The Story of Alexander's Birth

After days (weeks) of strong but not regular contractions and complications that kept sending me to the hospital filled with worry, I was starting to feel like I was going to be pregnant forever! Luckily, everything with baby was OK, but the contractions were doing nothing to progress my cervix which was really frustrating. I couldn't get comfortable, I couldn't sleep, I was miserable and exhausted! To top it off, we hit record highs (105 degrees!) and it was hot even in air conditioning. On Wednesday, June 8 the weather cooled off, down to a  nice cool 70 and my contractions were much worse. I had to stop whatever I was doing, breathe through them and nothing was making them stop or slow down but they weren't regular enough for me to think it was actually labor. I did have a lot of energy though, which surprised me considering how little I was sleeping. I spent most of the day cleaning the house. We went to Adam's soccer game, and had a nice dinner at LeAnn Chin. When we got home, I went straight to bed, I was exhausted after my long day. 

I fell into a really deep sleep. I didn't wake up to go to the bathroom and I don't even remember Mike coming to bed, something that usually woke me up and made it hard to fall back asleep. A little after  2 am I did wake up to go to the bathroom. I climbed back into bed but couldn't sleep, something didn't feel right. About 10 minutes or so later I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom again, and as I walked to the bathroom I felt a little trickle of something run down my leg. "Great," I thought, "I just peed myself." I changed clothes but it kept coming. After all of our early labor experiences and false labor I didn't really believe it could be anything real; so I did what the books recommended - despite the fact i wasn't having contractions. I woke Mike up and told him that I thought my water had broken, and I was going for a walk. He waved me off, figuring it was another false alarm, rolled over and went back to sleep.

I put on some clothes and headed outside at about 2:45 am I walked down the driveway and almost to the corner before a huge gush of fluid came out and it hit me - my water had broken! I was officially going into labor! I turned around and headed home, plopped down on the front step and called the hospital. They told me to come on in, but not to rush since I wasn't contracting. I woke Mike up around 3:30 and began finishing packing our bags while he showered. I  cleaned up a few things around the house, ate a light breakfast and tried to get my head around what was happening.  Overall I was really calm and in control. Not what I expected going into labor would be like at all. A little before 4 I called Grandma Carol and asked her to come over and hang with Adam…she was excited and happy to help! I called my mom (who was in Kentucky for my brother's graduation from Boot Camp) and let her know what was going on. She was a little nervous and anxious since she was so far away, but she was excited for us too. Carol arrived at about 4:30 and Mike and I opened some gifts she had gotten for baby, finished collecting our stuff and headed out! 

We got to the hospital around 5, they confirmed my water had broken and it was baby time! We set our goal for the day - Have a Baby! Mike and I both made predictions of when the baby would come. Mike guessed just before 8 p.m. and I guessed 3:47 p.m. Since I still wasn't contracting much, so we started with some walking, after a couple hours the contractions started picking up…after a dose of antibiotics, we went for another walk. This one was harder than the first, since I had to stop frequently as the contractions got stronger. Big Brother to be Adam and Grandma came by to visit us, which was really fun for me. Around noon the contractions were so bad I decided to go for the epidural, I was at a 3.5, which was close enough to my goal of getting to a 4 by myself. About an hour after the epidural they gave me a tiny dose of Pitocin to help things along, since I was still stuck at 3.5. 

Around 2:30 p.m. I was dilated to 6! Woohoo! Progress! At 3 the nurses had a shift change, so a couple of nurses came in to go over my chart and such. They started another dose of antibiotics and checked me again….I was at an 8! It was about 3:20 at this time, a few minutes later I felt the urge to push, they checked me again and lo and behold I was fully dilated, the baby was engaged and we were ready to go! They called the doctor, who arrived about 15 minutes later and I started pushing. I was so hopeful that I would actually have a 3:47 p.m. baby - and my guess was so close because after about 4 contractions and 15 minutes of pushing,  baby Alex came into the world at 3:53 p.m. 

My first reaction was fear, he was too blue and the cord was around his neck and wrist, but the doctor quickly took care of it and placed my brand new, slimy newborn on my chest. Mike cut the cord. I spent awhile just holding my little man, he was so little and new. There is nothing like holding your brand new baby, all wrinkled and soft….Alexander Bruce arrived about 2 weeks early, and was so tiny! He weighed in at 6 lb, 12 oz and 19 inches…he was absolutely beautiful! 

Adam and Santa through the Years

I've been seeing a lot of people posting memories of Christmas' past lately. I don't have time to dig through every year's pictures and find some that sum up our holiday season, so instead I thought it would be fun to peek at all of my son's pictures with Santa.

2005 - Adam was just 2 months old, and I wasn't comfortable letting a strange man hold my son, so we skipped Santa and took Adam to get his Christmas pictures taken. Here is Adam as Santa

2006 - This picture speaks for itself. (Although I would like to add that we submitted it to The Ellen Show for her pictures with santa segment, and although we didn't win, we did make it on the air :D)

2007 - Still a little unsure of what's going on, but willing to pose for a photo.

2008 - Adam is starting to get more comfortable with this Jolly Old Soul.

2009 - This was the first year that Adam was really into Santa. The excitement leading up to going to visit, the preparing the list to tell Santa, the loooong wait in line to see Santa....all ending with a visit that he was talking about for days after!

2010 - This year was the most fun for me. Adam spent days ahead of time writing his letter to Santa. We sealed it up so Adam could hand deliver it. He practiced what he was going to tell Santa, and was so excited to sit and talk with him. I bet Adam would have stayed all day if we'd have let him.

Another day

Made some big progress this morning, even though I'm coming down with some sort of bug and am not feeling all that great.

I took a bunch of our boxes to the recycling center this morning, it felt great to get them out of our garage, but man was it a nightmare! I had to back my SUV through a maze in the recycling warehouse and unload my boxes into a box smasher/crusher device. The backing up part sucked because i couldn't see out the back and I had to weave around piles, equipment and worker-men. Not fun. But, the boxes are gone and both Mike and I will be able to park in our garage tonight!!!

I also got most of the office unpacked, although it's not even close to organized yet. We have some decisions to make regarding the office, and after seeing the stuff we have, I have some big ideas to toss at my husband. It involves some sort of drawer-like organizing device and a bookcase. I think it will look nice - and will allow me to have my craft desk set up in here as well! I also want a BIG fat bulletin board to hang behind the desk to post pictures, scrapbooking related stuff and who knows what else!

It's been really fun to see some of these rooms come together! I've been enjoying the unpacking for the most part. Except for the closet thing.....at the old house my stuff was split between 2 closets and a storage bin or two, I had clothes I hadn't seen in years hiding in the boxes! Needless to say, we have a Good Will box or two ready to go, and I'm not even done going through it all yet! I need to get some more hangers for Adam's closet before I can finish his stuff....and Mike and I will need to figure out a way to get a little more space in our closet too.

This weekend (well, we only have Sunday because I will be spending all of Saturday at ScrapFest 2010) I want to get shelving up in Adam's closet so I can finish unpacking all of his toys and games. I'd also like to get our DVD shelves hung up, that is about 4 boxes of stuff that could get unpacked when those get hung...

I also have to make a decision on what $100ish item I want to get for the house, we ended up getting almost our entire security deposit back from the old apartment (which we weren't expecting) so we decided we each get to pick a fun item for the house. Mike picked a really cool old looking 'train station' clock that's hanging in our family room. I'm leaning towards a chair or table of some kind for our living room upstairs. Additionally, I found a great sale on large indoor plants at Home Depot, so we have to go pick one out yay greenery!

OK, that's enough chatter from me for today, I promise photos are coming soon! I have taken about half of the rooms but want to get a few more cleaned up first!

New House

Alright, you will all be shocked to hear this - but I don't have any pictures yet! We have been so busy unpacking and organizing and sleeping, I haven't even thought about my camera! But, I wanted to take a minute to share a few things....


Three Firsts

First Bath/Shower: Adam
First piece of mail delivered to: Adam
First meal cooked in our kitchen: Spaghetti

Three Annoyances

The sun - It hit's the sensors on our garage door just right so that we can't close it in the afternoons.
Our screen/patio doors - They don't close well - and it takes HUGE effort to close and lock them.
Fridge - Our fridge is tiny! There are mere 3 small shelves, 1 drawer and 2 small racks in the door. It's way smaller than our old one and will take some major getting used to!

Three Favorites

Full sized washer and dryer - I can wash so much more efficiently, and the clothes dry in one cycle of the dryer instead of two or three!!!
Garage - Though we haven't really parked in it much yet because of the whole moving in thing....it's so nice to have the space out there!
Natural Light - All of the windows, all of the light - it's amazing and I love it! It's so wonderful to have natural light hitting just about every room!

5 Things

I am looking forward to at the new house, in no particular order....

1. A dining room table that is used for eating. I am really looking forward to NOT sitting on the couch eating off of the coffee table every night.

2. My OWN room and/or Adam having his own room again. As much as I enjoy being able to hear my little man sleeping - I am ready to not have to be silent as I climb into bed at night and also to not have an Adam to move from our bed back to his....

3. A full sized washer and dryer. I am tired of having to wash small loads, not being able to wash my blankets and bedding....it will be wonderful to have a nice big washer and dryer!

4. Space. With three floors, an office separate from the living area everyone can do their own thing in their own space or all together.

5. A fireplace. Need I say more? Curled up with a blanket, hot chocolate a good book....

Maybe....

So much has been happening in The Krueger World lately. I thought I might take this chance as a 'fresh start' for this old blog. We'll see how well I keep up on it.

I am not going to get into the full "we're moving" story (again) because frankly, I'm sick of it all! I just want it to be over - finished and be settled into the new place. I am looking forward to putting all of this behind us and starting over.

So, if we're not going to talk about the mold, the packing, the cleaning and the moving - what can we talk about? Well, I have wanted to use this blog as a place to post about the things going on in our world, with our family and such - so let me start with something recent that's gone on....

This past weekend, Adam went to spend the night with Grandma Wendy (while Mike and I went out to celebrate our second wedding anniversary). During the course of the overnighter, Adam took a little spill, landing face (eye) first on a steel hand weight. This little fall caused a BIG black eye!

It doesn't bother him too much, and looks better than I was expecting when the incident was described to me over the phone...I just hope that it heals before school pictures and soccer pictures in the next few weeks! 

While I had the camera out, we took a few self-family photos....probably the last ones at this home. 

I hope to be back here soon with another post! 

Holiday's In Hand

I am taking a 6 or so week online course called Holiday's In Hand. Over the next month or so I will be creating a holiday themed album full of tradition, memories and more. Our first assignment is to think about our values and set a few goals for this holiday season.

I would like to start teaching Adam about our holiday traditions. Sure, he's experienced them in the past and will in the future - but where did they come from, why do we do them and why are they important to me/daddy/our family.

I hope that our family can spend more time together this season instead of co-existing. This means some mommy/daddy time in addition to family time and one-on-one time with Adam.

I need to make more time for my friends this season. Handwritten notes in Christmas cards will be a good first step.

Regardless of what happens this season, I want it to be memorable. Each year Adam starts remembering more and more and I want him to have positive and fun holiday memories.

No stress. I get so bogged down in the shopping, wrapping, planning, visiting, sneaking, hunting etc of the season, that I often look back and realize I've missed it all. I want to take time to enjoy the events and activities that are a part of this time of the year.