changes in just 20 days..

i can't believe costin will be 3 weeks tomorrow. already he is growing extremely fast. when marcas and i left from the hospital on january 30th, he had lost weight (which is normal) and was 6 pounds, 10 ounces. by that monday when i took him to the doctor to be checked for his jaundice level.. he was 7 pounds, 3 ounces. they were surprised and told me that i was doing an excellent job breastfeeding. i took him again yesterday for his two week checkup and he is 8 pounds, 7 ounces and 21 inches long. every day i can see him growing. he started smiling a week ago and i can already tell he has his dad's sense of humor. :) he likes to play a game with me already. he acts like he is hungry and when i get ready to feed him.. he doesn't want it and just gets a huge grin on his face. it's cute.

he's the best baby a mom could ask for. we are truly blessed. he's never fussy unless there is something wrong. either he needs a diaper change, he's tired, or he's hungry. sleeping through the night is getting better. last night he slept until a little after 4:00 am. it was so nice getting some sleep!

i love being a mom! it's stressful but has so many rewards. he has the cutest facial expressions and gestures. here are some pictures showing you them: (i think he enjoys getting his picture taken) haha

labor and delivery..

i went into the hospital on january 27, 2009 at 5:00 am to start the process of being induced. my midwife decided to induce me a week early because of having high blood pressure and horrible swelling towards the end of the pregnancy. i had already been on bed rest for the past month. (it was not fun at all...) by the middle part of the day my blood pressure was on the high side and they started to give me medicine to lower it in my iv and i had to get a catheter. (talk about extreme pain.. that was one of the worst parts of having a baby) the rest of the day went by without me dilating. i started to have a few small contractions by the end of the night but still without any real progression. my midwife checked on me tuesday night and told me that she would go ahead and break my water the next morning. early wednesday morning i was far enough along to go ahead and get an epidural. i wanted one before the real pain began and before my midwife arrived to break my water. around 5:00 am (exactly 24 hours of being in the hospital) they gave me an epidural. marcas had to leave the room.. i wasn't happy about that but i guess that's the procedure there. the epidural went ok but the nurse hit a nerve while she was trying to administer it and i ended up nearly jumping out of the bed. once she finished my body for some reason acted weird towards the epidural and my blood pressure dropped to extreme lows. i started to go in and out of consciousness. i remember laying there and hearing the nurses arguing about what to do with me and saying that costin was up high enough if they needed to palpitate him. that freaked me out... i didn't care what was going on with me... all i wanted to know was what was going on with my baby. since my blood pressure dropped so quickly, costin went through stress and had a bm inside of me. (they found out that after they broke my water) they didn't act too worried though. they got my blood pressure to come back up by giving me some medicine through my iv and taking me off the high blood pressure medicine. at 8:30 am my midwife broke my water. i loved the epidural because i didn't feel any of it. around 11:00 am i had only dilated a few centimeters. by the early afternoon my epidural started to wear off and i asked for more medicine. i started to feel contractions getting a lot stronger and hurting more than anything i could ever describe. when they gave me more medicine.. it numbed my legs and upper body but not the area it needed too. they thought i had a blockage but they wanted to regive me more medicine sitting up to see if it that would work. thank God it worked because i did not want to have another epidural put in. around 3:00 pm my midwife came to check on me and i had dilated to 7 centimeters. after she left i kept getting stronger and stronger contractions. i told my nurse who had just started her shift and she asked me when i had been checked. i told her it had only been about 15 minutes earlier but i knew something was going on. the nurse who had been taking care of me the previous shift came back in to change my iv bag right before leaving and tried to get into an argument with my new nurse about rechecking me again. thankfully my new nurse (sherri) listened to me and rechecked me. in just 15 minutes i was dilated to 9 centimeters and in just 30 minutes after that.. i was completely dilated. sherri called my midwife and she told her to go ahead and prepare me for labor. my midwife wasn't going to get there until after she finished up her appointments at the office. around 5:00 pm i started to practice push with sherri and she felt costin's head. my midwife got to the hospital just in time for me to deliver. my beautiful little boy was born at 5:59 pm on january 28, 2009.

the past few months..

my life has been doing a lot of changing in the past few months. the last time i wrote on here it was the day before thanksgiving. i don't know where to start... here it goes:


1. we spent our second christmas together in our new house. one of my dreams ever since i was a little girl was to have a live tree when i grew up (as silly as it sounds). the reason being was because my parents never would buy a live tree. my dad always said that it would die and no one would take care of it. way to spoil christmas for everyone. anyway, marcas went out a few weeks after we moved in and bought me a live tree. it was beautiful and meant so much to me!




we spent christmas with margi and mike (marcas' parents) over at their house. i missed my family so much over the holiday season. a thousand miles is way too far away. hopefully, sometime in the near future we will be able to go out to virginia for either thanksgiving or christmas.


2. we have another new addition to our family. a boxer puppy named leah. she's 11 weeks old and full puppy with tons of energy... she doesn't stop. potty training has been an interesting adventure so far. the weather here has been extremely cold/bitter. yesterday, it was -9 degrees outside. today it's -13 degrees. she doesn't want to go out and neither do we. tomorrow it's suppose to be a little nicer.. nicer meaning in the 20's. this is way too cold for a southern girl like me! i will say though it has been interesting trying to get use to it. i think i am doing better than last year. it still hurts to breathe in this kind of weather no matter how use to it i can get. ok, enough about the weather. (haha) back to leah. she is such a joy to have. i have missed having a dog. we have eloise (our cat) not the same though. companionship is what you get with a dog. we've only had her for a few weeks now and already she is extremely loyal. she doesn't like me to even leave the room because she wants to know where i am at.. at all times. as far as eloise and her go. leah barks at eloise and eloise just watches leah. they both keep us entertained.







3. i've been on bed rest for the past month. i was put on bed rest because i have been having swelling in my ankles/legs and also high blood pressure. my midwife thought i had preeclampsia and started testing me twice a week for it (i hate getting my blood taken because my veins roll and it normally takes multiple times to find one.. oh, the joys of pregnancy.) all my tests have come back negative. thank God because i do not want to have preeclampsia. my midwife has just been monitoring me and making sure that costin is doing alright. i go in twice a week for a stress test and he's doing great. yesterday, i had a sonogram done to check to see if his lungs are developed enough for them to induce me. i will find out at my next appointment on January 21st. after seeing him yesterday... i just want to have him and be able to hold him in my arms. oh, and we decided to change his middle name to johannes. his official name is going to be costin johannes boyer.

our new home!

on wednesday, november 12th we moved into our new home. we have been slowly moving our stuff in from margi and mike's house (marcas' parents). i can't believe we are finally in our new home. God has blessed us with so much! i'm so excited to be able to make something into our own. it's a piece of who we are.

we have started to decorate some. our bedroom is in the middle of being redone. i'll put pictures up once we finish it. we need to do one more coat of paint and then the borders. i can't wait until it's done! we have been sleeping in our living room...haha. the next room will be the living room. we want to put up our christmas tree soon. this year will be our first actual christmas that we can celebrate it on our own and make our own traditions. we are going to get a live christmas tree this year. i can't wait! i've always wanted one and now we are going to start that tradition as a family.

costin is doing great. he's always kicking. (he's a very happy baby already) i went to my last obgyn visit on monday. he's right where he should be. his heart rate was 160. the doctor told me that he must be finding something exciting to do while he's in there.

i am fighting a sinus infection/urinary track infection. i haven't been taking the best care of myself since moving and going nonstop with work. i need this 5 day break from work. i'm going to get some stuff done here in the house and just relax for the first time in a long time.

thanksgiving is tomorrow. i miss my family so much and wish we lived closer. hopefully, next year we can save up enough money to go out to virginia to celebrate either thanksgiving or christmas. i love this time of year but hate being so far away from everyone. this year we are celebrating thanksgiving with marcas' aunts, uncles, parents, and grandma. i am thinking about making something.. but not sure what yet. at least i do have family out here too. i am so blessed. God has given me so much. an amazing husband, a son on the way, family, friends, and a new home.

what has been going on..

moving: we are finally going to be moving into our new home. after several weeks of our closing date being moved back because of different complications coming up. (needing a new roof, windows painted, and locks put onto the windows in kitchen) our new closing date is going to be this wednesday, november 12th. we are extremely excited! the plan that we were originally going to do was not move in right away and paint the house. since we have been waiting so long we are just going to move in and paint later. i can't wait to have our own place and be able to start getting stuff ready for costin.

the house: our new house is perfect for us. it has two bedrooms on the main level and one room down in the basement that we can use for a bedroom later on down the road. there are two full bathrooms, one on the main level and one in the basement. the living room has a fireplace! we also have a two car detached garage. there are two apple trees and a pear tree in the backyard. we've already met our new neighbors and they are extremely nice. God has blessed us with an awesome place to live! i'll put pictures up once we get settled in.

a possible new job: right now i am looking into a new job for once costin is born. so far it's looking great! if i get this job.. i'll be babysitting for a couple who have a seven month old baby and be able to bring costin. i have been praying for something like this. i'm going to go today and meet with her so we can talk everything over. i pray all of this works out. the family also doesn't live too far away from our new home.

changes..

i decided to start an online journal because i use to journal all the time and got out of the habit of journaling. i miss it so much and decided that it would be a lot easier to keep up with an online journal.

a little about me: my life has done a lot of changing over the past year. God has blessed me with so much. an amazing husband, a son on the way, and a new house. i am truly blessed.

briefing: i was married may 30, 2007 to my husband, marcas. i call him marcas (his middle name) but his first name is philip. when we met that's what he told me his name was and that's what stuck. :) we have now been married for just over a year and we both love it. we are madly in love and now are going to be having our son in late january or early february. i'm hoping he'll be a february baby but God has that all planned. i'll just be thankful when he gets here and is healthy. the date or month doesn't matter. i love being able to feel a little life growing inside of me. his favorite activity so far is using me as his punching bag. it's one of the best feelings in the world.. as crazy as that might sound. (i guess it's a mother thing, haha) i can't believe that i'm going to be a mom in a few months! technically i am right now but I think it will set in more once i see and can hold him. we are going to be naming him costin augustine boyer. The meaning is: costin and augustine mean the exact same thing. we found out that costin comes from constantine which comes from augustine... to regard with respect, reverence, or heartfelt deference. we didn't plan that. we both thought that was neat how that happened. marcas came up with the first name and his middle name was picked out by both of us. we are extremely excited!
our closing date for our house is october 29th. hopefully, we can get everything packed and ready to move by then. we want to try and get everything into our new home by november 2nd. not much needs to be done with the house other than painting. we are going to use the first week for just painting and decorating. i can't believe we are going to have our own home!