What everyone was waiting for

We just got home from the hopsital and I figured I had better get this information up for everyone that was waiting semi-patiently for it. Xander was born on Tuesday February 19th @ 6:00 pm. He weighed in at 8 lbs 7 oz and measured 20.5 inches long. The labor was not nearly bad as it could have been. We ended up going in at 9 am and they started her on the pitosin at 10:30. At 11:30 Dr Penney broke JayLyns water and then the really good contractions started. By 12:30 JayLyn decided to have the epidural and was much happier from that point on. At around 5:35-5:40 she started pushing and then after about 20 minutes Xander was born.

Well on to the part everyone really wants, the pictures..

Momma and Xander right after birth

Mom and Dr Penney

Dad and Xander

Mom and Xander

8 Lbs and 7 oz, not to shabby

Xander looking really cute this morning with aunt Michelle

What a cute little squishy face

Growing with monkey (Day 1)

Xander is comming

Just thought that I would throw up a quick update. JayLyn went to the Dr. office today and they decided that she was fully efaced and about 5 cm dialated but because of the way her uterus is tilted that Xander is having a hard time dropping down properly. Because of this, it is stressing him slightly and so the dr. decided that tomorrow morning he is going to induce her labor and get this over with. So at 6 am tomorrow we will be heading into the hospital to have the baby!!! We are pretty pumped about and slightly freaked out, but not to bad and mostly excited. Well I am gonna go and try and get some sleep.

--Mike

Doctors are Liers!

I have been told since week 36 that Xander could be here any day. I have been so exited getting his room ready, my room ready, giving the birds prep talks, packing and re-packing my hospital bag, cleaning my house for the 100th time. . . I can't take it anymore! Every day I think I get about a hundred calls asking if I have had him yet or if I could wait just another week or so for a more convenient time for them. (In fact my cell phone bill was an extra $150 because I went over on minutes--again I stand strong to the belief that it wasn't entirely ALL my fault!) Friday I was so close! Contractions had lasted for over 8 hours and were getting closer, I was getting more and more exited (not to mention in a ton of pain, sick, over exhausted, and mean to Mike) it's 3 am and I'm about to wake Mike up to leave for the hospital when they just stopped! After about a 1/2 hour of crying and praying for those contractions to come back again (crazy! I know!) I finally crawled back to bed. Saturday after Mike got off of work we decided to walk me into labor so we went to the Spokane "Boat Show" and walked around for about 3 hours--Mike has decided since I won’t let him have a boat without him FIRST getting me a house we would compromise and just buy a house boat (and if you bought it at the show you could get a free BBQ to go with it!) I passed on grass, which my husband must be taking for payment now a day’s--honestly I don't know what he is smoking! We then walked around the Mall for another 2-3 hours and then I was kidnapped by some friends that took me on my last "Baby-moon" to Triple Play where we played two rounds of miniature golf and laser tag (I won!), ate way too much chocolate, and drove on some of the worse snow ruts Idaho has to offer and that still didn't send me into labor! Monday the doctor stripped my membranes and again said that "usually" will do it for someone like me that is so close. As you can see it is early Wednesday morning and I'm typing this! I have learned in this last weeks that DOCTORS ARE LIERS!

Pregnancy Pictures

I know alot of you are going to take one look and think. . . CHEESY!!! But this may be our only time with a belly like this and Mike had fun taking them. Here is my belly at 36 weeks. I feel huge, but it could be so much worse. Photos were doctored to spare you all from my massive stretch marks and please NO poking fun of the love handles. We did these pictures at home in what Mike liked to refer to as our little ghetto photo studio.

Xander seems to be getting more and more restless in his little home and I think some days he's trying to punch his way out. He favors my right side with his little feet right up in my ribs kicking all day long! He knows his daddy's voice and becomes very exited when he comes home from work or talks. I have had contractions every night now for the last week so we know it wont be too much longer.

Year in Review

Well, JayLyn and I were talking about this past year on our trip home from the holidays and decided that this year was definitely a year filled with some definite highs but also had some horrific lows as well. 2006 ended on a pretty good note with my little sister Stephanie receiving a liver transplant that she had been waiting for for a year and everything seemed to be going great with the transplant. Then on Jan. 21st she collapsed from a complication of the surgery, not the transplant which was doing amazing, she had developed a clot and it had freed itself and finally lodged itself in her lung. She was transported to Idaho Falls where she was stabilized and placed on Life Support until they could transfer her to Salt Lake where the transplant team was as well as the necessary medical equipment to take care of her. Once in Salt Lake it was determined that there was no higher brain activity. At that point we received the dreaded 12:30 am phone call in Cleveland. We were then on a plane at 8:00 that morning flying home to be with the family and to be with my sister for her last official few hours before she was taken off of life support. JayLyn and I spent a week with my family in Idaho for the funeral before we went back to our home in Cleveland.

After that we had some failed treatments with the infertility doctors that we had been seeing in Cleveland. My National Dental Boards came and went without any major complications, and then I was able to get all of my requirements finished for graduation, and I was finally able to land a job in Liberty Lake, WA. One week before graduation JayLyn underwent surgery for her endometriosis and all went well with the exception that we were told that there was no hope for us to be able to conceive naturally without In Vitro Fertilization procedures as JayLyn's tube was completely blocked off. It was some pretty harsh news that I don't think JayLyn fully understood the full weight of until we went to her post-op procedure on the day we were leaving Cleveland and moving to Post Falls, ID.

My brother Bill was able to present me with my diploma which was pretty cool.

Our move went fairly uneventful and as we were getting settled in Post Falls, we had plenty of time to get use to the area before I started working since I had to wait on my lincensure to come through. At the very end of June we received some of the best news that we had gotten the entire year. JayLyn was pregnant. We had defied the odds and after 5 years of trying, 2 surgeries and numerous infertility treatments, we had proven the doctors wrong and conceived naturally. Xander is due to enter the Scholes family on Feb. 22nd and we are very excited and are eagerly awaiting the day to meet him face to face.

These are his ultrasound pictures that were taken at 20 weeks, which happened to also be on JayLyn's birthday (Oct. 4th)

After that there really wasn't a whole lot that happened up until Sunday Dec. 30th. We were traveling home from visiting family for the holiday's when we were hit with a 50 -60 mph crosswind and that along with a sheet of black ice moved us from the left lane to the right lane of the freeway into the back of a Dodge truck that was slowing down for a semi pulling off the side of the road. After striking the dodge we then ricocheted into an older Ford car on the side of the road and glanced across their driver side door. Luckily no one was hurt with the exception of being a little sore. The other two vehicles sustained only a little damage and were able to drive away. We haven't heard yet but we are pretty sure they are going to consider our car totalled. Which we had only had for 5 months now and it only had 7000 miles on it. It was the first new car that we had ever bought. We ended up spending the night in Le Grande, OR at the hospital because we took JayLyn up there to get the baby checked out to make sure everything was fine and they decided to monitor her overnight. So after getting released from the hospital, having to get over to Pendleton to get a rental car and loading it up with all of our stuff we were bring home from the holidays we finally made it home to put 2007 behind us. We have much better hopes for 2008 because it sure can't get a whole lot worse than that (knock on wood).

I apologize for the long post and half of you probably quit reading by now, but it was very therapeutic for me to be able to write this whole thing out and get it down on "paper" and out of my head.