oliver walden savona

well a week overdue and he finally came! YAY!
it all started at about 11:57 pm on sunday. I woke up and my back was really hurting- which is not unusual for me- so i changed positions and it went away...so i thought. about 5 minutes exactly it came back and lasted about as long (30 seconds or so)...and i thought to myself- hmmmm....and so then like clockwork 5 minutes later it cam again and again about 25-30 seconds...and i thought- here we go!
i laid in bed for a while trying to hold off telling jonathan so he could get some rest. but about 45 minutes later i noticed they were a bit stronger and longer, i could now feel them in my abdomen and my back and they were now about every 3 minutes...so i woke jonathan up and we started getting ready. timing each one, packing last minute items...i wanted to hold off as long as i could and you are told to follow the 5-1-1 rule- when you have contractions every 5 minutes, lasting 1 full minute, for 1 full hour...so i was waiting for them to get longer and stronger, but they were just getting quicker, leaving me little time to recover. jonathan called the hospital and filled them in and we were told to come right in...being my stubborn self, i tried to put it off as long as i could, but i knew jonathan was getting nervous and so about 3:30am monday, we left for the hospital...
we got there and started the whole process and i was hoping to be well on my way- dilated to 8 centimeters already...but i was about 3 1/2... they sent us on our way to labor and delivery and a few hours later i was about 6 1/2...and a bit later my contractions were about every minute, but the pain in my back was constant, now leaving me no time to recover. since they came on so quick from the beginning, now at about 8 am i was pretty tired, not getting much rest between. i had some pain relief, but not much. we had spoken with the anesthesiologist when we first got there about getting an epidural or not- i have a crooked spine, so i was more worried something would go wrong with that, more than i was worried about the actual delivery...but he looked at m back and said it shouldn't be a problem and recommended it because i would feel a lot more pain in my back than most people...so i finally gave in and asked for one...and boy oh boy- it was a world of difference. if you have a low pain tolerance, or your contractions come on quick and strong from the get go- i recommend it! it gave me a chance to rest and i was even in a cheerful mood...
i relaxed and hung out for another 3 hours and then all of a sudden i was fully dilated and we started to push with the nurse for about 20 minutes or so, i had just enough pain management to take away the sore back and sharp contractions, but could still feel some pressure and what i was doing...then she gave me a rest and we waited for about an hour for the doctor to get out surgery....the doctor came in, i did a couple sets of pushing and then all of a sudden, at 12:14 pm, i hear jonathan exclaim, "IT"S A BOY!!! WE HAVE A BOY!!" and then i saw him and he was so beautiful!
i know i am bias and you always think you baby is the best, but i really was impressed by how good he looked- no conehead, full head of hair, not even to slimy...he wasn't an alien baby after all, but the most beautiful baby boy...
now the issue of giving him a name came into play. we have an easier time narrowing our girl name options, because there were a few that we both really liked and stood out...but the boys names nothing really jumped out and grabbed either one of us. so after we held our new son, they took him to clean him up and do some treatments and jonathan went over to watch and said "this is definately an oliver"...we wanted to try and use a family name for the middle name, so we settled on walden- which is comes from my dad, grandpa and great grandpa. and so baby savs became oliver walden savona- or ollie wally :)
it was fun to make the big announcement to all our family that was there. my mom and sister, jonathan's parents, his sister and her daughter. it was great to see their excitement when they first met our new son:)
all in all, it was a quick labor and delivery 12 hours and about 30 minutes total pushing time. i have felt great in my recovery, too- just a little sore:)
it is still amazing to me to look at oliver and watch him twitches and kicks, recognizing the same movements he would do before he was born... he is my little oliver twitch. (he is rooting for twitch on "so you think you can dance")

we are loving adjusting to being parents and thrilled to have a handsome and healthy baby boy! but we are exhausted:) we feel so blessed and are thankful for everyone's thoughts and prayers.

It's a boy! Oliver Walden Savona was welcomed to the world at 12:14 PM on July 28th, 2008!


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More to come from Quinn...

the waiting game

well the due date (21 july) has come and gone...still no sign of baby savs wanting to make his or her entrence into the world...and so we wait...

i am ready in some ways...and not in others- but are you ever really ready? it is still hard to imagine, even though i am constantly reminded there really is a little (and strong) baby in there sticking his or her foot into my ribs. it will be fun to see those little feet out in the world- kicking a soccer ball with daddy, instead of kicking my internal organs:)

waiting

well less than a week until the due date...
knowing my luck i will go well passed the 21st...but i would gladly go into labor at any moment, since it has been very warm and muggy here the last few days...luckily the store had sales on popsicles and ice cream- not very nutritious, but very cold:)

on the other hand- actually having the baby and bringing him or her home is a bit overwhelming...so i suppose i can wait a little longer:)

i keep wondering- will this be the last time i go to the store- baby free?, is this our last baby-free weekend, or will we make it to next weekend too?...will i ever get around to getting my hair cut (which i haven't done in since august- not counting my own at home trims i do myself), will we get to the movies one last time...?? will we ever actually talk about what names we like...
we will keep everyone posted, but for now we are just playing the waiting game and praying everything goes well. jonathan hopes it will happen on a friday so he can maximize his time off with the weekend. as for me, i just hope it's not during "so you think you can dance." although this baby seems to love music and especially hip-hop, so maybe he or she would come out dancing...



photos are from a wedding we went to this last weekend...aunt rachel (jonathan's sister) gets to see my belly; katie and i compare baby bumps:)

4 years later...

july 3rd marked our 4 year anniversary! we love that our anniversary is the day before the 4th of july because we will always have that day off to spend together. we had a great 3 day weekend! we went out to dinner, took a walk around the harbor, went to the beach and just relaxed and were couch potatoes in front of the tv.

to celebrate our 4 years of marriage, we went out to a nice dinner at "whisknladle" in la jolla. it is a great restaurant and i highly recommend it. the food was so yummy- they try and use only local and organic food so the menu changes with what they can get and they make as much of it on-site as they can- so bread and ice cream and almost everything else is made right there. yum!

after 4 years of marriage and almost 6 years of being together we've graduate college and struggled to find the right jobs (verdict is still out on that one for me). we have lived in 3 apartments- one next to some potheads, one that spoiled us with a washer and dryer, and our current little one-room studio, which after living out of backpacks and in tiny hotel and hostel rooms, seems large to us. we've been to las vegas, palm springs, santa barbara, san francisco and northern california, big bear- where jonathan taught me to ski, houston, new orleans, new york (upstate and nyc), north carolina, kauai and maui and around the world in 10 weeks! sometimes its hard to believe that after all that we are about to add another person into the mix!

in someways the time has flown by, but other times it seems like we've been together forever. :)

neither one of us is perfect, but we have a lot of fun together and work at our relationship with each other and with the lord- we pray that will provide a strong foundation to build our family on and the we can set a good example to our kids, just as our parents have done for us. we are both thrilled to welcome our son, or daughter into the world- which could be any day now- and look forward to the next chapter of our life together. we have seen people get by with much less and feel fortunate and blessed with all we have! we hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!

8 is enough

so i am thinking that 8 months of pregnancy is the perfect amount of time...i suddenly feel like the last 9 months of being pregnant just hit me like a truck...
the warm weather, the fact that our apartment has no air flow and our ac doesn't really had cold air coming out of it don't exactly help. every night it seems the heat from the entire day has a cumulative effect and it feels like its a 100 degrees and i feel it mostly in my hands and feet...so strange. and my hips now feel like they are being pulled in opposite directions, which is a good thing- making room i suppose. all things i can cope with by drinking icy cold water, stretching and yoga...poor jonathan has been very patient with me.
don't get me wrong- i am still feeling good and i am thankful because it could be a lot worse, but i will be happy when this baby comes...now if we could only manage to get around to getting a car seat and finishing setting up our place...i am just too hot to want to drive and face the even warmer weather off the coast....maybe i could go for an nice air conditioned movie theater and a jamba juice (or ice cream) though... :)
in other news...the photo is us on balboa island last weekend. we spent the day up in the oc and the weather was great...warm, but a nice ocean breeze kept me cool enough. i do love the beach! we went to my friend quynh's house warming party in huntington beach...i used to work with her and it was weird working with someone who has the same name...then at her party there was another quynh! 3 of us in one place...so odd