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!

bad timing

A couple days ago I pulled a muscle in my back as I put Ali in her carseat. I also picked up the cold that Justin and the girls had after like 2 1/2 weeks. The next morning I was cleaning up in the kitchen and my whole back was in a ton of pain. I pulled out the heating pad, took some tylenol and called the nurse. She told me to try to lay down all day and see if I could get friends or family to watch my kids. Luckily Justin was able to take the day off and my mom helped out as well. Today my back feels better, but I can still feel pain where I pulled the muscle. My mom is helping out for half the day today, then Justin will take over. Molly's last day of preschool is today, so that's nice.

I read of a few women in the same predicament and they said it took about 3 days for their backs to heal. We have no plans for tomorrow so hopefully I can stay low again and maybe even Sunday. I hope I can get it feeling better before this baby comes so labor isn't any more painful than necessary! I still haven't had any contractions and I'm scheduled to go see the dr. on Monday.

Still waiting

I'm hoping these pictures of all of baby's stuff will entice him to come! Here is my best attempt at a "nursery". First up is the changing table. I showed you pics awhile back when I bought it and spray painted it and then I bought these totes. The colors match the colors in the quilt my mom has made for him. It is currently at the quilters and hopefully it will be done soon!

I even made labels for each of the totes so I don't have to pull out 5 each time I'm looking for something. I used scrapbook paper, a circle punch and my laminator. It was really easy and cheap.

I bought a changing pad and with leftover flannel from the baby quilt I made, I made a cover for the changing pad. They sell these for like $10 at the store. Why not use my leftovers?!

Here is the basket with his blankies.

My rocker/glider is in the corner of the room with my hospital bag on it. I still need to throw a few more things in, but I have a start.

Essentially baby gets the other side of our bedroom! Ha. How's that for a "nursery"?!! If we had another room, we would put him there, but we don't. So this will have to do! Although I'm pretty lazy when it comes to getting up at night and feeding a baby. I want to walk as little as possible to get him! He will be in the portacrib for a while, then we will switch Ali to a big girl (or toddler) bed and give him the real crib at some point.

Oh, and here's the swing, all ready to go. Notice it's standing in front of the dresser. I know. The girls try to get into every baby toy we have for him and we're worried they will break this one! We also have the bouncer ready to go. We'll see which one he likes better. Molly LOVED the bouncer. Ali loved the swing.

Then here's the quilt I made for baby! I used leftover squares from the quilts I made for my nieces and just pulled out the green, blue and white. It worked great! Then my mom found the two flannel borders and I used a white satin binding.

It is super soft!! And I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I quilted it with my sewing machine.

The back is also flannel. It says baby all over in white (it's a bit hard to tell).

I had to learn how to miter the corners (fold the corners) with the satin binding (the edge). I decided instead of having my mom teach me, I could use youtube! And that's exactly what I did. It worked great! I played the video while I sewed on my machine.

If you're wondering, this is what I see when I look down. Actually, I can't see my toes. But I moved in this pic so you could get a better idea.

39 weeks. Come on baby!!

I had my hair done yesterday. It's getting pretty blond! I think this is as blond as I will take it, then I'm gonna start heading darker. Isn't hair fun? I love changing it up! I know some people don't, but it's fun to me :)

I saw the doctor today and there is no new progress. I'm still at a 2 and 70% effaced. I even went to Zumba this morning!! All for nothing. Ha. Just kidding. I let him "sweep my membranes" (as he calls it) which I was really scared to do, but actually him checking my cervix was more uncomfortable. Let's hope it works! A week from today is my due date, May 22nd. I hope he decides to come before! My back is sick of holding him up!