William Clary Quist: A Birth Story

Okay I hope I can remember all of the details!

Weeks before I actually had Will, I had lots of false labor. Ugh, just thinking about it makes me upset. There were three times that I legitimately thought I was going to have a baby that day, due to the false labor. I would have contractions 4-5 minutes apart for an hour or so, and then when I thought things were getting serious, they would completely stop! Talk about frustrating. The day of my due date, I woke up at 4 am with some intense contractions. I took a shower because of the pain and did a lot of walking but things eventually stopped. I then got back to sleep around 8 am. Around noon, I decided I wanted to go to the hospital. I was so sick of the contractions, they were coming every 3 minutes, and I wanted to see if I was really in labor. Looking back, that probably wasn't the best choice.

I was admitted and checked where I found out I was at a 4, 80% effaced. My doctor came in at 1:50 and stripped my membranes. He then talked to me about breaking my water. I think at this point I was so done and not in the best hospital as far as encouraging a natural birth, so I decided to go for it. He didn't mention that if I didn't dialate in a certain amount of time that they would have to put me on pitocin to avoid infection. So my water breaks, and then my labor pretty much stalls. At 4pm I was at a 5. I was very frustrated that I wasn't progressing especially because the contractions were starting to get pretty intense. Also, they made me stay on the monitor the entire time which meant it was nearly impossible to walk around. I walked with Elin for hours during my labor so that was pretty tough to be stuck to the bed. My doctor decides he wants me to do pitocin and so I got an epidural. I had expressed that I wanted to avoid pitocin at all costs and wanted to labor on my own for as long as possible. I had such a great experience when I had Elin, but this hospital, and not to mention my doctor, were so very different. Don't get me wrong, I liked my doctor, but it wasn't the experience I was hoping to have. Oh well, as long as we get the baby safely here and everyone's healthy, those are the most important things.

So at 5:15, I got my epidural and started pit shortly after. I was at a 6. They gave me the smallest dosage of pit possible but it definitely amped up my labor. My epidural was a little too strong because I could not move my one leg, it was terrible! All of the sudden, I felt intense pressure. It was a pretty crazy feeling. With elin, I pushed her down the birth canal, so having Will come on his own was really great. I decided to have my parents in the room with us. My dad stayed in the corner up by my head and my mom and Nate were by my side. My nurse was fine, but nothing special. I started pushing at 6:35 and it was a lot easier then it was with Elin. I pushed for 4 contractions and then Will was out! He was born at 6:49 pm, August 14th, 2015. He was 7 lbs. 4 oz and 19 in long.

My first look at my sweet babe.

Oh, isn't this the best. I could have 10 more babies just to enjoy the newborn stage. It never gets old for me. Toddlers though...

 First pic of father and son. Nate named Will. We have a hard time agreeing on names and so we have followed in the footsteps of his grandparents and how they named their children. We take turns naming our kids. So I named Elin, and Nate named Will. I will name the next child, and so on. Although I do love the name Will. As far as his middle name, Clary is Will's grandma's maiden name. Nate's middle name is his grandma's maiden name. So we thought it would be neat to keep the tradition. 

 Straight from heaven and absolutely perfect.

 Just obsessed with him!

 Elin meeting Will! I actually didn't get to see Elin see Will for the first time. He was in the nursery and so she went straight there and I missed it. It still makes me sad. We definitely had a different experience in about every way, having Will compared to Elin. When we had Elin, we lived in Virginia and so the only family we had was my mom. I also had a few of my friends visit in the hospital. So even though it would have been nice to have more family, it was pretty chill and I never felt bombarded. Will, on the other hand, I had people ready to come in my room while I was getting stitched up! It was pretty wild. I had just had a baby and was dealing with all of those emotions and wanting to see Elin and I had no desire to deal with a bunch of people. That was pretty hard for me.

 Elin wasn't sure of Will but would ask to hold him quite often even though it only lasted a few seconds. Seeing these two babes of mine together is a priceless feeling. I feel so blessed that I get to go through pregnancy(even though I hate it) and labors, and have these sweet little spirits be all mine. Life is pretty incredible!

iphone photo dump

i always thought we would do something a little more special for our 5th anniversary but being 8 months prego, we opted to take it easy. it ended up being a really fun day of hanging out. in downtown charlottesville there is this giant chalkboard wall, so i thought i would add a little something to it. :)

 we went on a long drive out by the shenandoah mountains and ran into a town with the street name of bacon hollow.  you can let your imagination go wild with what the town was like, it was crazy.

nate and i love bookstores.  we checked out a bunch while we were downtown.

 i splurged. babys 1st swimsuit. i decided since we will be in vegas this summer with a pool she needed a suit. i don't think i've mentioned our summer plans but nate is interning with a judge in las vegas. we are very excited to be close to our fams with our new babe!

 

 so i had nate take some pics of me when i was 22 weeks. this is one of them. i remember being so depressed looking at it and thinking i was so big. HA

 nate's cousins wedding in pennsylvania back in february.

 this is a pic with no filter! i snapped it coming down provo canyon over the holidays. so beautiful. i love the mountains.

 2 weekends ago i drove to dc for amy's shower. we are 6 days apart and thought the timing will probably never be the same with other pregnancies so we got a silly bump pic.

 1st time taking advantage of the parking. i felt a little silly.

modern technology is amazing. nate's bro got home from his mission and while we were both sad we couldn't be there, we still got to feel the excitement with facetime. 

and that ends this random post..:)

valentine's, snow, and 30 days without sugar

 had lots of fun folding baby e's clothes and getting things organized this weekend.

 so i'm not very good at communicating/expressing how i feel.  i saw this on the web and thought i would do it.  the orange sticky notes say why i love my valentine. when i first started writing on the sticky notes, i thought there is no way i can get 35. but once i got going, i couldn't write down everything i love about my valentine fast enough(cheesy, yes). i got up early on valentine's day and stuck them on our door. nate was pleasantly surprised!

 one of my birthday gifts-1 1/2 hr. pregnancy massage. this was good and bad. good because it felt so great, but bad because it made me realize how bad i hurt everywhere and wish that i could afford them weekly.

 this was my outfit to work the other day(good ol substituting). i swear this shirt fit when i put it on that morning. ha

so snow storms here are pretty much a joke. they close school for any little amount. seriously. well they were predicting a bad storm, nate and i thought nothing of it. we ended up getting 9 inches! schools were closed for 3 days. i love when i can't work. people are still out of power. any way i took this pic as nate was walking to school. he's dedicated. and thankfully it was 60 degrees yesterday and there is little to no snow left. 

and last but not least. i'm doing something a little crazy. during the holidays and the month of january i was eating a lot of junk. i'm one who doesn't have a lot of control once i start eating said junk. so i thought i'll go off of sugar for a month. i tried in january, made it like 4 days. then in february, i got serious. and by this friday, i'll have hit a month! woohoo. it has been tough. i did not realize sugar is in everything. cereal, bread, pasta sauces, ketchup, snacks, the list goes on and on.  i found some cereal i really love, even though i mostly eat oatmeal for breakfast. having no sugar has made me really experiment with some healthier cooking/baking and i've really enjoyed it. i've taken sugar out of recipes that have small amounts and i can never tell the difference. take above picture for example. i know it's hard to tell what it is.  but i've been craving ice cream like no other, so i scrounged the internet for some healthier ice cream recipes.  i found one using coconut milk and then adding in your ingredients. here is the recipe. just read my comment. it seriously was so amazing and i even had friends try it and they loved it too. by the way, i'm sure you all love pinterest as much as me, but i think everyone should start a board like this one. i love when i come across others that have made a board like this. anyways, i hope once i am allowed to eat sugar i won't go crazy. i do have to admit i feel pretty great. although i am very excited for easter candy.

so that was a bunch of randomness... thanks for reading!

showered

the weekend before we came back to virginia, my mom and sister-in-law, had a baby shower for baby q and i. i sent my mom a few pics and told her what i wanted and it turned out so great. we got so many nice things and i felt so blessed and lucky for the generosity people showed. now for a few details:

fruit pizza bar/mini oreo cheesecake/mini reeses cheesecake/mini blueberry cheesecake

all my favorite candy

another pic of the cute table

 so i didn't want games at my shower so we stenciled onesies and made headbands. here is the onesie decorating table, i'll have to take some pics of the finished projects.  they turned out really cute! we used stencils and fabric paint, and iron-ons.

here you can see the other table, it was for headbands. again, they turned out adorable. baby q has tons of headbands now. ha 

my wonderful mom. she spent a lot of time making sure i had a perfect shower, and let me tell you, i did!

now i just wish i was closer to having this babe. the shower made me feel a little anxious/excited because i have  so many things now. i just wish she was coming sooner. although i'm sure the next 9 weeks will fly by(yes only 9 left!).