Cunninghams: Revenge of the Birth Canal

The biggest events in life cannot be fully understood without personal experience. No matter how much you discuss the topic, imagine the topic or google the topic you are never truly prepared for the event when it happens.

This is especially true with childbirth. My experiences with Seth and Sloane's births were completely different but in memorable ways. With Seth I felt like my head was in a cloud and I was always 2 steps behind. That lasted......well...I will let you when it finally stops. During that first childbirth I ended up ignoring Emily's request for breathing help and instead decided to just do the breathing and pushing myself....it made sense at the time. When the doctor prodded me to the south end of the bed I became scarred for life. On top of the weird doctor making a Mohawk out of Seth's hair, I had NO idea how rough doctors are with babies.

That rough experience (as rough as witnessing the delivery can be compared to actually pushing the baby out) gave me a fantastic starting point for what to expect for Sloane. While I still screwed up the breathing, I was able to watch the entire process without freaking out. It was honestly one of the most amazing things I have ever been a part of....but only because I had a reference point.

I know Emily felt much more relaxed about this delivery as well. While last time we were trying to avoid panic the entire time, this time we were both answering work emails up until the actual delivery time. Don't believe me? Here is the proof.




Emily was either doing work emails OR shopping for her post-baby clothes.


After Sloane was freed from her little prison, the nurse roughly cleaned her off and did all the weird post-birth stuff that apparently is required in order for the child to later lead a normal, productive life in society. We were not thrilled with her apparent attempt to scrub a layer of skin off of Sloane but Emily's epidural prevented her from inflicting any physical harm on the nurse.

What do you mean I can't go back in?

After the newborn version of the NFL combine was completed (random tests/measurements), Emily got to finally hold Sloane and see what had been kicking her ribs for the last few months. Here is a link for those that have no idea what the NFL combine is - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_combine.



Either she is kissing Sloane or she has fallen asleep while holding her.

I originally had some serious hesitations about having a girl until I met her. She was perfect..... until I changed the fricking tar diaper again. Girls have so many more places to hide poop, it is ridiculous. It is like they have built in smuggler's hatches. I need to invest in a spray bottle for diaper changes. Luckily for Sloane she looked really cute swaddled up so I could forgive the diaper issues.



Our little Conehead.


Once we knew that Sloane was healthy, we started eyeing the clock. Prior to our visit, "we" had set a goal of getting out of the hospital after only 24 hours. In truth Emily had set the goal and I was too afraid of her super-human-hormonal-pregnant-woman strength to disagree.

To help us prepare, we tricked my sister into taking Tess. We figure we would trade one loud little package for another.

Here is an assortment of pictures with my commentary. For the 1 of you who read this blog, enjoy.

When she was pressed against the Utah Logo, she felt truly loved.

 

My favorite part of this picture is that Seth is in mismatched pajamas.
That is the ultimate proof that Emily was exhausted.



Sloane and Aunt Char. I think Char was seeing if Sloane had enough hair to color it.



Her cheeks have chubbified since then. My little chub-a-lub.



This screams "hug me!" and
"I have given up, I have no control over my own life."

My mom introducing Sloane to Seth for the first time. I was the cameraman, that is why Seth looks so weird.

I just want to point out that Sloane has more hair on the top of her head than my dad does.

I think Lisa startled Sloane so Sloane played dead.

She looks exactly like Seth did at that age...well...from the waist up.



Seth looks like an Angel, but only because his face is so ridiculously white.
Emily already posted this picture but she wasn't kidding when she said that I hated this pose.
I don't trust Seth with anything sharp, why would I want him holding my 4 day old child?
I think I had to leave the room for part of this photo shoot to avoid freaking out.



Sloane, Seth and my shoe bonding.

Sloane's first bath. I wanted no part in this so I left after the picture.

December 2012

I'm a little behind but I thought I would put some pictures up from December/Christmas time.

The cooking group that I belong to decorated a tree for the Festival of Trees.  We had a cooking theme and picked our favorite recipes that we had tried throughout the year and put them on the tree with some kitchenware/food items.  We were really excited to hear that our tree sold during the silent auction.  Convergys bought it.

This was the best picture I could get of Seth's daycare Christmas performance.  It was strange to be sitting in the audience knowing that we had a child performing.  He was a hoot.  He didn't sing at all but sat there with his Barney animal and danced and stomped his feet.  At the end of each song he screamed/cheered really loud.

We hosted our 5th annual Christmas breakfast.  It was the first time we had it at our new house.  We had 14 adults, three children, and two babies attend.  It was a little stressful to plan but it was so fun to have our friends at our house to celebrate the Christmas season. 

I tend to go overboard with the table decorations...

Seth, Mia, and Addie all enjoying their Oreo suckers

Food and Friends...is there a better combination?

We took Seth sledding one day.  Correction:  Clint took Seth sledding and I took pictures.  It was a cold, COLD day so we only lasted for about 30 minutes before we decided to go home and make hot chocolate.

Christmas was a lot more fun this year.  Seth knew that Santa would come and that he would bring presents.  He was so excited to see all the presents under the tree.  I didn't get great pictures.  Seth was ripping the paper off things way too fast!

Seth was thrilled to get Buzz and Woody for Christmas

I made Peppermint Cupcakes for Christmas dinner.  They look better than they tasted unfortunately.

I saw a funny blog post a few days ago about the things that might be driving a guy's 3 year old crazy.  I laughed pretty hard as I read his list because Seth seems to have his own freak out moments and I could definitely relate.

So I decided to steal the idea and list some of the things that cause Seth to have a fit:

• His sippy cup lid isn't working.  (He claims no milk will come out of the sipper but when I try it, it works just fine.)
• His Buzz Light Year toy isn't bending his legs the exact way that Seth wants.
• A commercial interrupts his episode of Sponge Bob Square Pants.
• Our dog Molly touches him with her nose.
• Molly won't let him ride her like a horse.
• Daddy ate one of Seth's french fries...that Seth hadn't touched for almost an hour.
• We won't let him have a sharp knife at dinner time.
• We won't let him cut Molly's ear off with a pair of scissors.
• When Daddy is trying to change his diaper and Seth has decided "its Mommy's turn."
• If the sun is too bright on his eyes...yet he can shine a flashlight directly at his eyeball without flinching.
• When he tries to spread his blanket out perfectly and a corner keeps folding up.
• When we try to wash his hair.
• When we won't let him stand inside the fridge.
• His car seat belt is too tight.
• His bathwater is too hot.
• His food is too hot.
• His pants are too "tight" (but he actually means too big.)

Sloane is here!

Our little Sloaney-bug is here! 

Finally! 

This pregnancy seemed to go by really fast in the beginning but, as it is the last time I will ever be pregnant, I got so antsy by the end to just get her here and move on to the next phase of our life! 



I created this birth announcement all by myself!  I'm not very saavy when it comes to graphic design so my announcement is still pretty simple but I like it.

  I have seen the most adorable pictures of newborns and wanted to make sure that I got pictures of Sloane at a young age.  With Seth, we didn't get pictures done until he was 5 weeks old.  That is still young but I wanted pictures of a tiny, tiny newborn where you can put her in any position and she'll just sleep.  So I scheduled a photo shoot at FotoFly when she was just four days old.  Here were the favorites:

Poor Sloane scratched her cheek with her razor sharp fingernails on our way to FotoFly so she has this little red mark in a lot of the pictures.

This picture makes me think of Elvis saying, "Thank you, thank you very much."  I wanted to use this picture for the Thank You cards that I put together.  But I wasn't sure anyone would get my joke. 

How her hand got stuck in that position, I don't know. 

Yeah...ask Clint how he felt about the photographer setting up this pose?  He was freaking out in the corner of the studio.

Seth was so thrilled to be in the pictures with Sloane.  He has surprised me.  I thought he would try to pull her eyelids off the moment he met her but he has been gentle and always wants to give her kisses.

See?  He loves to kiss her cheeks.  Sloane doesn't love it as much.

This is a glimpse into the future, I'm sure.  Seth teasing Sloane and loving it while Sloane freaks out.

I am in LOVE with this picture.  These are OUR two kids!  We are so blessed!

I'll throw this family shot in even though we aren't as cute as Seth and Sloane are in their pictures.