Big Day - The story you've been waiting for

I hadn't been feeling well - to put it mildly- all during Christmas day and the following weekend. Monday was quite a bit better and I had my one-week-til-due midwife check-up. (I had gained a whopping 48 lbs - that's nearly a 50% increase for me! Had my blood drawn for it's final test - needed to be 10 or above - and found that, per my usual routine, I was dilated to a 4 and about 50% effaced.)

Mark came with me (the kids played at the McCammon's) and we spent the rest of the day van shopping - the last major thing on my To Do list. It took all day and a couple of frustrating negotiating attempts but we ended up with exactly what I'd hoped for: 2005 Toyota Sienna LE with one previous owner, low miles, and even a power door! More than just a relief, I was ecstatic. And starving. We had a nice little Mexican dinner and picked up the boys just past their bedtime...

About an hour after I'd finally gotten to bed, I began feeling horrible again. It took me a minute to realize that these contractions (unlike the Christmas ones) were pretty close together... So much so that I couldn't catch my breath to wake up Mark or look at a clock for another few minutes. Finally he was appraised of the situation and sprang into action, throwing my stuff in the van, grabbing my slippers and coat, etc. I was busy shaking uncontrollably and praying. I was too tired to do this tonight! We needed to make it all the way back to Meridian! I felt a great sense of calm and reassurance after my prayer, and I grabbed my vial of Peace & Calming essential oil to keep me in that zone as Mark drove. (Thankfully his saintly mother answered her phone at 12:15 am and came to be with the sleeping boys!)

Roads were clear of both traffic and ice so we hightailed it to The Baby Place in record time. Jerusha (my midwife) and two support midwives (in fact her mother - the matriarch of the business - and sister-in-law) were all ready for me in my beautiful, cozy room complete with fire burning in the fireplace. Jerusha immediately checked me and said, "Great timing guys. Kerri, you can push whenever you feel the urge." Wow!! I remembered the shaking - probably "transition" - and had the distinct impression that the Lord had been keeping me from progressing to this point until we were safely there.

Without going into detail, I do want to exclaim how wonderfully supportive my midwives were - how loved, safe, confident, and joyful I felt during my time there. My new baby boy was born December 29th at 1:22 am (you read that right!) without any of the potential complications from anemia, and I snuggled him immediately - a first for me. Amazing. Mark cut the cord. I held him for about an hour before they weighed him, etc. which all happened in our room... We forgot our camera! Thankfully they had one in their office we used from that point on.

This was the sack they attached to a scale to calculate his weight: 7lbs 10oz - my biggest baby! Other stats: 19 inches long, 14inch head circumference. Then he was cozily clad and we got the first mommy & me pic.

This is probably about 2:30 -45 am. We worked on nursing, trying to sleep, and trying to decide his name alternatively the rest of the morning. About 9 another midwife peaked in just to bring us (Mark & I both) breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast. We were left alone the rest of the time.

We finally came up with the right name for him: David Merrill.
About the time I was getting hungry for lunch, I decided that I might just as well lay around with David at home. We left that sweet Baby Place twelve hours after we'd arrived (and less than 24 since my check-up)! Leaving quickly is not a negative reflection on the environment there. This was by far my most pleasant and most spiritual birth experience.

 

My blood results had come back that morning: 10.4 Nice to know... even nicer that it didn't matter! Oh, and I weighed myself before leaving: I'd lost 16 lbs. Good start! (But I think I gained half that back when my milk came in...)

Christmas Catch-Up

I rearranged the furniture this year to have the tree in the window. We also like how cozy it is to sit on the couch in front of the pellet stove.

FHE the Monday before Christmas, Aunt Lisa hosted us all at Grandma's house for a wonderful lesson on the symbols of Christmas and the creatively yummy activity of "gingerbread" house making.

Christmas Eve we went back to Grandma & Grandpa's just us and the Iversons for a pleasant evening caroling together and reading the account of the Savior's birth found in Luke. Charlie & Hattie entertained us by dancing together on the table and hugging lots!

That brings us to Christmas morning and time to open presents!

Back to the Dame's for the "Christmas Feast" (as Isaac called it). Mark read to the kids while we waited for the turkey.

Reed got a picture of his three preggo daughters: Lisa, me, and Val. Sweet!

Baffling Blood, Beautiful Boys, and a Birthday

I'm 35. As in, Years Old. Life is great, it's been a good year and 2010 is going to be another even better year, but it is a little weird to be on the upper end of the thirties. I know it's technically "mid" but you definitely don't round-down from this number. Only those with grandchildren might still consider me "young." Ah well, who really wants to be young again? With age is wisdom!

Besides a year wiser, I'm now about 37 weeks pregnant. I haven't written about it til now, but there has been a "complication" of sorts with this pregnancy: severe anemia. It's been completely confusing because I have no symptoms whatsoever. I tested fairly low the very first time weeks before the big road trip, so I added an iron supplement (something I haven't needed with the previous pregnancies) and tried to be very mindful of my diet, especially trying to avoid those things that inhibit iron absorption. Well my next blood test was a week or so after the trip - you know how much energy I had to have to do that! - but this next result showed even LOWER iron in my blood, that's when the "severe" category kicked in.

By all medical rationale I should have been (and should still be) barely able to get out of bed each day, sickly pale, dizzy or faint, etc... But nope, I even rearranged all the furniture in my living & TV rooms to get the Christmas tree set up just the way I wanted. I have to admit I suspected the lab results could be wrong, but dutifully altered my supplements again, and watched my diet even more carefully, now adding quinoa grain and beef liver in the regular meal plans. My midwife wasn't scheduling another test for 6 weeks, but I wanted to see for myself if the lab she was using had somehow mixed up their reports so after about half that time I got my chiro (who's also my friend) to write up a request for a local (different) lab to draw & test my blood. Hmmph! It showed the SAME results as the test 3 weeks earlier. So now I not only had to believe it, I was starting to panic a bit that all my efforts were in vain. Nothing was helping!! And then I worried that worrying about it would make it worse (call it law of attraction or just stress-induced illness, whatever). Increase the liver frequency! Work on a positive attitude! Get a priesthood blessing from my sweatheart! And visit my friend Lorrie, the essential oils/energy healing worker.

In the meantime, Mark & I celebrated our 8th anniversary. Thanks to his brother Spencer and his friend watching our kids half the day and late into the night, we got a really relaxing and fabulous date! We went to the temple and stayed in the celestial room as long as we wanted. We hung out in Barnes & Noble looking in practically every section. (I'm a dedicated Amazon shopper, but there is something irreplaceable about picking up and flipping through actual books.) And then we had a liesurely dinner (and desert!) at the Cheesecake Factory. We truly almost never go to a restaurant so this was a major treat! My meal was delicious and I was completely and utterly happy. Total joy as I reflected on my life, my marriage, our boys, and our expectations for what is to come.

Another fun thing lately: we experienced our first murder mystery game. The McCammon's hosted us and two other super fun couples and fed us a fabulous meal. We were all supposed to have Italian accents (except one French character) and half the fun was hearing what people tried to pass off as Italian! I thought I was the guilty one for quite a while, but everyone had complicated motives and in the end it was a twist. Total blast. Getting good quality adult mingling time is so nice.

Isaac & Sam still have their Musikgarten class, and now we have Isaac signed up for Upwards Basketball starting in January. Sam will be taking swimming lessons next month as well. Hope I have as quick a recovery after the birth as I always have in the past! Homeschool, such as we do, is going great. I know I'm hormonally supercharged right now, but I seriously get teared up on a regular basis while observing the boys at work or at play. They are just so beautiful and brilliant and funny and creative! This new boy coming is sooo lucky to get them for big brothers!

So, back to that. My most recent blood test came back showing some improvement. Hooray for that! Boo that it isn't enough yet... The risk with low blood-iron is hemorrhaging during/after delivery (i.e. uncontrollable blood loss). My midwife has methods to work with slow clotting/excess bleeding but the bigger problem comes if her methods don't work, then I would need immediate transfusions and surgery - not available at the birthing center. I really don't want to switch to an OB/hospital plan, for many reasons, and thankfully because of the uptick in iron my midwife is willing to keep with me a couple weeks longer and work on a plan B first (leaving the hospital as plan C). Plan B will quite likely include me getting a blood transfusion a week or so before my due date to jump up my iron... but if I get (well, let's be honest here and say if GOD gets) my iron up high enough before then (I'll be doing weekly tests), then that (the transfusion) won't be necessary. So more prayers & positive thinking!! FYI, everything else with my health and the baby himself seem to be just peachy. I am really so ridiculously blessed, it is rather petty of me to get down at all about this little glich.

Anyway, besides trying to find creative ways to choke down more liver, I'm of course busy with Christmas (decorating, shopping, parties, etc) and the Young Women (along with all the regular Wednesday night activities, we got a new Beehive finally, and we sang for a special sacrament meeting program this week), AND I'm on the hunt for a new-to-us family vehicle. Yes, the time has come as in just a few short weeks (3ish?) we will officially have more kids than the backseat of the Avalon can hold. Thanks to internet research, and lots of advice from friends on Facebook, I'm narrowing things down and hope to be able to get exactly what I want for a great deal. I'll keep you posted.

Mark decided to bake a cake while I napped Sunday afternoon, so we had a just a bit of an early birthday celebration for me last night. Here's my men singing to me...

Baby Bump @ 6 months

I'm basically, almost, practically speaking, 6 months pregnant now! 'Bout time I show you what I'm looking like, eh?

And for the curious, this is an artists interpretation of what baby looks like now.

He doesn't give me much trouble, but I am feeling lazier... Just in time to take the boys on the road. I may be crazy, but we're getting very excited to go see the Grand Canyon (in less than 2 weeks)!

Lions and Tigers and Bears...

Sorry to all you girl-guessers, I'm remaining the only lower-case dame in our family! This littlest brother flashed us the instant the ultrasound wand was placed on my belly. He really wanted us to be certain, giving us "the toilet shot" several times, as the tech put it.
Hooray for double bunk beds, hand-me-downs, and three wonderful boys for #4 to look up to! (Sam was very upset initially, about a two minute tantrum mourning "Girla" I guess, and then he helped me wrap the above card for Mark's birthday - we surprised him.)

By the way, I'm open to name suggestions... Sam is now keen on Henry.

Here we come! (and baby news)

This is where we'll be for the next week-ish:

image via InterfaceLIFT

AND.. I was able to get a short & sweet ultrasound at my midwife check-up today.
I know the gender already!! Mark is going to find out when he opens his last birthday present tomorrow, but I want to have even more fun with this so place your bets in the comments:
Boy or Girl??
I preset a post with the answer to publish next week.

Do You Know?

A guessing game: What do I have that is approximately the size of a grape but much more exciting?
Here's a great opportunity for everyone who reads this blog to come out from hiding and leave a comment. (Do you know how? Basically click right on the word "comments" below my post and it will load you the space to type in, then you can select an account - if you use google for your email, for example - or anonymous which is for everyone who doesn't want to have to sign up for one more account but you better type your name in your remarks or I will have no clue who wrote the comment. For visual learners, you can see an exact tutorial here.)

ETA: You guys are good! My due date is approximately January 7th, but I'm hoping for the 9th ('cause 1/9/10 is cool). Anyway, that means I'm about 9 weeks along. The boys are very excited, and understanding when mom needs a little nap. Here's what babycenter.com has to say...
"Your new resident is nearly an inch long — about the size of a grape — and weighs just a fraction of an ounce. She's starting to look more and more human. Her essential body parts are accounted for, though they'll go through plenty of fine-tuning in the coming months. Other changes abound: Your baby's heart finishes dividing into four chambers, and the valves start to form — as do her tiny teeth."