mother's day

this mother's day was a little cray cray because i had a six day old... who really wanted to celebrate me! it did make mother's day feel extra mother-ie this year... having it so very close to an actual baby delivery and becoming a mother, again! i love it. how lucky am i that beckett and heath are mine? the luckiest. really, truly. 

beckett had a mother's day event on the 8th at preschool and i really thought i wasn't going to make it and i was having major anxiety about it because i just imagined all the other mothers being there and beckett not having his mom because she was off being a mom to someone else and my crazy, hormonal self was really distraught over it. so i went. and matt and yiayia had to sit in the parking lot with heath because you just can not expose a 3 day old to a bunch of preschoolers! and let me tell you... thank god i was there! i'm lying. beckett hardly knew what was going on and really only cared about the sugar cookies he had decorated and would have been completely fine if somebody else had gone in my place. oh well. in my heart of hearts, i'm still glad i was there. even though all the other moms thought i was a full on lunatic for coming.

on actual mother's day we just relaxed and matt made me (and his mom!) a delicious breakfast of all my favorite things and it was a nice day. only a tiny bit of sadness happened because yiayia left and we knew we would miss her the most. 

1 week check up

we took heath in for his one week check up a little early on may 10th because our doctor was going out of town. everything checked out fine and heath is almost back up to his birth weight. he was a very good patient and as you can tell in the pictures even opened his mouth for dr. lucy to check out what was going on. unfortunately she was trying to check his eyes at the time, but give him a break... he's just a baby. after his appointment we rewarded him with nourishment, which made him instantly milk drunk. i love his tiny face. 

height: 19.5 inches 57%

weight: 7 pounds 8 ounces 40%

head: ? (probably humongous) 

hello new faces!

some visitors who came to meet brand spankin' new heath. the pictures are not great because we were using whitney's camera and we are terrible with it, as it turns out. 

whitney!

our baby photographer! thank you thank you thank you for coming in the earliest morning hours and hanging out and being there for ALL of it! heath just really likes you... you can totally tell.

auntie saige!

i was so happy to have saige in the room this time (they wouldn't let anybody in with beckett!) and for her to get to meet heath the moment he was born! i hope she thought it was cool and not traumatizing. i think she was fine about it. and she videoed! yeah! heath of course loves his auntie so much.

yiayia!

yiayia was boarding an airplane to seattle as heath was being born... since he decided to come a little early. this made her go a tiny bit insane, but she got here just a few hours after he was born! heath found time with yiayia very relaxing right from the beginning.

natasha!

natasha spent the morning with a confused and dramatic beckett, while heath was being born. thank you natasha for hanging out and being so sweet with our boys.

lonnie!

heath is so appreciative that lonnie took a picture with him! lonnie got our meal deliveries organized so we wouldn't have to cook when we got home. we just have a lot of really great friends. we are thankful!

jennifer, grace, and jane!

i think jane maybe thought about kidnapping heath. she just loves babies so dang much. it really is pretty much the cutest. mike (jennifer's hubby and the girls' dad shares a birthday with heath!)

i look like a slug in this picture, but i'm over it.

thanks for coming to meet heath on his first day of life!

hey brother

beckett was the most, most precious meeting his brother for the first time. saige brought him down to the hospital and he just walked right in, in his big brother shirt more than ready to introduce  himself to heath. when he got to hold him, he was nothing but smiles. i think beckett (like the rest of us) couldn't believe that this new baby was actually here after such a long wait. also, seeing beckett stare at his new baby brother made me feel like maybe my heart would explode. it is crazy to think that now they will just always have each other, a special lifelong relationship created just like that. this people... is why i want 100 children. anyway, beckett brought heath a new ugly doll for his room and heath considerately had brought a gift (from the womb?!) for beckett. and now we have two boys that will hopefully become best friends and our little family is feeling a bit more complete. it's lovely.

a baby delivery story

we are officially a family of four and it is officially insanity! i was scheduled for an induction on may 6th because i was over being pregnant, but heath had plans of his own and i got to experience going into labor naturally. yeah! i love that it happened that way! warning: this post is looooong. you might need to get a snack or take a power nap part way through. 

on may 4th (practically the 5th) at around 11:30pm i started having some contractions. i was downstairs (blogging!) and everybody else was in bed, sleeping. i had been having quite a few braxton hicks with this pregnancy, so i didn't think too much about it and decided to finish my blog post on the nursery. i locked up the house and headed upstairs at around 12:15am. when i got upstairs, i woke up matt and told him i was having some contractions and they were a little more intense than usual. at 12:45am matt called the hospital and told them about my contractions and where i was at in the pregnancy (39 weeks and 5 days and 4cm dilated) and they told us to get packed up and head on in. gah! i was terrified to be one of those women who rushes to the hospital in SO MUCH pain and then at the hospital they are like, "are you serious right now? you're not in labor... go home." i also did not want to wait too long and not make it in time for an epidural. i was praying for my water to break as a nice "i'm definitely in labor" sign, but no luck. we got dressed, packed up the car, woke up saige (who said, "are you joking right now?!") and headed to the hospital. 

we got to the hospital at around 2:15am and after two big breaks where i had to stop walking because of contractions, we got to labor and delivery. they took me to the triage area to check me out. my contractions were pretty consistent and i was 5cm dilated. the nurse (theresa) checked with the on-call doctor and then checked me into the hospital for delivery! yeah! we got to my delivery room at around 3:15am. once we knew that it was for sure go time, matt called natasha (to go to our house to be with beckett) and whitney (to come to the hospital to photograph). what super great friends we have, yes? theresa checked me at 4:15am and i was 6cm dilated aaaaannnnnd ready for the sweet joy that is the epidural. the anesthesiologist was headed to a c-section and my nurse pressured him to come and do my epidural first. theresa is my new best friend for getting junk done! my epidural was placed by 4:45am and it was a real goodie. right after i got the epidural, saige got to the hospital. at 5:45am, my water broke... and at 6:00am whitney got to the hospital. i pushed for five years with beckett, so i was really hoping this time was going to go faster, and saige and whitney wouldn't just have to sit and stare at me forever. at 6:30am i was 9cm dilated. 

at 7:00am my nurses switched. i said bye to theresa and hello to jennifer. at 7:30am my doctor got to the hospital and came by to check on me. i was 10cm dilated and ready to start pushing! yikes. i felt pretty tired, which was too bad because i hadn't even done any real work yet, but i luckily really wanted to meet my new baby, so that was motivating. i started pushing and tried different positions, and was weirdly the most productive flat on my back. i was more productive than my nurse anticipated, and after an hour of hearing "push harder...just a little harder!" i heard, "stop pushing right now!" um. yeah. that's easier said than done. literally every part of my body wanted to keep pushing. it's like i couldn't not push. the baby was seriously ready to come out, but my nurse did not want me to deliver without my doctor there so... are you ready... she pushed him right back in! ahhh! it was the weirdest feeling ever! and it made me stressed out about all the work i had done, but she assured me that at my next big push he would come right back out. my doctor rushed back in at about 9:00am and frantically got gloves on just in time to deliver heath. my doctor yelled at me to sit up on my elbows and then said, "grab him! pull your baby out!" uh... i didn't know how to feel about this. we hadn't discussed me doing that and everything felt really fast... so i just grabbed heath and pulled him onto my stomach and that was that! heath kos pennebaker was born! may 5th at 9:02am, weighing 7 pounds, 15 ounces and 19.5 inches long. he had a super short umbilical cord, that matt got to cut this time (things were too crazy with beckett) and saige and whitney got to see it all and everything felt weirdly calm and peaceful for being such an insane thing to have happen. i know babies are born every second, but it's still the most amazing and i cry every time somebody i know gives birth.

i'm so happy to have heath here, sweet and healthy, and to have another birth story to share. i'm especially happy to have an easier, faster story to share. yay for second babies being easier to get out. we are so blessed and excited to transition into a life with two boys. just like with beckett, i already can't imagine a world without baby heath in it. he is the best!