First Midwife Appointment

So on Monday I had my first appointment with my Midwife and my first peak and my little baby growing inside me. This was the first time I met my midwife in person. I've talked to her probably 10 times over the phone (making sure all of my supplements, training program, and races are okay), but meeting her in person was much better. I love her! I don't know why I didn't get a midwife the first time I was pregnant! She's so much better than my OB was.

First, she's a woman, so that right there makes her a little more understanding and me a little more comfortable than I was with my male OB. Second, she has 15 years of experience, so I feel good about her delivering my baby safely. And third, probably the most important for me, she's never once missed one of her patient's births. Hallelujah! She will be there with me through the entire labor, not let anyone push me around, and she is well aware of all of the methods of natural child birth that I want to try. And with her there, the nurses are not allowed to do ANYTHING to me without her written order. I feel so much better knowing that this time around I will have a professional there to support me, the ENTIRE labor AND delivery, and it's someone I will know and be comfortable with, someone who will know my birth plan and be totally supportive of my wants and needs and not try to push her own agenda.

This time around, I have to go natural, no epidural. I have no moral objection to epidurals, but since the epidural I got with Ryker nearly killed me (literally, my heart almost stopped and my blood pressure dropped so dangerously low they had to put ephedrine in my IV), I will not even consider an epidural this time around. I also didn't like how last time some of my nurses were really pushy and coerced me into things I didn't want to do, like get an epidural when I wasn't even feeling pain yet. Anyway, I am beyond thrilled I'm going with the midwife this time around and she does not have any plans in December or January, so baring some big unforseen circumstance, she will be there with me from beginning to end. Yeah!

Anyway, at my first appointment she did a breast exam and found two worrisome lumps; one in each of my breasts. So now I get to go to the hospital and get an ultrasound on each of those and make sure everything is okay. It probably is, but better safe than sorry.

Then the best part, she did an ultrasound for my baby and I got to see my little baby blob for the first time! I love every chance I get to see my baby during pregnancy. So originally my due date was December 25th based on the calendar. I wrote everything down so my midwife and I were pretty sure that was the date. However, in the ultrasound, little baby blob is measuring small. Therefore, my new due date is January 3rd. Personally, I think I will still come in December. Mostly because Ryker started off measuring small too, but when he was born at 36 & a 1/2 weeks, he was 6lbs 9oz and fully developed, making my original due date with him much more accurate. My original due date with Ryker was January 5th and he was born on December 29th, so he would have only been a week early instead of 3 and 1/2 weeks early.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this baby comes sometime after Christmas, but before New Years. That close to the end of the year, it would be great to get that nice tax break :)

Ryker's finally walking....and running!

On Saturday, May 7th, Ryker finally started walking all by himself. He's been walking for a while holding on to things and pushing things, but Saturday morning he walked to Adam all by himself. He was so proud of himself! Then the rest of the day he had a lot of fun walking back and forth between Mommy and Daddy. Then on Mother's Day, the 8th, he started running back and forth between Mommy and Daddy. Now, every time that he can, he runs from place to place. He still falls, but he just gets back up and keeps going. I knew he was just waiting to walk until he could go fast. He's a fun kid!

Finally Catching Up!

I’ve been out of the blog world for almost 5 months now, and a lot has happened in those 5 months!

First, we had Ryker’s first Christmas, which was awesome! He was able to have both sets of grandparents there when he opened his presents Christmas morning. He thought the whole thing was cool. He got to rip paper, play with new toys, and a box. Although he didn’t like it when I took his new toy away so he could open another one. That is, until he figured out he got to tear open another package. Christmas with a child is so fun!!

Next, Ryker turned 1 on December 29th and we celebrated his birthday the next day. Unfortunately, there was an awful snow storm that day so most of our friends and family were not able to make it to the party. However, we had the Dalton Grandparents and Grandma Stockdale and our friends the Miles Family, so it was still super fun. Since I’m paranoid about letting Ryker have sugar, and he has food allergies, we made him a special banana cake in the shape of a Teddy Bear (thank you Grandma & Grandpa Dalton for helping with that!). Ryker was hesitant to touch it, but then he went face first into it, but then when everyone started making loud noises in response he stopped because he thought he wasn’t supposed to do that. It was pretty funny. Overall he had a fun birthday!

At Ryker’s 1 year doctor appointment he weighed 18 pounds 2 ounces, putting him in the 2 percentile on weight. But his cognitive, social, and emotional development was all right on track or better.

In January Ryker’s communication skills really took off! He really started using sign language. By the end of that month he would sign more, eat, drink, cracker, milk, all done, and dog.

In the beginning/middle of February we found out that Ryker had some food allergies. I suspected something because he was always sick, had slow weight gain, and was getting a sore bottom often. Finally I took him to a doctor that is a licensed MD as well as a natural medicine doctor. His regular pediatrician wasn’t able to help before so I hoped this new doctor could, and he did! He was able to isolate that Ryker was allergic to cow’s milk, goat’s milk, yeast, coconut, eggs, and most strongly to soy. He did some natural allergy treatments and told me to hold off for a couple weeks on allowing him to have any of these things. Then I could add them back into his diet, one at a time, wait a week or two, then add in another one. As soon as I did this, Ryker got better. Basically all of his symptoms went away and he finally started to gain weight!

Now he can have everything except for soy, which is basically in every processed food. So this means I do a lot of cooking from scratch and I have to buy a lot of organic foods to get stuff without soy in it. Although, since I’ve made these changes, he is doing so much better! And, lets face it, without many processed foods in our home, we all eat healthier.

Here we are now at May 1st, and I can’t believe how big Ryker is! He is finally as tall as his cousins the same age as him (although I haven’t weighed him in a while, so I don’t know what he weighs). He is still small weight wise and a skinny boy, but he’s much healthier. Other than a cold and one ear infection, he didn’t get sick after we figured out his allergies, which is a HUGE thing for him! This is the kid that was always sick.

Ryker is now a wonderful communicator now! The only downside to that is he gets really mad at me when he knows I know what he wants and I don’t give it to him. Oh well, kids have to learn they don’t always get what they want. Anyway, now he uses sign language all day long and he talks a bit too. He now signs eat, drink, more, cracker, banana, milk, all done, bird, horse, fish, dog, grandma, hurt (if something like his ears or tummy hurt he can tell me), hat, shoe, please, thank you, car, bike, airplane, he shakes his head yes or no in response to questions and then he also loves to wave hello and good-bye to everyone. He can sign more than he can say, but he says mom (also mama, mommy), dad (also dada), grandma, papa (for grandpa), dog, bird (kinda sounds like bir), that, and his favorite is uh-oh. He is also mister social and loves to wave to everyone. Most of the time he plays well with other kids. He also LOVES music and tries to sing all the time, which is totally adorable! He loves to play the piano (Grandma Dalton’s keyboard) and he turns bowls and boxes into drums. He loves to read books. He loves to go outside. He is a great running and biking companion for Mom and he loves going in the jogging stroller and bike trailer. He walks (mostly runs) holding onto stuff, or someone’s finger, or taking a few steps from one thing to another or when he doesn’t realize he isn’t holding onto anything. Although he sits down and speed crawls if he realizes he isn’t holding onto anything. I think he’s just waiting until he can run without holding onto anything because he crawls so fast that walking is just too slow for him. Overall, he is a very sweet, smart, busy, playful, teasing, boy!

Adam just finished another semester of school, again with all As. Yeah, go Adam. He now only has a year left! He’s coming up on a tough 7 week semester that with his full time work at the VA and full time school schedule, we won’t see us at all 4 days a week. Monday through Thursday he’ll leave at 5:30 a.m. and get home at about 10pm. But then once those 7 weeks are over he’ll get 8 weeks off (we’re counting down!). So in his one week off this week, we just got done spending an awesome weekend together as a family. I’ll do a separate post about that later.

In the last 5 months I (Melissa) have had a lot of things going on too. First, since November 1st I have lost 45 pounds and am now down to 19% body fat. I have also been training hard for triathlon season, which gets started this week. I started by training 5 hours a week and have now worked up to training 12 or 13 hours a week. We (Ryker and I) switched gyms to one with a nursery that gives him tons of attention and one-on-one time. So I run and bike outside with Ryker weather permitting, and when it’s not permitting, we go to the gym and Ryker gets to go play for an hour while I run, bike, or swim. He loves it at the new place! He also takes a mommy and baby swim class there with me once or twice a week and he is becoming quite the little swimmer himself. Then when we come home after our workout each day & he goes down for a nap, I find myself either working out more or getting house work done, or both.

A couple weeks ago I was talking to my triathlon coach and he suggested I was in great shape and there was no reason I shouldn’t be training for a half Ironman (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run), not just an Olympic distance (1500 meter swim, 25 mile bike, 6.2 mile run). He suggested I could be ready for the Boise half Ironman on June 11th, so after talking to Adam, I decided to do it!

I was feeling great and the weather was getting better, so adding to my training with Ryker was no problem. Ryker is always asking to go outside, so he was loving the extra outside time with Mom. Since there was a slight chance I was pregnant, I decided to wait to register until I had my period a couple days later. After over a week of being late, I finally took a test, and then another test, and then double checked my calendar where I had been writing everything down, and sure enough I am pregnant! According to my calendar, I am due December 25th!

I immediately got on the phone with my doctor’s office and then later got a call and had a long discussion with my midwife about what being pregnant means to my training, diet, and triathlon schedule. Since I am feeling great (other than being slightly tired I don’t even feel pregnant!) she said I could continue with what I’m doing. I eat a very healthy, balanced diet, with enough calories to fuel my workouts, so all I needed to do was add 200 calories to my diet and I would be fine. I also closely monitor my heart rate during workouts so I should keep doing that and stay in an aerobic zone and as long as I’m not cramping or bleeding, I can keep up my workouts and keep doing my triathlons and bike events I’m scheduled for. Although right now I’m not planning on doing the half Ironman until next year, after this baby is born. I will however be doing other, shorter distances, throughout the summer as long as I continue to feel good.

That’s a lot of updates for one day, so I will continue updates another day.

11 Months and Counting

It has been way too long since I’ve updated this blog, but as life goes this time of year, it has been super busy. We had our first Halloween with Ryker, and it was super fun. We had a Halloween party complete with a Spooky House for kids. Apparently it was scarier than I realized because I think a couple of the littler kids cried. Ooops. All in all though it was fun. I loved being able to dress all of us up. Adam was a hunky Hercules, I was Medusa, and Ryker was a dragon. He was so darn cute! My sister Kelly was Cat in the Hat and Ryker kept pulling his dragon head over his face so he wouldn’t have to look at her. So funny.

Then there was Thanksgiving, which we enjoyed with my mom and dad and Adam’s Grandma Grace. It was nice to just relax and hang out with family. Ryker of course was the center of attention as always. He loved the mashed potatoes, stuffing, and one bite of sweet potato casserole I allowed him. Also, in November, Ryker got his first ever hair cut from his awesome aunt Monica, so cute! He kept trying to look at the clippers, so poor Monica had to give a hair cut to one squirmy baby, but she did an awesome job!

Now we’ve moved into the wonderful Christmas season and it’s so fun having Ryker during this time of the year especially! We went to the Festival of Trees and he was mesmerized by all of the Christmas trees and Gingerbread Lane, constantly trying to reach out and grab everything. We got our tree up at home, but in order to protect the tree, but more importantly Ryker from himself pulling the tree on top of him, we put it on a table in a corner and then blocked it with a chest and couch so it’s just barely out of his reach. He still loves to look at when all the lights are on and constantly tries hard to reach for the decorations.

Ryker, as always, is the light of our lives. He is so mobile and independent, he’s becoming quite the handful. Here’s a list of things Ryker loves to do these days:
• Opening drawers and cupboards and unloading the contents
• Pushing chairs around and using them as a walker
• Climbing all over Shady like she’s a hill and he has to be king of the hill
• Feeding the dogs from his high chair. He takes a bite then he throws a bite down to the dogs
• Sticking toys in his mouth while he crawls around so he can take them with him without the toy getting in his way while crawling. I think he learned this from the dogs..
• Speed crawling down the hall and trying to make it into the dog room and out the dog door before Mom or Dad can catch him (so far he’s only made it part way into the dog door, but never outside)
• Dropping toys and saying “Uh, oh.” Or saying “uh, oh” and then dropping his toy.
• Reading books and then promptly eating them
• Pulling Mom’s hair
• Playing with all of his Grandmas and Grandpas (2 great grandmas, 2 grandmas, and 2 grandpas all on the same street)
• Pushing a ball around the room and chasing after it
• Sticking everything possible into his mouth, except he still isn’t much of an eater and is only in the 3 percentile, go figure
• Playing with Mom’s cell phone and any remote control he can get his hands on
• Being outside. Every time I open a door to outside he speed crawls over there to try and make it out the door
• Holding on to anything semi-stable and walking as much as possible. He’ll be walking on his own before we know it!

For fun, pictures of the last couple months

My little handful

Now that Ryker is crawling like a pro, and pulling himself up to standing position all the time, and starting to walk while hanging onto things, he is becoming quite the handful. He now likes to pull himself up on the changing table (it has 3 shelves, two beneath the actual changing station so Ryker can reach those) and then unload all of the diapers and spare clothes, and anything else he can reach. In his bedroom he likes to open the dresser drawers and pull everything out. And now, he has discovered the wood burning stove in our place and has quickly decided that is his new favorite place to play (and make Mommy nervous). See how happy he is playing there:

Ryker update

Ryker is now 9 and a half months old! I can't believe how time flies! At his 9 month appointment he was 15 pounds 14 ounces, in the one percentile! He is a tiny little boy, but I have to admit, I love it! I know he'll catch up someday, but what he lacks in size he makes up in strength and personality. He crawls (more like an army man, but crawling nonetheless), and pulls himself up to stand, and just this week he started walking by holding onto the couch and walking along. He chases the dogs, pulls their tails, laughs when they lick him, feeds them food from his high chair, and overall just loves the dogs. He feeds himself and likes to think he's a big boy now and doesn't need Mommy or Daddy to feed him. Occasionally he decides he's too big for a bottle and will only drink from a sippy cup. He loves to read books, but he equally loves to eat the books, so that can make story time difficult at times. He's a huge tease! He thinks it's hilarious to pull Mommy and Daddy's hair. He's is so wiggly! We have to distract him with toys or bottles when we change his diaper or he decides he's going to get up and crawl away.

He just made it last week to 16 pounds 1 ounce and I was way excited! He's still in 6 months size clothes and size 2 diapers. He's healthy at the moment and I hope it stays that way. He has always had a weak immune system, but his doctor assures me that will make him stronger in the future.

I'm so excited for Halloween! I haven't made a final decision on costumes yet, but you better believe it will be good!

Cruise

A week and a half after Ryker and I got home from Texas, I turned around and flew back to Texas to head out on a 5 day cruise with Jen, Brooke, and her friend Julie. We went to Cozumel, Mexico. It was fun stuff, although it was really hard for me to leave Ryker. He had his grandma Dalton during the day and then Daddy at night and on the weekend, so I knew he was well taken care of, but I sure did miss him a lot! Although, it was nice for me to take a break and have some fun with the girls. I'm glad I was able to spend more time with Jen since I usually have to go so long in between visits. Here's a pic from the cruise.