Life at Home

We're slowly getting the hang of having 2 kids.  I don't know how we'd have more than 2 though because it works out pretty easily to have Neil take care of one while I take care of the other!  Luckily, Neil was able to take 2 weeks off of work for paternity leave.  He's back to work now, but that time off was so nice!

Bear has gotten to do some fun things lately, which is good because I haven't been able to drive and haven't wanted to go do anything anyways. 

My mom took him and some of his cousins to the zoo one day to see the dinosaurs (and animals of course).

I guess he kept offering the T-rex his drink.

He likes sitting in the baby's carseat.

I love these sleepsack swaddlers.  They make nighttime so much easier! Since we brought her home, she has done quite well at night.  She'll sleep for 3-5 hour stretches before waking to eat.  She sleeps well in her little cradle by my bed at night, but if I try to put her in there during the day, she gets really mad at me!

Her first bath.  It didn't go well but we were trying not to get her cord wet so did it in the shallow sink.  The next night we put her in the tub and it went much better.

I just love this picture of her.

Bear also likes to sit in her nap nanny.  That's where he slept a lot when he was a baby.

She sleeps there during the day a lot too.

Eden has lots of adoring cousins.

We do a lot of cuddling!

She still has no fat on her!

Neil took Bear swimming with his cousins last week and to Lagoon-a-beach too.

Reagan and Tink had to wait a little longer to get to hold her because they had been sick.

Barrett really is the sweetest brother.  He's not particularly interested in holding Eden, but he is always patting her, trying to comfort her, complimenting her, and giving her her binky.

This baby wants to be held nonstop during the day.  Thank goodness for my Solly Wrap.

2 Week Checkup

We took Eden in for her 2 week check up when she was 10 days old.  Dr. Strasser wasn't going to be in the office the next week and Neil was going to be back to work, so it just was better for us to go a little earlier.

19 inches, 21st percentile

6 lbs 5 ozs, 9th percentile

Head is 34.5 cm, I think that was either 23rd or 33rd percentile, but it didn't get written down, so I'm not positive.

Newborn/Family Pictures

Last Monday, Eden was 1 week old and we had some pictures done by an amazing photographer named Alicia Kinne.  They turned out SO good! I tried to just pick a few to post, but instead I picked a few of each pose!

Her umbilical cord actually fell off when we were taking these.

Father's Day

This picture isn't from Father's Day, I'm not even sure any of us were out of jammies at that point yet.  Still, it's a great picture from a few weeks prior of my gorgeous boys in their handsome matching navy suits.

This is from actual Father's Day and represents what we'd all been doing that day.  Pops and Eden.

Bear made this for Neil at church.

That night we facetimed Grandma and Papa in Peru.  They're doing well and we're always glad we can talk to them almost anytime we want.

I am very grateful for the awesome men in my life!

A Baby with a Name

We honestly didn't have a name picked out for her going into the hospital.  I know a lot of people thought we were just being secretive, but we really didn't have one!  Once she was born, we narrowed it down to our top 3 names and just kept thinking about what we should call her.  We still didn't talk about it too much because we slept as much as possible at the hospital and Neil went home each day to shower and see Barrett/bring him to the hospital.  

Finally, on Thursday, our last day there, we decided to call her Eden Taylor and she seemed to like it.

Taylor is after my little brother.  Eden was just a name we liked, but coincidentally is a family name as well.  When we came home, my parents remembered that my great grandma's name was Columbia Eden.  Let's see, so that's my Dad's Mom's Mom or, in other words my Grandma Roselyn's mom referred to as Nanny, who lived with my grandparents for 21 years, but passed away before I was born.

The day we brought her home, my Dad walked in and asked if she had a name yet.  Bear was first to respond and said, "Yes, her name is Windy!"  And he insisted on calling her that the rest of the day even though we kept telling him that her name was Eden.  The next day (and still to this day) he insists that her name is NOT Eden, it's Pumpkin, and gets mad if you call her Eden.  He'll warm up to it eventually I think...

Visitors, Etc.

Barrett and LaLa were the first ones to arrive at the hospital after we made it out of recovery and into a postpartum room.  

They both were very happy to get to see her and hold her.  (although this picture wasn't actually Barrett's first time holding her, I think we only have video of that)

I was wrong, I found a picture of Barrett's first time holding his baby sister.

The baby gave Barrett a present and he was pretty happy about that.  He was so excited to just see and hold his sister, he would've been fine even without the present.  Also, that book on my mom's lap- he brought that from home to read it to his baby sister because he could read it to her all by himself.  It was the cutest thing.

His new Cars camping set.

He had picked these books out ahead of time at the book store to give to the baby on her birthday.

I think my mom changed her first poopy diaper.

Family of 4 :)  I loved this picture because Bear is winking ;)

Blake and Jessica came up that first night as well.

 Berrie rode the BUS all the way from Salt Lake to hold her!

 Pops

She's so tiny!

And another family picture. I'm not going to lie, I love those hospital gowns.  I know they look horrible but they're just sa' darn convenient!

The poor little thing has the most sensitive skin and got really irritated eyes that we had to keep putting medicine in.  She also had to have a million heel pricks in her first week of life.  They called her "SGA" small for gestational age, so they had to prick her heel to test her glucose every 6 hours (I think) for the first day and a half or so.  Then, her bilirubin levels were high, so she had to get her heel pricked 3 or 4 times for that as well.  Her levels were high enough to be concerned (and have to get tested every couple of days) but not high enough to need medicine or the lights or anything. We had our last heel prick today and found out her bilirubin is starting to go down again  Phew!

Grandma CC came up to visit on our last day at the hospital.  She just sat and held her for 2 or 3 hours and the baby just slept and cuddled.  

I felt bad for leaving Barrett for so long (even though I know he was fine) and also it was Neil's birthday the next day, so we left on Thursday instead of staying until Friday.  I always regret not staying the full amount of time!  Nonetheless, we got dressed and went home.

They wheeled me out in a pink wheelchair!  There was no way I was walking that far- it would've taken me all day!

I hate putting her in her carseat.  She's so tiny, I feel like it's strangling and crushing her!  She's not crazy about it either but (in the few times we've actually gone somewhere) she generally settles down and falls asleep.

Wondering about her name?  I'll get to it... (although you may have already seen it on Facebook or instagram)

Late Present

For Mother's Day this year, we had this bracelet made for my mom.  It's my grandma's name in her own handwriting.  It took quite a while to get made so it was late, but I think it turned out really great!

(Yes, I'm super behind on posting... I will try to get caught up on all the baby posts asap!)

Birth Story

On Saturday I had a few contractions throughout the day but they were so far apart that I didn’t think anything of them.  On Sunday, they increased in frequency and intensity but still weren’t regular enough to go to the hospital or anything.  I also started losing my mucous plug on Sunday so I had hope that things were progressing.  Sunday night, we got all our stuff packed up and ready to go since we had to leave our house at 5 am on Monday morning to get to the hospital by 5:30, which was when we had our scheduled c-section appointment.  I was nervous and stressing about everything, so I didn’t fall asleep until about midnight that night.  I woke up again at 12:45 because my contractions had started getting really painful and I couldn’t sleep though them.  Plus, once they started, I couldn’t stop thinking about if I was still going to go in and have the c-section or if I’d be able to have my VBAC now that my body was sort starting to do something resembling labor!   So I got a total of 45 minutes of sleep the night before I had the baby and that was kind of miserable! 

I asked the nurse to check my cervix as soon as I got checked in.  I was sure those contractions would’ve been at least somewhat productive.  Nope.  I was still completely closed.  At least that made my decision easy.  My body was not going to have this baby on its own, the only way out for baby girl was c-section.  

Dr. Seale came in for a few minutes before heading into the OR but I was in the bathroom, so I didn’t get a chance to ask him the millions of things I wanted to.   Next, our nurse took us to the OR where I met the anesthesiologist and we got started.

This surgery was super different from my first c-section.  My dr with Barrett was really gentle and I didn’t feel like I was being ripped to pieces.  He showed Barrett to me as soon as he pulled him out and showed me the placenta too (I asked).  The room was smaller and quieter and I felt a little more included I guess. Dr Seale was very rough.  I got so sick from him pulling and jerking me around that I couldn’t even hold the baby until I had gotten back to recovery and had a few different medications for nausea.  When they pulled her out, I could hear her crying, so that was good. The other doctor (my doctor had a helper with him, I don’t remember his name) brought her to show her to me for about 1 second before taking her over to get her assessed.  Neil went with the baby, they were still in the same room as I was, so I could hear them, but it felt like they were gone forever.  Finally, Neil came back and tried to hold the baby so I could see her but it was practically impossible because of the way I was laying and the fact that I was still being jerked around a lot. I was too sick to even enjoy the moment L

Finally, we got taken into the recovery room, I was pumped full of anti-nausea medication and then I could hold my own sweet baby.  I felt totally left out and like I missed out on a lot during the time in the OR, but what can you do?  I made up for lost time in the end.