Nov
20
2011Sedryn turns 1 month today.
He is such an easy going little guy. He doesn’t usually mind when his sisters literally lie all over him. He hangs out in the bouncy seat without complaint. He hates having his diaper/clothes changed, gets impatient if his meal is late, and can shriek crazy loud if he has a gas bubble, but other than that nothing phases him. Well, except for the bath. He’s horrified of that whole idea… and I have a feeling that might just be part of having a boy :-p
But the most adorable thing about this boy (besides those daily growing chubbier cheeks) is just how much he loves to be warm and snuggled.
Little guy, I can’t wait to see your personality evolve over the next year.
Nov
08
2011This boy has a big head (just like his daddy… ahem :-p)!
He couldn’t wear the newborn hats in the hospital.
I have exactly 3 hats that sort of fit him.
So when we ran out to Target with a gift card to spend, I looked to get him a hat.
Apparently hats at Target only come in two sizes: Newborn and 12-18 months.
Disappointing, but crafting inspiring.
Meet Sedryn’s new hat made from Daddy’s old shirt (with enough to make a few more) and a bit of ribbing. I used this free pattern from Sew Liberated.
Perfection.
And, oh my goodness! Is this boy getting chubby or what?! I might actually have a baby with rolls since the girls never did chunk out!
Oct
23
2011
The hospital policy on admittance was to do a cervical check and then let you walk for about an hour to see how you progressed before admitting a patient. I was a little disappointed when the initial cervix check came back as 2cm and only 50% effaced. I just wanted to head home and mope. But after they got me on the wireless monitor and I set out walking, I calmed down a bit. I got into a groove of focusing through the contraction pain and I was so soothed having Derek and Rochelle right next to me rather than listening to Derek snore.
About 2 hours later they finally got around to checking me again. 4cm and 80% effaced. Woohoo! The doctor admitted me and we rejoiced in knowing that a baby would be joining our family that day.
My nurse Debbie was amazing. She overlooked me eating jello and popcicles and encouraged me to drink water (all things that anesthesia go crazy over for the “just in case” scenario). She tenderly applied my dreaded hep lock (the one concession I was still pretty hostile over.. and postponed at least 3 times). And when she and Rochelle talked about my crazy focus during contractions and I quoted 2 Corinthians 12:9, Debbie quoted scripture back. I felt very safe with my labor team, even though my least favorite doctor in the practice was the doctor on call.
So the next few hours (8-12ish), I knitted, snacked on some jello, breathed on through the contractions, and got seriously annoyed with all the forms and speeches people had to give me during contractions. Time seemed fluid, measured only in the moments of rest between focused contractions.
At noon, I got out of bed to use the restroom and decided to sit on the couch for a bit and play cards with Derek. Suddenly nurses and nurse coordinators and a few other people swarmed my room. They had seen some apparent decels with the baby’s heart rate. Little one had moved off the monitor and my upright position made is so that the monitors were picking up my heart rate. To the nurses, it looked like the heart rate had dropped from 140 to 63 in the middle of a contraction. They hustled me to the bed, made me lie down on my left side (insert triple the amount of painful contractions!), and hurriedly tried to find his heart tones again. I remember squeezing Rochelle’s hand in terror knowing the baby was okay (I could feel him!) and struggling to cope with the pain lying down. The doctor walked in and I knew this was the defining moment of my VBAC. If he saw this incident as decels… I was going to be wheeled into the OR that instance.
He reviewed my contraction patterns and calmly requested to check my cervix. I was 8cm, fully effaced, 0 station. He shrugged off the ‘crisis’ and wished me luck as I entered transition. Praise God!
Derek left the room to eat, knowing the baby would be here soon and he didn’t need to have low blood sugar. I started to doubt my decision to go all-natural. So far, outside of the crisis, labor had been rather uneventful and not nearly as painful as I had been led to believe. But I knew transition and pushing were ahead of me… I asked Rochelle to describe what was coming up. I knew this was the turning point. If I didn’t get the epidural now… I wouldn’t be able to get it when I was pushing.
Derek came back after having eaten his Hot Pockets and I made him brush his teeth. I was so hungry… I couldn’t handle the thought of food and I knew eating now would probably make me nauseous. The contraction tempo started to change. They were still 3-5 minutes apart but the first one would be pretty easy while the second one would be long and monsterous. Little one was still trying to dodge the heart monitor so every so often we’d have to move that monitor to find him again.
And then came the overwhelming urge to use all my stomache muscles to bear down during a contraction. I triumphantly called out that I had the urge to push! Debbie checked me, called the doctor, and I was given the okay to push.
Pushing was hard. I didn’t want to move from my back. Derek and Rochelle held my legs, but I just couldn’t open up and surrender. My focus on His Grace was being lost. Rochelle held that baby heart monitor in the one place that it would pick up his heartbeat for almost 2 hours as I unsuccessfully pushed in that position. She was amazing. Derek held my hand and told me over and over how proud he was. I was feeling pretty great about what was going on until my sweet nurse Debbie walked in and turned on me (or so I thought).
Debbie stood at the foot of the bed and demanded that I get up and pee to empty my bladder and clear up some room for that baby. I told her I couldn’t. She put her hands firmly on her hips and told me that I would. She said “Honey, if you don’t get out of that bed, change positions, and get serious about pushing that baby out, then, we’ll have to cut it out.” I could have thrown my hospital bed at her I was so ticked. I squared my jaw and waited through two really hard contractions stifling the urge to push before waddling my tail to the bathroom just to defy Debbie.
There was no urine in there. But a monster contraction hit while I sat. Derek squatted in front of me whispering encouragement and I couldn’t help but push hard. Suddenly, my water broke. The relief was immediate. Debbie tried to hustle me back to bed, but I sat and pushed through at least one more contraction.
I crawled up on the bed finally and assumed a sort of crouching lion position, just trying to rest. Another massive contraction began and Debbie went out of the room. I arched my back and pushed hard. I felt the ring of fire; I felt the skin stretch.
“I’m crowning!” I yelled. I’m not even sure the nurses got there to guide baby to the bed as I pushed that baby out below me. Little one plopped down below and I could only see the bottom parts.
“It’s a boy.” I said in quizzical amazement as all contractions subsided. I heard him crying and the commotion of Derek cutting the cord. The doctor finally arrived and they flipped me over and stitched me up as I held Rochelle’s hand and watched Derek and the nurses with my son. Sweet Debbie stood over me and massaged my tummy to respect my request not to have pitocin. I smiled up at her grateful for her tough love c-section speech.
I finally got to hold my strong little boy with his double 9 apgar scores.
Welcome to our home, Sedryn Justice Colton!
Thank you, Lord, for so much of your grace in this process.
Oct
22
2011
As I’m sure I’ve expressed over the past few weeks… I was so tired of being pregnant. But as anxious as I was to be done, I was also pretty fearful of how delivery would occur.
When I was pregnant with the girls and realized that it was almost certain that I would have a c-section, I wrote this post. I truly wanted to have an unmedicated homebirth. Now while the c-section was not altogether a terrible experience (I did get the most amazing pair of baby girls!), it did complicate my wishes for this birth. In my state (and the two states neighboring me close enough to drive to), I cannot be attended by a midwife as a Vaginal Birth after C-Section (VBAC) patient. That resigned me to another hospital birth attended by OBs. All of this was very disappointing to discover, but I took a deep breath, asked Jesus to guide my decisions toward this birth, and entrusted the results to his hands.
I switched OB providers to the local practice that was widely recommended by other VBAC hopefuls and successes. That practice also happened to deliver at a hospital with wireless monitors, a laboring tub, and a decent rate of VBAC success (especially compared to the 40-60% c-section rate with my old provider/hospital combination). The practice was small and with only 4 doctors who all said the same things about my VBAC, I continued to prayerfully have hope.
I wrote out a lengthy birth preference plan and hired an amazing doula-in-training whose name is Rochelle. And then I waited (rather impatiently) on the Lord’s and Little One’s timing.
Monday October 17th, labor began. S…….l……oooooo…..w……l…….y. I had decently painful contractions about every 5-8 minutes. I called Rochelle to let her know. I called “Aunt” Ruthie to let her know she might be needed to spend the night with the girls. And I waited. Around 11-12 I was pretty consistently 5 minutes apart so we told Ruthie to come on over and sleep in our bed. Around 1 we laid down for a little rest. And over the course of the next 2-3 hours everything fizzled out to about every 20 minutes. Rochelle called to encourage me that oftentimes VBAC patients had longer early labors and gave me some amazing times for coping.
By 9am, nothing was happening at all. I went to sleep from 9-11 and again from 1-3. That afternoon we took the girls to a tennis court and ran them ragged with sidewalk chalk and a pair of tennis balls. At a little past 8, I crawled in bed to sleep hopefully a long good night.
By 9pm on the October 18th, it was quite apparent that I would not be sleeping the whole night. The contractions had started again and were about 20 minutes apart and painful enough that I couldn’t sleep. I came downstairs and knitted until 11:00 when we decided we’d go lie down to sleep. I could not tolerate contractions lying down. They hurt a hundred times worse because I tensed up. So I sat up in bed for an hour breathing in grace, breathing out eucharisteo (thanksgiving that He was sustaining me) and casually timing the contractions. They were consistently 5 minutes apart. Eventually, I went down to the computer. I was exhausted from not sleeping much the night before… and very frustrated that it looked like I wasn’t going to sleep again that evening.
My dear friend Chanwey, who was blessed to have a vaginal birth with her sweet twins, happened to be on Google Chat. Her words of encouragement to me from 11-12 were a wonderful type of grace sweetly received at just the right time. Thank you for being available, sweet sister!
At around 1, I moved back to the couch to knit in the dark. Around 2, I tried to lay down again. I just could not labor in that position. I finally sat up against a couple pillows on the headboard and practiced breathing in His Grace (for its power is perfect in my weakness) and breathing out thanksgiving for everything I could think of. I dozed between the contractions. Around 3, Derek woke and I asked him to make me a smoothie which I gratefully chugged. Around 4:30, I woke him to discuss whether or not to go into the hospital. We decided that the worst that could happen would be that I would wake Rochelle and Ruthie and then get sent back home… but I was more than ready for change in scenery so we decided it was time.
We called our support ladies, gathered up our gear, and headed to the hospital. We arrived on a dark cold windy morning to an empty maternity ward around 5am. The nurses were excitedly preparing for shift change…
Oct
08
2011Little One’s Nursery is finally finished! Except for a broken drawer slide that we’re getting fixed. 🙁 But since Little One could come any day now, I thought I’d go ahead and blog about the space. My original design board can be seen here and I’m super excited about how that little design board poured creativity into this space 🙂
I’m very proud of the handmade love in this room and would love to tell you about each little element in detail. But if you’re not so detail oriented you can just skip reading the following section and enjoy the photos. It won’t hurt my feelings 🙂
Curtains
I ended up choosing Premier Prints ZigZag in Village Blue
for the curtain fabric. It did seem a little more gender neutral than my other option and I really love the zigzag effect. I’m actually wishing the window in my bedroom was the same size so I could inherit them when Little One upgrades to a big kid room.
The curtains are unlined with tab tops. Basically it’s just a simple rectangle with hems: totally my type of mindless sewing project 🙂
One of our favorite little touches was finding this nifty bird curtain rod at one of the local home improvement stores (Lowes, I think?). I’m pretty sure that all bedrooms will have this rod before we’re finished decorating.
Wingback Chair and Accessories
Our neighbor gave us this wingback chair when they bought new furniture. There was nothing wrong with the piece structurally and it’s actually a decent solid color blue with some fading. But we had no place where it truly fit in, and I wasn’t a fan of the formal look that wingback chairs have.
And then one day I stumbled onto this video tutorial series on Slipcovering a Wingback chair from Miss Mustard Seed. Perfect! I was super intimidated by the whole process of slipcovering and I have been for years. My furniture is all mis-mosh side of the road finds and I’ve wanted to make it match, but the price of slipcovers and the scariness of messing up all that expensive fabric scared me! But for this chair, I thought that giving it a try with about $25 worth of drop cloth was totally worth it.
To say I’m actually surprised by how easy this was is an understatement. It was a pretty intense project with scraps and bits and pins and piping everywhere, but it wasn’t hard. And even though it’s nowhere near perfect, I’m totally ready to jump into slipcovering my other furniture…. once life settles down a bit. 😉
Pillows
I wanted some pillows to go with the chair both to use my favorite accent fabric, Premier Prints Hooty Owl Village Blue
, and also to be able to give some support to my lower back while nursing. Both square pillow forms were given to us with a couch from the same generous neighbor as the wing back chair. They’re simple envelop style covers with leftover piping from the wingback chair.
The roll pillow is actually a rectangle form that I stuffed into a round pillow. I made that pillow by cutting a rectangle from the leftover zigzag fabric, sewing it into a cylinder while leaving a hole for stuffing in the form, and then gathering both ends. It’s not exactly what I envisioned, but I does provide ample lower back support!
Lamp
I hate turning on the big light to nurse, so we got this little lamp. I simply painted it Sherwin Williams Morning Fog and ModPodged some cut out owls on it. The side table is actually a patio table that we’ve had for years. Simple, and serves it’s purpose 🙂
Dresser and Accessories
Oh, we wanted to build a dresser so badly for this room! We wanted to give the baby a little heirloom piece to pass down. But when we crunched numbers and found out that lumber alone would cost about $100 and we’d still need a few tools, paint, and stain… sight. We ended up getting this dresser off Craigslist. (Just a side note: dresser shopping on Craigslist when your budget is $50 or under is so frustrating! No one gets back to you if they’ve already sold the dresser.)
This dresser actually wasn’t terribly bad to begin with. It had lots of dings and scratches (character), but was of a uniform color, had all of it’s knobs, and had good bones. I especially liked the little etching on the front. It looks like tree leaves to me. The only real problem was one beat up drawer slide that we’re getting replaced: hence, the currently missing drawer 😉 Not bad for $40!
We took her outside and stripped the top of stain. Derek and I actually really enjoyed that process. It was smelly… but we had a blast destroying something to make it better. After stripping, we primed and painted the bottom and drawer fronts. The final color is Sherwin Williams Morning Fog. It’s a really great neutral gray. Then, I stained and polyurethane-ed the top with an Antique Walnut Stain (I got it at walmart… too lazy to go look at it for the name brand). Finally, I took a little brush and with some blue acrylic mixed with Morning Fog, I highlighted the fun etching.
Changing Pad Cover
When I saw this fabric, I knew it belonged in this room! It’s Wrenly Mama Birds by Valorie Wells
, and it had a Mama bird with three little babies in parts. This is actually the only piece leftover from the quilt backing and it was the perfect size to cover this little changing pad. I just rounded the rectangle, sewed a casing along the edges, and threaded through some elastic. Easy 🙂
Fabric Basket
I absolutely love the fabric basket in the girls room. It was purchased, but it’s the perfect thing to hold wipes and creams. I still had owl and zigzag scraps left, so I gave I decided to make one. I loosely followed this tutorial and love how it came out! It’s a little floppy, but it’ll serve it’s purpose and, unlike the girl’s basket, it’s completely washable when that inevitable ‘accident’ happens!
Owl Bird Art
Sadly, the lovely Owl and Birch Tree vinyl art was waaaaay outside of our budget. We couldn’t make it work. So I had to get creative with making wall art. The Owls and zigzags here are simply adhered to scrap plywood cut to size by my sweet husband. A few picture frame hangers later and we had some art!
Owl Book
My sweet friend Mandy made this with my final owl fabric scraps. It’s filled with notes and prayers from the ladies who attended my shower for Little One. It’s it such a sweet idea?!
Owl Print
Mandy also commissioned a friend to make this adorable Owl print for the nursery. All those finger print leaves belong to people who love and are praying for Little One. Can you tell Mandy totally spoiled me and Little One at the shower?!
Crib and Accessories
Like I mentioned in my design post, we have a borrowed Ikea Crib. It seems a little longer than American cribs and the mattress is definitely longer. If you get one of these, beware!, jersey sheets are the the only thing that will fit! If it weren’t a borrowed crib… I probably would have painted it a fun color… 😉
Little Owl
Another friend at the shower, Heather, made this little guy! Isn’t he adorable? The girls are in love with him!
Quilt
I initially thought I’d use the Hooty Owls, but since it’s home decorator fabric, it’s a little rough for a quilt. After I stumbled on Valorie Wells’ Wrenly line, I knew that I needed to use that for my quilt! I grabbed a fat quarter set of cobalt, and a couple yards of Mama Birds for the backing and got to work.
I used a pretty simple pattern from Sew4Home, and I pretty much copied their quilting lines. This quilt top came together in about 3 hours and I think the whole quilt only took about 6-7 with binding (as usual) being the hardest part. I pieced all my leftovers from the fat quarters onto the back to add a little interest. 🙂
Tiny Rocker
This was another amazing gift from my neighbors. It’s so adorable.
Bird Mobile
I had some small scraps left from the fat quarters and I was set on making this bird mobile. I had wanted to do it for the girls. Although the vinyl art was not in our budget, a package of stuffing and a couple packages of hooks were totally in the budget. I didn’t have anything to lose except $10. So I went for it. And I love it. Hearing the girls shriek, “Burd! Burd!” makes it totally worth it!
Outlet Covers
Once we painted the room in Sherwin Williams Lemon Meringue, it became very apparent that the black plastic outlet covers were not going to match very well. Since we’d already spent a lot of money on this room, I was feeling too cheap to buy new covers. I started by attempting to paint them… but the paint just peeled right off… So I researched on the web a little and learned I could ModPodge fabric onto them. Brilliant! They may be one of my favorite accidental details in the whole room 🙂
