Priceless

I don't know if it's because I've had a lot more time to just sit and listen to what Alex says lately, or if she suddenly grew up in the last 2 weeks and has really figured out how to express herself. Probably a mixture of both. Here are a few of her gems...

- Alex's doll broke and I told her that Daddy would help us fix her doll later. Alex was already pretty sad and started to cry, then she said "Daddy run away again." In the most pitiful voice. (Daddy has never run away, I don't know why she chose that assortment of words)

- While putting her baby doll into Heidi's bouncer chair I overheard her say "Time to buckle up sweetheart!!" This was almost immediately followed by "Time out baby! no make mess."

- Yesterday Tyler and I were talking about the incentives the German government gives families to have kids. Tyler said "Ok, lets go to Germany" apparently Alex was listening in on the conversation and pipped up "Alex come too?!" Tyler said "Ok, you can come." Then Alex responded "Alex get socks first" and then ran to the bedroom, got her socks, took them to Tyler and then went hunting for her shoes.

- Last night we were all enjoying each others company on the couch and Alex tooted. I asked her if she had tooted and she said "Yeah, Ali... somebody tooted. Alex or the baby." I think Archie is finally off the hook now that we have a new scapegoat, as he is usually the one who gets blamed for the messes etc. that Alex makes.

My top 5's

Top 5 things that surprised me since having a second child.

1. I can differentiate between my children by the smell of their poop

2. How content I can be after a full day of watching Alex play while snuggling Heidi

3. My newfound ability to take naps

4. How much I forgot about having a newborn, and how quickly it all came back

5. That I have to protect Heidi from Alex loving her far too much, rather than trying to intentionally harm her.

Top 5 things I love about NOT being pregnant

1. No more HEARTBURN!!!

2. Being able to lay down on my tummy, and roll over without making a huge scene

3. Being able to wear clothes because I want to, not because it's the only thing that fits

4. Letting Alex crawl all over my tummy and wresting with her again

5. Being able to move freely

Top 5 things I miss about being pregnant

1. The huge, completely full, hard belly and watching it dance before bed

2. Being able to (more or less) sleep through the night

3. Having an excuse to drink a milkshake before bed every night

4. There is so much less to worry about with the kid inside you (but i'm really glad to have her out)

5. Thats it, I was stretching to come up with 4.

Heidi with her Grandma (LeAnn- hence the middle name)

Heidi with her Grandma Brady, only a few hour old here!

Heidi with her Great Grandma Jake

A few new picts.

We have been keeping pretty busy these last few days, with this...

The whole story

So I'm sure after all my "more info than you need to know" posts lately you are all wondering how the labor actually played out! So here we go....

Sunday after our walk of shame we came home and got to relax a bit while Grandma, and the church nursery babysat Alex. After church we met the family at Tyler's parent's house for dinner and games. My mom arrived in town early in the afternoon and Alex loved all the double grandma attention while my great Husband and brothers in law and sisters in law tried to keep my mind off of all the contractions by playing games, and having water fights. We finally went home, put Alex to bed and hung out with my Brother and sister in law until bed.

I was determined to get a good nights rest and so I took a bath, took a sleeping pill and put on a boring movie in hopes of falling fast and deeply to sleep. I think that lasted about 20 minutes before I woke up with the worst pain I have ever felt. There was no position I could stand, sit or kneel in that would help even remotely and so I decided to try another bath. I knew Tyler was so exhausted, so I determined to stay in the bath tub as long as possible before waking him up. The bath tub helped a bit, I stayed and dozed between contractions for probably 2 hours until the contractions were about 3 minutes apart and unbearable. I crawled into bed, waking Tyler up and said that we had to go, now.

I ate a handfull of trail mix on the way to the hospital and was still steadily having contractions every 3 minutes through the parking lot and up the elevator. I was having trouble remembering my birthdate at the check in counter it was so bad, but of course once they hooked me up to monitor, the contractions were back to about 5 minutes apart and I'd barely dilated at all since that morning. The nurse said they would watch me for an hour then send me home if I hadn't changed. Oh how I prayed for change, there was no way I was going home.

Well, about 10 minutes before they were to discharge me, and against the doctors orders, the blessed nurse decided to let me stay because randomly Heidi had a weird heart dip that was pretty unexplained and she wasn't "comfortable" with her heart patterns. That was the most blessed thing that could have ever happened.

On checking me in and starting my IV the nurse started to explain that she really thought I should get an epideral "just in case" the baby wasn't handling labor and they had to do a emergency c-section. Then the doctor came in and said it was standard procedure to give an epideral to V-BAC mom's so that if anything did happen they could dose me and get me into the OR fast, otherwise they would have to put me out and that would suck. They didn't plan on actually putting any of the pain killer into me, just the needle and tube, which sounded awful, but I didn't really have a choice. At this point, after all this talk of emergencies and such, I was also starting to feel like my chances of a VBAC weren't as good as I'd been led to believe, and that was pretty disheartening.

So... the doctor broke my water and then the anesthesiologist came in and said "hey, I'm putting the needle in, and I'm going to put a small amount of the drug in to make sure it numbs where it is suppose to." At that point my contractions hurt so bad I was glad not to have the choice to say yes or no to pain relief. This one thing that I had been so prepared not to do, and was so adamantly against ended up being the thing that saved the day. After over 50 hours of labor that caused me to barely dilate 1 cm, when he put the epideral in, I dilated 2 cm in about 1.5 hours. I think it was because without the pain I was able to relax and sleep like I hadn't done in 4 days. So after 3 hours of napping and loving it, and just when the awful pain was starting to return, the nurse came and said "hey the anesthesiologist is going into surgery, if you want a real dose of the epideral, this is your last chance for a few hours". Well, that's about all it took. While Tyler watched "the price is right" and I dozed happily with my oxygen mask on, I dilated 5 more cm within a couple of hours and then the nurse announced it was time to push.

This was so not like the movies portray it. There weren't any rushing doctors or screaming nurses or panic in the air. There was a bit of meconium in the water so there was a bit of nervousness about whether it had gotten into her lungs or not, it was because of that I pushed a bit more urgently than I had originally planned and ended up tearing a tiny bit here and there. When Heidi emerged it was discovered that the cord was wrapped around her neck which explained the distress which occasionally appeared on the monitors. Unfortunately they ran her straight over to the NICU team (because of the risk she inhaled meconium) and then said they were going to keep her for an hour because of her breathing. So once again I gave birth and was denied the pleasure of being with the child for a few hours which was sad, but totally understandable. Well, Heidi ended up only having to stay about 5 minutes in NICU while they observed her and then when I arrived in my room we got to hang out and it was a joy! She weighed in at 7 lbs. 7 oz. The exact same as Alex weighed at birth, only Heidi is a bit taller at 20.5 inches. The second best part of the day (after the successful birth of my second born), was the cranberry juice and bowl of cookies and crackers I was presented with after labor. I was starving, and I don't think anything in the world has ever tasted so delicious as that wonderful little bowl of crackers.

Once again it seems I was blessed with a very happy and content baby (knock on wood). I couldn't wait to be home with my family, (although I LOVED the hospital food and it was so hard leaving that, and the cranberry juice), so we requested to check out a day early and when little Heidi was only 28 hours old we came home to all the chaos of the real world. Things are going great, probably because my Mom is here being a 24 hour a day playmate and 'mother' to Alex while I get to enjoy taking care of Heidi. Tyler ended up choosing family over future and never went to Idaho Falls, I know this was a hard decision for him and I am so grateful for his choice. As for me, I feel about 3000 times better than I did with my c-section and am so thankful that things happened how they did and we didn't have to go down that road again. I'm convinced that I was so stressed out, tired and in pain that without the epideral allowing me to relax, things probably would have turned out quite a bit differently. I learned quite a few lessons this weekend. The sun is shining outside and in our home and we have been so blessed.

Heidi LeAnn Brady

She's finally here! Born Monday, May 3rd at 11:36 am. We made it, we did it, a successful (yet not at all how I imagined it) VBAC!!!

I pictured her looking just like Alex, but no, not really at all!

Alex adores her, and wants to hold and touch Heidi all the time.

As for now, I'm exhausted. Checking out of the hospital a day early seemed like a great idea at the time, and I'm so glad to be home, but i'm definitely missing a little bit of that peace and quiet right now.

Thanks so much for all the encouragement everyone, It's great to have such great friends that care so much!!!

The walk of shame

Thats what Tyler and I called it as we walked past the nurses station, down the hall, and out the hospital this morning, still pregnant.

I just finished a very long and excessive post that painted a very clear and dim picture of how I'm feeling right now, but at the last minute I decided it was probably for the best not to publish it.

Went to the hospital at 6am after a physical, emotional and mental breakdown brought on by being up all night again with hard and mean contractions. They were fairly consistent at that point, 7 minutes apart, and the Doctors had said to go when I was between 5-10 minutes because of the VBAC. New verdict, everything looks fine, come back if something weird happens or when you are 3-4 minutes apart.

Still 2cm dilated, but now 80% effaced, I was told to go home and call the doctors office tomorrow to set up an appointment for early in the week to 'decide what to do'. Not what I wanted to hear. At 5am this morning I was dreaming of getting an epideral just so I could sleep for more than 6 minutes at a time. I'm beginning to see the upside of things like pitocin and epiderals.

Poor Tyler is trying to decide between supporting his wife and family financially in the future by testing with the Idaho Falls fire department and perhaps getting a job, but being gone until Tuesday night, OR physically and mentally supporting his wife as she goes through her marathon labor. I can see him getting more stressed as the point of no return draws nearer and he must make his choice.

I must admit I feel a bit justified in my self pity at this point, after much research I found that the 'AVERAGE' labor lasts about 12 hours. I know it could be worse, but I'm going on about 37 hours of early labor, nonstop contractions, and thinking at this point being pregnant forever might not be so bad after all, as long as the contractions just stop.

Picture of an unhappy Kristen. This was in Cinque Terra, Italy cirque 2004. Pretty sure I was hungry, wet, and cold.

Due Day.

Today's picture is of Tyler, Cavan, Steve-o, Rachelle, Davido, Seth and myself on the hiking trip to Canyonlands where Tyler and I fell in love.

Here we are, May 1st, and no baby... yet.

I've been having contractions "constantly" since 2 am this morning. By constantly I mean that I haven't gone for more than 30 minutes at the longest, or any shorter than 8 minutes, but have pretty much been at 10 minutes between contractions since 2 am. By 4am this morning I was convinced I would be holding my baby by now, so it's been a day of Tyler trying really hard to keep me happy, optimistic and occupied so I won't get frustrated or stressed out.

So here is my post for the day, no baby as of 3:25, but there are still nearly 9 hours full of possibility so hopefully you won't be hearing from me tomorrow.