Welcome Home James!

Well after all my griping, last Sunday night once again saw me pacing around the house with some rather painful and regular contractions. Around 2 in the morning, I decided that they were regular enough, painful enough and not going away enough that we ought to head into the hospital. Unfortunately we chose a busy night at the labor and delivery department.... When we got there they took us into a closet sized room, with an uncomfortable bed for me and a small hard chair for Dan, we waited an hour or so before someone could get there to check me and see where I was at. I was between 3-4 cm dilated, they decided to wait a couple hours and check me again. Dan stretched out on the floor to try and sleep a little and i tried to doze between the contractions and the worry. Before the nurse came back, Dan had to leave to take the girls to school, while he was gone, she came back and found that I hadn't progressed at all. She said that they couldn't admit me. I explained to her that my labors go fast and that if these contractions weren't real, I wasn't going to be able to tell the difference when they started being real. She nicely told me that I could walk around the hospital if I wanted. Well, I still had to wait for Dan to be done dropping off the girls, so I went and walked around and had a bit of breakfast. I went back up to tell them I was going home and they informed me that they had changed their mind and that they were going to admit me and start some pitocin and get this going. The only place they had room for us was in the high risk area so the nurse was excited to have an easy delivery ahead of her. They started the epidural and the pitocin. The on-call doc came in to check on me and found that I hadnt progressed much and for the next couple of hours, I didn't see anyone but my hubby and my nurse. At this point a couple of residents came in and checked me and found me dilated to 8 cm. They set up the equipment and I started pushing. Less than 15 minutes later, we had a new healthy baby boy. Unfortunately for me the epidural was really mostly just working on one side, so I felt the whole thing. It was probably a good thing that they didn't let me hold him for very long before taking him to be cleaned and checked, between 36+ hours with out sleep and the fatigue of labor, I was shaking like a leaf. By the time I finally got to hold him, It was so bad that I threw up all over myself and him too, now of course with my stomach empty, it was even worse, plus they wouldn't give me and pain meds until they were sure I could keep it down.... Anyway, I finally got my baby boy - clean and healthy and all we had to do was wait for a room to move us into.

We have named him James Allen Jones, he was born at 3:34 on January 23rd weighing in at a whopping 8 lb 10 oz (making him my biggest baby yet!) and 20 inches long. He is a remarkably calm baby - he hardly fussed while they were cleaning him off, in fact he hardly fussed the whole time we were there.

Somewhere in all the insanity, my mom had arrived, she came by, as well as the family in the area to see us. Dan brought the other kids in to see him - Evie is just enamored with her baby brother and all the kids have been very sweet and helpful. We spent the next couple days sleeping, feeding and recovering, before coming home on Wed afternoon. I made the mistake of trying to jump back into life and found that I really needed to slow down and take it easy.



James has a bit of jaundice and we have been getting him poked to check him out for the last couple of days, but it's looking like all is well and he probably won't have to go under the lights. Now I just need to learn to put him down - it's just so hard when he's so sweet and snuggly!!

Still Waiting.....

Well after 3 days this week where I thought we might be heading to the hospital, it's a bit depressing to find myself still very pregnant. But despite some very strong and fairly frequent contractions, they eventually slowed and mostly stopped and here I am still looking and feeling like a beached whale.

I have been rather reluctant to venture too far from home for fear of finding myself too far from my hospital, so life kinda has felt like it's on hold this week. We have mostly been home bodies. A friend from church took the kids on Friday and let me have a bit of a day off, it was wonderful! The kids had a great time and didn't want to leave, after it seemed silly to drive home just to turn around 20 minutes later and go get the girls from school, so we went to the library for a bit and had fun reading and doing puzzles. Otherwise our week has been uneventful... Next week will be more exciting, I promise :P

Waiting

It feels like we are all just holding our breaths and waiting. We keep going about our every day lives - piano lessons, school, church, play, work, doc appointments - but behind it all there is a feeling of holding our breaths and waiting. The newest addition to our not-so-little family is doing his best to make his presence known. He kicks and wiggles all day and I wait somewhat impatiently - feeling like it could be any day now (of course maybe that's just all the pushing he does on my bladder...) The kids are excited - they are excited for Grandma Cox to come back out and excited to meet the new baby. (I say kids, but I don't think Evie has any clue what is about to happen.) We had some friends over on Tuesday with their new 1 month old baby - I spent some time holding her - and Evie would climb up with me and look and pat her head sweetly and was very gentle with her. But after about 10 minutes or so (longer than I expected) she looked at me and said "Put baby down!" very clearly. She liked the baby and was ok with mom holding the baby, but the baby's time with her mommy was over and it was her turn now.


In addition to all the waiting, this week we celebrated Aaron's 4th birthday. We hadn't even come close to getting rid of all the junk food from the holidays, and now we have more cake around our house. Dan made Aaron a race track cake with real hot wheel cars on it. He loved his clothes from Grandma Penny and his Spider Man toy from Mom and Dad (Dan feeling a need to get him a 'manly' doll) Happy 4th birthday little man!!! We LOVE you!

Finally, just a fun little picture of the girls all dressed up for church... maybe I should have waited to take the picture until AFTER I had done their hair all pretty, but really - when it comes to getting 3 who are smiling - you take what you can get and be glad. :) Plus - they are all wearing 'new' dresses. Eileen's is a new Christmas Present from Great Grandma Penny, Anna's is Eileen's old dress - but it's new to her, and Evie's is Eileen and Anna's old dress - but once again new to her.

Back to Life... Back to Reality

Well - the family has gone home, the kids are back in school and life is slowly returning to normal (at least as normal as it can get when I look like a beached whale and am about as useful....)

Tuesday we met Grandpa for lunch at a place called Holly West which I guess has been around and visited by my grandparents for MANY years. It was fun - but since (as usual with my family) we were running late, I had to drag the kids out early and before they were quite done eating to get the girls to their piano lessons.


Wednesday the female part of the family went to California Pizza Kitchen to have a little baby shower for me. I LOVE the food there (probably a good thing that the nearest one is over half an hour away....) and ate way too much with a stomach that is already being encroached upon by a baby - but loved the food, loved the time with family and loved having a no-kids lunch out!

Thursday was another doc appointment - not terribly exciting - it took all of 10 minutes for the Doc to measure me, listen to the heart beat and say I'm doing well. Aaron and Evie didn't even get to finish the snacks I brought for them. Thursday was also the family send off - they were wonderful about doing all the clean up from their stay so that it didn't create extra work for me - and even un-decorated and took down the Christmas tree.

Saturday Anna had a birthday party to go to for a friend from school. It was at a local pool - she had a BLAST - she loved playing with her friends in the water for a few hours - and since the only reason she had to get out was to eat cupcakes and pizza - she was happy. She didn't even complain when we had to go home!

A Testimony

Eileen is going to be turning 8 this year. Since her 7th birthday, she has been eagerly looking forward to her 8th birthday and the opportunity to be baptized. I talked with her earlier today about what it means to get baptized. I talked to her about the promise in the scriptures - Moroni 10:4 and how he tells us that if we want to know that the scriptures are really the words of God - all we need to do is read them and pray about it and the Lord will let us know. I explained that we would like her to listen to these words and find out for herself. She thought about that for awhile and then with some help from Dan, she wrote out her testimony and then got up to share her testimony during Fast and Testimony meeting at church. It was so sweet to see and hear her talk about her own knowledge of eternal truths.

...And a Happy New Year

We mostly spent our week recuperating and trying to get everything ready for house guests. We threw all the kids into one room and were actually able to get each family into their own room. We finished up Christmas Presents, cleaned house, and blew up air mattresses. The kids had a blast playing with their new toys and were entertained enough between that and the gorgeous weather to let Dan and I get everything done. (And still leave time for me to take a lot of naps.)

Family started arriving on Saturday morning - all the flights were delayed - so they were later than anticipated, but eventually they all made it safely. We got everyone settled, then headed over to Grandpa's house for Bagna Caulda and a bit of New Years Eve fun. Then we came home, put the kids to bed and got out the puzzle. :) Sandi and I mostly worked on our traditional New Years Eve Puzzle, while Dad wrapped presents and Dan and Jon browsed Netflix.

Sunday, I had a musical number during church and Sandi and I finished the puzzle. (Dan even helped some) :) And Dad and Grandma Penny wrapped more presents.

Monday I woke up with a bit of a head cold. I struggled through the morning, then finally gave up and took a nap...all afternoon. While I napped - the rest of the group went bowling. Of all the kids, Evie had the highest score... :) Haha - they used a ramp thingy and bumpers of course.


Grandpa Francone, Doug and Mark all came over for dinner and then we did our final Christmas Gift exchange. I love being able to spend time with family - and it's been such a blessing to have all our Colorado family around us and so much of the rest of our family gathered here with us. I am looking forward to a few more days with them. I'm not even so eager for the kids to start school again with them around :P