2012 Part 3

Note: I am playing catch up from 2012. This is mainly for journal purposes.

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The Birth Story
It all happened on a Monday (Nov. 5), 3 days before my due date. Kenny was at work and I figured I would be having the baby sometime in the next week and my house wasn't even close to being ready.  So that morning I got started cleaning up my basement for any guests who would come to help with the baby.  Logan was being very good for me, thank goodness, and was just watching some shows on TV when the cramping began (around 10:30am or 11am).  I just kept on cleaning and organizing and the cramping kept getting worse.  I gave Logan a little bit of lunch and told him it was nap time.  Usually he fights me on this, but for once he was cooperative and went to sleep.  

Kenny and I had taken the Bradley Method Childbirth Class, and it says that if you are unsure whether or not you're in labor you 1) drink something, 2) eat something, 3) walk around, 4) take a shower/bath, and 5) take a nap.  If you continue to have contractions after all that, then you are most likely in labor.  So I had some lunch, walked around my house, and packaged up some steaks that needed to be marinated and put in the freezer.  While I was marinating the meat the contractions were getting pretty strong, but I still wasn't sure if it was true labor.  So I took a bath and started timing my contractions.  They were less than ten minutes apart and lasting about one minute, so I sent Kenny a text telling him that.  He interpreted my text as me saying the contractions were more than ten minutes apart and responded saying, "Keep me posted, it would be good for me to stay at work as long as possible." By this time, the contractions were getting pretty strong and I was thinking, If this is only the beginning of labor, I'm not sure if I can do this! I got out of the bath, got dressed and called my midwife.  My contractions at this point were less than 5 minutes apart and my midwife told me to come in as soon as possible.  My problem was that Kenny was 45 minutes away, and the birth center was another 40 minutes away.  My midwife offered to come to my house, but I told her we would drive in to SLC...I don't know what I was thinking.  So I called Kenny...no answer.  I called again...still no answer!  I called again...no answer.  So I called his co-worker and asked if he'd seen Kenny.  He said, "Yeah, he's right here. Do you want me to--", me, "Just tell him to come home!" Click.  So I just laid in bed, breathing through contractions until Kenny got home.  

Kenny woke up Logan, took him to a friend's house, helped me to the car, then drove like hell.  I am pretty sure I was going through transition in the car, and there were a couple times that I had to hold back from pushing.  We got to the birth center at 4:30pm, my midwife, Adrianne, met us outside to help me in. Unfortunately, another couple had beaten us to the birth center about 30 minutes before that and had the main birth room.  So that put us in the smaller triage room, which was fine because as soon as I got in there I stripped down, Adrianne checked baby's heart rate (fine) and checked me (fully dilated), and told me I could start pushing. I pushed once, my water broke all over the bed.  I pushed again, not quite there.  I pushed again and Baby's head was crowning, pushed again, Baby's head out.  I reached down and touched Baby's head, and at that point I was ready to be done.  I gave one final push and Baby was out and Adrianne put him straight on my chest. Birth time was 4:56pm and we'd had a BOY!   



It was such a feeling of elation.  I had done it!  When so many people said that I wouldn't be able to withstand the pain and that I would be asking for the epidural, I DID IT! 

Baby Boy got to lay on my chest for almost an hour and in that time I was able to breastfeed him.  Kenny cut the cord at nearly an hour after Baby had been born. For some reason, in that hour, I hadn't had any contractions to push the placenta out, and I had started to hemorrhage.  Adrianne gave me a shot of Pitosin to get the contractions going again, along with something else to stop the bleeding.  She also put in an IV cath with some fluids. The cramping started up again and I was able to push the placenta out.  Adrianne kept working to get the bleeding to stop, and eventually it did.  She figured I'd lost more than double the normal blood loss, but I actually felt fine. After she stitched me up I was able to walk to the the shower and wash myself with the help of the birth assistant, and they had a nice cushy robe and slippers for me to wear. :)

 

After I was all taken care of, we got to do the Newborn Check:
Weight: 7 lbs. 12 oz.
Length: 20 in.
He was a healthy baby in every way.  He did have hydrocele, which is fluid in the scrotum, but that wasn't anything to worry about and it would soon go away.

We hadn't decided on a name at that point.  We were going back and forth between Ryder and Ashton, but neither one seemed quite right.  So we thought we'd take a few more days to get to know him and decide on a name more suited for him.

Our other midwife, Becky, who had just finished up with the other couple, decided to order pizza from Cous Cous.  I'm sure it was really good, but I ate one bite and knew I shouldn't eat any more.  They told me that they couldn't let me go home until I ate something, so I ate one of the frozen dinners they had in their freezer and drank some juice.  They let us go home at 11:30pm and we were able to sleep in our own bed that night!  So, we were in and out of the birth center within 7 hours. 

In the meantime, Kenny's mom drove down and picked up Logan so he was asleep in his bed when we got home.  He was able to meet Baby Boy in the morning. :)  

 

 

 

Brevyn Kent Garrett
We had finally decided on a name for our baby boy. It was on our original list, but we had crossed it out because Kenny didn't like it--it was too "different".  I had known a guy in high school with that name so it didn't seem "different" to me.  As we were talking about a name, that name kept coming back to me, so I threw it back on the table and that's what we decided on.  My dad's name (actually his middle name) is Kent, and we thought it went well with Brevyn.  

We took our own newborn pictures, and, although not professional-looking, we thought they turned out pretty good. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work Christmas Party
Kenny's work always does a big Christmas Party at the Marriott in Downtown SLC.  They have dinner, dessert, and prizes.  This year they had a Gingerbread House making contest.  We feel like we should have won for most Creativity, but alas we did not.  Here is our Gingerbread House held up by Kenny's co-worker, Chris.

 

 

Random Christmas Fun
Logan got a letter from Santa in the mail with a one dollar bill in it.  He was pretty excited to get a letter in the mail. 

 
We decided to have a little fun with science, so we had a tray of baking soda and some bowls of colored vinegar.  The idea was to drop the different colors on the baking soda, but Logan had a different plan--just dumping them all together!  I had to learn to not be a control freak and let his own creativity shine. 

 
We also bought some sugar cookie dough and made some fun holiday cookies.

Brevyn's Blessing
Our families came down on Dec. 23 for Brevyn's baby blessing.  We put Brevyn in the same blessing outfit as Logan and, even though Brevyn was bigger and older than Logan was, it still drowned him!  Oh well, it was only for an hour.  Kenny did well on the blessing, short and sweet. :)

Christmas
For Christmas we hosted most of my family: my mom, stepdad, Julie and her family, Ryan, and Grandma Logan. It was overwhelming having so many people in our house not long after having a baby, but everyone was good about helping cook and clean.  

I never got around to decorating our Christmas tree, so Logan and I did that the night before Christmas Eve.  

 

 

Christmas morning

Gifts from Santa

 

Logan's racetrack from Santa was a big hit!

 

 

Grandma needs a nap

Julie bought Ryan a Cotton Candy Maker for Christmas, so they had fun making cotton candy and eating it.

 

2012 Part 2

Note: I am playing catch up from 2012. This is mainly for journal purposes.

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California

June

Kenny had to go back to California for another week to finish the training he had started in April so Logan and I decided to join him and make a vacation out of it.  Kenny booked our hotel in La Jolla and our room had an AMAZING view of the ocean!

 

Our first day there was beautiful

 

 

 

Day 2
Kenny had to go to training, so Logan and I spent the day around our hotel in La Jolla, strolling through the shops and going down to the ocean.  It was a cool day, but still very nice!

Day 3
Logan and I went with Kenny's coworker's family (the Brandons) to one of the nicer beaches.  It was quite chilly and the sun never came out ("June Gloom"), however we stuck it out for about an hour and a half before leaving and getting ready for dinner that night. We left Logan with the Brandon's kids at their hotel and met Kenny's training team at Karl Strauss Brewery.  They had great food and dessert!

 

Day 4
Logan and I went with the Brandons to the San Diego Zoo Safari.  It was more inland so the weather was warm and beautiful!  Logan had a lot of fun seeing the different animals, he especially liked the monkeys.

Day 5
Logan and I went with the Brandons again to the San Diego Zoo.  I tried to make this day a little more relaxed for Logan and I since we were a little exhausted from the day before.  Logan got to spend some time petting sheep and goats, which he liked. We stood in line for a long time to see the Pandas, one of which was actually moving around and climbing on the trees. 

Day 6
Kenny got out of training early this day so the three of us spent the rest of the day at the San Diego Zoo.  We had a lot of fun and made it another relaxed day.  We were lucky enough to see the tiger come out in time to eat so we got a lot of good pictures of it. :)  

 

 

Of all the exhibits at the zoo, the playground was Logan's favorite (sigh).  At the end of the day there we let Logan unwind on the jungle gym.

 

 

Day 7
Kenny, Logan and I spent all day, Saturday, at Sea World, which was probably our favorite place. We even stayed for some of the nights shows and for the fireworks.  It was a long day, but we had so much fun!

 

Day 8
FATHERS DAY
We checked out of our hotel this day and Logan decided to help us unload the fridge into our cooler. He was very happy to help. :)

When Logan and I were at the Zoo Safari they had a stand where they take your hand print and paint it into an animal picture.  So I thought it would be a nice gift for Kenny for Fathers Day.

We checked out of our hotel and headed to see Kenny's cousin, Tera, and her family in Laguna Hills.  Her husband wanted to go to Taste of Orange County, so we went with them for a couple hours and then left to make it in time for dinner with my Aunt Camille, Uncle Jack, and cousins Jack, Miles, and Alex. Logan really latched onto our cousins and had a lot of fun with them--he even chilled with them while playing on their phones.

Day 9
 The next day my Aunt Camille took us to the Oakley building, which is the only Oakley factory in the USA I believe.  We then went to lunch at this waffle sandwich place--delicious!

Aunt Camille and me

Uncle Jack III and Logan

Cousins Alex, Jack IV, and Logan

We then packed up and drove to Phoenix where my sister, Julie, and her family lives. 

Day 11

And what is there to do in HOT Phoenix sun?  Why SWIM, of course!

 

We spent a few days in Phoenix, then headed home.  We decided it was a good time to see some sites on our way home though:

The Grand Canyon

 

Zion's National Park

Grandma's Temple Work
Not long after our trip, I drove up to Idaho in order to help with the temple work for my Grandma Baum.  My sister, Julie, my cousin, Morgan, and I took part in each of the ceremonies in the Rexburg Temple.  It was neat to be able to do that for Grandma, and my Grandpa was so happy!

 I have to tell a funny story: Julie was standing next to my cousin Zack (who is about 10 years younger than Julie) and someone in the temple asked Zack if Julie was his date! Hahahaha! Awkwardly, "Uh, no.  This is my cousin..."

 

 

Logan's First Stitches
Logan was heading up the stairs to go to bed and he tripped and hit his head on the molding.  I hear Kenny cursing, so I run and see blood, lots of blood!  I kind of freaked out for a minute, but then we got level headed and took Logan to the Urgent Care.  They gave him a numbing shot, but he was still crying when the PA was stitching him up.  Afterwards, the PA told us that since he's so fair-skinned, there might be something in his genetics that don't allow the anesthetic to work.  So, poor Logan felt the stitches. :(  He was a pretty good boy through it all, though.

 

 

Family Pictures
My sister, Julie, took our family pictures while visiting us in July. She does amazing work! These were taken at the Great Salt Lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maternity Pictures
Kenny took my maternity pictures this time around.  We went to the Great Salt Lake early in the morning and it was a rush to get them done before the sun got too bright!

 

 

 

 

My photographers
 

These pictures were done the first weekend in October, four weeks from my due date.  We went for a drive up the canyon and we couldn't resist getting a few pics in the leaves.

 

 

Bath Time

Logan is my little bath boy.  He especially loves to find his own bubbles, which usually ends up being all his body wash. 

Kenny's 28th Birthday
  Kenny worked on his birthday, but we still tried to make the evening special with dinner and his favorite, Skor Cake. 

Pumpkins!
We grew our own pumpkins this year and Logan had fun cutting them off the vine.    

Since Logan was Spiderman this year, Kenny helped Logan carve a spider into one of the pumpkins.

 

Logan had so much fun trick or treating this year! He was able to really get into it, and he loved his costume!

 

A visit from the Barretts

At the end of October we had a visit from Kenny's sister, Crystal, and her kids, Emma and Joshua.  It was nice to be able to visit and to have Logan play with and get to know his cousins.  The kids went for a walk and picked up leaves so that they could make a craft with them.  We had a lot of fun helping them make fun posters...and cleaning up glitter everywhere!

 

 

 

We also took them out to the Great Salt Lake.  It was cold, but we still waded anyway.

To warm up after the cold lake, the kids took a bubble bath together with balloons. :)