Baby Channings birth story... for those of you who are dying to know.

I know some of you have been wanting to hear Channing's birth story and I wanted to blog about it before I forget the details so here it is.

    Just a little background detail: Marlie was 8 days early, and so I was REALLY hoping that Channing would decide to vacate the premises before her due date, also. But it wasn't lookin' good... I went in for a scheduled OB appointment on the 19th of august and my midwife said I was only 2cm dilated, which I could live with. I mean, things can progress a lot in a week, right?? WRONG, I went in for my last scheduled OB appointment on the 26th of august after I had told my midwife that I would LOVE to see her face before then... she said that I was STILL only 2cm dilated, at which point I could feel my blood actually start to boil because I did NOT want to be pregnant anymore!!!! It had only been the H-O-T-T-E-S-T summer EVER!!! And I had spend the good majority of my pregnancy being hot, sweaty, and super cranky... so for her to tell me that I had made no progress - yeah I was a little mad. And then she went on to tell me that if I was still undelivered on september 1st (which was my original due date), she would then schedule an induction for september 4th. SEPTEMBER 4TH!!! thats PAST my due date... thats not happening chicka... she was nice enough to strip my membranes before I went home that day and immediately I started contracting. They were only braxton hicks contractions but that didn't last long.
    Throughout the day they started to get more and more painful. I didn't go to bed until about 10pm that night and I didn't get much sleep. Every time a contraction hit I had to get out of bed and get on my hands and knees and breath through them. So I called the hospital around 1:30 in the morning to ask them (this will make some of you laugh but I will explain...) if they had any rooms open if I were to come in. Now, before you start thinking that I'm the weirdest person ever, I asked them that because when I was in labor with Marlie, they DIDNT have any rooms open for me so I labored in an exam room... so luxurious... the nurse also sounded a little confused as to why I would be asking that and so I gave her the whole story about my previous pregnancy. She then assured me that they had pleanty of room for me and to come on in and they would get me set up. I waited another hour and a half to go in until I just couldn't stand it anymore.
    I got to the hospital around 3am and a nice asian lady named Mollie got me situated in my room and jammed an I.V. thing in my arm, she checked to see how dilated I was after she was finished getting me settled and said that I was at 4cm... FINALLY some progress. They had a shift change at 6am and I got a new nurse named Lorinda. At first I really didn't like her. She made me change positions every 20 minutes to try and get the baby's head as far down into the birth canal as possible. Another background detail: I didn't have an epidural with Marlie and I wanted to try to go without one again this time around so the changing position thing really sucked because all I wanted to do was stay in bed and die. She made me get on my knees and elbows and stay there for 20 minutes, and let me tell you, when you are already having a lot of back labor pains, thats the last position you want to be in - your back already hurts so it feels super awesome when your already huge, heavy belly is pulling on your back on top of that. Then she made me sit on one of those fitness ball things and rock back and forth, which sucked but not as much as being on all fours. And then she had me walk the halls for a bit.
    I let ken sleep (well sort of), I felt really bad that I had kept him up all night....I guess you could say I was living vicariously through him because at this point I was pushing 24 hours without sleep. The nurse finally let me get back in the bed and then told me that I was progressing nicely. She said she would break my water and then let me dilate a little more before I could start pushing. I then called my mom, who came over at 3 in the morning to stay with Marlie while we went to the hospital, and let her know that they were going to break my water and then she could probably head over to the hospital. After she broke my water, the really fun contractions started coming, and I'm not talking about these contractions coming in for a NICE visit, they were coming in to pick a freaking FIGHT! I feel like the contractions this time around were a little bit more intense than they were with marlie... but either way, they really sucked. It didn't take long before I was feeling the need to push, and at that point my mom walked in with Marlie and the nurse said that I was ready to start pushing so my mom took marlie to the waiting room while we got ready to have a baby!
    The nurse called the midwife, who works in an office just across the parking lot, and within a few minutes she was in my room. I only pushed for probably 10 minutes, during which I almost got charlie horses in both legs and my hands went numb and tingly (not sure why), but Emily (the midwife) asked if I wanted to touch the baby's head and I said no because, lets face it, I just wanna focus on getting this kid OUT! A few more pushes and she placed baby Channing on my chest. Ken was crying, I was crying, Channing was crying. She weighed 6lbs 13oz and was 19 1/2 inches long. We are so excited that she is finally here!
    While the nurses were cleaning me up, the midwife, who thought I was pretty hilarious, said to the nurses "well ladies, I think its safe to say that Nikki probably doesn't want to take her placenta home with her and eat it." They all laughed and I looked at her and said "Ew sick! Do people really do that?" Apparently they do... and thats gross (sorry if any of you took yours home and ate it... but seriously... thats freaky.)
    The rest of the day was spent resting and getting to know our new addition. Ken went home with marlie that night. Now, remember that I have been awake since around 9am Tuesday morning, Channing was born at 10:50am Wednesday morning, I didn't sleep much after she was born, so here I was SO ready sleep. And of course Channing was ready to party. They dont have a nursery in the hospital because they want you to keep the baby in the room with you. So since Channing didnt want to sleep for more than five minutes at a time, I was having to rock her in the chair, walk around with her, do whatever I could to get her to go to sleep and stay asleep... which she wouldnt do. And I dont know if any of you have been without sleep for 48 hours but its not fun. Every time I blinked my eyes, my body thought I was going to sleep. So I decided that walking around with the baby was no longer safe, so I rocked her in the chair, and then had to fight the urge to sleep so I wouldnt drop her so I didn't feel safe having her anywhere but on my chest while I was laying in the bed - which they didnt want me to do either. So i was really not in a fun position. My nurse came in while i was laying in the bed with the baby and i said "i know im not supposed to have her in the bed with me but i REALLY need to sleep and she wasnt letting me" and my sweet, sweet nurse then told me that she would take her for a little while so that i could get some rest. 3 hours later she brought Channing back into the room! I was so grateful for her kindness, i thought i was gonna die if i went any longer without sleep. The next morning i couldnt WAIT to get home. I was SO done staying in the hospital, we had to watch some videos and then they sent us on our way! we are so happy to have Channing in our family. She is now 2 months old and has so much personality!

Its been a while...

So I'm going to just sum up pretty much the last year of our lives.

*Marlie is completely potty trained (don't remember if i mentioned that in my last post) and we are so excited about that.
*Marlie turned 4 in june
*Nikki turned 26 in june
*I competed in a horse show for the first time in probably 10 years... and i totally SUCKED because i was so nervous haha
*we went to an amusement park in couer d' alene (spelling?) with my parents and it was a ton of fun!
*We picked lots of raspberries and blueberries with the intent of having them last through the winter and marlie at them all before the winter even started...
*I photographed 3 weddings and a bunch of seniors and families last summer. One couple flew me to idaho to do their pictures. it was a TON of fun!
*marlie started pre-school at the beginning of november
*we went BACK to idaho for a week to have thanksgiving with my family
*we spent Christmas here at home with family and friends and it was so nice not to be traveling this year!
*WE FOUND OUT IN DECEMBER THAT WE ARE EXPECTING OUR 2ND BABY!! WOO HOO! DUE SEPTEMBER 1ST 2014
*Ken turned 31 in february
*I had my first ultrasound in feb. everything looks great
*i got a new camera! i got the canon 6D and i totally LOVE it
*we find out what we are having on tuesday. we are pretty excited!

thats all i can think of so far. we don't live SUPER exciting lives but we do occasionally do some fun things. Marlie will be starting kindergarden this september, shortly after we have the baby so it will be a transition in many ways for our family. My parents are working on moving back to the portland area to be closer to us and other family member which will be so nice. we miss them lots when we are not with them. This summer we hope to do some fun things now that i am not taking care of the pool (which didn't allow for very much vacation time since i had to test chemicals and close the pool everyday for four months). we are hoping to go to the beach and even to the redwood forest so it will be really exciting to get some picture with my new camera. my brother dan is getting married at the end of june and my sister anna is graduating high school at the end of may so me and marlie will be going to idaho for both of those events and ken will just be going for the wedding. so we have lots of things we want to do. hopefully it won't take me a year to update this thing again!

whats new??

 Well, its been a while... and not much has happened. Marlie has been potty trained since the beginning of the year. and let me tell you, its SO nice to not have to buy diapers. I have been surprised by the fact that we have NEVER had a problem with her wetting the bed.... not that im complaining, i just thought when i gave up diapers, i would be adopting bed wetting.

At the beginning of this year we got sister missionaries in our ward, which was SUPER exciting for me because i was called as a ward missionary a year ago and with elders it was hard for me to do much. but now that we have awesome sisters in our ward i am able to magnify and learn from my calling in ways i never knew i could. mostly it has just been helping re activate members of the ward but the sisters have been teaching a few families in the apartment complex that i live in and so i have been able to help teach people who have had no contact with the church.
one woman that we are teaching has been particularly influential for me is a single mom with 2 kids. sounded pretty normal until she told us that he mom started her on meth when she was 12. well, she's 30 years old now. you guys, shes been doing meth for 18 YEARS! her husband was shot to death in his sleep, and who knows what else has happened to this poor girl. being a druggie is all shes ever known, and the last thing i thought she would do is join a church that will ask her to leave that life, the only life she has ever known, behind. but talking with this girl has been so awesome! at first she almost got mad at us for telling her that we have something that can fix any problem she has. she told us "NOTHING you guys can give me can fix what HAS happened to me, what IS happening to me, and what WILL happen to me." but she continued to have us visit her in her home. then she started asking questions, then she started reading the book of mormon, and praying, and now she is detoxing, and going to rehab, and calling the sisters when she needs someone to talk to or needs help with something. its been so cool to see her develop.
the other day we met with her in my apartment to answer a question that she had. we got to talking about the temple and how families can be forever and the sisters pointed out the picture of the salt lake temple that i have hanging on my wall and talked to her about how she could someday be married there. she expressed to us that she just feels like she will be alone for the rest of her life because of the things that she has done, that no one will want her. and the missionaries told her that someday someone would love her more than anything and he would take her and her kids to the temple and be sealed together. i showed her a picture of the temple in portland and told her that i was married there and she looked at me with a shocked look on her face and said "you got married THERE??" and you could just see her face light up when we talked about how she can go too!
it has been so interesting to watch someone feel the spirit and not know what it is or how to describe it. every time we meet with her she gets emotional and she always says "i dont know why i always cry when you guys come over!" my testimony has grown SO SO SO much in the past 6 months as i teach with the missionaries, i thought that this calling would be really boring and that i wouldnt like it at all but i couldnt have asked for a better calling!

In other news, i have 2 weddings to photograph this summer, im really excited! both are for families that i have known for years so it will be a lot of fun!
marlie will be 4 next month.... 4!!!! i cant believe shes going to be in school next year! so crazy!

Thats all i can think of right now. like i always say, we dont live very exciting lives lol. 

Family Happenings - photo overload

 

Well, the holidays have come and gone. Its always a little depressing for me to put my Christmas stuff away. I love Christmas. I find it almost therapeutic to take the time to be more selfless and find ways to serve others and buy gifts for people that I love. We went to Michigan for Christmas to spend the holiday with Ken's family. Our flight went really well, Marlie was really good. We got into Detroit around 3pm and picked up our rental car. We were expecting a Ford Fusion but Ken said they gave us a "free upgrade" which ended up costing us $120.00 in the end. But whatever. We got upgraded to a Ford Edge. It. Was. Awesome. It was weird to be driving such a nice car around, but when I saw how crappy the gas mileage was, I missed my little red car. 

Marlie was loving her aunts! She really wore herself out, good thing aunt Joy was there to cuddle with her

When Ken and I got married, he took me to a town called Frankenmuth. Its a German town and its home to the worlds largest Christmas store - which was heaven for me, torture for ken. Christmas. Overload,

Lots of family makes for lots of gifts!

The Christmas store had the most elaborate nativities I have ever seen!!

we played whirly ball... best. game. ever. lacrosse, bumper cars, and basketball got together and made a super super fun baby - its name was whirly ball....

***** ok. in a perfect world, these photos would be in the order they were taken... BUT blogger is stupid and making me angry so they arent going to be in order. sorry abou that.*****

my parents came to portland right after we got back from michigan and we had to go up to seattle for my sisters doctor appointment. while she was in her appointment, we went to pike market. i love that place!

you can always find weird stuff at pike place.

this was just before we were going to eat at the crab pot. marlie is the best crab hahaha

ken is such a good looking girl!

on MLK day we went to the zoo with marlie and had a great time even though it was freezing!

carnage from the crab pot (again, sorry the pics are out of order)

Family picture in front of the Newel K. Whitney store in Kirtland

.

Kens family lives about 3 hours away from kirtland ohio so we took a quick day trip down there. marlie was loving her monsters, inc. stuffed animals she got for christmas

Marlie at the Kirtland temple.

the view of mt. hood from the plane on the way home

the plane on the way home

Family Quirks...

My family has a few silly quirks. Im sure your family does too. But I have been noticing a few lately that I wanted to record some of them - especially Marlie's because her quirks will change throughout her life.

My quirks:

• I hate ice in my drinks. Any drink. I hate ice. It waters down your drink, and just when you're trying to get that last little bit of your drink out of the cup, the ice sticks to the bottom of your glass and as soon as you think your safe- BAM! it smacks you in the face. Drinking your favorite beverage should be enjoyable, not diluted and dangerous!
• I make the bed before I get in it. I know this is weird but I blame my mother because she does the same thing. There's a good reason. Ken makes a mess of the blankets when he sleeps, he wraps them around his feet, gathers them up around his face, and tucks them between his knees. and then throws them all over the place when he gets out of bed. How am I guaranteed my fair share of covers if they are not evenly distributed on the bed before I get in??
• I hate/will not clean out my hair brush. I know what you're thinking... I mean whats worse? Having to yank out the hair in your brush so its clean? Or having the lump of hair get larger and larger until your husband cleans it out for you because it grosses HIM out? The thing is, both options are horrible.I can't stand hair on my hands. Ask my mom and she'll tell you that I have been that way since I was little. HATE it. Kens question is "why does it bother you? its your hair!" and my reply is "No. No. It's not my hair. It was once my hair. But my body lost its possession of that hair when it expelled it from my body and left it laying dead in my brush." Hair is gross.But thanks to Ken, I never have to clean my brush! YAY!

Kens Quirks:

• Breyers or Bust: Ken will not eat any kind of ice cream but Breyers. And if you know anything about ice cream, you know it's the most expensive. I mean, we're talking $6/half gallon in some stores. To me, ice cream is ice cream. Ken says he can taste all the artificial crap they put in all those cheap ice creams.... but I find it odd that he can say that while eating a Big Mac and fries.
• He cleans. and cleans and cleans and cleans. Now, the only reason I say this is a "quirk" is because usually its the woman that goes on a cleaning spree. Ken walks in the door and even if I have cleaned the house already, he goes through like this little guy from wall-e. Don't get me wrong, its nice to have a husband that enjoys a clean home. It's just an interesting trait to find in a man.  

•  He cleans the car before we go on road trips. I have sort of broken him of this habit because it made absolutely no logical sense to clean a car right before we planned on trashing the crap out of it. As many of you know, traveling with (a) child(ren) is not a clean or organized activity. On many of our travels, marlie has wet through her diaper onto her carseat, which for the rest of the road trip would smell like pee, spilled milk, snacks that roll under the seat and stay there till our vacation is over, you get the idea. I think after we had marlie and did a few road trips with her, he finally realized that his efforts to keep the car clean on the road were in vain. 

Marlie's Quirks:
(there are a few more here just because some of them are so funny. and some of them are weird things that she has grown out of. I just want to record them so I can embarrass her later in life.)

• She used to be obsessed with my cooking spoons. this phase has passed but it was one that drove me insane. every morning the first place she would go was not the fridge to grab a yogurt, it was the drawer with the spoons and spatulas. And she wasn't grabbing one to help me make some pancakes. She just wanted one to sit and watch a movie with. That's it. A companion spoon. You know,  someone to share life's experiences with. You guys, she would even sleep with them. It was the strangest thing I had ever seen.
• Goodbye spoons, hello plastic swords. As you may have guessed. When she finally realized that mom really didn't want her to have the spoons, she found a toy sword at my friend Sue's house and it was love at first sight. The sword and Marlie were inseperable. The mind of a child is interesting. I babysit for a friend of mine now and then, she has a 6 year old and Marlie loves him, but he's not so fond of Marlie because she's small and annoying and follows him everywhere. He would complain about Marlie coming over every time it was time for me to babysit and then his mom said "Anthony, she sleeps with 2 swords..." he sat and thought for a minute and said "Ok, I guess she can come over." So the sword obsession could be a door opener for her in the future!
• She planks when she poops.I know this is a gross topic. But lets be honest, the logical pooping position would obviously be squating.... but Marlie does this (see photo below). We are working on the potty 

          training thing (I won't open that can of worms) but until it is mastered, this is the preferred pooping position. Although she doesn't put her face on the ground like that. But if that paints a funnier picture for you just slap a 3 year old girl's body on that soccer player and you've got Marlie. 

• She doesn't like hair on her fingers. I can't figure out where she got that one....

• If you have a dog, and you have a leash, she will find both and drag your dog everywhere she goes. Which is why most dogs have a love/hate relationship with Marlie. They love her because she's a messy eater, they hater because she sucks at walking a dog. 

For now that's all I can think of. I know there's more, but people keep calling my phone and distracting me!! 

I guess i should update this thing...

I really suck at updating my blog... if you havent already noticed. Over the last few months we have experienced:

• potty training marlie
• marlie un-potty training herself
• nikki turning into some kind of demon as a result of said "reverse potty training"
• re-potty training marlie
• general conference
• halloween
• nikki being ca-RAZY sick with a super bad sinus infection AND an ear infection
• ken getting sick after nikki gets better
• my mom and dad came to visit!

so, for a while there marlie was doing SOOOOO good with potty training. She wore underwear all the time and told me when she needed to go potty. she did awesome at church and out in public. i would put her to bed with underwear on and she would wake up dry. i. was. excited. the only thing we had to do was work on #2 which i expected to be absolutely horrible... which it was... and not because i had to deal with poop... but because out of the blue, marlie thought that it was just easier to go potty in her undies... so she started wetting her pants and stopped telling me that she had to go potty. so i put her back in diapers and continued to try and potty train her. she still did well going pee... but put was and still is a WAAAAAAAAAYYYYY different story. I know exactly when she needs to go poop. she has a specific face she makes, and certain spot she goes to hide (either behind the couch or in her room) so when she makes that face or i catch her hiding, i put her on the potty, and i swear i could make her sit on the toilet for DAYS and she will NOT go to the bathroom... but as soon as i stick a diaper back on her, she poops. long story short.... im still going insane....

general conference was at the beginning of october. it was awesome! i love hearing our prophets speak. it makes me feel like im talking to a really old friend that does nothing but give you good advice.

back in september i started getting sick. it started with a crazy weird spell of horrible vertigo. if you have never had vertigo, just get in a swivel chair and spin around for at least 15 minutes straight, then stand up and try to function like a normal human being.... not.fun. then a sore throat moved in. then that went away and the congestion hit me really bad. then cough and congestion, cough and congestion, cough and congestion, then my top teeth started to hurt. not one in particular - all of them. when i ate, they were just sore. which was super weird but apparently thats a sign of a sinus infection. THEN (yes theres more) my ears started to hurt. all of this was on TOP of the vertigo. so i went to the doctor gave me a ton of meds and then i got better!! haha. worst. sickness. ever. and i still have the vertigo....

my parents came to visit at the end of october and it was so fun to hang out with them. we went to the pumpkin patch, and ate yummy food and just had a good time hanging out.

other than that our lives are pretty ordinary. i have been riding horses a lot, i hope to go to a show in the spring. ken has been working out and he put some of his old pants on the other day he said that he fits in them again. so hes happy that he is able to accomplish his goal. marlie is talking more and more every day. and i am working really hard to communicate better with her. i feel like i get frustrated too easily so i have been working really hard to be more sensitive and calm when she makes mistakes and its amazing how much of a difference it makes. its interesting because thats how i work with my horse. if i ride him when im in a bad mood, i usually get bad results from him and i get even more mad. when i ride in a good mood i have a happy horse who is much more willing to work for me. i never thought that would carry over into parenting until i had marlie. funny how that works. anyways, thats all i have for right now. the holidays are coming up and we are going to michigan for christmas so there will be lots of pictures of that!

Idaho Vacation

There was a crazy storm blowing in towards Rexburg so I HAD to take some pictures!

Me and Marlie in front of the Salt Lake temple

Marlie LOVES her grampa

The only photo I got of Marlie and Jesus was one of her running away from Him... not sure what to think of that :)

This is one of my favorites. Grampa was showing Marlie the "owies" Jesus has on His hands and feet.

we had TONS of fun at lagoon... and i found out that my 3 year old is braver than i am....

marlie loves her gramma too!!

we were on our way to martins cove and we got a flat tire.... so i thought i would snap a picture. such a pretty view

another awesome storm on the way to martins cove

my dad likes to live life on the edge... of a cliff....

handcart replicas

marlie got to pull the little kids handcart with her little friend.

she had so much fun!

the pioneers were allowed 17lbs per person on the handcarts.

these monuments were a beautiful reminder of how much the saints loved and trusted the Lord. you could definitely feel the spirit of the young men who carried people across the frozen sweet water river here.

view of martins cove from the sweet water river

I will post more picture soon. We had so much fun going all over the place with my parents. It was nice that they got some time off so we can do all the things we did. there was a lot of driving involved but it was well worth it. If you havent been to martins cove i would HIGHLY recommend it. it was a real eye opener to actually BE there where people had struggled to survive in freezing weather with no warm clothes, no food, and small children and elderly people to care for. i am grateful for their sacrifices - im not sure i would be so willing. it really was a neat experience, especially since we went right before pioneer day. i loved it! more stories and pictures to come!