The Sears House: May 2014

Things have been great here in Texas! Lincoln is crawling around now, so he loves to chase Sophie. He likes to laugh when he sees Jameson on facetime and crawls toward him as fast as he can. He likes to eat mostly all foods – if he’s in the mood. Sometimes he’s an excellent eater, and sometimes he just wants to be on the floor crawling around instead. He likes to say 'Mama' and we're working on 'Dada'. We like to listen to Harry Potter, watch Curious George on occasion, and go on walks. He is very interested in everything, and keeps himself entertained with crawling after each of his toys. It's so fun to watch him change every single day. When I leave the room for just a second, I can hear him say 'Mama' and he crawls after me. When he gets to me he gives me the biggest smile and it melts my heart every single time. He is the best thing that has ever happened to our little family, and we love every memory we have together.

Jameson has been in Arizona, Washington, and New York lately. And he’s going to Colorado next week. Working really hard for our family! I've been doing lots of cooking experiments, sewing, and taking care of Lincoln and Sophie. We are still trying to decide what we are doing this summer for our vacation. We are planning on going to Utah to see family, and hopefully going to the beach here sometime soon. It’s been pretty warm lately, so we are really looking forward for our neighborhood pool to open soon. We like our neighborhood and our ward. And it’s fun to have a new vehicle!

Here's our house!

Buying a car is hard work!

Family Pictures (Lincoln - 6 months)

For anyone that I haven't told that is interested, this is the birth story! We spent Friday night painting pumpkins and watching movies. I love telling this story, so it's a bit long and SUPER detailed for Rach. Saturday, I woke up at 7:00 am to take the dogs out in the morning and couldn't tell if my water had broken or not. I started to have contractions, and timed them. I hadn't had any braxton hicks, so I thought that these weren't anything to worry about. I thought I should just finish up some things at home before we went out. I did a load of laundry, finished packing the hospital bag, and got ready. I knew that if my water had broken then I would have to have the baby within 24 hours, but didn't want to go into the hospital if it wasn't really anything. Jameson said we should just bring the hospital bags and everything with us just in case. We were scheduled to look at two houses and then had tickets to the Renaissance festival, so we headed out for the day. We really loved one of the houses, and then headed up to the Ren Fest.

It was very hot, and started raining like crazy. I called my mom on the way and told her about the morning; we got excited that I might have the baby soon! She said the best way to go through the labor was to walk, so we decided to go to the festival just for a little bit. We stopped at McDonald’s on the way, and then started to walk around the festival. It was fun! But it was too hot to sit around so we kept moving and looked in a lot of shops. We stayed hydrated, and had a good time. But then I felt like it was probably time to head to the hospital. When we got to the hospital at about 3:00 pm they checked me, they said that the water had definitely broken and I was dilated to a 4 and 90% effaced. My doctor was away that weekend, so the doctor on call came and talked to us and said that they would have to give me Pitocin to speed up the contractions to get the baby out faster. I really didn’t want to be on it because I wanted to do a natural birth, but the doctor said that I would still be able to go natural but it would be harder.

Jameson headed home to get the last few things for our hospital stay, and make sure the dogs were okay. After they finally got the IV and Pitocin all hooked up it was about 6:00 pm. I tried to do the yoga ball, squats, and went through the breathing exercises that we had learned in our class. It was pretty slow going so they had to up the Pitocin a lot so that the contractions were harder and faster. The nurses kept saying that I was the happiest person in labor they had seen. Meanwhile, I was electronically signing the contract for the house we had gone and seen earlier that day (and that is the house we live in now).

When I dilated to a 6 I threw up and the nurse said I was in active labor, so it was all about to change. Jameson was trying to keep everyone in the loop about everything that was happening. I felt like we were doing well over all, and it didn't get very bad until about 9:45 pm. The rest of my water broke and then there was no cushion. It was pretty painful, but Jameson helped me stay focused. He gave me a blessing which I know helped me stay calm. He facetimed my mom so she could walk me through some of the contractions that were really intense. When the nurse came in right after, she said she was going to check me at 11:00 pm. She looked at the screen and said that my contractions were happening three in a row with no break, so she turned down the Pitocin. She decided to check me, and said that I was dilated to a 10 and ready to push! She went to call the doctor, and then the urge to push came...and it was really strong! But I had to hold the pushing until the doctor got there…that was hard! The nurses said that I was very calm and they hadn't seen that much focus in a first time mom going natural. As soon as the doctor came it as time to push. After about fifteen minutes (11:10 pm) Lincoln was in our arms! It was such a crazy and beautiful experience. Holding him and knowing he was ours forever was such a blessing. He was 5lb, 11.7oz, 19 1/4" long, and he was ours.

I just think back to Jameson holding him for the first time, and how he looked like a perfect father from the beginning. It was a little rough with nursing at the beginning, but Jameson was always supportive. Some of our friends came and visited in the hospital, and that was really fun. Most of the time we didn't sleep, we just stared at our beautiful and perfect baby. Becoming parents has been such a learning experience, and I feel like the Lord has blessed us in so many ways. He definitely liked to sleep a lot when he was a newborn! It has been a beautiful experience becoming a mother, each day with Lincoln is such a perfect blessing. I love watching him grow and learn. He is completely adorable!

Also, thank you to everyone that brought us dinners and came to visit!! We felt very blessed and well taken care of.