Hush-a-bye Mountain

I'm going to try to keep this short and non-gory but here is the story of Gideon's birth.

On the morning of the 13th, I went to Intermountain Medical Center for my weekly appointment where I realized I had come a day early, so they put me through anyway. My blood pressure had been rising the past couple of weeks so they were watching me pretty close for preeclampsia, and my doctor checked the Labor and Delivery schedule and decided that we should induce that day. So instead of going to work, I went over to Rubio's across the street, at my final meal before being admitted to have a baby (Steak tacos, gourmet style, and a vanilla coke). I called Nate and he met me at the hospital. They pumped me full of oxytocin and waited for the contractions to begin. For the majority of the time I had this nurse that wouldn't let me move from laying on my left side because it would move the monitors and they'd lose the baby's heartbeat. My hips hurt so bad. I haven't laid on my left side since then because of how traumatic that was. I wasn't progressing very much and around midnight they gave me an epidural in case the medicine suddenly started working or I needed to get a c-section. To make a long story short, after 33 hours of labor it was decided that I would get a c-section and five minutes later I was in the operating room.

Having the c-section was really scary for both Nate and I. I had never had major surgery before and I was already loopy from the drugs that had been given me before they decided to do the surgery. Nate was scared of something going wrong and potentially losing both his wife and his first child, but he was really brave for me. I started shaking and getting nauseous from the anesthesia about halfway through and I kept saying how cold I was. I could barely talk. I was really worried but Nate started singing Hush-a-bye Mountain to me over and over. He learned the words so he could sing to our first child back when we were first engaged. It was a magic moment that I will always remember. He just kept singing to me and it calmed me down emotionally if not physically. And when we heard our baby's first cry, we both started smiling and bawling. I remember thinking, "Wow. There really was a child in there." After the surgery I went into shock and the shaking got worse and remained so for two hours, but with the help of the nurse I was able to hold my baby and breastfeed him for the first time.

We then were moved upstairs to the maternity ward where Gideon and I were poked, prodded, measured, and questioned every hour for the next four days. They tell you to get some rest, but then they bug you every hour between 5:30am to midnight so it's impossible to get some.

Gideon's jaundice count was borderline worrisome so he spent some time in the billi bed getting blasted with UV rays. They put hat, goggles, and a binky in his mouth that made him look like a muppet baby. I couldn't help but laugh. But it was really sad not being able to hold him whenever I wanted for two days. But on Sunday, we got to have him with us in our room and we spent the whole day listening to music and writing messages to Gideon in a journal and some people came by and even gave us the sacrament. It was the most perfect Sunday of my life.
Lots of family and friends came to visit and bring gifts. It was nice having all the support in the hospital (not to mention someone bringing me all of my meals) but I am uber grateful to be home again. It has taken Gid and I a couple of days to establish a sleep schedule that doesn't require us to be woken up every hour. But I have almost completely recovered from my c-section and Gideon is getting over his jaundice. We've had to go to a few doctor's appointments throughout the week, but things are settling down. I am excited to have Nate home with Gid and I tomorrow since he had to get back to work the next day after we were released. Life is pretty perfect right now and I couldn't be any happier.

Gideon finally arrived on Friday!!! We are literally just sitting here in the hospital reflecting on how happy and blessed we are to have this beautiful baby boy in our life with us now. FAMILIES ROCK!!!

Re-counting Christmas

The end of December was soooo much fun I didn't have time to write about it all. So let's see if I can't get this updated without too much fanfare...

My LDS sorority from the U had a baby shower for me. It was perfect. We went to IHOP, we chatted about nonsense, laughed a lot, got a few cute presents and I got to eat the best chocolate chip pancakes in the world!

After discovering that my parents had thrown away my Christmas tree, my friend Tyler and his wife Shelli let us borrow a tree they had that was too big for their apartment. We got some generic decorations from Wal-mart, but then Nate put up all the ones his parents have given him over the years and I went and got my favorites from my grandparents old ornaments. It has brought back so many fun memories that I still haven't had the heart to take it down.

We went to the Mormon Tabernacle Christmas concert with David Archuleta and it was beautiful! I had to rest a lot the following day with all of the walking and waiting in line that we had to do, but the music was more than worth it.

The following day, Nate's parents came down to Salt Lake and took us to dinner at Chili's. It was fun to show them our new place, but the best part of the night was the great conversation. I couldn't stop laughing. This visit also gave me a chance to go shoe shopping with my mother-in-law which was the first time I have ever seen her thinking about herself and not one of her many children or grandchildren or husband, and in the end she still didn't get the shoes because she was worried that she was taking up too much of my time. It really made me appreciate what awesome in-laws I have. They raised my perfect husband, are inspiring examples, and they buy us food. What more could a girl ask for.

December also presented Nate and I many opportunities to help out my grandparents which is the number one thing I love about our new address. I helped grandma put out her nativities and do her Christmas cards, and Nate was able to help grandpa put up his globe lights in the dining room windows. We spent quite a bit of time up there this last month and I loved every minute of it.

Christmas Eve was dinner at the grandparents house and opening family presents. I got Nate a hardcover copy of his favorite book since he's practically read his paperback version into shreds and one of the many perpetual motion machines he plays with whenever we go to the planetarium. He got me a David McCullough book (he's my favorite author) and THE PLAYBOOK from "How I Met Your Mother" (a show we both love to watch). We got some fun baby stuff from my family for my little Gideon and Kini made all of the families a cute craft block decoration that says, "Christ, Let Him In." My favorite part is always seeing how much people like the presents that I picked out for them and every single present got a big smile.

Christmas morning I woke Nate up at 8am to open his and Gideon's stockings. Nate got pistachios, Ritz crackers, cheese, and Mountain Dew. I had him open Gideon's because I had found some newborn shirts that looked like Jedi padawan tops except that they had mittens on the arms which Nate just loves on baby shirts. The rest of the day was spent at my parents' house and Auntie Beta's hanging out with family and eating food. Poor Nate had to learn how to eat shrimp that still has its legs attached, Ha Ha Ha.

On the 27th we did Christmas with Nate's family and it was amazing! His parents told the Christmas story using pictures of a Nativity re-enactment that his family had done in 1981. It was fun and adorable. After which they announced that they had scanned all of their slides into digital files and were giving all the kids flash drives with all 2,300+ pictures all categorized for their own use. I was floored. First of all, the amount of time it takes to scan them took one of their uncles 2 weeks and then to actually go through and categorize pictures that spanned at least ten years? Wow. Just wow. I only dream of doing that with my family's photos someday. AND they included pictures from Nate's dad's mission and his parent's wedding that he hadn't seen before. It is so nice to have those now for the family that we are starting. We also walked away with more awesome gifts for ourselves and our impending offspring.

The rest of the week until New Year's Eve, Nate and I spent ALL of our time together shopping for and putting together the nursery. Have I mentioned I have the best husband ever? He's currently putting together some homemade artwork for the room that I can't wait to see completed. It's exciting for the baby to actually have some space that is his when he comes.

New Year's Eve we went to my friend Kristin's house and had pizza and played games until midnight. It was a small group, but it was made up of some of my favorite people so it was perfect. New Year's Day was spent with Nate's sister, Erin, and her family and involved more food and games. It's becoming tradition to go down there and play Rock Band with them for New Year's and I hope it continues.

And now we are back at work and start school this week. I'm proud to say that we spend our vacation well, though. We got some stuff day, but there were at least three days where I just rested the whole time, which is a hard thing for me to do. It's tough to be back at work and not spending every minute with Nate, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Next stop: BABY-DOM!!!