Thomas

Right now Emily is feeding Thomas (she does a lot of that lately) and I am sitting on the bed with my laptop. Both of us feel much more rested because Thomas slept in 5-6 hour shifts for the past two nights. What a difference a good nights sleep makes (for Em and I). I will briefly recap the past couple weeks and provide a lot of pictures of our son.

As Emily's due date (Halloween) approached, there were no signs of Thomas coming in the near future. Every time we went to the doctor, she wasn't dilated or effaced. I could tell this was especially hard for Emily because both of us figured that she would be early because that is how her sisters' births went. Plus, Em had bought some Halloween outfits that she wanted so badly to try on Thomas :). It was also hard because Emily's mom, Laura, wanted to book tickets to come out and help with the baby, and my mom was in the same position.

On our visit shortly after Emily's due date, the doctor told us that we should schedule an induction in case Thomas doesn't come on his own. We scheduled it for November 10 because that was the latest they would let us go (I think November 11, 11/11/11, was all booked up, and then it was a weekend after that). So with the scheduled induction, my mom decided to come out for about two weeks with Laura coming for about 4 days right around the induction.

I felt like it was hard to focus on the days before November 10th. I tried to get as much homework done but my mind was anxious (in a good way) for Thomas to come. Emily went on a walk everyday, sometimes going twice. It was great having my mom around. We hadn't seen her in over a year. She helped us prepare our house even more for the baby. We put together some shelving, organized our kitchen, cleaned the house, etc. She was incredibly helpful. She also cooked all of the meals and did the dishes so that I could focus more on my studies.

On November 8th, we had a doctor's appointment and Em still wasn't dilated. So they told us we would go to the hospital in the evening on the 9th and Em would get a foley catheter that would ripen her cervix overnight. The following morning, they would then get her on pitocin to start her labor. Well, Wednesday night came and the hospital wasn't calling. We finally called them and they said that they were too full and that we would likely come in around midnight or the next day. Thursday, the 10th, came around and we still hadn't heard. So we went out on another walk and while we were walking, we got the call around 9:30 am that they had a bed open. We raced home, got our stuff, and headed to the hospital. Here is a picture of us in the hospital waiting to see a nurse.

Here is a picture of us right before the she was induced.

Emily was given the foley catheter around 12:30 pm and they started her on pitocin at the same time. Em was a little stressed because of all the things we had heard in our baby classes about natural births vs induced births. She was particularly scared about getting a c-section. Around 2:30pm Laura and Emily's youngest sister Liza showed up. It was great seeing them. Laura had a positive, happy energy about her that I think helped Em. The next 10 hours or so were fairly uneventful. We watched three different movies (only happy ones by Em's request), got her liquids and popsicles, and visited. As the evening went on, Emily actually became quieter and more subdued. She was much more inward that that I had thought she would be. I find it funny how many people on my side and Emily's side who were asking how I was doing in terms of fainting or getting queezy. I was a little (very little) nervous about getting faint but overall I figured that I would be fine. I was mostly right. The only part of the night that I got queezy was when Em got the epidural. They only allowed one person in the room so I stayed in and held Emily's hand while she got the epidural. I knew I shouldn't watch so I didn't. Instead, I sat with my head down next to Em. Unfortunately, to me at least, the anesthesiologist decided to describe every step of the process, "Ok, now the needle is piercing your skin, it is a fairly large one, you should feel a slight pain,...,the fluid is entering your spine, you should feel a unique sensation,..." I immediately felt light-headed and had to put my head between my legs.

The foley was supposed to slide out on its own but it wasn't coming out. Laura kept saying that she thought Em should be dilated enough for it to come out by this point. The nurse decided to look and sure enough, it should have come out. So she said that she was going to have to pull it out. By this point, Em had not received the epidural. When the nurse was pulling the foley out, it was hard to watch. I had never seen Em in that much pain before. I tried to do what I could to comfort her but it didn't seem to help. In my mind I was thinking how grateful I was that she would be getting an epidural soon.

Once the epidural kicked in, Em did much better. She was still quiet the whole night, but at least she wasn't in pain. Around 11:00 pm, the nurse checked her and she was dilated to a 10 so they decided to start pushing. Em did a great job through this whole process. She said this was the hardest part for her, not pain-wise, but energy-wise. She pushed and pushed until 11:30 pm when the doctor came in to finish it out. She gave us the option of of waiting until midnight to have the baby (so he could be born on 11/11/11) but Em firmly said no thanks. At 11:39 pm, Thomas Young Ferguson was born. I was so proud of Emily during the whole process. She had quite a few fears going in, but once things started going, you would have never guessed.

Thomas weighed 8 lbs 10 oz and was 21.5 inches long. He has red hair and the most surprising part about him was how much of it he had. Here are some pictures.

This next one is right after he was cleaned. The nurse gave him a mohawk - there were tons of people talking about his hair and taking pictures.

Emily right after the delivery.

Some pictures from the next morning.

My mom with Thomas,

Laura and Liza,

My sister Heather (who lives here in Raleigh and has been invaluable through this whole process)

My niece Brinley, Heather's oldest.

We left the hospital Saturday afternoon. Overall the hospital staff was great and Em always felt like she was in good hands.

It has been a lot of fun being parents. So far he seems like a pretty good baby in terms of sleeping and crying. There have been a couple of nights that he didn't sleep too well but we had Laura and my mom here to help out if he was crying too much. My favorite thing he does is when he starts staring off into the room looking at things. He gets real quiet and appears to be soaking everything in. I also enjoy watching Emily with him. As I have been married to Em for almost three years now, I have learned many new things about her. But one thing that I have always known is her natural motherly instincts. The way she holds Thomas and talks to him, or the way she feeds him or the way she watches him, all display a deep concern and love for him. I never felt nervous about having a baby (by 'have' I mean to have a newborn to take care of - not giving birth) because I trust Em so much in this area. This doesn't mean that I let her do everything, because I don't (diapers seem to be one of my primary jobs), its just that I feel like everything with Thomas will turn out great because he has Emily as his mother.

With Laura and my mom here the following week, I was able to get caught up on a lot of homework because I didn't need to take care of other things around the house. It was a huge help.

Here are some pics of the bath we gave him the other day.

And one of him trying to burp

Yesterday we decided to take him on a walk around the lake near our house.

We feel very lucky about how smoothly everything went and that we have a healthy son. We are excited to start our new lives as parents and look forward to having more kids in the future. We are also very grateful for the friends and family who have helped out in the past couple of weeks, they made life more enjoyable while we were adjusting to new schedules and responsibilities.

North Carolina Townhome

After multiple requests, we decided to take some pictures of our townhome and post it on our blog. I'll try to walk you through. We still don't have too many wall decorations but we have got most of our furniture. The only thing left to get is a comfortable chair for Thomas' room.

Here is a picture of when you walk in the front door.



As you can see, you can go upstairs to our bedroom and Thomas' bedroom. If you go to the right of the stairs it brings you down a hall way to this point:



Here is the entrance into our family room. Notice on the left is a storage closet (under the stairs) and on the right is a single bathroom that looks like this






And here are pictures of our family room. Notice the glass sliding glass doors going out to our back patio and yard.






If we go back to down the hallway towards the front door, (here is a view of the front door - notice the dining area to the left)



and take a left, we arrive in the dining room.



The kitchen is to the left of the dining room. Here is Emily cooking. This week she will be 39 weeks! (more on that later)








Now if we go back to the front door and go upstairs, here is Thomas' room. Emily found this furniture on Craigslist for pretty cheap.





Here is the view from Thomas's room. The stairs are to the right and our room is straight down the hall. To the left is our washer dryer closet (we had to remove the doors to fit the washer/dryer).





Then here is our room.





And here is a view of the bathroom off the side of our room. It is a jack and jill bath that connects to Thomas' room.






And here are pictures of the Sas Hall on NCSU campus where I spend my days. (They aren't actual photos, but I couldn't find those).






As for Em and I, we are doing great!




Emily is about 39 weeks pregnant




We are visiting the doctor weekly now and at the last visit he told us that she wasn't dilated or effaced. But the doctor said that Thomas' head was exactly where it should be (head down, deep in the pelvis). Also, Em says that she hasn't even felt any sort of contractions either. All this being said, the doctor still told us that Emily could have the baby any day now so we have our hospital bags packed and ready to go.

Overall we really like it here. I am enjoying my classes thus far (although they keep me very busy) and so far they haven't been extremely difficult. I basically have one course that is really hard and two courses that are fairly easy. While I am at school, Em is spends her days getting things ready for the baby, grocery shopping, cleaning, knitting, and hanging out with other ladies from the ward that she has become friends with. We feel really lucky to have landed in the ward that we did. There are a lot of younger couples around our age that we have become friends with. It seems like every weekend we have something fun going on. Also, it has been nice to have some familiar faces like Heather and Eric so close by and my friend Doug from BYU (he is at Duke studying stats also) and his wife.

When we have some free time, Em and I often go to a park nearby that has a 3 mile walking/running trail that goes around the perimeter of the lake. I run here about 2-3 times a week and Em walks here multiple times a week with various women/walking groups in the ward.











The lake (and Raleigh in general) is especially pretty at this time of year with the leaves changing. The look and feel of the area reminds me a lot of my time in West Virginia/Virginia.

Well that is all for now. The next time we update this blog will be with pictures of Thomas!

PS - We welcome any visitors who would like to come visit!

Zions trip with the Young sisters

About a month ago, Emily's brother-in-law, Whitey, arranged a family camping trip down to Zions National Park. It ended up being a really fun trip. We got down there late Friday night and came home Sunday morning. We spent most of our time hiking and eating - it was great.


After breakfast Saturday morning, we all went on a hike to some falls (I can't remember the name. This picture is of six of the Young sisters and three nieces and nephews.






This was me holding Addie, Emily's sister Sara's daughter. I was trying to reenact a scene from Lion King but it didn't really work.




At the end of the hike was a beautiful pond with a large waterfall. Surprisingly, the water was freezing. This picture is of Jesse (Sara's youngest) and Sammie (Amy's daughter) playing in the water.


Sammie.


After the main hike, we returned to our campground and had a late lunch. Then Tayler, Abbie, Jon, Clara, Andy, and I, along with Taylor's two oldest, went on another short hike called Weeping Rock. The above picture is a view from Weeping Rock.





I was hot and it felt good getting under the water that was coming from the rock.

It's a Boy!

So as many of you know, Em and I are expecting our first child this Halloween. From the beginning of our marriage, we both always thought that our first baby was going to be a boy. I am not sure why, but we both did. Once we found out that Em was pregnant back in February, we started thinking about baby names and it was always so easy to think of boy names whereas we couldn't (and still can't really) agree on any girl names.

A little over a week ago, we went in for a 16 week check up and got an ultrasound. We were anxious/excited to find out what we were having. Within a couple minutes of looking at the ultrasound, the lady told us that sure enough it was a boy. We were thrilled! This was by far the most interesting of our doctor's visits. When we went in the first time to hear the heartbeat, it was exciting but for some reason not as exciting as I thought it would be. The heartbeat was quiet and it sounded like a regular heartbeat. But the ultrasound was completely different. It was fascinating to see the baby's head and arms and legs and watch it move around in Em's stomach. I think this was the first time that having a baby became a reality.

End of an Era

It is hard to believe that I haven't updated our blog since last fall. It is crazy how fast time flies.


This April I graduated. It was kind of a double graduation as I received both my BS and MS in Statistics from BYU. It felt so good being done with everything. The last week of finals was a bit stressful with projects due and a really hard math test to study for. On the last day, Em dropped me off in the morning and I brought my running clothes with me. After studying the entire day, I finally took my math final (unfortunately it didn't go as well as planned - I would have much rather finished with a Stats final) at 2:30. Right after I took the test, I went to my office, changed into my running clothes, put on my ipod earbuds, and ran home. I had been looking forward for this moment (not necessarily the running part, just the being-done-with-everything part) for a long time and it was a really relaxing feeling, knowing that I would never have to worry about classes and grades for the rest of my life (until this fall). That night Em and I went to Carraba's with my cohort to celebrate finishing. It was a lot of fun hanging out with everyone for one last time. I am really going to miss all of them. Because we had all the same classes and assignments for that past two years we became really good friends. It turns out that everyone that wanted jobs has one lined up while three of us are going on to pursue PhD's.



The next day was graduation. The actual ceremony was kind of long and a little boring. Elder Richard G. Scott was the main speaker (Em took the picture here of him speaking) and gave a good talk, although I don't remember lots of it (something about doing good, serving others, making a difference, etc.). The seats were uncomfortable and it got fairly hot in our caps and gowns but I didn't really care. The best part was idea of the whole thing - that we were graduating. That our hard work was paying off.



I met Em and my Dad and his wife Wendy outside of the Marriot Center for some pictures and then we finished off the night going to Jason's Deli for dinner. It was a fun day.


Friday morning was the actual graduation where I walked and received my diploma. It was done by colleges and mine (Physical and Mathematical Sciences) was in the Wilkinson's center ballroom. I enjoyed this ceremony quite a bit better than the day before.


The valedictorian was actually one of my best friends from high school, Aaron Pulsipher. I guess he has a 4.0 and is going to med school at UPenn next fall. The talks were all good and many spoke of gratitude for their time at BYU and the relationships that were made while attending here. (I apologize for the blurry pics - we didn't figure out the right settings on our camera until later)



After the ceremony we had a Statistics department brunch. It was fun visiting with Em and my professors. The thing I will miss most about my time at BYU will be relationships with my professors. They were all very good at what they did and they always showed a lot of interest in what I was doing. There were three professors in particular that I have become really good friends with (all three ended up writing my letters of recommendations for PhD applications), Dr. Reese, Dr. Blades, and Dr. Johnson.


This is Dr. Reese and I. Dr. Reese took me under his belt at the start of my junior year as an undergraduate. I really didn't know very much about statistical theory at this point, so I wasn't going to help in his research very much, but he didn't seem to care. He met with me once a week for that first year and helped me learn a lot of valuable research skills along the way. When I started the master's program, he became my adviser and helped me out with my master's project. He also got me a research position last summer at NCAR in Boulder, CO, and got me the same position this summer. In addition to all of this, I am currently working on a tennis statistics paper (trying to determine if the hot-hand exists in tennis) with him that I will continue to work on during my PhD program. He is extremely outgoing and is living proof that a statistics professor can be socially savvy. He also is a huge sports buff (and unfortunately a huge Federer fan) so it was fun to have someone to talk tennis with in the department.


This is Dr. Blades and I. I first got to know Dr. Blades the summer before I started the Master's program. She had asked me to teach her tennis so we did tennis lesson's once a week. I have continued to teach her regularly once or twice a week throughout the past two years (except winters). She is probably the most academic professor in the department and is very thorough in everything she does. She is really enjoyable to talk to because she knows a lot about just about everything. She teaches the first semester theory course in the Master's program. It is the consensus most difficult class in the program. Very rarely does someone pull off an A in her course. I think the department wants it that way to kind of "wake" you up to graduate school. It still is the hardest class I have ever taken. After I took the first midterm, I felt aweful. I felt like I did poorly and after talking to other students, I felt I certainly didn't do as well as them. I was right. I ended up getting a D and to this day I am pretty sure it was one of the lowest scores. I was pretty embarrassed and I felt inadequate but it never seemed to phase Dr. Blades. She always encouraged me to apply to the top programs and believed that I would be successful. I really appreciated that. I ended up getting a B in that class. It did wake me up, and I did really well in all my other classes and am pretty sure I finished near the top of my class in the Master's program.


Lastly, this is Dr. Johnson and I. I took my first statistics class from him at BYU and it was also the first class he had ever taught. He was fresh off his PhD from Harvard. Interestingly enough, he is leaving BYU this year also as he got a job at Boston University that does more of the research he is interested in. The thing I appreciate most about him is that he is a great example of someone that clearly has their priorities straight. I had three classes from him and he is famous for saying "Statisticians take their jobs too seriously." He is very good at what he does (I think he recently got a million dollar grant from the NSF) but it is very clear that his job is not his life. His family and how he treats others comes first. I remember one time talking to him about how busy school was and he said something that I will never forget. He spoke of getting 'graded' on certain aspects of your life and how it is impossible to get a 4.0. Sometimes we have to get a 'B' in our school work or our research. Sometimes we have to get a 'C' on our church callings or our jobs. But he said there is never a place to get anything below an 'A' for being a husband and father. I like that.


This is the three (out of twelve) that are pursuing PhD's. Andrew Olsen (left) was my office mate and is going to Ohio State. Aside from being smart and very hard working, he is one of the nicest guys I know. Doug VanDerWerken (middle) has become my best friend in the program. Em and I hang out with him and his wife quite a bit. He very studious and funny and is going to Duke this fall. Because he will be so close, we will continue to hang out with them over the next five years.



After the brunch, Em and I went and took pictures in front of the BYU entrance sign. By this point I was fairly pictured out, but I didn't seem right to not get the traditional graduation pictures.



We finished off the day going to PF Changs with all my siblings (except for Heather in North Carolina). Em had asked me what I wanted for my graduation gift and I had said it would be fun to go to dinner with the family. She had recently got a bonus from her work and offered to treat everyone to dinner. It was fun hanging out with everyone and enjoying a nice meal.