1 week old!

39 weeks pregnant
1 week after delivery with Ashton!
Our first outing
Our 1st doctor appointment

Well, it's been one week and we have accomplished a lot! I went from very pregnant to having a belly with no stomach tone! Awesome! And we have a little baby! After a week of being at home, I was getting anxious to see the outside world, so we took a little trip. My coworkers were in town for a day conference, so we went to visit them! Then we went to Target and Babies R Us. Unfortunately, I was not planning on my baby being so small, so we had limited amounts of newborn size clothes. So we ventured into BRU for a few more new outfits. I think in a couple of weeks, he will outgrow newborn size. Today, we had our 1st doctor appointment. Ashton already passed his birth weight weighing in today at a robust 6 pounds, 4 ounces! And he shrunk, but his official length is 18 3/4 inches. He's still pretty teeny, but I'm sure in no time we'll chunk him up! On tomorrow's list of things to do... we're going to pay Matt a lunch visit!

Due date

I can't believe today is my official due date! Ashton could still be in my stomach and I could still be at work. I actually predicted I would be at work, but it really is so cool to be a Mom. It seems like all he wants to do is feed all the time. Between feeding, changing diapers, and then feeding him again to calm him down, he barely sleeps. Then he when he finally falls asleep he will sleep for 2-3 hours. Oh uh... gotta go, he's already up again!

Settling in

Here are some pictures of our first photo session and our first weekend home! Ashton is so teeny!
One of the rare pictures Ashton is awake!
Isn't he precious?!
So sweetly sleeping

Our first bath
Nice and toasty... he did not like being unwrapped!
Sleeping with Daddy
Waking up with Mommy
Isn't that sweet?

We have settled into our life here at home nicely. Breastfeeding is going well now. I was a little worried at first. We had to supplement in the hospital because Ashton didn't pee for over 24 hours which also could have prevented him from getting circumcised AND from coming home with me when I was discharged. But ~36 hours after birth, he finally peed and got circumcised at 7am prior to our discharge. I have to say that it was not a pleasant site but he is healing nicely. I was also worried he wouldn't go after the circumcision, but he did the deed less than 24 hours after our discharge. I also supplemented him with the formula we were sent home with since he seemed to be hungry all the time! But over the past 2 days, he has been getting plenty from me! I was getting really nervous for awhile, but we're settling into our new life. He even was nice enough to only wake up 3-4 times last night. Our first night home it seemed like he was waking up every hour until ~3-4am!

Matt goes back to work tomorrow. It will be hard for him since he has to be at PT (physical training) at 6:30am! The lack of sleep and being away from Ashton all day has to be hard for him. At least I get to go back to bed!

Coming up next week - our first doctor visit for Ashton. My coworkers will be at a nutrition update in town on Tuesday, so I think we'll venture out into town to pay them a visit and run some errands! I'm already racking my brain as to how we are going to do it! It'll be fun! I see the next 3 months passing by quickly! My Mom comes to visit October 14th. Matt's parents are coming for Thanksgiving. And we are hoping to go home to California for most the month of December.

Created by Grandma Tomate

Grandma says, "I'm thinking he's going to have Matt's eyes. And that nose might be more Matt than Aleyna. Ashton has a little bit of a bridge where Aleyna didn't haveone. Aleyna's mouth. Matt's ears...hehehehe"

The battle wounds

Well, I am happy to say that I am walking out of the hospital without too many battle wounds. No c-section... thank God! There were so many chances that I could have had to had one... the cord wrapped around his neck three times! I still can't believe that! Sunny side up! And the fact that he didn't drop easily... I'm guessing because he was wrapped up so tightly in there! So, I am happy to say, that 2 stitches later and a sore back from the epidural, I can easily walk out of here! I won't be going for a run tomorrow, but I'll take it!

Introducing Ashton Matthew Besmer!

Check out the cone head!

Baby Besmer known to all, is now Ashton Matthew Besmer. He was born on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 weighing in at a teeny 6 pounds, 3 ounces and measured 20 inches. After all the pictures I have taken in the last 24 hours, here are a few of my favorites. These are from his first 24 hours of life! He finally peed so he is currently getting circumcised... poor boy. We will leave the hospital today. He just needs to be observed for a couple hours after the big snip!

My delivery

Baby B made his appearance
This has to be post-epidural. Pre-epidural... I was on my side, in fetal position, hanging onto the rails!
Hi Dad! Matt says I look like an alien here. ET phone home!
Oh my!
The happy family! Nice hair Aleyna!

I'll try to keep things slightly modified as to not make those who are queasy totally grossed out. So, Monday morning ~5:30 in the morning, I "lost" it with a "gush". If you don't know what that means, it's okay it's kind of gross. So, I called my doctor's office that day to see if I had broken my water. By the description I was giving them, they said probably not. So, okay, I figure it could still be up to 5 days or so. Well, midnight rolls around and I am awoken by contractions... felt like severe menstrual cramps. When I started timing, they were 8-10 minutes apart. So, I continue timing them. By Tuesday, 11:30 am they are still ranging from 4-10 minutes apart. I call my doctor office again to update them and they say that I probably won't get admitted until they are more regular at 5 minutes apart. So I wait another hour or so and tell Matt we should probably go to the hospital soon. He's finishing things up at home and in the meantime I decide to get nauseated and throw up with freaks Matt out and we proceed to the hospital. So, on the way there, I'm hoping I am at least 4 cm dilated so that I can get admitted. We arrive at the hospital at around 1:30 pm. My contractions in triage are about 4-5 minutes apart so they decide to check me for dilation. I am 7-8 cm and can't feel my water. So they freak out. I tell them I am Group B strep positive so they hang penicillin right away and squeeze it in. So I am thinking... well, now I can't get any drugs I am way too close. I get rushed into a labor and delivery room. They give me some IV pain medicine which allows me to relax in between contractions, but does not touch the contraction pain. By ~3:30pm, I am 10 cm dilated and almost 100% effaced and I feel like I have to push with the contractions. So they let me but Baby B is still too high up in my pelvis. After about 15 minutes of pushing, they ask me if I want an epidural because it's going to still be at least 2 hours of pushing. So I am disappointed because I wanted to try to do it naturally but knew I couldn't do it for 2 more hours! I have to wait 30 minutes for the epidural because of anesthesia back-up. I get the epidural and wait for another 30 or so minutes. They come in and say I can push. So I start pushing for 15-20 minutes but then my contractions slow down. So, then they add pitocin and wait again. During one of my big contractions (by the machine measurements), the heartrate decels (drops) down to the 60s which freaks me out. But since it recovers after the contraction, they say it's okay. In the meantime they are checking me out and discover he is not faced down (the desirable delivery position), think he is faced up (the bad position which oftentimes leads to c-sections), and has the cord wrapped around his neck. So, the uh oh comes in. So I start pushing again and progress nicely now with the pitocin so they can see the baby's head which reassures everyone. Once I get the baby's head down far enough, they put the vacuum on to get him out quickly. Once they deliver his head they see the cord is wrapped around THREE times, so we push him out quickly, let Matt take a look to tell us it's a boy or a girl... IT'S A BOY and gave him over to the NICU doc. He checks out fine with strong apgar scores (delivery scores with 10 being the best). He is an 8 and 9 at 1 and 5 minutes. So Baby Besmer was delivered at 7:48pm, only 6 hours after arriving at the hospital. I have to say, once I got the epidural I felt so disappointed but once I knew he was all wrapped up in his umbilical cord, it was difficult to get him down and out. And really, it was a pleasant delivery after the epidural. I could joke with the docs while delivery and they could do all the examinations they needed. So, thanks to my anesthesiologist, Dr. Tan/Tran... you'll have to forgive me I was in labor dilated to 10 cm!