Pretty Leap Day

Not sure where all the blogging 'gusto' is coming from.. but I'm going to go with it until it passes. :) Today was  a BEAUTIFUL day, it would have been a beautiful day for April, not just February 29th! 66 degrees, sunny, a little blustery, but not enough to make it cold. Me and Bella played outside while the baby napped, then we went and picked up Sophie from school and the girls played outside for a while longer.

I am trying to get supper ready right now.. Brandtley is MAD... I am going to need one of those infant slings that mommy's wear. Never used one for the girls, but he really likes to be held and he cries unless I comply.

Also, wanted to take a second to do as I do every year and name my Top Pick for American Idol, for the guys I am digging  Heejun Han, Phil Phillips, Reed Grimm & Joshua Ledet. The girls, we will have to see.. so far I only really like Jennifer Hersch, but I am sure I will begin to like some of them a little more as time goes on. :)
Better get off here... its Mexican night and I need to get cooking, and its bath time for the kids and they need to get bathin'.

Happy  Leap Day!

Pics

Just a few pictures i download off my phone from the last few weeks, some pre-baby... some post-baby :) 

Diva Dress Up

Just a few minutes old :) 

Valentine Girl

  So... he sleeps a lot! ;) 

Took a pic at the EXACT moment he spit up!! LOL 

My 3 Angels :)

Little Mommy 

Well, as promised, this blog post has been written after becoming a mommy again. :) Its going to take me several days to write this, I'm sure, because I have only written these two sentences and the baby is calling.... :)

okay... a lot of people are asking about my 'birth story', and I don't mind sharing it. Here goes... On Friday February 10th, I went in for my last prenatal checkup. At that time, my blood pressure was very high. Dr. Meyer was the Doctor for this visit, and he was the doctor on call that weekend. He said he would like to send me up to Labor and Delivery floor to be induced that evening, however, there were already 3 or 4 active labors going on, so he would rather I wait until the morning and come in.

The next morning my in-laws came over to get the girls, and we headed off. We arrived at the hospital around 7:30 a.m. Our nurse met us up front and took us to the room, where we began the whole process. They started me on Pitocin around 9 am. Dr. Meyer broke my water around 9:40 am. After he broke my water, I relaxed for a few minutes. I was already beginning to have regular contractions. Our nurse, Cindy, suggested a walk in the hallways to keep progress coming. So we took a walk, and thats when the contractions REALLY started getting intense and painful. After about 20 minutes I couldn't take it much more, the contractions were so frequent and painful i just wanted to go back to the room. Brandon was a trooper he pushed my IV rack all around while we walked and rubbed my back during contractions. :) Such a sweetie!

Meanwhile it was approaching Noon, though i had been trying to battle through the pain without any medication, I decided to go ahead and get a shot called an ITN, it works just like an epidural except that the Epidural is a continuous drip and can last as long as needed. The ITN is a shot, so it wears off after a few hours. She checked my cervix, which was between a 5-6 so Nurse Cindy said the ITN shot would likely be fine. I was SOOO thankful that the anesthesiologist was in the hospital at that time, because i was sitting on the side of the bed, crying... making no sense even to myself. Literally, never been in so much pain in my life. Holding still for the ITN was difficult because of the intensity and frequency of the contractions... but Nurse Cindy and Brandon were holding on to me, helping coach me to 'blow away the contractions'. I was blowing so hard I thought I was going to pass out (or I hoped I would anyway!) After the shot, I still had one painful contraction, then the next I noticed was a little less painful. By the 3rd contraction after the shot, I could feel the contractions tightening my muscles, but no longer felt the agony that came with them. She checked my cervix, and in the time that it took to give me the shot (15-20min), I had dilated from a 5-6 to a 10!!! Explains the excruciating pain, right?! Anyway, they got Dr. Meyer called in within just a few minutes and a few pushes later, Brandtley John Edmund Combs made his entry into the real world. He weighed 7 pounds and 4 ounces and was 20 inches long. We cried tears of joy, he was beautiful.

We loved the whole experience, the Doctor and the nurses. Everyone was wonderful... and 24 hours later, we got to bring little Brandtley home. He is a VERY good baby, and we love having him in our family already. The girls think its pretty cool having a baby around.

 Daddy getting to hold Brandtley for the first time. 

Sophia was one VERY proud big sister!! 

Getting his little heart listened to, his first checkout by his pediatrician Dr. Wochner

Dr. Wochner checking out Brandtley

Brrrrrr its cold out here! Getting undressed to get his 'going home' outfit. I ordered it off of a store on Etsy... and it was PERFECT! :) 

So this is the Delivery Story. :) God blessed us with another safe pregnancy, delivery, and a healthy baby and we couldn't ask for any more than that.

A Change is Gonna Come

Its hard to describe my mood today... I am 3 days away from my due date. Its finally hit me about all the changes that will be happening soon. The things that have been running around the back of my mind for several months now, but now those things are almost reality. Its strange to describe the joy that I feel about bringing a new baby into our lives, yet at the same time the terror of realizing how different things will be. I know this is a natural thinking process that most mothers go through, but I can't help but feel a little emotional about the situation anyway. Every night when I sing the girls their bedtime songs, I wonder if this will be the last night I have with 'just my girls.' I wonder if they will feel a little jealous of their new sibling, I wonder if i will be good at dividing my time and energy between all three kids. I wonder if it will be harder to take the kids places now... i just wonder..... 

I sometimes worry about disrupting our family dynamic. For almost 4 years now, its been the 4 of us, so there will be a change, no doubt. Ultimately when these worries begin to overwhelm me, I think back to when I was pregnant with Arabella, and I had a lot of these very same thoughts. She didn't take away from our family, she has added so much joy and happiness that I couldn't imagine what our life would be like if she hadn't come along. I felt the same way when I learned I was pregnant with Sophia, too. Scared about how my life was going to change, how I was young and morphing my life to become a mother... having NO clue what I was doing!!! In the end, God took care of all of us. He blessed me, first of all, with a wonderful mother of my own who I use as an example of how to parent, secondly, he blessed me with a man that is not only a wonderful husband, but also an AWESOME father. 

Change is often so hard to accept, but things have that way of working out just the way they are supposed to. Not that all of my feelings are of worry and change, thats just that rush of worry before the big day comes. Those worries are just here today, because my last doctor appointment is tomorrow, signaling that the end is near. Actually, its just the opposite, for the last 40 weeks, Ive been on Cloud 9!   I spend most of my time talking with Brandon and the kids about how excited we all are about the new baby. We are all anxious for him to get here so that we can have one more family member to love. :) These pictures are just a couple i took off my phone from the last couple of weeks.  A couple of them are even from outside on a 60 degree day in January!! Very awesome! 

The next time I post, I will be a mother again. I will have two beautiful daughters that have stolen my heart. And soon, I will have a son to cherish as well.  God has blessed me. :) I pray He blesses you too.