Lydia Marie Brown

Introducing our adorable new addition: Lydia Marie! 

Born July 29th at 3:57 am

6 pounds 9 ounces

19.5 inches

32 cm head

She is a very calm sweet baby so far! She has a very distinct high pitch cry (at least compared to my boys). But she seems to have inherited her daddy's weak voice because after crying for not long it turns from loud to hoarse sounding. She is a typical baby who doesn't know dat from night and seems to think that the hours from 12-6 in the morning are perfect for cluster feeding. The last two nights she woke up every hour acting famished :) 

She has the same lips and chin Brayden has, but the same eyes and face shape as Zander. Her hair looks like it will be light blonde vas her eyes blue. She is very strong and tries to lift and turn her head and can roll onto her side from her back. She likes to sleep that way :) we love her so much!!

Here's some pictures from my phone. There's lots more on the camera too!

Newborn:

 

1 Day:

2 Days:

3 Days:

4 Days:

BIRTH STORY (with boring details I want to remember!)

It felt like we had just been waiting for our girl to come for about a week. I got to my due date for the first time and it came and went. But, in all fairness, with both my boys they moved the due date back a week after the first ultrasound. This time they didn't even though it showed it as being a week later. Anyway, at my doctor appointment the next day, dr walker stripped my membranes again. 

That night, Preston helped get the boys to bed then headed out to the Riverton house we're buying to finish taking care of everything that needed to happen for the appraisal. Mom, Dad, Julianna and Mikayla went to the Hale theatre performance of Mary Poppins and left Ethan behind with me. While I was feeding him his bottle, I had my first contraction. Although, I had been having real contractions throughout the week, so I didn't know it was my first at the time. That was about 8:00pm. Then I came down and started cleaning dishes and had another contraction that was painful enough for me to lean against the sink for a couple seconds, but not bad enough for me to be sure it was labor. It only lasted about 20 seconds and was ten minutes apart. I decided I ought to warn Preston I may be in labor just incase. When I had two more that we're 10 minutes apart, I told him he should probably come home. I found dmsomeone willing to come house sit with the sleeping kids if we needed and then the contractions were getting irregular- 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 8 minutes, 15 minutes, etc. that has never happened to me before so I started thinking maybe it was just false. Although the strength of the contractions was growing, they were still short and irregular. About 11 we decided to just go to bed and see what happens. 

At 12:57am I woke up from a really strong contraction. I had 6 in a row 10 minutes appart and woke Preston up at 2 to take me to the hospital. It took a few minutes for him to get up and us to be ready, so we got to the hospital about 230 and Preston gave me a blessing. At this point, a friend had suggested that maybe the baby was posterior (head down, but facing forward instead of backwards) which could cause the irregular and longer contractions. I looked it up and it sounded like it probably was the case which could mean more tearing, longer labor, etc. I was a little worried about it and thought maybe I should get an epidural if it was going to be a while, but I was at about an 8 when they checked me so I decided I'd just go natural and hope it was quick from here. Preston had given me a blessing when we first got there and I had said a prayer that things would go smoothly without extra tearing or other damage to me or baby. I was still nervous but knew our prayers were heard. 

The doctor came just a little after 3 and broke my water. The doctor and nurses were amazed at my lack of complaining during labor (as usual) but thankfully were  

responsive to my needs if I'd express them. After thinking I was waiting for them to tell me I was ready, I finally asked if I could push yet. They asked if I was feeling pressure during contractions and I has been so they looked and said I could go ahead. One nurse held my right leg. Preston held my left and the nurse was great at walking me through calmly when to push and to take deep breaths. I probably didn't NEED the directions, but I found it nice. Three big pushing contractions later, Lydia Marie was born. The moment before she came out the pain gets to a level that makes you wonder if you can bear it any more and then suddenly she was out! It stills burned for a while, but I was SO relieved to hear that there was no tearing! It really was an answer to prayer. And Lydia was indeed posterior because Doctor Walker had to twist her as she came out, but there were no issues there either!

So even though Lydia, my third child, was the "latest" and by far the longest labor, she has been the easiest to recover from. She is a beautiful little angel child!

I suppose if you're like Preston and don't consider the irregular pre-labor as part of the labor, then it was only 3 hours of the real intense labor. But, I will assure you that I count every minute from 8:00pm Monday as my labor. Apparently my calm coping fooled even Preston to the fact that I was in pain. But it was definitely there! 

Family Fun Day!

Today was fun, exhausting and exciting. We had a stake annual Family Fun Day that started with a "parade" from the stake center to a park where there was free bouncy houses, Popsicles, snow cones, popcorn, ice cream bars, hot dogs, face painting, crafts, rocket making and shooting, a waterside and so much more. I heard about it last year but we had missed it cuz we were still in Florida. I was impressed. It was huge!!!

The kids had a blast and stayed the entire day until they were cleaning up at 2 and then wanted to walk all the way back home. Ah to have endless energy ;) luckily they have an awesome daddy who walked with them while I drove alongside.  

For the parade, I made the boy's bikes look like horses and they dressed as little cowboys. It was pretty cute!! 

After all that, we came home and did some chores then made cookies, had dinner and then a bath. The kids are now in bed and pooped I'm sure ;) 

Pregnancy and other random thoughts

way back at 24 weeks I think

I know most people who read this blog probably know already through facebook or word of mouth, but since the last post we found out we're having a girl and a week later got hired full time with Seminaries and Institutes for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!  We are thrilled with both!  The last day of school is tomorrow at Riverton High school where Preston has been teaching since March, but he is getting transferred to Alta High school for next year, so he made the move today since classes are over already.  The pros are that it's super close to where we are now with his parents!  The cons are that it's adjusting to a new faculty, and it's hard to find nice houses nearby in our budget.  But at least we have somewhere to stay until we can find a place we like!

We are also getting excited for our little girl!!  Names have proven more difficult this time around. With the boys we never "picked" the name until we met them, but we had a favorite (which they both ended up getting named).  This time I feel like there are lots of names that I like or am ok with, but none have stuck out as a definite favorite.  Right now the favorites are Claire or Emmy.  But we shall see. We still have 8 weeks to go until the due date (July 27th!) ;)

So, yesterday we went to the temple and on our way home decided to stop for ice cream at sub zero cuz we had a coupon.  There was a group of 3-4 boys around 11 years old and a couple moms who were just getting their ice cream when we walked in. When they were finished the boys were jumping off a leather couch to slide across the leather ottoman they had there.  For a split second I started thinking "who lets their kids do that?!"  But then remembered my own rambunctious boys at home who like to play wrestling or crashing games that are just as crazy.  Plus, I don't know what it's really like with older boys yet, so who am I to judge?  But we did watch them and then I turned to Preston and said "this is why we need a girl. . . to balance out the craziness of boys!" We both laughed and a second later one of the moms said to us "are you thinking you don't want kids now? ;)"  I'm sure she had seen us watching them and then talking about it and I was so grateful I had chosen not to comment on how disrespectful their behavior was or anything negative that I probably could have.  It was nice to be able to just share what we had said and laugh with them instead.  Being a mom is not always easy and I see so many moms picking too many battles with their kids.  Some moms maybe don't pick enough or set enough rules.  But, so long as we are trying and doing what we feel is our best, isn't that enough? That was my "words of wisdom" to myself with this experience and I thought I'd share.  You never know who notices you judging them and it's really not worth hurting feelings when you don't know the big picture.

My cute, crazy boys I love so much!!

Brayden's Birthday

I have gotten way behind on here!!!!   But, there's a cute little video we did at Brayden's birthday (December 9th) that I want to share.