Trevor William King

Fair warning...this is extremely long!

Since it's been over a year since I've updated this, I figured I should finally post the big news!

On April 11, 2011, we found out I was expecting our first baby on December 21, 2011!

We were both thrilled, but I think a little nervous that it happened as fast as it did.

As the morning sickness set it, I went about trying to hide the fact that I was pregnant at work. We both decided we wanted to wait until I was out of the first trimester to let anyone other than family know. Surprisingly, my claims of having the stomach flu, eating something not right, and just not sleeping well worked for six weeks and we finally starting announcing to people that we were having a baby!

In July, the long awaited anatomy scan came! While I was pretty confident we were having a girl, Taylor thought boy. My mom and sister, Kristina, were on my side about it being a girl. But the night before the appointment I had the most vivid dream that it was a boy. Then, the morning of, my sister texted me and said she changed her vote, she was sure it was a boy now. One clear shot of the goods later, it was confirmed...we were having a little boy! They even did a 3d scan for us and we could already tell he was going to look like Taylor, so we set about picturing our dark-haired, dark skinned, dark eyed boy. It had been decided several years ago that our first boy was going to be named Trevor. When Taylor and I were dating we were at a Lakers game and when Trevor Ariza took the floor, we both looked at each other and said we really liked the name Trevor. So when we found out he was a boy, we knew Trevor was still the name. His middle name was going to be Thomas after my dad, but since both my sisters had made Thomas the middle name for their first boys we decided on William. When my dad was in high school he had a baby brother named William who passed away, so we decided William would be a good middle name tribute to him.

In October, my mom and all my sisters came out and surprised me with a Baby Shower at Founding Farmers in DC and a girls weekend. It was one of the biggest highlights of my pregnancy. We were able to go out to eat, get pedicures, and I got to take them touring around DC a little bit. It was really a weekend I'll never forget.

Finally, December rolled around. I'd been counting down to this month since April! December 2nd was my final day at work and the people I work with were so great. In November they threw me a baby shower and set Trevor up with all the clothes and things he could possibly need, and then on my last day, they all got me a card and some awesome gift cards for eating and pampering after he was born. Now with my last day of work over, the clock was on to have the baby before December 31, which is when my insurance with really awesome maternity coverage was set to expire. My doctor doesn't do inductions before 42 weeks, which would put me at Jan 3rd if the baby decided not to come on his own. Since I'd stayed really active the whole pregnancy, I spent the first three weeks of December walking up and down big hills all around Arlington trying to get this baby moving. We were all hoping for a December 18 birthday since that's my nephew Bradley's birthday, and it would be my parents' 10th grandchild in exactly 10 years, and Taylor would be finished with his finals then.

On December 17th, my mom came out to DC so she could be there when Trevor was born. We tried eating spicy food at PF Chang's and walking more hills. On Sunday, I had a few pretty strong contractions and started thinking this was going to happen soon! On Monday, the 19th, we decided to go to the mall and buy some last minute things for Christmas and get lunch. I was having a lot of stronger contractions but they were only every 10 to 20 minutes. At the mall there was this set up of massage chairs so my mom had me get one. We kept asking the person to try acupressure to send me into labor but he kept pointing at my big belly and shaking his head no. But, it might've worked anyway, because after a 20 minute shoulder massage, my contractions picked up to every 5 minutes and only got closer from there. Around 4 we finally went home because it was starting to get a little hard to walk through. My mom and Taylor kept saying I should probably call the doctor but I didn't want to until I was POSITIVE I was in labor, I had this big anxiety of going in only to be turned away, so I wanted to wait as long as possible. So when we got home, I put my feet up, turned on Game Show Network, and had a big bowl of peppermint ice cream (that my mom and I had turned Arlington upside down looking for). That turned out to be the last thing I ate for quite a while.

At around 7 pm, the contractions were now coming every 3 to 4 minutes. I still didn't want to call the doctor just yet, I still wasn't completely convinced and I didn't want to be the crazy lady who cried "Labor!". I started finally packing a bag for the hospital just in case and after I was done packing, the contractions were now every 2 to 3 minutes apart and I definitely couldn't talk and walk through them anymore. Luckily the hospital was only a 10 minute drive away, so off we went. My mom said, " The next time you walk through your apartment door, you'll have a baby." That's when it finally set in that I was definitely having a baby soon!

When we got to the hospital I was barely able to hobble myself in and go up to the 3rd floor. However, mom wanted to make sure we had one last picture of just Taylor and I. While I was less than thrilled to take it at the time, I'm glad now that I have it.

They got me checked in and set up in my room around 745 pm. I was having a harder and harder time working through each contraction. There wasn't really any pain in front, it was all situated right on my back and felt roughly like knives in my hip bones. Apparently, I was having the dreaded "back labor". I asked the nurse if she thought I'd be admitted, and she said the doctors wanted to watch me for an hour just to make sure I was progressing, but that they were crazy and I was definitely in labor. Sure enough, I was admitted! I had talked about trying to go natural but this pain was getting excruciating and I told the nurse I wanted the epidural after all. So around 930ish, they came and set up to do the epidural. The hardest part was sitting still through the contractions but I had a great nurse who helped me through it. However, after the epidural was placed, the pain still wasn't going away, it only took the edge off. After another twenty minutes or so, even the edge wasn't being taken off and it was actually getting more painful than before even. I thought if this is labor even with an epidural, I don't know how I'm going to do this. I was even shaking violently and uncontrollably for a while. One contraction was so painful and literally off the charts on the contraction sensor, and I felt a big pop, and my water broke. Finally they came back in around midnight to check why I was still in so much pain, turns out the catheter pumping in the pain meds had actually come out shortly after it was placed. I had also gone from 3 cm to 8 cm dilated in that 2 hour span, which would explain why it was SOOO painful. They set me up with another epidural and it was like night and day. I finally stopped shaking and feeling like I needed to vomit and was finally able to relax for a minute, and Taylor passed out for a couple hours.

At this point, the nurse came in and told us that there was meconium in the water and that when Trevor was born he couldn't be placed directly on my chest and they'd have to make sure he got everything cleared out first. Needless to say, this scared me a little but they all said it'd be totally fine. Finally around 3 am, I started having the "urge to push" that they tell you about. And it's exactly what it sounds like, an urge to push. So they started coming in and setting things up. The nurse had me start pushing around 345 am. Taylor and my mom were there for it all and were so encouraging to me through it. At around 445, his little head started coming out and the shock of the century happened...he was blonde! I couldn't believe it, for months we'd joked about how he would be covered in dark hair, and he was blonde, white blonde almost! He even had blonde eyebrows and eye lashes. Twenty more minutes of pushing and at 5:06 am, on December 20th, 2011 Trevor William King made his debut and 20.5 inches and 7 lbs 12.9 oz. They held him up for me to see for a second and then the NICU team jumped in and made sure he didn't cry so he wouldn't aspirate any meconium into his lungs. Taylor followed him to the other side of the room, but not being able to hear him cry or see him while they sewed me up was the most terrifying thing. Finally, after about 5 minutes, they told me he was fine, didn't swallow anything, and let me hold him for the first time. Let me tell you, me and this baby were made for each other. He melts my heart and is the sweetest baby. He's beyond calm and still doesn't really cry, just whimpers. They let me try breastfeeding him for about an hour after he was born and I think that made all the difference, because he's a nursing champ now.

Two days later, on December 22, we were able to take him home. I still can't believe he's ours forever!

My dad was able to make it out on the 21st and my brother Matt and his wife Alyssa came on the 23rd. It was amazing to have family out here for Christmas and to meet our little boy. He's been the biggest blessing in our life, sleepless nights and all.