The birth story

The story of how little Wesley made his entrance into the world. Please note, this is the full story, so it will include some content not suitable for squeamish stomachs.

On Wednesday, May 4th, at exactly 38 wks pregnant, my water broke. It was just after 2pm. I had gone into Jeremy's room to wake him up from a nap. I was sitting on his bed. I leaned forward to rub his back, and felt a sudden gush. My first thought was that I didn't realize I had needed to go to the bathroom. I have a very strong bladder, and was shocked that I could pee that much without realizing I needed to! I immediately got up and went to the bathroom, thankfully right next door to Jeremy's room. Once in there, I realized it was not pee. For one thing, it was the wrong color; pinkish instead of yellow or clear. For another, it kept coming. And coming. And coming. I was in Jeremy's bathroom, so I grabbed a towel and hobbled to my bathroom, where thankfully I had already stocked up on some adult diapers for recovering from birth. I did a few tests to make sure it really was amniotic fluid, and not urine. Once I had convinced myself, I called Justin. He didn't answer, and from the dial tone, I could tell it was because he was on the phone with someone else. He texted to say he was in a meeting. I texted back saying to get out of his meeting, because I was pretty sure my water just broke. I waited a few minutes for a call from him, and when I didn't get one, I decided he probably didn't read my text during his meeting. I called again, and this time he answered.

I told him my water broke, and he needed to come home. I can't imagine what he was thinking, since neither of us ever imagined I'd go into labor on my own, let alone do so 2 weeks before my due date!

We hung up, and I started working on gathering some of our things. Thankfully I had mostly packed my hospital bag just the day before, so there were only a few things I needed to throw together. Unfortunately, I hadn't gotten to packing Jeremy's overnight bag yet; I had planned to do that on Thursday, after doing the laundry. So I tried my best to pack, all while worried my leaking wouldn't stay contained.

Jeremy continued to nap through this whole process, which actually made it a bit easier. Once Justin got home, he was able to help finish up, and at about 3:30, an hour and a half after my water broke, we were headed to my mom's to drop off Jeremy.

After that, we went to the hospital. It took a while to be admitted, despite my own certainty that my water had in fact broken. A lot of women go to triage thinking their water has broken when they've actually just leaked a bit of urine, so they run 2 different tests to confirm that it is amniotic fluid. Before she could even run the tests though, the nurse knew it was my waters. It was no small amount, and ended up all over her hand just from collecting for the test! She also found that I was already dialated to a 3, and once the tests officially confirmed my water breakage, they started getting me admitted.

After a short wait, I was taken up to my room. The nurse talked over a bunch of stuff, the different protocols for different things, lots of boring stuff that I don't remember. I got an iv, and after a bit, they checked me again. I hadn't really dialated any more, so despite my hesitancy, they started me on pitocin. In retrospect, I wish I had pushed to wait another hour or two, and walk around to see if I could get things going on my own.

Once the pitocin started, the contractions were close behind. They ramped up in intensity quite rapidly, which was unpleasant. Because of my horrible experience with an epidural with Jeremy, I was determined to avoid getting one if at all possible. I was worried the pitocin would make that harder, but was determined to try.

After a few hours, during which my contractions continued to worsen, but I wasn't dilating much more, the Dr came in to discuss options. The contractions were getting harder to handle, and I still had a ways to go. We settled on getting an iv pain med, which was supposed to take the edge off and help me relax.

Let me tell you, that iv medicine was strange. It made me very tired (it WAS the middle of the night. Around 2 I think?), and kind of out of it. We had put on Discovery Planet earlier in the evening, and it was still playing as I tried to rest. It was very soothing to listen to, but then, because of the medicine, it became a sort of out of body experience. It was an episode about monkeys and in a semi-dream state, it felt like I was there, part of the episode. The narrator was describing the behavior of these monkeys, and I was one of them. It's hard to really describe, but it was definitely a strange experience.

While in my monkey dream state, I could still feel the contractions, but time was passing very strangely. After was felt like 5 contractions, the nurse came in to check me again. Apparently it had been an hour or two, during which time I had been having consistent contractions every 2ish minutes. I was much closer now, so the nurse decided not to give me another dose of pain meds.

The nurse started getting things ready in the room, even though I wasn't at a ten yet, when very suddenly, I NEEDED to push. It wasn't at all what I expected. I thought I would feel it more, but it was less a feeling, and more of a certainty. I needed to push, and I needed to push NOW.

I told the nurse, who checked again and confirmed that it was go time! The Dr came in, and after about 15 minutes, Wesley Scott came into the world!

My favorite part was after getting his head out, how the rest of his body just slipped right out. It was such a neat feeling, especially since I could really feel it all. Much better than with Jeremy! The placenta was worse, though. I don't really remember delivering the placenta with Jeremy. It just kind of slipped out with 1 push. This time, it took a bit more effort, and a lot more pain.

After delivering the placenta, I was stitched up, during which time I very impatiently waited to hold my baby. The nurses were cleaning him up, checking his breathing and everything. I was very annoyed that it took so long to hold him. With Jeremy, they immediately placed him on my chest, did the most important tests from there, and waited to do the rest. I expected the same thing this time, and was not happy when that didn't happen. I just kept telling them, "I need my baby."

Finally I got to hold him, after what felt like forever, but was probably about 10 minutes (still way too long). I don't remember much from that stretch of time, other than just soaking up the baby snuggles.

I honestly don't remember too much from the rest of the hospital stay. We had a few visitors, which was nice, some awful food, some good food that Justin brought from restaurants near the hospital, and lots of interruptions from nurses.

Wesley was born on 5/5/16, weighing 8lbs10oz, and 21" long.

A bit out of order, but my very last bump picture, taken right after my water broke. 

Jeremy meeting his little brother. He was very tired, and a bit unsure about the whole thing. 

He looks a lot like Jeremy here. Same grumpy old man expression. :)

He's here!

Surprise! Two weeks early my water broke, and less than a day later, little Wesley made his debut. Welcome to the world, cutie pie!

Getting close

I love the tail end of pregnancy. I'm probably one of very few women to ever say that, but for me, it's when I feel the best! Starting about 2 or 3 weeks ago, I finally have energy again! Combined with motivation, because of how quickly my due date is approaching, I've been getting so much done!

I still have a bit to do before baby gets here, but it's so refreshing to be crossing things off the to do list on a near daily basis. Justin is really enjoying it, too. He's been so helpful during this (and the last) pregnant, picking up the slack where I'm too tired. Doing the dishes more, and the laundry, and generally trying to keep the house tidy. But the last few weeks, he hasn't had hardly any housework to do! He still helps with dinner dishes, but he has really enjoyed not having multiple days worth of dishes to catch up on when he finally gets a chance too.

So, all around, things are going great here! People keep asking how I'm feeling, and most of them seem surprised when I say I feel great, and actually mean it. I guess my body just does pregnancy different!

In other news, I recently got a new calling. I'm now the primary chorister! I'm so happy to be back in primary. I was only the RS Meeting coordinator for a few months, but the whole time, it just didn't feel right. I felt like I'm supposed to be in primary, and I guess I was right, since they put me back in! It's a little challenging with timing, since I don't have a lot of lung space right now, and I'll be missing a few Sundays pretty soon here. Luckily the previous chorister was called as ward choir director, so she's available to step in for me when I have the baby. And she's very happy to do so, which is awesome.

Jeremy has been a lot of fun lately, too. The more vocal he gets, the funnier he gets. Yesterday we were trying to get him into his pjs, and he wasn't interested. So Justin balanced them on his face, to where he was looking through the neck hole. When Jeremy saw, he said "silly old man!" We both busted up laughing!

He also still enjoys pretending to be a dog, which has actually started coming in handy. We'll tell him which of his dinner foods dogs like to eat, and he's more likely to eat it. We brush his doggy teeth, and he's much more cooperative. It's also great for wearing him out without wearing me out. Doggies love to play fetch and do tricks. :) And I love it a little more than most moms might, because it's a little bit of me coming through!

This past weekend, Justin and I decided to have a little vacation without the pup. Justin's parents watched Jeremy overnight Friday to Saturday, and we went to the Arizona Grand Resort right by south mountain. Most of our time was spent trying out different foods in the valley that I've been wanting to try. We had a lot of ice cream, and just a lot of good food in general. We also did some swimming, since they have a water park at the resort, and some exploring around Phoenix on Saturday morning. It was a fun, relaxing weekend.

Those are the main updates I can think of right now. I'm not sure if I'll post again before the baby comes, so my next post might be very exciting! Fingers crossed that this delivery goes better than my last!

Jeremy helping with the dishes

We've been trying to figure out the best way to fit two car seats in our civic. We're still working on it. 

I love his static slide hair! 

I made a super yummy cheesecake. This is me bragging about it. :)

My latest bump picture. In other news, I figured out how to add captions! Yay!

A few pics from our "stay-cation". Yummy ice cream and croissants, my adorable hubby, and a not super great picture of the 2 of us right before swimming

The cactus incident

I've been pretty tired lately, so it's been harder to put my thoughts in order enough to write a blog post. But this is me, making an effort. A for effort?

About a week ago, Justin decided to take off work early on a Friday so he could go check out a camp site he was planning to take the boy scouts to the following weekend. We decided to make it a family affair, so Jeremy and I, and even Lacie, came along.

Lacie wasn't too sure about the car ride, but once we got there, she was in doggie heaven. She does really well staying by us and not bolting off, so we kept the leash off to begin with. She loved being able to roam around the desert and explore! Jeremy thought it was great fun having Lacie there, too.

It was all going swimmingly, until Lacie started sniffing around a cactus. She's not the brightest dog, so despite my efforts to call her away, she ended up with a nose full of cactus. Boy, let me tell you, Jeremy learned a lesson he will never forget, that we should always stay away from cactus!

We were able to get it out with some work. It was tricky, and involved me trying to keep Lacie's head still, and keep her from pawing at her nose, while Justin used a bit of moleskin to try to pull the cactus off. Because apparently his first aid kit is useless, and doesn't have tweezers. That will be changing.

But we got it off, and Jeremy and Lacie both learned a valuable lesson. Lacie didn't go sniffing around off the path anymore, and Jeremy kept talking about how we should stay away from cactus.

Even with that incident, we all had a great time being out in nature. Lacie didn't seem at all traumatized by the experience, once the cactus was out. She went right back to being happy to explore with her boy. She was just better at staying on the path. :)

In other news, Jeremy is slowly getting used to being in sunbeams. He's had a pretty hard transition, I think largely because of how young he is. Note to self, have babies in the first half of the year to make sunbeams a smoother transition! But the last two weeks have each been a step in the right direction, so hopefully, within about a month, he'll be good to just go sit with his class without any meltdowns. Fingers crossed!

We also recently transitioned Jeremy out of his toddler bed (since it's also the crib) and into a twin bed. He has not had any problems with the change, and absolutely loves his new big boy bed. We also took away his night time diapers, the last stage of potty training. He probably would have been fine to lose those even sooner, but I wasn't quite ready. But he has been sleeping in undies for 2 weeks now, and hasn't had a single accident. He even woke up at 1am to go potty last night.

Saturday morning, when Jeremy was first starting to make noises in his room, I suddenly here him say, "Pop! The baby's here now!" He is convinced that's how it works. My belly will get bigger and bigger and pop! The baby will be here. So I hear him say that, and when I go in to get him, he is holding his stuffed dog like a baby, and tells me his baby is here! He then spent the whole morning pretending his dog was a baby: feeding it pretend milk, putting it down for a nap, telling me when the "baby" was crying. It was pretty adorable. I don't know how much he really understands how life will change when we have the baby, but it makes me happy to see him already trying to understand and simulate what it will be like. And any time he talks about baby Wesley, it's usually to say something he's going to share with him, or how he'll help when he's crying. I love that he's already showing compassion for his little brother. Hopefully those feelings stick around once Wesley is actually here!

That's about it for updates for now. As usual, enjoy the onslaught of pictures! I wish I could intersperse them through the post, but I use the blogger app, and for whatever reason, it will only let me attach a bunch at the end. So, here you go!

"Your can say a prayer, mommy?"

Lately, Jeremy has started getting nightmares. I was kind of expecting it to come, since it's really common at this age, and also very common in my family. It's still hard to hear your son wake up in the middle of the night in tears. :(

One side effect of the nightmares is that, at bedtime, after Justin and I leave his room and close the door, sometimes he will start to kind of freak out about monsters or robots coming for his stuffed doggie. One night earlier this week when he did this, I went in, and, unsure what else to do to alleviate his fear, I said a prayer with him, specifically to keep the monsters and robots away, and keep Jeremy safe.

Well, last night, after Justin and I put him to bed, and a few minutes had passed, he started talking about the monsters and robots coming for his doggie. After a few sentences of that, I heard him call for me over the monitor, saying "Mommy, your can say prayer about the monsters?"

Sometimes I wait a little bit before going in, to see if he's insistent or just trying to stall bedtime. That sentence, though, had me up right away! My baby asked me to say a prayer to keep the monsters away, and I am so proud that he is learning that when we're scared, we can pray for comfort. It's hard to watch him have nightmares and be afraid, but it really makes me happy that he's learning to trust God, and learn what source he can turn to for peace and comfort.

Plus his little ungrammatical way of saying "your can say prayer about monsters?" is just adorable. :)

Some weeks (last week in particular) are hard, and I feel like I'm barely accomplishing anything besides keeping my child alive, but last night was a good evidence to me that some of the things I'm trying to teach him are getting through. Those are the moments I lean on when it feels like I'm accomplishing nothing.

I didn't write all this to brag, mostly just because it's something I want to remember in the future, and it'll make a great story to tell Jeremy in the future. The story of how he learned that prayer brings comfort. <3

Facebook free

I'm going Facebook free again for a while, so I'm going to try extra hard to post here fairly regularly. I'm not sure anyone still reads it except my mom, but at least I'm making an effort, right? :)

Right now, not too much is going on with my little family. Jeremy is hilarious as ever. He gets these silly ideas, like setting up his train tracks on our dog Lacie. It's a good thing she's so patient!

As Jeremy's speech continues to improve, he is getting ever more entertaining. I love hearing all his opinions on everything. His latest has been in the car. Now that the Christmas music is long gone, I've switched back to listening to soundtracks from musicals in the car. Well, the first time he heard Starlight Express, a musical about trains, he was hooked. He won't let me put on any other musicals! I'm not complaining, it's not annoying children's songs, it's actually music I like! I do wish I could have a little more variety, but all things considered, I lucked out! His favorite part are the races. The narrator, a little boy, counts down from ten, and... "Trains gone!" And then he narrates the race. It amazes me how much Jeremy actually understands, just from hearing the boy narrate the race. He tells me to drive fast like the trains, and of course gets excited when he hears the noise of the crash! I'm proud to be raising a little boy who is already developing a love for musicals. :)

Justin has been very busy with Boy Scouts. They are working on establishing the flag program as a fundraiser for the ward. With it being the first year doing it, there is a lot to do. He's had scout stuff every Saturday this month! I'll be glad when all the initial stuff is over, and it passes to just the boys doing their routes each holiday. I miss my hubby!

I recently got a new calling. I'm no longer the primary pianist (best calling ever!). :( Now I am the relief society activity chair person. I've been having a hard time accepting that this is really my calling now. I went from having a calling that helped me relieve stress, to having a calling that causes stress. I already miss just being able to go to the activities. Instead of them being a nice break, a chance to socialize and unwind, now they are a responsibility. I'm the first to arrive and the last to leave, and I feel like I have to be "on" the whole time. In charge. Available for any needs that arise. I'll adjust with time, I'm sure, but I'm still having a hard time. I'm just not excited to be doing it, and that makes it hard to be motivated. Okay, I'm done whining about my new calling now.

I have finally been feeling better, pregnancy-wise. I've had more energy, and I've been wanting to get out of the house more. My house is cleaner than it's been in a long time! There's still work to be done, but it really helps my mood to not have as much clutter around. :) Jeremy has been enjoying it too, playing with his toys more and just generally being more imaginative. And apparently my arm chair is a pool, so that's cool. :)

I can't really think of any other updates right now. I'll try to write down the cute Jeremy stories as they happen, because when I try to remember them, I keep coming up blank! Until then, have a bunch of pictures!

Merry Christmas!

What a wonderful time of the year, and so very busy!

In the past month, we've enjoyed so many wonderful things:

-A trip to Sedona (one of the best, in my opinion. My parents really planned ahead and had so many fun activities for the children, it cut way down on the number of fights and meltdowns with all the grandkids. Poor Oliver got sick, and Henry on the last morning, but aside from that, it was a nice, relaxed, fun time. I'm so happy we have this tradition.)

-A missionary homecoming. It has been so fun having Natalie home again, and Jeremy getting to know her, and vice versa. She keeps commenting how he's so cute, sometimes she just can't even handle it! Natalie, I know the feeling! Jeremy has such a fun personality, sometimes I can't handle it!. The day before she came home, there was also a proposal, so there's been the excitement surrounding that, too. It's been fun getting to know Travis' fiancée Anna. She's such a fun lady. My favorite experience with her so far is from Christmas. Jeremy got a tool bench from grandma and grandpa C, and she was so in love with it. She spent some time with Jeremy, building the little tool box it came with. I thought it was adorable to see her interacting like that with her future nephew.

-A birthday. Jeremy turned 3 on the 7th! I have a 3 year old! His birthday has been spread out over quite a bit of the month, with no complaints from him! He has loved getting to open so many presents, and they have seemed to just keep coming! He's been having a blast this month between birthday and Christmas. This will definitely be his favorite time of the year growing up!

-Lots of Christmas festivities! This one will need broken up, too. There has been too much fun for one paragraph!

-A parade, riding in the fire truck. One of my favorite memories from this year. Jeremy got such a kick out of going to the fire station, seeing the great big fire trucks. He didn't want to go up on top of it, but he loved riding inside and throwing candy at the kids on the street.

-Christmas eve with the Maroneys. Lots of fun, especially going to see the temple lights. Jeremy has loved seeing the Christmas lights everywhere this year, so walking the temple grounds was a great treat for him. It was especially endearing to see him holding hands with my mom, looking at all the beautiful lights, pointing out the red spiders, and saying he was going to eat them. He's such a silly boy, I just love it. :)

-Christmas day. What a day! Jeremy was so delighted by his motorcycle from Santa. He spent all morning scooting around the house. Justin and I had gotten each other a rocking chair as our big present, so I had only gotten Justin a few small things beside that: bike lights, a headlamp, a blast match thing for lighting fires. He, on the other hand, ignored the budget and surprised me with a beautiful Greg Olsen print. It's called Angels of Christmas, and it made me cry. It's such a sweet painting of two little kids placing different pieces of a nativity. I love it.

After our Christmas, we headed to my parents' for Maroney Christmas. More presents were exchanged, most notably, the beautiful Greg Olsen prints my parents got for each of their children. My walls are going to look so good once I hang up my new paintings! The print from my parents is called Traveling By Book, it's a boy reading a book, looking up into clouds that look kind of like a castle. My family knows just which prints to pick to pull at my heartstrings.

After Maroneys, we headed to the Clements, where we started our Christmas festivities with a family nap time. Jeremy fell asleep on the way there, so we laid him down, then Justin and I took a nap, too, along with several other family members. After about an hour I got Jeremy up, and we did presents. I already mentioned the tool set Jeremy got, that Anna was so enamored with. Justin got an easy-up, and I got a water bath canner set. I'm excited to make all sorts of sauces and jams in it. :)

Today we celebrated with the extended Clement side. I got to meet Justin's aunt and uncle Robin and Jason. They live in Oregon, and came down to visit. It was a pretty laid back visit, with lunch and lots of visiting. Jeremy loved their trampoline, of course. He spent most of our 3 hours jumping on it, despite it being rather cold and windy today.

It has been such a busy, wonderful month, full of great memories, and I'm looking forward to this coming week to veg out and catch my breath!

One other exciting event this month was finding out that we are having another baby boy! It will be so fun watching Jeremy and his brother grow up together, hopefully best friends more often than enemies. :) I know it'll be crazy with two boys, but I'm so exciting for the adventures that await. Being pregnant has certainly added a degree of craziness to the holidays, since I've had a lot less energy than normal, but thankfully the awful "morning" (all day) sickness subsided just before Sedona, which was the start of all the holiday busyness. All the same, I'm excited to have a less busy schedule for the next little bit. Maybe I'll be able to do some of the things around the house that I need to get done before baby comes!