Such a happy baby

My Nana

Mommy LOVES this outfit and the hair

Mommy and Parker

My first Sunday at home in KC

My little turkey

Sorry once again it has taken me a long time to post;) So here is a ton of pics from our time so far in Kansas City. We love being home and have loved seeing all of our friends and family. Parker has been such a great baby being in so many new places and seeing so many new faces. I have truly begun to see just how easy going he is. I hope you enjoy the pictures. Nana has spoiled this baby rotten with all of these cute clothes. Just wait unitl you see his christmas outfits=)

Whitney came to visit!

I'm sorry I haven't posted in while the lil monster is starting to stay awake longer throughout the day. He honestly is so fun now with all of his smiling and cooing. Michael and I love when he starts "telling stories" ha ha! We had a special treat this month, our great friend Whitney came to visit! Parker loved snuggling with her and mom really loved being able to take a shower that lasted longer than 5 minutes=) I also loved having some adult conversation during the day=) I mean I love "talking" with my lil man but you can't beat sitting and catching up with a great friend. I stole Whitney's pictures that she took while she was here. As you can see Parker has found his hand and boy he loves to suck on it. He actually has found his thumb a couple of times and went to town sucking on it. So we will see if he is going to be a binkie baby or a thumb sucking baby?? He also LOVES his swing and so does mom. He takes about a 3-4 hour nap every morning in that thing. OH it is wonderful I get most of my house work done in the morning and then have the rest of the day to play with my lil man. I had my first time alone with Parker, Michael was away at shooting school for a week. He REALLY missed his lil P while he was away. He couldn't wait to get home and love on him. We were really excited to show daddy that we now sleep 5-6 hours straight through the night WOO HOO! Parker has his two month appt coming up and we are anxious to see how much our lil guy weighs at his 2 month appt. At around a month he was weighing around 12.2 lbs. His ped calls him the football player. The nurse that weighed him couldn't believe how big he was, mommy knows how big he is, she pushed him out, ha ha!!! Well that is about it hope everyone is fantastic. Have a blessed and happy Thanksgiving I know we will!!!!

Our beautiful baby in his Sunday best

I took some pictures of Parker in his Sunday outfit and FINALLY had time to post them. He has just started to smile and coo, it is so wonderful! We had professional pictures taken today so I will hopefully be able to post some of those soon. At 4 weeks Parker was weighing 12.2 lbs so who knows how big our baby is now. I had my 6 week check up and everything looked great. The Keenan family is fantastic. We will be in town from Nov. 26th to Jan 2nd and we can't wait. Michael will leave for a school for a couple of weeks but will then come back to KC!!!! We can't wait for all of our friends and family to meet our WONDERFUL baby boy!

In awe of my friend

What an amazing picture, I took this off of her myspace

I just wanted to take the time to post about my friend who I am truly in awe of. Michael and I met this couple while in North Carolina. Michael was in the same school as my friends husband. I met her at the pool in my apartment complex, at a time when I really needed a good friend God sent her to me and we quickly became good friends. Our husbands also got along great and we enjoyed many date nights together! We unfortunately did not get stationed at the same base so we went our separate ways but still kept in touch. We found out around the sametime that we were pregnant and shared in our joy over the phone. We continued to talk through out our pregnancies updating eachother often and sharing pictures of our bellies over our cell phones. We were both hoping for girls but God had different plans and blessed us both with baby boys. Her baby boy was due exactly one week after Parker. Of course as you all know Parker decided to come late so my friend ended up having her baby the day after I had Parker. How amazing! We talked on the phone as we both sat in the hospital. The only difference is that Parker was beside me as my friend sat without her baby boy because he was taken to another hospital due to some complications. She was very strong about it and had such a good attitude about it all. I was amazed at how well she was handling it. It made me feel bad for complaining about being in the hospital and being so anxious to get home. Her baby has not gotten better, he is a month and 5 days old and they have told her and her husband that he will not ever be able to breathe on his own and basically will never be there mentally. She sat and told me all of this and sounded so strong I on the other hand broke down and began to sob, of course making her cry we both sat on the phone and cried. I didn't know what to say, what do you say? They have decided that it would be best for their baby boy to take him off the breathing machine and of course the nurses and doctors will not do anything to revive him, they will let him go. Over the weekend they had a photographer come in and take professional pictures of their family and the nurses made molds of the baby's hands and feet. I am in awe of my friend and her strength through all of this. She told me she felt blessed to have had this time with him. She chose not to focus on him dying but on him living. I know this has made me realize that the little insignificant problems in my life are really not that bad. I thought I would share this story to make us all appreciate the time we have with your loved ones and not to sweat the small things that happen in life. I pray to God every night that they will find comfort in their time of sorrow. God never gives you something that you can't handle he must know what a strong family they are. Please pray for this family. This post is for my friend to let her know how amazing I think she is, I am blessed to know someone that is so strong and a true inspiration to me.

Happy Halloween

We hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween! Michael and I did; Parker on the other hand slept through most of the trick or treaters. He FINALLY woke up and we stuck him in his tiger costume and took a few pictures. We really wanted to take more but the lil monster was not cooperating. It seems the evenings tend to be when he wants to be a fussy pants, and eat, and eat, and eat. Michael and I really enjoyed all of the cute trick or treaters and we both can't wait until Parker is old enough to take trick or treating. I had to laugh when I told Michael to only give out 2 pieces of candy to each kid, he seemed to follow those instructions with the older kids but when it came to the cute young ones not so much. This lil guy in a monster outfit holding a sword pointed right at Michael when he opened the door really stole Michael's heart and are candy, ha ha! Overall we enjoyed our first Halloween with lil P!

Halloween... this is for you Nana

We promised Nana that we would take a picture of Parker in his Halloween outfit. I put this on him to go to our MOPS group. This is not his costume, he will be a tiger on the day of Halloween and of course I will take plenty of pics then! He will be all dressed up to greet the trick or treaters at the door. I'll be posting more pictures later! OH and we have to thank Aunt Jamie(mimi) for the pumpkin hat we LOVE IT and we LOVE YOU!!!

mommy loves to play with my long hair

I had to take some pictures of Parker after his bath this morning because he looked so dang cute with his hair spiked up. I love playing with his hair after a bath and he actually loves when we brush his hair. He hated baths at first but he actually is beginning to like them and doesn't cry at all during them anymore. Michael and I are doing great and getting the whole "parent" thing down pretty well. I am getting use to running on 5-6 hours of sleep and trying to take naps when he does BUT if you know my mom then you know how I am there is too much to be done around the house to nap. Overall life is wonderful and we are still thanking God for such a beautiful healthy baby boy.

2 week photo shoot

2 week appt

Parker had his two week appointment on Friday and is now weighing 10.5 lbs I guess mommy's milk is doing it's job. At his 3-5 baby check up he weighed 9.13 so he has gained quite a bit in the past week. I had to laugh at how big Parker looked compared to the other babies there for the two week baby appt. He looked HUGE. Our pediatrican said Parker looked great so we don't have to go back to the doc until he is two months old, for the dreaded shots YIKES! Nana and Papa leave on Monday to go back to Kansas City so that will be very sad. Papa couldn't wait to see Parker and hasn't stopped kissing on him since he got here on Friday. I have to say Michael and I have been SPOILED with Nana here, she has cooked, cleaned, and taken Parker in the morning so mommy can sleep for a few more hours. I can't thank her enough for everything she has done for us in the past three weeks. We will really miss her=( I have to say Michael has been AMAZING he is so involved, I can honestly say he has changed way more diapers than I have=) What a great daddy! Well I will post new pics soon.

5 days old

Here is Parker Gabriel Keenan at 5 days old. A lot of the swelling in his face has gone down, he is just so darn cute. Well at least mommy, daddy, and nana think so! We had a 3-5 baby check-up yesterday and he was weighing in at 9.14 so he hasn't lost too much weight. This did not surprise me because it feels like he is constantly attached to me wanting to nurse, we actually have to also feed him 2 oz of formula at each feeding to make him content. What can I say he is a big baby and LOVES to eat! His jaundice levels also came down quite a bit so he did not have to be readmitted to the hospital to be put under the lights, thank goodness. He has been sleeping great at night so far he gets up around 2-3 times a night to feed and once we change his diaper he usually is ready to fall back asleep. It has been great having Nana around because she will take him in the morning after I nurse which lets Michael and I sleep a little longer. What am I going to do when she leaves????=) Babies are truly a blessing from above=)

Now that we are home I thought I would sit down and post a few new pics and write out Parker's birth story. So we went to the hospital for a scheduled induction at 7:30 on Saturday the 27th. I was dilated to a 3 and 80% effaced but Parker was still pretty high up and was facing the wrong way. I received the pitocin around 9:00 am starting with a small dose and was then checked 4 hours later and was 4 cm dilated and 90% effaced but Parker was still facing the wrong way and still pretty far up. The midwife said everytime she would check me she could feel his head but he would quickly pull it up away from her hand, stubborn boy. They decided to up the pitocin and when I was checked the next time I was dilated to a 6 and fully effaced and REALLY beginning to have terrible back contractions due to Parker being faced the wrong way. I decided to get an epidural and it really took the edge off of the pain, I could still feel the pain in my back but it was tolerable. The nurses again upped the pitocin and the next time I was checked I was dilated to 9cm and almost ready to go. My contractions continued to get stronger and much closer together and around 11:30 there was NO time inbetween each contraction and before I could even say I was ready to push the nurses and midwives were in our roon. They are continually watching the monitors at the front desk and could see my contractions were back to back. So they prepped everything and I began pushing at 12:00. Little did I know they call labor LABOR for a reason. Parker was still facing the wrong way and they warned me they would try everything possible to turn him but he may come out facing my hip bone which can make labor much harder and longer, GREAT =(. I was put in every kind of position to make him turn and help me push and nothing was seeming to work. Then the midwife brought out a towel and told me to grab one end and tug and a nurse tugged on the other side, so with every contraction I would pull and this helped to make me push even harder. It did help me to push better but Parker just would not turn. I have to say I made a promise I would not get loud but when his head begin to crown but stayed half in, half out for 30 minutes I begin to get loud. At this point the midwife left to go get the doctor thinking that this baby may not come out on his own. The doctor came in and looked at me and told me I could do this on my own without any help from a vacuum. I made my mind up that I was going to get this baby out on my own. Finally after two and half hours of pushing and a second degree tear Parker joined us at 2:16 in the morning weighing 10lbs 2oz and measuring 23 inches long. EVERYONE was shocked at how big of a boy he was, including me! I just began to cry I couldn't believe how beautiful he was I was overwhelmed with how perfect he was. We are just in love. He is struggling a little with breastfeeding, being that he is such a big boy we are also giving him formula just until my milk completely comes in. Well we will keep you updated and post more pics later. As you can see Daddy can NOT put him down=)

The Big Day

We are just throwing up some pictures for everyone to see we will give the detailed story later. Parker was born around 2 am on the 28th of September weighing 10 lbs 2 oz and was 23 in long. There will be much more to follow when we get home and settled.

Update

I had an appointment today with my midwife and it went VERY well! I am dilated to 3cm and 70% effaced. She asked me how ready I was and I said "very ready!" So she said to call at 6:30 in the morning tomorrow and if there is a room available to go ahead and come in and they will induce. She said I was in great shape to be induced and help this baby out! Now we hope that there is a room available at some point tomorrow and if not tomorrow then in the near future. OR maybe he will come on his own tonight which would be wonderful. Anyways we are extremely excited and it feels almost surreal that we will be holding our little boy here soon. Amazing feeling. Michael can't quit talking about it he is so excited I don't think I have ever seen him this way. It truly is ALL he can think about right now! Well we will update you tomorrow hopefully we will be in the hospital. My mom or I (depending on how I am feeling) should be able to update you even if we are in the hospital becuase there is wireless internet in our room and we are going to bring the computer.

THERE IS A LIGHT AT THE END OF THIS TUNNEL

Here is the latest update...... as stated in my previous post I did not get to see my midwife at my last appointment (she was out sick). So I called and left her a message two days ago and received a call from her this morning. She was not happy with how I was treated when she was gone mainly that they didn't even schedule me an appt with her again until 10 days over my due date. She asked me to come in tomorrow while she is working labor and delivery so she can strip my membranes one more time (I can't wait jk) and to hook me up to the monitors to see if I am having any contractions. THEN we are going to schedule my induction for Monday if there is a room available (as of right now she feels we will have no problem getting a room). She feels there is NO reason to go over anymore than 7 days past my due date seeing as Parker is weighing a little on the big side. I am still going to have an ultrasound done on Saturday just to check on Parker and to weigh our lil tank. Please pray that Parker comes on his own before then, I really didn't want to have to be induced, it is much harder for mom and baby. At the sametime I am really ready to have our baby in my arms so I am willing to try the induction. Thank you for your continued prayers. I will update again after my appt tomorrow and again after our ultrasound on Sat. THEN hopefully the next post will be announcing our baby boys arrival.

Midwife Appointment

My mother and I went to my "almost" 40 week appointment today only to arrive and find out my midwife is out sick. So I had to be seen by another midwife which was a little upsetting being that my midwife and I were going to possibly set a day to induce due to the size of Parker. I was still optimistic and feeling like I would really be dilated more and showing signs of being close. WELL that is not at all what happened I actually am still at 2 cm and Parker still needs to come down a little furthur he is being quite stubborn he gets that from his father. She told me as of RIGHT now it doesn't look like he will be arriving anytime soon BUT that easily can change within hours and there is really no way of knowing. This is not what I wanted to hear and began to sob I am so ready physically and emotionally to have our baby here with us. This midwife that I was seeing decided that our baby does feel very large she is estimating him at over 8.5 lbs right now so decided to order an ultrasound. SO we have an ultrasound on Saturday to try and see exactly how big he is. If he is measuring large and obviously if I have not had him by then, THEN they will talk about inducing. I am going to call my midwife tomorrow to see what she thinks about everything. BUT until then I will sit and patiently wait for our baby boy to arrive. I feel very blessed to have my mother here to help me keep my sanity=) Please pray that he arrives soon as I honestly am very uncomfortable and do NOT want to have a 9 lb baby.

STILL PREGNANT

Well here we are I'm still pregnant and Parker is still warm and cozy inside mommy. So my awful contractions have subsided to a crampy feeling. I sat up ALL night with contractions getting worse and worse to end up not having much of anything this morning. Hopefully when I go to see my midwife (who works at a hospital I am NOT having a home birth) I will be dilated more than a 2. This will at least make me feel like drinking the castor oil and having contractions all night accomplished something. Once again I will update ya'll when something happens!

4:45 am

Well it is early in the morning and as you can see I am not sleeping due to being VERY uncomfortable. Did I say good contractions in my last blog I take that back they are NO fun. They are tolerable right now so I'm not running to wake anyone up just yet. I am also scared they will fizzle away like they have in the past week. It does feel different this time because they are getting stronger. So we will see what happens. I was hoping to get some sleep to be better prepared for labor if and when it happens but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. I guess I should get use to the lack of sleep! It is really hard to be a first time pregnant woman, you can't tell what is really happening with your body, I just hope when I decide to go to the labor and delivery ward they don't sent me back home and say it was false labor. I guess we will have to wait and see. I will continue to update this as much as possible, I got a speech from my mother about how many people get on to read this so I need to update more often. So thank you for caring so much about how we are doing and it is the least I can do for ya'll who are taking the time to check up on us!

Update!

Well as you can see I am huge!! Everything is swollen from my face to my toes. I am ready to evict this baby! My mother and father are here with hopes that this baby comes this weekend. I decided tonight to make a castor oil shake. Castor oil is a natural laxative that can help to start labor. Your body has to be ready for it to actually work and with my cervix thin and dilated to 2 cm it could work. I took it about 3 hours ago and I have started having some good contractions, yes I called contractions good at this point I am really ready to have this baby. So I will keep ya'll updated as to what happens with this whole castor oil thing. If I have not gone into labor by the morning than it obviously did not work. Well pray that this works and Mr. Parker enters the world!!!

39 Week Appt

Well I went to see my midwife for my 39 week appointment and quite a a few things took place. She checked my cervix and I am almost 2 cm dilated so that was pretty exciting. She decided to strip my membranes because Mr. Parker is already weighing a little over 8 lbs and is gaining an oz a day and we still have a week to go, YIKES! So she was hoping to help speed the process up a little. Which by the way did not feel all that great, but oh well anything to see our baby sooner. Then we listened to the heartbeat and it is usually around 150 beats and today is was a little over 180. I was very freaked out because it has NEVER been over 150. My midwife sent me to the NST room where I was monitored for 30 minutes and during that time I watched his heartbeat go form 110 to 180 and anywhere in between. I have never been SO worried in my life. I started to tear up a little and she comforted me by saying it was beginning to level out. I drank plenty of water while sitting there. For the last 10 minutes his heartbeat stayed at around 145-150 so he had calmed down. I honestly just think he is ready to come out. My midwife felt just fine with that and sent us on home. Since I've had my membranes stripped I have been spotting and having light contractions. Oh I almost forgot.....during the monitoring I also was able to watch contractions that I was having and I couldn't even feel them, YEAH maybe that is how labor will be, ha ha ha jk! So anyways we will see what happens. Could be the beginning signs of labor or just a tease=) All in all I am just SO happy that he is ok and nothing was wrong. We also talked a little bit about inducing if I go over my due date and my midwife has said from the very beginning that she will wait 7-10 after a due date before even talking about inducing. WELL after seeing how big Parker is already she said she probably won't even let me go a few days past my due date. Of course Michael is super excited to have a big ole boy for a son but I simply say "of course you are because you aren't the one squeezing this big ole boy out, but remember you will be right beside me during the time I am squeezing this big ole boy out!" HA HA HA!!! Well I will keep you all updated!

38 week appointment

So I had my 38 week appt (I will be 38 weeks tomorrow so we will just round up today) and my midwife checked my cervix to see how things were progressing. My cervix has softened but no dialation going on yet. I can't complain though because she didn't even think anything would have really been going on yet since this is my first pregnancy. I was also very excited to learn that he is still head down so hopefully he stays that way. I am so ready to have him here but I really want him to come on his own, meaning I want to avoid being induced at all costs. BUT don't get me wrong if I am over my due date I don't think I would turn it down=) My midwife thinks he will come right around his due date so we will see. Only 14 days left I keep telling myself it's only two weeks that is nothing! I also have my mother coming the weekend of the 19th so that gives me something to look forward to. I can't imagine her not being here for this, she has ALWAYS been there for me and I know with her and Michael by my side things will go much better=) She wants to play it safe and come a few days before my due date. She is going to stay for a couple of weeks after Parker is born to help out, a true blessing. We are hoping Parker decides to come while my Dad is here the weekend of the 19th. We have a whole list of people that can't wait to meet him it is a wonderful feeling! Well I will update you again after my next appointment on the 15th.

So as you can see I am doing anything at this point to help past the time till our lil one arrives. I had a very rough night last night trying to sleep, TRYING is the key word. I was very uncomfortable and poor Michael was not sleeping so well with me in so much misery. So this morning when our alarm went off to get up for church he quickly turned it off and let me sleep, knowing the last three nights I have gone without sleep and decided maybe she should sleep in. I HATE that we missed church but I am feeling a little better. While I am on the subject of churches we have been attending a new Church of Christ that is closer to home and LOVE it, the preacher is wonderful. We enjoy his Sunday morning sermons and LOVE his Wed. night class. I feel like our prayers have been answered to find a better church home for us. ANYWAYS I woke up and received an e-mail from a friend of mine with this website that would allow you to see what your baby could possibly look like. Michael and I tried many different pictures and laughed our heads off. I decided I would post this one, we will see if he looks anything like this. Well I hope you get a good laugh out of it. Don't you just love his teeth and his BIG ole head. Well I will continue to keep everyone updated. Just to let you know I have had contractions on and off but nothing consistent. I have my 38 week doc appt tomorrow hopefully she will check me and we can see if this baby is progressing in the right direction. Fingers crossed!

So my parents came this weekend and brought all of our gifts from our shower in Kansas City. We FINALLY could complete the nursery. It turned out AMAZING as you can see. We even turned his huge closet into a little playroom (pictures on top), I can't quit peeking in his room! Michael and I can't thank my parents enough for driving 8 hours to bring everything and then working so hard to get Parker's room all set up. We just LOVE it. I think he will too=) Now all we need is Parker to complete everything.