Visit With Grandma and Grandpa

We had a really good visit with Grandma and Grandpa in Kansas last week! It was very helpful for me to have them here with a new baby, and they took great care of everything here while Adam and I both had to be gone for several hours a few days last week. More on that later. Time is short, so this post will be as well. For now here are some pictures!

Three Years and Three Weeks

Yesterday was Joseph's 3rd birthday!  He has been very excited about it for a long time, and he got an extra special birthday treat this year...Grandma and Grandpa were here from Kansas!  I have lots of pictures from our week with them to share later, but for now here are a few of our sweet and funny Joseph.  He very emphatically informed Noah today that he is not called Joseph, he is called the "Birthday Boy".  :)  He certainly keeps us laughing!

1 day old

Brothers

Three years old!!

James turned 3 weeks old yesterday.  He is our most laid back baby yet!  Two people have told me that I say that every time I have another one, and one friend suggested that maybe I'm the one who is becoming more laid back. :)  I think that there is some truth to that, but James is so quiet and happy almost all of the time.  Adam jokes about not being able to think with all of the racket that James makes. :)  He nurses a lot during the day and seems to be gaining well.  The sweet boy is a dream when it comes to sleeping.  He is in a good two-naps-a-day pattern (when we have a normal schedule and are at home) and usually goes to sleep without a peep when I put him down awake.  He has been waking up once at night to eat and has slept all the way through the night once.  I'm not waking him up at night to feed him.  I did that with a few of our other babies to try to avoid the milk supply issues that I have at around 3 months, but it has never done any good and only forms bad sleeping habits that are really hard to break.  James sleeps right off of the master bedroom and I hear him as soon as he starts making noises at night.  Apparently he just really enjoys his sleep!  I absolutely love having a newborn, and I know I keep saying it, but I don't believe I'll ever tire of having them. :)  Of course it is not all sunshine and roses, but it is impossible to put into words what a wonderful blessing babies and children are.  I love being a Mama!

James' baptism

Peter thought that James needed some books to read during his nap. :) 

James loves to be swaddled and snuggled!

He has no lack of adoring older siblings to hold him

Review of My Yearly Goals

Since I took the month of April off from setting monthly goals, I thought I'd do an update on my yearly goals.  I have actually decided to extend my monthly goal vacation into May.  It will be a fairly busy month for us and I'm really enjoying taking it easy.  I spent a good part of my morning assigning chores and school work from the couch while I sat and snuggled my sleeping 2 week-old James.  It doesn't get much better than that. :)  We are wrapping up some school and I plan to keep up a loose school schedule through the summer.  I have some review planned and we will most likely start our new books early.  We all do better when we have a schedule and when we have something specific to accomplish. Of course we plan to do plenty of swimming and other fun things as well.  

Here are the goals that I set back in January.  

1. Bible Reading - I always intend to stick with our read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plan, but I inevitably end up getting behind and I have yet to successfully complete it.  I plan to stick with it this year.

We have all done really well with this so far!  I have gotten a couple of days behind a few times, but I caught up and have managed to stay on track for the most part.  

2. Have a Baby - this will happen one way or another!  Only about 14 weeks left before Baby Boy #5 is due.

Check!  I suppose I kind of cheated on this goal since I didn't really have a choice in the matter. :)  James was coming one way or another and even though he's only been here for two weeks (tomorrow), it seems like he's always been here.  He's such a sweetie...I'll update more on just how sweet he is later!  

3. Make Blog Books - I have looked into turning the blog into a book, and I even started the process using Blurb, but I never got very far.  It will be time consuming, but it is important to us and I am going to try to make the time to get it done.

I had made some good progress on the blog book before our laptop hard drive crashed.  Now I'm glad I didn't spend anymore time on it.  I wonder if we'll be able to recover what I did get done.  Blurb doesn't seem to want to work very well on our desktop, so this goal is on hold for now.  I'm considering changing the goal to printing photos and putting them in albums.  I think I'll wait until I see a really good deal on printing though.  

4.  Teach the Children Piano - I did fairly well with this goal at the end of 2012, and I really want to stick with it.  Sometimes it is hard to get motivated because we're all pretty much ready for a break by the time we finish school.  But, again, it is something that is important to us.  I did not start piano until I was 10, and I think that there is some advantage to starting later, but I also think that there are advantages to starting earlier and the children enjoy it.

We did a pretty good job with this and got ourselves into a solid routine before James was born.  I haven't been so consistent over the past two weeks, but we are going to get back into it.  One of our children is very self motivated and has been practicing on her own nearly every day.  Another loves to play the piano, but prefers to just sit down and pick out things that she has heard rather than work on reading music.  Another isn't so interested and usually only practices if reminded. :)  

5.  Exercise - before our Christmas break I was walking 3 to 4 mornings a week.  I'd like to make it 4 to 5 mornings.  I feel better, it's good for me and the baby, and it gives me more energy during the day.

I did well with this goal when I was pregnant (until the last few weeks).  I plan to start walking again soon...maybe next week.  It's always a goal of mine to lose all of the weight from one pregnancy before starting another.  I'm not too concerned about weight loss at 2 weeks postpartum, but I feel better when I do exercise.  

6.  Read - I'm not a real big reader.  I'm very slow, and frankly, I don't have much time.  I would like to read more though, and I'm going to shoot to read 10 books in 2013.  We have made some minor changes to our schedule and have time set aside in the evenings before bed for reading.  I hope that it works out.  If I'm tired, then a book is a sure-fire way to put me to sleep!  I'm working on putting together a book list and I plan to post that later.

I have done much better with this goal than I initially thought I would, which is just another benefit of implementing a strict schedule.  Can you tell I like having a schedule?  I have completed seven books and am currently working on two more.  Maybe at the end of the year I'll take the time to list them all and do a few book reviews.  

7.  "Spring" Cleaning - there are areas in every room of our house that need to be organized, and that bugs me.  This home is only temporary, though we are not exactly sure how long we'll be here.  We do plan to move at some point though, and I would love to have things sorted through, consolidated, and pared down before we have to start packing.  There are a million areas to cover...everything from sorting and storing childrens' clothes to cleaning out the kitchen cabinets.  I plan to come up with "zones" and focus on one each month.  I think I'll start with the master bedroom/closet/office.

I got a good bit of this done while I was "nesting".  Unfortunately I did some outdoor spring cleaning before the pollen let loose.  I need to remember to not do that again!  It all needs to be re-done.  Adam's parents will be here with us next week and I'm planning to get some things done outside then.  It will be nice to have Grandma and Grandpa here and I'm hoping that we can go strawberry picking and do some other fun things as well as getting some work done.  

James' Birth Story

I'm not one to type out long and involved birth stories, but I do like to have them documented, so here is the short story of James' birth.

I'll start out by saying that I have never been more than 1cm dilated and I have never been very effaced before going into labor or being induced.  When my midwife checked me at 40 weeks and said that I was 1cm and 60-70% effaced, I was actually pleasantly surprised about the effacement.  She said that she thought the baby would come in the next few days and that I probably wouldn't make it to my appointment the following week.  They really shouldn't say things like that. :)  My 41-week appointment rolled around and we scheduled an induction for that Friday...10 days past my due date.

I was having some contractions when we got to the hospital for the induction, but they were not regular or strong.  They got the pitocin cranked up around 10:30am and I settled in for the long haul.  We knew it would be awhile, so Adam left to run a few errands.  I was surprised that the pitocin got things moving fairly quickly.  It usually takes hours and many visits from the nurse to bump the pitocin up before I have any significant contractions.  They started almost immediately this time, were 2-3 minutes apart, and were painful but not unbearable.

I had hoped to go into labor on my own and skip the epidural...unless there was pitocin involved.  I tried having a natural birth with our first (I was induced because of PROM), but after 24 hours on pitocin and having it turned up higher than they are supposed to have it, I caved.  And I'm so glad I did!  I'm never, EVER doing that again!  Anyhow, I wanted to wait as long as I could before getting the epidural this time because I didn't want it to slow things down too much and I also didn't want it in for any longer than I needed it.  I ended up getting it somewhere between 3:30 and 4:00pm when I was 5cm.  The anesthesiologist was great.  There was no dural perforation, and therefore no nasty spinal headache like last time.  I sat at 5cm for awhile, which is typical for me.  In the past I've stayed at 5 for hours on end.  Thankfully this time it was only about 2 hours.

I'm not sure what happened with the epidural, but it started wearing off very quickly and I asked Adam to go find a nurse to see about getting it re-dosed.  The midwife came in to check me first and said that I was complete and suggested we just push him out instead of fixing the epidural.  I went from 5 to 10cm in 20-30 minutes, which is also typical for me.  I agreed and after about 10 minutes (I think...the timing is a bit blurry to me) of pushing our little James was born!  I usually only have to push 2 or 3 times, so the longer pushing stage combined with the fact that I could feel pretty much everything on my left side and a lot on the right told me that he was big!  I did not tear at all though, and I had no complications with the placenta which I'm very grateful for!  I was able to get up and walk to the bathroom about 20 minutes after he was born and Adam went and got me some yummy Mexican food. :)  Other than the pushing, which was a bit excruciating, this was one of my easiest births.

We're so thankful for an uneventful labor and delivery and for our big healthy boy!  I'm also thankful for my wise and supportive husband and for his leadership in deciding if and when to induce.  And we are all grateful for my dad and for his willingness to come and so capably take care of our other seven children.  He did a wonderful job and I didn't worry about them one bit.  The children love having him here!  Joseph keeps asking me where Grandpa is. :)

Our tradition is to choose a Biblical first name and a family name for a middle name.  There are lots of great boy names to choose from, and we obviously like James. :)  Emil is Adam's step-father's name and Robert is his paternal grandfather's name.  We also like the fact that I have an uncle named James and there is also a James in our ancestry on Adam's side of the family.

So there you have it.  Thank you all so much for your prayers and kind comments and encouragement! They mean so much to us!

Pictures

We are all doing great here!  I will try to update later in the week with more pictures, birth story, etc.  For now here are some photos of us with our new chubby little man. :)

About an hour old.

Snuggling in the blanket made by my good friend, Nikki!

Naptime

Big sisters love their baby brother!

Joseph is not quite three and is a big brother to two!

Joshua...big brother to seven.

Getting to know Grandpa E. 

Peter is amused with James.  He's not quite sure what to do with him yet, but stealing his pacifier and poking at his eyes are pretty high on the list.  Learning to be gentle will come next. :)

A big welcome home party (minus one)

Talking to Papa

James Emil Robert.  We're so thankful for our big healthy boy!

Baby James

James Emil Robert arrived at 6:30 pm today!  He weighs 9lb 4oz and is 20 in long.  He and I are both doing great and I will update with pictures and more details when we get home.  Thank you for your prayers!

41 Weeks and Beat

We're at 41 weeks today!  My two non-induced/non PROM babies were born 6 and 8 days past their due date, so hopefully baby boy will decide to make his appearance in the next couple of days.  In the mean time, the rabbit has got me beat. :)  She has had 9 kits so far and I'm thinking that she is probably finished.  Unfortunately, only three of them have made it, but those three are looking pretty good.  They're not exactly what I'd call "cute" at this point, but I'm sure they will be once they grow some hair.




I'm feeling a bit tired but otherwise everything is going just fine.  Thankfully my varicose veins are not bothering me much at all.  I do have some swelling and had to take off my wedding rings.  I really don't enjoy walking around with a gigantic belly, 7 children in tow, and no wedding rings.  If I had several weeks left I'd probably go buy a cheap fake ring, but there's not much point in that now.  Oh well!  I didn't gain any weight last week and I lost a pound the week before, which puts me at 27 pounds total.  The weight gained after 40 weeks doesn't count, right? :)  I honestly doubt I'll gain much if any more because I'm so full of baby that it's hard to fit food in there!

The strawberry farm here finally opened yesterday and we went to pick some this morning.  It seems like every time I lean over to pick up a child or something off of the floor I have a contraction.  I was hoping that picking strawberries would get things moving, but it didn't.  I had a midwife appointment yesterday and had made no progress since last week's appointment.  I wasn't surprised.  I have a stubborn uterus. :)  Hopefully baby will come in the next couple of days, but if not Friday will be baby day for sure.  We have an induction scheduled for Friday morning...bright and early!