Santa Baby

Home from the Hospital - AGAIN

First of all we are all doing wonderful - now!! Cali has been totally healthy from the beginning, but I had some issues. The anesthesiologist messed up my epidural the first time and I got a "wet tap." I had no idea what that meant at first, all I knew is that he was going to have to do the whole process over again. ( I was told a wet tap is when the needle penetrates the spinal sac and enters the spinal fluid. In itself, it is not dangerous. Because the epidural needle is larger than the spinal needle, the hole in the spinal sack may continue to leak and not seal itself off immediately. This causes a spinal fluid leak - or wet tap. This causes very severe headaches.)

That was an understatement. The last few days I have had the worst headache I have ever had in my life. It didn't just stay in the head either. It went all around my head, and felt like it was shooting down my neck and back. It hurt to move, to sit up, and basically it hurt to do anything besides breathe.

The doctor apologized several times and said that it had been over 3 years since that happened to him. I guess he was trying to make himself feel better. Anyway so this morning since it wasn't any better I went back to the hospital and they gave me what they call a "blood patch." (This procedure involves taking a small amount of blood from a vein in your arm and injecting it into your back in the epidural space. The blood clots and "patches" the hole.)

Now I feel so much better and I can enjoy my sweet bundle of joy!!! Here are just a few of the over 200 pictures we have already!!!

The picture above of my 3 angels was taken on Wed evening. The others were taken as we were leaving the hospital to come home.

In my first post about Cali we didn't mention much, but she is so strong and healthy. When they were trying to get her measurements she grabbed a hold of their measuring tape and she tore it in half. She is already a really good baby and doesn't cry too much. She only cries when she is hungry or when we change her diaper. She has really big hands and long feet.

We initially only planned to stay one night in the hospital, but due to the headaches we stayed the 2nd night. At about 7:30 our nurse was told to ask us if we would mind switching rooms. Apparently they were starting to become full and had a few that were going to come in the next few hours. They wanted to move me to a room a few doors down that was a regular room not a labor room. I didn't mind since the kids weren't planning on coming back up before we left. When the guy brought our last load of stuff over they gave up 2 huge boxes of diapers as a thanks for moving. I thought that was nice of them.

Our new PRINCESS CALI

Our new "not so little" princess came into the world this morning at 10:42 am. She weighed 9 lbs and was 21 1/4 inches long. Mommy and baby are doing GREAT!!!! We are at Lakeside Hospital and visitors are welcome, just please call first.

Here are a few pictures taken at less than 1 hour old! She is such a little chunk and already has a few leg rolls. She has a bunch of dark curly hair, but her eyebrows are really light so the nurses think she is going to be blonde. She is very healthy and was delivered very quickly with no complications in about 3 minutes.

BOWLING !!!!!

Caleb has been asking to go bowling for months but we kept having to put it off. Now that all the Christmas parties were over and Cali can come whenever she wants to, I thought this weekend would be perfect! We went tonight after church and had a great time. My mom came with us too, but she didn't bowl because she is still in her walking boot from her surgery. It was probably a good thing too because she is really good and she probably would have beat us. She is very competitive and said "if I can't do it well, I am not going to do it at all." Hmmm . . . sounds familiar.

Caleb has been bowling numerous times, but tonight was the first for Caden. They both did really well and had high scores of 99.

Here are my adorable kids before we started bowling.

Here is Chris and Caden.

Here is Caleb after his first strike. Chris was too far back and the lighting sucked, but you can tell he was very excited.

Here is Caden's first strike - ever!!!

Here is Caden after I TRIED to make her re-enact her VERY EXCITED response to her first strike that I didn't catch. Obviously I failed!

Here are a few other very excited reactions of Caden that I did manage to catch.

Here is Caden "lounging" while waiting for her 2nd ball. The first time she did this I thought it was so funny, I had to take a picture of it too!

Here is me asking if I am bigger than this bowling ball.

Here is a video of some of Caden's bowling.




All in all we had a great time, except for the fact that I am STILL PREGNANT and bowling did NOT put me into labor. I am still having inconsistent contractions and as the day progresses my walking is getting even more weird. I am sure my body is going to pay me back for bowling 2 games tonight since I haven't bowled in over a year.

I have an appointment tomorrow morning so hopefully something is going on in there!!!

I STILL GOT IT - ALMOST BUT NOT REALLY!!!

I thought I would see if I could still get my leg up there. Sorta kinda, but not really!!! I was a little more flexible and had a lot more balance when I did it 13 weeks ago. The kids tried to get in on it too, however they wouldn't attempt to do it standing up. Those big sissies!!!

Well I changed my mind, we are not going to Tulsa today after all. Even though I don't think I am going into labor today it probably would not be wise to be almost 2 hours from my doctor - just in case. We have a few other obligations today here in Edmond anyway so this way we wont feel like we are rushing all day.

We made it!!!

Our last Christmas party of the season was tonight. We had Chris's work party downtown at the Petroleum Club. The food was SO GOOD!! Several of Chris's co-workers were impressed that I made it out for the party with only 4 days left. They don't know me at all, so they didn't realize that I DON'T miss parties.

Here is a picture of Chris and I before we left. Finally a picture of Chris on the blog!!! It doesn't happen to often.

As my mom was taking pictures of us Caden decided she wanted to twirl with me and dance with Daddy. She of course already had her princess dress (since she wears it for a little while almost EVERY DAY!!!)

I have been having contractions all week and about 5 during the party and 3 on the way home. Now that this party is out of the way she needs to come now. We are going to Tulsa tomorrow to visit one of my moms friends for lunch. I plan on walking a lot tomorrow to get her to come out!

CALI is COMING SOONER!!!

My doctor's daughter is having surgery on the same day as I was scheduled to be induced (19th) so she is cancelling all appointments for that day. I will now be induced on the 18th instead. I still hope I go on my own. That is only 2 days before my actual due date. I was induced with the other 2 at 39 weeks and I really want to go on my own and have the excitement.

Chris's work Christmas party is on Friday so as soon as that is over she can come whenever. I am planning on doing lots of walking on Saturday and we have plans to go bowling this weekend so maybe that will help her along.

As of this morning I am now at a 4, but still 50% effaced. Bring on the exercise and spicy foods!!!

ONE in a MILLION

Ok, that is a little extreme. Actually we were 1 in half a million Oklahomans without power yesterday. We are/were in the worst power outage in Oklahoma history - every county was in a state of emergency. We lost power at our house about noon yesterday and Chris's work lost theirs soon after so he was able to come home too. We actually had a nice day of playing games inside and the kids LOVED playing out in the backyard stomping on the ice on the ground and knocking ice of toys etc with plastic bats.

Here are a few pictures I took yesterday of the ice in the backyard.

By about 5;00 pm it was getting too dark to see anything in the house. We decided to go to Chili's for dinner. As we were leaving the neighborhood I got my first glimpse of some of the house where their trees were split and huge amount of branches in their yard or driveway. It is always a little sad to me when I see that. It was so weird driving around and one mile block would be dark and then the next would have lights. It was really weird. I think most of Edmond was out for most of the day. When we got home last night we found several huge branches down in the front yard - SO SAD!!! I don't think they did any damage to the house though. We also still didn't have power. My sister in law was still in Texas visiting a friend but we found out she still had power at her apartment so we packed up some stuff by flashlight and candles and headed over there. We found out this morning that our power actually came back on at 9:00 pm last night so we could have stayed at the house. The thought of staying in a cold house was actually exciting to me, since I have been HOT all the time. But the rest of the family - those big sissies - wanted to sleep with a heater.

Here are a few pictures of the branches down in the front yard.

This is so sad to me, but yet I know we are not alone. This is what a lot of people are facing right now. However I am very happy and relieved that our power is back on. Last night the news said that they were bringing in 1000 "helpers" from about 4 different states to help out but that it could still take 7-10 days for all power to be restored. The thought of having a baby within 8 days and not being able to come to my own house with the baby was making me really upset. But all is well now, at least for us anyway. I am suppose to have a doctors appointment in about 2 hours. Lets hope the office will be open!

ICE ICE and more ICE

Well for those of you who don't live here in Oklahoma we are in an ice storm. It started Sunday morning. On our way to church it didn't seem too slick, but by the end of service they annoucned that it was getting worse. They said we would still be having bible class, but if you wanted to go home you would be forgiven. It was really funny! Since we were already there we stayed.

All the schools are CLOSED!! I hate that! I was suppose to have a doctors appointment today but they called this morning and asked if I wanted to cancel. I said "I am almost 39 weeks pregnant, I think I need to be seen." They still weren't sure what they were going to do but said they would call me back. My doctor called me personally later to apologize since they were going to be closing the office for the day. She is going to work me in tomorrow. Lets hope the weather is better tomorrow. I get anxious and want to know what is going on in there.

Only 9 days to go!!!

SANTA and the Prego Mom Meltdown

Last night we went to get the kids picture taken with Santa. It is not the cutest picture, but here it is anyway. I had been debating for the past week or two what I was going to do. I didn't know if I should get just the 2 of them or hold out for Cali in the hopes that I would feel up to taking all 3 of them again. Obviously I decided to just get the 2 of them and then depending on when she makes her arrival maybe I will feel up to doing it all again before the 24th.

Now on to the meltdown. Yesterday morning I was telling Caden that we were going to see Santa and get their picture taken. She said she didn't want to see Santa so I decided to show her all of her past Santa pictures so she would remember not being scared. Well I have every Santa picture except for last year. I don't have a clue where it went. I decided to look on the computer in the Christmas folder from last year since I figured I probably scanned it in to email to family. The entire folder was GONE!!!! This is when the big freak out happened. I was crying on the phone to Chris about the missing folder and Santa picture. Chris's family came here in January for a late Christmas, so I have all those, but the actual Christmas was GONE.

I am not for sure if I would have gotten so upset if I wasn't pregnant but I don't think being this pregnant helped any. I ended up finding a few pics in my sent folder on my email and my sister emailed me a bunch that she had, so I was feeling much better that I had all the Christmas pictures again. Still Santa was still missing! My sister saves all her emails and she still had the Santa picture I emailed her from 2005 so I am now guessing that I must not have liked the Santa pic from last year so I never shared it with anyone. I am trying to take comfort in that. However it is still really sad that I have every year starting from when Caleb was 7 months old until now except last year. Oh well, hopefully it will turn up eventually.

Complaining

I am here to gripe. First of all our computer is having issues AGAIN!!! I hate when things don't work as they should. We have not been able to get on the internet since Monday. So at this moment I am at my friends house doing all my stuff (ebay crap) and catching up with emails and other fun stuff. Hopefully we (I mean Chris) can get it working soon.

Now on to my second gripe. Yesterday I am leaving Hobby Lobby with my HANDS FULL and this lady outside the store says to me "are you a registered voter?" I said yes and keep walking and she said "good I need your help." I reply with "I am very pregnant with my hands full, I can't help you." My tone probably could have been nicer. She said, "oh my thoughts and prayers are with you." I was thinking nice gesture lady, but a little too late, you should have been thinking about me before you asked for my help.

December is FINALLY here!!!

I just LOVE this time of year. Chris and Caleb put our tree up on Thursday. The kids and I decorated the tree on Friday AND I got ALL the presents wrapped. We only have our kids left to finish and WE ARE DONE!!!!!! Are you jealous?? You should be! I am pretty proud of myself. Actually I am only done with my side of the the family. I have only bought a few things for Chris's side of the family. They are coming here around the middle of January to have a late Christmas with us and of course to see the new baby. So I have some extra time to finish them.

Here are the kids with their new ornaments for 2007.

This year I got them at the craft fair in Hot Springs the day after Thanksgiving. It is a tradition on that side of the family for the women to go to that every year. I fell in love with Caden's and I JUST HAD TO HAVE IT!!! It is so HER! If you can't tell in the photo, it is a princess carriage with some shoes dangling and a little furry thing on top. I think it is adorable. I got Caleb a motorcycle one which he loves. He said, "I really like it, I just wish there was a guy or a kid on it and not a teddy bear."

As for the pregnancy, everything is going well. I had another appointment this morning. I willl be 38 weeks on Wednesday. I am now to about 3.5 but still 50% effaced, so I am slowly progressing. I think I will be able to make all my Christmas parties!!!! I still want her to come between the 15th and the 18th, so we will see. I feel SO MUCH better this week than last week. Maybe this is the calm before the storm.