The Garage Debacle

So there was this one time that I backed out of the garage without opening the door first. . .

It happened last month at the beginning of December. I was in a hurry because I was running late for a Relief Society activity and I thought I needed to be there in time to play the opening song (I'm the pianist). I usually hit the garage button by the back door but I had a plate of treats in my hand for the activity so I was just going to hit the garage remote in my car instead. Except that I spaced it and backed out. . .right into the garage door.

(This is after Michael hammered the door as straight as he could. I wish I had taken a picture of the big car-shaped dent! Even still the whole door was kind of in a crumpled Z-shape, none of the panels lined up straight. This picture doesn't do it justice.)

I just sat there in shock for a second, then jumped out of the car to see how bad the damage was. I walked to the back of the garage to see a huge, car-shaped dent in the door. I went back into the house and just started crying when I tried to tell Michael what had happened. Thankfully he was very chill about it and just sent me off to my activity with a neighbor while he took care of things.

Michael kind of hammered the garage door straight, but the door still wouldn't open so our cars were trapped and since it was nighttime the repair guy couldn't come until the next day, which meant we both had to miss work since we couldn't get out of the garage. The repair guy was able to get the door open long enough for us to get the cars out, but the bad news is that the door was beyond repair and we had to order a new one. It took a month to get in so up until last week we had to park on the street. We have been very spoiled with our garage parking!!

The new door cost a pretty penny, but it matches exactly so we don't have to worry about any problems with our HOA. And that is the story of my costly, embarrassing mistake. :)

A quick family life update

Introducing our Wii Fit Family!

It has been a long time since I have done any real blogging. I would use the baby as an excuse, but really my blogging activity has been going downhill for a long time. I'm going to try to do better though so that I have a better record of our lives to look back on. That's my early New Year's goal anyway, we'll see what I can do.

I thought I'd give a quick update of what's going on with everyone in our little family. . .left to right :)

Bennett:
Baby Bennett turned 5 months old on the 19th. It is absolutely crazy to me how fast time goes by. He has brought such light and joy into our home. It is nearly impossible for any tension or argument to last long in our house because all our worldly stresses just melt away with a few minutes with Bennett. He is very small for his age - in the 5th percentile - partially due to genetics and partially due to the oligohydramnios that I developed in the last couple months of pregnancy that restricted his growth. But he definitely makes up for his size with his huge spirit! He is so full of life that he can barely contain it - it seems like he never stays still for a single second! Ever since he was about a month old he has been very interactive and engaging, just talking and laughing constantly. He hardly naps during the day but he is on a great routine so I've stopped trying to make him nap more because he seems to be doing just fine. He is very happy and mischevious. Some day he will be the naked 2 year old running down the street.

Natasha:

New mom life is going well. I absolutely loved pregnancy and delivery (I felt like both were fairly easy for me which I know is a huge blessing!) and transitioning into life with baby has been a good time as well. I'm definitely staying every bit as busy now as I was before the baby! I've always thrived on having a billion things to do at once though so I'm happy as can be. I have a great schedule right now. I work 2-3 part days a week at the office depending on need. I'm the office manager and I've been there for almost 6 years so my bosses were great about being flexible about how I wanted to continue working after Bennett was born. Aside from that I always have a dozen projects going on at any given time, plus getting the house organized and running on a good schedule. I am loving being Bennett's mom and feel like I've established a good routine with him that makes our days flow nicely. I currently am the Relief Society pianist which I love. Much less stressful after primary presidency. :) I have actually been a church pianist of some sort a couple times before, and I'm sure this won't be the last time either which is just fine with me.

Michael:

Michael is working on finishing his thesis for his Master's program. He has very little motivation to finish it because he'd much rather play with Bennett and I, plus once he finished his coursework in April he got a great full time job so he is very busy. His only real motivation may be so that I will stop nagging him about it. He is a team manager at Instructure (educational software) and loves it. He gets to go on short business trips every couple months or so which he likes. He is a great dad and comes up with all kinds of crazy games to play that Bennett loves. He still does most of the cooking in our house for which I am thankful (we tried having me do more cooking once I was at home a little more with Bennett but it was a disaster - I cook fine but I don't enjoy it and it takes me three times as long as it does Michael so we decided it wasn't worth my time) Michael will be turning the big 3-0 next month and is actually looking forward to that milestone.

Pocket and Red:

Did you think I could leave out the puppies? :) I just wanted to make sure to mention that they are doing AWESOME with Bennett and with sharing our attention. Red is very protective of him, and Pocket has a hard time understanding why he doesn't throw the toys that she brings to him. Bennett loves the pups and squeals happily when they lick his face or fingers. They will make great playmates for him in not too long.

Anyway! Just a quick update! I will try to do better at this blogging thing.

Happy Thanksgiving

So true buddy. So true.

I Made These!

In an attempt to be crafty, I decided to make a couple onesies with the magic of iron-on transfer paper and scrap material at the fabric store. Because I really have no craft talent these took forever to make in comparison to how simple they look. I'm really pleased with how they turned out though and think I'll attempt more in the future.

The owl was just an outline I found on google images that I sized to fit. The turkey is actually a tracing of Bennett's hand!

De-piller, aka Lint Shaver

Many years ago, before I had even met Michael, a classmate at BYU told me about a wedding gift she had gotten called a "de-piller." Its' whole purpose was to remove the little pill balls that accumulate on clothing and blankets over time. She just went on and on about it. She raved about it so much that I've never forgotten about this crazy little invention, and have been kind of curious about it ever since but never really pursued it, didn't know what it would look like, and didn't even know where to find one if I did.

Fast forward 6 years. At JoAnns last week, I was standing in line to checkout and on the sale table up front was a small contraption labeled a "lint shaver" for $4. Thanks to its successful packaging I recognized it as the object I've been curious about all these years. So on an impulse I bought it because I figured even if it was total crap it would only be a waste of a few dollars.

Behold:

You can clearly see which sleeve I used the shaver on and which one I didn't. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this little machine! I was about to give all my sweaters to DI because I've had them for a few years and they were starting to look old, but thanks to this little contraption they look brand new again. Next up is all of the baby's changing table covers - I made the mistake of washing them with new towels and they've been covered with little towel fibers ever since, but I'm pretty confident this will restore them to their former glory.

And in case anyone's interested, you can find them in the laundry aisle at Walmart or in the iron-on transfer sheet aisle at JoAnns.

Some Fall Pics

Halloween pics

Thoughts on having a baby boy

Confession: Originally, I wanted a girl. Not only did I want a girl, but when I was first pregnant I was POSITIVE that it was a girl. Mother's intuition and all that. In fact, in my mind finding out gender at the mid-way ultrasound was a mere formality. That is, until the tech announced, "And there's your little boy!" and in shock I responded "wha- really? it's a BOY??? I don't know what to do with a boy!"

Fortunately, I came around. Being pregnant with a boy put Michael and I on more equal footing because I have zero experience with baby boys, so I think that helped Michael feel more involved with the pregnancy because he could participate more in picking out baby things and in dreaming about raising a little boy.

It wasn't long before I was THRILLED to be having a little boy! What fun! I couldn't imagine ever wanting anything else and was already so in love with the little boy kicking at my belly. And I used all those emergency ultrasounds at the end to make sure it was STILL a boy because I was scared that he would come out and be a girl! In fact, when Bennett was born the first thing I said was "it's still a boy!" and I definitely can't imagine having any other baby but him.

Plus there is definitely something archaic about being able to hand a newborn baby to your husband and say "here is your son." Maybe it's just because I'm obsessed with Henry VIII era stuff and of course practically the only goal in life then was to have a male heir. At any rate, it has been very heartwarming and satisfying to watch how much Michael has already bonded with his little boy. I know he would have loved a girl too but he does adore his son and says so multiple times a day :) Maybe we'll have a girl someday but honestly, now that I know how much fun baby boys are I wouldn't mind always having boys!

Baby blue-eyes

It's been hard to get a good picture of this boy's eyes but hopefully these will do. Who would have ever thought that this blue-eyed white boy would come from me!

4D ultrasound

Can you see it? Just in case you ever wondered how accurate those 3D/4D ultrasounds are!

This is Bennett at 1 month old, the ultrasound was taken I think at 32 weeks gestation.

Bennett in pictures

Eventually we will return to our originally scheduled program. . .I didn't mean for this blog to become the "All About Bennett" channel, but the facts are that I am not exactly doing a whole lot else at the moment. I am slowly coming out of my "confinement" and merging back into society though so I should start to have other things to blog about :)

So a drive-by of what we've been up to for the last 6 (!) weeks:

Two weeks old: Michael had a 2-day workshop kind of thing for his work in Park City. I couldn't bear the thought of being alone for 2 whole days with our tiny newborn so we made arrangements for me to go along. We stayed at the Cliff Lodge at Snowbird, it was a fun and adventurous getaway with such a new baby! (as a sidenote, you can see in this picture that Bennett at this time was still swimming in his preemie clothes!)

Three weeks old: I heart baby butt!

Four weeks old: Little slugger :) I tried putting him in a "newborn" size clothing to see how close we were to growing out of the preemie stuff. Not ready quite yet apparantly. Couldn't even snap the top couple snaps otherwise it would cover his mouth. He's just so cute and tiny!

Four weeks old: Little model pose. You can't quite tell but his shirt has circus animals on it. . .it's my favorite outfit from his preemie things. BIG thanks to my boss who bought out the preemie section of Gymboree when Bennett ended up being a couple pounds smaller than expected. That little wardrobe is all he's worn so far!

Bennett's blessing day, 4 1/2 weeks old. I am so proud to have a husband who is worthy to give our son his official baby blessing in our church. It was a beautiful blessing. I had planned on passing the baby around to all our family and friends during the rest of the church meeting but once Michael brought him back to our seat all I wanted to do was hold that newly blessed baby! Sorry everyone!

Bennett's Birth Story: Faster Than a Speeding Bullet (The birth, not the story. The story is long. Sorry.)

Bennett Darian was born on Tuesday, July 19th at 10:22am via an emergency induction. He was 18 inches long and weighed just over 5 1/2 pounds when we brought him home from the hospital.

I've written down his birth story below. I apologize that it ended up being so long, but I wanted to write down every detail I could so that I have the full record for later and don't end up forgetting anything.

For the last couple weeks before he was born, I was having problems with very low amniotic fluid and the baby measuring smaller than he should have been. When they first diagnosed it (at what was supposed to be a routine 5 minute appointment. . .) my levels were low enough that they considered inducing right then, but since I was so early they didn't want to induce unless they absolutely had to. They admitted me to labor and delivery immediately and got some monitors hooked up to me; thankfully the baby performed well on the stress test so they decided to continue monitoring me until birth but to try to squeeze in a few more days of gestation if possible. The hope was that the longer we could keep baby in, the lower my chances of having a c-section, which I really really wanted to avoid if at all possible. If we induced too soon we were afraid we'd have to resort to c-section if my body resisted the artificial labor.

The main fear with this condition (oligohydramnios) is that there's not enough fluid padding for the baby which increases the risk of the cord compressing and cutting off nutrients and oxygen to the baby. It also restricts fetal growth.

Under doctor's orders, I went to Labor and Delivery every couple days, early in the morning, to have repeat AFI ultrasounds (to check fluid levels) and stress tests (to check baby's heart and oxygen) with the understanding that they would induce if any results got worse. As long as the results at least stayed stable we could continue to hold our breaths and drag things out. Every time I went to the hospital my doctor would come visit me in my hospital room and we'd discuss how to proceed depending on that day's results. For a bit my levels were actually improving a little but then the day came that they started to drop again. My doctor decided at that point that the risk of leaving the baby in was greater than the risk of getting him out where they could monitor him better and we decided to induce. So they admitted me and got things started.

When they started my Pitocin drip they told me that a first time labor will usually dilate about 1cm every hour and a half, so to settle in and get comfortable. Instead, this is how the sequence of events went:

6:30am - Pitocin drip started to induce contractions, already at 3cm dilated/80% effaced

7:30am - Doctor breaks my water, I'm at 4cm dilated/80% effaced

8:25am - I call for the epidural, they check me right after and are shocked to find I'm at 7cm dilated/90% effaced

10:00am - 9cm dilated/100% effaced, Baby has been having problems for a little bit now, Hospital staff starts rushing like mad to get all the machines and instruments into the room

10:22am - 10cm dilated/100% effaced, Baby Bennett is born

Now for your background details:

I was already 3cm dilated and 80% effaced when I went into the hospital for my tests that morning so everyone was optimistic about my body responding well to the inducement. I had noticed that the baby had dropped a couple days earlier (I thank Michael Jackson Wii for that!) so I was expecting to be at least somewhat dilated but was really happy that we were starting off on such a good foot.

We knew first labors were typically long; we figured a Pitocin labor would be even longer since it would take a while for my body to react to the medicine. Michael suggested we try to sleep until 10 or 11 since we had to get up early and were tired, and conserve our energy for later in the day when things started moving. He settled down into the pull-out couch and went right to sleep. I was tired too but couldn't shut my brain down so I just texted people and started looking through some of the paperwork the hospital had given me. I figured I'd go to sleep in an hour.

So imagine my surprise when, an hour later, my doctor and 2 nurses walked in and checked me (4cm) and announced that they were going to break my water. Apparantly they had been watching the monitors and I had been having nice, regular (painless) contractions for a while so they decided to take the next step. I hardly had time to process, let alone wake up Michael who somehow was sleeping through the chaos. So the doctor broke my water (it felt like a lot, but they said it wasn't very much at all thanks to my low fluid levels) and the nurses told me I could have my epidural at any time. I told them I didn't need it yet since I wasn't really having any pain. It was then that I noticed a very confused and groggy Michael sitting up in bed in the corner looking around at all the people who were suddenly in our room. As soon as they left the conversation went something like this. . ."what just happened?" "they broke my water" "WHAT?? are you serious?" "yes" "why didn't you wake me up?" "it wasn't the most attractive position for you to see me in. . ." He got right out of bed and came over to be with me while he tried to mentally process what he had missed in his short nap.

Things after that progressed FAST. Almost immediately my contractions started to get stronger and I started having some pain with them. The nurses came and checked on me every 10 minutes (I didn't know this at the time but they were checking on me so often because they were watching the monitors outside and were surprised at how quickly my contractions were progressing). Every time they came they offered me the epidural but I kept saying no because I knew that once I had the epidural I was tied down to the bed, and if I was going to be in labor all day I wanted to walk around a little, right? Michael and I had come prepared - I had plans of laboring in the jacuzzi tub, we brought tennis balls for Michael to massage my back with, I wanted to take one last belly pic while wearing the hospital gown, we had books and movies to keep us occupied during the long day of labor. . .we just didn't realize that we would end up using none of those things because we didn't have enough time!

It only took about 20 minutes before the contractions got strong enough that I had to start using the breathing techniques to get through them. And of course I thought I'd have several hours to review the breathing techniques before needing them, but instead things were moving so fast that I started to panic and forgot everything we had learned so Michael pulled out the sheet and gave me a drive-by review in between my next contractions.

I broke down and had Michael call for the epidural only 55 minutes after my water broke. My contractions were really strong and coming almost on top of each other so I didn't have time to catch my breath in between anymore. I felt like a wuss for only lasting an hour but felt much less wussy when they checked me right after the epidural and found that I was at 7cm/90% effaced! I was really proud of myself for unknowingly laboring on my own to 7cm; had I known I was dilating that fast I probably would have gotten the epidural sooner!

Things settled down somewhat after the epidural but only for about 20 minutes. I was getting drowsy and was dozing comfortably when the nurses came in to discuss some concerns they had with the baby's heart rate levels on the monitors. They said the monitors were showing "variables". . .which meant that every time I had a contraction, the baby's heart rate would go down. It would recover once the contraction was over, so they weren't too worried yet but wanted to be cautious so they helped turn me so that I was laying on one side. They thought the variables were probably caused by the baby's cord being compressed so by turning me they were hoping to take pressure off the cord.

Well, that didn't help, so they had me flip to my other side. Which didn't help. So every few minutes they had me flipping sides. Which messed up the monitors since they had to be adjusted every time, so they decided to do away with the external monitors and do internal monitors instead (poor baby, he still has a scab on the top of his head from the wire they put into his scalp to read his heart rate!) Then they decided the best option was to put fluid back into my belly to give the baby his fluid padding back. So they started pumping a bag of saline into my uterus. It was helping slightly, but not as fast as they liked, so they put me in an oxygen mask.

We could tell something was happening because it seemed like all of a sudden there were people running in and out of the room like mad, bringing in blankets and machinery and instruments. In the midst of that the doctor came to check me and I was already at 9cm/100% effaced. I remember thinking that the doctor looked more serious than I had ever seen him before. (I didn't know this at the time, but Michael told me later that he had been watching the monitors and could see that the baby's heart rate was plummeting with contractions again, he could also see the notes that the nurses were putting into the computer and the most recent one said that they had sent the doctor a message saying "Come FAST") The doctor said we should probably try pushing in a few minutes and then quickly discussed with us how concerned he was about the baby's heart rate and the need to get him out quickly. He briefly went over the options between using a vacuum and doing a c-section and I told him I definitely wanted to try the vacuum first. He just nodded and said he'd be back in a few minutes with the nurses.

The actual labor was a little scary although I didn't realize how much so until afterwards (which was a blessing. . .everything was happening so fast that I didn't have time to mentally process, if I had time to think things over I would have realized how serious the situation was. . .as it was, Michael told me later that he was scared but didn't want to tell me all the things he was seeing because he didn't want me to worry too) The doctor and nurses came back into the room and he checked me again, he emphasized that we needed to get the baby out immediately and offered to wheel me to c-section again, I told him I wanted to try the vacuum first. He checked me and I was at 10cm and he could feel the baby's ear right there so he agreed to give pushing a chance first. They adjusted the bed and the doctor instructed the nurse to have me push through the next contraction while he hurried to get his gown on. I pushed 3 times during the first contraction, once it was done the doctor said he was going to do an episiotomy to try to get the baby out faster. While he was quickly doing that he told the nurse to call for the respiratory team ASAP. The monitor wasn't picking up any heartbeats from the baby and I realized that if I couldn't get the baby out NOW we were going over to c-section. So even though I couldn't feel anything I was extra motivated to push as hard as I could. I pushed 3 times again through a second contraction and the doctor put the vacuum in place. I think I only pushed once on the third contraction when I noticed the doctor and nurse get extra animated in their encouragement, so I snuck a peek and was shocked to see the baby's head. They didn't even have me pause for them to suction the baby's mouth, instead they had me push again immediately to get the rest of Baby out and he kind of shot right out. So altogether I pushed for maybe a minute and a half. I remember being scared for a brief moment because the baby's face was blue. . .for a split second I thought we hadn't got him out in time. So I turned my head away because I didn't want to see him but immediately heard a weak little wail. Michael was like, "did you hear that??" and I did and was so relieved. I also noticed that the cord was wrapped around his ankle which they later explained was probably causing the variables on the monitor because it was compressed.

As soon as the baby came out and gave that little cry the doctor exclaimed, "why, it's just a LITTLE peanut!" and handed him to the nurse. He tried to hand the clamp to Michael and said "here you go dad!" which was when I looked over and noticed Michael starting to hyperventilate (he's REALLY squeamish about needles and umbilical cords and other gross medical things) so I told the doctor that Michael couldn't do it, the doctor asked if I wanted to do it and I said no (although looking back I kind of wish I had, but I just wanted them to hurry and cut it and attend to the baby). So they rushed the baby right over to the warmer to suction him and clean him up while everyone tried to guess how much the baby weighed. Everyone was certain he was under 6 pounds and they were right.

It was probably about 20 minutes or so before I held the baby. Because of all the problems he had right before birth the respiratory team and nurses had to take some extra measures to make sure he was doing okay, but we were very fortunate that he was doing well enough that they didn't have to take him out of the room. I had tore further than my episiotomy so Michael went over to start taking pictures of the baby while I was being sewn up. After about 10 minutes the medical team was confident that the baby was doing well enough to stay with us and wrapped him up and gave him to Michael to hold. He held the baby for about 10 minutes while they finished with me then handed him over for skin-to-skin. I couldn't believe how incredibly tiny and soft he was. The baby was already rooting on Michael's fingers while he was holding him so they had me try to feed him right away and he latched immediately and did great (I thank our breastfeeding class for how easy that was!)

Unfortunately we didn't get to keep him with us for quite as long as we would have liked at the beginning - after I fed him the nurse took him for a second and noticed that his body temperature was low, so they took him to the nursery. They tested his blood sugar there and found it was low too (apparantly low body temp and blood sugar are somewhat common for such tiny babies) so they spent a couple hours trying to warm him up and running additional blood draws for glucose; if his levels didn't pick up they would have had to have given him a bottle for instant sugar, but thankfully they improved just enough that they didn't have to. After a couple hours they were able to get his body temp high enough to bring him back and so he came back to me wearing 2 shirts and 2 blankets for warmth. Poor kid had to have his blood drawn every 6 hours though to keep an eye on his glucose, his heels were black and blue by the time we brought him home.

All in all, while things got scary at the end I would definitely say that I had a GREAT labor experience. It was also very heartwarming to see how quickly Michael bonded with the baby. I had always been afraid that I would bond immediately and that it would take a little longer for Michael, but instead it was almost the other way around. It was very cute for me to look over and see Michael stroking and cooing at the baby on the warmer minutes after birth. And then Michael just had the hugest grin on his face while holding the baby for the first time and kept telling me how gorgeous the baby was (no conehead, bruises, or swelling thanks to the lightning fast delivery!)

We are very blessed that the baby was able to be delivered safely and quickly and are so in love with this little guy! Having him home with us has felt very natural (although exhausting, no doubt) and we are so lucky to be his parents!

Introducing. . .

This is baby Bennett.

I made him.

Earlier than expected, but loved all the more for it.

Details to come.

Pregnant Women are Smug (and other baby-related stories)

I don't know if it's this way for everyone, but it seems like no matter how long you've been married, at the beginning you obsess about trying to impress your in-laws. I always heard from my friends that it changes when you have kids. I would definitely agree with this. As I met my MIL and SIL in the airport last week, they immediately started to exclaim over the large belly, and somewhere in the back of my mind a superhero voice exclaimed "Yes! I bring you the gift of life!" Smug indeed. Not that I don't still want to impress the fam, it's just that I kind of feel like I've done my duty, you know? "Here is your first grandchild. Blood of your blood, a shining achievement. And now if you don't mind, I'm going to take a nap." Even better that it's a boy since that carries on the family "tradition" on my husband's side of the family, with the firstborn always being a boy.

On a more serious note, last weekend my in-laws flew me to NY for a baby shower with their side of the family. It was completely fabulous! (Here's me and my SIL on shower day)

So from what I understand, my FIL was a legit rockstar back in the day. You'd never suspect it now since he is one of the cleanest, sweetest men I know! Of course he no longer sports the rockstar hair he had 30 yrs ago :)

Anyway, he recently got back into a band called Attitude Joe. (Funny story - I accidentally called it "Conscientous Joe" once so that's what I call it now when Mike and I talk about it) I was lucky enough to be in NY the same weekend as one of their gigs so I got to go. It was really cute - my FIL apparantly told the rest of the band members that he was excited because his grandson was coming to the gig. No mention of the mother currently carrying the grandson in her belly, as far as I can tell. :)

(At the bar to watch Attitude Joe with said grandson. Not bad for 7 months pregnant, huh? I can still clean up okay)

My FIL works for the church in possibly one of the coolest jobs - he is responsible for the Palmyra facilities including the temple and the Sacred Grove. So on Sunday after church we took a walk through part of the Sacred Grove.

(My gorgeous MIL, FIL, and I in the Sacred Grove)

It was a fantastic weekend and I am so lucky to have married into such a great family! I love them so much!

Mike isn't in any of the pics because he was not able to come. So I flew by myself which would make me nervous anyway, but even more so being so pregnant. It went much better than expected though, and it actually really touched my heart to see how many strangers in the airport went out of their way to do small nice things for me when they could see that I was pregnant and travelling alone. So to all those strangers. . .thank you.

Snips and snails and puppy dog tails

So I'm a tad roly-poly at the moment and need some help setting up the nursery. Any takers?