Ahhh.....

(See? Ragamuffin)

It's been a rough week for Ella.

It started on Sunday after we fed the kids breakfast, Cary left to work on our house (we were at EskDale) and I left the kids in the living room playing with toys so that I could finish getting ready to go outside.

I hear a CRASH and could tell something broke, run into the other room to see Ella in the kitchen playing with a broken coffee cup. (a souvenir coffee cup, sorry Lois!)

I run over and start picking up the pieces and get the ones out of Ella's hand, and I don't know if she cut herself beforehand or if it was me trying to get the piece out of her hand, but she sliced her finger pretty good and started bleeding all over the place.

So I'm trying to hold her hand and wrap some tissue around it to help stop her from bleeding all over and Ella is crying. (I think she was more offended that I was holding her hand tightly, more than the cut actually hurting.)

 Have you ever TRIED to hold a one year old's hand in one place?

Ella was having none of it.

Greg and Lois were gone, my parents were gone, I tried to call Kenneth but he was already working.

I hauled the kids over to mom and dad's house hoping that dad would have some gauze and tape.

Dad had the stuff I needed, and David was home too, so he helped me makeshift wrap Ella's finger up.

Her finger was still bleeding pretty bad and I could tell that my makeshift bandage was not going to last long.

I called my aunt Teresa, who is an EMT, to see if she could help us out.

Thankfully, she was home and helped me wrap Ella's finger.

Whew.

That was a fun way to start the morning.

Later that day, Ella tripped and smacked her forehead on the piano bench and ended up with quite the goose bump.

Now it's all colorful and her forehead is a collection of bruises, poor girl.

I can't tell if she's exceptionally clumsy or if this is normal when they are first walking?

☺ 

Then.

Last night we were outside, Aidan was running on one side of the van, and Cary was walking purposefully (☺) on the other side and they collided.

It didn't end well for Aidan.

He flew face first into the asphalt.

He cut his lip, bloodied his nose, but most of all just scared him to death.

Cary felt awful, of course.

Aidan has some nice road burn on his nose and upper lip today.

Since I know that some of you are nosy, like me.

(Really, we're just detail oriented, right?) ☺

I'll be 10 weeks on Sunday.

I was really having some bad "morning sickness" which is really all day sickness.

Which usually includes randomly throwing up, sensitivity to smells, food is yucky, but eating is the only thing that makes you feel better.

It's a vicious cycle.

For some reason, the trend with all 3 of my pregnancies so far, is that I HATE food I normally love, (Salsa, Chicken, Broccoli, etc...blech, which means that Cafe Rio doesn't even sound good anymore)

but I want foods I don't normally ever eat.

ramen noodles (I know, seriously?), boxed mac and cheese, fast food like McDonalds, Wendys, etc....

It's SO strange.

Anyway,

last weekend I started feeling pretty good, hardly feeling nauseous at all, still having major food aversions but hadn't puked for awhile, etc...

It lasted until Wednesday when I started to get worried about how good I was feeling, since sometimes that can mean a bad thing.

I walked into my kitchen Wednesday afternoon, smelled something and threw up for about 5 minutes straight.

(I know you wanted to know that)

While pregnant with Ella I was really sick for WEEKS, this is different.
So I don't know what to think anymore,

maybe it'll be an on an off thing and I need to learn not to worry when I am actually feeling okay.

☺

Ugh, sometimes you forget how much worrying you do when you're pregnant!

My kids are cute, blah, blah, blah.

I mean REALLY cute. ☺

I'm a bit jealous of all you at the MIA conference this weekend!

Wish it could of worked for me to go, but it just wasn't going to happen this year.

☺

Ragamuffin

Ella is going through a bit of a ragamuffin stage.

 I'm hoping we're at the tail end of it now that she's walking.

When she was crawling/ scooting around, that girl had her clothes turned black in no time.

She really likes to be outside crawling around in the dirt, eating whatever she can get in her mouth.

Yuck!

I did not have to worry about this with Aidan, he just didn't stick things in his mouth that much or get that dirty. ☺

Check out that hair.

I try to tame the mane with bows, but she pulls them out, hands them back to me, and says "Thank You".

In order to get a bow to sucessfully stay in the hair, I have to plant a decoy bow.

One that she can pull out, hand back to me, but leave the other one still in. 

Sometimes she's on to me and pulls them both out. 

Here she's all dressed up for church and looking somewhat proper. 

However, she's NOT going to smile. ☺

What a girl.

Aidan's Birth Story: Part II

Continuing from Part I of this story. I'm not leaving anything out, so read at your own risk. ☺ Bwahahaha.


"Where is your husband, we need to do an emergency c-section NOW!?"


Oops. I hadn't called Cary yet. I called him and I don't remember exactly how that conversation went down, but I think I did manage to tell him that they were probably going to do a c-section and that he needed to come as fast as he could.  LDS hospital was a good 30 minutes or so away from where we lived at that time.

(In recovery)

I had the chills and was shaking pretty bad, they decided to go ahead and start prepping me for surgery without Cary there. They explained that a nurse would bring him back to the operating room when he showed up. Obviously, this wasn't an "emergency" emergency c-section, since they can have the baby out of you in like 8 minutes if they need to.
Cary showed up at some point before they started, and I remember hearing Aidan cry when they pulled him out, but I didn't get to see him. This operating room was right next to Pod 1 in the NICU (Newborn Intensive Care Unit), and they pass the babies through a window to the NICU team. Aidan was born at 32 weeks 4 days, August 10, 2007 at 3:34 AM. He was 16 inches long, 3 lbs and 13 oz.
 

(Cary holding Aidan for the first time, the nurses were worried that I was going to be mad about him holding Aidan before I got to. Ha.)

After inspecting the placenta they thought it was starting to separate (placenta abruption), but the immediate concern was that Preeclampsia had descended very quickly on my body, and the pulmonary edema (fluid in lungs) that can lead to heart failure. The only way to get rid of Preeclampsia is to end the pregnancy, so that is what they did.
I was in and out of consciousness for the rest of the night. Cary took the camera to the NICU and took some pictures and came back to show me, I was just happy that Aidan looked somewhat healthy.
The rest of Friday was pretty much a blur, I really couldn't stay awake for more than 3 minutes at a time. Ben and Chandra stopped by, Dan and Melanie, and Sharon and Janille. At that time (They've since moved to a new hospital, where I had Ella, and I'm not sure how they do things there), the NICU was pretty strict about who could go in the NICU, we could only pick 8 people who could see Aidan, and only 2 people could go in at a time. Considering we have big families, it was pretty hard to decide. Obviously we wanted our parents to be able to go in, and from there we just picked people that we thought would be most likely to make it in to visit. Sharon and Janille were planning on staying in to help out so they were on the list, so most of our other guests were out of luck about seeing Aidan and I don't think I was much fun to visit with at that point. ☺
 

(Aidan under the lights)

By Saturday, I was doing quite a bit better but still sleeping alot and my blood pressure readings were still through the roof. The nurses were pestering me about getting out of bed, going to the restroom (Ah, but I loved the catheter, unless it kinked, then it kind of sucked. ☺), and going to the NICU to see Aidan. Janille was pestering me about pumping (Thanks, Janille!) and going to see Aidan, I was really starting to wonder if I really wanted to pursue breastfeeding anymore, and I definitely didn't want to see Aidan. For whatever reason, and I've now learned it's somewhat normal, I was feeling guilty about everything that happened,  like I did something wrong to make it turn out the way it did and that made me not want to see him and face what happened. I guess.

 (Holding Aidan for the first time)

(I didn't see him in person until he was a day and half old.)

 (Man, I look hideous, but I'm glad I have these pictures) ☺

 Kenneth, Crystal, Rosaleen, Alex, and Abby (Did I miss anyone?) came in to visit me that afternoon. (Sharon and Janille were there too) I had finally gotten out of bed, went to the bathroom (forget having a baby, going the bathroom afterwards is the scariest part of the ordeal! It looks like a war zone and I was pretty sure all my insides were going to fall out!)  was moving around a little bit and Janille and the nurse were really pushing me to go visit Aidan, so I reluctantly agreed.
 

I started bawling the minute we entered the NICU and I saw Aidan. I was just so overwhelmed with guilt, seeing him so tiny, but happy that he looked okay and that he was mine. After that visit I never wanted to leave him, but with our circumstances that wasn't possible. I did leave the NICU with a more renewed sense to keep pumping since at that point it was the only thing I really could do to help Aidan. "Breast Milk is best" was the mantra around the NICU. ☺
I was in the hospital until that Tuesday, so I spent a total of 8 days in the hospital. It took awhile for my blood pressure to come down, it was actually still pretty high when I left, but a lot lower than it had been. (I'm actually glad I was pretty ignorant of just how high my blood pressue was, now that I know it would totally freak me out!)
 I was really dreading being discharged, being in the hospital meant I could visit Aidan anytime I wanted by just walking down the hall, come back to my room, have a snack or meal waiting for me, pump when I needed to, sleep whenever I wanted, etc... ☺  Going home meant fixing our own meals, Aidan was now 30+ minutes away, finding rides to the hospital since I wasn't supposed to drive, and planning all that around my pumping every 3 hrs schedule, etc...blah.
Do you know how much atrophy happens to your muscles in eight days? Cary had this brilliant idea for us both to walk to our vehicle instead of him going and getting it and picking me up. I think it took me an hour to get to our van and it wasn't THAT far of a walk. lol. My legs didn't know how to function anymore and my muscles were shot. I had to stop all the time so my legs wouldn't cramp up.
After I was discharged, Janille stayed with me a lot of the time, so that Cary could go back to work. She was the one driving me around and was my breastfeeding cheerleader. Ha ha. When she wasn't there, my mom, Melanie and Cindy helped me get to the hospital. I usually tried to be there for his 8:30 feeding in the morning, and then Cary and I would go again at night.

(Mom with Aidan)

(A week after Aidan was born)

 

Aidan didn't really have any problems other than he needed to gain weight. Babies typically lose weight after they are born and his weight dropped to 3 lbs 5 oz.  His lungs were good, he was a little jaundiced at first, but I think he only had to do 1or 2 sessions under the lights. So most of his time in the NICU was spent getting him to grow and teaching him how to eat.

The best things that came out of the experience were getting acquainted with the Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM) team at LDS, I liked every doctor I met, and I ended up staying on with  Dr. Esplin, who delivered Ella and is still my doctor. I LOVE him.
We also stayed with Dr. Cannon who was Aidan's pediatrician in the NICU, and now he's our pediatrician for both kids and we LOVE him too. ☺
Dr. B called me TWICE after I had Aidan and I could tell he was worried about me suing him. He was very "concerned" and sweet, and told me come back to him to get checked out after being discharged from the hospital. Whatever, dude. I don't really hold anything against him, I'm sure he's a good doctor, we just didn't make a good team.
When Aidan came home on August 27, after 17 days in the NICU, his gestational age was 35 weeks, and he weighed 4 lbs 6 oz. We were told he would sleep about 20 hrs a day and we were like "sweet!". What they didn't say was that WE weren't going to get any sleep. Ha ha. Aidan needed to eat every 1.5-2 hrs, so thankfully he was drinking from a bottle so for the first week that he was home, Janille, Cary and I would take turns at night so at least we could get a 3-4 hr stretch of sleep. That was HARD, Cary and I weren't getting any sleep for about 2 months. I longed for a stretch of sleep that was over 3-4 hrs long. ☺
We did a mixture of bottle feeding and nursing until he was 2 months old and then I started to exclusively nurse, I was so happy to be done with bottles! (I know, I'm weird since most people try to get their newborn to take a bottle)

(Aidan's last day in the NICU)

Aidan is now my smart, energetic, almost 3 yr old, he's always been a little bit slower on the walking, running, jumping, physical side of stuff, than other kids, but he does alright.

Getting ready to leave the NICU

Napping at home for the first time.

(My little cross eyed boy) ☺

*Photo credits - I'm not sure who took what, but myself, Cary, Janille and Sharon took these pictures. I think.

Aidan's birth story: Part I

This might seem somewhat random, but I've been having bouts of insomnia and for some reason I sit and think about the events surrounding when Aidan was born. Maybe it's because his 3rd b-day is coming up or because it's the time of year when I was going through everything, who knows. I've never written about it before, so I was thinking it was time that I did. I have some things written down in a notebook since Dr. Jackson wanted me to keep a journal to note changes, etc... but it's mostly going off by what I remember, which may or may not be accurate. ☺
This may be boring for most of you so feel free not to read!

(18 weeks)

When we found out I was pregnant, I was living at EskDale, working, and Cary was living in Ogden, about 5 hours away, finishing up his last year of school. When I was 9 weeks along, I started bleeding, I went to Dr Jackson (in Delta) pretty sure that I was going to miscarry, but it turned out I had a subchorionic hematoma (a large blood clot that was between the placenta and the uterus, as the baby got bigger it was pushing the blood out), and Aidan was measuring 8 days ahead so they changed my due date from Oct 1 to Sept 23. (that is important to my story) I was put on permanent bed rest and was not supposed to lift anything over 8 lbs, which was quite a change for me since I was exercising regularly and my job was fairly labor intensive. The bleeding continued for about 5-6 weeks which was always quite scary, but I was getting regular ultrasounds and they were showing that the baby was fine and the hematoma was getting smaller.

(24 weeks)

At 15 weeks, Rosaleen and Crystal came to my ultrasound with me and I found out I was having a boy. (Remember, Cary is in Ogden!)

Around 19 weeks, Dr Jackson sent me to a Perinatologist and she told me that the hematoma had resolved itself but that I had a placenta lake (a pool of blood in the placenta) which made me more susceptable to pre-term labor and placenta abruption. So I didn't have to be on bedrest, but I was still supposed to take it easy. That was very hard for me to do since Cary was graduating and we were looking for places to move to in SLC, and then when I was around 25 weeks we did move to SLC.
Moving meant I had to switch doctors which was something that really stressed me out, since I was very happy with Dr. Jackson. He had given me a list of doctors in SLC that he recommended, so I basically chose a doctor that was closest to where I lived. After living 1.5 hrs to the nearest doctor or hospital, a 5-10 minute drive seemed unbelievable. ha ha. ☺

(29 weeks)

I met Dr B and at this point I was around 28 weeks, I gave him my chart at that appointment so I obviously didn't expect him to know my history and problems, but I did explain that it was recommended I have an ultrasound every 4-6 weeks to check my placenta. (at this point it had been 5 weeks since I'd had an ultrasound) I failed my glucose test at that appointment so I had to go back and do the 3 hr test a few days later, which I also failed, which meant that I had gestational diabetes. I had to set up an appointment with a nutritionist at Cottonwood hospital.
In the meantime, I went back to Dr. B for my second appointment, I was sure that I was leaking amniotic fluid, I had had some more bleeding, I was starting to look really puffy, and my blood pressure was on the rise. He STILL hadn't read my chart, didn't know any of my history and totally blew off any of my concerns and wouldn't schedule an ultrasound. I left that appointment SO frustrated I wanted to cry, heck, I may have cried, I don't remember. What I do remember, was that I was ready to drive to Delta to talk to Dr. Jackson, but I figured that maybe I was being high maintenance. I only had about 8-9 weeks left so I'd just suck it up.
My sister, Janille, was furious when she heard about my appointment and told me that if I started bleeding again to go the emergency room.
On August 6, a Monday, I would have been 33 weeks-ish. I had decided to catch up on some sewing projects that afternoon, and was cutting out material to make a baby sling/ wrap, when I started having contractions, I had one so bad all I could do was lay on the floor. I started spotting too, so then I started getting nervous. I called the doctors line to see what I should do, and the doctor on call told me to go the ER. I started calling people we know to see who could drive me to the hospital, I couldn't get a hold of anyone, so I called Cary who was 45 minutes away at work. He started to drive home, but he got a hold of Chad, so Chad came and got me.
While I was waiting for Chad,  Kenneth called to ask me some questions about a picnic we were planning for later on in the month. I don't really remember how the conversation went, but at some point he asked me if I was okay, and then I started bawling. I can't talk when I cry, so somehow I conveyed to him to get on messenger and then I was able to tell him what was going on.
Chad soon picked me up and off to Cottonwood hospital we went, in hindsight I probably should have just gone to labor and delivery, but I didn't know what the heck we were doing, so we went to the ER. Once there, it was confirmed that my water had indeed broken and I was in labor. Cottonwood hospital (close to our place) wasn't equipped to handle babies less than 34 weeks, so they transferred me by ambulance to LDS hospital. (not so close to where we lived, BUT not a hospital that Dr.B had privileges at). Ironically enough, the female paramedic with me in the ambulance had two children delivered by Dr. B and she really liked him.

 (the first night at the hospital) 

(My feet and ankles were SO swollen it hurt to walk anywhere)

At LDS hospital, it was all kind of blur, doctors were asking lots of questions, I had an ultrasound and there was lots of confusion over how far a long I really was, since if I was to deliver this early it made a big difference. Aidan was only measuring 32 weeks, I was supposed to be 33w 1d, but the goal was for me not have the baby until at least 34 weeks but regardless, I had to stay in the hospital until the baby was born.

Cary had caught up to me, Josh and Kiera came to visit, Janille and mom had rushed in. (I think, was it mom or Sharon?) lol.  Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were boring days filled with lots of TV watching, Cary visiting me after he got home from work, and daily non-stress tests. I was having bouts of contractions, but nothing serious. Wednesday night we thought things were going to get interesting and they moved me into a L&D room, but around 10:00 PM they settled down and I sent Cary home.
Thursday night, same story. I was having a lot of contractions, so Cary stayed later that night, but once again they started to taper off around 11:00, so I told Cary he could go home before they had even moved me back to my room from the labor and delivery room. (They just like to monitor you and baby for awhile before they take you back to your room.)  I was just laying there trying to go sleep when out of the blue, I started coughing, coughing, and coughing. I finally paged the nurse because I was having a hard time breathing. She came in heard me coughing and ordered an X-ray of my lungs. She took my blood pressure and it was really high, so then they were worried about me having Preeclampsia, so they put in a catheter to get a 24 hr urine sample to test for protein. I'll just say that life really sucked for me at that point, but I did grow to love that catheter! I was just getting worse and worse, and the x-ray came back that my lungs were filling up with fluid. Around 2:00 AM the resident came in to talk me about possibly needing an emergency c-section. Around 2:30 AM I was pretty out of it, but I know that nurses were checking me constantly and then the doctors came in again and said, "Where is your husband, we need to do an emergency c-section NOW!?"


To be continued...☺
Part II

(I think these were taken Aug 9, I was wearing compression socks to try to keep the swelling down...)

(I don't think it worked, but dang, I look good!) ☺

Reading

 I caught Ella doing this the other day,

I love it when babies read.

 It's especially funny when you notice it's a "Big Rig" book, since that's what little girls are usually into. ☺

Here is her (good) example. 

First there were two...

and then there were... THREE?

Eeek! Aack! Eeek!

I always say I'm going to wait until 12 weeks to announce these things, but I never make it that long.

(and generally, by then, most of the women have suspected already, but are nice enough not to say anything) ;o)

It's still pretty early, but I went to the doctor this week and saw/ heard the heartbeat.

I figure if something bad happens I'd want family and friends to know, for support, anyway.

So, here we go again...

expecting another one at the end of February.

Welcome to crazytown. ☺