Wednesday, February 27, 2013

The Stork Delivers Again

Who doesn't want to hear a good ol' fashioned labor story?! If your not down with them, then feel free to skip on to another post.  This is actually a pretty simple story and much easier than with my first.  But for the family record, and for infinite public internet posterity, I thought I better write it down.
It was the evening of Wednesday, February 6, we were getting ready to put to Solana to bed around 7. I started to feel some heavier contractions. I tried to not get excited because since I was dilated to a 3 for weeks, I had been feeling some contractions already so I didn't think too much of it.  But they definitley started to be consistent.  I could barely make it through story time with Solana, but I tried to brush it off.  Especially because Adam could hardly hold in his excitement and it was actually very distracting to me.  He would say every couple of minutes " Are we having a baby tonight?!" or "Are you having another contraction?!  How painful is it?!" So I told him to stop asking me and I tried to lie and avoid telling him when I was having another one.
Well Wednesday night is our shows night, so at 9 we got all settled in to watch our shows.  My contractions did not seem as bad, so I figured it was a no go on labor, at least for the night.  But by the time we were headed off to bed two hours later, I knew it was labor.  I could barely stand through each contraction, and they were about every 2 minutes and they lasted anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute long.  At midnight, I told Adam to hurry and go to bed and that I would try and do the same, hoping that we could make it until morning before heading to the hospital.  But after 30 minutes or so we both decided we wouldn't be getting any sleep that night.  He started to get ready for the hospital and I slowly got ready (pausing every couple minutes to lean on something and deep breathe).
We got Solana up in the middle of night, and swaddled her in blankets and sat her on my lap and we drove a couple doors down to our dear friends who offered to watch her. She loves Peter and Ashley and she was excited to go to their house.  She was pretty out of it, but I told her I was going to the doctors to have her baby brother and that we would come back and get her when he was here. It was hard for me to leave her, because I knew how much I would miss her. She quickly fell asleep on their sofa and was perfect the entire time!
We arrived at the hospital at 3am which was nice because it was pretty empty, so that made it a fun experience.  I opted to ride in the wheelchair and boy I'm glad I did. The security guard drove it like I was race car, and for the short ride over to the maternity wing, I could barely focus on my contractions because of my crazy roller coaster wheelchair ride!  The downside to an early morning, empty hospital is that it took forever to get admitted, and Adam and I were both pretty anxious while laboring in a small, hot triage room, wondering if anyone still remembered us.
When I got checked in I was dilated to a 5.  I pain seemed bearable, but that didn't last long. By the time they got me to my room and all hooked up to everything I was about ready to hit someone or at least punch a wall.  But instead I would kindly ask my nurse, "When do you think I can get some drugs?" I thought if I was nice she would hurry, but really I don't think it mattered.  I finally got some relief when I was dilated to a 7.  It definitely took the edge off of my contractions and from there on out I was super happy to be there! Barb (my nurse) and I chatted for hours and we became BFFs. Adam was dozing in and out of the conversation for most of it.  I figured one of us needed to sleep and I was having too much fun getting to know my nurse.  I finally got my epidural a couple hours before baby Boston arrived and that just put me in an even better mood.
I was also so excited to see my favorite doctor (Jenkins) stroll in around 8 am. He was equally excited to be there, and said, "Well we started this whole thing together, so now let's finish it." (He was doctor in the ER when we found out I was prego).  It's so fun when things work out exactly how you hope they would, especially when you have no control over any of it, I love that!
The rest of the story is pretty blurry, but I just remember laughing with my nurse, pushing for 20 minutes and then I had a giant baby!  We were shocked at how big he was—even the doctors and nurses couldn't believe I was carrying such a giant.  He was perfect, and it was an emotional time meeting my son. 15 hours later and it was all worth it.  I had an amazing hospital staff, and my stay there for 2 days after was fabulous. It was hard to not have Solana and Adam there all the time, because I missed them so much, but I also loved the time alone that I got to sleep and cuddle with Boston.  He is such an easy baby and it has been so much fun to have a little boy in the house.



This is me on drugs and in labor.  Happy and content and floating somewhere wonderful.  I should have taken a before picture, but I'm sure if Adam tried to take a picture, I would have thrown the camera across the room.  Pain brings out the worst in people, grrrrrrr!


This is me after labor and drug free. Happy, happy and more happy with a little bit of tiredness. 





One last thing. Many of you might be wondering how we decided on the name Boston.  Well it was a struggle!  I would rather name a girl any day of the week because boy names seemed so hard!!!
I came across the name Boston in a book shortly after we found out we were having a boy. I ran it by Adam and assumed he would say no because that was a common response to most of my names,  but this time I was surprised that he really liked it.  Adam is SOOOO picky about names.  So I added it to the list and kept searching.  What I didn't know is how much Adam would like it, and that he would pester me for months to agree to call him Boston.  I liked the name, but didn't love it yet.  I had other names I liked more, but Adam had absolutely no interest in them.  The search continued and we went to the hospital with several names in mind. But when I saw him, the name Boston popped in my mind (twice actually, because I still tried to ignore it the first time) but as soon as I started calling him Boston it fit so perfectly I couldn't ignore it.  And now I can't imagine calling him anything else.  I love when it all works out.


Monday, February 25, 2013

The Trip Finale!

Towards the end of our holiday trip, we had a special opportunity.  We flew from Salt Lake to Sacramento for a brief weekend with Adam's extended family, where Solana got to meet Adam's grandpa, Richard, for the first time.  Grandpa Richard is a really great man, and has always been a wonderful grandpa to Adam.  Recently, he's been in struggling health, and he lives in a small assisted-living home, and is unable to travel or even talk on the phone really, so it was very important to us to be able to go see him.
It was a really wonderful experience to be there with him, and to introduce Solana to her great grandpa.  Solana and Grandpa Richard got along great!



All of Adam's family was there with his Mom and Dad, brother Aaron, and sisters, Sarah and Olivia.  His Aunt and Uncle Tom and Katherine were also there, with his cousins Katrina, and her husband Ryan, and Alicia, with her fiancĂ© Colin.  Adam's other cousin, Ryan, and his girlfriend Madison arrived  later that evening.  It was the first time the family has been together since the summer of 2009, and it was a lot of fun to spend time together and to all be there with Grandpa Richard.



Finishing up the last of our trip to Utah.  


Her best friends and cousins.  She asks me all the time if she can fly to California to see Alec and Addie.  She had so much fun getting to know them. I wish we lived by them, but I guess first we have to finish our east coast tour and then we can make it back out to the most beautiful and expensive part of the country. Maybe the cost of living will have gone down by the time we move back to Southern California :)


Yes, I made Adam pull over so I could get a picture of this sign. I got really excited over it.  I mean, really, the intersection of Adam Street & Cheyenne Street!


A little ice skating anyone?  


I was so impressed with how well Solana did, she really enjoyed it for like 2 rounds. Then she just wanted to play in the snow with Gigi. So Adam worked on his ice skating skills alone.  But I was impressed with both of them.  I love ice skating and wish I could have gone.  



Can you tell we were tired on our way home?  Solana just passed out cold through our whole 2.5 hour layover in the lovely Atlanta airport and even on the next flight home.  That is rare thing for her. I think we slept as well.  It was a great 3 weeks, but we were happy to be home. 

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Ross family photos!

After 4 years, the whole Ross family was finally back together for a couple of days.  It's amazing how fast time flies, and as the family gets bigger it gets harder and harder to get everyone together.  We decided to take some photos to honor such an occasion.  I'm not going to lie, I don't love how they probably because I was 9 months prego and not feeling so slender at the time...lol.  But either way it was fun to capture the event on New Year's Day.

Happy 2013!!!!!!






I took this one, and I'm pretty proud of myself for it looking so good, or maybe I'm just biased because I always think Adam looks great :)






Gigi and her 3 oldest granddaughters.  I just love this photo, all so happy, they LOVE their Grandma! 


The Ross kids. (Can you tell we all had braces from the same orthodontist? lol)
Brooke in the middle (she's the oldest), then Logan (standing next to me, he's 2nd) I'm 3rd,  Brittany is 4th, Hunter is 5th (next to Brittany), then Braden (the youngest) 


The whole gang.  All 17 of us!! Or 18 if you count my belly :)


I'm sure everyone thinks this, but I just love having sisters, they are the best!!


Yeah, it was a tad cold that day...like 20 degrees.  It probably would've been nice to get a few more outdoor photos, but seriously, we were so cold we could only handle being outside for about 30 seconds to snap this shot!

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