Finally!

WHEW! It has been a crazy past few weeks in the Miller family. Sorry it has been so long, but I am here now to fill you in on the wonderful new things in our lives!

First and foremost, our son Parker Alan was born on October 27, 2009 at 11:09 PM. He was 6 lbs 9oz, and 19 inches long. I will give a recap of how all of this came about. Monday the 26th I went into my OB for my 37 week check. All went well and she told me I was about 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced. I went home and noticed I was having so contractions, but I dismissed them as braxton hicks. As the day went on they became more regular at about 10 minutes apart, but not really painful. I continued through my day and the next morning I woke up and my contractions had dropped to 5 minutes apart, still not very painful, but I called my doctor anyway and they told me to go to labor and delivery to get checked out. I arrived there at 10 AM and they told me I was dilated to 1 and a half centimeters and that they were just going to monitor me for a while. At about 12:30 PM my contractions had dropped to every 3 minutes apart but I had only hit 2 centimeter dilated. My doctor came in and said "Well, you are having regular contractions, but they aren't doing a whole lot, so we are going to give you some medicine to make them a little stronger and more effective." I just nodded and said "okay," not really realizing what she meant. My mom, who was sitting in the chair next to me, said "Wait, you mean we are having a baby?" and my doctor smiled and said "Yes, we're having a baby!" Words can't really explain how I felt at that moment... the closest description I can give is shock/excitement/freaking out. I began signing all my papers to be admitted. They got me to my room and gave me pitocin (the labor inducing drug). After a couple hours I was able to talk to Caleb via skype, and of course the first thing out of his mouth was "You're not at home" with a big smile on his face. I told him no and that we would be having a baby in the next couple hours. We had a good but quick conversation because at that point my contractions were getting pretty strong. After talking to him my family and a couple friends stopped by to wish me luck and hang out and chat. Finally at 9:30 PM my doctor came in to check me and I was at 5 cm dilated and 100% effaced. She went ahead and broke my water and ordered my epidural. The minutes between her breaking my water and my epidural kicking in were some of the most painful and intense moments of my life. However, once my epidural was in place, I was feeling GOOOOD. An hour later my doctor came in to check and she said "Wow, you are fully dilated! Let's have a baby!" From the time I started pushing to the time Parker was born was only about 30 minutes. The actual delivery went very well, painless and not too stressful. When I saw Parker for the first time, all I could do was cry and think of how much he looks like his daddy. He was perfect and beautiful. Not even an hour later we were able to skype with Caleb and Parker and daddy got to see each other for the first time. You would never see a more proud daddy. =) Later they took Parker to the nursery and I was taken to postpartum. It was then I realized that my purse was gone. After searching we determined that it had been stolen from the labor and delivery room. That was by far the most frustrating thing to happen while giving birth, haha.

Parker was diagnosed with a heart issue called PFO. Basically it's a bulge between the top 2 chambers. Because of this he was put in a level 2 NICU . Basically I was the only one allowed to see him and I got to go in every 3 hours to feed him. So after being in the hospital they finally discharged us on Friday at lunch and we had to go directly to the pediatric cardiologist. After having a heart echo they confirmed that his PFO was still there, but assured us that it was "Almost certainly normal" basically they said it would fix itself with time. Thank goodness for that! Since then we have been back to the hospital once because of some weird happenings, but Parker is healthy and happy! As for me I am doing well I am a very happy mommy and it hasn't been too difficult thus far. I am incredibly blessed with a beautiful baby boy, and an amazing husband.... my perfect little family.

As for Caleb he is gearing up to come home for R&R! This is very exciting for everyone, getting to have him home with us for 2 weeks will be wonderful. Other than that there is nothing too new to report on his end. He is still doing well and is very excited to meet his son.

There you go, you have been caught up on the happenings in the Miller family over the past few weeks. I will be blogging again sometime soon!

A long night in L&D

Well it sure has been an interesting weekend thus far. Last night around 9:30 pm I thought my water broke, I waited a while and my back started hurting so I finally decided to call my doctor to see what they had to say. The nurse just told me to go to labor and delivery and get checked. We arrived there at 11:00pm ish. After I got up there they did the test for ruptured membranes and it came back negative (which slightly disappointed me) and they checked to see if i was dialated at all, again... I wasn't and I was again... slightly disappointed. As they were about to discharge me I started having contraction. They were fairly regular, and eventually became painful. Again they checked to see if I was dialated, and I wasn't. They gave me a lot of water to drink in hopes that rehydrating would slow them down, well it didn't. After a little confusion, they started running tests for anything in the book that they thought could be brining on these contractions. By about 4:00 am all the tests had come back negative, so they gave me one more huge glass of water and told me that they were discharging me, but wanted me to take an Ambian in order to get some sleep and slow the contractions. The Ambian made me a little loopy and pretty much next thing I knew it was 12 noon today!

Ever since I woke up this afternoon I have had continuous regular contractions, but nothing other than that. Good news is that I have a doctor's appointment on Monday and hopefully we can figure out something.

News from our Soldier

Caleb is doing very well! He has a pretty regular schedule, and is still doing well. He is set to come to Austin for R&R in just a few weeks! I could not be more excited! I have officially sent off his first few care packages, but if anyone else would like to send some they shoot me an email and I will give you the address. Caleb is becoming just about as anxious as me for our son to arrive, it is the main topic of every discussion we have, hehe.

Well keep all three of us in your prayers, and next time something exciting happens you'll be hearing from me! =)

the beginning of our family blog

Trying to figure out how to keep everyone updated on our little family and our deployment thus far has been, well, interesting to say the least. I figure this blog will help me establish something constant that isn't in email form.

Deployment is going very well! We are just about 1 month in. Wow, time is really flying. Caleb is doing very well in Iraq. He is settled, officially has internet, and we get to skype pretty much everynight. This will come in handy once our little man gets here. Parker does love hearing daddy's voice though, anytime he hears Caleb he starts kicking and moving around like crazy. Boy, does he love his daddy! Other than that Caleb is, for the most part, enjoying his job. He works with some pretty cool guys (from what he has told me). He does have a very full work load, he works an 8 hour shift but this doesn't include all of his PT time and other duties he may have thrown at him. Needless to say, his command is keeping him busy. As for Mommy, I am doing well, trying to keep this kid put for the next couple weeks, but I am so excited for him to get here and to be done being pregnant! I swear my body is too small for the size of this little boy.

Parker's room is also getting close to being done! Most of the necessary items have been purchased, but I am waiting for my baby shower to get anything else. Speaking of which I am VERY excited for it! It's so hard not to spend hundreds of dollars on this little guy. His daddy and I love him so much already that we want him to have the world... unfortunately we need to hold back for now :) Don't worry though, once I have his room totally finished I will be posting pictures.

So to sum it all up, mommy, daddy, and baby are all doing well. Mommy and baby are missing daddy quite a bit, but are so very proud of him everyday.