My Little Family :)

OK .. I know I have failed at keeping up on my goal of consistently updating our blog, seeing as it has been over 9 months since my last post... however, now that Noah is here, I feel like I have more motivation to keep this bad boy updated so that family and friends that aren't here in Utah can still keep up on our cute little boy and how fast he is growing!

I am just going to start at the beginning... (It is a long post.. tons of pictures are at the end, so if you want to skip the labor and delivery story, just scroll on down!)

I had been working at Vivint (an alarm sales company) all summer and my last day there was October 7th, seeing as how my due date was the 12th, I figured 5- 13 days off ( my induction date was the 20th if he didn't come before then) before he was supposed to come would be a good amount of prep time. To say the least, as I got further along, it wasn't my most favorite activity to go to work every day, especially on Saturdays at 6 am... so I would've been totally happy if he decided to come earlier than the 12th! But that all changed when my boss at 24 Hour Fitness called me and asked me if I could launch the new BodyPump release on Saturday... 4 days before my due date... and of course I said I would... but now that I had committed to teaching this class, and since there was a BYU game that night, I was ok with him not coming until AFTER Saturday.

So Friday came and went and nothing happened, and then Saturday I went and taught BodyPump and was feeling great! That night we went to the BYU football game and I was still feeling great (especially since we were winning)...until after the game.. I was having a really hard time walking back to our car and was feeling really uncomfortable with contractions. When we got home we tried to go to sleep, but my contractions started to get stronger and closer together, they weren't really hurting though, which I was grateful for! We decided we'd probably better go in, just in case, so at 2:30 am we drove to the hospital and checked into the Women's Center. We told them what had been going on and they checked me and I was only dilated to a 1, but was almost fully effaced... So they kept me for an hour to see if I progressed anymore... but alas, in an hours time I only progressed about .5 cm. So they gave me a shot of morphin and sent me home to wait it out a bit. By the time we got home and fell asleep I was still feeling fine, and I called my mom to let her know that I was in early labor and she might want to start making her way down here....and I am so glad I called her then, because as Sunday progressed my contractions got a lot stronger and more painful. I went on about an hour and a half walk with Katie (my sis-in-law) to see if we could help speed up the process, and I think that it definitely helped :) By 8pm that night my mom was here, and my contractions were killing me! I tried to go to sleep, but by 1:30 am I was in tears and was ready to get this baby out! We woke up my mom, grabbed the hospital bag, and once again, in the wee hours of the morning, drove to the hospital. By this time I was only dilated to a 3, but was fully effaced. So they monitored me for another hour and by the end I still hadn't progressed much more.... I was sooooo nervous they were going to send me home again, which I was not about to let happen, but they said they'd call my doctor first to see what he suggested. He said we could either wait it out, monitor me for another hour, or just get some pitocin going and see if that would help me progress more... of course I didn't want to go home and just wait it out, and definitely didn't want to just wait in the hospital for another hour for nothing else to happen... so they hooked me up to the pitocin and got things moving. I kept telling myself I wanted to see how long I could go before I really needed an epidural, but after just a couple of minutes being on the pitocin I opted to get the epidural... BEST CHOICE EVER!!!! Dante said my attitude and personality was like night and day with me getting an epidural. All I have to say is, props to all of those girls who have babies without having an epidural... Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I think I am a pretty tough girl, but I was having a rough time with labor... I don't know if I would've made it without the epidural... actually I am not sure if Dante would've made it... poor guy, I was such a sass to him about everything before the epidural... what a great husband for just shaking it off and still holding my hand.. I love him. Anyways, after I got the epidural life was great, we all fell asleep for awhile until a ton of nurses came running into the room, through an oxygen mask on my face, laid me all the way down and called my doctor. I guess, once the pitocin kicked in, I progressed from a 3 to a 5 in about 10 minutes and little Noah did not like that at all! His heart rate dropped to about 60 bpm... talk about scary. Even though I was kind of confused at first, once I realized what was going on, my heart sank. But luckily that only lasted for about 5 minutes, they took me off of the pitocin, and his heart rate bounced right back up to 150 bpm. At about 9 am my doctor came in an checked me and I had progressed to about an 8, and then at 9:45 he came back broke my water and told me to push! After about 20 minutes, at 10:06 am, October 10, 2011, our amazing little boy was born, Noah Ricardo Valenzuela at 7 lbs 9 oz and 20 inches long. The actual delivery went so smoothly, I couldn't have asked for anything better... Noah did have a little bit of a hard time breathing at first, so I only got to hold him for about a minute before they took him to the nursery to make sure everything was ok... but Dante went with him and kept me updated and everything turned out to be just fine :) My friend Linnea, who is an incredible photographer, came and took pictures of the delivery.... don't worry, she wasn't up in my grill while I was delivering... it is just candid moments, ect.... to see all of the pictures she took go to:

http://laf-photo.blogspot.com/2011/10/noah-birth-story.html

She is such a talented photographer, I am so glad she was able to come and take such incredible pictures for us!

It pretty much has been love at first sight... He has been a great baby so far... he slept almost 5 hours last night!! He isn't very fussy usually, and he really is just cute as can be... we are both just so in love with him! He is eating really well and getting so big! At his two week appointment he weighed 8 lbs 10.5 oz and measured in at 21 inches long! So a`whole inch longer and over a pound heavier!

Now the part you've all been waiting for.. pictures. Enjoy!

22 weeks

28 weeks....

31 weeks

37 weeks!

Getting ready to leave the hospital... we were so excited!

He loves sleeping on our pillows.. I love his little feet hanging off the end!

And he loves sleeping with daddy :)

Our little cougar... bleeding blue from the start!

Our little Cougar with a real BYU cougar!

We made pumpkin pie milkshakes... and if we look exhausted, it is because we are.

I love his little double chin!

I love his cute little (big) feet!

I always find Noah sleeping like this... totally sprawled out!

Snuggling with mamma... he's so little!

All bundled up to go on a walk.. he loves going outside.

A quick substitution until mom was ready to feed him!

He has also gotten in the habit of blowing bubbles every time after he eats.. so cute!

All ready to go to daddy's football game!

Going on a nice Sunday walk as a family. Noah loves his sling!

Tummy Time!

Wow... looooots of pictures! I love being this little boys mommy.. he changes tons every day and is the only one that can make us smile at 3 in the morning... but what can I say... we are basically obsessed... and TOTALLY in love :)