Fun with Grandmas!

Here they are in Grandma Heaven

Livy and Adam were in Grandma heaven for most of the month of May! My mom came out right before Embry was born and stayed with them all week while we were in the hospital. She got a nice reminder of what life is like with two insane toddlers. The kids had a blast with her. They wanted to do everything with her and cried for her in the mornings and during time outs. They were both pretty devastated when she left. 

I took these pics one day during Nana's work out - it was so funny:

The day my mom took off - Grandma Sherrie was able to come! The kids were so excited to have another Grandma come and stay with us!

These kids (including Matt and I) were spoiled rotten by Grandma! How cute are these chairs!?! I love that they put their "babies" in the extra seats and that Adam's baby is a giraffe... haha

I may have been more excited that Grandma was making cookies with the kids than they were. This cookie dough is pretty bomb.

While Sherrie was here we got to experience one of Matt's softball games. Cousin Dylan was even able to join us! I love how Adam is right about to sneeze in this picture.

So cute! Minus Adam's crazy new smile face :)

Happy Mother's Day to Me!!!

Finally, on Mother's Day we got to bring home our sweet baby girl! Matt and I were at the hospital that morning talking to the nurses and doctor about her coming home and then when we were finally given the clean bill of health, Matt headed home to get Liv so she could bring her sister home with us.

She was so excited! Poor Liv took it really hard when we didn't come home with the baby when we said we would. It was heartbreaking.

Here she is in her brand new carseat! She's already sporting the awesome Matt glare with the intense eyebrows. All of my kids have mastered this glare from a very early age!

We finally get to go HOME!!!

Here I am with my now GINORMOUS kids! It's amazing how much bigger they seem compared to our teeny little newborn. They were so excited to have me home - it made my day! They also gave me a ton of airheads as a present - it was perfect! I love these little buggers.

The Level II Nursery

So, here's the story of Embry's dramatic last couple days spent at the hospital... It all started with her doing this weird little shiver thing like every minute and they would last for a second and it kind of creeped me out. But, my AMAZING nurse, Jeana, (seriously I loved her and Matt and I both had all of these crazy connections with her - ANYWAY) she told me it was just because she has an immature nervous system and it's totally normal and it will go away. So I wasn't worried. 

Unfortunately, Jeana had to leave me at 6 p.m. and that's when crazy nurse Terry took over... She was really nice, but she kept trying to find things wrong with Embry. It was driving me nuts! When she saw Embry do the little shiver thing - she freaked and had her blood sugar level tested - it was low - which I could have told you that - she hadn't eaten in a while. So I fed her and she was fine. 

Anyway, the next night I had Terry again and I made the mistake of telling her that she had puked up a tiny spot of blood - which was most likely MINE - since I was sore from nursing. Well, this bit of info. sent Terry through a loop and she was calling the doctor non stop and telling me my baby probably had a HEART PROBLEM! What!?! This led to the doctors freaking out and then they wanted to monitor her overnight. While they monitored her, they saw her heart rate and oxygen level drop for like a second and then come back up. This was very alarming to them. So they decided she needed to go to the level 2 nursery and have every test done to her. On top of that, she wasn't allowed to eat for a day to make sure her gut wasn't bleeding. My poor baby was STARVING! I was so upset! 

After she was finally allowed to eat again - I had to go home without her - most depressing day ever. Luckily, you can stay at the hospital for $35 a night - which I did so I could feed her at night. My mom, Matt and I took turns staying with her at the hospital. So she spent two extra days in the Level 2 nursery getting pricked on the foot a billion times, having endless amount of blood taken from her body, and having 3 different IVs put in. After a stomach x-ray, chest x-ray, and head ultrasound - they could find NOTHING! The nurses were even confused as to why she was in there. She was such an amazing eater from day 1 and she looked completely fine. She was finally allowed to come home on Mother's Day and we were given no explanations as to why weird things were happening to her - other than it was baffling, but she's fine now... I mean I'm glad that they took everything seriously and made 100% sure she's okay - but so much of it felt like an over reaction. If I didn't have c-sections, we would have already been home before Nurse Terry started on her mission to find something wrong with my baby. But, I'm not at all bitter...

I hate this picture. This was taken the morning we were supposed to be leaving - but instead they decided to move her to the Level 2 nursery and keep her a couple extra days so they could run every test imaginable on her. I was not okay this day.

Matt started to get sick when she was born - of course! - so he was forced to wear this mask when we visited her.

Head ultrasound

 Here was her set up in the nursery

 I hated seeing her poor little bruised hands and arms from the IV

Embry's Birth Story & the First Couple Days

Here I am in all my glory at 39 weeks at 4:45 in the morning - ready to have my baby! Why the face, you ask? I was smiling for the first picture but Matt informed me that my posture wasn't awesome... so here's the face he got for the next one.

I'm so excited to be in this hospital gown!

One of Matt's self candid pics

This IV was the WORST experience so far! I had 3 different nurses poke me a total of 7 times until they finally got it in and going. Lesson learned - don't let the poor night shift nurses do your IV - they are worn out and tired! Always have a rested nurse come in to do this!

All dressed up in his gear - waiting to come in and join me. Two funny stories... First, they told Matt to put his getup on over his clothes (duh) - but then they explained that a dad got completely undressed and then put this paper thin outfit on! haha Poor guy. The nurses ended up never telling him but just getting him something extra to put on so he wasn't showing the world everything!

Second, getting the spinal block without Matt by my side was horrendous. The nurse was nice enough to let me hold her hand during this process, but after it was in - that's when the terror occurred. I felt SO FREAKING WEIRD! I'm pretty sure I told the anesthesiologist that I felt like I was going to blow up. He must have thought I was a crazy person. I just kept shifting my top half from side to side like I was dying. I'm sure it was only 45 seconds of this - but it felt like a lifetime!! I was seriously telling myself I will never have another kid - this is it! I don't ever want to feel this way again! Finally, Matt came in after the exploding drama had ended. That process would be so much easier if he were allowed to be in the room with me! I'm not bitter.

Get ready for gross baby pics - and no, babies do not look like the newborns you see on TV...

Everyone was impressed with the amount of hair this girl had. The nurse also mentioned to Matt that she looked younger than a week early. I think she was actually two weeks early since the doctor moved up my date when I was like 14 weeks. She was so much tinier than my other babies even though she weighed almost the exact same as Liv. Also, I heard the nurse comment about her tongue the second they pulled her out. Her crazy long tongue has been sticking out at us ever since!

Our poor baby girl had to have oxygen AND an IV in for a little while while I was in recovery. How sad do these pictures look?? She was fine soon after until all the drama that happened a couple days later - that's a whole other post. Since this took a while, Matt came and visited me up in the recovery room. He had read my mind! I was hoping he would come up and see me and tell me how she was doing. I loved my nurse, though. She kept bringing me super warm blankets - I didn't even get the shakes this time! Planned c-sections are so much better!

All cleaned up! And apparently sporting some rock star mohawk look...

 Finally meeting her and napping with her!

The kids were so excited to meet her! They came to the hospital everyday - usually twice. We could hear their heavy footsteps a couple seconds before they got to our door. Adam would come right in and get on his chair and say my baby!! Then he would hold her for two seconds and say all done! Then Liv and Nana would fight over who got to hold her and for how long... haha Livy took this last picture to school the day after I had her because sharing time had to start with an S - so she was able to show everyone her new sister! She was stoked.

 After our first night together - she slept so well! She is such a good sleeper - thank goodness!

 More awesome pics of our stay before she was banished to the Level 2 Nursery...

First outfit ever!

And I have no idea who she looks like. She looks more like Adam to me but has Liv's mouth. She's a funny little mix between the two but definitely has her own look. I can't wait to see how she's changed in a month or two.