Baby Days

I think we are definitely due for a blog update! I can't believe Carter is already almost 9 weeks old! I'm going to go back to the beginning, just because this blog is kind of like a journal for me (be prepared, it's going to be long!). On Nov 13th, I had had a really hard day at work and wasn't feeling very well. I went to bed early and woke up at five in the morning and wondered if my water had broken....because it was either that or I had wet the bed. To be honest, I kind of hoped it was the latter, just because I didn't feel like I was quite ready for him to come yet. After a few minutes I was pretty sure my water had broken, so I woke Jeremy up. Jeremy is never very lucid when he wakes up, but after I convinced him that it wasn't a joke, he was all ready to drive to the hospital that minute. I, on the other hand, wanted to take my time. I knew my labor hadn't really started yet, and it was probably going to be a really long day. I wanted to shower, do my hair and paint my toenails (I think that's the least you can do for the nurse who potentially has to hold your leg for 3 hours). After I painted my toenails, we were finally on our way! The midwife confirmed that my water had broken, and so they admitted us to a labor room.

They decided to let me walk in the hallway for a few hours to see if labor would start on its own. By the time lunchtime rolled around, not a lot was happening. I was contracting a lot, but I wasn't really feeling anything. Jeremy was a great support person. He snuck me up some lunch and fed me gummy bears. At about 2 pm they started pitocin to make my contractions a little bit stronger. It worked really fast! It didn't take too long before I was ready for an epidural. Getting an epidural is something that I went back and forth on, mostly just because I have seen tons of epidurals get put in, and even after 3 years of working labor and delivery...they still freak me out. However, after a couple of hours on the pitocin, the pain won out. The anesthesiologist was really nice and humored me when I told him how to do his job..."make sure you wait long enough for the lidocaine to work"...It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be and afterwards I felt great! It was a really strange sensation not being able to feel my legs. I would tell my brain to move my foot and my foot would jerk a few seconds later. I thought this was hilarious! Around 8:30 the doctor came in to check me and she told me that I was fully dilated. They had us wait for an hour so that hopefully I could feel the urge to push (I didn't), so after an hour we finally got started. My good friend Clara was my delivery nurse. I was so glad she was working that night. Clara trained me when I first started working at the hospital. Before I started pushing, I told Clara that she had to tell me if I wasn't doing a good job (As nurses we always say "great push!" even if the person is pushing like crap). After about an hour, my doctor checked me again and said that Carter was occiput posterior, which means that he was coming out looking up instead of looking down. This makes the diameter of the baby's head about a centimeter wider, so it's a lot harder to push them out. At one point, Carter's heart rate started to not look as good and my doctor mentioned the possibility of using a vacuum to get him out more quickly. I told her that I didn't want to use one if at all possible. His heart rate started to look better. so we were able to keep pushing. About an hour and 45 minutes in, I saw my doctor open up the delivery kit and they broke down the bed (these are both signs that delivery is really close) so I thought I was almost there! I kept asking Clara if I was one push away and she kept telling me, "just a few more." Jeremy kept saying "You're so close, he's almost out!" Talking to him afterward, he admitted that he actually didn't think that there was any way that the baby was going to come out at all. After 45 minutes of this I yelled "You are all liars!" Finally, just when I thought I couldn't push anymore, Carter was born at 1149 pm. I thought it would be this magical moment when all of the pain went away after he came out. It still hurt a lot, but it was really amazing seeing him for the first time!

He weighed 7 lbs 6 oz exactly.

He was grunting and working a little bit too hard to breathe the first little bit so they had to measure his oxygen saturation (that's the little thing on his wrist)

After a few minutes they gave him back to me. When they handed him to me, he was crying, but as soon as i started talking to him, he stopped and looked up at me. It melted my heart!

He has been such a good baby from the very beginning. He just loves cuddling and staring up at whoever is holding him.

They kept us an extra day in the hospital because Carter was having some problems spitting up. After 3 days they finally let us go home!

Two days after we got home, my mom came to stay with us for a week. It was so great to have her here. It was really fun to see her with Carter. I think she would have taken him home with her if she could have!

After my mom left, Jeremy's mom came to stay with us. It was also really great to have her here. She was such a big help watching Carter so I could get some errands done.

Carter loves his grandmas! After our moms left, we had a few weeks alone to adjust to being a new little family

Carter loves napping with people! A couple of weeks later, my mom and dad came back to spend Carter'sfirst Christmas with us. Carter met his Papa West for the first time

On Christmas Eve, we went out to Longwood Gardens to look at the Christmas lights. We even got a little bit of snow

Here are some pictures of Carter on Christmas morning.

He was not a big fan of the moose hat. A few days after Christmas, Jeremy's family came for New Years. Our families' visits overlapped by a couple of days, so we were able to have Carter's baby blessing at our home while they were both here. Jeremy gave Carter a beautiful blessing. It was really special that both of our parents were able to be there.

Carter looked pretty dapper in his sweater vest and bow tie!

I actually really liked having the blessing done in our home rather than at the church. Jeremy's family was able to stay for a few days after the blessing. It was fun for Carter to get to meet his Grandpa Kuhre and Uncle Brandon

Carter has been such a blessing for our family. He is growing so fast! He just started smiling at us last week. Trying to get him to smile at me is my new favorite pastime. Jeremy and I love him more everyday!

A Progression of my Largeness

 It is hard to believe that baby boy Kuhre (who is still nameless...) will be here in just a few more weeks! The stork is definitely in a holding pattern above our house. Along the way, we've taken some pictures to document my growing belly

 

 

It was fun...and a little bit horrifying to look back at these pictures today. I chose to wear this shirt in the pictures because it was the one that made me look the most pregnant. In the beginning,  it took a long time for my belly to really show. That is definitely not a problem these days. I am feeling large and in charge! I packed my hospital bag and made freezer meals yesterday, and Jeremy put the car seat in car. I think we are just about as ready as we are going to be! We're really excited for him to get here!

Fall Happenings

It has been such a fun fall so far. Over my birthday weekend, my good friend Brooke came to visit from Boise. It was so great to have her here. We were able to pack a lot into the weekend. On Friday we fit in some quality shopping time and went to University City in downtown Philadelphia on a double date with one of Jeremy's friends. On Saturday, we woke up bright and early and took the train to New York City. Our first stop was the half price Broadway ticket booth in Times Square. A little known perk of being pregnant in New York City is that you get to go to the very front of the line! After we got our tickets, we took the ferry past the statue of liberty to Ellis Island.

 

 

It seems like whenever we visit, we never have quite enough time there. I think it is such a fascinating place. After Ellis Island, we hurried back up to Broadway to see Spiderman. We told the man in the ticket booth to give us the best seats he had, but we didn't ask him what those were. When we got to the theater (with 2 minutes to spare) we found out that our seats were front row center. It was a little bit difficult to see during a couple of times during the show, but mostly it was pretty cool. The cast members interact with you a lot when you are that close. Spiderman swung from the ceiling and landed pretty much on top of us and made me and Brooke jump. Brooke also got spit on by Spiderman :)

 

 

After the show, we went to Max Brenner's for dinner. They have a regular menu, but they also have an additional menu devoted entirely to chocolate. Jeremy and I shared the fondue. It was amazing! It was an excellent birthday!

Last weekend, my friend Kelsey put on a a shower for me. She did such a great job. It was a "shower" theme. She made cute crepe paper pom pom rain clouds and rain cloud cupcakes

 

These are chocolate covered marshmallow "baby rattles." So cute!

This is the gorgeous quilt that Kelsey made. It is so soft! I love it!

 

We got a lot of really nice things from the ladies in our ward. We feel really blessed to have such good friends. It is crazy to think that the baby is due next month! Pictures of the finished nursery soon to follow!

Babymoon to Vermont

Last weekend, Jeremy and I went on our "babymoon" to Woodstock, Vermont. It's crazy to think that the baby will be here in just about 2 months! We had such a good time. I would love to live in Vermont, just so that I could be there for the fall every year! We stayed at the Maple Leaf Inn.

 

 

It was the cutest place. The breakfasts each morning were incredible, and the Innkeepers made fresh chocolate chip cookies each afternoon. Our room had a real wood burning fireplace, which was really fun to use at night when it got down to the 30s outside. On our first day, we took a little drive north to Stowe, Vermont. We went to the Ben and Jerry's factory and took a tour. They have a "flavor graveyard" of a bunch of the discontinued flavors.

 It was pretty easy to see why most of them didn't last long. We also stopped at Cabot Cheese, Lake Champlain Chocolates and Cold Hollow Cider Mill. I guess this stretch of highway is known as "enticement alley" just because there are so many yummy places to stop. Cold Hollow Cider Mill was a really fun place. It was really neat to watch them press the apples. I do love my cider!

 

That afternoon we walked around downtown Stowe and looked in some shops. After that, we drove around Mt. Mansfield. The drive was gorgeous. The weather could have been better, but we still saw some really pretty foliage.On the other side of Mt. Mansfield, we visited our friends, the Bigelows. We went on a little hike with them and they made us a delicious dinner!

 

On Saturday, we went to Sugarbush maple farm, another place with lots of yummy samples. They let you taste all the different grades of maple syrup: from Grade A, which is really light and mild tasting, all the way to dark amber, which is pretty dark and has the strongest maple flavor. When we walked into the tasting room, a black man turned to us and said "Nice to meet you...I'm dark amber." I guess that makes me and Jeremy Karo Syrup :). It was really fun to walk around the farm and learn how maple syrup is made.

 

 

After Sugarbush, we drove into Woodstock and went to the Simon Pearce glassblowing factory for lunch. In the basement, they have live glassblowing going on all day that you can watch. After lunch, we hiked to the top of Mount Tom. At the top, there was a pretty view of Woodstock.

After the hike, we explored downtown Woodstock and went to the farmer's market. That night we went to Cloudland farms for dinner. It is a "farm to table" restaurant. Everything they serve there they either produce on the farm or get locally. My favorite part of the meal was the apple tart with caramel sauce. It was a delicious end to our trip! Hopefully this won't be our last trip to Vermont while we live out east!

Utah Trip

Last weekend, Jeremy and I took a little mini trip back to Utah.  We were able to fit a lot of fun things into a pretty short period of time. It was really great to be back Utah. There are a lot of things I miss...family...the lack of humidity...the restaurants...the roads and the speed limit. Even with the 1-15 construction going on the freeways in Utah are waaay better than any of the sad excuses for highways in Pennsylvania. On Thursday, we drove to Provo for Jeremy's brother's convocation from BYU. Being back on campus always brings back so many good memories

 

We went to Cafe Rio for lunch, which was pretty much the highlight of my day.

 

After Brandon's graduation ceremony, we drove to the Joseph Smith Building on temple square in Salt Lake City for my cousin Katelyn's wedding reception.The Joseph Smith Building is another place that brings back special memories for me. Jeremy and I had our wedding reception there just about four years ago. The reception was beautiful and it was really great to see a lot of family members that we hadn't seen in a while.

 

The next morning, we drove back to Provo for Brandon's commencement ceremony.

After the ceremony, we went to J-Dawgs for lunch (another Provo classic) and walked around campus a bit. That night we had a yummy graduation celebration dinner at Tucanos. On Saturday morning, my sisters, mom, and mother in law threw a baby shower for me at my sister's house. It was great, I was able to see a lot of family and friends and we got a bunch of really cute baby things.

 

 

 

 I think seeing all of the tiny baby clothes made everything seem a little bit more real to me. It is crazy that baby boy Kuhre is going to be here in just a little over 3 months!

 

my mom and sisters made these adorable baby cupcakes

 

My mother in law, Phyllis made these cute little favors

and my Aunt Johanna made the fabulous diaper cake. That night my Dad's side of the family got together for a barbeque. I think this is the best picture I had of everyone together

We had a great time in Utah, it just went by too fast. Now I am ready for summer to be over in Pennsylvania and for fall to finally be here. I don't care what the weather looks like, I am putting up my fall decorations on September 1st!