Updated Pictures!

Here are some new pictures of our newest one. She has been so much fun! The kids are really having a ball helping take care of her. Cohen was our biggest concern because he's been my #1 man for so long, but it seems that he is warming up to her a little bit at a time. Today he was helping me pat her back while she was throwing a mini fit. It was really cute. Anessa and Peyton love holding her and love to name all her "tiny" parts: tiny toes, tiny fingers...it's really cute!

I love her little mouth in this pic!









She came out so fast that she now has a bulging fontanelle at the top of her head so her hair is a bit spread out until that goes down. Doc has told us all should be fine.

I got tagged!

I don't really know how this works, but when checking out Tasha's site I noticed she tagged me; so I will answer the same questions that she was answering!

What I was doing 10 years ago:
10 years ago, lets seeee...I was a junior at Woods Cross and causing havoc with everything that I did. That would be the famous Math year. Anna will know what I'm talking about. We had a math teacher names Ms. Jordan who Anna, me, Matt G., and Lindsay basically tortured. She was a real treat. Do I feel bad about it now? Nah, it was way too much fun and has caused a lot of laughs over the years.

Five years ago:
Mitch and I had been married for a year and a half. We had 2 kidlets at that time. We lived in West Jordan in our very first house that we had built. I was working full time and thinking about quitting to go back to school.

1 year ago:
We had lived in Logan for 6 months one year ago. We were starting to do a bit of work on the basement. I was going to school and taking care of the kids. Mitch was just starting on his Masters degree. We had added to our family with the birth of Cohen. He had just turned 1 at that point.

Yesterday:
Yesterday we got up about 9. Aja was up until 2 in the morning; not crying but just being happy awake while I was nodding off on the couch. After getting up I helped Mitch get the kids breakfast. He went for a run and I looked up movie times for him so that he could take the boys to Kung Fu Panda. I nursed Aja about 8 BILLION times. Changed a blow out. Took a nap. Talked to a friend for about an hour and a half. She brought dinner over. Koby came to visit. My friend Melissa came for a visit. Watched the Darjeeling Limited (interesting movie to say the least). Fretted over Aja's bulging fontanelles and googled them (not a good for newborn paranoia). Talked to Anessa and my mom (she had some pretty funny stories to tell). All in all it was a pretty boring day. Today will be warm so I'm going for a walk; I've totally got cabin fever!

5 snacks I enjoy:
Wow..Brownies, yogurt with cottage cheese, strawberries, toast, chocolate chip cookies.

5 favorite books:
Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, A Woman of Substance, The Other Boleyn Girl. I love reading!

5 places to run:
Running is for people who enjoy pain. I, on the other hand, do NOT enjoy pain. Give me yoga, pilates, and my elliptical anyday!

5 bad habits:
I have way more than 5..Heehee..I procrastinate, I don't turn on the fan when I shower (I like it steamy. Mitch is convinced I'm going to ruin the bathroom), I pick my nails until they bleed, when I get nervous I bit my lips until they bleed, I leave tissues everywhere.

5 pet peeves:
Dirty houses, dishes on the counter, food left out, people who are in a constant competition to say they are better than someone else, people who don't wipe their kids' nose. Blech...

5 favorite TV shows:
Hell's Kitchen and Bones. Other than that TV really sucks.

5 people I would love to meet:
Meh...Noone has really impressed me enough to want to meet them (at least in this lifetime). If anything I would just rather spend my time with family I haven't seen in a long time.

5 people to tag:
Good laws..I don't even know who reads this! Heather Bennett, if you are reading this...You are tagged hunny! There are some people I wish would get a blog *coughcoughANNAcoughcough*...

Wonder Womban versus the Tornado (my birth story)

Friday June 6, 2008 at around noon I started with some contractions. They were painful and crawled up my belly, but this had been going on for weeks so I didn’t really pay any attention to them. As the night progressed, they kept coming instead of going like they usually did. At 6 they went away completely. Oh well I thought and just went on with my night. I wasn’t feeling too great and had some lower back pain, but just attributed that to the pregnancy. At around 11 I told Mitch I wanted to go to bed and he came up from working in the basement and stayed in the front room with the kids for their weekend “camp out”. I went into bed and hung out by myself relaxing and reading a book. At around 11:20 the baby was just wrestling something in there and it really, really hurt! At one point she moved to a position that made it so I could hardly move; so I laid there for about 5 minutes massaging her into a different position. When she moved I was thinking to myself that I just needed to sleep. So I laid down at about 11:45 and went to sleep.
At around 12:10 a.m. I felt a POP! and a big gush. I laid there for a second trying to figure out what was going on and realized OH CRAP! that is my water breaking! So I called out for Mitch and told him. He came running in and grabbed a towel for me so that I could head to the restroom to change. While I was in there I called my dad and mom to let them know that this was happening tonight. At this point Mitch called Liz, our doula, and asked her to come over because we didn’t know what to expect at this point. I wasn’t really contracting and Mitch and I were joking around about the “attitude” of the baby saying things like “I’m 40 weeks now, and ready to come out.” and things like that. At that point, Liz arrived and that is when I started having contractions. They weren’t too bad and I could still talk and do things through them. Koby and Heather arrived a little bit later and that is when the contractions started to progress a bit more. What really surprised me is that they didn’t hurt all up my belly; they just hurt in my back and my lower pelvis. The only position I really found comfortable was hanging over the birth ball and having either Mitch or Liz press down really hard on my sacrum with something warm. I asked Mitch to give me a blessing and he wanted to wait until Koby was there, so they both came into the room and gave me a blessing. It was very nice and I actually just had a mild contraction during that.
About 1:45 my contractions were very, very painful and I was starting to vocalize with them. It was getting a bit harder to concentrate and make myself relax. I started to shake really bad at this point too. Liz had told Mitch that we would be able to tell when I was in transition because I would get really grumpy. We tried a different position during a contraction and I didn’t like it. So I tried crumpling to the floor, but Mitch wouldn’t let me go. He wanted to help me down gently and I finally yelled at him to just let me go! Mitch said that Liz smiled and nodded to him. I had hit it. It was about 2:20 I said we need to head to the hospital, it’s getting really intense. As I was walking to the door I had the sudden urge to throw up and ran to the bathroom. I thought I was done but again, as I was walking to the door, I did and my poor husband caught it and grabbed a towel for me (the beautiful things we see from our spouses LOL). We got in the car and that was a whole other level of pain right there. Since I couldn’t get into comfortable positions and was stuck sitting upright I think that may have progressed things a bit. Man, it hurt. I was moaning really loudly and just writhing in pain. Mitch kept things calm by telling me that I was doing really well and that he was so proud of me and how strong I was. He would then rub my leg and comfort me when I wasn’t in the middle of them. I would say the contractions were coming about 2 minutes apart at this point. He also told me that Liz had told him that I was progressing really fast. It didn’t occur to me until that point that she was worried that I would deliver in the car. Hence her last statement to us (that I didn’t pay attention to really because I was in pain of “if you feel a lot of pressure and the baby is coming, lay on your left side that will slow it down until we hit the hospital). Once we go to the hospital they were coming every minute. It was intense. After what seemed like a long walk/ride (I was in a wheelchair) we hit the L&D floor. They got me in a room right away and started my Hep lock (it took a few tries as I kept having contractions and couldn’t hold still). During this time I was pleading with Mitch for something, who knows. I finally hit the stage of not being able to do it anymore. They checked me and I was a 7. Mitch and Liz kept telling me, after I said I wanted an epidural, that we would talk about it once my contraction was over. I finally looked at the nurses and told them to call the anesthesiologists, I was done. I was having some more very painful contractions and was crawling all over the bed pleading, moaning, crying..You name it. Finally, to help me feel better, they said they were going to prep me for the epidural. So I laid on my side and when I did that my contraction was so painful that they wanted to check me again to “see if it was too late” (not something you want to hear during labor) and I was 7.5 cm dilated. I laid back on my side and it was a COMPLETELY different contraction. Something was coming. I flipped back over on my back and was screaming “something is coming! Something is coming!” So the nurse checked me again and goes Oh! It’s your baby! I will give two different perspectives here Mitch’s and then mine.
Mitch: The nurse checked you and said you were 7.5 cm dilated. It wasn’t 30 seconds later that you were saying something is coming and you flipped over and I saw the top of the baby’s head. I looked up at you and back down and there was her head and her shoulders and then the whole body. It happened in 15 seconds.
Mine: There was absolutely no way I could stop her from coming. That urge to push was SO strong that I had no control over it. I just kept pushing and pushing. It was amazing. Not that I thought it was amazing at that time because it hurt and I was screaming (yes, screaming) at this point. But I watched the nurse gently grab Aja’s head and she just had to ease her out of my body. She then set her on my chest and I was saying over and over that I did it! I was so proud that I did it, and look how beautiful you are!
My doctor walked in 5 minute later. It was an amazing experience. I’m glad that I had her naturally. I’m so thankful that Mitch and Liz were there. They were awesome help and did an amazing job.

Riding My Pony!

A few weeks ago we went to SL to visit family and so that Mitch could go to The Cure concert. My parents had a pony brought in from a friends house so the kids could ride. His name was BullsEye. They had so much fun.

Peyton went first:


I thought Cohen would have a problem and be scared, but he wouldn't get off the pony!




Anessa went last. She had taken riding lessons before and could do it on her own!


Here is Anessa leading Peyton because he wanted another turn. She's so good about trying to agree with him to avoid conflict (most of the time).


And Finally..Here is Cohen's battle wounds. He looks like a druggie, but the kid won't open his eyes for pictures. He got a wee bit too close to my parent's new cat and she swiped him a couple of times. We are pretty lucky that he didn't lose an eye. Some of those scratches got pretty darn close! It doesn't show it that good either, but you get the idea.

Belly Pic

Hopefully this is the last picture I take of this belly. I call it boob belly for a reason. I have an outie belly button and it sticks out like a nipple...Hence the name: Boob Belly

Sigh...My 39.5 week appointment.

So, the doctor was totally wrong about the whole "I'll be surprised to see you here next week" line. Mitch and I laughed about that one on the day to the doc today. As far as things stand, I'm a very roomy 3 cm and 80% effaced. I had her strip my membranes to see if that will get anything started. That was my last resort. After this, I don't know what else to do to get this kid out into the world but wait.

I refuse to get induced. If any of you are interested why, rent or get The Business of Being Born. It's an amazing documentary and very educational about how birth's in the U.S. are handled these days. It really opened up Mitch's eyes. I also let the kids watch it because it shows live births on there and I thought it would be good for them to see what happens during a birth. They were quite fascinated with it and asked questions which I didn't mind answering.

Cross your fingers that I go into labor soon! I'm miserable!

My Castor Oil Story...

No. It didn't make me have a baby. I drank the stuff at around 5 p.m. Sunday (it wasn't so bad, I mixed it with apple juice and it separated and by the time it went down I was mid guzzle!)then we went for a nice little power walk. (As you might not know, I'm 39.5 weeks and this is the longest I have EVER been pregnant. So, out of sheer desparation I asked my sister in law, Tasha, to see how much to take. Then I went online and read a whole bunch of crap about the stuff, and finally decided to take it. I had also been contracting off and on throughout the day, so I figured it might help speed things up. Sorry for the long back story.)ANYWHOOO, after we got back I decided to stay in and make dinner and Mitch went and played with the kids in the backyard. Of course that is when things "got going". It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I had the flu back in September that was much, much worse.

At about 8 p.m. I started contracting, but was still able to do stuff so I made sure to move around as much as possible. Around 9 they started hurting, so Mitch took care of the kids until about 9:30 when we put them to bed. After that Mitch and I timed them while we picked out paint and carpet colors. They were 2.5-4 minutes apart and were starting to get serious. At about 1 I decided to lay down. They slowed a bit, but were still very painful, enough where I had to concentrate in my "sleep". I got up again and oh boy, I was crawling on the ground and being very vocal which helped me deal with the pain. Mitch was so tired he slept through that part, but woke to hear me pacing around in the kitchen. He decided to bring out the hospital bag and we packed it together while I bounced on the birth ball. We stayed up until 3 and I was very vocal the whole time. He was literally falling asleep on the couch so I told him to go back to sleep, I would wake him when I needed him. Well, seeing him sleep reminded me how tired I was so I laid down on the couch to get some shut eye. BIG MISTAKE. It stopped my contractions. Completely. I got up at 5 to nothing. I'm so frustrated right now. I don't know what to do. I've had a few contractions this morning, but nothing spectacular and nothing that is getting regular. Why didn't this work for me?