Alana's first play date

Melissa's good friend, Amy Koeppel, had her little baby girl, Emily Susan, on October 20th. Emily was 20 inches long and weighed 8 lbs 12.5 oz when she was born. Alana and Emily are 12 days apart. Alana, Melissa & her Mom went to visit Emily and Amy on her 1-week old birthday. She is adorable and has quite the full head of hair. So very cute. Both girls pretty much slept through their first play date, but I'm sure that won't last long!

Shawn turns the BIG 3-0!

On Tuesday, October 27th, Shawn joined the 30+ club! For those who know Shawn best, know that he constantly teases Melissa that she is married to a younger man. A whole three months younger, but who's counting?! Shawn's Mom, Mary, wanted to pay Shawn back for all those years of crap that he gives everybody, so she ordered him a little gift. Check it out below! Well done! Alana and Melissa also brought him a little Cousin's lunch and we made a big trek over to BW3's for some birthday dinner wings. Alana was an angel and slept through the entire dinner. Happy Birthday, Shawn!

October birthdays

October has become quite the birthday month. We have countless relatives and friends that have an October birthday. Melissa's mom turned 63, her oldest brother Jeff turned 38, Shawn turned 30 and, of course, Alana was born on October 8th! Here are a few pics of Melissa's family October birthdays party.

Mom, Jeff, Matthew, Dad

Daryl & Alana

Melissa & Alana

Jeff & Dad

Dad & Shawn
Jenny

Alana's first bath

Finally, Alana is no longer stinky - according to her father. Alana's cord finally fell off so we got to stop with the wet wipe bath and head into the kitchen for a little girl bath. Quite the adventure but she had very few complaints, except when she slid back into the tub a little too hard. They are ever so slippery, aren't they??

Two Weeks Old

Last week our little pumpkin was already two weeks old! Oh, how the time flies when you're sleep deprived!

Alana's nursery

I have finally taken pictures of Alana's nursery. It took quite a while for everything to get pieced together but it is done. We thank everybody that helped us with it. We had a great, sometimes frustrating, time with the complete assembly of her room. Hopefully she won't grow up hating circles!!!!

Alana's first keg party

For the past few years, our good friends, Kevin & Bridget Pankonin, have a "Fall Fest". This year it was on October 16th. Essentially, it is a get together with great food and a keg of beer. This year the guests ranged from 8 days to 75 years. You can guess who the 8-dayer was. Kevin & Bridget have a gentle giant of a dog, Gus. He is a Bull Mastiff-Great Pyrenees mix, weighing in at approximately 160 pounds.

Random Shots

Lots of love for Alana

Some of Alana's visitors...

Dr. Miranda & Nurse Sally
Stacey
Grandma Mary

Grandpa Mike
Uncle Eric

Kevin

Big cousins Matthew, Nick & Auntie Cheryl

Matt

Kyle

Sarah, Alana, Genevieve, Miles & Robin

Rachel

Grandpa Gary & Grandma Kathy

Big Cousin Madison

Grandpa Mike & Grandma Mary

Big Brothers JoBu & Brewer

Auntie Cheryl

Uncle Jeff

Alana Louise Bansemar's birth story

What a joyous few days! Last Tuesday, October 6, Melissa had her most recent doctor's appointment. The doctor gave us the option to induce on Thursday, October 8th. After little consideration, we chose to go with it. There were no medical reasons that made any of the decisions, the doctor said she was ready as she'll ever be. Fast forward to Thursday morning at 5am. Melissa had the most peaceful night of sleep she had in months. A full 7 hours without waking up at all. Shawn & Melissa checked into the hospital at 6:45 am on Thursday, October 8, 2009. Melissa was still dilated at 3cm. The nurses gave Melissa medication at 8am to start the labor process. The medication surely did start the labor, but Melissa could not feel any of the contractions yet. At 11am, the nurse gave another dose of the medication. That one did it. The contractions were becoming much more intense and closer together. After about an hour of the stronger contractions, Melissa insisted on getting the epidural to help relieve the pain. Doctor said not until I was dilated to 4cm, so we settled on relaxing in the whirlpool bath. This was around 1pm. After about 45 minutes the nurse came in and said that the doctor wanted to break my water at 2pm so it was time to get out of the tub. Afterwards, I would get the drugs. I quickly learned that I had gone from 3cm to 6cm in an hour. The baby's heart rate was dropping and the doctor and nurses were becoming concerned. It did re-stabilize but said the next time it happened we would have to do a cesarean. Shawn was very queasy at this idea, but the heart rate stayed where they would like it and that option seemed to pass. At 6pm, the doctor announced that I was dilated to 10cm and it was time to push. Good thing since her heart rate was dropping again. Shawn stayed well behind Melissa's head so he could be present but not see a thing that he didn't want to. He did a fantastic job and did not pass out or get sick. At 6:05pm, Melissa was pushing away at the directions of her nurses. You see, Melissa did not have any pain at all after the epidural. It was to the point that she did not know when she was having contractions again. At 6:25pm, after only 20 minutes and 30 pushes later, Alana Louise Bansemar was born. She weighed 6 pounds 10 ounces and was 20 1/4 inches long. She is absolutely beautiful. Saturday we were discharged from the hospital and had a difficult first night. Sunday was another day of visitors that wanted to see our beautiful daughter. Last night seemed to operate much smoother as we are slowly adjusting into a routine. We would like to thank everybody for all their warm wishes and thoughts. We are so happy to have great family and friends around us.