New arrival!

Just one short week ago, our sweet little Audrey Marie was born! I had an induction scheduled for this Monday, but I guess she had plans of her own. Tuesday night, I felt contractions getting pretty regular, so around 7pm I started timing them. Unlike other times, after a couple hours they didn't let up, so at 9pm we made some phone calls to get the kiddos watched and Jarom and I headed up to the hospital. On our way up, we joked that any time, the contractions will just end - likely as we pulled up to the hospital! But they kept being steady and shortly after checking into the hospital, we were admitted into labor and delivery and the end of our journey was underway!

We labored throughout the night and into the morning, but progress stalled, so they added pitocin into the mix, and after a few hours of that, no progress was made, so we went ahead with a c-section. At 11:09 am, sweet Audrey was born and was 8 lbs. 2 oz. and 20 3/4 inches long. I had a feeling that she would have darker hair like Isaac had, and sure enough, she had a full head of beautiful, dark hair. Here is one of the first pics of us in the operating room while they were stitching me up.
Back into the recovery room. After 15 hours of labor and surgery, I was one tired mama! Isaac and Emilie were so excited to meet their new little sister! Isaac had to wear a face mask because he's been coughing a lot, and Emilie has a nice little eczema rash on her mouth, poor girl! Audrey wasn't quite sure what to think of these big siblings loving on her!
A very awake little Audrey with her best friend, the binkie.
On our way home. Isaac is wearing his Big Brother shirt, Emilie has a Big Sister shirt, and Audrey has the Little Sister shirt. This was mostly for my sake, the kids didn't find it nearly as exciting as I did - but isn't that usually the case?

Halloween

It's been a few weeks, I figure I should probably share a few Halloween pictures.

Since most of our Halloween plans happened to land on the day I was discharged from the hospital, I wasn't able to participate as much as I would have liked and had to miss some things, like Isaac's Kindergarten party and taking the kids trick-or-treating at Novell, but Jarom was super dad and made sure the kids still had a great holiday! Here are the kids (Isaac the ninja, cousin Michaela as Ariel, and Emili the princess) at Novell.
Jarom was especially proud of his Jack Skeleton pumpkin. It took a few candles inside to light up enough at night, but it sure looked cool! The kids and I just used the stick-on face elements and the kids thought that was pretty great, not to mention quick and no clean-up required!Saturday, our ward had a trunk-or-treat. Since it was raining outside, the event was moved inside, which I appreciated so I could just sit on a padded chair and pass out candy. Isaac had a blast making the rounds getting tons of candy, but Emile seemed a bit freaked out by the whole experience and would only go to a few different people.
My friend Cami and I. I've been wanting to dress up as a pregnant nun for years now, I'm so excitd I could finally pull it off!

Complaints

This post is nothing but complaining and whining, so feel free to ignore it. I just have a few things to complain about.

First of all, I am HORRIBLY grateful to be pregnant and have a special little baby girl growing in my womb that will soon be joining our family. I would never complain about being pregnant and all the ups and downs that come with the journey.

But with that being said, I HURT.

And I don't mean the normal aches and pains of being near the end of the pregnancy. I went in last week to get my cerclage removed, and as usual, the doctor first tried to remove it in clinic. I was very skeptical since they weren't able to do it in clinic with Emilie's stitch, but they seemed confident it wouldn't be difficult. That was a fail and just made me cramp and contract the rest of the evening. I went back in the next day so they could do the procedure in the operating room with anesthesia. I was still contracting pretty regularly, even before they started, and they noticed as they were monitoring my contractions that the baby's heartbeat was dropping slightly with the contractions. I had to wait a few hours since there were a few emergency c-sections that I had to wait for, but finally it was my turn and I was taken back. My doctor isn't one to really show frustration too much, but my stitch was really making him upset because it just wasn't coming out easily. Finally, after much longer than anticipated (and some not-so-pleasant reactions to the anesthesia), he finally got the stitch out.

I went back to the recovery room and continued contracting and was worried that labor might be underway. I wasn't ready to have my baby yet, but a part of me was a little excited about the prospect of having everything over and done with. After a few hours though, things started settling down. They were still worried about the baby's heart and made me stay overnight for observation. It was a very long night, that bed was so uncomfortable, but eventually morning came, baby was doing great, and I was able to go home.

That was Thursday and I'm still feeling horrendously sore. I had my weekly appointment yesterday and they checked to see how things were going only to find out that in the process of getting the stitch out, it tore a nice big hole in the side of my cervix. That would explain why I'm still bleeding and feel such sharp pains every time I have contractions. The doctor says that the tear should heal just fine and shouldn't affect any future pregnancies should that be in our future, although it would affect how any future cerclages would be performed. I don't know what affect it will have when I do finally go into labor, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

So until then, I'll just keep getting by in survival mode, horrendously sore and fatigued. Luckily I have resilient kids who don't mind having to watch more tv than usual and put up with a messier house than usual. They don't even mind having to eat pizza and hamburgers more often since mom can't cook as much either. Jarom is doing a great job helping out with the kids so I can rest and take baths - one of the few things that seem to bring much relief.

At least the finish line is in sight. We are now in November, and at some point in this month, I will have my baby girl in my arms and this pregnancy journey will finally come to an end. I can survive just a few more weeks of this, right?

New Job

Jarom is starting his new job at Blue Host today and Isaac was so excited for him. As soon as he got up, he drew this for him, only to find out that Daddy had already left for work, so he's going to have to wait until tonight to show it to him. Daddy is on the left, then there's the building on the right where he works. He drew a line from Daddy to the window where his office will be. Isaac's imagination and apparent authority about everything never ceases to amaze me.

We're all excited and proud of Jarom to start this new job and hope that it is a good fit for him and for them.