So, I mention below that I had a Doula, Tanya Biesinger, that helped me with my birth. You can read more about natural birth and what Doulas do on this website - www.dona.org. I am very very happy with Max's birth and I owe that to Tanya! Even though I didnt have a totally unmedicated birth (i did love the Fetinyl after being in labor so long! lol) I liked being in charge of everything that was happening, being able to move around, and staying home for most of my labor.
Anyway- that is my commercial for natural birth! Its amazing!

And now my baby!
This is me 2 days after Max was supposed to be born :)

So Max was due the 20th -when I went to my appointment on the 25th my midwife said she would have to induce me on the 27th if nothing had happened by then. I wanted to have an un-medicated labor and I really didnt want to be induced, so I had her strip the membrane in hopes of making my labor start. (also the 25th was Jons and my 5 year anniversary!) After my appointment Jon and I went out to lunch then i went into work to get everything tied up.. and ready for me to definitly not come in on Monday! I got home at like 9 that night and my friend Anna came and watched The Office with me and slept over. About 10 the next morning I was having contractions that actually hurt... which i was very excited about - for days i had been wishing for real contractions that hurt- then by 5 Saturday night i was thinking i would be fine if they didnt hurt quite so much :) My Doula (Birth Coach) Tanya came over around 5 or 6 Saturday night and started helping me relax through the contractions (which i am NOT good at) and walking, rocking and doing different positions to help me deal with the pain while also making Max move down and get in position. He was facing forwards (sunny side up) (babies are supposed to face your back before being born) so he was pushing on my tailbone every contraction and it REALLY hurt! Well, we tried to get him to turn all night, and all Sunday morning, and all Sunday afternoon..... finally at about 5pm Sunday night my mother in law suggested we go to the hospital and i thought it was a good idea too :) I really wanted to get in the big tub they have! This is me with my bag ready to go ( between rocking back and forth during contractions - the smile is kind of forced at this point lol!)
This is Tanya and Jon pushing on my leg and back to help my back not hurt so much during contractions.
Early Monday morning i was dialated to a 9 so my midwife broke my water to see what position Max was in.... still forward......one of the nurses suggested that i lay in the fetal position and that can help him turn...i got some Fetinyl (I had a few shots of it since getting to the hospital), which mostly made me tired but also kind of dulls the contractions...it took 45 minutes but he turned half way and that was enough. Max was finally born at 12:14 on Monday
I love my face in this pic, I think i am glaring at Jon :) i was really tired but so happy, i think my face wasnt quite working. This is a little later that dayNew Family
This is before his first real bath
Now he has chunky cheeks!
He loves his wrap!Cute!

Ok, I am going to do this in chronological order, so first my remodeling before the baby comes :)
This is my finished laundry roomIt may not look that fancy, but it is sooo nice to have it done and not be ugly concrete floor!


Next we re did the family room. This is one of the only rooms in our whole house that has carpet and it was super nasty from the people who had the house before us... so we needed it nice so Max can crawl around on it someday!
so here is what it looked like before, lovely mint green walls, the tiny window had a lot of water damage and there were two industrial florescent lights!
Jon had to put a million screws in the stairs to make them stop squeaking.
We had to patch and sand the walls, I was not a ton of help with sanding cuz I was almost 9 months along :)
We textured the walls and it turned out AWESOME!! - this is before it was painted, notice Alex relaxing on the carpet padding. It was SOOO nasty, there was soooo much dirt under the carpet... and huge stains... and parts where it was stuck to the floor with who knows what!
You can kind of see the crown moulding that Jon fixed, the previous owners had just left the ends blunt and unfinished, so we matched it and finished it off. There was also a light at the bottom of the stairs that was a big recessed (ugly) square that we took out and patched.

Jon would cut in and I would roll the paint, we are getting pretty professional!
All painted
Up close of the texture - and the new carpet
We installed track lighting instead of the sweet flourescents.
Now all we need is furniture! The TV stand is still my cedar chest, and we have a love sac instead of a couch at this point :) We did get a really nice carpet pad, so sitting on the floor is pretty nice!