Some pictures

Here's a few pictures of our Miss Audrey. I was able to snap a few with her eyes open. And in some of them you can see her little "stork bite" just under her nose.

 Grandma R came to visit us and help out. The day she got here she and Audrey both got a nice nap. :)

Jenna took the picture of Grandma, then continued to snap a few more. Adam likes to be cheesy in pictures!

Audrey was a little cranky one evening because we were trying to keep her awake, so Daddy was trying to entertain her.

Big yawn!

And Will broke his arm on the 17th. Boo. This is just his splint; he'll get a cast next week. Hopefully he's learned his lesson and won't try to jump off the top bunk anymore.

A New Addition

We have a new addition to the Joel Robertson household!

Audrey Marilyn Robertson

was born June 29, 2012. I will tell a slightly shortened version of the birth story, since the long detailed version is in my personal journal.

On Thursday, the 28th, I started having contractions in the evening; around 5 or 6 pm. They were definitely more intense than the contractions I'd been having previous to this, and they were fairly regular. Coming about every ten minutes, give or take. I went about my evening, but by bedtime they hadn't gotten closer together. They were still coming, and still intense, but still a good ten minutes apart.

So I went to bed, figuring it would go away if it wasn't real labor. Well, the contractions didn't go away, but they didn't get closer together, either. After a few hours of laying there (they were too painful to sleep through), I got up and moved around. Read some, walked around the living room and kitchen, got on the computer, and generally wasted some time. Contractions were still coming; they were slightly closer together when I was up and moving around, but went back to 10-15 minutes apart when I sat down.

So I went back to bed to try and rest, if I couldn't sleep, and at that time Joel and I decided that I would rest until 3:00 am (which was for 45 minutes) and then we would call the hospital and see what they recommend we do. So that's what we did, and when we called and explained that the contractions were ten minutes apart, but not going away, and this is my fourth child, and I was dilated 4 cm at the doctor's office on Tuesday, they told us to come in and we would just see how things went. 

My wonderful sister, Rachel, came and stayed with the kids while we went to the hospital. Once there we found out that I was dilated 6 cm, so I would be staying. :) So they moved me from triage to labor and delivery. At about 5:30 Dr. Huish came and broke my water, at which time I was dilated 7 cm. The contractions hadn't gotten much closer together, however. They were between 5 and 10 minutes apart. So even though they were painful, there was so much recovery time in between that it wasn't all that bad.

I ordered the epidural when the doctor broke my water, and I got that around 6. Soon after that Dr. Huish was back and I was dilated 9 cm, so he came again shortly thereafter when I was 10 cm and I started pushing. I had to push longer with this baby than with the last two babies I've had, partly because the epidural was very effective, and partly because baby's head was turned slightly so she wasn't quite dropping down all the way. But the doctor was able to turn her head, she dropped, I was able to push more effectively, and she was born at 7:18 am on Friday morning!!

She was a chubby little thing: much bigger than our other kids at 7 lbs 14 oz. and 20 inches long. She let out a good cry right after she was born, but then she seemed a little reluctant to breathe. The nurse took her over to the little station and sucked out quite a lot of amniotic fluid from her stomach and gave her some oxygen. She said that sometimes when they swallow a lot of fluid right when they come out it kind of shocks them and they stop breathing. But she was just fine, and soon she was crying normally.

She is a beautiful baby, and I can't describe how wonderful it felt to finally have our little girl here with us. I'm still amazed by her every time I look at her pretty face, or her tiny toes, or her beautiful hands. She is such a sweet little angel!!!

We both did fine after the birth, though I was incredibly tired all day Friday since I wasn't able to sleep at all Thursday night. We were able to go home Saturday around noon. Another one of my amazing sisters, Amy, stayed with our kids Friday night and Saturday morning. It was great to not have to worry about them while we were in the hospital, knowing they were always being taken care of by good family. Thank you!!

The kids are just as in love with Audrey as Joel and I are, as you can see from the pictures below. They are always petting and kissing and loving on her. Someone is always willing to hold her if I need an extra set of arms. And they are all great at helping out by getting things I need or putting things where I need them to go. Sometimes we do have to tell them to give the baby some space because they tend to hover and crowd, but they definitely love their new baby sister!

I'll caption  most of the pictures so you know what you're looking at, and so I'll remember what I'm looking at in the future. :)

Joel and I soon after Audrey was born. You can tell I was tired! 

First picture of Audrey. She's getting some oxygen, and if you click to enlarge the photo you might be able to see the tube that is still down her throat that they used to suck out the amniotic fluid. 

Mom and baby. 

Dad and baby. 

First bath. They did it right in the L&D room, which they never did with my other babies. I liked that they didn't take her away. 

A clean baby. 

Sleeping after they moved us over to the postpartum room. 

Sisters! 

Dad with all the kiddos. 

Getting ready to go home. Wearing the dress that I made for her. 

At home! Adam wanted a closer look. 

 Admiring baby sister.

Adam looks pretty big next to Audrey! He's not the baby of the family anymore. 

She's so pretty!! 

Sleeping in the car seat after the newborn checkup at the pediatricians office. 

Adam was holding her and decided to lay down. It was really cute!

Audrey continues to get even cuter by the day, if that's even possible! She definitely looks like our other kids when they were babies, and she also looks like Joel. She is a good baby, and she eats and sleeps well. She doesn't fuss very much, which is helped by the fact that there is always someone willing to hold her. She isn't awake much yet, which is why we don't have many pictures of her with her eyes open. We love her so much! We feel incredibly blessed to have her in our family!!

Still

38 Weeks. And. Still. Pregnant.

36 weeks

Here I was yesterday at 36 weeks. I'm feeling about as good as you would expect a pregnant woman would feel a few weeks before she has a baby. :)

I have a doctors appointment on Wednesday and I look forward to finding out how things are progressing. Technically I'm considered 'full term' by the end of this week. On one hand I really can't wait to have this baby, and on the other hand I'm not sure that I'm (we're) ready yet!

In other news, Joel is home!! His preceptor in Lovell let him finish a week early, so Joel left early Friday morning and made it here around 11 Friday night. It is great to have him back! I know he really enjoyed his rotation in Lovell. He learned a lot and enjoyed the work. But he is happy to be home with his family, and we are more than happy to have him home with us. It's obvious how much the kids have missed him. There has been so much wrestling around, pretend fighting, climbing on, etc. Mom is just no good for that! Especially at 8 months pregnant! They even left early this morning to go hiking. The kids are in heaven (and so am I).

33 weeks

Mother's Day

I opened my presents from the kids bright and early Sunday morning. They made me such cute, thoughtful gifts. Jenna made me this beautiful bouquet of paper flowers. I wish you could see each flower better. They are all beautiful and unique. She also made me a book.

Here is the back side of the bouquet.

Here is a picture of one of my favorite pages from her book.

William also made me a book and drew me a picture. The book was really amazing, and I can tell he spent a lot of time making it. I took pictures of a few of my favorite pages.

If you can't read it, this page says, "I like being with my Mother most when we have time to play a game."

I love my kids so much and I'm really thankful that I get to be their Mom!

Surprise!!

It was Thursday evening. Most of us were finished with dinner. Jenna was in the back yard, Adam was playing somewhere, and I was talking with Will, who was still finishing up his food. I got a call from Joel and the first thing he said was, "Knock, knock,". Then someone knocked on the door. I was telling Joel about the strange coincidence that he had said knock knock right when someone knocked on the door as I went over to see who was there. Right before I got to the door it opened, so I figure it was just Jenna and she had come around from the back yard. I was wrong. Standing right outside the door was... that's right... JOEL!

I very literally could not believe that he was here! I think I said, "Shut up!" a number of times. I was frozen in place, couldn't even go to hug him. He came in and hugged me and it still took a second for me to move to hug him back! I cannot describe the level of my surprise! I cried, of course, and kept saying, "How?"

Joel had been very tricky; he booked a flight to Mesa last minute Thursday morning and had a friend pick him up from the airport and bring him to our house all without my knowledge. It was such a wonderful early Mother's Day present!

We had an awesome couple of days! It was so wonderful having him home and just being near him. It probably took 24 hours for me to stop saying, "It's really you, you're really here," and things like that. We laughed so much together and really just enjoyed our time together. The kids were obviously really happy to see Dad! The older kids were almost as confused as I was when he showed up because they understood how long he was going to be gone. They were really sad when they found out he wasn't staying, but they had so much fun with him while he was here.

I didn't get any great pictures because I just used my ipod. But here's a few pics from Friday and Saturday.

(Isn't he so handsome!!)

We took him back to the airport this morning. That was rough for me, to say the least. I'm sure I looked like a mess at church, but oh well. I got some fun things for Mother's Day, and I'll do a post about that soon. Having Joel home was definitely a wonderful present! He is now back in Wyoming for the rest of this rotation, but we are almost halfway done.

Thank you, Joel, for coming to spend the weekend with us! And thank you for doing it in such a spectacular way! We love you SO much!!