Updates

So I suppose I should be better at this, but I have just now gotten the time to sit down, edit pictures, add them and write a bit.  For posterity's sake, I will tell Reagan's birth story, if you wish to skip, by all means...


I had had the flu for about three days and felt really yucky, so on Sunday, August 22 around 6:45 pm, I was going to lay down on our armchair that we have.  I started to lay down and my water broke.  With three of my four children, my water has broken.  With Owen, my water broke and the contractions started hard right then, so with Reagan, I was a little nervous, being as how we live about 20 minutes away from the hospital and I tend to go really fast.  We just barely made it with Owen.  We made it to the hospital and got all checked in and everything before I felt any of the contractions.  It was kind of nice.  It made it my best labor ever that way.  I am not the go natural kind of girl, so the anesthesiologist came and gave me the epidural.  This is when it became my yuckiest labor ever.  Because I had the flu, I was pretty dehydrated and having the epidural didn't help.  It dropped my blood pressure about 20 points (which is pretty low anyway) and I started feeling pretty floaty.  It got down into the 70/40 range.  The monitors were beeping all over the place.  I truly thought I was going to lose consciousness and die right there on the table.  I have never felt that way before and hope to never feel that way again.  I think I scared my nurse and she sat with me for a while.  Cameron said I was drained of all color and was just white.  I couldn't really lift my hands because it took too much effort.  The nurse finally went to get me some blood pressure boosting medicine and put it in my IV and it went up to about 80/50.  I started feeling better.  It took a while for me to get fully dilated, and then my doctor was at a family party, so he wanted to wait about an hour.  So, around 10:30 he showed up and got all set up.  One push and there was Miss Reagan. 

 I stayed in the hospital for a day and then came home.  The timing wasn't the best, because Liam started school the next day and I felt so sad I didn't get to see him off to 1st grade.  Cameron was a trooper and did a stellar job of taking kids places, keeping the house going, seeing to my needs and keeping it all together.  He got the flu the day I came home from the hospital and still kept going.  He's great!

Here's Liam on the first day of school.  He's loving first grade.  It took a while to get adjusted to going all day long, but he is doing well and really likes his teacher and his class. 
The first week we had Reagan home, I had a headache.  It was one of the worst headaches I have ever had.  It was positional, going away when I laid down, which tipped me off that it was a spinal headache caused by the epidural I had.  We ended up going to the ER to get a blood patch.  It helped a lot, but the headache lingered for about a month.  I am feeling much better now.  We have been weathering the flu and a nasty cold here at our house.  I think we are finally all over it. Cameron got the flu just after Reagan was born, then Erin got it, then Liam, then Owen.  Then we all started in on the cold.  On a side note, my cute neighbor came over to see the baby one day when we were outside playing.  Reagan was inside sleeping, so we went inside and, of course, she was screaming away.  I picked her up to love her and Erin pulls on my shirt saying "Mommy?"  then throws up.  Poor thing.  I lifted her over it, saying "hurry!  go to the toilet to throw up."  She took a few steps and threw up again, took a few steps and threw up AGAIN!!  My neighbor, bless her heart, took Reagan and I started carrying Erin to the bathroom when Owen comes racing into the kitchen, slips in the throw up and lands on his back, bonking his head on the floor and getting covered in vomit.  Hooray!!  What a fun day for us.  Tiffany, my neighbor, said "Have you ever seen Cheaper by the Dozen?"  We both laughed a little at that.  Thanks, Tiffany for coming down when Heavenly Father knew I would need some help. 
It's definitely been an adjustment, but we're getting through.  We'll make it.