Labor day was... Labor Day! Ryders story :)

Sunday labor day weekend was on the calender as an "us" day. We planned on soaking up some sun, maybe a little close to home hike, and a picnic. We had a great time talking about all of the "what if's" of labor and baby. We came home took a lazy nap and I was ready for the busy week ahead, but our baby had different plans.I woke Monday morning at 7:00 to find that my water had definitely broken this time. Again could not get a hold of Adam at work waited it out again and we headed into the hospital around 3:00. Unfortunately I was only 1-2 cm dilated so we walked laps around the hospital to try and avoid pitocin. After a few laps the contractions were painful so we went back in for another check, to find that I was about the same :( My contractions however were 1-2 minutes apart and adequate in strength so they couldn't really give me pitocin if they wanted to. These contractions were getting really uncomfortable at this point so we tried out the jacuzzi tub! This helped a lot and Adam was wonderful with getting me through each painful stab. I was afraid he would be scared or bossy as a labor coach but he was perfect and I handled labor the best when he was coaching me. At 8pm they could call me a good 2cm and more thinned out so we kept plugging away. At 2am I needed that jacuzzi tub again and Adam needed a nap so while I did a soak he was going to catch a couple  zzz's. I don't know if my labor got more intense or going with out my star coach made a difference but I could not relax, the contractions felt like they were right on top of each other and I opted to go for epidural. I felt like my body would never relax and dilate the way it was going and my water had now been broken for 18 hours. The nurses had started antibiotic's to prevent any chance of infection. So at 3 am I woke Adam up to help with the Epidural. The rest gets a little foggy because we had some slight trouble with the Epidural causing my Blood pressure to go down and in turn cause the babies heart rate to drop, super common with Epidural especially when they first get started. After counter acting the B.P drops with IV meds 5 times the Anesthesiologist had to be called in to give me a different med to combat the drops but also ordered my Epidural be turned off :( So lot's of pain to no pain and back to pain... not my favorite thing in the world but the most disappointing part was that by 8am I was only 3cm dilated (although I was now 100% effaced at least). My contractions had really spaced out so they decided on some pitocin and to slowly start my Epi again (thank god!). The Doc would be back at 12:00 to reevaluate. At 12:00 I was 6cm!!! Yay! I was very excited but the Dr. was getting concerned about the amount of time my water had been broken (almost 30 hours at this point) and my very slow progress. She told us she would be back to check me around 3:00 and that if there was little to no change in my cervix we would have to discuss a C-Section. I prayed for my body to do what it needed to do but mentally prepared for some OR time if need be. We just wanted the baby out and healthy and while there was a preferred method at the end of the day we just wanted this person out! So 3:00 came and my cervix was 7-8 just enough to keep me in the game. We decided to start moving me side to side as much as possible to help get this baby moving.When they restarted the Epidural again, the medicine pooled to my right side which was completely dead ,so the amazing people that had the daunting job of moving my body had their work cut out for them! Adam became a part of the nursing staff I swear, he was in on everything and was probably just as sore as I was the next day from repositioning me so much. We finally made it to complete and I was able to start pushing, there was just one more hiccup, the baby was facing the wrong way! The doc tried to rotate the baby internally twice ( Which Adam describes as gnarly) and I pushed for 2 1/2 hours before we were again at decision time. We were offered the vacuum, with that we had only 2 chances and then no more choices- C-section, or just throw in the towel now and go for C-Section. I was literally terrified about the finality of the 2 chances with the vacuum, it was a lot of pressure to be able to push hard enough with the vacuum to get him out, but I knew I had to try. I think I was the only one in the room staff included that wanted to do the vacuum. We were 37 hours in and I couldn't help but feel tears well up in fear. I had to do this and I definitely didn't know if I had it in me, I'm pretty (REALLY!) wimpy in everyday life. I had such a great team of hospital staff though, when a vacuum is used a pediatrician must attend and our baby had 2! Dr.James stayed and pushed with me and was there with me the whole way, so it was go time... with the help of the Vacuum and an Episotomy and 3 pushes our sweet baby was out. I remember the doc holding baby up and thinking I would have never guessed or pictured that was what our little person looked like! Then I heard "It's a boy!!" I had completely forgotten that we didn't know the gender, and as scared as I was to have a boy, that was my boy and he was the most perfect, incredible thing I had ever seen and the only one I ever wanted without knowing it until now. I immediately wanted him on my chest and he was crying so they let him stay with me. I sobbed. Like full blown ugly cry sob, relief and happiness overcame me in a way that it never has before. Adam and I had done it, finally we had our healthy little baby "We did it!" I said as we looked at our son. He was born September 4th at 8:32 pm he was 8lbs 7oz's, 22 in long, 14in head and 14in chest!! He was a bruiser! Ton's of black hair, Adam's eye's, my lips and the missing piece of our family.

 Our picnic before baby!

 

 The wait was starting to get to Adam, Terri and my Mom

Great Grandparents  :)



 Grandpa and Ryder

 

 Loves his car seat! Thank god!

 Ready or not home we go

Someone is Obsessed with Ryder...

 1st bath at home :)

 Ryder and Charli

 So Bucker officially thinks that Ryder belongs to him

 The gender surprise was so fun! I highly recommend it!

Ryder's name was picked by Adam, I remember years ago when we were dating going swimming at Lewis Creek with him and him telling me "I like the name Ryder for a kid" I never knew where that day was going to lead us but here is Ryder Keil (for my Dad and Grandpa) Cooley. The best thing we have ever been given. You'll never be short on love little man :)

 

 

 



T -5 days!!! (plus or minus)

We are 5 days from the big due date and are anxiously awaiting our little one's arrival! Adam's patience is running a little thin but I'm pretty convinced that our baby's birth day will be September 8th. No rhyme or reason to it that is just the day I have mentally picked as D-Day :) We'll see what happens though. The latest updates are that at my last Dr.'s appointment (Monday) I was dialated 1cm/50%/-3. So not much action but a little something to make a first time Mama encouraged that my body is warming up to the idea of what it needs to do. The Doctor said she could feel babies head, which had Adam asking if that "was okay?!" All of this is so fun to go through with him :) Our next appointment is on the 6th (1 day after my due date) at this appointment I might let her "strip my membranes" (You Mom's know what's about, and you guys prob really don't want to know!) but as for induction I have no plans of doing that. I'm anticipating going as much as a week and a half to two weeks over before my Doc says it would be unsafe to continue with pregnancy. While Adam is pretty much done with the waiting game I'm happy to have the extra time to finish some projects. We have the baby room pretty much wrapped up with the exception of the rocker that will be delivered on Sept 9th. We are STILL doing remod projects I have some Navy paint speckles dressing up my hands as I type, but our house is looking a lot better! I will have to take some pic's of our progress. So that is most of the latest, at least that my prego brain can remember right now, here are a few pic's-

 Here are some updated room pic's

 The chair will take the place of the Co-sleeper when it's time to put that in our room...soon!

 Adam has begun building his little son or daughter a bookshelf that I will hopefully distress this weekend!

Getting down to the final belly picture documentation! I feel like we could make a great flip book with these!

 

 

We will also work on narrowing down the names this weekend! With all of the projects we have been working on a kind of forgot to get out the old red pen and shorten this list up. I tried to upload the list, it looks pretty weird but the basic idea is there :) Everyone feels differently about names, so bear with us and at the end of the day we are going to pick something that we really love. Who know's it might not even be on this list knowing our last minute-ness!  

 

Harper  COOLEY	G
Ryder  COOLEY	B
Cate Annsley COOLEY	G
Grant Keil COOLEY	B
Scarlett Liv COOLEY	G
Rylan COOLEY	G
Daphne COOLEY	G
Annsley COOLEY	G
Adler COOLEY	G/B
Saylor COOLEY	G
Holden COOLEY	B
Samule COOLEY	B
Liv COOLEY middle?	G
Sloan COOLEY middle?	G
Violet COOLEY	G
Julia COOLEY	G
Scarlett Adler COOLEY	G
Eva COOLEY middle?	G
Hattie COOLEY	G
Henry COOLEY	B
Jayne COOLEY middle?	G
Hudson COOLEY	B
Sutton COOLEY	G
Harrison COOLEY	B





False Alarm!

So here is our funny story about how our day went yesterday....

Monday morning Adam was starting a new job and he's been having some nerves lately about new jobs because of cell service and our impending due date. The night before he told me "I'm going to talk to Mark and if you go into labor and need me and I have no service just call Mark and he can come get me." Funny little conversation that really wasn't going to amount to much anyways as far as I was concerned, a safety plan we weren't going to need. We have a little over 2 weeks until the due date and I still had a ton to do! So Monday morning I'm getting ready to head out to do a million chores ( ie get breast pump, nursing tanks ect.) when a I feel (TMI) a trickle of fluid. No big deal I have Amniotic fluid tests in the bathroom and I'm only 37 weeks, can't be! So I go in and test one, the test immediately turns black- a positive. I think I may have said a four letter word out-loud there. There was no way our living room is in remodel chaos, the bags aren't packed, the car seat hasn't been played with! Ahhh! But these tests are by no means a 100% so I call one of my nurse friends, she suggests I come in and get it checked out for sure. I wait a half an hour and test again positive again, call another nurse friend and she tells me you better go to the hospital. 3 Tests and 3 nurse friends later I'm freaking out just a hair! I try to call Adam on his new job, and just like a weird joke, this is the first job he has no service! We've been able to at least get a text through before, this job nothing! Well I'm not really feeling any more or less on the contraction front than I already have been so I decided to take a nice long "your going to the hospital maybe to have a baby and may never have a long shower again!" When I get out, I do the desperate plan and call Mark (Adams boss). No answer. Now I'm starting to get nervous. My Mom calls then and I didn't want to freak her out but end up telling her the whole story so far. She freaks out. I told her to go to work, I would keep her posted but that I wasn't really having contractions yet. Then of course is the whole issue of my little Sis being in Vegas... My Mom is literally ready to book a flight to get her here right now! I put the brakes on that for the time being but did look up flights. I call Mark again and this time he answers and says he'll get Adam delivered to me! Okay now the nerves and excitement are getting up there! So Mark has to yell down into the canyon to try and get Adam to come up from whatever spot he happens to be cutting down tree's on a large strip of land, when that doesn't work he starts firing a gun! Adam finally hears it and says he has never run so fast out of a canyon in his whole life! They had just discussed the plan that morning, he knew exactly what was going on! He rushes home and I have him put the car seat in while I clean the kitchen and get some laundry done, I do start to feel some pretty uncomfortable contractions in the frenzy and excitement. We get the basics done and then I tell Adam let's go to lunch and then go to the hospital. I wanted him to have a good full belly in case this turned into an all nighter and I knew they would cut me off of food if I was in labor and I was hungry! So we went on our last little lunch date as a fam of two ( so we thought!) and once we were sitting and relaxing contractions went away. I'm thinking in my head labor doesn't come and go but I had 3 nurses tell me to get checked out, and those positive tests. So we head in. An hour and a half of monitoring and two lab amniotic fluid test confirm, no broken water, only occasional contractions, and a closed cervix! Adam was more than bummed, I was embarrassed and relieved. I had made his boss shoot a gun to get him to run out of canyon, while my sister was preparing to drop 500 bucks on a last minute flight, awesome! I wasn't telling a soul about all this!!! That is until my Sis in law called asking if I was in labor, her hubby had heard it on the C.B.! My Dad the token truck driver had made sure all of Linn county knew in his excitement! So here is the long and embarrassing story of our first stab at parenthood! HAHA Hopefully the next run will go a little smoother and will end with us telling all of you the gender of our baby instead of a long story!! 

If your smiling, your not in labor!! Haha

29 & 36

I turned 29 last week and also 36 weeks pregnant! Where does the time go!

Here is the well nourished belly!!!

 My very sweet Co- workers threw me a "She's about to Pop" baby shower as well and we had a blast!

A few of the best Nurses around

Thank you Stef for your very sweet home grown gifts!

  Mama Terri! I joke and say she's my "Doula" but she's an amazing nurse, and I really hope it works out that she can be there for the birth of this little one because she is the best labor coach I know!

Katie showered us in a huge way with way too much! Thank you Katie!

Another great Nurse and friend Julie :)

Here is some cabin progress!!! 

 Adam has recruited lot's of helpers for this cabin project, this day it was Jacobs turn!

Adam's cousin, and Grandpa on a cabin build day

With the hot weather we have also enjoyed some time in the water, here is a little sneek peak at the bump cooling off and Colton's Bachelor party!!!!

Looks like those boys had a good time!

Count down to baby

It seems like time is REALLY flying as we get closer to the Due date of our little one! In true Adam and Nicole fashion there is still plenty to do, so I'm kind of wishing I could stop the clock a little bit, but we are so so excited to see this little person's face and find out if we are parents to a little boy or girl :) In the last few weeks I've fought a little bit with some off and on pre-term contractions which put me into baby cloths washing, room organizing, book alphabetizing overdrive! That probably was about the worst response to the come and go tummy hardening, and all had to be put to a stop when I worked this weekend. We had a nice a slow weekend at work and I had 12 hours of being baby'd by some of my favorite nurses and not a contraction all weekend! I'm convinced the cure is slowing down just a bit which is a little hard but well worth the cook time this little sprout needs :) Who would have thought work would be the cure?!

 Here are a few room updates- this is one of the paper mache' hot air

balloons that my Mom made for my baby shower!

 Here is the closet with the carpet in :)

 ...and the closet with the wall fixtures in

 The dresser, still figuring out the organization here :)

Lucky for us the crib was a piece of cake to put together!

A couple of random fun prego pic's~

 We snuck away to the coast for our 2nd anniversary. I think it was one of the few weekends it's been pretty hot around here, so this luck prego got to enjoy a comfortable 65 degree's!

Oh pregnancy cravings! I guess they are real because this 5lb box of cherries was gone within 48 hours with little help from Adam! I'm really loving watermelon, grapes, cherries, and nectarines. I wish I could say all of my favorites are fruit but I went on a 2 week bender of Vanilla ice cream Sundays too. Every night after Adam would go to bed I would scoop out some Vanilla and pour some choco syrup on top and ahhh perfection! Baby needs calcium right now for growing bones....  :)

Well it's on to the relaxing work of onesie embroidery for me! My good friend Kara had these made for me at my baby shower , and while many talented Mama's are making their babies quilt's and and hand knit booties, I'm working my sad attempt at crafty-ness by in-n'-out stitching around these super cute iron on's! Baby steps!!! 

In exchange for work photo's here are some cabin building photo's! Adam's been kicking butt on building his very own cabin!

 

It hasn't been all work and no play for Adam, he and Logan spent a Sunday on these bad boys~

 

 

I think our sweet little baby will be in for some adventures with a Dad like Adam :)