Travin's 1st photo op

He was only 10 days old in these pictures.  They change so much the first few months.  He is just so dang sweet!  I just want to munch on him!

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Travin Christian

All cleaned up and ready for a nap.

The first family photo with Travin.

Everybody took a turn holding him.

not really liking being left alone on the scale.



just before his first bath, not happy

Well, I am much happier after my last post.  My faith in my doctor has been restored and I have lost 20 pounds so things are looking up!

The weekend before I had Travin we were up in Cedar City with Tanner and his football team.  My secret hope was that on the way home we would stop off at the hospital in St. George and have us a baby.  Well, the contractions started on the way home but it wasn't enough to stop.  I wasn't about to be told that they couldn't do anything because I wasn't 39 weeks so we went on home.  It was a miserable night with the contractions coming on and off all night long.  I woke up the next morning sick to my stomach and still contracting.  The phone rings and I thought who in the world is calling on a Sunday morning?  Tanner brings me the phone and I'm just about to tell him to tell whoever it is that I don't feel good when he hands me the phone and walks off.  So I answer and to my surprise it's my doctor.  He is calling to check on me.  He is back from vacation and noticed that I haven't delivered yet.  I told him that I didn't feel very good.  He said, "well, your probably getting sick of those contractions so if I don't see you later this afternoon, come to my office first thing in the morning and we'll strip your membranes and see if we can get things going."  I was so excited because what I heard is that tomorrow it will all come to an end!

My contractions did as they always do and stopped for most of the day and then started back up in the afternoon and then stopped again.  So on Monday, after we got the boys off to school, Trent and I headed to the doctors.  I had my bag packed and the carseat all strapped in.  So we get to the office and the DR. comes in and says, I can induce you at 39 weeks...and I just about exploded on him.  He must have seen my face because he says "let me check you first and then we can discuss your options"  I was positive I was still going to be a 3.  I was getting ready to be ticked off at my doctor, but then he says,"oh, your a five!"  And he's all up in my business for quite a while and then he says, "oh, your ready!  Did you bring your bag?"  I said, " you know that I did!"  He says, "well, go walk around the Temple for 30 mins and I'll meet you at the hospital."  I wanted to kiss him!  I was so happy! 

When we got to the hospital, it was so nice because they just put us in a delivery room, not the room where they monitor you for an hour and then send you home.  We were there to stay!  They got me all hooked up to the monitors and then checked me again and the nurse said I was a 6 almost a 7.  I couldn't belive it.  That walk around the Temple had been miracle medicine.  (If I'd have known that's all it took I would have been walking there two weeks ago(: )  I was having a few contractions but nothing serious.  The doctor came in at noon and broke my water which hasn't done much for me in the past but I swear within minutes I started having regular contractions that I was having to stop and focus my breathing to get through them.  The nurses pretty much left Trent and I alone to work through it together which was nice.  I didn't want them to check me every hour because it hurts and I would definetly tell them when I needed to push.  My doctor came in a few hours later to check me and I was at a 9.  I was getting so tired and it was really, really hurting.  I wanted to just curl up in a little ball and die.  My doctor told me he had this little trick he could try.  It would hurt but it might speed things up.  I was already hurting but the speeding things up part was very appealing to me so I told him to go ahead.  He told me during my next contraction he was going to try and get my cervix out of the way and he needed me to push just a little bit.  Well, I did and within seconds the doctor is like "this baby's coming, get me another glove!"  It's funny to think back on it now, but whatever he did worked and I was ready to push the baby out, but I couldn't because the doctor wasn't ready.  They didn't have time to break the bed down.  My doctor didn't even have time to put his gown on.  He delivered my baby off to the side.  I had to stifle the pushing part to give the nurse time to help my doctor get his other glove on.  With both his gloves on, two short pushes and we had us a baby.  And my doctor says, "And that's how it's done!"  I was so relieved.  All the contraction pain ended immediately, and then other pains started but my baby was finally here!  He didn't cry at first so I was worried that something was wrong but he was just laying there while the doctor let Trent cut the cord.  Then they put him on my belly and I couldn't stop the tears from coming.  He was so beautiful.  They took him and weighed him and when they said he was 7lbs 2oz and 20 inches, I was honestly so grateful that I was able to keep him safe inside me for so long.  It was hard on me but I had myself a beautiful, healthy baby that I would be taking home from the hospital the next day.  I'm just so grateful that my uterus was able to perform in the end.  When I needed it the most, it didn't let me down!  So I won't cut it up into little tiny pieces and throw it in the river.  I might just keep it around for a little while longer just so that it knows how grateful I am!

Diaries of a MAD pregnant woman

I really shouldn't be posting things in my frame of mind but I've heard that it is therapeutic to write your feelings down.  I don't really know what to be more mad at: the hospital, my doctor, or my uterus.  I'm going to go with my uterus because it is obviously dysfunctional.  I mean, come on, to throw me into full blown labor when I'm only 32 weeks pregnant?  What is up with that?  Most normal women go into labor and they have a baby, but not me.  I go into labor and we make a mad dash to the hospital to get it stopped so we don't have a baby in the NICU.  Then comes the bedrest.  You would think it would be nice to have people wait on you hand and foot, get your meals, wash your clothes and dishes, take care of your kids, sounds like a vacay right?  Well, for me it is nerve racking hearing my life go on around me but I'm really not a part of it.  I can hear chaos from my bedroom but I can't go out, and I can hear crying but I shouldn't get up to go comfort.  It's not  that I don't appreciate all the help, it's just hard to let someone else do my job.  So after two weeks on bedrest the dr tells me, with Trent present, that if I make it to my next appt I can be completely off bedrest and do whatever I want.  I am so pumped!  I know I can do it!  Then, enters dysfunctional uterus again. I start contracting one night and for two hrs I have irregular contractions, but contractions nonetheless. So, off to the hospital we go. We get there, they hook me up to the monitors and I kid you not within minutes, no more contractions. I just start to cry because I know they are going to send me home. I cry all the way home. I am angry at my stupid body.

So I make it to my appt secretly hoping that I'm dialated to a 6 and the dr breaks my water with all that contracting, but I'm only a three):  And, then the dr proceeds to tell me that he is going on vacation and would like me to stay on bedrest another 10 days until he gets back!  I want to scream.  The disappointment and frustration are palpable.  I think the dr left the room quickly because he knew that he might not make it out alive if he stayed any longer.  I like my dr, but really at this point, I don't really care who delivers this kid.  So, true to my nature, I took myself off bedrest.  The funny thing is, not a whole lot happened after I started being a normal pregnant woman again.  I'm up and about and not a lot of contracting happening.  I'm feeling pretty good.  I'm feeling like it's ok if I go to my due date because I feel good and I'm able to do normal mommy things.  Then, enters dysfunctional uterus!  AGAIN!  I start contracting again, but I'm not fool.  I'm not going up to the hospital after only 2 hrs of contractions so I wait 3 hrs which is good because they stopped.  But all through the night I would wake up with a few contractions and then go back to sleep.  When I woke up in the morning, I had a few more, and then....they stopped.  I was so tired that I didn't go to church.  I tried to rest but by the time church was over, the contractions had started again.  This time they were actually feeling pretty strong and they were between 4 and 6 minutes apart.  We again headed to the hospital, excited because I knew they wouldn't stop them.  I had consistent contractions all the way up there.  They hook me up to the monitor and I am still having some contractions but you will never believe what happened, oh, yes you will, they didn't completely stop but they were so spread apart that I wasn't in active labor and because I wasn't 39 weeks pregnant, they couldn't do anything to help me.  By this time I am so angry with my body that I just want to cut out my uterus and chop it into little pieces and throw it in the river.  I mean, seriously, whose body does this to them?  It is so mean on so many levels.  Maybe it's the smell of the hospital, or maybe it was the old nurse who would be asssisting me, but my body was having none of it and they sent us home AGAIN!

I told Trent that he better watch some birthing videos or something so he knows how to deliver this baby because I am not going to the hospital again.  He just laughed at me but seriously, the next time, I'm going to have to wait 4 hrs before I go up  and then it may be too late.  I really don't want to have this baby in the Gorge.  My uterus is whacked!  I think this is the Lord's way of telling me that the baby shop needs to close for good, and today, I'm okay with that.  It is just really hard to be out in public because everyone knows I was on bedrest, and now I'm not but still pregnant.  They say stuff like, "I thought you would be skinnier by now" or "when are you going to have that kid"  or "oh, you are carrying so low". 

36 weeks!

I know my baby is going to be healthy.  He would be considered full term because I am 37 weeks according to the ultrasound and the hospital, but not my dr, the wienee.  I had the steriod shots for his lungs three weeks ago so no NICU for him.  I guess it is just fitting that the first and the last should be born in the months they was actually due.  So, if you see me and I've got a scowl on my face, just ignore me because I'm probably having a contraction that I know isn't going to go anywhere or I've just come back from the dr's office with the news that my baby's head is too big and I'm going to have to have a C-section.

30 Weeks!!!

I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I remember when I was first pregnant and I would see those women in the waiting room that were ready to pop and wish it was me, and now I am that  woman in the waiting room.   I still wish I was due in July, but I'm hoping that in another 6 weeks or so we will have a new baby boy at our house.  It really has gone by fast!

McCabe is so good with them!

I put all three of my younger kids in swim lessons this week to try and pass the time while Tanner is gone on his adventure to England and I must have been mad.  It has been so bloody hot this week.  I mean, seriously, 116-120 degrees, AND, to top it off, our AC went out.  Our house has hovered at about 85 inside so when you consider it's 120 outside, it's a huge difference.  But still too hot for a big momma like I've become.

Tanner is on the downhill side of his trip to England.  He will spend these last four days in Scotland and then on Sunday he will come home.  He has had a grand adventure and I can't wait to hear all about it.  I hope he took lots of pictures.  I am so jealous but I hoped he learned a lot.  It's good preperation for his mission!

Whitley and Brinley

I just realized that I haven't posted the pictures that Rockelle took of my beautiful girls.  She did such a good job and I have had the hardest time picking my favorites to hang on the wall.  She just captured both of their cute personalities.  There's like 100 so I'll only post a few(:

So mischeivious!  I love it!

I love this one.

They were catching ladybugs.  It was so cute!

Brinley's 3!

We had another swim party.  June is a great month to be born.

My Brinley girl has grown into quite the little lady. Some days it's hard to believe she's only 3, she acts so old. She is definetly fun to have around. She can handle Tag, and get Tanner to carry her like a monkey, and most of the time she and Whitley play so good together. She says "I love you" and wants kissies and huggies before she goes to bed. The one thing she doesn't want is anything to do with the potty. I've tried the sticker chart. I bought her princess panties. I even bought her a Rapunzel barbie for when she goes on the potty, but she won't budge. I really don't want two kids in diapers and they won't let her go to preschool if she's not potty trained. I just don't get it. I've heard that girls are so much easier than boys, but...I'm not seeing it. But, we're glad she's part of our family!

A new backpack to start preschool with, we hope!

A cook set to make cupcakes!