Carsten is here!!!!

We are so pleased to officially announce that our son, Carsten Crawford Walker, has officially arrived!  Sunday, at 5:30 pm, my water broke while watching tv at home with Matt.  We checked into the hospital around 6:15 pm, dilated to 3 cm, and contractions were really picking up.  At 7:30 pm I received an epidural and was dilated to 5 cm.  By 11 pm, I had dilated to 8 cm....and by 2:00 am was ready to push.  We waited for the nurse to get everything set up, and started pushing with the doctor at 2:30 am.  After about 12 pushes, Carsten officially arrived making plenty of noise!  Matt and I were completely overjoyed!  No words will ever describe that feeling, but we couldn't be happier!  Carsten was perfect in every way, and we are all doing great!  He weighed 8 lbs 3 oz. and was 19 1/2 inches long.  The hospital stay was quite brief.  Because Carsten was doing so well, and I was feeling so great, we were allowed to come home at 6:30 pm on Tuesday (instead of Wednesday like we originally thought).  We were very happy to be leaving the hospital and starting our "new normal" at home.  Here are a few pictures of our new little love.

39+ Weeks....Any day now ?!?!

Today, I am 39 weeks plus a few days. His actual due date is Wednesday, January 23, 2013.   At our appointment yesterday the doctor said it could be any day now....or longer.  Basically, no one knows when this little guy is planning to make his big debut, but Matt and I are anxiously awaiting that day!  We can't wait to meet him!  For now, I feel great...just really pregnant :)  Many people's predictions of when he would be born have come and gone, but we promise to let you all know when it does actually happen.  Until then, he'll just keep getting bigger and stronger on the inside.

The Nursery

After what seems like quite a long time, we finally have our nursery ready!  It started out as an idea back in the spring.  We had a loft type of area upstairs that we wanted to enclose to be a nursery, with a closet.  Our first step was to have a window put in.  This seems fairly easy, except the original location for the window contained every single electrical wire for our house.  The window had to be a different type, different size, moved over and up (to also avoid the roof line of the garage).  After 3 trips out to the house, and 2 different installation appointments (2 months apart), the window was finally finished near the end of September.

Our next step was to find a contractor to enclose the space and add the closet.  We finally found one , but he ended up putting the closet on the inside of the room, making it only 6x9.  This was my first and only major pregnancy meltdown!  The room was way to small and unusable.  We asked him to fix it, but he said he had too many commitments and would rather cut his losses (hence the meltdown!).  Luckily, the other contractor we were considering was still available.  He came out the next day to see what he needed to fix, and make sure his plan was the same as ours.  He started the following day, and the entire build part of the project was finished in 4 days, including drywall and texturing.

 New wall added on to the existing half wall, coming up the stairs.

 New wall built from scratch (this is actually the back of the closet).

 Looking into the nursery.

  The closet.

After the bumps along the road, we were extremely happy to finally have a room.  Apparently my parents shared in our excitement and came over to help us paint everything.  They showed up on Thursday and we got started that evening.  They worked Friday while we were at school, then we all finished it up on Saturday.  We even had time to set up the furniture Saturday night.  A hugeTHANK YOU to them for all of their help and hard work.  Here is the finished product.