Halloween 2014

Ryan loves trick or treating. He is beyond excited to have a child because it enables him to start going again for many many years to come. Lucy looked cute in her costume, but she wasn't so sure she loved wearing it. It was funny when we took her to the ward party--she looked at everyone else in their costumes. Then she looked down at herself and seemed to study her own costume with some thought.

On the 30th, (because for some reason our town trick or treats on the 30th) we joined another family in the ward and went trick or treating. I promised Ryan we'll get on the ball next year and we'll come up with awesome costumes. Of course, we did get called out a couple times for collecting candy for a baby. "Wait a minute. Who's going to eat this?" But isn't that one of the perks of parenthood? Eating your kid's candy after they go to bed?

Great Country Farms

Ryan and I decided to take a somewhat spur of the moment trip to Virginia. We'd been talking about driving back since Ryan's dad hadn't met Lucy yet, so we made quick plans and left a couple days later for the weekend.

I ALMOST got a good picture of Lucy's cute smile!

Lucy did surprisingly well on the car trip. We left late, around 6, with the idea that we'd drive, and hopefully Lucy would fall asleep for the night. We had to stop twice I think to feed her, and she didn't really fall asleep good until about 11, which was about 2 hours later than normal. So the next day she slept most of the day, just getting up to eat. Friday everyone was still pretty much working, but Ryan and I enjoyed being able to rest. Ryan's been sick so he pretty much slept a lot of the day too to get feeling better.

On Saturday we drove out to Great Country Farms which is out in Bluemont. It's so beautiful out there. That drive made me really, really miss living in Virginia. It's the most beautiful place I've ever lived. We got out of the car and were about to put Lucy in the carrier, when we found she'd had a major diaper blowout... and I'd forgotten the diaper bag. We were trying to figure out where the closest store might be that we could go buy some diapers when Tina found a family that was just getting ready to leave who ALSO had a 2 month old baby, and they kindly gave us an extra diaper. She had no pants anymore, but we got her changed and bundled her up in a blanket and she was just fine. In fact, as is typical, she slept most of the outing.

Lucy is totally out, and slept through our farm adventure. 

There was this display about different kinds of gourds and squashes and I learned that there are a lot of other squashes that make good pies other than just pumpkin. She we decided to get a few varieties of squashes and make a homemade pie. (More on that pie later...)

Hayride back from the pumpkin patch

We rode a hay wagon out to the pumpkin patch and picked out some things to take home. There were some really funny looking gourds that I've never seen anything like before! Once we got our pumpkins and put them in the car we started to explore the farm. There was so much to do there and I'd love to take Lucy back again when she's a little older and can play on some of the things they have there.

One of the most fun things there was the pumpkin cannon. They had some old junker cars out in the field as targets. They were pretty beat up--I guess fast flying pumpkins can do a fair amount of damage.

Michael, Parker, and Ryan atop the firetruck with the pumpkin cannon.

Ok, so the pie. We took the gourds home and cut them open and baked them. Then when we were scooping out the flesh, I found that one of the types of gourd was REALLY bitter. It was terrible, and really difficult to get the taste out of my mouth. So, we ended up having to throw it away. Luckily we had picked out a few different types and the other kinds were good. We didn't have any evaporated milk though, so we ended up making it with cream. I would say that was too rich and too heavy. After one slice I felt like it sat too heavy in my stomach.

On Sunday we went to our old ward in Sterling and had a fun time seeing friends! I didn't take any pictures there, but some of our friends have had babies since we left and we got to meet the new little ones. I went to Young Women's to see all the girls and Ryan went to the Deacon's quorum.

Lucy looking cute with Tina after church

We loved our visit and are so glad that we were able to spend time with Ryan's family and Dan and Erin!

2 Months Old!

Height: 23 in. - 76 percentile
Weight: 10.1 lbs - 31 percentile

Favorite thing: The blue bird. We have a toy that she can lay under and there are lots of things she could interact with, but her only interest right now is the blue bird. She just stares at him, and when she starts getting tired, she starts to yell at the bird.

Lucy has become a really good sleeper and often goes the whole night (9:30-6 or so) without waking up. It's a huge blessing. I tell people she's a good sleeper because Ryan is teaching seminary. I do believe that's true though actually. I think we were blessed with a baby who will sleep so that Ryan can fulfill his calling.

Lucy is really good at smiling now, but it's REALLY hard to actually get a picture of her doing it. I hold up the camera to take a photo and she stares at it and studies it instead of playing with me and smiling. 

Lucy wore this cute dress to church. 

I don't really intend for this blog to turn into ONLY posts about Lucy, but she's the most wonderful thing in our lives and so fun to take pictures of as she's constantly changing and learning new things. Plus she's SO cute!

Even at 2 months old, Lucy LOVES "Frozen"and other Disney Princesses. She watches videos of the princess songs with Dad on his laptop. Totally enthralled, while Ryan takes a nap.

We went for a walk one evening and bundled her up since it was cold. She fell asleep and the hat overtook her face.

The swing was a wonderful gift from Ryan's Grandma Martha. Lucy likes watching me make dinner, but sometimes falls asleep doing it. 

Lucy's Baby Blessing

One thing I've learned about having a newborn is that it is virtually impossible to get anywhere on time. For some reason, church especially. So it comes as no surprise that we were late to church the day of Lucy's baby blessing. The baby blessing of your first child is a momentous occasion. All of my family came into town for the event. (We had everyone there except Hilary, Jason, and Seneca.) Since there were so many, they stayed at a hotel and we met them at church.

When we walked into the building it was really quiet. We knew we were a few minutes late, but we wondered if they had started the sacrament. We weren't sure if we should walk in or not, so I just cracked the door to see what was going on and someone motioned us in. "It's your turn to bless the baby, right now!" There was one other baby being blessed that Sunday and they'd just finished that one. So we walked in, got Lucy out of her car seat and Ryan took her up to the stand before he even had a chance to sit down!

Despite not having the chance to collect his thoughts as he'd hoped before giving the blessing, he did a great job and gave her a beautiful blessing. Among other things, he blessed her to grow and learn, receive answers to her prayers and serve the Lord, and make righteous decisions and share her love and light with others. In fact, part of the reason we fell in love with her name was because of the meaning behind each name. Lucy means light, and Celeste means heaven, and our little girl really is a heavenly light in our lives. We are so grateful to be blessed with such a beautiful, perfect little girl.

After church, Erin got some great photos for us. I'd been dying to get our family pictures taken with Lucy! (We blessed Lucy on Sept. 7, 2014)

A Visit from Tina and Parker

We had a visit from some of Ryan's family on Sept. 22. We wish the whole family had been able to come, but Michael wasn't feeling well, and Stu had to stay and work. We were really glad we could have Tina and Parker come though! Lucy is the first grandbaby on Ryan's side and it was so fun to introduce her to them.

We took them to some of the things we enjoy in Columbus, like the outdoor farmer's market (I stayed home with Lucy because she was being fussy), and of course went to eat at Piada. (Piada is "Italian Street food" - basically they are kind of a Subway for Italian food. They have delicious noodle dishes, wraps, or salads that you tell them exactly what stuff and sauces you want in it and they build it for you.)

Saturday we wanted to experience something new, so we went to explore the Olentangy Indian Caverns. They were pretty cool, actually. They took about an hour to explore through. You go down quite a ways into the caverns. They said there's actually another cavern even lower, but they haven't excavated a way down into it yet, as that is pretty costly to do. That one is supposed to me huge though.

I'd say Lucy loved the excursion, but she slept through the entire exploration. 

Lucy's First Bath

I was a little worried that our little one would scream throughout bath time, but it was quite the opposite! Lucy seemed to thoroughly enjoy bath time and it was calming to her I think. Either that or she was just too busy taking in the new stimuli that she didn't cry.

Lucy loves being naked. She's always happy when she's naked. 

Lucy looking like she's not so sure she was ready to get out!

Lucy's here!

Little Lucy is finally here! My due date of July 27^th came and went and I was so ready to not be pregnant anymore. For the week leading up to the due date I kept hoping she’d come early, but no luck. On the 30^th, I went to the doctor and I was dialated to a 4, and they said the baby’s head had started to engage. It made me wonder why I was still going about my normal activities and wasn’t in the hospital yet!

Around 12:30 am I woke up and realized that what woke me up was that I was having contractions. I stayed in bed, but with my cell phone I started timing them. They weren’t too painful, definitely bearable, but strong enough that I couldn’t sleep through them and they hurt more lying down. So I went downstairs and did crossword puzzles, looked at facebook, and read conference talks. Ryan woke up around 4 and realized I wasn’t in bed and came down looking for me. My contractions were getting stronger and closer together, but I still was handling them just fine. I told him we were going to the hospital that night, so we got dressed and pulled together the last items we needed for the hospital bag.

I was admitted to the hospital just before 5 am. I was doing fine with the contractions at that point and didn’t really want to be confined to bed quite yet, so I held off for a while on the epidural. Ryan was exhausted, so I told him I was fine and to nap for a while on the couch. He was a little reluctant, but finally agreed and I’m glad he did. I needed him to be awake and ready to help me later on. Finally around 7:30 or so I told them I was ready for the epidural. We sent Ryan to the cafeteria for breakfast so he wouldn’t have to watch. I’m glad I didn’t see anything either. The epidural was surprisingly more painful than I expected it to be. But I’m definitely glad I got it. While the earlier contractions were not a problem for me as long as I just took a deep breath, I could tell as I got closer to delivery that the contractions were way stronger than anything I’d actually felt. I could feel the tightness of the contraction, but there was no pain. It gave me a chance to rest for a little while before delivery.

Around 9:30 they came in and broke my water and from there contractions started to get stronger in preparation for delivery. Around noon they said I was ready to start pushing and delivery commenced. While labor was much easier than I expected, delivery pretty much met my expectations in terms of pain and difficulty. To that point it was probably the most intense thing I’d ever experienced. With every push they were telling me they could see the baby’s head and that I was making progress, but to me it didn’t feel like it. Ryan was the best support I could have asked for helping to count out how long to push and when to breathe and push again. Most of the birth I just fixed my eyes on him and he helped me get through it one push at a time.

The pushing lasted 45 minutes and toward the end I just felt like giving up. I didn’t feel any closer to having the child than I had 30 minutes earlier, except that my whole body felt like it was ripping apart. With tears streaming down my face I could hear Ryan’s voice faltering just a bit too and could tell he was close to tears as well. When at last they held up our sweet little girl and placed her on my bare chest she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen and Ryan just held on to both of us. It was an incredible feeling as I was both exhausted and overcome with love for this little one and for my wonderful husband who supported me through the painful process of bringing her into the world. Our little baby was just absolutely perfect to me.

Baby girl weighed 7 lb. 3 oz., and measured 20.5 inches

Ryan is a proud Dad!

And I'm an exhausted new mom!

Ryan and I cuddled and loved all over the baby as they got me stitched up and ready to move to my recovery room. I was glad that the worst was over, or so I thought. I got settled into my room and tried to nap. As I adjusted a little bit for a better position to breastfeed Lucy (who wasn’t named at this point, by the way) I felt a large blood clot leave my body. I figured that was probably normal, but called the nurse because I didn’t want to be sitting in it. They got things cleaned up and said that if I could walk again, I should use the restroom because my bladder was really full. It’s funny how now that I didn’t have a baby sitting on it, I had no sensation of needing to go! One leg had regained feeling pretty well, but the other was still pretty dead, so I asked to eat lunch first to give it a little more time before putting weight on it.

When I was ready to go, I called the nurse to help me since I still didn’t have full strength in my legs. As I sat down to go I felt a sensation of several large clots of blood leaving my body. It felt like losing about 2 pints of blood all at once. I told the nurse I just lost a lot of blood and was getting dizzy and light headed. Then I pretty well blacked out, sitting right there on the toilet. Next thing I knew, there were about 5 nurses in the bathroom with me and they were holding some sort of ammonia smelling stuff to my nose to bring me around. Which it did, but the smell also made me feel like I couldn’t breathe or was being poisoned. I couldn’t remember exactly where I was for the moment, and was really confused about how all these people I didn’t know got there. My mind filled with panic and my heart began to race, which combined with the asphyxiating smell, made it difficult for me to breathe.

As they carried my weak, limp body back to bed, I searched the room for Ryan, but couldn’t seem to find him or focus on him. He was there of course, but was holding Lucy and had stepped out of the way of all the nurses, but I needed him with me. He put Lucy back in the bassinet and like and angel she was perfectly quiet (although since I was having problems, I immediately thought Lucy was in danger too, especially since I couldn’t hear her or see her since she was behind me.) My whole body had plunged into shock with the loss of blood and I was only taking short shallow breaths so they inserted an oxygen tube in my nose. I was so terrified. They immediately began administering Pitocin to me in my IV to help the uterus contract. They also had to drain my bladder because it was so full that it was putting pressure on the uterus and aggravating the hemorrhaging problem. They inserted a catheter into my bladder, which may have been the most painful part of my whole childbirth experience. It’s the only time I remember actually screaming in pain, but at this point, all the pain medication from the epidural had worn off, and everything was bruised, stretched, torn, stitched, and swollen.

Ryan was at my side and I think I squeezed every bit of blood out of his hand. The experience was so intense that I had to just focus on his eyes as he told me things would be ok and he helped me breath in and out, trying to slow my heart rate and regulate my breathing by calming me down. It’s hard for me to describe how much Ryan helped me through this. It was probably the most intense experience of my life and I know that feeling Ryan there with me, holding my hand, looking into his eyes and focusing on his voice was the only thing that kept me from total hysterics.  It was terrifying.

I had known what to expect in delivery, so the pain there was not unexpected or alarming. But I knew this wasn’t how recovery was supposed to me, which made it really scary because the hemorrhaging wasn’t something I was prepared for. The nurses would press on my stomach and I’d feel yet another blood clot leave my body, and I’d want to panic again. Even after they got the immediate problem in hand, I was so scared to do anything. I was scared to move because I felt like I’d lose more blood. I was scared to go to the bathroom because I feared the same experience happening all over again. So the next morning the nurse asked me if I’d gone and I told her no because I was scared to go. Going to the restroom was something I dreaded. It was a relief when I was able to go without losing another blood clot.

In all of this, I’ve come to love Ryan even more than before for all the care, support, and help he gave to me during this. I honestly don’t feel like I could have gone through this experience without him at my side. He’s the one who helped me keep pushing when I wanted to give up. I think I would have blacked out again if he hadn’t been there with me through my recovery challenges. Seeing the emotion in his face, and hearing his voice falter while I was in pain was really bonding and I felt how difficult it was for him to watch me suffer and know there was nothing he could do except hold me and encourage me. 

Now that it's been a month (I wrote this a couple weeks ago) it's easier to block out the pain and it becomes just a memory. We love our little girl so much and are so happy to have her here with us.