May Pics!

First Family Pic!

My boys sleeping :o)

Bringing Baby Home

For the first night home, I think I slept for maybe 3 broken up hours. I sat in the chair with Cason on a pillow because I wanted him to be comfy while he peacefully slept. I was so paranoid about SIDS and everything else I could be paranoid about that I just couldn't really sleep. The next day I was so sleep deprived it was getting BAD. So the 2nd night home, my mom came to help me through the night so I could catch a few more Z's. However, I could still barely sleep. The 3rd night, I tried to be strong and told my mom I could do it without her. And guess what...I ended up calling her to come back for the 4th night. I was just not getting ANY sleep. That whole "sleep when the baby sleeps" thing is HARD to do! Especially for someone like me who can always think of something that needs to be done.

So by the 5th night I had recovered some from the lack of sleep, and didn't need mom to help me. So Eric and I decided "Hey let's both sleep on the bed in the baby's room and put him in his crib." Hahaha! Yeah right! That boy DID NOT want anything to do with his crib. So begins my 3 weeks of co-sleeping. I know this is mosly frowned upon, but I became desperate for sleep. So with Eric sleeping in our bed with Charro (who must have been loving this arrangement because he doesn't usually sleep in our bed) and Me sleeping with Cason in Cason's room all seemed wonderful. I was getting more sleep than I knew what to do with. At this point, 5-6 hours seemed like a lot! LOL!

Hospital stay = No Sleep

The nurses were great during my FOREVER long stay in the hospital. I went in on Sunday @ 3:45 pm and didn't get out of that place until Wed. @ 4:00 pm. We were there too long. I was so SICK of that dang hospital room. Just one of the joys of having a C-Section. As you can see, I'm still not thrilled about the whole thing.

On the other hand, I couldn't be MORE THRILLED about our new baby boy!! Of course in the hospital he mostly just slept and slept and finally started eating in the middle of the night on Monday. I didn't get any sleep until about midnight on Monday. Then the nurses came in at 3 am because Cason was hungry, then again at 6 am for the same reason. Of course I didn't mind feeding him, but I was SO STINKIN' TIRED. The whole day Monday consisted of people coming to see us and our new bundle. Don't get me wrong, I didn't mind visitors, but the lack of sleep really started to hit me on Tuesday. At about 4 pm on Tuesday Eric and I had not had any visitors so we decided to slip a nap in. Well that idea didn't even last an hour when another visitor came to see us. Then Wednesday we were released to go home. Little did I know I wouldn't be getting any good sleep for the next 5 days.

Here is Cason's "Going Home" pic!

And here's my story...

This is gonna be long, but I will try to not go into too much detail :o)

So Sunday morning, May 16th, I woke up about 8:30 am like usual, ate my breakfast and decided to jump in the shower and get ready for church. At about 9:30, shortly after my shower, I felt this horrible cramping sensation in my lower abdomen. Not thinking too much about it, for some strange reason, I just went on about my business and started getting ready. Then, of all things, the power goes out before I could even get my hair dried. My neighbor, Lisa Marks, calls and confirms that her power is out too. Meanwhile, ever so often, I was getting these terrible cramps...they were like a menstrual cramp X 10! If I was walking around the house, I literally had to stop moving until the cramp passed. And again, I'm dumb and thought nothing of it. So after deciding I wouldn't have enough time to get ready for church without power, I called my parents to come and pick up the 2 gifts I had for 2 of the seniors at church. I had plans to eat lunch with my parents and grandmother and was still planning on that. So once the power came on I was able to finish getting ready and head over to the Chatfield for lunch. During the entire lunch it was hard to eat while I was having these terrible cramps. They were starting to make me curl my toes real hard in order to get through them. After lunch I hung out with the family until about 2 pm when I told Eric I really felt like going home and lying down with these cramps. After we got home, I sent my sister-in-law a text about my cramps. She quickly called me and said "HONEY, you're in labor!!" So I started timing these cramps and sure enough they were only about 2-3 minutes apart! BY GEORGE I GUESS I AM IN LABOR! Like I said, I'm an idiot for not thinking that.
So about 3:45 pm we head to the hospital. They checked me and I was a 4!! YAY!! I had hoped I wouldn't show up and be sent home and I was so glad I got to stay. All my nerves about L&D for some reason went out the window. I think it was because the first nurse that helped me made me feel so at ease. So Eric and I started calling and texting our family and friends (Megan had requested to know asap in order to head our way)! Since I was going to have an epidural they told me it would be about an hour before I got it. Eric then left the room to go get our bags from the car. As soon as he left, I had the BIGGEST and worst contraction thus far! It took up the length of the computer screen! After that, I said "give me some of that stuff to take the edge off!" I can't remember what that crazy stuff was, but DANG did it work. Eric said it was like I was drunk. I could barely talk and barely keep my eyes open. My parents show up after this point and I bet my mom was wondering what was wrong with me. LOL! About 5:30 pm I got my epidural (which didn't hurt AT ALL) and all was GOOD! About 7 pm Megan showed up! Have I mentioned that I have the BEST, BESTIE in the world??!!
So I continued to contract very steadily and around midnight I had reached the BIG 10!!! I never had to have any pitocin either. I was thankful for that.
Woo Hoo! Time to start pushing....so I pushed and pushed and pushed for an hour and a half and NADA! (oh and I guess I should mention that everyone there couldn't figure out why I was laughing while pushing. Well, I was trying to have fun and entertain Eric and the nurse for some reason. It was kind of boring in there and I wanted to liven things up...make it less awkward or something like that. Hahaha!) Dang it!! The little guy just wasn't gonna fit. So they called up the surgery team and my next adventure included a C-Section. :o( Up until this point, a C-section had NEVER crossed my mind. I just KNEW I wouldn't have to go that route...until 1:30 am when the sad news was shared with everyone. After they dosed up my epidural, I thought I was gonna fall asleep and miss the whole thing, but luckily I got a second wind after Eric finally joined me in the OR. (And I forgot to mention that I have never had a major surgery before) At 2:37 am on Monday morning Cason Lane Clawson was born!!!! He weighed 8.2 lbs. & was 20.5" long.


So all in all my L&D was pretty uneventful. Everything progressed accordingly and there were no complications. So I guess I can say I was in "labor" for approx. 15 hours before I was dilated to a 10 and started pushing.

Today is the "DUE DATE" but where is Baby C?

Since Baby C STILL isn't here yet, I thought I would post a little pregnancy survey just for fun!

*When is your due date? Today, May 12, 2010

*What week are you in? 40th

*What was your weight pre-pregnancy? 130

*What is your current weight? 164

*Do you have an innie or outtie? Neither, it is flat and looks pretty strange

*Do you know the gender of your baby? If so, what? Yes, BOY!

*Do you have a name picked out? What? Yes, but we aren’t telling until he arrives!

*Is the child being named after someone? Nope! I came up with the first name and Eric came up with his middle name.

*Who is going to be with you during delivery? Just Eric

*Natural or medicated childbirth? Epidural please…I’m not trying to be superwoman

*How are you feeling right about now? Perfectly normal, which seems crazy to me

*What was the first thing you bought for baby? The Baby Bedding! I had it picked out as soon as we decided to start trying! Then the stroller! I just couldn’t wait to get one for some reason!

*Do you feel you are ready to have a baby? VERY

*Are you excited or scared about delivery? Excited, Anxious and a little nervous

*Any food cravings? Sweets! And I NEVER crave sweets!

*Anything you loved before that you absolutely cannot eat anymore? Brisket…but I hope I can love it again after baby gets here

Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother's Day and it was a splendid day! Eric surprised me in the morning with my FIRST Mother's Day gift! I was not expecting to get anything this year, but was pleasantly surprised when he told me had something for me. Eric was very creative and I can't believe he came up with such a great idea! He gave me a jewelry set in the baby's birth stone, EMERALD! How adorable is that?!! Necklace, earrings and a ring! I wore it yesterday and I will continue to wear it with pride!

Surprise, Surprise!!

Ohhhhhhhhh what a glorious day!! Let me begin by telling you what happen almost a month ago. On April 9th I was was so excited because Megan was coming in town and my Baby Shower was the next day! So after work I went home and was greeted by 2 boxes! With a big smile on my face I grabbed the boxes and took them into the kitchen to grab the scissors. Opened them and TADA!! A Baby Gift and my Hostess Gifts had arrived! So I took everything into the nursery and tied the ribbons around my hostess gifts. Then I went into the bathroom to change and take off my jewelry because I had already planned to trim the hedge before Megan's arrival. I wanted the yard to look nice, not that she cared. Lol! Eric was leaving to go fishing so it was gonna be a Megan/LeeAnn fun night!

Soooo that's how it all began. I remember every step I took perfectly up to that point. Then Megan arrives and we unload her car and then get ready for dinner. We went to Mi Familia's because it was a NEW place for Megan to try. (She's been here so many times, she's had just about everything there is) I'm pretty sure I remember sitting down at the table, looking at the menu and saying "Oh man I forgot my ring" Didn't think much of it, just assumed I forgot to grab it on the way out. So we get home and I was washing my face, looked up and OH MY GOSH!! My wedding rings were not on the jewelry stand! I went into a panic! I searched EVERYHWERE. I even text Eric and asked if he was playing a trick on me because I had left them. Of course, he didn't have them. So I couldn't sleep very well that night because all I could think about were my rings and how could I have lost them!

I put all that behind me and had a wonderful shower on Saturday and tried not to think about it. Come Sunday, Eric and I searched and searched EVERYWHERE 100 times over and still NO RINGS!! I cried and cried and Eric comforted me by telling me "Us guys buy those rings for yall, we don't care anything about them." Wow, what an understanding husband he was while I couldn't stop balling my eyes out.

So come Monday I had Cody watch our surveillance camera from Friday to see if maybe I had left it, maybe the cleaning lady found it. And nothing indicated that. The cleaning lady even cleaned out the entire vacuum bag to look and see if my ring was in it. STILL NO SIGN OF IT!!

The next weekend Eric and I headed to Abilene for a little shopping trip. While we were there he bought me a sweet little ring so I would at least have something nice on my finger (up until this point I was wearing my $8 fake ring). I told him I didn't think I deserved anything over $100 after losing my beautiful rings! But he still did me right and got me this sweet ring.

NOW COMES THE BEST PART!!!!!!

Today, May 6th, (almost a month ago) has been truly AMAZING!! First, I get to work and there are balloons on my office door and window....I walk in my office and there are presents everywhere! Shelly had organized an Office Diaper Shower for me! SUCH A SURPRISE!! I had NOT expected this AT ALL! Then, Megan calls my office phone and I thought "this is odd, Megan usually doesn't call me first thing in the morning" so I picked it up and was greeted with "I am about to make your day!" I had NO CLUE how she could MAKE MY DAY at this point. She proceeds to tell me "I FOUND YOUR RING!!!!" Holy Cow!! I had left my ring in Megan's car when we went to eat at Mi Familia's. SERIOUSLY!! Why could I not remember taking it off in the car and putting lotion on??!! My pregnant brain REALLY got the best of me this time!

That was a long story, but I had to document it ALL! So Today has been and will continue to be AMAZING!! Diapers, rings being found and a party with FOOD here at work!! WOO HOO!! What a day!!!