Luke Steven Holloway

This is Raegan at 10cm, 5 min before the baby came out. They induced her at 6:30am, broke the water at 10:30, and he popped out at 12:29. 8lbs 7oz, 21 inches long. Raegan didnt make a peep during it all. She pushed twice, the doctor untangled the cord from his neck, cut her, and 2 more pushes for the exit.





Here he is.

Look Maw Maw. Red HAR! He looked more like a Luke than a Cain. To me he looks like a Steve McQueen, so thats his middle name.

Meme stayed with the kids at home until Raegan went to get her tubes tied. I went to pick up Meme and the kids. We are going to dig up one of Raegan's baby pictures with her MeMe. The resemblance here is pretty strong, if not identical. I'll post them together when we find it.

Grace is very eager to be entertained by this new lil bro. She is ok watching from a distance, but she is very sweet and will be a great baby sitter. She is so grown up now. I couldnt get a good pic of Jack. He was SOOOO excited, bouncing off the walls, climbing, running around. He loves his little brother. He stopped every couple of minutes to go look at him very close up, and give him kisses. Those two will be very tight. He is very anxious to help out, bringing diapers, wipes, etc.

He likes his daddy. He knows all of our voices. He came out all bruised up in the face, but he seems to be fine. We got him to eat finally. He was just too tired most of the day, but he is doing good now

The crazy express rolls on

I know, I know. I should have figured out how to turn the picture. So we had 5 trees removed from around the house to keep this from happening. I cant even find the tree that limb fell out of. The storm came up very fast, and all the trees outside were bending in half from the wind, so it could have come from a block away, even though it was pretty big, and heavy. It took out the gutter, and part of the roof. Me and Grace were in hte kitchen, the window you see there, and watched it almost land on our heads haha. It was exciting. It missed us by 3 or 4 feet, missed the new Heat pump by a foot or less, and missed the new doghouse by 2 or 3 feet. We were lucky. Our insurance company is awesome. I called the roof guys, and they gave me an estimate, a tree guy, and they had the money in our account in 2 days. They also gave me an extra 250 for paint, and replacing any bad cedar shingles on the side. It got scraped a bit. The roof guys are outside right now. So we have a pregnant lady who is about to pop, roof crew banging and stomping around on the roof, Jack being Jack, Grace being Grace, 2 crazy dogs barking at the roof guys, the 5 neighbor dogs barking at our dogs. I'll have one burbon, one scotch, and one beer pls. Raegan's mom flies in tomorrow. Poor thing does'nt know what she is stepping into.

Rec room

Its finished. The kids have been putting wood in front of the door to make it really dark, so they can tell scary stories. Mindy likes the scary stories. She is allways in there with them. Lucy looks in, jumps in, jumps out. She is still spooked from all the noise of the saws back there, but she will like it too, I think. Heres another shot of Preggo Raegan too.

What we've been up to

Miss Grace hard at it.

The kids have been anxiously waiting for the day we build a doghouse. So here we go. Its insulated in the floor, walls, and ceiling, for the winter. It sits in the shade for the summer.

You can see the wall that is still lacking stucco. I wanted to do that before the doghouse, but the kids couldnt wait.

Jack and Grace both were involved in every phase of construction. They hardly left the site at all. I had to make sure all nails and screws were picked up all the time, as you cant keep shoes on that boy's feet.

Mindy is very excited too.

Almost done, we painted the trim today, and while it was drying, I painted the security door on the side of the house. Ive been needing to do that for a couple months now.

I'll post the finished product tomorrow or the next day, it needs some caulk and a bit more paint. Its not square in places, its not level in some places, its definitely not a professional job, but thats not the point of it all, is it?

Baby Holloway Update

I had a biophysical profile (an ultrasound and non-stress test) done at the high risk clinic on Tuesday, to see how my amniotic fluid levels were and to see what the doctors there would recommend, as far as when they thought I should have the baby. (The high risk clinic, ROCK, is where I go for my diabetic counseling appointments and they've done some of my ultrasounds.)

Anyway, the good news is that the fluid levels were fine. However, due to the changes I've been having to make with my insulin, the doctor suggested that if the baby was ready, that I should have him this week (at 36 weeks), so I needed to have an amnio to check for fetal lung maturity. Amnios are not exactly fun (I've never had to have one before), since they involve a big, long needle being inserted into your stomach so that some amniotic fluid can be removed. Since I've become a human pin cushion (they have me injecting my insulin into my tummy and I'm doing that 4 times a day right now), I'm much less needle adverse than I used to be, so it wasn't awful. Or it wouldn't have been, if not for baby Holloway. Like Jack was, this baby can be very, very active and he especially likes to move around during ultrasounds and NSTs. So in the middle of the amnio, the baby decided to move and stuck his knee right in the way of the needle and we had to wait for him to move out of the way before they could finish. That was not pleasant.

Anyway, the fetal lung maturity tests came back saying that the lungs were not yet mature enough (not uncommon with the diabetes and boys' lungs tend to mature slower than girls), so they've recommended that I have the baby at 38 weeks. We have scheduled the induction for July 30, so if I don't go into labor before then, I'll have the baby then.

MMMM. Jack wanted to bake a cake for mommy while she was taking a nap. butter, eggs, milk, and cut up bananas. He couldnt find the flour.

This kid is scary. He counts to 10 in 5 languages now. Mandarin wasnt included here, as it got cut off at 1 minute for some reason.

Raegan update

I went to the OB today and saw the Nurse Practioner. Travis wanted me to post the update since he always forgets most of what happened. My weight is still the same -- meaning I haven't gained any weight at all during the entire pregnancy. However, the baby is gaining just fine. We've been having growth scans done about every two weeks to check his weight and two weeks ago he was about 6 lbs. 2 oz. and today he weighed in at 7 lbs. 9 oz. (The tech said the scans are usually within half a pound of the actual weight.) He's measuring about 2 weeks ahead, which doesn't really surprise anyone. I'm still 3 cm dilated, so the modified bed rest is doing its job. The only new thing that has come up is that the measurements for the amniotic fluid are increasing, which isn't unusual in diabetic pregnancies, but it means I'll talk to the doctor who will actually deliver the baby on Friday to discuss when we might want to schedule an induction. The NP said she thinks maybe we should schedule it around 37 weeks, which is about 2 weeks from now. We'll know more on Friday and keep everyone posted.

As an aside, since I'm posting and everything, let me just mention how awesome Travis has been. Since we've been in Knoxville, he's done all of the cooking and cleaning anyway, but now, even with me at home every day, he's still doing everything around the house, plus all the extra stuff I ask him to do (which is mostly cooking for me, since I have to eat real meals for breakfast and lunch). I would definitely have had this baby already if I had to do any of the stuff he does. He's been really great. (And when he's not doing the stuff around the house, he's practicing the guitar. Constantly. All of the time. Which is great for him, but it sometimes gives me a headache, like when he sits next to me when I'm watching TV and starts playing the acoustic. He might be taking it a bit far, though -- this morning when he stopped playing, the guitar strings were bloody and had some skin on them.)

Stuff

Meet Charlotte. We just found out that she is actually a HE. This hamster killed his brother buttons over territory, survived a dog attack, survived 4 or 5 colds, lost an eye, and has been around for 10 months or so. Most hamsters would have died to one of those causes, so I figured he deserves a spot on the blog to cellebrate his heartiness.

After 3 months of saving my beer money, I was going to buy a new guitar, but I found a couple of sweet deals that I couldnt pass up. This speaker cabinet has 4 x 12 inch celestion vintage 30 watt speakers. If you know cabinets, you know these are the speakers to get. All the greats use them, including the late, great Dimebag Darrell Abbot. May he rest in peace. This one is custom made, Randall only made them for 1 store in the US, with the urban camo. I lucked up finding this, especially at the price I got it for, about 1/5 retail.

This is the head that Dime used on his first 2 albums with Pantera, the exact model. It has monster distortion, and is very loud. Im very close to matching Dime's tone, with his signature guitar, the cabinet, and this head. Im only lacking a coupleof effects, but I can wait. They dont make these heads, havent since the 80's. His mxr flanger/doubler, furman pq3, along with an mxr 6band eq, and I'll be there. They dont make the flanger, or the pq3 anymore, so Im gonna bide my time and find a good deal on them in a pawn shop, or ebay. They usually go for $200-$300, so Im gonna see if I can hold out for $50.I tried my best to get some video of the rig, but the camera keeps failing to record. This is the only shot that doesnt cut out after a second. something about management file being corrupt. Its pretty frustrating, I just hope the camera isnt dying.

Raegan

Just a quick update on the Preggo lady. She has been home with the rest of us for the past couple of weeks, after the doctor put her on light bedrest. Sunday before last, we took her to the hospital, as she was having contractions. They gave her a shot to stop the contractions, being only 32 weeks. She went back to the doctor 2 days ago, having contractions 10 min apart. She is barely 34 weeks now. They are not going to stop her labor if she goes again. 34 weeks is long enough. She has been 3 cm for a couple weeks now, and has lost 3 lbs since her last scheduled appointment. It doesnt look like she will make it much longer. I may wake us all up early tomorrow morning, and go walking around for a few hours. A 4th of July baby would be cool. We still havent locked down a name yet. Im wrestling with naming him Jim. Then we would have a Jack and Jim. Raegan isnt on board with that one.