Today I'm joining up with a great new teaching blog I came across: Oh Boy 4th Grade!
She is hosting a little linky party (kind of a Think-Write-Share), and I thought it was fun! She also created this cute image to type in your answers! I had no idea how I was going to add my answers on top of the image, but I copied it into Smart Notebook using the camera feature and did it there! You may have to click on it to make it bigger in order to see my answers, sorry about that!



Anyway, to all my teacher friends, you should check out this blog--lots of fun and great ideas, etc.

Can you believe school starts in 2 and 1/2 weeks?! Sigh. This new mommy is already missing her baby just thinking about it! :(

...our little angel.

...SO darn cute.

...wiggly.























...a precious gift.


...sleepy.

















...tiny.

















...a little prince!























Hudson, you are 6 and 1/2 weeks old now, and you are really growing!

You are finally getting into a night time routine, where you sleep for a longer period first (usually 4-5 hours), then a shorter period next (2.5-3 hours). We are so thankful that you are figuring out the difference between night and day!

Daddy has been SO wonderful in helping me out when he is home. On weekends he helps with a nighttime feeding so I can catch up on my beauty sleep, and he changes LOTS of diapers when he is here!

You are about to switch over from newborn diapers to size 1 diapers, and you are starting to fit into some of the 0-3 month clothing, though you can still fit into your Newborn size clothes as well. I guess all the brands are a little different in sizing, just like in women's clothing!

One of the best things EVER was seeing you smile at me for the first time (June 30th, 5 weeks old)--of course it happened at 3:00 in the morning, so your daddy missed it! I almost woke him up, but I don't think he would have appreciated it too much! :D Now your daddy and I love to try to make you smile--we especially love when you grin really big and show your toothless mouth--so precious! One of these days we'll catch it on film.

We love you so much, Hudson. I am already getting sad when I think about going back to work in August; I'm going to miss seeing you all day! :( In the meantime, I'm just trying to enjoy all my time with you because I know these moments will pass too quickly. So stop growing already, sweet baby! :)

We are overjoyed that he is here--happy and healthy. He weighed 6 lbs, 10 oz. and was 19 and 3/4 inches long.


We checked into the hospital Tuesday night at 7:00 pm to begin the "cervical ripening" since I was not dilating. I received the medicine around 8:45, and within the hour, my contractions were about 3-4 minutes apart! The baby's heart rate began to drop after most every contraction, so the nurses kept coming into my room every 30 minutes or so to change my position in hopes that he would respond better; no luck. He didn't like contractions in ANY position (I can relate).

Eventually the pain got pretty bad, so they gave me an IV narcotic which didn't really take away the pain, but it did make me hallucinate really funny things when I closed my eyes. Like rows and rows of elephants in straight lines or rows and rows of frogs. (The animal changed every time I opened and closed my eyes again.) Around 5:30 am my contractions were 1 minute apart, so I got my epidural (thank JESUS), and life was good. About 8:00 am they began the Pitocin to try to speed up my labor since I was still only dilated to a 3, even though my stupid contractions were so close together. Not long after, they stopped the Pitocin because baby was still under stress. We just waited and waited to see if I would dilate more and keep progressing, but the only thing that progressed were my contractions (even after they STOPPED the Pitocin--really??). At some point around 1:30, my doctor came in and said that we really needed to go ahead and get baby out and needed to do a c-section. My whole pregnancy I was hoping and praying I wouldn't have to deliver via c-section, but at that point I was almost relieved because I was so nervous about putting the baby into even more stress when I went into active labor/pushing, etc. So 10 minutes later they wheeled me out (after a pep talk from my mom, who had a c-section with me) and down to the operating room.

I think Clint and I were both petrified of the surgery; I know I was. The second they wheeled me in, I started shivering! It was the strangest thing, though the anesthesiologist (blessed, blessed man) told me that shivering was very common (??). I got my spinal block of morphine, which caused me to need to vomit/pass out, so I got more meds for THAT. Lol. I was SOOOO nervous knowing I was about to get cut open, and I just couldn't stop shaking. Finally they brought Clint back so he was right next to me when they began. I definitely did NOT like the sensations of the cutting and pulling out the baby (that was the worst part), but I am SO thankful my baby boy is here and safe.


I was so drugged up that the moment he was born and they held him up over the curtain, it was so surreal, and I just laid there smiling. I think I may have said "awww..." Lol! The first real words I remember saying were when they called out his weight, and I said "Really?!" because I really thought he'd weigh much more!

Anyway, that's my birth story. Well, Hudson's birth story. :) A dramatic entrance to the world, which is scary--he must take after me!

Well, for all of those people (including me) who have thought all along that this baby would come early, we were wrong! :)

I'll be 40 weeks on Wednesday, and baby Hudson does not seem to be in any type of hurry to enter the world! We sure are ready to meet him, though, and we go back to the doctor on Tuesday afternoon. It is likely, depending on his size, that I'll be induced Wednesday. So he may be born on my due date after all, which is so rare! :)

I haven't really had the whole hard-core nesting phase, just experienced it off and on. I've felt so awful for the last few weeks (and have been on bed rest for 2 weeks), I haven't had much energy to do a ton, so thankfully Clint has been amazing and doing tons of stuff around the house, and my mom has come over to help me a few times. She and our good friend, Debbie, came over to clean one day, too, which was awesome.

Hudson's room is all ready for him, so I'll share some pictures. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I knew I wanted bright colors, not pastels, and no typical baby theme (trains, bears, etc), so here's what we ended up with: