Weekend in Grand Junction - 1 Month old James! :)

We are on our way home from grand junction after a great weekend visiting family and going to our friend, Drew's, graduation party from nursing school. Figured I would take some time to type up blog post that I can post later on when we get home. :) 

This weekend was the first time James was able to meet his Grandma and Grandpa (Scott's parents) and his Uncle Bryan and Aunt Charlori. He loved meeting them and did wonderful on his first big trip away from home! :) He only cried a total of maybe 15 minutes on the way over Thursday which was such a blessing and his brother and sisters did wonderful, also! I love having the older kids finally at an age that makes traveling in the car enjoyable! They have leapsters which only really get used on car trips so that keeps them very entertained and then we are also getting the Adventures in Odyssey CDs on iTunes to be able to listen on trips and Daniel and Lydia love those! 

Friday morning I was able to go into Gj with James to meet up with a friend - Hannah - to meet her adorable new baby boy, Lincoln, who was born just four days after James. We had so much fun being pregnant at the same time with due dates just a day apart so it was fun getting together and having a little bit of time talking and seeing our boys together. :) After that James and I went to meet my mom and had her do some cranial work on him to help with some overlapping plates he has on his head... Doctors had noticed these on his head when he was like a week and a half old so we've been told to take him to a chiropractor and a cranial sacral therapist which has been helping to move the skull plates back where they should be! 

Friday afternoon Scott and Daniel were able to go on a coffee date with Grandma which they enjoyed and then Bryan and Charlori came over to spend time with us and have dinner which was a lot of fun. It was good to see them and the kids had a lot of fun! 

Saturday we hung out around Fruita for most of the day. Lydia and I were able to have our chance to go on a coffee date with Evelyn (Scott's mom) too which was a lot of fun. Delicious Aspen Street Coffee and we were able to sit outside in the downtown fruita area which was fun! It was a beautiful day! I was also able to put some cute jamberry nails on my toes and the girls' toes which was fun! :) That evening Scott, James, and I went to Drew's graduation party at their house which was so much fun! Andrea had so much amazing food and there were so many people who came! It was fun seeing many old friends from our church there and old college friends. Other people held James for a lot of the time including my sister, Amanda, who was there so we were able to play some backyard games with the other couples which was fun. Then we ended up staying until midnight just talking with our old college/family group! They are the couples who are still our best friends. Old roommates and their spouses and other close friends who we began to get together with every Sunday evening in college for "family dinners" and we met with them all the way until we moved to Denver three years ago. We have still kept in contact with them and gotten together with them many other times over the years. So thankful for those long term friendships where it doesn't matter the distance or time since we were together last! So great reminiscing, laughing, and talking about random things! 

Today we met my family at the park for a picnic lunch to celebrate Mother's Day together. It was fun to see everyone and be and to visit even though it was very brief! 

Now we are headed back home. Excited to get home even though we have a lot to organize and clean there over the next few days... But I'm very excited because my boxes of homeschool curriculum arrived while we were gone so I'm super excited to see all of it tonight! :) 

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Thursday was James' 1 month birthday!! He is growing and growing and such an amazing baby! He has his fussy days from time to time from gas and stuffiness lately (we are thinking he has a bit of a cold right now), but overall he does amazing and even though he still loves being cuddled and held during the day he also usually takes at least one good 2 to 3 hour nap in his bassinet during the day and sometimes more when we put him down. :) But holding him is real nice too... At night he's been having a consistent 4 to 5.5 hour gap between nursing for the first part of the night which has been amazing and then usually goes around every 3 hours for the rest of the night and during the day. He also goes back to bed very easy at night which has been so nice. Helps out a lot since I don't usually get the chance to take naps with the other kids and needing to get things done. So thankful for Scott's help whenever he's been home because he is AMAZING with James and the other kids!!! James has been having more awake times during the day which we love and has been trying to lift up his head more and more each day. We have started doing a bit more tummy time which he seems to like for a few minutes. :) I'm excited to see him grow and continue learning new things this next month! It always amazes me how much babies change at this stage!

James David - Birth Story

Our sweet baby boy, James David, was born two and a half weeks ago! I know I haven't written on here in so long but I don't want to miss getting the chance to share the birth story of our newest addition to our family! :)

First of all, I'll go ahead and highlight some of the main things I remember about his pregnancy.

1) 1st trimester was rough! I had a lot of nauseousness and all-day sickness because of it. Plus I was tired and all that was quite rough with taking care of the other three kiddos. But, I made it through those months and...

2) The rest of the pregnancy went really well overall! I felt better with his pregnancy than with most of my others. I could move around easier and I didn't have to go to the chiropractor as much.

3) I did pull my back really bad in September and had to just rest for almost five days... :( But my mom came over which was awesome and it made me take a break.

 4) My blood pressure started going up by 16 weeks along. Had to take blood tests but everything looked good so the midwives just kept an eye on it even though it stayed higher for the rest of the pregnancy.

5) We found out at the 21 week ultrasound that we were having a boy!!! I totally guessed it right! :) We were all super excited!

6) Also found out at 21 weeks that I had complete placenta prévia. That made for an interesting pregnancy not being able to travel, having to go on pelvic rest, and overall not being able to do anything very intense for the next 16 weeks until it moved just enough by 37 weeks to be ok doing a vaginal delivery! The nice thing with it was that we were able to have more ultrasounds to see baby James at 28, 32, and 37 weeks! :)

7) James was a mover! I am pretty sure he moved/kicked/punched more than any of the other kids did inside me! I loved feeling him move and he didn't keep me awake at night so it was all good. He just definitely let me know he was doing well! :)

Ok now on to his birth story... :)

Monday - April 11th, 2016

I was 37 weeks and 6 days along in my pregnancy and this was the day I started some "natural inducing" things at home to get things going. The week before I had gotten cleared with the placenta moving to have a natural vaginal delivery and he was measuring big - the ultrasound guessed his weight to be 9 lbs 4 oz. So the midwives said to start what I could the next week. Took evening primrose and drank raspberry tea and started using an essential oil which were all supposed to help. Little did I know, none of these would even have the chance to start working!

I went to my weekly midwife appt that afternoon after our staff meeting. Just went by myself thinking it would just be a quick checkup. I had had lots of Braxton hicks contractions over the past few months but hadn't had many in the last week so I wasn't even going to have them check dilation. I went in and had my blood pressure checked and it was 160/98 which made them worry. They measured baby and checked his heartbeat and then told me to head to the hospital for about 2 hours to be monitored and to have my blood work done. I headed home and told Scott so we waited for Daniel to get home from charter school and then dropped off the kids over at Jesse and Rhonda's fully expecting to come pick them up in a few hours...

We got checked into a hospital room around 4:30 and the nurse checked my blood pressure again and it was up to 165/110. She said there was an almost guaranteed chance that I would not be leaving the hospital until after I had had my baby. Midwife came and confirmed that news a bit afterwards. It was time to soon meet our son!

5:00 - 9:00 pm - I was checked for dilation and was between 2 and 3 cm. but otherwise not thinned out or ready at all. :( And I also started on blood pressure medication through an IV. They let me eat dinner and prepared to start the cytotec for inducing. Baby and I were monitored for quite awhile and Scott headed home during that time to pack our bag which I had still not packed. We also called mom and dad and they started heading over from Delta.

10:00 pm - I took the first few pills of cytotec orally and then was told to rest as much as possible. That is very hard to do on an uncomfortable hospital bed while pregnant with monitors attached and having my blood pressure taken frequently. But, I remember getting short bits of rest and then finally sleeping for like an hour and a half at 2 am after I took two more induction pills...

Tuesday, April 12th

3:30 am - 12:00 pm - I was woken up around 3:30 am by a nurse walking in with my parents and I realized I was feeling contractions finally! Then began the long labor... I had contractions that were fairly intense (I had to breath through them) for the entire morning but by 11 am my midwife came in and said that my contractions were not consistent or intense enough to be doing much so she let me eat lunch and then I began pitocin around noon.

12:00 - 5:00 pm - The contractions definitely picked up after that IV began. I was able to move around a little bit with a portable monitor since baby had to be monitored from then on out. I sat on the birthing ball, labored in the tub, and actually sat in bed quite a lot which was so different than what I liked best during the other kids' labors. So crazy how different each labor is! I had some back labor but definitely not as much as the other labors which was so nice.

Our nurse was amazing during the day, too! She was extremely nice and helped me through many of the contractions with good ideas of how to focus. The afternoon actually passed very quickly even though I was so exhausted.

Around 3:30 they checked my dilation again and I was only dilated to 4 cm even after 12 hours of labor! :( Things were going so slowly and the pitocin was definitely the main thing keeping contractions going at all. They would have broken my water by this point but James' head was still not fully engaged and they could tell I had a lot of abdominal fluid which makes it more dangerous to break the water in case the cord comes out with the rush of fluid. So we continued to wait and I continued to labor.

6:00 - 9:00 pm - I think it was around 6 that Tuesday evening that my midwife finally came in and broke my water to get things moving along quicker. She did it in a way that the fluid only trickled out so it was able to be done even without him being fully engaged still! I was happy to be able to get things moving a bit more since I still hadn't made much progress. That helped kick the contractions into gear even more and over the next few hours I had a lot more back labor and was definitely getting nearer that transition period... And then I hit the point where my exhaustion was taking over and the contractions were so much more painful just before 9. I remember feeling like I wanted to start pushing so the nurse checked my dilation and I just wanted to hear that I was at least an 8. She said I was at a 6 and I just broke down crying. That was when I decided to have an epidural which in the end definitely was the best decision.

9:00 pm - midnight - Just before the 24 hour point since I had taken my first induction pills, I got an epidural and was able to rest! Also right after that we had to switch rooms because the monitor was having a lot of issues and even the backup ones weren't working correctly. They wheeled my bed into a much nicer, larger room and my parents and Scott transferred all our stuff over. Then it was time for us all to rest. I was able to get a good hour and a half nap while Scott rested on the couch and mom and dad went for a walk and got some rest.

Right around 11:30 I remember mom and dad walking in the room which woke me up. They asked how I was doing and I said that I was feeling a few of my contractions now even with the epidural and I was beginning to have that pushing feeling. They called in the nurse and she checked me around 11:45. She said he was just about to come out and she called in the baby nurse and got everything out and ready. I was thinking at that point that James would probably be coming out after midnight but my midwife said he would be out before that and she was definitely right! I only had to push for a few minutes through two contractions and then James David was born at 11:58 pm on April 12th!

I was able to hold him right away which was amazing! I remember thinking how little he looked. He was more on the blue side when he came out and only gave a few small shrieks instead of outright crying so they ended up taking him over to the heated baby bed to warm him up and check on everything. Everything checked out good so then I was able to hold him more. He was so sweet and amazing!

He was weighed in at 8 lbs 11 oz and later on they measured his length at 21.5 inches and his head was 14.75 inches. Good size baby for two weeks early and I was so thankful he wasn't as big as many thought he was already! Because he was still being so mellow an hour or so later, they checked his blood sugar and it was quite low so they fed him a bottle of donor milk which seemed to help because over the morning all his other checkups were great! But, because of the first blood sugar level and his lower temp they kept him on the bed warmer for an hour or so before letting me hold him after we got up to our patient room. We got some sleep the rest of the night although I spent most of my time cuddling a sweet little guy. :)

My parents brought the kids to see their new baby brother that Wednesday morning before lunch. They were all SO excited to see him and loved holding him. I don't think I've seen such a big smile on Daniel's face in so long and Lydia just looked like being a big sister was the best thing ever. :) Joanna was excited and gave him some kisses and then decided to spend most of the rest of her time eating off my tray of lunch food. Lol. They came back over that afternoon and we were able to order up some birthday cupcakes for the siblings to celebrate James' birthday! My sister, Amanda, was able to be there that afternoon too which was so much fun! I'm so glad she happened to be in town for a work conference!

We stayed at the hospital until Thursday mid-afternoon. So thankful my parents were able to take care of the kids at our house so that Scott could stay with James and me. Then we dressed him up in his going home outfit and took him home!

Well that took forever to write. Lol. I think I've been working on this for at least a week and a half. Oh, well. Life of a mother of four kids! I wish I could update more on how things have been since coming home from the hospital but we will see if I can write more about that another day... making no promises, though. ;) Thanks for reading this long post! I love having the story here to be able to look back on. Only way I can really remember everything!