January

Well we had a busy last month or so. Christmas of course brought visits to my parents and Rockys parents to celebrate which we had a great time. Paige and Hayden got TONS of stuff, and Rocky and I got some good stuff too! Paige turned 4 on Jan. 5th and we threw a birthday party for her the weekend of the 8th. She picked a Barbie theme for her party and she had a great time and got lots more toys and clothes. My family sans Chris and Steph were here for the weekend and Rockys parents and little brother came for the party that day too. A good time was had by all and Paige is still talking about/ asking for her Bugs Bunny cake that my Mom made. She did an AWESOME job. I will have to upload some pictures from the day when I have more time. My birthday was the 11th so Rocky took me out to a nice fancy dinner at the Old Mill restaurant in town. Always awesome food and I make it a point every time I am there to try a new different beer. This time I had one from Chicago and it was delicious. :)
Otherwise, not much else is new with us. Hayden is growing like a weed and was right around 17lbs and 27inches long at his 4 month check up. We get comments such as "Wow, he is a good size 4 month old, isn't he?" and "That kid is going to be a linebacker!" which we think is funny. He is a very solid kid, but not fat. Paige at this age was just a little ball with a head and arms and legs but Hayden is more "built" for a lack of a better word. He is all smiles all the time and such a little sweetheart. He also recently started rolling over last weekend!

Family Pictures

Just a couple pictures from our family session a couple weeks ago. Man, is it hard to get good pictures with 2 kids! Most of the family ones either Paige had a super cheesy smile or Hayden had his hands in front of his face! I do like the one we got though, and really, who wants a whole ton of pictures that you have to choose from? :)

Hayden James

Sorry this is so late, been busy obviously. Hayden James was born on August 26th 2010 at 2:14 pm. He was 7lbs 13 oz. and 20 1/2 in long. My labor started on the night of the 25th. We had just sat down to eat dinner that night around 6:30 and I started to have contractions. I didn't really think anything of them since I had a few times where I had contractions around that time and it turned out to be nothing, but we started timing them anyway just in case. Of course they stopped around 10 that night, but I had a feeling since I was 4 days over my due date that they would start up again so I decided to head to bed to try and get some rest in case they did start up again. I went to bed about 10:30 and woke up about an hour later with contractions again, except this time I could tell they were stronger. I was able to sleep in between them so I just stayed in bed and didn't bother to write them down. Rocky was at work during this and got home around midnight. I told him I was having contractions again and this time they were more painful and in my back also so I thought they were real. We continued to lay in bed and just talked for the next couple hours because by this time I wasn't able to sleep since they were getting closer together. Around 3am I decided to call labor and delivery and they suggested to take a hot shower and try to get some rest til the contractions were 5 minutes apart. I took a shower and went upstairs by Rocky and we decided it was time to call my parents who are 3 hours away. I wanted my Mom in the delivery room so they were all packed up and ready to go, they just had to go pick up my sister and my neice to bring them too. They got here around 8:30am and of course my contractions had stopped for about 20 minutes. Mom and I decided to go for a walk to try and get them started again and they sure did. They started up again and were way more painful than before. By 11:30 they were so painful and got to about 5 minutes apart that we headed to the hospital. Got up to my room at noon. The nurses said my contractions were all over the place which they had been all night and morning so they checked me and I was only dilated to a 1-2cm. Lame! I was so discouraged at this point thinking I had done all that work over the last 15 hours at home and I wasn't even making any progress. The nurses had considered sending me home but since they could tell I was in A LOT of pain they said I should try walking around and getting on my hands and knees to try and get Hayden to flip around since I was having horrible back labor so they figured he was sunny side up. I tried all of that and they checked me again about an hour later and I was at a 5-6cm. Progress! Thank God my Mom and Rocky were there to support me and keep telling me to breath and relax and let my body do what it is supposed to do, that really helped a lot and I don't think I would have progressed so quickly without them there. My doctor came in and broke my water at this point and checked me shortly after and I was at a 10!!! Holy cow, it all went very fast. I was in so much pain I asked for an epidural which I didn't want to do but the nurse said it was way too late for that and I was going to have to start pushing as soon as the doctor got back. I could feel that Hayden was in a hurry to come meet us and it was really hard not to push when you have that urge to but the nurses kept saying that if I could not to push since the doctor wasn't there yet. The doctor had to sprint back to my room and 2 contractions later Hayden entered the world! My Mom video taped the birth (from behind/side of me!) and my reaction after he popped out and was on my chest is priceless. Paiges delivery was so hard with the vacuum and all that I didn't figure this one would be so easy! One of the nurses told me that it was a good thing I didn't get on my hands and knees to try and turn him at home because I would have had him at home!

So anyway, that is about it for his birth story. We are all very happy that he is here and he has been a very good baby so far. Very easy going and doesn't fuss much unless he is hungry. Paige has been a great big sister so far and loves to help.

Yep, still pregnant.

For anyone who reads this who doesn't already know, I am STILL pregnant. How horribly depressing. Yesterday was my due date and we did pretty much EVERYTHING to encourage the little guy to come out. Walking a ton, super spicy food, you name it. Nothing worked. So here I sit, still pregnant. I am hoping the full moon on Tuesday brings him out if he doesn't come before that. In the words of Forrest Gump: That's all I have to say about that.

20 days to go!

My due date is 20 days away! Talk about freaking out! We are pretty much ready for him to come I am just freaking about having another hard delivery/recovery like I had with Paige. This weekend consisted of getting ready for our little dude. I got pretty much everything done I hope! Got all the baby gear out of the basement, washed all his clothes/blankets/sheets ect, got the car seat ready and in the car, cleaned the house really good. I think the only thing I have to finish up yet is my hospital bag which is pretty important and I better get done SOON just in case. I have a feeling this little guy is going to be coming earlier than the 21st which would be alright with me. Mom and I are shooting for the 14th, right Mom? :) We went up and did a tour of the labor and delivery wing and it seems pretty nice though the rooms are way smaller than what they have in Pierre but it will do. Paige is really excited for Hayden to get here and gives him hugs and kisses almost daily.

30 weeks

I can't believe I am 30 weeks already and only have about 10 to go! Everything is going great as far as the pregnancy goes. I do not have gestational diabetes! Though I think my doctor is trying to freak me out still because since I am measuring a little large he thinks it just has to be something to do with that. Trying not to worry about it too much since I heard the exact same thing with Paige and she turned out just fine and was a rather small baby at 7lbs. I am feeling tired lately and my mid-section sometimes feels like it's going to fall off but otherwise I am feeling pretty good. Starting to get a little nervous about labor/delivery but I know if I just stay calm I will do fine. I think it will really help to have my Mom in the room this time to calm me down and help me through the contractions as well as Rocky. I have another ultrasound in a couple weeks to keep track of Haydens growth since I am measuring a little large with extra amniotic fluid also but I am sure he is just fine.
After my appt. on Friday I had to pick Paige up at daycare after they called saying she had a swollen and yucky throat. I brought her to Urgent Care where they told me she had a double ear infection (one ear was very infected and "bulging" so that can't be good) and it looked like she had strep also but they didn't even bother to test her for that since she had to be on antibiotics for the ear infection anyway. She is feeling fine though and hasn't been effected by it too much. Geez, I feel like the only thing I ever post about Paige is that she is sick! She really isn't sick a whole lot, I swear!
Rocky wants me to add that he has become an elite mountain biker as he is biking to work quite a bit now. He even tried to jump a curb and fell off a couple weeks ago!!!

24 weeks

I am now 24 weeks! I had another ultrasound since last time I wrote and Hayden is still a boy and everything looked good. Yeah! Had my 24 week appt this last Friday and everything is good except the weight issue. I need to start watching what I eat because I gained 10, yes 10, pounds over the last month. Yuck. I am also measuring a little large according to my doctor but I did with Paige too so he is thinking it may be the same thing with the too much amniotic fluid. I hope that's it. So I have to have another ultrasound which is scheduled for June 4th to measure the fluid levels. My next regular appt is May 28th when I will also do the 1 hour glucose test for gestational diabetes. I didn't the GD with Paige so I am hoping to stay away from it again. Otherwise everything is great with Hayden. He was measuring just over a pound at my ultrasound 2 weeks ago so I am sure he is getting close to 1 1/2 pounds if not more by now. I can't believe my due date is less than 4 months away already!
In Paige news, we had a little scare with her a couple weeks ago. She got quite sick and after a couple days of her just laying around feeling crappy I noticed her hands and feet had a rash and were puffy. Then her face had a rash. That was enough for me to take her into urgent care where the diagnosed her with Hand, Foot and Mouth disease and sent us home and that was it. Well that wasn't it. A few days later she still wasn't herself and that weekend just layed around. She also had a fever this whole time that would go away with Motrin but as soon as that wore off the fever would come back. We took her in to see her regular doctor the next day where they did a chest xray and some blood tests and an exam. Just as we got home from the clinic the nurse called and told us we needed to go up to the ER at Mayo Clinic in Rochester because Paiges levels for a bunch of different things were off from her blood test. This freaked us out a lot and we made the trek up to Mayo right away. Paiges Dr. in Austin said she thought it might be Kawasaki disease but she wasn't sure and they don't have the technology to treat it in Austin anyway so that is why they had us go to Mayo. After a multitude of tests at Mayo they determined it probably wasn't Kawasaki and sent us home with instructions to come back the next day and see the pediatric infectuous disease specialist. I took off part of the day of work and Paige and I headed up to Mayo to see him. They did another test or 2 on her and that dr. ruled out the Kawasaki disease. He did call us the next day with the rest of her test results and determined that among several bacterial infections she had something called Adnoe Virus. He switched the antibiotics she was on to something a lot stronger to kill all the bacteria/virus and now 2 weeks later she is just fine and back to normal. We are very thankful she is better, if it would have been Kawasaki it would have been pretty serious and she would have had about a week hospital stay.
Phew! That was a long post, but a lot has gone on in the last month or so! I will update more after my next dr. appt.