County Fairs

We finished off the summer by going to the Box Elder and Cache County fairs. The Cache County fair didn't go at all according to plan. It was at the end of a week that we had stayed a couple days with my parents. So by Saturday, Meili and Grant were so used to being spoiled, not having a routine, and not having attention from mom, that they were crazy. It was a day that I had looked forward to since last year, since Grant couldn't ride on any of the rides and he'd be able to this year, and it ended up being not a great night. My parents came up for the fair, and we met up with my brother's family, and I ended up leaving pretty frazzled. We didn't even end up doing rides, because of lack of time, and I didn't think the kids had behaved well enough to go on rides.

 

We did, however, do pony rides.

 

 

 

 

Luckily, we had a chance for a do-over at the Box Elder Fair, and I am happy to say that things went much better.

 

 Grant got his chance at rides, and I think on some of them, he couldn't decide how he really felt. This one, he went on once, and then chose to sit out when Meili and Brayden wanted to go.

 For some reason, I totally love this picture. Oh, to be 5 again!

 This was Grant's favorite ride. He took driving the truck very serious.

 

Newborn Pictures

After me trying for a week to find someone to take newborn pictures, and not being willing right now to pay as much as they cost, Lacey agreed to try taking some with the two of us. She said repeatedly how hard newborn pictures are, but is just such a good friend, that she finally gave in. :)

 I think we have a handsome boy, and Lacey is better than she thinks she is. Plus, he was really cooperative-I was shocked!

 The other two, on the other hand, were not at all cooperative, so this was the best family shot we got.

 

Well, if that picture isn't true to life, I don't know what is!



 And after a couple hours of being jostled around, Cam was done.

Let's face it, we were all done!

 Such a sweet boy!

 

These are just a few more that we added from our house...

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making Adjustments

It's no secret that I have a hard time with the newborn phase of life. I love my babies, but it's so hard for me to just sit, and be patient, and relax, and watch as my kids tear my house to pieces, and be tied to another human being. However, I know that it is a lesson I need to learn to slow down, and appreciate EVERY stage of life. And someday I am going to learn that lesson no matter how hard I try to push against it.

 

We had Cam on Friday, and headed home Saturday afternoon. My parents had Meili and Grant stay the night at their house so we could have a little time to recover. Then they brought them home on Sunday. On Saturday, I already felt almost back to normal. I joked with Josh the following week, that I've had workouts at the gym that were harder to recover from than this birth. I was anxious to see Grant and Meili again, and start figuring out life again, but it was also so fun to have a night to just cuddle a newborn.

 

My parents and sister's family came to visit Sunday and had lunch with us, and I felt pretty much like myself. On Monday, I took Meili and Grant to the Pioneer Day parade, because I was bound and determined to celebrate the holiday at least somewhat.

 

Josh was home from work Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday was my first day left to my own devices. It took us 2 hours to get out the door to go to the library. So after a 20 minute stop at the library, I decided we needed to do something else to make the trip a little more worth it, so we went to the park for Weenie Wednesday (free hot dogs, drinks, and ice cream provided by the radio station.)

 

I totally had this 3 kid thing down.

 

Wednesday night, Cam was up every 2 hours all night long. I finally asked Josh to take one of the feedings, but I pretty much slept a total of maybe an hour all night. And Thursday night was the same thing. Now I remember why I have such a hard time with newborns. To make matters worse, I woke up at one point with really bad cramps. So I got up to take some Ibuprofen, and while I was trying to pump, I had chills, but then in bed, I was sweating, and couldn't decide if I was burning hot or freezing cold. The next morning, I told Josh how I had felt the night before, and also decided that I was sick of sitting on the couch, yelling at my kids, so we needed to get out of the house. We made a plan to go to Lacey's house, and on my way there, I started feeling feverish, like I had the night before. On my way there, I talked to Josh's mom who wanted to come visit Cam, but since we wouldn't be home, and Liz was in town for a short time, I offered to come to their house after I was done at Lacey's.

 

While at Lacey's, the kids were able to play, I was able to sit and relax, and get some much needed conversation therapy. But I still wasn't feeling great.

I went to Josh's parents' and while the visit was nice, and everyone spoiled all three of my kids, I continued to feel worse and worse. I told myself that I probably just needed to eat better, and drink more water, so when I got home, I would take better care of myself-plus, Josh would be home and I could get a nap in. The last hour at Josh's parents' house, I started to feel a little lightheaded, and fuzzy about some of the conversations. I drove home and was very emotional with Josh when I talked to him on the phone. Josh didn't understand why I had been gone all day if I hadn't felt well. But I kept trying to explain that I had gotten progressively worse as the day went on. He brought home food, and I ate and drank well. I called the doctor who said that if my temperature was higher than 101, I needed to go to the ER. So after getting a thermometer that actually worked, we took my temperature which was high 102's.

 

We called Jared, and asked him if he could take our kids overnight, then we got ready to go to the ER. Just before we were heading out, I wasn't feeling so bad, and we took my temperature again, and it was in the 101's. I decided that I really had just been dehydrated, and with a good night's sleep, I would be fine. So we decided not to go to the ER that night. We talked to Marlyse and Liz who both thought that I probably had an infection, but that I would be fine going to the Instacare the next day.

 

On Saturday, Josh demanded that I take it easy, and took my temperature every half hour. Of course, it never broke 100. We considered still going to the Instacare, but I figured with no fever, they wouldn't be able to help me. I guess whatever it was, I had kicked it on my own.

 

On Sunday, I planned with Lacey to do newborn pictures since I was doing better. I got everything together for pictures, and got the kids ready for church. I just needed to finish getting myself and Cam ready. At about 1:00, I started to feel the fever coming back so I took my temperature, and it had jumped back to the 100's. (Not too high, but I figured it was the effort that I had exerted, pictures would definitely put me over the edge. Plus, I figured that Josh would kill me if he knew I had taken pictures with a fever.) So I cancelled with Lacey.

 

When Josh got home, he didn't understand why I had cancelled. He definitely is not a fan of pictures, but figured that I had already gone through all the work, and my fever was only 100, so I called Lacey, AGAIN, frantically and decided to go through with it. I joked that the worst that could happen is I end up in the ER, which had been a possibility all weekend. (Plus, remember, that because Josh switched jobs, he wasn't sure if he was going to have insurance the next day or not.)

 

We did pictures. Cam was awesome, the other two? Not so much. We really didn't get anything great with them, and Lacey can usually make miracles happen with those two crazies. So the pictures are just a testament to how "pushed aside" they were feeling.

 

By the time we got home, I was exhausted! It took everything I had just to help get the kids in bed, get Cam fed, and get some food in me. Finally, about 10:30, I decided I needed to take my temperature, and it was between 103 and 104 depending on the ear. I took Tylenol, we called our neighbor, and headed to the ER. We both figured that enough is enough.

 

I still felt silly walking into the ER. The Tylenol kicked in, I was feeling much better, and I didn't really have any other symptoms besides the fever. After a short evaluation at the ER, they decided it was mastitis and got me started on antibiotics.

 

The following week, Josh was in training in Salt Lake on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. So we packed up the family, and stayed with my parents. It was a good thing too, because I really didn't start feeling better till Wednesday or Thursday, so it was really nice to have my mom, sister, and dad there that could help me out.

 

So now, two-ish weeks after having Cam, I am feeling good. (Hopefully for real this time.) One good thing that came out of this whole fiasco is that Josh fed Cam at night for a few days, and we learned that he does a lot better with bottles. So the last few nights he eats at 11 and then again at 5 or 6, and I feel on top of the world again.

 

It's funny because I kept saying that I was hoping for a really good baby, since Grant was pretty high maintenance. So far, Cam has been awesome. I just didn't anticipate being sick for a week after he was born.

 

So now for just a few pictures of the first week...

 The first night home, we realized that all of our boy 0-3 sleepers, were really warm because Grant was born in January. So... we made do with one of Meili's. This picture, really makes it look like I was disappointed that we had a boy instead of a girl.

 ...And, look at this cute boy, with is awesome big sister!

When 4 Became 5...

In about December we found out that we were expecting our third child-due July 29th. I had always said, "If we already had a boy and a girl, that's the only way I could not find out the gender of our baby ahead of time." So, Josh held me to that, and we decided not to find out what we were having. This pregnancy was my easiest by far. I went to the gym regularly, although I usually didn't do much more than walking on the treadmill. I didn't eat as much as I had with Grant, and TRIED not to eat quite so much junk. (Although that shouldn't have been too hard. I did not eat well when I was pregnant with Grant, and always had to eat another meal after dinner: Second dinner.) So I'm not sure if that's why, but for whatever reason, this pregnancy was not awful. I had occasional heartburn, and was really tired off and on throughout the pregnancy, but besides that and my bulging belly, I felt pretty much the same.

I am not good at taking pregnancy pictures, so this has become my one mandatory tradition. At 26 weeks, in this same outfit every time, so I have one true comparison. Let me just tell you, I was definitely bigger with Grant-just one more reason I was sure I was having a girl.

 

In order to get ready for our new bundle of joy, we had to move Meili out of the room she was sharing with Grant, and move her into the basement. I stressed a lot about it. (Surprise, surprise.) There was no closet in that room, so I stressed about painting the room, and stressed about refinishing her dresser, decided she needed a new quilt with some pink in it, to match the pink paint that Josh had promised her. I waited for a day that Josh would be free that he could help paint that room, and when that day never, I decided to take matters into my own hands. He ended up helping quite a bit, but I was pretty proud that I did the majority of the paint myself-and without tape :) We had her room done by the end of April, and it has been smooth sailing ever since. She loves her room, she and Grant have been sleeping better, and somehow, adding another room, makes it easier to keep both rooms clean.

 

 

I wish I had taken a true "before" picture, but you can see, that this dresser, which belonged to my mom when she was a little girl, had been painted white, and we refinished it in a really dark brown that matches her bed (that also belonged to my mom.) The dresser is definitely old, and isn't in the best shape, but I think it turned out really nice.

I mentioned making a quilt for Meili, then of course, Grant needed a quilt for his twin size bed because he's never had one, and I wanted to make a quilt for the baby because I've made one for each of my babies. I picked fabric for the baby that could be for a girl or a boy, and then matched Grant's to the same fabric. I always like to give myself a lot of work before my baby's are born. :)

Everything was going really well toward being prepared for the baby. I was bound and determined to like this baby AND the first few months of his/her life.

Then....

In April/May Josh decided to apply for a new job as a branch manager at a Mountain America Credit Union that was being built near our house. He's enjoyed working at the radio station but he couldn't get past certain aspects: the radio doesn't provide a 401K, he was paying for his own insurance, he felt like he had some weaknesses that were preventing him from making as much money as he felt like he could and the position at the Credit Union would pay better. So he applied, and then proceeded to have 4 different interviews for the job. One of the interviews, they even asked him to come up with a 30/60/90 day plan for the branch. Needless to say, it was more work and more stress than he's had in a lot of other interviews. When he was finally offered the job, I think he was very flattered. He seemed really excited, and I was excited for him until I started thinking about what it would mean for this pregnancy and birth. So if life with a newborn isn't hard enough, let's complicate things; beginning with losing and changing insurance within days of the baby being born. Then Josh said that he had a weeklong training in Salt Lake in July, the week before the baby was due. And because he was changing jobs, he wasn't sure how many days he would be able to take off when the baby was born. When Josh was considering the job, I said repeatedly, "Whatever you decide to do, I will support you, but I can't have you stressed out like you were the first few months of Grant's life. I just need you to be around to be able to help." (The credit union where Josh was working when Grant was born went through a merger right after Grant was born; meaning that Josh was so much more stressed, had to work more hours, was preoccupied when he was home, etc.) So I almost lost my mind when Josh called me one of his first days of work, and said, "You might kill me, but I found out that I have some trainings in Salt Lake in August." The more he talked the more overwhelmed I felt until I just burst in tears. Basically, as it turns out, he has a training every week in August in Salt Lake, one is an entire week, a couple are for a couple days, and one is one day. Some people may be able to deal with that, but I have such a hard time at night with newborns, so expecting me to have a newborn 24/7, plus two other kids, when I have no idea how my body will be feeling physically, and I can guarantee that I will be very hormonal. I automatically wanted to run away and hide and not have to see any of this through. Josh kept telling me that we would be fine, and I could either come stay with him in the hotel, or he would drive home each night. I couldn't see a good solution, but it was also a situation where I didn't have any other choices, so we would just figure it out one day at a time.

In the weeks leading up to the big day, I was still feeling really good, no contractions, and at my dr. appointments, no progress. I had said all along that I was going to plan on going to Girls Camp because I was sure that I wouldn't have my baby early. On the 14th and 15th, I took the kids to Salt Lake to stay in the hotel with Josh. We went to dinner, I took the kids swimming the next morning, then we stayed with my parents that next night so that we could find a van on Saturday for our ever growing family.

On the 19th and 20th, I went to Bear Lake for Girl's Camp, and as promised, I was not even close to having a baby there. On the 20th, I taught a class for work.

I had said throughout the pregnancy that I really wanted to wait as long as possible to see if I went into labor naturally. Josh really wanted me to be induced on the 22nd, at 39 weeks, because then he would get the most time off work, and it would give us the maximum amount of time together before he left for his first training in August. Besides wanting the experience of having a natural child birth experience, I also wanted to just enjoy celebrating the Pioneer Day holiday with my family before having the baby. I feel like with the baby being born in July, we're already losing like half of our summer, so I just wanted to enjoy as much of it as I could before having the baby. But finally, I decided that Josh was right about us needing as much time as possible together before his training, so I gave in and on Thursday at my doctor's appointment, when she said that I still had made no progress yet, I asked to be induced on the 22nd. She said no problem, and gave us the phone number to call at 5:00 the next morning to see when we could get in.

That day, I went home and started getting things ready to bring home a baby. I was wrapping up some things for work when I got a call from the hospital. They said that they realized there was no way that I would get in for an induction tomorrow, but if we were willing to come in tonight, there would be a better chance. I said yes, got off the phone and started panicking. The nurse said that if we hadn't heard by 10:00 pm, that we should call them. Not knowing when we were actually going to be checking, I called Lacey to see if she could take the kids, and we packed up quickly, got some dinner with the kids, and dropped them off with Lacey just before 9:00. By then, we still hadn't heard from the hospital, so Josh decided to just double check before heading home. They didn't have room for us yet, so we went home and TRIED to get some sleep. Josh basically called the hospital every 2 or 3 hours all night, and they kept telling us how unexpectedly busy they were. When we talked to them at 5:00 in the morning, the nurse said that we were next on the list, but they had no idea who might walk in. They asked if we still wanted to wait, or if we wanted to reschedule for a day that we definitely could get in. I didn't want to make it pointless for Lacey to have had our kids overnight, so we said we would continue to wait, and luckily they called right back and said we could get in at 6:15 am. Yea! But too bad that neither of us had slept all night because we were waiting.

When we checked into the hospital, I still hadn't progressed at all, so I knew we were in for a day pretty similar to when I had Grant.

The labor and delivery went pretty smooth. The nurse started me on Pitocin and I had consistent contractions for a few hours, but she finally decided that the contractions were too close together and weren't really doing anything, so she messed with my dose a little bit.

A doctor came in at about 9:00 and said, "Are you ready for this?"
Me: Ready for what?
Dr: To break your water
Me: I didn't realize we were breaking my water. (With Grant, it took the better part of the day just to get me to the point that the Dr. could even reach my water. Plus, whenever they break my water, I have the baby within about an hour. So I had a little adrenaline kick.)
So the doctor broke my water, and on the way out, he and the nurse seemed a little confused. Funny story: The doctor realized that he was actually supposed to break someone else's water, which was why we were so caught off guard. It wasn't a big deal because my doctor was on her way in to try to break my water anyway, but I just got it done a couple minutes earlier. Also, as it turns out, my water breaking is not the magic that makes my baby come out in an hour, because even after it was broken, it still took awhile to have the baby.

A couple hours before the baby was born, I looked at Josh, and said, "You know there is a POSSIBILITY that this baby could be a boy." See, I was sure, totally, absolutely, positively, 100% sure that the baby was a girl. I wasn't as hungry as I had been with Grant, I was measuring smaller than I had with Grant, I could only think of girl names... To me, this baby was a girl. Josh really felt that way too. So I had convinced Meili, and Grant, and my friends and family that it was a girl. But for whatever reason, all of a sudden, I had this thought that I had never had before, that maybe the baby was a boy. Josh said, "I was actually just barely thinking the same thing."

We had discussed names and had zero possibilities, and zero back up plans.

The last time the nurse checked me, she said that I was about 6 cm, and my cervix was really getting soft. We waited a little less than an hour, and I started to talk to the nurse about how I was starting to feel more pain, and wondered if the epidural was wearing off. We were debating whether I should give myself another dose or not, and the whole time I was thinking, "I really just feel like I need to go to the bathroom." So the more we discussed, she finally decided to check me again, and sure enough, the baby was on its way!

The nurses got prepared, the doctor came in, 3 pushes and....

Baby...

BOY!!!!!

I seriously couldn't believe it, and I hope I never forget Josh's face, and the way he sounded when he just kept saying, "It's a boy?... I can't believe it's a boy!" I really felt thrown for a loop. I had a name for a girl, I had had dreams about having a girl. I figured we would be using all the girl clothes, and it made so much sense to have a girl and for Meili to have a sister. But it was just a matter of minutes that I decided that none of that mattered, and we had a new member of our family that we would love, that would fit right into our family, that this baby would make total sense, and we wouldn't have been able to imagine our lives without him.

He weighed in at 8 lbs. 6 oz. and 20 inches long, born at 3:22 pm.

Altogether, we couldn't have asked for a smoother pregnancy, smoother delivery, and as luck would have it, he was a super good baby. He didn't even cry when they gave him his shots!

Now, just for the ordeal of trying to name him. After having Grant, I dreaded having to name another baby-especially a boy. I had tried for MONTHS to convince Josh to name our baby Maggie (because it was definitely a girl-remember?) He said that it didn't sound like a full name but didn't like any names that it could be considered a nickname for, like Margaret. Of course, after having the baby, he said he had started to come around to the name Maggie. But that's just one of the many, many, many, names I just suggested that he turned down. He had suggested the name Henry before, and I said that I didn't like it because it is too popular right now. But for some reason, after seeing our little boy, he just looked like a Henry. We debated a little bit on Friday, and I went to bed that night pretty sure that we were going to name him Henry. For some reason, in the middle of the night, when I couldn't sleep, I started second guessing myself. When we woke up in the morning, I told that to Josh, and he said that he had been feeling the same way. So back to the drawing board. I can't remember who, but I think I suggested Cam, and both of us said that we liked the name Cam, but weren't sure about Cameron. I couldn't believe how much Josh and I were actually agreeing with each other!

 

We thought about it, prayed about, talked with some family and friends, and finally decided that we liked Cam the best, and we had wanted to do a middle name that had ties to my dad's side of the family, so we decided to go with Cameron Randall Anderson.

At this point, we're a couple weeks post partum, but so far, he is a joy, such a good baby, and we are smitten!