I'm back!

After about a 4 month hiatus, I'm back to blogging. Now I know I'm not a very reliable blogger anyway but hopefully I'll be a little better. I'm going to be doing a little catch up so be prepared for a bunch of posts with pictures.

I left with Jackson and Aidan on March 23rd to go to Utah. The flight was wretched, of course, (it was a redeye) but we survived and I was so happy to see Heidi at the airport. I even started to cry as our plane was coming in to Salt Lake because I was so happy to see the mountains again. I spent the next 3 weeks visiting with family, trying to get Jackson done with school and watching Alias with Heidi :-) (I'm hooked now!) The plan was for Matt and the girls to fly to Utah on April 29th and I was scheduled for a c-section on April 30th, a day before my due date. The closer I got to my due date, though, the more nervous I got. I was huge and so uncomfortable. I was really concerned about waiting so long because I was at more risk of rupturing my uterus because of previous c-sections but the 29th was the soonest Matt could leave his job. On April 14th I went to the dr. and I had jumped in one week from measuring one week ahead to 6 weeks ahead so I had apparently developed a lot of extra fluid (which was why I delivered early with Aidan). We decided to go ahead and deliver the baby on Saturday. I was relieved but at the same time so upset because Matt wouldn't be able to be there. I talked to him and he said there was no way he could cancel the last few weeks of classes. I was so upset but felt like it was still the right thing to do. On Friday, Heidi offered to take the kids to the park so I could get some rest. A couple of hours later she came back and walked in looking for her camera. She said she had to take a picture of something quickly and went back out. Josh (Heidi's little boy) came in next with a big grin on his face and said "We forgot to get your dad from the airport." Confused, I said "What?" as Matt walked in the door. They had actually been at the airport picking up Matt (Josh was trying to throw me off :-)). I burst into tears, of course, and sobbed as he came over and hugged me, which wasn't easy since I was so huge. I was so emotional that Matt actually was worried he might put me into labor. He and Heidi had plotted so they could surprise me. Heidi had even called my drs. office and had them reschedule the surgery for the afternoon instead of first thing in the morning because they weren't sure when he would get in. Apparently, the day before Matt had talked to his sister about what was going on and she asked if he could just fly in for the weekend to see the baby born and then go back to Hilo for work. He said we really couldn't afford to do that because the ticket would cost too much. Christy got in touch with the rest of his siblings and asked what they could do to help and they pooled their money and paid for his ticket. Yep, he has an amazing family! Words cannot express how grateful I am to all of them. I was so happy to have him there. I couldn't imagine going through all of that without him. That night I actually went down to Orem and had dinner with one of my dearest friends, Kristine Otterson, who grew up next door to me. She lives in St. George and had come up to see me. We had the best time and it was so great to be able to relax and have fun instead of stress about the surgery the next day.

The next day Matt and I drove down to Orem. We discussed baby names the whole way down. We had the top 500 boy names list and by the time we got to the hospital we had basically narrowed it down to Cameron, Colby or Sawyer. I was still pushing for Christian but Matt wasn't sold on it. As they got me prepped, I realized I hadn't had a blessing. We called my dad and he headed over. As he came in, he realized he didn't have any oil. He was just going to go out to the desk where apparently they keep some consecrated oil when my dr. came in. My dad asked if he was LDS and when he said yes, my dad asked if he had any oil. He did, so my dr., my nurse (who asked if she could stay in while we did it) and my mom were there when my dad and Matt gave me a blessing. I just thought that was really cool that my dr and nurse could participate in that and appreciate how important it was to me. Then we headed off to surgery.

Everything went perfectly in the surgery and our beautiful baby boy was born weighing 8 lbs. 2 oz. (and that was two weeks early). He seemed perfectly healthy and we were so grateful to have him there. I was so happy Matt was there and didn't miss it. I knew he'd love the baby just the same but it was important to me that he see his son born and spend those first few days with him. After they were done with me, they sent me off to recovery and I walked in to find mom, dad, rachel, erin, heid and evie as well as my boys. Everyone took their turn snuggling the little guy, as Jackson called him, and then took off to give us time to rest and bond. The boys were so cute with him. Jackson especially loved holding him.

Well, I'll continue the story soon but will post some pictures in the meantime.