Trampolines, Waterfalls and Pee Pee

A collection of photos from August!

Moving back to Colorado

We are finally moving back to Colorado!!! Matt found out on Friday that he was accepted for a contract job thru Lockheed Martin at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, CO. He starts sometime around the beginning of September, so we're planning on heading out of the Smokies back to the Rockies at the end of this month. We've loved Asheville and all it has to offer as a small, progressive, liberal city, and I always say that I wish we could cut Asheville out of NC and paste it in CO and it'd be the perfect place to live. Until we find that perfect town in CO, we're settling in the Springs for a couple of years.

The road trip should be really interesting. We have three dogs that are 65lbs, 80lbs and 85lbs, plus an infant and a toddler. When I moved here from Colorado over a year and a half ago, it took me about two days to get here with a big moving truck. I have a feeling we're going to have to double that time going back, since we're going to be stopping to feed and change Lochlan and Gavin more often than we'd stop to feed and change ourselves-haha.

I'm so happy to get back to Colorado, as I've felt for the past eleven years that it is truly my home. I've tried to leave numerous times and just can't seem to stay away for long. Maybe I should stop trying at this point??? Matt & I are looking forward to getting back to the outdoor mountain adventures that we both love, although from now on with an infant and toddler in tow.

Our last days in Asheville are filled with seeing our friends here as much as possible, enjoying the awesome restaurants this "little Paris of the South" has to offer, potty training Gavin (which is not going so well) and making sure that the dogs don't bring fleas with us. Speaking of, we are looking forward to not having to buy Frontline and Heartguard for the dogs anymore, so that should save us a fortune every month. One thing about hot and humid places is that they breed bugs and I will definitely not miss that part at all.

If anyone has any tips for long road trips with dogs and children, please post them as soon as possible! We were wondering if the vet will give the dogs (and the kids while they are at it) strong horse tranquilizers to make them sleep the whole ride. Somehow I doubt that this is legal. HAHA

Oh, I almost forgot a side note that happened to me today. I was holding Lochlan on his side across the front of me, when I felt my lap become very warm. I went to look and noticed that my hand was automatically covered in what appeared to be mustard. I realized that Lochlan had dookied all over me! His legs are too skinny for the cloth diapers that we use, and his explosions flew right out of there all over mama's lap. NICE! Check out the photo, although the shadows are covering most of the caca that is all over me. He is a lucky boy and has had two baths now in less than twelve hours. At least he smells good. Now if I could just get time for myself to get in the shower and clean up...

Lochlan Cloud Fletcher makes his grand entrance

I decided to start our family blog with the story of Lochlan's birth. It seems that life really seemed to have hit fast-forward once he was born, since we went from zero children to two children in less than two weeks. Gavin Alexander came to live with us on the 4th of July, 2009, and Lochlan was born on July 17th, 2009. We were just getting used to life with a toddler (Gavin is 21 months old), when Lochlan Cloud the infant was born. Here is the timultuous story of how Lochlan came to be born.

On Tuesday, July 14th/early Wednesday morning the 15th (midnight), I made three contractions that were about fifteen minutes apart. After that, the rest were coming every four minutes and would last for a minute to two minutes. The contractions stayed like that for forty-eight hours! I never had the pre-labor part where I was able to sleep to keep up strength for active labor, as I was in active labor from the start. We went to the hospital at 6 am on Wednesday and Jan (my midwife) checked me and I was only one cm dilated! We went home and I labored here through Wednesday and all through the night. On Thursday morning, we went back to the hospital and Kirstin (my other midwife) checked me again, and I was finally at four cm! We were admitted and by noon-ish I was at six cm! At 6pm, I was still at six cm. At 9pm, I was still at six cm. At 10pm, I was still at six cm. At this point, I had been in extremely active labor for forty six hours and hadn't slept in seventy two hours. I couldn't even moan or say my name anymore. We finally had to throw in the towel and I got an epidural because I was so exhausted. They started pitocin right after that, and I dilated to ten cm by 1am! The epidural started wearing off, so I started pushing at 1am. I pushed on & off until 8 am (for seven hours!!!), and baby stayed in the exact same spot for the last five hours of it. It was horrible, because they put a mirror up for me and I could see his head/hair, and everytime I pushed, he just sat there and wouldn't move. My mom, sister and aunt all had the same problem I found out afterwards. They have all had C-sections after trying naturally for long periods of time. Our pelvic areas just never expand like they are supposed to. Baby started showing signs of distress and my blood pressure was up, so by 8:30 am, we had to throw in the towel once again and go for an emergency C-section. I bawled my eyes out, because this was the completely opposite "plan" that we had in mind. I was telling Matt the other day that I don't feel cheated, though, as I didn't go straight to a C-section and actually felt baby in my birth canal for seven hours and I'm so glad I know what that feels like at least.

Lochlan Cloud Fletcher was born via C-section by Dr. Scherr at 10:05 am on Friday, July 17th (my midwife, Kirstin, was there for the entire thirty hours I labored at the hospital, then she stayed for the C-section. She was so awesome to have help me through the entire process). He weighed in at 8 lbs, 11 oz, 22 inches long and his head is 14"!!! We were at the hospital until Monday, the 20th, as he had slight jaundice and his biliruben numbers were being watched carefully. He had tons of bruises all over his body, a HUGE red bruise that takes up most of his head and a big blister on the back of his head where he was stuck in the birth canal for so long. Baby lost a pound and a half within four days after his birth, and we couldn't figure out why. He was nursing properly, but we noticed he didn't have any stool diapers for about thirty hours at one point. We went to the lactation consultants at the hospital twice, and they noticed at the first appointment that he wasn't swallowing!!! He sucks and sucks and leaves it at that (uses my nipples as pacifiers, but doesn't actually extract any milk). So basically, he wasn't eating for four days and that was really scary to realize and I was a wreck thinking that I had been starving him to death without knowing it. I have been pumping around the clock now and feeding him with a small bottle every two to three hours and still trying to get him to nurse a few times a day.

Through the entire birth, Matt was my rock star. We had been through weeks and weeks of childbirth classes called The Bradley Method, which is husband-coaching. There is no way that I could've labored naturally for forty eight hours that intense and with no sleep if he wasn't there to coach me through it all and had we not done the Bradley Method. He said he would've thrown in the towel about twenty hours before I did, and he cried a few times because he was so upset at seeing me in pain. Kirstin and the nurse on duty for the first twelve hours I was at the hospital, were really impressed by him as well. I definitely fell more in love with him that week than ever before, especially when he walked over to me with Lochlan in his arms.