So... my roses are in full bloom. I am so proud.

I am on break between school's spring and summer semesters and so I just go to work and take care of Mason. Steph and I have it all worked out. She takes the first shift 12am-3am and I take 3am-6am and she takes him until I get home from work at 3pm. It really does work very well.

I was SHOCKED to find out that I had passed my Physics class this semester. I thought for sure I was sporting a D------. But it turns out that it was a very good idea for me to stick with it and take every test. I ended up with a solid C. Truly amazing. That 'C' just saved us like 850 bucks.

What is mason doing these days? You tell me, I can't figure him out. This is one picture after another and he is different in each one.

Third Time's a Charm?

This is the third night (or early morning, I should say) in a row that I have sat down to blog and been interrupted by our little screaming monkey. He's so impatient when he wakes up hungry, but he's so cute when he cries that we don't rush to feed him. It's amazing that after two and a half weeks we still can't get enough of him, he's just perfect.

Here are some pictures of Mason's first bath, which was much needed after he managed to poop, pee and spit up on me minutes before taking the plunge. So cute! I must go now as he is starting to stir...

Happy Mother's Day!

I must say it was rather strange to hear people saying Happy Mother's Day to me, I'm still getting used to the idea that I am a mother. It's growing on me though. My own mother just returned home after a week with us. It was so nice to have her here while we caught up on some much needed rest. We were a little worried when she left, but have managed to do ok so far. We have learned that it is next to impossible to sleep with a baby in the same room. Although I absolutely adore the little baby sounds Mason makes during the day, those same sounds keep us up all night. So hard as it is, we let Mason sleep in the living room in his baby papasan chair. He doesn't seem to mind at all and we are getting some semi-quality sleep.

Mason with Grandma Portela

Our Sweet Sleeping Angel

Mason reacting to Daddy's story about global warming

Monday's With Mason

Well let us start with Stephanie's labor nightmare.

7:00 am – Arrive at the hospital and expect a pleasant stay filled with jet-tub whirlpool relaxing, swirling goodness, wonderful TV watching, book reading, long conversations and maybe some nice meals delivered to us.

7:05 am – We find out that Stephanie has high blood pressure and will need to be put on Magnesium

7:10 am – We find that due to the magnesium she cannot get out of bed so, “No Jacuzzi for you”!

7:30 am – due to the planned nature of this birth, Pitocin is used to induce labor (turns out that it makes contractions very painful). This of course prompted Stephanie to ask, “When do I get my epidural”? The nurse’s reply was, “well honey they don’t call it labor for nothing”.

8:00 am – contractions are getting pretty bad but due to the nurse’s comment Steph is powering through. She is dilated to two whole centimeters. Whoopidy doo!!

9:00 am – Stephanie’s still a heart attack waiting to happen, she is still in pain from contractions, and still at only two centimeters.

11:00 am – Steph can no longer stand the pain of the contractions and asks the nurse, “I am in a lot of pain, can’t you please give me something”? Now this is the odd part, the nurse replies, “Sure honey, all you needed to do was ask”. At this point I am sure Steph will kill this woman.

11:30 am – The anesthesiologist comes in and gives Steph an epidural, much to my displeasure, I almost pass out. What’s up with that? I just pawn it off on lack of breakfast.

12:30 pm – Stephanie can still feel every contraction, the anesthesiologist is gone to lunch and he is nowhere to be found.

1:00 pm – the anesthesiologist finally returns, Steph is having terrible pain from the forced contractions. They check dilation and she is at 4cm. The second epidural works like a champ and Steph is now fully and completely numb from the waste down.

1:30 pm – Stephanie is sickened by the epidural and pukes, they are now rumbling about how baby is not dropping very fast, how this is taking longer than expected and how her blood pressure has dropped to 80 over 40! Quick, stab her leg with a giant shot of ephedrine! Steph takes a two inch needle to the leg all the way in without even batting an eyelash. If I had any doubts as to her epidurals potency, it was gone now.

1:45 pm - Ok, Steph’s heart rate is now 143 and Mason’s has jumped from 150 to 205. This is redline for a baby and not very good for Steph. Not only that but even though Steph has a wicked high resting heart rate her blood pressure is still really low. Stephanie pukes again… I am cleaning it up when I am caught by the nurse and she starts to give the third degree about how long this has been happening, how many times etc… I just thought it was normal so I just cleaned it up. Turns out it is not so normal.

2:00 pm - Steph is sick for a third time so the nurse decided to give her Phenergan to stop the puking and it does. It also puts her out like a light. Sunny and I have an hour long conversation about life and death, politics, the world economy, how to solve world hunger. You know, the standard stuff. This is over Steph’s limp comatose body.

5:00 pm – Steph wakes up to hear she is now at 8cm. She gets real unexcited and falls asleep. Meanwhile, the nurse calls the doctor to come in.

6:00 pm – Steph wakes to hear she is at 10cm and should begin to push. She does with every ounce the Phenergan will allow her to give. Mason does not budge one bit.

8:00 pm – The doctor has arrived and Steph has been pushing for the last 2 hours non-stop. He announces that the baby… is still not coming out. He uses a suction cup to grab Mason’s little head and yank him out by force….

8:20 pm – The doctor has unsuccessfully tried to yank Mason to the crowning stage with ZERO results. He is frustrated and Stephanie is completely spent. She has no more to give. The doctor is practically cursing at the uselessness of this new fangled suction doohickey. He ops to use forceps and breezes the option past Steph, who replies, “yes, do it, do anything I don’t care. Get him out”.

8:25 pm Mason Jacob Bennett is brought forcefully into the world. It is at this point Stephanie realizes that the epidural did not numb the last two inches for the birth canal. OUCH!

8:30 pm Steph is reunited with Mason and myself (I was filming Mason while he was with the nurses). Stephanie now wishes to drink juice like a camel who has not seen water in a year due to an insatiable thirst. We are now a happy family.

Our Little Bundle of Boy!

Mason Jacob Bennett

May 3, 2007

8lbs 4oz - 20" long

8:25 pm

Details to follow... For now, enjoy these pictures. Prints may be ordered at... oh, uh, nevermind.

Hold Up, We're Having a Baby!

We went to the doctor today and he said that my blood pressure was high again and since I am 39 weeks along, it's time to have this baby! He told us to go have lunch and then get over to the hospital for the first part of induction. We've been there all afternoon and they just sent us home until 7:00 a.m. tomorrow (unless I am in full blown labor before that). Although we are quite surprised, we are extremely excited and can't hardly believe that Mason will be with us tomorrow. Hooray!

Be Prepared!

As some of you know, I am the emergency preparedness coordinator for our ward, and way back in November I volunteered to have a couple of tables at the preparedness fair. Fast forward to me the end of April and I obviously needed some help to pull this off. I of course wrangled Jake into helping me and by the end of the fair he was completely versed on the shelf life of MRE's and the importance of 72 hour emergency kits. We met some very interesting and strange people at the fair, like the lady who said to us "You better have some ketchup in this kit if you have kids because children will literally starve themselves to death if they don't have ketchup". We must have looked at her disbelieving because she followed it up with "I am totally serious". Jake and I can't believe how lucky we were to get this advice just moments before having a child. Can you imagine what would have happened if we had tried to give Mason some kind of life sustaining food without ketchup? We don't even want to think about this tragedy so narrowly avoided.

In Mason news all is well after a little high blood pressure scare last week. I was secretly excited when the Dr. said "Come back in two days and if your pressure hasn't gone down we'll talk about having this baby next week." Well, my blood pressure went down and here we sit, waiting not so patiently. Jake does have finals next week though and seems to think that having a baby before those finals is somehow going to affect his performance. I assured him that it would not, and that I would take full responsibility for Mason until he is done. He won't even realize there is a third person in the house. He seems unconvinced.