Life :: An Update

I feel like all my posts lately have had a theme to them. And that theme would be the story of how our little peanut came into this world. Which is all good and all if you’re into reading birth stories, but if you come to blogs and want to know more about the person than just the fact that she birthed a baby, then hey, maybe you would like an update on life.

(Drew’s 1st deer hunt – Thanksgiving Day)

So here goes.

I’m currently sitting in my SD kitchen, which is probably 10 times bigger than my ND kitchen, which really, doesn’t take much. Baby is napping, and I’m listening to the radio while reading blogs.

And that’s a pretty typical day.

(Thanksgiving Day Deer Hunt)

The dishes are piled up in the sink and on the counter.

Also a pretty typical day.

(bonfire by the Missouri River – 11/25)

Anyways, for those of you whose heads are spinning, trying to figure out if we live in SD or ND or WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON WITH OUR LIVES, let me help you figure it out:

We live in both states. One state permanently (as in, that’s where our stuff is, where our driver’s license and bank thinks we live, etc) and the other one we live in because that’s where the work is.

(Drew showing us his mad Big Buck Hunter skills)

However, when it got to be getting on to winter and all we had for a place to live was a camper with a garden hose running over a driveway for water and nowhere to dump the grey water, we figured it probably wouldn’t be the best situation for winter. Especially with a baby.

So, we headed back south and let my brother use our camper for the winter. Of course, less than a week after we left, a full hook up spot opened up. So goes life. But my brother was able to put the camper in the spot and he’s spent the winter making it all cozy.

(Christmas Eve)

We have really enjoyed being back in SD for awhile. It’s been nice to be in a place that not only has its own bathroom/shower, but SEPARATE ROOMS! Oh the beauty. It’s also been really nice to be back by family, especially around the holidays.

(Drew and Mommy playing with his Christmas present from Mommy and Daddy. Forgive the creepy red eyes. It’s a curse.)

Luke has been staying busy helping his parents out on the farm and with some remodeling projects (we live about 5 mins from their dairy farm). Drew and I have been staying busy playing with toys, snuggling and staying warm.

(Drew taking his afternoon nap by the River on Christmas Day)

Soon enough we will go back up North and Luke will start driving truck again (for those of you who wonder what he does … he drives a semi truck that carries a trailer full of dirty water that is pulled up from oil wells that needs to be dumped down another old well. as my brother expands, he will probably start driving an oil trailer, which mean he will be carrying a trailer loaded with the actual oil from the wells). And Drew and I will play, snuggle and stay warm. It’s what we do.

(celebrating our 2nd anniversary – 1/2)

And in a nutshell, that’s what new with us!

Drew Solon :: What’s In A Name

You know what’s hard? Choosing a name for a person. One that is theirs for the REST OF THEIR LIFE!

Luke and I spent the whole pregnancy trying to come up with a name for our baby. We discussed it a little bit in the beginning, and then amped up the talks once we knew we were having a boy. And could not find a name we agreed on.

I would say one, he would say no. He would say one, I would say no. We read a whole book full of thousands and thousands of names. We noticed them in movies, in books, in talking with people. We would find one that we were interested in and then remember that our friends had a baby named that (our rule was that if we were related, or they were in our wedding, the name was out). We went into the hospital and still had no name.

The one thing we agreed on was that we wanted his name to have meaning. While driving one day we talked about what traits we hoped and prayed for in our first-born and came up with some ideas. So, we started looking at names with those meanings, but struck out again as none of those struck us.

So, after he was born, Luke went to the computer and started looking up names again. We had come across the name Solon on a list, and loved the meaning: wisdom or wise one. For a while we debated having Solon as his first name, but both of us felt like it just fit better as a middle name.

That just left the most important name then, his first name. We had talked about Andrew before, but I wasn’t crazy about it. But then we started talking about shortening it to Drew. And it started to grow on me. We also loved it’s meaning: bold and courageous (at least on the site we used. it can also mean man or warrior or trusty. also great meanings!).

By this point, it was Sunday afternoon (and Drew was born Saturday at noon). In other words, people were chomping at the bit to get us to name this child. It was the number one question of the nurses and the doctors, plus family and friends. But, we wanted to make sure Drew Solon was the right choice, so we tried it out for a day, without telling anyone what it was.

And it fit him perfectly. So, finally, on Monday morning, shortly before 9:00, we signed the papers. It was official. No going back!

And as the lady walked them out of the room, we could hear all the nurses gathering around her, excitedly asking what we had finally decided on as a name.

Drew Solon :: A Birth Story {Part 3}

So the last time I left you, I was 24 hours into the induction/labor process. And my body was basically saying ‘na na na, can’t make me!’.

And she was right. We couldn’t make her.

My doctor decided to try one more round of Cervadil and see what happened. But because we were going into the 2nd night of ‘fun’, they wanted me to get some sleep so they gave me an Ambien. Which meant I spent that night in a cycle of dozing off, waking up with a contraction and squeezing Luke’s hand, and then dozing off again.

Poor Luke. He didn’t have the benefit of an Ambien so he had to deal with his wife squeezing his hand REALLY hard every 2 minutes, so he didn’t get very much sleep that night.

We also had nurses coming in and out of our room all night checking on the babe. I didn’t mind that they were concerned and monitoring us, but it bothered me that no one introduced themselves, except my 2 main nurses. So here I am, having some unknown person looking up a place where no unknown person should ever look.

They finally called my doctor in at around 5:00 because they were concerned about Drew’s heart rate. He felt I was far enough along in the process to break my water, so he took his little crochet hook and did so. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would, but it was still a weird feeling.

It didn’t do anything magical, but there was definitely no turning back after that!

They did decide that I should get up and walk to see if that would help, so they sent Luke and I on a round through the hallways. It was so (NOT) fun.



Luckily there was the rails for me to lean on when I hit a contraction. But it was really annoying because when my nurse put TED compression hose on me the night before she didn’t pull them all the way up, so as you can tell from the picture I had a bunch of hose hanging off the end of my feet and it felt funny when I walked.

I did not make it very long with this whole walking thing. All I wanted to do was get back in bed. So I did.



After a couple hours of letting my body try, they hooked me up to Pitocin. That sent me into terrible back labor. It was awful. I was exhausted because I hadn’t slept in 2 days (well, really 6 months because of being preggo, but officially 2 nights), I was still a little out of it because of the Ambien and IT HURT! We had decided not to go for an epidural if at all possible, but I needed something so I asked my nurse for some pain medicine. Not sure if she just put saline in my IV or what but WHAT A JOKE. It did absolutely nothing.

So we tried the Pitocin for a couple of hours. At least I think it was a couple of hours. I really don’t know. I just remember laying there thinking this was the most horrible thing I’ve ever experienced and I just wanted to get out of there. I was about to walk out of that room and never come back. Ever. I didn’t care if I never had the baby. He could just stay in there. I was really hazy, so I would basically just deal with the contraction and then lay there in a stupor.

Finally my doctor came in and checked me one last time. After 40 hours, and 4 rounds of medicine my doctor basically said he would be generous and call me a 5. Wow. Basically my body was having none of it this whole labor thing, but I wasn’t in a good place health wise and my baby was in distress.

My doctor tries to do everything he can to avoid c-sections, but he felt it was necessary in my case. Since I had just spent the last 3 hours laying there knowing that my body just wasn’t going to be able to do it and begging them (in my mind) to just cut the kid out, I agreed without hesitation. Poor Luke. I didn’t consult him or even talk to him about it.

Once the decision was made, things moved along. I was taken to the OR and the nurse anesthetist put my block in. That was fun because I was still having contractions and had to sit very still. But he did it and I started to go numb.

Soon we were ready to start. Luke was in there, so they asked him if he wanted to watch. He took one glance behind the sheet, and that was enough for him. We still weren’t so sure about the c-section process, and part of us wondered if trying an epidural wouldn’t have helped enough to have the baby born naturally.
However, the doctors quickly dispelled that question when they came to the baby and found that his cord was wrapped around his neck 3 times. 

With that news, I just felt the protection of God wash over us. If we had pushed through and tried to go for a natural birth, it could have ended with catastrophic results.

As soon as we heard the baby cry, we knew that it was ok. Everything was ok. It was ok that I went through a failed induction. It was ok that I had a c-section. Because our baby was here. And he was perfect.