Saturday, July 21, 2012

Little Blue Dress

I thought Diadora looked a little bit like Addie, just 2 pounds chunkier! When I looked at these pictures though Addie is so much smaller and less 'round'. They do have the same hair, nose and lips. Maybe in time they will start to look more similar!
Here is Addie 3 weeks old.


Diadora 1.5 weeks old.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Our family of 5

On Sunday we all went to church. The baby and I only stayed for Sacrament. I hadn't taken a single picture of all three kids yet!! We also didn't have a single picture of all 5 of us. It seemed like every time I thought about taking a photo someone was crying or still in their pajamas. I took the opportunity on Sunday while everyone was clean and dressed to *try* to get some pictures. Not everyone was cooperating, but it's the best we have so far!!





The family shots did not come out. At. All. Johnny D was being his usual squirmy self and it looks like the baby is trying to eat the flowers on my dress. I think it's funny that my favorite one of the bunch (the last one) is the one that is not posed. I didn't even know my mom took it.



1 Week

I am amazed at how fast the first week with Diadora in our family has flown by! I've tried to capture as many of the 'cute' moments as I can, but I am sure to other people a lot of these photos will look the same. To me she is adorable when she is asleep, maybe those are boring to other people. So I tried to include a variety of photos from the first week!

 Addie has been IN LOVE from the moment Diadora was born. She asks several times a day if she can hold her and she is always right by my side when ever I change her and she is fussing.

 She loves her Swaddle thing. I know it looks cruel, like she is in a straight jacket. But seriously, this helps her (and me!) sleep. She doesn't flail her arms out when she gets scared and she can't scoot her way over to me during the night. I am getting way more sleep this time around without having her wiggling right up against me! I am also loving that she usually lets me sleep for 4-5 hours every night uninterrupted.

 Lots of time is spent in her Mama Roo. Maybe one of our best Craigslist purchases ever.

 Lots of this going on.

 We had to get some new legos to keep Johnny D busy.

 And we've painted Addie's nails several times.

 Addie drew a family portrait for me.

 Did I mention that she loves her little sister? See the books next to her? She wanted to read to Diadora when she woke up. She kept carrying the books around waiting for her eyes to open.

 After a week went by, we finally gave her her first bath. I know, we waited awhile. Honestly, I do not enjoy bathing little tiny new babies. It's awkward and they scream. Fortunately for me, she did not scream. I seriously don't think this is my baby. She sat there looking around calm as can be.

 Of course I had helpers. Right. Next. To. Me.




 And she smelled sooo much better when it was all done. :)

 We've been seeing more smiles.


Happy 1 week Diadora Rae!!


Sunday, July 15, 2012

4th of July

We had a pretty low key 4th of July this year. I was hoping to be snuggling a baby but that didn't happen. I didn't have a lot of energy to do anything except hang out. In the morning we did make it over to the church for a ward pancake breakfast. That evening we had Uncle Ben over. The kids LOVE him. When Johnny D sees him he gets crazy and thinks it's time to wrestle and act goofy. It's nice to have him over because it gives Johnny someone else to jump all over and gives us a break. :)
We BBQ'd hot dogs.
After dinner, while we were waiting for it to get some what dark, we headed over to Dairy Queen for some Blizzards.
When we got home we did Sparklers and some other noisy fire crackers. I'm not sure why we didn't get pictures! :(
We let the kids stay up way too late then we all went to bed!
Happy fourth!







Finally a name...

It took us 2 days to officially name this little girl...

A nine month journey...

Warning: This is my journal. This post is my documentation of the birth of baby #3. If you do not want to hear all about the labor/delivery you can stop reading now. It won't hurt my feelings. :) This is also MY interpretation of how things went. Daniel, our midwife (Dawn) or my mom may have a completely different story, this is how things went from my perspective.

The pregnancy: This was my hardest pregnancy. Lots of new aches/pains and complaints. I really wanted to say I LOVE being pregnany but this time that just wasn't true. About 2 weeks ago my legs and feet were super swollen adding another complaint to the list. Luckily my mom arrived on June 21st to help me out and wait for the baby to arrive! We discovered that maybe I was not eating enough salt. As soon as I started eating more the swelling went away and I lost about 3 pounds of water weight! I was still really uncomfortable. On one of my visits to the chiropractor (one that does muscle testing) he and is son 'guessed' that I was having a girl and that she would be born in the 3rd or 4th of July. I was so ready to have this baby at 37 weeks that I was really looking forward the those 2 days and REALLY hoping they were right! Well, the 3rd came and nothing happened. We celebrated the 4th of July with no baby. By the time I woke up on the morning of the 5th I had given up hope of the baby coming early. I was sure he/she would wait until the EDD of July 11. At this point I was not sleeping at night because the baby was sitting on both my ribs and my hips/ligaments and I was so uncomfortable! But I know that babies will come when they are ready and I needed to just wait a little longer!
(39 weeks)
July 5- One of the old wives' tales is that oregano and basil are 2 spices that can help get a lady in to labor. After we attended part of the home inspection on the house that might be, we headed over to the Olive Garden! We ate there the night before I had Addie so it was worth a try!

11pm- We headed off to bed as usual. I sighed as I looked at the bed knowing that another long, sleepless, uncomfortable night was ahead of me
12am- Bathroom trip #1
4am- Bathroom trip #2. I should have known something was up because I am usually up every hour or so. I was surprised that I had gotten 4 hours of uninturrupted sleep!
6am- Bathroom trip #3. I woke Daniel up when I noticed he was still asleep and should have been getting ready for work.
6-7am- I was wide awake trying to get comfortable to go back to sleep. It wasn't happening with my hips and everything hurting so bad.
7:10am- I sat up when I had a contraction that I knew was not my typical Braxton Hicks contraction. I actually had to really breath through it. I started timing them while I waited for Daniel to finish getting ready for work and come in to say good bye to me. I told him he should wait a few minutes because this might be the real thing!
7:30am- Contractions were 4 minutes apart and pretty strong. We texted my mom who was upstairs, called the midwife to give her a heads up and texted the photographer. Turned out our midwife was on her way to another birth! Aaah! I could tell this labor was going to go a faster and I was a little worried that she wasn't going to make it!


The next little while I labored, Daniel filled the birth tub. The kids slept until about 9. That's about the time I started feeling 'pushy'. Daniel called the midwife again. She said she was cleaning up at the other birth and would be on her way soon. The photographer and driving like crazy to get over here because she was about 45 minutes away. (Turns out she ended up bringing her 3 boys with her and let them play in the car because she was worried if she stopped to drop them off she would miss the birth!)

About 10am- Everyone showed up at once. The room was suddenly very full of busy people. Setting everything up, snapping pictures, watching me. I was in my own little world. Very aware of everything that was going on around me but not really caring. The kids were running around being noisy. Addie screamed, the only noise that was not cool. The midwife offered to check me just to make sure everything was good and that the cervix wasn't stuck like it was with Johnny. I said no and kept on laboring and pushing.



Sometime after 10am- I wanted to be done. No position was comfortable. I felt like I was progressing and was in a lot of pain. I let my midwife check me and sure enough, the cervix was stuck on baby's head. Darn! I was soo hoping that was not going to happen again. So for the next 3 or 4 contractions she tried her best to push the cervix up while I tried to push the baby down. Not cool. Finally it was off but I was still not progressing. I changed positions. The cervix moved back over the baby's head. She had to spend another 3-4 contractions pushing on it. Really not cool. Lots more pushing went on without feeling like the baby was getting anywhere.

Sometime close to 11:30am- We finally freed the cervix and the baby's head was moving down! Finally making progress the head was crowning. I have to say that this was ridiculously painful. I don't remember the other 2 hurting.so.bad. And it was so slow! I thought 1 or 2 contractions and the head would be out. Not the case. It took FOREVER! I was a lot more vocal this time. I'm pretty sure I said lots of "Ow!" "crap!" "Oh my goodness!" and "I just want it out!". It was probably only a few minutes until the little head was safely out. I was sitting on a birth stool inside the tub so the baby was chillin in the water. It seemed to me like after her head was out everything slowed down for a few minutes. Someone asked me if I wanted to reach down and feel her head. At first I said no but in these few minutes where I sat with only a few much lighter contractions and no strong urge to keep pushing I decided to touch my baby. It is such a strange yet empowering feeling to feel your baby when it is half way still inside you and half in this world. I may have even smiled a little.

When the baby's head is out (or maybe as it's coming out?) my midwife will check to make sure the cord is not around the neck. I didn't know it at the time but I think when she checked for the cord she found that the baby had her hand across her chest and up by her shoulder. Usually a baby will move it on their own to prepare to squeeze their little shoulders out. I guess she wanted to be difficult because she was not moving! I knew something was up when I started pushing again and my midwife was way more involved 'down there' than I thought she would be if everything was fine. I could actually tell that Dawn was working pretty hard. I even felt kind of bad for her because she was bending over leaning across the 5 ft. tub to reach me! There was a very serious sound to her tone when she told me push really hard. All I remember now is her saying "come on Jenna, push really hard", pushing really hard because I wanted the baby out, feeling a tremendous amount of pain and wanting to cry all at the same time! This is the point in labor when a woman gets really serious and knows she has to give it all she has. We know that in a matter of minutes it will all be over and we will be holding our baby in our arms. This is the point when no one else in the room matters. I didn't care that I was practically yelling and that my 2 small children were watching. I didn't care that photos were being taken and I would probably not want to see what my face looks like in pain. I knew I was almost done!

11:45am- With the midwife helping turn the baby, the shoulders were finally free and baby came sliding out into the water. Within seconds she was in my arms. A minute later our guess that it was a girl was confirmed.  Everyone was smiling, I was relieved.


The next couple of hours were a blur. Daniel cut the cord, the placenta was delivered in the water, I showered, baby nursed. One of the things I love the most about having a home birth is the feeling of calmness afterward. No one is in a rush to weigh and measure the baby or give her a bath. The midwife stays in the room to fill out her paperwork while baby nurses and I eat a snack. We wait until I've showered and am warm and relaxed and the shaking has stopped before doing an exam on me. People move silently through the house cleaning up and putting a load of towels and wash cloths in the washer.


The stats: Like I mentioed before, I had a pretty good idea that this was going to be my biggest baby. As soon as she came out we all knew she was big. We were anxious to find out just how much bigger she was than my other 2. I dont remember all of the measuresments but we had Dawn compare them to Johnny and this little girl was quite a bit bigger everywhere (head, chest, length). She measured 20 3/4 inches long. I had gussed 21 inches before she was born! Just to compare, Addie was 18 3/4 and Johnny D 20 1/4. The real shock camr when she weighed in at 9 pounds 1 ounce! Everyone looked at me to see my shocked reaction. Holy cow! I don't have 9 pound babies! Where did this one come from!? I'm pretty sure Daniel gave me a high five. He was pretty excited that we had a big baby! Everything else looked great. She is a healthy, squirmy, perfect little baby girl!

I will be honest, I was having a little anxiety about this birth. I had done it twice and could still remember the pain involved. I was not looking forward to doing it again. As I write this I am not sure I ever want to do it again. I know I am blessed to now have 3 beautiful kids and that I am healthy ebough to be able to give birth how and where I want. It really is a miracle that we are able to grown another human being and bring them in to this world. I just wish it wasn't so uncomfortable to do it naturally. :) I am grateful for the awesome support I had. I was a bit worred that after Johnny's birth, where it was just Daniel and I for 75% of the labor then the midwife and her assistant for the end that a room full of people would be over whelming for me. That wasn't the case. Every person we had there was important and I woulnd't have had it any other way!