Eliza Cate Allen

I'm trying to document on the events of Eliza's birth before I forget the little details. Luckily, most of the pregnancy was uneventful. I felt contractions more with Eliza (Braxton Hicks and real? ones) than I did with Ben, like everyone says, you feel things more intensely with your second child. My hips were very achy most of the pregnancy, but I didn't gain as much weight with her as I did with Ben (I gained 34lbs with Ben, 26lbs with Eliza) so I knew she'd be smaller than he was. Overall, it was an easy pregnancy!
When I was almost 38 weeks pregnant, I started having contractions that were very strong and 3-4 minutes apart. I had gotten home and laid on our bed because I thought it was just gas with Braxton Hicks on top of it. Chris came home around 6pm. He convinced me to call the on-call doctor and the doctor said I should go to the hospital just in case. So we dropped Ben off with Tiffany and showed up at labor and delivery at around 7:30pm. They gave put me on an IV and gave me three shots to stop contractions, and eventually my contractions stopped. We left the hospital at around midnight and I was too tired to go to work the next day. That was the most eventful thing that happened before Eliza was born.
I was scheduled for a C-section (due to the...damage? I sustained giving birth to Ben) on October 3rd at 11:30am. A few days before she was due, my mom came into town and stayed until the day after she was born. Ben loved spending time with his memaw. My last day of work was Friday September 31st and I left work right at 3pm because I had a sinus infection that I got put on antibiotics for because I couldn't breathe out of my nose (Chris said I snored) and was afraid that I wouldn't be able to breathe while getting my C-Section. I'm very glad I decided to go to the doctor because coughing after a C-section is miserable. And it really did suck. You have to hold a pillow to your stomach while coughing or else you feel like your stitches are going to open.
The morning of our C-section, we took our time getting ready. Tiffany had taken Ben over night and we had already packed most of our stuff. We got to the hospital about 45 minutes early just in case we got caught in traffic or something unexpected happened. We met up with Diane and she led us to labor and delivery, where I got into this sexy number (pic below) and set up in our room that would become our recovery room after surgery.


After the third IV was put in (the first one didn't take and the second one backed up), my epidural was put in. I HATE that feeling and still cringe when I think about it because it's such a distinct feeling it's hard to forget no matter how hard you try. Chris didn't almost pass out this time, but we had the same nurse (Charla-one of Diane's best friends) who was present in prepping me for Ben's birth, and she probably remembered how Chris almost passed out the first time and she made him sit down before they even started this time. I guess a needle going into your wife's back is pretty disturbing. We were informed around this time that our scheduled surgery time was bumped from 11:30am to noon due to an emergency C-section that needed to be done.
Noon came around and Dr. Simmons came in to talk with us before I was wheeled back to the operating room. I had so much anxiety (even while I type this I get anxiety just thinking about the whole situation) going into the room. Chris had to stay outside the operating room while I was being prepped. Diane was in there taking pictures. The little screen went up to block my view of my belly and the anesthesiologist administered stuff into my epidural. Then I could feel them poking my belly with tools, which made me cringe. I guess they saw my face and asked if I could feel that. I told them "yes" a little panicky. Then the anesthesiologist administered more stuff through my epidural. We waited about a minute and I could still feel them poking my belly with tools, which freaked me out. When I told them I could still feel it, the anesthesiologist said "Okay, Plan B" and leaned over my face to tell me that since Ben was a 'traumatic' birthing experience, we didn't want this one to be traumatic, so he was going to put me to sleep. I just shook my head okay and the little mask thing went over my nose and mouth. I wanted to ask about Chris (who was still out in the hallway), but I was asleep before I could say anything. I woke up as they were resetting up my stretcher in the recovery room. I remember I couldn't talk without sounding drugged, but I sure did try. I asked Chris if she was okay, and he told me she was, then he told me how much she weighed, how tall she was, she had dark hair, etc. Then he re-told me all of those things multiple times afterward because I'm sure I kept asking the same questions and not remembering the answers.

Eliza Cate Allen

7lbs 13oz

21" tall

Brown hair

Dr. Simmons agreed it was a good thing we performed a C-section. According to Diane, the cord was wrapped around her neck when she was born, which would have tightened during contractions if I'd had her the other way. She also had pooped while she was in me, which is very dangerous because if she had swallowed any of it (meconium aspiration syndrome), it could have caused mental retardation. They managed to suck the fluid out of her before she cried (don't want her to inhale) and it was clear, so we are VERY fortunate. Having taken many special education classes, I knew that there was a lot that could have gone wrong during birth, but the cord being wrapped around her neck and meconium aspiration syndrome were my biggest fears. Dr. Simmons also told me later that Eliza's head size would have caused problems again this time around. So a C-section was pretty much the best thing ever for me and my little girl.

Eliza and Ben newborn pictures Tiffany took

Tiffany brought Ben to the hospital at around 5pm where he got to meet his sister for the first time. This was his face. Actually, when he came into the hospital room, he yelled "No baby!" and literally ran out of the room. Pretty much what we expected would happen. :)
Ben has been doing much better with her. He kisses her and brings her blanket and bottle when it's not necessary. Yesterday she was crying so he went in her crib and found her dolly and brought it to her. So sweet! He has no agression toward her at all. He's been throwing more fits about random things, like nap-time and bed-time. He cries for a LONG time when he's put to bed. I hate it for him, but we can't let him stay up past midnight just because he's upset about going to bed. A lot of other things that he's done are hard to differentiate between the fact that he's a turdy 2 1/2 year old or if he's going through jealousy issues. But Ben is pretty easy and manageable, so even the worst of it isn't intollerable. It's just tiring. Luckily Tiffany and Diane help out a lot by watching Ben for us. It helps us keep our sanity.

This was our first family picture. Not the cutest picture of us, drrrrr. It's crazy to think we're a family of FOUR now! It's also weird to say 'kids' plural. I've never been happier!

More belly pictures

I'm trying to catch up on everything leading up to Eliza's birth, so here are the rest of the belly pictures!

30 weeks 2 days

32 weeks 2 days


34 weeks 2 days

35 weeks 6 days

38 weeks 1 day

39 weeks 4 days (right before leaving to the hospital to have her!)

Excessive Heat and 3D pics

This week has been very tiring. Normally I don't complain too much about how hot it is, but on Wednesday, the temperature was 109 degrees here. To make things worse, there was a fire at the electrical plant (or whatever you call it) that controls our electricity, so our power went out at about 4:30pm that day. People were predicting that the power wouldn't be on for another 24-48 hours, and since I'm big fat pregnant and we have a 2 year old with no concept of how to stay cool, we packed up and headed to my mother in law's house. We packed the most important freezer/fridge stuff we could fit into a cooler and as Ben and I were getting ready to take the exit to her house, Chris called and told me that Diane had lost power as well, but hers was out due to a wind storm that had taken out power lines. So everyone who I was comfortable staying with had no electricity on the hottest night since 1980 (I believe).

We decided to stay in the Super 8 in Bryant (the only hotel affordable and available..we got the second to last room). It smelled like dog pee since it was a room in which we were allowed to keep animals, but it was very cold and felt wonderful.

Ben did pretty well due to the fact that we had Toy Story playing on my laptop for him to watch separately while everyone else watched cable. I didn't sleep very well because it's strange to stay in a hotel when you're not on vacation and have to go to work the next day. I woke up every few minutes to check the time and make sure that my phone alarm was going to wake me. That next morning, Chris went out to my Saturn to start it to go to work and it was dead. It wouldn't even take a jump, so we knew we had to buy a new battery for it. Both of us were late to work, but we went and bought a battery (checked out of the hotel) and then tried to lead a normal day. Our plan for Thursday night was to stay with Troy and Jamey since their power had returned late the previous night and ours still had not. Troy texted us that afternoon and told us that their power had been turned back off due to Benton using too much electricity (it would have caused the power plant thing to overheat or something), so I was very disappointed and a little crazy/tired at that point. I didn't know where we were going to stay that night, and then Ben came in my office at work and got his finger stuck in the handle of a plastic box that held crayons. His thumb wouldn't come out! I don't know how he got that porky little finger in there, but I tried to manuever it every which way and he just kept crying louder and louder. I started to panic. Luckily, one of the other teachers came into my office and helped me squeeze it out. After I thanked her and she left the room, I just lost it and started crying. No sleep plus hormones and stress can make me a little awkward to be around. My boss and coworker came in and told me to leave Ben with them so I could chill out for a little bit, but I didn't have anywhere to go and I didn't want to spend any more money (we just dropped $100 on a hotel room and we're supposed to be going to Branson next weekend).

Chris told me that Diane's power was supposed to turn back on at 4pm, so Ben and I headed that way in hopes that it was true. 4pm came around and it still wasn't on. Even though it was 85 degrees in her house, it still wasn't too miserable, so Ben played while I laid on the couch. Diane was at work. Finally it came on at 5pm, but it didn't start cooling down until the middle of the night. When I woke up to go to work Friday morning, it was still 78 degrees in her house. BUT, it was Friday and Friday is the day I had been looking forward to for weeks because at 10am we had an appointment for a 3D ultra sound of Eliza! We finally have an idea of what our beautiful little girl will look like (the picture above is the best one that we got. The tech told us she was the most cooperative baby that day and we were very happy about that. She's so pretty and innocent looking! We can't tell who's nose she has, but she definately has Chris' big lips! We also saw that she has long eye lashes and short hair floating around her head. It was a great experience.)

While we were at the appointment, Tiffany texted us and let us know that our power had returned. So Chris and I went back to work after the appointment, but we decided to stay with Diane again that night since our house would probably not cool down enough in time for us to go to sleep.

It seemed pretty warm that night, but I had just thought it was because I had worn a t-shirt to bed instead of a tank top. When I got up this morning, it was 85 degrees in her house. Her air conditioner had broke during the night. Ben woke us up at 6am, and when we realized it wasn't going to cool down (after a few days of being in hot houses), Chris and I packed up and told Diane to come to our house where it had cooled down to 71 degrees. Luckily, Diane had gotten someone to come fix her air conditioner. Chris and I spent the morning cleaning our house (the cats had taken over with their fur all over the place) and the smell coming from the unwashed dishes in the sink made the entire house stink. We had to throw out 4 trash bags full of food from our fridge and freezer. More money gone. We went to Kroger and did VERY well buying off brand and sale items. Then we came home and spent most of the day relaxing and watching Ben play. We're so glad to have our electricity back!!!

Pregnant!

So obviously I haven't been updating my blog very much lately. Or at all. I'm still working full time, going to grad. school part time, helping take care of a busy two year old, etc. On top of all of that, I'm 29 weeks pregnant! Chris, Ben, and I are expecting a little girl, Eliza Cate, October 6th.

Here's Eliza's 20 week ultrasound. We were so excited to find out she's a girl!

And here's the recap of belly pics....

15 weeks

18 weeks

19 weeks

22 weeks

24 weeks

26 weeks (it bugs me that I'm facing the opposite way this week)

27 weeks

28 weeks

This pregnancy has been wonderfully non-eventful. I had morning (all day) sickness for the first 16 weeks or so, which was a little shorter amount of time than I was sick with Ben. My hips have hurt from very early on and continue to have good days and bad days. All of the hormones causing muscles to loosen up are making me waddle even though I'm not big enough to justify a waddle. Oh well, I'll take aching hips over throwing up any day! Eliza is very healthy, and the doctor says I'm actually measuring a little big (remember Ben was 9lbs 1oz). Glad I'll be getting a C-Section this time around!

We have most of Eliza's stuff ready and waiting her arrival. We are so excited to be adding a little girl to our family. Ben has no concept of what's about to happen. We hope he accepts it well, but he's the only baby/grandbaby/great grandbaby in the family on both sides, so I'm not sure he'll be happy to share the spotlight. I think he'll eventually make a very good older brother. He can be very helpful and loves to be praised for everything he does. He's almost potty trained, too!! We're very happy to not have to have two kids in diapers at the same time. Ben will be 2 1/2 next month, so I feel like he's right where he needs to be in his potty training. He wears underwear all day and a diaper at night. Of course, he thinks he needs to pee every 5 minutes or so, and he needs help in the bathroom with pulling his underwear off and on. I also don't trust him by himself completely, not knowing how much toilet paper he will flush or how much soap he'll spread on his arms like lotion if I'm not monitoring him. So we're not there yet, but we've got a GREAT start.

Early Weekend

Friday morning it started to snow. Going into work, I KNEW we would close early (this is Arkansas and there is no difference between lava falling from the sky and snow). I just didn't expect us to close as early as we did. After all of our students arrived, we fed them breakfast and then got the official call saying that we were dismissing at 10am. There was no point in going to school that day since breakfast is the only thing we accomplished. It was chaotic and crazy trying to get ahold of all of the parents to make sure they were on their way to get their child or would be there when the buses dropped off the kids early, especially since most of our parent's don't have working phone numbers. Somehow, we managed to contact everyone and Ben and I left work/school around 10:30am.

Ben was SOOO excited about the snow. He loves it!! He wouldn't stop talking about it, and when I tried to get him in the front door, he lost it because he wanted to go play in the "slow". I stuck to his school schedule and made him eat lunch and take a nap before we would go outside. Right after he woke up he made a convincing speech of "slow? outside? slow? slow?" So we got ready and headed outside. Afterall, I had promised him we'd make a snowman.

I just didn't tell him how big of a snowman I was willing to make. He didn't care. He was just excited to be outside and throwing snowballs I compacted for him.

This was Ben playing with his dinosaurs and his parking garage. He's trying to modernize the herd. I've had a fun, relaxing weekend so far. I hate that tomorrow's Sunday. Laundry and homework day.

Picky Eater

Toddlers are impossible to feed. Ben will LOVE something one day, and the next day refuse to even look at it. The only food we can consistently count on him eating is corn dogs, macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, cheese, and fruit snacks. Some days he will barely eat anything at all, which always resorts in me trying to stuff yogurt or fruit in him to at least get him some nutrition.

Most of the time we try to give him what we're eating for dinner, but that hardly ever works out. We've had recent success with pizza, but only because he likes to pick the cheese off and eat it. He's not a good vegetable eater. Green beans are the only thing we've had mild success with, and that was on one of his good eating days. He seems pretty healthy, and that big belly of his suggests he's getting all the food he really needs, so I suppose I shouldn't worry too much.

I wonder what pioneer parents used to feed their toddlers. There are so many more options now-a-days that Ben refuses to eat, I think he would have starved to death back in the 1800's. Then again, he probably never would have existed since I couldn't ever make it across a river without the wagon tipping over and me dying in the Oregon Trail game.

5 month catch up?

Blogging isn't all that fun, but looking back and reading blogs from a year ago or a few months ago makes me appreciate it. I really wouldn't have remembered all the little things I included in some of my previous posts if I hadn't read them a few minutes ago. It inspired me to do a very vague update of things that have happened since August.
I'm skipping September since I don't have photographic proof that it was even a month that existed this year. I can't remember anything significant from that month. So here's October. Ben was a Jr. Fisherman for Halloween. We took him trick-or-treating for the first time. We were in Troy and Jamey's neighborhood and only went to two houses since there were only two houses on that street that weren't pretending to not be home. Halloween was on a Sunday this year, and being the Bible Belt, Benton decided that it was going to move Halloween to Saturday, so that's when we went (thinking more people would be up to celebrating the devil if it wasn't on a Sunday...nope). We'll do better next year!


I threw this picture in because it's just Ben. He's so weird. I think this was an October or November picture.This is what Ben thought of Santa this year. Love at first sight. Actually, he was really excited when Santa came out of the courthouse with Mrs. Claus and everyone was clapping and waving, but when it came time to sit him in Santa's lap.....nope.

It made for a better picture. Anyway, Ben's favorite Christmas movie was Rudolph. He now thinks that any deer is called "dudah" (Rudolph). He also says "No, No Bumble!" while watching Rudolph and the abominable snow monster comes on the screen. He ran over to us and stood next to us pointing at the screen telling the bumble no until it was all over. We must have watched that movie at least 50 times in the weeks before Christmas.

We spent Christmas Eve at Ron and Rhonda's out in Hot Springs and Christmas day at Troy and Jamey's. I really like that routine. This was our Christmas day picture at Troy and Jameys. I'm wearing a shirt Chris got me for Christmas, which he based on the clothing that I bought Melissa from Maurices at Christmas. He's a good boy.

We had a great 2010 and hope to have an even better 2011! Right now we're working on planning Ben's birthday party. I think it's going to be mostly family this year. It's less stressful, plus, Ben doesn't really care about playing with other kids yet, so it'll be easier. He's obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine right now, so it's going to be a train themed party. I bought plates and napkins and decorations that have a train on them and instead of saying "choo choo" is says 2, 2! Because he's turning two. It's so surreal to me that it's been almost 2 years since I had him. He's already practicing the terrible twos with an occassional attitude and a constant testing of his parent's patience. I still love that baby. Oh yeah, and today, while in class, another child threw up on the floor and Ben picked it up with his bare hands. Wonderful. I had to write that memory down since it's something I think I'm going to try to supress deep down in my brain.