Merry Christmas everyone!

Couldn't resist sharing this photo here. We are celebrating Jesus' birth first and foremost I swear! But I don't have any photos of baby Jesus so... ;)

We are spending the holiday at America's Keswick with Brent's family. We spent the better part of today not opening gifts but with the men from the Colony, a rehabilitation from addiction center on campus here. It's been wonderful to hear the men's stories and share in their joy as they see God working in their lives in amazing ways. There's a lot of really intense darkness in the world, but a lot of healing and redemption and miracles are along the way too. It was a gift to be reminded of that and to rejoice in Jesus' birth and of him coming here to spend time with us in the mirk and mire to save us from ourselves.

Amos is our favorite gift of this year. He's a constant joy. We look forward to all the years ahead living life with him. God has blessed us with so much; health, family, a home and provision to make it through. Giving us this boy has put us in total amazement of the vastness of love we can give and receive. It's showing us more about God and his love for us every day.
Grace, peace and love,
Sarah and the boys...

Flying

Life with Amos is flying by! Another month has passed since I've written here and it seems like last week that I wrote that last post. The good days keep coming and each day is even better than the one before. Amos' smiles keep getting bigger and come all the time now. Brent can get him to laugh, the sweetest sound this musician has ever heard. He knows us and even turns to the sound of our voices. The first couple months, because of all the pain ad physical problems I kept having, I would sometimes secretly wonder why people do all this, but I get it now. :) I'm still in pain, but I still get it. How he loves to hang onto my fingers or a lock of my hair while I'm feeding him, how when he awakes he starts looking for me and smiles as soon as he finds me, how he loves to watch his airplane mobile even if he has to turn his body almost upside down to see it, and just how I think he's starting to know how much we love him and I think love us back, I love it all and it's flying by too fast!

Speaking of flying, the crazy Dickinson's took a wonderful trip to California earlier this month. Amos was a star flyer, with our row mate commenting that he was better behaved than most adults she's flown alongside. It was a whirlwind tour of southern CA for Brent's promotional arm of work he does at NYCAMS. I love being in California so much, just looking out the window makes me a gleeful lady with all her cares left behind. I always say, "people live like this? Like their normal day includes that beach and mountainous vista?" and of course "...so why don't we live like this? Greenpoint isn't so green you know... and Coney Island beach doesn't count..." ;) And we were able to spend good times with our old friends from NYC, the Bauers, Hales and Albaneses. All are doing well of course, for everyone does well in CA right? Don't worry too much, I'm an east coast girl more than I'll admit. I found it pretty funny the two times professors we met mentioned how "fall-like" it felt to them that particular day. It's subtle of course they said, but different somehow. Hee, hee I'm enjoying the not-so-subtle fire orange trees and acorns on our street today very much and would certainly miss it as soon as I didn't have it.
We visited a school on cliffs overlooking a world class shore break (yes, we did climb down the cliffs with the baby, I just had to get close!) We wondered how anyone could get work down with all the good surfing around (all the art professors surf of course) B grew up surfing the Jersey shore where John Bauer learned right there at Point Loma, same but very different!
Then we were off to Santa Barbara, a gorgeous city that we only had time to see from the car window and went to a magical campus in the foothills. We kept catching ourselves whispering there, it felt more like a yoga retreat than a college.
We stayed right near Venice Beach for a few of our days spent in LA. It's like the East Village and Baywatch combined, and I loved it. Amos kept being asleep every time we would show him the ocean, but he got a good look at it early on our last morning there. Here are the boys as we headed there (glasses didn't last long, but we tried!)
I'm excited for the days (which amaingly are not far off) when we can run around on the sand and waves together.




Now we're home and after a week of flu which I got on the tail end of the trip (sorry Hale's I hope I didn't leave that as a parting gift) we are getting better and better at this mommy/work from home adventure. I still have very late nights sending work related emails, but a bit more happens during normal working hours, and on really good days I get a load of laundry and a balanced meal too. The little boys (Doug included) and I have taken to long walks in the mornings. It's good for Doug's and mommy's waistline and Amos loves taking the world in and then drifting off for a long nap. Fall is perfect pug weather (they can finally breathe!) so we've been having a good time. Doug has gotten used to his little brother now. On our walks he proudly (and over protectantly (not a word? well it should be!)) strides beside us and at home the other day I caught him whining next to sleeping Amos asking him to hold his bone for him. too funny!
Brent is being the most super dad, vollying from work, to baby, to studio, to baby. He and his boy are becoming best buddies. We went to our childbirth class reunion last week to see that sigh, yes, I was the only c-section, but also to see that Amos definitely is still winning the size and cheeks category! The babies were nice to see, but even more amazing was seeing all the mother's faces back to themselves. Some women looked very different! Seems I was one of those (I knew B was being too kind when he kept assuring me my face hadn't gotten fat!)

Well, I'm off now for what will be another month I'm sure (it just takes so long to type one-handed!). Amos will be baptized next Sunday. I never thought I would be one of those couples up front with their baby, but here we go taking the plunge, er little head drizzle since it's PCA. :) God has given us a good little guy, ans we commit that little guy to God. so cool.

Good Days

While I was getting Amos ready for a bath yesterday, I caught myself talking to myself saying "These are good days". I don't usually say that sort of thing. Not that I don't have good and bad days, but I usually don't stop long enough to recognize the moment. And I don't usually say it aloud either. And I guess I'm not really talking to myself anymore. This little man in my life is quite a listener, quite a love, quite a soul, quite beyond anything I've ever known. The day quickly spiraled down to a pee on me-fest with lots of back/breast pain thrown in on the side and I wasn't able to "accomplish" any of the things I keep thinking I should be doing. But, I don't know how he does it, when Amos smiles at me I can deal with any amount of trouble or pain that's dished out. These are good days. Really good days. I thank God for this boy and how he's helping me throw a lot of my crap out the window and helping me to just be. And just be happy for that matter. I am blessed.

Photos of Mr. Famous Amos (are hard to come by!)

I heard last night that my brother in law Travis has been checking week after week for new photos. He gave up and started looking at our friends the Frisbie's site and found what he was looking for. Sorry Trav, I'm a loser sister-in-law. I am quite embarrassed by this, but what can I say, it's not like I'm eating bonbons over here! But I managed to get an album together today of week 3-4, with more to come I promise. And, yes for more up to date postings you can always check out our much more technologically gifted friends' site too... :) Actually John Frisbie has taken the most gorgeous photos of Amos ever. He's got the eye, the fancy lens, and all that sunshine sure helps (being that we live in a cave over here in G-point). Thanks Uncle John, you are making Amos famous. (pronounced of course faMOS!)

Amos Rocks

So my last post was when Amos was two weeks old. Now Amos is 2 months old and so much has transpired. So much so that I haven't been able to sit and write here! We've had some bumps along the way. Brent's grandfather's passing was hard, for the family to be without him now and physically for me to travel there and get around at 4 weeks post-partum. During this time was a great visit from Grandma Dickinson (thank you!) But then we entered our first time without extra help around here and boy was it a shock! I understand now why moms always say they need a third hand. I've become quite the one-handed typer that's for sure. And now that I'm back working one of my jobs, those work emails will be to the point and all in lower-case (esp. while I'm breastfeeding!)

BFFF... Amos has his first crush, our ceiling fan. He bats his eyelashes and coyly hides his face and quickly looks back at his Best Friend Forever Fanny. Ah, they grow up so fast...

We've started to take longer walks in the park and get to spend longer times with him cooing and smiling. I'll try and post some videos here sometime soon.

Things really haven't gotten easier yet (things I won't go into here in the blogosphere) but everyone assures me that they will soon! Amos is certainly growing and sucking in the world around him so fast. And I already feel like I am not taking him in and enjoying this time enough. He's just such a cool dude.
But, we have taken pictures!

Here's a few for now and I'll make another huge album and post on the right of this blog soon. Thanks for checking in and thanks for loving Amos. He rocks.

Amos's first day and my Grandfathers last

Hey, Brent here. I am way overdue to add to Sarah's extremely thorough and loving account of our son Amos's amazing entrance into this world.

Sarah, as you may have gathered, is one incredible lady.  In this particular instance, this particular incredible lady worked for 30 hours or so to birth Amos the way she wanted and then graciously gave permission to the pros to do what they had to do to get him out.

By the morning when Amos was finally autonomous, complete and utter exhaustion had set in for both Sarah and me. As she has mentioned, she had this little disagreement with the rather healthy serving of morphine that she was given...and so on the first day of the rest of Amos's life, Sarah was rendered mercilessly nauseated.

My parents played a really big role that day.  My mother had flown to NJ a little less than a week prior to be with my Grandfather. He had just been admitted to the ICU and she and her sisters, fearing that his decline would be rapid, decided to travel to be with him. As his health leveled out just slightly, my mom decided to head back to Colorado to take care of some things so that she could come back out to help with the baby once Jackie (Sarah's mom) had to head back. So either fate or providence or both had it that the day she traveled up to NYC to be ready for an early departure the next morning wound up being the night that Sarah went into labor. My mom changed her plans and my dad decided to fly out so that they could meet their young grandson the next day. Well, as Sarah's account does an incredible job in describing, hours of labor turned into days of labor, vaginal birth turned into a Caesarean birth and a recovery time turned into several more hours of shaking and morphine induced nausea. So, by the time my parents got to the hospital, with Sarah finally sleeping the deepest sleep of her life, I broke down in a way that they hadn't seen since I was probably twelve. They were there that day to help me be the dad that I needed to be but did not yet know how to be.

My Grandfather did pass away a short time later and we celebrated his life at a Memorial Service for him on July 25 at America's Keswick Conference Center in New Jersey. If any one is interested, there was a blog set up for him at baraws.blogspot.com.

Thank you all for your prayers throughout this amazingly hard time for our family.  We have grown through it all.  

Baby Amos is awesome.  

The Dickinson family emerges from seclusion

Hello everyone!

It's been 2 weeks and a day since Amos was born. I, Sarah am feeling MUCH better than I did when we came home last Monday. The body is amazing to watch heal. Each day I can perform amazing new feats. Like get up from a sitting position! Or hold my baby without tiring! And stand up straight! I am slowly getting around the house more and more every day and even am allowed to go on 2 block walks each day. And, I found some time to hit the computer and reconnect with everyone today. I am sorry it's been so long. I can't promise I'll be consistently in touch so please be patient. Once Spa Dickinson returns back to the normal Dickinson home I am sure I'll be pretty scattered until I get a routine going with little Amos (my mother has been taking care of us like royalty. I simply could not have done this recovery without her. I vote her the first Presbyterian saint!)

I guess some of you are wondering about how the labor and delivery went. Well, it started out great and should have gone really fast (baby was fully engaged and cervix was fully effaced for about 2 weeks prior to delivery) but...baby Amos got stuck. After 28 hours of unmedicated labor and with that I must say it was back labor which isn't so fun and in that 6 hours of pushing things still just weren't working. Not like I have anything to compare it to, but it sure didn't feel like all the birth books said it would. But I forged on, committed to our plan and hopes for a natural delivery and in good spirits. After about 20 hours of labor though with really great pushing (they kept thinking he would come out any second!) my dear midwife Corrie was beginning to think that something was up. It seems like the baby was big and that the baby was wedged. These both turned out to be true. All of my fears and hopes were swirling around in my head, but I could tell in my body that something wasn't going how it should. Maybe I read too much about labor but all the feelings and sensations I had learned to expect just weren't happening. Still, we tried for many more hours using every position known (I was squatting like an Aboriginal Brazilian!), plus acupuncture by my tireless doula Michelle to get things going more. The time came and I could see it on Corrie's face. She suggested getting an epidural so that I could rest and then try pushing one more time. (my body had been shaking uncontrollably for about 12 hours at this point and I hadn't been able to sleep between any of my contractions since they began 24 hours earlier because of the constant back pain) Sadly, I agreed and we had to leave the wonderfully quiet and serene Birth Center and head to the Labor and Delivery floor. After some sleep we tried again but with no changes. Corrie said that I was pushing harder than she had ever seen anyone and that no one would be able to get that baby out better than me. I don't know if she was just saying that, but I had reached a point where I could tell that my efforts weren't helping and that was making me feel how tired I was. My cervix was at about 9 cm and 9/10 cm but Amos could just not get his head around and through. His head was swelling up and molding so it would just get more impossible. So Corrie didn't even need to say the word, I knew our only option left was surgery. At this point I don't want to get into more details. If you want more you have to take me out for a very expensive glass of wine. :)

After all of the blah stuff was past (and it wasn't all blah, the surgeons were exceptional and my midwife, doula and Brent were by my side the whole time), then the wonderful beginning of our life with baby Amos began. I was pretty rocked for a long while from the operation so Brent went into daddy and mama mode. He was amazing. I cry just thinking about. More details on that requires more wine...

Now our boy is settled into life in Brooklyn. He's a serious sleeper, just like mama and just like Doug. Learning to breastfeed has been a challenge but a beautiful (and painful!) one. I find myself spending most of my time feeding him and then snuggling him close and watching him sleep. Funny how I don't give much of a crap about all the things I worried about before he came (don't worry I will still finish my CD though!). Now I just hope and pray for his life and health and safety and pull flakes of skin off of his face. Yes, he's experienced quite a transformative molting the past week or so! My doctors say it's normal "imagine what your skin would do if you were in a hot tub for 9 1/2 months".

My mother leaves on Sunday. She has been a blessed gift to us. She rushed to the city once she heard about the surgery and she's been hard at work ever since. (and taking two weeks of vacation from her full time job!) She's been there with everything I could possible need, glasses of juice when I couldn't sit up and reach the table, amazing meals all day, helping us learn how to take care of Amos and cleaning this whole apartment in all the places we never would think of (the top of the refrigerator? ah.... around the oven? oh....) She simply has been amazing. Thank you Grandma Lentz!

The also amazing Frisbie's have been such amazing supporters during this time. They made a photo album long before we did and kept bringing food and love and laughter to the hospital and beyond. Beatrice Frisbie is now officially betrothed to Amos. My goodness I can't imagine his wedding day. I think I'll just take it day by day (day 15) for now.

And here's our album of Amos' first days. Keep checking here or do that RSS feed thing that I don't understand and I'll keep posting photos here.


We thank you all for your prayers and support during this exciting time. The Dickinson family is ready to rock!

love,
Sarah, Brent, Amos and Doug (who's getting used to this whole thing now. we're all getting better day by day including Doug the Thug Pug. :) )

He's here!

Hey friends and family,
So.....he has arrived! Amos Marshel Dickinson arrived into the world on Thursday, June 26th at 7:06 am. We are overjoyed! I will write much much more when I can. But, I am one pooped out mama right now. Things with the birth didn't really go as we had hoped. I was in the hospital until Sunday and am just able to sit up at the computer today. I'll fill you in a little more in a few days. But, in the end, we have an awesome (and big!) baby boy. He is quite handsome I must say as well. :) Thank you for all the prayers and good thoughts and love that you have sent over the last week. We are amazingly blest. Thank you.

love,
Sarah, Brent, Amos and Doug (who isn't so happy these days. He could use some prayer!)

well...maybe today??? (part 3)

Still no baby on the outside, but he's certainly chillin' on the inside. Maybe too comfortable in there... But we're having fun getting lots of rest and down time and maybe too much time to think. Hey if you are reading this blog, make a comment or something so I know someone's reading it! How about baby advice? We'll take that too... Here's a link to our cool doula Michelle LaDue, she has been coming over and giving me acupuncture treatments to get things rolling. She is a fantastic labor supporter! Once this does get going, I am excited to see the team of people we have working together. Our midwife and her partner, Sandy Woods and Corrie Macqueen are wise and experienced ladies and we are excited to see them in action. And, we're birthing, hopefully, at The Birth Center, at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hopsital, a place with top notch labor nurses experienced in natural delivery. So, once this gets going, I think it's going to be pretty cool. I have no clue what to do once we get home though, and they send you home pretty soon after you have your baby from The Birth Center. But I keep hearing I'll have a mothering instinct kick in. For our son's sake, I hope so! So, keep praying for us and soon, we will have good news to share. All in all, I don't care when he comes (though I would like to get my feet back, they look like duck feet right now) as long as he's healthy and strong. Love and peace everybody. ~Sarah

Maybe today???....(Part 2)

Hey everyone,
That's right, no baby time yet. Our due date was yesterday and although I experienced some very strange occurrences which I will not describe here, it seems that I am checking off the list of things that happen before you go into labor quite thoroughly. We needed to have a change of scene around here so Brent and I headed to Rockaway Beach and Riis Park for some oceanic adventures. It was actually pretty cold once we got there, so we just sat on our little chairs and read baby books for a couple hours. It was us and about 10 other people there which was delightful. The ocean air and deep blue Atlantic did us right. We're excited to take our boy to the beaches around here someday (we keep forgetting that we actually do live in a beach town! We'll have to make up for that in coming years.) Okay! So if anyone is interested, back to the montage.

(I think I am doing this more for myself to document this transforming year so bear with me!)

Doug was definitely starting get curious about his mom....

And then I got bigger and bigger... at this current point of 40 weeks and 1 day it looks like I have 2 watermelons in my tummy, but hey who's counting. The belly shots get a little too huge for public display here.



And some final shots that I'd like to call "Before We Were Four" (featuring Doug, our first born. ;)




We're not sure Doug is totally cool with the new brother coming, but we think he'll dig him soon enough. Okay, this has been really good, and fun(?), though it has continued to support the fact that the Dickinson's are not technically inclined in any way. (this took way too long!) But, we promise to keep you posted the best we can when the human Baby D comes. Keep praying for us, all four of us!

Love, S & B & D

Maybe....today?

My first update since September! Ah yes, it's been quite a 9 and 1/2 months you could say... We aren't sure but today might be the day we welcome our son into this world. (we think my water might be leaking? Not sure yet...) So please keep us all in your prayers. On this the possible day of our son's birth I thought I could at least catch you on on things a bit (at least until the contractions start kicking!). First a photo montage.... First shot, right when we found out I was pregnant. I was sure that I could see a difference in my stomach.... Then we went to Tulum, Mexico for a little babymoon as everyone calls it now. People kept asking if we were on our honeymoon and I was like, no I'm 5 months pregnant, can't you tell?! Then back from vacation and back to work (60 hours a week at 3 jobs for me, and doing my CD. It was a bit much but thanks to Brent and strength from God I made it through...)

All right you can start to see a little bit of baby right?
You get the idea, time goes by, I grow. More time, more belly and baby. It really has been an amazingly special and blessed time. Even in the midst of all the craziness of this year we've had a blast watching our baby grow, exclaiming "What the hell have we gotten ourselves into!?" and sharing special alone times together.



We went to an infant care class and this is the baby they gave us to practice on. He didn't have a hand and he looked like an alien! We wondered if this was an omen of things to come.







We did a photo shoot for my album in February and we couldn't resist doing a little family photo shoot. Thanks for Denny Renshaw for putting up with us all day and night.


I kept telling Denny how huge I was, he was disappointed. But still I made him photoshop out my belly in the CD shots. They look great and we are so excited to share the record with everyone this fall. (check for a sneak peak later this week on Myspace.com/sarahlentzmusic !)


All right, we're back from the hospital. We called our midwife and she wanted to check out this mysterious leakage..4 hours later and we're still in the clear. It was some sort of pre-leakage thing that I won't get into. But we are glad. Better to have the waters break and go into labor then them having to induce contractions. We doing a natural birth at the Birth Center at St. Luke's Roosevelt. Hoping for an exciting and medicine free entrance for our little boy. We'll see how I feel about that afterwards!

This blog thing keeps not working. I'll try to post a continuation of the montage soon. love to you all!