Sawyer Michael

I would like to formally introduce you, blog world, to my most precious baby Sawyer Michael. Born December 6 @ 1:07 am, 8 lbs exactly, 21 3/4 inches long.

He arrived on his own schedule, 10 days late, one day before he was scheduled to be induced. 30 long hours of labor followed by 2 hours of pushing made for a rough journey for both mommy and baby.

but, boy, was he ever worth it!

Less than 2 weeks old today, he already has his own little personality traits and characteristics that make him a very unique little man. He has a plethora of interesting facial expressions that he will entertain you with as you hold him. He loves nothing more than to rest his hand (or fist) on his little face. In fact, during labor between contractions, I would put my hands to my face in a very similar fashion to take a little breather. When he arrived in the world, one of the first things he did was put his hands to his face and the nurse proclaimed, "Just like his mommy!" :)

When he was born, my world started to spin and just can't seem to slow down.

There's much to update you on, but I must get off.... I can't stand being away from my little guy for too long.

Hello, there! Yep, it's me. I'm still here - pregnant as ever. More pregnant, in fact, than I thought I would ever be. Turns out, this baby is taking after his father's side of the family and is being a bit lazy about joining us. He really likes a warm, cozy bed just like his dad.

I'm back and forth about my feelings about this late baby... For one, I really thought I was going to have a November baby, but here we are in December, and it is clear that he has made his decision about which month it is best to be born into. I'm pretty uncomfortable with terrible pains in my ribs (front and back) on both my right and left side. I am probably not the most pleasant person to be around these days. I am desperately trying to keep a positive attitude, but sometimes I just get *tired and *cranky.

At my last Dr. Apt. I was all set to ask... or probably even beg for an induction this week, but somehow she convinced *us (Mike being very easy to convince, me being a bit more reluctant about the whole thing) that it's best to give baby another week to do things on his own terms. Best for him. Best for me. Best all around.

In the meantime, every morning when I wake up without any noticeable signs of being in labor my mom sighs sadly and walks away. Her time with baby is slowly, but surely ticking away the longer he procrastinates.

There is a definite end in sight now, though. That end is a bit farther off in the future than I hoped, but I fully expect this baby to make his debut any day now so I'm not getting too caught up in dates.

Other than that? Today is my wonderful husband's 30th birthday! I feel for him a little bit because though I will try to make it a special day centered around him, I'm just not the funnest person in the world right now and many possible birthday activities are off the table because of the fact that his wife is 10 months prego and counting.

I am incredibly thankful that he is here right now with me, and that he is just as excited about becoming a father as I am about becoming a mother. I have known him for 10 years of his life now, and I can honestly say that he has grown to be an incredible person and husband. He has one of those magnetic personalities that draw people to him and he loves with his whole heart. It is going to be a very special day for me when I finally get to see him hold his baby for the first time. He is going to be an incredible dad.

and on the plus side, he will always have a very easy time figuring out how old his first son is... exactly 30 years younger than him. :)

So Happy Birthday, my love. One thing we know for sure is that your 30th year will be very memorable indeed.

Waiting Game

Reunited and playing the waiting game now. Come on, baby! We're waiting for you. :)

It just really hit me today that my due date is only about a week and a half away... which is going to be here in the blink of an eye. Even if he is not early (as I sort of assume/hope he will be), he will be most certainly gracing the world with his presence in the very near future.

Now is when I start to get nervous. about the sleepless nights. about stupid mistakes. about being the mother to a precious little guy.

wow.

so incredible. I'm excited. so excited. and afraid. so afraid. but mostly excited.

Best Laid Plans

Silly me. Oh silly, silly me.

Here I was worrying about who was going to be at the airport with me when I finally reunited with Michael and what would happen after our little reunion that I didn't even bother thinking about the possibility that I might not actually make it to the airport.

Want to hear a funny story? (not funny haha, more like funny ironic)

The plans were set. My parents and I were driving to the airport to meet Michael for his 8:50 arrival into Baltimore. His parents were going to meet us there. We were all going to go out to a lovely brunch at a restaurant near the airport that I painstakingly researched and planned. My parents and I got up bright and early Sunday morning. We got ready. We got in the car. We were about halfway to the airport. My mom and I were both taking a nice little snooze on the way. I was sitting in the front with my dad so that I could recline the seat and take pressure off of my back and also keep the seatbelt below my belly...... when... suddenly... I felt the car swerve a bit or possibly slow down.

I opened my eyes to see a rather large buck racing across Highway 70 headed directly for our car. My dad put on his breaks, but that buck was just adamant that he was going to run straight into our car. Impact. The deer flew off to the side (this equals blessing number one) and I saw some pieces of car fly into the air. My exact outloud reaction to the incident: "Oh. Wow."

We pulled to the side of the road and my parents got out and assessed the damage. The front of the car was jacked-up, coolant leaking like crazy. Assessment = this car wasn't going to make it around the block let alone the rest of the way to the airport.

OMG.

We spent the next hour and a half/two hours in a burger king waiting for a tow truck to pick up my dad and the car and my sister to pick up my mom and me. Mike's parents who were thankfully already headed to the airport picked him up and we all met back here at my parents' house for an impromptu reunion and a brunch courtesy of my lovely save-the-day sister.

It was without a doubt one of the strangest mornings of my life. Even as I tried to be flexible about not having expectations about the reunion, our reunion still managed to shock the heck out of me. The morning was nothing I could have ever imagined.

But, you know what? It really was perfect... because we were finally together... and, in the end, that's all that mattered.

My dad's car and the deer, on the other hand... they did not fare so well in this whole strange turn of events.

The baby is fine, though. The Honda Pilot, people. It is now my favorite car. I barely felt the impact of that gigantic buck (he was a big boy, folks) so thankfully the baby suffered no negative effects from our wreck.

I have much to be grateful for.

Pending Reunion

He's coming. Tomorrow morning.

That's right. There's something strange about this deployment reunion that doesn't quite feel like a.... reunion. It's almost impossible for me to believe that he has actually been gone for 8 months... longer than we have ever been separated before. It doesn't feel that long. I think this has something to do with the fact that he's actually had use of a cell phone over the past several days, so I can actually call him and text him like normal people do... that somehow makes everything seem less deployment-ish and makes our upcoming reunion feel less reunion-ish.

This reunion is just going to be what it's going to be. I really wanted to drive to the airport by myself and have a special greeting between the two of us. You know, one of those where our eyes meet and we both start running and then he picks me up and twirls me around and everyone cries. Unfortunately, though, I won't be running to greet him since at 38 weeks uncomfortably prego I can barely walk, and I have a feeling my ginormous stomach will deter him from the thought of picking me up and twirling me around. The tears are still up-in-the-air, though, but since I mentioned already this reunion doesn't feel very reunion-ish, I'm thinking we will forgo (sp?) the tears. That and the fact that past experience has shown that when we reunite after long separations, I'm usually too busy laughing and smiling to even consider shedding a tear.

Also, I can't drive to the airport by myself to pick him up. Because.... I'm pretty sure I have a broken rib. Ok. so maybe not broken, but it sure feels that way sometimes. At the very least it is very bruised and painful, and I can barely sit in a car for an hour and a half (the length of time it takes to get to the airport) let alone be in control of a vehicle while managing the PAIN. For this reason, my parents are going to be driving me there...

and then when I went out to lunch with Mike's parents for my birthday (which was yesterday, which was awesome. I am 29! so OLD) his mom very casually mentioned that if anyone is going to go with me to the airport to pick up Michael they would like it to be them. BAH. So now my parents, mike's parents, and I will all be at the airport to greet Michael, and as you can see my little fantasy reunion has now crashed and burned into tiny pieces.

which is to be expected, really. If there's anything I've learned about reunions and other such things it's that expectations can really get you into trouble. You will usually be disappointed if you have expectations of how things will go and disappointment + seeing your husband for the first time in 8 months = NO GOOD.

That's why I'm just going with the flow. It will be what it will be and what it will be will be perfect because we will be together again. FINALLY.

and as long as I don't go into labor sometime within the next few hours, then I think it's safe to say that Michael will actually be here for the birth of this baby... which pretty much feels like a miracle at this point.

that's as long as he doesn't oversleep and miss his flight, get attacked by a swarm of bees, stuck in a hurricane, get in a car accident, or any of the other wild things my imagination has managed to come up with in the past week. Worrying is a favorite pasttime of mine.

Crossing my fingers and storming those heavens with prayers that Michael arrives safe and sound tomorrow morning is what I will be doing for the next 24 hours. Feel free to join me if you'd like.

pinch me

Somebody pinch me.
please.

This little life I'm leading right now is feeling a bit too... unreal. Is all of this actually happening? It's hard to believe pretty much 98% of the time.

For one, Mike is no longer in Afghanistan. I repeat. He has left the scary country. He made it out safely. *whew. *big freaking sigh of relief. He's in another country now for I'm not exactly sure how long before he will arrive back in the United States of America. That's right. The US of A. My husband is going to be in the same country as me sometime in the somewhat near future (even if I knew when he was coming back and where he was now I sure wouldn't post it online; because, call me paranoid, but I'm not going to be held responsible for giving away secret information to the *gasp* enemy.)

...And I'm REALLY excited. I mean SUPER happy. But then again there's this big part of me that probably needs to be pinched repeatedly or possibly slapped in the face once or twice so that I can snap out of it and actually realize that HOLY CRAP, my HUSBAND IS COMING HOME! for real. no joke. no marine corps false promises here. He's actually coming back. and God willing (En Sha Allah in Arabic -- one of Mike's key phrases that he brought with him from his last deployment) he will be here for the birth of this baby.

Speaking of BABY...
OMG. 37 weeks, people. I am 37 weeks pregnant tomorrow and this baby is pretty much fully cooked and ready to come out whenever he so chooses. I do hope he decides to show up sooner than later, but I also hope that he decides to show up after his daddy has arrived here in Pennsylvania. But, not wanting to put too much pressure on him, mostly I just hope that he is healthy. (and the cutest baby in the entire world, but that goes without saying, right? he will obviously be adorable and just the cutest baby anyone has every seen. right?)

right.
so pinch me a couple of times and then bring it on because all of the changes coming up in my life are changes I am welcoming with open arms.