Hidden Talents

A few weeks ago my sister Sara and I were talking about newborn pictures and discussing how I love newborn pics that aren't necessarily taken in a studio, but that its such a bummer that they are usually so expensive. We decided that instead of paying someone to take them for me, she volunteered her hubby Doug who has an awesome camera. I was so excited!

Last Sunday she came out to meet Colby and brought the camera with her. While Spencer rigged our lamps to create studio like lighting, :) we started gathering what we had around the house for props and she started snapping away! She kept saying that she had no idea what she was doing (and I think she was partly telling the truth since she didn't really know how to turn the flash off or change the focus at all haha) but they turned out AWESOME. She took what she had to Doug for some photoshop finishing touches and we had some masterpieces.

I think we found a new photographer in the family. :)

Thanks Sara and Doug!!

And now for your viewing pleasure...

The Details

I still can't believe that I am posting this three days before my actual due date. I am so glad that our little man decided to come a little early and that he also came completely healthy. We absolutely LOVE him!

The last few weeks in this pregnancy had been the most challenging of them all, to say the least. Mostly because it tried my patience and I really had to remind myself how to keep occupied and trust in the Lord and His timing.

I went in for my 36 week check up and was dilated to 1 cm. and 70% effaced. The day after the check up, I began to have some intense pre labor symptoms which stuck around until Colby decided to come, only becoming worse as the days drew closer to his arrival.

On Friday, May 27, I went in for my 38 week appointment and was told that I was now dilated to a 2, with 80% effacement and was asked if I wanted to set an induction date. We scheduled an induction on June 6th, to deliver on the 7th, four days before my due date. Little did I know that I wouldn't make it that long!

While at church on Sunday, May 29, I felt like I had been leaking amniotic fluid, or something of the sort. We decided to leave a little bit early and went home to rest and decide if I needed to go to the hospital to be checked just in case. After a few conversations with some friends and a nurse, Spencer and I decided that it wouldn't hurt anything to just go and be checked. I knew that I wasn't in full labor, as you can tell from the smile I was able to pull in the pic below:

I definitely wasn't comfortable and painless haha but it did not feel like real labor (at least what everyone told me it would feel like). The nurse did the exam and they determined that there was no amniotic fluid seen in the test, but that it was possible that there was a high break which could be causing a leak. Nevertheless, they discharged me and we went home. They did let me know however that I was now 100% effaced... I was totally a ticking time bomb.

We spent Monday in Mesa celebrating Memorial Day with Spencer's extended family as well as mattress shopping... not the most fun thing to do when you are 9 months pregnant, but I tried to be a trooper and kept reminding myself how excited I would be if we found one that we liked. And what do ya know, we did! And it has been absolutely wonderful and totally worth the shopping trip.

Back to the story.

All day Monday I was completely uncomfortable. I had so many braxton hicks contractions that it turned into feeling like I had a constant, hard braxton hicks contraction for the rest of the day. I seriously felt like my stomach was going to explode out. We finally got home later that evening and I was out of commission.

Tuesday morning I woke up obviously feeling horrible and told Spence that the only thing I wanted to do that day was to clean the house and if he could help me that would be wonderful. I had not been feeling all too great for the past two weeks before and our house demonstrated the effects of that all too well. Being the good hubby that he is, he stopped everything and helped me pick up the house.

Around 4 p.m. I started having real labor contractions every 30-40 minutes or so. They continued throughout the night and I would wake up a few times every hour. Finally at 4 a.m. they were so painful that I just decided to get out of bed. Around 4:45 they were about 5 minutes apart, but my water still hadn't broken. I called the hospital to see what would happen if I came in even though my water hadn't broken yet. They told me that they would have me walk around the hospital and see if I could dilate one centimeter in an hour. If I could, then they would keep me, if not they would send me home... um ya, ok. No thanks. I decided to just keep laboring at home until the contractions were about 3-4 minutes apart. By 5:30 they were 3 minutes apart and only getting harder so I decided to wake up Spencer and tell him to grab his bags and load in the car! It was time.

I checked in to the hospital and had my exam completed. Sure enough I was 100% effaced and dilated to a 4, which apparently is the magic number because at that point the nurse told me since I was a four, they would keep me. Thank goodness!

They took me to my delivery room around 7:15 and sent out my blood work so that they could get my epidural started. In the meantime my doctor came in and checked me. I was already dilated to a 5 and I was so effaced that she had a hard time figuring out what everything was in there... she couldn't believe how softened I was and that my water hadn't broken yet. She told me that she would wait to break my water until after my epidural because I was so effaced that the contractions would be horrible. Love her! Thank you Dr. Austin!

Here I am in my delivery room holding on for dear life trying to make it through those contractions. They were pretty rough at this point... hitting strong for about 5 minutes straight and then giving me about a 6 minute break in between contractions... it was a little strange and not what the nurse expected. She let me know that if my contractions didn't regulate after the doc broke my water, she would start me on a little pitocin to see if that would help them regulate.

I finally got my shot from heaven at 10:30 a.m. :) I immediately felt the relief and couldn't have been happier. Spencer had been sitting in the delivery room freezing his little booty off because apparently it felt like it was snowing in there... I felt great! :) So I sent him home really quick to grab a jacket and some lunch since I wouldn't want him leaving me anytime after the baby was here (by the way, we live 5 minutes from the hospital so I wasn't too worried). While he was out I tried to take a nap but Colby's little bum was pushing up into my ribs so bad that it was hard to fall asleep. Boy was I ready for him to be out of me. Spencer got back to the hospital and we tried to watch a little bit of TV before I was fully dilated. My contractions had regulated on their own, so that meant no Pitocin for me... Woohoo! The nurse was in and out of the room, but at 12:30 she decided to check me again and see how I was progressing. She started the exam and quickly looked up at me and said, "Oh! That's his head! You are definitely a ten... you can start pushing." She sounded so at ease about it that it really seemed surreal haha I couldn't believe it had gone so fast! I had dilated 4 cm. in two hours!

My epidural had worn off a little bit so she pushed the button and gave me a little more meds before we started the pushing. We let that settle in for about 20-30 minutes then the nurse came back in around 1:15 wanting to start the process. We started with a practice push (sets of 3 pushes) to see how things would go. After the first set I felt a little light headed and turned to Spence and said, "Wow! Now I know why this pushing thing can be SO exhausting!" And the next thing I remember is waking up to Spencer saying to the nurse, "Um, her eyes are completely dilated... Kelsey?! Kelsey?!" I finally came to and they immediately put an oxygen mask on my face and turned me on my right side. Apparently I had something called a vegal reflex and it honestly felt like a blackout... but I was still awake. It was really strange. I was fine, although I really did feel totally and completely wiped out already after one push, but Colby's heart rate had dropped which is why the oxygen mask went on and I was turned to my right. It really freaked Spencer out though, I don't blame him one bit. I'm sure if I was in his shoes and he was the one blacking out, I would be scared out of my mind!

We waited about two contractions to let Colby catch up, then I pushed two more sets on my side. My nurse called in the doctor and they flipped me on my back again. Dr. Austin watched one set of pushes and said, "Ok, this baby is coming! Let me get changed." She threw on her extra scrubs and was ready by the next contraction. They told me to push... so I pushed... and he practically FLEW out! His head and the rest of his body came out all in one push, and it was over. I honestly wasn't expecting it to be that quick so when my belly dropped a little bit, I looked down and was shocked to see my baby already! It was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced.

So after tons of pre-labor,

10 hours of labor,

and less than 30 minutes of pushing

we welcomed this little guy to our family:

Colby Spencer Hill

1:54 pm

6/1/11

6 pounds 14 ounces

20 inches long

Daddy created a homey environment for us in our recovery room with his portable fireplace. :)

This picture just melts my heart.

Spencer is SO cute with Colby and is totally smitten and completely in love with this little boy.

And Colby LOVES his daddy. Anytime Spencer holds him or starts talking to him, he completely calms down. I love it.

I was a little tired... can you tell? :)

Getting ready to go home! We were all so excited!

Meeting Grandma Brems for the first time!

Sometimes I hold him and think about how much I love him... and then I realize that he is not just a baby that I love so much, he is my baby.

We are so glad that he is finally here.

Welcome to the World!

Colby Spencer Hill

Born at 1:54 p.m.

6/1/11

6 pounds, 14 ounces

20 inches long

He is the sweetest little boy and we already love him sooo much. More pictures and details to come!

Picture Overload

As promised, here is what we've been up to! I woke up Tuesday morning and found this note on the table. :) He was already out in the backyard working away and in the meantime found this heart shaped rock!

This might be the only picture I have of the backyard before any of the pavers went in so as of now, lets use this as the BEFORE picture (even though Spence had already worked out there for hours and hours in the weeks before tilling, finding probably hundreds of nails from when our home was built, and flattening out the yard).

After he tilled the entire yard, it was time to set up a sprinkler system. Thanks to his good friend Vaughn and BIL Ben's tool-man supplies, it was set up in no time, timer and all.

He spent quite a few hours leveling the yard at this point and drawing out the plan of how he wanted the yard to look. After figuring out the exact dimensions, choosing pavers and a pattern, etc. it was time to order those puppies!

A huge delivery truck pulled up to our house Wednesday morning around 9:15 am and delivered seven pallets of pavers... most of which he was able to fit in the garage. AWESOME!

This picture is totally in the wrong place, but this is the before picture of our patio... a nice big slab of concrete accompanied by a yard full of AZ dirt. :) Don't mind me in the reflection of the sliding door... I should have thought that one through a little better.

By about 2 pm, Spence had already built the retention walls where we will eventually plant some vines that will climb and cover some of the ugly cinderblock wall that we have been looking at for almost a year.

Thanks to Spencer's Dad, he was able to create a mechanism to level out the sand that would lie underneath the pavers.

Spencer had tons of help from his good buddies that he has made at school this year. Dave helped Spence with the retention wall and laying the sand in just a few hours Wednesday night.

Thursday morning Matt and Keegan pulled up bright and early and put down the majority of the pavers... I couldn't believe how fast they were going! They seriously were sweating bullets out there and working SO hard.

By 10:30, it looked like this:

Keegan was a trooper and stayed a few hours more.

From the sliding door looking out...

Then I woke up this morning and found that he had finished even more! He used extra pavers to create a trail leading to where our planter boxes will go and to the back gate. I love it!

I am so proud of Spencer and am SOOOOO excited about our backyard! It looks better than I ever thought it could! There is still some work to be done, but the majority of it is already behind us. Summer BBQ's here we come! :)

Well, no baby yet folks!

He gave me a scare a few weeks ago and made me believe that he was going to make his appearance much earlier than planned... as in, four weeks earlier. Although it would have been so fun to finally meet him and see his cute face (and not have a pregnant, heavy body anymore) , it is probably in his best interest to stay cooped up in my belly until he is fully ready.

Hopefully that means he is coming sooner than later. I mean I am 38 weeks now, so you would think that he is fully cooked, right? :) I'm just getting really anxious for him to come and I am so excited that another two weeks seems like an eternity away. I am becoming more patient by the day though!

In the mean time we have been trying to keep busy instead of sitting around and waiting because I have figured out the hard way that sitting around and waiting is the most horrible thing when you're trying to make the time pass.

So Spencer has started working on the backyard! It's a project that we've been planning for a long time now and it's finally happening. We ordered the pavers, they were delivered yesterday and it already looks AWESOME!!! Really though, it is already transforming into a real backyard and we could not be more excited. Both Spencer and I really can't believe it. More to come on the backyard in future posts because I have a ton of pictures that I haven't put on my computer yet.

Also, my feet have been looking something like this lately...

Of course I didn't put a picture of my real feet on here, or anyone else's real feet because quite frankly I think feet are disgusting. So cartoonish feet demonstrate it well enough. My legs have retained so much water in the last two weeks that when I touch them even slightly, they leave dents in my feet for at least an hour. It really is unbelievable. My feet used to go back to normal after being up for a few minutes, but that does not happen anymore! And this picture is not too far off of what my feet look like in real life. Oh boy oh boy... please come soon. It's hard to do anything productive when your feet are twice the size that they normally are. I used to be able to wrap my hand around my ankle and almost touch my fingers together... now my hand only makes its way around half of my ankle. No exaggeration.

Good thing that he is coming soon! He will make it all worth it.

Going to the Dark Side....

For the longest time I wanted to try going darker... and by that I mean my hair. I would muster up enough guts to try it and then when the time would come around to take the plunge and set the appointment to get my hair done, I would always revert to going blonde again.

Over time Spencer decided that he wanted me to try it too. By the time he was encouraging me to go darker, I officially decided that I couldn't ever do it and I would always stick to the lighter side when it came to my hair.

This last time I got my hair done Spence was not too excited that I was going light again so he made me promise that the next time I got my hair done, I would go darker.

The promise was made.

And so it is.

After this baby is here, I will go darker.

I'm nervous to see what it looks like and hopefully I like it enough. I was looking through pics today and realized that I have had my hair dark before!!! (well at least dark for me)

So here's to many changes in the near future! And if my hair looks something like it does in these pics, I think I might be ok with it.

Maybe.

Pregnancy Updates

I will miss the tricks I can do with my belly...

I was sitting with my cup like this the other night and didn't even notice. I guess I've acclimated quite well to having this belly of mine.

And here I am at 36 weeks!

I went in yesterday for my 36 week check up and I am dilated 1 cm. My body is definitely getting ready for this little guy to come! Braxton hicks are becoming more painful by the day and I have had them all. day. long. I started feeling them pretty hard in my back yesterday and today I had them so hard that I had to stop pushing my cart at the store multiple times. They have slowed down a little bit but I'm not sure how much longer I'll be pregnant! I was reading a website last night of all the symptoms of going into labor and I was able to check off everything on the list but one... my water breaking. So were just waiting! My due date is officially June 11th, but they are only going off of the size of the baby. Could be days... or it could be weeks!

What are your predictions?

Day/time of delivery

weight

length

hair? color?

Guess away!