Worst pain of my life but totally worth it!

We had quite the eventful weekend. It's amazing how quickly one can go from 0 to 60 with labor. WARNING: may be TMI!

When I woke up for church Sunday morning I had a bit of "show". At church I was having some minor contractions that weren't regular but kept coming. They slowed after sacrament so we decided to stay. After church we went to Travis and Hayley's for lunch. I started having contractions again around 3 and they were coming every 7 minutes for 2 hours. They weren't super painful but were in my back so they were definitely real. We still weren't sure if we should go to the hospital. When they started coming on stronger, but still only 5 or 6 minutes apart, I said we need to go.

Now, let me preface this next part with this: a few days prior to this I told TJ that I was worried that I wouldn't make it to the hospital in time for an epidural. He said I would be fine. I am a worrier though.

So we got to the hospital around 6. The contractions weren't really any worse and we were getting settled in our room. The nurse checked me and said I was a 5 and very thin. They asked if I wanted an epidural and I of course said yes! They had paged the anesthesiologist but he was in the next room giving someone else her epidural. 5 to 10 minutes later we heard a boom on the monitor and I felt a nice pop and gush. My water had broken. So the nurse checked me again and said I was at an 8. Then she turned to me and said, you understand what is happening, right? I said, you mean I'm not getting an epidural. She said probably not. At this point I decided I wanted to try to labor on my hands and knees on the bed. It truly "lessened" the pain of the contractions (but not by much). Within 10 minutes I was fully dilated and had this incredible urgency to push. The doctor, not mine, hadn't arrived yet but the nurses assured me they were trained to deliver if need be. TJ also thought about gowning up just in case. I pushed a couple of times before the doctor arrived but am so glad he made it so TJ could lend me his hand to bruise :) A few more pushes, strange noises/screams that I have never made before, and a couple of "I can't do this", we had a baby. All within 1, yes 1, hour. CRAZY!

Now for those of you who would like a little more info, it's not the baby coming that hurts so much. It's the stretching and preparation for baby that is the worst! And all for this:

Liam Taylor Moore, June 26, 2011, 8 lbs 6 oz, 21.5 in

38 week photo shoot

Here are some semi professional (my friend Nicole took them) pregnancy pictures at 38 weeks for baby number 2.

How do you think Sophie is going to take the change? She looks happy now...

Pregnancy 2 - 36 weeks

Here I am at 36 weeks. Feeling huge. Having a few contractions. Nausea, again but heartburn meds seem to help. At 35 weeks I was 1-2 centimeters and 80% effaced. Completely different than with Sophie. Nothing happened with her til my water broke after two doses of cervidel.

Our tiny patient

(sorry it's so long) On May 18, 2011 Sophia woke up around 5:30am screaming. She had also woken up twice before this but went back down fairly easily. When I went in to check on her she felt warm. I took her temperature three times and got 102, 103, 102 degrees. So I mistakenly got her a bottle of milk and some tylenol. Within 10 minutes she had thrown it all up. All over our bed. So gross. I promptly put her in the bath and tried to clean her and I up all the while she was screaming. When I took her out, still smelling of vomit, I tried to call TJ (he was on call the night before and was at the hospital). I couldn't reach him. I had never written down his pager number so I called the hospital to get it. They wouldn't give it to me but paged him. He didn't answer the page (come to find out later they put 'wife' on the page and he thought it meant a patient's wife wanted to talk to him so he didn't call it back). Then I tried to call one of the residents. He didn't answer. I finally called Nadia, another resident whom I woke up, and she paged him for me. He called me back and came home. Sophie wouldn't eat or drink anything and we couldn't get her to take her medicine so her fever wasn't coming down. She was miserable, just laying in daddy's arms, basically lifeless. I was able to get in to a pediatrician (not mine because she was out) who said that normally she would send us home but she just didn't like how pitiful Sophia looked. So instead of directly admitting us to the pediatric floor she sent us to the ER where we could get testing done a little quicker. One of the docs in the ward was her doctor there and he ordered blood tests, chest x-ray, iv fluids and antibiotics, Zofran for the vomiting, and ibuprofen. The doctor was hoping she would perk up from the fluids and antibiotics but she didn't. He got the blood tests back and said that her little body was producing new white blood cells so her levels were high, indicating infection. The chest x-ray also looked like pneumonia. So, she was admitted. When they got a room ready for us and came to take us up, she started perking up. She even ate a popsicle on the way. Figures, doesn't it. Still took her a while to have a wet diaper, even after the second round of fluids but she looked so much better when we got her settled in her room. She had another popsicle and ate some chicken and bread that night (after they had brought her this weird adult meal that TJ wouldn't even eat). TJ stayed with her that night so I could come home and get some decent sleep. When I went back the next morning she had her iv out (TJ was able to arrange that the night before - some perks to being working at the hospital) and she was eating breakfast with daddy. She was so much happier! The nurses were awesome and they helped make the best out of a sad situation. Those first few hours were definitely the scariest and I think I totally terrified my parents. But everything ended up okay and her pediatrician as well as the radiologist were not convinced that it was pneumonia. When I took her back to the pediatrician a week later for a follow up she had an ear infection. The doc thought that is how the infection manifested itself. She is much happier and not as whiny now! We took a couple of pictures with our phones so they aren't the best quality. 

Doesn't she look pitiful. This is after the fever broke. My dear friend Nicole came by and brought me food and water and this little bear for Sophie. Her hand all wrapped up so she couldn't pull out the iv. 

 The wagon we found the next morning. She loved going around the floor and visiting all the nurses. The day before she was attached to the iv pole but she wanted to walk all around. That was an adventure with prego mama trying to chase her and make sure the didn't pull the iv out.  

The crib in the room looked like a cage. But it worked very nicely keeping her in one spot!

Easter 2011

Sophie got a sand and water table for Easter. I thought she needed something to play with on our deck so we could be outside. We haven't gotten the sand yet (and aren't sure that we will) but she LOVES the water. We set it up and let her play with it in her easter dress, in cooler weather :) TJ was outside grilling and on the phone so he wasn't paying close attention and when I came back out she was sitting in the table. SOAKED. In a dress. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures because I was more concerned about her safety but it was pretty funny. Needless to say, she loves the table and I think it was a good investment.

Dying Easter Eggs

I love holidays. TJ doesn't really care either way. So I decided to have an egg dying party today. We had the Sharps and Lafollettes over. I made vegetarian chili and we dyed eggs. I had fun. It seemed like everyone else had fun too. Sophie loved dropping the eggs into the colors and using the spoon to eat the dye. It's non-toxic so it's okay, right?! She even used a black crayon to color one of the eggs. The kit came with little wrappers that you shrink wrap on the eggs. Those were really cool! It's the little things. Here are some pictures of our fun afternoon.

Vacation

TJ was on vacation all week. He needed a break and we needed him home. It was so nice to have him all to ourselves for 7 whole days! We spent the first couple of days cleaning our house and he got to go to the dentist. Then we re-seeded the backyard. On Wednesday we went down to St. Louis. The zoo is free so we spent a few hours there. It was a gorgeous day and we had a really good time. Sophie was interested in the "doggies" (every animal was doggie) but was more interested in pushing the stroller. We forgot the camera so we didn't get any pictures. We all really enjoyed the butterfly area. It was cool, calming, smelled like Hawaii and the butterflies were beautiful. Sophia was pointing at all the butterflies flying around and would duck or scrunch her face when they would get too close.

After the zoo we went to TJ's cousin's house. Jenny was nice enough to watch Sophia for a few hours so TJ and I could go to the temple. What a great experience. We haven't been for a while and have been wanting to go so it was so nice of her! Thank you Jenny. We ate Ihop for dinner (at 10:30pm) and then went to the Hilton Garden Inn. It was a nice hotel considering we got it from Hotwire and they don't tell you the name of the hotel until after you pay for it. The bed was super comfy. TJ woke up around 4:30am with the worst heart burn of his life. I forgot the medicine so I told him to go down to the front desk where they had a 24 hour store. He found something and went to the reception desk to pay for it. The receptionist was asleep and he tried a few times to wake her. She didn't budge. So he took it and came back up to the room. We told the morning receptionist and he said it was on the house. Kinda funny.

Thursday we did a lot of city things. TJ went to the Apple store to get his phone fixed, then we took the car to Firestone to get it aligned, Best Buy, ate at Mimi's (I have really been missing this restaurant and we had a not so great experience, bummer), Babies R Us, Target, back to the Apple store, LDS Distribution Center, Sonic, and home. Sophie was a trooper through this day and she refuses to take a nap when anything is going on. We were at target around 3:30pm and she started falling asleep in the cart at the check out line. She is so adorable! We had such a wonderful time together as a family. He really spoiled me. We did pretty much anything I wanted to do. I am so glad he is able to take vacation days so we can spend some quality time together. I am sad that tomorrow is back to the grind.