KyLee's Baby Pictures

A Baby Story- the 4th Installment

I wanted to make sure I wrote down the birth story of baby #4 before I forgot the details, but finding time to blog with a newborn in the house has been a bit of a challenge. Hopefully I can remember the important things.

On September 23rd, 2015 at 9:18 am, KyLee Dawn was born. It was a quick labor and delivery; the quickest of any of my children's births, and also the most painful. At my appointment on the 22nd, my doctor stripped my membranes in the hopes that I would go into labor on my own so he wouldn't have to induce me. He was going out of town for a conference the following week and wanted to make sure that he would be there for the baby's birth. I had light contractions that afternoon but they wore off after a few hours. I woke up at 3 the next morning, which was typical for me because I hadn't slept straight through the night for months. I quickly realized I was having contractions. I was still tired, so I didn't really time the contractions. Just by paying attention, I could tell they were coming about every 10-15 minutes and lasting a minute. They stayed that way until 5, when my  husband got up to get ready for work. He came out to the living room to find me kneeling on the floor, and I told him he shouldn't go in to work. The contractions weren't really steady, so while J called his parents and I called my mom, I timed the contractions. In that hour they went from every 10 minutes to every 8 minutes. Once my father-in-law got to our house to stay with the kids, we got in the car and drove to the hospital. From the time we left the house and got to the hospital, my contractions were coming about every 4-6 minutes. We got checked into the hospital at 6:45 am and got to a room and settled in. The nurse checked me around 7:30 and I was dilated to 4 cm.

My doctor saw J in the hallway and got excited because J wasn't in his scrubs and he knew that meant our baby was on the way. The doc stopped by the room to see how things were going and to make sure I was doing okay. The nurse checked me again at 8:15 and I was at 6 cm. The nurse let me get up out of the bed and offered me a birthing ball, but I just wanted to stand in the middle of the room with J holding me. Once I was out of the bed, the contractions became much more intense. At 8:45 the nurse wanted to check me again and found out I was at 8 cm, almost dilated to 9 cm. They called the doctor and told him it was time to come catch the baby. They let me get back out of bed to finish my labor. It was the most intense labor I've ever been through. I didn't have any medicine for the pain, because I knew that if I did, they would make me get back in the bed and I didn't want to labor in the bed. I just kept telling myself I could do it, although every contraction made me want to scream. Luckily for J and the hospital staff, the most I did was some groaning. After an excruciating contraction, the doctor asked me if I felt like I needed to push, and I told him yes, so he had me lie down on the bed to check me and I was fully dilated and the baby was down all the way. He broke my water to get me ready for pushing. However, once I got back in the bed, the baby went back up and wasn't down as far as she needed to be. My doctor and nurse got me ready to push and I had to push 3 times just to get the baby back down where she needed to be, and then once she crowned it only took one more push to get her out. The pushing hurt a lot more than I thought it would and the doctor told me a few minutes later that the baby had her hand up by her face when she was born, so I was pushing more than just her head out. The doctor didn't even have time to get his gloves on, so he caught her bare handed. We warned him that I was a fast pusher. After that, it was all smooth sailing. I didn't even need any stitches.

All around, I have decided that this was the best and worst labor and delivery I've ever experienced. It was the worst because I didn't have any pain medicine and the pain was excruciating. It was the best labor and delivery for several reasons:

1) It was very quick. If it hadn't gone as fast as it did, I probably would have been begging for medicine.

2) My  nurse was amazing. She paid such close attention to me. I felt like she was going through the labor with me instead of just watching. With my previous births, I was in a big hospital and had several nurses assigned to me, yet I never felt like any of them ever paid any attention to me, other than checking the machine that was monitoring my contractions. And when I was ready to push, they never believed me when I said I was a fast pusher. This time, my nurse barely paid attention to the contraction monitor and just watched and listened to me. She told me that I was doing a good job after every contraction, and if she was talking to someone, as soon as I had a contraction she would stop talking and pay attention to me. I felt like she was respecting me as well as taking care of me.

3) My doctor was is the best doctor I've ever had. He treats me like a friend and a patient, instead of just someone on a conveyor belt being pushed through appointments. He respected my wishes while I was in labor. I didn't want him to break my water early and he didn't. I didn't want any pain medicine and he didn't push it on me. The doctor I had for my other children always broke my water when I didn't want him to, and always strongly encouraged epidurals or pain medications.

4) My doctor and nurse put the baby on my chest right after she was born and left her there for two hours. They didn't take her away from me and let me nurse her and hold her. They even cleaned her up while she was laying on me. All my other children were taken away from me after they were born and poked with needles and had medicine rubbed in their eyes before they were given back to me. The nurse didn't do any of that this time until several hours after baby was born. I feel like they took a holistic approach to my labor and I think, for all of these reasons, this labor and delivery was very personal to me. If I have any more children, I hope the experience is the same as this one.

Now, here are the pictures we took.

 KyLee Dawn, born September 23, 2015 at 9:18 am.

 She was 7 pounds, 4.5 ounces and 19 3/4 inches long.

 She wanted to nurse as soon as I put her up to my breast. She is the best breastfeeding baby I've ever had.

 Uriah didn't want to hold her at first, but once we got her home he wanted to hold her all the time.

 Jordyn was so excited to have her here!

 Bonnie loves having her very own baby.

 The proud daddy.

Our doctor holding KyLee. I will be forever grateful for him and the kind of person he is, and I am grateful that J got his job at the hospital and met this doctor.

The rest of these pictures are a little out of order...

 Just got home from the hospital.

 1 week old

 Snuggling in her rainbow dash blanket made by grandma M.

 Saddest pumpkin in the patch!

 Our cat Tootles wasn't sure what to think about this new person.

 First Dr.'s appointment at 5 days old.

 First bath at home. She didn't like the sink.

 Sleeping in the cradle grandpa M made for the girls' dolls.

Drunk from the booby milk!

T Minus 6 Days, and Counting

Well, it's 6 days until this baby girl is due to be born and I still feel like it's months away. I'm not feeling any contractions or cramps or anything, just tired as usual. At my doctor appointment on Tuesday the doc said I wasn't even dilated to a 1, yet he somehow found a way to strip my membranes, which I barely felt and was not nearly as bad as a lot of women have told me it would be. He once told me that he would not induce me unless I was a week past my due date, but on Tuesday he told me he forgot he had to be to a conference in Denver on the 28th and will likely induce me on the 25th if I don't go into labor before then. So, if the baby doesn't come in the next 6 days, we will be bringing her out in a week. The doc thinks she will be small, maybe closer to 7 pounds (like Uriah) than 8 pounds (like the girls). I have been thinking the same thing, since I don't feel or look as big as I did when I was pregnant with the other kids. I guess we will see soon enough.

The kids are very excited about her coming soon. I got the car seat out of storage and Bonnie thought that meant the baby was coming home that day. I had to tell her that the baby wasn't coming just yet, but that we needed to get ready for her. All of J's coworkers at the hospital are asking him when I'm due and are excited to be there and see the baby when she is born. I told J I am expecting some royal treatment out there since they are all at the edge of their seats waiting for this baby to come. J is really looking forward to getting 2 weeks off  and so he is wanting her to come ASAP. He has been working hard the past year and has only taken 2 vacation days and no sick days, so I think he deserves a break. Of course, it won't be much of a break since he will be taking care of me and all the kids. I'm sure after the first week he will be ready to go back to work, ha ha.

We have been doing a lot of canning. I guess that means harvest is in full swing. We have canned spaghetti sauce and salsa. This weekend we are going to pickle cucumbers and we bought 4 boxes of peaches at a farmer's market and will can those too. We have to do this when J is home since being on my feet for a certain amount of time makes my ankles swell up. I have been surprised that my feet haven't swollen as much as they have during my other 3 pregnancies. J is kind of disappointed that he can't poke holes in my skin with his finger and watch them slowly fill back in. I guess that is a good thing. I am thankful that I have been healthy with this pregnancy and have only had to be on allergy meds. I did get a few upper respiratory infections in the past 9 months but thankfully antibiotics helped me through those. I am grateful to have such an awesome doctor and a medically mindful husband.

Summer Survived

I can't believe that summer 2015 is over. I really didn't know how or if I was going to survive it. I know I have alluded to it in a previous post, but I don't think I have actually come out and announced that we are expecting child #4 on September 24th. This is the first time I have been in the late months of pregnancy over a summer and I thought it was going to be hard, but thanks to air conditioning it was rather easy to deal with the summer heat. I didn't spend a lot of time outside, which kind of bummed me out, but staying cool and hydrated was more important to me than being out in the summer heat. The kids were pretty understanding. They didn't mind staying in all day, but they quickly got used to being inside all the time and it was hard to get them to go outside.

 3D ultrasound of baby girl

Me at 33 weeks

Even with the summer heat, there were a few days where I felt adventurous. The kids got kites for Easter that they hadn't even used, so on a blustery day we took them to the park nearby to fly their kites. The wind was temperamental and the kites were going up and down a lot, but we had lots of fun.  There is something relaxing to me about flying a kite.

Uriah's kite was a Chinese dragon that I didn't get a chance to take a picture of.

I also bought a cheap pool at Walmart to entice the kids to play outside more. It was a big pain in the butt because it had to be emptied frequently and we were paying the city for all the water to fill it. Next summer I will just buy a sprinkler for the kids to play in. 

First Federal Bank built a new park on the west side of Twin Falls and we went there with the kids a few times this summer, but because it was a new park there were no trees to provide shade and they hadn't built any pavilions. I had to take my umbrella to keep cool, but we still couldn't stand to stay there longer than 30 minutes each time. 

We have been helping the in-laws with their garden this year and so have been getting a lot of produce from it. I have never ever liked beets, but we picked some and because the hubs works all the time, guess who got to can them? Yup. Beets are practically the messiest things I have ever had to can, but they turned out well, and my hubs was happy with how they tasted. I guess that makes it worth it :)  We have also frozen lots of zucchini and squash, green beans and peas. The peas didn't last very long though. They were delicious!

This little man of mine was losing teeth like a guy in a boxing match this summer. He pulled out two teeth in one day, and we didn't even know one of them was loose! He was pretty happy about all the visits the tooth fairy was making to his bedroom. 

One day I saw this black cat and squirrel playing together on the fence. It was quite entertaining to watch, but then the squirrel must have gotten tired because it stretched itself out on top of the fence and wouldn't move. The cat tried to get it to play more but it just laid there, so then the cat jumped off the fence and took a rest too.

For my birthday I decided I wanted to go to 1000 Springs again. It has become my favorite place to go swimming. I love a warm swimming pool. The kids like to jump off the diving boards into the deep water, but that means one of us has to be there to catch them and swim them over to the side of the pool and my pregnant body was too weary for much of that. Uriah has been getting better at swimming on his own, but Jordyn seems to have forgotten everything she learned in swimming lessons. 

My sister came to visit from Colorado so we went and stayed at my brother's house in Blackfoot overnight. He took Bonnie for a ride on his 4-wheeler...

 ...and aunt Deej did the girls' hair. I wish I had this kind of talent! The girls don't even sit still for me when I am brushing their hair. 

 Uriah had been begging me all summer long to make him a minky blanket. He was always dragging mine around the house and stealing it from me so I decided I had better do something about it before school started. I took the kids to the fabric store in Burley and let them pick out what they wanted on the front and back. Bonnie already has 2 minky blankets of her own and I told her she didn't need another one. 

My sewing skills definitely need some work, but you can see they are happy with their blankets,

 School started on the 20th and boy was I ready for it. The kids were constantly fighting and my pregnancy hormones were not handling it very well. 

Uriah started 2nd grade and was very eager to go. He likes everything about school. His teacher is Mr. Terrell and I think that having a male teacher will help him be more respectful at school. He is a very smart boy and a great reader. He read and tested on 10 books during the first week of school! I can't wait to watch him grow this year.

Jordyn started Kindergarten. She has to wait until 12 to go to school and she doesn't like waiting. She wants to go to school in the morning when I take Uriah. She has been loving it so far. She has  learned cute songs about colors and brought home several pictures she has drawn. I am excited to watch her grow as well.

Bonnie and I have been struggling since school started. I am enjoying the peace and quiet, but all Bonnie wants to do is watch or play electronics after Jordyn leaves for school, and I've got to find a way to keep her busy with other things. The hubs went to the store and bought some construction paper so that Bonnie and I can do crafts together during the day. As my due date gets closer I get more and more tired, but I'm sure I can come up with a simple craft every day.