Babytastic!

Well, it (which we don't have to call it an "it" anymore) has arrived! Otis Stone Stumbaugh was born on December 8th at 11:03pm. 6lbs 15oz 20 inch long baby burrito of fun!

Melanie's water broke at 3:30am and started having contractions about 30 minutes later. Poppa Stumbaugh did about two hours of "sleep monitoring" before ringing the fire alarm and called the necessary necessaries later in the AM. Melanie's folks were on the road from Oregon what seemed like within the hour:) The midwife told us to hang out and not call until we hit the 511, which meant the contractions would be less than 5 minutes apart, lasted more than one minute, and for one hour.

We spent the day laboring at the house, practicing deep breathing and hypobirthing techniques. Melanie had a hard time eating, she went the entire day with only some yogurt, a bite of spelt toast, a few bites of plain white rice and a cashew bar. Melanie made a multi-hour long birthing playlist with super droning ambient music that helped the relaxed mood.

I called the midwife around 3pm as the contractions starting getting more frequent and intense. She told us to hang in there, to run a bath and try and slow them down and hopefully Melanie could get a nap in, as it would be a marathon day with much needed rest. By this point I had to help her walk around the house and kept her propped up for vertical contractions. The bath was comforting and Melanie tried to sleep with little success.

Our midwife had suggested that post-bath we try having her labor while switching between sitting upright and walking. This way more pressure is put on the cervix and assists in speeding up the process. After an hour of this exhausting exercise the contractions got really intense, we decided it was time to go over to the birthing center.

The head midwife Roseanne told us it would be 30 minutes before she could get there. Melanie's contractions had intensified so much that we were a little worried that our baby would be born in the birthing center parking lot on the hood of our car. Luckily that didn't happen though:) Roseanne arrived and after examining Melanie she said everything was looking fine and she was 8cm dilated, the baby was gonna be here soon! Xochitl arrived with some provisions and called the grandparents to meet at the birthing center. Xochitl ended up being a life saver as the nurse was going to be late and Roseanne needed an extra pair of hands to assist getting things prepped for delivery.

At this point Melanie was doing so good given the feeling of discomfort. She kept breathing deep and looked as if in another world. Roseanne filled the birthing tub, or "hippie bird bath", with luke-warm water. I think we got in the tub around 10:30pm, I know I liked it:)

The families had arrived in the waiting room and Xotchitl brought them updates on our situation. Melanie was fully dilated at this point and was ready to pop. The whole process was pretty surreal, watching the top of my baby's head appear and disappear into the void was way better than anything I've seen on the Discovery Channel. Melanie was still keep cool and collected, a few contractions seemed to get the best of her but only briefly. One last guttural yelp and the entire head came popping out. Seeing his head sitting under water got me a little nervous. I knew it was fine but the fresh parental instinct to stop my baby from drowning was hard to control. Soon after the shoulder came out, that white gravy covered baby was flopping in his mama's arms.

We got cleaned up and let the Grandparents w/Mr. Macphee come in. The Grandma's "oooed" and "awwwed" while taking prohibited flash photography. My Dad told a story of when I pooped in a shoe. Sabin got me a much needed cup of coffee as my own general fatigue was catching up with me. Melanie was taking her victory lap, her energy revitalized and alert, hard to believe she just had a baby looking so good like that.

After lot's of paperwork and mini-baby tutorials with the nurse, we got home around 3am we think. Otis is doing great, making cute little squirrel noises and sleeping like a baby, yup, pun intended.

Much thanks for all the love and support from our families, our super-mega-fantastic friends, and special thanks to the Macphee's for being solid during this whole process.

Love,

Tony Melanie and Otis Stumbaugh

aka Tometis or Melantotis or Otilonie

The Final Stretch

As of today, our baby is considered full term, (thirty seven weeks). Which means if the baby were to arrive today, he/she would be just fine. I'm still feeling really good, a little more tired. Doing simple chores around the house make me need to take breaks after a short period of time. I'm still getting a lot of sleep at night, with minimal interruption. I'm taking advantage of it while I can!

With Xochitl's help, the baby's room is painted. My parents were here last weekend, they were a huge help in getting projects done around the house, including getting the baby's room ready. I'm feeling much better prepared for our baby's arrival. There are very few items left on the list of what we'll need for the first six weeks.
Tony and I have been attending hypnobirthing classes, we have one more next Tuesday. Tony is my birth companion, so it will be up to him to give me hypnosis prompts while I'm in labor. Our hypnobirthing instructor has been amazing and she is very patient with us as we're sometimes not the best students when it comes to homework.

Last weekend a group of about twenty women gathered at our house for my Mother Blessing. Coordinated by Lacie, with help from Jane, it was a lovely night! All the women brought a bead for me. All of the beads are being strung together for me to bring with me to the birth center when I go into labor. This will provide me with support from many wonderful women on our baby's birthing day!

Last month a group of about eighty of our friends and family members gathered in Howarth Park in Santa Rosa for our baby's welcome hootenanny party. Complete with an Aztec Blessing Ceremony (thanks to Nena and Freddy Sanchez) and performances by Jenny Robinson, Jeni Fujita (with George Cochrane) and two dj sets by Sig and Xochitl. A truly magnificent day with yummy food in abundance!

Tony and I are settling in nicely to our new house, it's been just over a month and a half. Still feels a little bit like a dream as we both keep talking about just how much we LOVE it! We still have some projects to complete and decorating to do, but for the most part we're settled in.

Probably won't be posting another blog update until after our baby arrives. So until then...

love,
~melanie (and Tony).

New Jobs, New House, New Trimester

Last Thursday, I entered the third trimester and I believe my belly has increased by almost double since then. My belly is big enough now that I can give the baby light squeezes, which I do on a regular basis. I always thought being able to feel a baby moving inside would be creepy and alien, but it's way cooler than I anticipated, I find it reassuring and fascinating.

I've been asked by multiple people if we're registered anywhere for our baby needs. The registry is listed in our baby hootenanny invite, but maybe it's just too buried. Anyway, here it is:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/baby/1V48M35QFLS3B
AND
Deposit A Gift: http://stumbaughbaby.mydagsite.com/
If you're wanting information about our welcome baby party on October 17th, it can be found on the Deposit A Gift site, under "Event Details" or in the last post on our blog.

Speaking of our registry....
Someone(s) bought our baby their infant car seat and had it sent to our apartment. We have no idea who it came from. Thank you very much to whoever sent it, please let us know who you are so we can properly thank you.

Last Thursday we also signed official loan docs. Our mortgage broker says we're set for funding tomorrow or Wednesday. We'll be getting the keys to our new house on Wednesday or Thursday. I'll spend Thursday and Friday cleaning the house in preparation for our big move on Saturday. So far we haven't received many positive responses for folks being available to help on Saturday, we're sure it will work out though. People are super busy these days, which we totally understand. We have large pieces of furniture that all need to be moved on Saturday, in five different locations. At least all five of those locations are within 45 minutes of our house!

Tony started his job at Whole Foods about a week and a half ago, so far he's loving it! Turns out Whole Foods is a great company to work for. I worked my last day for the landscape architect last Wednesday and am so relieved to be working full time from home now.

We went to an exceptionally beautiful wedding in Mendocino County on Saturday. Congratulations Matt and Leila Madrone! Their ceremony was genuine, heartfelt and very emotional. Still feeling extremely honored to have been present. Wow!!!!

I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that we need to take care of before our baby arrives, kind of makes my head swim...wish us luck!

love,
~melanie (and tony).

Welcome Baby Stumbaugh Hootenanny

The evite for our baby's welcoming party was sent out by Xochitl today, but just in case you have a difficult time with evite or something screwy happened and you didn't receive it. Here's all the details. If you want to come, either rsvp on the evite or send an email to: orangemelon@gmail.com

Welcome Baby Stumbaugh Hootenanny and Country Potluck!

Sunday October 17, 2010
Starting at 1pm
Ending at 5pm

It's a potluck, please bring something to share and let us know what you're bringing so we don't end up with ten versions of potato salad or a ton of hummus.

Here's the link to the potluck spreadsheet:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AmNoBrlyi9uRdDBwWEk1RFhpQVF1U2RZV0E5TC0ta2c&hl=en&authkey=CPC-x_oB

If you'd rather not deal with the google spreadsheet, send an email to Melissa at melissimo@gmail.com, letting her know what you'd like to bring and she'll update the spreadsheet for you.

Please mark your dish if it fits into any "special needs" food categories (vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, etc.), thank you!

We're encouraging everyone to bring their own plates/bowls/cups/utensils, for the sake of the environment. We will have some extras on hand, but please bring your own and if you happen
to have some extra camp meal necessities and wouldn't mind bringing them, that would be great too! If you do bring your own for sharing, please write your name on the bottom just in case we need to return them to you.

There won't be any games...aside from bocce on the massive lawn! If you have other lawn type games, please feel free to bring them. You won't be subjected to any "baby shower" type games.

There will be music, djs and a performance or two.

Children are welcome and encouraged to come! There's an amazing playground very close to the picnic site.

Here's where it's taking place:

Howarth Park
Gazebo Picnic Site
630 Summerfield Road
Santa Rosa

If you've never been to Howarth Park, check out their website:
http://ci.santa-rosa.ca.us/departments/recreationandparks/parks/cityparks/neparks/Pages/howarthpark.aspx

More than anything we want our family and friends to join us for a celebratory day in the park!

If you feel so inclined to help out with our baby needs, we are registered at the following two sites:

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/baby/1V48M35QFLS3B
AND
Deposit A Gift: http://stumbaughbaby.mydagsite.com/

Can you believe it's been over two years?

Tony and I started looking for a house to purchase back in March of 2008. We started off looking in the Santa Cruz mountains and after figuring out there's not much in the Santa Cruz area in our price range, we did some major soul searching and decided to try our luck living in Sonoma County. We've been looking in the Santa Rosa area for almost a year and a half and finally...

Our mortgage broker gave us the green light on giving our 30-day notice at our apartment today, which we did. Looks like we're moving into our new house midway through this month. We're scheduling our big move for the weekend of September 25-26. If anyone out there is interested, able and available that weekend, we could sure use some help! I'm not going to be of much assistance in this move as I won't be able to lift many boxes. This will be the first time all of our belongings (which are currently in five different locations) will be housed in the same place for over a year and a half! If you're interested and available, please let one of us know, we'll provide some beer and food to those who volunteer their time to our worthy cause.

There's some minor work that needs to be done to our new house, painting, floors (master bath needs new tiles and living room hardwood floors need to be sanded and possibly stained?), minor electrical, minor plumbing. If you are skilled in these ways or know someone reputable and reasonably priced who is, please let us know.

After working for Beckmanns Bakery since the beginning of 2003, Tony is moving on! He's accepted a position at the Whole Foods in Petaluma as the Bakery Team Leader. He starts next week. We're very excited about him having a local job, not making the two and a half hour commute down to Santa Cruz and he won't be gone from home two to three days a week. He's sad to be leaving Beckmanns, they've been great to him and us. He's happy to be taking on a new challenge career-wise.

Not much has changed in our pregnant world. I'm still feeling good. My belly's getting bigger and my passenger is still cruising around like crazy. What else can I say?

The evite for our welcome baby party will be sent out by Xochitl this weekend. If you're evite "challenged" be on the lookout for a blog post coming soon with all the details.

Until then...
Here we are at Plunge two weekends ago...



love,
~melanie (and tony).

But wait, there's more...

I'll be 24 weeks pregnant tomorrow. Things are going great in the pregnancy world. The baby is kicking and cruising around like mad. Tony was finally able to feel the baby action the other morning. I'm to the point now it feels "normal." I've heard from many moms and pregnant women that are further along that the movement only gets more and more intense from here. Last Friday Tony and I went in for our ultrasound. It's the only one we're planning on having done. It was a truly amazing experience, so cool getting to see the baby! Our ultrasound technician was extremely knowledgeable and pleasant. I felt elated during and after the experience, a feeling of a large weight being lifted off my shoulders, finding out that all is groovy with our baby. I'm so excited to meet him/her (nope still didn't find out the sex). It's so crazy how much is going inside that belly of mine.


The date that the bank had set for the short sale we've been waiting on to close escrow was September 13th. Which means, we should have heard something by August 13th about them moving forward. Well, we still haven't heard anything. Two weeks ago Tony and I went to see a house in Rincon Valley, which for those of you that aren't familiar with neighborhoods in Santa Rosa, it's one of the nicer neighborhoods heading further east out toward Sonoma, really good school district. The house was listed a bit out of our price range, so I didn't really get my hopes up about it, thinking there's no way they'd accept any offer we'd be able to afford. The house was brand new on the market, so we waited about a week and put in an offer. They countered, we countered back...the countering back happened last Friday. We heard on Monday that they accepted our offer. Our agent came over on Monday night and we signed all kinds of official paperwork. They now have our official paperwork and the title company has our deposit check. The home inspection is scheduled for next Friday. We'll see where it goes, but things are looking promising on this one. At least it's not a short sale! Maybe we'll be having a house warming and welcome baby stumbaugh gathering at our new house...let's hope!


I've officially been laid off from my office manager job with the landscape architect in Sebastopol, which honestly, is a relief. It looks like I'll be able to pick up more hours with Yourdictionary.com, so I think I'll be fine. I've also filed for unemployment.

Tomorrow we're leaving for Plunge! Three and a half days at Camp and Sons, looking forward to seeing and spending a relaxing time with many of you there... Tony and I celebrate our six year anniversary this Saturday while at Plunge, I can't believe it's been six years. He's still my most favorite person!

Our Welcome Baby Stumbaugh Hootenanny and Country Potluck is coming up in less than two months, October 17th. Xochitl will be sending an evite soon, if you don't receive it and you're wanting to attend, please let me or Tony know.

More soon...until then, we hope you're all doing wonderfully!!!

love,
~melanie (and tony).

18 Weeks and Counting...

It's been awhile since we've updated our blog. Now that we have bigger news to share these days, it seems the appropriate time to do so.

As many or all of you know, I (Melanie, not Tony) am pregnant. I guess Tony is pregnant in a way too, since he has to tolerate and support my various aches, needs, food cravings, food aversions, mood swings, body image issues, anxieties, etc. The baby is due on December 9th, I'll be 19 weeks on Thursday. So far my pregnancy has been relatively easy. I was exhausted the first trimester and couldn't really eat many vegetables, they just sounded terrible to me, but never vomited. Now that I'm in the second trimester much of my energy has returned and almost all of my food aversions have gone away, hooray! Pregnancy brain has begun and my short term memory isn't at 100%. Also with the second trimester, the baby bump has appeared, which you can see in the above photo.

We haven't had an ultrasound done yet, but will be getting one in a couple of weeks. So many people have asked if we're going to find out the sex of the baby, we are NOT going to find out. It will be a surprise. With that we're also keeping any name ideas to ourselves. I feel very lucky to have timed our pregnancy with my second trimester during the summer. We're looking forward to our non-traditional baby "shower" hootenanny on October 17th and hopeful that many of our friends and family will be able to attend.

Tony and I moved into an apartment in Santa Rosa two weeks ago. It's nice to be in our own space again after staying with friends and family for the past year and a half (thank you Sabin, Xochitl, Gerry and Laurel). Our new address is: 1165 Evans Drive, Santa Rosa, CA 95405. We'll be at this address until October 1st at the latest. We're still waiting to hear about the short sale that we've been in contract on since February 25th. The first time home buyers tax credit has been extended until September 30th, for those that were in contract prior to the deadline of April 30th. Which we were, so if the short sale goes through (and we're hopeful it will), we'll still get the tax credit. In the meantime, we've started looking at other houses in the Santa Rosa area, since there's less competition out there on the housing market now that the April 30th deadline has passed. Our new deadline for entering into official 30-day escrow on this short sale (or another house that we fall in love with) is September 1st. If we're not in official 30-day escrow by then, we'll be finding a house in Santa Rosa to rent long term. I have nesting to do!

Tony is still working for Beckmann's, driving down to Santa Cruz on Tuesday mornings and coming home on Thursday, working from home a couple days a week and driving out to bay area farmers markets on the weekends to train his employees. I'm still working as an office manager for the landscape architect in Sebastopol four days a week. Which is likely going to either end or get drastically reduced soon, since his business isn't doing so hot. I started working from home about a month ago for yourdictionary.com fifteen to twenty hours a week, so far I dig it and am hopeful it will go to full time or close to, so that when the baby comes I'll have a work-from-home job.

Other than being pregnant, moving, looking at houses and working, we've been keeping ourselves busy with our usual summer outings and planning the first fundraiser for the Out There Project (with the other six members), called Plunge.

Hope life is treating you all well and we'd love to see you soon!

We'll be updating our blog more regularly and they'll likely be shorter posts.

love,
~melanie.
(and tony)