Meeting the Sisters!

Olivia and Ellie came down to the hospital with Allison to meet Adam that afternoon. They were very excited to see him, and generally curious about exploring the hospital.

My first 24 hours in the hospital were really difficult for me, because of pain. I had an incredible amount of pain throughout my hips and my lower back. The first time I stood up I thought I was going to collapse. It took a good 24 hours and lots of pain medication to get the pain under control. It took several weeks after the birth for the pain to go away, as well. It was definitely my most difficult recovery, and I was not prepared for that.

We also struggled with nursing (again!). We could not get Adam to latch on, and when he did, he would fall off quickly. He had a poor latch, so I was getting bruised and sore from nursing. Because it took so long to get him to nurse, his blood sugar had dropped, and he had to have it continually testing over the next couple days to make sure he was maintaining his blood sugar. His poor little feet were so cut up, he probably had about 10 poke marks on each of his feet. We continued to have nursing troubles at home for the next several weeks.

Adam was a great sleeper in the hospital, though. Our first night he slept for 5 hours straight, and probably would have slept longer if we didn't try to get him up to nurse.

We were excited to get him home, and the girls were happy to have everyone back. When we got home, Olivia asked me when the other baby was coming out. I realized she thought I was still pregnant, since I still had a tummy, and I told her that Adam was the baby, and that there wasn't another one in Mommy's tummy. She still couldn't process that, and kept telling me that my stomach was big, so I finally told her that I was just fat, and there wasn't another baby. That seemed completely reasonable to her, and she didn't ask again :) She loved to hold him, and would go running onto the couch and ask us to put him in her arms. They were so sweet together, and once she even fell asleep holding him.

Ellie seemed to struggle with having a new baby around. She was never mean to the baby, but she seemed concerned that she was being replaced. It just took some extra attention from us and extended family to reassure her that she was, indeed, still absolutely adorable and loved.

Adam Jeremy Boulton!

Adam Jeremy Boulton was born on December 3, 2013 at 7:00 AM, and I was so ready for him to come! My last couple of months of pregnancy were particularly uncomfortable. I was hardly sleeping, dealing with pelvic girdle pain and swelling (neither of which I had with the my other two pregnancies, so that was new territory), and a particularly nasty case of PUPPS.

I started to have some mild contractions on December 2 in the mid-morning. I wasn't sure how fast my labor would progress, so I called my sister to come watch the kids once they were about 10 minutes apart. Unfortunately, after a few hours, they completely stopped, and I sent my sister home in the evening. I woke up at 2:30 AM to some fairly strong contractions, which, once I timed, were coming 2 1/2 minutes apart. I woke Jeremy, we dragged Allison back up to our house again, and left for the hospital.

It felt like we were four-wheeling on the way to the hospital, every bump in the road felt so exaggerated to me. By the time we got to the hospital, I was in a pretty good amount of pain. Jeremy was great at getting me registered, and the nice part of going to the hospital in the wee hours of the night is that you can get great parking! By 4:00 AM, we had gotten to my room and I had changed into a gown and were ready to meet our nurse and get things moving along. Just as I sat down on the bed, my water broke (the first time it broke naturally, so glad that didn't happen in the car!). There was meconium in my amniotic fluid (just like Olivia), so we would need the special nursery present at the birth so they could ensure that his lungs were clear. The nurse got my IV in, and checked me, I was dilated to 7 cm, and let the anesthesiologist know I wanted an epidural. The epidural went smoothly, and I was feeling good really soon. Throughout my labor, I kept getting extremely nauseated. When this would happen, I would get really hot and my blood pressure would drop. It was a horrible feeling, my head would start spinning and I would start to feel light headed. I was so weak Jeremy would have to hold the barf bag for me, but I couldn't even sit up because I was so weak, so I would often get my gown a little messy.

At 6:50 AM my nurse came in with another nurse. Her shift was over in 10 minutes, so she was introducing me to the new nurse and updating her on my case. She was going to check me again, and would then call my doctor and have her come down for the delivery. As she was getting ready to check me, I felt sick again. Jeremy was up helping me not to get myself all messy, and as I threw up, the nurse says, "I don't think your doctor is going to make it, the baby just crowned!" She told me to try and not to push for a little bit so they could get everyone in the room who needed to be there. She started calling people on her walkie-talkie thing, including the special nursery who would need to check Adam's lungs. I felt sick again, and threw up once more, and the nurse said, "He's out! He's here!" As I lay there completely light headed, I see her put the baby on the bed, talk into her walkie-talkie again and let the other nurses know that "We have a baby here, right now!". Jeremy was at the foot of the bed with the most horrified look on his face. I thought something might actually be wrong with the baby he looked so disgusted. Within a few seconds, several nurses and a doctor came rushing in to help. I really don't remember much of the details, because I was feeling so sick, but I remember yelling at Jeremy to get the camera and start taking pictures and not just stand there and stare. Adam was born at 7:00 AM weighing 8 pounds 1 ounce, and in great shape!

Ironically, since Adam came so easily and unexpected, they were having a hard time getting my placenta delivered. Just as they were about to give me pitocin to start my contractions up again, it finally came out. My doctor walked into the room about 5 minutes after I delivered, and we had a good laugh over her missing everything.

Halloween

This Halloween was a lot of fun, mostly because Olivia is really starting to understand and look forward to the festivities. This is the first time I felt like I could really let her choose her own costume. I started by pulling up a bunch of kids' costumes on Amazon, and showing her them to give her some ideas. I assumed she would want to be a fairy, or princess, or butterfly, or something like that. I was surprised when she told me she wanted to be a witch. So over the next couple of weeks, I continued to ask her what she wanted to be, to see if a consistent trend emerged. She continued to tell me she wanted to be a "nice witch". Once she had me convinced, we ordered a really cute costume. Olivia was so excited for Halloween, she would ask us everyday if it was "Halloween day" yet. We had to keep telling her not yet, but soon!

The girls were lucky to have three Halloweens this year. The first was at my work/the girls' daycare. Every year we have a daycare parade, and all the employees line up to give out candy. Daddy came, and we scored big time. We had a ward trunk or treat at our ward Halloween party. In one of the trunks, a man was hidden under some blankets and would reach out whenever a kid tried to get some candy from a pot. This really disturbed Olivia. She only calmed down once I had her convinced that it was just a Daddy, like our Daddy, being silly and trying to make us laugh. Ellie was not phased at all by the scare tactic, and walked up and grabbed her candy while completely ignoring the groping arm.

Our last Halloween occurred on, well, Halloween. Allison came up to help Jeremy go around with the girls. Rachelle stayed home to hand out candy, and to elevate her feet (they have been really swollen in the final months of this pregnancy). The girls loved going around. Several of our neighbors have dogs, which Ellie was immediately drawn to. They even would let her come inside to see them. We ended up with quite the stash of candy thanks to Ellie. She would walk up, take a piece of candy, bring it back to Jeremy, who was holding her bag, and go back for more. I guess she was just too cute, because at every door they would let her go back a couple times. So she ended up with 3 times as much candy as Olivia, who understood that you only got one piece.

For days after, we often had a candy graveyard in our front room, which required nightly vacuuming. We also had some interesting nights when we had to cut off the candy supply, much to the horror of our girls.

Olivia's 3rd Birthday

Olivia turned 3 in August, and we celebrated by having a party in our new house! This was Olivia's first party with "friends" and not just family. We had some adorable little kids over, mostly from Olivia's daycare. Her birthday party was princess themed, so we started by decorating crowns with gems. We played a game of "put the lips on the frog", and also had a pinata. It was so cute to see all of the kids trying to hit the pinata - I thought they would be much more violent with it, but they were all fairly timid. Ellie was the one to finally break it (with Mommy's help). After a small lunch, we opened presents. Olivia was so excited to get her gifts, and Ellie was really good at not getting into the mix of things too much.