Playtime

Alex loves his little playmat.  The lion is his favorite toy and he loves to look at himself in the mirror.  He sure is getting big.  We love him so much!

Alexander's Arrival

      Finally getting around to posting Alex's delivery story.  Our original due date was April 17th, but when we went for our weekly check up on Friday March 30th, we were in for a bit of a surprise.  Thursday night we had put the carseat in the car just to get it out of the house and we also thought we'd take our hospital bags with us to all our future appointments, just in case.  Well, we had some of our hospital bag with us, but forgot the last few things we had packed, plus our pillows and such.  At the doctors, they checked my blood pressure right away as well as if there was protein in my urine.  My blood pressure was pretty high, but they didn't say exactly how high.  We went into the exam room and Dr. Deschamps came in and had the nurse take my blood pressure again.  It was around 210/120...(normal is 120/80) and they said the protein in my urine was also off the charts for what their equipment measured.  She also checked me, but we were only dilated to a 1.  This appointment was at her office that's up at McKay-Dee, so she said we were walking down to labor and delivery 4 doors down.  I then asked her if after that we'd get to go home, and she said we weren't going home without a baby.  So it begins!
       We got checked in at the hospital around 3:45 on Friday afternoon and I got into the lovely hospital gown and they hooked me up to all sorts of stuff.  They had a hard time getting an IV in me because my hands were so swollen through my pregnancy my veins kept moving around.  They finally had somebody else come in and they were able to get the IV in my left hand.  I was hooked up to magnesium almost my whole hospital stay to prevent seizures and other problems resulting from the preeclampsia.  Since we were only at a 1, they put a pill up by my cervix to help that open and soften to get ready for delivery.

Here's me in my lovely hospital outfit and my blood pressure cuff and IV

All the stuff I was hooked up to almost for the duration of our hospital stay

      Jared and I had decided that we wanted to go for a natural delivery, no epidural.  Friday was pretty uneventful, I just felt crappy with the magnesium and the pills weren't doing too much to dilate my cervix.  The nurses kept checking all throughout Fri afternoon and evening, and by Saturday morning around 9, we were dilated to a 3.  Throughout the night they also had to keep checking my blood pressure, so the cuff tightened like every 10 minutes to take my blood pressure...it was a pretty sleepless night.
     Saturday morning Dr. Deschamps was the one that checked me and since we were at a 3, she went ahead and broke my water....that was the weirdest feeling ever!  After that, I started having some contractions on my own.  They weren't too bad to start but continually increased.  One of the nurses asked if I was getting an epidural and I said no because we wanted to go all natural, but she wanted to at least give her opinion.  She said because my blood pressure was so high, when I had to deal with the pain from the contractions, that made my blood pressure even higher which wasn't a good thing for me or Alex, so she at least wanted us to think about the epidural again, keeping that in mind.  Jared and I talked about it and decided that we would go for the epidural.  This was around 12 on Saturday.  They had just given me some meds to lower my blood pressure and then the dr came in to do the epidural.  I did not do well with the epidural, everything got really bright and I was dizzy and nauseous and my ears were ringing.....not a fun feeling!  I guess the epidural lowers your blood pressure as well, so my blood pressure dropped to like 80/40 because of the mix of the meds and epidural, so we spent the next few hours working to get my blood pressure back to a normal level.  
     Once my blood pressure was back to a normal level they were considering starting me on oxytocin (which is like the pitosin), but Alex's heart rate wasn't handling the contractions we were currently having, so they didn't want them to increase until he stabilized.  His heart rate would drop during the contractions and stay low even after they were over.  So the next little while was focused on getting him to handle the contractions ok.  I know they started me on the oxytocin, I'm just not sure what time all of that started.  At this point, we were still planning a regular delivery.  I was starting to have a lot of pain just on the right side of my body, so the had the dr come back in to check the epidural around 8:00 or 8:30.  He adjusted it a bit and it made me feel yucky again.  This time I started basically dry heaving because I didn't have any food in me to throw up.  At this point I'm pretty out of it and all I hear are the nurses talking and yelling saying 'We gotta go! His heart rate has dropped to 40'  I'm gagging in the little bag they give you as they're telling me to roll onto my side because my baby can't breathe.  Right.....roll on my side.....I'm completely numb from the boobs down (this dr did a spinal block and epidural combo) and you want me to roll on my side.....sure! 
     Next thing I know I'm being raced down the hall to the operating room.  They also want me to help get from the bed to the operating table....again, how do I do this when I can't feel my legs!  It's the weirdest feeling ever!  Because all of this happened so fast, Jared didn't get to be in the operating room with me, which made me even more scared and worried.  All I could think of was Alex....is he ok, is he going to be breathing, is he going to have brain damage, is he even going to be alive...all these bad things.  As I'm lying there flat out on the operating table without Jared, I'm just praying that he's ok.  Dr Deschamps was on call for the weekend, so she was the doctor that did the c-section.  We were dilated to a 9, so he had already gone a bit down the birth canal, and Jared said he saw them kind of tugging him back up out of there.  Once Alex was out, Dr Deschamps put my fears at ease, told me he was a little blue, but he was breathing and he was in the with nurses and Daddy, so he was ok.  He was born on March 31st at 9:17 pm.  He came in at 5 lbs 13 oz and was 19 inches long.
     As I lay there waiting for them to finish stitching me up, all I wanted to do was be able to see and hold my precious baby.  It seemed like forever before I was able to look into his sweet little face.  They got me cleaned up and into a recovery room and they brought Alexander in to me.  It was the most amazing moment, knowing that this sweet bundle of joy was sent to us from Heavenly Father and he trusts us enough to take care of him.  Because Alex had to be in the NICU, I only got to hold him for about 10 minutes or so.  Jared and I went back to our room and Alex went to the NICU.  He was in intensive care because of his low blood sugar and also because of his CRP levels (which have to do with infections I think) that they needed to monitor him.  I was so sad because having a c-section and trying to move around or get down to the NICU was a challenge.  I only made it down there once on Sunday, twice on Monday and once on Tuesday morning.  They brought Alex into our room on Tuesday afternoon and then we left the hospital about 8:00 pm on Wednesday night.  Not quite the experience we had planned for with our birth plan, but Alexander is here and healthy and that's all we can ask for!

Here's Alex in the NICU

Our little family

Alex ready to go home!

We are more than ready to go home!

It's definitely been an adjustment being parents, but we love Alex and wouldn't trade him for anything!      

Finished Nursery.....We Think!

We think our nursery is finished...minus our sweet little baby boy! And maybe a few wall decorations. My shower was last Saturday and we had a great time, lots of good company and cute clothes and lots of supplies! I'll post pictures of that as soon as I get them from those who took pictures :) Here's a few updated pictures of Alexander's room. Here's his crib, complete with bumper and sheet, compliments of my Mom. You can see our Bronco pillow pet acting as baby underneath a wonderful warm baseball blanket that was hand-made by my cousin Roseanne.

I finally got this shelf mostly cleaned off and it now houses all the diapers we got, along with some totes that are filled with sheets and blankets, and room for other things as well. I'm sure we'll find things to store in the totes!

Here's his changing table, complete with diapers, wipes, lotions, bath items and room for some other things as well.

And last, but not least, the new hamper we got and his dresser complete with the frames I just finished from an idea Rachel had. I mod-podged some sports paper on these frames from Michael's and now have a cute little set to go on his dresser. And soon we'll have some cute pictures of our handsome man to put in them. We're so excited!

All in all, everything is coming together, and even if we didn't get or buy anything else, I think we're still set to bring our little guy home and have a nice, safe, happy place for him to live. We're so excited to be able to welcome him to the world in about 6 weeks!

Valentine's Day

Jared and I celebrated Valentine's Day twice I guess you could say. We had some movie tickets and a Chili's gift card, so we had a date on Friday night almost for free! Can't beat that :) We enjoyed some delicious dinner at Chili's and then headed over to the new MegaPlex in Centerville and watched "The Vow." It was a good movie, but I wished the ending would have been a little bit better. It was still fun to get out of the house and enjoy a 'night on the town' before our little one gets here.

Here's a self portrait of us before heading out the door on Friday. I hadn't realized how chubby my face has gotten too! Good grief! My eyes squint up WAY more now than they normally do!

I got a delivery at work on Valentine's Day from my sweetheart. He had these beautiful tulips sent along with a very very sweet note. They still hadn't bloomed when I got them, but over the past few days, they started to bloom. They're gorgeous!

And inside the box was this note in an envelope that said someone was thinking about me. I sure am one lucky lady to have this wonderful man as my husband forever!

Jared had school on Tuesday night, so he stopped at home for about an hour to get some stuff done and then he headed up to school. He usually gets home around 8:30, so while he was gone, I ran to the store and picked up a few balloons and a yellow rose and got the table set with some candles and our etched glasses we got for our wedding.

We enjoyed a nice dinner of homemade lasagna, garlic cheese bread, and sparking red grape juice. It was great to spend a fun evening with Jared. All in all it was a great Valentine's Day for both of us!

Almost finished!

Our nursery is coming along great! We found a new pack n' play on clearance at Shopko and a nice 3 piece furniture set at Wal-Mart. The set included a crib, changing table and dresser. We've gotten most everything else out of Alexander's room, so now it looks more like a nursery! :) We're very excited and we're down to 11 weeks, which seems SO crazy!

Here's a picture of the crib and the changing table

Looking in at the crib and rocking chair

This is the AWESOME Broncos blanket my friend Linda at work knitted for Alexander. He's going to love it (if Jared will ever let him use it) ;)

Here's our clearance pack and play. It's also got the raised bassinet which we love.

And last but not least, a picture of the rocking chair again and the dresser as well. The dresser was horrible to put together, but we finally got it. The crib was super easy to get together, but I put it together in the living room, only to come to realize it wouldn't fit through the door to his room! So we unscrewed it and put it back together once we took the pieces into his room. All in all, things are coming together.

We have our baby class at McKay-Dee on Saturday and then Rachel's throwing a shower for me later this month. We can't believe in 11 short weeks our little bundle of joy will be here!

Nursery Addition

We've been keeping busy as Jared has started back to school and we're trying to plan for Alexander. Here's the newest addition to our nursery. We've been wanting to find a comfortable but reasonably priced glider and here's what we found. It was originally $259 at Shopko and we found it on sale for $99. I know it's not as good as some of you bargain shoppers might do, but we think it will work well!

Merry Christmas!

We were very excited for Christmas morning because we were opening our present to find out what gender our baby is! I was up at about 3 am with heartburn and throwing up....no fun! I thought about waking Jared up to open the present, but I decided against that and tried to get back to sleep. I tossed and turned till about 6 am and then woke Jared up. We were both kind of nervous as we headed out to the living room to grab our present. We opened it up and pulled out the ultrasound picture and read the words "I'm a Boy!" :) We were both very excited and happy! It was the best Christmas present ever! Here's the picture of our little boy.

Here's a proud daddy in his Broncos shirt along with the Bronco football we got from Becki and Paul! Jared is very excited it's a boy because he can have someone to teach football and baseball to! :)

Here's what 'Santa' brought us....matching Bronco shirts!

We did our traditional ornament exchange over at Rachel's on Christmas Eve....can you guess which one is Jared's and which one is mine?

Here is our amazing present from Rachel, Shawn and family....a gorgeous picture of the Bountiful Temple!

Here is a cute little baby blanket that Jared's Grandma made for us! We think it will keep Alexander warm and cozy! On a side note, I just have to mention that his Grandma is hilarious. We met her last weekend for dinner and when she hugged me she said "Hello Tubby" ..... I'm sure it was out of love, but I still chuckle about that. I'm tubby, and I know I'm going to get more tubby before this is over with! :)

Jared's sister Becky and her husband Drew had our name for Christmas and they got us this sweet Atari console with 60 games!! Wooo hoooo!!

Jared's parents got us this great Rice Cooker and Steamer! I'm so excited to use it! No more boil in a bag brown rice!

Paul and Becki also got us this nice crock-pot. The one we've been using is a hand-me-down from my Mom that I got when I moved into my first apartment in Sioux Falls. It's been good to me, but definitely time for a new one, so this will be great!

Matthew and Jen got us this cute little baby calendar. You customize it with stickers so it's baby's first year. There are cute stickers to record special moments and places to put pictures as well as journal space. We love it!

All in all we had a great Christmas. It was amazing to find out the gender of our sweet little baby and also know that the reason for celebrating Christmas is to remember the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Jared and I have been so blessed this year and are so grateful for wonderful friends and family. This was truly an amazing holiday for our little family! We love you!

Go Grizzlies!

Last Monday night we went to the Grizzlies hockey game against the Idaho Steelheads. I had been to a hockey game once before in Sioux Falls, but we sat so far up and I couldn't really see anything, so I consider this my first real hockey game. We went with Jen and Richard and their kids. It was a lot of fun! We had really good seats too! Too bad we didn't win though.....it went into overtime and then the Steelheads scored 2 out of their 5 shots and we didn't score any, so the final score including the OT shots was 3-1. But it was still fun to get out and have a good time! Here's Jared and me waiting for the game to start.

Here's a picture of Jen and her daughter Jorja (hard to get a smile out of that one!)

Here's the gang....Jared, Richard (our brother-in-law) Jorja, Josh and Jen (Jared's sister)

Here's our view of the rink from our seats....we were in row 4!!

Another view from our seats...it was kind of scary when the puck hit the glass or a player got slammed up against it, but still a great view!

Temple Square

Monday night we went to Temple Square with Jared's sister and her family and then both Jared's brothers, Chris and Bob and his sister Angela were coming down with their singles ward, so we met up with them as well. It was really fun to be with family and walk around temple square. Here's my all time favorite picture from the evening.

Here's a picture of Josh (our nephew) and me. He's a funny kid! We love him.

I tried to get a good picture of Jorja (our niece) but my camera wasn't working too well and she doesn't like to smile too often, but she's still cute!

Here's a picture of Jared and his brother Chris. You get these two guys together and get ready for some craziness! They sure are silly!

Jared and me enjoying the lights!

Jared and me trying to stay warm!

I love Temple Square at Christmas time!

More of the pretty lights

I always like the trees made of lights

Pretty red trees and the nativity on the reflecting pool. I think this was from the back, but still a nice shot.

All in all it was a great evening. Great to be with family and to be at temple square, reflecting on the true meaning of Christmas.

Sugar Cookies

So I don't claim to be the best baker.....and if you need proof, just see below! We tried making sugar cookies the other night and the first batch didn't turn out the best. I just rolled the dough right on our counter and I must not have had enough flour under the dough and I think I made them a bit thin. They stretched and got out of shape when I tried to pull them up and get them on the cookie sheet. The one on the bottom right is supposed to be a gingerbread man, but he looks more like the running man after I got through with him!

So here's our second try at these sugar cookies. I rolled the dough out in small batches and put more flour on the counter and made the dough a bit thicker. These actually turned out looking like they should! Thanks to Rachel for letting us borrow her rolling pin and some cookie cutters!

Here's the set-up we had on the kitchen table for decorating. I tried to make Grandma Friederich's frosting, but it just didn't taste like hers. It was ok, but I don't think I'll ever be able to make things as good as Grandma does!

Here are our finished cookies! We definitely had a good time! Jared's are on the left and mine are on the right. I think decorating sugar cookies will be a tradition that we have. Merry Christmas everyone!