Pictures

Last week, I attempted to take some photos of my two kids (sounds nice) together. They're not professional by any means, but they'll have to do for now. Shooting two kids at the same time by myself is near impossible - even when I'm pulling out the big bribes for Rachel (like laffy taffy, gum, etc.).

I think they're pretty cute kids if I do say so myself! :)

We've also been taking some newborn pictures of Andrew to try to capture his cuteness, but we're saving those for a birth announcement, so you'll have to be patient!

Newborn "Honeymoon" Stage :)

I subscribe to a weekly email that updates me on helpful information for Andrew based on the number of weeks he is.  I wanted to share this portion of the email from a couple weeks ago because it was exactly how I felt (particularly the parts in red).

"Not only are you recovering from birth during these first two weeks, you are also becoming your baby’s mother, and that takes energy too. You will learn much of what you need to know simply by keeping your baby close, watching and loving him. During the first two weeks postpartum, your arms, breasts, voice, scent, and motion are your baby’s home, just as your womb was during pregnancy.
As your baby’s immature nervous system learns to regulate his heartbeat, breathing, appetite, and temperature, he needs your help eating, burping, staying warm, waking, and going to sleep. Even though your baby exists outside your body now, you are still not quite separate people. This feeling of oneness can be a powerful sort of bliss—or it can feel frighteningly limiting.Experienced mothers would tell you that babies grow up and become independent all too soon. They are newborns for just a few weeks, changing and maturing every day. Immersing yourself in his tiny world is okay. The outside world, and the rest of your life, will wait until you both are ready to meet it."


I seriously LOVE the newborn stage!  He's about 3 1/2 weeks now and getting cuter and cuter everyday.  But I fear that the newborn "honeymoon" is about over.  Especially considering the number of times he woke up last night!  AND the fact that we can't figure out which (if any) binky that he likes.  AND he is a super slow nurser still.  Good thing he's so dang cute.


Andrew's nicknames:  bud, buddy, pumpkin, brother, and last night's latest edition, punk :)   

Pumpkin Patch

With Grandma Nancy visiting for the weekend, we headed off to Schnepp Farms in Queen Creek, AZ for the annual pumpkin patch visit.  They even had a little rollercoaster, which she decided was a little too scary!  I was laughing so hard watching her curled up in a ball next to Brandon on the ride and Brandon was motioning to us that she didn't like it.  I don't blame her - it looked old and rickety!

Rachel also got to go to Chuck E. Cheese with Grandma Nancy and played with toys lots - especially "picnic".  Grandma also insisted that Brandon and I go on a date (first outing without the kids) and so we had a great time out to dinner (Red, White & Brew) and then to Target for treats (aka dessert).  Then on her last day Nancy asked me what I wanted to do and I told her that I wanted to clean the house, so that's just what we did.  It was so nice to be left with a clean house!  She's such a wonderful mother-in-law; I'm so lucky!

Kid's Rooms

The kid's bedrooms got re-vamped and here is the final product.

Rachel's room got painted light green (picking out paint colors stresses me out big time, which is why all my other walls are tan) and we found this cute vinyl/sticker that pulled the room together. Rachel's amazing daybed (made with love by Brandon) is actually up against her window to free up more space in the room. I put up a big panel of bright pink black out curtains (much longer than the actual window) that can be pulled to the side if needed.

Andrew's room is red & blue and just has a bunch of random boy-stuff in it. Brandon and I actually made the blocks that spell his name and loved how they turned out!

Brandon made this picture in photoshop that hangs in Drew's room:

Lots of new posts

Be sure to keep scrolling down! I'm on a roll!

Family of Four

I am not a big fan of lizards - especially when they get inside my house. So far, Brandon has had to catch two that snuck inside and I am zero help - I just stand on a chair and yell orders. Nana has no fear of any kind of animal (Rachel especially loves to catch the snakes with Nana in her backyard), so Nana caught a baby lizard out back so that Rachel could play with it. Gross. It was basically crawling all over Rachel. Check out the picture of the lizard jumping off Rachel's shoe.

You might remember this - well, it was time again for our King Benjamin campout for General Conference tradition! We may have had a 3 day old baby, but Brandon didn't want to let Rachel down and she was so excited to sleep in the tent with dad. They watched a movie in the tent and got all settled. Then Rachel said, "Dad, let's go inside and sleep in my bed!" Well, that was short lived, but fun anyway!

One afternoon while Andrew was in the hospital, I snuck away to play with Nana and Rachel at the Zoo while Brandon stayed with Drew. We had some fun adventures! Rachel wore some new light-up tennis shoes and while we were checking out the otter, her shoe fell off into the otter exhibit. She was devastated and cried because she felt so bad. It didn't take long at all to find a zoo worker who quickly got the shoe, which eased Rachel's fears of losing her shoe to the otter permanently.

Being silly with Nana & sharing a giant soda with Mommy

Nana wanted to see if Rachel would ride the camel at the zoo. We weren't sure since she refuses to get on Papa's motorcycle because it's too scary (even while parked). She was too short to ride by herself, so the worker said that one of us would have to ride with her. He then pointed to my stomach and said that I obviously couldn't ride with her (because he thought I was pregnant - nice!) ... I was able to laugh about it and told him I had a 6-day old baby. Not that I felt like hopping on a camel - ouch! - so Nana took the ride with her and she loved it!

Being a big sister ROCKS! Rachel is so sweet to Andrew and loves to help out and is concerned when he cries. She's been a big helper and loves that he's part of our family.

HOWEVER, her behavior towards Brandon and I has been pretty terrible. She has been very disobedient and her manners have nearly disappeared. She talks back like a teenager and is very demanding. Yikes! We are trying to be very patient with her and we're trying to continue our normal routines and disciplining.

Grandma Nancy comes to visit this weekend! YAY! Stay tuned for more adventures.

Back to the Hospital

After our pediatrician visit on Monday, we had 2 tests to get Andrew's bilirubin checked for jaundice - day 5 was 17.5 & day 6 was 19.2. Since it was still going up and getting close to 20, the doctor recommended we take him to the NICU at Banner Desert for photo therapy. I was confused why I couldn't do something at home, (especially since he was eating and peeing/pooping great) but we trusted the doctor's orders, so off we went to the hospital Tuesday afternoon.

My hormones made my emotions completely out of whack and I was a mess! I think it was because I couldn't imagine that there was anything wrong with my perfect, little angel and especially not something that would merit a hospital stay. I was also emotional about not being able to be with Rachel and I was sad that I wouldn't be able to hold Andrew except for feedings every 3 hours.

The hospital stay ended up being fine - Andrew was a total trooper - and on the positive side, it means that the photo therapy and heel pokes are over now. We stayed a little bit longer than I would have liked (2 nights), but it's nice to have it all taken care of. From what I understand, jaundice results from having too much bilirubin in the blood. Bilirubin is formed when the body breaks down old red blood cells (babies usually have 45-60 red blood cells when they're born and the doctor said Andrew had 60, so he had more to break down). The liver then processes and removes the bilirubin from the blood (through stools). They also wanted to check to make sure he had no other infections and gave him formula rather than my milk for a few feedings, because it makes the body work harder to digest.

We're back at home now and everything seems back to normal - as normal as 2 kids feels. Also, did I mention that Brandon gets 2 weeks paternity leave - SCORE! It has been so fun to have him home so much.

Bringing the new one home

We were happy to have Nana & Papa drive down to spend time with Rachel while we adjusted to a new little one. My dad stayed for the weekend and my mom stayed for a week. She basically overhauled our yard, cleaned our house and ran a bunch of errands, all with Rachel as her sidekick and they had a blast together!

As we were talking to Grandma & Grandpy Hale on Skype, I was mentioning how swollen Andrew's eyes were. Grandpy Val mentioned that when he was a baby his eyes were also swollen and everyone called him Mr. Magoo. I thought that was very fitting - here's the side by side for you to compare. So I guess Andrew looks a little bit like his grandpy did when he was born. :)

I can hardly get enough of this little guy. He's much skinnier than Rachel ever was, so I feel like he's super teeny. I was surprised by his length at the hospital being only 20 inches; a few days later at the pediatrician's office, they measured him at a little over 21 inches - that sounds more accurate, so I'm amending the original stats and saying he's 21 inches.

Andrew also has extremely long fingers and toes. He has a big nose (similar to Rachel's) and had swollen eyelids for at least the first 4 days. His skin has been so red, and he also has some jaundice, so I'll be interested to see what his skin tone ends up being. He also usually has a scowly-look on his face, one that only a mother can love. So far, he's a great sleeper (duh!) and nursing is going great. He's so sweet - I love cuddling with this little man!

For those of you wondering, we call him either Andrew or Drew for short (you can use whatever comes naturally to you). I'll probably use both quite a bit.

(All pictures here were taken at 1-2 days old.)

I love epidurals (Labor Story)

Short Version:

4 hour labor

4 am : at home started counting contractions

5:15 am : arrived at the hospital - dilated to 7cm at triage

6:15 am : epidural (hallelujah) given - dilated to 9cm

7:38 am : Andrew born!

Long Version:

I knew Andrew would make his arrival early. Mostly because I was dilated 3cm at 37 weeks and at my 38 week appointment, I was nearly 4cm. My doctor stripped my membranes to see if my body would start labor on its own (rather than be induced October 5th). That night, I felt a little off, but wasn't experiencing any contractions, so I just kept busy cleaning and went to bed early. I told my mom that there was no way anything would happen, so not to worry or get excited. I also sent a text to meet Lore & Mandy at the park in the morning.

I woke up quite a bit in the night with a little tightness, but nothing significant and I was sure my mind was playing games with me. Around 3:45a I thought that something might actually happen, but hoped it would be a few hours so that we wouldn't need to call anyone in the middle of the night. I started writing them down at 4:00a and they were surprisingly close together - like every 5 minutes or so - whoa! They started getting stronger and we finally called Lore at 4:45a and she raced over to our house so Rachel could sleep (thank you, Lore!). By 5:15a we arrived at the hospital and the contractions were really tough. I was very uncomfortable and started panicking that I wouldn't be able to get an epidural. At triage, they checked me and I was dilated 7cm so they hurried me back to delivery to get everything started. They were going as quick as they could and my nurse was saying, "My patient wanted an epidural yesterday." And that is exactly how I felt - I had never experienced these strong contractions with Rachel and frankly, I was miserable (and I'm a big baby) and I was starting to panic. You see, I get really stressed out about the whole pushing part and I couldn't imagine trying to push a baby out while struggling through painful contractions (way to go, pioneer women, but an epidural was made for me!). I also don't have a very high tolerance for pain and this was really pushing my physical and mental limits. Brandon was fantastic - he kept calming me down and encouraging me - he was a rock star.

Around 6:15a, they got my epidural in (YAY! YAY! YAY!) and it was so much better from there. I was able to calm down and focus and make some phone calls to family. They checked me right after I got it and I was 9cm dilated. Some may say that if they knew they'd have a short labor (mine was about 4 hours this time around, compared to 11 hours with Rachel) that they would definitely be able to do it without an epidural, but not me - I needed it for that last hour. It was worth every penny too (side story: we paid cash for this little guy since I couldn't add maternity coverage to our private insurance plan).

I pushed for just under an hour. After my first pregnancy delivering a 9 pound baby, I figured this one would just slide out :) but this one was different because my contractions really slowed down so a lot of the hour was just waiting in between contractions (sometimes 5 minutes apart - yes, it was a little awkward but who really cares at that point). But Andrew and I finally figured it out and he was born at 7:38a. What a special moment that is - I was overcome with emotion and could hardly speak. And I felt overwhelmed with so much love for him and I was so happy to have him here.

It was an amazing experience. And it went much quicker than I had anticipated - I didn't have much time to worry. To be honest, I couldn't have said that about the labor with Rachel - I think I was in shock after I had her and I remember specifically thinking that I knew why people only had one child. I'm not sure why, but the only way I can describe how I felt with my first was pretty terrified at how everything happens. I didn't have any bad feelings towards her, just a lot of anxiety about the labor/delivery and hoped I would quickly forget how miserable I had felt. This time around, I was pleasantly surprised and honestly felt a ton better. I was also able to see that the body is incredible and that the delivery is a natural, beautiful thing.

I was also so grateful that I had made the decision to deliver with Dr. Huish at Banner Gateway. It was the same doctor that delivered Rachel and he is fantastic! Earlier in the pregnancy, I had considered a maternity package plan at Maricopa County Hospital for women without maternity insurance ($3500 for doctor visits and a vaginal delivery with an epidural). It really was a difficult decision because Maricopa would have been more than half the price of delivering at Gateway, but I went with Dr. Huish because that's what I felt was right and would be the best choice for our family.

We stayed in the hospital with Drew for about 30 hours and I just loved being there with Brandon and this new, special spirit who we immediately fell in love with. Lore took care of Rachel for the day and even brought her to meet her new baby brother. It was precious and it was nice to be there as a family for a few minutes ... then Rachel got all loud and hyper and I was ready for her to go back with Lore and return to the peace and quiet with our little newborn. :) Nana and Papa arrived later that night from Orem - they drove down as soon as they heard I was in the hospital. Rachel was so excited to see them and it was great to have the extra help!

Happy Birthday, Andrew!

Here's a video Brandon put together for family and friends! It's lengthy - consider yourself warned.

(I had to set this video to "public" in order to have everyone view it, so I'll have to set it to private in a few days. If you missed seeing it and want to check it out, then send me an email/text and I'll send you a private link. Weird that you can't imbed a private you tube video onto your private blog - since you only get 50 invites for a private video - when someone tries to play it, it says that the video is private. Does anyone know a better way to do this?)

The Latest Edition

He's here! What a good boy - 2 weeks early - must be very punctual, just like his daddy.

Andrew Parker Hale

September 30, 2010

7:38am

8 pounds 1 ounce

21 inches long

He's got lots of cute hair! Rachel thinks he's pretty special - so far, so good. Nana & Papa jumped in the car and headed down to Arizona as soon as they heard I was in the hospital, so we have lots of help! We got home from the hospital this afternoon. More details to follow.