ryleigh's Birth Story :)

Well, it's been a while since my last post because we have been busy with a newborn!  We made it to 38 weeks and 4 days, and Ryleigh Marie was born on Friday, February 14th!

We had a huge [by Southern standards] snow & ice storm that week, and my office was closed Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  I slept in a little, woke up around 9:30am, and was hanging out with the dogs while eating my breakfast and relaxing.  I felt just sort of "off" all morning.  I thought maybe the Braxton Hicks contractions were throwing me off, or maybe since I just woke up I didn't eat enough and my stomach still felt empty.

Over the next couple of hours, that feeling didn't go away, and I decided maybe a shower would help.  I was also planning to make a trip to Walmart afterwards to get some dog food and other necessities.  By the time I got out of the shower, I was feeling really crampy and decided I just wanted to lay down and take a nap.  I woke up around 1:15 and when I didn't feel much better I just stayed in bed and watched TV.  Well, by 2pm these pains were coming much more frequently and I thought maybe I should take out my phone and use my Contraction Tracker app.  I still wasn't sure if this was labor, but I wanted to start timing to see if maybe this was contractions.  They were all over the place, 4 minutes then 8 minutes then 2 minutes then 11 minutes then 6 minutes...Which threw me off because in child birth class they made me think that contractions would be at more regular intervals.  I watched TV and tracked them until a little after 3pm and I decided I needed to call my doctor's office.  I spoke to the on-call nurse [offices were closed because of the storm] and she said it sounded like the beginnings of labor and to keep tracking for another hour and call her back if there were any changes or if they were more consistent and frequent.  As we hung up the phone she said "Well honey, it's Valentine's day AND a full moon tonight, and you know we believe in those types of things! I think you may be having this baby before the end of the weekend."  Over the next hour I kept tracking and they were still at all different intervals, but those intervals were all 6 minutes or less.  I called Jake around 4 and told him to try to finish up working, make sure everything was ready for work tomorrow, and come home because we might need to go to the hospital.  He finished up quickly and got home around 5pm.  At this point I was finally mostly convinced I was having real contractions [you have to understand that I didn't want to be that first time mom who shows up at the hospital for false alarms that are just gas pains, and I really didn't think she would come that early].  Jake showered and we were going to quick install the car seat, which was on our to-do list for the weekend and we hadn't gotten to it yet, but by the time he got out of the shower the contractions were more frequent and getting much more painful.  We quick finished packing Jake's and the baby's hospital bags, got my bag, and grabbed the uninstalled car seat to head to the hospital.  We knew that all the security guards at the hospital were certified to install car seats so they could help Jake if he needed it before we came home.

Still tracking, the contractions finally became regular intervals of 3 minutes apart while we were on our way up the interstate to the hospital.  I was in a lot of pain by this point...there may have been some yelling, cursing [which I kept apologizing to Jake for because I felt like I shouldn't be cursing because our baby was causing the pain...haha!] and hitting the inside of the car door.  My sweet, sweet husband was trying to help me and told me to remember the breathing techniques from child birth class....to which I told him "I love you and I know you don't want to see me in pain, but please stop now!" We made it to the hospital in about 35 minutes.  I don't want to know how fast Jake was driving because it's a 40 minute drive without road construction delays or traffic.  We were headed there during rush hour on a Friday....

We got to the hospital at 6:35pm and I could barely walk or stand during contractions.  I kept telling people I was in labor and just wanted an epidural.  We were standing at the nurses station checking in at the maternity ward, and I just remember being aggravated because I had pre-registered and I didn't understand why the girl kept asking me all of these questions like my name, birth date, social security number, address, etc.  After what seemed like an eternity they got me into a room, took a urine sample, and started hooking up the contraction and fetal heart rate monitors to my belly.  I kept asking for an epidural, and once the nurse saw that I was having real contractions she checked to see how dilated I was, to which we found out I was already at 9cm.  That was the first total shock moment for everyone because we realized this baby was going to be born soon...At some point the OB showed up--not my normal doctor but a different one from my practice whom I had met before and I remember being relieved that it was her because I liked her a lot.  They broke my water since it still hadn't.  I am forever grateful to the wonderful anesthesiologist because I was told it was up to his discretion for whether or not he would give me the epidural since my urine test results weren't back yet.  Bless that man because he said he understood that sometimes we just needed to do these things, and he turned me on my side while I was laying down and gave me the epidural.  That took about 15 minutes to totally kick in.  The baby wasn't handling the epidural well and her heart rate started to drop.  The gave me an oxygen mask because it was the quickest way to get her more oxygen, and they had me turn to the side.  Those tricks seemed to work because her heart rate went back up to normal.  They checked me and I was 10cm so we were ready to start pushing.  The next contraction came and I pushed three times, and then baby's heart rate started dropping again.  We agreed to let them use the vaccuum to try to help her out quicker, and got ready to push for the next contraction.  They tried the vaccuum but it popped off right away, and while I was pushing 3 more times my nurse asked me to try to get a forth push because the baby would be out.  I did, and she was!

Ryleigh Marie was born at 8:14pm on Valentine's day :)  Jake and I were both in such shock that she had arrived so quickly, and we were both just in awe looking at her.  It was so surreal.  They laid her on my belly to clean her off and we were both holding her, then Jake went over with the nurses to weigh, measure, and be with her while they were doing all of their testing and getting her under the heat lamp.  Her temperature was low, and kept hovering at 97 degrees, so she got an extra long stay under the heat lamps until her temp was finally up to 98 degrees.  Jake stayed with her for that and then they brought her over to me to do skin-to-skin on my chest.  All we could do was kiss her and stare at her, and couldn't believe that she was finally here!

  

Baby Bargin!

Today thanks to Frugal Coupon Living, one of the deal blogs I follow, we scored a great deal on our baby monitor for little one!

I was checking the blog updates and saw that Kohl's had a great deal on the Motorola 2.8" Wireless Baby Video Monitor that we are registered for at Target.  Here's the breakdown:

Original Price:           $229.99
Kohl's Sale Price:      $189.99   [Target Sale Price is currently $179.99]

Coupon: BABYLOVE20 saved $38
Coupon: LUCKY15OFF saved $23

AND:
Kohls.com on orders of $75 or more = Free Standard Shipping!
Earn $10 Kohls Cash on every $50 spent:  $20 Kohls Cash earned

So, our baby monitor is originally $229.99, and with sales tax I paid $138.23.  With the Kohls Cash that we will receive, that's like getting our monitor for $118, over $100 in savings :)


**Other Mommas:  The Frugal Coupon posting is from yesterday and says to stack the coupons BABYLOVE20 and HAPPY2014, however today HAPPY2014 did not work for me.  I found LUCKY15OFF and that worked like a charm for the same discount!


Gotta love a great deal! Plus, we just received a card for our baby shower gift from my grandparents who live out of town, and used that money towards this purchase.  I love to keep track of what we purchase with gift cards or monetary gifts, because we can let those people know what they helped us get for Ryleigh and how useful/helpful it will be!  Especially with having a lot of far-away relatives, it makes it more fun since they can't experience the actual baby shower.



The countdown is getting real....

Look for another "bumpdate" later this week after my 33 week appointment on Friday :)

 

If it's not One Thing, It's Another.

I think someone is trying to make it very clear to me that this little baby is going to be head of household come February.  I am so not in control.  It's a very weird feeling after being healthy, athletic, and so in tune with my body for so many years to be experiencing pregnancy where you don't know your body anymore.  How is it going to react to this?  What will happen from that?  Why do I feel pain here?  Why does it hurt when I lay like that?   Catch my drift?

Don't get me wrong, while I've had some different things going on [Hydronephrosis, sciatic nerve pain, failed the 1hr glucose test] I feel that I've been relatively healthy and I love being pregnant.  Feeling her kicks and movements, especially as she grows, is like nothing else in this world.

Well, to elaborate on what I've updated on facebook lately...I took my 1hr glucose test and failed.  My doctor wants you to have levels under 140 and I was at 157 from the 50 g(?) sugar drink.  I went back about a week later for the 3hr glucose test which brought back nightmares of my hypoglycemia test in high school.  They drew my blood beforehand, I drank the 100 g(?) sugar drink--or should I just say orange syrup, it was horrible!!--and then they drew blood every hour for the next three hours.  I'd like to thank the tech who found my difficult veins every time and didn't have to re-stick me any of those times! A rarity for me when getting blood drawn, maybe because of my low blood pressure?  Who knows.  Well, it's really almost funny with the results for that test. Before the drink, my glucose level was at 66, at 1hr it was 139, 2hr was 119, and 3hr was 98.  How I could consume twice as much sugar and have lower levels is beyond me.  Again, just showing that a pregnant body has a mind of its own!  Either way, I'm just happy that this means no gestational diabetes! Yay!

So the day after being happy about that, I get a call from my urologist [the doc I've been seeing to follow my Hydronephrosis].  I had a follow up renal ultrasound to check on my dilated kidneys last week and while the scans came back good--no change, which means although I'm still dilated I do not need to get stints put in--they found bacteria in my urine.  They found this before, about 6 weeks ago, however now the levels were higher and they were concerned enough that they wanted it treated with an antibiotic.  So, after reviewing everything with my ob, they informed me that I tested positive for Group B Strep which is a bacteria that lives in the body and many people have it but may never know.  It doesn't cause any problems, sort of a "good" bacteria in a way, however the concern comes in because it can be passed to the baby during childbirth and the baby's immune system isn't built up yet so she could get sick.  Even though I'm taking the medicine now, they will give me antibiotics during labor as a precaution to protect the baby. 

So there you have it.  If it's not one thing, it's another, but I am loving this experience and getting closer to having our little one here to hold!

 

Hydronephrosis

There's a new vocabulary word for you.  I had to look it up myself today.  Here's why...

I started having intense back pain on my lower, right side Monday evening.  At first I thought it was from sitting in an uncomfortable booth at dinner and then sitting on the bleachers at Jake's softball game right after.  However, it never went away after sleeping that night and I had the same intense pain all day Tuesday at work.  Tuesday evening I called my Ob's triage nurse, thinking that I might have a kidney infection or kidney stone.  She called in a prescription for kidney infection, and told me to go to the doctor's office first thing Wednesday morning.  They worked me in to the schedule and I saw a nurse, nurse practitioner, and a doctor.  They sent off a urine sample for culture to check for kidney infection or UTI.  Both ended up coming out negative so I stopped taking the prescription they gave me.  They did an ultrasound to check my uterus, cervix, and see how baby was doing.  Everything there looked really good, so it gave me piece of mind that whatever this was, it wasn't hurting the baby and she seems to be just as healthy as ever with a good, strong heartbeat and normal movement.

I had to fast for the next 6 hours and later Wednesday afternoon I went for a renal ultrasound, where they checked my heart, kidneys and bladder.  The images were sent to my Ob for review, and they called this morning to let me know that there is no sign of kidney stone.  There was some fluid in my right kidney, but that is often found in pregnant women and would not be causing the pain.  Diagnosis ended up being a pinched Lumbar nerve in my back, just caused by pregnancy since organs move around and can push on things. 

Well, for some reason my Ob decided to take another look at the renal ultrasound images this afternoon and realized that my right kidney is dilated, = Hydronephrosis.  There are a few things that can cause it, but most likely baby girl is positioned in a way that my uterus is causing a pinch or blockage from my right kidney to my bladder.  More doctors visits are in my future this coming week to check and confirm what's going on.  Prayers are definitely appreciated, and I will update later on this week.

  

Telling our Parents :)

We wanted to think of a good way to share the baby news with our parents.  Just like with how I told Jake, I wanted it to be in a way that they had some tangible memento to hang onto.  So, although it was earlier than we had thought we wanted to tell them, we decided to share on Father's Day. 

As most newly-weds can probably attest to, once you hit that 1st anniversary, you start getting the baby questions.  And then as the 2nd anniversary starts approaching, you start getting the baby pressuring and accusations.  I felt the eager eyes at every holiday or occasion...like people wondering "Are they going to tell us they're pregnant?"...All the while, none of these people actually knew that Jake and I have talked about children and when we planned to start trying all along.  Our original plans got pushed back a few months because of my car accident, healing, and chiropractic visits that followed it.  If you would ask, Jake's standard response would be "Nah, we're going to wait about 5 years" or something along those lines.  We just didn't want the pressure.  You never know how long getting pregnant might take, so we felt like admitting or announcing that we were trying was like setting a timer and people would constantly ask about it.

So, with that said, a random "Let's get together" would cause too much suspicion.  We decided that Father's Day was the best time because we could get cards that said "grandpa" to reveal the big surprise.  We gave them to each of our dad's at their Father's Day dinners, and it worked like a charm!  Mark played it cool, grinned at us and passed the card to Jake's mom.  She didn't understand at first since Mark has other grand children so she thought we were just trying to be thoughtful.  Then, once she got to the inside of the card she saw our note at the bottom about Baby Walden and on came the water works!  We got a similar reaction out of my parents.  My dad read the front of the card, and when he opened it to read the inside my mom got  a glance at the front where it said "To the best FATHER and GRANDPA...".  Her jaw dropped, tears started falling and lots of smiles.  It was perfect, and I love that they all have those cards to look back at and cherish.
 

 

Adding another branch to the Family Tree....BABY WALDEN!

Yes, it's true and we are so excited!  Jake and I are going to be welcoming a little one into the world sometime at the end of February [Due Date Feb 25th]! 

I'm 11 weeks right now, and we have been pretty much bursting at the seams so we decided it's time to share with the world.  It's still pretty surreal. 


How I found out...
The good Lord above gave us the best anniversary present we could have asked for this year, with a positive test very, very early in the morning back on June 11th :)  We had just gotten back the night before from our anniversary vacation to Nashville, super tired, and the dogs woke me up in the middle of the night to go outside.  I thought--heck, why not, I'm going to take a test [I was a few days late at this point but took a test before our trip that was negative so not feeling very optimistic]...Well, maybe it was early or maybe I was impatient, but I looked at the test right away and saw one bold line.  Yes, I know it says "May take up to 3 minutes to appear" but I was looking for the instant gratification.  Well, thinking it was another negative test I just set it down on the counter and let the dogs back inside.  On my way back upstairs I picked it up to throw it away and looked again.......I FROZE.  I kept blinking and rubbing my eyes to make sure that I saw that second, beautiful, faint pink line.  I couldn't believe it. 

Can you see the 2nd line? So faint, but you don't get false positives!
I also ended up taking 3 more in the following days that were much bolder...

I had my own little dance party in the kitchen.  My heart was beating so fast and I couldn't stop smiling.  But, it was 4am, and I didn't want to wake Jake up because I had always thought that, just like the guy gets to do the marriage proposal, this was my special thing.  I wanted it to be really memorable.  Of course, I couldn't fall back to sleep because my mind was going a mile a minute, so I just tossed and turned and daydreamed for the next 3 hours before my alarm went off to get ready for work.  I didn't know exactly how I would tell him, but I knew that by the time I got home from work I better have a plan!


How I told Jake...
So, on my drive home from work I came up with this--call him and tell him I'm running late because of traffic.  Totally believable..thanks I-77.  I quick went to Books-a-Million searching for the perfect children's book.  Something that we would be able to hold onto for years, make memories with, and something that would represent the bond of father & child.  That's when I found the absolutely most fitting bedtime story possible.  I quickly paid and drove home, hoping that I would get there before him.  Nope.  I pulled into the driveway and tried to figure out how to cram the book into my purse and get upstairs to hide it from him.  I needed to wrap it and write a note to him.  Our plans that night were to meet some friends at a pizzeria for a 21st birthday party [yes, on our anniversary. But we had just gotten back into town from 4 days of "date time" and we missed our friends! Just call us social butterflies...] so I hid in our closet while I was changing and did a laughable wrapping job and scribbled a note out.  I was so worried he would find me mid-scheming, but thankfully he didn't!  I brought the gift out to him and said "I know we weren't supposed to get each other any more presents, but this is just something little..." to which I was fussed at because he said "You always do this! and I didn't get you anything!" I kept telling him to just open it, it was something small and it was okay.  He didn't realize what the book was a first because he saw the back cover, but then he saw the note fall out and read..."Daddy, I thought you might want to practice reading this to me...I can't wait to meet you in February!"

So, it's overwhelming and crazy and we are so blessed.  Thank you all so much for your love, support, and kind words!  Follow along on here if you want to read more updates on Baby Walden :)

 

Christmas in July..

Anyone else getting really excited for the upcoming Fall and Winter holidays?

I feel like this happens to me almost every year once the 4th of July passes.  We're halfway through the Summer season but I'm already getting over it and ready for Fall...Football season, pumpkin spice, cider, scarves, cozy sweaters, boots, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday shopping, buying Christmas presents....it goes on and on.  My favorite time of the year!

 

 

Decorating and holiday parties and baking cookies....Anyone else as excited as me?

 

2nd Anniversary Trip to Nashville

Got things started off right...

 

We got into Nashville around 2:30 in the afternoon, got checked in at the hotel and took a nap, knowing that we had been up since 6am and were going to have a late night! 

 

Got up, ran to good ol' Target to get rain jackets because we forgot ours at home, ate a quick dinner at Backyard Burger, then headed over to LP Field!

 

[If you are planning to go to CMA Fest in the future, one piece of advice I can offer you is do not purchase their parking pass online.  It's $60+service fees making it around $80 for a 4-day parking pass.  They make it seem like there is no other parking.  Not true!  All of the businesses beside the stadium let you pay to park in their lots, and it's a quick and very well patroled walk across the street to the stadium.  We only spent a total of $40 for parking all weekend.]

 

Night 1:

National Anthem sung by Gloriana

Randy Travis

Kip Moore

Little Big Town

Hunter Hayes

Lady Antebellum

Blake Shelton

 

Randy Travis

Kip Moore...I tear up every time I hear him sing "Hey Pretty Girl".  Such a sweet and vulnerable song.

Little Big Town

They brought out Sheryl Crow as a surprise guest and sang a song with her.  Then she sang her single "Easy" by herself.  She was awesome and I was so excited to get the chance to see her.  I'm sure my dad is jealous!!

 

Hunter Hayes

Hunter brought out Jason Mraz as a surprise to sing a song with him that is on Hunter's new album.  It was pretty cool, although Jake didn't even know who he was! [Only country radio for my husband!]



Lady Antebellum...one of my favorites!

How cool does the sky look in this picture of Storme Warren and his son?

Cool shot of the stadium

Blake Shelton, anothe favorite!

 

Things got a little bit delayed because of the rain, so Blake Shelton didn't even get on stage until around midnight.  We watched most of his set and then headed back to the hotel to rest up for our early morning.

 

Day 2

9am Celebrity Softball Game

3pm The Opry at Ryman Auditorium

Evening Concert Line-Up:

National Anthem sung by Brett Eldridge

The Oak Ridge Boys

Florida Georgia Line

Dierks Bentley

Kelly Clarkson

Keith Urban

 

 

City of Hope charity Celebrity softball game at the Nashville Sounds minor league stadium.  Lots of cool players, such as the boys from Florida Georgia Line, Chase Rice, Aaron Lewis [former lead singer of Staind], and many more.  They also had two child cancer survivors [since the charity raises money for cancer research] and two amputee Wounded Warriors.  So inspirational!

 

Lunch....can we PLEASE get a Famous Dave's somewhere near Charlotte?!  This place was mind-blowingly good!  I had pulled pork with grilled pineapple, and Jake had their pulled chicken BBQ plate.

 

Beautiful stained glass at the Ryman Auditorium

Us at the Ryman...sadly one of the only pictures of us all weekend!

Mark Wills...Jake and I both got chills when he sang "Don't Laugh at Me"...an oldie but a goodie...He is so talented!

Joey & Rory...I have loved them ever since they competed on Can You Duet.  Sweet, down to earth couple.

There were about 8 different acts in the show at Ryman.  Some were older country and bluegrass acts that I wasn't familiar with, and one was celebrating their 50th anniversary as an Opry member, pretty impressive!  Others that I did know of were Kristen Kelly, Mark Wills, Chris Janson, and Joey & Rory.

 

After this show we walked down Broadway street to check out some of the other festival-related stuff going on downtown.  We met up with some friends from college who now live in Nashville after we ate dinner at the Riverfront Grill. 

 

After dinner we headed over to LP field for Night 2!

 

Brett Eldridge.  He was so nervous but he is so good!  He's definitely on his way to the top!
[He sings "Don't Ya"]

Florida Georgia Line

Lenny Kravitz was a surprise performer, and he rocked it for the first 20 minutes of his set, with Jason Aldean who he brought out on stage also as a surprise to sing a couple of Lenny's more well known songs.  Unfortunately, he had to ruin that towards the end.  I think he forgot he was at CMA Fest and not Bonneroo....
 

We ended up leaving the concert shortly after Lenny Kravitz' set because we weren't interested in hearing Dierks Bentley or Kelly Clarkson.  It would have been cool to see Keith Urban, but not worth waiting around.  We walked back over to Broadway and went into Big Bang, their dueling piano bar.  It was really fun.  We sat there listening to the songs, and we wrote down some little promises/wishes/love notes for our 3rd  year of marriage on one of the song request cards, haha!  I kept it and it will end up in a memory box for the trip.  Then we walked to the car, got to see the Budweiser Clydesdales since they were in stalls set up for the day/night, and went back to the hotel. 

 

We slept in a little bit on Sunday [until like 9am..not very late but much later than the previous two days] and then got ready to go to Fan Fair X and our meet & greet with Duck Dynasty

 

Stayed there for a few hours going around to all the booths.  We got some EP's and CD's for new emerging artists, our favorite of which is Gary Ray who already sounds radio-ready.  I'm sad his EP only has 5 songs on it, we were listening to it on repeat!

 

After FFX we went to lunch at a cute rooftop place called Bailey's, met up with our friends again at the Wildhorse Saloon.  One of my friends/sorority sisters from college is married to Doug McCormick, so we went to watch his show...

Doug performing at Wildhorse

 

Wildhorse Saloon is so cool.  I feel like it's very similar to Coyote Joe's here in Charlotte, except way better and more professional. 

 

After the show we went back to the hotel and got dinner at J. Alexander's, a nice formal dining/steak place.  I got crab cakes, and they were to.die.for.  LOVED it there.  Kind of like an upscale Olive Garden/Red Lobster meshed together.

 

Then, LP field Night 3:

National Anthem sung by Lorrie Morgan and Pam Tillis

Lee Greenwood

Gary Allan

Brad Paisley

The Band Perry

Jake Owen

Carrie Underwood

 

Gary Allan

 

Brad Paisley

During Brad Paisley singing "Beat This Summer", everyone was supposed to take out their phones and use his new Light Show app, which picks up on his music and does a color changing light show.  Such a cool experience. It's crazy what people can do with technology these days.

Maisy and Lennon Stella, the sisters who play Rayna's daughters on the ABC show Nashville.  Loved them!!  They were surprise performers and sang a cover of "Ho Hey" just like they did on the show.

Carrie Underwood

Fireworks after the end of the show

Nashville, TN Skyline



We had the best time.  We both agree that we would love to go back to that festival in the future.  It was a pretty affordable trip to, I recommend it for anyone looking for something out-of-the-box but semi-local.

On our way home Monday, we Jake decided he wanted to relax and enjoy the ride home, stopping off at different locations wherever we felt like it. At first I was not into the idea at all, I wanted to get home to our house and our dogs and get settled in, but it was fun and a nice way to break up the 7hr drive.   We were going to go to the Knoxville Zoo but because of the time change didn't make it there in time.  Instead, we ate lunch at Calhoun's on the Tennessee River, which had a pretty nice view...

 

 Then we decided to stop at the outlets in Gaffney on the way home.  We treated each other to some new clothes/accessories...Jake got a pair of Costa Del Mar sunglasses and some new crocs to wear at the lake [he loves them, haha...camo of course!]  and I got a dress, skirt, and summery top from Loft.  Hey, your 2nd anniversary is supposed to be "Cloth" right?!

Hope you enjoyed this book.  Love yall!