Andrew's Birth Story

Full name: Andrew Soule Fernandez (rhymes with duel)
Born: September 7, 2009, 6:21 pm
Height 20 1/2 inches
Weight: 8 lbs 10 oz


I never thought of myself as someone who would want or allow birth photography. I turned my head away a lot during the actual birth parts of the videos they showed in the childbirth class we took when I was pregnant with Kara and frankly, I was embarrassed for those ladies. This was something sacred and private and well, not something to be shared with strangers. Actually going through it myself having Kara confirmed it for me... sort of. Definitely something private and sacred, between me and Jeff and Heavenly Father... and the doctor and a bunch of nurses. I tore and hemorrhaged badly, lost a lot of blood, and I'm glad I wasn't watching that happen. Feeling it was enough! But... right after that, when they put Kara on my chest and let me hold her while Jeff cut the cord... was one of the most amazing, miraculous, indescribably wonderful moments of my life! And I have often said that when we get to the other side I want to watch THAT moment over and over and over again! About the same time I found out I was expecting Andrew I was checking out my friend Sarah's photography blog and she had posted about the birth photography she had done for one of her friends. That got me thinking... I wish I could have had someone there when Kara was born, who wasn't busy helping me have the baby who could have captured the moment. So, I asked Sarah if she would be interested/willing to photograph Andrew's birth. Like me Sarah is LDS, so I knew that she would understand both my feelings about modesty and the sacredness of childbirth. She is also a certified doula and a mother of two, so she knows and and is very comfortable with the birth process. And thanks to the wonders of digital photography, I knew that only me, Jeff and Sarah would ever see any pictures I didn't feel like sharing. Having her there as a second support person was extremely helpful, but having someone there to capture the moments was priceless! The pictures she took are beautiful, I can't thank her enough for being there and capturing the memory for us! I especially love that I can "relive" the experience without having to relive the pain of the contractions. And surprisingly, I actually do like having pictures of the baby's head coming out. I won't be sharing them, but it gives me a new respect for what the body, what MY body can do! There are so many wonderful pictures I decided to make a slide show, which I will post here once it's finished. For now here's a couple of the pictures she took.

summer gear

a few things that were almost always in my car over the summer...

stroller, swimsuits, swim diapers, water shoes, flip flops, beach towels, sand bucket, shovel, sand rake, plastic boat, beach ball(fully inflated), playground ball, sunscreen, sidewalk chalk, extra clothes for Kara, granola bars, fruit snacks, drink boxes, folding chairs, kites, Kara's life jacket, bubbles...

I think that's everything.

yard sale finds!

Saturday before last as we were leaving Kelsey Creek Farm and I spied a yard sale sign and a clothes line that had what appeared to be little girls dress up clothes. I asked Jeff to turn the car around and go back so we could check it out. We found a Snow white costume, a shinny purple dress up blouse, a blue and silver fairy princess tutu/skirt, a shinny pink dress up tube top, a pink beaded necklace and some silver dress up slippers! Kara wanted to wear ALL of it as soon as we got home! The slippers and fairy skirt are hidden under the snow white dress, but she is wearing them!

We also picked up some Disney princess figurines (because you can never have too many princess dolls!), a plastic "Beast" figure for Belle, some plastic textured rollers for play dough, a Belle kaleidoscope, and a pink toy bath boat.

And only $5 for ALL OF IT! I'm going to have to check out more yard sales!

Terrific Two!

Ok, I'm a little behind here. It's been almost a month since Kara turned two (August 7th), it's now September, and we're going to have a new addition to our family any day now... I better post something.
After much deliberating in the end we decided to have her party at the same park where we had her birthday last year, Kirk Park here in the Highlands. There's plenty of room for the kids to run and play, and the covered gazebo picnic area is a great place to chat and eat cake. We weren't sure what the weather was going to do, like last year the forecast was cooler with a chance of rain. So, like last year we decided to pray for good weather and that if it was going to rain, that it would wait until AFTER Kara's party. Like last year it did not rain (YAY!) during the party, and after the record breaking heat wave we'd been through recently most everyone enjoyed the cooler temperature. I'm glad we picked such a close location because Kara, not understanding exactly what was happening, became very distressed when we took the cake and Doritos to the car, and we spent the entire 2 minute car ride reassuring her that she could eat them when we got the the park. It was a fun day and we enjoyed sharing this milestone with so many of our friends.





Some fun things about Kara.

-she is petite for her age, her weight is in the 10th percentile and wears mostly size 18 month clothes

-she to loves to wear dresses and I have to hide her newer dresses from her to keep them from becoming play clothes before she's worn them to church at least a couple times

-some of her favorite toys are her princess dolls and she likes pretty much anything with Disney Princesses

-she loves animals, especially dogs and besides food and toys names of animals make up a big chunk of her vocabulary

-she likes to watch her sign language video and knows the signs for "daddy, mommy, baby, bath, blanket, friend, more, eat, drink, kiss, ball, play, story and friend"

-if she she sees a slug or an ant or some other bug on the ground she squats down to watch it

-she almost always puts "a" in front of words when she's talking , "a swing" "a doll" "a milk" "a juice" "a princess" "a sammie" (sandwich)"a rice" "a bean" "a pink" "a night night"

-she loves music and dancing and has started to sing along a little bit to some of the songs I sing with her or songs from music class, sometimes in the car she will entertain herself by singing a medley of the words that she remembers from songs all rolled into one new song "i know ,dream... gulp gulp gulp... star.. e i e i o ... ashes ashes... rock..." ( I know you - from Sleeping Beauty, slippery fish, twinkle twinkle little star, old mac donald, ring around the rosey, the wise man) it's different every time, but about like that

-her favorite color is pink, purple is a close second, but she calls that pink too

-she loves Frosted Mini Wheats and asks for them for breakfast every morning

-she is a total cuddlebug and gives the bestest hugs!

-she loves to "help" mom sweep the kitchen and to wear mom's shoes, especially the high heals

baby update

I've graduated to weekly doctor appointments now that I'm in the final month. At this last visit I also had another ultrasound to check on the baby's size. I'd post pictures, but but he's moved down so low and is so squished in there that honestly there isn't much to see. Now doubt it's a boy though. According to the measurements he's 7 lbs, which is 87th percentile, so a good sized baby. I was happy to find out that even though he's on the bigger side, his head is proportionate to his body. Kara had, and still has a big head for her size. The doctor also said at this visit that the baby is 90% effaced, and that my cervix is already soft and starting to dilate, so I should try and take it easy for the next couple weeks and keep him inside a little bit longer.

Sprinkler fun

One of the things we did to cope with the heat wave was escape to my Dad and Lisa's air conditioned house in Renton. Friday night we packed a change of clothes and headed over to spend the night, and hung out all day Saturday. We always enjoy visiting at Grandpa Bill and Grandma Lisa's, but the air conditioning was an added bonus this time. Kara especially liked playing in the yard, running around on the deck, climbing on the big toy, swinging on swings, and... running in the sprinkler! At first she just held out her hand to the water and kept her distance, but soon she was running back and forth, chasing the water as it moved across the yard and then running away again. Watching her brought back so many good memories of summer, and I love passing on these kinds of memories to her. Later that evening she went outside and ran over to where the sprinkle had been set up and said, "a water, a water, broken?" I told that no, the water wasn't broken, it was just turned off.

Maybe

she does understand... a couple nights ago I was changing the background on our blog and Kara climbed up in my lap. She saw the (almost 2 year old) picture of our family and said, " Mommy, Daddy", and then "baby". And when I told her yes, that was her as a baby she pointed at me and said, "tummy".