Travling with four

With a 10 days old baby, we knew the best way to move across the country was for me and the kids to fly and Mitch to drive our van.  My wonderful mom came our to PA to help me with the travel.  There really is no way I could have done it without her.  The whole flight I kept thinking about the return flight, and then I remembered; NO RETURN FLIGHT!  This was it.  It is still hard to believe.

This is Greta on the plane.  She was perfect.  She just slept peacfully.  I love the way she has her fingers interlaced in this shot.

This is how Lily looked walking around the airport.  She is so stinking cute.  She had to take her favorite cow with her on the plane.

Our first stop was in Midway to hang out with my brother's family for a few days waiting for Mitch to make the drive across the country.

 It was at Blake's house that Greta gave me some of her first smiles, and started to open up those big eyes for me just a little more.

 I took this picture to show how she was swimming in her PJs, know that she would be too big for them in just a few short weeks.

 We went to a park in Midway, they were testing the sprinklers and our kids jumped at the chance to get wet.  The sprinkler guy even left them on longer than he had planned because our kids were having so much fun.

 Arlo and Asher and their tiny bums

When the boys wanted to get dry I told them to go run on the sidewalk.  Here's the crazy thing, they actually did get dry!  That never would have happened in PA.

 Greta met her Aunt Jenna and Uncle Connor.

 Then it was off to Logan to meet Mitch, and introduce Greta to our family up there. 

Here she is with Uncle McCade.

 The kids got a four-wheeler ride with Grandpa, always a favorite.

As happy as we were to see family and be in Utah, we were really excited to pack up and  get to our house!  The drive was crazy, we barely fit everything into the van that we needed and with a newborn we had to make many stops.  It was all worth it.  Everyone was so happy to see our house.  When we walked in for the first time the kids were running around so excited.  "We get to live here!" not that was not the kids, that was me.  The best part of that first night in our house; we now have a five bedroom house, but all six of us slept in our master bedroom.  I guess we have gotten used to close quarters and weren't ready to be separtated.  The next night we made a little progress; Jackson, Asher and Lily all slept in her bedroom.

 This is the kiddos in our tub the first morning.  They were pretty excited to have a jetted tub.  We are just so happy to be in our new house and done with the move.

Greta Jane: Week 2

Greta has had a busy two weeks.  She had her first plane ride, met cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents, and she has already lived in two houses.  We are now in our new house and so happy to be here.  I took these picture in what will be her room, on the only piece of furniture I currently have for her. 

Saying Good-bye to Hershey

Leaving Hershey was a crazy hard process.  We had a wonderful three years, actually with the fours years we spent here from 2001-2005 it is a total of seven.  Hershey is a magical place, we feel so lucky to have lived  in the sweetest place on earth.

The day the moving truck came I took off with the kids for a few hours to see and say goodbye to some of our amazing friends. 

Andrea, Linsy, Jana and Leslie, thanks for coming I will miss you all so much

Lily, Tyler, Adam, Asher, Jackson Nathan, Tate and Beau

I also took Lily to Chocolate World one last time.  The boys didn't want to come, because they wanted to spend every spare second with their friends.

Me and Lily on the Chocolate World ride

More Chocolate World

Our trampoline was super popular in our neighborhood. These are the neighbor boys and some of our boys best friends. 

Devon, Jackson, Leo, Asher and Matthew

After a lot of hard work our house was empty and it was time to catch our flight.  I snapped this picture as I was leaving our house for the last time. 

Good-bye 128 Peregrine, I will miss you, but not spelling out my address ever time I gave it.

Mitch took this picture as he left is very last day of work.  Good-bye residency!  Good-by 24 hour call!

Sisters

Lily wasn't sure what she thought of her new baby sister.  She wouldn't go near her long enough for us to get a picture of them together at first, So when we found Lily asleep on the couch we took advantage of the opportunity.

 We were trilled a day later when she asked to hold baby Greta and we got the beautiful shot.

Look at my beautiful girls!

Greta Jane: week 1

We are crazy busy trying to get everything ready for the movers to come tomorrow.   But I had to stop and snap a few shots of my baby girl; one week today!

Back in the hospital

Greta and I are in the hospital right now. Her bilirubin reached a very high level so the doctor wanted her on the lights and the bili-blanket, in the hospital on observation. My sweet little girl is just sleeping and eating. She looks so tiny in her bed under the lights with her cool shades. As of this morning she had made great progress and I am hoping they send us home and let her continue the treatment from there. I am just sitting here thinking of all the things that need to be done for the move, and I can't do any of it from here. I just feel lucky that Greta can get this treatment and that everything is being taken care of before our move in less than a week.  And I guess this way I can get some sleep and a little quiet before things get really chaotic.

Dig the cool shades

The cool shades wouldn't stay on and so we had to add the extra mess to keep her eyes covered.

Her levels weren't dropping as quickly as the doctor would have liked so they added an extra light.

Here She Is!!!!!

Greta Jane

June 14, 2012; 7:01 PM

7 lbs 3 oz, 20 inches

She came into this world and made ours a better place.  We are so in love and feel so blessed to have another sweet little person in our family. 

More to come!

Greta's Birth

Greta's Birth Story:
We are so happy to have our little Greta Jane here finally!  She is a miracle, and a blessing.  The pregnancy was long, (well it felt that way) and had it's challenges, but I would do it all again in a minute!
I had my cerclage removed on June 7th, and expected history to repeat itself and deliver the baby that day.  At least that was the hope, since we had a move coming up very quickly.  Also my Mother-in-law was going to be in town for a week so we thought it would be great to have her there post baby.  Well, it was complete hubris on my part to think we could actually plan like that.  I thought that all it would take was one long walk and the baby would just pop out.  As it turns out, it was many long walks.  I did 2 to 3 miles a day, almost every day in an effort to get me into labor.  I will even admit to using castor oil.  After a full week of walking, packing and crying, I woke up a week later on Thursday morning June 14th, put on my walking shoes, grabbed my ipod and said as I headed out the door, "this is the walk that will put me into labor.  Why? Because this would be the most inconvenient day to have this baby."  Sure enough, about 1 mile into the walk, I couldn't keep it up and I had to call Mitch to come and pick me up.  The contractions kept coming, but I didn't want to go into the hospital only to be sent home again. (We had had a false alarm just a few days earlier.)  I got home, and got to work packing.  After a few hours of regular contractions, I decided I should probably go into labor and delivery.  At first Mitch was just going to drop me off, then go home and get his mom to the airport.  That's right, my Mother-in-law was leaving that very day at 2:00 PM.  Luckily, our better reason won out and Mitch came with me. When we got there, I was put into a tiny little triage room, and told to wait until there was a doctor available.  Almost as soon as I got hooked up to the monitors, I started feeling the contractions very strong and regular.  In fact I felt like I needed to push.  I finally called for the nurse, who rushed in a doctor, our friend Dr. Jurus, who checked me, pronounced me in real labor and said declared that I be admitted.  At that point I told Mitch to call his friend Dr. Adhikary, the Anesthesiologist to give me my epidural.  I was trying the hypno-birthing method, but there was too much chaos around me to keep it up, and Mitch had already arranged for the pain specialist to do my epidural since I'd had such a hard time with my epidurals in the past.  While all this was going on, we were trying to get Madelyn a ride to the airport, and get someone to watch our kids.  I was actually trying to make the phone calls between contractions, until I realized it just wasn't going to work, I needed to focus to get through each contraction.

In what felt like a matter of minutes, I got my IV placed, my epidural placed, (the doctor brought an ultrasound machine to look at my back and he was fast and wonderful,) we got a ride for Madelyn, (thank you Linsy) and found someone to watch our kids, (thank you Andrea.)  Everything was all settled, and I got to relax, sleep and anxiously await meeting our little girl.

This is the look of happiness, and excitement, also the look of someone who got an epidural!

After a few hours I felt like I needed to push.  I told the nurse who told the doctor. She doctor came in and broke my water and told me it would be awhile after breaking my water because I went from a 10 back to a 7.   However, Greta had other plans, within minutes I knew it was time to push. Again the doctor was called, she check me and said that I was fully dilated, but that she hadn't dropped so I could wait. I said, no, I needed to push. So the doctor said I could try a few practice pushes with my nurse and was headed out the door. Luckily my wonderful nurse told the doctor that I had delivered Lily very quickly and that she should stick around. Dr. Gupta was a little skeptical, but decided to stay. After one push she was almost out, by two she was coming and they had to tell me to stop because they weren't ready, and at three, she was out. She was born at 7:01 PM, weighing in at 7 lbs 3 oz.  She came so fast that I had to be told to look down and see her.  She was here, and so beautiful!  I knew her face as soon as I saw her.  She looked like my other babies.  I love that moment.  The moment when you see your baby for the first time.  There is really no way to ever explain how it feels.
She didn't cry right away, I thought that meant she was a content baby.  They got her to cry and then handed her to me, and she stopped crying.  The doctor and nurses kept working with her to keep her crying.  My thought was that she was just so happy and content to be in my arms, so she didn't need to cry.  I guess I was wrong.  They quickly took her to the baby warmer and begin working with her.  She was making a cute little grunting sound, I thought it was just an adorable baby sound, but again, I was wrong because this was a sign that something was wrong.  Since she came out so fast the fluid in her lungs didn't get pushed out and so she had something called transient tachypnea, or wet lung.  The NICU doctor determined that she needed to go into the transitional nursery for observation for a few hours.  There they would determine if she needed to go into the NICU. 

I did get to hold her for a little while before they took her away.  As I held her Mitch said, "She looks like she could be our Greta."  That got me all teary and I knew she would be our Greta Jane.  Greta means "child of light," and Jane means "God is gracious."   She is truly a source of light in our life and a blessing from the grace of God. 

After almost 5 hours I finally got my baby girl. Everything was fine, the wet lung had resolved, and there was no need for her to go to the NICU.  I tried to take advantage of the time she was in transitional care to get some sleep, but I was just too excited.  My arms ached to hold my baby girl. Once I was able to hold her in my arms I finally got some sleep.
She is a sweet little girl. I have said this every time I have had a baby, but I feel like I knew her the second I saw her. She has been such a blessing to our family. We are so, so grateful that she is ours.

I need to give photography credit to Mitch.  He did an amazing job.  I put the camera on manual, set the aperture and told him to keep the meter in the middle, and he did it.  The pictures turned out beautiful.

Saved by Madelyn!

As the time for our move and the birth of baby #4 approached, my anxiety level reached a high that I couldn't really handle on my own.  In a Relief Society meeting, it came to me that I needed my mother-in-law to come help us out for a week.  I was so sure that I would have the baby the same day that I had my cerclage removed, so we planned her visit for the week following.  Well, the best laid plans right?!  I had my cerclage removed, started contractions, then; they stopped.  I went home expecting to come back in just a few hours, but it was not to be.  Greta didn't make her appearance for a full week later, the very day Madelyn flew home.  In fact we had to find her a ride to the airport since I was in the hospital in labor.
Even though I didn't have the baby when we thought we would; Madelyn's visit was a life saver.  I really don't know what we would have done without her.  She packed boxes, folded laundry, (letral mountains! Like a few months worth of unfolded laundry), matched the boy's crazy socks, and kept me and Mitch sane during a particularly challenging time.
We did our best to make the trip a little fun for her, even though we probably weren't too much fun in our current state.

Mitch and the kids took her down the Swatara in our canoe.
I took her to the Hershey Pantry. One of the best places on earth for breakfast. A place that I will miss almost daily when we have moved, (no pictures, sorry.) Then We went to the Hershey Museum, where Madelyn and the kids went into the Chocolate Lab to make their very own chocolate bars. Lily was too young to go into the Chocolate Lab, so she and I stayed out and ate Hershey chocolate drops. Lily seemed to be pretty happy about that arrangement. I was happy to be spending some time with my girl before her whole world changed. However, I had spent much of that morning crying because I knew Madelyn was leaving the next day, and we hadn't had the baby yet, and really didn't know what we were going to do. I think this picture reflects it all very well. I look like I am trying to keep it together. Greta was born the very next day. I feel bad that Madelyn spent a whole week with us, and didn't get to see her new grand-baby when she was born. But I can honestly say; we could have gone though everything we did without her. There is a very good chance I would have thrown away all the unfolded laundry and banned my boys from socks forever. She was also very conforting to talk to and I know Mitch really enjoyed having a sane helpful person in the house!

We all learned, yes we did. Many, many things in Kindergarten

Asher had his Kindergarten Celebration on June 4th. It was adorable. I seriously live for those kind of  things. The kids were so cute and well prepared. I was so impressed with their singing and there little ABC poem. I love Kindergarten. I love my Asher. I have to admit, there weren't many times as I watched him get on the bus each afternoon that I didn't get teary. He was just a backpack with legs and he was always so excited to get on the bus.

Getting that all important Kindergarten Diploma, you can't get a job without one!

This is how we hug in the Child family.  It is nice to see the tradition has been passed down.