The Nearly Year That Has Passed

It's been nearly a year since our last post. It was an incredibly eventful year, and that probably  has a lot to do with the lack of posting. When we last left off, I had just announced I was pregnant (Yay!). I suffered from a severe case of preggo-brain and forgot just about everything. Sorry crew.

March:

We went for our first appointment with the OB/GYN and got our first glimpse of the little one. I thought it looked just like me. What the most important thing in this sonogram told us, was that there was only 1 baby inside. Twins run on both Marc and I's sides of the family:

There's only 1! One baby! One Placenta! One heartbeat! Whew!

April-June:

We went up to Rhode Island for vacation and to visit family. The weather was wonderful. We celebrated Mother's Day while we were there and my father-in-law bought me some beautiful flowers. Marc and I took a mini-road trip around Jamestown and went up to the Breaker's Mansion in Newport:

My Flowers

Between Newport and Jamestown, a small park we stopped off at for a walk

The Breaker's Mansion

On June 1st we found out I was having a boy.


The great name battle started. Marc wanted Marc Angelo IV, I wanted, well...just about anything else. I had picked out Luke Alexander when I was a kid. Marc couldn't stomach the idea of being able to say, "Luke, I am your father."

July-August:

We went up to Savannah for a long weekend. It wasn't a far drive, but the heat of July was brutal. I was in that, "Is she fat or pregnant stage?" We would go out adventuring in the morning and again in the evenings and pass the afternoon heat in the safety of our hotel room.

Kevin Barry's Irish Pub and Restaurant 

Bonaventure Cemetery 

St. John's Cathedral

Our birthing classes also started in July. They were 12 weeks long and I wanted to make sure that we were able to complete them before the baby was born. We also switched into the care of a midwife at this point. Since my pregnancy had been extremely healthy and low-risk, and we had the goal of a non-medicated birth, we saw no reason to continue under the care of a doctor and to have a hospital birth. After all, I wasn't sick, I was pregnant!

August 31st^

September:

My baby shower was held on September 4th. It was circus themed and quite adorable in my opinion. My co-worker and good friend Susan hosted it and she did a fantastic job:

October:

I was tired, sore, and HUGE! I think by the 1st I had decided that the baby was welcome to come anytime he wanted. I wasn't due till the 27th though.

10/15/2011 ^

We went to a friend's engagement party on the night of the 22nd. There was joy and merriment. What no one else knew but me at the time was that I had passed my mucus plug, which generally means that we would have a baby sometime in the next week. Contractions started on the 23rd, our wedding anniversary. I explained for the hundreth time to the baby he was not allowed to be born on our anniversary. I had supplied him 364 other days to chose from, and the 23rd was unacceptable.


I started having contractions again around 4am on the 24th. I had an appointment that morning with the midwife and she let us know that I had started to dilate and had completely effaced. We had been timing the contractions on my iPhone (I love technology). She advised to give up on timing them as it would only stress us out and go do something we might not be able to do after the baby was born. She said we would just know when to start timing contractions again.

We had wanted to have maternity pictures taken and Marc's friend Susan D, had offered to take pictures for us. It seemed like a now or never type situation. We met up with her around 3:00 and she took some fantastic pictures. All of these pictures are copyright Susan DeLuca. More of her work can be found here: http://bloomingdalephotography.com/

Believe it or not, I was in "hard" labor during these photos. We left her place around 5:00 and started to time the contractions again. When we arrived home I laid down to rest and Marc swiftly packed up the car. He called the midwife around 6:00 and she told us to meet her at the birth center around 7:00. So we did.

^From their website (www.laboroflovetampa.com). It was dark outside when we got there.

I gave her a brief overview of what had happened throughout the day and calmly ate a turkey salad sandwich. She asked if I had a contraction while talking and I hadn't. We all prepared for a really long night. I finished my dinner and then she checked me. I was 9 centimeters! Almost time to have this baby! She filled up the waterbirthing tub for me and called her assistant. My water never broke. If I hadn't been in the tub, the baby would have been born with a fully intact water. Given how slippery babies are anyway and being the tub, our midwife felt it was safest to break my water artificially.

The water-birth room. (Also from their website)

At 9:51pm on 10/24 Vincenzo Dante was born weighing 7 pounds, 13 ounces and was 20 inches long. He was immediately given to us and Marc cut his cord. For the record, my husband is a wonderful birth partner. :)

He's here! He's here! 

Proud papa! 

5 hours after birth, getting ready to go home!

We've taken to calling the little guy Vince. Here's some pictures from the past few months since his birth and forward:

10/27/2011

11/11/11, hanging out on his boppy

11/26/2011

12/28/11

12/29/11

It was a wonderful 2011 and a very healthy one to boot. I gained only 30 pounds, all of which I have lost. Now that things have "normalized" for our little family, Marc and I have resumed our goal of eating well, getting more exercise and leading a life that will be an example to our son of health and wellness.