MARCO ANDRES LOPEZ!

Born Sunday, June 6th, 2010

Weight: 6 pounds, 14 ounces

Length: 19 3/4 inches

Time: 2:50am

A sweet cuddle for mom, minutes after birth

**Warning: this is a long story! I wanted to make sure to record the details of labor and delivery because I wish I had written more about Diego and Alexia's. Sorry if you're not interested in the details, but for those who are, thanks for reading! :)**

On Friday night we were watching a movie at home with Aldo, Eliana and Cami (Ricardo's cousin and his wife and stepdaughter) when I leaned over to Ricardo and said "I have this feeling of giddy excitement and emotion about the weekend that I just can't figure out. I have a feeling our baby boy might be born tomorrow." Then on Saturday morning we went out for a strenuous walk with the kids and when we came home to have lunch, I sat down and said "I am going to hold my "pregnancy card" on my forehead all day today because I don't feel like I can do anything today, except have a baby." We laughed it off and had no idea that sure enough, we would be having a baby in a matter of hours!
I laid down for a nap at 2pm and when I woke up at 3pm I felt like I had been dreaming a lot about contractions. Well, it wasn't a dream, I was having contractions. They were very light and with no regularity, but based on past experiences, I knew that if I was have any number of consistent contractions, then I was in early labor. We had told the kids that we would visit Ricardo's office in the afternoon so we headed out around 5:00 to go see his office, by which time the contractions were more frequent and painful. We had planned on going out to dinner, but I just wanted to go home and take it easy and have leftovers. Before we put the kids to bed we explained to them that when they woke up in the morning we would be at the hospital and Aaron and Helen would be at home to take care of them. They were excited about that and were really excited at the fact that they would be meeting their baby brother the next day.

Aaron and Helen came over around 10pm to spend the night so we wouldn't have to worry about the kids if we had to leave in the middle of the night. I laid down 9:30 to try to get some rest, and dozed in and out between contractions. They were every 3-6 minutes at that point. At midnight, I got out of bed because I knew I just couldn't sleep and when I got up, my water broke. Almost immediately, the contractions started to come every 2-4 minutes. We called the hospital to say we were on our way, gathered our things and headed out the door. The ride to the hospital was speedy and painful. As we were pulling into the hospital we approached a speed bump as a contraction was coming and I screamed "NO TUMULO!" (no speed bump!) Ricardo had to stop the car and wait for the contraction to pass before he could go over the speed bump.

We checked into our room a 1:00am, started the paperwork and requested the epidural. The midwife came to check me around 1:4o and I was 5cm dilated so she confirmed I could get the epidural. By this time the contractions were every 1.5-2 minutes and were excruciatingly painful. I handled labor very differently this time and was able to handle the intense pain much better than with Diego and Alexia. I tried to fight their contractions and just wanted them to end, but this time I tried to embrace each contraction and appreciate the job that it had. We kept asking when the epidural was coming, but our nurse was very slow and didn't seem to care to make things move quickly for us. At 2:35am, the anesthesiologist still had not arrived and I had an uncontrollable urge to push. I yelled, "I'M PUSHING!" The nurse ran over to check me and I was 9cm dilated and she said "This baby is coming! Get the midwife. Get everything ready." Ricardo was so concerned and kept saying, "Can you give her something for the pain? Is it too late to give her something? Anything?" The midwife came in at about 2:40, Ricardo grabbed one leg, the nurse grabbed the other, I started pushing and he was born 10 minutes later. It was amazing!!! It was the most intense, unbearable, unbelievable pain I have ever experienced, but it was so awesome to experience! I had always dreamed of having a natural birth, but had always been too scared so I am grateful that God gave me the opportunity to experience it, without having to make the decision myself. Ricardo and I just burst into laughter and tears as soon as he came out and were so amazed to be touching and seeing our beautiful baby boy. Ricardo cut the umbilical cord and Marco took to life in the world just perfectly. It felt so good to be able to stand up shortly after his birth and to be able to see his first bath up and close. With Diego and Alexia, I wasn't able to see the bath since I was stuck in bed because of the epidural. As soon as I had him back in my arms, I nursed him and he latched on perfectly. We had some quiet, special time with him for over an hour, with no nurses or interruptions until we were ready to go upstairs to our recovery room.

Meanwhile, back at home, the kids were as happy as can be with Aaron and Helen. We are thankful, beyond words, to these dear friends who gave so selflessly of their time and care to be with our kids. I never once worried about them being happy or if they were okay because I know how much they love Aaron and Helen and how natural it is for them to be with them. Aaron and Helen took them to church in the morning and then headed over to the hospital to have lunch with us around 1:30pm. Introducing Diego and Alexia to Marco was most definitely one of the happiest times of my life. I had no idea it would be so wonderful and exciting and emotional. I was simply overwhelmed with thanksgiving in my heart and the presence of God in every detail. Diego and Alexia were enamored by their baby brother and had the best time ever getting to know him. I get teary-eyed just remembering the joy of our first hour together, as a family of five.

We stayed in the hospital for one night and came home Monday around noon.

All is well at home now. Diego and Alexia are doing great with Marco. He is champion nurser and is resting really well.

A few quirks

- I'm not sure how long Ricardo has done it, but for as long as we've been married, he ends his warm showers with an ICE COLD rinse. He sometimes screams out because of how cold it is, but is able to stand it for a long bit. Diego now showers with Ricardo much more than he bathes in the tub. Yep, you guessed it...he LOVES the ICE COLD rinse. He makes Ricardo go first and does a little prep dance in the corner and then jumps into the cold stream of water and screams and giggles and shakes his body. It is hilarious! He sometimes even asks for the cold water rinse as soon as he enters the shower and Ricardo has to remind him that it is only at the end. Diego also now enjoys showering by himself. Sometimes we will turn on the water for him in his shower and let him shower on his own, which he thinks is pretty cool.


- Diego LOVES sports cars and race cars. He has a list of favorties that he is always on the look out for when we are on the road, including corvettes, porsches, BMW's, chargers and mustangs. Alexia has not learned how to distinguish between the cars, but she often calls out "Look at that mustang!" or "I see a corvette!"

- Ricardo keeps asking me to slow down and rest during these last days of pregnancy, but with two littles ones, that is impossible. I am so blessed that I still have energy and feel great (most the time). Today I decided that the van needed a complete interior cleaning. I hauled the vaccuum down to the garage and got to work. As I was vaccuuming I looked up at the stairs and Diego was waddling down the stairs with the step stool from the kitchen. He said he wanted to wash all the windows...so that is what he did! He washed two windows on the inside and then went around the entire outside of the van and washed every window. What a champ!

- Diego has a fish in his room named Suni. Suni's food is in a bottle that has a small opening, but inevitably, 10-20 pellets of food spill out every time the bottle is tilted. The first thing Diego does every morning is feed Suni, before he even comes out of his room. He tilts the bottle, counts out two pellets to feed to Suni and then carefully picks up the spillage and puts the bottle back in his closet. He loves having this reponsiblity of feeding his fish on his own.

A busy Sunday!

Ricardo is busy putting together the last of the chairs for our new kitchen table so I decided to upload some pictures while I keep him company...
We have had a busy day today and it has been a lot of fun! The flexibility of our days will soon be stiffened with a newborn so it is fun to do a lot, while we can.
We all woke up early this morning and Ricardo cooked delicious breakfast burritos for breakfast. We headed to the early church service at 9:15. Alexia now likes to come in to the service with us and does a great job at keeping very quiet. She can sit through the whole 1 1/2 hours, but without fail, she always needs to go to the bathroom half way through the sermon so I end up missing 10-15 minutes of it. Today I decided that we won't bring her in for awhile because it is too distracting to have to get up to take her to the bathroom. Diego also came in to the service with us today because baby Sela was baptized so he was excited to see the ceremony.
After church, we joined the Johnson family for a wonderful party to celebrate Sela's baptism at a restaurant called Canoe, an absolutely gorgeous restaurant on the river. The setting was perfect, the food was fabulous and the company was so special. The party tent was set up in an area that offered a great place for the kids to run around and play the whole time we were there.
We headed home for family nap time around 2pm and we had to wake the kids up at 4:50 to head to another party. A couple from our home group hosted a Memorial Day bbq/pool party which was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, we only got about 20 minutes of pool time before the thunder/rain storm sent us all indoors, but the kids had a blast while they could.

Gerrick, Nathan and Diego searching for hidden fruit that somebody had hid for them to keep them busy while waiting for lunch to be served at Canoe.

All the kids searching the planters for the hidden fruit

Rebecca (Mom to Gerrick, Greydon and Sela) and me

When we arrived at Walt and Karen's in the evening, some guys were playing pool. Stephen was very sweet to take time to show Diego how to play. Diego LOVED it!

Pregnancy brain got the best of me today and I left our bag of beach towels and swimsuits at home. Walt and Karen have grand kids so they had enough "extras" for us. Alexia wore this bikini which was adorable on her! I was SHOCKED when Karen told me it was a size 3-6 months! I know this girls is a peanut, but come on!

L to R: My handsome boys, Patrick, Benjamin, Brittany and Alexia

The belly at 38 weeks!

I really wanted a picture of me and my big belly with the kids, but they just wanted to be silly

I thought this was a cute family shot, until I realized I had asked Ricardo to hold my purse for me...sorry!


On Friday I entered another nesting craze and thought it was necessary to pull out every item from my desk cupboard, desk drawer and all food cupboards for some rearranging and organizing. I had a dreadful mess for many hours, but it is wonderful to have it all in order now! I will have to take an "after" shot.

Diego and Alexia did such a good job playing in the living room while I worked in the kitchen. They were having a blast playing with the Jenga blocks and Diego called me down to see his tower and this is what he had built. I was impressed!

Strawberries!

As I was getting ready for bed last night, I had the idea to take the kids on a fun outing today. I would like to do a few special things with them before their baby brother arrives so I thought strawberry picking sounded like the perfect outing for today! I did some research on farms late last night and called Ruth bright and early this morning to see if she and her girls were up for joining us. We gathered snacks, sunblock and cameras and headed out to pick them up. Ruth and I were a sight to see - the two of us with our big bellies (me 2 weeks away from due date and her 3 weeks away from due date) and our four kids. We purchased our buckets and headed out to the fields. The kids had a blast and picked and picked and picked. We originally thought we would fill two 1-gallon buckets, but the pregnant mamas were getting tired and hungry so we decided to consolidate our pickings and share one bucket. Alexia LOVED eating the strawberries and it seemed like she was eating them faster than we could pick them.


Ruth and Anjuli getting started


Diego enjoyed having his buddy Anjuli to work with

Alexia loved showing me which ones she could and could not pick

Taking a strawberry snack break

Notice the juices dripping down her arm. She was a MESS!

Below are some pictures from the end of last week:

Diego loved having a boy to play with. Elijah and him were great sword fight buddies (luckily not enemies!)

The kids enjoying their last breakfast together

On Sunday we hosted our church home fellowship group. It was so beautiful outside that we just threw out some blankets and after dinner continued our time of fellowship on the grass. It was great!

Last Saturday was Israel's birthday party at her grandparent's house.

Diego happy to be sitting right next to the birthday girl and her daddy!

I love this picture of Alexia, quietly listening to story time

The kid table last Thursday when Luke and Laura came over for dinner.

Josh dug out the roots of a huge bush for us and Diego and Elijah LOVED digging in the dirt afterwards.

What a week!!

We have had a busy week, but it has been such a blast! Last Sunday, Josh, Taylor, Israel and Elijah arrived to stay with us for 10 days. It has been so special to have a lot of time with them and the kids are absolutely loving it!
I will quickly recap our week, day by day...

On Monday, I had my 36-week appointment and we got to see an ultrasound so the kids really enjoyed that. Marco is so big now that we couldn't really make anything out in the images, but it was still neat to see his heartbeat and some random body parts. He is head down and ready for his grand entrance, whenever God decides is the perfect day for that! Ricardo thinks I'm crazy, but I love being pregnant and love feeling all of his little pokes and kicks and am just so excited to hold him soon!
After the doctor we met Taylor and her kids at Trader Joes. We used to love to go there together so we had to make that one of our first stops for our time together. We stocked up on all the wonderful munchies that they can't get in Bosnia and we were a sight to see with all four kids pushing their kid-sized shopping carts.
In the evening, some friends of Josh and Taylor came over for dinner with their 3 boys and we had a fun time playing outside and enjoying a yummy meal together:

Our sandbox is not that big, but I love that 6 kids were able to play together in it!


After hours of outdoor play, everyone needed a bath so we threw them all in the tub together and they thought it was great. It was the first time my kids have bathed with friends so they thought it was a lot of fun!



On Tuesday morning we watched a short video...

...and then headed to the salon for Izzy and Diego to get their hair cut.

On Wednesday, Vanessa, Brittany and May had a special lunch for me to celebrate Marco's upcoming arrival. We had a wonderful time together and they gave me a basket of adorable gifts for Marco. Thank you so much friends!

L to R: May, Brittany & Benjamin and Vanessa & Michaela.

Diego and Alexia had their own seats at the big table and loved it. Baby Alexis is not in this picture, but she was in her bouncy seat on the floor, behind Alexia.

On Wednesday evening we got a babysitter so that Josh, Taylor, Ricardo and I could go out on a double date. We went to Uncle Julio's and had a fantastic Mexican meal and really enjoyed our first double-date at a restaurant together!

On Thursday, we kept Anjuli and Keona so Ruth could have a day of "nesting" and organizing. She kept my kids last week so I could do the same so it was fun to be able to do the same for her. Her baby is due just 5 days after ours! Taylor started the morning with story time for all 6 kids.

After story time we had snack time and then spent the rest of the day outside after the rest of the friends came.

Rebecca and her 3 kids came over as well as Stori and two of her daughters. Stori is an amazing woman from our church who has 10 children and has homeschooled all of them. We invited her over to share her wisdom of parenting with us. It was such a special time and a real blessing for us young moms to hear her words of wisdom. She brought two of her daughters to play with all of our little kids so we could really focus our attention on her and enjoy our time together.

Rebecca, Stori and Taylor

We were in the yard ALL DAY and the kids were beat by the end of the day.

After we cleaned up from lunch and after everyone left, it was time to hit the kicthen again and cook for more guests for dinner. We had Luke and Laura and their kids over in the evening and once again had a great time of yummy food and awesome fellowship.

Praise God for friends!!!

Today is Friday and I can't believe the week is coming to an end. We have some people coming over for dinner for a delicious Bosnian meal so the Irby's can share details about their ministry in Bosnia. I am excited to taste all the yummy food we bought at the Bosnian market today!

Between all the lunches, dinners and outings it has been such a treat to have one of my very best friend's at my house and be able to talk with her, pray with her, laugh with her and just have fun being together. I will be sad when they go!

Diego's new bike!

Diego has been asking for a bike for months now and we have been looking for just the right one. He knows we've been on the lookout and he has tried several bikes at Target and Walmart, but we couldn't find one that we really liked. He has been so patient with the process and has never gotten upset when leaving a store without a bike, after riding up and down the aisles with glee. Yesterday we decided to make a quick stop at Toys R Us to check out their selection, and sure enough, they had the right bike! He was beyond excited! It is a 14" bike with training wheels and he absolutely LOVES it. It is so much fun to see what a big boy he is and to see him cruising on his bike. Alexia is also excited for Diego's new bike and has been such a good sport about the fact that she can't have a bike yet. A friend has told me that she will be handing a bike down to Alexia soon so we are excited about that!

Ricardo and Diego spent about 3 hours at Home Depot yesterday. Ricardo loves working in the yard and has been wanting to plant some new flowers and plants so he was so pleased to have an afternoon to start his project. They came back with gorgeous flowers, a ton of dirt and a lot of excitement to get to work. Ricardo said Diego was such a huge help at Home Depot and did not complain once about being there. He pushed his own (full size) cart and helped out in every way he could. As a reward for being such an awesome sport, he was allowed to eat ice cream with whipped cream and chocolate sauce after dinner. He was supposed to be on "dessert restriction" until Sunday so he was super excited to devour that ice cream! His "dessert restriction" was something that he came up with. On Tuesday night he asked for strawberries and whipped cream for dessert. I said "No, we're not going to have dessert today." He said "Mami, can I eat dessert tonight and then I won't ask for dessert again until Sunday?" I decided this would be a great lesson in following through with a deal and practicing self-control so I agreed. He was so good with following through and not having dessert. We had family movie/pizza night on Friday and we always, always finish it off with sundaes, but he happily accepted that there would be no dessert afterwards.

Here's the champ on his new set of wheels:

I wanted to get some pictures of the two of us together (Alexia was napping), but he didn't want to take off his helmet and he didn't want to sit on my lap. Here I am with my awesome 4-year old!

And here is the belly at 36 weeks! I spent many hours this week getting the house cleaned and organized and most of the baby stuff ready. I washed all of his clothes and put them away, washed his car seat cover, pulled out his crib, bouncy seat, etc. It was so much fun to realize that this little boy is going to be here sooner than we can imagine! We can't wait to have him in our arms!

Diego went to bed early last night, but since Alexia had a good nap, she stayed up late to help Papi plant the flowers. She was so excited to be his little helper and did a great job.