Day Two at the Hospital

Today I was feeling great. I got up early and showered. Put on makeup. Straightened my room. I was ready for my deluge of visitors and spending time with my baby.

Nobody came to visit and they kept the baby in the nursery because he was still choking on a thick yellow mucous that he kept spitting up. They had to run a line down his throat several times to pump his stomach and keep him from choking.  My family was all together at the reunion, and I was sad I wasn't there. (Weeks later my mom said that nobody came because they thought I wanted my space.)

I watched Frasier reruns, Andy brought me Five Guys, and I loved the short amounts of time with my new little guy. At least there was that.   

It's a Boy!

We checked in at midnight Tuesday. At 2:00am I wasn't progressing, so the nurse had me walk the halls while pushing around my penicillin drip. By 3am I was making progress and they checked me in. By 4:30 am, I was dying for an epidural. Andy was sleeping and they kept calling "Code ___" over the loud speaker and all of the nurses would run down the halls, so I figured there were people worse off than me. I hated all of them.

Just before 6am, I got my epidural and life was good. At 9am my nurse said I was ready to go. At 9:30 my doctor showed up. At 9:45am, a beautiful little boy was placed in my arms.

Nicholas Boone Nelson

6lbs, 7oz

18inches 

He was grunting and wheezing a lot, so I only held him for a minute before they whisked him away to the NICU. They were worried his lungs weren't developed enough because he was 2.5 weeks early. He wasn't there very long before they brought him back, but they didn't let me keep him in my room. They wanted to keep an eye on him when I was sleeping.

He is beautiful and perfect and I am so happy to meet him. I spent the rest of the day in and out of sleep after a long, exhausting night, but we are so happy that he's here safely.

Cabin, Hiking, and Labor

Jared and Alicia are in charge of the reunion this year, and they have a lot of fun things planned for every day. Today, the plan was to stay at the cabin and play games, compete in a caroms tournament, and hang out together.

Behind the cabin was a playground where several of us bonded while we watched our kids frolic in the filth:

McKenna and Autumn kicking it with sippy cups and Dora chairs:

 The intense caroms competition:

 and other games:

Andy wanted to hike up the hill to see what was on the other side, so the two of us went for a walk. It was a short hike, but pretty steep. On the other side it was beautiful. We found this:

Each of the families were in charge of meals for different days. Andy and I were in charge of dinner tonight with the help of Matthias.  We took a trip into town to get some groceries, and then we spent a couple of hours preparing the meal for everyone (taco salad and fruit). Mom and Bek pitched in, too:

After dinner, we took family pictures. Here are my favorites:

Then Andy wanted to take the kids back to the meadow we had found earlier, so we went for a hike. We had a lot of fun. On the way back, Calvin was running down the mountain and suddenly disappeared into a hole. It ended up being a drain of sorts, and he was fine, but it freaked me out. He was scraped up a bit, but was happy once we got back to the cabin to play with his friends. I hiked. I ran when he fell. I carried him back to the cabin. I was having serious contractions by the time we made it back.

We took this picture at the meadow. I love it. Me and my kiddos and the beautiful mountains.

Back at the cabin, we played charades. Each of the adults had two children helpers. It was hilarious.

And then Carrie and Sam made us s'mores. We ate and watched a movie and played some more.

At 10:00 we were putting the kids to bed and my contractions kept getting stronger, so we started timing them. I didn't know for sure if this was it, but my doctor had said not to take any chances, so we decided to go. We kissed the kids, talked to my mom about taking care of them, said a prayer that everything would be okay, and rushed out the door.

And then we were trapped by cars. Andy tried to get out, but the drive was a steep hill with slippery gravel. We were blocked in on all sides and couldn't get any traction. We backed into my brother's car and tapped the front grill. Everyone laughed because they had hit a deer on the way from Virginia and had just gotten the car back from the repair shop. Andy was frazzled. I was in pain. Everyone was staring. It was stressful.

By 11:00pm we were on the road, winding down the mountain, racing toward the hospital. We checked in at exactly midnight.

Doctors, Ballet, and Reunions

Now that all of the wedding stuff is behind us, you'd think that life would slow down. Nope. Today is the first day of our family reunion--Booneanza. This year it's in Park City, so we spent the day hustling to get things ready and get out of the house. Here are the highlights:

Doctor's Appointment:
I've been having a lot of contractions this past week. I'm only 37 weeks, but today the doctor said I'm 3cm dilated, 70% effaced, and the baby is very low. She thinks that he could come any day.

I also found out that I tested positive for Group B Strep, which means I have to have at least two rounds of penicillin, four hours apart before the baby comes or he could have issues.

All of this stresses me out because I tend to have short labors, and I'll be in the mountains all week, over an hour away from my hospital. Making it on time could be dicey and adding the need for IV antibiotics makes it worse.

Dance Class:

Today in Autumn's dance class they focused on Sleeping Beauty. They learned some new ballet moves, beaded a cute little necklace, danced to Sleeping Beauty songs, and dressed up like the princess of the day. Autumn loves that class. It's fun to watch her get so excited about going and enthusiastic about learning while she's there.

Reunion:
After dance, we rushed to throw everything in the car and get out the door to the reunion. I got lost in the mountains, bouncing around on windy dirt roads. By the time we found the cabin, I was having severe contractions and everyone was loading up again to leave for the Heber Creeper train ride. I was grumpy.

We made it to the train at 6:50 and they let us know that they leave promptly at 7:00. Half of the family wasn't there. We called everyone and they were still 5-10 minutes away, so we boarded the train and hoped for the best. At 6:58, cars we recognized came flying into the parking lot. We all watched out the window, praying they would make it on time. Mary Ruth's family made it. And then Jared and Alicia and their 6 kids jumped on. Then Sam and Carrie. And right at 7:00 my parents made it on. We couldn't believe that everyone had made it, just in time. The doors closed and we took off.

We later learned that Sam and Carrie's car had overheated, so Alicia's family pulled over to help  and give them a ride.

Sadly, we were spread out across four different train cars and were smashed into seats with random strangers, but it was fun for the kids to run around the cars or sit in seats with their cousins. The car we were in was full of another family reunion--they were doing karaoke and it was kind of fun to be in a loud, obnoxious group singing at the top of their lungs.

Once we were back to the cabin, we grilled burgers and ate at 10pm. Two of my brothers-in-law went down to meet Andy at the exit and lead him up to the cabin--he had come straight from the airport after a business trip. It was mostly a stressful day, but the cabin is beautiful, there's tons to do (pool and ping pong tables, arcade games, kids' playground, theater room, etc.), and it will be a fun week. The best part is how excited Calvin and Autumn are to be with cousins. As soon as we arrived, they found their friends and disappeared until bedtime.

Summer Creativity

We are only a few days into summer vacation and already the kids are making good use of their time. I'm proud of how creative they are.

Before I was even out of bed, they were telling me that we needed to make "fizzy balls." I had never heard of such things, but Calvin had a youtube tutorial he'd found.

They were taking the experiment very seriously. They had protective lenses, measuring cups, and vinegar (and Listerine which they thought was another kind of vinegar) ready to go.

First we mixed the water with baking soda:

 Measuring:

 Mixing:

Then he smashed his little angry bird and sonic toys inside the balls:

 When they were packed tightly, they were ready to bake. We put them in the oven for an hour (kind of long for a dumb kids' experiment, if you ask me, since the baking soda and vinegar react the same way without the baking--but the baking keeps the toys locked inside the fizzy ball). They thought it was brilliant though. I think putting it into the oven added some legitimacy to their scientific process.

While the fizzy balls baked, we tried alka seltzer tablets in soda. 

And then we exploded the fizzy balls in vinegar. It was kind of fun. It made a mess and he was excited to find his prizes inside, unharmed by the "explosion."

Then Calvin made the entire Pac-man line-up with play dough while Autumn made cakes with every shade of pink of purple she could find.

After play dough, he wanted to paint boxes for his angry birds. Brown=dirt, grey=rock, blue=ice. 

 They spent about three hours painting boxes. I was super impressed by their long attention spans with all of their activities today, and I'm glad they weren't whining about watching tv or being bored. Hopefully they'll be this motivated all summer long.

Tonight I had study group so the babysitter put Calvin to bed. When I came home and checked on him, he was asleep wearing his Link hat. The picture is blurry, but I thought it was darling. He's such an imaginative little guy.

(TRUTH: I didn't really have my writing group tonight. We all went to a writing conference a few weeks ago, and since then, we all seem burned out and sick of each other. It was so much work to get our stuff ready for that conference, that now we all just want a break. I told them I only have two more weeks that I can come anyway before my sister's wedding and the baby being born, so we all decided to take a break. BUT the kids love the babysitter, so Andy and I sneaked off together. To McDonald's. Where we had a smoothie inside while we worked for an hour, and then we went out to the car. We then spent the next couple of hours watching Arrested Development and doing crosswords together. And had a hot fudge sundae. All sitting in the backseat of our car in the McDonald's park lot. Lame, I know. But this is why I fell in love with him. We enjoy each others' company, even if we're doing the most boring things ever. It was a fun, impromptu date night.)