Seth + Clark =

A very confused and angry toddler.

With my c-sections I am not suppose to pick up anything over 5 pounds or the weight of the baby for 6 weeks. (I cheat) 

Seth doesn't get it so he takes his revenge out on me by turning into a 30 pound baby.

So when he sees me taking pictures of Clark like this:

I also get a lot of pictures like this:

He likes to lay down and milk being a baby-Crackers right after your bath anyone?

His rebellion is extra sweet because he does a lot of his reverting with a smile. (With my mom not so much. I heard him screaming at her at the top of his lungs all morning the other day.)

So it was not much of a surprise that when I pulled out the baby bouncer Seth decided to break it in for Clark.

Clark sure appreciated it

Very Important Person

MD is a VIP!

 MD came home today SO excited today because he was chosen as the VIP for his class. The VIP gets to take home a special stuffed bear named Brownie to have adventures with (For the day) and then gets to write about them in a special book.

All afternoon MD has been running upstairs to tell me every thing the bear and him have done.

My favorites have been: "Mommy the bear watched me eat lunch!" "Mommy the bear watched me play basketball!" "Mommy the bear told me he loves me! WRITE IT DOWN MOMMY!!!"

Here is the very special boy and bear:

Man he's cute!
MD told me he was sad because he doesn't get to keep the bear, but he brightened up when he heard him and the bear were going to go play outside with Grandma!

Even though I struggled sending MD to school in the beginning I feel much better seeing how much he loves it. Most days he comes home and shows me what he did during the day though for some reason he has a hard time telling me about it :)

Homework has started, but it is not near as intense as I imagined it would be (The school made it sound like he was taking a college class) and MD seems to not mind it so much.

I think he is so cute doing his homework on my bed.

 

Hyrum of course wants to do homework as well, so I made up some for him in his notebook. He struggled a bit writing with his left hand.

MD and his teacher. I got to visit with her before school started and really liked her-MD seems to like her too.

Labor and Delivery

 Friday morning:

I woke up and rolled out of bed (Literally rolled. For the last couple of weeks I was unable to lift my my torso off the bed so rolling became easier.  If I was in the middle of the bed I would have to roll 2 or three times to make it to the edge) With MD starting school I had been trying to get up earlier so I could stay with the other kids while my mom dropped MD off.  While I worked on breakfast I noticed I had a pain start up in my lower right side of my back that spread to my lower right front of my abdomen. I have felt pains similar to that but this pain would not let up. However it wasn't bad enough for me to think it was anything more that ANOTHER uncomfortable thing about pregnancy. I got ready for the day. I had gymnastics to work out, Hyrums cast to get put on and we were going to have a "family day" out in town. So we headed out. I noticed that the pain started to get more intense so I mentioned it to Michael who jokingly asked me if he needed to check me into the hospital while they put Hyrums cast on.

We arrived at gymnastics where Hyrum happily showed off his broken hand to his instructor. After we worked out the details of when Hyrum could rejoin the class we headed out to town to buy our "treats" for our family night. The pain was STILL there and was still slowly building but I decided NOT to mention it to Michael because I knew he would either make me call my doctor or make me go lie down-both things I didn't want to do. 

At Hyrums doctors appointment I had a contraction. Nothing that got me too excited, except when I had that contraction the pain in my side intensified. As we headed home I had two more (We only live 7 minutes away from the hospital) And the pain in my right side had built to the point where it hurt just to sit there and I kept trying to get comfortable while grunting in pain. (Sadly yes, I do grunt) Michael started to realize what was going on and got excited-especially after I got home and had 2 more contractions in the next 5 minutes. My mom started talking about me being in labor, and even though I argued, Michael told he was going to call my doctor and made me go lie down and count the contractions. 

After I layed down the contractions started to slow down. They did that with Seth too and so I felt that calling the doctor or going to the hospital would be a complete waste of time. When Michael came upstairs I tried to make it clear that I was NOT going to the doctor any time soon, nor should he contact my doctor- simply because I didn't want him too. He completely ignored me. He called my doctor who of course told me to get my bum into the hospital because I had a much higher chance of uterine complications than most other woman. I wasn't even suppose to go into labor.

I still fought Michael, who was packing everything up until Michael told me that if nothing happened that night he would buy me a piece of chocolate cake from my favorite sweets shop. 

Fine.

As we left I noticed that my contractions had slowed down and had become relatively painless so I told Michael to take me somewhere to walk around. We ended up at BYU where we walked around for about 10 minutes before Michael forced me to get back into the car and he drove me to the hospital.

After they hooked me up I noticed my contractions were about 6 minutes a part but I still was sure I was going to be sent home. Sure enough my doctor showed up and told me that because I was only a few days shy of 38 weeks it would be much better for the baby to hold off until then. To be on the safe side though he was going to give me some medicine to stop the contractions. (If it was real labor the contractions wouldn't stop) He wanted to monitor me for an hour before he sent me home.

I was furious at Michael. I was also tired and they had to administer the shot to slow the contractions down on my bum, so I was humiliated too.

Surprisingly, as soon as the doctor walked out of the room my contractions picked up and became two and a half minutes a part and painful. I kept waiting for them to go away but they just kept coming and the nurse finally came in and told me that she was calling my doctor back and we were going to deliver the baby that night.
Everything seemed to speed up and become a blur at that point.

They hooked me up to all the fun needles and administered the meds and some antacids though the IV.  A few minutes after they finished I started feeling horrible. I felt breathless and antsy and I couldn't sit still. I started rocking back and forth and changing my position to calm my racing heart down. I was SO thirsty and when I asked the nurse for water she told me they couldn't give me any because I was minutes away from surgery. She watched me rocking back and forth and realized I was having an anxiety attach. Apparently the antacid medicine has that as a side affect.

Well I didn't believe I was having one. All I wanted was for her to leave the room so I could get Michael to sneak me some water and so I could tell him I decided NOT to have the baby that night and that I wanted to go home and sleep. (Sleepiness was also a side affect of the meds they were putting through my IV)
(Side note: I had always thought that "anxiety attacks" were mild little things that people exaggerated. I am SO SORRY to those who experience these on a regular basis-I had no idea just how intense it really is)

Luckily after about 15 minutes of this, the anxiety DID go away and I realized that I wasn't THAT thirsty and that the baby was probably coming tonight whether or not I stayed in the hospital or not so I should probably stay put. I was still a bit upset at Michael because I was hurting from everything and I just wanted to cry and I blamed him for forcing me to come to the hospital against my will :) I didn't feel prepared to have this baby right then.
But I received a blessing that told me everything was going to go fine.

They wheeled me into the operating room, got me prepped, gave me the spinal block and 20 minutes later Clark was born.

And the doctor informed me that my uterus was paper thin (again) and it was a good thing we had the baby that night.

I am glad Michael took me in when he did.

Clark is perfectly healthy

I will be perfectly healthy

and because of the c-section I get to spend the next month taking it easy and getting to spend a lot of one on one time with this sweet boy.

Hospital Stay

Last Saturday baby Clark FINALLY decided to come! I know he was technically pretty early coming at 37 weeks and 5 days but after being on bed rest for 7 weeks I felt like the pregnancy was going to last forever :)

This picture was taken the day before

A few minutes after Clark made his debut! He was born at 1:31 in the morning. I was SO tired that I ended up dozing through the last half of the c-section.

Poor Clark was pretty beaten up after the surgery. You can't tell so much from the pictures but he had bruises on his face, arms, legs and back! I think they had a hard time pulling him out. 

He was 6 pounds 14 ounces and 18 1/2 inches long!

Family picture. Lots of handsome boys!

The boys meeting Clark for the first time. 

MD was in LOVE! HE wanted to hold him much longer then we let him and he told me that "Clark is the CUTEST baby in the whole world!"

Hyrum likes him too-but mostly he likes to give him kisses

Seth just keeps his distance :)

We "celebrated" Clarks birthday with rice crispy treats. The nurse was also nice enough to bring in some cookies. The boys were SO excited! Right now the older boys seem to think that the hospital is an awesome place full of candy and sweets.

Some of my favorite time was spent visiting with my wonderful mother-as well as my Mother and father in law.

This hospital let us dress up our baby in our own clothes during the stay, rather then make us wait until we were leaving. So I enjoyed playing dress up :)

And after we got home I did a photo shoot.

This picture makes me laugh-He looks a little scared!

Clark is wonderful-He doesn't cry very much unless he is hungry. He also knows how to nurse! None of my other boys really got it (But in all fairness I learned from Clarks lactation specialist that I was taught completely wrong with MD) 

I am planning on posting the actual birth story later when I am not falling asleep every 10 minutes :)

Pregnancy recap

38 weeks

One Year Older and Wiser too

Still one of my favorite things to hear from my boys is:

"When I grow up I want to be a huge giant man! Like daddy!"

Well I am glad I married that Giant Man.

Last week was a Doozy of a week. 

I think Michael got hit the hardest trying to juggle all his responsibilities on top of the "extras" life threw in. 

I thought it would be nice to have some family reinforcement to remind Michael about how amazing he is so I called all our family and asked them to tell me why they loved or admired Michael. (Family if you are not on this door it is because you ignored my phone call :)

The responses were wonderful. Michael pulled up a chair and spent some time in front of this door reading them all. Then he decided to leave them up. 

I am not sure how long they will last or what shape they will be in tomorrow after Seth gets to them :)

The boys decided Daddy needed to get their gift as soon as he got home. The boys and I had put together a little book about an amazing superhero names Super Daddy who had three sidekicks. The boys came up with the story, picked the stickers and were so excited to have Daddy read it out loud to them!

I was giggling as I listened too. The boys did a good job :)

Michael decided he wanted a Blueberry pie for his "cake" It was Delicious!

The boys are kind of snobs when it comes to my cooking. They prefer food bought at the store. You know things like Hot dogs, Mac and Cheese and Ice Cream. So of course they turned down the pie and ate only the ice cream. Seth too. Oh well that meant more pie for everyone else :)

For those who haven't met Michael I have to say he really IS amazing. This man works part time in the early morning (Think 2:00 in the morning) Then goes strait to school. He doesn't come home until about 4:00 in the afternoon (3:00 on his good days) where he starts doing school work, or helping around the house. He is so selfless with his time and talents. The most common comment that I received today about Michael was about how well he treated me and the kids. It's true. He is amazing. Really every girl should marry a man like Michael.