More of Ashlee

Back, butt and belly is pretty much all of little Ash! He gets cuter and more alert everyday.

Ashlee is already three weeks old.

Our friends have a huge couch and he just looked so small, we loved that photo.

Ashlee loves his papa's voice and always calms down when Josh holds him.

Just a few more pics of our handsome little guy. Everyday we are more and more in love with him. Our favorite time is early morning we put him in bed between us and just look at him and he stares back. We could do that all day long.

What a handsome little man!

Just thought I would share some updated pics of our best buddy. Everyday we wake up and say "he looks different today". We went to visit/check in with the midwives yesterday and he already weighed 7 lb 13 oz. So he obviously loves his boobie!

Welcome to the World

On Sunday, Jan 27 at 9:54 pm, Ashlee Warren Halder was born into the world. He was 7lb8oz and he was 20.5 in long. He has beauiful strawberry blonde hair and a unique birth story. We started having contractions at 6:30 am that Sunday and we went into the Mountain Midwifery at 2:30 when my contractions were closer together. When we got there I was dialated at about 4 centimeters so we new we would be there for a little while longer. I started having pushing urges at about 7pm and the midwife said to try a few pushes and see how they feel. My water broke at this time and my cervix just had a small lip so we finally started pushing at around 8 pm. Pushing was going great but Ashlee's heart rate started to decline whenever I pushed. His normal heart rate was about 120-130 but when I would be in a pushing contraction his HR would drop to 70 or below. They switched my position a dozen times to see if that would help him handle the contractions better , but nothing was helping and it was starting to become dangerous for the Ashlee. They ended up calling an ambulence to transport all of us to Swedish Medical Center a block away. I was told to try not to push any more because his HR would stablize when I was not pushing. We arrived and they had Dr. Furr (who delivered Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen) came in and we got right to work. They put a monitor on his head, since it was all ready to come out, and they told me to try pushing some more. We pushed a few times but his HR was getting slower and slower, so the doctor cut an episiotomy and used a vaccum and pulled him out the rest of the way. The umbilical cord had been wrapped around his neck (which is not uncommon), but for some reason pushing was cutting his oxogen flow off, there might have been a pinch or something going on, they are still not sure why his HR would drop so low. Ashlee came into the world pretty quick and a little distressed but they checked him all out and he is a very healthy baby. Josh got to cut the umbilical cord and Ashlee peed all over his hand when he did! He was just letting his stressed out dad know that he was good to go! Josh went with the baby while I was being stitched up. We stayed at the hospital until Tuesday night and then we all came home a happy family. We had a great experience at the birth center and felt they did a great job even with the emergency circumstances. Our midwife came to the hospital with the nurse and were so supportive and we did it all without any drugs! Josh and I both really liked Dr. Furr and the nurses at Swedish. Everyone was so helpful and supportive. We have great friends and family who visited us at the hospital and at home with lots of love and support as well. We feel very fortunate and we both in love with our new baby boy.

Our Christmas Tree

This was the first year that Josh and I cut down our very own Christmas Tree. It was so much fun and we are still trying to figure out how to get it in the stand, but i am sure we will get there. There were alot of families and dogs running around and we went with some good friends Nicole and Alex & Sarah and Andy. Andy and Sarah got the permits through CSU, they are old pros, but I think we might make this a annual tradition.

Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, New BABY

As you can see, my butt and belly are growing! This is just such a funny image I had to share. I think if I were standing closer to the wall it would look a little more normal, but I kind of like the wierdness. The baby is now 31 weeks old and due Jan 23. All the holidays and before we know it we will have a newborn. We had a beautiful baby shower and we are just picking up a few more things before the baby comes. Now that we have a digital camera I will try to take a few more pics and we will forsure have more posted once the baby has arrived. Right now it is cranky with me for sitting at the computer and scrunching it all up, so it has decided to kick me...ALOT! It is wonderful though to see my belly move and not even look round sometimes because the baby is stretching or something. Oh, if you would like to see the webpage for the birth center where we are giving birth I have added it as a link. It is called Mountain Midwifery. We are very fortunate to go there and have such great care.