Thursday, December 3, 2009

Update! Film at eleven!

Walt Disney once said, "It all started with a mouse."

Well, for me it all started with a girl, a tray of brownies and Capt and coke.

Since MySpace, my life has included a my moms diagnosis and remission from breast cancer. Dedicating my life to Christ. My baptism. Starting a clothing co with my buddy. Superbowl and being a games teacher for VBS. Removal of my wisdom teeth. An amazing vacation cruise with the family. A 3rd move to Orlando. My buddy and his wife having 3 kids. Marrying my wife. Our Hurricane Honeymoon cruise. Katie serving in 2 trips to Africa. A grandfathers death and meeting the Ohio family. Numerous Halloween, Christmas and assorted festivities. Working at Triangle and making many friends as well as starting our first bible study. The marriages of 5 of our friends. The births of my neice and nephew and the explosion of our family. My wifes shoulder surgery, seizure on New Years Eve and my neices first febral seizure. Our adoption of 3 beautiful children. My brother working for the mouse and moving to Orlando. Asking my father-in-law for his daughters hand. Delaying countless proposals. Proposing on Christmas day. Living at 915 Princeton and meeting one of my best friends. Starting an arts ministry. Learning to drink and appreciate wine. Running my first 5k. Training for my first marathon. A Giants impossible Superbowl win. Yankees returning as World Champs. Moving to Savannah to return to school. Expanding my portfolio and getting bikes stolen. Becoming a father and thousands and thousands of laughs, hugs and smiles.

All this in only 4+ years!

God is so good
I am so blessed

Praise God!
-Ant

It all started here...


Arrival!


I just wanted to post a quick thank you to everyone who prayed for our little girl. It was because of the unbelievable outpouring of love and prayer that Amie recovered as quickly as she did. Never have I felt such nervous grief as I felt when they whisked her away from us, but I knew it was in God's hands. I am blessed to have such wonderful friends and family, and I thank the Lord everyday that you guys are in our life.

Thank you and God bless,

Ant


The coming! (or, the tribulations and anxieties of newfound parenthood!)

Dear Diary,



I saw Jimmy Fal-lone at the diner the other day... HE IS SO DREAMY!! but he totally ignored me, sigh... this IS a diary, right?



but I digress...



So, for some of you that may not have heard, the baby is home and thriving! I will upload pics ASAIC
(As Soon As I Can)

-Ant

Sunday, November 22, 2009

a baby is born!

october 27 was my 38 week check up with my obgyn. mom had stayed in town from the weekend because we thought i might go into labor any day and she wanted to go to my dr appt with me to see how i was progressing. turns out i was already 4 cm dialated and about 60% effaced. so of course we got really excited and wondered if i was possibly going to have an october baby.

the next couple of days i was frantically working because i had a few projects that i promised my clients i would get done before my due date. i thought i would have a few weeks to get all of it done, but now it looked like it could be any day or it could even still be a few weeks away. mom stayed in town for obvious reasons (thank goodness!) and we decided to try to get things moving along a little quicker so we could have an october baby! i was having pretty consistent contractions, but they weren't getting any stronger yet. on wednesday we did some shopping and my contractions started to progress. on thursday we went downtown to river street to walk. we ended up walking for 3.5 hours! i actually felt pretty good and my contractions were getting a little stronger. when we got home they really started picking up and getting stronger. by about 9 or 10pm i was starting to feel more pain and the contractions were averaging at about 5-6 minutes apart. (figures that i would go into labor while the yankees were playing in the world series)















by 11:30 we decided to call the doctor to see if we should go to the hospital. we were concerned that if i really was in labor (which we pretty much knew i was), then i would be up all night and we were worried about my sleep deprivation. the dr said to go ahead and go to the hospital… YAY!

after taking a shower and getting our things together, we got to the hospital at midnight and i was admitted. (notice the 'not so thrilled' look on my face as lucie was taking pictures of me during contractions!)

































as you can see here, the contractions got MUCH worse as time progressed. i'm not sure what time this picture was taken, but i can tell you that i wasn't a happy camper.















at about 4am i got up to go to the bathroom and walk around a little bit to get things going a little faster. i was leaning on the bed during a pretty strong contraction and all of the sudden my water broke. about 5 seconds later i had an incredibly intense contraction that words can't even explain! now, during this whole pregnancy i was wanting to go natural with no meds during my labor, but after my water broke and my contractions REALLY kicked in, i quickly realized that i wasn't as strong as i thought i could be and requested… no… demanded an epidural. in a matter of minutes the greatest and quickest anesthesiologist came to my rescue and gave me an epidural in less than 2 minutes. no joke… he was awesome! soon after that i felt halfway human again. :)

skip ahead 3.5 hours… the nurse came to check me and i was 10 cm! she was shocked at how fast i had progressed and said the head was right there and i was ready to start pushing ASAP! so fast that dr stone barely got there in time! i was told that i pushed about 8 times (thank goodness!) and then i heard, "IT'S A GIRL!!" Holy cow… i was a mom!

























































































my fantastic doctor, dr stone and 'bubbles'… that's what she nicknamed her:


















































so, there she was. we had a baby girl who we call Amelie Faith! born october 30, 2009, 7:46am, 6lbs 9oz, 19in long. she is so precious and we couldn't love her more. her journey began rough (more on that in the next blog), but she is stronger and more beautiful than ever!

pimp that nursery

well, this post is WAY overdue, so i apologize, but i've been a little preoccupied. let's back up to october 23… mom and alice faye came to visit and take care of some important business: preparing our room/nursery for the arrival of our peanut. also, oct 23 happens to be mom's bday, so naturally we did some celebrating :)


















on saturday we did some shopping in preparation for the overhaul of our drab bedroom/nursery. here are some before pics:

the armoire that ant refinished (before):


















this is where the crib will go:














bed & windows (before)














this is mom & alice slaving away to finish the room in 1 1/2 days:
























































And here is the beautiful room, all complete!

(there are some really cool lamps on these nightstands now, but i don't have pictures of them)














(notice the refinished armoire with new hardware… ant did a fantastic job!)
































































it was somewhat of a rush to get this done because i was 2 cm dialated and having mild contractions during all of this and we were wondering if i was going to go into labor the whole time. luckily peanut held off so we could get the project done :)

the room turned out great and it felt so good to get all of that done before peanut got here. THANK YOU MOM AND ALICE FOR MAKING IT HAPPEN! you guys are so great and we REALLY appreciate it!