He wakes...and then he sleeps

This pretty much sums up the last 2 weeks of Holden's life. A little awake time; A lot of sleeping time; and a whole ton of me staring at him adoringly time.

World...meet Holden

So. We've been mia for a few days. We've been a bit busy. Why? World...meet Holden Joseph. He was born on Wednesday, 5/13/2009 at 5:36 am. He weighed 9.2 lbs. He was 20.5" long. And whew...what a story. Wanna hear it? Good.

I started noticing some decent contractions at 2 am on the 13th. They were decent enough to get me to wake up Joe and ask him to get dressed. I called my midwife. My wonderful, glorious midwife (sense sarcasm?). I told her that my contractions were pretty serious and coming about every 3 minutes...but that they were only about 30 seconds long. Her response was that those were not real contractions - they were too short, and I was probably just feeling the baby settling down and getting ready. I should come into the office at 7:30 the next morning for a check up. Oh man, was she wrong.

I hung out at home until about 4 am when I decided something wasn't right. I had Joe call my sister to come stay at our house with sleeping Scarlett. She got there about 4:15 am. We left for the hospital at about 4:45 am and the whole time I'm thinking - man. I HAVE to be in labor. I hope my midwife isn't mad that I'm not listening to her and going to the hospital anyway. Then, about 3 blocks away from the hospital, my water broke in the car...and wow. Things started happening pretty quickly from that point on. The pain quickly escalated. We got to the hospital at 5:05 am and my midwife and Dr. weren't even there. The hospital staff checked me out. I was 8 cm dilated. No drugs for me. No epidural. No IV with painkillers. No nothin'. There was no time. My Dr. and midwife barely made it to the hospital. I was pushing about 10 minutes later and after about 9 pushes, Holden was born. That's right folks...we checked into the hospital at 5:05 am and a short 31 minutes later we had a baby. I was only in labor for about 3 1/2 hours. It was absolutely insane. And Holden is absolutely wonderful. And we are absolutely exhausted. I'm leaving you for now with these few pictures. I promise there will be tons more later.

Dance party

New poll

If you'll please glance immediately to your right, you'll notice a new poll. It's pretty much self explanatory. We're trying to name baby boy. Our Scarlett was (obviously) named after Scarlett O'Hara, so to give baby boy a random name without meaning seems cruel. Below you'll find our reasoning behind each option. Please vote. But be warned, you can only vote once (maybe twice if you vote from work and from home) so make it count! I'll take votes from complete and total strangers too, so if you know any of those feel free to pass on this blog address so they can share their opinions...anonymously.

Our choices...
-We like Pierce. It's a name that everyone has heard of - but yet no one knows a Pierce (at least we don't). We figure you can't go wrong with a guy that played James Bond.

-When I read this on the cover of The Catcher in the Rye I was hooked on the name Holden, "perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it."

-Tyler Durden is ranked #1 on Britain's Empire Magazine's 100 greatest movie characters of all time. Scarlett O'Hara is ranked #3 on the U.S.'s Premiere Magazine's 100 greatest. Sense a theme?

-And oh. Harrison. I love George Harrison. He's my favorite Beatle. And he wrote the song "Here Comes the Sun" which is quite possibly my theme song to life.

So there they are. Vote away...please. We need your help.
Thanks!

The third trimester

Well folks, I've officially entered the third trimester. In about 11 weeks, baby boy will be joining us. Scarlett has taken a pretty active interest in "baby brother" - as you can see by these photos. It's actually quite cute. If asked where her baby brother lives, she'll point to her belly and do this...But if you ask her where mommy's baby brother lives, she'll do this...

Regardless of whose baby brother he is, or where the baby brother currently resides, one thing is for sure - this baby brother is going to be one loved little boy.

A baby #2 update

Joe and I went to my ultrasound appointment today. I'm about 5 months along now. I really feel great. Outside of some intense fetus karate kicks and my rapidly expanding belly (and Joe randomly glancing at me and proclaiming "you're pregnant") I honestly forget I'm pregnant half the time. No ailments whatsoever. The ultrasound technician got some great shots...including this one of the baby sucking its thumb. It's shots like this that really remind me of what's going on in there...thumb sucking, obviously - but the other more important stuff too...like a little life growing.This shot kind of speaks for itself. The technician called it her "money shot." "Oh boy!" That's right, folks. It's a boy! No one can deny that that is a penis. Joe and I are thrilled. Joe played it cool in the beginning of the pregnancy by saying it really didn't matter to him whether it was a boy or a girl, and I believed him. I didn't hide the fact that I would like a boy. Obviously I'd be happy either way, as long as the baby was healthy...but if I could have picked I'd have chosen a boy this time. After today's appointment, Joe was just beaming and fully admitted that of course he wanted a boy. He's thought of nothing BUT having a boy since we found out we were expecting. Joe didn't want me to worry about what he wanted so he made me believe he had no preference either way. I don't know if you can go as far as saying men glow, but if there is a masculine version of "glowing" - Joe is doing it. I think he called everyone in his cell phone's address book in a matter of 15 minutes to spread the good news. He also told me I can put Scarlett in dance class now. He doesn't need her to be a football player after all.

The saying, "oh boy" has understandably gotten quite popular around the house. Bubsy already knew the expression, but is thrilled that it's being put to more everyday use. Yay boys!