Fun Stuff

It has been a long week full of church stuff and the girls were getting kind of sick of it.  So to help them cope with the fact that I was going to be gone all night for a third night in a row Jeremy took them on a daddy/daughter date at the bowling alley.  I am pretty sure they forgot all about me once they walked inside the doors.  Jeremy said they had a great time and took some video of each of them. 

Shelby made me laugh because Fred Flinstone's it and runs and then throws the ball.  I also loved how she got on the floor to watch her ball, then celebrated with a booty dance.

 

 

Joey makes me laugh because Jeremy said her ball would go sooooo slowly down the lane that she would get bored and either sit down or lay down and watch it.  Too funny.

 

Joey has been begging us every day for the past month or so to take her to the zoo, but it has been too cold, and then we had a baby.  Last Saturday we had gorgeous weather, but I was exhausted and couldn't even get myself ready before 2 pm, so it didn't happen.  I felt so bad all week because I really wanted them to be able to get out of the house and do something fun.  So today, even though it was cold, gray, and there was a chance of rain, we went to the zoo anyway.  We had to bundle up, but it was great that there were no crowds and we could let Joey out of the stroller to run without fear of her getting lost in a crowd.  Lucy slept peacefully in the stroller the whole time. 

 

 

This gorilla made me so sad.  He was sitting with his hand on the door, just waiting to be let out.  We were literally face-to-face with him in the glass and he just stared into our eyes with this sad expression. 

I have been trying to get more pictures of Lucy when she is awake, but photographing newborns is hard!!

So I got this really blurry shot of Lucy and realized how much it looks like me in these (also blurry) pictures from 1982.

 

 

 

 

 

Three Weeks

I really have no real update.  I have been busy with church stuff this week (tonight will be the third night in a row of being out til late at the church) which means Lucy comes with me and just hangs out (sleeps), which in turn means she wakes up as soon as I get home and then wants to be awake (not crying, but just awake) til 2 am.  Sigh.  At least she is cute!

Shelby's 100th Day of School shirt

Sisters!

Lucy is the only one of the three that has taken a paci.

Two Week Update

The weeks are flying by too quickly!  Here is a two week update on all of us:

Jeremy:

Despite catering to the needs of a very uncomfortable pregnant wife for the first half of the month and becoming a dad of three, Jeremy had his best month yet.  He was even the topic of discussion at one of the recent RVP meetings.  We are so thankful to have such a hard working husband/father- even if I tease him all the time that he doesn't have a real job.

Aidan:

I am feeling good.  The first week postpartum is always hardest for me with all of the uncomfortableness.  But by day 10 I was feeling pretty good and we went to church.  I even made it to BYC and the SED that night.  I am almost back to pre-pregnancy weight, only 1 pound left to go, though I know I have lots of toning to do.  I tried to do some sit ups the other day but it hurt, and not in the good hurt kind of way, so I know I need to let me body heal a bit more before I do that.

Shelby:

Shelby loves Lucy.  She always wants to hold her and try to help with her.  She is doing really well in school and loves to read her books to us.

Joey:

Joey had a rough few first days adjusting to Lucy but she is now doing better.  I have learned that no matter how tired I am during the day that if I take time to play Little People, or make a train out of chairs, or ask her to come snuggle with me while we watch Scooby Doo, that the day will be so much better.  She still has her moments of defiance, but I think that is mostly age, not anything to do with Lucy.  She actually loves Lucy a lot and we are always telling her to get out of her face.

 



Lucy:

Lucy means "light", and she certainly is the light of our lives.  At her two week checkup today she weighed 8 lbs 7.5 oz- almost a whole pound since birth!  She is very mellow and still only cries when she is either very hungry or having her diaper changed.  She is usually pretty good to me and will only wake every three hours at night.  Tuesday night was a little rough because she did not want to go back to sleep easily after she would wake and nurse, so it seemed like I was up the entire night.  Thankfully there haven't been many of those kinds of nights!

 

 

A few funny things Jeremy has said about Lucy:

• "If you could find a vampire to bite her and keep her this way forever you probably would."
• "Crap!  I've called her Joey more times than I have her own name!"

Lucy Belle

 

LUCY BELLE JORDAN

1/17/13

12:39 pm

7 lbs 8 oz

20.5" long

 

 

Lucy is now one week old and I feel like if I don't go ahead and write down the birth story now that I might forget some of the details.  So here it is.

 

Wednesday night (the 16th) Jeremy went to pick my mom up from the airport.  I stayed behind to re-pack everything and make sure we had all we needed for the hospital.  I was so anxious it seemed like they were gone forever.  When they got home we put the girls to bed and headed to the hospital.  When we got there we found out that my doctor had forgotten to change the orders to show that I was going in that night instead of Thursday morning.  Doh!  So they had no beds and put me in the triage room.  (Funny note- when we got to the hospital I realized I had forgotten my retainer.  Yes, I still wear it.  Every single night.  I CANNOT sleep without it.  So I had to send Jeremy all the way home to get it.)  I wasn't in the triage room too long when they moved me to the labor room.  After being stuck three times for an IV I was finally all hooked up and ready.  Since I was only at 1 cm at my check up the day before, Dr. Holt was going to use Cytotec.  I was a little uneasy about it because of the things I have read about it (that's what they used on me for Shelby, and I was fine, but I read lots of negative info afterwards.), but I put my trust in her and agreed.  Well, before they started it the nurse checked me again and I was at 2, almost 3 cm.  So they called Dr. Holt and decided to skip the Cytotec and go straight to Pitocin.  Well that solved that. 

 

As the night went on and my discomfort grew I thought for sure things were progressing quickly.  But when Dr. Holt came in to break my water at 8 am, I was the same.  THE SAME!  What the heck?!  They upped my Pitocin regularly and I got my epidural at 9 am.  The thing about epidurals is this pain pump thing they give you.  They say to let them know if you have to press it twice, so I always feel like I have to wait things out and go as long as possible without pressing it so they don't think I am some wuss or drug addict or something.  I know.  Crazy.  I probably pressed it the first time around 11 am.  In the meantime the nurses had me alternating sides, lying with one leg up in a stirrup to try and speed things up and help Lucy on down the birth canal.  At around 12 they checked me and I was 6 cm.  At that point things started to get very uncomfortable.  A short time later I told the nurse I was probably going to press the button again and she said she would call the anesthesiologist to come back down, but she was going to check me first.  She quickly said, "Ok, she's right there.  Don't move, I'll get Dr. Holt."  Ugh...what?  What about the anesthesiologist?!  I kind of started to freak out because I was feeling the contractions and wondered how painful the labor was going to be.  But, after just a couple painless pushes, Lucy was born at 12:39 pm.  Just like Joey, her cord was wrapped around her head a couple of times, but she was perfectly fine.  I was hemorrhaging a bit and had to have a shot of Methergine, but all that turned out to be ok as well. 

 

Last preggo picture before going into the hospital.  39 weeks.

 

All hooked up and ready to go!

 

Thursday morning, shortly after I learned I hadn't progressed AT ALL.

 

 

 

 

 



 Lucy had her ultrasound on her kidneys on Friday and everything looked normal.  What a relief!  We got to come home on Saturday and then the adjusting began.  The girls love Lucy.  They (especially Shelby) want to hold her all the time and are constantly in her face.  Joey has had a bit of a rough time with us being so preoccupied by a baby, and has been acting out- throwing tantrums, being just plain defiant, etc.  Monday was especially rough.  We decided to venture out to get some lunch, then stop by the outlet mall, and then for ice cream.  Not sure why we decided to try and do so much with a 4 day old baby and two kids who hadn't fully adjusted to our change in family dynamics.  It was not good.  However, when Shelby went back to school on Tuesday and I was able to spend more time with Joey she had a MUCH better day.  She was so much happier and much more like her normal self.  Each day since then has gotten a little easier as we figure out how to be a family of 5.  We sure do love Lucy and couldn't imagine our family without her!

 

 

 



Hospital Bling







Sometimes I Am Awesome...

...and sometimes I just give myself migraines. 

After two years of 1 pm church, yesterday was our first Sunday back to 9 am church.  WOOHOO!  I love 9 am church so much more than 1 pm church.  Even though I had a dull headache when we got home, I had a huge spurt of energy and this immense desire to tackle a lot of the things on the to-do list.  Ordinarily I would have suppressed that desire (being Sunday and all) but Jeremy left to go out of town today and I just felt like it needed to be done before he left.  I finished cleaning the baseboards upstairs, vacuumed and steam cleaned downstairs, Jeremy vacuumed upstairs, I spot cleaned stains in the carpet using the ammonia/iron method, hand dyed some cheesecloth to use as a photo prop, bleached/scrubbed the diaper genie, and to top it off made homemade rolls and soup for dinner.  It felt good.

Until the migraine kicked in.  Maybe I did too much.  My migraines have been pretty good this pregnancy- not too many.  But this one is a MONSTER.  Of course, because Jeremy isn't here.  Nothing like being 38 weeks pregnant with two kids at home (Shelby goes back to school tomorrow), working, and feeling like someone is slamming your head with a hammer.  Sigh.  At least most of the to-do list is done.

Two Weeks

It's hard to believe we will have baby girl in just two short weeks!  I went for my checkup yesterday and was 1.5 cm dilated.  At my last ultrasound with the high risk doctor he noted that her left kidney was mildly dilated and recommended she have an ultrasound when she is a few weeks old.    Of course that freaked me out but my regular doctor assured me that they see that all the time and chances are it will correct itself before she is even born.

I am somewhat in nesting mode.  I have a to-do list a mile long, but haven't quite had that spike in energy yet to complete it.  I did manage to clean all of the baseboards downstairs.  I went through FOUR magic erasers.  You never realize how dirty baseboards get until you are on your hands and knees scrubbing them.

In preparation for the baby, one of the things that has been weighing on me is whether or not to give our dog away.  We have had her for almost 8 years.  She is a great dog- very good with kids and is pretty obedient.  But as our family grows I have noticed she gets less attention.  We don't ignore her on purpose, but all our daily activities seem to take precedence over throwing the ball with her outside and going on walks.  She is overweight right now and that makes me sad.  I placed an ad on eBay classifieds yesterday (did you know you can't post about free pets on Craigslist?), thinking I wouldn't get very much response and that I would talk to Jeremy about it when he got home.  Well, before he even got home I'd had about 5 responses and I've gotten at least 5 more since then.  I agreed to let a (seemingly) nice family come meet her tonight.  So we had to have a talk with Shelby and explain what was happening.  There were lots of tears from everyone and now I am the most hated person in the house.  It is really hard but we know giving her to a family that can show her a lot more love and attention right now is the best thing for her.  I am just glad that I won't be here tonight when they come. 

Funny Girl

Joey cracks me up all the time.  Here are just some of the many funny things she said today:

1)  I was sitting at my desk and she randomly came up to me and said, "Mommy, I want to make you happy", and then she gave me a big hug.  Aww.  Ok, that was more sweet than funny.  (And to clarify, I was not mad at all, just sitting there working when she came up to me.)

2)  The tv was on and a Nationwide commercial came on.  At the end, when they sing, "Nationwide is on your side", I could hear Joey chiming in with it. 

3)  Joey asked me today if Grandpas can play with Barbies.  I told her yes, but Grandpa doesn't live here so he can't play Barbies with her today.  Then the convo went like this:

Joey: Grandpa lives in Me-tah.
Me: No, he lives in Utah.  Say Utah.
Joey: Me-tah.
Me: No say you...
Joey: Me...

Shelby did the same thing at Joey's age.  Too funny.

4) Joey does this new thing where she sings this song she made up.  She gets this cool rock- star look on her face and dances when she does it.  It goes like this, "I'm going up and dance.  I'm going up and dance".  Don't know where she got it from but it cracks us all up and we beg her to do it over and over.