Thanksgiving and eating and sleeping and eating and sleeping...

We took our first trip with Calvin down to Salem, OR to visit the Maughans for a pre-Thanksgiving. He did awesome for the 4 hour trip, sleeping or eating the whole time.

From then until Christmas we spent our time trying to fatten up our skinny babe. He started off a little slow and HATED the boobs. After days of frustration and a not growing boy I had switched to pumping and bottle feeding. Calvin and I's lives pretty much revolved around milk and sleep, but it sure made for one cute chunk. (Pumping is the worst,but it worked. After a few months Calvin finally managed to switch back to breastfeeding so I could finally quit. Whew! Props to moms who do that for longer. I think I did it for 2-3 months and it was HARD.)

And now, onslaught of Calvin pictures. 

Helpers and Halloween

And now we get to the really difficult part of blogging - narrowing down 10 million adorable photos to just a few. We were really blessed after Calvin's birth to have a great group of helpers. My parents drove to Seattle as soon as they heard I was in the hospital. They came and helped us continue to work on our house while we were busy trying to figure out how to parent. Then Rachel came up and helped with cooking and cleaning. And after they all left Josh's mom came to continue the work and kept us alive with a whole bunch of dinners. They were all heaven sent and we were so so grateful to have them.

Here are the "narrowed down pictures of the tiny guy. It's so hard with digital cameras these days!

A month later we Tyler and Lisa got to come back out. Lisa brought us our AMAZING Halloween costumes and Ty helped Josh fill in a kitchen/living room pass through, tear down our kitchen/dining room wall and put up a beam.

Before

After

Just before Halloween we had Mindy and Ange come out for a visit too. It was so much fun to have our babies together!

We 100% had to do Calvin and Hobbes for Halloween for Calvin's first year. We had a hard time deciding what I would be and finally settled on one of the snowmen Calvin builds. I looked great but most everyone thought I was Olaf. Ah well. Josh and Calvin were adorable anyway.

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.)