first professional pics (2 weeks old)

Happy New Years!

We spent the first part of the evening last night at B's Uncle Mike and Aunt Tammys house. We had yummy food (which included a chocolate fondue, YUMM) and just hung out with his family. Elias slept the WHOLE ENTIRE time. Sheesh. Ha. Then we went home, put Elias to bed and watch the ball drop together. WOW, we are exciting. Definitely a lot different from a few years ago when we were wondering where THE place to be for New Years Eve was. Most likely at a bar. I wouldnt trade it for the world though, because it was perfect.
Today Auntie Kyle and Uncle Wags came to visit Elias for the first time. He was pretty boring as usual. He slept pretty much the whole time, but Auntie Kyle did get to feed him and cuddle with him. And we even got Wags to hold him so he could get the baby fever! (we are anxiously waiting for them to give Elias some playmates :)
I'm super mad that I didnt get any pics. I got ONE of Wags holding him and ONE of him in his cute onesie that I got from Old Navy that says Happy New Years. But you cant even see what it says. BUMMER. Oh well. HAPPY 2009 EVERYONE!!!

Wordless Wednesday

ONE WEEK OLD!!!

Our little monkey is one week old and we are still alive :) He gained back the weight that he lost because of his jaundice so he is back to his birth weight and then some.

One week old.
8 lbs 4ozs
20 in long

(yes he shrunk an inch but pedi said thats normal because babies are all stretched out at birth so they can fit through birth canal)

Nothing like a trip to the ER on Christmas morning

Since Elias' bilirubin levels were not very good at his follow up pedi appt they decided he needed the bilirubin blanket, which also meant we had to visited by a home health care nurse each morning so she could prick his heal to check his levels. Well the one that came today thought he was breathing funny, which freaked us out. (EXACTLY what a first time parent of a 6 day old baby wants to hear!) She had us call the oncall pedi and see what they had to say. Well since the pedi couldnt see him over the phone she thought it would be better safe than sorry and take him to the pediatric er at Chippinham. Talk about FREAKED out. Sean and Chantel had just shown up at our house right when all this was happening so it was complete chaos. The home health care nurse was preparing us for the worst. She told us to pack a bag because we would probably have to stay over night to monitor him. Tears were streaming down my face and I could see B's eyes start to tear up. When we got to the ER they took us back right away. The pedi there came and looked at him and she said he was perfectly fine. She thinks that his full belly from eating was just pressing on his diaphram and thats what caused his funny breathing. She wanted to get us out of there as soon as possible and told us not to touch anything on the way out. She hated that we had a newborn baby at the ER during the middle of flu season. Ummmm....SO DID WE! After all that chaos, things calmed down and we had Christmas dinner at our house! Crazy. Our first hosted holiday dinner. (and maybe our first dinner that we had had people over!)It went pretty well. Wasnt anything fancy considering we had a newborn, but it was fun. We had planned on going to B's parents but we couldnt take our lil monkey away from his tail. AKA the bilirubin blanket. So they came to us. :) Hope everyone had an amazing holiday :)

Merry Christmas!!!
We got our present a little early :)

what's in a name?

Early on in the pregnancy we decided to keep his name a secret. Everyone already knew it was boy so we wanted to keep something a surprise. That and naming your child is definitely one of the hardest tasks I have come across in life. The whole time we were dating we were determined we were going to name our first boy Braedon. But as time went by it became a VERY popular name and we didnt want our baby to be one of 3 Braedons in his kindergarden class. When we found out we were prego we decided that we really liked biblical names. For quite a while we had narrowed the names down to Noah and Silas. But we were lost on middle names. Brendon really liked Knight, which was his moms maiden middle name, but Noah Knight didnt sound good together and I couldnt help but think of Silent Night every time i said Silas Knight. One day while we were driving back from an appointment Brendon said he really liked Elias. And although he had mentioned the name before, I saw it in a new light. So a name was born. Elias Knight Jewell.

Ps. I will say that I feel like I could never really be 100% sure on a name until I saw my babys face. When I met my baby for the first time, he just looked like an Elias Knight. :)

24 hour follow up

We had to take Elias for his first pedi visit for the 24 hour follow up. He still isnt up to his original birth weight yet but they think its because of his jaundice.
He weighed 7lbs 11oz. It was soooo cold out. So we bundled him up. Think we over did it? :)

HOMEBOUND

We are now at home as a family of 3 :)

a few pics from Elias' BIRTH day.

im a mommy! dont mind the just gave birth look :)

Uncle Seany and Auntie Telly :)

Uncle Seany and Elias' first meeting :)

Grandparents Jewell

Great Grandma Alice. She came five hours with Nana to see me!

Nurse Amy and Elias. We loved her!

Daddy and Elias :)

Nana and Gma (still havent decided what she will be called. ha)

First time Grandpa is meeting Elias. I love love love this pic. I just love the excitement on his face!

Auntie Telly has waited a long time for this!

olive garden, broken collar, and the niagra falls......oh and HE'S HERE!!!

Oh what an eventful night...Thursday night we decided to go to one of our favorite restaurants, Olive Garden, with Brendons parents. I got my usual Grilled Shrimp Caprise. LOVE that stuff and I get it every time, even though I NEVER finish it because I fill up on yummy salad and bread sticks. Seriously, why is their salad better than anyone elses? B's parents picked us up and the joked about me bring my over night bag "just in case" I went into labor while we were out. HA HA. I kept telling them that HE'S NOT COMING. I kept telling them that this child IS NOT COMING OUT UNLESS HE IS FORCED, which is why we had a induction date scheduled. We got home around 10 and I decided it would be wise for me to take a Tylenol PM because I knew that all weekend I was going to be way too anxious to sleep, because HELLO, I WAS GOING TO BE A MOMMY ON MONDAY! Crazy. So as soon as we got home I pop a couple and decided to play a little online because it takes a little while for the PM's to take affect. Brendon went straight to bed because it was past his bedtime, being that he had been awake since 5am. After checking myspace, facebook, and the newest posts on my message boards on whattoexpect.com, I let the dogs out...oh dear...
Xander got distracted by another dog who was also being taken out by its owner, and bolted off and broke his collar. Stupid dog. It was his expensive Dallas Cowboys collar, (not that they are doing any good. blah) and I was none too happy. So here I am 9 months prego almost TO THE DAY, waddling/running/brisk walking, whatever you wanna call it, to catch up with him, in my SOCK feet, because I wasnt thinking and didnt have time to put shoes on. I'm already pissed about the collar, and then I proceed to step in dog poop, so now IM REALLY PISSED. I finally catch up to him, grab him by the skin his neck (remember, broken COWBOYS collar) and drag him back to our patio. I am beyond furious at this point. I get him back inside, find the broken collar, and take off the dog poop covered socks. As I am bending down taking off the socks, it feels as if I peed a little on myself. Are you freaking kidding me???? 9 months and NOW Im getting an uncontrollable bladder? As I straighten back up, the trickle turns to the freaking NIAGRA FALLS. OH MY GOD. My mind started racing, was that what I think it was? Did my water just break? Holy cow. I quickly get in the house and go back to our master bath. Brendon is already sound asleep snoring, when I yell from the bathroom, "ummm, baby, I think my water just broke!" Huh? What? If those few words dont wake you up then I dont know what will. HaHa. At this point I'm still in denial but somehow manage to find the number to the on call OBGYN. She calls back and recommends I come in to Labor and Delivery to get checked out. Now Im really starting to panic/freak out. IM NOT READY. He wasnt suppose to be coming until Monday. I hadnt showered or finished packing my bag or finished cleaning or finished up wrapping xmas gifts. He cant be coming now. So Im running around packing things up praying that I dont forget anything. (Brendon assuring me that if I did we are only 5 mins away, he can come back) I take a shower. Yes. A shower. I couldnt be all smelly when I meet my son. :) We arrived at the hospital less than an hour after the falls. The ER was a disaster but I wont get into that. The L/D was AMAZING. I started out with Nurse Ashlee. I loved her. She had me change into those gowns that you really dont know which way they go. I even called B into the bathroom to see if he could help me. HaHa. But I assumed the pocket went on the front. The pocket that had a hole in for your boob to pop out so you could feed your baby. Ha. Then I was hooked up to all these different contraptions that monitered my heartrate, Baby E's heartrate and numerous other things. Then came the IV....for the love of God, that was the worst pain through most of it. I loved my nurse but she was NOT at all good at putting in an IV. I can tolerate a lot of pain. (In fact B says that my sister and I have an unhumanly pain tollerance) But I had tears in my eyes when she was trying to put the IV in. First she tried the left hand....she went straight through the vein so she couldnt get it. So we tried my right hand and after three or four tries it was in. Thank goodness. My left hand bruised almost immediately. Then she checked to see of dialation. No Change from Wednesday at my appt. BOOOOO. But to within 2 hours I was progressing FAST with no help. I was never really in any pain per say, it was just really uncomfortable. After a while I decided I needed a little something to take the edge off, and boy did it ever! I hadnt had a drink in FOREVER (hello i was prego) so it felt like I was drunk off my bootie. I had to think before I said anything. Of course this was about the time that Sean brought Chantel up to the hospital to stay with us. (he is the best EVER. He drove her all the way from Quantico and he drove all the way back cause he had to work) I am so happy she was there cause my lovely husband passed out asleep on the pull out sofa cause he had been up since 5am. Chantel was laughing at me cause when I would get a contraction I wouldnt say anything I would just close my eyes. I tried really hard to sleep but with the nurses coming in every 15-20 minutes it was really hard. Did I mention that I had taken Tylenol PM RIGHT BEFORE MY WATER BROKE. You would think that would make me pass out. Instead I think with all my addrinoline it did the complete opposite. It was awful. Finally after a lonnnnnng night, at around 6 am I was COMPLETELY dialated. The nurse asked me if I thought I would be delivered by the on call dr or my own dr who was due in at 8:30. Naive first baby me said dr on call definately. I mean, I thought since i was fully dialated the show would be ready to go. BOY WAS I WRONG. She told me that when I felt the need to push to let her know. (btw i got my Epi about six hours after being there. and this made it VERY hard to feel ANYTHING) I was getting contractions but not strong enough so they decided to start me on a small dose of Pitocin. That helped some but not a lot. 830 came and went. Dr Paoloni came in to check on me and said we would be starting soon. A new nurse also came in. Nurse Amy. She was the BEST! She was with me the whole time being my push coach. She had all kinds of tricks up her sleeves. :) But none of them seem to work :( All along I kept telling everyone that this child was not coming out unless he was forces and I was rights. After about THREE, yes THREE hours of pushing Dr. Paoloni came in and said he saw my family in the waiting room and he was told not to come back without a baby. ha. He decided that it was time to use a vacuum to get our little stubborn brat out. He also told us that he could only try twice because of what it could do to the babies head. He then told us that if it didnt work we would have to do a C-Section! YIKES! Well after two attempts he said he would give it ONE more try. That last attempt did the trick. ELIAS KNIGHT JEWELL was born at 12:29pm weighing 8lbs 3ozs and 21 inches long. And he is just PERFECT :) A little side note...the nurses got a huge kick out of trying to guess baby E's name. In between checking me they were googling it. Ha. And when Dr. Paoloni came in we told him not to tell them. (we had told him during prenatal visits) and they looked at him and were like "HE KNOWS!" HaHa. They were so mad! After our family came in we had to wait for Grandpa to get there before we could announce the name. We let Chantel write on the little dry erase board. YEP. Sean and Chantel knew. We told them because I wanted her to help with the room.
After spending 3 nights in the hospital we finally made it home. We are sleep deprived but sooooo in love.

Introducing Elias Knight Jewell

December 19th, 2008 12:29 pm 8lbs 3ozs 21 inches long

four christmas': one last date

After finding out that we are going to be parents in five short days we decided to go on a movie date for one last date being just the two of us. we decided to go see four christmas' since is so very much mirrors our own lives and how crazy christmas is for us considering my parents are divorced and they both live over four hours away and b's parents live here. The movie was really funny. Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon were soooo funny together. It also had a really cute story to go along with it. I would def recommend it.

Still waiting....its the waiting game.

Sooo...we had our 40 wk appointment today. I am still only 2 1/2 cm dilated and 60% effaced. This little lovebug isnt going ANYWHERE. He is all snug as a bug in my belly. BUT we have an appointment on Monday at 5am to be induced. I really didnt wanna be induced, I wanted to go naturally on my own, but I am tired of the waiting game. My body is MENTALLY exhausted. Plus I really want our doctor, Dr. Paoloni, to deliver me not the doctor that may be oncall at the time. So thats the plan...we will have the BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVER on Monday. We are both so anxious and can NOT wait to meet Baby E. I must say that I have had a piece of cake pregnancy and have been very fortunate. I thank God everyday for our blessings. But I am definitely ready to get on to the next step. I am soooo ready for this little bambino to arrive. He can consider this his EVICTION notice now....

Baby showers galore....

So the past two weekends have been busy with Baby Showers. I must say that Brendon and I are very lucky to have such awesome friends and family. We have been showered with love and gifts for our little one. We got so many nice things and couldnt be more thankful. My Mom and Sister hosted a shower in Wytheville for us with all my family in attendance. And Auntie Telly and her Mom hosted one for us here in Midlothian. All of the ladies did an AMAZING job and we cant thank them enough!

Lily!

Lily Ann Marie Gray
is HERE!!!!!
Congrats Thomas Adam and Jackie!!!

Meeting our lovebug...sort of

Today, we invited both our moms, my sister, and auntie telly to go with us for our 3D/4D ultrasound...let me just say....IT WAS AMAZING. It was so awesome to see this little baby that is growing inside of me. You could see every tiny feature...and he looks a lot like his DADDY. He was very photogetic at first but soon grew aggitated and covered his face with his hands. He has a cute little button nose, and lots of hair! Anyways...I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as we do. WE CAN NOT WAIT TO MEET THIS LITTLE GUY!!!

well do we have a princess or a hockey player?

We went to our anatomy ultrasound this morning and he is DEFINATELY ALL BOY! He was not at all scared to show the world. Funny because when the tech wanted to get pics of his face, he wasnt having it and kept putting his hands in front of his face. He is also very active and doesnt like to stay still for pics. I like to think of it as his dance parties which he seems to have ALL NIGHT. hope this isnt gonna be a future thing or we are in trouble. except maybe to break into a dance party on our coffee tables and hardwood floors MEG. haha.

the doctor and tech said everything looked good and we had a perfect boy!
yay! I've added the pictures that we got from our US, still a little alien but definitely looking more cute like a baby! Even with his ginormous head like his daddy :)

lovebugs first trip to DAYTONA...kind of

We spent the last week at the beach with Auntie Telly and Uncle Seany. We had a lot of fun, but definitely need a vacation from our vacation. I am definitely starting to show...not a lot but you can tell that I'm either baby baking or have a serious beer gut going on...So bathing suit wearing was soooo fun. bleh.

off to the doctor we go

So, after knowing that I have been 'knocked up' since May, we were FINALLY able to get a doctors appointment so that an ultrasound could prove EQUATE and FIRST RESPONSE right and tell us that were indeed PREGNANT. Its weird cause I know 5 tests (yes i ended up taking 5 tests!) can't possibly be wrong, but for some odd reason I needed that little boost of reassurance. So here it is, our little alien bambino...turns out I was little further along that I thought...15 weeks and 5 days to be exact. That gives us a due date of December 19th, a Christmas Baby. We go back for another appointment on July 30th, where we will find out if our lovebug is a boy or a girl.