Wyatt's First Bath

Wyatt Peter Ristig

After a weeks worth of trying to get this little guy to come out on his own, I finally gave in to modern medicine, and checked in to labor and delivery at the University of New Mexico's Midwifery at 7:30pm on the 17th for induction.

At about 9:30pm, I was given 1/4 of a dose of misoprostol, which is used to soften the cervix. I was only 70% effaced. Once given, they wait 4 hours, check the progress, and if all is well they start the pitocin. All was more than well, though, and after about 2 hours or so I started having good contractions on my own. We opted out of the pitocin, and decide to let things go as they may. I decided to wait on the epidural too, so I wouldn't be stuck strapped to the bed.

I let Pete go to sleep, and I slept in two or three minute intervals between contractions, until they started getting really, really hard. I was just about to call the nurse when a heard a little POP! My water broke and I was a human geyser! (TMI, but what did you expect. This is about birthing a baby!). The contractions got crazy hard after that, and twenty minutes or so later, my epidural was in place. Sweet relief!

We called my good friend, Megan, who was my extra support person/photographer to come back to the hospital at about 5am. At a little after 7:30am I felt like I needed to push. The midwife was called in to check me, and said I was plus two, and could push whenever I was ready. Push I did. I was hoping that this time the pushing would be quicker since I'd already given birth once before. No such luck!

I pushed for nearly an hour-and-a-half, and finally out came Wyatt's head. Problem was, his shoulders were lodged in my birth canal. Yikes! Two nurses grabbed me by the shoulders to hold me down (and slammed my bed back against the wall in the process, not realizing the brakes were off), and the midwife yanked on Wyatt yelling for me to push with everything I had. Out he finally came! He was gray as a ghost for about 5 seconds before belting out the noisiest cry, and almost immediately turning a nice, rosy shade of pink. They plopped him on my chest, and Pete cut the cord.

Wyatt Peter Ristig was born at 8:50am, weighing in at 8 pounds, 10 ounces, and 21.5 inches. What a big boy!

Our Pre-Wyatt Family

We took a few silly belly pictures and stuff a couple days before Wyatt was born. They turned out pretty stinkin' cute!




CHEEEESE!!

Holy Haven't-Written-a-Blog-in-Ages, Batman!

I know I haven't been on here in forever, so I'm gonna try to make it up to everyone by mega-posting all the stuff we've been doing since mid-December. Okay, here it goes....

CHRISTMAS!
We made the drive back to Arizona for the holidays. I wasn't really looking forward to making the trek with Maya in the car, and was dreading listening to her whining for 14 hours round-trip. So, I asked Pete for a DVD player that goes in the car and hooks up to the headrests as my birthday present. Lo and behold, Maya was an angel for the entire drive! It is my dream come true. I'm all for sticking my kid in front of the boob tube if it will save my sanity, and make me a better and more patient Mommy when it counts.


We got to Phoenix, and spent the first couple days with my Dad and Terea. We also went to Ryan's Christmas Eve party, and I had my hair done by my cousin Sharisa. It was nice seeing all the sibs and nieces and nephews for Christmas Eve. Maya cleaned up! I couldn't believe how many pressies she got! She was pretty excited, and especially loved anything Toy Story themed that she received.






We did Christmas morning at Dad's place, and then drove to Prescott for some more Christmas goodness there with Grammy and the Granny up there.






Maya and Aunt Kate were accidental Christmas twinsies!


Maya was so cute snuggling with all her "friends" at bedtime that night, that I sneaked a picture of her.


We hung out in Prescott for a couple days, and then did a nice, late Christmas with Nana, Papa, Hanna, and the cousins the morning we were set to go home. Hanna made a yummy breakfast spread for everyone, too!





EMILY'S VISIT!
When we left, we kidnapped Emily for the week. We hadn't done that since we lived in Flagstaff, so that was lots of fun. She was a big help with Maya around the house, helped me set up Wyatt's nursery, and we co-produced a really cool Dr Who painting for Wyatt's new bedroom! It's an evil Dalek robot. EXTERMINATE! We also went to Explora, the kids science museum here in town. It was a fun week, and ended with Emily's first airplane ride!





SELLING THE HOUSE
Pete got a call from work asking if he'd like to replace the girl in Colorado Springs who just resigned. We replied with a big affirmative! We are really, really sad to leave all the good friends behind we've made here in Albuquerque, and leaving this house we put so much work into is bittersweet. But, we know that it's for the best. They are grooming Pete to move up the corporate ladder, and that is exactly what he was going for.

We cleaned the hoo-haw out of our house, put tons of stuff up in storage, had the overgrown agaves removed from our front yard, and had a professional photographer come through the house for our listing pictures. I had a dream the other night that our house sold in the first week for full asking price, and I'm REALLY hoping my dream will come true! Pete's work is giving us a couple months to get all our ducks in a row before we move, but they want us out there ASAP! The sooner the house sells, the sooner we can make a bid on wherever we're going to end up. It's such a tease looking at houses online knowing that they will probably be gone by the time we can actually really start house-hunting.


SOOOOO PREGNANT!! (A.K.A. Get Out of Mah Belleh!!)
Today is February 17th, and Wyatt was due to join us on the 10th. He is not being cooperative, and after having my membranes stripped on three different occasions, doing four rounds of acupuncture, running up and down stairs, ingesting black and blue cohosh supplements, doing jumping jacks, moving heavy furniture, and using evening primrose oil for cervical softening, he still is being a stubborn little cuss. So, we are going in tonight at 7:30pm to be induced. My Mom is here to watch after Maya while we are in the hospital, and we skipped her nap today so that she'll be super tired this evening, and hopefully go to bed early (fingers crossed). We've got our bags packed, the house cleaned, and all our ducks in a row. Let's do this!

We're outta here in t-minus three hours. Hopefully, the next blog I post will include pictures of our new family!!