September 2011~ the newest addition has arrived....well a month ago ;o)



EZRA ANIL PATEL

Rewind a few days before the birth....

This is the last picture I have of me being pregnant with Ezra and probably the last ever picture of me being pregnant. Towards the end of my pregnancy Zahra became abit jealous of my belly and when anyone would touch it she would yell "no" and pull down my shirt. So being the little artist that she is Jen came up with the brilliant idea to have her paint my belly. She loved it!  And luckily Zahra has been anything but jealous of Ezra since his arrival like we were all worried she would be. I've been saying she has been in denial for the past month of his existence and has just recently come to grips with reality that there actually is a baby boy here to stay. In the past couple days she has actually paid attention to him and interacted with him.



My birth story

My 'real' contractions started early in the morning on Labor Day. I could not sleep and the pain was tolerable but much more than the braxton hicks that I have been having for about 7 months. They went on until the sun came up then stopped suddenly. This continued for 2 more nights and when I went in to see my midwife on Tuesday I was already at 4cm dilated! So basically I was in early labor for 4 days! 

Just after midnight on Sept 9th I was laying in bed when all of a sudden the contractions started full force. I would say the worse pain of my life! My goal was to stay at home as long as possible. I got Anil up (after about 10 minutes of me shaking him-he was out) and tried to relax in the tub. My Mom (who was watching Z) arrived and Jen (my doula) and my contractions were 2 minutes apart so off to the hospital we went. Let me tell you I was in sooo much pain and the car ride was torture. I wanted to have a natural birth with no epidural since I had such a bad experience with it when I had Zahra but that idea went by the wayside real quick! Don't ever let a resident put your epidural in!

We arrived at the hospital after 2am and I quickly told the nurse that I wanted a epidural! They got the ball rolling and the CRNA did a double type of epidural (intrathecal and normal one) and let me tell you within a minute after he finished I was never so relieved and happy in all my life. I could feel nothing! No pain and I could still moves my legs and push effectively. My labor nurses said that I had the perfect epidural! It was amazing!!!! Well shortly after he put the epidural in I was 10 cm dilated and ready to push. Some may think that I might regret getting the epidural since I was so close to having my natural birth but I totally don't. Pushing time arrived about 3:30am. Anil was all prepped for delivering our baby. I gave 6 pushes and he was out! The birth was amazing and I loved that Anil delivered our son, Ezra, and that he got to announce that it was a BOY!



Well that's all I have time for now. I need to wake Ezra up for a feeding. Hopefully, I will get another post in before Ezra turns 6 months ;)



Zahra is 2 -Part 2

 

 

Pictures are worth a thousand words right? So be prepared for a bunch of pictures and not alot of narrative.

 

 

 

 

Zahra waking up from her nap to find everyone over to celebrate her Birthday.

 

 

Our first fun thing we did was make candy necklaces.

 

DING DONG! Who could be at the door!?

 

 

Why its Minnie Mouse!!!!!!!!

 

 

Dance Party with Minnie!!

 

Hokey Pokey

Pin the bow on Minnie

 

 

 

 

The Birthday Girl!!

I wonder how old she will be when she figures out that Daddy is always missing during the special guest appearance.

The whole gang..minus Monte and Anil ;0)

 

Ring Around the Rosy

 

 

A new fun game- Duck Duck Goose!

 

 

One last dance before Minnie leaves- The Hot Dog Dance!

Opps Minnie is losing her slip

 

 

 

 

Piñata Fun

 

 

PRESENTS!!

 

 

~Pool time~

watch out Blake! Wild girl coming down the slide!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ahhh finally the cake. We had Z’s favorite for Dinner—WAFFLES.

I LOVE HER SO MUCH!! HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY Zahra.

Zahra is 2! Part 1

I am so far behind in keeping up on my blog so heres a quick synapse of whats been going on. The past 6 weeks have flown by so fast! The drive out to Idaho went okay....we had some issues with our car topper (yes it opened on us but luckily just the cat carrier flew out) and Zahra quickly learned that she can get out of her carseat when she tells us she has to go potty so for a while we were stopping every hour. So our planned 24 hour trip took more like 30 hours. I still can't believe we drove straight thru! Our stuff arrived 5 days after we arrived so the unpacking began. Then I began my new job 4 days after that. I worked full time for 4 weeks and am now starting my 1 shift a week this week~ YAY!! I am working in the Family Maternity Center at Saint Alphonsus and am loving it!! I just finished training in post-partum and will do L&D begining of next year. Post partum really is perfect for me right now (being I am 34+ weeks pregnant). Its pretty easy and you can sit quite abit. Anil's job got delayed by a couple weeks and will start on his unit the 3rd week in August. So he has been taking care of Zahra pretty much full time. I wouldn't quite call him a stay at home Dad because I think that requires him to do all the grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry and cooking too-- but he is doing the most important job and that is taking care of our little girl and keeping her safe!!


We had a fun filled weekend of celebrating the birth of our sweet Zahra! On her actually birthday we went to a fun toddler play area,Winnie the Pooh in the theaters, then ate lunch and rode the bummer boats at Wahoo's.  As you can see below she is having a blast with her cousin, Blake.

More to come on her birthday party......

Graduation & Saying goodbye to our friends & family :'(

Anil’s graduation from the Critical Care Fellowship at Mayo Clinic!

Saying goodbye

We are going to miss our friends here in MN & WI so much. It finally started hitting me when I actually started saying bye to people the past couple weeks. I really made me sad when Zahra would ask about her friends over and over again after seeing them…and then say ‘bye bye’. I know she doesn’t get it that we are moving but I told her that we are going ‘bye bye’ for a while and will see them again but it will be a long time. I know we will be visiting at least once or twice a year and I hope that some of our friends will come out to Idaho and see us too. Here a just a few pictures I took of people visiting us and saying goodbye…I wish I would have gotten everybody that visited.

We are going to miss you all!!

Zahra’s best bud Amy~

 (Amy has been watching Z since she was 4 months old…this pic is from May 2010)

Amy & Izzy

  (meeting Zahra at the hospital)

 

Loretta

I have so many pictures of these 2 girls it was hard to pick!

Graedin & Keinin

(March 2010~ meeting Graedin for the 1st time. He was about 4 weeks here)

Breakfast on the farm with the Hemmer’s

Audrey & Zahra

(First time meeting)

Zahra’s first school bus ride!

Hanging with Lyla & Jenny

I think this picture is hilarious…Zahra is trying to take a picture with the phone…like her Mommy does.

(Lyla’s 1 year bday party)

What a sweet picture of Lyla. Zahra loved Lyla and still asks about her.

(one year earlier)