BABY UPDATE

I love the contrast between the peaceful, serene, angelic look on his face in the first picture...as compared to the look of alarm and fear in the second to last picture with his sisters.

Below is LUKE at 3 weeks!

The Master Arrives...

...the Jedi Master that is.  Hold on, seriously?  Am I turning this wonderful holiday birth announcement into a lam-o star wars thing????  No.  Well, maybe.

Benjamin Luke Edwards entered our world at 9:43am on (Black*) Friday, November 25th.  


If you want the gory details, stay tuned till after all the pics.

We are calling him Luke.
(Hence the Jedi Master bit)

  He was 7 pounds and 21 inches long.  Skinny legs, skinny arms and extra long fingers and toes.  Our little guy has BIG eyes when they are actually open.  I love that.  It reminds me of Haylee a bit when she was a baby. He has a little hair on top (not sure of the color yet) and a little fuzz all over everywhere else.   He was/is still but not as much sooooooo soft!  So precious and sweet too.  In the hospital he hardly cried at all, slept thru his PKU even!  He likes to make funny faces which I also love because that reminds me of Cambree (and his Dad).


The girls were so timid at first when they came to see me in the hospital.  It didn't take too long, however, for all the kisses and "huggies" and loves and squeezes and prodding and regular questions and uncomfortable questions to come out.  They are so good and gentle and sweet with him.  They always want to hold him and sing to him and help me.  

 

Gory details anyone? This is for posterity's sake.  And me.  So I can remember when  he asks me later.  And for anyone else who cares. Here goes:  Luke was a scheduled c-section.  I got the choice to do a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) or schedule a c.  I chose to do a VBAC until right before my due date when nothing and I mean nothing was progressing.  I felt like I would probably end up being induced and I didn't want to be induced.  All the risks multiple when you do a VBAC while being induced.  So, along with some other reasons, I decided to schedule a c section for Friday, 2 days after my official due date.

Funny enough, I started having contractions Thanksgiving Day.  I will always remember it...spreading peanut butter and cheez wiz on a pile of celery with some of my neices and having to pause every so often and watch them stare at me while I cringed.  Falling asleep during the football game, curled up on the couch.  Being all around anti social (Sorry Edwards family!) Having only 2 bites of everything before feeling stuffed.  Not helping with the dishes.  Being up all night wondering if I should have made my doc take him out on Thanksgiving Day.  Being up all night remembering how painful it really is to give birth.  Being up all night, wondering if my nephew in the next room could hear me groaning in agony.  (Sorry Cameron if you did!)

Lucky for me, they didn't make me wait it out and give birth the normal way.  BJ and I got up around 5 (very easily for the first time in our lives, didn't even need our alarms) and got ready to go.  I was prepped and poked and plugged and drugged.  Since I had been put all the way out with Cambree it was a very different experience to be awake and to hear and feel (well, sort of feel) the whole thing.  Strange.  It was.  I kept saying "this is so weird, this is so weird..." to the nice anesthesiologist at my head.  I will always remember my doc when making sure the drugs were working said, "I'm pinching you really hard now Julie" and laughing about it.  Riiiight.  So hard I can almost feel it.  I will also remember the smell of someone's  burning flesh (not mine,  that would be sickening) and BJ saying "you don't want to know what they're doing now"  

Finally, they pulled our little guy out.  We knew right away our son had personality.  And a sense of humor.  When I heard my doc exclaim something about being peed on.  And then her assistant screaming about not aiming him at her.  Ha.  Ha.  And then seeing a tiny gray baby boy being held up for me to see.  And then, minutes later, hearing more exclamations and pee related remarks as he was bathed and measured.  Ha.

Turns out it was a good thing I planned my c section.  Luke came out with the cord wrapped tightly around his neck and several times around his little body.  With the stress of labor, he probably would have had a hard time and I would most likely have had another c anyway.  If you have a VBAC, they will do a repeat c section if there is even a hint of a problem.  So I felt good about my decision.  Now, if I choose to have 6 more kids, I will be able to plan what day I choose to have them cut out of me.

Recovery is in progress.  I said a tearful farewell to my closest buddy, Mr. Percocet and I'm handling it well on some days and not so well others.  It is overwhelming being a mother of 3 for me but I am slowly getting used to it.  I have an amazing support system.  AMAZING!  I feel so lucky and I know how blessed I am to have so many people ready to help me whenever I need it.  And I've needed it.  Millie.  My mom and bestest girl friend.  My amazing husband.  I know I've used that word a lot be he is the best.

Luke is doing great.  He is eating well and gaining weight and usually, sometimes sleeps well.  No schedule yet.  But we'll get there.  

 * We inquired if he counted as a door-buster and whether we could get half off our hospital stay since it was the deal day of the year but unfortunately, no one else thought it was as good an idea as we did.

Life Events

In 2 days (or less, ha ha ha) we will be welcoming our third child into this world.  Is that not amazing?  I cannot wait to meet him.  Guess it's a good thing I don't have to wait much longer.  My curiosity is trying to get the better of me, too bad there's no possible way he can win, at least not on his time frame.  

As I watch our 2 girls get bigger and taller and smarter and older...I am reminded of how different life is with a baby around.  But that's just it.  It's been 4 years since we've had a baby around and I know there are millions of things about life with Baby that I'm forgetting.  Not to mention the fact that this one will be different.  He's a boy, how could he not be?  And our lives are so different now.  We will have 3.  Got that?  T H R E E.  Wow.  

A long time ago, BJ read some article about big life events and we refer to it often, getting a good chuckle each time we think about it.  Big life events.  Things like relocating, starting a new job, a death in the family, an addition to the family, becoming vegan, painting the living room chartreuse, joining weight watchers, learning Mandarin...you know, big things.  So the article said you should really try to space out these big life events.  Like, put years in-between them.  Don't you think that's funny?  I do.  We don't work that way as I'm sure most people don't.  I mean, you do what you can, right?  

This time we decided it would be in our best interest to have a baby on Black Friday, 4 days after BJ starts a new job whilst in the middle of painting our bedroom.  Right before the holidays.  Right in the middle of undone laundry and untakencareof voles attacking the back yard of the home we have owned for less than a year (another Big Life Event).  Right before I had a chance to wash the hubcaps of the minivan we purchased several months ago.  Did I mention large purchases were considered big life events too?  They are.

Here's to you Mr. Big Life Events Guy (if you're familiar with Budweiser's Real Men of Genius, you'll think that's funny)

We are ready for you.

Cornbellys

So we have this little tradition in my family, new perhaps but tradition status nonetheless, to get together in the fall and go to some sort of fallish "thing."  Last year it was a "Harvest Festival" and this year it was Cornbellys, aka, the Halloween event/thing/festival/? at Thanksgiving Point.  So much to see and do and such beautiful weather.  I regret to say that I don't have very many pictures of all the cousins because I was mostly stationed with the younger kiddos and the older ones unfortunately were not interested in the bounce houses, princess play land, or climbing apparatuses.  

I'm not quite sure how I'd like to record my experience captured below.  All I remember is thinking that those funny bouncy horses reminded me of our old Hippity Hop which I loved and why in the world were there no adults bouncing on them?  I threw to the wind any and all caution, self-respect and pride.  Gosh darn it, I paid for my ticket and I was going to have some fun, never mind the fact that I was 9 months preggo!!!

This is Bree, poor soul couldn't move because her feet didn't touch the ground.  Someone charitable had to help her...might as well be her mother.  (That was my excuse.) 

A note: these pictures are sooooo not flattering but I just had to remember it all (a shout out to the cripple in the wheel chair who was generous enough to snap about 100 pics for me to choose from).  One more note:  I could barely walk for days and was sore for weeks!   This was probably due to the fact that I was indeed, with child, and my body was not up to a round on the giant Hippity Horse.

My cute sisters.  How I love my sisters!


I was also fortunate enough to find a balloon twister sympathetic to my situation.  After twisting/forming/whatever my kids' balloon creations he said he had one for their mother (who watched in awe while sprawled on the ground, exhausted and embarrassed from the aforementioned excitement).   All the moms and kids in line were not impressed.   After all, it was their turn and I hadn't technically been in line.  I understand.  But the dirty looks were worth it.  He made me a pregnant dog balloon. 


Insert picture.


Ok, so remember I said we haven't figured out how to get pics from my phone onto my computer?  Just know that it was awesome.  The "baby" was a teeny tiny balloon, not connected to the mom dog balloon but visible through her tummy.  HA!  Thank you balloon guy.  You made my day.  If I had the cash, I would have tipped him.  Instead I just thanked him awkwardly and limped away.

Cousins!

And then we have the Annual Edwards Family Halloween Party.  

We always plan on having fun at these.  You know, the good, not so clean, crazy kind of fun.  We always do.  Thank goodness for cousins, not to mention a wonderful Grandma for putting the whole thing together!

  Haylee was sick this time and only had her costume on for a couple minutes.  She wanted so much to be a part of everything but just felt yucky.  (Her horrible mother should have sensed something was off...poor kid had strep!)

Grandma helping the little ones...

Ari, annoyed that Cambree's hands were in the way of her cash collecting, and... 

Cambree: "What am I supposed to be doing again?"  I think she was wondering how long she was supposed to play with the cold noodle brains.