Just a Couple Final Thoughts on 2014

I didn't have my brain turned on when I posted about Christmas and I didn't write any of the cute things down that I should have. One thing I don't want to forget is how sweet Melynn was. She made some gifts and had Josh help her wrap them up. One was for me. It was a beaded wreath and bookmark that she made at the co-op Christmas party when I was still in the hospital. The second was a doll she made at co-op in her sewing class that she wrapped up and gave to Cora. It is called Dotty Doll and it really is a treasure. She sewed around the edges for a good two weeks before she finished it... a lot of love went into creating it. And she gave it to her sister with just as much love. It was really sweet to see how excited Melynn was when Cora "unwrapped" it. It made me thing that we should try to do more homemade gifts in the future. We will see if that actually happens because homemade stuff stresses me out.

Final update on Tucker's potty training: he has basically taken the initiative to go by himself. He goes in, does what he has to do, dumps it and flushes it and then comes out without pants on. He is gradually getting better about pulling his pants up, but that is the hardest part for him to do alone right now. I'm very grateful that he is not regressing through this adjustment period.

Emmett is ready for some mental activity again. He is starting to get bored with this break and has started picking on whomever is around. I may have to start assigning him workbook pages or something to break things up. I have started reading the Harry Potter series out loud to him again while I am nursing. We are on book four and he is catching the humor and the little hints that J.K. Rowling puts throughout the books that foreshadow later events. He and I both love our read aloud time.

Josh surprised me with a new camera and I can't upload anything until the cord comes. Hopefully that will be in a couple more days. Until then, no more pictures.

Personal Progress: Knowledge Value Experience #4

This experience was to take the time to study a gospel principle and write a short talk about it and then write your thoughts in your journal. I studied charity because after taking a quiz from Preach My Gospel a while back I realized it was one of my weakest areas. Charity and Patience were the lowest of the categories, by far. It is not surprising to me. But I definitely hope to improve in both areas and so I studied charity and wrote a short talk about what I learned. Here it is:

As I have been studying charity I have learned not only what charity is, but why we must have it and how we can gain it in our own hearts. Moroni defined charity as “the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever.” (Moroni 7:47) Charity is a combination of Christ’s love for us, our love for Him, and our love for our fellow men. We must first understand Christ loves us before we can come to love Him and as we love Him, it will increase our desire to love all those around us. Charity is shown in action or service to others, much the same way that faith is shown in obedience to God’s commandments. Moroni describes how one with charity will behave. He says, “And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” (Moroni 7:45)

For me, my goal in seeking charity is to show greater love towards my family, especially my children. In a talk by Elder Marvin J. Ashton, he teaches about how our words can hurt those around us deeply. He speaks of bashing others and how common it is in our world. He also says that if we truly have charity in our hearts that bashing will become repulsive to us. He said, “Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn’t handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another’s weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other.”

Elder Ashton also warns us that Satan seeks to destroy the feelings of charity that we have within us. He says, “If the adversary can influence us to pick on each other, to find fault, bash, and undermine, to judge or humiliate or taunt, half his battle is won. Why? Because though this sort of conduct may not equate with succumbing to grievous sin, it nevertheless neutralized us spiritually. The Spirit of the Lord cannot dwell where there is bickering, judging, contention, or any kind of bashing.”

Wow. If we could incorporate this into our homes and into our children, wouldn’t our homes be full of the Spirit, full of love and full of peace? It sounds like heaven.

Why must we have charity? I think that charity is evidence that we are becoming like Christ, which must happen before we can enter the kingdom of God. If we are not like Christ, how will we feel comfortable in the celestial kingdom? We would just feel guilty the whole time.

So, how do we gain charity? Moroni teaches us that we must, “pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure.” Charity is not something that just comes over time, it is something we must seek and ask for.

I know that I want to have charity be a part of me. I want to feel this love, and I feel like it will greatly improve my relationship with my family if I am more charitable. One of my goals for 2015 will be to seek for charity in my life and to become more like Christ. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Christmas 2014

I have a lot of pictures to put on and not much to say...or at least not a lot of brain power to type up my thoughts on it. Christmas was wonderful, as it always is. The kids had fun, we ate way too much candy, and in the end there was a lot of paper garbage and mess to clean up. I think Emmett's favorite gift was the remote control car, whereas Melynn loved her dolls best. Tucker stated that his favorite gift was the candy in his stocking.

Time With Grandma

Adjusting to having a baby in the house has been fun. All of the kids seem to just love Cora. While my mom was here helping I got some cute pictures. It was so nice having her here. She kept the house clean, the kids fed, bathed and loved and I slept a lot. I miss having the help.

Reminiscing

10 years ago Josh proposed to me. It seems crazy that 10 years have gone by since then. I feel like it has gone very quickly, yet here we are, living in Memphis, of all places, almost four years deep into his medical residency, medical school behind us along with our undergrad back and forth adventure. Where has the time gone?

I'm sure I wrote about it in my journal, and I could try to dig up the original version of the story, but I thought for fun I would just write down the parts I remember. It is all starting to fade away into that land of lost memories and I would hate for nothing to be recorded, just in case I was too young and foolish to write anything down that night. So...

He recreated our first date a little bit. Our first date was a double date with Abby Mabey and Fred Kern, and we ate at Texas Roadhouse for free (Abby had just landed a job there and they gave her four free meals during their waitress training period...and as highschoolers we were not about to pass up a free dinner out). I also remember making fudge at my house and playing pool...but we didn't do that part of the date because my parents had sold the house with the pool table and frankly, Josh had other things on his mind than fudge.

I didn't really suspect a proposal was coming. I had only been home from my mission for three weeks and although we had gone looking at rings, I never thought he would actually have a ring already. I mean, I was still pretty awkward and clueless that he was not going to wait around. He had been planning before I got home, I think.

Anyway, he took me out to dinner and we were supposed to go drive around looking at Christmas lights, but he told me that my dad had asked him to pick up something from his office (that is where my parents hid presents my whole life I'm pretty sure...not that I'm snoopy) so we went there instead. Inside the office the conference room was all decorated with a Christmas tree and a table with cheesecake and sparkling cider and that is when I knew something was happening. Something big and something special. I can't remember if we actually ate cheesecake before he got down on one knee and asked me, but I remember being very surprised when my sister popped out from behind a corner and started taking pictures when I said yes. It was really sweet and well-planned out and I was surprised, for sure.

It is a heck of a lot harder to surprise me now that we have been married almost ten years. But that doesn't bother me. I love surprises and he does a good job pulling out a good surprise every now and then. Like last year with the Bosch mixer. This year I accidentally saw a present he got me when it was in a grocery bag with food items I was putting away. Oops.

I think the best part of his proposal was the fact that he designed my ring. He and I had shopped around and there were a few things that I had really liked about certain rings. He managed to take those key points and create a beautiful wedding ring. I still love it. I managed to squeeze it on my finger the other day for church, which was a huge triumph, but it still doesn't fit well. I have a few more pounds to go before that will happen. Hopefully soon I will be able to wear it comfortably again and always have that reminder of this special day and of my special man. I love you Josh!

Tucker Burping Cora

All the kids love her. Emmett has a crazy close bond with her that I haven't quite expected. Even Tucker likes holding her and helping with her. My mom caught this little moment on her iphone.

Cora Smiles

We got a video of Cora making faces as she struggled to wake up yesterday. Josh tickled her armpits and she gave a big smile. It is at about second 43 in the video.

The Lack of Sleep

My mom caught this moment on her camera and I had to put it on here. She wanted to post it on Facebook and I told her not to, you know, because you can't ever get it back off of Facebook. But it is pretty harmless so I guess I shouldn't have cared so much. He is not handling the change in our sleeping patterns very well and it shows:

Before and After

 The day before Cora was born, December 5th, I took my kids to the homeschool Christmas party at the bowling alley. Somehow I managed to get Emmett with a group of kids at the opposite end of Melynn and her group of kids so I was going back and forth trying to watch them both, while chasing Tucker to and from the bathroom. I ended up going out to the car in the rain to get the stroller to strap him into because he was wearing me out so bad. Maybe I went into labor because of all the toddler-chasing. :)

Anyway, here they are before the party:

And at the party:

Melynn bowled with the ramp and without it but had a lot more fun when she rolled it this way instead of trying to muscle it down on her own.

Emmett liked bowling. This was his first time and I didn't get to watch him as much. He wants to go again sometime.

 Then this cutie pie came along. I took this picture at about 2 days old. Her nurse made her a Christmas bow for her hat. So sweet!

After we got home we started taking more pictures with the other kids. Tucker with Cora:

Melynn with Cora:

And all four of them after church. Cora is one week old.

Cora's Exciting Birth Story

Josh said I get to fill in the details on Cora's birth, and I'm finally back to the world of technology to do so. I had been cut off from Saturday until yesterday afternoon and I just wasn't up to until now. So, here it is:

Saturday morning I was fed up with being so swollen and I knew that if I went to the gym that my feet would feel better. And my attitude would be better (a bonus). Josh helped me unlace my shoes so I could literally shove them in. They barely fit. And they didn't feel good. I started on the elliptical and was going pretty slow, 45 RPMs trying to do a total of 30 minutes, when about 8 minutes in I felt like I peed my pants. I hate to admit that it isn't the first time I have had this happen. Loss of bladder control during pregnancy is not uncommon, right? Anyway, I hopped off and ran to the bathroom and then got back on to finish my 30 minutes. Then I went to Walmart and got a few groceries we needed and headed home. I had a lovely shower and got ready so we could run errands as a family. And I could get on regular shoes, so my exercise paid off. The swelling went down.

After the kids finished their chores we left for Home Depot to make the kids craft. They made these yard stakes that are quite cute. And they saw Santa Claus. I made one trip to the bathroom with Tucker, which is completely normal.

We also made quick stops at Michael's and Target for a couple of Christmas things. After that we went to lunch at Genghis Grill. It is a Mongolian BBQ grill restaurant and it was pretty good. I took Tucker to the bathroom again (remember how he is potty-training?) and when I bent over to lift him onto the seat I felt a warm whoosh and I knew it wasn't pee. We quickly finished and I knew that when I stood up the next time I was going to have another gush so I got the kids and we went out while Josh paid. I hope I didn't leave a puddle. All the way home I felt pretty excited. I couldn't believe this was all happening!

The talking turned from all the Christmas projects we needed to finish to what in the world are we going to do? I felt I should call my visiting teacher, Beth Crunk, and ask if she could stay with the kids. She saved us that day, seriously! While she was gathering what she needed I was packing haphazardly. My mind could not focus. I was excited, not nervous. I still managed to forget shampoo even though my sister told me to pack it. I was having very mild, intermittent contractions. I was not in any pain. At about 2 PM we hugged the kids goodbye, and drove to the hospital. They checked to make sure it was really amniotic fluid, which it was, and checked my cervix. I was at a 3. No surprise that not much was happening. That would be too good to be true. The nurse called the doctor on call and she suggested they start me on some pitocin to get me having more contractions.

After a couple of hours the doctor came and checked me and I was still at a 3. I also wasn't really responding at all to the pitocin and I wasn't in any pain. She had a hard time even checking my cervix and when she did she said, "That doesn't feel like a head. Was she head down at your appointment?" I told her yes, that I am pretty sure she was. She decided they better get the ultrasound out and find the head and they needed my lab results of my group B strep test, which for some reason, were not in my records. The ultrasound showed that her head was off to my left side and her feet were where the head should be, as if she were going to walk right out of there.

The discussion turned to c-sections. I asked if there was any way to try position changes to move the baby but the OB said since I lost all my fluid already that it just gets dangerous to do the manipulations. So, they started the process to get me ready for surgery. We were coming up on shift change and decided they would not start until after everything had switched over. The baby was content and I was fine so they disconnected the pitocin and just kind of left us there for a while. We talked with anesthesia and they explained how the spinal block worked. Josh gave me a blessing.

About this point my memory is a little foggy of the events. I was too overwhelmed to process what was going on. I remember getting to the operating room but I couldn't tell you if it was on a bed or a wheelchair. Josh had to put on what they call a "bunny suit" and all I could keep thinking about was why would they call it that, it is such a random name to assign sterile over-clothing. He had to stay in the hall while anesthesia put in the spinal block. That part was scary. Not necessarily what they were doing, but just being alone through it all. There were people moving all over the place doing things and I was supposed to just breathe and relax and focus and all I could do was shake, get tense, and pray.

They had me laying on my back with my arms out to the side (a little like they were going to crucify me...I couldn't help but make that comparison) strapped down to the table. The blue cloth draping seemed too close to my face. It felt like the whole thing took a really long time. I didn't feel any pain while they cut and tugged out Cora. I did feel some panic and joy that she was okay. I remember them saying things like, "She's out. It's a girl," but she wasn't crying and I was worried she wasn't okay. Hearing her cry relieved my fears so much. They showed her to me and took her away to get cleaned up and Josh left and stayed with the baby. That is when panic session number two started. I had a hard time staying calm and I felt like I wanted to throw up but I couldn't really throw up. It was frightening. Josh came back with the baby and somehow there were pictures taken but honestly I wasn't really there. Our bodies have amazing powers of blocking out things that are unpleasant.

I was eventually wheeled back to my room to recover. The nurse I had that first little while was awesome. I really liked her. Her name was Amanda. She made sure I stayed on top of my pain medications, and that I had anything I needed. I had her through the night and maybe two of the other nights? I can't remember. I had good nurses and nurses I didn't really care for. Not that they were bad in any way, I just didn't particularly love their style. I had one nurse that never even asked about pain medication. Luckily it was on a good day and I didn't need it. I'm glad I didn't have her the night I got the fever and felt like I was going to die. That happened Monday night. Let me back up a bit.

Sunday morning, Josh went home to relieve my visiting teacher and take the kids to church. Before church he brought them to the hospital to meet Cora and got the pictures that he posted earlier. They also came up Sunday evening and we tried to watch the First Presidency Devotional together. I kept nodding off because I was exhausted by that point and all the adrenaline from the night before had gone away. The kids were way hyper and so after about 30 minutes Josh took them home. Monday he wasn't able to visit because Tucker started throwing up after breakfast and kept throwing up after every meal. My friend, Kate, was my only visitor on Monday. I went to the breastfeeding class in the hopes they could give me some ideas on how to get Cora to open her mouth better. It wasn't very helpful. And it was really long. It was designed for first time mommies. But I enjoyed the hour I got to snuggle with Cora. The other three babies all fussed the whole time. She was kind of a show off and just slept through it all.

That night I got a fever. It spiked really high, really fast. My nurse had taken my vitals about 5:30 and then I ordered my dinner. By the time my dinner came 45 minutes later I couldn't even eat, I was shaking with severe chills and my pain tolerance went out the window. I called my nurse in to take my temperature and I could kind of see her roll her eyes at me, thinking I just took your temperature an hour ago and it was normal. But when she read it, I knew I wasn't just hallucinating about having a fever. She called the doctor and they started working on orders for IV antibiotics. That meant I had to get a new IV. There was a nurse shift change and the new night nurse tried twice and couldn't get the IV so her supervisor came and tried twice and couldn't get it, so they had a labor and delivery nurse come in and she finally got one in. It was awful. Then I sat waiting for another while before the antibiotics even came. Things move really slowly sometimes. It was 10 PM before they got that going. One of them I was given every eight hours and the other I got 24 hours apart so Tuesday at 10 PM was my last dose of that...making it so I had to stay until Wednesday. It was by far my longest hospital stay. I didn't like being there that long. It was very boring, albeit quiet.

Tuesday morning Josh was supposed to go to Melynn's mommy and me dance class to fill in for me. But Tucker threw up again that morning and I told Melynn she would just have to miss class. She was so bummed. I felt really bad that she missed it, since it is the highlight of the whole semester of dance. We also cancelled violin lessons. They didn't come visit me until the late evening after picking up my mother from the airport. It was nice to see people other than nurses. And it was really good knowing that my mother was there to help out poor Josh. I felt so bad that he was dealing with potty-training and puking at the same time.

Wednesday I got up and got ready early in the hopes that the doctor would come and get my discharge paperwork done. Josh showed up after rounding on his patients at about 11 AM and she still hadn't been by so we waited, and we waited, and she came shortly before 1 PM. It took till almost 2:30 for us to get out of there and by then I was SO glad to get home. There is just nothing to compare with my own bed, my own space, etc.

It was a blur of days and nights and we are just so glad that she is here with us!