Ok, it's about time I created a real page! My name is Dawn and I'm 27 years old. I have been with my husband for almost 8 years, we met 11/00 on an online dating site, we got married 8/05 and had our son 9/07. I currently work full-time, mostly from home and am able to bring my son with me on the days I do go into the office. Our only pet is a black lab mix (mutt) named Pepper who is 3 years old.

Here is a picture of our wedding party. Let me know who you think Travis' looks like :-).

Here is a picture of our first baby:

She is a little spoiled with her own couch and she loves to sleep on pillows!

This is Pepper's popeye face.

And now for our second baby, here is his birth story:

Travis was born 9/2/08 via c-section at 2:41pm. My water broke around 4:30 am so my husband and I showered and then headed to the hospital. They started pitocin around 7am and probably about half an hour later, my contractions became extremely painful and were 2 minutes apart. I barely had time to catch my breath in between and decided that if I was going to eventually cave to the epidural I might as well do it early on. The epidural was ok, he put it in too far to one side and sent shooting pains up that side but then the next attempt was a success. I progressed fairly quickly and was excited at how fast my labor was going. My sister and Mom had really long labors with their first babies so I had been prepared for an all day/night affair. I guess it was probably a little after 2pm that I was fully dilated and ready to push. I pushed through three contractions and Travis' heartrate plummeted and wouldn't go back up to an acceptable rate. He was still at -2 station so they knew that there was no way he was going to tolerate being born naturally. After the third time I pushed the nurse put an oxygen mask on my face, paged my doctor, and got my husband his surgery gear to put on. It all happened fairly quickly but in my head it was like a slow motion horror film. I could still move my toes when they started cutting and the anesthesiologist didn't believe me. He asked me where it hurt and I said right above my pubic area. He told me that they weren't even near there (not sure what he was looking at as that's exactly where my scar is) but he did keep pushing drugs and right before they pulled my son out I was finally pain free. It was the most traumatic experience of my life so far even though it was a fairly uncomplicated birth compared to a lot of other women. No one said a word to me before my husband came in or after he left with the baby. He was probably only in the operating room for 3 minutes tops. I felt so alone and scared. I kept telling myself to be calm and that if I started to freak out it would take away from what they were trying to do and it would prolong getting my baby out. Right before they wheeled me into the operating room they put a monitor on Travis' head and I could hear his heartbeat which was scary as it kept stopping! I knew that I wanted him out for his own safety but in no way was this how I had planned his birth to go. After I was all stitched up, which took an eternity, I was wheeled to the recovery room and kept asking to see my baby. I wanted to start breastfeeding as soon as possible as I knew that that was what you are supposed to do. Breastfeeding was a nightmare at first but eventually, probably weeks into it, we finally figured it out!

Happy Birthday Travis! He was 7lbs 15oz and 21.5 inches long.

Daddy and his babies :-)

Our little monkey for Halloween.

Christmas '07.

Travis laughing at Daddy clearing his throat :-).

Making funny noises with his tongue

Laughing at Daddy "throwing" rain water.