1 week old

Jackson was visited by his great grandparents the other day. They were in town for some graduations and stopped by to see him. These are Justin's grandparents and they live in Star Valley, right by his parents. It was nice of them to come by!

Here we are at 1 week! In some ways it seems like it has been long and in other ways short. He is the best baby ever! By far my best. I'm not sure if it's because he is the biggest of my babies, that he's a boy, or that the 3rd time around makes a difference, but we are very grateful he is so good!!

So far he likes the bouncer ok. We keep it upstairs and he hangs out there when we eat dinner or are just hanging out up there. He seems to love the swing. We try every night to get him to fall asleep in the portacrib (Ali is still in the crib), but he just fusses and when it's late at night we usually end up giving in to the swing. We turn it on for a while, then try to turn it off. I'm sure it's not the best habit to get him started on, but what can I say, we value our sleep too! Have you let your babies sleep in a swing at night?

The first night home was pretty awful. He was up every 2 hours for a while and we could not get him to calm down and go to bed for very long. But the next night was great. He had a 5 hour stretch! Every night since then, he has had a big 5 hour stretch and I consider myself very lucky! Last night he went another 4 hours after the 5 hour. I'm hoping it continues! During the day I still have to wake him up about every 3 hours. Just a sleepy little guy still!

But I think each day he is awake for longer and longer after he eats. I have been really happy with my experience nursing this time around. I made it a point to try to feed him as soon as possible after he was born and I think it made a huge difference. He latched right on and he has been great ever since. We haven't really had a lot of problems and he seems to be pretty content. I try to hold him to about 30 minutes total each feeding. That's what the pediatrician recommended that he should do so I'm trying to get him to eat and be full in that amount of time. Every once in a while he will want to eat after 2 hours,  so we do that, but he usually goes 3 hours, or even longer if I let him. We still play the game of me trying to keep him awake while he eats, but that is to be expected with a newborn!

The girls love their brother still and have been great this week. I was worried Ali would be clingy, but she's not at all. My mom has been around all week and has kept them busy or distracted. I have time on my hands since he just eats and sleeps essentially, so I try to play with them when I can. Justin's schedule is pretty flexible and if he doesn't have any more work, he just comes home. It is so nice not having him in school!

I love this picture! Pictures of newborns don't always do them justice, but he is so handsome (of course I think he's the most beautiful baby ever!) and we are all in love with him.

So far I have been peed on twice. Both times were yesterday! The first was while I was feeding him. It just leaked right up through his diaper. Oops! I didn't expect that! The other time was while I was changing his diaper and he peed everywhere. My fault there! I wasn't covering him up like I should! The past few days he has pooped after I feed him on both sides! As in 2 diaper changes during 1 feeding! I'm hoping he's gaining weight because he sure is pooping a lot! Sorry if that was tmi. My girls were never like that!

His umbilical cord is still on and hopefully it will come off soon! Also, since he was overdue, his skin is really flaky and dry. I put aquaphor on his body a few times a day and the skin is still coming off. He  has a few cracks in his skin, and a few places where it has started to bleed. I've never had a baby this dry, but I'm doing my best to keep him covered in lotion when I can. He's not a big fan of me rubbing it on usually.

That was a novel, but that's what I've been up to this week! My parents leave tomorrow for a week long trip, but Justin's mom is coming to help! And I just signed Molly up for swimming lessons starting on Monday. I hope she does ok. She is pretty terrified of the water, so I'm hoping this will help so we can swim this summer!

The Name and Story

After much discussion, we have named our baby Jackson Porter Pendleton. Porter is a family name on Justin's side.

Isn't he an angel?

A few details from our visit.

My mom and the girls brought me these pretty flowers!

 The story:

Friday night I started having contractions at about 5:30 pm. After they had gotten to be about 5-7 minutes apart for about an hour and a half, I told Justin we should head to the hospital. When we got there, they checked me and I was still at a 3. No good! They monitored me for an hour, my contractions slowed down and when they checked me again, no progress. It was so disappointing! I have only had my water break before, so this contraction business is new to me! So they sent me home. 2nd false alarm!

The nurse suggested I take a warm bath and that would help either speed up or slow down the contractions. So I took a bath and then we went to bed. I had contractions all night. For about 4 hours they were roughly 5-7 minutes apart, but they suggested waiting until they were 3-5 minutes apart. Then the next hour they slowed down again. They started back up again and I finally decided it was about time. I had been in pain all night and I better have some progress after all that! I had a bowl of cereal, woke Justin up and after he was ready, we headed to the hospital again.

We got to the hospital just before 8 am and when they checked me this time, I was at a 5!! I told Justin if they had told me I was at a 3 still, I would have started to cry. And I really think I would have! My contractions were hard enough that if I was walking I had to bend over. The nurse asked if I wanted an epidural and I said yes please, as soon as possible! She said she needed to get my blood work back before they gave me an epidural, so they started an iv and when the blood work came back, the dr. came in and gave me the epidural. This was probably around 9 am or so. After that, life was good! I was so happy to get some relief at that point. I needed 2 doses of penicillin before the baby was born, so they waited until I was at a 7 to break my water. After that, they thought it would be about an hour and a half and he would be ready to come.

They were right and after the last of the penicillin, they checked me again and I was dilated to 9 3/4. They called the doctor and he checked me a few minutes later and I was at a 10. I pushed through 2 sets of contractions and he was here! He was born at 1:24 pm.

After they weighed, measured, and cleaned him off, they gave him to me to do skin to skin and then I was able to nurse him. He did great. It was so nice to be able to hold my baby and keep him with me since last time they whisked Alison away and I didn't see her for several hours. He is such a good baby. He is great at nursing and sleeps great too. They would have discharged me yesterday, but I wanted one more night with the nursery. My pain has been really low, so that has been great. I have been able to take naps with him and don't feel too exhausted yet!

He was not too happy when we took him out of his warm blanket and changed his clothes to come home! He sometimes takes a binky, but it takes a few minutes for him to figure out what to do with it.

He was bawling as we walked down the hall out of the hospital. Poor guy! But he finally stopped crying and when we got home, the girls were so excited to see their brother again. We are thrilled to have Jackson in our family! He looks a lot like Justin from baby pictures, but Justin had blond hair. He also has full cheeks and a double chin already! He passed his hearing test and we take him in at 2 weeks to see the dr. again. It seems kind of crazy to have 3 kids, but so far, so good! It's nice to be home!

Visitors

Yesterday we had more visitors. It was quite the party! Justin's parents came down with his brother Brad.

 This is their 2nd grandson, making 9 grandkids on the Pendleton side.

Uncle Todd

Aunt Natalie

Cute cousins. Mitt, Major and Emery.

The hospital provides a special dinner for two one night during your stay. They set up this cute table and have a special menu. We had steak, potatoes, veggies, rolls and some yummy chocolate moussecake. Oh and martinelli's to drink :) It was a fun little dinner.

Thanks to all of our visitors! We had fun sharing our newest addition!

Welcome, baby boy!

Our baby boy finally arrived at 1:24 pm Saturday, May 26th (4 days overdue). He weighs 8 lbs. and is 21 inches long. I asked the doctor how big he thought the baby would be (I have been measuring small) and his guess was high 6 lbs. or low 7's. We were all surprised to hear he was 8 lbs even!

Proud daddy!

When the baby's head came out the doctor asked us how sure we were it was a boy because he had lots of brown hair! Justin finally got the boy a daddy always wants!

First pic with mom

My mom watched the girls for us and they came over later that night to visit the new baby. They were so cute. They wanted to kiss him and hold him. Molly kept saying how good the baby smelled. She was also very concerned about the umbilical cord. Right now it is clamped off and we are waiting for it to fall off. She is wondering what exactly it is doing there!

First family picture

Happy parents!

Our little angel. He has been such a good baby so far! We have no complaints!

Ali holding the baby.

Molly holding the baby.

We can tell the girls are going to be great older sisters! They already tell me they are going to help out by bringing me diapers and wipes. It is so fun to finally have him here!

Name and birth story coming soon!

Molly's Spring Recital

Molly's recital was on Tuesday night. I put a bit of mascara on and some lipstick and she was thrilled! Hence, her big huge smile here! And no, this isn't a costume, just what she's wearing over her leotard and tights.

I scanned this picture, so it's not the best, but she was given this picture with a bag of treats after her performance.

Here is the program from her recital. She was in 5 numbers. The opening and closing numbers with all of the girls, then 3 class numbers: You Can Fly, Edelweiss (she sang her solo for this song), and Bushel and a Peck (which she sang to Justin on stage).

I would like to tell you how much I loved it, but I wasn't there. I had some water leaking on Tuesday afternoon and just ignored it because I didn't have it happen again, but after talking to the nurse, she convinced me to go check it out. So of course I missed the recital and it was a false alarm :( I was so so bummed! But Justin recorded her songs and I got to see them, so that was good.

The end is in sight!

Yesterday I went to the doctor and I am dilated to a 3 and 80% effaced. I am scheduled for an induction next Tuesday, May 29th at 7 am if baby doesn't come before then. I also had him sweep my membranes again. The whole ordeal from the exam to that wasn't very fun, but it only lasts so long I guess.

Last night I had a dream that my water broke and I had a baby girl with blond hair and blue eyes! Ha ha, pretty funny. I told Justin in my dream, "See! This is why we had such a hard time coming up with boy names. Because it's a girl!" I think if we have a girl Justin might cry! Ha. But after 2 ultrasounds and the tech being quite positive, I would be surprised if she was wrong.

My water has broken with both of the girls either first thing in the morning (7 am with Ali) or last thing at night (11 pm the night before Molly's due date). When I woke up from my dream, I really was hoping/thinking that my water had broken or would. Nope!

I didn't think I would be at Molly's recital tonight, but it's looking more and more like I will! Who knows, maybe I'll go into labor after that? I'm strongly considering going outside and jumping on the trampoline at this point. Justin and I went for a long walk last night, but that didn't seem to make a difference so far.

Molly's art

Molly is now finished with preschool for the year and I don't think I have taken too many pictures of her artwork, so before she was done I managed to snap some pics of a few. She came home almost every day with something she had created or found (whether it was a drawing/painting/stickers, etc.).

She seems to be quite creative (from what we can tell) and loves to do any type of artwork. I'm going to have to find fun things for her to create and do this summer!

She can write her first name very well. She recognizes many letters, but I wouldn't say all yet. Sometimes she will point out a letter and say, that's ____ (letter), like my friend's name _______. She can't usually identify what letter says what sound, but we are working on that. She counts to 20, but she doesn't quite recognize on paper all numbers from 1-9 yet. I'm hoping we can work on sounds and numbers this summer and maybe writing her last name.

Molly is a very curious and interested little girl. She asks lots of questions and wants to understand things we talk about. Yesterday she brought out some water and told us we needed to "hydrate". She still enjoys playing and talking with her imaginary friends, which consist of Mimi, Dida and Kayla and Ella (these last 2 names are new!). She has Ali talking to Dida (Molly says she gave Dida to Ali) and Ali often puts Dida in time out or says she is being naughty, naughty, naughty! Oh, my girls are funny.

Molly is also into makeup recently and notices and comments on girls and women being beautiful. I can't believe it's already starting with her! She wants to wear mascara and lipstick and told my mom as we drove to graduation and she was putting on mascara in the mirror in the car, that she was "fabulous"! She comments also about how she wants to be big and older than other people. She gets upset sometimes when other kids are older than her.

As far as the baby goes, I have nothing to report. I've taken myself off of bedrest essentially since my back is feeling much better. I know that laying down wasn't helping the process of getting him here though! I got a pedicure last night hoping that might make something happen, but alas, no! Still no contractions, although in the past my water has always broken first, followed by contractions. I don't ever remember having braxton hicks with either of the girls. I go in tomorrow, the day before I'm due, and I'm hoping we can have a talk about inducing for maybe the week after? I really prefer to have everything happen naturally, but being 2 weeks over doesn't sound appealing! Molly's singing and dancing recital is this Tuesday and I didn't think I would make it, but who knows now! I just might. And that would be fine. Maybe baby boy is letting everyone have their special moment, then he will come??

Were you on time, early, or overdue with your kids? I'm interested to know! I thought with my third there was no way I would be late, but now I'm second guessing that!