A Recap - Part 1

I've decided to do a recap of everything in the last 3 months of our lives :) It will take 2 posts.

Here are the boys together on our first morning out of the hospital.

Conner turned 3 the day after Caleb was born. Since we spent most of that day in the hospital we celebrated Conner's birthday a day late. (Shhh don't tell him). We also had no intention of still being in Mesa and left his some of his birthday presents at home. Luckily, we ordered one online while in Mesa and grandma and grandpa Rodgers had a few for him to open. Some of the others soon became Christmas presents instead.

Conner went through a phase of forgetting how to smile. Every time we said to smile for the camera, this is what we got :)

 

 



Since Caleb took his sweet time arriving, we had spent about 2 weeks in Mesa and were ready to be home again. So we came back home on Wednesday and had our first Thanksgiving by ourselves. It was nice, we did a lot of resting (ok just me really because Cade was ambitious and put up our Christmas lights) and had a feast (also courtesy of Cade). Since there wasn't time to buy and defrost a turkey we had a rotisserie chicken instead (thanks for the idea Natalie!).

 

For the first 8 weeks of Caleb's life we either went out of town or had company. It was a lot of fun and time just flew by. The Entrekins came to Arizona for 3 weeks and right off they blessed Abby. So naturally we went to Mesa for that. While we were there we got pictures taken of the grandkids together. It was the only wintery day Mesa had all year and we weren't expecting it or prepared for it so the kids were cold and some a little red faced. We also took a family picture for our Christmas card, which wasn't the most flattering being 2 weeks post baby, but that's life.

 

Eli, Tyson, Tyler, Conner

 

The girls - Alyza, Emma, Abby

 

Caleb, Tyson, Emma, Alyza, Eli, Abby Tyler, Conner

Hello Stud Muffin!

 

Caleb's pictures weren't flattering

 

Next Grandma Johnson came for an unexpected visit. Conner loved getting lots of attention and having someone to play with again. (Our little Caleb didn't like to go to sleep for "the night" until about 1 am and then woke up about every 2 hours, so mommy was a little too tired to play.)

 



The Entrekins came to visit us next. No pictures were taken, but we had fun and I didn't want them to think we forgot about their visit. Ashley did help us take some better pictures of Caleb...

 

 

 

I just had to throw in the static hair! I don't think he is amused.

 

The next week Cade and Conner went to Hurricane with Kameron and Jeter. While they were gone my mom came and stayed with me and we got lots of deep cleaning done. It was a win-win for everyone! Well, my mom may have gotten the short stick on that one, but she still liked it :)

 

Gathering chicken eggs with grandpa

Crawling through the chicken door

 

Trying on some cowboy boots

 

Conner and Jeter playing on the hay

 

Next it was Christmas. We went to Mesa for a few more days. We spent Christmas Eve with the Rodgers and most of Christmas day with the Johnson's at Natalie's apartment. The main memory from Christmas is that my dad's friend Lloyd gave my dad his old train set that goes around the Christmas tree. The track was broken and my dad was going to throw it out, but we told him that Conner would like to play with it and to throw it away after Christmas. Well that was an understatement. Conner thought that train was the greatest thing ever and spent all of our trip playing with it. We practically had to force the kid to open his presents because he kept wandering away with this broken down, old train. Cade was so mad that we didn't just give it to him for Christmas. He also says that if Conner doesn't believe in Santa as he gets older its because of this mistake of Santa only giving second rate toys compared to the train. It was really kind of sad. As a side note- the wooden train set that Conner got for Christmas the year before, is still played with on a daily basis, literally. That kid is obsessed. (We stupidly forgot our camera so we only got a few pictures with Cade's phone.)

 

 

Here's a picture of Conner loving the old train

 

 

Conner playing with his new fort kit

 

A few days later, we blessed Caleb in Prescott Valley. It was fun having all of our families come to town for a few hours.

 

The Johnsons, minus Uncle Sam who is on a mission.

 All of the Rodgers

 

Our little family. Caleb and I have changed clothes because of a huge blow out that leaked through onto me.

 

We wanted to do something fun for New Year's, but just didn't have the energy/ motivation to put anything together. So we just spent the evening at home watching a movie. The next day Conner and Cade took the prowler out. Cade brought his bow just in case they stumbled upon something and they did. Unfortunately Conner doesn't know how to sneak up on animals yet and kept talking so loudly they ran off. I think I was the most disappointed because if Cade had got that deer then he would have been done bow hunting for the entire year!

 



 

To be continued....

It's A Boy!

So much for thinking we were having a girl, Conner got a brother last week. Caleb Mason took his time joining us and didn't arrive until 8 days past his due date. He was born the day before Conner's birthday. (And if we add in RJ and Jen's birthdays then we have 4 birthdays in a row.) Thankfully, he was still only 7.8 pounds and 20 inches long. I was afraid he would be huge and I would miss that tiny little baby stage, but he was still a nice small size.
 

Around 3 am I woke up with mild cramps and told Cade that we might have some action happening. I wasn't holding my breath though because I had been having tons of cramps, stronger ones, in the last few weeks so it was possible it was just more of that. But it was strange that I would have them while sleeping so I figured there was a chance. I went back to sleep and Conner woke us up about 6:00 and the cramps were gone so I told Cade nevermind. We all went back to sleep again and I woke up about 8:00 with cramps strong enough to make it impossible to keep sleeping or even lay down comfortably. So I got up and waited to see what would happen. Over the next few hours nothing really changed so I was beginning to think that it was just a false alarm. Somewhere around 11:30 I timed them and they were about 20 minutes apart and I decided to get ready just in case. During a light lunch we timed the contractions again and they were 8 minutes apart. My mom got a little panicked at this point and was really trying to push us out to the hospital, but I still felt like it was a little early, and I was still eating :) Cade kept entertaining Conner and I slowly got our last minute things in order. Just after 2:00 I had a really strong contraction that forced me to sit down and felt like it lasted about 5 minutes so then I decided it was time to go. Conner had a meltdown, which was really sad and surprising because we've left him with grandma and grandpa plenty of times without trouble.

Our last picture as a family of 3, taken a few weeks prior to test out our camera.

The half hour drive to the hospital was pretty unpleasant. Cade wanted to try timing the contractions again but it was getting too hard for me to tell when one ended and another one began. I half-jokingly asked him to remind me why I didn't want an epidural. (There are multiple reasons that I won't get into.) Since he doesn't pay much attention to me when I talk about such things he had a hard time reminding me of them, but he did point out that I really don't care to have a gigantic needle being stabbed into my back. That helped a little.

Once we were in triage I had to go change into my gown and pee in a cup. The gown didn't have the sleeves buttoned up and it was like a flat sheet. I blame the contractions I was dealing with, but it took me forever to figure out how to put that thing on and I think they should have the gowns already prepared for laboring women. I also ended up having to use the restroom for other business, if you know what I mean, so I ended up being in there a long time. When I came out Cade and the nurse told me they were getting worried and about to check on me. Everyone was being really nice and many were very chatty but I just did not have the energy to carry on these conversations. And they had all these initial questions to ask me that I thought were so pointless and at the very least that Cade could answer for me. Looking back I wish we had gone to the hospital sooner so I wasn't in so much pain during the whole question/answer phase. But you just never know how quickly things will progress. When the nurse checked me she said I was at 7 or 8 centimeters and called my doctor so she could start heading to the hospital.

Soon we were in the delivery room. A nurse started to check me again but then said the head was right  there so she wasn't going to bother. She told me my doctor was still on her way but they got a resident to come in so I was free to push anytime I needed to. I remember thinking it was kind of awkward because he just stood there waiting for me to do something and I was laying on my side and not sure if I was covered back up after the nurse checked me so he might be getting a show already. But Cade later informed me I was covered up :) The contractions were almost unbearable at this point and I just started getting the urge to push. I was getting a little panicked because I didn't know how I could push while having such strong contractions. When I had Conner the contractions had stopped for a few minutes before I felt any need to push so I got a little recovery period and there was no recovery time this time. My doctor showed up at this point and went to check something and accidently broke my water. It eased my contractions just enough for me to take a breath and get ready to push. They got me into position and told me to go ahead when I was ready, but I wanted another minute so the 2 nurses, 2 doctors, and Cade just stood there staring at me. For whatever reason I thought that was really funny and wanted to laugh but didn't have the energy.

Now it was time for business. The pushing contractions were ridiculously strong right away, I could hardly believe how painful it was. (With Conner they started slowly and without pain and I would push, rest, push, rest... and I just didn't think that pushing was that terrible.) After a few pushes they started telling me the baby's heart rate was dropping and I needed to get it out. I feel like I hear that all the time in other people's birth stories so I didn't worry much about it. At some point though I saw my doctor's face as she was again telling me the baby needed to be out and I could tell she was seriously concerned so I gave it all I had. I wish that that meant one more good push and the baby was out, but unfortunately it was still what seemed like a full 5 minutes. I mean, like one push that lasted 5 minutes. Cade says it wasn't that long, but I know I took multiple breaths while continuing to push without stopping. They kept saying it was there and made it sound like I just needed to push a little harder and it would be out. But I was already pushing as hard as I possibly could and it didn't feel like it was budging. I was truely wondering if I was going to be able to do it and I wanted to cry. Finally, after what I honestly think was the worst 10 minutes of my entire life, our little baby arrived at 4:23 pm. With Conner I pushed for about an hour and a half, with Caleb it was a total of 15 minutes, but I will gladly take the hour and a half if it means the pain isn't so severe. Afterwards the doctor mentioned Caleb's heart rate got down to 50 or 60 beats per minute. I asked what it was supposed to be and she said 120, so I guess it was getting low.

Gotta love how he was covered in his poop when he came out.

Caleb has been a great baby so far. He sleeps like 20 hours a day and isn't fussy. He only cries when he is hungry and a little while we use a cold wipe on his bum. Conner really loves him and is always trying to play with him. So far there hasn't been any jealousy. Unfortunately Conner has a little cold so I don't want him breathing all over Caleb but its been pretty much impossible to stop that. Caleb wakes up more in the night to eat than he does during the day so that's annoying but he seems to be changing his ways. Its been 100 times easier for me to adjust to the interrupted/no sleep this time. After Conner was born Cade and I were both exhausted and unhappy for quite awhile because his days and nights were mixed up. But this time its just been way easier for me to go without sleep so I let Cade sleep more and we're all happy. Soon Cade will be back at work and we'll see how things turn out with me watching both boys.

Meeting brother for the first time