Jace's First Bath

Finally, around 10 pm, Jace got his first bath in the nursery. Nolan was up to the task (with guidance from the nurse). Jace was not a fan of the experience.

Nolan's a great daddy already.

Jace making his angry face... we see this face every time we change his diaper!

His hair is the best!

He did like the water running over his head.

He relaxed and really liked life under the warmer.

Introducing Jace John Nelson!

We welcomed Jace John Nelson to our family on Wednesday, February 3 at 2:42 pm. He made his appearance after 34 hours of labor! Monday evening (our due date) I began feeling some cramping with the contractions that had become normal for me and wondered if we'd be meeting our baby boy soon. A painful contraction that started in my back woke me up at 5:30 Tuesday morning, and after a few more of them, I woke Nolan up to start timing our contractions. They were a steady 11 minutes apart, hitting me really hard in my lower back. Within an hour or two of the start of them, the pain became intense in my back and I depended on leaning my weight on Nolan to get through them. He was a great coach, rubbing my back and making me breathe. A few more hours of the pain in my back and we were pretty sure that Jace was posterior (the back of his skull was against my spine instead of his face, putting a huge amount of pressure on my lower back). As the contractions became more regular, my mom was quick to get on the computer and find a plane ticket for my dad. It was a race, but he made his flight!


By mid afternoon, my contractions were a steady 8 minutes apart, but the pain was getting unbearable. We called my doctor's office and were told to come right in and see the on-call doctor (at my doctor's office, the three OBGYNs rotate who is on call and you aren't guaranteed which doctor will actually deliver for you). When we got to the doctor's office, we found out I was only 2 cm dilated and 80% effaced, which was hardly progressed from where I was at the day before at my check up. We were sent home and told not to come back until my contractions were 5 minutes apart. She even suggested I take a Tylenol PM to help me sleep. We felt so discouraged as we left, and even more discouraged as riding in the car made my contractions even worse. Within an hour of getting home, the contractions started getting closer and closer together. We were celebrating as each contraction came 5 minutes apart, and were counting to reach our 12 in an hour. Finally, we had 12 in an hour and left immediately! We got to the hospital around 6 and were admitted right away. We were so hopeful that things were going well. But the nurse checked me, told me I hadn't progressed from my appointment earlier (which made me wonder why all that pain hadn't accomplished anything). She called the on-call doctor who said I had two options: go home and take an Ambien to help me sleep, or stay at the hospital and get a shot of morphine for the pain, which would most likely slow down my contractions and I'd get sent home in the morning. We chose to stay because I couldn't imagine trying a car ride again, not to mention, how would we know when to come back? We thought we came at the right time.

I got the morphine shot at 9 pm, and it only slowed down to contractions to 8 minutes apart and hardly reduced the pain. After those two contractions, I was back to 5 or less minutes apart and in just as much pain as before, only this time I couldn't stand up to move around because the morphine made me light headed. I refused to call a nurse, though, because I didn't want to be told once again that all the pain wasn't producing any results. So we settled in to watching Lost, and I just missed pieces of it every five minutes. Just before 11 Nolan pushed the nurse call button because of how bad he could tell I was feeling. A different nurse came in who was so sweet and couldn't believe I was still awake and in pain. She told us they were transitioning the nursing staff, so she'd find my night nurse to come check me... she even told me she's chose their most compassionate nurse. When she left I cried because it felt good to finally be listened to. I was checked by a new, very sweet nurse, who told me I was progressed to 4 cm!

She called the doctor to see about getting me an epidural. The doctor came in, checked me, confirmed that I was progressing and approved my epidural. By 12:45 I had the drugs in me and was finally feeling good! Jace was for sure posterior, which had been causing all the pain. At that point, Nolan and I were finally able to settle in and get some rest. At 3 am my water broke and pretty soon after that my nurse noticed that Jace's blood pressure started dropping. While every time it dropped it rose back up, the times of it dropping became more and more frequent, and pretty soon it was with each contraction. The doctor came to check on things and explained that most likely he was pressing on his umbilical cord in some way or another. She wanted to give him more of a cushion in my uterus in order to help reduce stress on the cord. They ended up feeding fluid into my uterus with a tube to create a new amniotic sack around him, and we saw his heart rate start doing better. Every now and then it would drop again, though, when I would move or a hard contraction would hit. They did start talking about a c-section if the heart rate didn't improve.

Jace was a fighter, though, and every time they were worried by his drop, he'd recover and bring it back up. Around 7, my wonderful doctor who I love so much became the doctor on call! It was such a relief to switch to her, knowing she really cared and would listen to my needs! She was pretty sure we could avoid a c-section, but explained that the fluid being fed into me had slowed down my contractions (although they were still allowing me to progress), but she didn't want to give me pitocin to get them moving faster because we weren't sure how Jace would respond to the harder more frequent contractions. They wanted to let me labor down to let my contractions do as much as the work of getting him out as possible instead of having to push.

A little before noon, Jace's head was barely a finger tip length from being out, and they decided to see how he handled pushing. He did great! His heart rate did better during pushing than it had during any contraction. We pushed hard for two hours before my doctor determined that it may not be possible for me to get him out on my own--his head was stuck on my pelvic bone. So, the forceps came out, and with two rounds of pushing and my doctor pulling with all her strength (Nolan said she was putting her whole body into pulling him out), and Jace entered the world!

They had a respiratory team present to check on him right away. He was placed on me to get cleaned up (and peed all over me in the process), and then taken to be checked out. He needed oxygen because he was wheezing quite a bit and his oxygen levels were low. After a while, they couldn't get them to come back up to what they'd like, so they told us they'd take him to the nursery and put him on the C-Pap machine, get a chest x-ray and observe him. Nolan accompanied him, and as soon as they got to the nursery, Jace lived up to the meaning of his name (healer) and suddenly his breathing was fine and his oxygen levels were good! He still had to stay in the nursery for a while to monitor him, but things were looking good!


It was a few hours after labor before he was brought to our room, but only for 45 minutes because I had developed a fever during labor and he needed antibiotics. But after being taken back for some shots, he finally joined us for good (minus the occasional trip to the nursery for more shots-a total of 8 over 48 hours) at 12:30 am. It was so nice to finally have our son with us and be able to really start bonding with him! He is precious, sweet, a good sleeper and absolutely wonderful. We love him so much!

Ready for this Baby!

The past few weeks have been full of getting ready for the baby. Our goal had been to have the nursery done before my parents arrived for Christmas. We were close--all the furniture was done and in place, I just needed to sew the curtains and put some things away. Thanks to help from my mom, we got the nursery cleaned up and looking good just in time to bring in lots and lots of gifts! Monday, January 4 was my church shower. I was so blessed by the love and generosity everyone showed us! My friends Katie and Mary coordinated the event and did a wonderful job. About 35 people were there.

Katie, Me and Mary

My mom and me in front of the cake. The shower date was selected so she'd be able to be in town for it, and I'm so glad she was! Also, we didn't plan to match :)

Aside from needing to find something to hang above the changing table, Jace's room is all finished! We found this changing table through Craigslist--it was a great deal and all it took was a fresh coat of paint to make it just like new.

The glider came from my brother and sister-in-law (thanks Dan and Anna!). It was the rocker they had for their sons and daughter. Once Jace comes, the bassinet will move into our room.

The crib we also found through Craigslist that Nolan painstakingly painted.

My mom made all the bedding for the crib and we love it!

The toy box Nolan's dad made for Jace. For now, though, we're using it to store clothes that he won't fit in yet.

The dresser we're using for Jace was purchased by my parents for my nursery when I was born.

The lamp was found before we knew if Jace was a boy or a girl, and the day we found out it was a boy, I called Nolan's mom and asked her to go to Homegoods and pick it up for his room!

A Little Fort Building

We had another fun day with the boys today, and ended it with some web-camming with Mommy, Daddy and Uncle Tim. Sadly (although hilarious at the same time), Micah fell off the couch while talking to them. He was unharmed, but startled by it and really wanted Mommy. While it was nice to see her through the computer, he wanted the real thing. We finally had to say goodbye, which brought even more sobs, so it was Uncle Nolan to the rescue. While Josiah and I made a paper chain to count down the days until Mommy and Daddy come home, Nolan pulled up Dora the Explorer on Netflix online (we've watched a lot of Dora lately), and began to build a fort around Micah. After bath time, both boys needed their own forts to watch one final episode of Word World. All that to say, the night ended with smiles.

Storybook Land with Josiah and Micah

Josiah and Micah are staying with us for a few nights while Dan and Anna are in Maryland for the Army/Navy game (go Navy!). We'll hand them off to Anna's parents on Sunday after church. The boys have been great!

Some cute quotes:
-I picked up Micah Wednesday evening, so it was just him with me and Nolan that night. On Thursday we went to pick up Josiah after school, and when Micah realized we were getting Josiah he shouted, "I misseded Josiah!"
-Today we were on our way to drop Josiah off for school, and Josiah said, "I want to show you my teacher." I pointed out that that means I'd have to walk him into school instead of just dropping off at the door. "Oh, then how about next time. " I told him, "This is the only time I'm dropping you off at school. Do you want me to walk in with you?" He replied, "My head is telling me no, but I really want to show you my teacher." Finally he decided it was ok to have me walk in with him.

We thought it would be fun to go through Christmas Storybook Land at the fair grounds here in Albany. We weren't quite sure what it was all about, except that it was free and could be fun. The freezing rain hit right before we headed out, so we kind of ice skated in and ice skated out. Nolan was great and held both boys' hands so I wouldn't worry about getting pulled down. We were all bundled up and had a great time! The boys were so fun to watch as they ran from one display to the next. The whole thing was a winding path (indoors, thankfully) with all sorts of displaya for different stories--classic nursery rhymes to Disney movies to current cartoons. And at the end of it all--Santa! The boys were so excited to see Santa, and of course, told him they want StarWars toys for Christmas.

Hope Mommy and Daddy are having as much fun as we are!

In front of a Nutcracker at the beginning.

The four of us in front of the big Teddy Bear display.

Little buddies in front of the Teddy Bear Carousel. They were so excited about everything they saw.

Josiah pointing out the Lion King display to Micah, "Micah, it's your favorite!"

In front of the "Cars" display. Micah especially liked this one.

And they both were thrilled to see Sponge Bob.

Sitting on Santa's lap. Micah was very apprehensive before getting on his lap, and looked completely serious (and almost scared) until we told them to smile for the camera. We shuffled back out to the car and the enjoyed warming up with hot chocolate at home while watching Dora (or Dura as the boys say) the Explorer. This made me excited to make Christmas Storybook Land a tradition once Jace is old enough.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree!

We headed out the day after Thanksgiving for our annual tree hunt at Volsted Family Farms here in Albany. It was our fastest, happiest, easiest (aside from the tree lifting part) tree hunt yet! I had it pretty easy since the pregnancy makes me exempt from heavy lifting. I'm so thankful to have such a strong husband! Maybe next year we'll have to take Uncle Mike along to help carry the tree.

Nolan in his rain gear from work. We learned quickly a few years ago that this can help make laying on the ground under the tree to cut it down much more pleasant. I think he looks cute in his rain gear :)

On the wagon ride out to the tree lot. Volsted's is huge with two very large tree lots!

Nolan with our beautiful tree! We got a Nordman for the second year in a row.

Me with the tree. Crazy to think next year we'll have a visible baby with us!

We loved having the Pilot with a roof rack to tie the tree onto. In the past we've had to use Nolan's work truck.

The final product. Notice that Nolan has already bought and wrapped two gifts for me. I once told him that I think every Christmas tree looks better with presents under it, so he's always quick to put some under our tree. Such a sweet husband.

On a baby note--Jace is growing nicely and has a great heart rate. He enjoys pushing and wiggling, and especially likes to push his little rear out.

November Happenings

Here's Nolan and both cats... they LOVE joining either of us on the recliner. Tonight while Nolan was trying to use his laptop Wylie joined him first (on the left). Wylie understands that with the laptop there, it's best to sit beside it. Sophie, on the other hand, isn't quite as respectful and loves to sit on bellies (which isn't always so fun for me).

Here I am at 29 weeks. This baby just keeps growing! I'm pretty sure he's tap dancing in there with full arm swings. I could definitely tell when the third trimester hit... suddenly I'm much more tired and much less comfortable.
We've been going to birth class on Monday nights (fun side note--our instructor went to our family's church when I was little and remembered our family). Here's all the dads. Last week I realized that Michelle Obama's brother and his wife are in our class (he's the basketball coach for OSU). He's the tall guy in the middle of this picture. Last night was the last class until we have a reunion after all the babies are born.

All the mommies, lined up from due the soonest to latest. our class was large because this is the last one for anyone due in January or February to take, so we had three months of due dates represented.

And, on another great note, we sold the Corolla exactly one week after listing it!