Gavin turns 5!

So I'm WAAAY behind in the blogging biz, but since this is a journal for me I feel I need to catch up, for posterity's sake of course. So here goes. Before all the baby craziness, Gavin had a monumentous 5th birthday! We had a big friend party last year so we kept it low key this year. We told him we could go do something fun and he could invite one friend. He decided he wanted to go Mini Golfing, and invited his best bud Jason Martin. Branson has a lot of cool Mini Golfing places. He chose the Dinosaur themed one, and we went on the Fri. before his Bday. It was lots of fun, and we only lost a couple balls :-D

Gavin had just started preschool the week before, and his birthday landed on a preschool day. He got to take cupcakes to school that day for their snack. He requested ham potato skillet for dinner and a Batman cake. We had a great family dinner and loved devouring the Batman sign.

Gavin just makes me smile. He has the funnest, goofiest at times, personality. He LOVES to dance and shake his booty, every time he hears any kind of song with a beat he is up out of his chair or off the floor and just starts to boogie! He does a MEAN robot. It's so cute and awesome, he can hardly contain himself. He loves to rhyme, and sometimes will just start saying words with a string of rhymes after a word, even if they aren't actual words. He LOVES his baby sister. He kisses her every chance he gets and will continue to kiss her soft cheeks until mom calls it quits on him! He has a very sweet and loving personality and loves to snuggle in the evenings. He loves playing with Maci and they come up with crazy and interesting games to play together, until it all falls apart as it often does with siblings. But for the most part they get along really well. We recently moved them into separate rooms and they've really missed being together in the same room! Gav loves to play the Wii and especially the Playstation with Daddy when he's home and able to relax, which believe me, is kind of a rare occasion! He loves to ride his bike, and to play with his buddies Jason and Hunter. He loves all thing Super Hero and has recently gotten into Star Wars. Overall, Gavin is just a joy to be around and I love him so much! I'm really going to miss him next year when he goes off to all day Kindergarten!

Happy Birthday Big Man! We Love You!

Baby Delaney

More Pics! Kiddies came by today and showed some love to baby sister. They love her!

She's here!!

Baby Delaney Elizabeth, or Elizabeth Delaney, we can't make up our mind, made her early arrival on Sept. 24th at 12:21 pm. She weighed 6 lbs 2 oz and was 19 in. long. Here's how it all went down. {this is lengthy and detailed for my benefit so be prepared!}

I went in for my weekly checkup on Monday the 20th. My BP was pretty high, but baby still looked good on my 30 minute monitoring so they said to keep an eye on it and if I felt any symptoms, bad headache, nausea, disorientation, etc to give them a call ASAP. The Dr. had talked about taking me to the hospital that day to induce possibly, but I was NOT keen on that idea, 35 weeks sounded awfully early even though he thought it would be fine. And frankly I just wasn't ready to have this baby yet! So home I went on semi-bed rest, trying to take it as easy as possible.

Well, for me that was very hard! I had a lot to do to try and get DONE with all my work so I could take time off, I finally turned my Etsy shop off but had a few things I had to finish up. I actually cancelled quite a few sales due to the bed rest, people were so nice and friendly about it, saying to take care of myself and they'd keep me in their prayers. Etsy is an awesome community! Anyway, I probably wasn't as good as I should have been about taking it easy. On Wed. I borrowed a friend's BP cuff so I could take my pressure at home, and it was NOT GOOD, varying from 160/90s up to as high as 190/117. And even if I laid down for hours it still was high, too high. I probably should have gone in that night, but being the stubborn person I am I thought I could wait it out and didn't want to get admitted into the ER in the middle of the night. Anyway, we waited till morning and called my OB ASAP. The nurse said to go straight to the OB Triage center at the hospital, to have Chris drive, that I should not do ANYTHING strenuous. I should have known better, I really could have had a stroke or seizure with how high my numbers were.

So we sat and waited for about an hour before getting into the Triage center, then was put on a monitor for about 3 hrs. It was of course crazy busy that day in the Labor and Delivery so I think we probably stayed longer than we needed to, but oh well. Numbers were still high and blood work showed higher liver enzymes which is a sign of pre-eclampsia. So. . . they said we'd be doing a 24 hr urine watch in the hospital over night. Moved to Labor and Delivery, sat, waited, waited some more. . . started the urine watch. Chris went to go pick up the kids from their various locations and while he was gone, my lovely nurse, Diane, who I adored, said she thought they'd probably just induce me later that night when my Dr. arrived. He happened to be the Dr. on call that night, which worked great! She'd talked with the other dr. on call at the time and thought that was probably what they'd do. SO, call Chris, tell him to get the kids situated again! they were already on their way to see me so we chatted for a little while and then he was off again. Thank you to the Martin's for keeping them over night and getting the kids to their schools! It's so great to have such wonderful friends that you can count on when no family is close. Our ward is our family here! They are all terrific.

Dr. Smith-O'brien arrived around 7pm and confirmed that they would be inducing me that night. He thought there was little chance that my BP would go down in coming weeks and that the baby was far enough along that she should do fine if induced early. He also said that babies who have been under BP stress, tend to develop a little earlier due to the stress of it, and she's a girl {girls develop about a week faster than boys, even in the womb they're ahead of the curve!}. So, feeling good about it, we went ahead with the induction. We moved rooms, waited, waited a little more, and finally got the pitocin going around 9pm.

Contractions started and got pretty regular, but not very strong. I was about a 2 coming into Labor, and didn't progress much beyond that until morning. I finally got to a 3-4 around 5:30 in the morning. It was a very long night, my BP was better on my side but the contractions weren't as strong while on my side, keeping the baby monitor going the whole night, finding her if she moved around, not being able to move around much due to the IV and monitors. . . long night!! and poor Chris was on a reclining rocker that looked as comfortable as a pile of rocks! But we knew the end was in sight.

They broke my water at 5:30am and I'd hoped that that would get things moving. It did, and I was soon having pretty hard contractions. I still hadn't had an epidural yet, I was pretty grumpy by the time they got there at 8:15ish. But I'd made some progress, was about a 4-5 by the time the epidural went in. The relief is instant with those things, and my BP instantly improved because I was in less pain. I also continued to progress more quickly. By 11:30 I was at an 8 and moving quickly, by 12 my OB had arrived and started making all the preparations for delivery. My legs were pretty numb and I was worried it would take me longer to push her out because I couldn't feel much. I'd had my epidural a lot longer with Gavin and I think it was beginning to wear off by the time I delivered so I felt quite a bit of his delivery, and he came out very easily.

They had a NICU team in the delivery room in case she needed it, there were 2 student or new nurses in there, as well as my OB and regular nurse, I think all together there were about 10 people in the room! Definitely the most I've ever had in a delivery room. Kinda weird, but it was fine. My nurse was AWESOME, funny and calming and on top of everything. I'll be writing Stephanie a very nice note. My OB was great too. Preparations were done and I was ready, pushed twice and out she came! No tearing or cutting neccesary thank goodness. She came out pretty purple, but cried on her own and Dr. said she was really strong and kicking and moving on her own. Guesses were made on her weight before delivery, and my nurse had guessed right on, 6lbs 2 oz! A great size for a 4 wk preemie.

Chris got to cut the cord and then they took her over to the incubator to make sure she was ok, so I didn't get to hold her right off the bat. They did all the finish up stuff on me and then let me hold her. There's nothing like holding your baby for the first time, the feeling of heaven in the room. She was beautiful and perfect, and we'd worked so hard to get her here. It just felt so good to finally hold her in my arms. I think I would have totally bawled like a baby if there hadn't been 10 people in the room, but I tried to hold it together and only a few tears of joy were shed.

She ate well right away, totally knew what to do! I'm always amazed at baby's instincts. I had to stay in the Labor ward for about 5 hrs so they could monitor my BP which still wasn't going down. They started me on a BP medicine, not magnesium thanks goodness, which they had threatened. They finally decided I wasn't in any danger of stroking or seizuring, so they moved me to my lovely room in Mother Baby. These rooms are HUGE! very nice. The evening went well, the kids and Chris came and saw the baby, the kids were so sweet with her and so excited that she's finally here. Gavin is excited to not be the youngest any more, and Maci is going to be such a great big sister and mommy's helper. We did great over night, tried to get as much sleep as I could between feedings and BP monitorings and whatnot. She's still eating great and really hasn't cried much at all! We'll see how long that lasts ;-)

We feel so blessed to have this baby in our family. We've known so many people who have struggled with infertility or having very difficult pregnancies and are grateful that after our short trial of patience and faith, our wishes for another baby have finally happened. I still want to have one more, and hopefully now what we know what works it won't take as long next time. We'll see where we're at in a couple years :-)

Thanks to all our family and friends who have sent us support from around the country. We miss you all! but know that our friends here are taking good care of us. Pics to come when I get them off of our camera!
Love you all
Ali

Random Happenings

Been too long again since my last post. Here's what we've been up to.

Daddy had a fabulous 31st birthday. We went out to dinner and a movie I think?? This is why I should write about it the day it happens :-) We also made him his favorite dinner on his birthday which was a Sunday, Eggrolls and Sweet and Sour Chicken, yummm. Glad we've made it through another year babe!


We also went to visit the Dunakey clan in Omaha in July. We had a great time, just me and the kids while Chris stayed home and did school. We went to the Omaha Zoo and to a fun waterpark, and just generally hung out and talked, ate good food, and had fun! Thanks for letting us stay guys, can't wait to do it again!

August brought lots of HEAT!! way worse than last summer here. But we've survived. We also got to go to Utah again for Joel's wedding! Chris and I ventured on our own since buying 2 tickets is much cheaper than buying 4. The kids stayed with our great friends the Kirkham's, thanks to Amy for being such a trooper, her 5 kids and my 2 with no husband because he was in India that week! They had a great time, and so did we! It was so fun to see Joel and Alicia so happy and ready to start their new life together. Great trip.
The old clan, we've known some of these people for 15 yrs!!, Chris has known them even longer.


Last but not least Chris took his Comprehensive Exams on the 21st. HUGE test, 6 hrs straight on 5 different subjects. He studied for a week straight after we got home from Utah. Stressed beyond comprehension!! But it went pretty well, he hopes to have passed 4 out of the 5 tests, he gets the results next week. The ones he doesn't pass he gets to retake orally on the 12th of Sept. So hopefully by the 13th we'll be DONE with Comps and not have to worry about it anymore!! His schedule has slowed down a bit from the summer which has been very nice. I believe this last summer has been our toughest section of school and that now we'll be on a downhill run, especially with not trying to juggle work and school. For now he's not going to work, and I think we'll be ok with that, it's been a huge blessing to us all for him not to have to worry about that. The Lord will provide!

The kids both started school, Maci's in 2nd grade and Gavin started preschool 3 days a week! They're both loving it and doing well so far. I'm enjoying 9 hrs a week of "free" time, which I get to fill up with work uninterrupted :-) until baby makes her arrival.

One other big announcement that came out recently is that my parents are going on their 3rd mission! To Hawaii no less! They will be teaching institute at the University of Hawaii, they leave on Sept. 7th and will hopefully be back next August. They are excited for the sudden change of plans, they were planning on leaving sometime in January to Southern Virginia University, but the Lord had other plans for them and they took this great opportunity to go serve in the islands again. We wish them well but they will be missed! Maybe somehow we'll be lucky enough to be able to visit.

I think that catches us up somewhat! 8 weeks to go before the baby comes, so much to do!!! Super Saturday season cannot get over fast enough.

I'm so glad when Daddy comes home

So Father's Day has come and gone, but I wanted to take a moment and write down my thoughts on my fabulous husband and daddy to my kids. They are SO glad when he gets home every day, running to the door and meeting him with hugs and smiles. He's always so willing to listen to their day, even when he's exhausted and starving and just wants to sit down. They love him so much, and want to spend every minute they can with him. He loves to play with them, their newest "thing" is playing tag in the yard with them. Gavin loves playing the Wii with him, and Maci loves snuggling with him watching a movie or playing in the yard with him.

Chris has been such a trooper through the last couple years. What he is doing is HARD, and he's been working part time as well, which only a fraction of the other students are doing. He's worked so hard at doing well in school so that he can further his career and provide for his family, while he's doing something he loves. I'm so proud of his accomplishments so far and know he's going to help a lot of people in his life.

Chris has been my best friend for a LONG time, long before we got married. I'm so glad that I get to go through my trials and hardships with him, as well as our happy times and joyous occasions. He makes my life so much better, and I'm so grateful that he's mine for eternity!

So, Happy LaTe Father's Day babe, I Love You!

And we're back. . .

Since being home, we've kept busy doing fun things for the summer. We've been to the Nixa pool several times, Table Rock Lake several times, playing in the hose A LOT!! and having friends over. Our good friends the Eckersley's moved last week :-( They will be missed! but we wish them well with their new endevours, wherever they may be. We hope to see them still as they're living with their parents in Branson for the next couple of months. Nixa won't be the same without them!!

With the Eckersley's moving, came the loss of Chris's job. EHN, their company, closed down. So, Chris is now jobless, but in a way this is a blessing. He's so busy with school, it was becoming increasingly clear that the work load at school, client load, and working part time was just too much. The last week Chris worked I literally could see his brains oozing out of his head. So, for now, he's not going to work. With his current school and client schedule, we're not sure what he could find in way of a job anyway. So we're praying hard and cutting back and hoping that somehow we'll make it through without that extra income. The last couple of weeks have been much better, although still stressful for Chris, but I think it's the right decision for now, at least until his thesis is done in Dec., that he focus on school. That job was such a blessing for the past 2 years though, we're so grateful for it!!

The pregnancy is still going great. I've felt terrific the last couple months, and am just now starting to feel like I'm getting bigger, maybe swelling a little bit?! which isn't fun, but could be worse! The baby is moving a lot and the kids love to feel her kick. I can't believe she'll be here in a little over 3 months! it's gonna be a huge adjustment, but we're excited and ready, kinda ;-)

We celebrated July 4th with some of Chris's friends from school, who were nice enough to invite us over. Thanks Mike, Katie, Kylie and Robbie! We had a great time, did some fun fireworks that actually shoot in the air, and saw a great show right out back of Mike's apartment in an adjacent golf course. It was a great show! Monday after the 4th, Chris had school and clinic off! So we headed down south to Eureka Springs, AR. It's a beautiful little artsy city, reminded me a lot of Park City. We explored the shops, got some fudge which I promptly ate pretty much by myself, saw the Crescent Hotel, and ate at a little Italian place, which we will NOT be frequenting, if you get my drift. But overall, it was a fun day of driving and discovering new places.


So far, it's been a spectacular summer, and we're going to enjoy the next month before school starts again for the kids!