Bath time!!!

Well, Carter had his first bath just minutes ago and I'm thinking he is not really a fan. Let's see if you all agree:

Photos!

Some of Carter's newborn pictures are on our photographer, Mariah's blog. They turned out so cute! http://www.mariahsmithblog.blogspot.com/

Thanks for my shirt Auntie Noelle!

Unfit mother?

Is your child in capable hands when you put your hooded sweatshirt on inside out and don't notice for several hours? Well, at least his clothes are on correctly...

Nothing quite like a good burping!

"Mommy's little all star"

He's getting cuter every day! He's finally fitting into some newborn clothes! Yeah!

Silly boy!

So much like his daddy

This picture was taken right after Carter was born. If you look in the background you can see the newborn picture of Dave that we put by the bed while I was in labor. Some of the nurses were asking how we got a picture of him already because they look so much alike!

Counting sheep...

Some of our favorite shots

Everything is going well in this Mann house. We've had our hard days and long nights but that's what we expected from the beginning. We've worked past some challenges in eating and now we are fully back to breast feeding! We did not think it was possible and are so thankful to the home health program in Sonoma County that sends Lactation Consultants to the homes of new moms to help them get past any problems they have with breast feeding. We are having so much fun watching Carter make his funny little faces and cuddling up with him for a nap. Mom is grateful that he has saved all his "blow outs" for Dad and that the projectile pooping happened when Dad was changing him but both of us have gotten lots of laughs at our little farter... I mean Carter... and we love being parents. We appreciate everyone's love and support from the meals to the laundry and all the calls and visits. We definitely feel loved and taken care of and we are enjoying parenthood.

Carter loves daddy!

Carter took his first trip home last night. He was so excited that he wanted to eat all night and not let his parents get some sleep.

We are still at the hospital and things are going ok. We've been having some trouble feeding but have been improving quickly today. He also has had a lot of bleeding from his circumcision so he's seen the doctor a few times but is relaxing and taking a nice nap right now.

Carter Pierce Mann born 4-8-08 at 11:20 pm. 7.3 lbs 21 inches long. Baby and Mommy are healthy and happy.

Carter Pierce Mann born 4-8-08 at 11:20 pm. 7.3 lbs 21 inches long. Baby and Mommy are healthy and happy.

AAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!

We thought we would be on our way to the hospital by now but after a sleepless night we got a call from the hospital at 5:15 a.m. saying they were full. I guess we will just have to try again tomorrow morning.

T minus 8 1/2 hours and counting...

Wow, the time has finally come! Both Brook and I are excited, nervous, tired, stressed, a little hungry and nervous for tomorrows events. We went to the doctor on Friday and our Midwife was kinda surprised to see us there. She had figured that Carter would have already been born by then, but alas, he was not. The final stats from the appointment are as follows: 4-5 cm dilated, 80% effaced, -1 station and a bulging bag of water. Our doctor told us that this was "one for the books". We spent the weekend getting things done so we could be as prepared as possible for our little Mann to come home. It all begins at 6 a.m. tomorrow, where we will check into the hospital and get this party started. We would like to thank everyone for their love, support and prayers as we prepare for this journey called parenthood.

Our people will call your people...

A request to friends and family:
We know how excited all of you are and trust me we are excited too, but understand that as I'm not sleeping very well any chance I get to sleep is precious. We appreciate everyone calling and checking in, but PLEASE try to keep it to reasonable hours of the day. People have been calling and texting around the clock. Also, please know that when the baby comes we will definitely let you know! No one has to call and ask if the baby is already here. We are getting very anxious as we thought he would be here by now and it is really hard enough without everyone constantly reminding us. Again, we do appreciate all of the love and support and phone calls are fine, just please not before 10 am or after 10pm.
Also, I am able to blog from my phone so we can actually post short blogs and even pictures from the hospital. If you are wondering if the baby is here please check our blog.
Thank you and we love you all.
Monday at the latest.

An April fool, perhaps?

Today was our weekly doctor's appointment and we received more exciting news. We wanted to find out how soon we could induce, which required another internal exam. Hooray! Our doctor was surprised to find that Brook was already at 4 cm, fully effaced, and ready to pop at any time. She stripped the membranes and feels strongly that we won't make it to our scheduled induction on the 7th. Now Brook and I are hoping that Carter comes tomorrow so we can have an April fool for a son. We are officially on baby-watch, so keep your cell phones on and charged.

Good night

Ok, I'm going to attempt to go to sleep now. Wish me luck!

I am a Minesweeper master!

Still can't sleep, but I just played a killer game of Minesweeper!

The perks of insomnia

Right now as my darling husband snores and slumbers away I sit awake. I'm not at all surprised by this as I haven't really slept for weeks, but tonight is different. Usually if I lay my head down at 8PM I can fall asleep by midnight and then wake up around 2am, fall back asleep about 5am, wake up to the alarm at 6am and then fall right back asleep until 9am. Tonight, however, I not only couldn't sleep, but I got bored laying in bed so I got up and completed my last 32 thank you cards. I tried laying down to sleep after that, but I was still not able to and bored so I decided to hop on the computer. I'm thinking of paying a few bills and then searching Craigslist for a while until I get sleepy enough to go to bed or Dave wakes up. We'll see. Too bad I can't vacuum and do a couple loads of laundry... I'm really going to regret this whole not sleeping thing tomorrow. Oh well.

Sitting, waiting, wishing...

Brook and I are starting to get impatient, and we still have 2+ weeks to go before the due date. Luckily at our last appointment with our doctor, she said that we are still ahead of the game and if we were interested, she saw no problem with inducing as soon as 38.5 weeks. As the days pass by with no baby yet, inducing sounds more and more appealing. Our doctor believes that Carter is going to be a big one (she usually says this while looking at me), so the sooner he is out, the lower the chance of cesarean section. Brook continues to have sleeping problems, which will probably not change once the baby is born. We took some pictures of "Pregnant Brook" yesterday, just in case she soon morphs into "Mommy Brook". Hopefully, our next blog will have pictures of a cute little baby boy! We'll see...

Kaisa, Emanuel and I took a long walk around spring lake yesterday. She's been talking about trying to walk me into labor, so I should've known that I would regret this walk! I could barely walk afterwards and Carter definitely shifted downwards which makes me waddle... it's lovely. I wouldn't be surprised if he came soon!

An eventful trip to the doctor

We had a doctor's appointment yesterday and it was probably the most eventful one we've had so far! I've only gained 1 lb in the past 2 weeks which is good and she officially put me on disability! Hooray! It's probably a good thing considering she did an internal exam (very pleasant by the way) and discovered that I am already 2 to 3 cm dilated!!! Now this could mean absolutely nothing since some women sit dilated to 3 cm for a month before they give birth, but who knows how long I've already been dilated. The MAJOR plus side to this is it takes some women 8 or so hours of labor to get to 3 cm so I've already done a lot of the work without realizing it! Hopefully that means we will have a shorter labor. I think this scared Dave more than me since I'm seriously ready not to be pregnant anymore, but he just worries that the baby won't be fully "cooked." I keep telling him that a baby is considered full term at 36 weeks which is what I am today and plenty babies we know have been born early with little to no complications, but you can't blame the guy for worrying about his first baby. Our midwife also felt the need to say that the baby is "big." Really? I couldn't tell... Luckily she didn't give me a size estimate, it's better if I have NO idea how big she thinks the baby is. I will just go on convincing myself that he's not as big as he really is. We go back to the doctor next Monday and every week after that until the baby is born. I wouldn't be surprised to receive a call from us with good news in the near future, but don't wait by the phone. My little boy could prove to be stubborn and not come out for a while.

Cool shower gifts!

Here are some cool things Brook got at her work shower:

This "pack 'n play" was more difficult to set up than I originally thought it would be, but I am glad I know how now and it will definitely come in handy!

This quilt was handmade by Annette (Brook's co-worker's soon-to-be mother-in-law). We have been looking forward for this gift since we bought the fabric months ago (see blog from 12/20/07) and it turned out better than we ever hoped.

You give me Fever...

I have a fairly good reason for not writing these past few days. On Monday night at about 11PM I started throwing up and having other "digestive" problems. I couldn't sleep the whole night and I ended up staying home from work. When I finally took my temp that day it was 100.6 which is really high for me since I normally run around 97.2. I called the doctor and she told me to take Tylenol, keep my fever below 100 and to take it easy for a few days and just let it pass, so I did. Every time my fever would get over 100 (I could feel it every time) I would take a cool bath and some Tylenol and once the Tylenol wore off it would shoot right back up. So I missed far too much work to make up and even though my fever has passed I still feel horrible. I have a doctor's appointment Monday at which I plan to get my note for going on disability which puts me out about 3 weeks earlier than I had planned. That's not too bad I guess. The good part in all of this is my feet haven't been swelling AT ALL since I've been staying home!

All through my pregnancy I've been saying that it is going too fast and I never thought I would get to the point where I would just be ready for him to come, but I've finally gotten there. All of the sudden I can't really do anything. I can't sit for long periods of time, or lay down for very long. I can't get out of chairs or walk by myself (I feel very dumb gripping the wall to move around sometimes) and the bath tub is a whole new challenge. I'm just ready for him and who knows it could be more than a month before he comes.

In other news: We lifted some stress off ourselves by selling our Dana Carvey tickets for March 29th. We decided that if I am still pregnant it will be miserable because not only do you have to be in your seat and hour before the show starts, but it's a live taping so you have to stay in there the entire time. Plus if the baby is already born we won't be able to enjoy ourselves because that will be all we can think about. So we listed them on Craigslist and in about 20 minutes we already had someone who was willing to buy them.

Gosh, you never realize how much you have to say until you aren't writing as often!

We had birth class last night and it was my first time out of the house since Monday. Unfortunately the class was a bust because it was on breastfeeding and if you've done absolutely ANY research or picked up a book you already knew everything she said. We left at the break.

I have the last of the showers this weekend. My work shower is Saturday and my family shower is Sunday. These are the smaller showers so they shouldn't take too much out of me. We had a joint shower last Saturday for me and my friend Katie. It was so much fun but by the end we were both SO exhausted! The food was really good too, Karen made a gluten free chocolate cake AND gluten free pancakes!!! Carter and I have been so spoiled!

Carter and Alexis' first kiss!

What's in a name? (Part 2)

Dave and I had discussed the possibility of changing Carter's middle name from Pierce to James if he was born on my great grandpa, James' birthday. We decided to keep it the way it was because we like the name Carter Pierce and we thought the odds of delivering on that particular day were very slim. Well, on Sunday one of our favorite people, Jim Moore, walked up to me and we were talking about my due date. He told me that his birthday is April 9th and that it is a particularly good day to be born. I agree. I would love to have Carter on Jim's b-day... again though we run into the "James" thought... Did we pick the wrong middle name for Carter? Should he really be Carter James, or is this just coincidence? Dave says we should not change his name, but we can seriously consider James as the middle name to our second boy. I think that is a good option considering we love and respect so many people named James but can't shake the feeling that maybe Carter should be Carter James. Any thoughts?
Side note: Don't get me wrong, we love and respect the Pierce's too which is why we chose that name to begin with and why we aren't too keen to change it!