Slade Matthew Gershman has Arrived!!!

On Sunday April 25th, 2010 at 7:44 PM Slade Matthew Gershman arrived. He weighed in at 7 pounds and 19.25 inches long. He is a beautiful healthy baby with a full head of hair. Mom and baby are doing great and dad as well. The birth plan was executed to perfection and Missie did wonderful. we had the help of her Mom, grandma June and our doula Mindy. Both were great and there help was amazing. Missie went through labor like she wanted, drug free, no epidural, etc. She only screamed a couple of bad words at me but i did think at times she was going to break my finger, hands and wrist. We have some great pictures of this that will be uploaded eventually. The only thing we needed was food, we were starving. So what did we do? ordered 2 pizza's to be delivered the the birthing suite from our favorite pizza maker Paulie at Sal's. Nurses got a plain pie and Missie got her favorite, chicken, broccoli, tomato, etc.. it was yummy. maybe I'll go have another piece now at 9:45 am..

Night 1 was a breeze. We tried multiple times with Slade to see if he would eat. He really wasn't having it, he wasn't so hungry. But he slept great and was able to give Mommy and daddy a couple of hours to sleep as well. So we both feel quit refreshed this morning. This morning started out great as well. We woke up to the soothing hello of one of our best friends Nicole bringing us some Duncan coffee and munchkins.... She got to hang for a little before work and we are sure we will see her later. Thanks again..

Since then we have been holding him and letting him take naps in his bassinet thing. In between the Pediatrician and various nurses have been coming in to give him tests.

The weather outside is horrible, rain storms. We are sure Diva dog is at home scared and not wanting to go out as well as missing us both. Grandma June has been taking great care of her though with a little help from the Van Zutphens (they are great!!). Little does Diva know when we get home we will have her brother..

That's it for now. We can't wait to see Grandma in a little bit and have multiple visitors as well throughout the day. I will continue to update this blog and send out texts ad FB updates to keep everyone posted. Isn't technology great.

Keith

Sorry to be delinquent!

Ok, it has been 3 weeks since my last post.... I just got so overwhelmed with all of my free time that i lost track of the days/weeks!! Let's see....

We have EVERYTHING washed and put away, everything is cleaned and all toys are put together....

Keith has hung the video monitor, hidden the wires to the radio n lamp, and all gates r up that need to be for now...

We went to the Dr. today and learned that we have created such a happy home for lil man inside of my womb that he does not want to come out yet... no dilation, no efacement and he is not yet engaged.... So, while learning that this is the opposite of what any expectant parent wants to hear, it also means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!! LOL...

Apparently, even though all of the above are not visible signs of labor, we can still go into labor at ANY GIVEN TIME, the human body never ceases to amaze us!! hahaha...

So, as we have done for the last 9 months, now.. we sit and wait! :-)

Our hospital bags are packed, the car seat is in the car... My car has the back seat mirror installed and the window shades are down. Now it is all just a waiting game... We did start to wonder what protocol is if my water breaks while Keith is at work.... He works 20 mins from the house (5 mins from the hospital.) So, he would have to come home to get me then go back 15 mins.... hmmm.. we are questioning alternatives at this point, lol... o well... we only have that dilemma until Monday, then Mommy Kunkin arrives. :-)

I think that's when reality will REALLY set in.... because then I'm in the final 7 day countdown until his due date, yowzers, lol..

All in all things are great!! I am walking once or twice a day AND I elliptical daily too.... i have an amazing amount of energy still and i am loving EVERY minute still!!!

OK, that's all for now... i will try to be better about the updates.

Baby Shower

Well Saturday was my baby shower. It was thrown by 4 friends and attended by 30 friends. We all had a wonderful time and it was done beautifully! Our lil angel recieved lots of things he needed and a ton of clothes to ensure he is a well dressed boy. My girlfriends also made sure the baby would have ample books by asking guests to bring a book in lieu of a card. SO it was amazing to read all of the different titles that people brought. Some books were flap books, others were animated, some were personalized, and many were sentimental books with inscriptions to match!!

Saturday night We washed and put away all size 0-3 month clothing as well as blankets and bibs. It was wonderful to put our sons clothes in his drawers and closet. This is all becoming such a reality and one that we are fully embracing and quite oddly not fearing. We also learned alot about diapers. 2 friends brought us a diaper cake. Which is a huge tower of diapers. So we learned about the different sizes rather quickly. :-) We also noticed that the size "newborn" seems ridiculously small, and actually a waste! We then put toys away in the playroom. Now this is a cool vision... the playroom is filled with piles all sorted by category, haha.... and Keith and I are loving putting things away and envisioning our life for the next 50+ years!!

There were a lot of necessities that we did not receive, so we went to Babies R Us on Sunday and bought those. What a day that was... first their registry went down and then the cashier had computer problems (user error). We finally made it out of there and went home to take a nap!!

Last night we began downloading different children's songs and lullabies which will be put onto the baby's ipod as soon as we get one, lol...

Well we are now 35 weeks pregnant and all things by us are great. I am feeling wonderful!! We are both getting very excited and are looking ahead at this truly amazing experience!! Our hospital bag has been rolled out and we are slowly compiling things that should go into it. Tonite we have our breastfeeding class. Let's hope Keith doesn't try to eat anything tonite! ;-) Thanks for staying updated with us and keep checking back for more news!! Love to you all!

Newborn Class

Good Morning All,

Last night Keith and I went to Jupiter Medical Center (where we are birthing) for our newborn class. We knew what we would be like, but the poor instructor had no clue, hahaha....

We were one of the first couples in the room. The instructor asked us boy or girl and then gave us the "appropriate" baby. We sat there looking at the baby and the looking at each other in complete disbelief!! They really are letting us go home with a baby, oy vey!!

We then began taking pictures of us with the baby (those are the pictures you see above.) Yes, Keith is trying to eat the baby, hahaha.

The class was very informative!! We practiced diapering the baby and ensuring the diaper was under the umbilical cord. Keith was very good at the diapering, I was very proud of him. I may cut off the circulation to our baby's legs, but in time I am sure I will get better at it, haha... Keith agreed to more than 1 diaper for every 9 of mine!! :-) :-) :-)

We both learned alot about me during this class. I learned I am terrified of the umbilical cord AND the circumcision scabs. Keith learned he will be helping ALOT during those times.

We learned the art of swaddling. That's when you wrap the baby up like a burrito. We were both very good at that! Maybe its our love of burritos. Who knows :-) .

We learned how to hold the baby. I am not very good at the one arm hold. I much prefer to cuddle my child. Keith was VERY good at the football hold, although I am not very happy with it.

We were reassured that Diva should just want to lick the baby. The question is: how much licking is ok?? Only time will tell we guess.

We were told wake the baby if he is sleeping for more than 4 hours so that we can feed him. Breastfed babies need more food. And all babies can dehydrate if not properly fed.

Babies must sleep on their backs at all times (yes we survived on our stomachs, but the rules have changed!!!!)

All in all we learned a great deal!!! It was a very informative class and it will certainly help us out!!

The pieces are coming together...

Well we have completed as much as we can for now in the nursery. Thus we have moved on to the playroom. My shower is this weekend (yes we still love all of our family and cannot wait to see you all at the Bris) so we should hopefully be able to finish the nursery soon. Or at least almost complete it including washing and putting away clothes, etc...

So we know we will be getting a few toys and books at the shower and now needed to figure out what our storage method was going to be... This deemed harder than we originally thought possible. Looking for sturdy, attractive and affordable is like looking for a needle in a haystack, lol. But we finally did it, mostly. Keith put together the closetmaid units last night and we began putting them where they will stay.

This is very surreal right now. We have lived in the house for 5 months and only recently we began spending time upstairs. When we first moved in we chuckled that one day we would spend a large portion of time upstairs. That would be when we had kids and our life would be different. 5 months ago, today was so far off!! Now we are only 3-6 weeks from delivery and our dreams are coming true.

We continue to practice our hypnobirthing. We are getting better and better at it. There are still a few minor kinks to work out, but we are very confident that it will all come together on our baby's birthing day. Our Doula has set us up with a back up Doula in case she cannot make it immediately. So, we spoke to Mindy last night and arranged to meet her in a few weeks. I think i mentioned before that she is a Doula, yoga instructor, massage therapist, and more. We are happy to have her expertise with us!!

Tonight is our last hypnobirthing class. We will be meeting a couple who birthed their child a year ago using this method. We are very excited to meet them and hear their story in person. We have a lot of questions to ask!! So, after tonight we have to heavily rely on practicing alone for the next couple of weeks (3-6, YOWZERS!!!)

Tuesday night we have our newborn class. That will be where they teach Keith how to put a diaper on the correct way (not inside out or backwards) as well as teach US other important baby related things, haha. Again, are they really letting us leave the hospital with a baby?? OY!!

Ok, I think this will be it for today's entry. Please enjoy your day and check back on us soon!! Love to you all!

Furniture is in!!!

O yea, the furniture is in the nursery. The accesories are slowly starting to show up. Mom and Dad are both thrilled as we draw nearer to meeting our son!!!! Enjoy the pics!!

Nursery Paint completed!

Well let me tell you... as with everything in our lives, this too was a project and a half! It's all good though. We were in good spirits the entire time! This weekend we went back into the nursery and finished touching up the painted stripes. We cleaned up the edges and picked up the plastic from the floor. It was so nice to know the hard part was done and all that was left was the vacuuming. Or so we thought!

So we began to vacuum the nursery and then realized the vacuum stopped working almost immediately. Apparently, since the carpet is new, the carpet produced a plethora of fuzz to be sucked into the vacuum. AND if you don't empty the vacuum before it gets too full, the fuzz compacts itself inside the hose and inside the inner tubing's of the apparatus itself. (Ok, we should probably empty it more often, now we know!)

So, we figured out the only way to clear the fuzz, which was more like pillow stuffing by now, was to take the hose off of the vacuum and push the fuzz through. Easier said than done!First we detached the hose from the vacuum completely. We attempted to use a thin dryer lint cleaner. After an hour of us stretching the hosing to hopefully stretch out the fuzz thus making it easier to push the fuzz through we realized this was not going to work. So, we split the tasks up.

I was going to be in charge of the hose end and Keith was in charge of clearing the fuzz from the maze of an apparatus. I went out back and used the handle of a broom, only after running water through it didn't work. Keith was upstairs struggling since he didn't have the right type of screwdriver head to get the back of the vacuum off. We not only needed the back off to clear the apparatus, we needed it off so that we could get the hose attached again!

We decided to give it a rest and we would find a vacuum repair shop. So first thing Sunday I took the vacuum to the Sears repair shop 20 mins away only to find out they were closed on Sundays. UGH!!!! I called Keith and told him i was not driving back down here we were getting a new vacuum. When I arrived home he said we would go to Wal-Mart and buy a new vacuum and buy the right screwdriver head in case he could fix the other one. I agreed.

So tonite, after dinner we went to the store, bought our new Dirt Devil and the right screwdriver head and were on our merry way. We arrived home Keith went to the garage to begin his project and I stayed in the living room and began to take the new vacuum out of the box so I could put it together. I didn't even get all of the pieces out of the box before he yelled for me to stop, he had fixed it. I was kind of upset that i wouldn't have the chance to build, but was excited that his project was a success!!

So, we went upstairs and put our project to work, I vacuumed!!! That's when we put the rocking chair in the room and looked into it with a look of awe.. our son's room was coming together, and we had done it all!! We didn't hire anybody to paint, there were no decorators used, this was all us! Just another step in the journey of life that we accomplished together as a team, and what a great team we are!!

We hope you enjoy the picture of the nursery. The furniture will be delivered Tuesday. Have a great night all, we sure will!!!!