Memorial Day and other fun!

This past Memorial Day was a blast. Two other couples that we are friends with have also had babies within the past year, so we've managed to create a little playgroup among the three families. We spent lunchtime at our friends' Jeremy and Emily's house. Isaac was a little fussy and fought sleep the whole time (even after downing 5 ounces of milk), until finally passing out in daddy's arms...only to wake up again right before we left. He crashed in the car on the way home though. It will be so much fun to see the friendships with the kiddos develop over the coming years!

The Mommies and the babies

(Doris and Baby Gracie, Me and Baby Isaac, and Emily and Baby Taylor)

The Daddies and the babies

(Gordon and Gracie, Bill and Isaac, and Jeremy and Taylor)

In other news, our jaundice monitoring continues. His levels still aren't really high, but still are high enough that they want to keep monitoring them. He will go in for another blood test next week...so hopefully the levels will continue to go down. Other than that, our little man is growing like a weed and still eating non-stop. I'm not setting the alarm at night to wake up to feed him...he wakes me pretty much every three hours on his own now. I can't wait until his two month appointment so we can see how much he has gained!

This was a fun weekend! We took Isaac to church for the first time this past Sunday, and of course, were greeting with shrieks of excitement from friends who have also been eagerly awaiting his arrival. It was fun to see people do a "double take" when they first saw us, and then saw the baby. One friend actually came up and asked if I had had the baby yet, and I answered "no" with as serious of a face as I could muster. :) He was lots of fun proudly showing off our little guy!

Another highlight from this week was taking Isaac up to the school for the first time to meet my class and the other faculty and staff at the school. He was a BIG hit with everyone, and my class was SO excited to see the both of us. My favorite response came from one of my kids to asked me "where my belly went." :) So cute! There were definitely lots of oohhs and aahhs. He pretty much slept the whole time we were there, only waking up to eat, and then going back to sleep.

2 week check up

Isaac had his two week check up (a few days late) at the pediatrician's office this morning. He's gained almost a whole pound already, weighing in at 9lbs. 3.2oz., and grown a whole inch, now 21.5 inches long. He also had to have some blood drawn to recheck his jaundice level to make sure he's where he needs to be. All in all, the appointment went well, and he did great!

He is focusing on our faces a lot more now and holding his head up some during tummy time. He's a strong little guy!

The Birth Story

Many of you have asked to hear the birth story....so here goes.

On Wednesday, May 1st, I woke up feeling a little "funny"....but got myself ready and went to work. Pretty soon I started feeling some light contractions...not very intense, and not lasting very long. Just for kicks, I decided to start timing them to see if there was a pattern to how far apart they were. Sure enough, they were 8-10 minutes apart, but still not intense or long lasting. I let Bill know that he needed to be "on alert" just in case...but really didn't think much would happen. By lunch time they were still 8-10 minutes apart, so I called my mother (who lives in Colorado) to let her know. She was convinced that this wasn't the "real deal" and told me to drink lots of water to get rid of the contractions. By the end of the work day, the contractions were 4-5 minutes apart...so I called the doctor and they told me to go ahead and come into the office and they would check me out. My friend Elizabeth drove me to the doctor and Bill met us there. While we're waiting to see the doctor, Bill informs me that we don't have hot water because our hot water heater rusted out, and he has spent the whole day replacing it...but didn't want to tell me because he didn't want to send me into a stress-induced labor. :) SO, we see the doctor, and I am 5cm dilated, but they sent me home to wait for contractions to get stronger and longer. We go home and Bill finishes hooking up the new hot water heater....meanwhile, contractions are getting longer and more intense. We call the doctor again and by 6pm, we are at the hospital again. They check me again, and decide that they are going to go ahead and admit me. By 8:30pm I've got my epidural and am feeling pretty good. In the next 5 hours they break my water and the contractions are getting so close together and intense that baby Isaac doesn't really have time to recoup between them and he isn't getting enough oxygen...so they have me on an oxygen mask. My sister arrives at 9:30 or so, and hangs out until about 11:00pm, then goes to our house to get some sleep because they think it's going to be at least 6-8 hours until I'm ready to push. At 1:00am they come in and say that we are going to try to get our little guy out because he's having too hard of a time getting oxygen, and that we're going to start pushing. They also say that we are going to have to have a vaccuum assisted delivery, and if that doesn't work pretty quickly, that we'll have to go in for a c-section. SO, we call my sister to come back to the hospital, and I start pushing at 1:30am. I push for almost an hour by the time the vaccuum assistance is set up, and push through two contractions with the vaccuum, and at 2:28am, our little boy arrived without additional help! Praise the Lord! As I said before, he weighed in at 8lbs 4oz and was 20.5in. long. They took him to the nursery to monitor him because he was having breathing issues...but he was back in our room about an hour later.

We spend three days in the hospital since he was born in the middle of the night, and went home on Saturday. We are getting into our routine and he is doing so great. He is very mellow so far and really only fusses when he's hungry, wet, or dirty.

SO, that's our story!

We've started an online album of photos...if you want to check them out... http://picasaweb.google.com/jessica.ramsour/IsaacDavidRamsour

Baby Isaac Has Arrived!

We finally met our handsome baby boy, Isaac David, on Wednesday, May 1st at 2:28am. He came in at a whopping 8lbs. 4oz. and was 20.5 inches long. We came home today, and everyone is doing great. Here are a couple pictures to get you started...more will come! :) Thanks to everyone who visited us in the hospital...it definitely made the time go faster. :)