Henry is 3 Months Old!

I can't believe this precious boy is 3 months old already. It feels like he has been apart of our family for so long. Henry is getting more steady at holding up that big head and just recently discovered his hands and fingers. He is laughing and cooing like crazy and is such a happy baby. We are getting more sleep as he is sleeping through the night. What a blessing that has been. We have so much fun with him and have really enjoyed getting to see his personality develop. He is 18lbs and is really a great work out! I'm already 5 lbs under my pre-pregnancy weight. I love this little guy so much and I know Dave does too. He is an absolutely incredible Papa to Henry.

Crap Happens

Sometimes....blow outs happen.
I've been putting off graduating Henry to a size 3 diaper because I want to use up our size 2's. Learned my lesson. He showed me. And yes, it smelled as bad as it looks.

Cuddles with Papa

Henry is happy to be back in papa's arms after his trip to Utah.

Best Buds

Oso helping Henry with tummy time.

Stationery card

Picture Him Birth Announcement

Announcements for every life event: graduation, wedding & baby.

View the entire collection of cards.

Henry Hyde Hale–1/13/12

I will do a full, more detailed post later, but I felt the need to at least announce the arrival of our precious boy. It was a long, difficult, emotional, and painful journey getting this little guy out but with one look of his precious face I knew it was all worth it. I will give the entire story when I post his “birth story.”

Henry is almost 2 weeks old and we have had such an amazing time with him already. For quite awhile he was referred to as “Baby Boy Hale” because Dave and I had such a hard time figuring out his name. After interacting with him and seeing his features we both felt he was a Henry through and through.

These first two weeks have been quite an adjustment, but in a weird way I think Dave and I have really enjoyed this new element in our life and have thrived on coming together as a team. We have had lots of family and Church support which has helped as well.

Here are a few pictures we have captured of our baby boy.

36 Weeks

This week was a big week because we had our first ultrasound since 20 weeks. Dave and I were so excited for it. The anticipation almost killed us. The ultrasound was to show, first and foremost, if the baby/placenta/and uterus all looked healthy. It was also important to find out if he was head down. For our situation, this ultrasound was also really important to show his size. He has been measuring big in the office, but our Dr. really wanted to see just how big he was so that we could start to get a game plan for his birth.

We are happy to announce that everything looked healthy and normal and there were no major concerns. He is head down and sitting pretty low which is good. The ultrasound tech measure his head, abdomen and femur bone and they all are in the 90th percentile for size. An average 36 week old baby weighs 5.5-6lbs and they estimated that baby Hale was weighing in at around 7.5lbs. Basically it was confirmed that combing my DNA and Dave’s DNA is producing a rather large baby.

On Friday we met with our Dr. to go over the ultrasound and talk more about delivery plans. Both our Dr. and us believe in letting the baby cook and develop as long as possible but we are both aware of some potential dangers when trying to deliver a really large baby. Obviously I would love to go into labor on my own, but being that this is my first baby, there isn’t a great chance that will happen prior to 40 weeks. Rather than making a definitive game plan, my Dr. decided to order another ultrasound at 38 weeks to monitor the baby’s growth. She said no matter what she won’t let me go a day over 40 weeks, but that if it looks like he is continuing to grow at a steady rate that she would like to induce somewhere between 38-40 weeks.

The thought of induction makes me sick because it goes against my “natural” way of life I’ve lead for almost 27 years. It seems almost cruel to me to make a mother walk into a hospital, pump her full of drugs, and basically jump start both her body and the baby in order to induce labor. At the same time, I understand fully why at times it is necessary and helpful. So, if induction is the best option for me, Dave and I have both discussed that we will try to blend natural and holistic medicine with traditional medicine. I ‘m going to do everything on my part (homeopathy, oil, acupressure, exercise) to help prep my body before walking in that hospital and being pumped with Pitocin.  Hopefully that will be the best route for both baby and me.

During our ultrasound baby was moving and turning his head a lot so the tech had a really hard time getting a profile picture. She gave us a few, but they aren’t even worth putting up because they are so hard to see and blurry. Guess we will just have to wait and see what he looks like after he pops out. Here is a picture of my big belly at 36 weeks though. Getting bigger by the minute!