Let’s finish out the rest of November, shall we? Actually, not much to report other than Gary and I now have to get used to saying we have kidS (still sounds weird to me). Nathan seemed to be adjusting fairly well and my mom stayed with us for a few days to help out.

Swaddled

She has loved her hands from Day One

A little sunshine for some slight jaundice. We have to get her levels checked once after leaving the hospital but after that she was fine.

Blue eyes

The first sibling pose (which I could only convince Nathan to do if he was allowed to have Woody in the photo)

Don’t worry, she conked out shortly after.

We ended up with very similar pictures of Oma and Grandma with Nathan and Hannah right after they were born. See for yourself…

Oma & Nathan

Oma & Hannah

Grandma & Nathan

Grandma & Hannah

Here is Nathan meeting Hannah for the first time.

Hannah Rebecca Stegman was born on Thursday, November 24 at 11p. She weighed 7 lbs 5.8 oz and was 19 inches long.

Here’s the story of how our day went….

I was 38 weeks 3 days pregnant and went to my OB for a regular weekly check-up around 10am, at which time the doctor told me I was 5 cm dilated and needed go to Labor & Delivery to have the baby that day! I think it was how far I was dilated combined with a lot of swelling in my feet and legs, and a few instances where my blood pressure went up and then back down. I was still shocked though, since I’d been having some contractions, but nothing regular or strong. Since I was feeling fine and kind of in denial about the whole thing, I decided to go home, take a shower, pack and make arrangements for Nathan. Then Gary and I picked up lunch and dropped the dog off at the kennel. On our way to the kennel, about three hours after leaving my OB’s office, we got a call from them asking where we were because the OB on call had been notified I was coming in and was waiting for me. Oops! I was in no rush to go to the hospital, but we got there around 2p.

Still being in denial about it all, I wouldn’t let the OB break my water (I kind of didn’t want to have the baby until the weekend, after Thanksgiving and a date with Gary to see the new Harry Potter movie), but around 5 or 6p, I got hooked up to Pitocin to try to make my contractions stronger. There was some drama with Hannah’s heart rate getting to high a few times, so it delayed me getting Pitocin initially and then they had to stop it around 7:30p when her heart rate went up again. It was a little scary the second time because I had no idea anything was wrong until half a dozen nurses and my OB rushed into the room to check on things. Gary had gone to the cafeteria with Nathan and his parents, so I was frantically telling my mom to call him while trying to listen to the doctor telling me to roll to my side. Unfortunately it was my left side, which was the side my broken rib was on, so it was a little uncomfortable.

Eventually they determined the baby was fine and my contractions began to be one on top of the next. Even though they weren’t super strong, it was beginning to be hard to deal with so I asked for an epidural, and that was when the OB broke my water.

My water breaking seemed to be exactly what my body was waiting for (guess I should have listened to the doctor in the beginning), and my contractions immediately got incredibly strong. I was VERY thankful the epidural was already on it’s way because I needed it. By about 10:30p I was fully dilated and we started pushing. I was brave enough to watch what was going on in a mirror, which was pretty amazing once I got over the weirdness of it.

Thirty minutes and three good contractions later, Hannah made her appearance!

I was feeling pretty emotional right afterward.

Lots more pictures here

Nathan kept asking for a “big brother bed”, aka twin sized, so we finally decided to get him one. He was definitely looking very big in that little toddler bed and we figured it would be a fun “big brother” kind of gift. He loved it!

From what I remember, November was full of football games, play dates, Sunday School…oh yeah, Nathan started Sunday School! Hebrew School actually. He goes about every other Sunday for a couple hours. We wanted to start him in a program now since there aren’t other Jewish kids in his current daycare and it would give him good exposure to Jewish Holidays, etc. He’s a little shy about going because he doesn’t know the kids well, but he seems to have fun and the teacher is really nice.

Otherwise November was kind of exhausting…I was coming to the end of my pregnancy, but I also had bronchitis, and then ended up coughing so hard I broke a rib. Not fun when you’re 8 months pregnant. I also had a lot of swelling in my feet and legs, which was getting uncomfortable. Here I am at 37 weeks…exactly one week later, I had the baby! (But that will be for another post)

We’ve gone to the Maryland Zoo’s Zoo Boo event every year since Nathan was born. They set up booths with food and games and some local sponsors and then the kids can trick-or-treat at each place, and then you get to enjoy a day at the zoo in costume! Some years we’ve gone with friends but this year it was just us.

Check out Nathan at Zoo Boo over the years…

A Cow (6 months)

A Lion (18 months)

A Dinosaur (2 1/2 years)

Woody! (3 1/2 years)

Here are pictures from our visit this year.

After trick-or-treating and watching part of a puppet show, we headed down to the zoo. It’s a little bit of a walk from the entrance to the zoo itself, but we opted not to take the tram, so Nathan got a ride.

We opted to skip the main part of the zoo this time and stayed in the Maryland Wilderness and petting zoo areas. Lots of stuff to climb on, and in, and Nathan always loves the goats.

(He’s got a brush in his hand in this picture)

More pictures from Zoo Boo here

We’ve gone to Webers Farm every Fall since Nathan was born and I always try to get pictures of him with their pumpkins. For some reason I don’t have any from 2009, but I know we went!

I just love seeing comparisons like this…

October 2007 (6 months old)

October 2008 (18 months old)

(Couldn’t you just eat him up???)

October 2010 (3 1/2 years old)

Fall and Halloween galore! Pumpkins farms, Halloween celebrations, costumes…October was full of all that.

Nathan’s school went on a field trip to a pumpkin farm. Here he is with two best buds, Phoenix and Caitlin. (Gary and I didn’t go, but one of the other parents snapped this for us)

Then we took our annual trip to Webers Farm.

He was mining for gemstones here

Hayride!

On the front steps of our new house

Nathan trying on his Woody Halloween costume for the first time. He was SO excited about it. We ended up with Woody two costumes and he actually wore a different one for trick-or-treating.

Here we are at a different pumpkin farm, on their hayride. If I’m remembering correctly, Nathan took this photo, and I love it!

This pumpkin farm had a couple corn mazes and a big pumpkin patch that you could walk through.

We painted pumpkins for Halloween. The paint pretty much all peeled off once it dried, but it was a fun project anyway!

Here’s me at 33 weeks pregnant. By this point I was getting lots of comments from people I didnt know about how big I was. and amazement that I wasn’t due for another 7 weeks. Gotta love random stranger comments like that…

Toward the end of October a friend of mine gave us tickets she had won to see Toy Story on Ice. We took Nathan’s friend Phoenix, another hard core Toy Story fan, and they had a blast.

We also did our annual trip to Zoo Boo which we’ve been doing since Nathan’s first Halloween, but that will be a separate post because there are already too many pictures in this one!

And what October is really about…Halloween! We loved walking through our new neighborhood with all the other families and young kids. Nathan was a little shy about going door to door, but was doing well until about 3/4 through when one of the houses had dry ice at the door and he got a little scared. We did a few more houses after that, but he was telling us he had enough candy and was ready to go home

Checking out the loot.

More pictures from October here