New York City, NY- Random Pics

Brandon's family and us went down to the Big City (New York City) while they were out visiting. It was also my first time in New York City sent Brandon was stationed at West Point, NY.

Autumn's Baby Blessing, Oct 11, 2009

       It was a wonderful day! Our hearts are full and our home is filled. Brandon was able to give our sweet Autumn a baby blessing with her two grandpa's participating in the blessing circle. Both my parents, Brandon's parents and his sister, Sarah, were able to come from Utah to celebrate this special occasion with our family. (Not to mention, meet their new granddaughter and visit New York City.)

New Mom (Elizabeth), Little Autumn, and Proud Dad (Brandon) 

Grandma (Kathleen) and Grandpa (Lawrence Dean) Barnum at Autumn's Blessing!

      

Brandon's sister, Sarah, Grandma (Jenene) and Grandpa (Marlin) were also present for the celebration!

Sweet Little Autumn Dressed in White!

Aunt Sarah Dahl and Autumn

Proud Grandparents! This makes it their 5 grandchild!

"Grandma Barnum, you sound a lot like my mommy and you even look a lot alike her, but I don't think you are my mommy!" I am Grandma and Grandpa Barnum's 10 grand-baby.

      

     

"Are we done with pictures yet!"

Gettysburg, PA September 2009

We took our first family vacation with Autumn to Gettysburg, PA and had a blast!  It was definitely an eye opening experience traveling with an infant.  We took at least twice as much stuff with us as we normally would!  We had a great time and enjoyed an important location in our nation's history.

Brandon and Autumn at Gettysburg National Cemetary.

By the headstone for all the unknown soliders from the state of New York.

The entrance of Gettysburg National Cemetery

Autumn Elizabeth, 1 month old!!!

We decided since our family pictures turned out without paying someone to take them, why not try some more! We took these at home in our front room. It did take two bath, pee on the carpet and poop on Brandon's shirt to get them done but here they are. We hope you enjoy!

Feeling Neglected?

We think since Autumn has arrived the dogs are feeling a little neglected. As seen in the picture, they have been cuddling with each other a lot more lately. Even Molly (the grey one), who is usually more anti-social has been begging for attention. We make sure we take some time each day to give them some loves.

OUR FIRST FAMILY PHOTOS

Autumn is 2 weeks old!

Autumn's Hair

We are hoping Autumn has her mother's beautiful hair. She only has a little right now but it is dark and beautiful, just like her momma's!

Bath time!

No, sorry to disappoint, not bath time for Brandon. Autumn's bath time! She usually really likes bath time but this particular day she managed to reach behind her head and grab the bars on the bath seat. She only has one hand holding on in the picture but at one time she was holding on with both hands and screaming! She was latched on REALLY tight and was not going to let go.

Brandon's New Work

Here are a few pictures of Brandon's office. He has a duel office/exam lane deal, so he is pretty much in this room ALL DAY LONG!

Here is the office space. (above)

Here is the exam lane in Brandon's office, and yes the slit lamp is almost as old as Brandon. (Also above)

Here is Brandon's REALLY REALLY expensive piece of paper!

Coming Home!!!

My favorite pictures are the ones of the dogs sniffing Autumn in her car seat. It felt sooooooooo good to bring her home for the first time, and get out of the hospital!

Delivery Day!

So, to catch everyone up and how things went down, all the excitement started Friday, July 31. Our doctor decided to strip the membranes that day since Elizabeth had progressed so well. That, along with walking, helped induce some mild contractions. Well, about 2 am Elizabeth woke up feeling a little damp in her underwear. She remembered from our birthing classes that when the water breaks it isn't always a huge gush of fluid, but can be a slow leak. So, Elizabeth called the OB unit at 7:30 am and asked if we should do anything. They didn't think it was anything but they told us to come in anyway. Well, needless to say a test swab confirmed the presence of amniotic fluid and she was admitted at around 8:30!

As of 1 pm Elizabeth had stopped progressing, she stalled at about 4 cm and 90% efaced. The doctor, Dr. Z, decided to finish the job and completely rupture the amniotic sack. That's when the real fun started! Within about ten minutes the painful contraction set in and Elizabeth really started getting uncomfortable. Around 2:30 the pain was significant enough the Elizabeth was ready for some pain medicine. She was originally going to get some IV pain meds, but after being checked Elizabeth was dilated to 7 cm and the nurse mentioned that she might progress too fast after to be able to get the intra-thecal. (Side note: The army hospital we went to only has a few anesthesiologists, and so they rarely do epidurals unless necessary. They do an intra-thecal injection, which is about the same as an epidural only it is an injection instead of a continuous IV. It lasts 2-4 hours and can be repeated if necessary.) In the end, the anesthesiologist didn't get to the hospital and have everything ready for an hour, aout 3:30 pm, so Elizabeth was getting extremely uncomfortable. Just about the time she was ready to get another injection, the doctor decided it was time to star pushing, around 7:45 pm.

Elizabeth did great through the final stretch. She only pushed 45 minutes and out came our baby girl! Autumn's heart-rate was dropping while Elizabeth pushed, and it turned out the chord was around her neck one time. When the doctor saw that, she cut the cord off her neck and pretty much yanked on Autumn's head until she came out. I really thought to myself, "She's going to pull her head off!". Thankfully Autumn was nice and healthy, she got a 9 on all her APGAR scores. I didn't get to cut the cord when she came out since it was around her neck, but I was able to cut the remaining chord that was still attached. She weighed 7 lbs 10.8 oz and was 21 inches long!

WARNING!!!

Just thought I should warn everyone that I (Brandon) am going to be keeping this updated, not Elizabeth. She is opposed to doing a blog herself but thought it would be a good idea to keep everyone in the loop about what is going on, so the task falls to me to figure this out! Really what this means is the blog will be less entertaining and less informative than it could be but I will give it a shot!

The Big Move

Well, the big move came and went. We are here in Cornwall, NY and all settled in. Cornwall was established in 1788, so it has been around for a while. We are not far from the final encampment of the revolutionary army. This next year I will be doing an optometry residency at West Point. As part of the residency program, I get to go downtown to Manhattan to attend labs and lectures every Friday. Every time I walk through grand Central Station or past the Empire State Building I get taken back because I never expected to be living this close to the Big Apple! It is a two hour trip from here on the metro train but I enjoy the relaxation

Elizabeth is doing well. She isn't sure if she will be going back to work during the year we are here or if she will stay home with our baby girl everyday. I think the latter requires more work! She would like to work a day here and there to keep her skills up, but we will see how everything goes with the baby and our budget. In the meantime she has been catching up on scrapbooking and getting our house organized.

We love our little townhouse. We aren't too thrilled; however, that rent is $1000 more here than in Memphis!! What is also crazy is here many places charge one months rent as a realtor's fee even for rental properties! I have never heard of that before. Some of the houses I looked at would have cost over $5000 just to move in! Anyway, we like where we are and look forward to a great year this year!

Here are a few pictures of our townhouse in Cornwall, NY.