November, Part 2

Here are some pictures from the end of November.

 

Liam, 1 day old, on my bed:

 

Our first family picture:

 

 

The girls were excited to meet their baby brother:

 

 

Wide eyed and alert:

 

 

My parents were in town for 2 weeks. It was great to see them – and I’m glad that they got to meet Liam before they had to leave:

 

 

Proud daddy:

 

While Bill was getting his picture taken with Liam, Abby decided she wanted in on the picture:

 

3 days old and 7 lbs 6 ounces:

 

Here he is right after eating. The picture doesn’t really capture the moment – he had milk dripping down his chin and was in a milk-induced stupor.

 

 

Sandy missed school the day Liam was born (Friday). The kids had gotten turkey pictures with the instructions to bring them back on Monday for a contest. They were supposed to decorate the pictures with something other than markers or crayons. Sandy was devastated Monday when she got to school and didn’t have a turkey for the contest. So, when she came home, we quickly did one – she wanted to decorate it in sprinkles – and ran it back to the school in time for the judging.

 

She won a prize for best use of color. All three kindergarten classes participated and there were some amazing entries with feathers and elaborate designs. I think they gave every one that entered a prize.

 

 

5 days old:

 

Thanksgiving morning – love these kids!!

 

 

Liam is 1 week old!

   

 

Abby loves this blanket!!

 

8 days old and already 8 pounds 5 ounces:

 

Liam is a sweet, calm baby and his sisters love him! The adjustment to 3 kids has generally been easier than I expected – although there have been moments when all three kids needed something RIGHT NOW. Sandy and Abby are both old enough to be really helpful. I think I needed a helpful 5 year old around to help with every one of my babies!! Abby sometimes needs direction in knowing how to be helpful – for example, asking her to go pick out an outfit for him to get her to stop mauling him. :)

Welcome, Liam!

 

Douglas William Buhler, Jr.

Born November 22, 2013 at 4:04 p.m.

7 lbs 8 oz, 21 inches long

We are calling him Liam. I like it, it fits him.
(His dad goes by Bill, his grandpa goes by Doug
so we struggled a bit to figure out what to call him.)

 

Things didn’t quite go as planned, but I was really happy with how they turned out.

On Thursday, my midwife became concerned. I went in for an ultrasound and his amniotic fluid was extremely low. We spent Thursday night trying to get labor started – and my midwife stayed all night and monitored his heart rate every 1/2 hour.

Friday at noon we went to the University Hospital to be induced. There is a group of nurse midwives that deliver at the hospital. I’d heard great things about them – and even considered going with them back when we decided to transfer to a midwife. They were amazing! If I were to have another baby, I would go with the nurse midwives at the U as long as I could come home after the birth and use the home birth midwife for post partum care.

The nurse midwives decided he needed to be turned (his head was forward instead of head back). So they did something one of them had learned from a midwife in Mexico – they put a sheet underneath me and each stood on one side. Then they pulled on the sheet to tilt me from right to left to right several times quickly. As soon as they finished that, I had my first hard contraction as they started a low dose of pitocin.

59 minutes later we had a baby.

 

 

Despite having no amniotic fluid (when they broke my water, no fluid at all came out), Liam was doing really well until the very end. Also, my placenta didn’t detach at all. So, after an hour of trying a lot of different things, they called in one of the doctors to dig it out. That was not pleasant. Luckily they gave me some pain medication through my IV which helped some. They offered me an epidural, but after making it all the way through the birth without one, I wasn’t about to get it then. And I have to say, I really think not having the epidural has made for a better recovery for me and I think it factored into breastfeeding going better for Liam as well.

 

Here I am holding him for the first time:

 

We pushed really hard to go home 4 to 6 hours after the birth. It took a bit of convincing, but they did let us go home that night. Sleeping in my own bed was wonderful. If I’d thought I could have done it that way, I would have planned it that way. To have the baby in the hospital, but not have to sleep there was the best of both worlds for me.

Here’s Liam in his carseat at the hospital:

 

The nurse snapped a picture of the three of us before we left:

Here’s Liam on my bed the next morning:

My midwife came 24 hours after he was born to check us both out. She also came a couple of days after that and did the hearing screening, PKU, and everything they would have done in the hospital if we had stayed.

I have to say this has been my best birth experience. It’s also been my best recovery. And although breastfeeding has been challenging, it’s been so much better than with the girls. Liam was down to 7 lbs 5 ounces 24 hours after his birth. 3 days after he was born, he was 7 lbs 6 ounces. 8 days after he was born, he was 8 lbs 5 ounces. Both of my girls lost 10% of their birth weight and were barely back to their birth weight by 2 weeks.

November, Part 1

We spent most of the month waiting for a baby….but he gets his own post.

 

Here’s a picture of Sandy wearing this cute scarf my mom sent her. She wears it everywhere!

 

 

I was in charge of a restaurant night fundraiser for Sandy’s school. We got 20% of what was spent by those that ate at Zupas and said they were with the school. One day I unexpectedly needed to stay and make copies – someone else had said they’d do them and then didn’t. I’d changed cell phones recently and panicked when I realized I didn’t have any kids apps on my phone and I couldn’t get a signal in the school. So, Abby entertained herself by taking about a hundred selfies:

 

Bill’s birthday breakfast:

 

 

We really thought Bill was going to get a baby for his birthday. I had contractions – about 6 minutes apart -- but not progressing. If you look closely, you can see me in the top right corner of the picture below in the polar bear position. The idea was that the position would help him turn if he needed to. But nothing happened. Our original plan was to have him at home – thus the pool in the middle of the room.

 

It was a really stressful month and it was hard on the girls. We didn’t know when the baby was coming, and I kept having contractions that didn’t progress.

 

I took the girls to get their nails done and I got a pedicure:

 

The girls met Ronald McDonald one day:

October Recap

Here’s a quick update on our October:

 

A trip to Red Butte Gardens:

 

Random trip to Lowes, but I thought it was funny that Abby insisted on her stuffed animals riding in the cart:

She is so attached to her animals.

 

We went to Roosevelt for the day. While Bill worked, the girls and I went to Dinosaur National Monument. On the way, we stopped for lunch at McDonald’s. The McDonald’s children’s playplace in Vernal was amazing because:

*It was new

*It was the cleanest one I’ve ever been to (the one by us is new but it is always full of trash)

*There was lots of seating around the children’s playplace, it was wide open with lots of natural light, and the tables offered a really good view of the play area

*It was completely walled off from the rest of the restaurant – with only one door that was easy to see from anywhere in the children’s section.

*There was a very nice bathroom inside the children’s play area.

It is amazing to find a children’s area that is actually kid-friendly. Like Liberty Park where they have this amazing play area – and a kid-sized tunnel that leads directly out of it, but if your kid escapes, you have to run all the way around to catch them on the other side. Seriously! Who designs these things? People that have never tried to take a 2-year-old to the park! Or to McDonalds.

 

Then it was onto Dinosaur National Monument. We were lucky – this was it’s first day open after the government shutdown.

 

At first, it didn’t seem like there was much to do. We exhausted the visitor’s center and the quarry in under an hour.

But then we decided to try their scenic drive. We bought a pamphlet that directed us where to go and where to stop. The girls had a blast!

  

 

They especially liked the petroglyphs. They wanted to know how they were made. So we found a couple of rocks and I let them use a rock to scratch a design on it. It was harder than they expected. Then I showed them how easily it wiped away and we talked about how much work it would be to make drawings on rock that would last hundreds of years.

 

Bill went to a Scout broadcast. He was proud that he was wearing his Scout shirt from when he was 18.

 

 

Abby was a rainbow bug for Halloween:

 

 

Her daycare had a really cute Halloween party and the kids performed a dance number:

 

There were twins in the most adorable owl costumes. Their mom made a hat with eyes on it. Then she’d made feather capes. They turned out so cute!!

 

Sandy was a mermaid for Halloween. This is the only picture I got. I wish I’d gotten a shot of the tail. And we sprayed her hair red.

This picture was at her school – the school had a costume parade and then I stayed with a couple of other moms and we helped with a Halloween party.

 

We did our annual hot dogs – we set up in the driveway and grill hot dogs for the trick or treaters going by. We also had hot chocolate. It was a lot of fun, we had a great turn out this year. We grilled about 100 hot dogs.

 

Oh, and this was my facebook status one day in October. I thought it might be funny to look back at someday.

 

Some things I heard today from children that I would be very happy not to hear again.

"I wish I never had a sister."

"I know potty words in Spanish, do I still get in trouble if I say them?"

"If you pick your nose, sometimes it bleeds. But not always."

Can I run away from home? I'm sure I'd come back after a day. Or two. Or three.

September Recap

I turned 33. Look at the amazing lemon-raspberry cheesecake my mother-in-law made.

 

We went on our ward campout. The girls rode the zip line. Of course our batteries died before we could get many pictures. Here’s Abby ready to go:

 

 

And there she goes…..

 

Pictures of the girls. They really do love each other!

 

Bill had a work emergency so we put the girls in the car and drove to Roosevelt. Good thing the girls sleep in the car so well:

since it was a school night and we didn’t get home until 2 a.m.!

 

One morning, Abby decided she was a kitty. So this is how she went to daycare:

Shoes on her feet, shoes on her hands…

 

At the last minute, Sandy was switched to half-day kindergarten. I think that’s ultimately a good thing, but it made it difficult to figure out Abby’s schedule. It took us a couple of weeks, but we finally figured out a schedule that I think was inspired! I drop Abby at day care at 8, which gives me just enough time to run Sandy to school by 8:10. Then I park at home and walk around the corner to the office. I can get 2.5 hours of work done at the office before I walk to the school to pick up Sandy at 10:55. Then we walk home, get in the car and pick up Abby at 11:30. It’s working amazingly well!!

 

Sandy is doing well in kindergarten, but she did bring this paper home that made me laugh:

Check out the second line: apparently making capital A’s was too much work, so she decided to streamline the process….

 

This baby is in a great position – his head is down and I’m 34 weeks tomorrow. (It will be nice when we agree on a name and I can stop calling him baby!) Abby was feeling him kick and I was explaining to her where his legs were and where his head was. She asked why he didn’t fall out onto the floor and break his head. I looked at her questioningly and then she said, “Does your tummy have a floor?” So, I showed her this picture and we talked about how the baby stays in until it’s time and then he comes out…

 

Last night for Family Night, we went to the Seven Peaks Fun Center in Lehi. The girls got to try out rock climbing:

They had a blast, they both did really well. Abby didn’t weigh quite enough to come down on the tension rope, so she had a rope tied to her back so we could pull her down. Abby stuck with it and climbed all the way to the top:

Rotten things

We’ve had a great summer, but there have definitely been some difficult moments:

This is what happened while we were at church. Nothing was taken, there wasn’t anything in there to take.

We’ve had a summer full of car burglaries:

*In May, Bill’s car got broken into while it was parked in the parking garage at his office (which is just around the corner from our house). They got lots of equipment and tools. Then they came back and broke into it again (same car, same place). The second time, nothing was in the car – we hadn’t even finished fixing the damage they did the first time and we certainly hadn’t replaced anything (like the radio). Very frustrating!

*In July, my purse was stolen out of my car. Also at Bill’s office. The door was actually unlocked, I parked right in front of the office and just ran in to drop something off. Miraculously, though, I got almost everything back – even the purse. Three different people, in three different parts of the valley found personal items strewn on the street and called either me or the police and I got them back. Of course, the thieves racked up some big charges, but I reported it pretty quickly and the bank/credit card companies were really good to work with. I almost feel bad for them—several of the charges were to collection agencies.

Then, of course there was the broken window (above) on September 1. And, not burglary-related, but definitely car-related, we were just leaving on our trip to Canada when one of our van’s tires had a blowout. Although, I really have to count my blessings with that one: (a) Bill was driving, (b) it happened in SLC BEFORE we left, (c) not only were we in SLC, we were a mile from my in-laws house so Bill & Doug had the tire off in no time, and (d) we found a place that could put on new tires that night so we could still leave for our trip the next morning.

 

Then, we had an August of medical problems…

*Sandy & Abby got sick. Abby was better in 24 hours, Sandy was so sick that I took her to the doctor – she couldn’t even keep sips of water down – and they gave her Zofran to stop her throwing up. But after almost a week of being sick, she was so lethargic she would hardly even move so we took her to instacare. Of course, the instacare doctor was young and handsome and my lethargic little girl perked right up and started flirting with him. So I don’t think he believed it was as bad as it was. She started to improve after a couple of days, but it was another week before she was really eating and drinking normally.

*A couple of weeks later, Sandy woke up screaming and writhing in pain on a Friday night. I got up with her and after about an hour – warm bath, rocking her, rubbing her back – was able to get her settled back down. She was fine the next morning, but then Saturday night she woke up screaming and writhing in pain again. This time I wasn’t able to settle her down. So, Sunday morning I took her to instacare. Their diagnosis was bad gas. Apparently there was some sort of a bug going around that caused that because about a week later, Abby woke up with the same thing. Of course, by then I knew to give her chewable Gas-x.

*Sandy complains a lot about her stomach aching, and so we took her to see a pediatric gastroenterologist. He ran tons of blood tests – all came back normal – and had me chart everything for a month… I charted how her stomach felt on a scale of 1 to 10 three times a day, every bowel movement, etc. She definitely has a sensitive stomach – she has a strong gag reflex and once she starts throwing up, her stomach has a hard time stopping. She also gets motion sickness. Anxiety seems to trigger stomach aches. She had a stomach ache before school started until I took her to the store to pick out a treat to give her teacher on the first day. Then the stomach ache disappeared. So, I think we’ll just keep an eye on things – there’s a lot I can do to prevent problems: addressing her anxiety, not forcing her to eat things she doesn’t want to, chewable Dramamine for motion sickness….

*The blood tests that Sandy had done were sent to the wrong lab for testing. Despite my specifically checking where they were sending them. And our insurance didn’t cover the lab they were sent to.

*Bill has had heartburn for a long time and I have been trying to get him to see someone about it for most of our marriage. He finally went to a gastroenterologist who wanted to scope his stomach. Bill has a hiatal hernia and his esophagus was so burned that the doctor couldn’t see if there were any other problems underneath. So, he gave Bill a really strong dose of medication and wants to repeat the scope in 2 months.

And that would be how we spent $1500 in unexpected medical expenses in one month. And that is with insurance. Yikes!