Jeremiah's Story

My Story 

Hi, my name is Jeremiah David Schneider. Wanna know how I was born? Well...sit back and listen up to this great story told by Mommy and Daddy:

It was Sunday night September the 28^th and we were about enter our Church for the Unity Celebration at 6pm when Amanda felt what seemed like a small gush. She wasn't sure if this was the water breaking or not. After calling Deidre and talking with Danielle, more liquid began gushing out. We decided to head home and test to see if this was actually the water breaking. The test was positive, but there were still no contractions. Deidre encouraged us to rest and relax and prepare for a nice long labor...little did we know. About 8pm Amanda began to feel what she thought were small contractions. We decided to watch a movie to take our minds off of the labor. Around 10pm, after the movie, Amanda began to feel stronger, more regular contractions, but we tried ignoring it by going to bed. However, no sleeping was to be had because Amanda's contractions quickly escalated. They were already about 3-5 minutes apart lasting about 60 seconds and very intense. It was 11pm and Joshua noticed behavioral, physical, and contractional signs that seem to point to late first stage labor, which was when we were taught to move to the birth place. So Joshua called Deidre and told her what they were experiencing. Deidre told him to relax and that most first time moms have very long labors. The best thing was for Amanda to get a full night's sleep, and that she would most likely see us the next day around this same time. We continued to try and relax through them, which Amanda did a fantastic job at, until it became impossible to relax. She was unable to keep from moving during the peak and the only place that helped was sitting on the toilet. She was shaking, telling Josh it hurt and felt like she needed to push. It was 3:30am and Joshua called Deidre again and told her we were pretty sure we needed to get moving to the Birth Inn. So we met her there at 4:15am. We got settled in, and Deidre assumed we probably still had a good ways to go so she wasn't in much of a hurry. She checked Amanda to see where she was at, and was very surprised to find her already at 9cm. So she quickly called Cynthia for help and got Amanda ready to start pushing. The next 2 hours flew by as they coached Amanda in pushing. It's true what they say, pushing feels like having a large bowel movement. His head was beginning to crown, but his heart rate was getting a little too low and not coming back up very well. We all began praying for his strength, encouraging him and speaking truth over him. Slowly his heart rate picked back up to normal and he stayed strong. As his head began to crown, it was difficult for Amanda to get him 'over the hump' because of his posterior positioning. Amanda pushed as hard as she could and eventually his head popped out and with one more push his body came along right about 6:29am. Joshua caught him and placed him on Amanda's chest. He was overwhelmed with tears of joy (he literally balled his eyes out). Amanda couldn't believe he was already here and the hard part was over. There he lay, our beautiful baby boy, Jeremiah, with a head full of hair. We had a difficult time getting the placenta delivered, and once it came out Amanda began to lose a lot of blood. Again we all began to pray as they worked on getting Amanda stabilized. But soon enough all was well. Once again God blessed us with strength and took care of us. Amanda had a pretty good 2^nd degree tear that had to be stitched up, but otherwise everything went very smoothly. Around 9am all three of us were able to lay down for the next 4 hours and get some much needed sleep.

 There you have it. That is my story my name is Jeremiah David Schneider. I was 6lbs 7ozs, and 18in long. I'm definitely 100% boy!  

The Stash...

Joshua likes to do his own thing as most know... well recently he went through a phase where he wanted to have a mohawk, then he started doing weird things with his facial hair. First he shaved it all off, then he tried doing a fu manchu. Although I didn't fully approve of these styles, I love my husband and was going to support him no matter what he wanted to do with his hair/facial hair. So one evening he asked me to help him clean up his mohawk and fu manchu. Not long after we finished I suddenly realized that very week we were doing maternity photos with Rachel. I was so upset! When it came time for the photos, I was able to convince him to get rid of at least the fu manchu part and just go with a mustache, however it wasn't much better.

 

Barely a week later Josh gets over this phase and decides to even his hair out and let his normal beard grow back in (he always does this to me!). A few weeks later we got the pictures and looked through them together. Josh asked me if he had really looked that ridiculous and said to tell Rachel that she didn't a great job with the photos, but sadly some pedophile ruined them. I suppose we will always remember these moments...

I told Josh this was one of my favorites... ;)

My own follies...

Since this blog I often poke a little fun at the quirky things my husband does.. I thought it only fair to share my own ridiculous things as well...

Josh and I were running out of thank-you's and envelopes and stamps for our baby shower guests, and thought it would be easy to mail them all in one giant envelope to my church to be dispersed! This was a great idea, so I got it all together, and in the mail, and it was supposed to arrive hopefully by that Friday.

Friday comes, and Josh comes in from checking the mail. I recognized the envelope I sent to the church and wondered if I put the address on there wrong.

Well, I'll just show you what I did:

I blame it on the pregnancy... =)

Our Back 'yard' Project

So Josh and I have wanted to do SOMETHING to our back patio area, there was a little garden started by previous owners, but we hadn't taken care of it, and the grass kind of ended before it reached the patio and we had a nice big mud patch. Recently Josh was given some free mulch and so we thought that might help! So one day this past week I got out there by myself and tried breaking up the ground and moving around some stone and bricks… I may have slightly overworked myself and decided Josh would have to help me finish it. He did pretty much all the hard work of breaking up the ground, evening it out, digging a spot for our little pathway and spreading the mulch. Then together we cleaned up some of the weeds and overgrowth of our little garden. Needless to say, it was a nice refreshing morning and we are quite happy with our little project =)

Bradley Cheer

Joshua and I just finished our childbirth classes in the Bradley Method. This is a video of a cheer he created to motivate me during birth… 

…I have nothing else to add...

Feeling Baby Move

The very first time I felt baby move FOR SURE without a doubt in my mind: Josh was playing guitar and singing How Great Is Our God. I sat on the couch to rest and listen to him and suddenly I felt very definite flutters in my stomach. I'm pretty sure baby was dancing to his dad's music. I tried to get Josh to come and feel the baby moving but as soon as he stopped playing the baby stopped moving and wouldn't move anymore.

It's been about a week or so now, and the baby's movements have been getting stronger. Last night we were relaxing and Josh tried to feel the baby move but still hasn't caught it at the right time. Then at just the right moment the baby started kicking pretty hard and I was able to get his hand in the right spot to feel it. It was so cool to see his reaction. One excited daddy to finally feel his baby moving around for himself!

According to Joshua Schneider

Did you know that those loops leading from one highway to another are called cauliflowers? 

Or perhaps… most people would call them cloverleafs? Just a little different than a cauliflower… lol

Taken Care Of

Not only does my husband do some bizarre or silly things, but he is also a wonderfully loving servant to me. This Sunday, while I had a nasty cold wearing me out, Josh took time to put up our hammock on the back porch, and proceeded to wash and fold all of our laundry, and clean and put away all of our dirty dishes. He also made sure to take care of me and help me while I laid in the hammock with a wet rag on my head and my kleenexes on a little table next to me. What a guy =)

Story time with Joshua: Alien Towers

I must say… I have quite the creative husband. Last night we had a long late night drive into Iowa. We were on the last 1-2 hour stretch around midnight and were both feeling quite tired and having trouble staying awake (I myself dozed off here and there while Joshua drove, but felt bad and tried to stay awake with him). 

We began to see those towers with the red lights that blink in the distance and Joshua proceeded to tell a story about how they were alien towers. I started to feel like a kid (I was pretty sleepy) as I got lost in his story. He talked bout this alien from Jupiter who lassoed a rope to a rock and flung himself into space. There he drifted through space for 243 years or so until he finally came to earth and found that he liked it very much. However he began to feel quite lonely and missed his friends and family from Jupiter, so he decided that red lights were very bright and maybe if he built a tower with a bright red light his friends and family would see it and come to earth. Eventually others began to lasso their own rocks and thrust themselves into space so they could come to earth and build their own towers. They blend in quite well except they only have 3 fingers with sponges on them that help them climb things like spiders. Also you can see their towers at night. 

He told the story much better and with way more detail, but you get the idea. Our kids sure are gonna have fun with this dad =)

Happy Valentine's Day?

It's the first day of May and we were getting ready to leave for our trip to Iowa. As we were pulling things out of the closet to take with us and I noticed this mug was in the very back corner, Josh shouted "Oh no!" and I thought maybe it was broken or something and was confused as to why it was back there. He started laughing as he picked it up and handed it to me and said, "This was supposed to be your Valentine's day present!" I died laughing as he handed it to me and said "Happy Valentine's Day!"

So there you have it. Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Mouse in the House

There I was, relaxing and enjoying my evening when I heard Joshua yell "Amanda, there's a mouse in our house!" He almost sounded frightened and I was kind of surprised that he would be afraid of a mouse. I was actually kind of excited to see a mouse! He kept telling me to hurry and come and look. It was apparently behind our bed and poking out.
Now, I didn't have my glasses or contacts on and the room was dark except for light coming through the window so it was hard to see. He told me the mouse was poking it's head over the top of the bed between our pillows. It had a weird whitish color and did not look like any mouse I had ever seen and I couldn't make out the head or anything when I finally realized… It was a computer mouse that Josh had placed on our bed… And of course there he stood laughing at his own little joke.

April Fools

This year on April 1st Joshua and I had the opportunity to sleep in and go to work later because we had our first prenatal appointment at 9:30am. We would wake up here and there (6am, 7am) but we kept rolling back over and enjoying our nice relaxing morning. Next thing I know Josh looks at his watch and shouts 'Amanda it's 9:15am, we have to go!' My heart started beating like crazy because I just KNEW there was no way we would make it in time. The drive itself is about 25 minutes. I jump out of bed and start getting dressed and I was so frustrated saying 'How in the world did that happen?' As I was stumbling into my clothes I looked at my phone and it looked like the display had frozen at 7:30am. So I told Josh that something was wrong with my phone. He looked at me with the slyest grin, said 'April Fools!' and proceeded to laugh his pants off.

Needless to say… I hit him and laid back down to get my heart rate at a relaxed state again before we actually began getting ready.