Love Love Love You

Details of the Nursery

I wanted Monty's room to be a light, playful but not cluttery. The Pal is a no nonsense man so with his help I avoided buying excess that would just clutter the small room. Dane always has a practical solution to everything. Changing pad? Just change him on the floor. 15 wash cloths? Just use five and wash those. Diaper Pail, gross, just no. This was easy for both of us to decide, they always seem to stink, right? 

Here is the completed room. We absolutely love how it turned out.

   
 

Dresser- Fantastic Mr. Finds

Chair- Yard Sale (10$ WOOT!)

Book Shelves- Ikea

Map- Fantastic Mr. Finds

Curtains- Ikea (I sewed on the ball fringe because boys have balls. I mean... they like toy balls.)

Pillow and Fabric- Ikea

Lamp- Target

Stacking Toy- Melissa and Doug (Gift from Grandma L)

Sling Shot- The Original Tree Swing

Cart- Ikea (This is seriously the greatest thing. We cart it all around the house)

Crib- Walmart (We love that this crib has storage underneath.)

Crib Sheets- Target

Quilt- Monty's Grandma E made this one!

A Glorious Birth Story

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Gosh it's hard to start a blog. I guess it's mostly difficult because I don't consider myself a well written person, or maybe because when you look at blogs these days it seems most are living glamorous lives and we are just normal people, not to mention my sarcasm doesn't typically read well.

But here I am feeling this strong urging to write my feelings down.

Nothing could have prepared me for birth, except for all the blogs, hours of Pinterest, and advice from family, friends, strangers. Ok so I went into birth feeling quiet prepared. My bags were packed at week 32 because that's what everyone said to do, at week 35 I started walking a mile a day, because everyone said so. As I got closer to my due date I tried everything people suggested, pineapple, curb walking, labor inducing pressure points, spicy food, really just about anything. I also felt ready for however this baby would be born whether it be vaginally or C-section. I would love to be one of those strong women who have the power to even say they would like to try with no drugs but it's just not the way my brain works. My mom had C-sections with all four of us so I was very prepared for things to go that way, her recoveries were all amazing so I guess when it all came to birth, I went in pretty positive about everything.

Checklist of things that had happened to this point:

Dilated

MP- you know what this is don't make me say it

Membranes stripped

Got my hairs and nails did

~

We are Auburn Football fans, The Pal was raised in Alabama and most of his family attended Auburn. While watching a game during the 2013 season the subject of baby names came up with friends around. Montravius, a defensive tackle for Auburn, caught our attention and we joked about naming our boy after him and how he could only do great things with a name like that. We called him that throughout the pregnancy jokingly, our families joined in, and slowly we started called him Monty for short.

The week before our little man was due we pulled out the names we had been saving for our boy and as we went through them none of them felt quite right. We pushed off naming him till he would be born.

Friday May 9th 1:00am - Dane got home from work and we went down to the basement to settle in and watch a movie in our basement we finally finished. Our goal was to finish it before baby arrived and we had finished just two weeks prior. (still so proud of us) I laid down on the new leather couch and felt two strong pains in my back. I brushed it off and got cozy. Then I peed my pants.

This was the dialogue

A: Uh Pal.. I just peed my pants again.

P: Seriously Ali? You didn't even Sneeze.

A: I think so.. Unless my water broke.

(Shocked faces)

I ran upstairs and my first instinct was to strip naked and stand in the tub. Totally normal. While standing nude I gave the on call nurse a ring and asked her opinion, "well it's hard to say, wait a half hour and see if more comes out.". "Uh... ok. Good plan.". They really are of no help.

We waited 29 minutes and I started to really worry about how often I was peeing my pants. Good news- 30 minutes on the dot the floods came rushing. I like to compare myself to the Wise Man who built his house on a rock. Had I not been "wise" and say, gone back to the basement, I would have ruined everything. Like, call up the insurance, ruin. We casually packed up the last of our essentials and took off to the hospital.

2:10 am- We drove to the hospital and I'm not certain if we talked the entire way.. it's possible Dane talked at a wall we will call my face but I do not recall. we walked in the main door as they instruct you and the security guard questioned where we were headed (Honestly. I mean...) Dane just said "It's go time".

They checked us into the triage room to confirm I was in labor. Nope. "Seems as though it's just pee but there is one more test we can do to confirm."

For real? This isn't even end of pregnancy Ali talking, this is normal Ali. Yes, do that test. Always do that test before you imply I just peed a gallon.

3:40 am- Good news- I don't have issues. My water did break. they moved us to our room that we would be in for the next 11 ish hours.

I will save you another essay and sum up with bullet points.

• I suffered through a whopping hour of (pretty awful) back labor before they told me I could have had the epidural that whole time. (Hey mom's who labored naturally who are scoffing, I'm fully aware you had it much worse than I did. You're better than I am. I'm totally on board with that. )
• My new BFF John came in and administered the epidural. Like a champ too. The worst part was bending over my belly. The epidural kicked in quickly and then they told me I control how much I get. Game changer.
• We chilled till 11:30am just letting my body do it's thing. Then my body went into high gear and decided to contract every minute.
• The little man didn't appreciate it and his heart rate dropped with every contraction.
• I was dilated to a 9 for three hours and we just didn't see any progress with his heart rate.

Somewhere during this everyone started freaking out. I don't remember the time or the details. Pal doesn't really either because he is a natural mother hen and he worried his way through it all. The little I do remember, nurses put me on oxygen, they were frantically trying to get the boys heart rate, some mumblings of "did you call the doctor?", "is he hurrying?" I honestly didn't really get too worried because lets be honest, I was on cloud nine, but Dane sure did look worried.

At this point my Doctor gave me two options. The boys heart rate was dropping with each contraction. They would stop labor and try again in three hours and then I could try to push and see what happens. Or I could go to a C-Section now.

Little fact, I have no patience. C-Section it was.

This flew by, rub some stuff on my belly, move me from table to table and dane in a funny outfit.

Once in the operating room I felt nervous, peaceful and excited at the same time. When any of those feelings come into my body on a normal day I typically cry. When I'm about to deliver a baby, I cry a lot and make a lot of inappropriate jokes to the doctors.

I still remember the feeling of them cutting my skin, Obviously I wasn't in pain but you can feel it. It felt like they tugged a MASSIVE hole open and then I felt it. All of the sudden I felt lighter, I felt someone took a bowling ball off my stomach.

Then he cried. I was overcome with exhaustion and happiness all at once. I ugly cried for a good hour. Now remember how I was prepared for everything?

I wasn't prepared for how much I would love him even before I saw him. I wasn't prepared for how much my love for The Pal would grow instantly. I wasn't prepared for how grateful for my parents I would be.

Now, I was prepared for a cone head. But I wasn't prepared for his cone head. He looked like he came straight from the movie Alien. Not joking.

I got to see him briefly and then he was whisked away with My Pal to do baby stuff. Probably to go fix that crazy head. Unlike the tragic story of Humpty Dumpty, they put me back together again. I kindly asked the doctor is he could stitch me in a six pack. He didn't laugh as hard as I did.

Then I was wheeled to my recovery room where my mom and dad were there waiting for me. The second I saw them I cried like a baby for the next hour. Recovery room ramblings included, "He's just so beautiful.",  "I'm so glad you're my mom.", "I am so tired." all were repeated 100x. I really just remember one main thing really from this part. I said "Mom, don't you want to go see the baby?" and she said "Ali, I'm here taking care of my baby." Bah. There I go, gets me every time.

I got to see him and hold him two and half hours after he was born. To be honest I don't know why it took so long, I wasn't upset. I didn't go in with a birth plan because we knew The Lord would have a plan all his own. I was just happy to have my little pal out and safe.

We went through names together once we were alone and nothing fit him better than Monty.

Monty Alan Lewis was born at 2:58 pm on May 9th. He is a stallion. He's a strong boy like his dad and he's impatient like his mamma. 

We are so blessed to have this strong, healthy and happy boy in our lives.

 

 

 
*See. You weren't prepared for that were you...

 

   
*I literally couldn't keep my eyes open. I was totally wasted. Not Drunk wasted though. DDHB (Don't Drink and Have Babies)
 

 

*Rocking that post baby belly

 

*We should take a quick second to talk about how hot The Pal is here

Here is our Happy Little Family. JK. This was at three AM

Babies just really are not my thing.

Yet here I am.. 8 months pregnant.

The reality is I haven't always wanted kids, there was a long period where I thought, I would be perfectly happy being a successful business woman, I am good at it and I'm comfortable with it. Not to mention, you know that person that when a baby is in their near vicinity they can hardly contain their coo's and awe's and they are just waiting for the mom to say, "Wanna hold "it"?". That's not me. Never has been. 

I didn't babysit when I was younger, and I would find excuses not to. I have an incredibly active imagination and one too many babysitting horror stories later I was too spooked to even put my name out there as an option? I mean… what if the call was coming from "inside the house?" 

So, needless to say, when I got married it surprised me how quickly the baby bug hit me. Not only did I want a baby and I wanted a 1000 babies now. I move fast pretty much always, like when I decide I want my hair color changed, I make the soonest appointment with whoever will take me that night. Or when I met The Pal (my husband) I practically proposed to him on our second date- more on that later.

Fortunately, The Pal is the brains in this operation and with some reasoning we agreed to wait a good amount of time before we seriously considered bringing a babe into the world. We basically just enjoyed being "US" for a bit and I’m so grateful we did. But now, here I sit as I am officially two months away from the due date of this little man I think, how on earth did I get here? How did the time fly by? 

I get absolutely giddy about this babe being here so soon and then have moments where I think... hold on... are we sure it's a good idea that I have a child? All I know, is I am able to love, unconditionally and forgiving to boot. I can be protective, while still allowing him to have good life experiences. Have I read all the latest parenting books? Nope. Taken a birthing class, read breastfeeding books or even have a birth plan in place? Nope. I feel clueless but confident at the same time. Mostly I will raise this Mr with my Pal to the best of our ability and for me that's good enough.

Have I changed? Will I coo when a baby is brought into the room? Probably not just any ol' baby... but when my baby makes his grand entrance into this world, I imagine things might be a little different this time.