Let's Do This!

This weekend Ryan and I decided to venture out for our first family road trip!  We had one of the best motivating factors, a wedding! So Saturday morning we packed our car and hit the road for NC. My friend Christi married the love of her life, Janine, in a very personal and beautiful ceremony.  The brides were glowing and gorgeous (as you can see)!  We were so honored to be witnesses to their day!

Janine, Christi, Oliver and me!

Family photo op

Oliver loved looking at the bride!

One of Oliver's favorite spots

 For our overnight road trip we stayed at the MacMeekin's home.  They were nice enough to open their door to all of our craziness (so you don't mind if we bring our dog, our 5 week old baby and 2 new parents that might lose their minds at any moment into your home?!?).  We missed seeing Chelsea but were happy to get to introduce Oliver to Scott.

Piccadilly ended up under the couch by the time the picture was finally taken.

Scott's a natural!  

As for the road trip part of our adventure.  It was not too bad.  Oliver slept most of the way.  Our last pit stop was a classic one though!  After feeding Ollie, I decided to change his diaper in my lap (knowing it wasn't the smartest of plans).  It went well until Ollie just couldn't hold it any longer and peed all over my lap.  After Ryan got a good laugh at me and took Ollie to let me try to clean up the mess, he got his own in the form of spit up in his lap.  So we both got a good laugh, shrugged our shoulders, got everyone buckled back into the car and put the car into drive...

1 month ago

Breaking news, Papa Crowley is writing his first blog post. Actually, the bigger news is that Oliver Adin turned 1 month old today, yes, it's already been a month. We celebrated with some pictures, so enjoy! We hope to make these pictures a monthly occurrence. I'll try to write something else soon, please feel free to suggest ideas.

"Mom, please don't fall on me"

"Look Dad, I can read!"

"BFFs"

"I won't be able to fit in this forever"

"Deep thoughts"

"Are we done yet?"

Happy Hellos and Bitter Sweet Goodbyes

As many of you know my brother was a very lucky guy this past summer and married an amazing woman, Kristen Pitstick.  Well amazing women continue to do amazing things and Kristen found herself with an opportunity to take her career to Hong Kong.  After a very hard decision on their part to leave the comfort they both had found in Portland OR; Kristen left Nike and joined Adidas.  And Adidas has sent them to Hong Kong! 

We were very lucky to have them come out to visit us before the big move occurred.  We had such a wonderful time just hanging around (especially for those challenging diaper changes!).  Oliver loved getting to know his Aunt and Uncle, we know because he was comfortable enough to spit up all over Kristen within minute of her holding him! 

Brian and Kristen are now officially in Hong Kong and 12 hours ahead of us.  We are really looking forward to planning our first trip to see them (we are already in process of getting Ollie's passport!).  And I am particularly excited to have someone to call during the early morning feedings when I can't fall back asleep!  

We are going to miss having them just a short flight away but are so excited to see what this new adventure holds for them!  

Distance is always a hard thing on families, but there will always be pictures to help us look forward to the next time we get to be reunited! Here are a few from their bon voyage tour stop at the Crowleys.  

Brian's first chance to hold his nephew.

Ollie was obviously comfortable in his arms!

I'm pretty sure we all feel we could stare at him all day long.  

Celebrating Grandma Noanie's birthday!  

Ollie's birthday gift to her was spit up (note wet spot on front of shirt).   

Aunt Kristen with her nephew and niece.

This picture took a some effort to take, but we go it!

Snuggle time with Grandpa.

Ollie really enjoyed Uncle Brian's shoulder!

I love this picture!  

A Mom's Perspective...

Labor was 21 days ago for me.  The memory of it started to become fuzzy within seconds of our son being born.  Literally seconds.  I remember one of the medical professionals (or maybe my mom) asking me what I was feeling as soon as he popped (or slid, too graphic?!?) out.  And the thought in my head was, 'Please tell me he is ok.' There were no real reasons for me to think otherwise, the pregnancy had gone very smoothly.

But there are some strict standards and expectations put on you as a pregnant women.  And everyone has their own opinion on those standards.  So to me the first experience of true parenting (deciding what I considered to be the best interest of my child) was the pregnancy.  But there was a moment when he entered the world that I thought, 'What if I was wrong?'

Needless to say it was an amazing moment when the doctor who checked him over said he was a perfectly healthy baby boy! After he was placed on me for some bonding time (which included him pooping all over me) and the pain of labor had all but disappeared from my mind, I knew I needed to write down what happened.  Which I did, 2 days later.  And now it has taken me 21 days to get it out to public.

For those who I haven't talked to directly about this, and also like to hear these kinds of stories, here is my labor story...

On Friday 16 Sept, I went for my normal morning walk with Piccadilly.  I had some contraction type feelings during and after my walk, but nothing of note.  I was concerned about some bodily functions occurring and did call Labor and Delivery that morning.  They told me to come on in to get checked to make sure my water hadn't broken.  My mom was already in town, so she and I jumped in the showers ('this could be it' we thought, 'might as well shower').  I went in and got checked out.  It was not my amniotic fluid and I had not dilated anymore (I was at 3cm).  But I was having contractions, which was nice to have the machine confirm that for me.  Now I knew what I was looking for!  So I was sent home.

The on going joke that day was tracking my 'contractions'.  At this point Ryan and I were convinced the pregnancy was on track for an induction the next week.  Well, the fun turned into a realization that the contractions were actually pretty consistent.  So we headed to bed (you can sleep these away, right?).  The contractions then became a consistent 5 min apart, 1-1.5 min long.  And they were increasing in pain.  I became the cliche of breathing through them.  So off to Labor and Delivery we went (after calling in first, of course).

We arrived at 12 midnight on the dot, 17 Sept.  Went to triage where they checked me.  I was at 4 cm dilated and was indeed having consistent contractions (thanks again technology for confirming what nature was telling me!).  So we were admitted and taken to our birthing suite.  By this time my mom was called in (this really is it!).  So I disrobed and put on my fashionable Fort Belvoir Community Hospital gown, had an IV started, belly monitors placed on me and informed I could have the epidural whenever I'd like it.

At triage

1:05 am and we were in our room

The nurses told us to try and get some sleep. That was fun for us all!  The 'bed' was not really made for anyone over 5ft and there was only a office chair for alternative seating.  So my mom and Ryan tried to rotate on the 'bed'.

Ryan on the bed

Meanwhile I was trying to figure out how exactly to sleep through contractions.  Which didn't happen. At 3am I opted for the epidural.  They got that going at 4am.  At 4:20 was checked and had dilated to 9 cm, but baby was not as engaged so they did not want to break my water, yet.

I have a love/hate relationships with the epi.  I loved not feeling the pain, but hated not feeling my legs. And that is what became Ryan's number one job, to make me feel my legs.  He then had to continuously massage my feet and move my legs back and forth for me, all while I continuously wiggled my toes. But I did sleep for a couple half hour increments.

At 7am they broke my water.  There was meconium in my fluid.  The midwife was not too concerned due to it not being much but we would still have a doctor present to examine the baby immediately at birth to insure he was ok.  We were disappointed because that meant the skin to skin contact would be put on hold.  The staff assured us that they would be quick and bring him right back to me (which they followed through with and it was less than 2 minutes that he was away from us).

At 8am lots of medical professionals started coming in and introducing themselves.  We were also in the midst of shift changes, so our night staff were leaving and the morning staff were coming in.  They did a great job of making sure we knew who would be delivering our baby.

At 8:30am our nurse came in and it was time to start pushing.  So on my back I went with my mom holding one leg and Ryan holding the other.  I was holding them too, but that's a whole other story.  (there are human legs in my hands but I can't feel that in my legs, so who's legs am I holding???) Then I started to pass out (happened to me during ultrasounds also, the baby was laying on some blood source of mine that got pinched when I was on my back).  So pushing stopped and we took a break.  The nurse came back in at 9am, put me on my side and the pushing commenced. Ryan was an amazing partner in the process and turned out to be the best "counter" a girl could ask for.  We pushed for 1 hour and 45 minutes.

It was amazing because for about 1 hour and 15 min it was just me, Ryan, my mom and nurse K with us working it out.  Then the masses arrived.  At this point my eyes pretty much stayed shut (no I don't want to touch the babies head!?). And we worked it out.  Oliver was check out by the doc and cleared and brought straight over to us.

He's perfect!

And that is where it all melted away and this amazing little person was all ours.  What all the mom's said before is so true.  The pain and the stress of labor really doesn't matter and is easily forgotten because the end makes all the means worth it.  (not to mention the epidural helped)

So as your reward for making it to the end of this post, here are some recent pics of our guy.