Mom's visit

My mom came from Virginia to help out with the kiddos.  She was here for almost a month.  We had a great time.  The girls loved playing with grandma.  She left last night before the girls went to bed.  When Chloe noticed she was putting her shoes on she got so sad.  I love this picture of my mom with Juliet and Chloe.

I think my mom has played enough memory to last a lifetime.  Chloe loves this game.  She's pretty good at it too.  She won more than mom.

Chloe had to pose and put her hand on her hip.  Juliet's eyes are open.

Cute pic of Chloe and grandma.

Grandma and the big girls.

It was so nice having my mom here.  It's hard being so far away from family.  I am glad that we are able to see each other now and then.  Thanks for all your help mom!  We love you:)

My baby is 3!

Scarlett turned 3 on August 23rd.  She is getting so big.  She loved her Tinker Bell cake and the scooter she got from us.  She is such a joy to have in our family.  Very social, outgoing and quite the little stinker.  She is so much fun!


Here she is enjoying her birthday present.

 

 Tinker Bell cake.  I put a bit too much copper coloring in the frosting- Tink has quite a tan.

Scar going down the huge bouncey house slide.  Friday we went to the bouncey house indoor playground with some friends for her "party".  She immediately made a bee line for this particular slide.  Chloe, however, took about an hour and a half to warm up to going down this one.  Scar is going so fast she's just a blur in the picture.  She is our adventurous, fearless little girl.

The kids at the party table.

A little blurry, but I wanted to point out that of all the seats at the table Chloe and Scarlett chose to sit next to each other.  I thought that was sweet.

Me and the birthday girl. 

Believe it or not, this is the best picture I could get of all the kids who came to play.  They're all here.  Chloe's ducking behind Arthur.  Audrey is the only one who was poised the whole time I was snapping away.

We had a great time with Scarlett's friends on Friday. 

Two weeks

Fortunately I think I am over the baby blues.  They are such a bummer.  I forgot how exhausting it is to have a newborn.  None of our girls have been very good sleepers.  I hear stories of how newborns come home sleeping 8-10 hours each night.  Personally, I think that's baloney!  Sometimes Juliet sleeps for a 3 hour stretch, but then the next night she will be up every 1-2 hours wanting to eat.  My mom is here for another week which is great.  I'm able to nap during the day.  I don't know what I will do when I'm pulling night duty and day duty all by myself.  Good thing Juliet is so sweet and cute. 


Chloe loves holding Juliet.  She fell asleep on her big sister the other day.  Chloe thought that was just the best.

Last week Trevor and I got to go out to dinner.  We got a quick family pic before we left.  I didn't get a pictures of the 5 of us in the hospital like I'd wanted to.  Notice Chloe's jacket (I mentioned it in an earlier post).  It was so hot.  Scarlett's in her bathing suit and Chloe's in a fleece jacket.

One of the pics Chloe took when she got a hold of the camera.  Such blue eyes.  Jury's still out on Juliet's eye color.  I am thinking brown.  We'll see.

Came downstairs to this two nights ago.  The girls were getting a bath and baby was fussing.  Trevor was tired too so he laid down with her and they both fell asleep for a bit.

Although she doesn't do this continuously at night, she does sleep a lot.  I just keep telling myself that eventually she will sleep all night.  Might take a year or so, but eventually it happens.  I love her little frog legs.  She has her two week check up tomorrow.  She has a huge appetite so I know she's grown.

Details

I tried being fancy with my pictures and their captions.  I haven't used those options before.  So here are the details of Juliet's birth. 

I had an appointment on Wednesday, 8/1.  All along during this pregnancy I have wanted the least amount of medical intervention possible and I definitely didn't want to be induced.  Since my mom got here Tuesday and Trevor was able to take paternity leave I didn't want to go too much past my due date (8/9).  I asked my doctor about possibly inducing me if I didn't go into labor the weekend after the 9th.  She dropped the bombshell- she was going on vacation this week and could induce me on Friday, 8/3.  I was so bummed!  I changed my insurance so that I could deliver at the civilian hospital in town and so that I could see Dr. Hebard.  I specifically chose Kitsap Ob/Gyn so that I could see Kathy Hebard and she was going on vacation!

Trevor was able to be at this appointment with me, which was great since I was stressing out about the induction.  We went to lunch afterwards.  I finally decided that I would call the hospital Friday to see if there was room and if there wasn't I was going to forget about the induction.  There wasn't room for me Friday.  Saturday morning I got a call that they could get me in at 1pm.  That's what we did.  The weekend Juliet was born set record highs for the summer.  It was so hot.  I was looking forward to being the air conditioned hospital room (our house doesn't have A/C).

We got packed and ready to go.  I kissed the girls and Trevor gave me a blessing.  The induction started at 1:30.  At 8:30 the doctor came in and checked me and I was at a 3.  She broke my water and things really picked up after that.  That was a particularly painful procedure by the way, having my water broken.  Yikes.  At 9:30 I asked for an epidural.  The pitocin was cranked up pretty high the whole time I was in labor.  Finally at 10:30 I got the epidural.  The nurse checked me and I was at a 6.  This nurse was a bit confused.  She was constantly bumbling around and she made both me and Trevor nervous.  Fortunately the charge nurse was standing over her most of the time.  She checked me about a half an hour later and I was fully dilated and ready to push.  Dr. Hebard came in around 11:30 and got ready for Juliet's birth.  I pushed for 3 contractions and she was here!

The nurses noticed that during contrations Juliet's heart beat was dropping dangerously low.  They gave me an amnio infusion, which means they put fluids back inside.  They thought that since my water was broken and I lost the fluid so quickly any cushioning the cord had was gone.  They put a spout-ended thing back up inside and flushed saline solution into my uterus.  I'd never even heard of this procedure before.  Turns out the problem was the pitocin.  It was turned up to a 14 (it goes up to 30, I asked) and that was causing her heart rate to fluctuate.  Once the pit was turned off things were just fine.  The crazy nurse kept talking about a cord around her neck or shoulder.  That just freaked us out.  I got really upset thinking that Juliet wasn't going to be okay.

When we were moved to the recovery room, crazy nurse pushed me in the wheelchair.  She kept slamming on the breaks which jarred me and was really irritating.  Finally, the security guard took over and I think crazy ended up pushing the cart that had our stuff on it.

Five months into my pregnancy I started doing HypnoBabies.  It's a hypnobirthing program designed to help women have a natural childbirth experience.  Even though I didn't go natural I still enjoyed the program.  It helped me stay relaxed throughout my pregnancy.

I'm adjusting to having a newborn.  It's been great having my mom here and Trevor home.  I'm glad my mom is here for 2 more weeks because I've got the baby blues.  I'm just really emotional right now and it will be nice to have someone here to keep me company.  She's been really helpful with
Chloe and Scarlett.  Makes me a little sad to have Trevor go back into work on Monday.  For the next several months he will be gone a lot.  Life would be totally different if he had a more typical 9am-5pm job.  He'll be back and forth to sea a lot and I'll be doing things solo.

Juliet is so sweet.  She's spending more and more time each day being alert which is super cute.  Her sisters love her and are such big helpers.

Special delivery

Welcome to the world Juliet Noelle:)

Juliet Noelle Elison was born Saturday, 8/4 at 11:46 pm.  She weighed 6 lbs 11 ozs and was 19 inches long. 

Here she is again with her hospital garb on.

Daddy with girl #3.

Me and baby girl.

Daddy with 3 of his favorite girls.

Scarlett hanging out by my bed when she came to visit us with my mom and Chloe.  This is about how interested she was in her new baby sister.

Navy daddy

Chloe and her second baby sister.  She looks so grown up here.

Scarlett wearing the Jessie (from Toy Story 2) wig.  Cutie:)

My 3 girls

Chloe on bottle duty.
Julie's first bottle at home.