Stay at Home Mommy

Well, its only been 6+ weeks since I last updated this blog, but now that I am going to be a stay at home mom, I don't have any excuses anymore! So for those of you that don't know (which is probably most of you) I went back to work on Thursday, the 19th of June, only to get laid off (due to lack of work) the next Thursday. I had the option of staying on through the end on July, but I didn't want Luke to get completely adjusted to daycare just to pull him out and make him get re-adjusted to life at home. So I went ahead and made Friday the 27th my last day of work. Friday was a pretty sad day of telling everyone at work good-bye. But Luke made it better - after I picked him up from daycare and we arrived home, he laughed for the first time!

To add to his firsts, Luke also got his first cold! Thanks daycare! It only took 7 days in their care for him to get his first cold. It is a head cold and he is stuffed up and congested. I took him to the doctor on Monday and because he is only 3 months old, they can't give him any drugs. So I get to squirt saline solution up his nose and then suction it out several times a day. He HATES it! I don't blame him. I hate squirting anything up my nose too.

Then on Thursday, I started to get a sore throat and by Friday I was feeling awful. I went to the doctor on Saturday and Luke gave me his cold. I am contagious, so I have to be extra careful not to give it back (or get it back) to Luke, and I have to make sure Garen doesn't get it. Garen is an awful sick person, so I hope he doesn't get it!

Mom and Dad came down for the long weekend and thank goodness they did. It was really nice to have someone else take care of him while I laid around and got some rest. I don't know how people take care of sick children when they are sick themselves! We didn't do a whole lot with them during this trip, but it was a nice visit.

Last Saturday I went to get my hair cut and decided to let her chop it off. I had it cut up to my chin! My hair hasn't been this short since BEFORE my freshman year in high school. I like it, but I don't have any pictures yet. I'll have Garen take a picture in the next few weeks and get it uploaded. In the meantime, here are some more pictures of Lucas.

Lucas' Baptism

Happy Mother's Day.

We had Lucas baptised at Church this morning. My parents and brother were in town, so it seemed like a good time. He fit into Garen's Christening outfit really well, except the tie was too big for him, so we ditched it. As soon as service started, he started crying. It was a fun morning! He cried through the baptism and most of service. He was ready for a nap and he just would NOT fall asleep.

Yesterday was a bad day for him as well. The roofers finally showed up and put a new roof on our house. But everytime they dropped a bundle of shingles he would jump awake. I finally took him over to the neighbor's house so he could have an hour of peace and quiet. But we have a new roof on the house now! It looks great and we don't have to worry about leaks anymore.

Vanderbilt Visit

A friend reminded me this week that I have been very neglectful in my posts. Hopefully now that Lucas is a little bigger and taking better naps (some days) I'll keep this updated more frequently.

Last Thursday we took Lucas to Vanderbilt for his 1 month visit to have his heart looked at. They did an ECHO on his heart, which was just an ultrasound with heart monitors hooked up. Garen and I got to sit and watch. It was actually pretty neat to watch his heart work and beat. They turned on the "color" which showed the blood flowing through his heart. It was both blue and red, depending on if it was oxygenated or not. When the tech zoomed in on the different chambers of the heart, we could actually see the little holes. Surprisingly, it made me feel better because I could see how small they actually are. They are in the muscle of the heart (as opposed to the ligaments) which is very good. They are also no located near a valve, which is also very good. When we met with the pediatric cardiologist, he was very happy with the results and said he does not think Lucas will need any type of surgery. He is confident they will close by the time he is a year old. SUCH good news! He said there isn't anything we need to watch out for and nothing special we need to do. We don't even have to bring him back to Vanderbilt until November! Garen and I are so relieved!

Lucas has also started smiling and cooing in the last week or so. He doesn't yet do either consistently, which means we haven't been able to get a picture of his adorable little smile yet. I'm hope it won't be too long before he is laughing and smiling a lot more. His first bath was the only bath that he screamed through. He doesn't love bath time yet, but he doesn't hate it. He just sits in the water with his eyes wide and a look of shock on his face.

Garen had to go to Texas this week. He left early this morning, so Lucas and I are on our own for 5 days. I have a few friends and neighbors I can call for relief during the week if I need a break. Garen will come home the same day my parents come to town. My brother Jeff flies in on Saturday. With it being Mother's Day weekend and my family being here, we are going to have Lucas baptised on Sunday. Garen's parents may also be coming up, but we aren't sure if they can make it yet. Richard had rotater cuff surgery about a week ago and is still recovering.

Lucas' First Bath

Monday night Lucas' umbilical cord fell off - FINALLY. So Tuesday evening, Garen and I gave him his first real bath. Oh boy, did he hate it! I understand that a lot of babies scream through their first several baths, as the new feeling is strange and scary, but after a few baths, they love them. I hope that is the case. He screamed through the entire thing, and occasionally he would get so worked up he would forget to breath! Garen whipped out the video camera, so below is a video of the event! It needs parental consent to view, as Garen's camera skills accidentally made the video X rated towards the end. I'm sure Lucas will hate us later in life when we show this video to his girlfriend!


We experienced our first earthquake Sunday night. Clarksville is located on a fault line, so the earthquake in Illinois shook our entire house. I woke up to the bed shaking and I could feel the entire house swaying. My first thought was that it was a tornado, but it wasn't storming. I didn't figure it out til morning. Lucas and Garen didn't budge...men!

This week we will make out appointment with Vanderbilt. The appointment will be sometime next week. We will keep ya'll updated.



Lucas has started focusing on objects around the house. He has discovered his mobile above the swing and loves to stare at it, and he enjoys watching Law and Order with me in the afternoons!

*Video removed via Garen's request :)

2 week check-up

We went to our 2 week check-up today. Lucas is back up to weight, plus a little bit, weighing in at 8 lbs and 14 oz! He has also gained an inch and is now 21 inches long. Our little boy is growing up! He is nice and healthy and everything looked great.

Going to the doctor was my first trip out of the house alone with a baby. I told the doctor about Lucas's gasiness and the doctor suggested I try to cut cow's milk out of my diet, so in addition to going to the doctor, Lucas had his first trip to Wal-Mart... Mommy had to buy some yucky soy milk. Ummm, can't wait to try that on my cereal tomorrow! Oh yeah - and I need to cut down on cheese and ice cream, just to see if it will effect Lucas. It's like a cruel, sick joke! Do they make soy ice cream? Would it even be worth trying?!

On the plus side, no more ice cream should help me return to my pre-pregnancy weight faster! I definitely do not look pregnant anymore, I just look fat now, so there won't be any pictures of me showing up any time soon. But I'm sure none of you want to see me anyway, so here are some more Lucas pictures!

Lucas Mercer is here!

Sunday night I didn’t sleep very well and when I woke up Monday morning I felt like I was having mild cramps. No big deal, so I went to work. I decided to start timing them and low-and-behold, they were steadily 30 seconds long and 8 minutes apart. I figured maybe I should go home from work and try to move up my appointment.

Garen and I went to the doctor at 11am and I was still contracting steadily. I had dilated to 2cm, still at 75% effaced. He told us to go walk the mall to move things along, but to head to Labor and Delivery if my contractions got stronger/faster/closer or if they continued as is for the rest of the day. Around 3pm things were still the same, except the contractions were lasting 60 seconds. So off to L/D we went. They monitored me for 4 hours in this awful shared room area, where we could hear other people and they could here us. When we came in, some poor woman was screaming “Save me Jesus!” and Garen looked at me with this pale, strickened look. He said, “Yours aren’t that bad, we could go back home still!” Around 7:30 pm, when my doctor checked me, I was contracting 80-90 seconds every 4.5 minutes, I was still at 2cm, but was now 90% effaced, so they went ahead and admitted me.

They moved us to our own room and out in an IV. Around 8:30, my doctor came in to break my water. He told me that should speed things up a bit with my cervix, but it would also make my contractions a bit more intense. That was the understatement of the year. My next contraction was absolutely (and unexpectedly) awful. I went from moderately painful contractions that I could breathe through, to curling up in the fetal position and screaming and yelling profanities. Garen refers to this period as the “exorcism”. After 3 contractions, I looked at the nurse and yelled “EPIDERAL”! She took off running, I think she was actually shocked at how much my pain had changed. It took about 30-40 minutes of pure hell before they showed up to do the epi. They made Garen leave the room (apparently a lot of “support persons” pass out when the epi is given). It took about 2 contractions to administer, and 2 more contractions to be completely, and blessedly numb! I apologized to and the nurses and they went to page Garen. He didn’t come back so the nurse went to look for him and said he wasn’t in the waiting room. I figured he’d gone outside to call someone. Well about 30 minutes later I paged a nurse to go and find him again. He was in the waiting room this time panicked that something had gone wrong with the epi because it had been an hour! He had been in the hallway, not the waiting room, and the nurses had missed him!

Around 10 they came in and started the pitocin to speed things up. Garen and I were told we were going to have a long night, so we went to sleep. A little after 11 pm, 2 nurses came running in the room and turned me on my left side and started me on oxygen. Apparently Lucas’s heart rate had dropped to 70! They had it back up in a matter of moments, but turned off the pitocin and told me I’d be on oxygen for the rest of labor. It really scared us. They also put an internal monitor on him to more steadily watch his heartbeat. They checked me again and I was fully effaced and I’d finally gotten to 3cm! Once again, we were told it would be a long night, but after this scare we couldn’t sleep. A little after midnight, another nurse came in to empty my bladder. She checked me again and said I was at 8cm! So much for it being a long night! From there things moved very fast and Garen and I didn’t have much time to think.

At 1:15am another nurse came in, checked me, and said it was time to start pushing! The nurse was awesome telling me what to do and when to do it. She asked Garen if he wanted to look, and he said no. She asked if he was sure, so he went to look. He shouldn’t have looked. He had to go sit down, and since I had taken my oxygen off to push, he picked it up and used it. The nurse told him to go sit down and put his head between his legs! Then she paged the doctor because Lucas’s heart rate would drop when I pushed. My doctor arrived and said we needed to use the vacuum to help get him out because of his heart rate. It only took a few more pushes, and Lucas Mercer entered the world at 1:48am, on Tuesday, March 25. He was 8 lbs and 12.5 ounces, 20.5” long, and absolutely perfect! They let me hold him right away, for about 10 minutes before they took him to the nursery. Garen got to go with him for the first part. When he came back he said they were going to bring him back in an hour.

After an hour they still hadn’t brought him back! I called the nursery and they said he was breathing too fast and they would bring him back when his breathing reached 60 breathes per minute. It took 2 ½ hours total (and 3 phone calls!) By that time, Lucas was tired and didn’t want to breastfeed!! It took 30 minutes to get him to latch on to 1 side, and we couldn’t get him to do the other side. Things are much better now. Lucas could clean a fish tank! It is pretty painful though and my milk still hasn’t come in. Yesterday we had to start supplementing with ½ an ounce of formula after each feeding because his weight had dropped to 8 lbs and 1 oz.

Our pediatrician found a heart murmur and after a few tests, they told us Lucas has 2 VSDs, which are small holes in the lower chamber of the heart. Otherwise he is completely healthy. They are hopeful that the holes will close on their own. Apparently this is very common (1 in 1000 babies) and not a big deal. But hearing that anything is wrong with your baby is really hard. We go for a follow up with a pediatric cardiologist at Vanderbilt in a month.

We came home yesterday. Lucas is the light of our lives and we are so happy! When things settle down a bit, I’ll post more pictures and this blog can change from a pregnancy blog, to a baby blog!

Garen's Birthday

I've been late posting lately, but for good reason! My appointments have been falling on Mondays, so I've just been waiting to post until after my appointment!

So after last weeks disappointing appointment with no progress, I've been doing LOTS of walking. Garen and I have been going for evening walks before dinner, and I have been getting out in the plant a little more. I've even been taking the awful, exterior, super-steep, industrial steps to go to a couple of departments. I feel so out of shape when I get to the top of the steps! My gluts are on fire and I am out of breath. Although I'm sure the extra weight doesn't help that.

Well, at yesterday's appointment I had made some progress! I'm still not dilated, but I am 75% effaced. In case you don't know, this means that while my cervix is still completed closed, it has thinned out by 75%, which is great! I am still at -2 station, which means that Lucas's head is bouncing off my cervix with every step I take! Really very fun!!!

Saturday I went shopping in Nashville with my friend Shannon. I had a coupon, so we went to Babies R Us so I could buy the last few things I "needed" from my registry. I'm still waiting for Target to send me my final coupon to use at their store!

Sunday was Garen's birthday. It was a very laid back day. We don't have any projects going on right now as we are just waiting to have this baby! So we sat around and did a whole lot of nothing. I did make him lasagna for dinner and I bought him a tiramisu cake - which he wouldn't let me have any of because he is a caffeine nazi!

As of today, I am 38 weeks and 3 days pregnant. My next appointment is Monday afternoon and if I have made more progress by then, we may talk about scheduling an induction. This way, I can guarantee that I will have my doctor in delivery (otherwise I only have a 25% chance), plus we will be able to tell our parents when to come visit. Of course, there is a chance I won't make it to next Monday! COME OUT LUCAS!!!