Thank You

I can't believe how busy I am as a new mommy.  I thought I'd have all the time in the world to play on the computer, clean the house, etc etc but it's so not true.  There's no time left between feeding the baby, changing the baby, bathing the baby, rocking the baby, feeding the baby, cuddling the baby, burping the baby, and FEEDING the baby.  

But I love it.  It's seriously the most amazing feeling to hold him and listen to him make all his funny noises.  He can smile now too which is completely heart-melting.  

I wanted to take a sec and say how awesome it is to have such great friends.  The last month we've really had a lot of people checking in on us and helping us out with Topher.  I appreciate all the visits, phone calls, emails, texts, etc.  I am so lucky to have so many wonderful friends looking out for me.  THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!

Pics of Topher

Here are a few pics of Topher, long overdue. I can't believe how busy I am just being a mommy! But I love it. He's such a cutie! Things are going really well! Once again thanks to everyone for your support. I feel so lucky to have such awesome friends!

My baby is 2 weeks old!

This will be the shortest blog of my life cuz I'm in a huge hurry:

I can't believe Topher was born 2 weeks ago. We're starting to adjust to being parents and things are getting easier. He's actually a really good baby. I'll try to post pics soon.

Introducing Jay Christopher Dixon!

Here's Topher! He is so freaking adorable!! We love him so much!! These pictures don't even do him justice, come see him in person and you'll see how gorgeous he really is!

Jay Christopher Dixon (we call him Topher) was born Tuesday, Feb. 3 at 9:49 am. He weighed 8 pounds 15 ounces and was 21 inches long. We went to the hospital that morning to be induced cuz he was a week late, but what started as a normal induction quickly turned very scary. The doctor broke my water and started the pitocin drip around 8:45 am. Our first clue should've been how little water there was left, hardly any at all. Then my mom, Jay, and I were just talking, hanging out, watching my contractions on the computer next to us when suddenly 3 nurses ran in saying the baby was in distress. They turned me on my side, then my other side, then somehow there were 6 nurses in the room, then somehow my dr. ran in and said we needed to do an emergency C-section right now. They shove a catheder in me (ouch) and wheel me off. Jay, my mom, and I are crying and just freaking out but it happened so fast. Next thing I know I'm in a tiny room filled with nurses and doctors and someone is putting a mask on me telling me to take deep breaths while the doctors are holding scaples next to my belly and yelling they're ready to go. The only thing I remember saying was "get him out, get the baby out" cuz I realized this was a life or death situation. Then I passed out and 7 minutes later they pulled baby out and he screamed and cried just like a normal baby.
About an hour later they woke me up and I was super loopy and in TONS of pain. The rest of the day Tuesday was really rough. LOTS of pain. TONS of pain. Let me tell ya, emergency c-sections are no fun at all. But I'm just so thankful that they got my baby out safe and in time. One doctor told us that if another 5 minutes had passed Topher wouldn't have survived. SCARY. So I'm just so grateful that everyone was there to help and did their jobs quickly and saved my baby. Think of the scary dangerous episodes of those TV shows like House or ER... yeah, we lived it.

So Topher is here and beautiful and we are recovering fine. I am still in the hospital right now blogging from Jay's laptop. TONS of pain still, but I get to take lots of pain killers so it helps. Can't get out of bed, go potty, or anything like that on my own... it's crazy. Jay is completely awesome. He is such a great husband and dad. He is so dang cute with Topher! And he's taking great care of me. Today was better than yesterday, and I'm hoping tomorrow will be better than today! If everything goes well, they'll send us home from the hospital on Friday morning.

I know I'm just rambling now but I wanted to get you all an update while I had a minute. I'll be sure to include lots more details about our hospital stay and family and friends and Tophers "eating habits" and all that fun stuff in later blogs. Thanks for all your support and friendship during this crazy scary painful wonderful time in our lives.

I'm going to be a mommy in the next 48 hours.

It seems very surreal to me to think that in approximately 48 hours we'll have a baby.

I'm scheduled to be induced on Tuesday morning at 7:00am. Friends have told us to expect it to feel somewhat strange... you show up at the hospital just the 2 of you and when you leave there are 3 of you. I'm sure we'll go through that stage where we get the baby home and it's like, "Umm... we have a baby... now what??" Luckily everyone reassuringly says that it doesn't take long til you kind of automatically kick into "parent mode". I'm really hoping this will happen for me since I consider myself to be completely clueless when it comes to babies.

So yeah, we're being induced on Tuesday. That's 2 days from now.
**Or maybe my stubborn little boy will decide he wants to come out before then! He could even come tonight or tomorrow! That would be exciting and terrifying!**

In any case, we will update you all ASAP after baby is here. WISH US LUCK!!!

Maternity Leave: Day 2

Today is my official due date. Baby, you can come out now!!!

Yesterday was my first day off from school and it was fabulous! I got up around 8, ate cereal, played with the dog, did lots of laundry, changed the sheets on our bed, took a 30 minute shower, and worked on baby shower thank you cards.

Around noon I started getting anxious and for some reason thought I needed to pace back and forth in our little living room. After maybe my 97th trip from the couch to the door and back, Jay said he had to meet clients in Orem and Provo so I decided he should drop me off at the mall. I assured him, THIS IS NOT A SHOPPING TRIP; IT IS A WALKING TRIP. So like a little old lady, I "walked the mall". It was fabulous! The best part was when the salesmen who work in the little center aisle stores started to notice what I was up to. Funny looks at first, then just smiles and nods. It made me laugh.

When Jay picked me up a couple hours later I felt really good. I definitely feel like it helped my body in a lot of ways. Everyone says walking is a good way to induce labor, and since it didn't work yesterday (but I loved it) I think I'll go again today.

Oooh! Oooh! And we have a doctor appointment today at 4:00! We're gonna set a date to induce me. Jay and I are really hoping we can get my dr to plan it for soon, like Thursday or Friday. We'll keep ya posted!

Start maternity leave tomorrow?

I just read my friend Kristin's blog and it gave me a lot to think about.

I really REALLY wanted to have this baby by today. I thought that if I wanted it bad enough somehow I could make it happen. Well, it's only 9:00am so I guess there's still a chance, but let's be realistic, it's a slim chance.

Even though I couldn't magically make baby come by today like I thought, I really don't want to go back to school tomorrow.

All day Friday I kept telling my kids, "I'm pretty sure today's my last day."

In my huge crate of weekly plans for my sub, the first week I planned for is this week. I told my sub awhile back to just plan to start this week which was fabulous for her since she's got another long-term sub job lined up starting exactly 8 weeks from tomorrow (8 weeks is how long I'm taking off, so she'd jump from my job directly into the next one). If I kept teaching into this week then she wouldn't start my job until later so she wouldn't be able to take the next job... does that make sense?

All last week I was MISERABLE at school, partially because I was physically miserable and in pain, but mostly because OTHER PEOPLE were making me feel miserable. I really don't understand the need for people to go out of their way to seek me out just to say things like, "You're STILL here?!?!" "What are you still doing here??" "Aren't you EVER going to have that baby?!?" or even worse is when they make their own diagnosis: "You need to have sex, that'll get him out" or "Go walk up and down the hallways"... on Friday one woman put her hand on my belly and said, "He hasn't dropped at all, he's still way up high, he's not coming for awhile."

I'm not at all exaggerating... I'd honestly say it's like 20 or 30 people making these comments EVERY SINGLE DAY last week. Every person I passed in the hall... Every person I saw in the copy room or faculty room... People were even coming upstairs to my classroom, totally out of their way, just to tell me things like that...

I left school on Friday and went to the hospital to be checked because I thought my amniotic fluid might have ruptured (a.k.a. I was "leaking") and a few people at school knew I was going which means they all have probably spread it around that "Ashley went to the hospital to have the baby!!" So when I show up to school tomorrow the OTHER PEOPLE are sure to make me feel more miserable than before. Being the already-emotional wreck that I am, I really can't deal with that anymore.

Another argument for staying home: I would like to have some time to finish things. I worked so hard to get everything done for my sub at school that there's still a bunch of things we haven't taken care of at home. I haven't had the time to sufficiently "nest" like I wanted. I finished my "school to-do" list, but I've only scratched a few things off my "home to-do" list.

You might think: What if you start your maternity leave tomorrow but then baby doesn't come for like another week or two?? Two thoughts to answer that: #1) My dr is awesome and he said we could set the date to induce me by Friday this week, and #2) I'm taking 8 weeks off instead of 6 weeks which is the "teacher norm", meaning that even if baby doesn't come until Friday I would still get 7 full weeks with baby afterward instead of the usual 6 other teachers get.

I gotta stop and chuckle a bit... am I convincing anyone? Cuz I'm REALLY convincing myself!!!
This is what I want. I think I deserve to make this decision for myself. Don't you??
I'm calling my principal today to tell her all of this. We'll see what happens from there.