Doodlebug's First Birthday

As we neared Doodlebug's birthday we suddenly got bunches of catalogues showing all the latest 'accessories' we would need to have a memorable day. Everything from high chairs covers (for that perfect photo) to themed invitations, to little royal thrones. Are you kidding me???

We took a slightly simpler approach. I sent out evites (and mailed a hard copy to the one person on our list without email), Daddy made a cake, Mommy made cookies, we bought balloons at the Dollar store as favors and called it a day. We also limited our guest list to family, godparents and one family that we have regular playdates with. Even without all that stuff from the catalogue we managed to have a pretty good time and some really cute photos.



The highlight for the boys was chasing my dad through the kitchen, down the hall and back into the kitchen. I have no idea why that was such a hit but they were laughing hysterically almost the entire time.






Doodlebug needed a little help opening his presents so both kids gladly jumped in.





Doodlebug was pretty preoccupied with the ribbon off of one of the packages.



Here's his little friend helping with the wrapping paper. Yet another activity that I had no idea would bring such a thrill.



This sweet little girl is known for her one liners. When I asked her who the gift was from she replied, with great enthusiasm, "Target!!!!!" And when her mom told her to thank us for having them over she came in the family room, gave me a great big hug and yelled "I love this party!" She just cracks me up.



We wrapped the party up with a little bit of cake before the guest of honor crashed and had to leave for a nap.



Exhausting, but oh so much fun!

Birthday Cake

We had Doodlebug's first birthday party over the weekend. It was so much fun! And I am so tired.

I was planning to upload a bunch of pictures and make a fancy collage. What was I thinking?

I thought I'd start a bit smaller and upload our cake pictures. My sweet hubby made a really cute cake for Doodlebug.

First he baked two 9 x 9 yellow cakes and carved them into the shape of a "1". We had a little trouble with the top and had to perform a little cake surgery. But it was all covered up by the frosting in the end.



Here he is frosting the cake. After he made the cake he told me this is only the second one he's ever frosted. I was very impressed.



After Chris frosted the cake we outlined it with jellybeans. They added some color and covered up the places where we smeared the frosting on our cake board.



I think the cake turned out really cute for our first attempt.

Happy Birthday Doodlebug!

Since today is Doodlebug's birthday it seemed appropriate to tell the story of his birth.

We arrived at the hospital on January 26th shortly after midnight for a scheduled induction. Since I had gestational diabetes my midwives would not let me go past my due date. We spent our first hour getting settled in the room, getting IV's started and finding out what to expect. Once we were settled the nurse checked my blood sugar, put in my IV, started my Cytotec and hooked me up to the monitors. I was given some Ambien and we settled in to try to get some rest. Ha! Everytime I would move so would Doodlebug and alarms would go off. I don't think we got more than an hour or two of sleep all night.

Around 7:00 AM my midwife came in to check my progress. I was still dilated to 1 cm(which is where I had been the night before) and she started me on Pictocin. Marilyn, our nurse, came in to meet us and discuss our birthing preferences. A lot of them had already been ruled out since I was induced but we told here that we were using Hypnobabies. Although she had never worked with anyone using Hypnobabies before, but had heard of it and seemed really interested in the whole process.

Soon my contractions were coming on a more regular basis and becoming increasingly uncomfortable. The Hypnobabies relaxation scripts were irritating me so I asked my husband to put on the relaxation music without words. I got up and into the rocking chair. When a contraction would start I would take a deep breath, drop my head and stop rocking. I would just sit in the chair breathing deeply and relaxing until it was over and then I would pick my head up and continue rocking. About 1:00 I started having a more difficult time relaxing through the contractions as they increased in intensity and requested an epidural. As we waited for the anesthesiologist the contractions became so intense I started repeating over and over "Help me, help me, help me..." Chris would rub my lower back, remind me to breathe and tell me to relax my hands, my shoulders, my arms etc.

The anesthesiologist was delayed due to a baby on the floor that was in trouble. Since we did not know when he would be able to come in to give me the epidural Marilyn gave me a narcotic to take the edge off the contractions. We continued to prep me for the epidural so I would be ready as soon as the doctor walked in the door. No sooner than the medicine got in my IV and we got me seated on the edge of the bed than the anesthesiologist walked in. Once everything was in I just laid in bed listening to my Hypnobabies music and relaxing. I didn't sleep but I did manage to doze in and out as I rested up so I could birth my baby. Not much later my midwife came in to check me told me I was at 5 cm and she broke my water.

I lost track of time at that point. I remember telling Chris and Marilyn that I was feeling queasy later in the day. Chris got a washcloth for my head and gave me my Hypnobabies "No nausea" CD to listen to. When Marilyn checked my progress she told me I was at 7 cm. I told her, "Yep, I'm in transition." Some time later the midwife came back in and inserted a catheter through my cervix to better monitor my contractions. Since Nathan was still squirming around and the monitor kept losing track of his heartbeat, a lead was placed in his head to better monitor his heart rate.

Sometime later I started to feel mild urges to push. Since I wanted a little more time for the urges to grow stronger before I had to start pushing I didn't say anything. Soon after Marilyn checked me, told me I was at 10 cm and asked me to give a little push to see if the baby would move. She told me I was only 5 or 6 good pushes away from meeting my little guy. My husband and Marilyn started to reposition me in the bed. They had me sitting up, on each side and finally on my back with Marilyn telling me to push. I got really vocal at this point repeating that I did not want to lie flat on my back to push but she told me that “The baby is getting tired and needs to come out.” I heard something in her tone of voice that made me realize something was not right so I shut up and pushed as hard as I could. A minute later she told me to stop pushing and went to the phone to call the midwife. My midwife was delivering another baby at that time and I heard Marilyn say that she needed a doctor, any doctor, to come in now. I did not know exactly why she was saying this with such urgency, but I remember thinking that this could not be good.

Things started moving very fast and the room started filling up with people. Someone gave Chris scrubs and told him to go and change in case we had to go to the OR. As soon as the doctor got there they put me on my back and told me to push again. The doctor explained that the baby’s heart rate was dropping into the 40’s each time I pushed and she thought we needed to do a c-section.

A few minutes later we were in the OR and I was being prepped for surgery. I could feel people pushing on my belly and knew that the medical team was preparing for the c-section. A few minutes later I heard Marilyn say “We have a head…we have shoulders” and then I heard Doodlebug cry. I looked at Chris and said, “Oh my God, I didn’t even know they started.” Doodlebug was born at 7:55 PM on January 26, 2009. He was a little peanut at 6 lbs 2 oz and 18 ¾ inches long. And of course, the absolute cutest baby I have ever seen.


Happy birthday Doodlebug, I love you!