j u s t i n and t i f f a n y . com / blog

I really am. I thought it would be fun to have a blog and I just haven’t have the time I would like to get around to updating it. Part of the reason why I have been so bad is I had this belief that I needed to catch everyone up on Siena’s first 9 months. That’s right. She is 9 months old now! Wow. Time flies! Anyhow, now I think I am just going to start fresh or I will never do it. I will let you know about now and see if I can do better at this whole blog thing. I contemplated giving it up all together, but I have a couple of followers…you know who you are and I thank you for sticking around to see my once every 8 months blog post! AND I thought it would be fun for Siena someday to read all about the first part of her life that she has no recollection of. So, here I go.

I will give a brief summary of the last nine months though. I have the happiest baby in the world. No offense to any other proud mama out there. (I am sure yours is happy as well!) Siena is constantly smiling, playing, waving, giving high fives and is generally a happy little girl. The only time she ever cries (it isn’t really crying, it is more yelling) is when I have to put her down in her crib for a nap or bedtime. You would think I was putting her in prison! She yells, she acts like she is choking, she begs, you name it. She pulls on your heart strings like you would not believe. I feel as though I am torturing her, but I know she needs sleep and I am doing the right thing as a parent. She wakes up all smiles so I know it is the right thing to do. It is still hard though! I am envious of all you mamas out there who have a sleepy baby who loves bedtime! I cannot even imagine having a baby like that! Wow.

Siena is now crawling. She has been for a couple of months already. She is also cruising. We know that any day now she will be walking. I must add in here on tidbit on my experience with this. Everyone said that we are in trouble when she starts to get mobile and that we don’t want her moving. Well, I disagree! She used to be frustrated and want me to hold her all the time and take her all around the house constantly. I was drained. Now, she goes where she wants on her own and is incredibly self entertained. I do have to watch her of course. She loves to get a hold of all things she isn’t supposed to, but for the most part, we have a safe play area and she is much easier to handle these days.

Siena is always hitting the milestones a bit early. Her first word was “Kitty.” We have two cats and they are constantly disappearing and reappearing for Siena. They are so mysterious to her and she is fascinated with them. Our one cat, TJ, is much more like a dog than a cat. He plays fetch. He turns off light switches, jumps hurdles, he does all kinds of tricks for treats. He also lets Siena manhandle him. She pulls on his hair, cuddles him, puts all her weight on him, etc. If he isn’t in the mood…he just creeps away. They are becoming good buds.

As of last Sunday, Siena has taken 24 flights. For being almost 9 months old, this airline family thinks she is well on her way to being a jet setter. Of course, really, the pat on the back should go to me! Haha! Flying with an infant sure isn’t easy, but I am learning the tricks of the trade! I may post about some of the tricks I have learned along the way later. The latest trip we took, was a 10 day trip with just me and Siena bringing all carry on luggage. Carrying on isn’t the easiest route to go, but that is the way we have to travel, so we make it work. We flew from Houston to Albuquerque to Orange County drove to the bay area, then flew from Oakland to Denver and from Denver home. Almost all the flights were standby too. Whew.

Well, that is it for now. Hopefully I will be a better blogger from here on out.

Hey there. Wow. I have really been a slacker about posting to this blog. It was one of those things where I knew I was so far behind that I kept putting it off. Well, I could fast forward until now…when Siena is 3 months old, but I think our labor story is worth telling. It was insane. I’ll try to keep it short as I have a tendency to put in every little detail because the whole night was just insane!

On November 16, 2009 we had an appointment at our Dr’s office to check and make sure Siena wasn’t in distress as our Dr. thought we were past due. At 4:30pm. the she came in and said she looked great and it was anyone’s guess when she would decide to make her debut. She thought Siena would have arrived a couple of weeks before then.

We had been watching the clocks at the appointment because we were trying to get some work done on the house before her arrival. We had someone spraying for termites while we were at the appointment and carpet cleaner’s were due to arrive at our house at 5:00pm. Justin was wrapping things up with the termite guy at around 6:00pm right after I had my first contraction. I had no clue that it was a contraction at all. The pain was entirely in my back and I felt nothing in my stomach region. I waited until it passed and then opened up the front door and hollered at Justin that I thought I might possibly be in labor. He didn’t react much because he was finishing up with the termite guy and the carpet cleaners were finally arriving.

After some consistent pain in my back I began to wonder if this was labor but I really didn’t know. The carpet cleaners were coming up the stairs, we were chasing TJ and Allie around the house to try to lock them up to avoid the carpet cleaners and I was in pain. It was pure chaos! I had to leave our bedroom and we moved to the guest bedroom (which we were not having cleaned). We had all the loose furniture in the house piled up in the room and on the bed causing a major traffic zone. I laid in a tiny corner of space on the bed in the fetal position cringing at the pain. My back was in constant pain without any breaks in between. There were periods of more intense pain and that is what I refer to as contractions, but all night long I never had breaks in time where I felt nothing. We were trapped in the room for around an hour. I begged Justin to apply some counter pressure to my lower back. He said he couldn’t get to me because all the furniture was in the way. I hollered at him to find a way!!

Finally, around 8:30pm the carpet cleaners had left and Justin and I were hungry. We decided to get some Subway sandwiches for dinner. Justin ran out to get them. In the meantime, I got on the phone with a 24 hour nurse to ask if I could possibly be in labor. They thought I could be, but really didn’t give me any answers. In the meantime, the contractions kept coming every half hour or so with constant lower back pain. Part of the reason we also didn’t know if it was labor was that in the beginning contractions are usually very brief, under a minute. Mine were 3 to 4 minutes long. After we ate I got in the bath tub. It was a nice place to be in labor. I won’t say it was completely soothing, but it was better than being anywhere else! In the meantime, Justin was making phone calls to both our mother’s to ask them if they had back labors and in between the contractions he was running around the house trying to replace furniture, AND was trying to apply counter pressure to my back during the contractions.

After taking a bath I got out and as I was drying off I immediately got another contraction. I ran over to the birth ball. Believe it or not, we were still not sure I was in labor at this point! Then I went to sit at the toilet and it filled with blood. After talking to my Mom, Justin called the Doctor and she said we should head on over to the hospital. We informed her that the contractions were about 15 minutes apart at this time. We had initially been told not to head to the hospital until our contractions were 5 minutes apart for 2 hours. Justin and I really wanted a natural birth and I didn’t want to be tied down to a bed. So, we decided we would head over to the hospital, but slowly.

We realized the baby was coming very soon when I felt the urge to push. Suddenly we were busy rushing. I had a few contractions on the way to the hospital. They went from being 15 minutes apart to about 2 minutes apart on the 15 minute drive. Later Justin told me that he debated running some of the red lights we hit. AND of course, we hit just about every red light there was. When we got to the hospital we went to park in Valet. I jumped out of the car the instant in stopped as I couldn’t stand being in there another minute. There was no one around to wheel me upstairs so Justin had to wheel me up one handed while holding 2 bags of our clothes and our birthing technique items, a purse, a pillow, and a laptop in another bag. It must have been quite the sight to see!

We got upstairs to the 6th floor to check in at 10:50pm. The receptionist asked for Justin to do paperwork and in the meantime I was huffing and puffing through a contraction. A nurse took one look at me and said, “I’m going to take her to a room!” We got to the room and she asked if I wanted an epidural. I told her I wasn’t planning on it but I wanted to know how dilated I was. She looked and exclaimed, “You are 10 centimeters and I can see her head!” I was shocked and not shocked at the same time. I was ready to push. I felt I NEEDED to push her out. The nurse then gave a look at the other nurse and told her to get the on-call Doctor, they knew my Dr. lived 7 minutes away but they weren’t sure that was going to be enough time. They said my Dr. had called earlier to inform them of our arrival, but she said the contractions were far apart and sporadic. They didn’t think that I would be ready to deliver so soon. They called and told her to get there ASAP. In the meantime, they were trying to administer an IV and put the Fetal Monitor around my belly while I was going through some pretty major contractions.

The on-call Doctor arrived and I started to push. Soon enough our Dr. arrived and rushed to get into her scrub gear. In the meantime, I was busy boldly telling Justin that Siena would be our only child! Then our Dr. asked me if I wanted to feel her head during a break between contractions. I reached down and said “Ew! Gooey!!” I was so excited, but it wasn’t the sensation I was expecting! I don’t know what I was expecting! I was in a lot of pain, naturally, and so our Dr. decided to tell me that Siena would definitely be born on November 16th. I looked up at the clock, which was a little fast, and it said 11:25pm. I then exclaimed, “You mean I have 35 more minutes of this!?!” Then everyone laughed and our Dr. gave me a ‘I give up’ look. The next contraction came and then I pushed Siena out all in one shot. I was not going to have 35 more minutes of pushing! The nurse looked at the official clock and it was 11:24pm. Our little angel had finally arrived and we couldn’t have been any happier. They put her on my chest and Justin and I began doting on her immediately.

Siena was born at 6 pounds, 13 ounces and 19.5 inches.

Hello. Well, I am one day late according to the due date my Doctor set for me. My ultrasound showed I wasn’t due until next week. We’ll have to see! Anyway, things are going great. I feel great. I am not really uncomfortable (any more than I have been throughout being pregnant) so I can’t really complain. My Doctor has insisted I get induced on November 23rd if I haven’t had her yet…so keep your fingers crossed she decides to make her debut before then!

I have made it to 38 weeks now. So, I am considered full term. I am pretty sure baby won’t be making her debut until closer to our due date, but hey, you never know! We took this picture after one of our Childbirth classes. In it I am exactly 37 weeks!

37 weeks down, 3 to go!

On October 10th, my friends Tammy and Kim threw me a baby shower here in Houston. I had people that flew in and drove in from all over the country. I got so many fabulous things. Thank you so much to everyone who came and who spoiled our baby to be! Please see the pictures below of the event!

Sadly, we didn’t get any photos to post, but we did get to see our little girl briefly at our prenatal Doctor’s appointment at 32 weeks. The Doctor said she is 3 pounds, 4 ounces; not too big, not too small, just perfect! We were very pleased with the results. So far so good!

Over Labor Day weekend, Justin and I flew to Chicago and then to Austin for two of our friends weddings. While in Austin, Justin took this baby bump picture. In this picture I am 30 weeks along.

Here is a picture of all of us at the shower.

I was given my first baby shower in Austin in the beginning of August. Almost all of my high school friends flew to Austin for a fun weekend and Melissa hosted my shower at La Madeline. I scored loads of wonderful gifts. Thank you everyone!! I got everything from adorable little girl outfits to bedding for our crib. I was given some beautiful hand knit items! I felt extremely special.

Here are some photos of the event:

So, the other day we were chatting about all the places our little bambina has gotten to go before she even emerges into this world. We travel a lot and being pregnant hasn’t really slowed us down too much (with the exception of April!). Since we found out we were pregnant, bambina has been to: Italy, Austin (a few times), Dallas, Albuquerque, Carpinteria, CA, Ridgecrest, Nebraska, Washington DC, Ocean City, MD, Cape Canaveral, Orlando, New Orleans, Jackson, MS, Malibu, and of course Houston! We have a few more weeks before I am not allowed to travel so we are squeezing in a few more trips. We still have plans to head to Chicago and to Austin a couple more times! Crazy!

I have added a few pictures of us in some of these places: