The One Where We Live Happily Ever After: Preslie is ONE!!!! Let's RECAP!

This year has gone by SOOO fast with Preslie. With Parker it was all screaming, and cholic, and ear infections, and no sleep and blah blah blah that by the time he turned one, I think we had aged a decade. We were ready for Parker to walk, we were ready for Parker to turn one and start entertaining himself, just so we could get a break. But I have loved Preslie being little and a baby, and so of course that means that time flies!

In May of 2009 I was at work and I continued to run to the bathroom and throw up. Leah, who I worked with at the time, was always joking saying I was pregnant, and it was this huge joke because HELLO Eric isn't supposed to be able to have kids (so Parker was already a miracle) and I was on birth control (just to be safe). We figured there was no way you could get pregnant on that stuff twice. I mean one in a million chance happens once I guess, but I guess I just didn't figure you could be the only exception in two one-in-a-million scenarios.

When it finally reached the point where I was like "okay, I feel like death all the time, sleep fourteen hours a day, throw up if I even smell salami, and it's been forever since that 'week' " I was a little nervous.

Well . . . . the stick never lies!

Actually, that's not true, I guess there are false positives occasionally, but in our case it was a positive positive, and at the end of June the stick said "You guessed it kids, you're having a baby!"

It was mixed emotions. Parker's delivery, my recovery from his delivery, and his entire first year were, for lack of a better word, HELL. I swore up and down that I would never have another baby. If we ever decided we wanted more kids, I was more than ready to adopt. Not to mention I felt TERRIBLE that here my sister had been having such a hard time, it felt wrong that we should get it without even trying.

But at the same time, we had lost Parker's twin, so I think deep down we knew there was still another spirit up there that was supposed to be in our family, so we were excited.

August 8th we went in for our fist doctor's appointment, and we had a sonogram. From the second that little bean popped up on the screen I knew it was a girl. It exuded girl! I was 11 weeks along, so she was a little more developed than a jelly bean, she had little stubs for arms and legs, but even those just moved like a girl. She somersaulted, and flipped around just like a little ballerina gymnast.

We didnt' actually find out for sure boy or girl until October 14th. At the time I was being calm about which I thought it woudl be. I always find it a little crazy when mothers are like "I KNOW it's a Boy!" (or a girl) an then they go in and it's not. It would be awkward to have to back track. But looking back I can say I was pretty sure it was a girl. Well the ultrasound happened and YES she is a GIRL!

Parker was in the room for the ultrasound and he was so enamoured by the little baby on the screen. He just kept saying "That's a baby" "THat's MY baby" and I knew they would be good friends.

The labor was pretty normal. I had a TON of heartburn (my sister-in-law Katie will say that this is why her kids have so much hair) and a LOT of tightness, but the doctor just said it was because of the crazy delivery I had with Parker.

Let me just put a plug in for my doctor, Doctor West, at the Women's Clinic is AWESOME! If you don't already have a baby doctor that you love, I suggest you switch, cause you will love him. Not to mention that he won "Best Looking Doctor" in the Treasure Valley in 2010.

In December Preslie started to try and come early. I would have contractions five minutes apart for an entire day, and then they would go away, and then a couple days later I woudl have it again. We went into the hospital right before Christmas and they hooked me up on the monitor. Indeed I was having contractions, they were very strong, but after a few hours of laying on my side, they went away. Which was good, I didn't want to have a baby that early. They started seeing me every week, and because there was no dilation happening, they decided to put me on terbutaline to help try and stop the contractions.

I was on SPEED!

I am positive that is what speed would be like. My heart was racing. Even sitting at my desk doing nothing but typing my heart woudl be running away. My legs were constantly bouncing, and my fingers and hands had to always be moving. I walked way to fast whereve I went, and when I talked I sounded like I was talking in fast forward. It was INSANE!

But it worked. After 48 hours of taking terbutaline the contractions stopped for long enough that I could work without being uncomfortable.

Friday, February 19th, I had a doctor's appointment. Dr. West measured me, talked with me a little about the c-section that was scheduled for March 4th (a week before Preslie was due) but because things were so backed up at the doctor's office (and let's face it, it's not entirely the funnest thing in the world for us ladies) we decided not to check and see if there was any progress.

Saturday, February 20th, at 7am I started feeling something. It was different than what they had put me on Terbutaline for, it wasn't as much pain as it was just PRESSURE. It would come and go and come and go. I took a shower, got ready for the day, cleaned up the kitchen, the entire time telling Eric about them and we both assumed they would just stop.

By 4 o'clock that afternoon they were still going. The pressure would come every 3-4 minutes. I was terified of going back to the hospital just to have them tell me I was having Braxton Hicks orr something and send me home. I am terified that the nurses will jus sit there and laugh at me after I leave.

We drove over to my parents, which is halfway to the hospital, and my Mom soon figured out what was going on. She called the hospital and the nurse talked to me and was asking me my symptoms. I told her about the pressure, but that it didnt' hurt so I wasn't sure they were even contractions. When she heard how close they were she said "Come down here right now."

Do NOT pass go, do NOT collect $200.

Eric and I kind of laughed, but my parents said they would watch Parker while we went down and got checked out.

We got to the hospital at about 5:45ish. The nurses gave me a gown, which I put on over my street clothes, kind of assuming there was no way we were going to be staying. Eric was on the phone with his parents. I distinctly remember him saying, "Yeah, we're at the hospital again." and looking at me and rolling his eyes and laughing.

Then the nurse came in to hook me up tot he monitors. She said, "well let's check you first" and then we all laughed when she pulled up my gown and realized I still had all of my clothes on.

So she started checkign and then she checked again, and then seh looked at me funny, and Eric and I started looking at each other and I'm sure we were both just thinking, "we are definitley going home."

"Are you sure you want to have a c-section." The nurse asked me. I kind of looked at her like she was insane, and Eric snort laughed. Umm what? And then she repeated herself and said, "Why do you want to have a c-section." I breifly told her about Parker's delivery, how I ripped a four, and all the problems that had happened, and said YES! I ABSOLUTELY WANT A C-SECTION!

She pulled her hand up, took off the glove and yelled out the nursing station right outside the door to get the doctor up here right away. Eric and I were confused. "You are at a 6. You are having a baby right NOW."

I will never forget Eric's face, I wish I had a camera on him at that moment. I almost cannot wait until I die and get to review my life just to see that moment in real time once more. His mouth completely dropped, and he just stared at her. I kind of laughed.

And then everything was in fast forward. One nurse was ripping my clothes off, while another one was throwing scrubs at Eric. There were people running around everywhere. The doctor, who was not my doctor, came in and said "Crystal, we have to get your baby out now. You are too dilated. If your water breaks, or if the baby slips down farther into the canal, it will cause problems for a c-section, and we don't want you to have to have this baby natural." Eric was calling his parents and then teh nurses came in and were wheeling me out and started yelling at him asking him why he wasn't in his scrubs already, and he was saying I didn't know I needed to be right now, and they were yelling HURRRY HURRRRYYY!!!

They were wheeling me down the hallway and I was telling htem my feet were freezing and I wanted my socks and they just kept telling me there was no time. And all the time the nurses and the doctors and Eric and I were laughing cause it just seemed so crazy.

They put me in a room without Eric and gave me my epidural. The anesthesiologist started laughing when they realized I still had my shirt and my bra on. It came off and was then hung from my IV - thank heavens I was wearing a fun one that day. Then Eric came in, (let me tell you he looks pretty delicious in scrubs) and they sat him down by my head.

There were residents everywhere to watch and I started joking saying if I had known I was having a baby that day and especially that there would have been so many people watching I would have gone and gotten a spray tan and a pedicure. Then when they started cutting Eric said,
"Whoa! That's just like gutting a deer!"

To which everyone laughed. I didn't know that Eric and I were so hilarious until I was there sprawled out on that table with a doctor's hand literally in my stomach.

Preslie came out (the wrong way, just like her brother so it was a good thing she was a c-section) and she wasn't breathing. I'm sure it only took a minute or two, but it felt like forever. Finally I heard her! And she sounded beautiful, and there were so many nurses and residents and NICU in the room because she was three weeks early that I couldn't even see her.

7lbs. 2 oz. 19 1/2" long. For being three weeks early she was a chunk! If she had waited to come out until her real due date, I swear I woudl have given birth to a 10 pound baby.

The nurses told us how much the loved having Preslie in the nursery, they loved her hair, and they loved putting bows in it.

We have loved seeing the difference between a little boy and a little girl. Preslie is sensitive. She hates to see people hurt, or crying, and if she ever hears someone yell, she starts to cry. Parker was walking at ten months. Preslie is still crawling, and I kind of like still having a baby. Parker grew up too fast.

We were going to be in Disneyland for Preslie's actual birthday. So we threw a party for her the Saturday before we left at our house. I made her a flower cake with an idea I saw in a magazine. For being my first attempt, it didn't turn out so bad looking, and the cake was DELICIOUS. I learned how to make them from my Grandma Carpender.

We purposely put her in something that we didnt' mind her getting dirty, so don't look at her birthday outfit and think AWW SAD, and then we put clothes and hair things and jewelry that she got for her birthday on over the top, so by the end of the night, she was pretty weighed down.