The Hospital stay....

Here are the rest of our pics from the hospital.  A lot of them were taken with my phone and I didn't bother doing any editing so I apologize for the quality.  The rest of our stay was pretty uneventful.  The hubs took wonderful care of me and we had great nurses.  Blakely took to nursing well.  Blakely did well at night going 4 hours between feedings so that was nice.  And after the first night, where we had a nurse that brought B in WAY before she was ready to eat several times, we were able to get pretty good rest.  Naps during the day were nice too. :)
Enjoyed a nice visit from my friend Kari!   

Again she loves her hands up by her face.

And Jackie...

and Adam visited too.

The girls came back each day for a bit for some snuggles.

Daddy thankfully takes on diaper duties while we're in the hospital since its hard for me to get up.

It was so nice to have Uncle Lec here too!

Poppi too!

Dressed and ready to go home!
  Her cute little preemie romper was more of a pant outfit on her. :)

Excited to get my baby home and sleep in my own bed!

Our celebratory meal.

(wasn't very good)

The hubs took this pic for us to remember.  I'm not a big juice drinker however when I'm in the hospital having kids I can not get enough of their apple juice.  I thinks it because I've spent 9 months drinking SO much water because I was pregnant, which I am also not a big fan of, its nice to have something different.  I think I cleaned them out daily on juice. :)

My talented friend (Sweet C's Bakeshop) made these gorgeous cookies for us to give to our nurses and visitors.  These and Blakely's hospital hat were a BIG hit at the nurses' station. :)

The hubs wanted a pic of his awesome bed to remember :) 

(SO not comfortable and right under the air vent so he was always freezing!)

Just a little excited to be going home! :)

All buckled in!

Happy to be home too!

Now feed me! ;)

Things have been going very well with Miss Blakely home.  By two weeks she had put herself into a schedule and eats every 3ish hours during the day, down by 8 for the night and then up at 12 and 4, and then up by 8 for the day.  Right now she's 5 weeks old and she is usually up from 8-9ish and then is off and on sleeping until 6 or 7 and then she has a little more awake time before going down at 8ish.  She really has been a good baby.  Really only fussing if she's hungry or tired.  She has a nice solid afternoon nap of 3 hours.  She's not great about sleeping in her car seat which is a shame because we are out and about a lot but the minute I put her in a wrap she's out like a light for hours.  Guess she's a snuggler.  I won't complain. :)  Night time has been good.  Usually goes right back down after feedings, I've only had a couple of times where she decided to have a little party in the middle of the night.  She is quite gassy at times so she occasionally cries out in her sleep, will pass it and settle back down.  She is also the nosiest sleeper ever with grunting and groaning, so at 2 weeks she was moved to her own room. :)  I am VERY thankful that, although still painful, nursing has gone much easier than the last 3 times.  I didn't have any bleeding or cracking this time, so I'll take it!  I am still looking forward to it being pain free though.  The girls have been great for the most part.  Brooklyn is still having her issues but as far as the baby is concerned that are great.  They want to hold her ALL the time.  They all beg to see her first thing in the morning.  They're always willing to help, to a fault.  Today I left the baby sleeping in her swing to take a shower and I came down and she was on the couch, naked.  Bella said she had pooped so she changed her, HA!  So we had a serious talk about NOT touching the baby with out permission but thank you for helping. :)  

My healing has been a LONG process this time.  I feel like with my other surgeries I was back to feeling like myself after a week, week and a half.  And here I am 5 weeks later and I still have discomfort.  It feels like I've done hundreds of sit ups at times.  So not the end of the world, just uncomfortable. It took about 3 weeks for me to get to a point where I could get out of the house without too much pain.  That was so hard.  I like to be out and about and being home bound for 3 weeks just about killed me.  So I went a little overboard that following week getting out! (more on that later)

We were very thankful to have family help for 3 weeks!  But it has also been nice to get in to the swing of things on our own as a family of 6.  

So far we're doing pretty good!

I did however come down with a pretty nasty cold this week so that has been tremendously hard, especially on little sleep, but getting a little better each day and we just found out yesterday we got in to family camp that we've been on the wait list for since Feb.  So even though its a little crazy, we're packing up our crew in four days, yes with a newborn, and hitting camp!  I'm excited (although nervous too) to get away as a family for a week.  Work has been really stressful for the hubs lately so it will be nice to just relax with him for the week!

Blakely's Birth Story.....

Hopefully you have some time on your hands, I have a feeling this post will be a long one. :)

So when scheduling our c-section we picked noon because that means we don't have to be to the hospital until 10 and we can just have a leisurely morning.  

Before I knew it 9:30 had rolled around and it was time to make our way to the hospital. 

We took a few last photos before heading out.

Last pic of our THREE babies!

Something must have gotten on my phone screen. :(

Last pic as a family of 5!

My last pregnancy pic, sniff.

Soon we were on our way.  Here was the weather for Blakely's bday:

Up until this point I hadn't even really had a second to let things sink in but since you get to the hospital 2 hours early there is a lot of laying around and waiting.  Then I was able to start thinking and my nerves began.

It was really happening!

One last shot before they took me in.  The hubs grew a beard for the birth.  He did this with Brooklyn too.  He shaves after the baby arrives.

Time to go back for surgery!
I have always had great experiences with my c-sections for the most part.  I've always been thankful to not have to have dealt with labor or any "down there" healing.  Yes its a harder recovery but over all mine haven't been bad (however, with Brooklyn I threw up for hours afterwards so that was not fun, but other than that, not bad).  This time however was very tough.

Gotta love the before pic. :)

So I walk back to the freezing cold surgery room.  I have to snuggle with a large African American man (the nurse-who happened to be a larger African American man my last two kids- holds me while the anesthesiologist does the spinal).  He was very sweet and calming but its still weird to snuggle with a male stranger.  Earlier the anesthesiologist and his assistant or student?? visited with us.  The student went through everything with us and was just sort of strange.  But later the main guy came in and was fine so I didn't give it much thought.  So when I walked into the surgery room they were both there but while I was snuggling the student starts doing my spinal.  Agh!  In all my c-sections I have never once felt the needle for my spinal.  Well for this lovely fellow, I felt it.  And to make matters worse it wasn't taking so he stuck me, I kid you not, 5 or 6 times before they had me reposition and it finally took!  NOT fun.  Praying so hard he didn't paralyze me!  So after that business it was surgery as normal.  They started, the hubs came in, and things were under way.

Things went fine and soon enough we heard the beautiful cries of our baby girl!
Our doctor did mention my body showed signs of labor starting and that they had to cut a little more because she had started to head down the birth canal so it was good today was the day!

Little blondie

Awkward family photo. :)

All of our babies have gotten progressively bigger (6, 6.11, 6.13) so I thought for sure we were going to break the 7 pound mark.  However, had Bella been on time (she was a month early), Blakely might have been our smallest baby.

She was just perfect!

We saw early on in an ultrasound that she likes to have her hands up by her face.  To this day she still does. :)

At this point Blakely and the hubs left.  She went back to the nursery where she was cleaned up.  She was screaming of course until they washed her head, she loved that.  But other than that, she did NOT like to be bothered. :)

All clean!

Meanwhile, back in surgery...during close up I usually doze and its pretty uneventful but this time around it was not.  While they were closing me up this time I started FEELING things, painful things.  I told the drug guy and he immediately gave me something but I had to ask 3 TIMES before I was comfortable.  I got SO hot, sweaty, and dizzy and I can not describe the pain and panic I was feeling.  Amongst all this business I could hear them discussing a bleed they weren't sure where it was coming from and trying to locate it.  Agh, makes me sick just thinking about it again.  Anyway, that part could not have gotten over with sooner.
But soon enough I was in recovery.  At first there was another mom in there with her baby, and for some reason they have a rule only one baby in recovery at a time, so Blakely had to stay in the nursery. This was fine because I couldn't even keep my eyes opened.  I felt completely drugged.  Quickly, though this other mom was moved to her room and Blakely was brought it.

I just loved finally being able to hold her but then they told me to try feeding her.  Agh.  I couldn't even keep my eyes open and you want me to do what now?!  So anyway I made a feeble attempt.  She latched well but quickly grew tired of it.  So she went back to daddy and I tried to sleep.  Before I knew it they were taking me back to my room.  The movement is usually when I start my lovely throwing up.  This time I successfully made it down to my room without incident.  However, again with the nursing they wanted me to do right away, I ended up getting sick in between sides, just a few times and then I was good.  So much better than last time! :)

Soon the girlies came back to hold their baby sis!  It was so fun to see them meet her.  They were all instantly in love!

Blakely was sweet enough to get her big sisters a whole bunch of fun Polly Pocket stuff to play with when they were there.

Love! :)

Mormor was excited to hold her newest grandbaby too.  She was quite to trooper dealing with the other 3 all by herself!

Snuggles with my other baby.

Auntie Katie came to visit...

Mr. Joe and

Miss Leah...

And Auntie Somer and Uncle Ryan!

Her sweet little fuzz.

And precious toes.

Overall the day went well and ended with the best gift of all.  And I was so looking forward to a restful night sleep, right!?

The world is a better place with this little one in it!! :)