It's a GIRL!

Well, you predicted it.  (You, being 95% of the people who made a guess about this little one.)  It's a girl!

Audrey Laura Samad arrived at 5:18pm on Thursday, July 26.  She weighed in at 7lb 6oz and is 21 inches long.

She is doing really well.  She has been nursing and sleeping wonderfully and has been very happy so far.  If you want to hear about her delivery, read on.  If not, you can skip right on down to the pictures!

We decided to be induced yesterday and arrived at Christ Hospital at 9:00am.  We were lucky to get an optimistic and encouraging nurse named Lori.  She predicted that the baby would be here by dinner, maybe earlier. She was upbeat all day and helped us get ready to push early in the afternoon.  Everything went smoothly up to that point:  The pitocin kicked in immediately, the epidural came at just the perfect time, and I even let family come back to visit for a bit.  (That's saying something, folks!).

At around 1:30 I was 4cm dilated and opted to get my epidural.  Within 45 minutes I jumped to an 8.  Lori got excited and started prepping the room for 'go' time. By 3:00 it was time to push, and both Lori and Dr. Grim thought the baby would be out by 3:30 --maybe even 3:15.  Unfortunately, after one push Dr. Grim found that this little one was posterior. We tried and tried but we couldn't get the baby to move.  After 2 exhausting hours of pushing with little movement, Dr. Grim offered to pull the baby out with forceps.  I hesitated at first, but when he explained that I could still be pushing for 2 more hours with no progress we decided to go for it.  Extra help was called in and my epidural was increased before we started the process.  With a few more pushes and a few tugs with the forceps, Audrey made her arrival. I was so exhausted with those last few pushes and my extra dose of epidural didn't actually kick in until after she was out.  It didn't feel great.  But she's here now and I'm so thankful!

Final Belly Shot

Look at all of that dark hair!

Audrey has an abrasion on her face from the forceps.  It's pretty obvious in the picture above, but the pediatrician just left and seems to think it's healing well.  

She also isn't able to move her right arm to the full range expected.  The doctors want to keep an eye on it and feel as though it is something that will heal quickly on its own.  If they hadn't pointed it out I wouldn't have noticed that anythings wrong.  Actually, I still can't really tell.  Hopefully that's a good sign that nothing is too wrong!

Jack was AMAZING with Audrey when he came to visit.  Without prompting, he asked to sit on my lap, then signed 'please' and pointed to the baby.  We held her together while he gave her pats, kisses, pointed out all of her features, and just loved on her.  What a gift to me to have that worry wiped away.  Let's hope he still loves her so much when she comes home!

Yesterday Jack got to spend his whole day with Aunt Christy.  Now he's with Nana and tonight he'll be with my parents.  I'm sure he's been spoiled with all of the love and attention.  Thank you to all of you for taking just great care of him while we're up here!  

We look forward to introducing Audrey to all of you once we get home.  Thank you to everyone for your calls, texts, and emails.   I loved all of the encouragement throughout the day!.  Thank you for helping me and praying for us along the way.

Tomorrow's the big day!

Tomorrow is the big day.  We're heading to Christ Hospital at 9:00am to be induced!  Dr. Grim offered on Tuesday, and I quickly jumped on the chance.  I learned my lesson with Jack and decided to be induced the first time the doctor offered.  With Jack we waited that whole extra week, hoping something would progress naturally.  

Today Jack and I made cupcakes to celebrate the baby's birthday.  He loves to sing Happy Birthday, and I thought it would be a fun way to celebrate when he comes to the hospital to meet the baby for the first time. 

We're really excited for tomorrow and can't wait to meet this little one.  We've got our girl name picked out, but as of tonight we're wavering on our boy name.  According to every stranger on the street this is a girl, so we shouldn't have to worry about our boy name!

We'll do our best to keep you posted with pictures and updates about the baby once he or she arrives.  Thanks for those of you who have been praying for us and for those helping out this weekend!  

Family Day

THE BASEMENT IS FINISHED!!!!   This is so exciting for our family.  For the past year and a half Jacob has been working on finishing the basement.  It was a huge project that included adding new flooring, digging into the floor to move a bathroom drain, framing, drywalling, tiling, painting, electric.... The list goes on.  It looks amazing now.  The carpet came last Friday, and we just purchased the two big bonuses:  new furniture and a new TV.  We have a few more things to do to complete the whole project, but it is usable and Jacob can finally take a much needed break.

Thank you to all of our friends and family who helped Jacob work in the basement or helped me with Jack while we worked together.  So many people gave up hours of their time and energy, and now we need to have a party to celebrate.

I've got to go through all of my saved pictures to find some good befores and afters.  I'm so thrilled with how it turned out.  Thank you, Jacob.  (Every time he was completely annoyed with the basement he jokingly reminded me that this was all my idea.... now I can remind him of my great idea while he's reclining on his new couch watching baseball on his new TV.  Hopefully he'll think it was worth it!)

Last Saturday was the first time in a long while that our family was free to do only family-related things.  No construction, no grocery shopping, cleaning, or preparing for company, no showers, weddings, or parties to attend.  We took full advantage from morning to night to spend quality time together and enjoy the wonderful feeling.

We had plans to take the bus down to Washington Park, but the rain came in and so we quickly decided to try the Children's Museum.  We were able to borrow Mom and Carl's pass and got in for free.  (Thank you!)  Jack loved every minute and cried when we left.  We have to go back more often.

One of the highlights was the ball-pit area.  As much as Jack loved it, I think Jacob loved it even more.  They were both fascinated by each unique thing.  I wish I could have captured it with a picture!

Train Table!  His new favorite thing to do.

After awhile I put down the camera and just enjoyed the day.  We went out to lunch and dinner and threw in some furniture shopping, too.  We finished the night with some ice cream and a very late bedtime.

I don't know if the day was so great because it had been so long since we had done something like that, or if it was just me trying to create memories before the baby arrives.  Either way, I went to bed that night feeling so blessed and thankful to have these two wonderful guys in my life.  I told Jack last week that God must have known what he was doing when he made me his mom.  He nodded his head like he understood and gave me a hug.  What a guy. 

For those counting down with us, I'm 39 weeks along today!

Touch a Truck

Jack has formed a few new habits.  First, he has recently started standing with his hands behind his back.  I have no idea where he picked it up and I think it is too cute! 

He has also started a new habit when we get in the car.  Each time we leave the house he says, "bye-bye" then proceeds to call out all of the things he would like to see on our drive.  First it's a fire truck, then a train, then a garbage truck.  He has a noise for each one and he says them quite loudly.  He'll say "woo-hoo"  and wait for me to respond.  I have to tell him whether or not I think we'll drive past the fire house.  He keeps going through the ones he'd like to see until he's satisfied with my answers.  Luckily we live one street down from the fire house and not far from two railroad tracks.  


While we're driving he does a great job of pointing out everything he sees.  For a little boy with a limited vocabulary, he does a great job getting his point across:  He loves trucks!  


This past week we were invited to join our friends at a Touch a Truck Event. Of course we jumped on the chance.  Moms and Dads, you need to take your little ones to an event like this.  Springfield Township hosted this particular event and they had probably 20+ trucks for kids to explore.    I was thankful that my Aunt Louie joined us to help me with Jack. We stayed for about 1 1/2 hours and there was no way that I could have made it that long without her.  Here are some pictures from our morning:

Ready and waiting in the helicopter

Aunt Louie and Jack outside of the helicopter

Driving the ambulance

One very pregnant mommy with Jack driving the fire truck

Jack and Jeremiah in the scoop of a front-loader

Driving a lawn mower

In the cab of the front-loader

Beep Beep says the bus!

Driving one of his favorites:  The Garbage Truck

I'm so thankful that we've been able to get out and do these types of things this summer.  I know that the next few weeks are going to be a bit hectic, so I'm thrilled that Jack has been able to enjoy so many fun events as we wait for the baby to arrive.  Thanks again Aunt Louie, for all of your help!

Where the Wild Things Are

Every night before bed we read books with Jack.  He tends to have his favorites that we read over and over... and over again.  But Jacob decided one night that he was going to choose one book and make it their special book together.  Where the Wild Things Are quickly became a new favorite and it was a book that just the two of them enjoyed together.

So when it came time to decorate Jack's new room, Jacob wanted to try to incorporate the book into the theme.  When he first mentioned creating a mural for the wall I was hesitant.  I couldn't figure out how we were going to pull it off, and I had no idea how we would ever get it finished in time to move Jack into his room before the baby arrived.

Enter Aunt Christy.  The amazing Aunt Christy.  She came in and saved the day.  Not only did she create an amazing mural, but she did it in record time.  We are so thankful that she gave up so many hours of her time to help complete this project!  Jack absolutely loves the mural.  If you ask him, he'll gladly show you the Wild Things.  While you walk up the stairs towards his room he'll even roar a terrible roar and gnash his terrible teeth.  He'll also tell you who painted the mural for him.  Well, he tries to say Christy.  Sometimes its Di-Di or maybe Ti-Ti.  I can't tell.  But, I know what he means, and he says it with a smile.

Thank you, Christy!  You did an amazing job!  Jack will love this for many, many years.

Here are a few shots of her project:

What we've been up to...

So, I'm totally behind again.  I've been spending Jack's nap time working and prepping for my maternity leave, getting ready for this baby's arrival, or napping.  I can't believe that his or her arrival is coming up so quickly!  According to our due date we've got less than two weeks to go.  I'm already progressing in the right direction and Dr. Grim is guessing that I won't make it to July 26th.  I'm hoping he's right!

Rather than trying to recap each and every thing we've done this past month I'm going to give you a few highlights.

We checked out the new Washington Park last week.  It was a huge hit!

We hung  out with our cousins:

Jack learned how to eat corn from the cob:  Happy 4th of July!

I've been working to find activities that Jack would enjoy playing independently.  Here he is exploring his new Mr. Potato Head:

Jack learned about the joys of splashing in a puddle:

I can't promise that I'll be great at updating the blog after the baby comes.  But I promise to try and I'll do my best to keep you informed about this baby's arrival.  

Here are a few pictures from our last session with Leah Robbins:  Enjoy!

http://leahrobbins.com/blog/2012/06/jack-18-months/