Labor Day

Hello All!!

Thank you for being so patient with me!  The past 5 weeks (she's 5 weeks already!!!) have been a whirlwind and sitting down to write a blog would have produced one of two things:

1. A cranky post about how tough this is; OR
2. A meltdown from my family because I was on the computer instead of being with them.

I didn't want to put you through #1 and I didn't want to put myself through #2, so I decided to take a break :).

Now that Vera is 5 weeks old, things aren't really slowing down, but I'm slowly speeding up, so I decided to try and fit in my blogging again!  It also really helps that Brian is home for another 2 weeks :).

So I will take you back to March 8th...LABOR DAY!!!  (I know, technically, I can't call it "Labor Day" because I STILL NEVER WENT INTO LABOR (what is with that?!) but I'm gonna anyway :))

My parents flew in the day before and I have never been so excited to see them!  It had been 9 months since I had seen my mom and TWO YEARS since I had seen my dad...needless to say, I was extremely excited to see them!!  We went to the airport to pick them up and it was an amazing sight seeing my kids run into their grandparents' arms...IT WAS AWESOME!!!!  Since my parents spent 6 hours on the airplane, they were hungry, so we stopped by Jack in the Box to eat lunch!  My parents hadn't eaten there since 1989 when we left Texas so it was fun to go again!

The rest of the day was spent catching up, hugging, and loving every  minute of being together!  Vera moved in my tummy and my mom got to feel her move; first grandkid she got to feel move!  We all finally wore out and went to bed...unfortunately I was too amped up to stay asleep so I got about 3 hours of sleep :).

Since my parents are on East Coast time, my dad woke up early and we had a great couple of hours sitting on the couch and talking!  When the rest of the family got up, I called the hospital and they told me I needed to be there between 10:30 and 11:00...just a few more hours!!  My dad stayed home with the toddlers and Brian, my mom, and I went to Babies 'R Us and bought a PackNPlay so Vera had a place to sleep when she came home :).  After the store, it was time to go to the hospital!!

My cesarean was scheduled for 1:30 and when we got there they said we were still on track for that time!  After having contractions for 4 weeks straight, I was sooooo relieved that I didn't have to wait any longer!  I signed in to the front desk and they took us back to the L&D room...which was HUGE!!  In Kansas, Shawnee Mission had great L&D rooms but this one was special...here's why:  With my past two kids, after the baby was born, Brian left the delivery room with the baby to help wash the baby and feed it for the first time.  I was closed up and sent to a recovery room to wait until Brian and the baby came back before I got to hold him/her.  This whole process was a couple of hours so I couldn't even hold my baby until they were a couple of hours old!  It always bummed me out so I was incredibly excited to learn that they do it differently out here!  Right after the baby is born I had the option to have her placed on my chest (which I declined...I can't handle the vernix).  They weighed her and measured her and then handed her to Brian.  After they finished closing me up they handed her to me and I got to carry her out of the delivery room!!!  They wheeled me back to the L&D room where my mom was waiting and my mom got to hold her right when we got there :).  Then they gave her a bath right in the room!  It was such a great experience to have her with me the whole time and not whisked away to another room!

It was no surprise that Vera was our biggest baby, yet!  8 pounds, 2.2 ounces and 20 inches!  Over a pound and 2 inches bigger than my other two; granted this WAS my longest pregnancy.

After things calmed down a little, Brian and my mom went back to the house to get the kids and my dad!  Luckily they had put me in the biggest room so there was plenty of space for the whole family! Myah was so incredibly excited to meet Vera!  She wanted to hold her right away...Elijah couldn't have cared less :).  If you notice in our pictures, Eli refused to look at the camera or even touch the baby...I think he was a little overwhelmed.

I had been up since 3am, so I was quickly running out of steam, so the family went home and it was time to sleep :)  It was a wonderful day!

Stay tuned for the rest of the Bedore Invasion and more craziness from our household!!