The newest member of our family!

Devin Matthew Clark 

Born at 3:54 p.m. on Friday, September 10th 2010 in Cleveland, Ohio.

8lbs. 6oz. 20inches long.

He's our little chunk.

And as you can see he as two dimples!

The proud parents.

This was taken shortly after I delivered and it felt good to be done!

We discovered that he has quite a bit of hair, at least for our family.

I have more pictures that I need to upload that were taken after his bath. The nurse brought him in and said, "I combed his hair back, do you like it?"

Hair? What hair?

Sure enough we pulled off his hat and he has a good amount of brown hair!

Luke loves his little brother "Debin." 

At least for now. 

And, here's what happened, for anyone who is interested!

(this might be really long)

Thursday morning I went in for my last Dr's appt and was dilated to a 3.5. We're pretty sure my doctor stripped my membranes, without telling me. I had constant, semi-painful contractions every 8-10 minutes until the early evening, then they became closer, 5-7 minutes.

One thing I really wanted to do before he came was go to our Relief Society's dinner. Even though I had to drag Luke along (thanks to the elders for babysitting!) and could hardly get myself in the car, I was determined to go! They are always so fun and do such a good job. Plus, I haven't been able to go to RS for over 3 years, since I've been in Primary. So, we went and I knew something was up because the delicious food was really hard for me to eat. Once my contractions became 3-5 minutes apart, I decided I should probably go home. I think everyone else was a little freaked out that I was there as well! Haha. 

I got home, was really uncomfortable and Matt said I was most likely in latent labor. I took a hot bath, walked around and decided to just go to bed. I didn't sleep a whole lot, but was able to get some rest that I was very thankful for! 

The next morning before Matt left, he checked me and I was dilated to a 4. My contractions were 5 minutes apart. He left, I slept for a while and then I decided to get up and clean up a few things while I still could. 

My contractions were 3-5 for an hour or so. Matt was with my doctor at the hospital, doing rounds, and he said that I should just come in. 

We packed up and loaded up the car. I drove to my friend Debbie's house (Luke really wanted to play with her son Parker, so I thought he'd be happy there), we loaded up her kids and she drove me to the hospital and then watched Luke the rest of the day. THANK YOU DEBBIE!

Matt met me at the doors and we headed up to Labor and Delivery. It was really weird for Matt, because he's usually the one running around, not the patient just sitting around. I think he was bored most of the time, haha. I was still dilated to a 4. The admitted me and decided to break my water and get things going a little faster. The resident had a hard time breaking my water and as a result Devin has about five or six scrapes along the top of his head. Apparently she was digging his head with the hook! Poor guy.

Shortly after that I decided I wanted the epidural. I wanted to enjoy it this time around. I think I was close to maybe a 5 when I got it. The epidural made things slow down quite a bit, so a few hours later they started me on some Pitocin.

Dr. Weight checked me and I was at a 6. Forty minutes later I was feeling a lot of pressure and the contractions were very uncomfortable. I thought the epidural wasn't working or something. My doctor came back in and checked me and I was complete and ready to push! We didn't expect it to happen so quickly. They got things together quickly and after what seemed like a very long six minutes of pushing, he was here!

From the time I was admitted to the time he came, we were there about five hours.

My doctor was AWESOME! I loved the doctor I had at the beginning of this pregnancy (Dr. Reider), but now that I have someone to compare him to, I liked Dr. Weight more. My nurse was also really great! The L&D part was just awesome, compared to my experience at UH. 

When I delivered Luke there were way too many people (including med students) in the room, it was chaotic. After I delivered him, they let me see him for a minute and then took him away, gave him back and told me to feed him, without any help and everyone left the room. It was like I was part of an assembly line. Maybe they were just really busy that morning? 

This time, it was only Dr. Weight, Matt and my nurse in the room. It was slow and controlled (no tearing!). They gave me the baby and didn't take him away for at least 30 minutes or more. I didn't even know how much he weighed or anything. They told me just to feed him and then they took him and cleaned him up a little. It was a really relaxing and calm atmosphere. They weren't rushing to get us out of there, like they were when I had Luke. However, I must say that postpartum was way better at UH.

We came home about 27 hours after I delivered. It was so nice to be home! At Metro they really encourage the moms to keep their babies in their room all night long. I spent a lot of the first night taking care of him on my own (Matt went home with Luke), which isn't the easiest after giving birth and having an epidural wear off. The food was awful too! What kind of new mom would want to eat a kielbasa sausage with horse radish and iced tea?! Gross. I figured I'd rather sleep in my own bed, eat my own food and if anything happened I at least had my "in house" doctor around.

So far recovering is going a million times better this time around. It's true, the second one is way easier than the first!

We love our new little Devin. He is such a sweet, little baby!

Labor Day Air Show

Labor Day weekend rocked.

I can't remember (I'm loosing my mind) if I mentioned that Matt got the WHOLE 3 day weekend off.

It was awesome.

Friday night, Saturday and Sunday we did some fun stuff...but honestly I can't remember what (I've lost it). All I know is we spent most of our time getting over our colds, but we still played and had fun together.

Monday we spent the morning finishing up the nursery, the guest room and a few other house stuff.

In the afternoon we drove down to Lake Erie to catch some of the air show. It was awesome, as always.

The weather was gorgeous, breezy and cool. Luke slept through the first part, but the darn booze cruise horn woke him up and he was not a happy camper. He hated the loud airplanes. Maybe next year...

Here are some cute pictures of my cute boys.

(Notice the ornery/sleepy face?)

He spent most of the time scowling and keeping his hands over his ears, but it was way loud, I even covered my ears some of the time.

We saw the Navy's Blue Angels and some other cool planes.

The Blue Angels were definitely the coolest. They were spinning, flying upside down, and flying towards each other and then would quickly miss the other plane. You can tell in the pictures below.

It was pretty cool.

I love this picture.

Happy Labor Day.

(I wish I would have been in labor, that would have been awesome).

A usual morning.

Me sleeping in my bed, 6:30 a.m.
Luke walks in carrying three stuffed animals (his "moose on the loose," "Jeff the giraffe," and his "giraffe puppet") and a sippy cup of water, climbs up on my bed and snuggles on in.
I roll over, and continue to snooze.
A little later he's hunching over me, poking me in the face and saying, "Pssssst!! Mom!! Pssst!"
I look over my shoulder say, "huh?"

"I tooted."

And then he kisses me on the cheek.

We're ready!

Well, I've made it to 39 weeks. Whew!
I really hope this is the last pregnant picture taken of me...I don't care if he doesn't come early, I'm just tired of being in pictures and getting bigger every time!

We basically finished the baby's room. It's so fun to have it all set up and ready. 

Since you requested, here are some pictures of the nursery.

I sewed the crib skirt and curtains. The rug doesn't necessarily match the best, but it's what we had.

My favorite is the bedding! Ah, I love it!

My very awesome sister-in-law sent us a minki bumper pad and a fitted sheet. This kid is going to be living like a prince! It looks so cozy, I want to crawl into the crib and sleep there!

Thank you Em!

After he comes, I am going to change/add pictures in the frames.

Oh and I was kind of dreading making a blanket for his crib, because I was getting all sewed out. Well, I found this darn cute blanket (the one draped over the side) on clearance for $8.00! Saved me time and money.

I'm going to put his name up on the wall above the crib....after we figure out what his name will be.

I love the built in shelves we have. Makes for a good changing station-until he's too big for it.

Now all we need is our baby!

Another little Matt?

Which one is Luke and which one is the new baby?

Left is Luke.

Right is the new guy.

Their profiles are SO similar.

We'll see if we will have another mini Matt on our hands.
Fine by me. I think they (Matt and Luke) are pretty cute guys. I won't object to having another.

Undecided

Sorry, no pictures.

Just a quick update. I had my second to last doctors appointment today...hopefully my last? Well, maybe. I really can't decided if I want this little guy to come early or not, not that it's my choice or anything. The appointment went well. I'm dilated to a three still. Luke came right on his due date, so I wouldn't be too surprised if this little guy came before or close to his as well.

Luke and I have caught some kind of nasty cold, so we're really trying to get better before I go into labor. My body and my mind, most of the time, is wishing I wasn't pregnant anymore. I'm quite tired of all the aches and pains, but I'm thankful to have carried to term anyway and to hopefully have a healthy baby. The only problem is that Matt will only be able to take a few days off and my mom doesn't come into town until the 21st, so if I went early I'd be on my own for a while. Matt thinks I could handle it, which I probably could, but I might go slightly crazy. Matt also gets a three day weekend this Labor day weekend (HOORAY!), so I kind of want to enjoy one last weekend before our lives get a little more crazy. So, I can't really decide if I want him to come early or just wait until I'm induced. For now I am not hoping to go early, but planning on being induced (it's good for my mind). I am scheduled to be induced the on the evening of Sunday the 12th, but I think we're going to change to either the 13th or my due date, the 14th. The closer I make it to my due date the better, because I will be set up to have lots of help and company around.

These babies do things on their own time though, so we'll see what happens!