Man, this house is falling apart, car is gone/dead, and our truck is on it’s last leg. Credit is wrecked because of stupid mistakes years ago. So what’s a guy to do? Oh, how about i work a 3rd job. That sounds like a plan!
Man, sometimes life gives you lemons and you’re just not in the mood for lemon-aide!
Well all. I think I have hit a wall with working day-and-night, 7 days a week. I lasted a couple months, but I think my body is finally shutting down. My brain is mush and my 2 year old now says the phrase “Daddy, no work, shut the lid [to your laptop]. Play with me!”… it just broke my heart. I shut the lid and played with my daugher. We rough-housed, she laughed very loud. It felt good to not have a glowing screen in front of me, but a glowing smile in front of me!
Pray that my work-life slows down and that i only have to work 8:00am->5:00pm. iBarnett work has stopped, even though we need that income, it feels nice to know I can sleep more than 3-5 hours a night now. 
Anyway, here’s to not working all the time!!!
Well, Ian’s officially 5 days old now. He’s as cute as you would expect from a baby. We have some good photos to show and Kristi has typed up her birth story, which I will show now:
Ian Joseph arrived on December 5, 2009 at 4:29 p.m. It took several hours of labor over the course of 3 days, but it wasn’t all hard. We labored at home for many of those hours only to have labor stall and start again another day. Finally, 9 days overdue and already dilated to 4cm, I woke up at 2am with a stabbing non-contraction pain below my belly button that moved straight through my back like I was being skewered. Knowing that this isn’t a normal part of labor, I grew concerned. The pain made it difficult to walk and intensified during contractions. We decided to go to the hospital since we couldn’t determine if this pain was a result of something truly serious and potentially life-threatening or if it had another cause. Despite our plans to have another homebirth, I felt at peace with our decision to move to the hospital.
We arrived about 3:30am and although having mild, but irregular contractions, I advanced to 5cm, but the baby was still very high. The unusual and intense abdominal pain continued making every contraction much worse. By 8:30am, I had been placed on pitocin, opted for an epidural and was 7 cms. The doctor and the nurse predicted a baby by noon. Jason and I just laughed…we knew my past history and knew they were way off base.
In the mid-morning, I started to feel symptoms of transition, nausea, vomiting, hot flashes, irritability. I was checked and still found to be 7 cm. No surprise to us, but I think the nurse expected me to be close to pushing. After this, I continued vomiting frequently despite being on an anti nausea med, my epidural had completely numbed my left leg so that it was completely immovable and I started feeling my heart race and palpitations. The nurse was very concerned about my heart and quickly we found three doctors in the room. The cardiologist was called and he determined that I had developed a serious arrhythmia called a-fib. So I was hooked up to more monitors, given more medicine to control the arrhythmia, the epidural was turned down, and a discussion ensued about how to get this baby out quickly. Thankfully, the cardiologist said I would be fine to push the baby out on my own, so we averted a c-section and/or a forceps delivery.
At this time, I cried, this was not the birth I had planned, it was worse and far more diffiicult to cope with than my natural births at home. I always thought an epidural would bring the desired relief, but instead it seemed to make everything worse. All I wanted to do was get up and walk around, but everytime I moved my head, I vomited. Several more hours of this ensued, after numerous checks by the nurse, she became concerned about the changes she felt regarding my cervix. She consulted my homebirth midwife, who was with us during this time, and after she too examined me…it was apparent that this was the same anomaly that had presented during the girls’ births. It also explains why it takes me so long to dilate the last couple of centimeters. Finally, the doctor came back and said I looked ready to have a baby. He pushed the the last bit of cervix back over the baby’s head and I started pushing at 4:16 and Ian was born at 4:29. That was the shortest pushing stage I had ever had. Ian had great APGAR scores of 8 and 9 and was nursing by 5pm. The medical staff was amazed that as soon I pushed the baby out my heart rate completely normalized. However, the nausea/vomiting continued after his birth and I begged them to remove the epidural ASAP. It took several hours for the effects of that to wear off. I was kept overnight to monitor my heart rate and thankfully, we made it back home before Ian was 24 hours old.
Everything is going well at home…Ian has regained his birth weight by 3 days old and is such a sweetie.
Now for the photos!!!
Well, it was a storied event, yet again. The birth of our new son, Ian Joseph. He was born on 12/5/2009, weighed 8lbs 7oz, and was 21.5″ long. He is an excellent nurser and loves to look around and put his hands in his mouth. Labor was on-and-off since Monday 11/30/2009, but never really took off. Then there were some really strange pains Kristi had that led us to the hospital with a “typical” medicated birth. Though the labor was not fun at all, there were some heart problems Kristi had, and the anti-nausea meds didn’t work, Ian came out great and we are so very happy he’s here. The picture below is the best picture I can get at this time with my iPhone. More will follow I’m sure.
Hey, look at me. I'm cute as heck!
Well, Gabby’s 2 years old now and she’s been flirting with potty training for about 2 months now. She’s finally getting the hang of it and I caught her in the bathroom, on her own, with the footstool pushed up and clothes off. She actually pooped and peed in there on her own, without telling any of us! She was so proud, and what came out of her was bigger than she was, so I can see why she was proud.
Anyway, below is a photo and a video of her doing her business. Normally anyone else older than 2, or maybe even 3, doing this online you’d be disgusted, but because it’s of my cute baby girl, it’s not! 
Here is her video: Gabby Poops, Video
Hey, I'm working here!
