My Wonderful Husband!!!

Mark has been amazing through the whole labor, delivery, and postpartum experience! He was by my side every step of the way giving me every bit of the support that I needed when I was tired and perhaps in doubt. I never could have made it through without him! He showed me so much love and continues to do so and I appreciate every minute of it!

Mark has been such a wonderful dad to Collin and it makes me so happy to see him living his dream of being a dad. He never left Collin's side the entire time in the hospital and he would get up each night to help rock him to sleep and to make sure he was doing alright. My favorite thing is to hear Mark say Collin's name. For those who know how much controversy there was in our home regarding the name, it has been so much fun hearing Mark call Collin by name...and he says it all the time! I love watching/hearing Mark talk to our little boy.

A long day warrants a nap...Mark has been looking forward to this for months!

And each day he gets to do it again! Ah, my boys!

Thank you Mark for being such an AMAZING dad!
Yes, I love him in a whole different way now.

Here Is What Happened...

So, a week ago Friday, February 11th Mark and I went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse and then went to Target, Babies R Us and another Target to look at baby items. As we left the second Target and we were getting in the car, my water broke! We went home, packed a hospital bag, called our home teacher for a blessing and headed to the hospital to confirm everything.

We sat in the room from 11:30pm Friday night until 11:00am Saturday afternoon and I had not felt a single contraction. The monitor showed that I was having them but they weren't doing their job getting me to dialate. I showed up to the hospital at a 1 (cm) and after all that time I was only to a 2. With a ruptured membrane already for 14 1/2 hrs we were convinced to start pitocin.


My mom and sister showed up at 1pm, when the contractions were starting to hit harder. They worked hard to pamper me by rubbing lotion on my legs and feet and doing my toenails between contractions. Then later, they took turns with Mark letting me squeeze their hands. They were awesome!


I think this picture was taken after hours of hard contractions. We are both very tired.
At 6:30pm Sat night we were ready to start pushing. 1 hr 10 minutes later we got to see our little guy for the first time.

3 1/2 weeks early and so big! 7lbs 5ozs, 20.5" long

The on-call doctor. We were a little nervous at first cause we had never met him before but ended up liking him.

Bonding time.

Collin's eyes stayed open from 7:42pm when born until 3am when we finally got to bed.
It's been a long night!



1 day old

Collin had lots of visitors today. Aunt Misty, grandma Wright, adopted grandpa Straiton, Nana Christensen, Amy Amann, Wendi, Matt and Ethan Murray, Mark & Kelley Hicken, Sandy, Daniel and Jacob Shields, Kyle, Stacey and Darci Leybas and Carly Wallin. Thanks everyone for coming to welcome me into the world!

Paradise Valley has a celebration dinner for new parents. This was a nice treat :-)

2 days old

New visitors today include Cindi, Rob, Hadley and Noah DeCampos, and Lauren Vining.

It's Valentine's Day and the hospital handed these out.

Grandma Wright and aunt Misty bought Collin this little Valentine's outfit to wear home from the hospital. Thanks guys!

Being that he came a little early we hadn't even bought the car seat yet. Thank you aunt Amy for letting us borrow yours! As soon I he was put in the straps, he found the monkey ear and startling sucking. So cute!

Because of being early the pediatrician wouldn't let us leave until it had been right at 48 hours from birth. We were so relieved when we got the word that discharge papers had been signed.
Yay, let's go home!


Although we were glad to be going home, we were curious how it was all going to go down. There were still full paint cans in the hallway along with baby furniture and folded up baby clothes in boxes. The nursery was not even started! On top of that, we weren't quite sure how the three dogs were going to acclimate.

We got home and SURPRISE! My mom and sister had stayed up the night before and all morning to paint, decorate and organize the entire nursery! My friend Kelley helped with the painting as well. Thank you so much guys!!!

Notice the pictures in the frames are from the hospital! They really went the extra mile!

We introduced the dogs. They were interested for a second and moved on.

There was one more surprise waiting downstairs. They bought a cake and we sang happy birthday to Collin.
The last couple hours when contractions were getting to be nearly unbearable the nurse would tell me over and over and over to breathe like I was blowing out a birthday candle. So...that's what this cake represents, ha ha!

3 days old

On the brink of being Jondis we were told we had to give Collin as much indirect sun exposure as possible.

He had an appointment with the pediatrician that afternoon to have his skin color checked as well as having his tongue looked at. Collin was born tongue tied. The skin under his tongue went nearly to the tip and it was causing some issues. With too many patients in the lobby the doctor asked us to come back tomorrow to do the snip.

Hello Collin

Just a quick note to everyone (Mary will upload some pictures later) that Collin Daniel Christensen was born on Saturday, February 12th, 7:42 pm, 7 lbs 5 oz, 20.5 inches long and healthy. Both Mary and Baby Collin are doing great and we came home late Monday night. Everything is going well!

I'm keeping the Mommy's Baby countdown logo on the right on our blog because it is so funny to see it and how many more days Collin was suppose to wait to come to this world. Stupid doctors and hospitals saying that his due date was March 9th. Technically he was considered premature to the doctors and hospital since Mary carried 36.4 weeks (not to us!). If Mary carried full-term, I could only image Collin being 11 lbs and 23 inches long. Thankfully he came Feb 12th at the lower stats.

Mary did an awesome job through labor and delivery. All natural and no drugs! She is so amazing and strong!

Thank you everyone for your continued prayers and inquiries. Pictures on the blog will be up shortly.

Mark

Getting Closer...Time for a Shower!

I was really looking forward to having a baby shower so that I could share some of this excitement with my closest friends and family and also prepare the nursery thoroughly for Collin's arrival. Everything was great, the decorations, the food, the guests!

Yes, there was some gambling at the shower, played some scratcher cards in hopes to pick a prize from the basket of goodies.

The beautiful cakes Misty and my mom made.

Part of the decorations, a clothesline with baby items.

My mom and sister (could you tell) who hosted my shower. They worked so hard last weekend, thanks you two!

My friends Kelley (below), Stacey, Lauren, as well as my mother-in-law and three sisters-in-law also contributed to the success of the party by bringing food, taking photos and writing gifts. Thank you everyone!

The amazing array of delicious food!

This was fun, we asked guests to make a scrapbook page for Collin. Thank you to the 12 people who contributed even though there was a lot of concern around the table of lack of creativity :-) I love all the pages made!

Thank you to everyone who came!

I tried to avoid doing pregnancy photos but my sister and mother would not hear of it. So, after the baby shower we took these.