6 days

Now that I'm getting the hang of things, I have much more time...meaning I get to be one of those obsessive parents who tells every little detail of their child's life. As soon as these stitches heal (that are in a very inconvenient place) I'm sure I won't be updating as much. Side note: sitz baths are amazing, as well as parents and a husband who are willing to put up with me as I struggle to do the simplest of things; like getting up from a couch. So...it's almost been a week since little Jon Patrick came and it's crazy how much personality comes out from such an early age. He is such a laid back baby who loves to cuddle. He's pretty much always happy as long as he's fed, changed and warm. As long as those are taken care of, he just sleeps or looks around trying to focus on things. As of the last two nights, he's learned to sleep through the night with the exception of getting up for one feeding. This has been soo nice because I'm not a night person, and while I'm learning to function on much less sleep, it's really nice getting a few hours straight of sleep. He's already getting pretty good at holding up his head when he's laying down, gripping things with his fingers, and pulling lots of animated faces. Really, we can't get enough of him around here. :)

Jon Patrick

Right now Patrick is taking a nap so I have a little time to add some details to the blog. So...here's the labor/delivery story:

Friday I went to work at 10 and felt fine. After being there a couple hours I started to feel a little different and by 1:30PM I started having contractions. They were far apart and I thought they would go away like they always did. That night Jon and I were out at my parent's house(Jani, Tiffany and her kids were visiting so we had gone out to have dinner)and the contractions kept getting closer together. I was sleeping out there that night since Jon was working and by 3:00AMish the contractions were getting pretty close and pretty painful. Everyone stayed up because we were all anxious that this might be the real thing. I called Jon so he left work and we went up to the hospital and by 5:00AM we were admitted. Dr. Prince came in and broke my water which made the contractions closer and a lot more painful. I just have to say one thing. I am never going to have a child naturally if I can help it. Honestly, I about passed out each time a contraction came. And I puked...either I'm a wimp or my body just doesn't handle labor well. Anyway, by 8 I got an epidural which was soo heavenly. Honestly, after all my worry of needles, I couldn't even feel it. They checked and I was dilated to an 8 by the time the epidural took effect and they said the delivery would come pretty quickly. A little while later I started pushing but little Patrick did not want to drop. And, the umbilical cord was tangled so he was getting stuck and my hours of pushing were doing no good. By 2:00PM, Dr. Prince came in and said I had two options: using a vacuum or a c-section. He said the vacuum had high risk since the baby was so high and it wasn't guaranteed but he wanted to be optimistic and try it before the c-section. So, I pushed for awhile more and every time Dr. Prince said it was the last push before going to a c-section, our little guy moved just enough for him to keep going. Finally, at 2:49 PM on July 23rd(which was his very original due date), little Jon Patrick was born. Patrick was under a lot of stress so they didn't have time to let Jon cut the umbilical cord or anything but we were just happy he was out and healthy. By that time I was so tired from not sleeping or eating the night before that I had a hard time focusing on much, but it was an amazing feeling seeing our little guy and knowing that he was ours to take care of. I have to admit he looked a little alien-like because they used 4 different suction cups trying to get him out so his head was about 3 times to long, but that went away by the next day. Since then, we've enjoyed being new parents. It's exhausting but also great. :) He's super cute and has a sweet little personality. He's easily comforted and loves to cuddle all day long. He still thinks night time is awake time and day time is sleep time which has been a little hard(and I might have had a little breakdown from it Monday night) but last night we made a huge discovery about feeding and I think it will get better from now on. Here's some new pictures of our little cutie :)


I'm pretty sure my mom and dad are enjoying being grandparents. :)




Sometimes I use a pump and dad gets to feed Patrick. I just thought his hands were cute all curled up

His first bath outside of the hospital

Patrick and Uncle Derek

Some things are worth waiting for :)

Meet Jon Patrick Blackburn :)
Born on July 23rd, 2011
Weight: 7 pds. 15 ounces
Length: 19 inches

I'll write more details later. Right now I'm a little pre-occupied taking care of this cute little guy.



Patrick at 1 day old.

Two happy, tired parents

Still waiting...

So, there's no baby yet! With how the doctor talked a couple of weeks ago, we thought the baby was already going to be here but, nope. And...I just got the great news that my doctor took an emergency medical leave of absence for the next 3 months. Great. I did all my homework finding a good doctor and right before the baby comes...he leaves. I hadn't heard anything about the other two doctors he works with but I just found out his associate is also great and some people like him even better so it could be a blessing in disguise. Although, I did freak out a little bit when I first heard the news. I'm still worried since I just got comfortable with my old doctor. My two main emotions with having this baby are excitement and nervousness. I can't wait but I'm dreading the whole delivery process. He just needs to come so I stop thinking about it so much. And, I'm just praying that this new doctor knows what he's doing...

9 1/2 months

My sister-in-law was generous enough to take some maternity pictures for me. I know I said I wouldn't be posting anymore pictures but I thought it would be fun to add a few professionally done pictures. I really don't know why one has a border, and the other two are small...Either way, you can kind of see them and get the idea. More of them are on facebook but I had a hard time getting them off of there and onto here so these are all I'm adding for now. Thanks again, Aubree!

Let the count down begin

So, finally, this is the month that our little bundle is supposed to come. Excited? Yes. Nervous? Yes. Ready to not be pregnant? Definitely. With a couple-ish weeks to go, I guess I'm considered full-term and the baby can make his debut any day. The other day I was writing in the little baby book we bought for him and it has all of these questions about his parents(Jon and I) like: how did we meet, our first date, what attracted us to each other, etc. and it got me thinking about the last couple years Jon and I have had by ourselves. Well, really it got me thinking about the last 12 or so years we've known each other. For some reason it made me sentimental and even a little sad that those times are coming to an end. I'll blame my emotions on hormones. Granted, our life hasn't been perfect and a lot of times it feels like we see less of each other than we'd like and we get more work/school time in than anything else and we've lost a lot of friendships due to us just being busy and not having enough time to hang out with each other, let alone other people, but I still feel like Jon and I have grown together in so many ways and he truly has been and is my best friend and partner in everything. I know having a baby won't change that but the selfish side of me thinks about how our attention is going to be even more diverted, with even less time for each other.

However, with that said, I know that having a baby will be a huge blessing and will teach us so many things and help us grow together in ways we didn't think possible. I'm sure it will teach me to be a lot less selfish. :) I really can't wait to meet our little guy and while change in my life always makes me emotional, it also makes me change for the good. If you remember my post about obsessing over things, it probably won't come as a surprise that I've been obsessing over every little parenting detail, like: how to teach children not to throw tantrums, feeding kids the right nutritional things, how to get kids to even like healthy food, letting babies cry in the night instead of running to help after every little sound, not using food as comfort...the list could go on and on. But, the other day in church a guy read a quote by one of the apostles(which I should probably remember), but the idea of it was that obsessing over every little detail of your child's life doesn't make you a great parent. There is no huge list of do's and don'ts. What's really important is raising your child in a loving environment where they can see that their parents love each other and are always trying to come to Christ. Period. And, that's something I can do without over-analyzing. It's amazing how much the gospel simplifies things.

And lastly, here's my last pregnancy picture. I don't think I'll grow enough in the next couple weeks to really merit putting another picture up. At least I sure hope not.

Happy 4th of July everyone!