Virginia Sempervirens: October 31, 2010

October 31, 2010

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy Halloween! This has been a big week here for us! Monday was a pretty normal day. I did a small amount of shopping and a few other errands, but mostly I stayed close to home. That night we had FHE and B-man invited a friend at the last minute. We talked about another fundamental of following the prophet. I have no idea what the little boy was thinking, but it was kind of fun to have him there asking questions that an adult might be too shy to ask about prophets.

Tuesday morning started out like every other day. Except I was a lot more achy and was having some contractions. Mostly I was in denial and tried to get things crossed off my list. I took the car for its safety inspection, vacuumed the car, and ran to Wal-Mart etc. I did take a nap while J was sleeping, and woke up feeling better. We ate lunch and then went to deliver something to a friend. We stayed for a while until it was time to go get B-man at the bus stop. After a snack we went downstairs and chatted with M on the webcam. While we chatted for about forty minutes I had three contractions. They were painful enough to make me wince and show M how uncomfortable I was. We made some plans on how to get him “just in case” before signing off. We then went upstairs to work on homework and I made a salad for dinner. We then headed off to dinner at a friends’ house in our ward. They live super close in our neighborhood but I really didn’t want to walk and have any more contractions come. Dinner went really well. Although most of the time I was having contractions. There was no clock visible so I couldn’t really time them. I tried to sit down all of the time. The contractions really started to hurt, and I started to get really anxious. Before I left I admitted to the family that I was a little nervous I was in labor, and asked for a blessing. We then went home (6:30 ish). Once I got home I decided that I at least needed to go to the hospital and make sure. Mostly the thought of getting the boys to bed just was undoable at that point. I started calling all the people that I needed to. I called a friend to watch the boys, she ended up driving over. I called my mom, M’s mom, and my friend who was going to come to the hospital. I started throwing some pajamas in a bag for the boys and packing my bag. While I was doing this my friend was here helping to watch the boys. During this it was getting hard to walk or talk during the contractions, but I still had no idea how far apart they were because I was too busy getting everything organized. My friend asked several times if I wanted a ride to the hospital and I always refused. I was sure I would be okay and this was a false alarm, but at the last second I changed my mind and hopped into her car. The last thing I did before leaving was wake up M and let him know that I was going to the hospital. I was kind of a basket case during these thirty minutes of packing. This was not how it was supposed to be happening. She drove straight to the hospital. While on the way I got a phone call from my friend who was going to be at the hospital letting me know she would just come right away instead of waiting for an update from me. I’m so glad she did. She pulled up and after a little debate I decided just to walk in. The boys were still in the car and we couldn’t leave them alone, plus it was super close. I just hurried in in-between contractions. While I was walking in I could tell I was further progressed than I thought. I waited a few minutes for help and the contractions started coming very close together. Luckily the doctor was at the hospital already and was able to come right away. When he checked me (I had been at the hospital about 5-10 minutes) I was at a 9. He was so cute and helped me get in the wheel chair and wheeled me down to the room. Then everything started happening super fast. I called M to let him know I was going to be having the baby and left him on speaker phone. My friend arrived a few minutes after getting into the delivery room. The room filled with people, they broke my water, and four or five contractions later I had little RM. M was on speaker phone the whole time during the birth and for several hours after the delivery. I was so anxious about having the baby without him, but once RM was here I was very relieved that everything had gone okay and it was over. For the worst case scenario everything went really, really well. My kids were covered, I had M on the phone, and my mom would be coming soon. Apparently it was a VERY busy day, because they let me hold and keep RM for almost four hours after the delivery. It was wonderful. M and I were on the phone until he had to go to work. I felt bad for him that he was so far away. We were so thankful for technology! If I had planned better we could have had him on the webcam…

Wednesday was recovery day. A few friends visited me during the day. The boys were brought that evening by a friend. They were so cute with RM. B-man just wanted to hold him, and J was most excited to sit on my lap and eat a roll. Once he noticed the baby he got really excited and tried to feed him some of the roll that he was eating. I really missed seeing my boys during the day. I was so grateful to all the people that were helping. I’ve never been in a situation like that before where I just had to accept the help and had no control over what was happening. I don’t know what I would have done without the wonderful friends I have made through the gospel. That night my mom arrived. Of course her flight was delayed, but I was just happy to know that she was safely on the ground in the same city!

The next morning I started getting things organized to go home. M and I finalized the birth certificate, and then I packed the bags. My mom got B-man off to school, and then a friend came and got J so that my mom could help get us home without another little person to worry about. Getting home went very smoothly, except that they forgot about me for a while and left us waiting for the last little check-off to leave. Eventually we made it out to the car and then drove to get J. When we got home he went to bed for a nap. The rest of the day was pretty quiet. My mom took the B-man to soccer practice in the evening and we had a late dinner.

Friday is a blur. Most of the morning was spent at the doctor’s. I took RM for his first little checkup and they wanted another check for jaundice. I knew he didn’t need it, but I had to comply. I went to the hospital, but they sent me to another place because of insurance. I hated having RM in that germy place. At the second place I got the distinct feeling that the first fellow had not worked with a three day old very often. I got really nervous when the heel stick didn’t work and they started talking about finding a vein on his arm. They even looked but of course couldn’t find one. Luckily they didn’t stick him. The other worker came in and after a double heel stick and almost an hour of squeezing the heck out of his heel they finally had enough. I was SO happy to finally take him home. He was such a champ and even fell asleep during all that squeezing. Later that night we carved pumpkins. B-man wanted a Darth Vader pumpkin and my mom did a very good job with his request.

Saturday was nice and slow. B-man had a soccer game and my mom took him while J was sleeping. It was a very cold day, but he played hard and had a good time. The rest of the day was pretty quiet. Later that evening my mom took the kids to our ward trunk-or-treat. At the very last minute (unbeknownst to me or my mother) B-man invited our next door neighbor to come along. It worked out okay, but we had to have a chat about asking adults before inviting friends somewhere. I had meant to go and pass out candy during the trunk-or-treat portion of the activity, but by the time I got there the activity was over. It’s probably better anyway.

Sunday morning was nice and quiet. My mom took the boys to church, but didn’t get to enjoy the last two hours because of J and his wiggles. After church we had dinner and got ready for trick-or-treaters. B-man was thrilled to be the person passing out the candy. It worked out perfectly because he never even complained about not being able to go out trick-or-treating.

All the rest of our time has been spent snuggling with our cute new little baby and trying to snuggle with my other children so they don’t feel displaced.