Tyler Joseph Billings' Birth Story

TYLER JOSEPH BILLINGS

It has taken me forever to get around to finishing Tyler’s birth story. We all know that parents take fewer baby pictures of each child after the first. Well, I guess in this case Tyler will have fewer blogs than Caroline. I had so much time then to write weekly blogs while on maternity leave with her. This time around I’m just now getting to my first blog about Tyler. Being a mother of two affords less time for getting things accomplished. I’m learning there is a small window of opportunity to get things done and that I need to seize every opportunity that I can. Well, here is his story that I will probably retell on all his birthdays…

Tyler's due date was May 1. Tim and I figured since Caroline was late there might be a chance that he would be late as well. So we scheduled an induction for Cinco de Mayo, thinking it would be cool to have birthday parties with Mexican themes. We tried to make an effort to hold off having him for that day but, as events unrolled, he came a little early. Not to mention I carried him lower and he was longer and weighed well over a pound more than Caroline did. It was getting more and more uncomfortable each day. It all started on late Thursday night (29 April) around 11:30 p.m. I felt paint in my lower back really bad and then I started to have contractions for 30 minutes straight. Tim woke up for whatever reason and I told him about the contractions. He found a contraction timer app for his iPod and downloaded it. I was having consistent contractions for four hours straight; they started off five minutes apart and lasted for a minute and a half and then moved closer together to three minutes apart. We got out of bed, ate, and watched part of a movie. Nothing changed except my back was starting to hurt. I did not know if this was it or not, but I just wanted to be close to the epidural in case the pain came fast. We drove to the hospital around 4:30 a.m. It seemed around thirty minutes after they hooked me up to a monitor my contractions got further and further apart. After about three hours they sent me home. I guess I never got the memo that I had to bend over in extreme pain to go the hospital. My parents drove over when we told them we were going to the hospital. So my Mom stayed with us through Saturday afternoon. We went grocery shopping and she made meals and stocked up my freezer. It was nice to have her around helping me with Caroline. I was feeling bad that I could not get on the floor and play with her any more because of my size and discomfort.

On Sunday morning (2 May) I was sleeping and I felt something leak and I knew I did not pee on myself. It did not smell like urine. So this time I went to the hospital by myself, and they did two tests on me and kept me there for about two hours. The nurse told me the tests came back negative and I peed on myself. So when I was getting dressed I took about a foot of the litmus paper they used to test the amniotic fluid, wrote down the name of the paper and put it in my purse. I was completely disappointed and confused at that point. I thought, "I guess I won’t go back to hospital until there is a head coming out of my body." Later that morning I tested everything the fluid leaked on and it came back positive; the color changed to a dark blue. I even had Tim pee on the paper just to see if urine would change the color. It turned orange which was clearly on the acidic side. After that I texted my doctor and asked him to call me. He said to go down to the hospital and he would tell them to admit me and get ready for an induction. When I got there, the nurse explained that I may have had a foresac rupture, which is a pocket of amniotic fluid separate from the "water" that Tyler was in. So it seemed I would have been safe to wait until the 5th after all, but it doesn't matter; by having him early, that was just 3 more days of life that I have been able to spend with him.

We went to the hospital around 2:30 p.m. and got settled in the room. Tim started his play by play updates on facebook. We had a really cool nurse named Nicole. She had a good sense of humor which Tim and I always like during times like these. It seems to ease any tension; perhaps that is why we like Dr Wolf as well. After I got in place with the IV and all my vital signs checked, they started me on fluids and the oxytocin at 3:39. About an hour later I received the epidural. I had plenty of contractions during that hour but none that hurt. It was awesome; I felt absolutely no labor pains at all. That is the way to go! Some people like a la natural. But personally I love being able to have a baby and enjoy every minute of it and laugh through it if someone says a funny joke. I will never be able hold the pains of delivering a baby over Tim nor my children's heads. At 5:34 I became 4 cm dilated. 4 cm is usually the hardest to reach when dilating; after that it was all down hill. By 6:24, I was at 6 cm. Then I quickly progress to 10 cm by 6:49. The nurses called the doctor to come to the hospital. When he came in, I made the joke that my goal was to beat my pushing time of 13 minutes with Caroline. Dr Wolf said, "Oh, I bet you can do it in 6 minutes." Sure enough he was right. After 6 minutes of pushing, our beautiful bundle of joy came into this world at 7:16 p.m. He was 7lbs 12.8 oz and 21 inches long. Having delivered two children, I can say it is just as amazing as the first. There will never be a high greater than the experience of bringing children into the world. Perhaps that is why we do experience the baby blues afterwards. We have to come down from that climax in our lives.

Tim is cutting Tyler's umbelical cord.

It amazes me how much love a mother has to go around for all her children. The love I have for Tyler was just as deep as for Caroline the instant I saw him. Perhaps I was even more excited this time around to have him because I knew the immediate love I was going to experience when I held him my arms for the first time. It seems like he could not get here fast enough.

Mother's Day with Tyler

This past mother’s day was amazing. After church we went out to eat and there I was a mother of two, watching my daughter color on one side and my son sleep on the other side. All day I had that warm, fuzzy feeling like I had fallen in love all over again. It seems so much more complete to say “the children,” instead of “my child.” This was a very special day for me as I celebrated the love I have for my children.

The children watching their first soccer match: US vs England

Caroline is such a good big sister. She loves Tyler so much. She is so gentle with him and gives him kisses all the time. If he cries, she grabs his pacifier and hands it to me. If I put him down on his play mat, she will grab a blanket and put it on him to keep him warm. She even wipes his mouth off with his bib. Her nurturing instincts have come to the surface since his birth. I didn’t even know she could say “baby” until she saw him in the hospital. I think they are going to be very close and get along well as they grow up.

Tyler is growing like a weed. He will be two months this Sunday and he is already 13 lbs. All his weight is in his height; he is now in 3-6 month clothes based on his height. So, pants don’t fit him in that size just yet. He is a wonderful baby and hardly makes a sound except when he needs something, which is easy to read. He is cooing and smiling very well now. Last night was the first time he slept all through the night.We are so blessed to have this new addition to our family of four.

Tyler's room

Easter Pictures and Update

Happy Easter Everyone!!

I hope you had as much fun as we did celebrating the resurrection of our Saviour...we went to Sonic ®. Anyways, we did find some time to take Caroline out and got some awesome photos in her Easter dress followed by a mini Easter Egg Hunt. Caroline still doesn't understand the concept of how or why she is hunting for eggs, but she does love opening them up and pretending they are cups of tea.

Caroline drinking "tea" from an egg.

Caroline and her Easter basket.

She was the prettiest girl in Church today!

Tim's first attempt of Macro photography. These are our Azuela's that are in full bloom around our yard!

Tim's First Half Marathon

That's right, I completed my FIRST Half Marathon on Sunday. I know it's been a couple days, but we've had some friends visiting so I haven't had much time to sit down and write this up.

This whole adventure started just after the New Year when I got an e-mail from my Squadron Commander throwing down a challenge to compete in the Seaside School Half Marathon. This is an event to help raise money for the town of Seaside Heights School (where they shot the movie "The Truman Show"). I'm a proponent of schools, so I figured it'd be my charity event of the year.

So the original plan was that I had a little over 60 days to train for this race. Things started out well. I got a couple 3-4 mile runs in, but Florida was going through some unseasonably cold snaps through much of January and February. This made training just a bit unbearable. So to shorten the story up, the only training that I really got done was my PFT training for the last week of January.

The day before race day, we packed up the Venza and drove out to Seaside Heights to pick up my race pack, bib, and chip. Being my first time racing, this was a bit of a learning experience but Malinda and I muddled our way through it. We then spent an hour or so getting our bearings around the town of Seaside Heights. It's a quaint little seaside town (hence the name). Each house is named just like a ship would be and they also have your name and your hometown our front, just like some Air Force Bases do. It was kind of cool to see the names some people named their house, like Just In Time.

On race day we woke up at 4:15am to get there by 6:00am. It was a good plan, but the only problem was that it was 35 ℉ right up until race start time. Most races along with Malinda and Caroline huddled in a small coffee shop to keep warm.

Things started out great for me. My plan was to run an easy 10 min mile for the duration of the race. That plan worked out well for the first few miles. I was enjoying the scenery and even having a couple conversations with some random people. Matter of fact, things went excellently right up until mile 5 1/2. Right about then started a mile of about 4 hills. Then the turn around point in which I had to do those for hills AGAIN. That is when my pace went from about 10:35 per mile to almost 11:00 per mile and stayed there for the remainder of the race. Needless to say, I didn't plan on there being any hills here in Florida. Another thing I didn't plan for is people taking forever at the Port-O-Potties. So I had to either A) wait over 5min to use one or B) Hold it. I decided to hold it until mile 7 when their was no line.

The rest of the race was pretty uneventful. I finished with a time of 2:28:38. In the grand scheme of things I know that's slow, but for someone who didn't really train I think that's pretty good. My only goal was to finish. That is so I can get a medal and Malinda can get her Vera Bradley bag (the main reason she agreed to let me run). Below are some pictures taken during the race.

This is me at the beginning. It was about 35 degrees and I was itching to run!

This is me about 200 yards from the finish.

Enjoying the fruits of a job well done!

Also, to catch you up on some general Billings news, Malinda is doing just fine with her pregnancy. We are just under 2 months away from our Baby Boy being born. Malinda is nesting big time. Caroline has reached quite a few milestones. She is walking on her own pretty well at this point. She is starting to talk. She is getting really good about telling us when she has "Poo Pooed" so we can change her. She is also eating with a fork all by herself too!

We are also in the process of selling our house too. So you can imagine that Malinda has me working overtime to get things painted and fix before mid-April.

Also, we just had a visit from our close friends Jeremy and Samantha. For those of you keeping track, Samantha was Malinda's Matron of Honor in our wedding. They only stayed a couple days and we made it to the beach only once.

Halloween

Saturday we drove an hour and a half to Todd's and Abear's house to celebrate Halloween. We carved pumpkins and pretty much spent the entire day there. They introduced us to a new game called Mille Brones. I would recommend it to anyone.

"I'm ready to Uncle Todd and Aunt Abear."

"Ohhhh, a pumpkin just my size"

Notice the how Abear used the bump on the

pumpkin to create the nose. Todd's pumpkin

is eating the little pumpkin. They are so creative.

The seven of us. Can you guess where the other two are?

Caroline is the coolest baby ever!

Tim and my pumpkins. Can you guess which one is Tim's?

This is my version of a pregnant pumpkin while going

through morning sickness.

Caroline's Dedication

On the 17th of October my parents and Uncle Aaron came down for Caroline's baby dedication. We had a nice ceremony at the church that Saturday just for the parents, babies, and family. There were songs, a slide show of the baby pictures and a word from the paster. Then they feed us lunch afterwards. It was a wonderful way to dedicate your child and we appreciate having my parents and Aaron there is support us.

Caroline's One Year Birthday Pictures.

Here are some beach pictures we had taken the first week in October.

Caroline's Birthday

We can't hardly believe it; Caroline has been ours for a year now. Caroline turned one on Friday the 23rd. Our squadron had a Halloween party for the kids so of course I had to get Caroline dressed up and show her off.

"I'm a Fairy Princess!"

"Look at my beautiful blue eyes."

On Saturday we had about 21 friends from work and church and 4 children come over to help celebrate her birthday. Caroline's Nonna, Granddaddy and Uncle Aaron were there too. We had a backyard cookout on a beautiful fall day. Caroline did well with the gift opening but soon lost intrest so mommy had to finish opening the rest. I think her favorite gifts were a leap frog dog that plugs into the computer so it can say Caroline's name when it talkes, and a rocking pony that her Grandma Billings got her.

Caroline's all smiles on her pony ride.

Our Commander's secretary made Caroline's cake.

Caroline insisted on eating with a spoon.

She doesn't like textured food so I don't think

she really ate one bit of the cake.

Since then we have made a switch with her childcare provider mainly for safety reason but also because she kept getting bits all over her body at her childcare provider's house. Since then a friend has been watching Caroline temporarily until another provider is able to get training. We are so happy with where she is at now. We get sheets with Caroline's feedings, changing times and sleep schedule. It is such as relief to know she is in good hands and not getting anymore bits.

Our Summer and Caroline's Now Ten Months

The Cincinnati Zoo in July!

Well pretty much the whole summer has flown by without me writing a single blog. This past Fourth of July we drove up to Georgetown, KY to visit Tim's parents. We took her to Cincinnati to see the zoo for the very first time. We also saw two of Tim's brothers and visited Mike at the fire station where he works at. We of course had to take a picture of Caroline in the driver's seat of the Fire Truck.

Honk! Honk! Caroline is on her way to save the day!

We have been keeping busy with working on the house and attending summer cookouts about every weekend. During the last two weeks of August, Tim went TDY to Alaska. He went up there to see how things were done up in the Alaska National Guard and the Alaskan NORAD Region. Of course this only took up 4 of the 14 total days up there. The rest of the time was spent hiking, going to the zoo, airplane rides to look at glaciers, and of course all the excellent seafood restaurants. We really missed him. I had no one to wash bottles for me. :-(

Tim on his AK Vacation

I wish Daddy would come home from Alaska.

While he was gone I worked on turning one of our living room closets into a cloffice or closet office for Tim's birthday gift. He was very surprised. I also went on shopping date with Abear and Todd at Ft Walton and then spend the rest of the evening at the beach with my parents to celebrate Dad's birthday. That was a lot of fun.

Tim's New Cloffice

But the biggest news of the summer is that Caroline learned to crawl last Thursday. The first video is one of her laughing. She thinks it is so funny when I crawl on the floor or run around the room. I was just running from one side of the bed to the other to get her to laugh this hysterically.

A Minute of Laughter

Caroline goofing off at the resturant!

I love to read!

New Family Member

Greetings All,

This month has been extremely busy for us. Between work, Caroline, and the house, we have had barely any free time. But we do have some interesting news. Because of our loss of Alex, our other dog Tucker started to mope around. After a couple weeks for mulling it around, we decided to adopt another Beagle. This is not to replace Alex, but to give Tucker someone to play with. We were wanting to get a girl dog that was older than 1 year old. Well, the very next day we received the most random call from Lynn Haven Animal Shelter saying that they had a 2 year old female Beagle that they rescued from Bay County Animal Shelter. Apparently she was about to be put to sleep. Well, it took all of about 2 seconds to realize that God was putting her into our lives. We picked her up the Friday before Memorial Day. The family that gave her up called her "Blaze". I'm not a name expert, but what kind of name is that for a girl dog?? So we decided to call her Blair, since it's the closest female name to Blaze that she would easily recognize. She and Tucker are getting along about as well as expected. Tucker sniffed her hiney and I don't think he has looked her way again. We think he's still missing his buddy. Last weekend the Base Vet Clinic held a "Lunch On A Leash" so Dog and Cat owners can come out with their pets and get free food as well as raffle prizes. Tucker did just fine, but Blair was, as quoted by Tim, "a complete embarrassment!" She barked at every dog, cat, and human that she saw the entire time were there. I guess that's be expected from a dog that was locked up in two shelters over a week and a half. Well, that's about that. Enjoy the pictures and movie!

Here is Tim and Blair. She's not very photogenic.

Learning to Clap

Our Family Picture at Mandi's Wedding; 2 May2009.

Uncle Aaron stayed a short visit this weekend.

I walked in Caroline's room this morning and found her lying in this position. How uncomfortable!

Caroline posing with mommy's old Cabbage Patch Doll.

This weekend Caroline learned to clap. Here is a video of her shortly after we saw her doing it for the first time.