Ella Rose

The BIG event of June- Baby Ella's arrival!!

We really tried to stay moving and active throughout June- but the last week was really hard. It was hot, my clothes didn't fit, and I was ready for little Ella to be on the outside. At my 37 and 38 weeks appointments I was dilated to 1cm and just about 50% effaced. I wasn't really having a lot of contractions and that was good and bad at the same time. I was so grateful I didn't have a 3 week labor like Bentley but I really wanted to feel something moving. At my 39 weeks appointment my doctor said I was a tight 2 cm and just a little bit more effaced. He gave me the choice to wait another week and see what happens or we could schedule something for Wednesday, June 29th. He made a phone call and we were all set up for Wednesday! yay! The next day we cleaned the house from top to bottom, my mom came up, and we took the family out to see Finding Dory as our last adventure as a family of 5! 

I slept awful that night. I slept for a few hours and was wide awake around 2am. I had plenty of time to watch some shows, get ready, and off we went around 7am. It was the weirdest feeling to know we were going to the hospital and just going to have a baby. I've always gone wondering if it was the real thing and if the contractions were doing their thing. I actually liked this way!

They hooked me all up for 30 minutes or so to check out babies heartbeat and to see if I was having any contractions. I had a few good ones, but nothing painful and nothing too exciting. I had dilated just a little over the last 2 days so they gave me a cervidil (pill that helps with dilating and effacing) and had me go walk around. I started walking around 9am off and on until 1pm. At 1pm they started pitocin and I got the epidural around 2pm. During the epidural I told the nurse that I thought I was feeling some trickling of fluid. While she was putting in the catheter she checked my water and said it was still in tact and we'd just wait for it to break or the Dr. would come in soon to break it.

I was pretty slowly progressing and the nurse told me our plan was to let the pitocin do it's thing, my contractions to do their thing, and for the doctor to come break my water when he had a break. For the next 5 hours we kept waiting for him to come but he kept pushing it back. First it was "when I get a break", then it was "after I'm done at the office", then to "after I get some dinner". The nurse finally asked him if we were just going to see him at delivery. He laughed and said he'd be there soon... ya right. The nurse checked me around 4pm and said that I was about 5 cm dilated so they didn't want to check me again until the Dr. came to break my water. The baby was still pretty high so we probably had a lot of laboring down to do. At around 7 I started feeling uncomfortable. Not too bad, but I was starting to want to switch sides a lot and I was just feeling uneasy. I kept asking my Mom and Kyle if they were really hot because I felt like I was sweating. No matter how they helped me move I just could not get comfortable. I started feeling claustrophobic and just really uncomfortable and pretty irritable. I remember at one point my mom asked me if I wanted a light on and it really irritated me because I didn't care about the light. I didn't care if all the lights were on or off or if they didn't work anymore- I was just uncomfortable haha. The nurses came in, upped my epidural, tried to help me get situated and then said she'd call my Dr. to see if we could get things moving. Around 8:00pm I told her I was definitely feeling pressure. She said the Dr. would be here any minute so we were just going to wait to check me again. At 8:30pm I called her back and told her that I felt A LOT of pressure. She finally checked me and Ella was crowning. She ran out to call the Dr. and he was there within 5 minutes- maybe even less than that. With just 2 pushes and at 8:43pm Little Ella was born! We did skin to skin for an hour right after she was born and then they did all the weighing and checking things out. She was 6lbs15oz and 19 1/2 inches long.

The nurse started to write down things about the labor and asked the Dr. when he broke my water. We were all very confused because he never came in and I never felt a huge gush of water breaking. We are pretty sure that between getting the epidural and the catheter it started a slow leak because it had definitely broken by the time Dr. got there.

We had a good night in the hospital. I got a few hours of sleep and she did pretty well that first night. She was a little noisy but didn't cry much at all. When Kyle went and got breakfast he came back with this sweet crayola art set for me. I love crayola! The girls were pretty jealous when I showed them all my crayons and markers :) At this point in time we hadn't decided on a name yet. We actually had been calling her Oakley since she was born but I just couldn't give that name to the lady that does the Birth Certificates. Around lunch time I text Kyle (while he was out for lunch) and asked him how he felt about Ella. Oakley seemed like a name we were trying to force on her and Ella just seemed like it fit so much more. He agreed and we signed the papers. Ella it is!

My Mom broke the kids later that afternoon to meet their new sister. They weren't nearly as afraid as they were with Bentley. 

Bentley was adorable with her. He was obsessed with her little fingers and toes and sang her supercalifragilsticexpialidocious to put her to sleep. 

That night Lorin and Lisa came by to see us and hung out for a hour or so. Kyle was pretty ansy to leave and sleep in his own bed so we busted out of there at 8:30 the next night. Almost exactly 24 hours after she was born. One of the stipulations from the pediatrician was we had to get her to see a dr. the next day. Since we left so late that night we missed her coming home in the carseat picture so we took one on the way to the Dr. the next day. 

Even though London doesn't look it, she was extatic to wake up to her baby sister at home. They held her all morning until we left for the dr. and then insisted on kisses before we left.

Ella has probably been my most challenging baby. She's very particular about her eating, how she sits, and how she sleeps. I breastfed her for a month until she had stopping gaining weight like she should at her 6 week appointment. She had been a pretty fussy eater for the last 2 weeks but I was able to pump a lot of milk so I thought she was getting plenty. I started pumping her bottles and she started gaining weight. At her 2 month appointment she had went back up to the 20th percentile and the Dr. told me to keep doing what we were doing because her growth was up from the 8th percentile. I pumped for a month and have just decided that formula is doing to be just great for her- I just can't keep up with pumping and 4 kids. Now that we've settled into a normal feeding routine things are getting better, she's just needs lots of attention :) She's lucky we have 5 people that are always willing to hold her. We call London our little "baby whisperer". She can always get Ella to go right to sleep when we need her to. We are happy to have little Ella in our family and I absolutely love having the older kids here to help me. It doesn't feel so much like it's all the little ones vs. the parents. I love having helpers!

June!

With the new baby girl being due date the end of June we figured we needed to keep June super busy to keep me entertained and my mind off having a baby. We did pretty good at doing something fun everyday. I'll go through the highlights :)

On the anniversary of when Kyle's Dad passed away (June 6th), we went over to the cemetery and cleaned up his headstone and talked to the kids a little about Grandpa. The kids had a lot of questions and it's a hard thing to explain to them. Afterward we went over to Marie's house and had her tell the kids some stories about Grandpa. 

The kids were very used to being busy all day at school and starting asking us every day if we could go somewhere. On this particular day, I was not up to doing much so Kyle took the kids over to Hunt Park and just played. The did some frisbee golf, checked out the new racquetball courts, and then finished up the morning burning some energy in the park. He is such a good dad, we love him and are lucky to have him.

We had a new missionary in our ward and we learned to really like him and his companion. They would come stop at our house a few times a week to give the kids a little message, play, and get out of the heat. I'm pretty sure they just stopped by because they knew Kyle was home and it was somewhere to get a cold drink of water. The kids really loved them and they loved to sword fight a.k.a. beat Elder Sandberg with the swords.

The kids started Swim Lessons this year and Macy and London learned SO much. Macy can now swim all of her own and I'm not so afraid of her falling into water and not being able to make it to the side. She really has come a LONG way in the last two years with swimming. London did awesome in the baby pool and swims with her head under the water and can hold her breath for a pretty long time. Once we get her in the big pool she forgets that she needs to stay horizontal and her feet sink to the bottom. She still needs a little work. Bentley. Oh Bentley. He needs a lot of work. He hung onto his lifeguard Jedee the entire time. He didn't learn much. We did spent a long of time at the baby pool outside of lessons though and he does much better on his own. He'll put his head under the water and get his face wet.

Kyle's brother Brent has been sick and in the hospital for a few months. We had some vouchers for plane tickets so we offered one to Marie and Kyle took the other to go visit him and his family. They had a great visit and got in some broadway shows. I keep telling Kyle he needs to get on here and do his own posts (for Mary Poppins and his trip to New York)- we'll see if he does :) Before he left Macy insisted that she take a picture of him. I think she got a good one :) My Mom came up and stayed with me while he was gone. With being 37 weeks ago it made me nervous to be alone. While she was here we redid the girls closet shelves and finally made somewhere for the baby's clothes to go. He got home on Father's Day this year and enjoyed the yummy peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes that I made for him and the ward. They were the first "fancy" cupcakes I've made and I think they turned out pretty good!

Like two years ago we took the kids on a hike in the mountains behind our house and London has been asking us ever since to take her on another one. I was 38 weeks pregnant by this time and definitely not about to go hike a mountain, so Kyle took them on his lonesome. I got worried after an hour of them being gone, but they decided to hike up the mountains, through Maverik for a treat, hit a geocache, and then to Grandma's house where I picked them up. Kyle said the kids did great and he never had to carry them.

That night the kids had their last tball game. It's been fun watching them and how far they went during the season. Bentley still had a little trouble hitting the ball (the t was too tall), but the girls did really well! Macy will be plenty ready for coach pitch next year. They went from never hitting or catching the ball to always hitting the ball and most of the time being able to catch it :)

As it got closer and closer to my due date we started to spend more time at home, I was getting more uncomfortable and tired. The girls pulled out all their My Little Pony's one day and prettied them all up. They are one of the toys that have been super popular at our house and our collection just keeps getting bigger!

I had my 39 week appoint on June 27th and I was a little more effaced and a tad more dilated. Dr. Izenberg asked me if I wanted to wait another week or if I wanted to schedule something, so we scheduled something. He asked "how Wednesday sounded" and I told him "it sounds great. Tuesday sounds even better." :) He was on call for Wednesday so we scheduled an induction with the hospital and called to let my mom know! She came up the next day. We got all the final touches ready for baby (like washing blankets, buying diapers, you know- those things) :) and the took the kids to see Finding Dory for our last night as a family of 5!