Jade Kareen

**I have been putting this post off while I waited to get pictures off my mom's phone and camera ... but it might be a while (I think I'm still waiting for some from when Lincoln was born) so I will just add them in later when I finally get them**

I had my last doctors appointment on Thursday June 27 and that's where we were going to decide what the plan was going to be. We had originally talked about having a c-section on either the 27th or 28th, but since I couldn't even get into the office to see her until the 27th, I knew that the 27th was out and would be lucky to get the 28th on such short notice. She checked me over, noticed my hernias were significantly worse than the week before. My blood pressure had also gone up just enough to put me right on the mark to allow a c-section earlier than 39 weeks (although it was only by like 4 days). She called upstairs and was able to book the OR for the next day. I got lucky! Everything becomes a whole lot more real when the date is set (especially when it's the next day!) and you have to go home and make sure everything is 100% ready. I spent the rest of that day cleaning my house so it would be nice and clean when I got home, and just getting everything else I could ready for the baby.

Friday I was supposed to be at the hospital at 10am to get my iv's going and all that other not so fun stuff. I just kept noticing how I wasn't nervous at all. I had no idea why, but with Lincoln I was freezing, insanely nervous and shaking like crazy! Even walking down the hall to the OR I never got nervous. Maybe I was just more anxious to finally be finished and to meet my new baby.

There is not a whole lot to do while they pump you full of a minimum of 2 iv bags, 3 if they can manage in not very much time. Mart was killing time watching shows on his phone, so I spent the morning on instagram and facebook.

My c-section was scheduled for noon, but my doctor was running just a little behind so we had to wait a little longer. It was finally time to get the show on the road, so we headed down the hall. As soon as I got into the hallway, I saw my mom standing there waiting for me. It was perfect timing! She originally had wanted to be a second person in the OR with us, but after talking to my Doctor about it, I found out it was going to be very unlikely that she would be able to be there. (It was up to my anesthesiologist, who I didn't even meet until about 30 minutes before the surgery). So she just waited for me in the waiting room and came to hang out while I was in recovery.

They finally started at 12:40. I had my usual c-section un-pleasantries. Within a minute or two of them starting, I started to feel extremely weird and couldn't explain what I was feeling. I had a hard time focusing on anything and was starting to get crazy nauseous. The guy was awesome and figured out fast that it was my blood pressure. It had gotten very low (especially for me, I am used to high blood pressure) and as soon as he was able to regulate it I felt relatively fine.

At 12:45 Miss Jade was born. She was very fiesty and had a definite opinion from the get-go. She was also the cleanest baby I've ever seen that was brand new! (My boys were definitely in need of a good scrub down when they came out.)

She was right in between my boys at 7lbs 9oz and 19 1/2 inches long. 

It's a little tricky to get a half decent first picture with me upside down and not able to really focus on a whole lot ... 

Once I got to recovery, they told me I could see my baby whenever I was ready. They went and got her right after they told me that. :)
My mom came in with Mart and she got to meet Jade.

 We hung out in recovery for about an hour and then we headed upstairs to my room. Mart left to find some lunch so we waited to give Jade her bath until he got back. They gave her a bath in my room so I could be there too. She was not very happy, and let everyone know about it.

She calmed down a lot after that and we just got to love her and get some good snuggles in. 

Nanan had been anxiously awaiting Jade's arrival, and was very excited when we told her she could come visit

I think Grandad was happy too

Grandma Debi loves babies, and she was more than willing to hold one fresh from heaven. 

Mart stayed the night with me Friday and it was a very long night. Between alarms that would beep every.single.time I would fall asleep and a baby who just wanted to nurse, I only got about 2 hours of sleep that night. At one point when the nurse came in, I pretty much begged her to take the oxygen monitor off me so I could sleep. I don't breathe deep enough when I sleep so as soon as I would doze off, the alarm would sound because I didn't have enough oxygen. She was concerned that I might need an oxygen mask, and I told her it was normal. She just said she would check it every couple of hours when she came in instead and that was MUCH better! The next morning Mart had to get up and head home to shower and go to the temple with Ber. She was going through to get her endowments before her wedding.

After the temple, Nanan, Grandad and Dallan came to visit for a few minutes. 

Mart went home and changed and went to pick my boys up from Kace and brought them to meet the baby. My boys LOVED her! They just wanted to hold her and kiss her head over and over again.

After a few minutes of baby snuggles, they realized they were in a new place and felt the need to go exploring. They were everywhere! Mart took them home shortly after that. I spent the rest of that night by myself (with the occasional visitor) and Jade and I had some snuggle time, and tried to rest. 

After a c-section they wrap these cuffs around your legs that randomly fill up tight with air and then release it and do it over and over again. It's to prevent getting a blood clot when I can't get up and move around myself. I quite like them, they are like little massages for my legs.

Grandma decided she wanted to come back and get more snuggle time in. 

Later Saturday night, my friend Seantae came to visit me for a little while. It was so nice to see her.

Generally after a c-section they like you to stay in the hospital for 3 days. With Lincoln I convinced them to let me go home after 2 days, and this time was no different. Although I managed to get a little more sleep Saturday night, I was ready to go home and be with my family, my dogs and my own bed. So at exactly 48 hours after she was born (my doctor said I had to wait that long to remove my staples) we were discharged and sent on our way! It was awesome. 

Mart had taken the entire next week off work to stay home and help me with the boys. It was so nice and we were really sad to see him go back to work the following week. He would take the boys to my house in Richmond in the morning and they would work on packing, and cleaning and come home around nap time. It gave me time to sleep in a little and feel semi normal before they got home.

Recovery has been pretty easy. I was off all my pain meds after a week and running all over the place. I'm glad she's finally here and that life can get back to it's new normal.

Maternity Pictures

With both of my boys I made a photo book showing their first month of life. I love looking through that book every now and again! I have a few pages at the beginning with ultrasound pictures and maternity pictures. Last week I started to think about it and realized that I had only taken one picture of my belly so far ... and not a good one. It was not going to look very good in a photo album for sure! After realizing that and thinking it over, I decided we should probably get a few taken before Little Miss comes this weekend. Luckily, my sweet friend Trisha was available and agreed to come take some pictures of my ginormous belly! She always does a great job and of course is good company too. :)

Thanks Trisha! It was perfect timing, because my belly decided to have a mind of it's own and got even bigger the next day! Not sure how that happens ... :)

The plan - 37 weeks

 So up until this point, the way I have this baby has been up in the air. We have kept options open to see what would work and how we wanted to approach the situation. With Ber's wedding quickly approaching and the thought of trying to make it to that and take care of a newborn, and recover from a c-section is daunting enough ... but adding in the extra thoughts of "what if I try for a vbac, labor for 24+ hours ... and then have a uterine rupture and rip both hernia repairs open all at the same time...then extend my recovery by who knows how long. How am I supposed to take care of myself, my family and my new baby ... let alone attempt to make it to Ber's wedding? How long would it even take them to repair something like that ... would they even have enough time before I lost a crazy amount of blood? So on and so forth ..."

The longer I actually thought through the possibilities of what might happen, the more I leaned toward a c-section. I feel content with that decision and feel like that would be the safer way to go. I know I recover pretty quickly and am hoping that this time will not be any different. After talking through my concerns with my doctor, she checked me and told me that even without me talking to her first about my concerns, she would have recommended a c-section. I'm not dilating yet, the baby is still really high, my pelvis is small and at a funny angle. She was concerned that I'd end up laboring for a very long time and then end up being rushed to a c-section (which would be the most dangerous situation out of all of my options). That being said, we have tentatively scheduled my c-section for July 2nd. That's the earliest she can legally schedule it for at this point (without it being medically necessary) ... but we are going to bump it up to Friday the 28th. (5 days! Holy beans...) We just have to find a reason for that to happen.

I have been extremely grateful that this pregnancy has been "normal". I haven't had the same scares and issues I've had the previous two times. My blood pressure is high, but a "normalish high". (It's much higher than most people, but has stayed steady the entire time). I have had next to no swelling until the last couple days, and even then it's just my hands and feet. My morning sickness went away at 14 weeks and hasn't shown it's ugly face since. (Thank goodness for that!). I've only gained about 17-20ish pounds and have been measuring 35ish weeks for the last 4 weeks. She thinks I will have a small to average sized baby.

That's what's going on. I know I haven't documented how this pregnancy has been going nearly as much as I did with Lincoln. That's because it hasn't been as eventful. :) I have tried to change that a little toward the end so that when I look back I will be able to remember details, even if they were uneventful.

Now on to the rest of the week.

My mom decided that she wanted to have a baby shower for me this time around. I was a little iffy about it because, well, it was my third baby. I didn't want people to feel like they had to get me a gift. It ended up being kind of last minute, and super casual. Mostly family. It was nice to just hang out and talk, and of course Little Miss was spoiled. I think I am set on clothes for a while now!

Thursday Mart decided that if the baby was going to be coming in a week that he should take the boys camping one last time before she got here. They packed up and headed up Green Canyon Friday night and spent the night. They woke up and went on a small hike and then came home around lunch time. While they were gone, I spent time with my family who were putting on a garage sale at my Grandma's house. The next morning I took myself to get a much needed pedicure. It was totally worth it just to sit in the massage chair for an hour!  It was strange to have my boys gone, but so nice to have a break for a little while.

I guess I better get moving this week and get everything finished that I've been putting off. Hopefully I have enough energy to get everything done and ready! It's amazing how the last nine months seemed to go beyond slow ... but I guarantee this week is going to speed by with everything I still need to get done!

Cooling off!

I don't know if it's just hormones or the fact that I'm 36 weeks pregnant and uncomfortable, but I have had next to no patience with my boys lately. I'm leaning more toward hormones because it's been going on for a while ... I think they know that I'm getting close and things are going to be changing too, because they haven't been angels either. We all just need to get out and do something fun.

Kace called me last week and asked if we wanted to meet her at the new splash pad so Tyler could play with Lincoln and Ethan. As it's only 2 blocks from my house, I said that I should probably get over my own attitude problem and take them to do something fun. It would be significantly easier having Kace there to help me too and water is always a good distraction for Ethan. It was a good choice. Ethan had a blast!

When we first got there, Lincoln was really hesitant and didn't want anything to do with the water. He sat by me and ate snacks and watched and talked to his best friend Mr. Tyler. 

I took over watching Zack so Kace could watch my boys in the water.

After asking several times if he wanted to go and play instead of just watching, I finally told Kace to just pick him up and take him with her or he'd never adjust or agree to go in.

He finally semi warmed up and at least walked around in it for a few minutes to cool off. 

Ethan on the other hand took no convincing and was running around like a maniac! "I'm wet Mom!"

After a few minutes he realized that all the big kids were fighting over one big water jet in the middle so he joined in on that too. 

He knows how to stand his ground, because he ended up being king of the hill for a very long time. 

Tyler would rotate between running around in the water and coming back to get more snacks from me. Toward the end, little Zack decided that he was curious and kept going to check it out. 

Right before we left, he decided that he liked it and started crawling all over the splash pad! We couldn't believe how brave he had suddenly gotten. He's such a big boy!

It was hot because there isn't any shade yet, the trees are all still too little. But my boys had a blast and were definitely worn out. Thanks Kace for inviting us, and for watching my boys! They love playing with you. It was nice to get a little sun and run around for a while. 

Freedom

George has been in jail for just shy of a year, and was finally released on May 30. Ethan has been counting down (George was too I'm sure!) and was beyond excited to see him again. He was originally supposed to be released at 8am, but for some reason they bumped it to 8pm. (They only release at 8am and 8pm). So, he had to just sit and wait all day when he thought he was getting out in the morning.

Mart's grandparents are back in town for the summer and wanted everyone to meet at the jail to welcome George back to reality. There was quite a large group, which I think overwhelmed George a little after not seeing everyone for so long. He just focused on one or two people, mainly saying hi to Ethan who just loves George.

After George filled out his release paperwork, we all headed off to get some ice cream since it was a bit late for dinner.


Yeah, it's next to impossible to get all the little boys to sit still long enough to snap a picture and smiles are definitely out of the question for all of them ... but they were having fun and loved their ice cream.

Ethan was pretty much on cloud 9!

We are happy George is finally out, it was a long year of visits to the jail and paying for his necessities each month. We hope that he can keep his head straight and clean up his act and stay out this time for good. He managed to find a job a couple weeks before he got out (he was on work release for a week or so to find a job) and I hope that he sticks with it and starts to be a little more grown up than he's been acting as of late.

Preschool

Ethan had his last day of preschool on the 31st. For the last month, I have made sure to drive him out to Richmond as much as possible to make sure he could still attend school so his routine didn't get changed up too much. He loved going to school and learned a lot. It was good for him to get out of the house and play with some other kids. 

While in school he learned to write his numbers up to 12 and count up to 29 (He thinks the number after 29 is 2010. ) He can write his name and "Mom" without help, and lots of other things as long as you write it out for him first. Toward the end, I started working with him on letters and the sounds they make to get ready for Kindergarten (I tried teaching him myself, but he didn't retain a single thing I said to him. I bought a leap frog video about letters and he knows all of the letters and sounds after only watching a handful of times! The boy definitely learns better from technology).

When I picked him up after school, she gave me a journal that he had been keeping since the beginning, a certificate and this picture she took of him the school day before. He looks so happy with himself. I just love it. What a big boy.

He's definitely been antsy since he doesn't have school to go to anymore. It doesn't help that I'm way too pregnant to do too much with him anymore. He's extremely excited to start Kindergarten, and I am beyond nervous to send him ... hopefully he does a LOT of growing up this summer!

35 weeks

I'm sure this post will be extremely scattered and not make a whole lot of sense, but I'll just blame it on the brain cells that seem to go missing while I'm growing a person. 

I haven't posted a whole lot about this pregnancy, mainly because it's been surprisingly uneventful. (Thank goodness! Maybe my last two were too eventful!)

I have the usual 3rd pregnancy (I assume they are usual ...) symptoms of being super uncomfortable. I feel like there is something out of alignment in my lower back/pelvic area so sometimes moving wrong is next to excruciating. I can't wait until my joints aren't all loose and moving where ever they feel like all the time.  I have gotten extremely lucky this time and haven't had morning sickness since 14 weeks. That was something I was dreading about ever being pregnant again.

At my last doctors appointment, my blood pressure was crazy low for me (near perfect), I have only gained like 17 pounds, swelling is at a minimum, and no crazy problems. It's been so bizarre but so nice! I have had contractions here and there since we started remodeling the house we are living in now, but nothing terrible. I have hit the exhaustion wall again and have a hard time making it through the entire day without feeling like I have to have a nap. I wish I had time every day to take a nap ...

Whether I end up with another c-section or a vbac is still completely up in the air, but we will start trying to determine what will be best at my appointment next week. I told her I'm a little concerned about both of my abdominal hernias ripping right open (the baby is pushing on them pretty hard already) and she said that is a valid concern and it could very well happen. I told her I would like a vbac, but honestly I am leaving it up to her to decide what would work best and be safest for both of us. 

Anyway, here is me a few days ago. I feel like I look like a beached whale as she was jutting straight out, but hopefully it won't be much longer.

 

Life keeps on going. I am ready to have my brain back ... tonight while I was making dinner and I put a pot of water on the stove to boil and turned it on high. I finished loading the dishwasher, went and used the bathroom, got some towels out of the laundry ... 20 or so minutes later I came to check on the water, and I had turned the wrong burner on ... geez. I'm not sure why growing a person sucks all the brain cells out, but I'm ready to start letting my brain work again soon. 

The other night I was roasting and went outside to try and cool off a little, and looked down and realized I don't have much longer with this view. I'm glad it's almost over and I'm excited to meet this little Miss.