Sophia And Blake

So a lot of people say that Blake looks just like Sophia except with lots of brown hair. Sophia actually had lots of brown hair when she was born too - though not quite as much as Blake. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to show them both so you can see for yourself! Honestly, they could have been twins! :)

First up, Sophia!

Now for Blake!

You be the judge, but I think they look a lot a like. Yes, there are differences, but for the most part they look the same. :) My mom recently took a picture of the two of them that their faces look the same, so I'll see if I can get it to post later. :)

Blake Logan Hunter

HE'S HERE HE'S HERE HE'S HERE HE'S HERE HE'S HERE!!!!!!!!!

Blake Logan Hunter was born on May 22 at 10:40AM, he was 7lbs 1oz and 19 inches long!

Oh my goodness I am so incredibly happy! Not just to be done with pregnancy, although I really didn't like being pregnant, but to have my sweet little Blake to hold at last! And yes, I know that once again I was only pregnant for 37 weeks, but really it feels like the whole 40 because with both pregnancies I have gone in when the doctor's thought I would be 8 weeks (based on last cycle) and was only 5, which means I've gotten morning sickness at 4 weeks with both, so really the symptoms last the same amount of time. Anyway, back to the topic at hand - this post is to tell the birth story! :)

The story will be picked up where I left off complaining about bed rest. I am SO glad that I only had to do that for a week, because with a 2 year old who just wants to play and a husband who's studying for his finals for the hardest quarter of pharmacy school, well a week just felt like an eternity! Lucky for me, my AMAZING mother-in-law Rosanna dropped everything to come down and help take care of me and Sophie and Jon until he could be done with his classes! This was a huge sacrifice for her (though she would never admit it) because she works at the temple, is the emergency preparedness leader in her ward as well as working with Bluffdale city, just got certified as a general for her HAM radio and has weekly meetings to make sure that all of the HAM radio users in the area are coordinated and everything is working well and everyone knows what they're doing, all along with taking care of her family including her mother who has recently had more health issues (which has been physically and emotionally draining!) So for her to drop everything and come down here to basically babysit me has been a tremendous blessing. Anyway, so she came down on Mother's day (May 13) and just on the way to go and pick her up from the airport I started having strong contractions that were close together, but by the time we were heading home they had spaced out significantly. Contractions continued to come and go that whole week, and after seeing my doctor on Wednesday the 16th and seeing that I was dilated to a 2 and about 60-70% effaced, I was sure that my little Ninja would be coming at any moment! So I sort of gave up the bed rest (with the okay from my doctor), though Rosanna still helped with things like getting Sophie ready in the mornings and putting her down at night since it was just painful for me to have to bend like that, and I focused on helping Jon study for his finals. Well he finished his finals and I still had not had the baby! By this point Rosanna had been here a week of her 2 week stay, so I was getting a little antsy because I really wanted her here when he was born. We would go on long shopping trips to Costco, Wal-Mart, etc to try and get things moving, but nothing would stay consistent.

Finally on Saturday night after helping Jon clean and organize a bunch of our junk in the garage, I started having contractions regular enough and strong enough that after a while we went in. I was so excited thinking that this was it! We got there around 11:00PM and got all hooked up to the monitors in the triage area, and when they checked me I was only at a 3 and this nurse said I was closer to 60% effaced than 70. So we walked for an hour, went back, and when they checked me again and I was 3 and "a little bit", and closer to 70%. I wasn't too thrilled with this, but they kept me for another hour and then had me walk for another hour after that. At this point I was tired, sore, and getting really sad that they were going to send me home. Jon was optimistic and kept saying not to stress out, but I just knew that they would send me home and it made me sad. Sure enough, when they checked me again I wasn't any further along, so the nurse couldn't justify keeping me until I could make some progress and they sent me home saying that they'd probably see me later on in the day. By now it was about 4AM. We stayed home from church (I was just too exhausted) and after resting my contractions were back to sporadic and not very strong. Needless to say, I was really disappointed.

On Monday we decided to start on the tile for the potty closet in the master bathroom (the only part not done previously), so I spent most of the day helping Jon with the things I could while Rosanna and Sophia played. After a little bit my contractions got noticeably stronger and closer, but I didn't get my hopes up until almost an hour had passed with them coming every 5 minutes while I was resting and every 2-3 while standing. Jon kept asking if I wanted to go in, and they finally got painful enough that I said yes and so we cleaned up a bit and headed out with me thinking the whole time that I'd probably just get sent home again. (Yes, pregnancy hormones were making me quite the downer!) This was about 5:30. So we went through the same drill as before, hook me up, monitor the screens for a bit, check me, see that I was only at a 3.5 to which I was really upset because these contractions hurt a LOT worse, and then send me walking for an hour. It hurt so bad walking, but I never stopped moving and hoping that I could be admitted, and when they finally checked me again I was at a 4 and they finally said I could stay!!! I was so happy! This was about 7:30. They got me my epidural around 9:30 (guy was kind of a jerk and stabbed me with the numbing agent before warning me!) and soon I was laying back in my blissfully numb state and watching the contractions on the monitor. Since I had learned with Sophie that staying up all night because you're excited only leads to a very tired and dream-like state when it's time to push, I tried to sleep. Crazy thing happened though - I'm not sure if it was just from the epidural or what, but whenever I tried to sleep I would be full on talking in my sleep and yelling and throwing my arms around! Ha ha, still not sure why, but Jon had to wake me up and tell me to stop so I didn't pull my IV out! Pretty funny though. :)

Okay, long night went by. They checked me at 1:30 - still at a 4. At 5AM they started me on the Pitocin, then around 7AM when cranky night-nurse lady left (yeah, I wasn't a fan of her) I got happy wonderful fun day-nurse named Julie who checked me and said I was between a 6 and 7, and just after 8AM my doctor came in and broke my water.

From here things FINALLY started moving faster. (I know, you're wishing I would move this story along faster as well, but I want all of these boring details for myself so you can just deal with it.) :) My contractions got harder and closer together, and I was feeling pressure from them (as I had been able to do all night, which I liked) but no pain. Then suddenly, I notice that there is a little bit of pain. I mention this and the nurse hooks me up with the button to push to give myself a little more epidural. It wasn't working though! Still, I thought, I should be numb enough that I won't really feel much anyway. Then they stop the Pitocin once I get to an 8, and for some reason my contractions come faster and harder! Now I'm feeling a lot of painful pressure where they say that the baby's head is pushing on my cervix, but since I'm not fully dilated there's nothing I can do but breath through it. Now I'm at a 9, and they have me pushing during contractions to see if we can push the remaining bit of cervix out of the way - as in they're using their hands to try and push and stretch it while I'm pushing the baby's head into it to try and stretch it from the other side. This freaking hurts so much that I actually have to stop and throw up! So we try to get more epidural stuff in me and while my stomach is nice and numb, I still feel everything down in the nether regions. I'm more than a little nervous at this point!

Then, it's time. The doctor is on her way, I've been pushing the baby down into position to the point that they suddenly say "Okay no more!" because he's crowning and the doctor is still on her way. Jon is there holding my hand and smiling all encouraging like, while I'm thinking "Nothing is numb!!!" Dr. Brotsky comes in all smiles and happy like always, and gets into position. Holy cow, this hurts more than even I thought it would! They're all saying I'm doing great and tell me to keep pushing, but it hurts so bad that I keep breaking and losing progress! I can feel him right there at the opening, I feel the pressure, the stretching, and all the pain, and they're telling me to push harder! So I do, and after what seems like forever (really it was like 5-10 minutes total) and after feeling some tearing and other horrible things, his head is out!!! The rest I don't even remember pushing out, but he came out, I lost control of my emotions, Jon is smiling and squeezing my hand telling me I'm amazing, everyone is saying good job, and through it all I find my little baby's hand and hold it while stroking his head and arms. With Sophie it was all so new and confusing that I feel like I was in a bit of shock the whole time - this time, however, the full effect of the moment hit me hard. They let Jon cut the cord and encouraged him to take pictures while they weighed little Blake and got him all wrapped up. I was so happy when I could finally hold him, and try as hard as I could I could not stop my tears because I was so happy that 1) all the pain was over! and 2) that I finally had my baby to hold. I fed him right away and he was already a pro! Latched on right away and went to town!

They let Blake stay in there with us for a full hour and half (the last hour Rosanna had come in with Sophie to meet the baby, which she just squealed and giggled and loved on him so much, it was adorable!) before they took him for his bath.

This whole experience definitely felt more magical and wonderful than the first time, again just because I wasn't in shock the whole time. Even with the pain it was wonderful, though if we go through this again I am going to insist that they numb me better! LOL, definitely do NOT want the natural thing again! I'm so happy to have my little boy - even if he wasn't officially planned, even if I had to endure a LOT of struggles and pains to get him here, I am just so overcome with how wonderful he is and how perfect our little family feels now that he's a part of it. I just love him so much! And I love that Sophia has been so welcoming to him and that Jon has been so amazing through this whole pregnancy and especially during the birth where I don't think I could have had the strength or energy to keep pushing if he hadn't been there with me! My heart is just overwhelmed with the blessings that we have been given. OH, and so so so very happy that Rosanna's efforts to take care of all of us didn't go unrewarded and that she was able to celebrate his birth with us! I know this post doesn't have any pictures, and it's because I haven't uploaded them yet, but my next one will and I will show you just how handsome my little Blake is and just how sweet and loving Sophia is and just how amazing of a father Jon is. For now, I'm still pretty tired, so I'm going to take a nap. :)

(Sorry if any of this is weirdly written - I mean more than normal - I'm on my pain killers right now and the world is a little loopy! LOL)

6 Years of Bliss and Life in Bed

Well that sounds like the title of something inappropriate...but don't worry, It's just about my week. :) I've written in my journal (which is weird for me to do before typing it out here, but at least I couldn't just say "Oh just go read my blog" and cut my journal entry short...not that I've ever done that...don't read my journal. Sorry, tangent. Anyway, this coming Sunday (yes, Mother's day, May 13th) is mine and Jon's 6 year wedding anniversary!!! Last year we were so consumed with moving to Arizona for school, buying a house, packing, and keeping Sophie entertained that it seems like 5 years came and went and we didn't really get to feel the impact of it all. It's normally kind of a milestone anniversary - right? Well, I'm pretty sure we did Redbox, and maybe bought some chocolates. I can't really even remember what we did/ate, but I do remember that I spent the day with Jon and that I loved it. THIS year, however, it's finally setting in that "Holy cow! We've been married for 6 years!!! That's longer than high school!" (Hey, high school seemed to last for forever, so it's a completely valid comparison!)

Normally I would try to do a big "Ode to Marriage" post at this point...but I'm just too tired! I'll explain that further in a moment. But for now, I shall tell you how we celebrated our 6 wonderful years together. We celebrated last week, since Jon didn't have a test this last Monday (Yay!), by going to see one of the greatest movies ever. The Avengers.

HOLY COW I LOVED THIS MOVIE SO MUCH I WAS GEEKING OUT SO BAD!!!!! Seriously - LOVED it! We had a hard time getting a babysitter for Sophie - Cinco de Mayo seems to be a bad day for babysitters - but we found someone literally the morning of the movie so we were able to watch in peace! After the incredibly awesome 3 hours in the theater, we picked up Sophie and ate at Chipotle grill (yum yum yum), and then headed home. Being all big and pregnant, this was a pretty busy day for me, so I was pretty tired. But we got home, Sophie fell asleep in the car so we put her in bed, and I decided that I should be productive with my time and swept the kitchen floor. Since I was already tired and having some minor painful contractions, I figured this would be easier on my than vacuuming. So I finished, and felt like I would die, so I layed down. A while later, Sophie woke up (NOOO!!!!) and demanded to go potty, so it was a lot of getting up, stooping/kneeling down, getting up again, carrying a scared 2-year-old around, trying to snuggle, etc., until finally I handed her off to Jon and told him that if I had to pick her up again I would either cry or die. At this point my minor contractions were pretty not-so-minor anymore, so I got some water and layed down and tried to relax. But they just didn't want to stop! By this time it was close to midnight, and I was tired and really didn't want to go in to labor and delivery, so I kept trying to wait it out and relax, but it wasn't working and I finally told Jon that I would go in. I made him stay home with Sophie (it was hard enough to find a babysitter during the day, much less at midnight until who-knows-when!) and I went in to the hospital.

After having a slight emotional breakdown in the car thinking "Holy cow, what if they can't stop my labor! What if the baby isn't developed enough! What if he's so small he can't eat!" and other such thoughts, I made it to the hospital and found my way up to labor and delivery - almost falling flat on my face from painful contractions about 6 times. Yep, I'm graceful like that. :) After they hooked me up to the various monitors and took a urine sample (at which point I noticed the spotting for the first time which did not calm my nerves) they informed me that I was definitely in labor and that they were waiting to see what the doctor said as to whether or not they would admit me and let the baby come, or stop the labor and send me home. I was 34 weeks and 6 days! So as I waited nervously to hear what was going to happen, I started to text Jon back and forth to tell him what was happening and informed him that he may have to find a place for Sophie to go. Finally after an hour or so of sitting there worrying and trying to breath through my contractions, they came back with a tiny medicine vial and a syringe and announced that they would be stopping the labor. THANK GOODNESS!!! I was just not ready for my little guy to come quite yet! So they gave me that awful terbutaline that burns like crazy and then leaves you all sorts of jittery, and a little while later gave me an IV to replenish my fluids. So long story short, I spent a long, painful, boring, and tiring night there and around 8 AM they gave me nifedipine to relax my uterus when I went home to help me last until my regular appointment on Wednesday.

The next 2 days felt like I had been shot in the stomach and groin with a cannon, and anytime I tried to do anything I would get dizzy from the nifedipine and my stomach would tighten very quickly and cause me to have to lay down again. When I saw my OB on Wednesday, she asked if I had any family near by or anyone that could help me with Sophie throughout the day - to which I replied not really until Jon's done with his finals next week. So she didn't say the words "bed rest", but she did say that I was to move as little as possible and to only get up when absolutely necessary, to call on neighbors or friends to help if needed, and to keep taking my nifedipine until I could see her the next week, at which point we would stop the nifedipine and let the baby do his thing. And once Jon is done with his tests, she says I'm supposed to lay around and let him do everything for me and take care of me. Her goal was to get me to 36 weeks at least (which is next Monday), but I want to see if we can wait until Jon's done with his finals and possibly make it to 37 weeks, so we'll see. Since then, I've tried to do little things (like put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher) and if I can even accomplish it in one sitting, it still leaves me huffing and puffing and laying down for a long time after.

Problem is, I get so stinking bored laying around, and I feel like I'm not doing what I should! Poor Sophie is probably bored to tears and spends all day watching TV or coloring since I can't do much else with her, the dishes and house are suffering, and Jon has been eating leftovers (which luckily I had quite a bit of) for the last couple of days. Ugh, I'll just be glad when this is all over. Bed rest is boring. And I'm sore. But, at least I'm almost done, I'll get to hold my cute little superhero ninja baby soon, and hopefully he'll come when he's fully cooked! Until then, wish me luck! (And here's to hoping that next year we can have a stress-free, non-pregnant anniversary that we can really enjoy!) :)

Best Surprise Shower Ever!!!

Okay, so I've been meaning to post about this and just haven't had the time to devote to it. You'll notice that the last few posts are very poorly written (what? You didn't? You mean I write all my posts like that? Hmmm) and contain very few pictures (this part is DEFINITELY true). But I have to take the time to tell you all about my A-MAZE-ING surprise baby shower that some friends of mine threw for me!!! It was INCREDIBLE! Just how incredible was it, you ask? Well, let's just say it was "SUPER" incredible. Ha ha, you'll understand my hilarity in a moment. ;) So here's the story:

A few weeks ago my friend, Jenny, sends me a text that says "I want to go to lunch with you! No Babies!" This text came on a day when I was completely frazzled, we had just finished tiling the majority of the Master Bathroom, Sophia had been her little devilish angelic self all day, and I had mounds and mounds of dishes, laundry, and randomness covering my house, so of course I jumped at the opportunity! I told Jon that because I helped with the tiling when I really probably shouldn't have (as it left me unable to walk by the end of each day) that he owed me 1 afternoon of no kids to enjoy lunch with my friend. After telling me all about his study schedule and how much stuff he has to do for school all the time, he finally says yes (not that I gave him much of an option). So the date was set, and I was SO excited to get away from everything for an hour or two (shoot, I was even thinking of sabotaging the whole thing and eating a bite an hour to make it last longer!) The night before the lunch date, Jenny texts me and says when she'll pick me up and that she'll be taking me to a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant with some amazing bean dip. Mmmm....bean dip... Oh, and that another friend might be coming as well, but that she hadn't said for sure. At this point I'm so excited I'm thinking I'll go all out and even straighten my hair for it! But then I got tired...so I settled for going to bed "early" instead.

The next morning I hurry and get Sophie fed and dressed, get myself showered and dressed, take my time putting on my makeup (hey, this is the most excitement I've had in a long time!) and give Jon his instructions for watching Sophie while he rolls his eyes at me and teases me about getting so excited over lunch. When Jenny comes we hop in the truck and go to our friend Emily's house to drag her away from her children and her computer and force her to come relax with us. So we get to the front door and Jenny walks right in (they have that relationship, so I don't think anything of it) and I see a bunch of red and blue and yellow streamers and balloons and think "Oh, maybe it's Cohen's birthday?" (Emily's son). Of course then I see all the people there yelling "SURPRISE!!!" at me, and it still takes me a minute to get it! I'm looking around thinking "Oh crap, I just crashed a surprise party!" when I finally realize it's for me and make the dumb mistake of even asking "For me?" out loud because I was simply confused.

After they all laughed at me for a minutes (which I would have done as well!), we all go in to THE FEAST!

Holy crap!!! Have you ever seen this type of a spread at a BABY SHOWER before???? It was incredible! (Especially since I was expecting to go out to lunch, so I was STARVING!) :) And then I saw the part that just about put me over the edge (I was already on the verge of a pregnancy meltdown of tears and uncontrollable sobs because I was so happy, and this almost did it!)

Um....CUTEST STINKING THINGS EVER????????? I seriously almost died when I saw these! Captain America, Superman, Batman, Spiderman, and Wolverine onsies!!! And then Jenny showed me all of the other things I had missed during my period of shock. If you'll notice 2 pictures up there is a framed picture? Well here's a bigger version of it:

A Batman/Bruce Wayne picture!!! LOVE! And then there was...

The Superhero alphabet! There was also a bib that they had made that said "These Fools Put My Cape On Backwards!" Ha ha, they know me too well. :)

So we ate some food, played some games (we got to shoot the Joker in the face with a Nerf Gun!)

(Why yes, I do realize just how sexy I look in this picture! LOL!) We opened some presents (LOTS more superhero stuff!!!)

And of course, a lot of me making weird faces. (Have I mentioned how much I miss having a chin? At least with a chin I could pull off the weird faces! LOL!)

And what's this? What could Mindy possibly be so shocked/embarrassed by?

Oh it must be good - she's pretty embarrassed!

It was quite possibly the funniest part of the whole day! They had been writing down things that I said while opening presents that supposedly were "Things I said on the night my baby was conceived". I. Almost. DIED! LOL! So without further ado, here is the list:

 Yeah...you can see why I looked so funny in those last few pictures! Ha ha!

Basically, I had the best shower I could have possibly imagined thanks to the wonderful friends I've been lucky to have since moving down here to AZ. They had been planning this for 2 months, and were up until 2AM the night before just decorating! I am one lucky girl to have friends like this, that's for sure! Thanks again Emily and Jenny and everyone who came to surprise me! You're the best!

 Now we just have to wait for the Ninja to make his arrival so I can play with all of his fun new things!!! :)

10 Weeks of Fun Times Ahead!

Ah pregnancy, how do I love thee? Well, not as much as some people do, but I guess I shouldn't really complain because I really don't have a lot of issues that come with my pregnancies. However, as I've mentioned before, this one has been monumentally more uncomfortable and more painful than the last one, so I'll admit to some complaining. 

I hit 30 weeks yesterday, and to celebrate I decided to take a quick trip into Labor and Delivery at the hospital here to get checked out after having about 2 days of some pretty hard contractions, followed by a completely sleepless night where at one point I tried to get up to go to the bathroom and was completely bent over in pain. So after spending the morning soaking in the tub, drinking a TON of water and laying on my left side, I finally dropped Sophie off at a friends house and went in. Now, I had never set foot in the hospital before, even though it's in the same parking lot as my OB. So after painfully waddling around and asking directions, I made it to the labor and delivery area, filled out my paperwork, and got all settled in with my monitors. Ninja didn't like the monitors - he kicked and wiggled, and we had to adjust the fetal heart monitor about once every 20-30 minutes because he would either kick it out of the way or would flip so he wasn't in range anymore. They gave me lots and lots of water and an apple juice to sip one and told me to just hang out while the monitors did their thing. I watched some trashy court TV (unenthusiastic "yay.") and breathed through all of the contractions. Eventually they checked me to make sure that I wasn't dilating or thinning, which I wasn't (thank goodness!) and did a test to see my likelihood of having a premature baby. Pretty cool test in my book - they say it's 99% effective of predicting premature births up to 2 weeks out. Mine came back negative so we continued on with water and monitoring. 

After a while of watching spikes and plateau's on the monitors, they decided that dehydration wasn't the culprit here, so I got a nice little shot (seriously, the vial that the medicine came in was smaller than my thumbnail!) of Terbutaline. And for such a small amount of medicine, it sure has a kick to it! It burned like crazy going into my arm, and then made me so jittery that I tried to send a text (which I would have to type and then put on the side table as far away as I could reach because it was the only spot where I got 1 bar of signal - stupid phone) and failed miserably. Ninja got all hyper too and started flipping and kicking even more! Well this didn't help, so after some time had passed and a quick trip to the bathroom, they gave me another shot of it in my other arm. Now I was super DUPER jittery! Then they ordered the ultrasound (since Ninja kept swimming away from the monitor they wanted to check him out) and while his measurements came back completely fine and dandy (they also saw that he is still head down, which is good), they found out that I have a lot of excess fluid in my uterus. They looked at my chart and asked me 3 different times if I had gestational diabetes, to which I said no. Finally they explained that with GD it's normal to see this amount of fluid in the uterus, but without it, it's not. I asked what the effects of this were and was told (surprise surprise) that it can cause preterm contractions. Ha! The culprit was finally revealed!

You see, the extra fluid in there causes my uterus to stretch farther (makes sense). However, because the uterus is stretching so much, it has decided that it doesn't WANT to keep stretching, and so it fights back by trying to contract down a bit. This, of course, causes painful contractions and massive uncomfortable-ness for me. What does it do for the Ninja? Well, for now it gives him a LOT more space, which he loves. Because there's so much more room and he's not all confined and what-not, he's able to flip and spin and roundhouse kick to his little heart's desire all day long. He's happy as can be right now! However upon doing some reading after I got home, the downside to all of this extra freedom could come back as a negative later when it's time to deliver. For example, he may decide to flip or go sideways or otherwise not be in the right position when it's time to birth him, because he has the room to do it. Or when my water eventually breaks, the umbilical cord can be sort of "sucked" out first, meaning that he has a higher chance at being strangulated or otherwise impaired during the birthing process because of that being in the way. Both of these would lead to an emergency C-section. I'm not too worried - he's been in the birthing position for 3 weeks now, and they say that after 34 weeks the fluid will start to go down in volume a bit (hopefully!) so I think we'll be alright. 

So what now? Well, now I get to go on with life as normal. Regular routine and exercise, no bed rest or anything like that (Yay!) and just keep an eye on things. Oh, and also pray that my stomach doesn't just rip in half from it's insane size...because that would be bad. I'm still hoping that this little guy comes a little early, but when I say early I mean 37 weeks, not before then. In the meantime, you can watch my enormity grow and cross your fingers that we don't have to visit L&D until then! :)

And for your amusement - my giant 29 week, excessively fluid-filled belly picture. (I haven't taken one for 30 weeks yet, so this will do) :)