Good Will O'Grady

It's a boy!!
William (Will) Gordon O'Grady was born last week at 6lbs and 19.25inches. I was a little surprised to find out that all of those kicks and jabs were coming from a little boy and not a little girl -- what fun to not know until the last minute!

Labor was trying. I consider my wife one of the strongest and most noble people I will ever know. She started having contractions on Saturday afternoon. They were pretty mild, and not overly painful, and we went to bed excited that we may be waking up soon to go to the hospital. About 1:30 or so, a couple of house after we went to bed, Megan woke me up to say that the contractions were stronger and hitting in a more regular pattern. We started timing them, and in a couple of hours they were lasting about a minute and coming 4-6 minutes apart -- so we knew it was time to go. Steve and Jan had just arrived home from the funeral of Megan's Grandfather (Gordon Cornwell) and were spending the night with us. They decided to meet us at the hospital.

By around 3:30am we checked into our birthing suite. We had a TERFFIC nurse who monitored how things were going. The contractions were in Megan's back and were incredibly painful. Before long the doula arrived. After about an hour or two in the hospital, the contractions became incredibly painful, so much so that Megan threw up, but she was not dilating. At that point we had the option of staying in the hospital, partly because Megan had passed her due date, or going home. We were told she could be in this stage of labor for several days, which to me seemed unbearable. Staying in the hospital would have increased the potential of medical intervention (breaking the water, giving Pitocin, etc) so Megan opted to go home, as our intention was to try as much as possible to have a natural birth. She was given an Ambian and we were advised that when she woke up her labor would be stalled or have turned in truly active labor (dilating her cervix).

The Ambian put Megan to sleep, but she woke up for every contraction. At this point they varied between 6-11 minutes and lasted a minute long, and she was in excruciating pain for several more hours. Since we had not slept much the previous night, I laid next to her and in between contractions we would wake up and I would apply counter pressure to her back during the contractions to try and help.

After about 6 hours of this, we realized the pain was intolerable and decided to head back to the hospital. I encouraged Megan to get whatever she needed to alleviate the pain, since it was so constant for so many hours.

To speed the story up: we got to the hospital, and Megan seemed to relax a bit more for an hour or so. The contractions continued as they had been, but she seemed more at peace being there. When examined, we found that the contractions all day Sunday had dilated her two centimeters, putting her officially into 'active labor' and she decided to try to go another few hours without drugs.

Jen Lux, our amazing doula, was present and amazing throughout the entire hospital stay. She knew how to support Megan, talk her through the pain, encourage positions that sped along the contractions, and generally guided Megan and I through the process better than I could have ever imagined. Before long, we knew we were getting close. Jen pushed Megan to try a couple of other positions and after that and a stint in the tub, it was time to push.

Megan endured these final stages with more grace, strength and courage that I believe I will ever have. It was amazing to see the plates of our little son's head emerge slowly and then come together as he entered the world. There was so much commotion the few seconds after he arrived that I couldn't see what I needed in order to announce the gender to Megan -- and then the doctor held his legs to confirm the fact -- he's all boy!

The doctor and nursing staff were unbelievably amazing. The nurse the helped us through the last four hours or so told us that it was a privilege to be a part of our birth, because of how strong Megan was and how we all were able to work as a team.

William is Megan's maternal grandpa who would have been 100 the day that Megan started having contractions (Sat) and Gordon is her paternal grandpa who just passed away.

We are in love with our little Will.

GRACE

The past few weeks I feel like Megan and I have been basting in what is surely more daily recommended stress than the FDA would ever allow. Or the APA. Or whoever recommends those things. Poor Peanut will probably end up being a nervous Nelly/Nelson because of his/her parents.

The stress was amped up in early June, when we were originally set to close on our East Harlem apartment, but there was a last minute delay regarding an insurance policy (the building was covered under an umbrella policy and Fannie Mae wanted it to have an individual policy). We spent weeks emailing the building management company, board president, lawyers, realtors, and bank agents trying to get the issue resolved. In the meantime, we had finally found a house that we both really liked (nice amount of space for the moula, good schools, a backyard, great neighbors) – and we found ourselves in a bidding war less than a week after the house went on the market. The seller was already out of the state and wanted to dump it – AKA GREAT DEAL. So we made an offer, contingent upon the sale of our NYC place (because we needed the cash from that sale in order to buy something else), and we hoped and prayed the NYC apt issues would be resolved before the dates in our contract expired on the Denver house.

Our offer was accepted. However, as it turned out, no one in NYC seemed to care that we would lose our Colorado home if they didn’t resolve the insurance issue on the Harlem apartment. Or that Megan was 9 months pregnant and desperately wanting to settle before the baby came. (She DID shed some tears during a couple of phone calls in the hopes that we could win a sympathy vote from someone.) We were on the phone and/or email daily, sometimes hourly – trying to move the process along. It wasn’t like herding elephants, exactly – more like herding…stubborn, lazy, illiterate elephants. Who can’t write a coherent email. Everyone blamed someone else throughout the entire ordeal (the lawyers blamed the management company for being stubborn, stupid, and slow, the management company didn’t believe the banks and refused to change their policy, the board president didn’t want to make a hasty decision that would cost the building more money, and we blamed EVERYONE (except the board president) for being incompetent, incapable of writing a grammatical sentence in any of their emails, and generally unresponsive to our daily pleas for help.

The cherry on top of all of this for me was that, on the job front, I had to close out the entire year’s financials (over 6 million dollars for 4 entities) in less than two weeks, so that our auditors could come to our office for our annual audit – my first solo audit in any job. The audit is probably the single most significant part of my yearly responsibilities in this position, and I was terrified I was going to be fired for not doing something correctly.

= TOO MUCH STRESS.

I think everything culminated on Saturday the 16th. Megan and I had a pretty good fight (that seemed to wax and wane over several hours.) I was angry all day at everything and Megan cried all day at everything. By dinner we decided to go on a date and we had a nice long talk about what was and wasn’t working in our lives – and how to communicate better in the midst of our stress. Then we went to Harry Potter 3D. Things seemed to take a turn for the better after this. That Elder wand really is something.

Because of God (probably the biggest reason) and our prodding all day long every day (probably the smaller reason), we got a closing date set on the NYC apartment for Tuesday July 19th. Our closing date for the CO house was set for Thursday, July 21st (we never adjusted it from our original offer). Everyone was nervous. There seemed to be obstacles at every turn. The majority of our funds were held in an online HSBC account, and we were initially told that we could not access those funds for well over a week (too late). A second call, in which I spoke with a non-Indian employee, revealed that we could have a certified check over-nighted to us if we paid the Fedex fee (no problem!) Our NYC lawyer refused to wire our proceeds from the Harlem apartment after closing – he said it wasn’t possible (?) - so we had to figure out how to turn the funds around quickly once they got here (if you’re ever in this situation, it turns out you can simply sign over a certified check, that is made out to you, to a title company. Who knew?).
NYC closed on Tuesday, as scheduled. Our lawyer over-nighted our check and faxed the HUD statement to the Colorado title company. Our Colorado house closed on Thursday, as scheduled.

As a side note, and further confirmation that we are living in the right place, everyone in Colorado was patient, helpful, supportive, and competent throughout the entire housing ordeal. Their butts were on the line too, and they were nothing but supportive and kind to us. Closing was a breeze and everyone in the room made fun of the incompetent New Yorkers who literally whited out and hand wrote in numbers on the HUD settlement statement. No one understands why funds couldn’t be wired. Our Denver mortgage rep showed up at closing – though there was nothing for him to sign or to do – simply because he is old school, wanted to meet us, and thinks people should interact more. I sometimes miss the city of New York. But most days I remember that in other parts of the country you don’t have to fight for every single thing that in other places are standard. Like kindness. Like people doing more than the bare minimum required in their jobs –even when it doesn’t serve them. Like wiring money and having computer printers print title documents. I think about these things, and then I release a breath of thanks to God that we live in Colorado. Maybe I’m still just high on the altitude.

To continue our week of GRACE – after the two closings Megan’s parents and my aunt Kathy came to our apartment while I was working and boxed 95% of our belongings. At work, our auditors essentially finished in three days, after complimenting me all week and telling me I should train all of their clients. Megan made us a picnic dinner that we ate on the floor of our NEW HOUSE the night after we closed. I accidentally christened the house by spilling champagne in the living room 5 seconds after we sat down. And about 100 strong and capable movers showed up to help us move in 90 degree heat on Saturday. OK, slight exaggeration on the number of movers – but we had so much help that everything was unloaded in the new house in less than 4 hours after we started at the apartment – and that includes the 30 minute drive between the apartment and the house.

Megan and I keep looking around at (what feels like) a cavernous space and laughing giddily to each other about how weird it is to own a real house. We painted and set up our bedroom (before and after pictures may come, if I am motivated enough). I must confess that it was extremely weird to wake up for work the first morning and walk DOWN THE STAIRS to our kitchen to make coffee. It probably didn’t help that I had to look in every single cupboard to find the coffee and filters.

Baby O’Grady still hasn’t come, but when he/she does, we will have a little more room to move around in – and maybe even a nursery set up.

The guest room (we have a REAL GUEST ROOM!) will be the third in line for painting/setting up – so that our friends and family can come visit!

Weekend in Frisco

One of the blessings of living so close to Frisco is that we can come up for the weekend and enjoy all of the great deals during the "in-between" season (or mud season, as they call it here). Yesterday we had a wonderful 2 for 1 dinner at a fancy restaurant, went on a hike, and benefited from awesome deals on some pretty adorable little gender neutral baby clothes. I have to admit that it was fun to see all of the cute baby clothes...until I quickly realized how much money were were about to drop on clothes the baby won't actually wear for very long (at least not the newborn stuff). At one point, when were deciding whether or not to buy a little baby outfit I said, "This is how much I would spend on a shirt for myself!" So in the end we were disciplined in our purchases, and still got some fun and cute stuff.

It was also great to celebrate Megan today for the first time as a 'mom to be.' I had sneakily purchased a card and little gift this week. This morning when I went down to get everything, my brother Joe texted Megan to tell her happy Mother's Day. Apparently Megan replied to him, "Thanks...you get points because Jeremy hasn't even said anything to me today." Ha! I guess he beat me to the draw. After the gift opening we called both of our moms and then we had a nice brunch at the Butterhorn (everyone's favorite local bfast stop on Main Street). Then we benefited from yet another great deal, a handmade Aspen wood shelf that we will use as a changing table. Fun story: yesterday we went into this really cool shop of handcrafted furniture (most of which was significantly out of our price range). Megan saw a beautiful display shelf with a $79 price tag. She sheepishly asked the sales clerk if the price tag was a mistake, and the woman said, "No, we just want to get rid of it. There is nothing wrong with it but we really just don't like it and it doesn't fit with the rest of the furniture we sell here." We came home and thought about it, measured the space in the back of the Prius, decided it would fit and that we would take a look at it again this morning. So after brunch this morning we went back to the store and there was a different sales clerk -- and no price tag on the shelf. Megan started to explain the conversation we had had with the other clerk yesterday and the man seemed a little bit irritated. He said, "well, yesterday that price tag was just sitting on this shelf and it wasn't meant to be the sales price, but because Brandi (the previous clerk) told you it was, we decided we'd let you have it for that if you came back." Score!! So we purchased a beautiful hand made piece of furniture for a couple hundred dollars less than it should have cost.

After the fun purchase we decided to take a walk along Lake Dillon. I'm attaching some pictures of the beautiful scenery and my beautiful wife.

Baby!

We had our second ultrasound today. You can see our little Peanut's profile here. Except for the fact that Peanut would NOT move to show us his/her left hand, everything appears to be in good shape. We collectively decided to interpret the not moving as a sign that he/she really likes to sleep rather than as a sign that we're going to have a stubborn baby. I did take a gander between the legs and I still couldn't tell what I was (or wasn't) seeing. So the gender will remain a mystery!

Because of a huge consignment sale in Denver last week, we also now have a nice little pile of baby stuff accumulating in the corner of our little apartment...bouncy seat, baby carrier, blow up bathtub, changing mat, mini-diaper bag. We also bought this:




As you can tell, we're very excited and we hope we have a room to set the lamp in someday soon. On that note, we officially mailed off our board packet for the NYC apt. yesterday, so cross your fingers that the board meeting happens soon and that the buyer is approved by both the board and the city. We have a meeting with a realtor on Saturday to check out a couple of neighborhoods in Denver.

Megan has been busy researching cribs, co-sleepers, carseats, the cheapest place to buy diapers (Costco) -- you name it! We're both thankful she has time to get our acts together before Peanut arrives.

I have been missing our former NYC community a ton lately. I don't miss the city at all, but I do miss our friends, our church, and the life that was built over 9 years there. We know it will take time to feel like this is home - and it is becoming home more every day - but it is hard to not meet in midtown to catch up over a drink or coffee. All that to say - come visit!

Half way there!!

I'm a lame blogger. I know. I've been meaning to write more often...but I find it hard to find the discipline to sit down and do it.

Things are moving along quickly here in Denver. I have officially passed the 6 month mark at my job. In looking back to when I started this summer, I realize that I have gained a bit more confidence, but the stress levels are still higher than I was expecting them to be. I'm working on learning to leave the stresses of the job at the job -- although as Megan can attest, I'm not very good at doing this yet. But I'm trying.

And more importantly, we had our 20 week ultrasound this week! Megan's mom joined us at the doctor's office for baby's first home movie. We have decided not to find out the gender of our baby. Well, I say WE decided because Megan doesn't want to know, and I doubt I could keep the secret. This, however, did not keep me from looking intently at the monitor. I saw everything I was supposed to, but sadly I have nothing to report. Reading ultrasound screens accurately will never be a skill on my resume. I know I was looking where I needed to, but I have no idea whether we're having a boy or a girl.

The technician said she knows what we're having. Which was a little bit like torture to hear. Torture in a fun way. I know we'll be happy to be surprised. I think Grandma Marsha, however, was hoping to get a text telling her the baby's gender. Waiting means she has hold off on buying all of the pink or blue things she wants to buy for her next grandaughter or first grandson. :)

The ultrasound went on for quite awhile, which was somewhat surprising to me. It was pretty amazing to see our little alien kick its legs and wiggle its belly. Apparently all of the parts are in the right place and everything is normal. But the technician did not get as good of a view of the baby's heart as she'd have liked, so we will be going back in a few weeks for another ultrasound. We were assured that this does not mean something is wrong. And we're being mostly successful in not stressing out about it. The good news is that I'll have a second chance to get a look at the kid's goods.

Yes, I will be looking intently mom.

You heard it here first!

Newsletter coming via email sometime this weekend...but wanted to share something we presented to our parents for Christmas....

Holidays!

Happy New Year! Well, it has been over a month since I last posted. But, in my defense, it has been a busy month. :)

Two weeks before Christmas we moved into our TINY (even for NYC standards) new apt and Megan whipped it into shape in a week. We have a lot of boxes stacked and hidden away, but we're pretty well moved in. It is a swanky building in a GREAT area, very close to work, and there are lots of stores and awesome restaurants around. We're pretty happy there, but we miss my aunt Kathy!

Speaking of my aunt Kathy, I think I mentioned in my previous post that she invited me to be in an art show with her. That happened in December and it was a very special experience for me. I definitely felt I was the 'novice' artist of the show, but it was still fun to have my painting in a bonafide gallery. Here is a picture of my aunt Kathy and me standing by our paintings. Mine is called "Transitions."

Christmas was spent at my parents' house in Danville, VA with all of my brothers, their significant others, uncle Keith, and all of my grandparents. It was definitely a full house with 16 stockings over the fireplace!! Unfortunately Jake's girlfriend Corinne did not make it from NYC because of the storm, and my brother Jon and my grandparents both had cancelled flights trying to get home. But we had some fun times!!

Mainly, we were all entertained by this cutie:

(image by Josh Ford used without permission...but it is on Facebook... is it OK to post Maggie?)

My adorable niece Molly Leah O'Grady was quite the entertainment. Her laughs, squawks, and twinkling eyes kept us all smiling--even though she was constantly mauled by her grandfather. In fact, Molly did remarkably well with so many people in such a confined space, and (thankfully) she seems to enjoy her uncles and aunt.

We also played a lot of cards over Christmas, and were consistently beat by big bad Joe, who, by the way, has been working out and looks great. As per usual, we had many laughs. I literally almost tossed my cookies one night I was laughing so hard.

Megan and I returned to Denver around 1:00AM on Wednesday morning and headed up to Frisco early Thursday morning. We beat snowstorms in both Denver and Frisco, and we have been having fun being snowed in with mom and dad #2. Their anniversary was last night (New Year's Eve) so we all went out to dinner and then went to Copper Mountain to see a breathtaking fireworks display (through the car moon roof, as it was -9 outside!)

So, all in all, things are going well. It has been VERY nice to have 11 days off of work, and I'm not 100% excited to return on Monday. But I will return rested, and I'm not complaining about that. Next weekend we return to Frisco (which is only a 75 minute drive) to have Cornwell Christmas with Megan's brother Andy and his wife Jessica.

I hope you all had a great holiday!!!