When we moved into our new home on May 17th, things were a bit chaotic to say the least.I was just 10 days post-partum, my family was here, including my two adorable nieces, Cora & Layla, as well as four much appreciated volunteers from our new church branch who were helping us unload and organize our belongings.  It was a bit of a zoo.  Many, many boxes were placed in the garage for sorting out at a later time, plus there were several things we had brought in previously sitting in the garage as well.  After we had been here for three or four days, I was walking through the garage and I noticed a box I hadn’t noticed before.  It was the walnut finish high chair we had registered for.  I was really excited to have it even though Shepherd won’t be ready for it for some time.  I thought maybe my parents had brought it and snuck it in when we weren’t looking, but that wasn’t the case.  It had been delivered before we moved in apparently, and the construction crew just put it in the garage for us.  I asked Michael if he knew anything about it, but he hadn’t even noticed it himself.  I looked further at the package and found the invoice tucked inside.  It stated that the chair had been sold to Michael & Melanie Lawson, but I’m pretty sure we didn’t order it (at least I know I didn’t order it and Michael isn’t admitting to having done so).  We’ve asked a few family members, but  no one is fessing up.  I’d really like to send a proper thank you to whoever sent it, but since I don’t know who that is, this will have to do.  We are very thankful and happy to have received your gift, whoever you are.  Thanks so much for your generosity!  We love it!

Hopefully we’ll soon have some time to take pictures of our completed rooms and post them for all to see - although I wouldn’t recommend holding one’s breath.  We have many little projects to complete before any of our rooms are truly “done”.  We appreciate your patience in the mean time.

Shepherd was born at 5:00pm Wednesday 7th May 2009.
He weighed 7lbs 13oz and was 20″ long.

We will be dividing up the blog into two concurrent stories, Michael’s and Melanie’s. We were both seeing the events unroll from two drastically different points of view and you would not have a full perspective if you just heard one side.

I know you all want to hear about the events… but first to what you want more. Pictures! You can also view pictures taken by the hospital photographer (the password is “lawson”).

My mother would say that “I did not want to come into the world”. I was content to stay in the womb. Well, so was Shepherd. That is why, during the checkup several weeks ago, we scheduled an induction date, just in case. Well, as expected, Shepherd did not want to come into the world either. Tuesday evening we headed to Columbia to check into the hospital for our 8:00pm appointment.

We swung by Steak and Shake and Melanie purchased a grilled chicken salad for dinner. Problem was that nobody told her that she was not able to eat from the time we checked in until after birth (I had even called the office that afternoon and asked and was told I could eat anything I wanted up until midnight). So, we had to put her dinner into the fridge. Luckily she was not really hungry. After what seemed like a half hour of Q&A, she was given Cervidil to start the process of softening the cervix. They hooked up fetal and contraction monitors and checked in on mom and baby every so often. We got settled in and bedded down for the night.

The next morning at 7:00 they took out the Cervidil and Melanie was able to get out of bed one last time without monitors hooked to her belly. She took a quick shower and they began Pitocin to induce labor. At that point she was only 1cm dilated. I had been having a few contractions over night, but they were spaced pretty far apart and I was able to get some sleep. They kept coming in from time to time to check on mom, baby and dilation status. Things were progressing slowly, but without incident. After a couple hours of increasing contractions, at 10:15ish, Melanie went ahead and requested the Epidural. Being that this was an induction, I had thought that I might not experience what it really feels like to have contractions, so I wouldn’t recognize them if I ever should be expecting again. I had a pretty good idea after almost 3 hours on Pitocin - curiosity satisfied. And I must say, I love epidurals! My anesthesiologist was quick and I didn’t feel much more than a few tiny pin pricks when he gave me lidocaine to numb before putting in the epidural catheter. If you ever go to Boone Hospital ask for Dr. Zaner. He’s really, really good. After connecting her to that, she dozed off and on throughout the morning and afternoon. Come 3:00 she was still only at 4.5-5cm. They had been telling us that we could expect about 1cm/hour. So from this point we would hope to start the birthing process around 8:00.

Around 4:15 the nurse came in to check on Melanie’s status (she had been sleeping for some time). To everyone’s surprise, she was already at 10cm and you could see the top of Shepherd’s head. I had felt quite a bit of pressure as I was laying there and thought Shepherd must be doing his job to push down and widen the cervix. I just didn’t realize how well he had been doing his job. He was really good to me in that aspect. They quickly paged the doctor, who was away from the hospital and had to rush back. Around 4:40 the doctor showed up and they started the delivery process. After only about 15 minutes of actual pushing Shepherd came into the world at 5:00pm. I must say, it felt like so much more than 15 minutes at the time. The pressure was very much tangible in spite of the pain control and I wanted Shepherd out! I have so much awe and appreciation for my friends who have had to put a lot more effort into bringing their babies into the world.

While all the hectic birthing process is going on the details can start to blur together. Luckily it was so short that I was not overwhelmed with hours of activity that would be hard to sort out later. Here are some of the thoughts I had during the process.

• I am not sure if anyone noticed and I cannot recall when it happened, but at some point during the birth I was overcome with emotion and had tears in my eyes. I am not sure what led to the tears but am grateful that I was able to disconnect from the events and have the Spirit touch me. I was reassured that this was a child of God, given to Melanie and I for safe keeping. I’m not sure at what point Michael was feeling this, but after Shepherd was out and the nurses were tending to him for a moment, Michael leaned over and whispered “I love you” into my ear. I hadn’t expected that reaction from him. I was very touched by that.
• When I went through the birthing class and saw a father cut the cord I was like “why would anyone want to do that?!?!” But when I was there and it was all happening around me I was like “sure!” It sort of became important to me to be able to do it. I was also expecting it to be difficult to cut since people kept saying that it would surprise me how tough it is, but I found it really easy to cut.
• I was unsure of exactly where I would be positioned during the birth. I always had it pictured that I would be up by Melanie’s head, holding her hand and giving her encouragement. However, I found that I was able to stand closer to her mid section and able to watch the process and still support her during the process (although she needed very little due to the quick delivery). Seeing the top of Shepherd’s head and watching more and more appear with each series of pushes… it takes your breath away and brings tears to my eyes even now. I was offered a mirror to watch the process as well, but I was not at all interested. I didn’t want to see how far I was being stretched out and any tearing that might occur. I just wanted to do the job and get through it as quickly as I could.
  
• I found myself wanting to tell Melanie to push harder! Faster! I kept wanting him to hurry up and come out so I could see him. I wasn’t as concerned about seeing Shepherd at that point, I just wanted that pressure to be relieved.
  
• For the first 95% of the delivery process I could only see the top of the head. I did not give it much thought, but I was under the impression that it reflected the size of his head. I kept expecting this little head to pop out. At one point after a comment the doctor said that it was only the skin. This did not sink in until after Shepherd literally popped out. I wish I had a picture of my face. I was like WOW! His head was much larger than my impression. Not spending time around newborns I had no real basis for comparison or I might have realized that my expectation was way off the mark. At that point I had a greater appreciation for the pushing process! I had no idea what it would take to get Shepherd’s body out after the head emerged. I had no idea which push was going to achieve that. Fortunately, once the head was out, the body just came with it without its own push. I was sooooo relieved that it only took seven three-breath pushes.

After Shepherd was born they made sure he could breath, I cut the cord and then Melanie got to hold him for the first time. He was still all “messy” but still beautiful. Now it was my turn to do the work. I grabbed my camera, trying to stay out of everyone’s way, still take in what was going on and still get some pictures a the same time.

I have to wonder if all first time parents have the same feeling…. you anticipate the birth for nine months, you see the ultrasound pictures, you watch the birth, participate in the birth and yet somehow the baby does not really seem like yours. It is like a tiny little actor that just stepped into a play that was unfolding. That feeling is slowly changing, but it will take more time for it to really seam real.

Not a whole lot to say about he next 36 hours. We tried our best to get/catch up on sleep while still taking care of Shepherd, who stayed in our room 98% of the time. I had the honor of changing the first diaper. And the third and the fourth and ….. I start losing count after that! The sleep I lost the first night was well worth it. I wanted to let Melanie get some sleep so I rolled Shepherd over next to my bed and raised the bed up the the same height. I laid my arm across and let my hand rest on Shepherd’s legs. This would calm him immediately if he got fussy. Any sleep I lost that night was well worth the time we got to spend together. I will always look back on that time with Shepherd as one of the pinnacles of my life. I was so grateful for Michael taking over for those hours throughout that first night and early morning. He was just amazing. I always knew he would be a great father, I just didn’t see him stepping into the role so quickly and willingly.

I was struck by how little he cried. Other than right out of the womb, he did not cry until after 24 hours, even when he got shots. That probably changed when he was circumcised late Thursday morning. Shepherd has been amazingly contented. So much so, that we have at times had difficulty getting him stirred up enough to make a fuss and get fully awake for feeding. He is so peaceful and easy going - unless he’s really hungry. Even when he does fuss, he has a relatively mild cry. He’s just been easy on us in so many ways.

We all three hung out together, being checked up on regularly by a good staff of nice nurses. Melanie adjusted to her post birth recovery and we anxiously waited until this morning at 11:00 when we got to check out and bring Shepherd back to the apartment. I would say bring him “home”, but home will be where we go in another week.

I thank God for the birth of our son. We were blessed with a great delivery, no complications, a healthy baby and a well/recovering mother. What more could one ask for? (I hate to complain because my birth experience was about as good as it gets, but pain-free stitches and instant reduction of inflammation would be at the top of my list.) I will agree that it has been a wonderful experience (in hind sight especially) and that we have a very special, serene little spirit in our home for which I, too, am most grateful.

Obviously, I’m not quite the blogger Michael was (is/will be). I noticed there had been 3 blogs by me in March, while Michael sent 13 in the shorter month of February. This one may be worth the wait.Since it has been such a long time between posts, there is more progress for you all to see on the house. The interior walls are up and painted and the trim work is well under way. My parents came to visit for a few days in March and helped with painting and tile work. We were all at the house for a good number of hours over the course of three days. We still don’t have working plumbing, so you can imagine what a sacrifice that was for a woman who is 8 months pregnant. Thank goodness for the little bait shop/cafe/convenience store in Jamestown and their tiny little bathroom, which was only a five minute drive away. I must admit, though, that Michael and my dad sacrificed a lot more in the way of physical discomfort. Tiling is not an easy job and they each spent a good amount of time on hands & knees to get five rooms and the platform under the wood burning stove tiled. The results are pretty impressive for amateur work - especially for Michael’s first effort in that area. He has learned well, and we now have our own wet saw for tile cutting if anyone should need to borrow, I mean rent it from us in the future. (We do still have a house to pay for after all ;o)

Without further ado, I present to you the fruits of our labors - thus far:

The Nursery

The Guest Room

The Office

The Dining Room

The Kitchen

All that Tile -

Laundry

Pantry

1/2 bath

Master bath before grout

Master bath after grout

Hearth

Our wood flooring

Sorry - no pictures of the main living area - there is a big temporary furnace parked in the middle of the living room, so the space isn’t very photogenic right now.

Coming soon: Baseboards, wood flooring (installed) and Michael’s shop (aka the mini house)

I just noticed last night that the Safety 1st Vineland high chair we registered for on Amazon.com shows “not available”. If you wish, you may order the same chair from either proudmommey.com (sku# 03536VLD) or babygift.com (item# DJG029). If anyone decides on this item from one of these or another source, just let Amy (Lawson family) or Monica/Verna (Franklin family) know that you have done so and they can let us know to remove it from the Amazon registry list.

We had our “childbirth in a day” class last Saturday. It was well worth our time, but it made for a long day. The only way we were going to be able to take such a class was to do it in one day. The alternative was to drive up to Columbia one night a week for five weeks straight, and that just wasn’t going to happen. Mondays & Tuesdays I work at Target and if things are really busy I could end up staying until 7pm or after. Wednesday nights I work with our church youth group and Thursdays & Fridays I work for my little independent pharmacy in California, MO until 6pm. It’s quite a hectic schedule, but we need to earn all we can before the baby comes to cover the cost of the house, etc.

Without going into too much gory detail, I can tell you we both received quite an education. We saw some video of the childbirth process, suggestions on dealing with labor pains, etc. I’m sold on getting an epidural - always have been. Michael is more pro on the “natural process”. Of course he is - he only has to watch it, not live it! His heart is in the right place. He just wants to minimize the baby’s exposure to drugs, but as a pharmacist, I can tell you that there is much greater risk of harm to mother than baby. I’m willing to take the risk. If I don’t have such medicinal assistance, who knows how many of Michael’s fingers might get broken/bruised as I endure the “natural process”. I’m only trying to think of his comfort ;0)

Delays -

We met with our builder on Wednesday and went over our construction time line and remaining expenses. What we will pay out by the time it is all said and done is a lot higher than we expected, mainly because they are building the shop, and worse yet, it exceeds what the bank had previously said they would loan us plus money we have access to right now. Our promise of a huge increase to our loan amount has hit a snag. When our lender passed the new appraisal & comps on to Feddie Mack (a national lender/loan purchaser) they weren’t as impressed with the recent huge sale up the road from us. The local loan officer is working hard to find other options, meanwhile, our current loan is nearly drained. Anyone have an extra $70,000 lying around?

The latest estimate for our move-in date is May 17th. We’d much rather be in the house BEFORE the baby is due, but at least the two dates have a gap between them now. Things are moving along out there. The drywall is up and the mudding process is well under way. We’ll have an opportunity to do some painting on the weekend of the 22nd. I should say Michael will have an opportunity to do so. I’ll be in Illinois attending a baby shower (for me), my niece Layla’s 1st birthday party and a Franklin family Easter dinner. Our builder has set aside Friday through Monday for us to do all the painting we can, so I will be able to help out on the last day. Maybe if I’m lucky Michael will be all done by the time I get back. (Listen for the sound of a big inhalation as I hold my breath.) My parents will be coming back with me to help lend a hand as well.

We’ll get things done and pay for them somehow. Maybe we could open a campground on some of our spare acreage. We’re already considering opening a fish farm in one of our ponds. (Thanks for the tip, Amy!) We welcome any and all suggestions!

This is for Amy (Michael’s sister). If anyone is interested, whether they know us or not, feel free to jump in! All should link directly to the registry except Pottery Barn Kids. Just search for Melanie Lawson.
Pottery Barn Kids
Amazon.com
Target/Target.com
Babies R Us
For Target, some things show up on the store registry but not online and some things show up online but not in the store registry.

If you are want to see the bedding color/theme, refer to the items at Pottery Barn Kids.

Sometimes it’s a wonderful blessing, others times the answers bite you in the hiney!

Let’s start with the hiney biting. Michael’s work load was at a bit of a standstill for a week or two. There just wasn’t much for him to do. This left him with plenty of time to do things related to the house, but it made us worry a bit.  With the new baby coming we had concerns over medical expenses since you can lose your health insurance if you do not work a certain number of hours. We prayed that “our” employers would prosper in their businesses so that we could have reliable employment to provide for our needs. We should have prayed only that Michael’s employer would have an increase in business, which he has. Michael’s work load has increased. He has plenty to do to keep him busy for a number of weeks.

The bite in the hiney is in what has happened at my places of employment. Both of the pharmacies at which I work have had a big increase in workload. We are in the middle of a flu epidemic in our area and cold and flu prescriptions have been flying into and out of our stores. The load has been felt much more at Target because we have been short staffed and have new people who aren’t fully trained yet (including myself). I come home from that job feeling like I’ve been beat up most days. I almost always need a shower because I’ve been working hard enough to actually sweat. Most of you have been to a pharmacy - you know pharmacists are on their feet for anywhere from 8 to 12 hours at a time, tiring enough in and of itself, but in general, we don’t move around enough to sweat. It took me a couple of weeks to realize that as stressed as I was, I had asked for it. I had prayed repeatedly that my employers (as well as Michael’s) would prosper and have an increase in customers.  Let this be a lesson to you all to think carefully about what you pray for!

On the upside, in the past week, as those who have read my previous blog will know, we’ve been feeling a good deal of stress regarding the details of the building of our new home. Many nights I am on the verge of tears and beyond, just worrying about how things are going to work out. One of our worries has been the amount of the loan we have been able to get not being enough to cover the expenses of building the house. I distinctly remember praying for something to happen to make things better just last week. I told the Lord we were doing everything we could possibly do to pay for the house ourselves. We’re both working full-time (which truth be told, I should not be doing) and trying to make it work on our own, but we just didn’t quite have enough to finish the job. Our bank loan officer had suggested early on that we have a second appraisal done after the construction of the house was underway. We had this done last week. (The appraiser was the gentleman Michael met at the house the day he got stuck - the same man who pulled him out.) It just so happened that a piece of property on the same road we will be living on sold on our anniversary, Feb. 22nd. The property was 105 acres with a 3-year old house on it. A really good comparable property for ours (acreage and new house wise). It sold for $600,000. What are the chances that a really, really good comp sale should happen right when our house was being reappraised? Right when we had our last opportunity to get the money we needed? Our property value came in much higher than the original appraisal and right at the level we need to complete the work (pending some paper work) without dipping into our savings. We won’t have to hunt animals for skins for clothing after all!!

Other good things:

Today was a much better day all around. In addition to the great news about the loan, we also received the faucet and shower fixtures we ordered, we are getting back $150 credit from Michael’s chiropractic appointments and a lot of house decisions have been made and are behind us. We also met with an accountant to start our taxes. We should get the result tomorrow and we are hoping for a good refund to help with costs. There is still a lot of stress and frustration to come, but at least a few pounds of it have slid off our shoulders.

I’m sure Michael will eventually return to blogging. I really don’t think he’ll be able to restrain himself. We just both had a really bad day yesterday and Michael has been dealing with the worst of it all.

I’ve been working some really long and tiring hours. Yesterday I worked a little over 11 hours at Target with only a 15 minute lunch and a mere 2 bathroom breaks all day (torture for a 7.5-month pregnant woman). Our store is without a pharmacy manager and we had a technician call in sick yesterday and we filled twice as many prescriptions as we normally do - 129 brand new prescriptions, most of which were brand new patients, so all address and insurance information had to be added on each one. It was insane. At 5:30pm we started telling people they could drop of their new prescriptions but we would not be able to have them ready until today. The pharmacy closes at 7:00pm and we were so far behind we just couldn’t promise any more new orders be done before closing. It was a mess. Many of my work days at Target have been like this lately.

Michael had met with our contractor and our electrician yesterday morning. Things on the house haven’t progressed as quickly in the past few weeks and that has been frustrating. We have planned to do some work ourselves to save on expenses because everything we chose from light switches to doorknobs costs more than what was bid in the estimate for the basic items. The biggest frustration is the timing of the work we planned to do. We intend to lay our own floor tile and do some of the painting. We can’t do either until the drywall work is done, which can’t be done until the electrical work and insulation are in place. By original time estimates, we should have been able to do our things starting this weekend. That just isn’t going to happen. The insulation hasn’t even gone in yet, let alone the drywall. There were delays with the electrical work which put all the rest behind. Now it looks like we might have our window either next weekend - when we have our birthing class scheduled for all day Saturday (which can be moved to April 19th if need be, but that’s awfully close to delivery time), or the 15th, on which day I have to work. Worst case, we may be at our window the weekend of the 22nd, which is the baby shower in Illinois. ( You probably can sense where our frustrations are going.)

On top of just the events of the day yesterday, Michael has been carrying quite a load. I’ve been extremely tired the past few weeks and he has been trying to pick up the slack of the things I cannot do. He’s been trying to cook and clean and do the laundry and grocery shopping on top of trying to get in work hours for his employer. Because of the nature of my work, I can’t take care of any business from the store. Any communication that has to take place with our contractor, Michael has to take care of. In addition, we have had a number of issues with insurance payments and medical bills and bills in general that require some phone calls to work out (some because our companies have lost track of us between the moves and others because we recently changed banks) that again, Michael has to deal with because I can’t make those calls from work. There seems to be no end to frustrations in this department. All of this falls on Michael’s shoulders. He’s been beaten down quite a bit over the last few weeks trying to keep all these balls in the air. The thought of preparing for the baby to arrive, overwhelming in itself, only compounds our anxiety.

I know Michael’s blogs can be a little long and his hiding of the baby’s name was a bit devious, but it’s been his only outlet from all of these stresses. He enjoys puzzles and challenges and likes to “spread the joy” by creating challenges for other people to work out. After his bad day yesterday and the weeks of all of his extra stresses and a little needling about the blog and hiding of the name, he’d just reached the end of his rope. (Yes, we are both a little hyper-sensitive right now, but bear with us. Many days we’re standing within inches of the gates to the Funny Farm.) I’m sure Michael will be back when he’s able to unwind a little. Things are looking up for that to happen….see the “Prayers are answered” blog for more details.

Let me make it easy for everyone. The baby’s name is Shepherd James Lawson. No real reason. He will NOT go by a nickname.

This will be the last blog.

First though, a few thoughts about names:

“The name we give to something shapes our attitude to it.” - Katherine Patterson

“A person with a bad name is already half-hanged.” - Proverb

“A good name, like good will, is got by many actions and lost by one.” - Lord Jeffery

“Always end the name of your child with a vowel, so that when you yell the name will carry.” - Bill Cosby

“Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” - English Proverb

“Nicknames stick to people, and the most ridiculous are the most adhesive.” - Thomas C. Haliburton

Page Way Down!

You should have known better than that. If you know my blogs by now, you should know that I do not make it that easy on you! :o) I like to have fun. Consider it a baby name hunt. I have placed the name somewhere in one of the blogs mentioned in the e-mail I sent you.

Don’t get some smart idea like searching for “Lawson”, “baby”, “name” or anything like that though, because I did not include those words! :o) Happy Hunting

Feel free to return to this blog to post comments on the baby name so they are all in one place.