Pictures!

We've been taking pictures like crazy but have been too tired to post them.  Here is a start.  I'll blog tomorrow about how everyone has been doing!

Owen getting ready to leave the hospital:

On his way home.  The quilt was made by my great grandmother.  It's been passed down to each generation and used for all the siblings in each family when they came home from the hospital.

My mom HAD to take a picture of us entering the house for the first time with Owen:

Owen yawning ... so cute!

His grandmother giving him a bath ... I think he loves the camera.

So handsome!

Hospital Pics

The hospital has a baby album so they came in to take some pictures.  If you go to this link you can see Owen's page!  His birth date was 4-12-10 and it's under Jill H. 

http://www.peacehealth.org/Whatcom/BabyAlbum/searchpage.htm

One Day Old

Owen has been doing great in the hospital!  He's officially a day old and opening his eyes all the time now.  Here are some pictures!

He's here!

Owen Walter Helms was born today (April 12, 2010) at 10:51 a.m. Pacific Time. He weighs 8 lbs. 3 oz. and is 20 inches long. Jill pushed for 3 straight hours, due to the fact that Owen decided to "surf" sideways
out of his Mom! Both Owen and Jill are doing fine, and Jill will update this blog as soon as she's feeling more
alert!

It's almost time!

It's 7:15 a.m. in Bellingham, and here's where we are: At 5:30 a.m., after a night of consistent labor, the doctor
broke the "membranes," and Jill's labor sped up. As of now, birth looking like it will occur in the very near future!

Admitted

Welp, Jill was having contractions all day so we decided at 8pm to make our way to the hospital for some medicine to help her sleep.  We arrived at St. Joes and after her first checkup, they had us walk around the hospital for an hour.  When we returned back from our walk, the dr decided Jill had progressed enough to admit us.  It is midnight April 11th/12th now.  Jill is contracting at about 2 mins each contraction, and must have a high pain tolerance.  Ill update the blog, once the lil man is born. Thanks again to all the love and support!!!

40 weeks, 3 days

I forgot to update this page this morning -- my mom is now in town so we've been doing some things.  I haven't had the baby, yet!  I've definitely begun the early stages of labor: lower back pain, hightened pressure in my abdomen, etc.  Basically, I feel like the baby could fall out any day now :)  BUT -- I haven't had any real, consistent contractions and those are what I'm waiting for.  It'd be nice if my water broke but did you know only 1 in 10 women experience that before they start contractions?  The movies are so misleading!

Contractions?

So, this is perfect timing.  Michael went to Fire Academy this morning and as soon as he left I started feeling a little uncomfortable.  That uncomfortable feeling has turned into slight contractions (I think).  I have no idea if they're the real deal but I do know it's not the best feeling in the world.  So far they're not close together or painful.  We'll keep updating!  :)

40 Weeks, 1 day

WARNING: This update may be too much information for you so proceed at your own risk :)

I woke up this morning and ... lost my mucus plug.  If you don't know what that is, you can google it but try to avoid looking at the pictures that pop up.  They're gross (I guess you could probably figure that out by the name). 

This is a good sign!  :)

Another update

I am officially 90% effaced and my doctor doesn't think I will make it another few days without having the baby.  We'll see if she's right!  She stripped my membranes so I guess that's a natural way of speeding the process up.  It was PAINFUL!  She left the room saying, "Maybe I'll see you tonight".  I hope so!

Today is our due date!

Today is the official due date!  I know that means nothing but it's still crazy that I've been waiting for this specific day for almost 9 months!  I actually had my first really uncomfortable sleep last night.  Maybe that's a good sign! 

I've got an appt. today so I'll make another entry when I get back to fill you all in! 

39 Weeks and 6 days!

My sister laughed at my last update so I guess I'll be a little more detailed for today :)

I'm feeling pretty good -- have had a few signs that labor is near but I won't list them since they're a little personal.  Tomorrow is my official due date.  I think it'd be pretty cool if I had him tomorrow since only 5% of women give birth on the due date.  I love going against the odds! 

I have a drs. appt. tomorrow at 3pm so I'll have a great update to give you after that!

Update

Still no baby! :) 

No baby, yet!

So, now I'm going to start using this blog for the reason it was created.  Michael and I will try to update this thing daily so you don't have to worry about being out of the loop with the labor.  A lot of people have been asking if we've had the baby yet so we're just going to direct them to this blog from here on out.

No baby, yet!  :)  I haven't had any contractions or any weird/abnormal feelings.  The baby is really low, though, and I've been feeling a bit more pressure.  Other than that things are normal.  I have a drs. appt. on Thursday (the due date) so if I make it till then I'll update everyone on my status! 

39 Week Check-up

I had my drs. appt. on Thursday.  My doctor wasn't available so another one had to come in.  It was a little awkward but I figured the guy who took her place could potentially be on-call when I go into labor -- he'd be delivering my baby in that case so I might as well get used to him! 

He said I was 1-2cm dilated, still 80% effaced and the baby's station is at -2 right now.  If you don't know much about the stations, they go from -5 which is the highest position to +5 which is the baby on his way out.  So my baby is sitting pretty low right now! 

5 more days till the official due date --- I really hope I have him over Spring Break.  I don't want to have to decide if I should go back to school for a few days before he comes.  It'd be really convenient to just stay out the rest of the year.  So, let's go baby! Come on out!

Nursery Pics