Oscar's birth story:)

If you have been reading my blog recently, you'll probably already know that I was on bed rest for quite some time due to premature contractions. The week before his birth was no different, I had regular contractions for 6-8 hrs a day...usually night actually....every night before his birth. 

Throughout the last few weeks, I had thought/prayed hard about whether or not I should try for a VBAC...knowing that it could possibly pose some serious risks/complications. 
What I decided to do was try for one, if I went into labor before my scheduled c-section...and I booked a c-section for the 15th. 
                                    Here's a relatively recent picture:

I'd been having SO many contractions, that were increasingly more painful and longer each time, and so I seriously thought that I was going to be trying for a natural delivery this time. 

Every day before his birth I thought I was in labor, and every day I waited for it to get extremely painful, or go away...and it always went away. 

So...the night before his birth was no different...I contracted regularly all night long and then woke up early the next morning to get ready. 

Getting ready was difficult because I was sore, and still having pretty painful contractions. At this point, it didn't occur to me that they had been lasting a lot longer, and hadn't gone away. Previous to this, my contractions would get much better in the morning when I'd wake up and start walking around. 

This time was different, but it took me until we were admitted and in the waiting room to really notice it. It was getting more difficult to talk through the contractions, and they were definitely happening closer together. 

I didn't pay much attention to them, and just focused on prepping for surgery. 

While they were prepping me, I had a few pretty long contractions that the nurse was able to see while putting my IV in. 

I was then told that I would be waiting most of the day, as the doctor was at least an hour behind schedule, and there were 4 or 5 surgeries ahead of mine. 

I was okay with that, and we sent out a quick text to let friends and family...and our photographer, know. About 5 seconds after that they came and told me that Dr M. wanted me in right away, and they were prepping the OR already!!

We quickly texted back everyone and let them know...but it wasn't a ton of notice for the photographer...so she didn't get to take any pictures of us oh-so-patiently-waiting:)

As I walked to the room where you wait for the OR, I had to stop a few times for contractions. While waiting they continued to get closer together, which seemed to worry all the nurses, as they weren't prepared to deliver a baby right there! ha ha

I didn't think I could really change my mind and opt for a VBAC, since I was already prepped and the OR was getting cleaned out for me....also because my OB was in surgeries all day. He was the only OB that was going to let me try for a natural delivery...as most don't let you try on your 3rd. 

While they laid me on the operating table, my legs started to shake uncontrollably...which is usually what happens to me when I'm nearing the end of the delivery process....so our little baby just really wanted to come out right then!! ha ha
I won't go into the gory details of the c-section too much...but lets face it...I'm a wimp when it comes to surgeries. I don't even like getting my blood taken, so I really really really dislike surgery, especially when I'm awake for it. 

My spinal tap didn't go well, they had to try a few times, and kept adding more freezing and then trying again, which was extremely painful. 

It took a while to kick in, so I could still feel the catheter...which freaked me right out, since they'd be cutting me open in just a few minutes!!

The whole process was pretty scary, and I was pretty much freaking out the whole time...luckily my mom was in there to calm me down a bit! (and to tell the OBs not to tie my tubes right then, as I was asking them too, ha ha...i was serious at the time too, but I'm glad she was there to be the voice of reason). 
Apparently this one took longer than the others, so my hubby texted my cell that mom had in there "are you alive?"...he was genuinely scared that something had gone seriously wrong...poor guy. 

There were 2 angels in the delivery room that day, and I know they were an answer to many prayers. There was a resident anesthetist that was so sweet and really helped calm me down during the whole process. There was also a NICU nurse that was amazing! She took such good care of our little baby, and helped me have skin-to-skin for as long as I could before they took him out. 

As soon as I heard his little cry, the whole operation seemed easier to bear. He only cried for a few seconds, and then completely relaxed. He was quiet from then on, and continues to be such a quiet little babe. 

My recovery is going much better this time around, but still slowly. Maybe one day I'll have a c-section and NOT be in labor first....but I doubt it. 

When we had Roo, my hubby was sitting in the waiting room chair and saw him and just knew what his name was. It took me a few days to agree, but in the end, I felt like that was his name too. 

The EXACT same thing happened this time, he was in the same chair, and as soon as he saw him, the name Oscar popped into his head. Which is crazy because we have never discussed that name, and don't even know anyone by that name. 

When he told me that, I laughed at him, thinking he was joking...but later realized he wasn't, ha ha. We still came up with a big old list of names and whittled them down to about 8 that we felt all fit well. I really loved all 8 (except maybe not Oscar as much...I was still warming up to the idea of it). 
In the end we got it down to 2....and chose Oscar. We decided that if it didn't grow on us that we'd just change it to our second choice! ha ha...we're awesome like that:)

Anyways...I was super lucky to have an OB that let me go home a day early, so I could actually rest. We were really blessed, and still are, to have a TON of friends and family to support us and help us through. 

It's a bit tricky taking care of 3 boys whilst recovering from surgery, and not being able to lift pretty much anything!! But another few weeks, and I'll be feeling much better about it, I'm sure. 

Oscar is a great little baby, and sleeps most of the time. He's really quiet and sweet. I think that he may have been a little earlier than we had thought, due to his birth weight (comparatively to my other children), as my first due date was May 29th...which seems like it could have been more accurate. 

Here's the details:

Oscar Levi Paul 
(Paul is my dads middle name and JDs great-grandpa's name. Levi is one of the 12 tribes, as are Ashur and Reuben. Levi means "third son")
7 lbs 8 oz
20 7/8 inches long
14 1/4 inches head circumference

                             We LOVE him a LOT!! :)

Right after I got back from the reovery room

He always sleeps this peacefully...1 day old

What a sweetie:)

LOVE HIM!

Me and Oscar just chillin'

Baby boy's finished nursery:)

It's finally ALL done!! Not sure if these photos do it justice, but I seriously LOVE everything about his room. It may be the cutest nursery in the history of nurseries, lol....but seriously;)

Check it out for yourself!!

The Gallery wall

A panoramic view of the room...a little hard to see:

The old barn window we got and the dresser we DIY'd:

The little elephant we painted navy blue, and a frame painted white that we'll put a photo fo the family/baby in:

The top of the dresser, we made a baby-channging station with hanging thingers from Ikea, filled with the necessities (LOVE the teensie little yummy-smelling diapers:) and a portable change pad:

Another shot of the dresser-top and awesome barn window, thanks to a great friend of mine:)

The corner, 3D cloud mobile made from sewn cardstock, a glider chair, blanky (that I'll change out when I finish his baby quilt), and 3 pillows...2 re-covered and 1 my mom found at a thrift store:

The corner, view from the closet...you can see the cute window curtain and fuzzy rug:

Another panoramic view...hopefully it shows the whole room better:

I LOVE it!! And we finished just in time...we hung up that window tonight, and baby comes in the morning....wish me luck:)

38 weeks:)

First off...here's my belly:

Secondly, here are my crazy swollen feet:

And hands...

Need I say more? ha ha...

In the hand picture is hard to tell how swollen they actually are, but that ring is my fat-fake wedding ring, and at this point it's pretty much stuck on my finger, because my fingers are SO fat. My feet only fit in crazy big open flip-flops. My skin feels like its being constantly streched....so awesome, ha ha, not!!

Other going-ons:

-I went off bed rest 2 weeks ago (36 weeks) which was really exciting!! Bed rest really did help, and I noticed my contractions get much more sporadic, and not as frequent. 

-I have a lot of contractions now, but they never seem to go away or get horribly worse. They will get bad for a few hours, and I'll really think I'm in labor, and then they'll die down again. 

-For the whole weekend I've had pretty bad contractions, and not been sleeping really at all. 

-My heart burn has been increasingly worse. 

-Pretty much every part of my body is swollen and sore, but I did get a few massages last week, and got adjusted....that really helpd with the lower back pain, and slighlty with the pelvic pressure.

-I'm THE biggest I've ever been....I surpassed my hubby's weight...and am quickly closing in on a wholoe new set of digits....mmm...not sure how I feel about that, ha ha.

The BEST news is that I have a set baby-date. We had decided (finally, after MUCH deliberation), that I would try a VBA2C if I go into labor naturally before my planned 

c-section date. I really thought that I would, but so far, it's not happening. 

If I don't go into labor today or tomorrow, my c-section is planned for Wednesday (I'll be 38 weeks, only a day shy of 39 weeks).

My next post should be the birth story of our little boy...so stay tuned!! :)

Gooey Sticky buns recipe....yum!! :)

Upon request...here is the recipe!!

                                Andy's Sticky Buns recipe:

Ingredients:

Dough--

3 3/4 C. Flour

1/3 C. Sugar

1 Tsp. Salt

2 packages of active-dry yeast

1 C. heated milk

1 egg

1/3 C. butter, softened

Caramel--

3/4 C. dark brown sugar

1/2 C. unsalted butter

1/4 C. light corn syrup

3/4 C. pecan halves

2 tbsp butter, softened

Filling--

1/3 C pecans, chopped

2 Tbsp sugar

2 Tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

How to:

Mix 2 cups flour, 1/3 cup sugar, salt and yeast in large bowl. Add heated milk, egg and 1/3 c. of butter, beat at low for a minute or so. Add flour if necessary*. 

Put on a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. 

Grease a bowl and put the douugh in it. Cover it with a towel and let rise for 1 1/2 hrs. 

Caramel--

Stir constantly 3/4 C. of brown sugar and 1/2 c. of butter to boiling. remove from heatand add the corn syrup. Pour into a 9x13 and sprinkle with pecan halves. 

Filling--

Mix pecans, 2 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp broan sugar and cinnamon. Set aside. 

Flatten dough into rectangle about 15x10 inches. Spread with 2 tbsp of butter, then dust with pecan filling mixture. 

Beginning at the 10 inch, roll up tightly and pinch edge closed. Roll and stretch, mold until cylindrical. 

Cut into 8. Place in pan, not touching. 

Wrap tightly and refrigerate for 12 hours**. 

Bake at 350 degrees fro 35 minutes. 

Take them out and flip them upside down onto a cutting board or baking sheet, so the caramel drizzles over.

Notes:

-I had to proof my yeast first, and did it with water, instead of milk, so when I added it, I used 1/2 of the milk and then the water/yeast mixture. It turned out just fine this way, so if your a non-dairy person, you could probably use all water and no milk at all.

-*When it says "add flour if necessary", I added 1/2 cup at a time while mixing intermittently, I ended up adding quite a bit to get the right consistency. 

-I used light brown sugar and dark brown corn syrup, so don't worry if you don't have the exact kind.

-I cut my rolls the opposite way, so they weren't as wide, but I ended up getting 15 smaller ones, instead of 8 big ones. 

-**I didn't want to refrigerate overnight, so I let them rise right away. I warmed the oven, then turned it off, and let them rise in the warm oven. I'm pretty sure it was less than a 1/2 hr and they were huge.

-I think because of how huge and close together they got (I would probably use 2 9x13's if cutting it the way I did) they were a little dry. So I made the caramel mixture again, and poured them over top and then put them in the after-warmth of the oven...that way they were really gooey, and drizzled over the sides...yum!!

Thanks Andy for the awesome recipe!! :)

Baby nursery...in progress (with pictures)

I still have quite a few things to do...like ya, know...clean, vacuum...actually make the room look nice? ha ha...
I just thought I'd post a few pictures of what I'm working on. 
I want to print this off and display it:

I also rreally love this one...just not sure if the shades of yellow will match enough, but we'll see:

If that one doesn\t work...I may make something like this instead...on canvas with paint and vinyl:

I'd like to make something like this cloud mobile...just not sure if it would go or not:

Here are some pictures of what it currently looks like (excuse the mess...and its not really set up, just placed kind of wherever, ha ha)....this is the elephant and lamp that will probably end up staying on the dresser...and the grey blanky in the backgound (although it's a little darker than I had hoped...so I'm still looking for another throw and a pillow for the glider):

You can see the dresser really well in this one, we re-did one we bought off of kijiji, and iI just love how it turned out:) The grey carpet is super shaggy and comfy from Costco:

This shows off the wall color well, its called "bunny gray", but looks kinda blue-ish too...with a chair rail halfway and then white on the bottom. We wanted it to look like board and batten kind of. The curtain is white and gray from ikea:

This is an ikea crib...it's the exact one I wanted...off of kijij:) There are 2 little shelves, one on either side...and the crib bedding will be navy. Navy, gray and white are the main colors...with little pops of yellow hopefully:

Here's another shot of the crib, I love how small and simplistic it is. The shelves will all have baskets hopefully, if I can find enough small ones:

A better shot of the curtain...it has some small flowery pattern on the bottom, but it's not too noticeable, so I hope its not that girly:

And the crib again:

The closet was too messy to take a picture of yet, but it has another dresser, just small and white, for bigger clothes in it. 

Hopefully I get the chance to clean it up and hang a few pictures before the baby comes:)

33 weeks:)

This past week has been quite a bit better. I decided to try and get out of the house a bit more...which worked really well for the first 3 days of the week. 

On Thursday I thought I'd take the boys swimming, and I tried really hard not to do much moving around or lifting or anything while we were there...but I think it was a but much. I spent the next 1 1/2 in bed...and then most of the weekend on and off in bed...so maybe no more swimming with the boys for a while, ha ha. 

One unfortuante thing is that my cramps/contractions/whatever-it-is-that's-happening-with-my-body (I felt like I shouldv'e hashtagged that...ha ha... #toomuchinstagrammingforthismamma) aren't getting any more regular, which is a great thing, but they are getting much stronger when they do happen--not such a good thing. 

I keep imaginging how tired I'm going to be when I actually start "real" labor, after feeling like I've been in labor for weeks and weeks, ssuuuppper awesome I bet. 

I meet with my OB again this week, so hopefully we'll have a chance to chat more about the c-section vs. VBAC thing. It's a little more risky than I had hoped to do a VBAC this time--so I haven't really decided what to do yet...plus, I've been a little distracted with the whole bed-rest and contraction-thingy that we've been up to lately. 

One super awesome thing is that I got a whole stash of baby boy clothes, all really cute and tiny--way more than I ever had with the other boys. I got a great deal off of a swap-and-buy online, and they make me SO excited to meet this baby (and dress him up?!). 


Some of the loot:

And more:

We are NO farther on the naming-baby thing...although we do have a pretty great list going--we aren't much further in narrwoing down this little beans name. We'll probably wait to think more about it until he's born. 

Well, I've almost made it to the 34 week mark, which is awesome!! 34 weeks is the relative "safe zone" as far as baby-having goes. There are signifigantly less problems after 34 weeks, as the baby has done most of it's growing as far as neuro and lung development go. So that's great news:) 
(I was seriously doubtful about making it to even 34 weeks just 3 weeks ago)

Who knows when this baby will greet us, it could be any day...or not for several weeks (boy do I love not knowing...not!)...but when he does, he will have an awesome nursery and super cute clothes awaiting him:) Who could ask for more? ha ha:)

I'm having troubles uploading this weeks photo...but here's one I just got back...it was taken the first week of February:)

32 weeks...

Well, I am nearing the end of my 32nd week, which is great news:) 

At 34 weeks the babies lungs are pretty much fully developed, and if he's born then he'll be healthy and won't have to spend too long in the NICU. So, the closer I get to 34 weeks, the happier I am. 

Last Saturday (about 9 days ago) I started on "bed rest"...I still get up and walk around a bit. Some days are better than others. A few of the days last week I spent most of the day on bed rest in the hospital...but for the most part I just hung out in my bed. 

Oh, and my friends rock. They would come hang out in my bed with me, drive my kids places and bring me yummy treats and books to help me pass the time. They are pretty much the bomb. 

The bad news this week was that I don't have a UTI, which can cause pre-term labor symptoms. I was hoping I did, so they could give me some pills and I could get back to normal for the next 8 weeks...but nope, still no reason for what's going on with me.

My last NST (non-stress test, to check the babies vitals and my contractions) was yesterday, and it was the best one I've had. The nurse told me to still get as much rest as possible, but that she knew I'd have to be getting up and doing stuff with my other children, and seemed okay with that. So, I've decided this week to get up and get around a bit more than last. If I'm feeling up to it, I'll walk to the mail box and back, or even just sit in the car while the hubby runs errands with the kids. 

I'm not sure if I'm really doing any better this week physically, I have good days and bad days...but I am doing much better emotionally and spiritually. I'm a lot less bummed about my situation, and so grateful that my baby is still inside me and doing well:) 

I think that all this sunny weather is helping my mood. Even just sitting out on the front steps yesterday was SO nice. I hope it continues to warm up...the sun does wonderful things for the soul:)

Here's some 32 week pics...it's pretty much the only time I've been out of my pj's all week...so we had to take some photos:)