Introducing Colt Leif Boen!

I know it's been a while but I've been getting used to having a newborn at home. I'm finally ready to tell his birth story. Here goes!

At my weekly appointment, Dr H asked if I was ready to have this baby and like the badass I felt like I was I said HELL YEAH! Let's do this! He said ok, I'll get you scheduled for next week. Umm wait... what?? NEXT Week?!? Next thing I know, we're on the books to come in on Sunday night to start the induction process. YIKES!!

We were scheduled to go in at 5 on Sunday night. In my attempt to stall, I had one last picture taken.

I was excited, nervous, crying, laughing, nesting and everything in between. I'm pretty sure it was one of the longest days of my life.

We got in on Sunday night and got settled into our room. Don't I look relaxed??

After getting the IV started, taking a ton of blood and adjusting the monitors on me, the nurses came rushing back in. Colt's heart rate had decelerated. They flipped me a few times and everything was back to normal. They said I was having a few contractions but nothing big yet and he could have been on his cord. They said they'd continue to monitor it and explained to KB what the monitor print outs meant.

They put in a catheter to help me dilate. When it fell out at 1am I was successfully dilated to a 4. So we made progress before starting pitocin at 6am. Shortly after they started the pit, nurses came rushing in again. Colt's heart rate dipped again. This time they flipped me, started oxygen and had both me and KB pretty nervous. It was scary but we were both thankful the nurses were on top of everything. Dr H came in at 7 and said if it dipped again they were going to take him. No questions asked, I had a long way to go and he didn't seem to be tolerating contractions very well. Kb started watching the monitors and said "Hmm it looks like it's going down again". Sure enough nurses were back in and called the doc who said to get me into surgery STAT.

Wowza! Not at all what I expected. I really felt like I was mentally prepared for the labor and delivery process but I WAS NOT prepared for a C Section. I kept saying this wasn't part of the plan!!

They got me into surgery, put in the spinal, strapped me down and we were ready to go. While all that was going on, they gave KB his scrubs and told him to wait for them to come get him. As long as the spinal took ok, he could be in the room. He said it was about 10-15 minutes but felt like an hour. Dr H came rushing in and we got started. Dr H told KB he couldn't see anything behind the curtain and he needed to look over to see what all was going on. (Dr H and KB have become pretty close during this whole process) Luckily my friend who is a labor and delivery nurse was in there and could talk me through everything. Dr H said "There you are you little shit! Just like I suspected, the damn cord was wrapped around his neck!!"

At 9:32am on August 5, 2013, our son was here! Despite his rushed delivery, he was a healthy 5lbs 2 ounces 19 inches long! I couldn't wait to see him. I got stitched up and KB carried him to the recovery room.

We came home on Wednesday, August 7, and recovery has been pretty rough. But this post is long enough for now. I'll try to update more often. Just know he's perfect and we fall more in love everyday!

The Final Countdown

So I've been busy.. Shoot me. Here's a quick update... I'm still pregnant and it's July in Texas so it's hot as balls.

Actually, we're officially in the less than 1 month countdown to 'D' day. I can't believe it. As much as I was worried about everything, so far it really hasn't been that bad. I haven't been sick, I haven't put on a ton of weight (about 20ish pounds so far), energy level has been pretty decent considering my situation and I haven't had any wacky pregnancy symptoms like leakage from every orifice. Here's what's been going down since I last posted...

• We have had a couple of showers. 1 was thrown by my good girlfriends and another by my sister in law.

The Girls:

Me & Mom:

KB and I are really pretty blessed to have such great friends and family around us.

• I have to say, I'm about over this whole pregnancy business. While it hasn't been that bad it hasn't exactly been fun either. I'm ready to get on with my new normal. I don't know if you're ever really ready to have your baby home with you but I'm definitely ready to NOT be pregnant.
• I have the best Husband ever. Kb has been pretty sweet throughout this. He's gone to every Dr appointment with me. Listened to me whine about whatever random pain I'm having or whatever fear I have. He's taken good care of me making sure I'm resting, or I'm cool or I have something cold to drink when we're out and about. He even came home last night and baked me an angel food cake. WHAT?!? Love him.
• I'm ready to get my energy back. I hate going home to rest. I'm usually up and around doing something. Working on the house, working out (I REALLY miss having the energy to work out) but I'm trying to listen to my body and if it says rest I do it. Now's not the time to push myself or try to be a hero.
• I'm obsessed with reading about labor and delivery. I read through all the horrible ones until I find one that the epidural worked, labor only lasted for a few hours and the baby was out in a couple of pushes. That's the story I'm going for.
• I'm kinda in the zone. I'm doing prenatal yoga, listening to meditation and relaxation cds, I'm making lists for things I need at the hospital or at home, contacting insurance companies, the hospital, my daycare I've set up, the pediatrician and whoever else needs to know our little man will be here soon. 

Guess that's all I've got for now. Stay tuned and keep cool.

Summer in Texas

Remember when I said people liked to remind me how HOT I'll be 9 months pregnant... in Texas.. in July. My dog, Miss Rio, has given me a pretty good solution to beating the Texas heat. This is probably what I'm going to feel like doing soon...

 

 

Try and stay cool everyone!

Random Update and Nursery Pics

Hey-yo! It's been a while and I've been a total slacker. Bur really, I haven't had much going on. I'm still pregnant and feel like I'm getting bigger by the minute and most days I feel great! A 10 on a scale of 1-10. But on days I don't, I feel like 2. There really isn't an in between.

I'm drinking water like it's my job so that's helping keep swelling at bay but holy hell it's starting to get hot here. Not to mention everyone wants to remind me how hot I'll be 9 months pregnant... in July... in Texas. Thanks for the PSA people. I've had a lot of people tell me well intended comments that don't come off that.. great. Such as...

• Wow Jenn, from the back you don't even look pregnant, I mean, your butt hasn't gotten any bigger.  - Umm BIGGER??!?!
• Wow Jenn, you haven't even swelled up... yet
• The boss man said Jenn, you haven't gained near as much weight as I thought you would - What? did you think this would be a time for me to be a fatty free for all? Remember how paranoid I was at gaining too much weight?
• This is a good one from the Hubs we were laying down and he rubbed my belly and sweetly said it still doesn't even feel that big. When I got up he said "whoa! I mean it's OUT there just when you're laying down it doesn't seem THAT big"
• His friends have also called to ask if I was HUGE yet. I swear I could start my own sensitivity training class.

But all in all I guess I'm doing pretty good. Nothing whacky has happened so far and all my tests have come back ok.

Showers are starting up, we have 2 this month. One given by my girlfriends for close friends another given by the Aunts-to-Be for family.

We've been given a few things here and there already. Kb was bringing some clothes into the nursery and he said "If feels so weird carrying these little bitty clothes down the hall" I said wait til you're carrying your baby boy in those little bitty clothes down the hall.

I'm in this weird time where I'm so ready to NOT BE PREGNANT but at the same time I'm not quite ready for him to be here. Are you ever really ready though?

Last weekend Mom and I worked on the nursery while Kb was in a fishing tournament. He was very impressed with the work we did. I think it turned out pretty cute too. Here's a sneak peak..

 

 

 

Yep, Baby Boen's name is Colt. More on the rest of his name later.

 

We've been throwing it around and have decided this is it. I've been yelling it around the house to see how it bounces off the walls when he's in trouble and Kb's been trying it out on the PA system. "COLT BOEN on the tackle!!" or "COLT BOEN at Center Field!!" Sounds good right?

Mother's Day 2013

Everyone is doing a mother's day recap post. Guess I'll hop on that train..

The Saturday before Mother's Day Kb and I host a Mother's Day dinner party. (We also host one for Father's day) We invite my parents, his parents, my brother and his family, his sister, his best friend and his family. Barnes lives out of town but his parents are here and Kb and Barnes grew up together so it's fitting that we involve them too. This year we decided to do a shrimp and crab leg boil in the afternoon and it was wonderful!

I even made Sangria for our mommas. Hear me, Sangria is my go-to summer drink so the sacrifice I made by making this without partaking should be gift enough.

The weather was beautiful. After filling our guts on shrimp, crab legs and all the trimmings we sat outside and had homemade ice cream and devils food chocolate cake. Calories on Mother's Day are like the ones on your birthday... They don't count.

My mom and mom-in-law both gave me sweet cards for my 1st Mother's Day. I thought Aww, I'm going to put these in baby boy's baby book. Then Kb came through with his card.

 

Classic, I love it ,but I'm not looking forward to the day when I have to explain what knocked up means.

Happy Mother's Day Everyone!

You're having a baby shower?? in a bar???

Yes, this is what happens when a man throws a baby shower. Our friend D asked us a couple of months ago if he could throw us a diaper party. Of course! Just let us know what you need from us. Fast forward a month and a half and mom's asking about the shower and if it was still going on. I guess so, we haven't heard anything. He hasn't even asked who we wanted to invite or get addresses from us. We talk to Barnes (Kb's bestie) last weekend at LJT and he mentioned coming in town for it. Kb said I don't even know if it's still on. He said, oh yeah, it's on. It's all over Facebook (which we don't have) it's at 3 at your dad's bar. To which Kb's dad replied "the bar doesn't open til 4" Ohhhh--kayy then.

As Kb starts talking to some of his friends, none of them are D by the way, he finds out D has recruited them to help him and they're asking Kb about finalizing everything. What time, how many and all that. We still don't have a clue what's going on or when we're supposed to be there.

So if you're keeping score here goes..

• The party is scheduled to be at a bar... before it opens
• I don't know who all of OUR friends and family he invited
• Guests have been recruited to bring stuff for the party
• Did I mention it's at a bar, where I can't drink, but my hubs will probably get snockered since he has a designated driver?

A couple of days before the party, an update goes out on Facebook that the party time start has changed to 6. Fantastic, someone had to call and tell us.

We get to the party on Saturday and there's brisket and the fixin's. Most fixin's provided by guests and then people start to arrive. Actually the guys from the couples that we know show up with diapers in hand. I asked where their wives were and they said "Uh, we thought it was guys only..." Fabulous.

It turned out ok and was a fun night, just kind of a wreck getting it together. Some of my girlfriends were there and that was nice. We got mostly diapers and a couple of other gifts. Most of the diapers were just added to the pile with no cards to know who they came from so I'm not sure who to send thank yous to. Kb sent out a few texts to some of our friends that he knew were there and expressed our appreciation. Hopefully that will do, I'm not real sure the etiquette on a party like this. Here's a pic of us at the party and a picture of our haul at the house afterwards.

 

Kid-less Kb and Jenn look at this and think WOW that's a LOT of diapers, they'll last FOREVER! Our friends that know better tell us it's a good start. Yikes!

Also, if you take a close look you'll see Baby Boy got his first gun at the party. Now I just have to keep Dad from playing with it and put a tag on it that says DO NOT OPEN TIL 2018!!

Is there a medal for that?

I really should get a medal after this weekend. Or at least some kind of recognition. This weekend consisted of me, 6 months pregnant, camping, attending an outdoor all day music venue with 40,000 wasted idiots. They may not ALL have been wasted idiots but there was plenty of beer around, just none for me. If you know me, you know I love to sit outside, with a cold beer, listening to live music. No beer and a fuse that gets shorter by the day meant I thought this was going to be pretty rough.

Last week was the Larry Joe Taylor Fest (LJT) in Stephenville. This is our 4th trip to LJT and 2nd in a row. We took off one year when we got married. It's a week long drunk fest with almost every Texas Country / Red Dirt music act you can think of.

Bands start at noon and it's one after the other until midnight. It's in the middle of a HUGE pasture and everyone brings campers, busses, tents and some just bring a sleeping bag in the bed of their truck. At least that's what the young kids do. My idea of "camping" still has to have an A/C and a flushing toilet.

We usually try to get there on Thursday sometime and then stay until Sunday. Kb took the bus (motorhome) and set up on Thursday and since I'm really trying to save my PTO for when Baby 'B' gets here (actually, I knew I could only handle the drunks in limited doses so I was putting it off) I opted to stay and work on Friday and head there Friday afterwork with a few of the girls that also had to work. Somebody's got to work around here.

Good Lord you should have seen the people. The average age is probably 18-25. Clothes are clearly an option and they must have confiscated sunscreen at the gate. Anything can be made a cooler or wagon to haul food and booze and the kids are really getting creative with ways to comsume alcohol. We used to just have keg stands and beer bongs. At the most we may have made jello shots. Now they're walking around with soaked gummy bears, multi funneled beer bongs wtih a trough at the top, squirt guns, bags of wine and whatever homemade hooch they can find on Pinterest.

We parked under an oak tree with all the other old folks and watched the lazy river of drunks stumbling back and forth from the pit to their respective camp sites. Entertainment for hours I'm telling you. I looked around and thought Whew! I sure am glad I don't have to worry about a daughter stumbling around here all slutted up wearing next to nothing, drunk off her underage ass with boys drooling over all her goods on display. Then I thought OMG I have to worry about having one of the wasted idiot boys walking around here in little more than his jock strap with a beer bong and soaked gummy bears trying to get girls drunk so they'll get a peep show. I don't know what's worse!?!?

For the most part I think I handled it pretty well. Saturday there was a chili and bean cook-off, which I entered so that kept me pretty busy.

Out of 64 entries, I didn't win or even place, which tells you people don't know good chili when they taste it. Our crew didn't have a problem with it.

They had a live auction, a silent auction and passed the hat to raise money for West. They raised over $50,000 in an afternoon. It was awesome to see the support.

Saturday afternoon it was back out to the oak tree chasing the shade and listened to the best type of music around. I'm so proud of Kb, he was a perfect gentleman. He made sure I was comfortable, always had water and stayed by my side the whole time. I'm so proud of him.

He even tried to convince me we could bring Baby 'B' next year by pointing out those that had a little one under the shade. Umm, that's a big fat NEGATIVE Ghost Rider, not a chance.