First Bath and Jeff's B-day

I can't believe my sweet little babe is two weeks already. I can't believe we ever existed without her. She is such an angel and we feel so blessed to have her. With my other two I suffered from postpartum/baby blues and I really just don't feel like I enjoyed this tiny stage cuz I was such a wreck emotionally. With Brielle I still have my moments but I feel like I'm really able to cherish this stage a little more and just soak up her tiny sweetness. 
      This first pic is just a pic to show how tiny she is. I wish there was a way to really capture her tininess. But this is an attempt.
      So as to how this little lady has changed our family- Skylee just adores her. She comes straight home from school and wants to hold her all day long. She really would if we didn't have to change diapers and feed her and have her sleep every once in awhile. She can't get enough of her little sister and helping me out.
      Jaston doesn't seem to react much to her. Every once in awhile he will come give her a hug or a kiss or want to hold her for a few seconds but overall he just does his thing and doesn't seem to mind her. We will see if that will last.
      Jeff loves her too, of course. He loves to hold her. Brielle seems to be much calmer with him since every time I hold her she thinks she wants to eat. So when I need her to just chill I hand her off to Jeff and she snuggles down and enjoys her Daddy.
      I wish I could hold her all day long too she is so sweet and snuggly right now. I am tired but she really is a good baby. She eats great, is pretty good about staying on a three hour schedule and at night usually goes a bit longer- typically four hours but she has done as little as every 2 hours waking up and has even done a few 6 hour stretches (those were heavenly nights!). But the nice thing is she usually goes right back to sleep so it's just getting up to nurse and then she'll go back down. The past few days she has been acting like her stomach is hurting her a little. Trying to figure out that one. 
    As for me physically I'm feeling most of the way better. My stomach hurts still occasionally but I think it's because I'm using muscles I haven't used in nine months and my body isn't loving it. I am pretty much back down to pre-pregnancy weight but still can't fit into most of my pre-pregnancy pants- go figure. i think it's from my hips widening. Not sure if they will ever get back to normal... I was so stressed about not being able to lose the weight with this third one cuz I've heard it's so tough but I really lucked out in that department. Problem is keeping it off cuz I want to eat the house down. I'm assuming it's just from nursing but I seriously can't get satisfied and I crave high calorie foods ALL the time. I'm hoping it calms down. At the moment I'm trying to find higher protein snacks so I really don't consume all the chocolate and cookies I crave all the time. We have been so blessed to have people bring meals in this week but man, those desserts are calling my name all day long :) Overall I feel the labor/delivery/recovery all have gone much more smoothly with Brielle despite the pregnancy being WAY tougher physically. So that's pretty much an update of our family in the past two weeks. It's crazy how life can just completely transform in such a short time. We feel so so blessed and are so grateful to have Brielle a part of our family!

Here are some pics. These first few are Brielle's first bath. She didn't love it so much. She hates to be cold and the unknown is really not her favorite. She got much calmer once she was in jammies and snuggled up again.

This is a pic I took today. It is Jeff's birthday and I gave him a Blu-Ray player for his gift. This is him and the kids watching Wreck-It-Ralph (one of the only blu-ray DVD's we have). He's such a good Daddy and a wonderful husband. I am truly blessed to be married to this amazing man! Love you babe!

Pics

Here are some pics from my phone over the last week or so.

More Pics

      Here are some more pics of our baby girl. She is such an angel. Her labor and delivery was not quite so tough as the other two which has allowed me to recover much more quickly. I also believe having my mom for the whole week and trying to just heal made a huge difference. I'm not 100% but I'm feeling so much better than day one. Our little baby girl is 8 days old now I can't believe it! Two nights ago she decided to give Mommy an amazing gift and slept 6 hours in a row. Wow, did that make me feel so much better. She did it again last night. I'm trying not to bank on the fact she will keep doing it but I'm so grateful for the sleep!

      I decided to get some pics off my camera before I get too far behind. I also found this fun website for collages so I played around with that- picture2life.com Love it!

 This baby girl has a big sister that just ADORES her. She wants to hold her 24 hours a day and help with everything. She is a sweetie. She will just sit and stare at her while she is in her swing. I think these two will be really close. She's a great big sister. 

 Brielle has no lack of love from anyone in the family. This is her with Daddy :)

My Dad came to pick up my mom yesterday (who was here all week and I owe SO much for ALL of her help) and he got to spend some time with Brielle. Diane and Greg were going to come down for the weekend but Diane had some difficulties and ended up in the hospital Thursday. She was released Friday but didn't feel she should travel to Kingman. So Sat we decided to meet her, Lee, and Greg and go to dinner so she could meet her grandbaby. When I asked how she was in the hospital she was so upset she couldn't come she said, "My arms ache to hold that baby!" 

   In Vegas she was so so excited to hold her and cuddle her. She even fed her her very first bottle. Skylee showed her first signs of jealousy for Brielle. Skylee has always been Nana's #1 (first grandbaby, first girl in the family ever) and sharing her with Brielle was not something she wanted to do. But Nana is so great with Skylee and took some time with her and was able to snuggle with Brielle a little more. She thanked me so many times for coming, knowing it wasn't easy just a week after I had the baby. It was well worth it to see the smile on her face and see her light up to see Brielle, Skylee, and Jaston. Brielle was a champ at the restaurant. Not so happy on the way home but overall she did super well for her first car trip.

New Lens for the New Babe

After much drama and despair my camera lens finally arrived! I was so excited I had to take some pics of my new model immediately. I still have a lot to learn but man, I have one cute little thing to practice with. 

The Labor Story

Four nights ago we welcomed our third, beautiful child, Brielle, into the world. Friday night I was having contractions quite regularly- about one minute  apart for several hours. We debated on going in or not. My contractions didn't seem too hard most of the time so I just wasn't sure. The thing that confused me the most was with Jaston I was having contractions about every 2 min for a few hours but they weren't painful and when we went in I progressed really quickly. We decided to wait it out and see if they continued or stopped. I attempted to go back to sleep. The next morning I was still having light contractions but not regularly. We decided to take advantage of a Saturday with Jeff not working and no baby to do some things we have been putting off- work on the yard and clean out the garage.
    We worked all morning on that and I started having some more contractions pretty regularly. We decided to just go in and get checked out. This baby has stressed me out SO much with when I should go in. You would think it being my third I would be over that by now but this is my first baby being away from family. It takes three hours for my family to make it here and my parents really didn't want to miss the birth. All of those I had lined up to watch the kids were out of town this week so I texted my sweet friend, Hillary and asked if she would mind watching my kids while we went in. Bless her heart she was over at my house in like ten minutes to pick up my kids and Jeff and I headed to the hospital not knowing if it was real or not.
     I was so worried that as soon as I got to the hospital the contractions would stop but when we got there they were still going. I heard that the people in the ER were allergic to pregnant people and would get you up to labor and delivery pretty quickly. They were right. Someone was down to wheel me up in like three minutes tops. They hooked me all up to the monitors, checked me- said I was at a 3 and about 60% effaced and they would check me again in an hour. So we waited... I texted my mom to let her know we were going in but not to leave yet cuz we didn't know if it was real or not. After the hour they checked me and I had progressed a tiny bit. She said I could either go home or wait a few more hours and see if anything progressed. I was having constant contractions but they just weren't big enough to really progress me. We decided to stay but the whole two hours I just was so stressed they were going to send me home and then I would just really struggle with when to come back. After the two hours they checked and said I still was pretty much the same. Right at the end of the two hours I was starting to get stronger contractions. The nurse said she would call the doc and let him know but she would guess he would just send me home. I was super disappointed. When she came back in she told us it was our lucky day, he was going to come in and check me and she started prepping me and giving me an IV and everything saying she had worked with him for ten years and if he was coming in he was going to break my water. Now I was panicking cuz this was really going to happen.
     Lo and behold he came in and broke my water. He does his own epidurals so I told him I was just fine with an epidural at any time. Little did I know they were going to push fluids into me pretty quick and give me my epidural. Within 15 min of breaking my water I had my epidural and life was much better. This was about 6PM we went in about 3:00. After about an hour they started the pitocin and that was when the contractions really started coming. My parents showed up abt 9:00 and when she checked me I was at about a 6 and fully effaced, the baby had dropped as well. My parents lied to us and told us Kelsi and Emil weren't coming but lo and behold abt an hour later Kelsi and Emil walked in. That was a fun surprise. Abt the time they came I started feeling some back pain and I was feeling super nauseous. Both weird symptoms since I had an epidural and she had already given me Zofran for my nausea. After about a half hour of them being there I started feeling extra nauseous and really shakey. The nurse came in and checked me and said I was about a 9 1/2 and it was just about time to push. That explained the pain, nausea, and shakiness. My body had progressed way quick from the 6-10 and it was just responding. About ten min later the doc came in, set everything up and said it's time to get this baby out. I started pushing about 11:00. It was so hard to push her out. I was exhausted and she just didn't want to come. But at 11:45 she decided to grace us with her presence and I  was instantly in love. They put her right up on me while they wiped her down and Jeff cut the cord. They weighed her - 6 lbs 7 oz and 19 inches long and then we got to do skin to skin. After just a few min i tried feeding her and she latched right on and was a champ feeder and still is. The doc was surprised how hard she made me work for a third baby.
       She then got to meet everyone else before they headed to bed ( She was born at 11:48 PM on 4-13-13). It was so neat to have some of my family there to meet her. We sure missed the rest of the family that wasnt there.
      The next morning the kids came to meet her. Skylee couldn't get enough of her and wanted to hold her  every second- she didn't want to give anyone else a chance. The minute Jaston walked into the room he wanted to play my phone and could care less abt me or the baby. Since then he has started to show more interest in her. I have been spoiled and my mom has been here with us all week and has helped with cleaning, helping with kids, and helping with the babies. So I don't feel like real life has hit yet. The real test of if I can handle three kids will happen when she leaves. That is when I will really see what I'm made of ;). Til then I'm soaking up my time with this sweet baby girl. I seriously could just hold and cuddle her all day long! She is so so sweet and really pretty chill. When she doesnt' like something she will let you know! She screams every time you change her diaper or is hungry but as soon as you are done changing her and warm her up and/or feed her she is a happy little camper. I sure love this sweet girl and cant believe she hasn't always been a part of our family. I def know she was meant to be in our family. It's always a surprise to me that I can love a child as much as my other children. I think our hearts just grow more and more with each child. I can't stand how much I love her. What a blessing to have her in our lifes. We love you Brielle Barbara Winger! Welcome to our family. Pics to follow

Pics of Brielle

As you can imagine we took LOTS of pics at the hospital. I narrowed it down as far as I could and added them into collages so there wasn't SO much to look at. What a precious time in our lifes it   has been to welcome this little girl into our family. We sure love her!

Brielle gave the kids gifts- Jaston was in heaven! He sure loved his sister after this gift he has been asking for for years :)

Sky was pretty excited too.

Perspective

If you check the post before this one you will notice I had a baby shower with one of my sweet friends, Kelly Pluid. Kelly was 30 weeks along with twins as of yesterday. Last night she went into labor and had her twins early this morning. She got to hold one of her sweet baby boys before they took them away and flew them to Phoenix. When I heard about this I couldn't help but just cry. Yes, I'm hormonal and emotional but I think anyone who has held their precious new baby would understand the heartache of having that infant taken away. I can't empathize because I have never had that happen but I can only imagine. Both her and the babies are doing well, being ten weeks early their lungs are not developed enough to breathe on their own. Each was around 3 1/2 lbs. 
      I guess I feel the need to blog about this because I am full of gratitude for my baby girl that at 38 weeks is still able to stay in my belly and keep growing. Yes, I'm uncomfortable and say I would love her to come at anytime but truly it is better for her to stay in there as long as she can so that when she comes out she is healthy and whole. 
    My heart hurts for all of you mothers that have had to part from your sweet babies for any reason. I will stop my complaining of discomfort, back ache, contractions, tiredness and having to go to the bathroom every five seconds and just cherish the time I have left feeling her wiggle and kick in my belly. Not to mention cherishing the few days I have left focusing on my two sweet kiddos. I think I sometimes take for granted the healthy pregnancies and deliveries I have had. I know that was a lot of rambling but my mind and heart are full today for Kelly and her sweet family. Their names are in the temple and many are praying for them. If it is meant to be those boys will be just fine, it will just be a tough for the Pluid family for a bit. I have already seen the amazing outpouring of concern and prayers from our ward family and am so grateful for the gospel and the plan of reaching out to serve those around us. 
 I hope she doesn't mind me posting these pics-