Calvinator

I felt like I was never going to catch up to this, but I have finally made it to Calvin's birth story. After almost two months of solid visitors I finally had my time to "nest" which really just involved painting my brains out. Walls, trim, ceiling, doors, everything. As the days got closer to my due date Josh and I began to fear that Calvin was going to come late. It didn't really surprise me, and if our situation was different I would have preferred waiting, but Josh's residency requires that he put in requests for vacation time months in advance. Months earlier we decided to have Josh take his vacation week the week of Calvin's due date, but with Calvin likely coming late, and with no ability to change his vacation time we decided that I would be induced on my due date (Sept 8th).

Because it was a voluntary induction we just had to hang around and wait for them to call us when they had an open bed. They originally told us we would be called in the morning around 7am, but that passed, and then more hours, and more hours. It was nerve wracking, but finally around 9pm we got the call. We collected our things, drove downtown, and hiked up the steepest and longest hill ever to get to the hospital from Josh's parking garage. What can I say? We like parking for free and what better than a strenuous hike as one last attempt at starting labor naturally? ;)

Sadly the hike didn't do it, so we resorted to pitocin around 10pm. Contractions started quickly, but they didn't feel very strong and I was able to get some sleep. Around 2am the nurse checked me and since I wasn't progressing she decided to take me back off the pitocin so we wouldn't stress the babe out. Throughout the night the contractions had continued, but I still wasn't dilating. Around 6am she came in with the doctor. They sat down and began explaining to me that they would check me again and if I hadn't progressed to a three or more they would have to send me home. They didn't want to force more contractions if the baby wasn't ready, and it could be a long time before my body did it naturally. I knew it was the right thing to do, but if made my heart sink a little. After the talking the doctor went in for another check. Wonder of wonders miracle of miracles! My body had advanced on it's own to between four and five cm! We all laughed a little about the talk they had given me and then the nurse started me on pitocin again to help things move along.

Noon hit and my doctor came back in to check me again. She said that if I was far enough along they might break my water to move things along more. Low and behold, as she was checking, my water broke without her even trying. Up until that point I had been super comfortable. Contractions? Ha. They didn't seem so bad. ,,,and then I started to experience them after my water had broken. Yikes! Those ones hurt. I lasted two or three hours before I began to realize that if I wanted any energy for pushing I would need to get my epidural then. (I sure hope the next time I have a baby they've changed guidelines so I can eat more. Food for strength!) I was given the heaven sent epidural and felt immediate relief. I'd also been checked once more and then told they wouldn't check me as frequently since it could put added stress on the baby. They told me to let them know when I felt pressure or the need to push. I got some quick catnaps, but after about an hour the baby's heart rate dropped so I was put on oxygen.

Around 5:30pm my doctor came in to check on me and I told her I actually might be feeling a little pressure. She said it was a perfect time to check then and when doing so she said, "Oh wow, I think that's his head!" It was in fact his head, so the doctor left and let the nurse get me prepped and ready to start pushing. I wasn't familiar with how pushing worked, but I guess most of the time it takes a while, so they don't call the doctor in until the baby is almost out. Apparently the kid was ready though, because it took less than 5 pushes for the nurse to tell me to stop so she could grab the doctor again. With the doctor helping again it took less than 20 pushes before Calvin James Christiansen came into the world. September 9th, 2015 he was born at 6:43pm weighing 8lbs 6oz and measuring 21 3/4 inches in length. (Part of me was glad I was induced after seeing his size. Who knows how big he'd have been if we'd waited.)

July

Just before making over the guest room we were visited by Adrien and Nat from Cincinatti. I can't find many photos of their stay with us, so here's one. They were here to hike Rainier, but we had a few days to spend with them, so we did the main Seattle sites.


After making over our guest room we were visited by Scott, Tara, Aoife, and their two dogs. I watched Aoife and the dogs while everyone went to work and we had all sorts of fun.

We celebrated the 4th by hiking and towards the end of the month went to a soccer tournament that Scott created the year before. I didn't get to attend the first one, and I was 7 months pregnant for this one, so I was able to go but couldn't play. It was still a ton of fun. We spent the night at a cabin belonging to one of the players. It's on a small island in a lake adjacent to the park where the actual tournament was held. We were treated to great food, fun games, and perfect weather for swimming. The dogs all loved it too. (I think there were at least 6 running around.)

Guests

Beginning with the visit of Josh's mom we were inundated with guests. It was so foreign to us, as we'd been married almost 7 years and had rarely had visitors. That was on account of living across the country, and also being free of children, making it easier for us to travel. We were excited to have friends and family visit, but were also a little stressed since we were in the process of moving/renovating, and our house was chaotic. The plus side of having people come was the motivation it gave Josh and I to get as much done as we possibly could. Since we had our friends Scott and Tara coming to stay with us for the whole month of July we needed to make the basement more live-able, so our next big reno project was the guest bedroom. It was cold and dark. 

We had to add and patch drywall in places and then paint. We put down carpet tiles and added baseboard, caulked and painted that. Then added the all important door. (You kind of need one for a bedroom.) All done in about two days. We were pretty proud. There was still no light in the bedroom, but Josh ran the electricity and installed one just a few months ago. Our unlucky guests had to deal with lamps during their stay...and giant slugs and spiders, but that's gross so lets not talk about it. I found a free burn basket on craigslist, sewed a bag for it from scrap fabric and used it as a temporary laundry hamper. (Now it's a plant stand in our dining room.) We also bought a new wardrobe off craigslist to replace the dilapidated one, and I've added a few more things to the walls to make it more cozy, but I'm too lazy to take new pics, so here are the old ones. We're really happy about it and I love that I have some old brick somewhere in the house. I love old brick. :) And there's another project down. Tada!

Camping

After the month long bathroom renovation/moving our stuff to the house my parents and Tyson drove out to visit during Josh's vacation week, which just so happened to start the day we officially moved in. It was a tad bit crazy. Since the pipes in the house all looked like this in the beginning...

(That's rust.) Josh had decided to redo all the plumbing in the house in one go. That meant the kitchen sink had to be torn apart. Luckily after getting the plumbing back up and running, and the week before my family came out, Josh's mom came out to help us clean and organize. She was heaven sent. Without her I don't know when I would have gotten to cleaning and our kitchen wouldn't have been livable.  

Luckily the day after my family showed up we got out of there anyway. After a month of hard nonstop work we were excited for a break. And it was awesome. we headed out to the Olympic Peninsula and pitched our tents in a campground with an insane view of Lake Quinalt. 

We had a blast exploring near camp, and playing games.

Some of us (the crazy ones) did some swimming in the freezing lake. And always at night for some reason.

Poor Josh had been working SO hard. We're pretty lucky to have him.

We met some funny critters that stuck with me and became inspiration for baby boy's nursery.

Have you seen the Hoh Rainforest? No, I mean the Hooooohhhhh Rainforest. You should. It's quite amazing. We spent a large part of our time singing the Jurassic park theme song and were really tempted to ask the park rangers where you go to see the T-Rex.

Camping while pregnant is not advised. Unless you have a really comfy pad to sleep on. I remember getting almost zero sleep the first two nights until I complained enough that my parents remembered they had some extra bleacher pads in their car and I stole them to pad my hips.

On the way home we swung by La Push and hiked down to second beach. It was the first time we'd really seen the sun and it was beautiful.

I think my mom saw the whole peninsula through binoculars. ;) She's a birder and had fun trying to spot some she'd never seen before.

We also collected a mountain of driftwood. I wanted to collect enough to make a mobile for the nursery, but we all couldn't stop picking pieces up. Driftwood is cool, but probably the coolest piece was this ring found by my mom. It was an awesome trip and a much needed break from the house. We can't wait for our next camp out!