1 Week Old!

Collin has been with us now for a whole week. Well- a little bit more than a week- I'm a bit behind on posting to the blog as the baby has been keeping us very busy. I can't believe a week ago I was giving birth and now we have this adorable little baby boy to share our life with.

Collin has been absolutely wonderful. We think he's the cutest baby we've ever seen (but we're a bit partial) and he's been able to spend lots of time with the people who love him- both of our parents came for Memorial Day weekend to meet Collin and my mom and dad stayed for the week to help us. We've been very lucky to have them here- its made life tremendously easier. Just the smallest things, from picking up the house to making dinner have helped us a ton.

He's had lots of visitors, including all the way from Milwaukee Drew's cousin Chelle and her husband Ed, who were in Minnesota for a wedding. We were so happy to see them and it was so nice of them to stop by while they were in state.

Collin has also been spending lots of time getting into the routine of things around here. He was able to meet his puppy Samson, who liked the baby right away. Samson was a little bit timid at first around Collin, but now he is very interested in what Collin is doing. Collin has also been spending time with daddy since Drew's been off this whole week too.




Collin also got to try out his new cradle, which seemed to work great. We were able to all eat dinner together while Collin took a nap in his cradle. He's so tiny that he still looks like a little doll in the photos of him in the cradle.



As the days progress he's become more and more alert and makes a ton of hilarious faces. I caught one that looks something like a cross between a laugh and a smile, which we can't get enough of.

After hanging out with daddy and spending time in the cradle, Collin was able to do a bit more relaxing. He's been doing really well with a schedule- he pretty much eats, burps, poops and sleeps and is now getting through the night with us only getting up once around 3 am, which makes life a bit easier for us as new parents.






We're so thankful that we have a happy, healthy baby and look forward to sharing more of his adventures as he grows.

Welcome Collin

Today at 7:24am we welcomed Collin Everett Hollman into the world . He tipped the scales at 6 lbs 13ozs and 19.5 inches long.

The trip to the hospital was spurred on by our Tuesday trip to the doctor. On that visit Alisha's membranes were stripped. In some pregnancies this can trigger the start of labor and getting things moving. If it works, birth usually happens within 48 hours. On Wednesday morning Alisha informed me that things were different and she might be approaching the start of labor. I went to work and ran around getting things done in case she should go into labor. Every phone call I received caused my heart to race until I saw the caller ID and confirmed that it wasn't Alisha.

I had almost convinced myself that nothing was going to happen when my phone rang and the caller ID said it was Alisha. My heart jumped into my throat as I was expecting to hear that she was having severe contractions and I needed to rush home. I answered the phone and she was calm. She informed me that she was having contractions but they were weak and far apart. She was going to come home at lunch because she wasn't effective at work when the contractions came. The clock was ticking. I scrambled at work to make sure the t's were crossed and the i's were dotted. Then I grabbed 20 tomato plants from the greenhouse which I had promised to my neighbor and went home.

I was greeted by a wiggling puppy but no wife. I finally found her upstairs making sure that everything was organized. As usually, she had her list of things to do or pack and was making sure we had everything together in case we needed to go to the hospital. She had found a nifty little program on the internet that allowed her to keep track of all the timings for the contractions. They were starting to get closer together and more intense. I called a friend and had her pick up Samson. We continued to monitor the contractions and finally determined that they were close enough and with enough intensity that we should make our way to the hospital. We got to the hospital and made our way through the maze of hallways that are used to get people around the ongoing construction, pausing with every contraction. We made it up to the 4th floor and were put into an observation room to see if Alisha was far enough along to admit.

We had left all the bags in the car, fearing that bringing them up would jinx us. We were examined and then waited, and waited and waited. The contractions were painful enough now that Alisha couldn't talk when they were occurring. And exam reveled that Alisha was about 3cm. We were given the option to go home for a couple of hours but Alisha knew she would get little rest at home. So we were admitted and settled into our new huge room. We tried walking around to help alleviate the pain but this didn't help much. Knowing that there were still hours before she would be ready to deliver, she was given some pain medication to help her get some rest. We finally got bed around 11pm.

Sleep was intermittent as some alarm always seemed to go off because a sensor became detached or the blood pressure cuff moved. Just after 2am the doctors came into the room and examined Alisha. She was at 5cm and they were hoping to help her progress so her water was broken. Around 5am a nurse examination reveled that only a lip of her cervix was left, so it was getting close. I hopped out of bed, brushed my teeth, and put on some clothes. Things started happening quickly as our doctor came in and pushing began. I was roped into holding Alisha's foot on one side while she pushed. Alisha kept pushing and soon the doctor informed me that she could see the top of his head. With every contraction Alisha mustered up the strength to push and continued to make good progress. The extent of her exertion was evident as her face turned red while she pushed. I was amazed by the sheer stamina of pushing every few minutes for almost two hours. Finally, with the help of a little suction our son emerged with blue eyes and some bushy black hair. So maybe the wives tales were true, and Collin's hair was the cause of Alisha's heartburn.

After everything got cleaned up, and both Alisha and Collin were checked and cleaned, we moved to our new room. We napped for a little bit and have just ejoyed spending time together. The room and the view outside isn't as grand as the brand new delivery rooms, but I hardly notice as I stare in amazement at my beautiful wife and son.

Hurry up and wait....

This little guys is really testing my patience! We are now 12 days from our due date, and it seems like it will take FOREVER for the baby to make his grand entrance. Maybe its because the last two times we were in to see the doctor we were making progress, moving toward what we thought would be delivery- however it seems our little guys is content to stay put for the time being, which makes his mommy not only physically uncomfortable but mentally crazy.

Nevertheless, it could be that this baby knows exactly what he's doing. I do have about a week left of work to prepare for maternity leave both at my job in Stillwater and with CRTIEC, so by waiting one more week he's nearly assuring that his mommy will be able to totally put work down and focus on him when he arrives.

To bide the time I've been making lists and crossing things off, as I am known to do so well :). My to-do list this week is lengthy, but if I get it all done the timing should be perfect for baby Hollman to make an appearance by Sunday or Monday or so (likely wishful thinking on my part). We'll see when he decides to finally grace us with his presence. On Tuesday the doctor will be striping my membranes, and if it works, usually women see results within 72 hours (or so the doctor says).

This weekend we wrote the many many many shower thank you's after I created the thank you from the maternity photo images.




Then we put up the planes Drew made for the baby's room, and TaDa! The nursery is officially finished! All we need now is the baby.





We also finally brought in the cradle my dad made for the baby and put it in our family room in the basement. My mom made all of the bedding and my Aunt Chris made the quilt. The cradle goes perfectly with the furniture in his room, however its much too large to fit in there, so we put it in the basement, where I'm sure I'll be spending lots of my time soon after delivery.







We can't wait to share the new of Baby Hollman's arrival, but until then we'll continue to hurry up and wait.

38 weeks, pregnancy at its best...

We are now at 38 weeks and are so anxious to get see the newest member of our family. We've spent our last few weekends preparing all of the odds and ends so that when the baby does arrive our list of 'honey-do's' is small.
This weekend Drew's parents came to help out with some more preparations, we made freezer meals, washed the windows, put in the exit to our egress window outside, spring-cleaned our house and put all things in place for baby to be with the hopes that labor will be sooner rather than later (I think I may be nesting just a tiny bit :).

Our last appointment with Dr. Olson was on Thursday and she told us we are at about 2 cm dilated, 35% effaced and at -1 to 0 station. This means, in general he's ready to go and is as nearly as far down as you can be before actually giving birth. We see her again on Tuesday and are hoping for more progress (okay, who am I kidding, I am hoping she'll send us right over to labor and delivery). Then, if he's not here by next week she'll be stripping my membranes to move things along. Now, when I first heard the term 'stripping membranes' I was totally mystified? What the heck was that? It sounds sort of like you are peeling away some sort of skin or something, which paints just an awful visual, and sounds painful. So, just to clear things up, stripping membranes is not breaking your water, or removing any kind of skin or anything else completely violent that you may be dreaming up. Instead, its a process where the doctor attempts to loosen the bag of water from the sides of the placenta to get things moving. The idea is that by loosening things up the baby will start the process of labor and hopefully, it will send us into labor a bit more quickly than if we had left things alone.

Baby Hollman's latest trick, since he's moved down quite a bit, is stretching out his legs and maneuvering his feet between my ribs. This is SUPER PAINFUL, and in combination with the back pains makes me really wish for labor. At this point, I think the labor would be more painful, but at least short lived compared to these un-ending weeks of rib-wrenching.

In light of the end of this 10 month hoopla, we wanted to end the pregnancy with some great memories of this journey- how excited we were to find out we were expecting, how much we've anticipated the upcoming birth and how fun (albeit painful), watching him grow has been. We decided to get some maternity photos taken by our lovely, talented and amazing photographer Jenn Cress. Now, dear readers before you continue reading on be aware that there are photos included that you may or may not want to see. Some have clothes. Some have fewer clothes. You decide if you want to view them (and even with this disclaimer I am sure someone will be sure to let me know that they can't believe I put half naked photos of myself on our blog)- but to be honest I don't view them as half naked, I think they are much more artistic and deserve more credit than half naked, and to top it off they turned out great, so we are happy and excited to share what we'll call the last installment of baby watch 2009.




















Its hard to believe that baby Hollman will be here in a few weeks, or even days since we've waited for him for 10 long months. We can't wait to hold him and see just how he looks, who's eyes, who's nose and all the other oohs and ahhs that come along with being a new parent, as it turns out, even through all of the aches and pains I feel as though we are now approaching pregnancy at its best: the arrival of baby Hollman.