Madison Reese - Birth Story

Life has definitely been a little crazy the last couple weeks being a mom to four, but I thought I would take a few minutes while the baby is napping, and the other kids are engrossed in a movie to write out Madison's birth story.

On December 18th at 9am I went to my last OBGYN appointment.  I was 37 weeks and 5 days, and had been having lots of random on and off contractions for days.  At my appointment my doctor informed us I was dilated to a 4-5, and since we live 4 hours away, he didn't want to chance it, so he sent us to the hospital.

At the hospital they started me on pitocin around 10, and my doctor came to break my water a little after noon.  After a few hours of contractions I told Mike I thought I could handle not getting an epidural, because my contractions were registering pretty strong on the monitor and they weren't intolerable to me.  Mike's response was to say "I know you could handle not getting an epidural, but do you really want to go with out it?"  It wasn't too long before I was eating my words.  The pitocin started kicking my butt.  It got to a point where my whole body was shaking with each contraction because they were so intense, and I told Mike I changed my mind.  It was close to 3pm by the time I was able to get the epidural...and I had to get it twice because the first time she put it in it went into a vein...it was not pleasant.  At first the epidural only worked on my right side, the anesthesiologist came back in, gave me a shot of some other medicine through the epidural, and a little while later it started to numb my left side, but it never did take away the pain completely, and I felt a bit more than I ended up wanting to.

After the epidural I was able to relax more, and watching my contractions on the monitor I noticed they were getting less strong, and further apart, which worried me.  One of my biggest fears is ending up with a C-section, and I was honestly afraid that was what was going to happen.  The nurse came in to check me because she had noticed the baby's heart rat dropping a little with each contraction, and I expressed my concerns to her, she said I didn't need to worry, that my contractions were not following a normal pattern, but my cervix was still changing, so I didn't need to worry about ending up with a c-section.

A little after 4  I started feeling a lot of pressure and asked the nurse to come in and check, I was at a 10, and she told me not to push, that they were going to get a hold of my doctor.  My doctor was apparently at his office in with a patient, so I had to wait a little while (which seems like an eternity to a woman in labor being told not to push).  Once he arrived it only took about 5-10 pushes for little Madison to be born.

We had kept her gender a surprise the whole pregnancy, and I can tell you it was a pretty neat experience not knowing what she was until the doctor held her up for me to see.  I felt so much love for that tiny baby girl Heavenly Father had blessed our family with again.

Madison Reese Campos was born on December 18, 2012 at 4:28pm, weighing 7lbs 6oz and 20 inches long.  We feel so blessed to have her as part of our family.

 

 

 







 



Halloween!

The kids have been looking forward to Halloween for MONTHS, I have had to point out to Noah almost daily what day it was, and how much longer it was until Halloween.  At first both boys wanted to be pirates together, and I had planned on making their Halloween costumes, but with 3 kids and being pregnant, it didn't happen, and Ammon started changing his mind about what he wanted to be.  He went back and forth for a few weeks between wanting to be a pirate, and wanting to be a monster, before he finally settled on a monster.  I waited a few weeks to make sure he wasn't going to change his mind again before I ordered the costumes, and they were both VERY excited when their costumes came in.  Halloween morning when I was getting Noah dressed in his costume for school, Ammon started crying saying HE wanted to be a PIRATE too! Oh dear....luckily Noah shared some of his pirate accessories with Ammon, and he quickly became OK with being a monster again.  Here are some pictures of my cute kiddos in their costumes:

 

 

And here is the treat I "made" to send with Noah to school, they had asked for healthy snacks, and I found this idea on pinterest, Noah thought it was VERY cool.

 

 

After begging all day to go Trick-or-Treating, they were all very excited when it was finally time:

 

 

All that walking was hard work, I think Daddy earned his share of candy too :P

Pumpkin Patch!

This year the boys were very much looking forward to going to a pumpkin patch, we hadn't been able to go last year, and I really wanted to make sure they got to go this fall.  It turns out we had one Friday when we would be up in Reno where it would work out, but the day before it was raining buckets, and more rain was on the forecast for Friday, it didn't look very promising.  I explained beforehand that we might not be able to go if it was raining, and the boys were definitely bummed, however, luck was in our favor and it was a beautiful sunny day!

Ammon's favorite part of the day was riding the ponies:

 

Noah's favorite part of the day was the petting zoo (particularly chasing the chickens, although I wasn't able to get a picture of them doing that)

 

 

McKenna wasn't too impressed by all the animals...

 

 

It is dang near impossible to get a picture of three small children looking at you and smiling all at the same time:

 

They all really enjoyed the bounce houses, even McKenna:

 

 

And they got to ride the train:

 

They all picked out their own little pumpkin, and Ammon specifically picked his because it was "yellow" unlike all the other ones:

 

 

McKenna is One!

It is definitely bitter-sweet knowing my baby girl is now a one year old!  It is rather unfair how fast this last year has gone, it seems like yesterday when I first held her in my arms.

She has been such a sweet and loving spirit from the very start.  She was by far my "easiest" baby, and people have often commented on how happy she always is.  She loves giving hugs and kisses, and while the moments are becoming less as she gets more and more active and curious, when she sits and snuggles with you, it just melts your heart.  She is a little chatter-box, she doesn't say a whole lot of "real" words yet, but that doesn't stop her from having a full on conversation with you. :)  She absolutely LOVES to sing, she sings at the top of her lungs at church, sings whenever she hears music, and just sings to herself while she plays.  She is not quite walking yet, but she has always been one to do things on her own time...and she gets into plenty of trouble already, with out walking. :P  I like to play a little game with her where I rock her in my arms counting, and when I get to "three" I toss her gently onto the pillows on a bed, she thinks its hysterical, and now she will climb onto the spare bed in her room, rock on her knees and count "wha, dwoo, weee!" and throw herself down on the bed.  Recently she has started pointing to things that she wants and saying "diss, diss!" (meaning "this"), and has started getting a little sassy attitude when she doesn't get what she wants, or if one of the boys takes a toy she was playing with.  She has such a little personality, and we love having her as part of our family.

Here are some pictures of her special day:

 

After Daddy helped her unwrap the first present, she figured out how to pull the wrapping paper off all by herself :)

 

Her cake that I made, it was my first time ever doing fondant, and I was pretty pleased with how it turned out:

 

 

 

The inside of the cake was zebra-stripped too :)

McKenna Riley's one year photo collage: