Our 5th Anniversary

Some how 5 years have flown by since Casey and I were married back in 2006. To celebrate this occasion we had a weekend getaway in Gold Beach, Oregon. We stayed at the "Inn of the Beachcomber" and it was fantastic! We had a fireplace, king size bed, a spa on our balcony, and an ocean front view.

And yes this is sunny weather at the Oregon Coast. It was amazing!

While we were at Gold Beach we went on a jet boat ride up the Rogue River, and it was so much fun! We saw sea lions, eagles, osprey, and otters on our trip; we were hoping to see more, but the other animals decided not to come out and see us. 

At one point on our trip the guide took us into a small canyon and spun the boat around to create some waves. The first time that he did it was great, the second he underestimated the waves and they came right over our side of the boat! We were soaked from the waist down and it would have been worse if we did not have our coats on!

Half way through our trip we had lunch in a small town called Agnes where you could only get in or out of there by boat! Our lunch was provided by a family in their house that they had lived in for 4 generations! We had a homemade lunch of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, biscuts and then a dessert of ice cream with marionberry topping.

While waiting for our jet boat to come back and pick us up, the family's dog came down to the boat ramp with us carrying a stick. To our surprise the dog went a little up stream and drop the stick in the river and jumped in after it! The dog was playing fetch with its self!

This ride was wonderful and we plan on doing it again whenever we make it back to Gold Beach!

We spent some time in Brookings and went to beautiful Harris Beach.

Sadly all good things have to come to an end and we had to go home, but we made sure to have some fun on the way. We stopped in Bandon and spent some time at the Safari park, there we saw many large animals (lions, tigers, and even bears oh my!) This was so much better than the zoo, the animals were very close to us and up and about. We heard a lion roar and got to pet a few not so dangerous animals. The best part of the experience is that we got to play with baby tigers! They were so cute and so much fun. 

 

We had such a great time on this trip and it was so nice to have a weekend alone together. I am so glad that I married by best friend 5 years ago and I look forward to many more years together!

Coralie Pearl Dover

The most important event for our family this year was the arrival of our daughter Coralie.  

Early, Early Labor

I woke up at 4:00am on October 27th with contractions, they were not hard and so I decided not to wake Casey. During the next few hours I packed my children's bags, went on Facebook, ate some food, and took a bath. After about 2 hours I started to get a headache and I lay down on the couch to try to sleep. Lying down made the contractions stop and I was happy about this, I did not want to go into hard labor with a headache. For the rest of the day I tried to rest and only experienced a handful of contractions. Javen was an angel and let me rest and relax. That night Casey and I took my parents out to dinner at Cruisers and had a great time, and then I went home, did some cleaning (including vacuuming my stairs to my dad's amazement) and went to bed.

1^st Stage Labor

 I woke up at 4:30 am on October 28th (My due date) and I heard a "POP". Now I had read that some people hear their water breaking, but did not know what to expect, so I sat up a little and felt some water. I then grabbed a towel next to my bed and got up, and to my surprise instead of a little bit of water leaking, it was like a gush and did not stop. I called to Casey and told him that my water had broken and that he needed to get up. He got up and got me a few more towels and helped me downstairs and made me a breakfast of toast and eggs. During this time he was watching me progress and knew that we did not have a lot of time. We went upstairs and starting to pack my hospital bag. I know that everyone is thinking, "Why was your bag not packed weeks ago?" Well I was expecting to have a labor half the time of Javen's, about 6 hours, and I thought that I would have time during early labor. Boy was I wrong. Casey got my bag packed and woke up Javen and we were off.

2^nd Stage Labor

             During this time contractions started getting harder and I was experiencing back labor and the pain was not fully going away in-between the contractions. We dropped Javen off with Casey's parents and left to the hospital. We arrived at 7:00 am and slowly made our way inside. At the check in desk they called my midwife and she told them that I wanted a natural labor, so they did not offer me any pain medication. I got settled in and was checked and found to be at an 8 and was starting to feel the urge to push. When we found out that I was nearing to end of my labor Casey called his mom, within minutes she and my sister-in-law, Michelle arrived at the hospital. (My sister Shan’l was already with us, Cameo could not be reached, Sarah was too tired from a long night with Daniel, and my mom could not get out of going to work)  At this time my midwife had not arrived, so I was told to try not to push. I tried very hard not to push, but as the minutes went by it became harder and harder not to. I kept asking where Michelle (my midwife) was and when would she get here! Michelle finally showed up and told me that I could push and 4 contractions later at 8:01am Coralie was born, weighing 8 lbs. 11 oz. and measuring 21 inches long. After Coralie’s head came out, Michelle (my midwife) had to ease each shoulder out one at a time, and from there I was able to reach down and meet my baby girl.

          This labor was much easier than Javen’s; I believe that this is because it was so short, only 3.5 hours. Coralie weighed 2 lbs. 1oz. and was 2 in. longer than Javen was when he was born, and was much easier on my body. There was no tearing, so bigger babies do not mean a harder, more painful labor.  I now believe that no labor is the same, it was so different having my labor start with my water breaking, and having a strong urge to push. My midwife and husband (he is my coach) were wonderful and overall this was a great birthing experience.  

My New Years Resolution 2011

Well my resolution for the 2011 was to create a blog. "The Other Dovers" was created back in January, I just didn't post anything! I am officially starting this week, so I can still say that I made my goal. ;) During this last week of 2011 I am going to post our family's important events of the year.