Keeping Us On Our Toes

Are you wondering how things are going with three kids? Wonderfully. We aren't losing any sleep at night, Emilee eats well, and is very predictable during the day. She is still sleeping tons and isn't fussy as long as I respond to her quickly. I feel much more laid back as the mother of a newborn now than I did when my other two were babies. I'm really happy. She is 5 weeks old and will smile at me every once in a while. I am really looking forward to regular social smiling and for Millie to fill out a little more and have a round face. She's still so scrawny to me. ;)

Meanwhile, the older two are giving us a run for our money.

Ryan started swim lessons two weeks ago. Before the lessons started, he was still afraid to go under the water. Now, after 4 lessons, he begs to go to the pool EVERY day because he is confident enough to jump off the side of the pool into the water and swim over to the steps. He loves to dive down and get rings off of the bottom step but he can't quite get himself under the water far enough to get rings from the bottom of the pool. My point is, that he now tells us every day that he can swim and is a bit over-confident.

Last night we took the kids to the pool and they were piddling around on the steps while Derek sat out and watched them. Katie walked off of the step and was under water for a few seconds. Derek jumped up and ran over to save her but slipped on the pool deck (remember why they say "no running") and fell. He jumped up again and was able to get her out before she swallowed too much water. She was probably under for a total of 5 seconds, but it totally went in slow motion. Didn't take her long to recover - but it gave us all a good scare.


Then tonight, I was giving the kids their vitamins and was playing around with Ryan. I held up the vitamin and he opened his mouth for me to give it to him. I pretended to give it to him but took it away when he was about to close his mouth. I did that a few times while he was laughing about it and then the time when I decided to let go, I didn't want him to bite me and I dropped it into his mouth. Unfortunately, it went right to the back of his throat and he started choking on it. I'll spare you the details, but basically, I was 3 seconds away from starting the Heimlich maneuver. I put the baby down on the floor, got behind him, tried to get his hand out of his mouth so he wouldn't push it in farther, and was ready to start when he managed to get it out himself. Another brush with death. That one also lasted probably 4 or 5 seconds, but it sure made my heart pound. I could see how scared he was and didn't know how long I had before he'd pass out.

Life is fragile - they keep reminding me. I get the point.

Oh, To Be a Hamster

We fully expected this "fun roller" to last a grand total of one day. We knew it would pop from kids jumping all over it. To our surprise, it's still kicking after 4 different days of use.

Little Miss Afro

These pictures are all pretty much the same, but she's my baby - how can I possibly decide which is my favorite?

I want to draw your attention to her hair. Does it look curly to you? Now look back at my first post and notice it straight. What do you think?

To me, it appears that the top is curly, though the sides behave much more straight. If I let it go 4 or 5 days without washing, shell get a great Kewpie doll look with a fabulous curled fauxhawk going on. I was a bit distraught at first - too much maintenance. But I have to admit that it's grown on me quite a bit. The headband seems to tame it - but it's the only one I own so it's getting a LOT of use. I wonder what will become of the curls when all of her hair starts falling out. Will they return? It's anyone's guess.

Admit it - she's cute.

Our Three Babies

Here is a bit of a comparison shot of my three kids. Do you see any resemblance?

Silly Millie

Katie Girl

Rhino

Emilee's Birth Story

Millie's birth was my hardest and longest so far. At about 6:00 Tuesday night I decided that I was probably going into labor that night. I had some strong contractions but they were irregular, still, it seemed that it was a little different than days before. At 8:00 my contractions were at about 3 minutes apart and my Mom took my kids over to a friend's house to spend the night. Once she left, the contractions went to more like 20 minutes apart. We went for a walk to try and get them going again and they started coming more regularly. I told Derek and my Mom to try and get some sleep while they could. They napped for about 2 hours while I tried to relax through the contractions. Right around midnight I woke Derek up and told him we might as well go to the hospital since they were back to 3 minutes apart.

When we got there, my contractions went back down to every 20 minutes or so and I was only dilated to a 5. I think my body sort of shut down because I was in an unfamiliar place. I was in a VERY bad mood and just wanted to go home. After we did all the checking in, I tried to get comfortable in the hospital room so that I could labor, but the floor was so hard and the rocking chair didn't have a pad on it, and I didn't want to be stuck in the hospital bed, etc. The only place I could go to "escape" the hospital was in the shower. Unfortunately, the nurse came in every 30 minutes to monitor me and the baby. They didn't have a portable/hand held monitor so I'd have to get out of the shower and sit on the bed each time I was monitored. It really "threw off my groove." Which made me much grouchier.

At the point when I was transitioning, I was supposed to get a 20 minute stretch of reading from the monitor (my arch nemesis) but it had to be a perfect stretch so I was hooked up to the darn thing for close to an hour during the hardest part of labor. I couldn't get comfortable and didn't have the presence of mind to rip off the monitors and get back in the shower so that I could take care of myself.

Finally, right before 7am I was ready to push. From the time I started pushing to the time that she was completely born was less than a minute. I had notions of pushing in a slow and controlled manner to help prevent tearing, but to no avail. The pain was fierce enough that I couldn't help but push with all my might so that the whole thing could be over and I could hold a baby. Emilee was born at 6:57am on July 30th. I had never been so happy to see a baby before. I had waited 5 extra days and worked for over 13 hours of labor in order for her to get here.

Unfortunately, I tore a small amount and it just so happened that the tear went right into an artery. Which caused me to lose about a liter of blood by the time they figured out what had happened and were able to sew me up. My blood pressure dropped to about 70/40 and I passed out for a second. They had to pump 3 bags of fluids in me to get my blood pressure back to normal, but luckily I was able to avoid a transfusion. There were 4 times in the hospital where I came close to passing out, but other than that, I felt like a million bucks.

It made for a longer recovery. I'll be anemic for a while and I was told to take it easy and stay in bed for about 2 weeks. Fortunately, I've had TONS of help from people in my ward who have had my older kids all morning for me the entire week and Derek came home early from work to take over in the afternoons. I'm already feeling much better and don't get lightheaded or weak when I'm up now.

Ryan keeps telling me "I'm so happy that you had Millie. I love her." and I would have to agree completely. She has been a wonderful baby. She eats really well, has good periods of awake time and sometimes smiles at me, and she is a very reasonable sleeper. She will sleep for 2 or 3 hour stretches and all she needs is to be swaddled and then I hold her really close and she'll doze off. We haven't had a "witching hour" or "cranky baby hour" yet, and I don't lose any sleep at night. Life has been grand.

I had a hard time accepting Emilee's birth. I wanted it to be as wonderful as Katie's birth, but it just wasn't to be. I didn't look back on it and feel super happy - I wanted to cry when I'd think about it. But, I've come to realize that I am not entitled to a perfect birth just because I want it. All experiences are different and unique and I will have to be prayerful about each birth in the future. I think that if this one was a home birth, I probably would've been an ambulance call. That would NOT have been ideal at all. I have come to accept that this birth was good to have at the hospital - but I hope that my next one will be born back at home.

Silly Millie

I couldn't help but get a chuckle out of Ryan plugging his ears while Emilee was crying.

And here is Katie with her baby sister.

Family of Five now!

Meet Emilee

I am not quite ready to share the story of her birth. I will say that I have never worked harder, and have never felt happier to have a little one join our family.

July 30, 2008

Our new little one arrived on Wednesday morning. I'll post details and pictures tomorrow since it's very late and I'm going to bed. We are SO glad she's here!

To Induce or Not to Induce

Sure, I'm 4 days "past due" right now. Would my OB induce me if I wanted her to? Absolutely. Do I want her to? Absolutely not.

I had a appointment today and found out that my baby is positioned very well, there is still plenty of amniotic fluid in there, and she is *estimated* to be just over 7 lbs. I'm at a healthy weight, my blood pressure is good and I still have plenty of energy. Seems to me like this girl just needs a little extra time to finish up before joining the family. I figure that if I just hold out a few more days until my body is actually ready for labor, that it will be a much better experience. I'm not interested in super hard contractions from Pitocin or laboring the full time at the hospital. You can just forget about that pesky epidural - I wouldn't let that needle NEAR me. My baby and I can work together just fine. I was designed for birth and I am bound and determined to enjoy the experience however the Lord decides to give it to me.

Even if it IS a few days later than I expected it to be.

Hats off to Katie

This post needs no explanation - well almost.
My mom just told Katie that she was "the cute one".
Katie was putty in her hands.