Bucket, born June 1, 2008

I can't believe Bucket is almost 11 weeks old and I haven't yet posted a birth story. Not only that, but I can't find the one I typed out and emailed...

Here goes. Wednesday, May 28, I had an appt. with my OB. She told me I was 3 cm dilated. That hadn't changed from the week before. The next day, we took the kids to Disneyland. I wanted to make sure we got one more trip in before the baby was born and our passes expired. I knew we wouldn't be buying new passes for a while. We walked around all day and the spotting I had been having started to increase a little.

Friday morning, I woke up with contractions. The lasted pretty much all day. They would subside for an hour or two at a time but I would also get them for 3-4 hours at a time, about every 5 minutes and strong enough that I paid attention to them. Friday night, we went to dinner at Spaghettini and I told Gama we better go to the hospital after dinner. He talked me into going home and I was actually able to sleep through the night although every time I woke to go to the bathroom, I was still having contractions.

Saturday morning, I still had them. While talking to my mom, I had to keep stopping to deal with them. She said I was crazy not to go to the hospital. I told her I was going to get ready for the day and maybe we'd all go to lunch first at least. My shower seemed to calm the contractions down. We went to lunch and I was contracting but OK. We headed to the mall next to buy shoes for Junior. While we were there, they started getting stronger and when I went to the bathroom, the spotting looked more like bleeding. I called the OB and got Dr. K because my doctor, Dr. A was not on call that weekend. He said to go get checked out.

My mom took the 3 boys home with her and we got to the hospital around 5 or 5:30. The nurses checked me and I was 4-5 cm. and -3 station. They called Dr. K and he said to keep me, based on the fact that I was almost 2cm further along than 3 days before and also that this was my fourth and I live 30 min. from the hospital. For the next 5 hours, I was monitored, walked around, etc. He got there at 10:30 and I was 6 cm. and -1 station. He broke my water and the very next contraction had me calling for the epidural LOL

About 90 minutes after having my water broken, he checked again and I was at 10! He told the nurse to let me "labor down" for 30 minutes and he left the room. About 10 minutes later, I started feeling a ton of pressure down there and the nurse said I could push against it if I wanted to and that it might make me feel better. It did! I pushed for about 10 minutes and they started seeing more and more of his head. They gave me the mirror to see for myself. I pushed for about another 5 minutes and one of the nurses said she better go get the doctor. She walked out the door and the other nurse went to the other side of the room to do something. Suddenly, I yelled out, "I feel his head moving! I think it is coming out!" She said, "It's OK!" and in one pop, there was his head LOL As the nurses came towards me and Dr. K walked into the room, I said, "He is coming!" and he said it was OK to push. As they got to me and grabbed his head, the rest of him popped out quickly LOL It hurt this time. I had the epidural but it must have been wearing off because I felt a lot. But it was so fast. I yelled OW OW OW OW OW!!! and then it was done!

They put him on my chest and covered us with my gown and the blanket and I just hugged him and kissed him and rubbed his back. They rubbed him down a little bit and let us hang out for a while before weighing him and stuff. He came into the world at 7 lb. 6 oz. and 20 inches. He is just so cute and has gotten cuter and cuter each and everyday. There is nothing like having a brand new baby look up at you with those sweet curious eyes!

BSS Family BBQ

We went to the 4th Annual BSS Family Barbecue yesterday and had so much fun. We have been every year since they started. The kids have a blast and as they are getting older, they are allowed more freedom and independence to run around and do some stuff on their own so they have even more fun. I love watching them run around with their friends, feeling so big and cool, and enjoying being at school with nothing to do but play.
Junior and Gama won one of the 3-legged races together. Junior ran another one with his buddy and Chicken-hair ran one with his little friend. They also had fun playing in the big games of musical chairs, and the limbo. Gama also took part in the grown-up versions of both of those games, mostly because I wasn't allowed. Two years ago, I was 7.5 months pregnant with Kidney Boy and fell down during the limbo contest and freaked out the guy who runs it and this year he laughed and said, "You are not allowed to play anything this year!" So Gama played instead.
Here are a few pics from the day. The first two are Chicken-hair and his little friend, before the 3-legged race. It was so cute, the way they were standing there with their arms around each other. She put her arm around Chicken-hair first and was rubbing his back, and had her hand on his bottom without realizing it. Her mother Socie and I were cracking up! It was the funniest thing. The last picture is of Chicken-hair and Junior, sharing an iced tea that Chicken-hair went over and bought all on his own. He also went to the hair-painting booth on his own. He was such a big kid yesterday! He just kept asking me for money to go do things.

Chicken-hair

We had Madagascar in the DVD player tonight and they made mention of the lion being the king of the jungle and Chicken-hair said, "Shamu is the most king." and then 2 seconds later, "But Jesus is the MOSTEST King." I thought that was cute. =)

Kidney Boy singing

Kidney Boy sings constantly. He sings everything they sing at daycare and everything we sing at home. He sings along with TV shows, the car stereo -- everything. Some favorites of his:

Twinkle, twinkle
the alphabet
5 little monkeys jumping on the bed
5 little monkeys sittin' in a tree
Itsy bitsy spider

He does these with hand signs and everything. During 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed, he screams the line "NO MORE 'BUNKEYS' JUMP-A-BED!" and during 5 little monkeys sittin' in a tree, he loves to say (with giant hand signs) "EEEEEEEE-NAP DAT BUNKEY OUT-A-TREE!"

Junior's limerick

Junior got in the car after school on Friday and told me the limerick he made up:

There once was a boy named Gama,
who got a new pet llama.
He brought it to school,
thinking it was cool,
but the teacher chased him home to his Mama!

Kidney Boy's doctor visit on Wed. 4/16

Kidney Boy might end up with tubes in his ears. When he was dxed with asthma in December, I was hopeful that fixing that would end the ear infections and that at least he might not need tubes. But his asthma is under control and he still has fluid in his ears and is getting infections again. He had antibiotics that didn't do the trick and today as a last effort, he got a shot of lidocaine at the doctor's. We will bring him back in 3 weeks and if there is no improvement in the fluid level, we will be sent to an ENT.

I am really unhappy about the tubes. I hate that they will have to put him under and even though I know it is a routine thing and most kids do fine, I can't help but worry about other things like possible complications that I have read about. One good piece of news is that he gets to come off his asthma meds for now. He should be able to stay off of them until the weather gets cold again. So at least that is something to be happy about.

A Chicken-hair funny

The other day, Kidney Boy was playing with a broken remote control that belonged to a car. I don't think it ever worked and it is just one of those things that we never throw away for some crazy reason. The little battery compartment door is long gone and it probably hasn't had batteries in it since the day after we got it and realized it didn't work.

Suddenly, Chicken-hair yelled out, "Mommy! Kidney Boy has the remote control and he is touching the technology!" LOL I didn't realize what he meant by it at first but a day or two later, I was putting batteries in one of the Wii remotes and he said, "Mommy, be careful not to touch the technology!" so I guess he means the inside of the battery compartment! hehehe...