A New Bush in the Yard

On Tuesday, November 18th at 6:52am, Sophie Suzanne Bush joined our little family! She came about 2.5 weeks early so we were surely surprised! She weighed 7lbs, 9oz and was 20in long. She is healthy and strong and beautiful! We're so excited to have her here.

For those of you that want the whole labor story, here it is. If you don't really care, you have my permission to just scroll on down and see the pictures!

At midnight on Monday night my water broke. I wasn't sure if it was indeed my "water" breaking so we decided that we'd go to bed and wait to see what happened since I wasn't having any contractions and it wasn't quite as obvious as when my water broke with Jonah. So about an hour and a half after going to bed, I woke up and it was clearly my water that had broken. I still wasn't having contractions but we decided that we'd better get to the hospital since I needed to have antibiotics in my system for 4 hours before she arrived (Group B Strep).

We got the hospital at about 3am and they said they'd let my labor progress on its own for a while to see if it would pick up. By that time I was having contractions about 7 minutes apart. The doctor came in about an hour later and said it was looking good and he'd let me keep going to see if it would continue to get stronger. About 5 minutes after that, he sent a nurse in with pitocin...I guess he really wanted the baby to be born before his shift was up. We were pretty mad that he didn't give us a chance to continue on our own but we went ahead with their plan.

My contractions immediately got stronger and faster and within about an hour (around 5:30am) I was 5 and 1/2cm dilated (from a 3 when we got there). At around 6:30 my contractions were almost unbearable and at one point I told Jon that I needed to push during the contraction. He called the nurse in to check me and I was at an 8. She started setting the room up for the baby's arrival as I feverishly worked through each contraction. Jon helped me breathe and the nurse helped apply counter pressure (which helped and killed at the same time). After about 15 more minutes I was at a 10 (and screaming during contractions...hehehe) and they said I could go ahead and push. After 1 and ONLY 1 push, our little girl arrived!

I successfully delivered her naturally and feel that the recovery was different (easier) from with Jonah's birth. People have asked me to give a comparison of the two births and for now, suffice it to say THEY WERE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. I can't say which I'd prefer at this point.....give me a few months to forget how much it hurt!

My mom has been here the last few days to help out and it has been wonderful. She's such an amazing mom!!! Jon has also been absolutely wonderful and has been my rock and support through the transition. Jonah is fairing well and has only bonked Sophie once so far. I'm going to start keeping her high and away from him so as to completely eliminate temptation. He knows her name and sometimes tries to share toys with her so I'm sure he'll come around eventually.

Here are the promised pictures! We'll be taking lots more in the next few days so I promise to keep posting them. We also have some video I'll be posting in a few days.

Here I am, braving the hospital food. If you can't tell, this is meatloaf...mmmmm!

Sophie had jaundice and we ended up having her under some "bili-lights" for two nights to lower her biliruben levels. Good news, though! Today after having her foot pricked, yet again, her levels were such that we no longer have to have her under the lights and we no longer have to take her to get tested! We didn't get her picture under the lights but just so you can all see what they're like, I've included a picture of Jonah when he was under them. The contraption is a suitcase with UV lights in it. It really is the most annoying thing because you have to cover their eyes and try to get them to calm down without being bundled up or covered with anything but a diaper.





You can see the two different methods for covering their eyes...neither is really that effective. Quite a pain in the butt, actually.

Baby Shower Fun

My dear sister, Laura, threw the most splendid baby shower for me last weekend. She held it at the boutique she works at called Dear Lizzie. It is the cutest place ever and the atmosphere was perfect for a baby shower. Dear Lizzie has a little bistro in the back where we sat and talked and ate!

When we planned the date, I didn't think anyone from my side of the family would be able to attend because its so close to Thanksgiving when everyone will be coming out here anyway. But I was very, very pleasantly surprised when I walked out of the bathroom and found my mom and Annie sitting there at the table. I doubled over and just bawled my eyes out---I'm sure the pregnancy hormones had everything to do with it!

Here are a few pictures of the festivities! You can see my belly...it is just so huge. I think it looks like I've stuffed a basketball in there. My next doctors appointment is tomorrow and we'll find out how close I am to being ready to deliver. I'm hoping she'll be early (safely early) and really think she won't be able to wait until the 5th of December.

Thank you to all my dear friends and family!!!

I'm taking guesses on when she'll arrive. Leave your guess in the comments!!!

At Exactly Midnight

Well, I'm happy to report that Jonah is doing much better. It has been quite the fight each day to give him his medicine but we've gotten it down and it is indeed working!

I, on the other hand, am not feeling fantastic tonight...or this morning. You'll notice the time of this post. Well, I'm having issues sleeping. It's amazing how during the day I can lie down and be asleep in a matter of seconds but at night, it's a different story. I've been lying in bed for 2 hours now with no sign of sleep. Grrrrr. It doesn't make it any easier when Jon gets into bed and immediately starts snoring (not his fault, but I'm a light sleeper and hate earplugs). So tonight I decided to hit the couch--or the computer, until the couch sounds appealing.

So what I really meant to post about was the fact that at exactly midnight (we know because we checked) our radio stations began playing Christmas music. Can you believe it?! We knew it was coming but when we actually heard it...weird! We decided we might have to boycott those stations for just a bit longer since they refuse to play more than 10 Christmas songs over and over.

Halloween was fun! Jonah strolled around Jon's work and immediately grasped the idea of taking candy from strangers and putting it in his bag. He dressed as a giraffe this year and was adorable! My favorite part of the costume was the butt because it was huge and just swayed back and forth when he walked. We went down to Springville to trick-or-treat with Jon's sister and our nieces and Jonah had a blast. We weren't sure he'd get it but soon enough he was mimicking his cousins and saying "tick-a-t" or something to that effect. I forgot my camera so I'll have to post pictures tomorrow. For tonight I'll show you the best Halloween costume I saw today...it just made me laugh!!!!

The best part for me was the red frosting on his eyebrows. Ahhh...I'm still giggling!

I guess I'll try to get some shut-eye now. Nighty-night!