The man of the hours (36 hours to be exact)

Here is the journey we went on to meet our new Little Man. It's a pretty long story but has a great ending! I put in pictures throughout so think of it like a picture book:)

It all started last Thursday August 5th when Tim and I went in for a regular 38 week check up. My blood pressure looked good upon arrival but my urine sample had a +4 protein content in it (very abnormal is +5) so the doctor was not very happy about that. He was worried that I was showing signs of preclampsia which is a condition pregnant moms get that can lead to seizures. Not good. So he checked my blood pressure again, and it was through the roof. Next thing Tim and I knew the doctor was calling labor and delivery to see if they had a room for me. At this point I was not dilated at all and the baby was still high. The night before I had been feeling pretty intense contractions so Tim and I brought our hospital/baby bag and we boarded Bouncer at Tim's office just in case we were going to have to stay. Good thing we did because within a half hour of the appointment we were admitted to the hospital. It was a pretty intense mix of emotions. I was crying because within minutes it was decided for us that we were going to have our baby and finally get to meet him/her.

To lower my blood pressure they pumped me with a bolus of Magnesium. This pic was taken before the drugs took effect. That Magnesium does not make you feel very well and makes you feel very groggy.

At this point in the process we were still excited motivated and had a positive outlook on how our labor and delivery would go.

Can you tell that my Magnesium has kicked in? Once it did it was sleepy time for me. Tim tried to sleep but was too anxious to get any real rest not to mention the hospital "Dad Bed" was VERY uncomfortable. Anyone looking to make lots of money could get a patten on a compact comfortable hospital bed for expecting dads.

I think all the emotions and intensity of everything happening put me into labor because once I was admitted to the hospital I was one centimeter dilated. The worst part of the Magnesium was that it slows the labor process. So the doctors decided to start me on Petocin to continue and hopefully speed up my labor. At this point my contractions were manageable so we continued on without an epidural. It was hard to stay positive about the whole situation just because we had been in the hospital so long. We were hearing moms going through labor and new babies being born all around us. It was mentally hard to stay focused on us and positive. The next day the contractions started getting more intense so at some point we got an epidural. The time frame is a little fuzzy for me since I was pretty drugged up. The Magnesium was starting to work and lowered my blood pressure so they put me on a less intense dosage which also helped to speed up the contractions. Around 6 or 7 pm I was 8 centimeters dilated and totally effaced so they started to get ready for baby time! Tim and I were excited to have some hope that we would get to see our baby by the nights end! There was finally an end in sight! However we were both exhausted by the time for pushing. After about an hour of pushing the doctor let us know part of my cervix had not soften and was holding the baby's head back and that is why we weren't progressing. To spare you the gross details lets just say that she went in manually and tried to help things out a bit. OUCH! Since that didn't work she gave me more drugs told me to relax for an hour and she would come back and try again. At this point I was soooo done and just wanted to meet our baby! When the doctor came back we had the same results so we were all in agreement that we were going to go to the operating room for a C-Section. The positive thing about the whole situation was that the baby was healthy throughout the whole process.

I think the hardest part of the whole C-Section process was leaving Tim while I was in pre-op. We were both crying. The ironic part was that Tim had to put scrubs on his day off.

Jackson Riley Helms born at 10:54 pm on August 6, 2010 weighing in at 8 lbs. 2 oz. and 21 inches long. The top of his poor head was the only part of him that braved the birth canal, can you tell? Don't worry it has rounded out!

Second family picture. Good thing new born babies can't see well at first, or else he may want a new mom that doesn't look like such a drug addict.

I'm feeling more alert and so was he. We did some skin to skin bonding after the long ordeal. Some pics of us getting to know our new Little Man. Love him so much!

Jackson waving hi to the new outside the womb world. So cute!

The day after Jackson was born my mom, dad, and Taylor came up to meet little Jackson. It was so good to have family there at the hospital. Everyone naturally fit into their roles as Auntie and Grandma and Grandpa (or Grand-dude as we call dad). I think they are all in love!

Finally after about four days in the hospital we were able to go home on Monday morning. We were so excited to go home with our new baby boy and to start out as a family on our own. Here is Jackson in his super cute going home outfit.

Our new perfect little family!

Despite the intense labor and delivery process it was totally worth it! Tim and I couldn't be more blessed, we love everything about Jackson. So cliche but the amount of love we have for him is indescribable.

36 Weeks and Ready to be DONE!

Hi All,

Well we have seemed to stay pretty busy this last week and a half.

Tim started his first day of work on July 12th. He was going to be oriented the first day of work, but the lady who was supposed to train him on the new computer system was not available until the afternoon so they opened up his schedule and he started taking cases after lunch. Needless to say he worked until about 11pm finishing up his records. Nothing like jumping in on the first day. By Thursday he left the clinic at 8pm. Quick learner, hopefully that time continues to decrease:)

That week while Tim was starting work in Ukiah, I was at home in Davis finishing up my job. I passed all my cases over to the new Behavior Consultant and on Thursday the ladies at work threw me a baby shower/going away party. I was sad to go but I am sure that once the little one comes it will make me not working a lot easier to digest. For the last few months at work we have been working on a new website. We taught a few of our clients this dance and then taped them. The client at the end (who says raise the roof) was one of mine and you can see me with some of my other clients throughout the video (the little girl with the pig tales was also one of my clients). Very cute! http://hopeconsulting.net/homepage.html

This was from a co-worker I thought it was pretty funny and cute

Tim came home to Davis Thursday night after work and on Friday we spent all day packing up the house and cleaning so that we could move out on Saturday. By Saturday night I was exhausted and my feet looked like I had Elephantitis (super swollen, cankles to the MAX!) We had officially moved to Ukiah after living in Davis for 10 years! I cried several times Friday and Saturday knowing that we were leaving, but I am excited to start our new life in Ukiah. I think I cried the most when we had to say by to our dear friend Ben (who had called me all week long to make sure I was ok home alone without Tim). If you don't like weird looking stuff then scroll down fast and don't look at the next picture.

This is what happens when you are tired and have lots of packing tape around. I'm pretty convinced that I am giving birth to a basketball.

Getting gas before leaving Davis. Nice pack job Tim. We look like hillbillies. We are just missing the rocking chair on the roof.

I feel like a hoarder living out of my car.

Sunday Tim and I drove down to Santa Rosa to visit the hospital where we will be having the baby. It was a nice facility, although it was not new like the one we visited in Roseville. Santa Rosa will be opening their new birthing center in October, go figure. Like Tim said you can just keep the baby in until October. That did not go over well. After that we stopped at a few furniture stores to pick up some necessary items, a couch, desk, and dresser. We ended up buying a couch, an ottoman, and a desk. We will have to rearrange our layout to accommodate the huge couch we bought (I think we were tired when we bought it!). We still need to buy a dresser, because all our clothes are in plastic bags or cardboard boxes.

New couch. The first piece of "adult" furniture we have bought, not from Craigslist!

Cute little corner desk!

Tim has been working all week long. He works four ten hour days so today is his Friday! Yeah! He has been working pretty long days since he is still getting used to everything. I have been very busy unpacking everything. It has been pretty frustrating trying to unpack while preggo! Normal me would have everything done by now but preggo me has to work for an hour and then sit for an hour. So it has been slow going but we are almost all unpacked.

Kitchen unpacked and finished!

Thursday I headed down to Santa Rosa for my 36 week appointment. Doctor said everything is looking good. I got to see the baby again on ultrasound. Head is down and heart is beating strong. Not dilated yet and Doctor said "baby is still a mile high up there". Not what I wanted to hear! At least everything is looking healthy! I will start doing every wives tale to get this baby out next Wednesday since that is when we are full term.

As if we didn't have enough going on we left on Friday to drive down to Thousand Oaks for a wedding. Greg, Tim's elementary school buddy (also one of Tim's groomsmen) was getting married and Tim was a groomsman so we headed down there for a great wedding. The wedding was at a family farm under a walnut tree grove. Very pretty. The bride and groom looked beautiful! Congrats Greg and Brook!

Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Baird! So happy and what a beautiful couple!

Joan/Grandma Helms, Tim and I (the whale)

Alright I think that is it for now. We will keep you posted! Off to walk the dog up a BIG hill, come on body it is baby time!

Our House

We had a great 4th of July. Started the day out with a BLT sandwich and slept in:) Can't beat that! Then we braved the heat and walked to downtown Davis to watch the criterion bike race they always have. We arrived just in time to see one of our old teammates win the Category 3 race. I hung in there and survived the two mile round trip walk in 95+ degree heat! Don't worry we stopped for some frozen yogurt while we were downtown. A little motivation for me! Once we got back to the house we then packed up and went to our friends house in Sacramento for a BBQ. It was great to see old FAGS (former Aggie greats) that we haven't seen in a while. We then came home to madness on our street! Davis shoots off it's fireworks in the park directly across the street from our house so parking in front of our house is prime on the 4th of July. Luckly we had our driveway spot open. We came home, "saved" Bouncer, who HATES fireworks and sat on our front porch to watch an awesome show.

I had Monday off. Instead of resting we spent most of the day packing up the house and cleaning since we had our walk through scheduled on Tuesday to get our security deposit back. We did get all our money back! YEAH! And we quickly turned around to put that security deposit down for our new house in Ukiah.

On Tuesday Mom and Dad came up to help Tim load up the cars to take our first load up to Ukiah. Since I am pretty much worthless in the whole lifting department I went to a Doctor's appointment to check on how Baby is doing. Everything checked out great, except I have put on a little more weight this time than I have been! Better lay off the ice cream and frozen yogurt! I think most of it is water weight since my feet, hands, legs, face are all swollen. As soon as the weather got hot I started retaining LOTS of fluid. Like Taylor said so nicely "you are baking bread in your shoes!" Time to start elevating the feet and drinking more water. Doctor said the heart beat is perfect and the baby is still facing downward ready to come out. I am ready for that to happen:)

Here are some pics of the new place. It is a very cute 2 bedroom 1 bath house with a nice storage shed in the back. Tim likes to call it his "man cave"

Front of the house 805 West Mill Street

Our hunky mover, thanks dad (and mom) for all your help!

Us with the car packed to the max excited to move into the new place!

Most important room of the house the bathroom

Looking in from the front door into the dining room/back door

Looking in from the dining room into the kitchen/laundry room

Looking from the front door to the right living room

Front bedroom will be our bedroom

We didn't take a picture of the back bedroom cause it was full of all of the stuff we moved. It looks alot like this room just a little smaller, perfect for the baby. The bathroom sits inbetween the two rooms and is located to the left of the front door.

We love it and it will be a perfect start for our first place in Ukiah. This weekend Tim is doing another Tri in San Francisco on Saturday and then on Sunday we will both meet in Mountain View for our neice and nephew's baptism. Tim will then go straight up to Ukiah with another load of stuff and he starts work on Monday July 12. So exciting to say that Tim will start WORK! No more schoool! I will head back up to Davis for my last week of work! WOW! Then the weekend of the 16th we will clean our place in Davis and pack up the last of our stuff to move to Ukiah on Sunday the 18th. It is amazing that we will be leaving Davis after having lived here for 10 years. Time to leave the nest! More to come, hopefully the baby waits to come until we are settled in our new place!

Happy 4th of July

Happy fourth of July! We hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday!
Tim has been busy all week packing up the rest of the house that can be packed. Poor guy! I have been working trying to wrap everything up so that the new person taking over my cases is up to date and ready to take my kiddos. I don't look forward to the week of the 12th when I have to say goodbye to my amazing families and kids!
Yesterday we spent all day long (9-5) in Roseville at our labor and delivery class. Despite the fact that we had to sacrifice a weekend day we actually had a good time. It was nice to be around other preggo's and the teacher was very engaging and entertaining. Nothing like watching video's of live births at 9am on a Saturday morning. We learned all about labor and delivery processes at Kaiser and what options we had. It was a great opportunity to ask questions and get a chance to practice everything we learned. At the end of the day we did a mock "labor" that lasted a whole hour (hope our labor goes that fast, YEAH RIGHT!) and practiced all the positions we had learned about to "deal with" contractions. I loved this part of the day, because I got lay there breathing while Tim massaged me. I am sure that I won't enjoy it as much when it is the "real deal".
Today we are going to head to Sacramento to our friends house for a BBQ and then come back to our place for fireworks. All we have to do is lay a blanket out on our front lawn since Davis has their fireworks show in the park across the street from our house. Pretty easy and convenient! It's amazing how much can change in a year. Last year we had a huge "White Trash" party at our house and this year will be a much quieter event, I'm sure I will be in bed by 10:30. HA!
Tuesday we are heading up to Ukiah to sign the lease and take the first load of stuff to our new house. My mom and dad are coming up to help us and take a car full of stuff. Thank goodness for them, because as we are packing we are realizing how much stuff we have! Next week I can post pics of the new place and it's amazing kitchen!
Hope you all have a great 4th of July weekend!
Love,
Jessica, Tim and Baby

Coming down to the end

Despite the fact that at this point I am VERY pregnant we have not slowed down one bit. My body is telling me to do so on a daily basis. After the Graduation Extravaganza weekend, we did have a more relaxing weekend. We made a trip up to Ukiah to look at some of the houses we were interested in and found two that we liked.

Me at 32 weeks pregnant

The first house we looked at was owned by a couple who are customers of Mendicino Animal Hospital (Tim's new work). We were very excited to learn that their names were Yoli and Eagle (very hippie!) and we tried really hard not to laugh upon meeting them. They owned a really charming 2 bedroom 1 bath house very close to downtown on the westside of town (the most desirable side of town). The house was small and older but they selling point was that they did have a full inlaw studio in the back with it's own kitchen and bathroom, great for visiting grandparents, family and friends.

We looked at a few other houses with a relator, some complete with their own grow room. Ha! Good old Ukiah! If you don't know Mendicino County is known for it's production of marajuana. Tim says that often people will come into the hospital and pay in cash for $3,000 dollar surgeries. At least they are getting the money up front?
The last house we looked at was also on the west side. They had just put it up for rent and we were the first ones to look at it. It was an ADORABLE 2 bedroom 1 bath with a big storage shed in the back (about the size of a one car garage). The selling point for me on this one was that it was completely renovated. We would have to do no work to fix it up we could just move in. And for us right now that is what we wanted. New hard wood floors, brand new kitchen with new appliances (fridge, front loading washer and dryer, etc) Oh and it had a DISHWASHER! I was in love. It also has vaulted ceilings, very cute. The only problem was the owner didn't allow pets. Poor Bouncer:( So we put in an application anyways and waited to hear back from them. A week later we found out we had the house! YEAH!!! Our new address will be 805 West Mill Street Ukiah CA!

The same day we found out we got the house was our 3 year anniversary. Happy anniversary to us! Tim took me out to dinner at Morton's Steakhouse. We had an awesome three course surf and turf dinner (no surf for me) and finished it off with amazing dessert, hot chocolate cake and Creme brulee! YUM! All week long Tim was being pretty sneaky while I was at work. As we were leaving to go to the resturant he surprised me with a small box from the place where he bought my wedding ring. It was a neckalace with a pendent in the birthstone for our baby, peridot for August. It is beautiful and my most favorite color lime green! Then at the resturant he had another surprise at the table (same little box) with matching ring in it, since my fingers are now too fat to fit into my wedding ring. What an amazing guy! This baby better be born in August!

On Thursday I went home to Martinez because I had agreed (before I was pregnant) to be the sole wedding planner for a friend's wedding on Friday. The party went off without any problems and it was a beautiful wedding! However, let this be a lesson to you: DON'T coordinate a wedding when you are 8 months pregnant! NOT FUN! I was so tired by the end! Thanks mom for helping me with some of the flower arrangements I agreed to make:)

Outside arrangements I made

(there were 8 of them, simple as they look they took a while to make)

Saturday my mom and Yvonne (a college teammate of mine) planned and hosted an amazing baby shower for me! It was beautiful! We had tons of good food and a great time talking and playing shower games. Thanks ladies for an wonderful shower! Taylor did a great job taking pictures.

The amazing spread of food. A pregnant ladies dream!

The adorable favors Yvonne made!

Meredith getting her "tummy time"

Taylor's totally cute diaper cake

The new Snap n Go stroller from Ang, Mike, Carter, and Rileigh

Taylor and I in our long dresses

Mom, Dad, and I

Then if my weekend was not busy enough we had our garage sale on Sunday in 100 degree heat! UGH! I only made it through about half of that and then retreated to the air conditioned house. It was a slow morning but towards the afternoon we made more sales. Ben our friend brought some stuff over too so he kept Tim company. By 3 they had had enough of the weather so they put up a sign saying "honor system garage sale, take what you want and slide whatever amount you feel is appropriate through the mail slot in the door". It was an interesting social experiment, pulling at the conscience of people. We actually made quite a bit of money this way (around $70) considering we just wanted the crap on our front lawn gone and didn't care if we made money off of it. Overall the garage sale was a great success we made almost 500 bucks!

Later that night I was so hot and tired I thought Tim was going to have to drive me to the hospital. I was having long contractions some of them a little painful. After drinking some water and going to sleep early I felt fine. The next day we quickly got our hosptial bag ready just in case!

Hello ALL!

We have some exciting updates!

Our neice Rileigh Madison Helms was born on June 2nd at 10:13 PM. She weighed 6lbs, 6 oz, and was 19.5 inches tall. Here she is at 9 days old.



Also......Tim graduated from Vet School!!!!!!! After 10 years in Davis he is no longer a UCDavis student.

The ceremony was last friday the 11th. We had alot of close family up, with a BBQ at our place following. Later in the evening we had friends over to celebrate Dr. Helms' graduation, our move to Ukiah, and of course BABY HELMS!

The following day, Jim and Jessie threw a BBQ graduation party at their home in Martinez. We had 5 Graduates to celebrate. Dr. Tim, Maggie from Stanford (Jessica's Cousin), Carlos from High School (Maggies younger brother), John-Mark from UC Merced (Taylor's BF), and Taylor from dental assistant school (Jessica's litl sister). It was a great party!




THE GRADS




Here is Dr. Tim practicing dad skills and scaring his nephew Carter with his weird hat.


As if we did not have enough going that weekend, Team HORSECOW BLAZING SADDLES HOT RACING had a triathlon to race Sunday the 13th. Tim's mom Joan, Jessica and Tim crashed at Litl' brother Andrew's bachelor pad in San Jose to wake at 4:45 sunday morning for the tri. Pregnant lady and Mom were so happy to be rushed out of the house to go watch a triathlon. This race was the debut of HORSECOW's formal wear. It was a huge success. The team did well, but Captain Steve Garza did end up taking top HORSECOW of the day. He got Tim by 30 seconds. The team as a whole did quite well, and had a great time most importantly.




Speaking of BABY HELMS, there is only 6 weeks until Jessica is full term! Ready or not.... Maeanna or Jackson is coming very soon, and in spite of our efforts to ward off too many baby gifts before we move, our guest room is filling quickly with parafanalia. That baby better appreciate it when his/her dad throws his back out moving us to Ukiah!

Our last baby appointment went very well. The heart rate was a comfortable 140 bpm, and the babies head is down preparing to line up for the pitch. Jessica has been felling pretty good all things considered. WE have been x-tremely busy and she is handling it like a champ, swollen feet and all. Our next few baby classes and appointments will take place out here, but we will be moving in mid July, so we will start seeing doctors at Santa Rosa Kaiser at that point. We are currently working all the details on that out. Ukiah is one hour north of Santa Rosa. 40-45 minutes when expectant father is driving.


Here is Jessica at 31 weeks...Looking good preggy Mama!

Jessica's "Girls Only" Baby Shower is rapidly approaching on June 26th. She is looking forward to it very much, so get excited ladies!

Love you all.
Tim and Jessica

Ukiah is Haiku backwards....

Big news! We have finally decided where we will be for the next year (at least). Tim has officially accepted a position in Ukiah, CA (very, very northern tip of wine country and the start of the redwoods). He will be an associate Doctor at Mendicino Animal Hospital. You can check out the website at http://www.mendocinoanimalhospital.net/ . There are currently four associate Doctors at the hospital and Tim will be the fifth. The hospital is a full service veterinary clinic for canine, feline, and smaller animals. Tim is excited to use his medicine skills but is even more exited to be one of the two Doctors interested in surgery. He starts on July 12, pretty exciting!

I will be ending my job in the middle of July. I have had some bittersweet endings these last two weeks. Four of my kiddo's at work have graduated into less restrictive programs or don't require services any longer. So I guess it means that I have done my job, it's just sad thinking that I won't see them on a weekly basis. As for my future I will quickly move into the role as MOM! I won't need to work (excluding the whole mom business which is a 24/7 job), unless I want to which is rare in this day and age. Tim and I are very fortunate and grateful that we can make that happen. So we are both looking forward to starting our new family in Ukiah, CA! We will miss Davis, having lived here for 10 years now!

Other than that not much else to update on. We went for our first "baby class" last Thursday. We got some information about Kaiser hospitals and how their services work. We also got to tour the hospital. The only problem is is that we toured the hospital we would be using if we were staying in Davis (the appointment was set before we knew we would be moving). We decided to go anyways. It is a beautiful brand new facility in Roseville, CA. Too bad we are moving, it was sooo nice! As we were leaving to go see the birthing suites a poor lady was being wheeled into the her suite. As much as she tried to smile she was in some major pain. I told Tim that they should really take that part out of the tour! We will have to set up another tour at the Santa Rosa Kaiser where we will be delivering. I hope that hospital is as nice as the Roseville one.

We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Anchondo family (my cousins and Aunt and Uncle) who are driving in from Texas this week. They will be staying with my parents for a few weeks to partake in this whole Graduation Extravaganza! Their daughter Maggie is graduating from Stanford the Sunday after Tim graduates. So we will be having a weekend long graduation celebration. Can't wait! More updates to come.

Here is the most recent preggy pic. I am slowly turning into the human torpedo.

29 weeks! (don't laugh at my Crocs they are the only comfy shoe I have!)

Oh and Tim got his cap and gown so of course poor Bouncer fell victim to that.

He's normally so happy and excited, I wonder why he looks so pissed?