After trying every single trick in the book to self induce labor, I got too impatient and went a head and scheduled an induction 4 days before my due date. I also induced Lex and Winter ( I guess I'm pretty impatient, huh!) so we had the whole process down. The doctor called in the order the week before, and Labor and Delivery would call me between 5 and 5:30 am on the morning of the 18th. My mom spent the night in case they wanted us to come in right away. I woke up at 4:30 to shower and await the call. By 5 :30 I was getting anxious, but had to wait until 8 to call them. My poor kids expected to wake up and us be gone and be able to head to the hospital to meet their new baby brother.
At 8 o'clock I called them to see what was up. They said I was next to be called but there weren't any rooms, so to call back at noon if they hadn't called sooner. I really think the wait was worse than being a kid on Christmas Eve!! But they called at about 9:45 and Jon and I kissed the kids and ran out the door.
After getting checked in and changed, our cute little nurse came in to get me all set up. She checked my arm for a good vein for the iv, said I had good veins, but when she stuck me she hit a valve and spent a good amount of time and lots of pain trying to get around it, but to no avail! I have to say now that it's all over, that pain of her continuously poking the valve, and then the subsequent pain of having my blood pressure taken regularly on that arm, was worse than the contractions! I also have a massive bruise that wraps around my whole wrist even still today, a week later. Anyway, after not being able to use that vein after all, she had to use another one higher up on my hand, weird spot! And after getting the needle in, and taking a few little tubey thingys, the connection thing fell off and a geyser of my blood went spewing all over everything. Yikes! Sorry all you squeemish people! Jon just buried himself in his iPhone while this was happening.
Then we finally started the petocin at noon. I immediately started having contractions, but we upped it every half hour to get them more regular. We assumed this would all go really fast. The nurse and doctor both agreed that rupturing my water would kick it into high gear and we'd have a baby in no time! Awesome! Well the doctor had a complication in a C-section and then a delivery that took a really long time, and since those were more of a priority, we waited. Which I am okay with, Jon and I watched "Lost" on Netflix, it was fun. Contractions started getting harder and more regular, so we went ahead and did the epidural. My anesthesiologist was amazing and so fast!
Then we just waited for the doctor. For hours! But for some weird reason I was not progressing! The week before at my appt. My Dr. had said I was at a 3+, and the nurse was telling me that I was at just about a 3 and I stayed that way, even through the contractions. The nurse was sure breaking my water would help that, but we still had to wait for the Dr. My nurse really wanted me to have the baby before 6 which is when the shift change was, and so she kept on top of knowing where the Dr was.
He finally made it out of the other delivery and came in the room at about 5pm. Our nurse was in another delivery, so we had a stand in nurse check me and I was still only a 3. My doctor had a student following him and asked if I was okay with the student rupturing my water. Of course I was okay, I think it's awesome! At about 5:15 the nurse rechecked me and I was already at a 6, but said she'd wait a full hour to recheck me, even though I knew it wouldn't be that long. At about 5:30 Contractions were every minute and I was feeling pressure. Our nurse returned, mostly to say good-bye since shift change was at 6. But she decided to check me because I was feeling so much pressure. So at 5:45 she said yep there is no more cervix and there is a baby right there! So she went to get the Dr who would also change at 6 (I go to a group of amazing Doctors!) and Jon called mom and the kids to come over.
They all decided to stay on just to have this baby. My Dr asked if it would be okay if the student, who was just too sweet by the way, could deliver the baby if he was there with his hands practically on top of the students. He said I was a perfect subject for a student, with this being #5 and me not ever having ripped and having smooth labors in the past. Of course! How cool is that for this guy! Our baby would be his first delivery! It was funny too because the Dr's wife called him just before the delivery, because he was supposed to be off in minutes.
They got dressed and came over and said okay at the next contraction push. So I started pushing,
"Okay not that hard! The head is out, okay just a little for the rest of baby"
So in one push, at 6:01, our little son was out for us to love and hold!
Dr Drewes commented that after the last delivery, which was one of the hardest he had ever had, that this was the EASIEST he'd ever had! Woo hoo! If only he had been there earlier, we could have had the baby much sooner, but as the Dr.s cleaned up, we were just happy to hold our son, the student was happy to have delivered his first baby, the nurse and doctor were happy because they really didn't have to stay too long after their shift change, and the Dr's wife was happy he'd be home in time for dinner!
Mom, and Kurt and the kids got there just after the doctors were done cleaning up. And Winter was immediately up on the bed with me and the baby. It's as if she knew him and was waiting for him. She knew to be gentle and soft and she couldn't stop giving him kisses. It was very sweet. And everyone else loved to hold him too. But they didn't get very much time before the nurse had to take him to get a bath.
Kids watching Talon get a bath....and eating an Oreo?
Jon said that there was a new nurse in the nursery too, and our baby was her first baby to clean. He said she did an amazing job. While Jon was in the nursery, I was moved to the mother/baby floor and in to my room for the night.
Then came the task of naming our new little boy. We have had Talon as the name for a long time. It was the runner up for Lex. But we had both heard it recently and were worried it was going to be too common. So over the past few weeks my mom and sister would tell us names they had heard that were uncommon, and we found a few others we liked, but in the end, nothing seemed right. He was Talon, even if it is a little less uncommon. We had also planned on using the Lindsey family male child middle name, but in the end decided to use my maiden name.
The kids stayed with us for a while and everyone passed Talon around, loving on their new brother, and he just slept, rarely making a sound. Mom took everyone home around 10, and Jon and I settled in with our 5th bundle of joy. After so many times, Jon has those uncomfortable chair/pull out beds figured out. And he said he slept really well this time. Talon and I also slept well.
The next day, we had expressed that we wanted to leave as soon as possible, but knew they wanted us to stay the full 24 hours, so after a quick visit in the morning. Mom took Evey to dance and the other 3 to Seven Peaks! I missed taking pictures of Talon by himself in the hospital, because I ended up getting some weird side effects from the percocet they gave me. I have never had a tolerance for prescription pain meds. And I know that (now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I turned the big pain med down and stuck with the ibuprofen with Winter, and maybe even both Paris and Lex too) but I went ahead and took a few of the doses of the percocet. So , anyway, I had to sleep off that junk for most of the day. But really my pain level was not high, so the ibuprofen would have done just fine.
We finally got home around 9:30 on Tuesday. The kids had made a cutie welcome home sign for Talon, they like Jon and I were so glad to finally have our beautiful new family member with us to love and watch grow!
Evey wasn't sure how to spell his name yet...oops :)
A family picture has been on my list for.....ever!! I decided, it was today or never for a picture before our new family member arrives. It was surprisingly harmless and they came out great!! I seriously only took 8 shots and got what I wanted! A- Mazing!! Thank you wonderful family!
Since we had over hauled the bed rooms, we ended up doing a lot of the house, and piling everything in the garage. So it has been a crazy mess for a while, we haven't even been able to get the van in. Ugh!! I hate that! So we spent the day Cleaning out the garage and utilizing our attic space above it! Which is amazing!! Not sure why we didn't use this space before!
So the garage is amazing and more spacious than it has ever been. We still have too much stuff to use it as a 2 car garage though, but oh well.
Then the kids went next door to help with our neighbor's eagle scout project. He constructed wooden cages for a wild bird rescue center. So they are huge cages for eagles and hawks and other big birds of prey. My kids went over to help paint them.
Then we all went over to roast dinner on the fire pit. Yum!
Don't ya love Evey's AMERICAN spirit?!!!!!! We all had a good laugh when she came out in that shirt!
After we had our fill of hot dogs, brats, watermelon, and smores. We all headed over to another neighbors house for a fantastic firework show. These neighbors go all out every year and go to Wyoming for the "BIG" fireworks. Then the whole neighborhood goes over and we have a huge block party, and they try not to kill themselves and everyone else as they set off these beasts! There were a few close calls, one of the huge boxes toppled over and would have shot the fireworks straight into everyone, but it had shot it's last one just before it fell,and me and a few others were hit with some falling mortar, but everyone was fine and had a blast. Unfortunately it started raining and so the night ended a little early. But it was so much good clean fun! Thanks again, Chelsea and Josh for the great party!
The plan had been to give the kids their Saturday showers at Grammy's house Saturday night. But since we had to keep applying bug spray, it was silly to shower and then go to bed smelling of Off! So they didn't shower....Ewww! And since we got home so late anyway and had to carry most everybody in, showers were put off until morning. Sunday morning, when everything is rushed anyway.
I used to love 9 o'clock church (we rotate every year 9, 11, 1) and Jon appreciates it in the fall so he can watch football, but as our family grows, and all these stinkin' girlies!! :) it makes it hard to get out the door on time, even though the chapel is a 5 minute walk...less driving time!!! There have been numerous times I have done hair in sacrament! This Sunday was one of those days. We got everyone showered and out the door, but were late enough to not find a seat, luckily I jumped on the front row once the deacons were done passing the sacrament, and proceeded to do hair.
Both Evey and Paris wanted elaborate braids, so by the time I was done it was time for the closing song. I love July when we sing patriotic songs and the closing hymn was the Star Spangled Banner. I couldn't even get through the first line before I was bawling like a baby!! I love when the piano and organ tag-team and the sound is full and the congregation is standing, and our beautiful conductor sings an unwritten harmony. I love our national anthem, and especially when we get to sing all of the verses.
We spent the rest of the day relaxing as we usually do, until I go to choir practice and then the whole gang shows up for our weekly dinner together.
Apparently it is a challenge to play croquet with a naked monkey on your head!!
Winter loves Tristan and often grabs his finger and drags him to play with her.
Oh yeah and she loves to be as naked as possible, which I let slide while at home!
We ate yummy Ka-bobs and then started a wicked game of Killer bunnies, but had to pause for fire crackers. Our awesome neighbors texted right as we were heading out that they wanted us to join them as they set off some too (I think it's a tradition now, we've done it for at least 3 years now), so we just combined our stuff and had a blast! Our laws on fireworks were loosened this year and so it was legal to get ones that shot up to 100 feet in the air. So Kurt picked up some of those, missed getting pics of them though.
Winter's first sparkler!! She still requires quite a bit of help.
Not sure what they were looking at , but it must have been interesting!
My family is so amazing! They absolutely SPOILED
me for Mother's Day. I woke up to scrumptious
Strawberry crepes, Piano music and a couple movies.
One was Krull,
which is not Jon's favorite...
but he even let me watch it! :)
Twice, because when Kurt and
Tristan came over later, they
wanted to see it too. I didn't have
to lift a finger for any meals,
fighting children, or clean-up
....ahhh, so nice! Jon was also
really super bad, and ordered me
a studio lighting kit that came the
next day.
I love my family so much!!
I didn't get to try my lights out until the day
after they came. They are awesome....
however my subject of choice, Miss Winter,
was not the best subject for a test run.
She wanted to run every where and get under
the backdrop and not look at me.....stinker!!
Lex came over and was so sweet to shoot just a
couple. He was even the master mind behind
the last pic of both of them! Evey wants to do
a photo shoot, but we haven't found the time
to set up again, so stay tuned for that.
