Brady Louis Campbell

Here he is! I know it took me a very long time to get this posted, but you wouldn't believe how unbelievable busy he has been keeping us! 

Brady was born on Monday, October 20th at 7:27 am. Here's the condensed version of his birth story......My water broke around 7pm Sunday night. Contractions started around 11 pm - they were very strong and close together from the start. Rob woke up to all my "birthing noises" around 2am. We called our doula and she came over around 4am. I was begging and insisting that I no longer wanted a natural childbirth and needed to get to the hospital to get an epidural. She checked me and I was 4-5 cm. We left for the hospital at 5am. By the time we arrived, got checked in, & my midwife checked me again it was around 6:30 and I was already 8-9 cm. I was screaming for the epidural and the anesthesiologist was actually walking through the door. But my midwife, doula, and Rob kept distracting me and put me in the shower and sent him away instead! My doula had me kneeling in the shower and told me to do some "mini pushes" to help push the last bit of my cervix away. All of a sudden my body just started pushing on it's own. It was crazy...I didn't want to push because each time I did it hurt sooo bad, but I couldn't stop myself from doing it. I got back on the bed around 7am and they put the "birthing bar" on the bed for me to use. I pushed for about 25 min and Brady was born at 7:27.

We don't actually know how much he weighed at birth because something was wrong with the scale in the room. When they first weighed him he was 7lbs 8oz. However, the following day he weighed 8lbs 6.4 oz. Since babies almost always lose weight after birth for him to gain over 14oz is impossible. The doctors at the hospital are guessing he was probably closer to 9lbs at birth. He was 21 inches long.

I did have a 2nd degree tear, however, recovery has been much easier than I expected. I've already lost 27 out of the 38 lbs I gained! Breastfeeding is going very well...although I did have a mini meltdown the second day home from the hospital because I couldn't get him to latch on properly. Things have drastically improved though and Brady is well on his way to mastering the boob! Here are some pictures...

Hospital Pic

Showing off his strawberry blonde hair

1st Tummy Time

Chillin' in his bouncer

1st Bath @ home

Trying out his swing

Getting cozy w/grandma & Frank

On Wednesday Brady took his 1st outing. My bible study class at church was having it's final meeting and everyone wanted to see him so we took him by. Afterwards we stopped by the pumpkin patch to snap some pics. Unfortunately the patch was closed "due to a bad shipment of pumpkins" so we didn't get to take many pics. But we had fun anyways!

My Water Broke!

Woot woot! My water broke this evening around 7pm, but I'm not yet having regular painful contractions. I called my doula and she said to go about my normal routine and try to get some sleep tonight and then to call her back when I can't ignore the contractions any longer and she will come over. So that's what I've been doing....cleaning and getting things ready. I actually just got done mopping the bathroom floor! Hopefully things will pick up and I'll be holding my baby boy by this time tomorrow night! I will post again as soon as I can (not sure if the hospital has wireless internet or not). PLEASE PRAY FOR ME!

It's My Due Date!

Where is this child they keep telling me I'm going to have???

Don't Give Up on Me...

First of all I want to apologize for my lack of posts lately. I've just been too exhausted to think of anything to say. Some of you probably got excited and thought I had the babe, ahh, wouldn't that have been nice! Unfortunately he's sitting tight. Tomorrow is supposed to be a full moon - maybe then? 

Anyway, I don't have a whole lot to blog about right now. I've been nesting and cleaning like crazy the past few days. Everything is ready. The ladies in my Wednesday morning class at church threw me a baby shower a couple weeks ago. I was definitely taken back by their generosity. I just met these women a month earlier and here they all were buying me gifts and wanting to celebrate with me. Rob couldn't believe how generous they were either. When I brought home all the gifts, he kept saying "I can't believe people you barely know bought you all this stuff!"

Rob & I went to the hospital this Sunday after church to look around so we would know where we were supposed to go when we got there. This really sweet nurse named Rachel showed us around. I told her I wanted her when I came in, but unfortunately the only day of the week she works is Sunday....and hopefully he'll make his appearance before next Sunday! Rob and I also went to see "Fireproof" last week and, oh my, I am so glad we did. Britni recommended it, but I was nervous as to how Rob would react considering how much they talk about God in the movie. But he really liked it, and I have to say he has been so incredibly sweet to me ever since we went to see it - not that he wasn't already sweet to me, but he's definitely acting differently. Last night we were laying on the couch and I was pretending to be asleep as he was talking on the phone to his brother and I heard him mention it to him. Now, of course his brother is "too cool" for stuff like that and must have made fun of Rob for seeing a "Christian" movie, but Rob seemed to shrug it off and said something about it still being a good movie. Have I mentioned lately how much I love him?

That's about all that has been going on in our lives lately. I wish we had more exciting news, but hopefully that will change soon. I hate asking people to pray for me because I always feel selfish doing so, but please keep us in your prayers - #1 one that I go into labor SOON and #2 that I will have a fast, safe, & easy delivery so we can finally meet this little boy!

Tour de Nursery 2008

Well I've finally completed the nursery and am getting so excited about getting the actual baby to go in the nursery! I thought I would take you on a little tour since it is finally complete AND clean...which I'm sure it won't stay that way for long once the little one arrives. First of all here's a recent picture of the belly. This was taken on Monday at 36 weeks & 2 days. Is it possible to get any bigger? 

First up, here is what you see when you first walk in the door. The crib is to the left and the changing table/dresser on the wall to the right. The picture frames above the chair are filled with cute scrapbook paper for now, but once we have some pictures I will add them and the scrapbook paper will be used as the mat. You can also see the two adorable crosses behind the chair. The one on the bottom I bought soon after I found out I was pregnant. The verse on it reads, "He has called you by name, you are his"  - Isaiah 43:1. And the one on top was a gift from my momma, it reads, "Children are a gift from God" - Psalm 127:3. They go with the room perfectly. 

Here they are up close.

And here is Frank waiting for baby brother to come home. 

Here is the crib wall. It is kind of basic, but I wasn't sure what to hang above the crib without it overpowering everything else in the room. I found this simple barn star at TJ Max for $5.99 and repainted it (it was originally red) using leftover wall paint. You can't see it in this picture, but I painted a few layers alternating between blue & brown and using a paper towel to "wipe" some of the fresh coat off, giving it more of a distressed look. 

And here is an up close shot of the bumper ties I made, since the original ones that came with the bumper wouldn't fit around the rails properly. These things gave me more grief than the crib skirt did!

Here is the changing table/dresser. Don't get excited the "C" sitting up there is for our last name. I have made his other initials but took them down for the picture so there would be no guessing going on! I can't wait to show them off though. I stole Jessica's idea of decoupaging scrapbook paper on wooden letters that you buy at the craft store and they turned out really good. First I painted the edges of the letters a dark brown, then I mod-podged them to the back of 12 x 12 scrapbook paper and used an x-acto knife to cut them out. After they were good & dry I took a heavy duty nail file and filed around the edges of the paper to give it a more "vintage" appearance. Lastly, I globbed some more mod-podge over the entire letter to seal the paper on really well. 

For the "C" since it is special and will sit in the middle of the other two initials after I finished with the above steps I used my handy hot glue gun and covered it in really funky/colorful buttons. It turned out really well. Unfortunately you can't see it very well in this picture. I would go take an up close shot, but I really don't feel like it right now...you're just going to have to suffer through until I reveal the other two initials!

You can also see some of our stash of cloth diapers sitting on the 1st shelf...the rest are hidden in the top drawer. Since we're using cloth we didn't need a traditional diaper pail, so I just bought a Simple Human garbage can from Bed Bath & Beyond with a WAHMIES waterproof pail liner. 

This is the adorable Pinocchio print that my grandmother found at a flea market and gave to me since she knew I was originally wanting to do a vintage theme in the room. 

Some of you may remember Lulu from a previous post. Here she is in all her glory sitting to the right of the changer/dresser. She greets you as soon as you walk in the door. 

And above her hangs the guest book from my shower in August. I can't wait to finally have a picture of the boy to put in it!

In other news....I had another appointment with my midwife yesterday. And we had our final ultrasound. I am happy (and relieved) to report that Baby C is head down and it was quite obvious (cough cough) that he really is a boy. Let's just say he is very well endowed. The ultrasound also measured him to be about 6 lbs 12 oz. I've been having lots of contractions lately, but nothing regular or timeable yet. I hope I start making more progress though because I don't want him growing too much larger!

Rob has been having some tooth troubles lately. He went to the dentist last week and one of his old fillings had cracked (a while ago) and some icky stuff started happening to the tooth. The dentist thought he might need a root canal but wasn't sure. He definitely would need a crown though. So the dentist sawed his tooth down to a nub and put a temporary crown on it until he returned in about 2 weeks to get the permanent one. But Tuesday morning he woke up in excruciating pain and called the dentist. They sent him to see the root canal specialist this morning and lucky Rob was blessed to spend 2 hours in the chair having a root canal. Now, I've never had one before, so I'm not quite sure of the process, but apparently he has to back next week so they can finish it and then he still has to back to our regular dentist to have some other smaller cavities fixed. The total cost of this grand adventure...$1300 - after the insurance pays their part. Maybe he'll listen to me next time I tell him to brush his teeth!

Pregnancy Brain

I swore I had a dentist appointment this afternoon. I planned my whole day around it. I even double checked the calendar as I was walking out the door. So arrived at the office, signed in, and began reading a magazine in the waiting room. Normally our dentist is always on time, so around 10 after I began wondering what was taking so long. At quarter after the receptionist finally calls me up to the window and explains to me that my appoint isn't until NEXT Monday. Meanwhile all the other patients are staring at me (probably trying to control their laughter). I was so embarrassed. When I got home I checked the calendar again and sure enough my appointment is for Monday the 29th...NOT TODAY!

This baby needs to come soon...he's making me lose my mind!

That Lonely Feeling...

My parents left to go home this morning. We had a great time visiting with them. Frank LOVED having his cousin George here. During their visit we ate waaay too much food and my mom & I did some shopping and she also helped me weed and spruce up our flower bed, which has been in desperate need of some TLC. I wish we could have done more, but I have been so tired lately.

This is what I found last night when I walked into the office.....Frankie is going to miss them terribly!

Frank is always depressed when company leaves, so today I took him to the park as they were leaving to get him excited. He had a great time, but the depression has set in and he has done nothing but sleep all day today. I have to admit that I always get a little depressed when they leave as well. It's hard to go from a noisy house full of people you love to being all alone. It won't be long till they will be coming back though. I'm 35.5 weeks today, so hopefully the wee one will make his appearance sometime within the next month and we will have more visitors. It really freaks me out though to think about how little time we have left before the baby comes and our lives change forever.