They always look so ridiculously small in their car seats for the first time...
Libby and Daddy made us a welcome home sign (you can kind of see it in the background by the mailbox), Eliza made me a card, and Daddy got me flowers.
It felt really nice to be home. Rob had even cleaned the house up real nice.
The girls just can't get enough of little Mazie. They have been really soft with her and really good helpers. There has been a little bit of change in their behavior (I think they miss the amount of mommy time they used to have) but I am happy that it hasn't been towards Mazie at all. So far so good!
Mazie Celeste McMillen Wednesday, May 26 2010 2:57 pm 9 lb 6 oz 22 inches (Yes we have no idea how 2 midgets produced such a tall baby)
The day of her birth: So I went in for my doctors appointment that morning around 10:00. My doctor had mentioned the week before that he might be willing to start me so I was really hoping he would do it that day and with that hope Rob came to the appointment with me. During the appointment the doctor said that he was so surprised I hadn't gone into labor and that my "cervix was very favorable". Rob and I thought that was funny. Then at the end the doctor said, "Well we can set up an appointment to have you started for tomorrow or Friday." My heart sunk. I really wanted to get this baby out that day. Fortunately Rob spoke up (at the time I was a little embarrased but now am so relieved he did). He said, "Well from previous conversations we were under the impression that we might be able to do it today." The doctor said, "Well usually you can't get in the same day but I will call down and see if we can." Fortunately, they were not busy and I was able to go down. We stopped and got a snack. Rob apparently was hungrier than he thought because I had finished my snack by the time he arrived with a big plate of breakfast (eggs, hashbrowns, toast, etc.). We laughed and I told him I would meet him downstairs and went down stairs to check in. Rob met me soon after and then we went into the labor and delivery room and they started me on potosin around 11:30. About 12:30 I started feeling contractions and then stood up to go the bathroom. Just a few minutes later I started feeling really hard contractions. It was funny because a few minutes earlier I had just told the nurse I didn't want an epidural yet and then suddenly I had changed my mind. I told her to send him in asap. The contractions hurt worse than any contractions I have felt in the past. On my other 2 the contractions were painful but most of all I just couldn't handle them because they had been going on for so long. These were so much more intense but easier to handle because I had only been having them for a short time. The anesthesiologist came in within the next 5 minutes (luckily)! After the epidural I felt so much better but was still having contractions painful enough that I had to breath through them. My doctor came in and checked me and I was at a 6. But since I was still feeling the contractions pretty strong the anesthesiologist gave me another dose. Finally I was feeling so much better. It was the perfect feeling, I could still feel the contractions but they weren't painful. (With Liberty I felt too numb.) Around 2:00 the nurse checked me and said I was a 10 with a lip (whatever that means). She came back a little while later and said that I was completely ready and got the room prepped. The room was ready and the nurses were standing by and the intern, we were just waiting for the doctor. The intern mentioned to us that some doctors let the husbands help deliver the babies. We thought this sounded like a great idea so when Dr. Lloyd arrived Rob asked and he was happy to have him help. Rob put gloves and a gown on and sat in position to catch the baby. I pushed 4 times and the baby was out at 2:57 pm. (Holy cow what a fast and easy delivery!) Rob cut the embilical chord, she was coughing a bit and not crying very hard. It was making me nervouse. I kept asking if she was OK and they kept reassuring me that she was. They let me see her for a minute and then they took her over to check her out. My mom had walked in right around now. (I had told her she could come to the delivery but it happened all a little too fast.) I was glad she at least made it for this part and she seemed happy taking pictures of the new baby. When the scale said 9lb 6 oz I was so surprised because she didn't look that chubby. I remember Libby looking chubbier but Mazie was 22 inches long so maybe that chub got spread out a bit compared to Libby. I was also relieved because I was afraid that maybe I was being crazy by getting started rather than having nature run its course. But a 9 lb 6 oz baby made me feel justified. She was fully baked. And I also felt justified for feeling so miserably large. After checking her out and cleaning her up a little they brought her over and let me and her have skin to skin contact. I got to hold her for a really long time. Rob, my mom, and my dad got to hold her too. She still had the vernix on her, but still seemed so beautiful to me. (She did smell a little stinky though with that vernix still on her.) She has Rob's recessed chin but then a little knob on the end that makes it protrude a little. I thought maybe she had a bigger mouth than the other two but now it is small and peirced like Eliza and Libby's when they were a baby. She (like all my babies) has a round chubby face with black fuzzy hair. I heald her for a long time. I was surprised that she was still awake and that she hadn't gone to sleep. Usually newborns are so sleepy it is hard to keep them awake. I decided to try to feed her and wow that girl knows how to suck. I couldn't believe how great she did at latching on and sucking. I did both sides for quite a while and she just kept sucking. It was starting to hurt too much that I just had to take her off. (Quite different from my breast feeding experience with Eliza.) During this time Rob called the girls to tell them. He got a little emotional doing this because he said he just loves our family so much. The girls were so excited!
Finally the nurses came in and tranferred me up to the recovery floor. Mom, Dad, and Rob stayed. We ate dinner and then visitors started coming. Dave and Jenn stopped by. (Then she finally got a bath and then you could see the bruising on her nose and around her mouth, it made her look like she couldn't breath. It was sad. The nurses said it just probably happened during birth because she came out so fast.) Then Sarah came and had picked up a birthday cake for us. Adam and Chelsea had kindly babysat the kids all day for us and brought the kids to the hospital with them. We continued the tradition of having a birthday party at the hospital and broke out the birthday cake. The kids were so excited to see the new baby! Libby touched her face so gently and Eliza wanted to hold her. Libby climbed into bed with me and wanted to snuggle and kept saying, "I missed you mommy!" It was really sweet. Then everyone decided to leave. It seemed kinda lonely to go from a full house to nobody but that feeling didn't last for long. I was really tired and needed to sleep. It had been a great day! I am so thankful to my Heavenly Father that he would bless me with such an easy delivery with no complications and such a healthy baby. I feel so blessed to be able to be a mother!
I want to preface this post that I am not writing this and the last couple of posts for everyone else but for me, since this is my journal. I want to remember these details. Every night Liberty asks that for her bedtime story that we tell her about when she was "borney". It's interesting to hear Rob tell it because there are a few details that we think differently. Hopefully this way we can be more accurate. So on Saturday morning I thought that my water had broken, but it was just my mucus plug. However since that I kept wondering if maybe I was slowly leaking. Finally Sunday during church I really felt like I was leaking so I went to the hospital to get checked. After answering a million questions they finally checked and said that they didn't think my water was broken. They said that sometimes after the mucus plug comes out that watery fluids can continue from the mucus plug. Or maybe they just wanted to make me feel better since perhaps the reality was that I was just peeing my pants. I swear I have that under control though. While there though I was having contractions every 3 minutes, but I only felt one of them. (So weird.) I am now dilated to a 3 + and 70% effaced. Not really much of a change. Then on the way out I thanked the nurse and said, "Well maybe I'll see you later this week." And she said, "Or maybe tonight." Why do they taunt me like that? I swear my body is ready to have this baby but she just doesn't want to come out. So I have an appointment on Wednesday morning and my doctor mentioned that he might start me on potosin that afternoon if I hadn't had the baby and I am pretty sure I won't have the baby by then. I actually (which I should be grateful for) feel better than I did last week. My legs feel unconnected to my body because my hips are so loose, and reflux is the constant complaint. But I don't feel like last week where I was having strong contractions and felt like the baby was going to fall out because it was so low. So I am trying to be grateful. I went and visited Amy today and took her kids to McDonalds. It was so amazing to see their new little baby. It got me very excited! But it also was a reality check about all the things that happen after delivery. I forgot about the cramping while your uterus is contracting and worrying about jaundice and how bad it hurts just to stand and do the day to day things. She was amazing and totally with it. I am delirious at this point. I don't know how she is doing it. Anyways, so I am trying to be glad that I am just uncomfortable, not in pain right now.
I wanted to write down what happened today at my doctor's appointment because I wish I had done better at documenting this stuff with the other two kids. I was dilated to a 3 and 70% effaced. (Last week I was at a 2-3 and 60-70% efffaced so not that much progress has been made.) But the doctor asked me if I wanted my membranes stripped and I said yes. I have been just so uncomfortable these last couple weeks. I can't sleep good. I'm so tired but it is too uncomfortable to lay down. I get really bad reflux and it wakes me up and I feel like I'm going to throw up. Last night was not as bad but Eliza for some reason woke up at 4 am. The night before that I woke up at 4 and was having contractions so decided to get up and clean to see if they went away. They kept on strong until 6 and then died off. The night before that I was up from 1-3 cleaning because I was so uncomfortable. So I feel like I am sleeping like I have a newborn. My doctor also asked if I wanted to be started on potosin friday if stripping my membranes didn't work. I decided not to, even though I am so desperate. I usually want to let the baby come when it is ready, but I think if it is not here by Wednesday I will get started. Also wanted to put down how much I have gained on this pregnancy. I started at 120 lb and have now reached a grand total of 167 lb. I think I only gained 30 lb on Liberty but on Eliza I gained about 60 lbs. I can only imagine if I hadn't gone 2 weeks early with Eliza how big and miserable I would have been. Hopefully tonight is the night! My friend Amy Teemant just got started on potosin today so it is exciting to talk with each other when we are experiencing such similar things. She is such a kind friend.
So it's 3 in the morning and I am just too uncomfortable to sleep so I thought I'd write about this pregnancy with baby #3. I keep trying to think back when I was pregnant with Eliza and Liberty and I just can't remember anything, so I wanted to write down a few things about this pregnancy. I feel uncomfortably large. I think I started feeling this way a little too soon. I feel like I have been ready to have this baby since about a month ago. I kept thinking, I can't get any bigger and then I do. I have reached the peak of uncomfortable largeness. My hips ache a lot. I think that is my biggest complaint. My feet and hands have started to swell a little but nothing like my pregnancy with Eliza. I wish (like I always do) that I had exercised more and eaten healthier but it really is a vicious cycle. By the time I feel good enough to exercise (no more nausia) I start feeling large and off balance, but this is a reminder for next time...You are not that big, start exercising! Fortunately I think the end is in sight. My due date is not until June 2nd (according to ultra-sound) or May 28th (original due date) but I the doctor told my at my last visit (last Wednesday) that he wouldn't be surprised if I didn't make it to my next appointment. I am dialated to a 3 and 60-70% effaced. I was so excited to hear this news because I am so hoping to go early. However, until tonight I really haven't had any contractions. So I am starting to lose hope. Even tonight it's not really contractions, just mostly uncomfortable. I feel ready but no ready to have this baby. I suddenly realize that I feel like I have forgotten everything about having a newborn and the birth. With the 3rd baby you just go in feeling like you are a pro. So I haven't done any reading or things like that and now I am thinking do I really know what the heck I am doing? It's been a while. Hopefully it's like riding a bike and it will all come back. Hope she arrives this week. I think I prefer the sleepless nights while holding the baby rather than not being able to roll over in the bed because my stomachs too big. (Might regret ever saying that sentence in a couple of weeks.)
I think it is very important that our family take a trip every year with just our little family. Whether it be a small trip or big trip. (I think it builds lots of good memories and I think it is important to do it with just our small family so that Rob and I can really focus on the kids and not be distracted.) This year we were very fortunate to take a big trip to California.
We decided to drive when we found out that Rob's family was taking a trip to Las Vegas just before out trip to CA. I was a little nervous about the drive with kids and being to pregnant but it went actually really good. Thank goodness for modern day technology (we used the laptop to watch many movies and it worked better than ever because Rob figured out how to hook up the sound so that it ran through the car's stereo system and the kids could actually hear).
Las Vegas was lots of fun! We were so lucky the weather was perfect. The high 70's the whole time we were there. We went swimming everyday, sometimes twice a day. Eliza was so excited about having a swimming pool at the hotel and being able to swim. She told me before we left, "Every morning I am going to go swimming." And sure enough the first morning we got there she wanted to go swimming. Unfortunately the kids woke up at 6 am that morning. She wanted to go swimming right then. I could only hold her off until 9:00 am and it was a bit of a chilly dip that morning. They didn't last very long. But the days to come it was very warm and we swam in the later morning or afternoon. Rob unfortunately had to work most of the time, but would come hang out at night and go to dinner with us. We went to a buffet (of course, its LV) and Lucey's (Ted's favorite BBQ place), and tried Phu. (Rob's all the rave right now about this Vietnamese noodle dish. Everytime we talk about going out he want to go to a Phu restaurant. He is such a funny guy, so extremem. Don't get me wrong it is good but it is all the man can talk about.) It was a good time in LV. Eliza said it best though when she was telling Sarah about Las Vegas, "But you know what made Las Vegas so fun? My Grandma and Grandpa Coco where there too." After three days in Vegas we drove on to CA. We arrived late Wed. night. Liberty had gotten sick on day one of the trip (Monday) with a cold. She was seeming a little miserable in Las Vegas. She had a fever and whenever the tylenol and ibuprofen wore off she got really tired and grumpy. Poor girl. This night she was especially sad and miserable. It was the worst she had been. I had tried up to this point to have a positive attitude and not let it worry me to much but it had seemed to have been so long and she seemed to be getting worse that I was starting to get stressed out and down. Fortunately for me, I have pediatrician brothers. I got a hold of David and told him about Libby, he told me usually with a virus the 3rd day is the worse and then the next day you will see improvements. This was a good to hear. We post-poned Disneyland for Friday and decided to do Sea-World the next day, Thursday. (I hoped that Sea-World would be more watching and less crazy for her. Plus, I just couldn't take her to a the "Happiest Place on Earth" feeling so miserable.)
Sea World was lots of fun (but I must admit I feel it is overpriced). I think Eliza's favorite part was getting her face painted. We watched a sea lion show, but we loved the killer whale show. The anticipation of whether we would get wet or not, just adds to the excitement. Eliza was so nervous she was going to get wet. The next day we headed off to Disneyland and thankfully our plan had worked and Liberty was feeling much better. Not 100% but her fever broke by late morning and she seemed to be enjoying herself much more and not sleeping in the stroller so much. Disneyland I thought was amazing. The people are so nice there, even people on the clean up crew are nice. Liberty spilled osme cough syrup on the ground right in front of a guy cleanning the sidewalk and he just smiled and cleaned it up. We started by watching a parade, while Rob went and got fast passes, then we went on a few kiddie rides. We ate lunch mid day. Rob and Eliza got a Turkey leg. It was so funny to watch them eat this huge leg. It was like watching a cartoon as they knawed on this hunk of meat. Liberty fell asleep in the stroller so Rob and Eliza went crazy and went all over the park trying out all kinds of rides. This is when I love having a Rob as a husband. He loves to plan and make things fun and his energy level is like the energizer bunny. When I saw other parents looking exhausted and yelling at their whining kids, I'd look over and see Rob with a big smile, planning with Eliza the next ride they were going to go on. Eliza went on lots of big kid rides. Rob even convinced her to go on "Splash Mountain". She was so funny, she kept saying, "I don't want to get wet." Who cares about scary fast roller coaster (she had already been on thunder mountain twice), the girl just doesn't want to get wet. Well I think she had the scare of her life when she went down the last big hill. We bought the photo they take because her face of horror was just way to funny. Not just a little scared people, a face of serious terror.
After Liberty woke up, we went on some more kid rides. Liberty loved it. She especially loved the ones that you get to look around at things i.e. the Winnie Pooh ride and Small World. We also stopped in at a toy store (Liberty and Eliza had been saving their money for the last 3 months to buy a toy at disneyland. They get a penny every morning if they stay in their bed until morning. This is all Eliza could talk about on the ride to CA. She said to me, "What are we going to do with all of our toys in our room?" I was a little confused with what she was talking about but after talking more it came out that because she had saved (what she thought) was so much money she was going to be buy lots and lots of toys. I didn't want to make her feel bad and tell her that really all that hard work of saving pennies wouldn't even be enough to buy one toy, so we explained that the toys at Disneyland are really expensive so she would probably only be able to one and that mom and dad might even have to help pay a little to get the toy she wanted. She took the news well. After much searching she finally decided to buy a stuffed baby Simba lion that she calls "Tarzan". Her and Rob counted out all of her money at the desk with the very patient teller. It is amazing how when you work to earn something yourself you treat it so differently. That stuffed toy is admired more than any other toy she has and she was so concerned when it got a little tear and reminded me again and again to sew it up until the job was done.
After the big purchase, we watched another Disney parade. They are so much fun to watch and the girls even got to go dance with the characters. We did a few more rides and then Liberty fell asleep again. I was completely exhausted. I kept thinking I as going to have my baby because my stomach muscles hurt so bad. I really wanted to see the firework show though so I told Eliza and Rob to go on some more rides and I would save us a seat. They arrived just in time and we watched an awesome firework show (totally worth the wait). A real person dressed as Tinker Bell whizzed back and forth over the castle during the show which I thought looked so scary to do but was a pretty cool effect. We left the park satisfied and exhausted. The last day in CA we went to the beach. We parked by a farmer's market so stopped in to grab some food. We bought delicious fresh raspberries and some homemade tamales. They had some corn and cheese tamales that were the best thing I have ever had. It had fresh pieces of corn mixed into the cornmeal tamale mixture. It was so good. It reminded me of cachapas from Venezuala. I hope to find someone again who makes this kind of tamale. Then we headed to the beach. Liberty of course fell asleep again on the walk there. We set up camp right next to the basketball courts so that Rob could do his favorite thing, play basketball right at the edge of the beach. Eliza played for hours in the sand and made some friends while Rob played so it was actually really relaxing. Soon Libby woke up though and it became a little less relaxing so Rob went to grab a boogie board and came back to help with the kids. He and the girls built a sand castle, collected shells, chased the waves, and boogie boarded (Libby got a face full of water on the first try and was pretty mad at Rob and did not want to try again). It was a perfect day! We left around 6:00 and went and ate at a nearby restaurant where Rob we watched the first part of the BYU basketball game. Then started on our way back to Las Vegas. We ate breakfast at the Starley's and went to church with them then started again on our way back to Salt Lake City. The girls slept a good part of the way which I was surprised since it was so early but I think they were just exhausted from the vacation. They finally wok up around 8 and the only place open at our pit stop was a Maverik gas station. We scrounged up all that sounded good and somewhat dinner worthy and ate at a table there in the gas station. It seemed really funny to me since it was completely unhealthy. Finally we arrived home and ah doesn't just feel good to be home. Even when you have been on vacation!
I am sooooo excited!!! The nurse called today and after playing phone tag she informed me that I had passed the glucose test. It is a miracle! (Quick flashback, I had gestational diabetes with Liberty and it was the most painful dieting of my life! Probably because my kind of a diet is just exercise more not cut back on carbs! I can't go without treats it is impossible for me.) I can't believe this news! On both Eliza and Libby I didn't pass the first glucose test, so I can't believe I passed it this time. I keep waiting for them to call me back and tell me that they have made a mistake. I really was just waiting to find out when I would make the appointment for the second (most nausiating) test. It is a miracle people! I feel like a free woman, I can eat all the treats I want now. Well that's how I felt at first but then I did tell myself that I should still try to eat healthy and exercise so I hope I can keep it under control so I am not too miserably big at the end (It might be too late though). But I think I will stick with my nightly treat of a few cookies with milk :) They did inform me that I was anemic and that I had to get on iron pills asap but that is easy peasy compared to pricking myself and dieting. I can handle the iron pills anyday. Is everyone as excited as I am?!
Bundled at the hospital...
They always look so ridiculously small in their car seats for the first time...
Libby and Daddy made us a welcome home sign (you can kind of see it in the background by the mailbox), Eliza made me a card, and Daddy got me flowers.
It felt really nice to be home. Rob had even cleaned the house up real nice.
The girls just can't get enough of little Mazie. They have been really soft with her and really good helpers. There has been a little bit of change in their behavior (I think they miss the amount of mommy time they used to have) but I am happy that it hasn't been towards Mazie at all. So far so good!
