Our birth team

Our midwife, Leigh Ann. We were so lucky that Leigh Ann was on call because she is the midwife we had seen most at the Women's Birthing and Wellness Center-where I gave birth. We felt really comfortable with her and she and our nurse, Virginia did a fantastic job. Despite a painful and crazy birth it was still a wonderful experience and I left there thinking, "I'd do this again."

We forgot this hat at the birthing center...oops!

Our birth team. We are all exhausted after a looong night and morning!

Our little Lumpia

The nurse swaddled him up and we called him our little Lumpia.

Little Lumpia and the proud new papa.

Getting his hearing tested. He hears well:)

Mother and Lumpia. My eyes, face, and shoulders are all red from broken blood vessels due to pushing hard for 4 straight hours. Little Lumpia was in there sideways...ouch!

First family photo

The first family picture with our Son.

Mother and baby.

Words cannot describe this moment...

Or this moment. It's all so surreal.

January 18, 2009, 11:21AM, 6lbs.

Leigh Ann asked if anyone wanted to take a guess on his weight and I (Jamie) shouted out, "6lbs!" and that's exactly what he weighed...6lbs exactly.

Gabriel Stone Costales January 18, 2009, 6lbs. 0oz. & 20 inches long

Testing his reflexes and giving him his first physical exam.

Born at 11:21AM.

It's a BOY!!

January 18, 2009

Holding my baby boy for the second time.

As soon as Gabriel was born I was able to hold him just briefly and then they had to rush him off because he needed some immediate attention-oxygen & suctioning of mucus. His apgar score was a 2 but the second score was an 8. He's a tough cookies!

It's a BOY!!

Chester watching our midwife, Leigh Ann and our nurse, Virginia suction out Gabriel's lungs, take his vitals, and give him some extra TLC.

Nurse Virginia working on suctioning and trying to get him to cry.

His first initial cries were so sad-he sounded like a sad little kitten with a scratchy voice:(

Last day(s) of pregnancy

January 2, 2009

Baby due in 20 days.

Abby and Heidi have their baby girls on this day:)

January 17, 2009

Jordan Lake

It was a chilly but sunny Saturday here in NC so we decided to take our dogs out to one of our favorite places, Jordan Lake. My mom went into labor (with me/Jamie) when she went camping so I thought maybe we could inspire our baby to be born by going out to the woods for a few hours;) I even remember jumping up and down saying, "Come on baby!"

Last day of Louie being my only baby boy.

I predicted that I was going to have the baby today Saturday, Jan. 17th and Chet predicted we'd have the baby on Sunday Jan. 18th. This is my last pregnancy picture because I went into labor this night and had Gabriel the next day. Technically Chet was right but we decided that since I went into labor at 1:30 AM on Sunday and we had JUST gone to bed it was still kind of Saturday in our minds and that makes us BOTH right. Okay, okay, Chet was right...I guess it's just hard for me to admit...ha ha!!

Catching up...

It's been a long time since we've posted here...hopefully in the new year we'll be better:) So anyway, lots has been happening in the past few months; here's the quick run down:

In late October, we went to the NC State Fair in Raleigh to walk look at handmade crafts and eat fair food. One of the things Jamie was really craving during 1st/2nd trimester was polish sausages and/or hot dogs. I'm always a bit suspicious of dogs with eyebrows of ketchup and mustard... Oh and what's the deal with this girl's hair - HOLY COW!!

We went out on Halloween night to Franklin Street (UNC's equivalent of the Ave for all you UW/Seattle people) where people paraded up and down checking out each others costumes. Here's what we came up with:

In case you're not sure what you're looking at, it's Jamie in an oven costume. Get it? Bun in the oven? We made it from scratch out of recycled cardboard from our dumpster, hot glue, and white poster paint, btw. We felt that these were much more satisfying than the store bought bee/gorilla costumes Jamie tried on earlier.

We'd put some pictures of us on Franklin St but they mostly came out blurry and dark - maybe next time...

The next big thing was of course the elections. We both felt proud of our efforts in turning North Carolina "blue". A quick snapshot of Jamie after casting her vote:

Hmm....I think I'm a slow blogger. I didn't quite make it as far down the timeline as I'd hoped but I'm going to stop for now anyway. We are 35+ weeks now and according to our midwives, the baby is doing great!