It's a GIRL!

After the Easter party, our family went home and did some chores. Dan was outside with the kids working on the patio and on the bushes and things. My contractions were coming more often, but also not close together at all. I took a short nap and mopped the kitchen floor on my hands and knees hoping to get something going! I also went for a walk that morning and the day before, I think.

We decided to go to Chick-fil-a for dinner and I texted some friends on the way to say that I thought labor might be starting soon and to see if anyone could come be with the kids until my other friend (who was going to stay the night if we needed it) could be there. A few offered to come if we needed them and it was very reassuring. We had dinner and let the kids play while my contractions came and went. I called my mom to let her know something might be happening. It was hard to tell if I was in labor or not - the contractions weren't consistent in any way.

We put the kids to bed and told them that we might not be there in the morning and that our friend would be there with them if I needed to go to the hospital. We watched The Great British Baking Show and timed contractions for a while. Some were pretty intense, but not regular (they were 7-20 minutes apart), so we packed some things up and went to bed. I couldn't really sleep. The contractions were painful so I continued to time them. At 2:20 a.m. I called my doctor's office and spoke with the on-call physician, Dr. McMorrow. She said that since I'd had other kids and knew what labor felt like, to go ahead and come in. I called our friend to let her know to come over and SHE DIDN'T ANSWER THE PHONE! Oh, no. I called again - no answer. I started to panic a little bit. We finished packing up our things to go. Dan called her husband's phone and he didn't answer. I called our friend again at 2:43 and she picked up. Yay! She got to our house a little after 3 (Dan saw a fox in our bushes while we waited) and then we headed to the hospital. I felt pretty calm as we parked and checked in.

I put on my hospital gown, answered their questions, and asked for a wireless monitor so that I could walk around during labor. We walked the halls and when a contraction came on, I would stop and lean against the wall until it went away. We did this for a while, but the monitor kept getting out of position and they'd call me back to the room to readjust it. It was really annoying. Eventually, they tried to change the batteries and it wasn't working right so I just told them I'd stay in the room from then on. I decided to get an epidural and the anesthesiologist came fairly quickly. Dan got kicked out the room. I warned the Dr. that I have a super sensitive back. I thought that made it clear that I need notice before he stuck the needle in. He didn't understand that and when he stuck the needle in with no warning, I FREAKED out. So everyone started telling me to relax and not move, etc. I was worried that because I flinched, he got it in the wrong spot and I would have spinal headaches or whatever so I started to cry. Woof.

After the epidural began working, I felt super comfortable and tried to rest. Our nurse, Leah, was so kind and amazing and Dan and I both loved her. The other nurse wasn't as friendly. They tried to give me pitocin, but I resisted. They said that the baby's heart rate was too stable and they needed to change it up a bit, which doesn't make and sense to me, so eventually I relented. They told me they'd give me the smallest dose. Then, of course, my contractions got super strong and super fast, so they ran back in and turned it down more (which they wouldn't have had to do if they had actually given me the smallest dose in the first place like they said they were going to). Then they wanted to give me some other drug. I questioned them again, but they gave it to me anyway. You just feel so powerless sometimes in the hospital.

Meanwhile, Mom came to our house to relieve our friend and watch the kids.

The nurses came in to check me around 9:15 and said I was ready to start pushing. Dr. McMorrow came in and I started pushing around 9:30. Right before that, Dan showed me a text from my friend who threw my baby shower with all of these sweet thoughts and well wishes from the ladies at the shower. It was really sweet and made me cry a little.

Dr. McMorrow is really quiet and calm and the birth was a beautiful experience. It was me, Dan, the doctor, and two nurses. I pushed for a while - about 30-40 minutes. They encouraged me by telling me the baby had lots of hair. Dan got a little lightheaded and had to sit out for a few pushes, but the sick feeling passed pretty quickly. I had stressed to everyone that I wanted Dan to be the one to tell me what the gender of the baby was. Eventually I pushed the baby out and Dan announced that "It's a GIRL!" We were both so happy! I got to hold her on my chest for a long time and Dan cut the umbilical cord. Everyone was so surprised at how big she was - 9 pounds, 4 ounces. She was beautiful with lots of hair! We enjoyed the next few blissful hours.

We called the kids to tell them "It's a girl!" and the kids got used to the idea pretty quickly. Afton was especially excited. Dan brought everyone back to the hospital to meet the baby and each of the kids and my mom took turns holding her.

It took my epidural a long time to wear off so I stayed in bed a lot that day. Later in the afternoon I was able to get up and take a walk around with Dan while we mulled over the names we liked. Some friends asked if they could come visit, but I politely told them no. We were getting so little sleep and it seemed like people were always in and out of our room. Baby girl had to get her heel pricked multiple times to test her blood sugar levels, and her blood was slow to come out, so they'd be squeezing her poor foot forever... She was also slightly jaundiced so they kept checking that. She also had a tongue and lip tie. The pediatrician asked if we wanted it clipped and we said we weren't sure yet, so they didn't do it.

Monday morning Dan left to help get the kids off to school and to shower. Mom came to visit and while she was there, we decided that we'd like to leave that day instead of waiting until the usual two days to leave. We also decided officially on the baby's name. Josephine. We both love it and think it's so beautiful. It means "God multiplies" and He had definitely multiplied our blessings by bringing this sweet girl into our lives. We didn't have a middle name in mind. Out of the blue, the name "Belle" popped into my mind. I mentioned it to Dan and he loved it, too, so we went with it.

Once everyone heard that we wanted to leave early, the nurses went crazy trying to get everything done. They pricked the baby's heel again. Ugh. We tried to get Josie's tongue tie taken care of but apparently only one of the pediatricians can do it and he wasn't there so we made an appointment to get it done at our pediatrician's office. I took a few more pictures of our sweet Josephine while we waited to be discharged.

Ready for home!

The sweet nurse who helped deliver Josie walked me out of the building while Dan went and got the car. We were excited to bring our sweet Josie Belle home!

April pre-baby

April started with spring break. Since we were on a short leash this year, we stayed close to home. We went to Sky Zone one day - Afton did this obstacle course a lot, Sam stayed in the dodgeball section the whole time, and Eli mostly just sat by me and didn't do a thing.

 Literally minutes before we left, Eli decided to try a warped wall so he did that over and over (never made it to the top) until it was time to go.

We also did laser tag. Eli is too little for the vest, so I wore the vest and he held the gun. I was a big sitting duck but he still had a blast.

We met Dan for lunch on a rainy day. Got some yummy pizza by the slice.

UVA won March Madness! That was a big night for us!

Friends came to play.

Everything started to bloom. I LOVE it!

I got my rings re-rhodium-plated for the first time in a loooooong time. They look so much better! The top band is the one Dan bought for me while were in NYC.

Eli and I met Afton for lunch at school one more time.

My last pregnant picture - probably ever!

Our ward had an Easter party. We met for brunch and it was rainy out so we had it, and an egg hunt, inside.

I had had a few contractions in the days prior, and people at the party kept asking if anything was happening... I told them I'd had a few but nothing consistent. And then...!

March 2019

In March we finished painting our bedroom.

Eli's love for Christmas music continued. He requested "Jingle Bell Rock" all the time from Alexa.

My belly grew.

I went to a meeting with Sam at the middle school about the center-based gifted program. He's excited to be a middle schooler!

I also volunteered at Afton's school, which is a rare occurance since they don't want younger siblings there usually. I just went ahead and brought Eli. No one said anything. Afton has sweet friends. She's going to miss them when she goes to a different school next year!

This was fun to clean up!

Eli's perspective of me:

Lots more Jenga. Eli has the best eyebrows.

Scoots around the neighborhood on nice days.

Afton made this awesome bird.

Eli helped me try out recliners.

More swim lessons.

And naps.

Afton discovered my old sleeping bag that my grandma made for me. She used it every night for a week or so.

We got something big from Amazon. Eli's friends loved the box! They all took turns getting in.

 That was my last time watching all the kids for our play swap before the baby came.

Afton won an award at school for commitment to quality.

Her best friend also got an award.

The van broke when I stopped for gas after Sam's piano lesson. It wouldn't start again. I called AAA and they said someone would be there in about an hour... Fortunately for me, our knight in shining armor (Dan) got there much quicker. He fixed the problem. We got dinner at Jimmy Johns and were underwhelmed.

Dan continued his work on our patio.

February 2019

We had to drop off some box tops at Afton's friend's house (I'm one of the box tops moms) one night and they had a huge owl in their tree. Dan took Sam skiing this same weekend so it was just me, Afton, and Eli. I introduced them to George of the Jungle starring Brendan Fraiser. A true classic which I remember seeing at the dollar theater in Charlottesville when it came out!

Dan sent me a few pictures while they were gone.

Dan and I were lucky enough to have my mom watch the kids so that we could take a short trip to New York City before baby #4 comes along and we can't go on vacation sans kids for years. We flew out on a Wednesday morning and landed around 10am. Dan's first Uber experience was from the airport to the hotel. Driving in NYC is crazy to me. Our driver was great. She spoke Spanish better than English, so she and Dan mostly chatted. I was surprised with how much I could still understand from my long-ago college Spanish classes. We dropped our stuff off at the Casablanca Hotel (cheesy name, fantastic hotel) and then headed to the Top of the Rock. We wanted to do that first thing since the weather was going to get progressively worse during our trip. Beautiful morning to take in the sites and figure out the different buildings and the lay of the land.

 Above is looking south (see the Empire State building?), below is looking north to Central Park.

Next we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We were hungry when we got there and decided to eat it the cafeteria. Worst food of the whole trip. Not good and way overpriced. Our one true misstep of the trip, I'd say.

I'm a sucker for stained glass. I thought this Tiffany display was amazing.

 My one complaint about this pregnancy is that I do have a pain low down in my pelvis. So walking hurts after a while. We were at the Met for a long time and eventually I'd just plop myself down on a bench and wait for Dan to finish looking at something and then we'd move on and I'd find another bench. So on and so forth. But that place is massive and there was tons to see. We found out later that we could have gotten in free with our VMFA memberships... Dang.

We took a long walk along the side of Central Park and stopped at the Frick Collection on the way. Wednesday afternoons it's "pay what you wish" which we timed perfectly! Then we walked back to our hotel off of Times Square, dropped off our stuff, checked out the wine and cheese reception that our hotel offered each night, and headed to dinner at Tony's di Napoli, which adjoined our hotel. It's a family-style restaurant so that portions are gigantic. We chose eggplant parmesan to split, along with fried zucchini. It was all delicious but SO much food.

The restaurant had paintings of various famous people. I don't remember who this was supposed to be, but it looked exactly like a woman we know from church so I had to snap a pic and send it to her!

Thursday morning we went to the Manhattan Temple. We hadn't been to the temple since July (in Utah) because the DC Temple is closed. It was so great to go and spend some time there. I love Dan.

We walked over to Levain Bakery because EVERYONE says you HAVE to have their cookies. So we bought three different flavors and had ourselves a taste test. Their best seller is chocolate chip with walnuts. We thought that was the worst of the three (not bad, just not amazing). Our favorite was dark chocolate with chocolate chips. SO good. Second was dark chocolate with peanut butter chips. Yum.

We traveled back to the hotel to change and then stopped at Los Tacos No. 1 for lunch. Authentic Mexican-style tacos were delicious (although a little spicy). There's nowhere to sit, though, which isn't great. You can see the line through the window. We got there right before the lunch rush.

We went to Grand Central Terminal and took a self-guided audio tour.

This area was called the Whispering Gallery. You stand in one corner, directly behind Dan, and face the corner and whisper something and the person standing in the opposite corner can hear you.

 Such a beautiful place!

Next we stopped by the New York public library to check it out.

 Pretty ceiling in the Reading Room.

After that, we headed back to 30 Rock to see the monologue rehearsal for the Tonight Show. Basically you stand in line for a long time. Then you go to this other room and sit for a long time. Then you get in line again, go upstairs, and stand around for a long time. Finally you get to go in to the room where it's filmed. Dan and I were the last people in there. The man leading us in gave us the tip that if you stand up and cheer for Jimmy Fallon when he walks out, he usually acknowledges you. So we did that and he looked up and pointed at us and said something about us so that was fun. Then he tells about 30 jokes and depending on how funny we (the audience) think they are, he and some writers pick which jokes make it into the actual monologue.

As we were leaving the building, an employee stopped us to ask if we'd like to go to a taping of the Seth Meyers show. We had checked everything off our list for the day so we thought, "Why not?" Again, there was lots of waiting and standing, but eventually we made it (the last standby people to do so by like two people). We got to see him do his monologue, interview JJ Watt and Tim Meadows and some other people. Then we left. We felt like we knew 30 Rockefeller Plaza pretty well by the end of that day. We stopped at Juniors to split a sandwich and have some famous cheesecake.

We also saw a New York police horse and Dan took a picture for Afton.

Friday started at the Oculus, which is basically a subway station and mall right next to the 9/11 memorial and museum.

We walked around the memorial. It was really sad. Next we went to Federal Hall to see where George Washington was sworn in as the first president. They had the bible that he used during the ceremony. I thought that was really cool.

The building itself doesn't look like it used to. It's been redone a few times. We went into a Tiffany store and browsed, had paninis at a legit Italian place, found a great viewing spot fo the Brooklyn Bridge (too cold to walk across it),

had some okay ice cream, and saw the Flatiron building.

It's one of the few remaining buildings designed by Daniel Burnham, who was in charge of architecture for the Chicago world fair back in 1893. I got to see some of those buildings when I went and saw Candice 4 years ago...

After that, Dan took me to the flagship Tiffany store on fifth avenue and got me a beautiful band to wear with my engagement ring and a different band he bought me on our first anniversary. I love it and was totally surprised! We stopped off at the hotel and then ate some New York pizza at Pizza Suprema by Madison Square Garden, where there was a Rangers game happening that night. We hit up the MoMA (it's free Friday nights) and I got to see some Van Gogh's.

I thought the museum itself was kind of underwhelming and I'm so glad we went on a free night! Next we hit up the Morgan Library (also free on Friday nights), which used to be J.P. Morgan's home/personal library. His book collection is straight out of Beauty and the Beast.

We capped off the night with a chocolate shake from Ben & Jerry's which I requested extra thick and was more like chocolate milk. Still yummy, though.

Saturday was our last day. We stored our luggage at the hotel and spent a very cold 1.5 hours walking around Central Park exploring the sites.

We tried to eat at Jacob's Pickles for lunch but it was super crowded, so we went to Mille Fieulle but that was slightly underwhelming. We picked up a few more of our favorite Levain cookies, Dan hit up Los Tacos No. 1 for another round, then it was back to the hotel to get our things and off to the airport! In the airport, Mom called to tell me that while she was at the park with the kids, a guy backed into our van with his truck. So that stinks. I'm just glad no one was hurt. We got home around 7 and Mom left for Earlysville. The kids loved having her and it took a few days for them to stop calling me "Grandma."

We've gotten pretty good at Jenga around here.

On the day our zoo passes expired, I took Eli for one more visit.

Valentine's Day.

The kids had Presidents Day off so we went bowling.

For Christmas, I got my parents tickets to see the Piano Guys when they came to Richmond in February. It was great! We had dinner at the same place we did two years ago, also.

Battleship with Dad.

Library lego creations.

He wants to see the fish every time we go to Walmart.

Eli started swim lessons and I let him play in the kids pool one day before lessons started.

I gave a talk in church. Afton drew this picture for me afterwards.

I'm still doing a play swap with five other women from church. I love it so much. These kids are such good friends and I'm so glad Eli has them.

Dan went on a ski trip to Utah. A friend from church decided to come along and they met up 2 of the 3 days to ski together. Dan's trip out there was FOREVER long and he ended up getting in twelve hours later than he was supposed to, but it all worked out in the end. He also stayed with Erin and Clark at night which was great. He also skiied with Clark and Andre one day.

His first day was at Alta.

Justin Brockbank and Dan.

Clark and Dan.

I'm guessing this is Justin's cousin-in-law below on the left. He showed them some really cool places that they wouldn't have found on their own and Dan loved every second of it.

While Dan was gone, I painted the grout in the kids' bathroom,

started painting our bedroom, and took the kids to see How to Train Your Dragon 3.

February was quite the month!