Welcome Thomas Enoch!

Thomas Enoch was born on Thursday January 28th at 8:41 pm!

He weighed in at a healthy 8 pounds 12 ounces!

He was 20 1/2" long

He was born exactly one week before his due date - for which we're very thankful as I can't imagine trying to push a bigger baby out!

He was born in our home as a planned home birth.

We had the wonderful help of a great midwife and her assistant. The midwife lives only a few miles away and was awesome both in the prenatal appointments, delivery and follow-up visits!

We are so very thankful to God for the way He gave me the strength for the labor and delivery. My time in labor was much shorter than average. My water broke at 7 AM, contractions started a few hours later and got harder and closer together such that by noon I needed my husband home. He more than happily left work to be with me.

John was such an asset in rubbing my back and helping me to relax during the contractions! Though it may not be one of those valentine messages that will ever end up on a little candy heart - I've lovingly called him "my epidural!" I really felt that the pain was much less when he was by my side. The Bradley method classes we took were incredibly helpful for both of us. I knew I needed to relax and focus only on what was happening at that moment and John was a great coach in helping me to do just that!

My contractions continued through the afternoon as we tried to relax through a short bath and then rested and tried to take a nap. By around 5:30pm, I was feeling an incredible urge to push so John called our midwife and she came right over and set up to catch our baby. The next hours seemed long, but were productive as we got closer and closer to the baby's birth. Finally at 8:41 PM, our son was born! John was able to see the baby crown and we both rejoiced as he took in his first breath!

Here we are, admiring our brand new baby boy!

We had a little trouble sleeping that first night. Not really due to the baby waking us up, but because we just couldn't believe he was already here! We had it in our minds that he would for sure not come early, but there he was! We're having a blast with our little guy and loving life as new parents!

Baby Shower!

The ladies of my church threw a very nice baby shower for us this past weekend! We were able to hold the shower in the basement of our new house which ended up being a lot of fun!We played games like trying to see who could pin a cloth diaper on a baby the fastest in teams - each with one hand. No, my team did not win!


We were given so many nice baby items! What a blessing our church family is to us! Hopefully our baby will come soon and we'll be putting these items to use!
These are the ladies who worked so hard to host this party! Thanks to both of you! You did an awesome job!

Pregnancy Update!

All is going well right now with me and the baby. As you can see, this baby must have been doing a lot of growing in the last month or so! I'm suddenly to the point where random strangers in stores are asking me when my baby is due :)

I'm officially in my third trimester already. It's really amazing to think that in 12 weeks, we could be holding our own baby in our hands. What a change that will be! Right now our baby is making him/herself known through plenty of kicking, flipping and punching, but soon we'll be hearing, smelling and seeing our baby!

In life news, I will officially be changing my job from full time design engineer to full time home engineer :) December 11th is my last day at work. I'm looking forward to having time to prepare our home and life for a baby. So far, we really haven't done a lot to get ready. I'll also be getting ready for having my family visit for Christmas. We didn't want to travel this year and are so excited that my family is going to be able to come to see us!

John and I have also had some fun in the last month looking at houses. We're renting right now, but are keeping our eyes open for a good house to buy at some point. It's been fun to see some houses and start to mentally clarify what's most important to us about such a huge purchase.

Life and time are quickly passing. Can you believe it's almost Thanksgiving? We're going to visit John's family over Thanksgiving and just can't wait!

Big Blog News!

It's now time for this fun news to go public! I finally told my office the news today, so it's time for the "blog world" to know. John and I are expecting our first child in early February! Our "official" due date is February 4th, but we'll just have to wait and see when our little one decides to be born. We're not intending to find out our baby's gender, so are just going to have to wait and see.

We're now at 21 weeks, so more than half of this pregnancy has already passed. It's been a lot of fun to feel our active baby move in the last few weeks. Sometimes I'm convinced that this baby is doing flips inside of me! Pregnancy has not been too terrible, but it actually has been harder than I imagined. I feel as though I slept through this summer. I was so tired during the first trimester, that I did little but work and sleep each day. Somewhat regular (mostly evening) vomiting and a uncomfortable stomach also kept us from enjoying food during that time. Thankfully, I now feel much more like myself and have been able to keep food down without problems.

We started a Bradley class nearby a couple weeks ago, and are enjoying learning more about what is to come. With the required tracking of my diet to ensure adequate amounts of protein, I'm eating more and gaining steady weight. We hope to give this baby plenty of nutritution during this time!

It's quite odd to now have such a big belly. I know that what I have is nothing yet, but even so, it's really strange to see it prodruding from my body! I just started wearing maternity clothes and have found them so comfortable. It doesn't look too big yet under my shirt, but it feels big! My friend Barb and my sister-in-law Michele gave and let me borrow a huge amount of clothes! I think I have more options to wear during my pregnancy than I do when I'm not pregnant! What a blessing they have been!

So, now those of you who didn't know thru some other means have a good idea of part of my reasons for not blogging much in the last months!