Blake's Birth Story

Blakey Blake. You, my dear boy, are quite punctual. You came right on your due date, October 16^th, 2014 at 1:42am. Pretty much every day, for weeks, leading up to October 16^th I thought you were going to make an early appearance. I had all kinds of Braxton Hicks and it literally felt like I could jump or sneeze and you’d fall right out. But you hung out in there until the perfect moment, which just so happened to be right on time. Pretty impressive.

The night before your birth I started to feel contractions at like 5AM, except I really didn’t get too excited because, like I said, I had been feeling contractions for weeks. Weeeeeeeeeks. In fact, a couple weeks before your birth I was up all night thinking I was feeling contractions. So I was up pacing and getting last minute things ready and deciding whether this was the real thing or just a drill. Turns out I was up from 2-6AM for nothing because it definitely wasn’t the real deal. I took Owen to the pumpkin patch with friends instead of making a trip to the hospital like I thought my morning would go.

 I’m so glad Owen and I got to make fun memories before his world changed forever! 

Painting the pumpkins we got!

So, morning before, more contractions, not getting too excited, but then I felt another, and another not too far apart. And they felt different. “Hmm.” I thought to myself, still trying to remain calm. I decided to tell Daniel about the contractions at breakfast, trying really hard, but failing, to hide my excitement. As the day progressed I had a couple contractions here and there but really slow and dull. After Daniel got done with work we went to the outlet mall close to our house to get in some extra walking to see if that would help with anything.

Nothing.

We went home, ate dinner, got the kids in bed and started getting ourselves ready for bed. I was just so bummed that yet another day might pass before getting to meet this sweet Baby T3 (as you were called before you were born because we left your gender a surprise!).  We were laying in bed and decided to turn on America’s Funniest Videos before going to sleep and there was this one video (I can’t even remember what the video was about) but it reminded Daniel and I about a time Owen jumped off our couch onto his little hiney, thinking it was going to be so much fun and bouncy and soft, but then his face after realizing it was actually quite hard and painful to jump directly onto your bum was just so. funny. And he tried pretending it didn’t hurt when it really did…anyway, one of those scenarios parents think are hilarious and we were crying we were laughing so hard at the memory. Shortly after, we turned off the TV and I rolled over to doze off when POP! There was an audible “popping” sound and feeling and then a whoosh of liquid. Now I had never had my water break on its own before so I wasn’t familiar with this sensation, but that’s definitely what had happened. I was sooooo thrilled!!! SO THRILLED! I like to think laughter brought our little boy into the world.

We immediately called Daniel’s mom to come stay with the big kids while Daniel and I made our way to the hospital, at 10pm, same general time frame we went to the hospital with the other two, so funny to me that our children like to come into the world AFTER a full day, not after a full night’s rest, no.

Also, side story. Two days before heading to the hospital, Daniel broke his nose playing with the kids at a park. So he had been having a hard time sleeping because of the pain and right before we had decided to go to bed for the night he took some pain/sleep meds. He was a trooper that night but he sure was groggy and pretty out of it. Come to think of it, it probably wasn’t such a good idea for Daniel to drive that night, but it probably wasn’t a good idea for a lady in labor to drive either because contractions certainly picked up after that water broke, like really really picked up! Maybe we should have gotten a cab, but either way we made it safely to the hospital and they immediate wheeled me to the triage room. I told them I could walk and they said it’s not allowed if someone comes in saying their water broke, so I had to be in a wheelchair, which I guess wasn’t too terrible but I think I would have rather walked.

Anyway, we make it to triage and I’m leaking like crazy. Still. The nurses asked all their questions, we signed all the papers (I really hate that part) and checked to see if I was in labor, which they thought was pretty comical seeing all the leakage going on but, protocol. After deciding I was indeed in labor off to the L&D room we went! I got all hooked up and was asked more questions and poor Daniel was trying so hard to keep his eyes open. We decided to do another epidural with this baby so we waited about an hour for the anesthesiologist to come and in our mind, based on experience, we figured we would finally get a couple hours rest before baby came.

Wrong.

Like one hour later the nurse came in and started talking about how I was contracting like crazy, which I could kind of feel because the epidural pretty much only worked on one side. And when I say it worked on one side I mean it REALLY worked on one side, and not so much on the other. Like, I couldn’t feel or move my right leg for hours and hours after the birth, which was sooooo incredibly weird. And frustrating. I physically could. not. move my right leg no matter how hard I tried. I kind of hated it. But, that’s the price you pay for little to no labor pain, so I’ll take it! So the nurse checked and confirmed I was already at a 10 and this baby was on it’s way! She called the doctor and then we waited. Waited and waited, for what felt like an eternity. The nurse kept saying that it wasn’t like this doctor to take so long and she wondered if she should call again to make sure she hadn’t fallen back asleep or something. When the doctor finally got there she said that she had gotten pulled over for speeding and that’s when took so long. She said that in all her years of delivering babies this was her first speeding ticket! Crazy! Luckily the police understood her situation and let her go without a ticket, phew! I would have felt really bad if she had gotten a ticket to come deliver my baby at 1 o’clock in the morning!!

Everyone got situated and after a couple pushes Blake Logan Treiber was born at 1:42am, weighing 7lbs 11oz and 21in long!! It was extra exciting to find out that we had another son to join our family! I had been thinking it would be a girl and Daniel had thought it would be a boy…Daniel was right! Such a fun surprise!! There really isn’t a better one!

After they did all the things...weighing you, checking your temp, cleaning you up, etc. I got to just hold you and let you lay on me and try to feed you and get some rest. The nurses knew this was my third baby so they pretty much just left us alone and it was absolutely amazing. It was still the middle of the night and it was so peaceful and calm in our room so I just soaked up every single second. Since I had done this newborn thing a couple times before I knew this was the calm before the storm and I was going to enjoy all the sweet snuggles in the peace and quiet before everything got loud and crazy.

Shortly after the birth I got situated in the recovery room and Daniel was finally able to get some sleep. I dosed here and there but I was too enamored with this new precious life on my chest. Our window faced east so we were able to watch the sunrise and it was SO BEAUTIFUL!! I was totally in love. Oh it was just such a sweet, sweet time.

I know some people don’t like the hospital, but I gotta tell ya, I LOVED it!!! The food was delicious AND they brought you warm chocolate chip cookies and milk at 3pm everyday. Fabulous! The care, mostly, was wonderful. The nurse forgot my pain meds once so that was not so great, but overall pretty wonderful. I got some pretty great sleep, considering. The big kids were well taken care of at home with family and I was enjoying the one on one time with this new baby and Daniel.

I didn’t have to worry one bit about cleaning anything, cooking anything, keeping two other little humans alive and well, it was pretty much like vacation. The kids got brought to the hospital at least once a day to meet their new baby brother and give him some lovin’.

Eating Blake's birthday cake!

After the third night, however, I was ready to be in my own bed, use my own shower, and be with my kids. So we packed up our things and headed home first thing Friday morning! The perfect thing was that my mom was scheduled to fly in Friday evening…it was another perfectly planned trip! Yay!! Also, the hospital sends you home with a complete meal for that first night, which was soooo helpful! And it was delicious!!!

My mom stayed for a week and it was fabulous, too short, but fabulous. And then we figured out life as a family of five, which we have continued to do ever since.

Love you big guy!  

Owen's Birth Story

Owen Daniel Treiber. My second born, first born son. You came on the scene during a crazy time in our lives, full of transition. You walked the stage with Mommy at the end of May 2012 when I graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, you were tucked away still growing in my belly as I received my diploma.  Shortly after that, June 1 to be exact, we moved from Austin to McKinney.  I quickly found a doctor and set up a nursery in our new home because you were expected to come in just a few short weeks.  Selah and I enjoyed exploring our new area while we waited for you to arrive. We went to the library, church, stores and when we weren’t running around we were trying to empty moving boxes and organize our new home and NAP, a lot of napping.  I spent the evenings watching Parenthood while sewing a carseat cover blanket for you. 

Then, on June 20^th, at 4:00 in the morning, I felt my first real contraction.  I woke up Daddy at around 6:30 after my 3^rd or 4^th contraction to tell him I was pretty sure something was happening here even though it was 11 days before your due date.  Since I couldn’t sleep I went downstairs to finish up the blanket…juuuuust in case. Daniel came down only a few minutes later so full of excited, anxious energy, he started singing songs (Daniel style, all original!) and getting last minute things ready in case we needed to head to the hospital at any minute. Shortly after that Selah woke up and was ready to get her day started with breakfast.  It was soooo hard to keep a balance between exploding with excitement and keeping it cool to take care of Selah and go through our normal routine. Daniel originally intended to take the day off, thinking and hoping baby Owen would be arriving soon, but as the morning went on my contractions completely stopped. In fact, from the time I got out of bed at 6:30 I didn’t have one! So by like 8:30/9 daddy decided he’d try to get some work in and I could just keep him updated throughout the day. So time basically crawled by at a snails pace and I tried SO hard to focus on keeping the day normal but all I could think about was whether I was having a contraction. I was supposed to have a friend’s little girl over that morning, but I called my friend and told her what I thought was happening, and considering I had been awake since 4:30 it was probably best I rested as much as possible. I ended up setting up a pool in the backyard for Selah to play, then I gave her lunch, a bath, and then settled her in for a nap so I could lay down and nap. 

I was starting to feel pretty silly and a little disappointed because I had only had one, maybe two contractions since those early morning ones. But, once I tried to lay down and nap I would feel a contraction every 15 minutes or so. Once I sat up or stood up they were gone. Weird. And annoying, because at this point I’m thinking they aren’t real contractions and it is just preventing me from getting some much needed rest. Well, during this nap my mom’s flight had landed so Daniel went to the airport to pick her up. The initial plan was for me to pick her up, or for all three of us to go, but we figured that if there was any slight chance of contractions picking up it would be better for me to be home rather than in traffic half an hour from the hospital. Daniel made sure Corey and Malinda were available if I needed them to drive me to the hospital and take care of Selah if things happened to pick up quickly. It was a long hour, but Daniel finally got back home with my mom!! Having my mom with us sure helped keep my mind on other things, like showing her around our new house and having her help with last minute cleaning and organizing. Selah was thrilled to have grandma around too! Daniel took the rest of the afternoon off and we all went to the grocery store to pick up some groceries for the next couple days. We went ahead and invited Corey and Malinda over for dinner. Daniel grilled hamburgers and we boiled some fresh corn on the cob (Selah helped shuck the corn with Auntie Malinda) and steamed some yummy veggies and baked French fries. Then, for dessert, we all headed over to a snowcone truck for snowcones. All during this time, from the grocery shopping to eating snowcones, my contractions picked up to every 10-30 minutes…I was definitely getting pretty excited!!! We would be going about the activities and then all of a sudden I’d have to catch my breath, stop and hunch a bit, and focus on breathing until the pain passed, everyone would take a moment to look my way and give a questioning look, and I’d get to smile and quickly nod my head. 

After snowcones we picked up a rental movie, Dolphin Tale, to keep the evening going. I only made it a quarter of the way through the movie when the contractions were getting too frequent and too intense to watch so I went upstairs to our new big tub and ran a warm bubble bath to relax through the contractions a bit. At about 10pm contractions were coming on strong and frequent so I called my doctor to get the go ahead to go to the hospital, which I did. So I packed up last minute items in the hospital bag, made sure my mom’s bed was made up and ready for her to sleep in since she would be with Selah in the morning (talk about perfect timing for her to get into town!!!), and while Daniel helped me with this task I remember looking at him and saying, “This is it, are you ready? No more sleep for a while.” to which he replied, “I don’t really think we have a choice. But yes, I’m as ready.” We were becoming a family of four, and we had already done this once before so we knew the work, the hard, hard work, that went into this whole keeping a baby alive thing…but we were ready, and excited! 

Then Daniel and I made our way to the hospital, which happened to be the same time we headed to the hospital when Selah was on her way also! For some reason, you Treiber babies like to come in the middle of the night haha! We had to wait about 5 minutes to be taken back to the triage room, which was a much better experience than the one I had with Selah, they quickly asked me questions, I signed the papers, and was checked and confirmed as in labor. I got as comfortable as one can get while in labor in an L&D room, Daddy always by my side, and waiting for my epidural. I had an ahhhhhmazing experience with getting an epidural this time around, it was an older gentleman who you could tell loved his job and was good at it. He was kind and patient. He put me at ease by answering all my questions and talking me through everything he was doing. Unfortunately, the epidural only helped dull the pain, but I felt every single contraction, so trying to rest through that night was a bit rough. At around 6AM I knew it was time to push and get you out into this world, but my doctor was in an emergency situation at another hospital and wouldn’t be able to make it for another hour or so, so they gave me some sort of medicine that basically paused my labor. So for an hour I laid on my side concentrating really hard on breathing and trying to ignore the feeling to push…it was a long hour! Finally, finally, finally my doctor made her way through the door. She was so super sweet and perky and excited to start her morning by bringing a baby into the world, it was such a relief to see her! As soon as everyone was set up, I pushed a couple times and BAM, you were born!! That easy!!! I pushed for two hours with Selah but 10 minutes later and Owen Daniel Treiber took his first breath of life at 7:15AM on June 21, 2012. 

I got to hold you and stare at you and love on you a bit before they wisked you away to be cleaned and weighed and measured and all that good stuff. Not too much later Grandma Susie and Auntie Malinda and Selah came into the room to meet you. 

You were such a calm little guy (in the beginning at least ;), and you would just let your eyes wander around your new surroundings, taking it all in. After a long wait in the L&D room, super uncomfortable, a recovery room finally opened up and the bed felt like a big, fluffy cloud right from heaven compared to that harder L&D bed. It turned out the timing was just perfect though and worth the wait because we ended up in this special, big room (no idea why, but I didn’t ask questions), and there was plenty of room for visitors. It was pretty much like a hotel room. Daddy stayed with me the first night and my mom stayed the second night and there was a curtain to divide the room from the couch/bed so daddy and grandma could sleep somewhat undisturbed unless I really needed them to help with something. Selah stayed at the house during the night but would come to visit periodically during the day. We ate cake and ice cream and watched some cartoons and took turns holding our new precious baby.

We love you Mr. O and we couldn’t be more thankful that God brought you into our lives!!    

Selah's Birth Story

Your anticipated arrival started on the morning of July 23^rd, 2009 (one day after your expected due date… you wanted to be fashionably late haha)!  I had just gotten up at around 8 AM… the last night I was able to get a full nights rest ;) and I was busy doing the dishes from the night before.  While I was scrubbing and rinsing I felt a pain in my back, and I didn’t know if I had just twisted wrong or if it was back labor, so I called the nurse and she said it was very likely it was back labor and to just wait and see if anything progresses.  About 30 minutes or so later I felt a strong tightening in my tummy, and I can’t even tell you how excited I was to feel that pain.  I wasn’t 100% sure it was a contraction, I had never had a contraction before, but then there came another one about 15 minutes later and that’s when I was sure it was a contraction.  I got so excited I text Daddy at work and told him I felt something and I wasn’t sure if it meant you were coming soon or if they were just Braxton-Hicks, but I was hoping for the best and I was hoping we could go to the hospital soon.  I told everyone on Facebook that I was counting contractions because they were consistently 15 minutes apart, friends and family sent messages of excitement and anticipation.  After awhile the contractions started getting more infrequent and sporadic, but I still held out hope that this was it.  Daddy came home early, 11 AM, to be with me and he was a tremendous help.  We went on walks, he helped me count contractions, and we played cards and Monopoly (which he won every game we played, no taking it easy on the pregnant lady in labor haha!).  We waited and waited for the contractions to come consistently.  We finally decided to eat spaghetti for dinner and go buy a cake to celebrate your "birthday" whenever that would be! 

We kept ourselves busy while we waited for the contractions to become more frequent. We went on one last walk to see if we could get things moving faster, and when there were no changes we decided to just get ready for bed and try to sleep.  But as soon as I laid down and tried to sleep I had a painful contraction, and then another one 5 minutes later, and another one 3 minutes later.  Daddy had pen and paper in hand and he would stare at the wall clock he had taken down and put on the bed to time the contractions and he made a chart and everything, it was awesome to have him helping and supporting me, he’s the BEST husband and daddy!!  A pattern started to emerge and I told Daniel it was time to pack up last minute items and call the doctor.  Once we had everything packed, I called the doctor who confirmed I was indeed in labor and I could make my way to the hospital.  It was 12:45 AM by this time and we arrived to the hospital at 1 AM.  Our first stop was the triage room so they could ask me A TON of questions, sign all kinds of papers, and get checked to make sure I was really in labor.  I got my stylish hospital gown tied on and waited on the bed for a doctor to confirm that this really was labor, but it was a miserably small, cold, uncomfortable, dreary room and I was just so ready to be in an actual labor and delivery room!  The on-call doctor, someone I had never seen before, checked to see how far dilated I was (4 cm) and finally gave me the go ahead to be placed in an L&D room…yay!!! 

Let me tell you though, I was all cool, calm, collected all day and SO EXCITED, but once in the hospital where things are so routine and there’s these strict rules to follow about certain things, and the uncomfortableness of being around people I had never met, doing things I had never done, feeling pain I had never felt before, I started to get very nervous, self-conscious, and overwhelmed. Thank goodness Daddy was there, he was my rock and kept me calm. I had to make a decision about an epidural and since it was so late and it had been a long day already I decided an epidural would be helpful. Plus, since they get you all hooked up to things like heart monitors and give you an IV for fluids I was constantly having to get unplugged to use the restroom, which I had to use like every five minutes, and then try to get resituated, only to have to use the restroom AGAIN, so an epidural seemed like a great idea to get some rest. Getting the epidural was not so pleasant, fortunately I had a very sweet, helpful, understanding nurse who helped to keep me calm, but the anesthesiologist was very frank, rushed, and unsympathetic. He tried asking me questions that I couldn’t answer quickly, especially if I was in the middle of a painful contraction, and he wasn’t all that understanding. Once he was done asking me questions he poked me with the needle and I started to feel something strange so I flinched and then he reprimanded me for moving because it meant he had to do it all over again, so he had to stick me with the needle TWICE, that was unfortunate. But once he was finally gone and I was laying down letting the meds do their thing I started to relax a bit. Daniel turned on some relaxing music like Butterfly Kisses, Josh Groban, Stephen Curtis Chapman, and Michael Buble and I fell into sleep here and there all while being monitored and checked to see how much progress I had made. Every time I felt uncomfortable and woke up, or if I was woken up by a nurse to be checked I’d start shaking uncontrollably…weirdest feeling ever!! I literally couldn’t stop myself from shaking and shivering. Apparently the medicine being pumped through your body will do that to you…so strange!! But I was SO THANKFUL I didn’t have to feel all those contractions and that Daniel and I were able to get a little bit of rest.  

Finally, around 10:30 AM the nurse could tell by the patterns of my contractions and by how far I was dilated that it was time to start pushing, and she said that you were so far down already that the pushing would probably be really quick and easy, probably just 3-5 pushes in 10-15 minutes and she thought you’d be here…surreal, just typing that is just surreal, you were growing and living IN MY BODY but you were about to be IN MY ARMS, God made our bodies to do the most amazing things!! Ok, well, the nurse was sadly mistaken by the amount of pushes and time needed because it ended up taking more pushes than I could count and a little over 2 hours.  I was so full of energy and motivation those first 10 pushing attempts but after that first hour I was losing steam. It went from this joyful experience where we were all laughing and joking in between pushes, to very serious work. Daddy held one leg while the nurse held the other and I’d do some breathing then a 10 count push, no progress, repeat. During all of this pushing the nurse would glance from time to time to see how far down you were and she would tell me she could see your little blonde head and that as I was pushing you would be wiggling back and forth trying to help get yourself out of there. I have always loved that thought of you in there trying to be helpful to mommy and doing your part to get into this world, I’ve always been so grateful to that nurse for sharing that with me. Well, eventually they brought this pulling contraption thing that I could hold onto and push in a different way and we were hoping that would help, but still no progress. 

Some time while at the hospital Daniel called both our parents and they carpooled in the middle of the night to get to Austin. 

They were praying and waiting patiently to hear of your arrival. Then, as a last straw, the doctor mentioned that they might need to bring in those awful dreaded forceps to get you out and I guess that was all you needed to hear to get out of there STAT! Within the next couple tries after that you were BORN!!! There was such a flood of emotions once they held you up to me and placed you on my chest. I was crying, Daddy was crying, you were screaming haha and showing off your strong lungs. It was indescribable joy, pure joy. And so surreal. Everything was in fast motion and slow motion all at the same time. I got to hold you briefly and then they took you over to the heater to measure you and clean you off a bit. I just kept thinking, “She’s here, she’s really here, she’s so beautiful and she’s finally here, I can’t believe she’s actually HERE!”  I got to hold you for a little bit more and try to feed you and then they took you into the nursery for your first bath, so Daddy took you while I got cleaned up and rested a couple hours by myself, which was really weird actually because after allllll that WORK all I wanted to do was hold you and stare at you, not be by myself. Eventually they had a recovery room open up and so all three of us met in there and began figuring out this family of three business together.

Something special I learned later from Grandma Susie is that while the grandparents were anxiously waiting my mom began pacing the hall back and forth and she happened to walk by when you took your first breath and cried out for the first time…so glad she was able to experience that moment with us!!

In the weeks that followed there was a lot for me to learn but you were so loved and your birth was a dream come true, my dream of becoming a mommy was finally a reality, not at all what I expected it to be, it was so much better, so much harder, so much more amazing than I ever could have imagined!! 

WE LOVE YOU OUR SWEET SELAH GIRL!!!!