JD's arrival

So, if you haven't heard, JD is here! We were taken completely off guard by his arrival, I didn't think he'd come so early (ok, so it wasn't really that early, only two weeks). As many of you know, I wanted a May baby, and I had everything planned out, I was going to go see my doctor on Monday May 3rd and have him strip my membranes which has always caused me to go into labor the next day. Obviously Heavenly Father and JD had different plans! Friday April 23rd my back was killing me all day, and then I'm pretty sure thinking back now that I was actually contracting that night around 9, but it didn't really hurt it was just uncomfortable. It just felt like he was stretching and putting pressure on my stomach like he was prone to do. Randy and I went to bed about 11, I woke up because my stomach kind of hurt and I figured it was just because I needed to go to the bathroom. So I got up (thinking it was 5 like every other morning) and looked at the clock, it was midnight, I remember thinking Oh my heck, it's only midnight?! Tonight is going to take forever! So I went to the bathroom came back and laid down, I didn't sleep very good because my stomach hurt. Sometime between 12 and 2:30 Zoe woke up, Randy went and got her and she came in with us for a little bit. Then at 2:30 I got up again to go to the bathroom, when I came back Randy took Zoe back to her bed. I laid down but I couldn't go back to sleep, so I turned on the lamp and looked up in my What to Expect When You're Expecting book to read about Braxton Hicks contractions. In the book it said if you changed position and they were braxton hicks they would go away. So I got up and started walking. To make a long story short, I tried to get the "braxton hicks" contractions to go away until 4 in the morning. Finally I told Randy I thought we should go to the hospital because I knew if I called them they would just tell me to come get checked out anyway. So I called my neighbor Virginia to have her listen for the girls. I told her I was hoping they would just send me home, but that we were going to go get checked out. I still didn't think it was real. When we got to the hospital it took about 20 minutes to even make it up to Labor and Delivery, then we had to ring the bell for service, they had another pregnant lady there that was going to be going in for a C-section so they were a little busy. When they finally got me in the bed and checked me the nurse said, ok there's a bulging sac, and lets see about an 8 or 9. I was like, say again?? I made sure to ask her if I could still have an epidural, yes, that's right, I still got an epidural!! The nurse really wasn't sure what I was dilated to because of the bulging sac so she had another nurse come in and check me. She said she probably had the same thing so they called my doctor. When my doctor got there, he said if we had waited another half an hour to call he wouldn't have been able to deliver me because he was going to be taking his daughter to the airport. Anyway, so he went and changed and got ready. When he came back he said "Ok lets break her sac and get started." I asked him if I'd be able to get an epidural, he told me he didn't think we could. Then the nurse informed him that the anesthesiologist was on his way so my doctor said we could wait a few more minutes for him. Just at that moment the anesthesiologist walked in, oh hallelujah! So he gave me my epidural, then the nurses got everything ready and we started to push, according to me doctor he came in one push, but it was three. I think it was all in one contraction though, so that's probably why he says one push. I took two breathing breaks and kept pushing, so I guess technically maybe it was just one push. Anyway, so he came, all on his own and earlier then I wanted but there's no way I was going to put him back. We are very glad to have him here and be a part of our family, and he shares a birthday with his aunt Weslie who thinks that's just awesome!

(The very end part was written on July 8th, so if it seems a little disconnected that's why)

We're getting ready for our little arrival here at the Grimes house. We finally got the crib set up and I bought a bumper set at Walmart. I decided to post some pictures up so I could share. We are all excited to welcome little JD into our home, only a couple more weeks and he'll be here. I can't WAIT!! I think I'm more excited then miserable, which is nice, I will admit though, at times being pregnant seems unbearable! The girls are so cute, and I can't wait for them to see him for the first time, they give my belly hugs and kisses, it's very cute. I wish I knew if they understood what this really means, there's no way to really know though. Hailey might understand, but I'm not sure if she even does. Here are pictures of his crib:

It's so weird to have blue colored stuff, I'm so used to the pink girly things. In other news, things here are going ok, Hailey is still doing really well in school. She's really good at math and I hope that continues as she progresses. Katie is doing well, I think she'll love going to school next year (preschool) it will be a good distraction for her when Hailey is in school all day. She's so cute when we drop Hailey off, she always yells that she loves her then when we drive away a lot of times she'll say to me "I'm really going to miss Hailey!" They sure can be pretty cute together sometimes, they can also be really awful to each other, I guess that's just what happens with sisters. Then there's Zoe, oh my goodness, what a character she is. She can be the cutest little thing one minute and the next you're ready to shove her in a box and ship her off to the gypsies!! But we sure do love her, she has been so much fun. I don't think we've ever really been able to enjoy this stage because we've always had another baby by this time. It's been a lot of fun to really be able to enjoy it. It feels like it's been forever since we've had a baby, this is number 4 and yet I feel like it's the first. Maybe it's because it's a boy and I know it will be different, but it shouldn't feel like it's been forever since we've had a baby, it's only been 2 1/2 years. Anyway, I don't really have much else to say right now. Hopefully I'll post again soon! Until next time.

Update

So I realize it's been awhile, I really should try to be better at this blogging thing. Oh well, I guess there's worse. Things here are going well, we're ready for Spring, we didn't really go outside at all this week due to the weather, which is really sad because it was Spring Break. I'm down to weekly doctor visits now, which should help the time go by faster, I'm a dork and I made a baby chain. Like the ones you make for Christmas, only this is for our baby. I know, I'm kind of dorky, but I thought it would be fun for the girls (and me) to be able to see how many days are left. Not that you can really know, but it's color coded so they'll know when he can come. He can't come until May, I don't want an April birthday. I know it's odd to hear a pregnant woman wishing her baby will stay in a little longer, most are wishing they'd come as soon as they can survive. Not me, I really REALLY want my May baby!! Everything is going good though, baby seems fine, I'm fine. I'm getting more and more uncomfortable as time goes on, but I'm doing good. Nights are beginning to not be so much fun, I have a bit of a hard time falling asleep which is a really new thing for me. All my life, I have never had a hard time falling asleep. I don't enjoy it at all!! Then of course, I always have to get up at least once to go to the bathroom, and if I eat too late I wake up coughing on stuff that comes up from my stomach. That was probably too much information, but it's my blog so I can write it if I want, right? Anyway, the kids are doing well, Hailey is excited to go back to school tomorrow, I'm really glad she likes school, it makes me happy. At the end of March we put all three girls in the same room, so far it's been ok. It takes them a little longer to go to sleep and they wake up earlier, but it's been good. It will be nice to have the baby in a room all by himself. Our friend is going to let us borrow a crib so Zoe will be staying in a crib for longer which is really good. I wasn't looking forward to having her in a toddler bed. I'm just fine keeping her in a crib as long as she'll stay!!

So I've decided to potty train Zoe, I'm probably crazy because I've heard they backslide when a new baby comes in to the family, but we'll see and hope for the best. My friend let me borrow a little training potty, and Zoe seems to like it. Now I don't need to constantly listen for her to pee, I can let her sit on the potty and I'll be able to see if she goes. Today was the first day and so far we've only had one accident, it was a poopy/wet accident, not fun to clean up but thank heavens for latex gloves!! I don't think I could have taken care of the panties if I didn't have them. We use cloth training pants so it's not fun to clean up accidents. Then I put her back in a diaper for her nap time and that was a little wet when I got her out of bed but not much. We'll see how this goes, like I said maybe I'm crazy, but if I don't train her now it's going to be a while before I do because I can't train her with a nursing baby, I tried that with Katie and it didn't work! Well, I don't have much else to say, I'll keep you updated on the training and the baby. If you want to give guesses as to when JD will come and his size and weight and all that jazz, you might want to do it now :0) He'll be here soon!

Beautiful Day!

Today was such an amazingly good day, it was nice to be able to spend some time as a family outside. So, I may not be writing every day, but I am writing more frequently so that's good. Lately I've been having a lot of weird baby dreams, like this afternoon when I took a nap I had a dream that I was playing basketball (not pregnant that I can remember) then I sat on the floor and my water broke. My doctor (who was one of the drs from Greys Anatomy, one of the girl ones) came and knelt down and said, ok here we go. So we went into this room and she started getting all these supplies ready. Then we went in to this big room where there were a bunch of women in beds (all delivering) and they took me to my bed, number 130. Then I was getting in the shower by my bed, and all I can remember of that was trying to shave my legs. Randy had sent out a text to a bunch of people and his sister Weslie called and was saying she didn't believe we were really at the hospital and Randy asked her why he would send the text to a bunch of people if we weren't really there. Don't ask me why the phone conversation was in my dream. Then I remember I was upset because it was still April, and it was before or right around Weslie's birthday which is the 24th of April. I was really upset that it wasn't May! Anyway, I never did actually give birth to the baby in this one, but it was still weird. I had another dream where I had the baby and I made a comment that he looked like Hailey. I had another dream where I had two babies to breastfeed, one was Zoe and then JD, I remember feeding the older one (Zoe) and then being like I don't have enough for the other one, and I was panicked. Then I said to myself, wait, Zoe's not a baby. It was really odd! So, I've been extremely focused on babies apparently, I don't understand ;0)

I have been getting so anxious to have this little guy here, I can't wait to see him! The thought of having a baby be a boy is really weird to me, I guess that's to be expected after three girls. I am also excited to see how the girls react to him, I'm a little nervous about Zoe, she can tend to be a bit possessive of me. I'm a little nervous about Hailey because she is so hyper, she can be a bit abrasive without meaning to be. I'm worried she's going to constantly be in JD's face! I guess they probably all will be to some degree. Anyway, things are going well with the pregnancy, I've been tired a lot and I'm progressively getting more and more uncomfortable! Nothing is really comfortable anymore, thankfully though, I still seem to be sleeping ok at night. I'm extremely grateful for that, I'm not sure how long that's going to stay. The other day my heart started to race, (which actually hasn't happened that much in this pregnancy) and it took a few minutes to get it kicked out of the fast cycle. I had bent down to pick something up and when stood up my heart started racing and things started to go black. So I went over to the couch and laid down and started to try to knock my heart out of the fast cycle. Usually I can bear down and it knocks it out, but that wasn't working. Then I started to sweat and get really warm so I went upstairs to lay in front of my fan. Finally my heart slowed down and I accidentally fell asleep for about 45 minutes. I'm glad I haven't had too many problems with the fast heart racing this pregnancy (there is an actual term for this, but don't ask me what it is, it was long and I don't remember it). Anyway, so with my mind being on babies, I thought it would be fun to post pictures of my girls when they were babies, I hope you enjoy! Until next time!

Hailey then

Hailey now

Katie then

Katie now

Zoe then

Zoe now

Daily Stuff

So, my goal to write a post everyday hasn't really happened, but I guess it's never too late to start, right? On Saturday Randy and I had the opportunity to go to the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City and enjoy a training with WFG, it was long, we got there at 8 and didn't leave until 6, but it was SOOO worth it!! The speakers were amazing! It was such a thought provoking, eye opening experience. Then as we were getting ready to leave I heard someone say to their dad, "Dad, there's the prophet." So I start to look around and sure enough there he was waiting to get on the elevator. So Randy and I walked over by him (we were three steps away from him). We didn't get to shake his hand or anything because there was a crowd, but it was so neat to see the prophet just walking around in regular life. He was with his wife who was in a wheelchair, someone was pushing her, and I'm pretty sure he had two security guard type guys with him. He was being his usual self and joking around, when we walked over to him there was a girl giving him a hug and she was crying. She was saying, oh this is so embarrassing, President Monson said, something about not wanting to make the girls cry. Then as he was standing right next to the elevator he was standing next to a guy who was taller then him and President Monson made the comment about him squatting a little so he would be shorter then him (President Monson). Anyway, hopefully that all made sense, even though we didn't get to say anything to him or shake his hand it was so awesome to be that close to him. I'm pretty sure that's the closest I've ever been to an apostle let alone the President of the church. It was so amazing!! So that was our weekend, well at least the beginning of it. Sunday was nice, we went to church and all the meetings were great, then we went to our neighbors house for their little girls birthday party. Then after we put the kids in bed we cooked steaks and ate together (we ended up eating at about 10:30) then we watched AFV together. It was a lot of fun! Today I had my doctor appointment and I took Hailey with me. She was very excited to hear JD's heartbeat, but thought it was really funny that I had to pee in a cup. It was kind of funny to hear her tell Virginia went we got home "Mom had to pee in a cup" as she's laughing. When I got on the table and exposed my belly she started to laugh, then when we heard the heartbeat she just stood there with this goofy grin on her face and she would giggle a little. It was a lot of fun to take her, next time it will be Katie's turn. Then I think I'll continue going by myself. I talked to my doctor about what happened on the way home from my last doctors appointment and he said what I was describing was a fainting spell. So apparently for the first time in my life, I fainted, unless you count the time I made myself pass out (do you remember when that was big to lean over breath in and out really fast then stand up and put your hands around your neck and cut off the air until you faint? I did that). He didn't seem to concerned about it, then I talked to him about my heart, and he didn't seem to worried about that either. He did check my chart and make sure we had all my labs done which we have and they all look good. So we'll just take it one day at a time and see how it goes. For the most part things are going well, I am getting so ready though, walking isn't too much fun anymore, thankfully I've still been sleeping pretty well. I won't be surprised if that changes soon though, it's just a part of the last 8 weeks. Actually if you really want to get technical it's 7 weeks and 5 days! I am however hoping that it's only 7 weeks from tomorrow, that is if he follows the same pattern as his sisters. If he does I'll go to the doctor on Monday May 3 and have my doctor strip my membranes and JD will come the next day! I'm not sure if it will work this time, because I've never had a boy! We are all getting very excited for this little one to come, it will be a lot of fun, a lot of work, but a lot of fun!! Well, hopefully I can write again tomorrow and then the post won't have to be so long! Until next time, have fun.

Grateful

So, I really haven't blogged a lot lately, but I've decided I want to try to write a post every night before I go to bed so that I can share all the funny and amazing things that happened. Sort of like a journal, which, I really should be keeping one on paper as well. Anyway, so I titled this post grateful because lately I have been so grateful for my kids. I am so amazed that they are mine! I've been getting really excited to meet JD and to see what he'll be like. This morning I woke up at 6 because I had to go to the bathroom, and I never did fall back asleep. JD was moving like crazy so I decided I would sit up and watch him move. In total JD fashion, as soon as I sat up he stopped moving, so I decided to read the Ensign. It was nice to sit there and read uplifting messages, it was such a nice start to my day. Then I got up at 7 so I could shower and get ready for the day, but before I did that I said a prayer. It was so nice to have a quiet un-rushed moment to thank my Father in Heaven for all of my blessings. After my shower, I was sitting on my floor putting on my make up when I heard Zoe, she was singing Angels We Have Heard on High (which she calls Gloria). It was so much fun to just sit there and listen to her. All she sings is the long drawn out Gloria in excelsis deo. She kept singing that over and over, sometimes in an extremely high pitched voice, it almost sounded like a mouse. I just smiled and laughed, it was so cute to listen to her. Then she started shouting, "I'm singing Mom, Mom, I'm singing" so I finally knocked on her door and waited for her "come in" then I got her out of bed. Last night when I put her to bed she wanted her church shoes, so I gave them to her, when I got her this morning she was wearing them. She was so cute this morning, I really enjoyed the time we had before everyone else was awake. So I was supposed to have a doctor appointment today, I was completely ready, I even curled my hair, I had Hailey all ready. We were getting into the van at 9:40, which is on time, those who know me know what a big deal that is!! As I was getting Hailey in I got a phone call, it was a number I didn't recognize but I decided to answer it anyways. It was my doctors office, calling to let me know he was coming in today and that I would need to reschedule. It would happen on a day where I was completely ready and out the door on time. Oh well, I'll just have to make sure I'm out the door on time Monday too. Anyway, now that I've rambled on and brought on the cheesiness, I'm not sure what to say! I only talked about Zoe, but Hailey and Katie are awesome and amazing too! Hailey says the funniest things! I love Katie's expressions, especially when she's telling you something that she's excited about. We've been spending a lot of time outside, and I've been trying to take more pictures because I realized the other day we haven't taken very many, I didn't have any pictures of Christmas morning. We got a video but now still pictures. That's so sad!! So now, I'm taking as many as I can! Here's some I've taken recently:

I look like crap in this picture, but Zoe is pretty cute so I posted it. She was having a hard time falling asleep so I took a nap with her.

It's a little fuzzy, but she's still super cute!

Playing outside, she's so cute.

She was so concentrated on her game!

She wanted the flower in her hair

I ABSOLUTELY love this picture! I couldn't have posed her any cuter!

Randy was helping Hailey learn to ride her bike without training wheels.

She's so flippin cute!

I don't really have much to say about this one, but I commented on the rest so I thought I would on this one too.

Such a cutie!

Well, hopefully this post wasn't too mushy for you and you made it all the way to the end. So, look for daily posts, even if they're only one liners. I'm going to see if I can do it, at least for one week. So, until tomorrow!!

St. George and stuff

So this past weekend we went to St. George, it was so nice to just get away for a couple of days. We went down at the same time as our good friends Marc and Heather Grimes (no immediate relation) and we got to hang out with them a lot. We watched a movie and played games at Marc's brothers house on Friday, then Saturday afternoon we went shooting. It was a lot of fun, I even shot our 40 caliber glock and it was much better outside then in a shooting range. I also shot a 9 mm, a 22 rifle and a shotgun. We also did some skeet shooting, which I am TERRIBLE at, but it was still a lot of fun. Then we hung out the rest of the afternoon and then we went to dinner. We drove home on Sunday. It was so nice to have it just be the two of us for a couple of days, this will be the last trip before JD gets here. I'm now getting close to the 8 weeks to go portion and I'm not exactly looking forward to it. The last 8 weeks are so hard, but it will be nice the closer we get because then it will be over!! So the other day an extremely odd thing happened to me while driving home from the doctors office. I get these aches that are hard to explain, but I'll try, it feels like my body hurts because it has no energy. That probably doesn't make sense, but it's unpleasant to say the least. Anyway, so I had this a little at my doctors visit and it persisted while I was driving home, but was steadily getting worse. While I was driving down Main Street in Spanish Fork it hurt to have my arms stretched out to the steering wheel. So I tried rolling my window down a little because usually if I can have cold air on me it helps. I have to mention that I took Zoe with me to this doctors visit, poor thing. Anyway, so I get on the freeway and decide the window isn't working so I turn the air on full blast on cold ( I was in the car not the van). I did at least turn one of the middle vents off and the other one was pointing at me to try to keep it from hitting Zoe. So it is progressively getting worse as I'm driving on the freeway, after I pass the Springville/Provo exit things get really weird, my vision starts to cloud up, so I decide I need to pull over. After I did, I sat there for a minute and it felt really hard to breath, so I laid the seat back. As I was doing this my hearing also sort of went muffled too, I accidentally got Zoe's leg caught between the back of my seat and the side of her car seat so she started to cry. It took me a couple of seconds to realize why, and so I put my seat back up, moved her leg and laid my seat down. I probably laid there anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes, I was trying to sing and count with Zoe to keep her distracted. It took a lot of effort to talk, just like when you're half asleep and you REALLY have to work to get the words out. As soon as I laid back, the feeling started fading away, and after the 5 or 10 minutes I was finally ok enough to drive home. After I got home I went straight up to my bed and laid down, my body felt the same as when you go outside in the winter when it's cold and you do hard work. When you come in, the inside of your body feels warm, but the outside is cold. That's what I felt like, anyway, I slept for about an hour, got up and ate and then put Zoe down for a nap then laid back down for a couple of hours. It was such an odd experience!! I really hope I don't go through that again, I did talk to my visiting teacher who used to be a nurse practitioner and she said it's just a hormonal thing and it isn't anything to really worry about. I will talk to my doctor about it when I go in next week, but so far I haven't had that experience again. Well, I don't have much else to say right now, I'll do a post on Hailey's birthday, but I'd like her to help me write it. Since she's in bed, that's not going to happen right now, but soon. I'll also post some pictures of our shooting excursion and Hailey's birthday and other stuff. There's a lot more to update on, but for now, I'm done!!