More pics...

As you can imagine we are taking lots of pictures...

First visitors

Olive is enjoying her first visitors this week. Grandma and Grandpa Schroer and Auntie Betsy are here, and I'm pretty sure they like our little one so far. The three of them have been a huge help to Molly and I. They have made and brought us dinner as well as given Molly a chance to catch up on a little sleep. And Grandma and Auntie have made sure that Olive has gotten some new pink clothes to go with all the yellow and green.

We are having a wonderful week, and can't wait for everyone else to come see us.

Olive's Birthday story

Ever since I was a little boy on the day I was born my mom would tell me my 'Birthday Story.' I always loved hearing about my parents and what they were doing right before I arrived. To this day I still request my story each year, and can't wait to start telling Olive hers...

Last Friday was Molly's last day of work so we went out for Thai food to celebrate. After dinner we shopped for the long Christmas weekend. We had a menu planned for Christmas Eve and Christmas day and we also rented a bunch of videos to watch. We were planning on a nice long weekend at home together.

Saturday and Sunday was spent mostly getting the house organized and cleaned up. We are still sorting through a few leftover boxes from the move. We were quite productive and Molly decided she would make and decorate some sugar cookies on Sunday. She made icing and spent most of the afternoon decorating the cookies with pretty designs as well as baby type things. We rewarded ourselves with a pizza delivered by Domino's. We were so excited because we had not lived in a place that would deliver a pizza since our brief stay in New York in 2001. It made for a nice dinner.

Molly was worn out after such a long day on her feet and we sat on the couch and vegged out the rest of the evening. We went to bed about 10:30pm. Molly woke up at about 2am thinking she was feeling some contractions. She waited until 3 to wake me up and when she did she asked me to start timing her. After fumbling around in the dark I found my stopwatch that I had been carrying the last few months for just that reason. We timed her for a few hours and decided to get dressed and go downstairs just in case. I gave the dogs and cat a quick lesson in using the doggie door in case we were going to be gone for awhile.

At about 6:30 we decided the contractions were regular enough and had been going for long enough that we should head for the hospital. It was about 20 degrees, but thankfully there was no snow or ice on the road. It was a quiet ride, I remember a story on NPR about the Iowa Caucuses, an we both laughed about how complicated they seemed.

We got to the Labor and Delivery area right before 7am and they put us in the triage room where they decide if they are going to keep you or send you home. We were really hoping to stay. When the nurse came in to check Molly she was just slightly dilated and she encouraged us to take a walk around the hospital because that would sometimes speed things up. She told us to come back around 9am. We slowly walked around, stopping in the cafeteria to get me a little breakfast, and at the gift shop where we looked in the windows and chuckled at the 'Baby's First Christmas' items. Around 8:30 Molly was getting extremely uncomfortable and we headed back to Labor and Delivery.

The nurse, Holly (who was the head nurse and only checking on Molly because there were 4 other women already in Labor), checked Molly again she decided she had dilated enough to keep her. They put Mol in a wheelchair and pushed her down to a birthing room. (Oddly enough, the same room pictured in an earlier blog entry of our hospital tour.) It was then that I retrieved our bags and started to make the calls to family and friends.

Our regular Doctor was out of town for the week (we had a feeling we would go in while he was away for the Holidays) and so we met the on call Doc who turned out be a very nice woman named Jill Zurawski. We were also fortunate to have the head nurse with us all day. We felt very well taken care of throughout the entire labor.

Molly's contractions started getting more and more severe, and by about 11 she was in a lot of pain. She decided that she would get an epidural for relief. I was glad as it was getting tough to see her in so much pain. (She was also about to rip my fingers off during some of the bad contractions.) The epidural gave her almost instant relief and she was even able to sneak in a little nap or two between nurses visits.

After Molly's water broke things really started moving. An hour later (about 3:45) the nurse said she had called the Doctor and that Molly could start pushing. Molly put on her game face and really went to work. The Doc arrived a few minutes later, suited up, and sat on the edge of the bed. She chatted with us about the Holidays and her kids, and put both of us at ease. She encouraged and coached Molly and was so laid back about the whole process.

And, of course, Molly was amazing as well. She was so tough and did a great job. I was so impressed. Only 45 minutes after she started, she readied herself for the last set of pushes. With one last gasp there was a little head. The Doctor noticed right away that the cord was wrapped around the head twice. She clamped it and gave me the scissors to cut. Seconds later the little body followed, and the Doctor announced, "It's a girl! Olive is here."

Poor little Olive was a little blue from the cord, and had a very low APGAR score, so they took her directly to the warming table and got her some oxygen and rubbed her down. After just a minute or two, her color returned and she was brought to Mom. All was well, and we were three.


It was then time to make all the exciting phone calls to announce the newest family member. After weighing and measuring and taking some vitals, they moved us all upstairs to our room where we would spend our first night as a family.

We are three!

I know everyone is anxious for more pictures...so without further ado...
(Birthday story to follow...Mom and Dad are tired.)

It's a Girl!

Olive Beatrice Jaynes was born at 4:30pm today. She weighed 6lbs 120z and was 19 inches long. Molly and Baby are both doing wonderful! We will write more later, but here are some pictures to tide everyone over...

Merry Christmas! We love you and miss you all.

Winter has arrived

We are so thankful that we got moved in when we did...Old Man Winter blew into town this week in full force. It started snowing Saturday morning, and even though it was pretty it didn't amount to much. We got a little more Sunday, but it still wasn't enough to keep people home and off the streets. We got a bit more Sunday night, enough to force us to use the 4WD Jeep to drive to work Monday morning. I measured on the back deck and we had about 7 inches of accumulation. It snowed most of the day Monday and we even left work a bit early to make sure we got home before the snow started sticking.

We woke up today and got ready to go to work, but just before 7am we got a call that they were going to keep us all home. It had snowed a good deal through the night and was expected to keep up most of the day. As of about 3pm we have about 16 inches on the ground and it really hasn't stopped snowing all day. Neither of us can remember the last time we had a snow day and we have taken full advantage. We have gotten things organized around the house, had hot cocoa, and built a snowman. After being in Central California the last 5 years, we are truly enjoying the snow. I'm sure we were a sight putting our snowman together.

I just hope baby doesn't decide to come tonight! It would be a real interesting ride to the hospital. Thursday is 38 weeks so he or she would be a bit early, but I keep having this lingering thought of driving to the hospital in the snow in the middle of the night. Molly is hanging in there, she is a bit sore, but taking it all in stride. We both feel so much better now that we have a place for the baby and us.

Moving Day!

Molly and I moved into our new place on December 1st. We arrived at the house to find about an inch of snow on the ground. We weren't too worried as the movers wouldn't be showing up with all our stuff until the third. Nonetheless, it made for an interesting day of getting stuff from our temporary home at Sunset Crater to the new place.

The next day I painted the babies room. Molly and I picked out the color 'Cantaloupe Slice', we figured it would go well with all the bedding and decorations we had for the room. It turned out to be a real pretty color, very bright and cheery. Molly cleaned and continued to bring things from our other place.

That afternoon Steve and Nancy arrived in town to help us with the big part of the move which started the next day. A giant flatbed truck arrived with all our stuff that we hadn't seen since it was packed up 3 months ago. The movers started bringing in the boxes and we tried to keep up by telling them where to put things. Who ever imagined that we had so much stuff? Only a few things didn't make it in one piece and it was like an early Christmas to go through all the boxes to see what was inside. It was fun to start finding places for things knowing that they were going in our own home.

Things started coming together over the next few days -- most importantly the babies room. Steve and I got the crib put together and Nancy and Molly found a place for everything as well as made the room look homey. We realized how kind and generous people have been and how lucky we are to have such wonderful families and friends. This is going to be one happy baby!

We were so lucky to have Steve and Nancy in town for the week. We never would have gotten everything done without them. They cleaned and unpacked, put things together, and kept the whole operation running smoothly. All the while making sure we were well fed and happy. We can't thank them enough for all their help. We joked that if someone asked them how they liked Flagstaff they wouldn't have a good way to answer that question. Mostly they just burned a path from their hotel to our house. As always, it was hard to say goodbye, but it was a bit easier this time knowing that they will be back very shortly.

We are still getting things how we like them, but we are very happy so far in our new home, and we can't wait until you can all visit.

Thanksgiving

Molly and I had a nice quiet Thanksgiving at home by ourselves this year. We cooked a nice meal and just enjoyed the time with the two of us. Molly made herself a Cornish Game Hen and I fried up some crab cakes. We also had some traditional side dishes like mashed potatoes and broccoli casserole and everyone's favorite -- cranberry sauce from a can. I even made a pumpkin pie using a recipe I got from Makers Mark. I think we both ate too much, which we both feel you are allowed to do on Thanksgiving.

For entertainment we rented a few movies and watched the neighbors deep fry a turkey. It was a fairly uneventful day with the best part just spending it with each other.