Ben's Birth Story (Lillian Edition)

You would think that for the second child Krissy and I would have been more prepared. They give you 9 months to prepare for a new child. 9 months to get a nursery ready. 9 months to take things out of boxes. 9 months to pack a simple overnight bag for the hospital. Well... this birth story starts with me waking up at 1:00 am on March 26th, because Krissy had been complaining of "cramping" over most of the evening.

Let me step back for a second. For dinner, the night before Lily was born, the family went to Chuck E Cheese to celebrate Will's 4th birthday... just in case Lily was born before his actual birthday. Talk about picking the right night! Anyway, Krissy had been uncomfortable for a few days, and pizza from Chuck E Cheese is not known to sit easy in your stomach. Just like for Will's birth, Krissy and I were in denial that she might be having real contractions, and instead chalked it up to her having indigestion.

Back to 1:00 am. I awoke with Krissy complaining that her "cramps" may actually be contractions. Dazed and confused, I told her that we should just time them to be sure. Sure enough, these mysterious cramps were quite regularly 8 to 9 minutes apart. Yikes! Try as we could, knowing it was really early in the morning, and that they weren't too too close, we tried to go to sleep. I may have finally found a little shut eye around 2:30 am, because I again awoke to a frantic Krissy moving around our room and closet at 3:00 am... packing!!! Nothing gets your adrenaline going like seeing your pregnant wife (now in what she thinks is labor) packing to go to the hospital. We again timed her contractions. 2 to 3 minutes apart! We thought that we better get this show on the road!

Rushing out of the house, we headed to Nonna and Poppa's house to set up base camp. Seeing that we had to drop off Will and Lulu, and that their house is close to the hospital, we thought that it would be best to hang out there to further assess the situation. In a sweet moment, Will woke up as we were loading him into the car, and started crying when we told him what was going on. We think that the realization that he was no longer going to be an only child final hit him. Weirdly, as soon as we got to the house, Krissy no longer felt any contractions and assumed that it was a false alarm. At this point I was really agitated at Chuck E Cheese for serving bad pizza. Because it was still so early, we just decided to stay over the rest of the night. And that's when it happened! At a little before 6:00 am Krissy started feeling extreme pain that happened to come every 30 seconds to 1 minute. We kissed Will goodbye and rushed to the hospital!

Because Krissy's contractions had gotten so quick and strong, we were immediately admitted to a room with a rush of nurses. Krissy was a champ the whole time, complaining very little about the pain she was experiencing, but still wanting an epidural. When they first measured her, she was at 4cm. This was just a little further along then when we showed up to have Will, so we knew it wouldn't be long until we were going to meet Lily.

Soon after our arrival, they gave Krissy an epidural. This time it actually worked too! Krissy couldn't feel anything below her waist. Then started our wait for her water to break. I was nauseous from a lack of sleep, so the morning really dragged on for me. I know, boo-hoo. Luckily her family and Will arrived after 9:00 am to bring some much needed entertainment to the room.

At around noon Krissy's doctor arrived to break her water. Everything went smooth, but when they checked her, she measured at only 5cm. In my mind this meant one of two things: 1. We had a really long time to go or 2. Krissy would progress super fast and Lily would be here within minutes. Well again, the labor mirrored Will's. At a little before 1:00 pm the nurse checked Krissy again. To her surprise, Krissy was fully dilated!!! This caused a quick panic to get the family back to the hospital, because everyone had left for lunch.

While they were making their way back, Dr. Stutes came in to assess the situation. It was noticeable as soon as she walked through the door that she wasn't feeling well. She was exhausted, hungry, and lightheaded. Hardly a state to deliver a baby in. Even though she knew that Krissy needed to start pushing, she excused herself to get some needed food and water. I think both Krissy and I were a bit nervous about the situation, but neither of us vocalized our concerns to the other. We kissed Will, told him that we loved him, and waited for Dr. Stutes to return.

Only a few minutes later Dr. Stutes was back, and it was time to push. Krissy really is amazing! She's built for easy delivers, and this was exactly that. The only set back this time was the epidural. It's numbing effects made it difficult for Krissy to feel anything, thus limiting her understanding of the progress she was making. After a quick 10 minutes of pushing, Lily was close to delivery, but her heart rate began to drop. It's weird, I has such confidence in Krissy that it never concerned me about what was happening. I just knew that when she was told, Krissy would get her out. Before she could, Dr. Stutes ordered the vacuum for assistance. After three quick pulls, our sweet girl was born!!! I didn't pass out, and I even got the chance to cut the cord this time. It's not as gross as I thought it would be.

My first impression of Lily was that she was loud! She came out screaming her lungs out. She also seemed really tiny. We were sure that she was a five pound baby. In fact she weighed 6 lbs. 13 ounces, which is more than Will weighed at birth. Our impression of her size was probably due to the fact that we hadn't seen a baby in four years. She was also just perfectly proportioned, with big wide open eyes. Another very observant baby. Lily passed all of her tests in the nursery and seemed perfectly content with staring back at us through the window.

I'm still so amazed with Krissy! How she could another perfect delivery with such little complaining is beyond me. It was so easy for her (at least it looked that way), that she even mentioned having a third child right after Lily was born. Who does that?!?! You're a rock star Krissy and I love you so much! Thanking for bringing our little angel into the world.

She's Here!

On Tuesday, March 26th at 1:19 pm, we welcomed our sweet girl, Lillian Joy Pierce. She is perfect in every way! She weighed in at 6 lbs. 13 oz., and was 19" long.

First impressions of Lily are that she is a "thinker" just like her brother, and really looks a lot like Will did at birth... maybe just a tad bit cuter. Their birth measurements were almost identical too.

Lily shares her birth date with someone special, her Grampup! On March 26th, 60 years earlier, Ben's dad Steve was born. How cool is that?!?

We look forward to seeing and experiencing the many ways in which Lily is going to bring joy to our growing family!

Eyes that melt your heart

She was so tiny!

Heading home with our little angel.

What a Crazy Ride It's Been!

We joked early on in this pregnancy that whatever we were having, the initials of the baby needed to be E.R.for Emergency Room. Not being overly dramatic about it, those first three months were rough for me and Krissy. After having such a worry free pregnancy with Will, Lily started our relationship by bringing us nothing but pain, worry, and drama to our lives. Maybe this means she's getting it out of her system early and will be a perfect angel her entire life! It seemed to always be something new. Every trip to the hospital or doctor's office always seemed worse than before. From endless cramping in weird places, to bleeding, to globs of who knows what, and even a subchorionic hemorrhage, and a misdiagnosis of fibroids... nothing seemed to go right.

Krissy has been amazing throughout! Her basketball belly--which she's had for an incredibly long time I might add--is a constant reminder of the lack of comfort and stress that she's experienced for the past 8 months. We're in the home stretch now. Ever discomfort appears to be normal. It's been a crazy 8 months and we're luckily a long ways away from those early ER trips. Hopefully everything will be smooth sailing over the next five weeks, and the only stressful trip we make to the hospital is the one in which our family is about to be blessed with our little girl. We can't wait to meet our sweet Lillian Joy!

Merry Christmas!

It’s hard to believe this is already our third Christmas with our sweet not so baby boy anymore and he was into it more than ever this year.  He has been asking about Christmas and Santa Claus and anything else Christmas related since August.  He truly enjoys every aspect of this joyous season, and understands the reason for the season, Jesus’ Birthday.   From reading Christmas books every night to making rice krispie treat Christmas trains, decorating Christmas cookies, and making Christmas crafts at home and school, the kid has done it all and has truly enjoyed every minute of it.  It’s obvious that the presents are a nice perk of the season, but Will seems to understand that it’s much bigger and more important than that.  His pure joy and childhood innocence reminds us all what Christmas is truly about.

On Christmas Eve, we went to St. Joseph’s with Nonna, Poppa, Corey and Stacey, and The Hoover Family.  As always it was very special to be there with the entire family, especially since we got to all sit together in an actual pew.  No standing room only for us this year! 

After mass, we went to Nonna and Poppa’s for dinner and to open up one gift to appease the kids, then headed home to fulfill our little family’s Christmas traditions.   Will finished his advent calendar and put the last cotton ball on Santa’s beard.  We then made reindeer food, threw it out in the yard, and stared at the sky hoping to catch a glimpse of Santa’s sleigh.  Will then meticulously chose which of his iced Christmas cookies he wanted to put on Santa’s plate and requested that Santa had chocolate milk this year.  He also left some carrots for Santa to bring outside to the reindeer.  You name it we did it all!  The night concluded with us reading to him “The Night Before Christmas.” It then  took 2 hours for him to go to sleep as he decided to take a nice nap during church.

As expected Christmas morning came very quickly and Will anxiously walked out to all of his goodies Santa brought him.  He was so sweet as he had all kinds of toys from Santa, but the first thing he noticed was that Santa brought a dog bed for Lulu.  After exploring his toys inside for a while, he noticed Santa left him a note that told him to look outside for his surprise and he walked out to find Santa had brought him his very own two story fort/sandbox.  He loved it!  His favorite part of the fort was that he could “see everysing from up here!”  However, he followed that up with “where are the swings?”  So, looks like mommy and daddy have to complete what Santa didn’t finish in the next few weeks ;)   Throughout the day, he kept going outside and let his imagination run wild.  His favorite thing to play so far is pirates.

Around mid -afternoon, we headed over to Nonna and Poppa’s to open Christmas presents over there and eat Christmas dinner.  Will was ecstatic over all the goodies he got to unwrap over there.  I think his two favorite gifts were his spaceship tent and dream lite. 

Meanwhile, I forgot to mention that late Christmas Eve Ben started running fever and on Christmas day went to the walk in and was diagnosed with the flu.  So, in an attempt to prevent myself and Will from getting sick, we decided to spend Christmas night at Nonna and Poppa’s house.  

And, just like that Christmas had come and gone again.  It’s always so exciting in the weeks leading up to this blessed day of Jesus’ birth, then when it actually gets here it goes by too quickly.  Will is already asking “When it’s going to be Christmas again?”  It’s especially exciting to think about next year’s Christmas as we will be celebrating it as a family of four!  (Well 5 if you count Lulu ;)

Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night!

That's Wunny!

Over the last few months as Will’s speech has developed, we have noticed some problems he has been having with certain letters.  While this may worry some parents, Ben and I find it quite amusing and are chalking it up to him simply repeating bad speech habits.  He can say the sounds independently, but when put with certain words they come out differently.  Enjoy the following quirky words and/or sayings from our little man.

He replaces all 'f' sounds at the beginning of words with 'w'  (i.e.  “That’s wunny  (funny) Mom and Dad!” and “I warted (farted).” “Wishing (Fishing) or Wishes (Fishes)” )

He relaces the 'd' sound at the beginning of the words with 'g' (i.e. “gog” (dog) and “guck” (duck) )

He replaces the 't' sound at the beginning of some words with 'c' or 'k' (i.e. “Kiger” (tiger) )

He also says “uhcause” (because).

We  do realize he needs to learn the correct way to say these letters, so we make a point to repeat the word correctly to him, but don’t try to push the issue as we don’t want him to become self conscious about his speech.  The funniest thing he says when we repeat a word correctly to him is “Don’t arg-uh-loo (argue) with me Mom and Dad!”

I love this kid! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

I always love the holiday season beginning with Thanksgiving and this year was particularly special as Ben’s parents took a road trip down here to spend this day of thanks with our little family.  They arrived mid-afternoon and walked into a living room full of pink balloons to reveal the gender of our upcoming arrival.  As predicted, they were extremely excited to hear they were getting their first granddaughter.  

After settling in, we headed over to my parents house to eat Thanksgiving Dinner with the family.   I managed to go 30 years without having to cook Thanksgiving Dinner and hope to go many more! Hehe…  Plus, nobody can top my Mom’s Thanksgiving meal as she did learn from the best, my Mee-moe!  Anyway, after giving much thanks and stuffing our bellies to the fullest it was time to go home.

The next few days with Grammy and Grandpup were action packed with constant playing of toys, reading of books, and opening of early Christmas presents.  He loved them all, but his favorite presents were the wreck it ralph hands and superhero costumes!  Grammy also got to spend special time with Will at Clayfish Bisque where he painted her a ceramic plate.  

Also during the visit, we went out to Lake Fausse Point State Park.  We had a little picnic and rented canoes to paddle the lake.  The weather was absolutely perfect and everyone had a great time.

Thanksgiving came and went, and as always Grammy and Grandpup’s visit went by too quickly.  It actually felt like a mini vacation for Ben and me as they kept our very high strung and active 3 year old very busy playing.  Hey, that’s what grandparents are for right?  :)  We definitely enjoyed their company very much and look forward to their next visit to Lafayette in the spring to meet their new granddaughter!

What's in a name?

We found out on Tuesday before Thanksgiving that we were having a little girl!!! Yes a princess/diva of our own. Can you imagine Krissy with a little girl? Watch out Broadway, watch out Hollywood, there's a new star in town. We're very excited about the news! Pink stuff everywhere, bows, boyfriends, teenage years, and a wedding... not so much. We're really excited, just a little stressed out too.

After finding out the news, we immediately began reviewing our names lists. Having a eight good boy names and a dozen girl names, it was nice to at least be able to be focused on one gender. It was also nice to remove one of Will's amazing suggestions. Having been given two options for names from Will for Little Bean 2.0, Bugaboo for a boy and Poopie for a girl, we added Poopie to the list.

We really though that with as many names as we had (including some beautiful family names), that deciding on one be tough. Not really. One random night during the week of Thanksgiving Krissy and I were going through our girl names and decided that we just needed to pick one out so we could actually refer to her by name instead of just calling her “her.”  So, we resorted to an old fashion cross-off. We both took turns scratching names off the list and when the dust finally cleared, we decided on…

Lillian (Lily) Joy Pierce

We absolutely love it and were impressed and astonished by our ability to choose it so quickly. It’s especially sweet to hear Will say it! We can’t wait to meet our little girl and especially for Will to meet his baby sister!