Lions, Tigers & Trains - Oh My!

This was another week of firsts... Benjamin had his first trip to the zoo this week and as you can see from the pictures he was REALLY excited about going.

Katie made a new friend in the large male lion at the Syracuse Zoo - it's actually quite scary because he is usually sitting right at the glass door staring out looking like he is watching for his next meal to run by...

Benjamin also had his first ETE (European Train Enthusiast) Meeting with Daddy & the guys this week too!

My Favorite Time of Day...

I love the quiet of the morning when it's just me & my peanut...

Of course I prefer getting up for the 6-7am feeding rather than the 2am feeding, but overall I have to say Benjamin has been rather nice to us letting us sleep in 4 hour blocks - we just have to remember to sleep when he's sleeping and that would probably help. But it is amazing how quickly an hour or two goes by when I am just watching Benjamin! He's just too darn cute! He's almost three weeks old now, and it's amazing the changes that have happened already... he's gained back all the weight he lost plus a few ounces, he was 7lbs 10 oz last week at the doctor's office. I know it's pretty soon to be thinking this, I can't believe my peanut is growing up already, but I also can't wait to see what Benjamin learns this week!

This week has been full of a lot of firsts - his first trip to church, his first Father's Day with Daddy & Grandpa, and his first trip to the mall. Of course I think his Mommy & cousin Katie were more excited about going to the mall than he was - he slept the whole time.

What a difference a week makes...

Wow... this time last week I was trying to be patient and this week I am trying to stay awake. Last tuesday I remembered to check my blood pressure since it had started creeping up during my 3rd trimester and it was a little high (138/85) but not to the point I was supposed to call the office. Wednesday when I checked it before Tom left for work it was higher, 140/90, and I promised to call the office when they opened. Of course when I got ahold of the doctor they wanted me to come in to check it out. Repeat at the office was 140/87 (or so), so he decided to run some blood work, hook me up to a fetal monitor to check the baby and finally do an internal exam to see where we were... well once he checked me out he said "How do you feel about being induced, tomorrow?" Wow I definately wasn't expecting that one.

Tom & I arrived at the hospital at 7:30am did some inital paperwork and I was hooked up to an IV & fetal monitor by 8:30am. Not much happened after that... they kept coming in about every 30 minutes to check my IV and increase the dose. I did start having some contractions pretty soon, but they weren't all that bad and I kept thinking to myself - heck, I can do this, I guess I have a pretty high pain tolerance... but as I would find out soon those were only "practice" contractions.

Around 4:30pm the nurse said that since things hadn't progressed there was a strong possibility that we would be sent home and told to come back the next morning to try again.... Tom & I both agreed that we really didn't want to sit around again, but if that's what we needed to do I guess we would deal. While we were waiting for our doctor to arrive, around 6:30pm my water broke and then the real fun began... we'll just say the epidural was a life saver and in 5 short hours my life changed forever.

Benjamin Thomas was born May 29th at 11:31pm....