Zoo

A couple weeks ago, we took Thomas to the Columbus Zoo. It's a large zoo, and we ended up enjoying ourselves immensely. We spent the entire 2 1/2 hours of our visit in the Australia and African Forest side of the zoo. I really enjoyed watching the kangaroos and all the monkeys. One of the monkeys had a 7-week old baby and it was really fun to watch that mommy carrying around and feeding her little one. Of course Thomas is a little young to enjoy the animals, but he enjoyed being outside while John and I looked around!

It's hard to look dangerous when wearing a onesie!

At nine weeks, Thomas experiments with his dangerous look :)

Five Weeks Already!

Thomas is now 5 weeks old! He is getting more interactive and enjoying playing with Daddy each day at lunch time and in the evenings. John has been great with Thomas and totally willing to take a turn changing and helping with him when he gets home!
Thomas really looks into John's eyes and seems to try to communicate with him already!

My days go by very quickly and are filled with nap time and feeding this little one. Thomas seems to be a relatively calm little guy. He's definitely all baby though :) He and I are trying to work on some sort of regular schedule - but so far we have some good days/nights and some that are more exhausting! Thankfully Thomas is typically willing to sit in his bouncy chair or swing for a while each morning while I get a few things done or get ready for the day.

Being a mom has been fun so far, and I think it will be even more fun as Thomas becomes more capable of doing things and communicating with us!

Awesome Snow!

The snow continued to fall last night. Here are some views of the outside world this morning!

Last Profile Pictures - week 38 to 40!

Ohio Snow Shower!

My sister Anna was planning to drive up here today, but decided to postpone her trip a day or two when we saw the weather forecast.

That was definitely a good plan as this is the view outside our windows as of an hour ago. Note that we had almost no leftover snow on the ground at 1pm!

The weather didn't bother Thomas as he enjoyed being held by Grandma!

We're hoping that the snow stops by tomorrow as is predicted so that the travel plans of Anna and Grandma aren't affected.

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!