Baby Enoch is home! When Enoch was born he had amniotic fluid in his tummy, he would gag and throw it up. It was awful and scary. When Marsha came to see him in the hospital she could only hold him for so long because his gagging scared her so much. He also had a difficult time with his sucking reflex, I had to train him on a binky and my finger for a bit to get him to suck properly. But by the time we were home he had it about figured out. Nursing was hard, he would almost choke with every feeding, it freaked me out. Napping was even scarier because he would forget to breath and wake up gasping for air. Arghh! I was a nervous wreck with him for 3 months! We didn't do anything or go anywhere for those first 3 months. Poor baby Enoch was just a difficult little guy and it wasn't even his fault, he was sick from week two until about 3 months because our little miss Isabeau loves to smother him with kissy kisses! If it wasn't for the 'Nose Frida' nose sucker we would not have survived. I never new such a little baby could have so many boogers! Poor thing :( In his little mind he was probably thinking 'why did I come down to this earth!' Our nights were rough, Enoch would wake up every 1 and 1/2. As he got bigger it stretched to 2 hours then 3 and now he can easily get 4 hours. I wished I had taken a full 12 weeks off (3 months)of work, because it was around 3 months that he finally was happy and comfortable. Even though he is still sensitive to certain things I eat, I feel his tummy is much better now that he is 3 months old. He sleeps so well now, thanks to a baby swing. We finally got one after friends told us having a swing made night and day difference for their colic baby. Enoch loves, loves, loves his swing! He will sleep forever with motion. I bought a swing for Marsha's house and 2 sound machines, so that he could sleep for her. Such a sensitive little baby, can't wait to see his personality surface! Enoch is now 3 1/2 months old and doing great! Today was June 16, the first day he has been good at Marsha's! Yeah Baby Enoch! I picked him up after work and Marsha was so excited to tell me how good of a baby he was. What a happy day! I'm so glad he is getting happier to be here in this crazy wide wide world!

Baby Enoch- Born March 4, 2014- 7 lb. 4 oz.

March 2nd, Tuesday morning. I awoke at 5:00am to call the hospital and schedule a time to come in for an induction. The voice at the end of the receiver schedules me for 7:00 am. I lay my head back on my pillow to try and get some much needed sleep, but because of the anticipation of what tomorrow would bring, sleep would not come. Berry wakes up around 6:30am. I eat a bagel, which was a bad idea, because later during the deliver it makes me nauseas. I grab my hospital bag and Berry grabs two sleepy girls and loads them into the car. It is pouring rain outside, I giggle to myself because the rainy morning was perfect for this baby boys arrival. Cloudy and gray with a lot of rain, is just how the last 2 months of my pregnancy had been- down right miserable! :) I'm sure the misery was because I am older and pregnant with baby number three. Constant back pain and electrical shocks down my pelvis and thighs accompanied my last 2 months of pregnancy, along with brackston hicks contractions here and there. Not a party. We all load up and head to grandma Banham's house. The girls by now are excited because they know baby brother is on his way, so they skip out to grandma, we give them both smooches and head to the hospital. Soon as we arrive, the nurses put me on the pit. I tell the nurse that I am going to try and deliver this baby natural. She kinda of half believes me and gives me a warning that I shouldn't wait too long to decide because if I reach past a 5mm dilation I would miss the window of opportunity for my epideral. I tell her about Isabeau's deliver and how they gave me the epideral at 8-9mm dilation without checking my cervix before calling the anesthesiologist. The epideral barely numbed my right side as Isabeau came out. I had felt pretty much everything, except the crowning. I knew I could have this baby boy natural. The nurse was surprised that they hadn't checked my cervix first. I told her that she was the same nurse I had with Isabeau's deliver, she jokingly didn't believe me so she went to check my records and see if she was the delivery nurse. She came in ten minutes later and sure enough she had been the delivery nurse. She laughed and was surprised I had remembered her. I told her I thought she had been a fabulous nurse and that I had hoped she'd be my nurse today. She was so mad she hadn't checked me with Isabeau and that I was numb after delivery, now she was on board to help me go natural. The contractions started getting stronger, it's only been an hour. I have Berry grab me the big exercising ball in the bathroom so that I could sit on it and bounce. Camille had used the ball during her delivery with Lincoln and she said it was amazing. She was right, the ball was amazing, somehow it made the pain of the contractions tolerable. I sat bouncing on the ball the entire time, until I felt like I had to go the bathroom. We called the nurse in and I tell her that I feel like I have to go the bathroom and that this is exactly what I felt with Isabeau when it was time. The nurse has me lay back down on the bed so she can check my cervix. I was an 8mm, but the baby's head was not in the right position, too posterior she said. To bring his head in the right position, the nurse has me lay on my side and lift my right leg up with my knee bent in the stirrup. This position was awful, it was the most pain I had felt so far. I could only bare 10 minutes, then I had to sit back up on the bed. I wished I could get back on my bouncy ball but baby boy was on his way, and we were just holding out for Dr. Kirkman, who had to run down the hall to get to us in time. The nurse kept asking me how I was doing and where was my pain level. I was doing just fine- honestly up until the very last 30 minutes the pain I was feeling was no different then the pain I had been feeling for the last 2 months of his pregnancy. My pain level in the end was probably an 8 on a scale of 1-10 and I never felt like crying. The time to push finally came and the hardest part about it for me was remembering not to hold my breath when I pushed. Dr. Kirkman had to keep telling me to push out my breath with every push. My nurse was such a sweetheart during the entire delivery, she knew just what to say to keep me motivated. Right before she could tell the baby was going to crown- she gave me a pep talk and warned me that the baby was about to crown and that it was going to feel like a ring of fire, all I needed to do was to take a deep breath and push my hardest thru that ring of fire. She was right, she described baby boy crowning perfectly. It felt like fire and I just pushed and pushed and grunted right thru it. Dr. Kirkman, Berry and the nurse kept telling me to look down at the baby's head (maybe to give me incentive to push or just to see that he was almost there) but I couldn't, my eyes were wired shut. The pushing was so intense I couldn't open them. The crowning was over in seconds and suddenly all the pain I was feeling quickly vanished. I felt amazing! Baby Enoch was here! He cried a little but not much. They didn't put him on me as quickly as they had done with Isabeau. Berry got to hold him first, I was too exhausted, I was afraid I couldn't hold on to him. Then finally my body calmed down and I was able to take him in my arms. What a sweet heart. Such a perfect little miracle! It was over, I felt great! Just like I had finished an intense Insanity workout! I will never go back to having an epideral. It was totally worth going all natural. I loved not being numb and I loved that my baby wasn't effected in any way from the drugs or epideral. Poor Eliza slept for days after her delivery and I know it's because of the effect of the epideral. I had the fastest recovery and left the hospital in 24 hours.

Winter Fun 2014!