NICU

Julia got sick :( She is all better now but for a while there it was no fun.

She had a stomach bug for 4 days, and on day 4, Saturday, I took her to the pediatrician. She checked out ok, still just a low fever. But later on that day, her fever got worse. She was pretty lethargic, and was only eating for a minute or two.


Here she was that day, unusually sleepy.

I called the pediatrician back, and he said to take her to the ER, which was a 45 minute wait. They asked me what was going on, and I told them she was only 3 weeks old, and that her fever was 101.7. They were pretty serious about that and got us back right away.

The ER doctor needed blood and an IV. ER nurses are great at what they do, but babies are not their specialty. It was pretty much a 2 hour scream fest for poor Jewels. They poked her at least 7 times, and never could get a blood sample. The dr told me they wanted to do a spinal tap and the idea of that was terrifying. That was the worst. In fact, he didn't want me to nurse her because he said most babies cry so hard they throw up. :(

I didn't want the spinal tap. But the dr was very firm with me, she needed it. It is the only way to rule out meningitis which is life threatening. I felt like I was giving my consent to the worst procedure. I felt so awful. I was not allowed to stand next to her while they did it. Thankfully, it went well. She didn't cry as hard as I thought she would. The ER dr, who is not a warm and fuzzy pediatrician, did a great job, but never really reassured me. I asked several times if she was ok. He said yes, but didn't elaborate, so I felt like I had to keep asking.

Julia also needed a catheter for a urine sample. She looked so vulnerable, all spread out. :( It was terrible. I'm glad I got to be with her for that, but it was hard to see. She was so sad.

Since they still needed a blood sample and three different nurses tried poking her without success, they finally called in the specialists, the NICU nurses, to do it. That was when things got better. They were so calm and their main concern was keeping Julia comfortable. They wrapped her up, got a binky, and some sucrose water for her. Once she was calm, they did an IV in the only place left to try to find a vein, on her scalp. The swaddling and sucrose did the trick. She hardly even fussed when they put the IV in.

An infection was found in her bladder and blood work showed her CRP levels were elevated. She was admitted to the NICU that night.

The NICU nurses were so sweet, they put a little bow in her hair.



She got some antibiotics in her IV, and was hooked up to all sorts of monitors. Despite that, it was so comforting to have her there. She was taken care of so well.





She perked up soon after the antibiotics and looked like herself again. :)

Monday morning they were still not sure when she would be released, so I ran home for an hour just to shower and change my clothes. When Dallin saw me, he excitedly said, "MAMA!" then with a look of disappointment said, "Where's the baby?" I was so worried about him being jealous, but he loves his little sister. Here he was with her the week before she got sick:



They watched her blood work closely, and on Monday evening her CRP levels were closer to normal and she was discharged. I was glad to go home, the NICU is not super comfortable for Mom. There isn't a bed to sleep in, and two nights of no sleep was more than enough for me.

So glad that is over, and she is doing great again. :) She is a healthy strong girl!

Girly

I painted her toenails!

Home

Behind

Ever since I started working, blogging became a low priority. I have so many updates that I want to go back and do. I will try to get caught up over the summer, but in the mean time, I am going to work on the present.
Here we go!

Julia

Miss Julia Schwab was born on May 6th, 2014. She is beautiful! And despite my difficulty trusting the ultrasound, she is in fact, a girl!

I had a contraction that morning at 4:00am. I figured it was no big deal, and recognizing sleep as the commodity that it is, went back to sleep. At 4:30, another one woke me. So I got up.

I didn't want Brian to miss work for no reason, so I needed to figure out if I really was in labor. So I walked around, and took a shower. Contractions kept going. Next 12 minutes, then only 6. Brian got up at 5:15am, normal time for him. He could tell I was hurting and I told him I thought I was in real live labor. That was kinda cool since I never went into labor before.

My wonderful MIL came to our house and we left for the hospital just before 6am. Oh my gosh. Natural child birth hurts.

Once at the hospital things moved fast, fast. Let's just say, those last 30 minutes were bad. Poor Brian, I was climbing up his arm, panicking and bawling.

Then, just after 8am, this beautiful little person was here:




She was tiny! Only 6 lbs 4 ounces. When they said that weight, I almost told the nurse to weigh her again, since my babies are usually so much bigger. But she is just a dainty little thing. Dainty but strong! She was holding her head up right away, and took to nursing just a few minutes after being born.






This picture of her legs all stretched out cracks me up. This is exactly how she would lay in my belly. Her legs would stretch straight out, poking out one side.






You can get an idea how small she is, Brian's hand covers her whole body.

The boys were so smitten with her right away. It was special watching them meet her.






We are so lucky to have this beautiful little girl. We love you Julia!

Grandpa John's

This was my favorite thing about visiting my Grandpa's. The boys found this wagon outside and started playing with it. I noticed some little exhaust pipes on the back and started thinking it looked familiar. I realized it is the same wagon that I played in as a little girl! My dad added those exhaust pipes years ago! I love having a picture of my boys playing with it too.



My grandpa made the boys some stilts to have fun with.





Dallin of course was too small to use his so Brian gave them a try.


My dad came down from Oregon to visit too. So of course they were doing the guy thing of standing around a car and chatting.



He brought his huge dog, a great dane, too. That dog thinks he is a kid. So he jumped in and rode around the back of the mowers just like my kids.



One of the things Blake was most excited about was playing poker. My grandpa had been saving up his coins, and the boys played poker with Grandpa John. They loved it! And luckily it didn't really matter who won. It was just about playing and having fun.



On our last day there, we went to a fish hatchery. It was neat to see these big pools of water with so many fish in them! There were so many you couldn't see the bottom.



When the boys threw a handful of food in, the water churned up so much from all the fish.





It was a great visit and I know the boys will remember this for a long time!

Off to California

My grandpa decided to have us come on out and visit him. I am not much of a fan of flying (like I have panic attacks), but we packed up and off we went. He lives in Northern California, so we flew to the Sacramento airport.

Understatement alert, it is not easy to travel with kids.

We had so much luggage! All necessary stuff. We left super early on a Friday morning and were doing so good on time when we pulled into the long term parking. We started to kind of relax, got the kids some snacks, got our baggage out really slow and sauntered on over to the shuttle. Then the shuttle took forever! 45 minutes went by from the time we got on, to when we got to the Southwest check in. By the time we made it through that line, we were getting warned that due to our late check in, our bags were not guaranteed to get on our flight.

The kids were already getting restless since we had woke them at 4am, Dallin was asking to pee, and we still had to get though the security line. I looked over at that line and realized it wound around all the way down to the baggage claim area. There was no way we were going to make it. But southwest had alerted them that we were coming and a security officer was waiting for us. They pulled us to the front of the line and had us scanned in no time at all. Miraculously, we made it to our flight.

We flew from SLC to Las Vegas, then on the Sacramento. When we landed in Vegas, the plane cleared out almost entirely. So we moved to the front of the plane for more leg room. The stewards and pilot were taking their break and chatting there at the front too. They saw our boys and invited all 3 of them to the cock pit to sit in the pilots seat. They let them push all sorts of buttons. They were awesome and the kids loved it!

A second take off and landing later, we made it to California. I was feeling a little nostalgic seeing all the agriculture of that area. After a couple hours of driving, we pulled into my Grandpa's place.

He got a bunch of lawn mowers ready for the boys to drive around his property.





The boys loved it! They loved the space, and seeing my Grandpa. Brian really liked being so far out in the boonies that there was no cell phone coverage and no internet. I liked the no cable TV thing. It was also kind of fun to see this:



When I was 15, just shortly after my grandpa bought this property, he poured some concrete and let me write my name in it. It was still there! Along with my handprint. More to come....

Trick or Treating

We have been so busy lately, I am finally getting around to posting these.

Kyle and Blake were originally going to be Star Wars themed this year so I got Dallin a Yoda to match. Then they changed their minds and were both super heroes. So I got him a Captain America instead.

Dallin had a cute little Halloween party at his preschool where he got to be dressed up. He was sure cute!







Kyle and Blake's school always does a parade for the parents so I headed on down for that.



Finally, the moment the boys had been waiting for! CANDY TIME! :)





At the last minute, I decided to dress up too. I got on pinterest to get some fast/easy/cheap ideas. And one idea from pinterest stuck out. I was pinterest.



Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Carving!

Halloween is so fun with the boys. Earlier this week we got our pumpkins carved. Wow, that was a mess! We grew our own pumpkins this year. Last year, when we carved pumpkins, we did most of it outside on the porch to save on clean up. The seeds got tossed out into the flower bed and a pumpkin plant grew there! I also grew some intentionally in the backyard.

One of the pumpkins was so hard it was like cutting wood. Brian used his dremel tool for cutting it. It turned out pretty good!



Here is Blake, showing me the guts! :)



Dallin had a great time poking the pumpkin with the carving tool. He wanted a moon, and he wanted a scary face. Then he wanted a happy face. Though he kept changing his mind, he ended up happy with what he got.



Kyle picked out the largest pumpkin of all, it was huge! I am surprised that it stood upright. It turned out amazing! And Blake wanted to do Frankenstein. Everybody's turned out pretty good.