Montana here we come!

I wish now to dwell on a more positive theme. Though this one also has its share of sadness, we are mostly excited for OUR MOVE TO MONTANA! These are the plans: throughout this and next week we will move out of our apartment and into mom and dad Brady’s basement. On April 14th I will begin refresher training with the crew and get ready to fight wildfire. I am on call starting April 30th. Kristen will remain in the basement until sister Kara’s wedding. Then she will move to Montana and spend the rest of the summer in mom Asay’s basement. From our basement apartment to a basement, to a basement, we just don’t like the sun very much as you can tell. Come November when my baby has grown up without me and I am finally done fighting fire I will rejoin the family in Montana.

Through Kristen’s brother Steven I made the acquaintance a man named Tom, who is a Billings firefighter. He has been genuinely enthusiastic about helping me get a job with the Billing Fire Department. If I get the job Kristen and I will settle in for a few years while I continue to take classes here and there, then we will start applying for medical school. In this way we hope to have some grand adventures together before getting thoroughly trapped in school and debt. Our philosophy is this: if you sacrifice your ability to have fun in the present for the pursuit of having fun in the future, the future will arrive and you won’t remember what having fun is. We want our lives to begin today, not after medical school and a residency.

Developmental dysplasia of the hip

I guess life’s latest lesson is that bad things happen to little people. Of course I have always understood and accepted this, but I never expected to face it in my own family. With the plethora of diseases, disfigurations, syndromes, injuries and all the others that can befall our young ones, I suppose I should be grateful. Nonetheless, it is not easy to see the bright side of things when one so small and innocent is involved.

We still don’t have all of the details. We are expecting a referral from our pediatrician to see an orthopedic surgeon at primary children’s hospital. This is what we do know: Alexandria has bilateral hip dislocations accompanying her underdeveloped hip sockets. Best case scenario the dislocations will be reduced and she will wear a harness that holds her hips in a flexed position while they continue to develop. This could take anywhere from 1-6 months. Worst case scenario she will need a body cast for the present and face possible hip replacement surgery in her adolescent years.

We hope and pray for the best and ask for your prayers and faith also. Hopefully, when we finally get all of our questions answered, the problem will not be as severe as presently anticipated.

March 17th

Post by Tyler (note, this introduction is meant as a disclaimer). That's right, Kristen is no longer at the helm. I will try not to make this a disagreeable experience. Let me begin with March 17th. This is the day that my wife, with the help of an anesthesiologist, two surgeons, a scrub nurse and an obgyn nurse brought a small squirming purple creature into the world. I guess I should also add that said creature was wet and gooey. Upon careful consideration, my Kristen and I have decided to give this creature a name; it is now known as Alexandria Kara Brady. I suppose I should also add that the creature is female, but I am already getting ahead of myself. Let me backtrack to where the adventure of March 17th began. It was four-thirty in the morning when peacefully sleeping Tyler was brought into consciousness via some gentle Kristen nudges. This, I must admit, is not so deplorable a fate, for my blissful slumber was only destined to last a few minutes longer anyway, and the way I see it, better my wife than that horrible alarm clock, oh how I hate the sound!
We dressed and were off. Where? To a place which specializes in the birth of all such little creatures. The obgyn nurse obliged us by completing all of the requisite checking in, while an anesthesiologist prepared to harpoon my poor wife. I don’t know that I have ever seen her so pale in all my life. I take this as strong evidence that I am a good husband! If not so, I should expect to see such paleness regularly as a result of my own actions. Once numb from chest down, she was lead across the hall on her chariot. I followed closely wearing my handsome new space suit.
Moments later, I enjoyed, not really, the scene of what I will describe as "methodical disembowelment." Kristen's paleness increased. So did mine! I will liken this experience to one that occurred not so long ago in far away Montana, my first chicken butchering. I believe my paleness was, in great respect, correlated to the similarities between my wife's innards and the chicken's. We did not have to wait long before I was holding this new creature in my arms and with tears in my eyes celebrating its strange beauty. My wife also, I suppose, would have great cause to celebrate, but she was still intimately concerned with the state of her exposed entrails.
So, that is the story of how I came to have, in my very own personal possession, a cute little poop maker.

9 months

So here is our update on life I suppose.

We went to the doctor on Tuesday and found out that our little baby girl is in breech position. Feet down in my bladder and head squashing my stomach. This explains the little foot that randomly tries to push out my lower left side while I'm teaching math in the mornings.
We are going to go into the Hospital on Monday and the doctors are going to try and manually turn her over. This sounds like it involves lots of lubrication and pushing on my belly. If it doesn't work then we will be schedualed for a c-section, and from the sounds of it, this will take place either on or to close, to my birthday (the 18th).
In similar news, I found out that my principal told the teacher who would be taking over my class, that I would be there until April 7th. The sub was pretty shocked when I told her that while I had made lesson plans up until March 31st, I expected to be gone way before then. Just as I was shocked to hear she wasnt planning on comming until April 7th, March 31st at the earliest. I wonder just exactly what the prinicple was thinking when she failed to mention my March 24th due date to the sub. This is not my schedualing problem, My hands are clean, although it is so very frustrating.
For being 9 months pregnant i'm feeling pretty good. Much better than I was a month or two ago and I can only attribute this to all the prayers that have been comming our way. Thank you to everyone who has remembered us. Tyler has some news that I know he will want to post and so I will let him do this, as well as fill everyone in on the hilarity of our LaMaze class.

I now realize why it is called a belly "button"

My whole life I had and 'innie' then I became pregnant and my bellybutton gradually started to pop out. For awhile it resembled a nose, but now, it is definitely a button. The only thing Tyler likes more than grabbing my whole stomach and shaking it, is pushing the "belly button".
So we have been getting these pregnancy e-mails since like August. Every week they email you and say congratulations you are x-weeks pregnant and your baby is about the size of a (fruit or vegetable you have never heard of that come in a wide variety os sizes). This week at 30 weeks, we finally got a vegetable that not only we recognize, but that sounds about right. A Cabbage. So for all of you who haven't seen us lately my stomach is the size of a pumpkin with a cabbage inside of it. Not a large pumpkin, or a small one, a mediumish round one.
Throughout the pregnancy Tyler has been reading to me, because we like to read. Lately, whenever we relax and Tyler starts to read out loud, baby girl Brady has started moving around and kicking a lot. I noticed because it comes out of nowhere after stretches of no movement time. I would like to think it is her responding to her daddy's voice and that even in the womb she is bonding with her father,sappy things like that, but who knows.
I think I have also stumbled upon the realization that attitude really does effect everything. Since New Years Tyler and I have being trying extra hard to stay positive, happy and as stress free as possible. We are trying to read our scriptures more and serve one another instead of being selfish. We have been doing pretty darn good, especially the last little bit, and I don't think it is a coincidence that about that same time, my back, tailbone pain and heartburn have lessened dramatically. The end of December I never thought I would make it to March alive and still teaching. Now I ALMOST feel like a human being again, more or less.
Tyler and I have been released as primary teachers. This is exciting and scary because we were in the ward for about a week when we got called, and so the last year I have been to relief society about 3 times. Here we are relatively establish members of the ward, and no one knows us. We almost got called on to stand up and introduce ourselves as visitors last week. I was very ready to be released from Primary, but now I miss the security of it, and all our little friends.

Thanksgiving Anniversary

This was as close as we got to Rocky MT National Park on our way to Denver. A reason why it pays off to actually plan a trip before you take it.


Any season of the year, Tyler is drawn to water.





Tyler and I in the foreground at Grandpas Asay's "office" There he is in the background, one arm covered in cow manure. He is a vet, who pregnancy tests cows.