Easter

I'll admit that Easter has not always been the biggest holiday at our house--Our first year of marriage, Dan and I didn't even realize it was Easter until we noticed a lot of talk about the resurrection at church. However, we definitely did do Easter this year; the blog post just got pushed aside because of other life events that took precedence at the time. So, a little late, here is the brief Easter post I had in the works.

We did the egg thing with Nana and Hannah.

Anda thought it was pretty cool.

And the bunny left her a basket Easter morning, which was also pretty cool, but which I didn't get too many pictures of. I always wondered how people ended up with so much junk for their kids in their houses, and now that we've had a few holidays and birthdays, I understand. They're so fun to shop for and they are delighted by the littlest things--it's hard not to buy up the whole aisle of stickers for them.

But the best part was the Easter egg hunt our church did Saturday morning, after we attended a very Easter appropriate baptism. Anda is so timid we were afraid she'd be trampled in the hunt, but she caught on right away and had a blast finding the eggs hidden around the park.

Daddy helped. A little.

And the whole thing ended with doughnuts.

A happy Easter to us all.

Lilah Paige

Well she's finally here! Lilah Paige was born at 3:46 am on Tuesday, April 10th. She was a (very) healthy 9 pounds, 20.5 inches. Everything went well with the delivery and we all went home less than 48 hours after she arrived.

Anda was thrilled to meet her little sister. When we got home yesterday, she insisted on holding her and wouldn't let anyone else have a turn for a long, long time.

Dan was also pretty pleased with the results of our latest science experiment.

So far all she seems to do is sleep, nurse, and poop, all of which are fine by me.

I would like to record a little bit about the labor and delivery, just for my own memory. Feel free to skip this part and just scroll to the picture at the end.

We were pretty disappointed that she had missed her opportunity for every holiday available in the healthy delivery time frame (St. Patrick's Day, April Fool's Day, my dad's birthday, and Easter), and more so that she was overdue with no real signs of coming aside from a few hours of false labor on the 4th. To further bum me out, the doctor told me on Monday that they couldn't begin to induce until Friday (at 41 weeks) and that I would not be able to try the prostaglandin--I would have to go straight to pitocin. None of this was appealing. I had her strip my membranes again and went home expecting to at least have a Friday the 13th baby.

That afternoon, Dan wanted to go for a run up the canyon, so Anda and I tagged along in the Jeep to go for a walk on the trail while he did his workout. I started having mild contractions on the way up, but after the false labor following the previous membrane strip, I didn't think much of it. They continued for about six hours, never getting worse, and seeming to get even farther apart. By 11:00 that night, I decided I'd just go to bed and see if sleeping would make it go away. At 12:45, something woke me up and I felt my water break a little. I jumped of bed and woke Dan up, and then my water broke for real. He woke up my mom while I took a quick shower, we threw some last minute things in the hospital bag, and we arrived around 1:10. By now the contractions were certainly getting worse, so he got me a wheelchair and we rushed up to the labor and delivery ward.

By the time we got into the room (around 1:30) I was hurting pretty bad and dilated to 4cm. I told the nurse I was no hero and wanted the epidural as soon as it was allowed and available. She ran us through the questions, checks, etc., while my pain rapidly got worse and worse. The anesthesiologist arrived quickly, but by that time (around 2:10) I was hurting so badly I couldn't hold still and was sobbing a little bit with each peak. He did his work with me in pretty rough shape, trying to sit as still as possible, but when they needed me to lie down to get the medicine flowing to the right places, I remember feeling like a very grumpy toddler whining, "No no no no no..." When the epidural took effect, they checked me again and found that in just the last hour, I had progressed to 8cm. No wonder I was hurting so badly! My hat is off to anyone who has given birth naturally. That was easily the most painful thing I have ever been through, and I didn't even do it to the end.

When Anda was born, the epidural worked so well I couldn't even feel the pressure of her in my pelvis. I pushed literally without feeling a thing below my waist, and she was still born within only a few contractions. This epidural was different--I couldn't feel the contractions, but man could I feel that pressure. The doctor came back around 3:15, checked me again, and told me it was time to push. I didn't need him to tell me that, though--I could tell I had been ready for half an hour. As soon as everyone got into position, my regular contractions slowed down and we all kind of made delivery room small talk for a few minutes waiting for another one to come. We took guesses on the weight: anywhere from 7.5lb to 27lb (the 27lb guess coming from the woman lying in the bed who had carried the thing for nine months and could feel what she was about to deliver). When the contraction came, I kid you not--the baby was out within one contraction and about five minutes. Even with the epidural, that was hard work this time since I could feel it pretty well. But I had my mom and Dan making impressed faces and encouraging me, which helped a surprising amount. The doctor picked her up and let Dan cut the cord, and said he'd need to reevaluate his 7lb guess. She was a 9 pounder who scored a 9 on the APGAR test after 5 minutes. Healthy girl.

To recap, I started having mild contractions around 5:00pm. My water broke around 12:45am and the baby was born at 3:46am. I don't care who you are--that is a fast delivery of a fat, fat baby.

So far she's been a good sleeper (at least during the day--we'll need to transfer some of that sleep energy into the night time over the next few weeks) and a good nurser, much to my relief. She seems as healthy as can be. We are all adjusting to the little stranger, but I feel confident that it's going to go well. Anda is in love with her little sister, and so is everyone else.

Welcome to the world, baby girl.

Discovery Gateway

My mom is in town to help out with the new baby, but since the new baby has decided not to make her appearance, we have had some time to play. Last week, we went to the children's museum in Salt Lake called Discovery Gateway. My pictures are not great, but the museum really, really is.

We started in the farm section where Anda rode a horse, gardened, gathered eggs, etc.

Then we hit up the water play area.

They had aprons to keep the kids from splashing water on themselves. However, I discovered they could also be used to cover naked butts when a kid pees herself because she's having too much fun with the water to take a bathroom break. Nana saved the day by running to the Old Navy (the museum is in a mall, after all) and getting Anda some replacement pants. I had replacement everything in my bag--except that. Great thinking ahead there, Rachel.

Once the new pants were on, we made our way to the other exhibits.

I think one of the most popular exhibits is the helicopter they have outside. The whole museum is set up really well, so that even though it was crowded the day we went, there was always enough space for everyone to play. The helicopter is the one exception. This would not be a problem if more parents would teach their children what a line is, how to recognize when a line is forming behind you, and how long it is appropriate to make people wait in line for your turn to be over. Unfortunately, politeness and even passive-aggressiveness did not work and I ended up yelling at someone else's kids when enough was enough and after she had waited very patiently for an eternity, it was Anda's turn to drive the helicopter for all of 30 seconds so I could take a picture. The moral of the story: Don't ignore your kids being rude, teach your kids manners so you can ignore them without worrying about them being rude, or just don't get mad at me when I do your job for you.

Still, other people's kids and the wet pants incident aside, we had a really good time and love going to this place.