Saturday, July 31, 2004
More family came to visit and get a peek at the newest member of the Buffington clan! Uncle Pete and Aunt Sara dropped by on Friday and Saturday to joing Grandmom Buffington! What a fun day --- out to the mall, out to eat, the country furniture store, and even a new outfit from Old Navy.
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
So, I got to thinking, people ask us what's different here in DC and what life is like -- I thought I'd blog a typical day.
5:30 am -- Alarm. Snooze.
5:35 am -- Time for Kellie to feed Eli, so I get out of bed and into the shower.
6:30 am -- Kellie and Eli drive me to the bus stop. I wait in line for the next 905 to pick up the commuters and truck us through traffic into DC.
6:37 am -- I board the 905, pull out a book and sit back for the direct ride into the city.
7:28 am -- The streets seem busy in the city by this time. I'm off the bus and down the escalator to Metro's Orange Line at
L'Enfant Plaza (the central hub for the Metro line).
7:50 am -- Off the Metro at Ballston and walking 3 blocks to the IJM office. Traffic is a mess on Wilson BLVD heading West on I-66 and I'm thankful that I don't have to deal with the other drivers, stop lights, and bottlenecks.
7:55 am -- Start a pot of coffee and get settled, check email, gear up on the latest Project Requests.
9:31 am -- Finished working on a couple projects, an HTML email and a Save The Date, checking on some approvals for other projects going through. Security is a huge concern here and projects have to be cleared through many departments to protect victims, IJM Operatives and any international relations that may be "touchy."
1:44 pm -- For lunch it was leftover baked ziti, pretzels and the remainder of my applesauce. I checked on my mom's flight during lunch and continued prepping files for press. Then, I uploaded the files to our printer's server and just waiting final approval. I made some calls about a missing package containing paper samples, and then relayed all pertinant information to jobs ready for print to Emily since I will be out tomorrow and Friday. It seems that mots jobs coming through here end up being a rush-job by the time we send them to pre-press. I spent a bit of time this morning troubleshooting the CSS Dropdown Navigation on our site and I think I'm going to have a slight redesign to move the navigation. It just doesn't work stable over the flash element in different browsers, and I don't have the time to make it work. The rest of the day I'll try to wrap up projects and schedule the HTML emails.
Monday, July 26, 2004
The big day- Eli's birthday has finally come!! After so many false alarms it actually did happen. One of the false alarms included a 4 night stay in the hospital with contractions that were less than 5 minutes apart the whole time. It was too early for Eli to be born he was only 34 weeks old (gestation). So the hospital and doctors tried everything they could to stop the contractions. The pulled out the big guns on me- Magnesium Sulfate. It is the strongest thing they have. I was on it for about 2 days and it made me feel horrible. I hurt all over because of it. When that didn't work they gave up and decided to let nature take over.
Well Eli managed to surprise EVERYONE and wait another 5 1/2 weeks till he was born, only 2 days before his expected due date. But I am glad he was able to stay in me so long because he was born so healthy- 8 lbs, 2 oz.- healthy.
This is how the labor and delivery went down:
It was thursday afternoon and I went in for my weekly rutine check up. When they took my blood pressure it was dangerously high 160/45. My feet were very swollen and I had gained 8 lbs in one week. ALl signs of pregnancy induced hypertension. Since that is pretty serious and I was so close to my due date Doctor Elizabeth Kane decided to send me straight to the hospital to be induced.
I picked up AJ and we went to the hospital that evening. Once there they inserted cervadil into my cervix to get it ready for labor. I slept with that over night and the plan was to start the pitocin drip in the morning. The pitocin is the official thing they use for the induction.
Well around 8:30 a.m. they started the pitocin and I wasn't really in any pain so I decided to put on my make-up so I'd look good after the delivery. It was nearing 10:00 a.m. and I had two contractions and then gosh- my water broke! I was so surprised. The nurse came in and checked my cervix and I was 4 centimters dilated. Immediately I was in tremendous pain- I mean the worst pain I had every experiencced-EVER. I was begging for an epidural. An hour later the anesthisialogist (s/p) was finished in the operating room and could come help me. I got my epidural at 11:00 a.m. and was immediately very relieved. At that same time the nurse checked me again and I was 8 cm dilated. She was very surprised I went that far in only an hour- I was too- expecting labor to be very long and laborious afterall that is what it is called- labor. The nurse told me to try to sleep because I would be pushing very soon. So I did just that- took a nap. Around 12:30 p.m. the nurse came in and checked me again and I was a complete 10 centimers dialated!! She sent for people to prepare the room for delivery. At 1:00 p.m. I began to push. I pushed 5 times and the baby was ready to come out- but there was no doctor- the doctor expected it to take longer for me to push so she wasn't even in the hospital yet- so they asked me to wait and stop pushing- much easier said then done!!! I had something the size of a water mellon just begging to come out of me- talk about pressure- OUCH! 10 minutes later the doctor arrived and with one more push Eli entered into the world. It was 1:36 p.m. - he weighed 8 kbs, 2 oz. and was 20 1/2 inches long.
It was such a blessing to have such an easy and ast labor and delivery- 3 1/2 hours total. My recovery has been equally as fast. I am feeling great and I have a lot of energy. Eli is a great sleeper so we are all sleeping fairly well at night.
It is such a blessing to be a mom. Eli is beautiful and he is the best gift God has every given me. I feel so priviledged to be entrusted with such a precious human being. Aj is being so wonderful as well- He is a great dad and has been such a great support for me. This has really brought us closer together and I love him in a whole new way now- deeper then ever before. God is so good- his love endures forever. May his name be praised forever and ever for eternity!!!
Sunday, July 25, 2004
Sunday night --- it's been a wonderful weekend! Our first weekend with 3 of us, family time, chores, errands and of course on the weekend, lazy time!
So, the weather has been gloomy all weekend and we've taken advantage of it. We spent time watching (and napping in front of) the Tour De France, shopping with Eli at Safeway, going to church, cooking, fixing our site, setting up new blogs, watching movies, and finally accomplishing a huge feat: PAINTING THE DREADED PINK HALLWAY! See the photo below. Yes, the pink hallway has been overhauled with a beautiful antique white. For those of you who never experienced the pink, it wasn't just the walls, but ALL of the trim! Yeah, crazy. (If you are a fan of pink, we don't mean to offend you, but this was bad!) So, that's almost done, except for those top lines of the wall near the ceiling, which are about 15 feet over the stairs. Makes it difficult.
So, all-in-all a great weekend. We've been enjoying the time with Eli.
We really enjoyed having Kellie's family in town this past week and they were all such a great help!
Keep in touch you all!
AJ is finishing painting the pink hall! No more pink! (well, except for the kitchen and the bathroom)
What an amazing week! Last Friday, July 16th at 1:36pm Kellie and I were blessed with the birth of our baby boy, Eli! Truly amazing!
This week has been incredible! We have gone through the "new parent anxieties" and the absolute joys of having Eli in our lives!
We are going to do our best to keep our site current. Keep checking back for new posts and photos.
....More later.
