Birth Story

So here is the birth story for those of you that are interested.  It's pretty long but I want to remember the story so I'll have something to refer to for the other kids' labors so just skim it if you get bored. 

So I'd been having Braxston-Hicks contractions for months before Brynn was born.  The result was that I was already at 4 cm by my last appointment a couple of days before my due date.  So I was thinking, "Cool, I'm almost halfway there without any major pain.  This will probably not take very long at all!"  Little did I know.

My due date came. . . and went.  I wasn't really worried though because I had gone two days over with Aubrey and that was fine.  Well I waited and waited and waited and waited.  Finally I was almost a week over due and getting frustrated.  Still more Braxston-Hicks but nothing really helpful.  Then on 1:45 in the morning on May 17, I woke up with a pretty good contraction and some back pain.  The contractions left and I didn't have any more but the back pain stayed.  It was a throbbing sensation that occurred every couple of seconds on my left side.  I couldn't fall back asleep because it hurt and it hurt more every time I moved.  I was pretty miserable.  I wasn't sure if it was back labor or something else so I called my doctors office at 7 when they opened.  They said the only way to find out was to the hospital and get hooked up to a machine so we started to get ready to go to the hospital.  We had decided to have Brynn in the Powell hospital, about 1/2 hour away.  My mom lives in Powell so she could watch Aubrey for all my doctors appointments and we had heard good things about the Powell hospital and the Powell doctors. 

So we dropped Aubrey off at my parents house, went to the hospital and got checked in.  They did an ultrasound to check for a kidney stone but nothing showed up so they figured it was back labor.  Since I was contracting they let me stay.  I laid in bed for a long time dealing with contractions.  My sister had used the Bradley method with her baby and had lent me her book so I was using that for my contractions.  Basically it advocates relaxing your whole body through contractions so your body can get the work done unimpeded by tension.  So I was doing that pretty well but it did nothing for the back labor which was a constant thing that wouldn't go away.  So I eventually got something for the back pain in my IV.  It was pretty strong stuff and made me feel dizzy with only a half dose.  After that stuff wore off I still wasn't very far along in the dialation department.  So after a while they had me walk around and around and around and when that didn't do much they broke my water.  And after that didn't do anything, they started me on pitocin.  I'd always heard pitocin what an intense thing so they gave me another half dose of the pain stuff and again the back labor went away but I still felt the contractions.  So that finally got things going so I felt like I needed to push.  So they got the doctor and stopped the pitocin but then nothing happened.  So they started it up again and I started pushing.

I pushed for like 10 minutes, and they were not fun minutes.  I had an epidural with Aubrey so I hadn't felt anything last time, but I'd heard that pushing was a relief after waiting through contractions so I hadn't really worried about that part of having Brynn without an epidural.  Yeah, pushing was the worst part. That might have had to do with having a 8 lb 12 oz baby though. But those 10 minutes passed, and she finally arrived! She was very unhappy.  She screamed for almost half an hour but we eventually got her calmed down and nursing and then she slept.

Everything went pretty well after that except for a little scare when she started throwing up amniotic fluid and refusing to nurse.  But she got all the fluid out without us having to pump her stomach and got back to eating.  She's a good eater and had regained her birth weight within 5 days and she hasn't looked back.

She's a wonderful little girl and hasn't had too many uncontrollably hysterical crying jags or all nighters.  She has started to sleep 8 hours at night and smiling and talking a ton.  We are still working on getting a laugh out of her but it will come.  Here are some pictures of her around her birth.

Daddy holding his new little girl

Aubrey holding her little sister

Our first family picture!

New Baby Girl!

Brynn Kelley joined our little family on May 17th, 8:50 p.m.  She weighed 8 lbs, 12 oz, and was 19 3/4 inches long.  Here is a picture they took of her at the hospital for us then day after she was born. 

Randomness

We have had a few adventures lately that I thought I'd blog about. One of them was going to Billings, Montana. For those of you not in the know, Billings is two hours away from where we live and is the closest location of a mall, the temple, and any sit down chain restaurant like Applebees or Chilis. As you can tell, going there is a big deal. We first went to the zoo!

We saw the wolves or wolfes if you are Aubrey. 

The main attraction was the tigers they have.  He is sitting in the background underneath that pine tree.  The other one would walk right by the glass which was pretty cool.

They also have a red panda.  We told Bubs we were going to see a panda but when we got there she was less than impressed.  Her comment was, "It's a fox."

They also just got some grizzly bears in, but I didn't get any pictures of them.  For some reason the wolves and bears looked more frightening to me than the tigers.  Maybe it is because I have real examples all around me of the dangerous things those animals are capable of.  Those huge bears just sitting there gave me chills!

We also swung by the temple.  It was closed because it was a Monday but we snuck in the back gate so we could show it to Bubs up close.  We felt kinda bad when we were leaving and she said, "Bye temple!  We aren't going inside you!  We are going to the store!"

We then went to Cafe Rio for lunch.  One opened up last month and Sage has been dying to go.  Their pork barbacoa burrito is the thing he has missed most about Utah.  So with great anticipation we went, stood in line, ordered and ate.  I thought it was good, but Sage was in heaven.  He ate the whole thing in one sitting.  He felt pretty sick afterward but he declared it was totally worth it.

After that we just ran errands.  It was pretty low key but fun to spend time together. 

And here is a random picture of Bubs with her hair up.  It's great that it is finally long enough to do something with but she is also old enough to have strong opinions about whether she wants to sit still so I can do it.  When she lets me though it is pretty cute.

And finally here is a video of her singing the alphabet song.  We have been watching some alphabet movies and we've sung the song for her before but one day she surprised us with this little number.

Yes, she is saying don't sing with me.  Apparently she took the won't you sing with me part to be a negative thing and changed the song.  She is so funny. :)

Blanket

      Yes, it is the last day of the month again and so to keep up with my goal, I am blogging again.  This time it is about my new baby's blanket.  I crocheted a blanket for Aubrey when she was a baby, but I started before she was born and didn't finish completely until after she was a couple of months old.  So this time around I made goal (I was very into goal making this New Years) to finish this blanket within two months.  We found out we were having a girl on January 3 and I picked out colors and pattern a few days after that so I wanted to have it finished by the end of February.  And I'm done!  Well I have to weave in the loose ends, but all the major work is done.  Here it is!

      It was very difficult to finish it actually because right as I was about to finish the last dark pink section yesterday, I ran out of yarn.  I had to go out and buy a whole skein of the stuff just to use 3 feet of it.  It rankles my frugal soul because I don't know what I'm going to do with the rest of it.  Then as I was finishing the last light pink section tonight, I ran out of that yarn as well!  I wasn't going to go out with a toddler in the freezing weather in the dark to buy ANOTHER skein of yarn that I only needed a tiny bit of so I started looking around.  I ended up stealing the little yarn I needed from the small sample I had made up at the beginning to make sure I liked the pattern and the colors.  So after way more stress than I expected, I finished the blanket today and made my goal!

      And because she is just too cute, here is a picture of what happens when Aubrey helps me make cookies. 

Back!

So I have been taking a hiatus from the blog for a while as you can probably tell.  I have been reminded multiple times by my sister that I need to blog more so I made it a goal this year to do that.  I've decided that meanings blogging at least once a month.  Not exactly a "stretch goal" but one I think I can keep up with.

This same loving sister made a video with Aubrey earlier this year and sent it to me so I would have something to blog about so here it is.

Yes, she is going to be a big sister!  I am due May 11 and we found out recently that we will be having another little girl.  Sage said that he was going to be drowning in estrogen now, but I know he is happy. 

Mini Golfing with a Toddler

     We went mini golfing recently in Cody.  Bubs wasn't into golfing much.  Well, she liked the ball and throwing it and dropping it in holes (although she stopped that after a while because she had to get down on her hands and knees to get it back out again).  She also liked climbing up the little hills and valleys and putting the ball into the little houses and other things and watching it roll out again. It was a good thing no one else was golfing with us because she was at least a couple holes behind or ahead the whole time.  The only thing she wasn't a fan of was hitting the ball with the club.  She did it on her own maybe once and after a couple of holes we stopped trying to help her.  We did our thing, she did hers and we were all happy.

     There was also music playing over some speakers and, not one to pass up an opportunity, Bubs decided to get her groove on.  Ok, we might have encouraged her a little, but it is so cute we just couldn't help ourselves.  Here is the result.

Winter Pics

 We had 60 degree weather on Friday and a snowstorm Sunday.  In honor of that snowstorm, I'm going to post pictures we took this winter of Bubsy in her snowsuit.

My Aunt Ella sent us this snowsuit with a lot of other baby stuff (thanks again Aunt Ella!) when Aubrey was born but she is just now fitting into it.  It was great because she didn't get her hands wet and cold when she fell down and she was really warm.  And the fact that she looked like a total marshmallow didn't hurt either. :)

Here is a video of her on the swing at her Kelley grandparents house.  By the way, in Bubsy talk anything that you can swing on or slide down is called a Whee!