Mason's 2nd Bath

You may have noticed the title said Mason's 2nd bath. Well, the reason I didn't post something about his first bath is because I was too nervous to let Dawn leave my side long enough to get the camera to take pictures of him! I was afraid I would drop him or that he would slide in the water. I am a bit embarrassed to say that my knees were actually weak when we finished! Mason on the otherhand did not know that I was freaking out. He LOVED the warm water and did great. So far he loves getting a bath. I hope that doesn't change for a long time. For now, I have decided that Dawn can do the bathing and I will do the drying. Sounds like a great plan to me! Until next time....

I have been Ms. Betty Crocker this week!

Most of you know that I am not the one who cooks in our house. That is Dawn's "job". She is a great cook and can create a meal out of just about anything. Me on the other hand, not so much. When it is necessary for me to cook, I usually either grill chicken and put something with it or put on a meal in a bag and that is the extent of it. However, for the past week or so I have felt a little guilty about being at home all day and Dawn being at work and her having to come home to fix dinner. Now we all know that I am not home alone doing absolutely nothing but I still feel a bit guilty so I decided to search out recipes to attempt to make. Many of my facebook friends emailed me some awesome recipes that I am sure to try one day soon but the first recipe I tried came from the Kraft Food & Family magazine that I get in the mail. The recipe is Velveeta tex-mex beef and potatoes. It doesn't look all that great in the picture but tasted wonderful. If you are interested the ingredients are as follows:

1 lb ground beef
1 red pepper, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 pkg. (1 1/4 oz) Taco Seasoning Mix
1/2 cup water
4 cups frozen cubed southern style hash browns
1 pkg. (10oz) frozen corn
1/2 lb (80z) Velveeta Cheese cut into cubes

Heat oven to 350. Brown meat with peppers and onions in large skillet; drain. Return to skillet. Stir in taco mix and water. Add potatoes, corn and Velveeta; mix well. Spoon into 13X9 baking dish; cover. Bake 20 min; stir. Bake uncovered for additional 15 min or until heated through.

Mason is 3 weeks old today!

It is hard to believe that Mason is already 3 weeks old. My where does the time go. Everyone told me that the time would fly by and to enjoy every minute with him.

Today, I put Mason down on his activity mat. He loved it. He laid there looking around at all of the fun things hanging over his head. He would occasionally pull at them but for the most part just laid there content for about 20 minutes. He would have laid there longer but got the dreaded hiccups. He seems to get those all of the time. I should be used to him having them since he had them in utereo 3 times a day without fail.

Mason is sleeping right now. I should be napping but have not mastered sleeping during the day yet. I am very tired and sleepy but when I lay down, I cannot fall asleep. It is so annoying so I decided to take a few minutes to update this blog and put some new pictures on Facebook. We have taken so many pictures of him. It is hard for me to decide what pictures to post. He is so darn cute. I want to post them all for everyone to see. He is waking up so I need to get ready to feed him. Until next time....

Mi Mi and Mason

Dawn (Mi Mi) had to return to work earlier this week so she has missed Mason a lot during the day. We have truly missed her as well. When she gets home, she tries to spend as much time with Mason as possible. Tonight, she read the Smithsonian magazine to him. As you can see, he wasn't very interested so decided he would sleep instead. Can't say I blame him. I usually read those kinds of magazines to make me fall asleep as well.

Dawn has been awesome with him and with me over the past couple of weeks. My harmones are still raging so there have been some emotional moments in our house lately. I know she hates to see me cry so I try not to let her see my tears but there have been times that I couldn't help myself. I sure hope the crazy things with my harmones straighten out sometime real soon! I am so lucky to have such a wonderful partner. She puts balance in our relationship when it is needed. And the past couple of days, I have definitely needed her!

Gi Gi had to go home

Today was a sad day. My mom (Gi Gi) had to leave today to go home. She has been with us for Mason's first week of life. Having her here was quite the security blanket for us. While I have spent a lot of time caring for children, there was something overwhelming about the thought of us being on our own to care for Mason. I don't think Dawn was as scared as I was which is usually the case. I am happy to say that our first night without her was fine. It ended up not being as scary as I thought. Mason had a good night so he must have known mommy was worried about how things would go without Gi Gi. Mom, we miss you and cannot wait to see you!

Mason's Birth Story

On Wednesday, August 5, I went to the doctor for a follow up visit to find out about the protein levels from my 24 hour collection and the status of my blood pressure. At that visit, it was confirmed that I had developed preeclampsia and would need to be induced sooner than later. The doctor did not waste any time making arrangements with the doctor on call and sending me to the hospital. He told me to go straight home, get my things together, get Dawn and go to the hospital. Talk about a major rush of adrenalin. I was immediately filled with all sorts of emotions. They ranged from “oh my God” this is the big day to “is something is going to be wrong with the baby due to the issues with the preeclampsia”. I called Dawn and told her to get home as soon as possible that it was time. I also made all of the calls that I was supposed to make to our families while I was driving home.

When I arrived at home, I could tell that Dawn was really nervous. It was funny that she was more nervous than I was. Well truthfully, I was nervous but was on a mission to get our things together and get to the hospital. It took us about 20 minutes to get everything together and we were off to the hospital. We got to the hospital around 5:30pm and we checked in and taken to a room within 15 minutes. Once in our room, the nurses checked all of my vitals and got everything entered in to the computer. Once that was over the waiting began. We waited on Dr. Chappell to come by to decide whether she would begin the induction that evening or if my they would just monitor my blood pressure. She came by around 8:30 and decided to start me on Pitocin to get the contractions going. I anticipated that things would begin to happen sometime within the next couple of hours. Unfortunately that was not the case.

Mom and Dad arrived at 9:30 that evening hoping that their grandson would be born within the next couple of hours. Now we all just sit and wait for things to begin happening. Annie, my nurse, continued to increase the Pitocin every 30 minutes hoping to get the right dosage to cause some significant contractions. Still nothing happening after 4 hours, so the waiting continues. We tried to get some sleep but with my dad snoring loud enough for our neighbors to hear and the fact that someone came in to the room every half hour to check my vitals, sleeping was almost impossible.

After a couple more hours of receiving the Pitocin, we got a bit of a scare when Mason’s heart rate dropped significantly. Annie came in and had me move to my right side, then to my left side then back to the right again. At first she didn’t tell me what she was doing. Once she saw Mason’s heart rate recover, she told me what was happening. I asked what could be the cause and she said he could have been laying on his umbilical cord and could have just pressed it the wrong way. Of course, this scared the crap out of all of us. They had to decrease the Pitocin to allow time for Mason to fully recover. What that meant, was basically starting the entire induction process all over again. We continued through the entire night with not much happening with the contractions.

At 7:30am, Thursday, August 6 Dr. Chappell was finishing up her shift so she came in to tell me that Dr. Gunter would be coming on and they had discussed my status and that he would be in to see me within the hour. Dr. Gunter came in around 9:30am and asked if I was ready for him to break my water. I said, yes. Let’s get things moving. I was not sure what to expect but let’s just say it wasn’t bad at all. Within an hour of breaking my water, I finally started feeling contractions. A lot took place between 9:30 and 11:30. Wow, this is really happening now. My contractions were pretty significant at this point and I was dilated to a 6. At 11:45, Val, my nurse for this shift, came in and asked if I was ready for my epidural. I told her I would wait a little longer. Boy was that a big mistake. Within 15 minutes, I was begging for the anesthesiologist to get to my room. As my luck would have it, the anesthesiologist was busy with the 4 other women in active labor on the OB floor. I was begging for someone to get to my soon. I was dilated to a 9 at this point and in pretty significant pain. FINALLY the anesthesiologist got to me and administered the epidural at 1:00pm. Within 15 minutes, my pain had pretty much had gone away. Love the drugs! For all of those women that delivered their babies without drugs, you deserve a medal. I do not know how you did it but more power to you!

My contractions continued to get stronger and closer together so we were thinking it would soon be show time. Well, Mason obviously wasn’t in any hurry to get here so we waited another 2 hours hoping things would happen soon. At 3:30, Val and Dr. Gunter came in to check my progress and decided that it was time for me to start pushing. Dawn and my mom were my leg holders during this process. My legs were completely numb so they had to lift them and hand them to me in order for me to push. I pushed and pushed and pushed for an hour and the little booger was still not ready to come out. Dr. Gunter checked to see where Mason was located and determined that his head was turned slightly to the right which was part of the reason he was having difficulty moving further down. He suggested that I lay on my right side to see if he would turn on his own. After 30 minutes of laying still, Mason didn’t turn enough to make a difference. It was at this point that Dr. Gunter said he would suggest a forceps delivery. I asked him if it would hurt Mason in any way. He responded by saying not on my watch! Dr. Gunter then left to go check on other patients. He returned in a few minutes and said he had to go do an emergency c-section on another patient and that I would need to labor down for the next hour until he could return. They turned the Pitocin down and we waited. While this was a bit discouraging, it was good for me to rest. I was completely exhausted.

At 6:00pm, Dr. Gunter came back in my room and asked if I was ready to have my baby. I said, YES, let’s get him out. I pushed for another 30 minutes and at that time, Dr. Gunter said in order to avoid a c-section, he would suggest that I stop pushing and let him deliver Mason via forceps. I told him to do whatever he needed to do to get Mason out. I was ready to meet him. As Dr. Gunter got everything together, I was pretty anxious at this point. I was really worried that the forceps would hurt my baby. The nurse told me that if I had to choose a Dr. to do the forceps delivery, that Dr. Gunter was the best there was at that hospital. This of course made me feel better.

After 3 tugs with the forceps, Mason was delivered. His cord was wrapped around his neck so Dr. Gunter had to take care of that before putting Mason on my chest. As soon as Mason was placed on my chest, I began to cry. I was crying so hard I couldn’t see him. I said can someone get me a tissue, I can’t see my baby. Val wiped my eyes and I got to see my little Mason for the first time. Words cannot express the feelings that I felt at that time. He was absolutely perfect. Dawn cut the umbilical cord and they took Mason over to get him cleaned up.
Mason Parker Grooms came in to this world weighing 7lbs 12ozs and was 21 inches long. He was healthy and passed all of his first tests. After he was all cleaned up, the nurse gave him to his GiGi (his gradmother). GiGi held him for a few minutes then gave him to his MiMi (Dawn). After Dr. Gunter was finished fixing me up, I was able to hold Mason. It was the most amazing time ever. He was just adorable! The nurses came to get him to take him to the nursery to give him his first bath and check him over again. It took about an hour for them to do their thing before they brought him back to me. As soon as he was returned to us, I was able to feed him. He did great for his first time breastfeeding.

We were then transferred to another room for the remainder of our stay in the hospital. Mason stayed with us for a little while then went to the nursery so we could get a couple hours of sleep before it was time for him to eat again. Those few hours of sleep were needed and were just enough to get us through the night.

On Friday, August 7 Mason got to meet his Aunt Stacey, Uncle Eric and cousin, Joshua. Joshua was so cute with him. Several other visitors came throughout the day to meet Mason. It was a great day. Friday night was a bit rough. Mason cried a lot and seemed to have gas or was it pain from his circumcision. Not sure but he was not a happy camper. We finally got him settled down enough to eat and he went to the nursery for a few hours so his mommies could get a couple hours of sleep.

On Saturday, August 8 we were all ready to go home. The pediatrician came in to check Mason out and gave him a great report and released him to go home. Dr. Miller came in to check me and gave me a good report to go home. We were all excited to leave and get home. As we got in the car and was leaving the hospital, I was overwhelmed with emotions. I began to cry and said to Dawn that the realization had just set in. Again, words cannot describe how I was feeling at that time.

Meeting Mason

I am so excited that it is only a matter of days before we finally get to meet our son, Mason. That is all I have been thinking about for the past couple of days. I am sure the mommies out there can relate to what I am saying. Over the past couple of weeks, I have had very vivid dreams about what he will look like. While many couples have an idea of what their newborn will look like, we only have half of an idea. We do know the characteristics of our donor which are blonde hair, blue eyes, olive complexion and so forth but have no idea about his facial features and such. UNC did photo matching for us and matched us with someone that closely resembled both Dawn and I so I am sure he will be adorable. While there is some uncertainty about he will look like, there is no uncertainty about how much we already love him.

Reflection....

Today was a very relaxing day for Dawn and I. As we sat around doing absolutely nothing on a rainy, Sunday afternoon it gave me an opportunity to reflect on the last 8.5 years that we have been together. It is hard to believe that we have already been together that long. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that it has been a long 8.5 years, it actually feels like it was just yesterday that we first met. The way we met is a very interesting one but one that I will not share at this time. Within months of meeting each other, our friendship turned into a wonderful relationship. We have so much in common yet we also have our own hobbies and interests. I am pretty sure this is the main reason we were so drawn to each other and why we get along so great. Life as just the two of us has been wonderful and I will cherish each day that we have spent together as a gift. As we count down the days until the next chapter in our lives begins, I wanted to be sure to remind Dawn how much I love her and how much she means to me. She is not only my life partner; she is also my best friend. She is the person that I have always dreamed about spending my life with and raising a family with. We are proof that dreams definitely do come true.

In less than 15 days, our son will arrive in this world and will transform our family of two into a family of three. While words cannot explain how excited I am, I have to admit I am also quite scared. I am full of questions that can only be answered with time. One thing that I am sure of is even though I will have a new little son to love, I will continue to love Dawn more and more every day. I promise her that she will always have my heart and that I will always value our life together. I know she will be a wonderful mommy to Mason and will continue to be a wonderful partner to me.

Until next time….