The Professional Pics

We just love having photos taken by Casie Beldo - she is awesome! If you don't believe me (although why wouldn't you - I'm not a liar or anything!), take a look at these pics of our little guy... isn't he to die for?!

He is already growing and changing so much. It's crazy to think that these are "old" pictures of our one-month-old baby! Now his hair is definitely longer, his cheeks undeniably bigger, and his arms and legs have just really filled out. Can't get enough of that chubby, snuggly, talking-in-his-sleep baby of ours. How did we get so lucky?!

Excuses, Excuses.

THIS is why you haven't heard from me in forever!

Aaaah, Landon. you have turned our lives upside down - in the best way imaginable.

But we are running on fumes over here, people! I purposely don't add up the total number of hours I sleep per night because I'm afraid of how little the number will be... thinking it's around 3 or 4. But oh, is it ever worth every second of every minute (of every hour) I sit in the peacefullness of his nursery, rocking our sweet little babe. He is heavenly.

(Sabie has taken amazingly to her new role as big sister and protecter! She wants to be next to us, or whomever is holding that little guy. Just quietly watching and observing. What a great dog!)

I'll give the quick version of Landon's birth story, because you may not want to spend too much time reading about it, and honestly, I can't spend too much time writing about it. Our baby is on his way to being spoiled... he sleeps most peacefully when he's curled up in the arms of his parents!

You might remember that Landon was due to be born on August 12th. Since we knew he was breech (and since our attempt at a Version, despite the $700 price tag, didn't move our stubborn boy) Dr. Herzog scheduled us for a Cesearean Section on August 10th. Being our first pregnancy, we definitely didn't think we'd be meeting him any earlier than that, because it's always been my assumption that first babies tend to be on the late side.

Our 37 week appointment was uneventful... I hadn't dialated at all, so we were given the okay to travel to Ottertail for my family reunion/golf tournament on Saturday, July 24th. (Which I definitely would NOT have done if I'd known we'd be meeting Landon in just a few short days!)

I woke up to use the bathroom twice the morning of July 28th, which was totally normal. But looking back, there must have been some pressure down there because I'd gone twice in a really short period of time. At around 2:40, I woke with total shock - my water had broken (and for the record... you KNOW when your water breaks! I'm surprised that there is ever any confusion between that and just wetting the bed.) I said, "Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, ohmygosh" (really, 3 times like that!) and Tony woke up to see what was going on. I raced to the bathroom where I sat on the toilet until we could figure out what to do! (Luckily, Tony had his wits about him and called labor and delivery at Sanford). They said that if I wasn't progressing, I could take a shower and then come on in.

Then I called my mom to let her know what was going on. Since we'd had such crazy weather lately, she answered and said, "I suppose there's another tornado warning?" and I let her know that we were getting ready to head to the hospital! That was a fun phone call. From my perspective anyway, she might have liked the call better if it came at 7 or 8 am instead : )

I wasn't feeling any contractions at that time, so Tony packed our bags for the trip (another note to self: actually FINISH packing ahead of time for future children!) I just shouted things at him from in the shower as he gathered everything we'd need for our stay at the hospital.

Wait... this isn't the short version of the story - sorry! You can skim if you're getting bored : )

By the time I was getting out of the shower, I was definitely having contractions. I just raced to finish getting ready and we left the house.

I have to laugh at this next part, because all of my pregnancy books suggested knowing an alternate route to the hospital in case of traffic or road construction. Tony and I thought we were so lucky because live literally 50 seconds from the hospital, so we didn't worry about that at all. Lo and behold, one of the 2 streets we needed to take was CLOSED FOR CONSTRUCTION! How funny is that!? It set us back no time at all because we just turned a street earlier, but it was too ironic. Loved it.

Tony dropped me off at the front doors with our suitcase, and I was shocked because the two employees at the front desk completely ignored me! I didn't need a wheelchair or anything, but I thought the whole point of having someone there would be for them to ask if I needed help or directions or something. Very weird.

We went to the L&D triage where they confirmed that my water had broken. We were able to settle into our room where they thought we'd wait for Dr. Herzog to get in at 7:00 to perform the C-Section. But I was having lots of real contractions at this point (one time I even told Tony, "I have to do something right now... either poop, or pee, or throw up, or something!" Sorry, TMI. But the point is, my whole body was feeling pretty crazy).

A nurse checked me and said she thought I was 5 centimeters dialated, but that it was hard to tell because there was a knee or foot in the way. Then another nurse came by and said she thought I was 3 centimeters, but again, she couldn't be sure. They decided to have the on-call doctor start prepping for the surgery now. It was all moving so fast!

The anesthesiologist actually told me that we wouldn't have time to do a spinal anesthetic, and would have to undergo general anesthesia, which freaked me out pretty bad. I was relieved when my nurse, Jeanine, defended our position to have me awake during the procedure. I would have been really disappointed to be completely unconscious when our baby was born.

I was wheeled to surgery and Tony had to wait until we were ready to go before he was allowed in to the OR. I remember feeling jolts of electricity in my spine when Wayne attempted to put the anesthetic in. Jeanine continued to hold my hands and remind me to stay still while he was inserting the needle, but I said to her that I couldn't control my back arching when it went in. I don't know if it was in a nerve or what, but we did it three times before we got it straightened out.

Then Tony was able to come in just in time for the surgery to begin! What a surreal moment; after feeling a lot of pressure and tugging and pulling; hearing our son cry for the first time! Here are a few of our first family photos:

He was born at 4:54 am (just two hours after my water broke!) and weighed 6 lbs. 11 oz. and was 18 inches "tall". (Jumping way ahead, at his 15 day appointment, on his real due date, he weighed 7 lbs. 11 oz. and was 19.5 inches tall, so he did a lot of growing in those couple of weeks!)

Here are a bunch of pics from our stay at the hospital:

I can't rave enough about the care we received at Sanford! We LOVED our nurses, the lactation consultant, the pediatricians and each physician who came to check in on us. It was actually a little scary to leave them, knowing that they were such great resources! But surprisingly enough, on Saturday they just let us walk right out the doors with our baby - I'm sure every new parent thinks the same thing Tony and I did... "Are we really qualified for this!?" But guess what: we are!

I'll have to post some of his professional newborn pictures next. I'm just too tired to keep going for now! Besides, I think I might owe you another post or two : )

This has been the most exhilirating 31 days of my life! We are so crazy in love with our baby and are amazed by him every day. Can't wait to see what's in store for our little family.