Hello baby

... the sunrise the day our baby was born was glorious.

I checked into the hospital at 8am and waited and waited and waited....

 Every woman in town decided to go into labor that morning so all the c-sections were moved to later times

 I finally went into surgery at 1:30pm...

...and our baby girl was born at 1:54 pm.

 Exhausted big brother and daddy.

Say hello to our newest family member:

Cedar Shoshannah Ramsey

7 pounds 2 ounces, 20 inches long

Born September 6, 2014

This is my second day in the hospital but we should be able to go home tomorrow.

I'm sleeping very poorly due to extreme itching from the anesthesia so I am quite fatigued. I'm in very little pain though and I'm already mobile and the food here is actually quite tasty. So overall I'm doing fine- I just need some rest so.... g'night everyone,See you all soon.

walk with me

Yesterday started waaaaaaay too early for my taste. I woke up at 7am to be at the doctor's at 8am for my glucose test and first ultrasound.  On average I wake up at 10am (we're night owls) - I really needed those three more hours of sleep. I was a total zombie. Not only was I exhausted, but I was starving as well since I wasn't allowed to eat breakfast because of the glucose test.

Elevator "selfie"...

And wearing my winter coat in the freezing cold waiting room, scribbling in a little journal waiting for my ultrasound...

The whole ordeal took three hours. First I had to have blood drawn, drink some orange juice stuff, go to my ultrasound, get more blood drawn, sit in the waiting room for an hour and then have more blood drawn. Both of my poor wittle arms look like this.

After being sleep deprived, starved to death, poked unmercifully with needles three different times - I got to my car and found I left the lights on.... so the battery was dead. Thank God one of the husbands from the same waiting room I was in just so happened to be walking by. He gave me a boost and all was well...

On the way home I stopped at a donut shop and ordered two dozen donuts to share with my husband. I honestly didn't think about how many donuts that is - I just ordered something. That's a lot of effin' donuts. Not only did I get all these donuts but the cute little freckle-faced Korean store owner threw in two dozen chocolate glazed donut holes as well. I guess that was God's way of trying to make me feel better after having such a crappy morning.

Gift gladly accepted. Divine donuts are tasty donuts.

After a breakfast of about... ahem... six donuts, I took a much need nap dressed in polka dots and sailboats. 

When I woke up I took River out for a "walk" since he ate a whole donut - which is the baby equivalent to me eating those six donuts. He's already getting a Michelin Man look about him so a little exercise is a good thing.

The little dude can't walk without holding on to something yet, but we're working on it.

See?

the first week: bindis and butterflies

Four hours of sleep daily. Tiny little fingers and tiny little diapers. Spit up and mustard yellow poopy. Sore nipples and an itchy wrinkly postpartum belly. That's what's up now.... 

::scratch, scratch, scratch, yaaaaaaaawn::

Here are a few photos from my first week as a mommy

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Sorry to get all mushy gushy here but my husband is amaaaaaazing.

Since my 30 hour labor/c-section/fibroid removal last Sunday, my husband has proven himself to be one heck of a care taker. He supervises my baths, changes my bandages, helps me get dressed, takes care of baby River when needed, runs the errands AND works full time managing the mobile home park we live in. He's top banana!

Here's our collection of hospital bracelets we had to wear. Believe it or not, there are a few bracelets missing. Time to get a scrapbook I guess.

I was totally prepared to have a completely natural birth (I had an unplanned c-section) but sometimes when I look at this little fellow I think, "My gosh! All of THAT was supposed to come out of WHAT?!" The c-section was THE worst experience of my life but I can't help but be a weeeeeee bit grateful that I didn't have to push all of eight pounds of this bouncing Buddah baby out of my....

But if I have my say in how events go the next time I give birth I will be MORE than happy to try natural again.

 River's Granny bought this CD for us at a garage sale a few months ago. She's a a very humble and conservative woman so I was pretty darn surprised when she presented us with this gift. The CD is awesome and the music is sooooo dreamy!

The baby had his first checkup with the family doctor a few days ago. 

 He cooperated very well- even giving the doctor a big yawn when it was time to look inside his mouth.

Ah, yes... and.... er, everything is as it should be. ;)

Our doctor's equipment is super retro. He's not trying to be cool or make a statement by using old medical stuff- it's just that if it's still in working order, safe to use and still looks good, why replace it?? Smart man.

Here are some of the awesome gift's I've received:

My husband found this gorgeous hand painted serving tray at the hospital's gift shop. Isn't it lovely?

 

Here's a little gift I got for myself. I was chilling at home trying to figure out if  was actually in labor when I ordered these amazing necklaces from Natasha Hanson's Etsy shop. I got these in the day after we got home from the hospital. Just in time!

One of my awesome midwives got me some orange ginger candy, tea and beautiful bindis. It all came in this ADORABLE felt owl tote.

I'm pretty darn behind on work, I have a Steampunk Valentine's day ball to finish planning and it's waaaaay past time to update my Renaissance Faire paperwork and contracts but the baby is a little more important than that stuff right now.... even though I have a town of 63,000 people waiting on me to announce the dates of the faire for this year.

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I'm recovering pretty well. I can get around well enough to do some light cleaning and cooking but I still need a little help bathing and getting dressed sometimes. I'm pretty proud of myself for adjusting to new mommy life so quickly- for example, I'm not at all upset that it has taken me almost two days to finish this post.

Gotta go. Time to go pump again.

Baby Ramsey is here!

James River Ramsey:

Born January 20th at 6:41am, 8 pounds 1.5 ounces delivered safely via emergency c-section at Good Shepherd Hospital in Marshall, TX. His womb buddy (a softball sized fibroid) was born a few minutes later. Everyone is doing well... except for the giant tumor thingy... they had to take that out back and shoot it.

Details later.

A quick update

Here's what's been going on in my necks of the woods lately:

• I've pretty much fully recovered from a recent "nesting syndrome" eye injury. The doc at the ER said I will need to follow up with an optometrist in a few days to make sure everything is healing properly. The pain a irritation is down by 99.9%  but my vision is a little off now. Blogging with one good eye really sucks- that's why my posts lately have been just little bits of this and that.

• I'm 31 weeks pregnant now. Boy time is flying!

• I was checking my blog traffic sources today and found this gem: "30 weeks and hate pregnancy already". Mmm... bummer. I hope my blog made them feel better?

• I just recently uploaded nine new deliciously affordable pieces to my Etsy shop. All of my Victoria/Steampunk jewelry has sold and now I'm working on pieces that are a little more "me".

• Any advice on this will be greatly appreciated: our bunny (Binky) stays in a rather large cage for his size. He  bathrooms in one half and chills out in the other half. He recently started to hang out in the soiled area and kicks up the dirty wood chips when he wants to get cozy but that stirs up the odors that are trapped in the chips. Now my living room smells like bunny pee pee all the time and we just cleaned his cage. I don't want to have to clean his cage everyday just so he can chillax in his own pee. Any ideas on why he's doing this and how to possibly stop it?

Binky the Bunny. He smells like pee now but isn't he gorgeous?!?!

Last but not least: I started a new giveaway last night! I'm giving away a beautiful bohemian necklace I recently purchased on Ebay just for the heck of it. The giveaway will be going on until November 25th. Just click the photo to enter!

Enter to win this amazing necklace!

hellooooooo emergency room!!

So um... :sigh: yeah. Ok, so here's what happened. I got a nice boost of nesting energy and decided to continue our project of converting the storage room into the baby's room. So, I was placing books on a shelf and then :SHWACK!: Caught myself in the eye with the spine of a comic book.

After much groaning and laughing (at myself for being so careless) I went to the bathroom to give the ol' peeper and examination. It felt like something was stuck in there...heh, yeah, a piece of my eyeball skin. Looking in the mirror could clearly see that there was a chunk of clear eyeball skin stuff missing. Oh boy.

Now I'm not the kind of person to just skip off to the ER whenever something goes wrong. Something better be broken or needs to be sewn back on before I'll go. Well, I think a piece of your eyeball gone is a good reason to go.

Now, I've been in worse pain for sure, but the level of irritation was darn near unbearable. The right side of my face began to swell up from the stress and I developed a major nauseating headache. I could barely open the good eye because it wussed out on me and decided to sympathize with the other eyeball- I think it went on strike. So I spent the rest of the evening blinded and horribly disoriented from being able to just catch glimpses here and there of what was going on around me.

The eye is more swollen but I can keep it open AND use my other eye!! 

PRAISE THE LAWD! I CAN SEE! 

My vision in that eye is pretty blurred but the irritation has gone down by about 60%.

I had to unplug my laptop to make the brightness of the screen go down, but heck, I'm just so excited that I can get up and move around and not just sit in the dark listening to the TV.

What am I going to do now?

I'm going to finish putting the books on the shelf in the baby's room.

Wish me luck.