Whoops! He's Early! :)

Well, here's my last pregnancy picture: It was taken on Sunday, May 16th at 36 weeks, when I thought I had a good 4 weeks to go!

It doesn't quite look like he's ready to come yet, right? Wrong! And what a good surprise he's turned out to be! :) I already wrote my delivery story in an email to my sister, so I'll just post most of what happened from that:

On wednesday morning I was getting ready for work, just eating my cereal and sitting on the couch, when it felt like I peed my pants a little. But only a little. I didn't think my water had broken, because that's supposed to feel like a gush of water, and mine was just a trickle, I thought. I called mom to ask her what it was supposed to be like to have your water break, and immediately she said "Oh, no, Bebs, I'm not ready!" :) I told her I wasn't sure, though, and still had to talk to my Dr. about it. I called the Dr. office later that morning, and she wasn't there, but the nurse said that if I felt anything else come out, I was to go to the ER right away. Nothing else happened on Wednesday, but I had my check up appointment the next afternoon, so I headed to the Dr.'s office at 1:30. My appointment went normally (they are just quick 10 minute appointments, pretty much), and the Dr was about finish up the exam and send me on my way when I said "Did the nurse tell you that I thought my water broke yesterday?" And Dr. Sharma said, "No! What happened?" I told her, and she sent me downstairs right away to get an ultrasound to make sure I hadn't lost too much amniotic fluid. I had the ultrasound downstairs (this whole time I'm thinking that everything will be fine and that nothing else was going to happen), and the tech said I had lost a little, but I should just drink lots of water to replenish my fluid. I left the ultrasound place then, and was headed home in the car when Dr. Sharma called and told me I needed to come back to the ER right away. She had just seen the results of the ultrasound herself, and said I needed to be checked, and that it was very likely that I'd be induced that night! Ahhh! I asked if I could go home and get a few things (I still hadn't packed a hospital bag or anything!) and she said no, I had to come right away. And I couldn't even go pick up buddy first! He'd have to find a ride from the school. I went to the ER, and in the back of my mind I was still hoping I could just go home once they saw that I wasn't in labor or anything. However, they said that I wasn't going home that night--I was going to have a baby that night! Ahhhh again!

They started inducing me at 7:00 (the very time that my baby shower was to start--too bad they'd miss their guest of honor...) and I got an epidural at about 9:00 thinking things would progress pretty fast. The epidural was very effective: other than some uncomfortable contractions before the medicine kicked in--I didn't feel any pain at all the whole time. However, baby Chase definitely took his time to come, and about halfway through the labor it looked like he had changed his mind and started moving back INTO me instead of coming out. I was declared then as in "defective labor" and they told me that if I didn't dilate to a seven (you start pushing at a ten) before noon, I would have to get a c-section (because they were worried about infection since my water broke so long ago). At noon I had dilated to a 5, but that was it. My doctor was determined to deliver me without a c-section, though, and so she stretched me to a six, and chase was born within the next two hours. Yes, I was in labor a long time, but I couldn't feel anything, so I just slept most of the time. Sixteen hours after I was induced, Chase was born! (I only had to push for about 10 minutes). They took him away because he was having a hard time breathing, but after being monitored for 9 more hours, I finally had him in my arms!

Here he is!! Chase Roderick Beazer, born on May 21st, 2010 at 1:41pm. He weighed 5 lbs 12 oz and was 19 1/2 in long. A tall skinny boy!

Here's Buddy with baby Chase--it's pretty obvious he wasn't the one doing all the hard work :) He did stay the night at the hospital with me, though, and was a such good supporter/coach when I was in pain, and when I had to push. Yay for Buddy!

This pic was taken when when Chase was finally reunited with us after 9 hours under observation in the well baby nursery and NICU. He had some trouble breathing when he first came out, so they had to monitor him and make sure everything was okay. He's just fine now, which is pretty impressive considering that he was 3 1/2 weeks early. Yay for Chase!

The minute I learned I was going to be induced for sure (once I was already in the ER--at about 4:45 pm), I let my parents know, and they immediately packed up and started driving from Pennsylvania to here. A 15 hour drive! Yay for Mom, Dad, and Randy! Dad and Randy could only stay til sunday night (and I won't see Randy again for 2 years :( ...he's leaving in July to serve a mission in Birmingham, England for our church ), but my mom will be here for about a week and a half. I can see already how much I need the extra help, and I'm so glad she's here to calm me down when I think I am doing everything wrong!

This is Chase at 3 days old! He sleeps a lot, but never enough at a time, it seems, for me to get some good rest! Ah, such is the life of a mother. I probably won't ever get as much sleep as I used to, but of course it's totally worth it.

Thanks to everyone for the texts, calls, emails, and gifts! We're so grateful to have so many friends that care about us at such a significant time in our lives. Special thanks goes to Haylee and Candice for throwing me a baby shower, even though I couldn't be there. Thanks for going on without me! I didn't want you guys to waste all that food and planning! Speaking of the baby shower, there were two gifts that I could not see who they were from: a bag filled with newborn diapers (with monkeys on them--which is perfect for Chase since he kinda looks like a little monkey with his long, skinny arms, legs, and toes :) ), and a three piece church outfit (that I'm super excited about! As soon as he fits it, he'll be sportin' it!). To the people who gave them to me: fess up! :) Let me know, so I can whisper to Chase who his favorite people should be. Thanks to those who attended the shower and were surprised that I wasn't there! I love all the gifts, and I can't wait to use everything!

Now that he's here, there's only one more big thing to do: MOVE! I hope we can get everything done before this saturday. We're set to sign our contract, and move into our new apartment at 10am Saturday morning. Wish us luck!

There's no place like home

For the past few weeks we have been scouring the area for a home to rent. Our contract here at the Meadows Apartments is up at the end of this month, and we want to move somewhere a little safer for the last year that we'll be in Memphis. We've been lucky, I think, not to have had our apartment broken into yet, and I'm pretty tired of feeling anxious outside whenever it gets dark. There have been muggings in our parking lot, cars broken into, our neighbor's car window was smashed out with a brick, and there was a shooting in the parking lot last fall. Oh, and Papa John's even refuses to deliver to our apartment complex for fear of being mugged (true story).

Buddy had his semester break the first week in May, so we spent a lot of our free time together that week looking at houses. We looked at some really old, overpriced homes in our ward, and found some really cute options just outside of our ward, but in the end we decided that we just didn't need to live in a house right now. It was a really stressful week, though, and we kept going back and forth with our options. I can't imagine what it will be like when we are actually trying to BUY a house! We'll be moving to a much safer apartment complex that's not too far from here, but it's just outside of our current ward boundaries, so we'll have to move into a new ward for our last year here (which is a little inconvenient). Hopefully we can still bless our baby in our old ward!

Speaking of baby....I made Buddy take another picture of me. So here you go, a whole 36 weeks of baby belly: (only one more month to go! crazy!)

A cookie, a belly, and a birthday!

First, I'll have to address the issue of the cookie:

A few weeks ago, we had two people stop by our house for about half an hour, and I had just happened to have finished baking some cookies to take somewhere else. Not wanting to be impolite (since they smelled so good...) I offered to let them each take one with them when they left--even though that meant having less cookies to take to the people for whom I had originally made them. They took the cookies, and after they left I headed out to deliver the rest of the treats. This is what I saw on my way out to the car:

"What's that in the grass?" I thought to myself. So I took a closer look...

"AH!" I gasped! "My cookie!" And then I giggled all the way to the car. :) Apparently someone didn't want the cookie I offered, and I thought it extremely funny that they would take it, then throw it by the wayside in a VERY obvious place! Right next to the sidewalk, for heaven's sake! I was thinking about it later, and decided that the person that did this was diabetic, and I had forgotten. I seem to recall them mentioning something about it.... Anyway, I scooped up the cookie and delivered it to someone who would appreciate it--Buddy. :) Just kidding, I left the cookie there. But I have learned my lesson about offering cookies to a particular person. I'll try to offer them a celery stick or something next time.

Moving on to "a belly":

Well, here it is, 32 weeks of belly:

Also, if you couldn't tell, I have made my last ditch effort at going blonde. The stylist did a great job, and I would highly recommend him if you have some extra money (T.R. at Cloud 9 Hair Design). It's the second time I've ever had my hair cut by a man, and he did an awesome job. However, I weird myself out every time I look in the mirror, and I'm not used to finding outfits and makeup that look good with blonde hair, so I think it'll be back to brown from now on. I snagged Buddy as a brunette, after all. How much more fun could a blonde have than that? ;)

And, last, but certainly not least (in fact, I probably should have mentioned it first, because I love it so much, but I thought the cookie story was better...), my birthday:

I always love when my birthday comes around! I don't care about getting older, or about getting presents or parties, I just like to have a time that I can expect special treatment from those around me (i.e. Buddy) and not feel guilty about being selfish. :) Usually this means I try to lengthen my birthday out to a whole month instead of one day ("no, I don't have to go grocery shopping today, it's my birthday month" or "I probably shouldn't have to do these dishes; it IS my birthday month, after all"). If only I could make it last all year! This year Buddy tried so hard to surprise me for my birthday, but his plans were foiled twice. First, he told me he had a package coming in the mail, so I wasn't to open it if I saw it first. On wednesday he stayed home in the morning so he could be here when the package came, and he thought it would be a good surprise to set it up for when we arrived home together later. One thing he didn't anticipate, though, was my clumsiness. I happened to spill tomato basil soup all over my lap at work, and I had to drive home to change in the middle of the afternoon. I didn't see EXACTLY what the surprise was, since he covered it, but I saw the empty SONY box in the bedroom and I had a good guess. I was excited for my present, but a little disappointed, too, that I ruined my own surprise. He DID surprise me with one thing, though: he "built me a cake or something" (sorry-napoleon dynamite reference...). He made me a chocolate cake and served it to me with raspberries on top! My favorite dessert! (I was lucky enough to get a chocolate raspberry cake at work earlier, too--thanks, guys!). Needless to say, I had an excellent birthday, and I'll be sad to see all the special treatment go away next week--buddy has to take finals all next week and will be busy studying. This is a pic of the presents I got from buddy this year (nice, eh?):

I hope you all had a good week, too!