Happy Easter!

We hope you're all having a wonderful Easter and that you take time to remember the real reason we celebrate!

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. - John 3:16

We spent our morning at church, ate lunch with my brother Jeff and took naps this afternoon. It has been a low key, relaxing day. Tyler was a stud in his little Easter outfit.

A Whole New World

 Ok, so I knew that life was going to change a lot with a baby, and I was ok with that. Completely excited about it, actually. And I still am. I love every minute of being a mom and having a little family of three. But it definitely is different. Because of the c-section, it has taken longer for me to get back to normal than it probably would have otherwise. The first week I was home from the hospital, I still had trouble walking and it was very diffitult to sit down and stand up. If I dropped something (which I often do) I would just have to wait for some one else to come and pick it up because the effort of bending all the way over was way too painful and exhausting. I wasn't allowed to drive, carry Tyler down the stairs or lift anything other than Tyler. So for the first week, all I really did was hold and feed Tyler. My mom was completely amazing. She cooked, she cleaned, she did our laundry, she drove Tyler and I to our doctor appointments (between the 2 of us, we had 5 appointments in 2 weeks!), and everything else that needed to be done. The second week she was here I really tried to do things myself. But usually I would just start something and Tyler would need me and that was the end of it. There were 2 baskets of laundry in our room for a week and a half. My mom or Carl would put them on my bed for me so I could put them away, and at night when I still hadn't done it, they would move them back to the floor of my closet until the next day when I would try again. Now they are in the guest room and still not put away... 

This week I have felt much better. I stopped taking pain meds, my doctor said I can drive again and I have actually done dishes and loads of laundry (with Carl's help carrying the laundry baskets for me since I'm still not supposed to lift anything.) And I've gotten pretty good at typing with just my left hand and turning light switches on and off with my chin. I have all of these lists of things I want to do each day and if I even get one done, I feel a little bit proud. Today Tyler and I went to Target AND I cut my fingernails. It was a big day. We also had our first little social outing with baby last night. We went to our good friends Jesse and Andrea's house for dinner and a movie and Tyler was a rockstar for it. Such a good baby!
Here are a few more pictures of the beautiful reason I never get anything done anymore :-)

My Little Love

All ready for his first stroller ride!

Our happy little family

We love having Tyler and we are treasuring every single second with him. It already feels like he's getting so big! I don't want to forget a single minute of this time with him as a newborn. He is so sweet and so precious and he is making me so sappy! But we love him more than we ever could have imagined was possible. He is definitely the perfect addition to our family!

Baby Love

It's official. I'm in love. Pretty much all I do anymore is hold my baby and take pictures of him. Oh yeah, and feed him. The child loves his food!

3 Things I've learned from Tyler:

1. He is super baby. The boy is strong! This shouldn't surprise me because I've been feeling his little karate chops for many months now. But he was already trying to do push ups when he was two days old!

2. I am not a good patient. I've never been in the hospital before or had any surgeries so this recovery thing is all new to me. I don't like being told I can't do things!

3. I am such a softie! I've worked with kids for so long and I can be strict with them when I need to be.  But Tyler's cry melts my heart and I want to solve every problem. I don't ever want him to feel pain or be sad, I want to protect him from everything. I don't know how I am ever going to tell him no or discipline him as he gets older!

 Tyler loves his new bouncer from Grandpa and Grandma Bernardy!

 He also loves to fold his hands :-)

So in love...

It took a few tries, but we got the perfect footprint!

He loves Daddy time! And so does Daddy :-)

Tyler's Story

We are so excited to announce that our precious baby boy was born on Saturday, March 26 at 3:49 pm and his name is Tyler Daniel Hagen. We love him so much and can't get over how amazing he is. I could just sit and stare at him all day long and never get tired of it. My mom keeps laughing at me because I can't stop telling him how cute and sweet he is all the time.

We sent an email after he was born just saying that I had an emergency c-section without any other details. So here are a few of the details if you want them. If you don't want them, just skip this post. :-)

I spent a lot of the day Friday cooking meals to freeze and have here after the baby was born. That night I got a little behind and was waiting for my wild rice soup to cool enough to put in the freezer so we didn't go to bed until about 1:15. At 1:30 my contractions started. So obviously, we didn't get any sleep that night. Carl slept a couple hours or so before I woke him up and we started timing contractions. At 4:30 we called the hospital and they told us to come in. During all of this time we were incredibly calm. It surprised us actually - we expected ourselved to be a little panicked, but it was like it was the most natural thing in the world to be getting last minute things together so we could have a baby. Weird. Anyway, we went to the hsopital at 5 am and they confirmed that I was in labor and brought us to a delivery room. I got an epidural pretty quickly after we got there. Those contractions were intense! And I really didn't want to wait for the pain meds. Epidurals are amazing!!! I didn't feel any more contractions until the very end and they didn't even hurt. I could just feel a little pressure. I was pretty relaxed, reading a magazine, I think Carl even managed to get a nap in. Then the craziness started.

Tyler's heart rate dropped with a big contraction and then went up again pretty quickly. But it happened a couple more times if I moved or had another big contraction. So they put me on oxygen the rest of the time I was in labor and that seemed to help him. At one point they decided that if they moved me to a different position it might help things move faster and as soon as they did his heart rate dropped and it never went back up. So all of the sudden doctors and nurses started flying into the room. They started turning me in all directions, I think to try to get the heart rate back up and cords started flying and an oxygen tank got thrown on my bed and then they were racing my bed down the hallway. I was crying and they wouldn't let Carl come with and neither one of us really knew what was happening. I was completely terrified. But when we got to the operating room his heart rate went back up. So they took my blood and had me sign the paper work for a c-section just in case, and decided to deliver the baby right there so we'd be ready if it happened again. At some point they finally went and got Carl from the room he'd been waiting in all by himself and gave him scrubs to come back and I ended up pushing for about an hour and a half. But because of the heart issue with Tyler, they wouldn't let me push very often. So it all took too long and they decided that they needed to get him out right away. So they told us they were going to try to vacuum him out and if that didn't work we'd be having a c-section. So 3 pushes and one vacuum later and people started flying everywhere again to get ready for that c-section. It felt like mass chaos, people running everywhere talking all at once. They made Carl leave again and I was crying uncontrollably again. They put me to sleeppretty quickly and the next thing I knew, I woke up in a different room in more pain than I ever knew was possible, scared for my baby and not knowing what was going on. I'm not sure how long I was awake before my doctor came over and started telling me that Tyler was ok and he was with Carl and that everything went really well. After what seemed like forever, they finally brought me up to the room and got Carl and Tyler. I didn't get to meet Tyler until he was already a few hours old, but by that time I was just so thankful that he was ok I didn't care. And when I finally got to see him I was so in love that it really didn't matter what I went through to get him here. He is amazing! It will be a long recovery and I really can't do all that much right now, but it is all completely worth it for this baby!