Dean's Birthday

I was scheduled to be induced a week after my due date on Sunday, September 7th. I was nervous about being induced so I did everything I could to go into labor on my own except drink castor oil because that sounded seriously gross. I would go on long walks twice a day and I even jumped on the trampoline on multiple occasions. No luck. I could tell that I was getting closer but it was frustrating because I didn't really know what I was waiting for.

We were on call that night for the induction but they told us the call would most likely come around 5 or 6 in the morning. We went to sleep but I was way too nervous and excited to sleep that well. At 4 in the morning I had a braxton hicks contraction that was accompanied by some back pain. I thought it might be a real contraction but I was worried about getting my hopes up. When it happened again 5 minutes later I got out my contracting timing app and started timing them. I had never been so happy and excited to be in pain early in the morning! They were still about 4 to 5 minutes apart when we got the call to come in for the induction.

I went up and ate as much as I could for breakfast because I knew they wouldn't let me eat with my epidural. Me, Curtis, and Mom headed over to the hospital.

 I was so happy to tell them that I was already in labor when we got there. They got me to my room which was really nice and I only had to wait a little bit for the doctor to come look at me. Dr Lunt came to check on me and even though I was in labor I was still only dilated to a one. He broke my water to try and speed up the process. Having your water broken is painless but man is it gross. I always just thought it would pour out and then be done but it continued to leak out as I had my contractions and that was just the grossest feeling. I waited a little bit longer as the contractions got more painful and the nurse came and checked me again only to tell me that I was still only at a two. I was disappointed and they started me on pitocin to speed things up. She told me to wait one more half hour and then she would check me to see if I could have my epidural.


She didn't come back for 40 minutes and I was a little upset with her because she only said I would have to wait 30. Luckily for me, she just came back with the anesthetist instead of checking on me. He was a weird guy but I didn't care as long as I didn't have to feel any more pain. Curtis wanted to watch him do it and the guy was nice enough to explain himself as he was going. He had Curtis hold the needle after he was finished but got really upset when Curtis accidentally touched his glove and then put the needle back on the tray and everything was contaminated. After he left I pushed the button a couple times just to make sure I would get enough juice and soon enough I couldn't feel anything from my waist down.

The nurse came back in to check me and I was still only at a 2 and she said if she would have checked me before the epidural she wouldn't have given it to me yet. Oh well :) It was too late so I got to enjoy my epidural pretty early. Then it was just a waiting game. It took me hours and hours just to dilate to a 4. Kacey arrived at the hospital so she got to watch some family feud with us as we waited for something to happen! After that, the next time a nurse came in was an hour later and I was expecting her to tell me that I still wasn't progressing and then she told me that I was at a 10 and ready to start trying to push!

They wanted me to start trying to push before they called the doctor in to see where I was at. They propped my legs up and told me to start slow. It was weird trying to push since I was so numb but I concentrated and started to slowly push and then all of the sudden they were telling me to stop. They said the head was already right there. I looked in the mirror and sure enough you could see the top of deans head! The doctor was still in a stake presidency meeting so we had to wait about 40 minutes for him to get there. They were worried the baby would pop out so they brought my legs back down and told me not to push anymore.
This is me waiting while knowing that Dean's head was already right there!

Once the doctor got there he quickly put on his gloves as I got propped up again. He told me to start slow because they were worried about tearing so I slowly started to push and then they were yelling at me to stop again! I never even got to show them what a real push would look like! Dean popped out so fast that the doctor barely had time to catch him.

After that, Curtis got to cut the cord and he almost cut it in the wrong place! Luckily, they caught him in time. I remember feeling so jealous that Curtis got to stay with Dean and watch him get bathed and everything while I had to just sit in the bed.

It definitely wasn't the typical movie birth with the mother screaming and panic everywhere. Epidurals are the greatest. It was such a nice, calm birth and I'm so glad that my mom and Kacey got to be there with me!

Being Pregnant

I basically knew right away that I was pregnant way before the test told me I was. I remember feeling tired for no reason and getting nauseous every time I got hungry. I also had a couple serious crying spells for no reason so I just knew something was up. I wanted to surprise Curtis with the pregnancy test for Christmas but when I went to take the test on Christmas Eve it was negative. I was really confused and a little disappointed but I just knew I was pregnant even though the test told me I wasn't. I told Curtis about it and we waited another week and I took the test again and BOOM! Pregnant.

This is me in Moses Lake back when me and Curtis were the only ones who knew.

The first thing I wanted to do was go to the doctors and get a test done just so that I could be one hundred percent positive. That meant telling my mom and dad so I could go to his office. I remember going to my mom's room and telling her that I had something to tell her. She instantly got very serious like I was about to break some terrible news so when I told her that I was pregnant I kind of expected her to be very excited that it wasn't bad news. I felt like she reacted the same way that she would have reacted had I told her this same news back in high school. Mostly shocked and quiet and instantly asking if it was planned. My dad congratulated me and eventually my mom came around to being excited. I took a test at my dad's office and then called all of my brothers and sisters to tell them the news.

Up to this point I was feeling pretty good about being pregnant because the symptoms weren't really too bad. Once I got back to St George everything changed. I was so tired that I could hardly get up off the couch. I fell asleep almost every day on the poor girl I nanny for. I was super nauseous unless I was eating every half hour but nothing ever sounded good to eat because I was nauseous. I got migraines half of the time when I was trying to teach dance. I remember feeling so miserable. After a while I got used to the misery but I do remember thinking that pregnancy was harder than I ever thought it would be and that I didn't want to be pregnant anymore.

Then lo and behold, the 13th week came around and I remember one day that I thought I was starting to feel a little better. From that time on, I wasn't nauseous anymore and I could actually make it through most of the day with enough energy to do what needed to get done. The second trimester was a breeze because I didn't feel sick and I was hardly getting any bigger. I could feel the baby moving all the time and it always made me feel so happy to know that my baby was doing ok. I remember wishing that I would start showing more so that strangers knew I was pregnant and not just on the chubby side. Be careful what you wish for.

Here is part of our announcement photo shoot. Kylie took the pictures for us. Mom didn't approve of our announcement but we thought it was pretty funny.

At 20 weeks we had our main ultrasound that would measure our baby and tell us whether we were having a boy or a girl! Up until this point, I just knew that it was going to be a boy. I wasn't positive or anything but I remember having a dream that it was going to be a boy and every time I thought of baby names I would think of a boys name and I just knew we would probably have a boy. So I'm laying on the ultrasound table and watching the screen and we had told our technician that we wanted to know the sex. I had always imagined this big moment where they would stop and say "It's a...(Drumroll) Boy!" I think some people actually get that from their technicians. Ours was more like "here is the arm, here is the heart, here are the boy parts, here is the leg..." Wait a minute! I was freaking out in my head and I looked over at Curtis who was shocked too! The technician had zero reaction to it but that didn't really matter at the moment. I was so overwhelmed by it that I was crying my eyes out and still no response at all from the technician. She didn't even offer me a tissue. So it was a great moment but it was also a little lack luster.

At the beginning of the ultrasound she had told me that my placenta looked good. Whatever that means. Right towards the end, her exact words were "remember when I said your placenta looked good? Well it's not. Its actually low." So of course both me and Curtis ask, "what does that mean?" She quickly said "you have to wait to hear from the doctor." We went out to the waiting room and had to wait about 30 minutes to see the doctor. I was dying! I was so worried about what it meant that I was crying and Curtis was on his phone trying to look up what it meant on the internet. Once we finally saw our doctor he explained it to us. Apparently it's super common and about nine times out of ten the problem fixes itself. The worst thing that would happen is it wouldn't get higher and I would have to have a c section. So nothing as bad as I was thinking. Also, his kidneys were enlarged which is apparently common in boys. He said they start to worry once the measurements reached a 1 and our boy was only at like a .5. He is a great doctor and made me feel really calm and ok about everything. Which is the exact opposite of what that ultrasound tech did. She was really kind of awful.

Here is mine and Jules first baby bump picture that we took together. I love that I got to share this experience with her!

At about 25-26 weeks is when I really started getting bigger. It was like waking up with a new stomach every day and it just wouldn't stop growing. I was all of the sudden very limited to what clothes still fit me. Towards the beginning it still wasn't too bad though.It was always a little shocking to pass a mirror because I would forget how big I was. I would try to squeeze between people and chairs and realize that I just couldn't do that anymore.

At this point we were in Portland so we had to find another doctor. We went to Brea's doctor named Doctor Linn and she was a very tiny and funny Asian lady. We liked her right away. Unfortunately, we only got to see her for that one appointment because she had a family emergency that took her away. Doctor Tan at her office took over her patients for the time being. I was a little disappointed at first but from the very first visit I loved Doctor Tan too! He is a small, young looking Asian man and he really is just the nicest. I saw him for the last two months of my pregnancy and I was really sad that he wouldn't be the one to deliver our baby.

Here I am at about 6 months. I was in Moses Lake teaching dance while Curtis was home studying for the mcat.

Here we are at our one year anniversary at Multnomah Falls!

Here we are at 32 and 25 weeks in Seaside!

Uncle Bryan's last family hurrah.

Last picture together!

One of our last Sunday's in portland.

We knew that we would be making the move back to St George a week before my due date. People told me I was crazy but there wasn't really any way around it with Curtis' school schedule. Doctor Tan just told me to make sure that I went in for my checkup right before I left so that way he could tell me whether I would be safe to travel. The last month was mostly just full of me worrying about going into labor before the move. I had checkups every Friday the whole last month and luckily for me they would tell me that I was still closed every time. I would be so relieved when they told me this and they would always laugh at me because that is not the typical response of most pregnant women.

We made it back to St George in record time. We only had to make two stops the whole way and I was pretty impressed with myself. We found out later that I should have taken walking breaks every two hours because you can develop blood clots. Oops! Oh well. Then I preceded to wait another two weeks for our little guy to come. I was pretty huge at this point but I still walked around the neighborhood for a couple of miles every day so that the baby would come sooner.

Here is the final belly shot.

Here I am the night before I was scheduled for my induction.

The Year of Basketball

It is easy to call this year the "year of basketball" because that is really what our lives revolved around. Curtis came home tired every day from practice and was gone every other weekend for games. While it wasn't the choicest of circumstances, I loved it because that meant that I got to watch Curtis play basketball which is one of my very favorite things to do! All of these pictures are from the UNLV game thanks to my awesome mother! I was really bad at taking pictures this year.

The year started off super exciting when we beat UNLV in the preseason opener at UNLV! My family got to come and watch and it was such a fun game! Curtis hit some great shots and then eventually fouled out. I secretly love it when he fouls out because I feel like it makes him look like a bad A. Here is the final score shot!

Here is an awesome picture sequence of Curtis shooting!

What a Stud!
They went on to win their next 12 games in a row and were ranked 7th in the Nation! It was shaping up to be a really great season!

This guy is just about 1000 times scarier looking than Curtis is.

Unfortunately their winning streak kinda left them as we started losing game after game. They always kept it exciting though. One game against BYU- Hawaii we were down by 8 points with 1:30 left and we managed to take them to overtime and win! Another highlight was when Curtis had a perfect game which just means that he made every shot that he took. Plus he got a double-double so he was in the double digits for points and rebounds. It was an awesome game for him and he even got this nice picture on the website.

So despite our losses there were still good times.

My dad, Bryan, Brad and I all found a way to make it to San Diego to watch their tournament. We were super excited for a basketball filled weekend. We were ahead in our first game and it was looking like it was going to be an easy win for us. Unfortunately we ended up losing (because they took Curtis out) and so the team all went home the next morning. So the rest of the weekend it was just me and the boys. They went golfing while I relaxed at the hotel and we had a pretty good weekend despite being seriously bummed about the tournament.

Here is my favorite picture of the dads watching Curtis play.

Throughout the year I got to become really good friends with all of the basketball players wives and it really saved me. Whenever Curtis was gone I could always call them to hang out because I knew their husbands were gone too. It was a really sweet deal. We took some trips to watch games together and I had the greatest time getting to know them.

The year also ended with Curtis getting the Male Scholar Athlete of the Year Award! It was a tiring year but I am going to miss watching Curits play basketball a lot.

Here is another picture sequence of Curtis taking a charge and falling pretty hard. I don't remember if he got the call or not so we will just say he did.

Here is a picture of Curtis calling Dalton out.

Here is a funny one of Curtis obviously not paying attention to his coach. 

Here is Curtis being friends with the scary guy. Just more proof that everybody loves Curtis. 

His devoted fans!