One Week Old!

We are celebrating John's one week birthday today. Crazy how much he's already changed in one week! And awesome how much better I feel in one week :) We have celebrated by going on our first real outing (target), planning baby announcements, sleeping, and eating sushi!

Matt and I found some of our baby pictures, so we could more easily note similarities with John. He is definitely his dad's boy! I think I might get credit for the nose and maybe the eyes... but that's about it!

John

Matt

Becca

Also, John was able to meet his Grandma and Grandpa Alleman this past Sunday. They were at Disneyland with Matt's brother's family, and drove through Vegas on their way home. Marie held John and declared that it was just like holding Matt. She noticed right away that his nose was different from Matt's, so I'm clinging to that one attribute!

*Fun idea: A family friend has this birthday notes tradition that I love. Each child has a composition notebook that is pulled out every year on their birthday. Whoever is present writes a short note, and by the time he/she is 18, the book should be full of notes from every birthday. So you can see notes over the years from lifelong friends, read notes from family members that have passed away, and overall just have a great keepsake of memories. We started this for John, having family/friends at the hospital write a note as well as close family when they first meet him. I'm hopeful this will be a fun and meaningful tradition!

Happy One Week Birthday, John! We love you so much already!

Welcome John Sterling!

John has arrived!!! Here is an overview of this past week and some of my favorite pictures of our beautiful little boy.

Last Friday, my mom and sister arrived to help me organize my house, develop my online tutoring business, and hopefully take care of a baby. I quickly switched from fearing John would arrive too early to really hoping he would come soon! Mom and Jane were amazing helping organize neglected corners of our house and getting every detail ready for this baby. On Tuesday (22nd), we were finishing our house projects and Mom was encouraging every non-medical promoter of inducing labor. So I was pushing furniture, vacuuming, went on an hour-long power walk, completed the full hour of my prenatal yoga DVD, ate pineapple, ate spicy foods, and anything else I could think of.

Amazingly, at 3:00 AM, I thought my water broke. I didn't want to wake up everyone over a false alarm, so I paced around on the tile hoping to verify with some contractions. I was praying with all my heart, saying we were as ready as we could be, asking for help with my health, and asking for help being a good mom. My contractions starting picking up! I just got a new phone (I've entered the world of 3G!) and had found an app with a contractions timer, so I started timing each contraction. The app was awesome, reducing some of the stress of determining how often my contractions were and when to head to the hospital. I woke up Matt, showered, woke up my mom and sister, and headed to the hospital at 4:30. My contractions sped up very quickly; I was dilated to a 6 by 7:00, had the epidural at 7:30, and was dilated to a 10 by 8. John jumped out at 8:54! Really, he jumped out. In between contractions he was kicking like crazy. My doctor told me to stop pushing in the middle of one contraction, and out came John! I will never forget the power of the moment when they laid this healthy, huge, amazing baby on top of my stomach. Every second I am humbled to think our Heavenly Father trusts Matt and I with raising this child.





We recovered in the hospital for 24 hours, with Jane mastering all tech communication, Mom delighting in being a Grandma, and Matt and I adjusting to a world of no sleep :) Now we are home and I'm amazed at how easy it is for a day to fly by where all I want to do is hold and stare at this beautiful baby! He is healthy, I'm recovering well, and I am so grateful my mom is here to help take care of all functional details.

Thank you everyone for your love and support! This has been an amazing experience and I am so grateful our boy is here!

If you'd like to see more pictures, you can look at our web album: http://picasaweb.google.com/beccaalleman/JohnSterlingAlleman?authkey=Gv1sRgCIT0mr2zi-fT-AE#

Pregnant photography

A few nights ago, when Matt and I were on one of our nightly walks around our neighborhood, Matt pointed out a bush that was blossoming with beautiful purple flowers. He noted that it would be a great backdrop for some pictures of my pregnant self... and that got us thinking that we should take some artistic shots of my pregnant shape. Then on Thursday my doctor told me that I'm 70% effaced and dilating past a 1, so I might not be pregnant much longer!! Friday night we thought though a few different shots, pulled out our Nikon SLR camera, and had a lot of fun playing around with some shots. Here are my favorite three:



We sure love that camera and playing around as budding photographers!