Birth Story

Warning: This is really long and maybe boring. :)

So, I'd say it all started Saturday May 28th. My Grandpa passed away about 1:30 that morning. He had been suffering with dementia for almost five years. Donovan and me went and visited him the Thursday after he had a stroke the day before. Friday he went into a coma and passed away early Saturday. I'm sharing this for a reason, I promise. Sometime that night Contractions started coming regularly. They were coming 10 to 15 minutes apart for over two hours. Jason was at a concert and we were worried he was going to have to leave early. However, contractions continued coming but never got any closer that night. It wasn't until the next night that they got under five minutes. My Mom was visiting, so Jason and me headed to the hospital. They monitored me for over an hour and said contractions were coming 2 to 7 minutes apart, but there was no change in my cervix, so back home we came.

This was a pretty tough weekend for me. I had many emotions going on that were hard to process. I was saddened by my grandfather's death, but very excited about the baby coming soon. It was hard for me to know how to feel, especially because I thought the baby was going to come on the same day of his passing. I also wanted the baby to come so bad that weekend so we could make it to the funeral on Thursday. The baby had another plan though. Contractions continued coming regularly for days. My Mom and me even went on a 5K walk that didn't help, but make me more uncomfortable. I tried to just keep moving and staying as active as I could. This was very different from my last 12 week activity. I find it interesting that there was all this worry about me having the baby early, then when I try to get him to come....nothing. I was very frustrated.

As Thursday came closer I was torn between wanting the baby to come or not. I really wanted to make it to the funeral, but also really really wanted the baby out. Keep in mind that I'm still contracting, and I'm very uncomfortable and in pain. Every night of this week was horrible. So, Thursday came and the baby was not here. I was really glad that I was able to go to the funeral. It was very special. I was glad I got to say goodbye. I also got to see some family that I hadn't seen for awhile. About ten or so that night contractions started getting closer and more painful. Jason and me debated on going in, but neither of us wanted to be sent home again. We even read in our books about labor to help us decide. I finally just decided to try to sleep about one in the morning. I woke up about four from a pain. I timed the contractions and decided to wake Jason up at 5:30 to tell him that I thought it was time. We called my Mom and got to the hospital about 6:30.

At the hospital we were finally told that I was in active labor. I was dilated to a 6. I had been debating on having an epidural during my whole pregnancy. I hated the way I reacted to the one with Donovan. I believed that I had to push for four hours with him because of it. I think we were there for about six hours before I finally decided to get one. It wasn't because of the contractions. I was dilated to an eight at this point and my water had been broken, and I was handling the contractions fine. It was talking to my doctor that swayed me. I've always been worried about the stitching up after without an epidural. I have a little fear of stitches for some reason. Not needles, just stitches specifically. My doctor said that for her, the stitching up after would be the reason for an epidural. So, I got one and immediately my contractions stopped. They gave me that drug that gets contractions going and we waited for almost another two hours for him to come. So, I still hate epidurals and just don't think they mix too well with my system. Maybe I won't chicken out the next time.

Dexter was born at exactly 2p.m. with about ten minutes of pushing. They put him on my chest, and I knew immediately that he was a big baby. He seemed so huge. He was 8lbs 6oz and 19 1/2 inches long (which we think is wrong).

I find it interesting that my contractions started the day my grandfather passed away, but I didn't go into labor until after the funeral. It's gone through my mind that, that is for a reason. Maybe my grandpa wanted me there. Maybe he wanted to spend some time with Dexter before he came to us. Who really knows, but it's a nice thought.

Dexter's Newborn Pics

So, I've been lazy with blogging. I want to share Dexter's birth story sometime when I feel like doing a longer post. I find it interesting. Here's his pictures they took of him in the hospital though to hold you over until then. :)

Dexter Douglas

A couple people have asked how we came up with Dexter's name. So, here it is:


Dexter Gordon is my favorite jazz musician. He played the saxophone, and recorded mostly in the 40's, 50's, and 60's. I thought it was just a cool name, too. After a while, Dallas agreed with me. Check out the song in this post if you're interested.

Douglas is Dallas' Dad's name.  

Not everyone was crazy about the name when we told them. Here is the conversation I had with my Mom when I called her right after Dexter was born:

Me:      We had the baby
Mom:   So, what did you name him?
Me:       Dexter Douglas
Mom:   (pause) .... really?
Me:       Yeah. You don't like it huh?
Mom:    It sounds like the phone book guy.

Bedrooms

We've done some decorating in the kid's rooms. Jason and me haven't been great at decorating. Maybe that should fall more on me. This is my first house I've been able to decorate, and I don't really know how to do it and make it look good. I need to do some reading on blogs or in magazines. Our bare walls are starting to bug me. We've been doing little by little though. It would be nice if the kids had some color on their wall too, but Jason and me HATED painting our main level so bad, that they just may have to wait until we're in our more permanent house.

For those that may not know, Donovan was named after Jason's grandpa. His grandparents recently had to move, and they were kind enough to give us this sign that was above their garage. I was really excited to put it up in his room. How great is it that he'll have something from his namesake for the rest of his life. I hope he cherishes it and always has a place for it in his home.

Jason's Dad gave us these cool John Deere toys that he played with as a kid. We wanted to do something special with these too, so we put these shelves up to display them. I just love getting stuff handed down from generations. The stuff that I have mean a lot to me, and I really hope our kids love them too. I'm waiting to get a picture of my boys to put in the picture frame on the left.

We've had this rug since before Van was born, but here it is again.

Here's the new bunk bed we got. We don't have the top set up yet. It will go unused until Van is big enough to go up there.

Here's a close up of his comforter. My grandma was nice enough to make this for Van for his second birthday. It goes real well with his room and new bed.

Van smiling at me.

This is all we've put up in the girls' room recently. Ashley's favorite animal is the elephant, so we put up this picture for her that Jason had.

36 Weeks

Only four more weeks! I'm excited to almost be done. I'm also a little nervous. I went to the doctor today and she said I'm almost dilated to a three. When I was told I was dilated to a three with Donovan, I had him two days later. I know it doesn't always work like that, but it makes you wonder. She also mentioned setting an inducement date. I said I don't think I want to be induced. That actually makes me nervous. I would prefer to go naturally. I might set one anyway at my next appointment, since she won't set one before I'm 39 weeks anyway. I'm hoping I'll go before then. I'd bet money I'm having this baby on the first anyway ;). Okay not really. That's just the date that's been in my head since I found out my due date. All the women in my family have had their babies two weeks early, so I'm hoping this one doesn't break that tradition.

Bedtime

This is Donovan's bedtime routine that he made up. I have no idea where he comes up with this stuff. He's a silly silly kid.

30 Weeks!

Well, we've made it thirty weeks. As most of you know I started contracting and dilating at 26 weeks. They couldn't get the contractions to stop at the hospital, so I had to stay for a night to get them under control. At the hospital they did an FFN test. How it was explained to me was, when the baby is ready to come it releases a protein on the cervix. If you test positive for that protein, then you are likely to deliver in the next two weeks. I tested positive, which is no good at only 26 weeks. They gave me lots of shots while I was in the hospital. I had ten different needles in me in a 24 hour period. Two of which were steroid shots to get the baby's lungs to develop more quickly....just in case I delivered early. I was a little worried about these, but was told that only good can come from the shots. I was sent home the next day with some medication to help with contractions. There was reason to believe that the FFN test was inaccurate, so they re-tested me two days later. It came back negative this time, which was excellent news. I was still pretty uncomfortable with all the contractions I was having. I also had a lot of pressure pretty much all the time. I stayed down pretty good for two weeks. The pressure finally went away, and the contractions were getting few and far between. I feel normal now. The contractions feel more like the Braxton Hicks now too. My doctor doesn't think I need to be on bed rest anymore, and can almost resume normal activity. She doesn't want me over exerting myself, but she thinks I'll be fine.

Also, they did an ultra sound while I was in the hospital. Everything looked fine. When I was 26 weeks, I was measuring at 29 weeks. They didn't change my due date, but there's a good chance I'll be having this baby early anyway. They're doing another ultra sound in two weeks to check the growth again. I'm curious to see if I'm still measuring bigger. I hope I am. :)

20 Weeks!

Thought I should take a picture for my 20 week mark and share. So, here it is. As most of you know we had our ultrasound on Monday, and we're having another boy. That's what we were hoping for, so we're happy. The baby looks healthy. He doesn't seem to have any birth defects, as far as they could tell from the ultrasound. I'm doing well and feeling good. I've still been running. Just a couple of days a week. I'm going to try to run a 5K two weeks from Saturday. As of now I know I can do it. I will probably be a lot slower than normal. I'm going to try hard to not push myself during the race. It's hard in a race situation. Anyway...It's a boy! Yay!

Golfin' Trip

January first Jason and me went on a little trip to St. George. It was mainly so we could go golfing in the off season. We originally wanted to do that golf or spa thing you see advertised for Mesquite. While researching we found out that wasn't such a great deal. We also thought it would be fun to go with another couple. When we had originally talked about doing this, we didn't know any other female golfers. We found out not too long after that our friend Matt's girlfriend golfed. We got excited and started planning. We had to go while Jason was out of school, and this was the only weekend we could manage it. A.T. (my Mom's boyfriend) was kind enough to let us use his condo in St. George. It helped us out a lot. I think it was about 20 degrees below average temperature for this time. It was cold. I think the high for the day we wanted to golf was low 40's. We decided to go into Mesquite, where it was a little warmer. I don't think it reached 50 while we were golfing. I could be wrong though. My hand that wasn't gloved was pretty frozen by the end of the day.

After we had finished our first hole, this guy came up to us that worked for the course. He told us that we took 35 minutes to finish the first hole, which we didn't. They expect you to do it in 15 minutes or less. He told us not so kindly that we need to speed up and let people play through who come up on us. He also pointed out that people pay to finish there, like we didn't. It was fine that he pointed out that we needed to hurry, but he didn't need to be jerky about it. We had a pretty fun time golfing anyway. I played my best ever. It's a lot more fun when you play well. Jason got a 119 and I got a 134 for 18 holes. It was a pretty tough course. There were times you were golfing off cliffs and you couldn't see where the hole was at all. It was the toughest course I had ever golfed.

Other than golfing, we went to a movie. We saw True Grit, which I would say was just okay. We also hung out with our friends, and played games. Went out to eat of course. It was just a nice, relaxing, fun little weekend. We were glad to share it with Matt and Melanie. We're also thankful for the use of A.T.'s condo.

We were lame and didn't get very many pictures. I hope to be better at that this year.

Matt and Melanie

Snow and palm trees. Just seems weird to me.

Jason showing off his sexy belly.

Me showing off mine. Just so ya know, I'm blowing out. My baby bump isn't quite this big yet.

This hole was crazy. You had to hit over that ditch.

Van's Dancing

Here's our little guy dancing. He loves to dance. He just thinks that's what you do when music comes on. Most of the time he just runs in circles nodding his head. I love his hip shaking in one, and the good use of the chair in the other. Sorry about the shaky camera. I think I was dancing along.

Christmas

Christmas was great for us this year. We all got way spoiled. Especially the kids, with all their different families. The girls came over about ten and we started opening gifts. After, we made waffles. We've made waffles the past two years now, so that's going to be our Christmas tradition. We hung out at home all day, and later watched Toy Story 3. It was a good day. The next day we visited my Grandma and Jason's parents, and got spoiled some more. My Dad came to visit the Monday after, and I got to spend sometime with him during the week. My step-mom and me got a manicure and pedicure together, which was very enjoyable. My Mom wasn't able to be here for Christmas, so we got Christmas early from her. She spoiled the kids big time. She spoiled Jason and me pretty good too. We are lucky to have so many family members who spoil us and love us.

The week after Christmas I got into a little accident. I think it was the Wednesday after, when it was snowing pretty good. I hadn't been outside all day, and didn't know how bad it was. I started going up the hill where the temple is by our house. I realized a little too late that, that was probably a bad idea. Everyone was going really slow up and down the hill. I had the breaks on the whole way down and felt completely in control. As we were approaching the light, we started to slide, the breaks locked up and there was nothing I could do. Instead of slamming into the car in front of me, I decided to veer off to the right. We went up and over the curb and ran over a small tree. It didn't really feel like much, because I was going pretty slow. The kids didn't even know what happened. As far as damage, there's only a small crack on the bumper, and a small dent in the hood. There doesn't seem to be any other damage. It could have been worse. Anyway, enough of that. Ash and her cool new Converse shoes.
Olivia with an Olivia doll.

I made the mistake of letting Van open Buzz and Woody towards the beginning. He didn't care about anything else after he got those.

See? Here he is holding them while we made him open more gifts.

Jason with his Pink Floyd collector glasses.

Van with his new desk, pillow pet, pillow, Buzz and Woody, and some other little toys.

My Grandmother had these made for us. I thought that was a really cute idea. I might steal it in the future.

The girls' new desk, chair, storage bin, lamp, and a bunch of other stuff on it.

The girls' pillow pets.

I didn't want to show pictures of me opening gifts. My hair's a mess and I look sleepy. Besides, I think looking at pictures of opening gifts is a little boring for other people. Jason got me a griddle, which I've been wanting. A digital photo frame, the last season of Everybody Loves Raymond, that I needed. Some other good stuff too. Jason also got some T-shirts, See's chocolate, and pajamas. Anywho, it was a good time.

Thanksgiving

Well, I'm a little behind with blogging. Better late then never. On Thanksgiving Jason, Van and me went to my grandparents house for dinner. We had some good food there. I didn't get any pictures though. After we left their house we picked up the girls and went up to Jason's parents house. Jason's grandparents were there and his family was playing the violin for them. For those that don't know, Jason and basically his whole family can play the violin. His Mom taught her kids how to play, which I think is just great. I love watching Jason play, and wish I could see him play more. I love that Ashley is learning now too. I hope to see Jason and Ashley play a duet sometime. Jason with his brothers.

Jason, Geoff, Aubrey(niece), Mindy(sister), and Adam

Adam giving Allston and Van a ride.

Geoff joined in.



Here's a couple of videos of them playing. The sound quality isn't great, because I was just using my little camera. I enjoy watching all of them play together.