Easter 2022

So I was nervous we wouldn't be able to do a decent Easter this year. Since Pierce is our 4th kid I know the first month or so I tend to get really anxious and don't like to plan anything specific (I mean, aside from my brother's wedding a little while back, of course). My family was planning at Cindy's and I was a tad nervous because she lives the farthest away, but that was before I realized that Pierce is actually pretty easy. I mean, not necessarily with sleep at night, but he's great at napping and nursing and being on the go so I figured if it was a bad night it was just one night (plus Larry takes the first part of the night anyways so it would just be bad for him haha).

Earlier in the week we pulled out the baskets and I got some candy for them (I would've liked to get more, but it was enough fornow). For gifts I got Cara some rainbow scratch paper and a Frozen Lego set. For Gwen I got her a Duplo house set to build and a book titled "How to Catch the Easter Bunny". For Lucy I got her a pillow (she really needed one, she loves pillows and doesn't have one in her bed yet) and a mermaid light up book. For the family I got a Bunny Hop game to play with the girls that I'm thrilled to try out!

On Saturday we were able to get our eggs boiled and colored. That night after the kids were down, Larry and I hurried and filled the plastic eggs with the candy and then hid all those and the colored eggs (I wanted to hurry so I could get some sleep). I also put out their baskets with their gifts on the table (in future years I plan to actually hide these for them to find, but I didn't have the energy this year). I made sure to cover the landing from upstairs so if the girls get out to go to the bathroom they can't look down to spoil the surprise. I was so excited to see their reaction in the morning!

Luckily this morning Pierce slept in so I was able to leave Larry with him in the room and go get the girls out to do Easter morning and the egg hunt with them. I was sad Larry and Pierce weren't part of it, but I wasn't able to color eggs with them (I was holding Pierce for his nap) so I really wanted to do this part with them. They were animated when they realized what was going on and were eager to start finding their surprises haha. 

After they found everything and we ate breakfast we went grocery shopping. It was our first grocery trip with Pierce. I have been ordering them online, but we had to get a fruit tray this time and I didn't trust a stranger to get a good one for us so we had to go. Luckily, Pierce did really great with that and slept through all the noises (I remember stressing out with Lucy that all the dang announcements were waking her up, but Pierce is SO good at sleeping through noises still). 

After lunch and some play time we headed out to Cindy's to hang out there until dinner time (I figure if you hang out before you can leave after eating and it doesn't look like you just ate and run, plus it's such a long drive we figure the kids could nap on the drive). When we got there I fed Pierce so he'd be good for most of the visit and luckily he just fell asleep and everyone wanted to hold him, I passed him around so I could get a mini break. Did I mention how great and easy going of a baby he is? Haha. Unfortunately, we put the carseat with his binky on the floor and a dog got a hold of it (the binky) so we lost that, but luckily he didn't NEED it (he's hit or miss on if he'll actually take it). 

The girls did SO well while we were there. Lucy really came out of her shell and didn't need to be right by us the whole time. She liked going up and down the stairs (which made my grandma so nervous, she's not used to seeing Lucy do things on her own so well haha) and Cara and Gwen played upstairs with Olivia (it was so cute!), mostly with her lego table. 

Dinner was so yummy and we felt we visited for a good amount of time. We headed home and got back with time for the kids to play for a little bit before bath/bed time. Overall, I'm so happy with how this Easter went. It wasn't as great as I had always hoped it would be, but since we have a newborn I'm giving myself some grace. I'm so excited to see how holidays go next year when our kids are at an easier stage and mostly really want to get into them and understand them, but this one was still pretty great!

Happy Easter Everyone!

My Brother is Married

So yesterday we had our first family event since welcoming Pierce. I was a tad nervous how it would go, but that was the whole reason I asked to be induced on my due date, was so I'd have as much time to recover as much as possible for this day! I did joke with him, when I saw him, that I pushed a human out of me a week early so that I could be there haha. He said he appreciated it. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself!

I knew it was going to be a mad dash morning. The wedding started at 10 so I wanted to be out of the house by 9 (the venue was about 30 minutes away and I wanted to make sure we got there earlier just in case). This meant if we were up at 7:30 we had an hour and a half to get fed, get hair done, get dressed, and get out of the house. I was smart enough to know to put outfits together the night before and get my makeup and the hair stuff out on the counter, so we'd be as ready as could be. When we got up (after my usual morning snuggles with Pierce) we got everyone fed breakfast by 8. Then the girls came up with me to my bathroom, while Larry got Pierce's diaper changed and dressed and cuddled. I got them in their dresses and did their hair as best as possible. I also worked on my own hair and makeup in between doing theirs. As soon as that was done Larry got dressed and I fed Pierce once more before we left (just to make sure he was good for a bit). I was pretty happy that as a family of 6 (one of which is a newborn) we got to the wedding not only on time, but a bit early even. Early enough to visit with the bride and groom and the rest of our family that was there. 

The ceremony was SO pretty! I teared up a bit and HAD to get pics of my brother tearing up seeing his bride coming. The girls got too nervous going down the aisle themselves so Larry had to help them walk down it haha. Pierce did so well and didn't fuss at all during the ceremony as well. I couldn't have asked for it to go better.

After that was done they did pictures outside. We waited in the lobby area while the upstairs got set up with the food. Every once in a while one of our inside group would need to go out for shots, but it went pretty smoothly. Pierce needed to eat again so I was able to get that taken care of pretty effortlessly. Everyone loved holding him and seeing him. Cindy showed him to Chris and he made a remark about "yeah, just as long as he's staying with them!" (meaning we're not taking any babies with us haha).

Once food was set up we headed back upstairs. Cara didn't want to sit with us so we just left her to her table she was at. Lucy loved the rolls they had, it was basically all she ate. Gwen just wanted the cake (we were sitting next to it so the whole time she just kept asking when we'd get cake). When the dancing started, it was so sweet, Cara told Larry she wanted to dance with him and it just happened to be during the father-daughter dance part so it was so sweet (I wish I had gotten a picture, but I didn't even know it happened. He just told me she came up to ask him to dance so he did). The girls danced with my mom quite a bit so I got shots of that and just soaked in how sweet it was (and how happy this made my mom).

We stayed long enough to eat, dance, watch them cut their cake, get dessert, and then tell them congratulations so it felt like it was a good visit and no one had any meltdowns!

Overall the day was GREAT. The girls behaved SO well and Pierce was such a hit. I couldn't have asked for a better first big occasion and I didn't really stress at all while we were out (breastfeeding sure makes it easy to just go with the flow). Once we got home I immediately got Pierce out of the car seat for our snuggles (I missed them while he was in the seat or in someone else's arms basically the whole time). 

Anyways, congratulations to Andy and Rachel! May you only know happiness and love from here on out and have many many great years together. So glad we could be part of your day, it was gorgeous!!

1 Week Down

 Our first week with Pierce has come and gone. It's been a slower week (as in I can't believe it's ONLY been a week), but it's been a very happy week! I am feeling SO great, physically and mentally. I haven't had to have very many pain killers and the only breakdown I had was after a night of only 4 hours of sleep (he wouldn't let me put him down after 12:30 AM so I was up for a LONG time at that point).

Luckily, the day of the breakdown ended up being one of the funniest days for me. I had to take Pierce to the pediatrician for his 2-3 day checkup (so they can make sure he's gaining enough weight and looking okay so far). I didn't bring the diaper bag as I figured I'd be okay to do a quick appointment without it (yes, I consciously made the decision to not bring the bag, it wasn't like I forgot it). Well I got there and we undressed him so they could measure how tall he was. We then had to take him out to weigh him and when I put him down and took off his diaper I noticed his umbilical cord was no longer there. It was there when he was in the room so we knew it must've fallen off VERY recently. The nurse guy walked back to the room to find it and said he couldn't. I assumed it got rolled up in the diaper they had me throw away so we just brushed it off. When we went back to the room I made a joke that it probably fell down my shirt (the one I was wearing was a bit looser) and we laughed. Then the nurse guy said the Dr. would be in momentarily and we just hung out. After a minute I looked down and found his umbilical cord...down my shirt! Haha. I don't know how I missed it before, but there it was. I had to laugh at that. Well while we were waiting for the Dr. I was just rocking Pierce and he was looking sleepy, then he suddenly had his eyes open and he's looking SO intensely at me. Giving me a look I hadn't seen him give before...then I feel the bubbles in his diaper and smell the stinkiest smell and realize he's probably pooping (and I have NO diaper bag....yes they have diapers there, but I have to tell the pediatrician that I, a 4th time mom, don't have my diaper bag!). After about 45 minutes, the doctor finally comes in. He asked me if I had any questions and we went over what I felt I needed to know that mostly pertained to having a boy. Then he said to lay Pierce down to check him out. I mentioned I think he had pooped and that I didn't have the bag so he gave me a diaper and wipes to use. He quickly looked at his legs and made sure he looked good and told me his weight was only down about 5% so I was doing good and to just keep it up and bring him back at the 2 week mark. I then worked on changing Pierce's diaper. I forgot the golden rule and ended up in a golden shower situation (haha!)...yes, that's right, I got peed on! I did, Pierce did, the table did, everywhere did! I tried to block it with a wipe, for some reason, but obviously that did nothing. So now I had this dirty diaper, pee mess on Pierce, and a pee mess on the table to all get cleaned up. It was NOT easy. After a little bit, I got everything cleaned up, but realized I probably had to let the nurses know in case they needed to sanitize. So, after packing up and heading out I told the guy nurse who helped us and he laughed it off saying it happened all the time and it was no big deal. I left there laughing SO hard. It ended up being the perfect distraction from my exhaustion.

One thing about Pierce is he's VERY snuggly. I absolutely LOVE it! I can't get enough of his snuggles and cute little face and noises he makes when he's sleeping. There's been a few nights, however, that he has not wanted me to put him down so I've had to snuggle him. The first night was the day of the appointment so I was up for MANY hours, but the other two nights I realized I can't just NOT sleep so one of the nights I laid him down in the bed next to me. He slept SO well and for quite a few hours. I mostly rested and then about the last 2 hours of the night I got into a good sleep. The other night I let him sleep on me (he wouldn't go down in the bed again), but I propped myself up on an incline pillow and then used my other pillow to prop my other arm (the one holding him) up. It wasn't ideal but it was nice getting cuddles and I actually got some pretty decent sleep still. 

Nursing this time is SO much easier so far. He has latched on like a champ and does well with feedings. It did feel like he was starting to do the nurse napping that Lucy did and I am NOT about to let that happen. For one, I felt trapped all the time with her. For another, I felt like doing that actually lowered my supply and since formula is very sparse right now I'm not about to do anything to jeopardize my supply. So we started making sure to stop his nursing at the 20 minute mark. If he still acts hungry we switch sides and do that. That seemed to really help. The first night we did that he slept from 1 until 6 without any noises made.

So I have to say so far, this postpartum phase is a LOT easier and going a lot smoother. I feel a lot of that has to do with Larry taking him at the first part of the night, that's always given me anxiety in the past. I know we'll have to get him used to a more normal bedtime routine eventually, but I'm in no rush if this is helping me. Right now it's getting him down for bed that really needs to be worked on. The rest of the days are running pretty smoothly so far, which is SO nice.

Speaking of sleep, his is the usual hit and miss newborn sleeping. Larry takes him from 8 until about 12 and lets me get a good chunk of sleep to start the night out. I've started pumping to give him enough for a bottle in case he needs in within that time frame. After midnight it's all on me. This has helped SO much. First, it helps me get such GOOD sleep right at the start so if the rest of the night isn't ideal I do good enough for the day. Second, it helps me get fuller for bigger night feedings. Unfortunately, the first night, once Larry brought him in, he wouldn't go longer than 20 minutes without needing me. By about 5 that morning he finally would go down, but man, those 5 hours were REALLY long. The second night he did better. Then we had the few "needing to be on mom" nights. Then when we started topping off his feedings during the day he slept MUCH better. That was just last night so I'm hoping they continue to be good. Although I will say going from 1 to 6 without any feedings and snuggles made me miss him so I made sure to let him snuggle on me from 6 until 7:30 when we HAD To be up for the day.

Today we had my brother's wedding, our first real event since he was born. We had a mad dash type of morning (Getting all 6 of us not only ready, but dressed up, with our hair done, was quite the feat!), but we were able to get out of the house mostly on time and to the wedding early enough to visit with everyone. Pierce was a hit and did amazing. We had to feed him once and then he kind of slept the rest of the time. I was very happy with how it went.

That sort of thing would normally stress me out so much with a new baby, but I've actually been able to keep a steady mindset so far. I think it helped me to make sure I had a lot of affirmations before having Pierce ready. I've made a few vision boards and one of them has pins in it so when I draw out an affirmation, I can pin it to the board. I haven't needed them yet, but it's nice knowing it's there. I've also done great just making sure I'm more in the moment and remembering that this is our last baby so while it can be hard, it's not forever and I know I'll miss these moments and days when he's older. I feel like I'll blink and he'll be 1 and I'll wonder where my babies all went. I also love to watch little newborn reels on Instagram, those really help me. And I just remind myself to be calm when I feel I might be getting overwhelmed or stressed out. All of these combined have really helped me so far.

Another thing I've noticed is that the first 3 months with a newborn mimick the first 3 months of pregnancy. At least, for me they do. I'm always just wanting to be lazy, I go to bed earlier, be more relaxed on screen time and just doing whatever helps me take it easy. Knowing I got through 3 months of it for my pregnancy helps me with the newborn phase.

Baby Boy Pierce Has Arrived

You read that right - we got ourselves a son!!!

So, to fully cover the birth of our baby we have to start with Thursday. First off, I decided to do a full day of "soft foods" to avoid any, let's say bowel issues during labor (I know they are common, but if I could avoid it, I wanted to). This ended up being a HUGE mistake and made me feel extremely nauseas so by dinner I decided I should eat something more solid (I just did Ramen Noodles since it's more soupy and still pretty soft). I knew I was on the induction schedule for Friday and my previous experiences said they'd call Thursday to give me a time to go in to be induced. I waited in anticipation SO anxiously all day for that call. Finally around 2:30 I got the call, but instead of them giving me a time, they said I'd get a call on Friday (today) about an hour and a half before I have to go in. They said they could call me as early as 5 AM so I should keep my phone on during the night just in case. This was very different than before, but I just figured we'd have my mom come stay over Thursday night and we'd just get as prepped as we could that night so that we'd be as ready as possible. I wanted to go to bed early on Thursday so I could say I got a lot of good sleep before things changed in a big way, but my mom didn't get to our house till around 8 so we chatted for a bit and then I knew I had to shower and get the hospital bag packed. I didn't end up going to bed till closer to 11...whoops haha.

All night I tossed and turned just expecting my phone to ring, but also trying not to look at the clock so I didn't really know what time it was. I did look at one point and it was about 5:15 so I kept thinking "my phone could ring ANY second...don't get into too deep a sleep" and so I was basically up from then on. At 6 it finally rang, only they didn't give us the 90 minute warning, they asked if we could be there by 6:45. STRESS! I wanted to eat cereal, do my makeup, fix my hair, get the final stuff packed into the bag, SO much. It was a mad dash to get ready, eat something, and leave within 15 minute.       

We got to the hospital right on time (thankfully) and got all checked in. We were set up in a room, on a bed, hooked up to the monitors by 7:20. They checked my cervix and said it was still only a 3, but it was good enough. They did mention my cervix was VERY high up so it was harder to check things (and a lot more painful than I remembered from previous births), but as I progressed the baby should move further down and it should be okay. They asked if I wanted my epidural before they broke my water, but I told them no. They asked if I wanted to start any pitocin, and I told them no. I really wanted to get as close to my experience with Lucy as possible. I told them I'd want to have my water broken and see what my body does after that and have Pitocin be a completely last thing to try. They got the lovely hook out to break my water and HOLY MOLY did that ish hurt! It felt like a piercing feeling and it was the most uncomfortable part. Unfortunately, after a few attempts it just wasn't working (the bag was too high and too tough, which REALLY made it fun) so they grabbed this thing that was more of a pin prick to get it started. They got it pricked, but they mentioned the hole would be very tiny so I should get up and walk to see if the hole would open up more. I stood up and watched the heart rate and contraction monitor while kind of waddling back and forth in place, on my feet. After a few minutes of that I felt some dripping and realized it worked and I could sit back on the bed. 

I started feeling contractions and when they came to check on me I went from a 4 to a 5. The contractions were feeling pretty strong so when they asked if I wanted to do my epidural, I told them yes, but I wanted to make sure that I was progressing quickly enough (I know an epidural can slow things down once you get it and I didn't want to do that, but I also didn't want to risk not having one like I almost did with Lucy's birth). My midwife assured me I was doing good and it should be good timing. This was around 9:45 AM. 

I was a bit nervous about the epidural since my one with Cara was a bit rough. I didn't really feel it with Gwen by the time I had my C-Section and with Lucy I had a spinal instead. However, this time it worked really, really well. My anesthesiologist's name was Clint and I want to send him some sort of "thank you for numbing my lady bits so well" bouquet haha. Unfortunately, I think it did start to slow my labor down. They said I was dilating well enough, but the baby just wasn't dropping like it needed to. They recommended a low dose of Pitocin to help things along. I really wanted to do this without that and they said they didn't want to push it on me, but based on how things are it would be MUCH longer if we kept waiting. This was around 11 and I was getting so anxious to start pushing I told them I was okay with it and to get it started. They came in and told me they start at a level 1, then move to a 2, then a 4 and a 6 and so on, every half an hour. They also decided to get the peanut ball out to help things along. As we waited on that it seemed my labor may have slowed down. My contractions when from every 2-3 minutes to every 6-8 minutes and were way lower in intensity, according to the monitor (before I was going from a 30 to 100, after it was going from a 0 to a 40). I was nervous it was going to take way too long to get this baby out of me.

I got to the 2 level of Pitocin and the midwife came in asking if I felt any pressure down there or urge to push. I told her no, but I also couldn't feel my contractions. She said she'd wait a bit (but didn't check me, which I thought was odd) and left. Around 11:30 they flipped me over to the other side and we got moved up to the 6 level of Pitocin. They checked me and said I was about a 7 and baby was much lower so we were looking good. After about 20 minutes the baby fell off the heart monitor so the nurses came in trying to find the heart rate. After about 10 minutes of not finding anything suddenly my midwife and 3 or 4 other people (I honestly lost count so there might have been more) rushed in and started saying something about making sure the baby respiratory specialist was nearby. They checked me and said I was at about a 9.5 cm and that I needed to start pushing. They also gave me oxygen, which I thought was weird, because the only times I needed that with the other labors was when my blood pressure dropped and it hadn't done that at this point. I felt there was some sort of urgency going on, but no one told me why or what was going on. I wasn't worried about the baby since I could feel movements while they searched for the heart rate, but apparently they weren't wanting to risk it. They told me to just start pushing once I felt a contraction (they took the contraction monitor off too so they had to go off of my feelings). I definitely was feeling contractions at this point so when they said I should start pushing I told Larry to push my epidural button. Before, when I pushed it, I could feel the cold running down my back, but I didn't this time so I suddenly though "oh no, I'm probably going to be feeling this!" 

This was getting kind of scary, but I just focused on my pushing during each contraction. I swear it felt like once I was done pushing another contraction was starting or the other one wasn't finished so it was pretty painful and intense. I also work well with encouraging words, but they kept saying things like "Jodi, push! Come on, your baby needs you to push! Think of your baby! Just push!" I couldn't tell if I was pushing right or not with that. Luckily Larry kept saying "you're doing great, the baby is coming. Just keep doing that" which was SO much more helpful. With each push I could literally feel my body opening up and pushing the baby out. It wasn't painful, just a very weird feeling of knowing exactly how much of the baby was out of me. Finally after about 10-15 minutes of pushing I literally felt the baby slide right out and they laid them on my chest.I couldn't see any gender parts and no one said anything as they cleaned me up. I remember saying "what are you?" a few times, but apparently no one heard me. Finally a nurse in the back said "well? Boy or girl?" and I said "I don't know, I can't see" The midwife said out loud "It's a BOY!" 

At 1:01 PM Pierce Rahl Bradsby was born!

I cried the biggest tears ever in so much happiness. I probably would've done the same with a girl, to be honest, it's just such an amazing moment to hear and finally know. I also though "Wow! We did it! We made us a boy!! I get to see what it's like to have a son!" It was probably the single happiest moment of my life! I remember asking Larry "well, should we do Pierce or Archer?" for his name. Larry said he liked Archer better and I knew instantly I really actually wanted Pierce so I just said "really?" and he said "honestly, I like both, as long as we can do Rahl for the middle name." and that's how he got his name haha.

Unfortunately, his coloring wasn't the greatest when he was born. He was very pale so they had to make him cry a bunch to get him to pink up. They also put this hand monitor on him to keep track of his oxygen. They said they wanted the number above 90 and it stayed that way, luckily, but they still weren't sure how to feel since he stayed pale. We decided to do some skin to skin (my absolute favorite part of newborn days) and after a while of that his skin was looking so much better and they felt they could take the monitor off.

We got to the recovery room and immediately ordered food (another favorite part of childbirth for me. I LOVE hospital food haha). We've done a lot of snuggling, skin to skin, sending out messages about the gender, and he's taken to nursing pretty well so far.

So far we've noticed he makes a lot of little sounds. Almost like little mews, in his sleep. They are the cutest sounds. He also cries in his sleep a lot, but only for a second and then he's all good. I'm seriously so in love with this baby. I can't tell if it means more that we got a boy or if it's because he's our last, but I'm just over the moon with my family and cannot wait to have the girls come visit and meet him for the first time.