Judson's birth!

So Judson is now over 4 months old. And I'm just now getting around to writing down his birth story. Whoops!

Anyway. We got to the hospital at 4:30am the morning of Monday, June 1st. My c-section was scheduled for 6:30. They prepped me then a woman needing an emergency c-section came in, so my doctor had to deliver her first and mine was pushed back.

Finally it was time to be wheeled back into the OR. Sterling had to wait outside while I was prepped some more. They gave me a spinal that hurt liked freaking crazy. I had an epidural with brynleigh, no problem. But for some reason this one was awful horrible, sending spasms of pain throughout my body. A few minutes later, I started feeling super sick. Nausea and full body aches that felt like I was hit by a train. I actually thought I was dying there for a bit. Sterling got to come in finally and helped me communicate how awful I was feeling. I got some oxygen and meds and finally started feeling a little better.

Then came the part where they cut me open and all that good stuff. Everything was fine until they tried pulling Judson out and he was stuck in my ribs. A couple minutes of my doctor and the student doctor banging around in my ribcage (also extremely painful) and he was out! We got a quick look then the nurses took him to the corner of the room to be evaluated. Everything was fine at first, then they told us his oxygen levels were down just a little, so they were taking him to the NICU for a quick look.

After a couple hours of my constant asking when I get to see my baby, the nurses let me go walk (walk! Mind you, I was just cut open. I was a pretty determined momma) to the NICU to see him.

OH my goodness, was he a sweet little guy! So tiny, so cute. He was hooked up to a bunch of wires, but they let me hold him and nurse, and he nursed like a little champ right away! He was (and still is) the snuggliest little boy.

His lungs were just a little underdeveloped since he was a bit premature  (just over 37 weeks) so he had some trouble keeping his oxygen levels up. He was jaundice as well, so he spent some time under the lights.

Oh, and during my c-section the doctor accidentally knicked my bladder (I had some scar tissue in there that made things a little messy and hard to see) so I had to have a catheter put in for a week. Then, to make things even more fun, I got an awful kidney infection from that while in the hospital, and had to stay a few extra nights. But really, that ended up being pretty nice because I was able to spend 5 of the 7 nights that Judson was in the NICU right down the hall from him, so it all worked out.

So yes, Judson ended up having to stay a week exactly in the NICU.  It was so long and hard and emotional. They thought he'd only be there a day or two, then it just kept getting lengthened. It felt like he was never going to come home. Thankfully the nurses and doctor in the NICU were great, except for the one nurse who decided to tell the already-an-emotional-wreck-me that we should expect Judson to stay 3 weeks. Who knows where she got that from since no doctor ever thought that, but she felt the need to get me all worked up over that.

We finally had to leave the hospital on Saturday and that was seriously one of the hardest things I've ever done. I was used to heading to the NICU every 3 hours around the clock to nurse and cuddle, so I hated not getting to be there. (I'm happy to report though that even through our NICU stay Judson never had to have a drop of formula! Yeah for successful pumping!) We would leave as late as we could Saturday and Sunday night, run home to sleep and see Brynleigh then race back first thing in the morning. It was so hard. And we missed brynleigh like crazy too! That was another hard thing, she got to come visit us at the hospital most days, thanks to our moms, but I just felt so disconnected from  her, I missed her so much! And she never got to see Brother in the hospital. So we just kept telling her about him and showing her pictures, but we weren't able to actually let her meet him til he came home.

Then finally, Monday morning we were able to bring him home! Seriously the best feeling. Man, having a NICU baby is insanely hard. It was scary bringing him home too, because his oxygen levels would still drop a bit so I was paranoid and checking him for blue lips constantly. But he was great! He never had any other problems and has been perfect!

Now that this birth story is finally written down, stay tuned for an update!

Sterling took this picture while I was still in recovery and hadn't really seen Judson yet.

My first time holding him!

Under the lights.

Brynnie meeting brother!

Coming home!

She loves him.

Brynleigh Grace at Two.

This, as usual, is a long overdue post. My baby has been 2 for almost two months! I still can't believe she is so old. Here's an update on her!

As always, she's so smart. She has a huge vocabulary and knows the most random things. A few weeks ago she just started telling me about telescopes and how you can look at the moon through them. No clue where she learned that but I was blown away!

She loves singing. Her favorite songs are I Am A Child of God, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (both of which she knows the whole thing), Book of Mormon Stories, and the ABCs. She can sing all her ABCs now and recognizes most letters. Thank you SuperWhy! (Seriously the best kids show. PBS.). Oh, but unless it's when I'm tucking her in at night, she HATES it when I sing. Whenever I try to sing along with a show she's watching, or even singing in the car, she starts yelling "NOOOOOOOO! NO MOM!" I guess I really am that bad of a singer.

She loves babies and kids, but she's super shy around adults other than family. Whenever someone talks to her, she immediately looks down and won't lift her head until they walk away. She loves nursery now and loves talking about the other kids. She calls all the boys 'Parker' and all the girls 'Quinn'--Parker is her favorite little boy and Quinn is her favorite girl. And she's convinced that Quinn's older sister Paige is still in nursery every Sunday, even though she graduated to Sunbeams at the beginning of the year.

Our latest thing we've been working on is differentiating between boys and girls, or 'ladies and boys', as Bryn calls them. She's really good about adults (we'll ask her what Mom, MeMe, Daddy, Poppa, etc are), but kids are harder. She knows she's a lady and baby brother is a boy, but gets confused on others. It's pretty cute though. 

Potty training has been our downfall. This girl just does not want to do it. She totally understands the concept, but she is just so dang stubborn. She uses the potty all the time, but just not everytime. She only wants to do it on her own schedule. She throws a tantrum and refuses if I just try to make her go at intervals. She loves wearing her big girl undies, but doesn't care about having accidents in them. She asks to go potty whenever we enter a store, because she knows I'll buy her a treat if she goes. Seriously, this girl knows how to work the system. And she always asks to go during Sacrament meeting in church because she sees her newly potty-trained friends getting up to go to the bathroom with their parents. So yeah, she's really good about going potty sometimes, we're just having a tough time with the consistency part of it. Oh, and she recently went through a phase where it was near impossible to change her diaper because she laughed hysterically and squirmed all over, insisting her 'lady parts' were extremely ticklish while being wiped. Sterling also thought this was hysterical, likely because he wasn't the one trying to change the diaper.

She now sleeps in a big girl bed! We converted her crib into a toddler bed months ago, then we just bought her a twin bed earlier this week. She loves it and is doing great! Every morning she wakes up on her own and comes running into our bedroom and demands food ASAP. Then, of course, once we drag ourselves out of bed and make her breakfast, she gets caught up playing and ignoring her food for at least 20 minutes.

She's such a picky eater, by the way. She has her certain foods she'll eat, and she's not a big fan of branching out. Luckily her favorite foods are mainly healthy ones, but I definitely wish she'd eat a wider variety of food. Her favorites are yogurt, cheese, almonds, any fruit, baby carrots, pretzels, and eggs. Right now she's also really into eating oatmeal (with homemade jam) for breakfast and eating peanut butter straight off a spoon. And she's always a fan of candy, but what child isn't. She used to like meat a lot, but we've been having a really hard time getting her to eat any lately. I'm really hoping she gets out of this picky stage soon because I hate having to make up a separate little plate every night at dinner, since she rarely will eat what we're having.

She loves to help me cook. Whenever I go into the kitchen she's demanding I pull a chair up to the counter for her. She loves helping stir when we bake something, and is lightening-quick to dig her hand into the bowl and eat a handful of plain flour.

She loves baths and showers. She showers with me every day (or every other day, let's be honest, showers don't always happen) and takes a bath before bed every night. She just loves water. And bubbles.

I could go on about this girl for days, so I better stop and give you some pictures of her lately! 

Loving bathtime and her toys.

She loves this game. The baby doll freaks me out.

Loving the chocolate covered strawberries MeMe made us.

We went to Twin for Cousin Sam's basketball game. She is obsessed with 'Shaaam'.

Playing with MeMe. MeMe is the one who invented this weird baby in boots game.

Playing at the park! We had such nice weather!

Seriously, melt my heart.

She loves playing hide and seek. One time, it was her turn to hide so she dragged this from the play room into the living room to hide in. Totally not obvious or anything.

She had a sleepover at MeMe's house last month when Mom and Dad decided to take a little getaway to the hot springs. She did great and loved her backpack.

Ignore the super dirty mirror, but this girl LOVES looking in the mirror. And taking selfies. We're in trouble with this one.

This was from my birthday. My mom had us over for cake and this is how the animal decided to eat hers.

Having a playdate with the famous Paige and Quinn. She loves these girls.

Playing with cousin Lizzie.

Playing in the snow last month. She loves snow and doesn't care about freezing her little hands.

This was at the Achievement Day Luau last week. One of the teens was pulling the little girls around the gym. Brynleigh was being shy and trying to hide how much fun she was having.

Pregnancy Update

I really need to get back into this blogging thing. I've been meaning to write for weeks, but the only time I'm ever really able to get on the laptop (no way I'm typing this much on my phone) is after Miss Brynnie goes to bed, but Sterling is obsessed with family history lately so he's got the computer pretty much every night.

I'm just about 24 weeks along now with baby boy! I had Brooklyn at 24+2, so I'll be happy to get past these next few weeks and into a safer period. The whole 2nd trimester is pretty nervewracking for me, I can't wait to get into the 30s so I can relax a little.

But everything has been going really well so far! We had one little scare at 18 weeks. I had awful stomach pains, so of course I got a little hysterical and we took a trip into Labor & Delivery. But everything checked out just fine with both baby & I, so um, maybe I'll just have to lay off the Cafe Rio for the rest of this pregnancy ;)

Our 20 week scan was great, they checked for some markers for Down Syndrome and everything looked normal there, so that along with our Harmony results from earlier are pretty reassuring. They were also able to measure my cervix so make sure it wasn't showing any signs of preterm labor, and it looked great as well.

I've been measuring a few weeks ahead this whole time, but baby measured right on track, so yeah....my uterus is just a giant balloon. We found out I have an anterior placenta this time, which I was suspecting because it took quite awhile for me to feel kicks regularly. But now this boy is kicking up a storm 24/7. Sterling has been able to see him move from the outside for a couple weeks now, so that's always fun. We're to the point where I can feel actual little body parts popping out, not just kicks.

 He's in my ribs a lot already too, which makes me nervous about the fact that we still have over 13 weeks of growing to do and he's already making me so uncomfortable! Seriously. I'm having a hard time breathing and bending over to put on my shoes and everything already. It's crazy. I definitely feel like this is going to be my hardest, most uncomfortable pregnancy. Also, my belly button is just about popped out, which is strange because even at 40+ weeks with Brynleigh, it never came very close to popping even. I know I'm carrying him a little lower than I did my girls, so I guess that must be it. Or I really am just obscenely huge.

We got our c-section scheduled for first thing the morning of June 1st. My doctor originally wanted to deliver me between 36 and 37 weeks, but he's letting me go a little over 37 now, as long as everything continues looking good. We are so dang anxious for June to get here! I want him to stay put and healthy so I'm not hoping he surprises us and comes early at all, I just want these months to hurry by.

I'm not sure if y'all have noticed, but there's a definite baby boom going on right now. I know about a million pregnant (or just had a baby) women right now. My news feed has been filled with ladies due between February and July. There were a ton of February babies just born, so I feel like my time is getting closer now that these babies have all started making their entrances! There's a couple in March then I know quite a few who are due in May, so that's our next milestone, then it'll be our time right after that! So exciting. Anyway, I have a couple most things I've been wanting to post about so hopefully I'll find some time to actually do that here soon!