Taylor Jean Benzel

Cousins meeting for the first time! (13 days apart)

Our first family photo!

After surgery meeting our sweet baby girl!

Proud daddy, waiting for mom to get out of surgery.

Taylor Jean Benzel, born at 2:30 pm on 8/20/11, 6 lbs 13 oz

This post is a little overdue but, better late than never. Its also quite lengthy so bare with me.

August 20, 2011 our lives changed forever in a way I could not ever have imagined, Taylor Jean Benzel arrived!! We got coffee and took the dogs down for a walk by the river, just like many of the previous Saturdays. We came home and started working in the yard. Around 10:30am I started to have contractions, which were a little bit more intense than any contractions that I had to date. I started to get tired so I headed inside to take a shower. Just before getting in the shower my water broke. Figuring I had hours I took my shower and started getting ready. As I dried my hair the contractions started coming more frequently. Once I told Todd my water had broke he started packing the car and getting ready to go. We jumped in the car and made the 3 minute drive to the hospital, quite possible the longest car ride in history when you have such intense contractions. I had to stop twice in the parking lot to get through the contractions. We checked in and they wheeled me up to my room. Little did they know that in the next hour as they got everything in order I would go from 3cm to 10cm. (with no pain meds) This baby was ready to come out and we were so ready to meet her. Our little lady wanted to make a dramatic entrance so after a bit of fetal distress and the doctor discovering that she was breech we headed to the OR for an emergency c-section. Because of the situation they had to put me completely to sleep as they couldn't wait the 15 minutes for a spinal.

After surgery I woke up in recovery anxious to meet our little girl. I was taken to my room where Todd and Taylor were waiting for me. I was so groggy that I thought that I was only gone for 30 minutes when in reality I was gone for almost 3 hours. Todd was amazing and took care of her during the time I was in surgery, he even picked out her first outfit. It was an amazing experience that I have a hard time explaining in words how special it was. They handed her to me and she snuggled right into my chest. As we snuggled our little girl I asked Todd what he wanted to name her, he immediately said Taylor Jean. We knew before we arrived at the hospital that her middle name was going to be Jean after my Grandma. We were very excited to introduce our little lady to her Grandparents, both sets arrived shortly after I got back to our room. Our good friends Jake and Brooke were celebrating their anniversary in Leavenworth so they stopped by to meet little Tay. Todd's sister and her family made the trip over to see us, Maddie and Colin were very intrigued by their new cousin. My sister bravely packed up both kids and drove over to see us. I wasn't able to go over when she had Payten so it was fun to get to meet Payten.

Enjoy the pics, please excuse my lovely hospital gown. :)

37 weeks- Full Term!!!

I am officially full term today at 37 weeks. Three weeks from today is my due date, not that I am counting the days. At my appointment last week the doctor confirmed that she had already dropped and that I was already dilated 3cm. Of course this news got me all excited at the potential that we didn't have to wait 4 more weeks to meet our little miss. I ended up having three hours of contractions in the middle of the night and was fully convinced I was having her last week. Since then she seems to have snuggled in for the long haul. I had my 37 week appointment today but he didn't check me, he said that at this point they aren't going to do anything if I was even more dilated. So now its up to me to be patient and wait for the contractions to start or my water to break. I am sure Todd is already sick of me asking him each day, "Do you think we are going to have a baby today?!?!"

30 Years Old & 34 Weeks

We packed up Friday and headed to the lake for a few days away. Friday we stopped in Spokane to visit with Todd's folks and have a little early birthday celebration before heading out to the lake. Saturday I road along with Todd, my dad and T's folks while they golfed at Twin Lakes Village. Saturday we had a big BBQ and celebrated my birthday out at the lake. Crazy to think of how many birthdays I have celebrated out there! A big thanks to Aunt Kitty and Uncle Bob for letting us come stay for a few days. Wish we could have stayed longer, I miss summer vacations and being able to stay out there for a week at a time. Sadly we only were able to stay the weekend, so we headed home to grab the pets from camp on Sunday. A few more lake photos to follow.


I still can't believe I am THIRTY! I can still remember turning 21 like it was yesterday. I certainly don't miss the hangover that I had when I turned 21 but crazy how the years have flown by. I am 34 weeks this week and starting to get a little antsy. Sleep at night is becoming slightly more challenging. So excited to meet our baby girl in 6ish weeks.


Last night we had a belated birthday celebrations with our good friends here in Wenatchee. We are really fortunate to have such a great group of friends here.

32 Weeks & Content

Have you ever had a feeling that you were right where you were supposed to be? I have eight weeks left before our baby girl arrives and I couldn't feel more like this is exactly where I am supposed to be in my life right now. Lately I have just had a sense of calm come over me and that everything feels like its falling right into place. I have a hard time describing it but, whatever this feeling is I LOVE it!

We don't have anything planned for the rest of the summer until baby arrives, I don't think that I have ever had this many free weekends in one summer. While nice, I will be the first to admit that I get a little stir crazy. My favorite thing to do it to make up projects for Todd to do, I am sure he loves it. I resorted to taking my own photo these days since the photographer has so many projects he is currently working on.

We are heading to the lake at the end of this week, I am looking forward to a few days away. I can't wait to take our kids to the lake some day, we spent a week there every summer as a kid and had an absolute blast. It will also be fun to celebrate my birthday with my family, its been a long time since we have been together and what better milestone than the big 3-0!

28 weeks

Almost 29 weeks, which means we only have 11 more weeks to go. Crazy to think 11 more Mondays of just Todd and I and the pets! To say we are excited really doesn't cover it. I am also not sure nesting covers the weird things I have been doing lately. If only I could be this motivated all the time. Things are getting cleaned that I am sure have never been cleaned before. Thanks to many of our good friends and family the nursery is getting stocked up with lots of cute clothes and books. People ask "so do you think your ready?", my answer is typically "well, ummm just about as ready as you could be despite the fact that we have no idea what we are doing!" The other question I am starting to get is how I am holding up in the heat. So far so good, knock on wood. Thank goodness for air conditioning. I did have a kankles scare a few weeks ago when I was in Seattle working for a few days. I went to take off my shoes and couldn't see my ankles and my toes looked even more like fat little smokies than they normally do. Other than that things have been really good. I even got out yesterday and played 18 holes of golf, I was pretty tired by the end.

I am a little behind on blogging, once I get the pics in order from my Seattle & Wenatchee showers I will post them. We are so grateful for our friends and family for all of the wonderful clothes and gifts, BGB (Baby Girl Benzel) is already so spoiled.

Baby Benzel's Nursery

My folks came over for the weekend to help us get the nursery ready for baby Benzel's arrival in August. They are expert painters and love a good DIY project. Friday night we hit up Home Depot to pick out paint colors. Three colors later we were heading home to get started. Friday they painted the ceiling and got started on prep work for the walls. Saturday they painted all day and then we put all the furniture together. Sunday we took care of some final touches and then finally put the room together.
A HUGE thank you to my folks for coming over and working away the entire time they were here. We couldn't have done it without them.

I'm Back!

I spent all last week in Arizona for a big event we had in Tucson. It was a fun but long week, 24 weeks pregnant and 16 hour days are tough. Todd picked me up at the airport on Saturday and was a little surprised how much my belly had grown in the week that I was gone. He said something like "Well you can really tell your pregnant now!" I had my six month check at the doctor yesterday, where did the last 6 months go? I can't believe I am getting close to being in the third trimester already. We also had childbirth class last night and we got to see the new labor and delivery section of the hospital. Its really starting to sink in that in a little over THREE months our little lady will be here. We are beyond excited!

This weekend my folks are heading over to help us get the babies room ready. Stay tuned for some before and after shots that I will post when we are finished.
My apologies for the quality of my photos, they are from my phone. We just located our camera so hopefully the pics will be improving. My photographer thinks these little photo sessions are for the birds.