The Big Day

♦ December 23, 2011 ♦ Leave a Comment

Thursday, I had a doctor appointment to check my status as well as the baby’s, but was told that it could be a while since I had only dilated 1 and it didn’t seem like anything would be happening for a while.  The doctor already had on her schedule that two weeks from my due date we would induce. I did not want that to happen, but they wouldn’t let me go past 14 days so that’s what we did.

That night (8-11-2011) Andrew had to observe an exercise his Marines were doing and didn’t get home until late. After being told that it could be a while before baby McClure makes his entrance, I was determined that it would not be two more weeks…especially because I didn’t know if Andrew would be allowed to miss more work after he was given this time off!  I drank my raspberry leaf tea and sat on my exercise ball to stretch (again…sorry if this is too much info!).

Friday morning (8-12-2011) at about 10:15am Andrew was on the phone updating his Gunny, now promoted to Tops, on how the Marines did the night before when….my water broke! (I apologize if this is too much information.)  I had not felt any real contractions so decided to do a lot of walking. I did not want to spend a ton of time in the hospital walking and being monitored. I knew that if the water broke, they don’t want you to go for too long without delivery to prevent infection and harm to the baby. So around 4 we headed to the hospital since I felt some contractions but also knew we were going on 6 hours without anything…just more water leaking.

I was checked in around 5pm and the shift was getting ready to change so I saw a lot of different people. Since it was now over 7 + hours they said they would wait a little longer before they would start pitocin. They wanted the baby out within 18 hours of my water breaking. I told them no medicine or epidural as I wanted to do natural as much as possible. Well, it was only a few hours into getting the pitocin as they increased it about every 30 minutes.  I only was 3 centimeters dilated. Progress was slow and they didn’t want to check me too much because they wanted to prevent infection.

When contractions started getting unbearable for me, they checked me again and I was about 6 centimeters dilated. I requested an epidural. I was told that there was only on anesthesiologist in the entire hospital and the labor and delivery floor was completely full and they were turning people away ( I knew a full moon would do this :-) ) so I may not get seen in time or at all. I prayed and prayed. I wanted to push and was not far enough along. It was all happening fast and slow…it was weird. I know Andrew was worried about me and the baby and was tired. I just wanted to get through this as I didn’t think I could handle the pain anymore. My legs had a shooting pain that hurt so bad! It was maybe 30 minutes and in walked the anesthesiologist! I was so happy and thanked the Lord. As soon as he started – my pain was gone! It was wonderful!!!!  I was able to relax and tried to rest a little bit. I don’t know the exact time so I’ll just say it was a couple of hours or less when they said well, in about an hour our shift ends and new people will be coming. At least 10 other babies had been born that night and I was the first and last one there! So I was determined that before 6 am the baby would come out.  Around 4:30am I started to push. I didn’t think it was all that difficult. I was just tired. Time went really fast for me, but unfortunately the baby was in distress from the pushing and fast contractions. I had to be put on oxygen and turned in all different directions. The cord was wrapped around his neck. I needed to get him out. I had people all around me and Andrew kept his cool even though he was scared. I couldn’t tell. He was a rock on the outside.

At 5:38, David made his appearance into this world. David Wells McClure was 6lbs 12 oz and 19 inches long. He was healthy and crying. I was so happy.We still hadn’t decided between two choices of middle names so we talked it over a little while after he was born and decided on Wells. Andrew was wonderful. put David’s first diaper on and gave him his first sponge bath and bundled him up so well.

I can’t explain any emotions going on since they were overwhelming. I just look back and know I was happy and exhausted!

Grandma comes to visit and help

♦ December 23, 2011 ♦ Leave a Comment

Since we did not know when and if Andrew would be around for the baby’s birth, mom came to visit. Andrew’s command did not want him going on the exercise with everyone so he was able to say home for 10 days or so. It was such a relief and answer to prayer.

On my heart

♦ December 21, 2011 ♦ Leave a Comment

There’s a lot on my mind and heart this Christmas. It if my first Christmas without Andrew, but surprisingly we are doing okay. I feel loved and am keeping very busy. Unfortunately, lives around me are what is keeping me distracted for ever feeling sad for myself. A friend from Bible study at church has been battling brain cancer for 3 years now. She is only 30 and has five children. Her husband is a marine. My heart hurts for them this Christmas as she was told this is will most likely be her last. Only the eldest child (13) knows as they want to wait until after the holidays to tell the rest of the kids, but we all are concerned that she may not even make it until Christmas. Hospice is helping, but this is just a very hard time for them. I still pray for a miracle until she breaths her last and I pray God comforts the Alfaro family. This is hardest on the ones left behind as Barbara says she will be cancer-free in heaven -just hates to leave her husband and kids behind. I can’t even imagine all that’s going on in their lives right now, so I just pray. Today is also the day that Blake, a friend passed away 2 years ago, so the family is on my heart as well.

I know a lot is happening in our family right now too so I am grateful that our God can listen to and care about it all.

I also know this is not a great topic to be starting back to blogging but it was was was on my mind and heart so I’d thought I share before I do the other long-overdue blogs. Barbara is the one on the far right. Those are her 5 kids. Her husband had a test that day so that is why he isn’t pictured here.

Another Baby Shower

♦ July 13, 2011 ♦ 1 Comment

I was blessed again by more friends this past weekend. This time it was my church friends. My small group plus a few others from church put together a baby shower for me. We played some fun games and had delicious punch and food. I received many cute and useful things at the shower and enjoyed setting the nursery up a little bit more. This week I’ve bought some last minute things that we needed before baby boy comes. By next week when it arrives in the mail, we should be mostly done.

During the shower, Andrew rode his bike into work and then I picked him up. We ended the day with a nice Mexican meal for date night since Andrew left the next day for Arizona. He will be gone for 2 weeks and I’ll try to take it easy. Once he comes back from this trip, we’ll only have a couple of weeks before he leaves again and this time we’ll be expecting the baby to come during that time too! I can’t believe it’s about 5 weeks away. For me, time has been flying by!

July 4th Weekend

♦ July 6, 2011 ♦ Leave a Comment

Andrew got 4 days off for July 4th and it was so nice having him around! I only felt bad for him because this was his last real days off for a very long time.  We tried to keep busy and he tried not to work all weekend. We went to dinner and a movie. He did yard work and re-stained our front yard fence.

We had nursery duty on Sunday and then had a little picnic lunch afterwards in our neighborhood. On Monday, we went golfing on base. And by we I mean Andrew golfed while I drove the cart! It was a lot of fun. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We saw fireworks from our common area in our neighborhood and the place that set them off was less than a mile away. We were going to go to the beach for fireworks but decided against it since we had to get up early to drive to Hollywood the next day. 

On Tuesday we had tickets for The Price is Right game show. Anyone can get free tickets but what we found out is that during summer months you should try to arrive over 2 hours early from what your ticket time says!!! Well, we didn’t get there early enough so they filled up the studio before we had a chance. It was a bummer but we ended up hanging out in the area and then ending our day at Olive Garden (my favorite!). It doesn’t sound like we did too many interesting things and maybe we could have done more, but we just enjoyed being together and playing games and watching movies and relaxing as much as possible. I know Andrew needed that and I enjoyed every minute of it. Now he’s got to work 3 busy days and cram 5 days of work into them and then he’s off to Arizona for 2 weeks. Once he returns from this trip, it will be just a couple of weeks until his out to sea trip and while we wait for baby boy to come! Wow-time is flying by.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day Off

♦ June 28, 2011 ♦ Leave a Comment

Since Andrew was in the field for two weeks, they gave him a day off! I was so happy for him as he needs rest. He slept 10-13 hours each day of our weekend (it included all of the naps too).  Yesterday we took Amber to one of the dog parks/beaches near San Diego. It was a fun day and she was so tired afterwards. We’re looking forward to the four days off Andrew gets for the July 4th weekend.

Baby Showers

♦ June 26, 2011 ♦ Leave a Comment

I was blessed by two baby showers this week. The first one was a surprise shower given by my former co-workers. We had so much fun together. They even had a couple of games we played. I was so blessed to just have good friends out here go to all the trouble to put together a shower for me when I know they are all in tough binds still trying to find work and support themselves and their families.

The second shower was something I signed up for. While Andrew was on one of his training exercises for two weeks, I received an email from our family readiness officer (FRO)who keeps us all informed of things going on either in the community, on base, or with our spouses. I have two FROs right now as Andrew is part of a Battalion which has a small attachment to the Marine Expeditionary Unit he is deploying with. This group of about 29 marines is what he is in charge of on his deployment…along with some other tasks given to him.  I think I will be well informed on this deployment unlike last time. Anyway, as I was going to say, the email that I received told me about a baby shower given by Saddleback Church which has different locations out here since the congregation is huge. While Andrew and I don’t attend this church, it was not for members anyway, it was for the military spouses or members who were expecting a baby this year. I think it’s something they do every June since part of their community they reach out to from the church is the military population. I was going to this event thinking maybe a ton of women would be there and we would just meet each other and go home with maybe a package of diapers or something (which would be a big help since I know we will go through a lot). Well, Andrew came home from his training thing and was going to go on the bike trail before the shower. I had previously asked if spouses would be going to this shower and was told ‘yes’. I didn’t expect Andrew to go with me unless he wanted to.  Well, since the trail runs right by the club house on base that was hosting the shower-he said he would go. He ended up riding his bike for maybe 20 miles and got a flat tire. I had to pick him up-at least he was at a park on a trail so it wasn’t in a dangerous area. Then we headed to the shower where lots of food was served (this made Andrew very happy). He said…I should go to these things more often! Ha :-)

There were about 50 or less people there. This meant probably about 25 pregnant women and their guests. The church volunteers were so kind. They put on this beautiful shower and had many games for us to play. I did win one of the games but decided to no go and claim the prize…I was silly for not going up but I just didn’t feel like it. Most of the prizes looked like girl gifts anyway and not boys…oh well. And on another game I just didn’t feel like collecting people’s safety pins. If anyone was crossing their arms or legs, you could collect their pins. Well, I am sitting, eating, and in a room of strangers and did not feel like walking around looking to see if the women who I saw crossing legs still had their pins on. Hair was covering all of our shoulders and I didn’t want to go out of my box to be bold. I was comfortable sitting in my chair looking around and eating. I know the point was to meet people so I should have just done it, but no big deal!  At the end of the shower they had raffle prizes which everyone would get one. We drew numbers 1-25 or so. I was the last to pick the number from the bucket and got number 16. Number 2 and something else were left in the bottom. One by one they called the numbers starting with number one. We each got to choose from a whole section of prizes. The church went above and beyond my expectations. What a blessing it was to all these women…myself included. I ended up walking away with a diaper bag full of stuff and a diaper genie (trash can). The diaper genie was the gift of my choosing. It came with the special trash bags, diapers and wipes too.  Some of the other things there to choose from I either already had or just decided that I liked this gift better. I took a picture of everything they gave us. I totally did not expect to receive these gifts. Andrew said it was like Christmas. The diaper bags they gave everyone had so much packed inside of them. It was unbelievable. So even though I knew no one at the shower, I met some other pregnant woman and enjoyed hearing how the church reached out to everyone talking about their ministries…small groups and baby sitting and other things they do for military while the spouses are deployed. It was another day of blessings and I’m glad Andrew got to come with me. He enjoyed the food, games and got to carry all our things to the car :-)

The pictures of my first shower are all on Facebook but I put a few on here. The picture of the table of goodies is all the stuff we got yesterday from Saddleback Church. I think Andrew and I are set for the baby now. I want him to wait to come, but if he were to show up soon, we are ready for him! Now…just to pick a name…

Busy Weekend

♦ April 18, 2011 ♦ Leave a Comment

Since the last blog, we  have attended the formal dinner with Andrew’s Battalion, had nursery duty at church and attended Fallbrook’s annual Avocado Festival. We happen to live in the Avocado Capital of the World as a random fact. And until living here, neither Andrew nor I liked anything made with avocados…now we have changed :-)

The formal dinner was fun, but it could have been better had I known someone there and if more people were seated at our table. We had a fantastic table up toward the front but only half the table showed up so it was kinda empty. I didn’t mind since I just was able to talk to Andrew and meet a lot of people he works with. But what neither one of us liked was when they started smoking cigars! After 5-10 minutes the room was filled and I was going to leave almost immediately when they decided to put all the cigars out and the air eventually filtered out the smoke…I just have to pray that there was no damage as 2nd and 3rd hand smoke is just as if not more dangerous than smoking to a baby.

Of course we did not take a picture while we were at the dinner, but we remembered to do it when we got home. It was a little before midnight when it was taken so we were very tired.

The next morning while at church we had nursery duty (10-17 month olds). They were a handful but not as bad as last week! But my arms and legs were so sore from holding the kids!

After church we stopped at our Fallbrook Airpark where there was an open house. We saw many planes, a sheriff’s helicopter, and remote control planes. It was very interesting.

We went home to grab a little bite to eat and pick up Amber. Then we walked to Main Street where there were TONS of people. There were many booths to look at. The only things we bought though was food related! Roasted corn on the cob. Fresh squeezed lemonade. Kettle corn. Holy guacamole (the winner of many contests for being the best) and Andrew and I agreed! And we shared a pulled pork sandwich. Ha…so many varieties but we all sure enjoyed it…even Amber although she was a little overwhelmed with all of the people. I even accidentally stepped on her foot while walking and she yelped loudly!  We were all pooped when we got home. My legs and feet were super sore. I made a quick dinner and we watched a movie, ate our kettle corn, and went to bed. Amber slept for almost 12 hours and is still sleeping now! The life of a dog :-)   I did get a little sun burn on my arms, but it was a beautiful day.  Today my muscles are not so sore! But the weather is funny. Yesterday…in the 80s but felt hotter and today completely cloudy and only 61 degrees. Gotta love southern CA!

Erica, I wish I could send you avocados :-(     I was thinking of you while we were there.

22.5 weeks

♦ April 16, 2011 ♦ Leave a Comment

I’d like to think that I’m half-way there already but then I say, “Man, time is sure going by fast!”  And I don’t want to rush anything. Nothing much is new with me and baby boy other than both of us are growing. He is also very active.

Andrew had been in the field all week. About every couple of weeks he is gone for another week or so. But this time he came home with good news!  The deployment is scheduled again to leave in November instead of September! Now before anyone tries to do any cartwheels…remember semper gumby? Things can change and probably will again several times before it actually gets here. Now, while Andrew and I are happy about this news, it means that the first schedule of him being gone for an out to sea exercise around August 6-22 is still on! Ugh…maybe they’d let him back for the delivery? It would be nice for him to be the one to take me to the hospital and stay until baby boy is born. Oh well…we’ll see.  It is too far to tell anything yet. I’m just updating on what I know so far.

We haven’t had too much time to talk about names together, but we’ve agreed on a couple so at least it’s a start.

Tonight we will be going to a formal mess night type dinner. Some call it a dining in. I have to dress up in a cocktail dress and Andrew in the uniform we were married in. It will be fun but it was hard finding a dress. I actually fit into one I already own so when Andrew gave me his opinion on all the ones I tried on, it was decided and I’m happy with the choice. I’ll try to get our picture taken so we can post it.

We took Amber to a park today where they had doggie contests. We were just observers but it was fun (and HOT). The temperature says its 87 but our thermometer says 104. All I know is that it is hot and that means we’ll have a hot summer!

Fun Day

♦ March 6, 2011 ♦ Leave a Comment

We took Amber to the dog beach yesterday. Unfortunately it is not too close, but it was worth it. We all had fun. Amber has a few scratches from some rocks but it didn’t slow her down any. She never wants to stop playing. Andrew and I stopped for some frozen yogurt and bike stores on the way home when we received a phone call from Rob saying he was about an hour away. We went to base with Amber and waited for him to arrive. She was happy to see him. He is staying with a friend for a few days and then he’ll come back here. It was a full day as we did chores before leaving for the beach.

Today after church we spent some time in babies r us looking around (again) and figuring out some of the things to get. Weekends go by so quickly…wish we had another day.

We brought the camera but left it in the car when we were at the beach so we have no pictures of that part of our day.

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