LDR7

LDR7 - that's Labor and Delivery Room 7, the place where our lives would change forever!!

So, on the 13th, we were induced...well, I was induced :-) I was thankful to find I had already progressed much more than I anticipated before they even started the pitocin. So, labor was progressing until about 8:00 pm and things had slowed down. So, as a solution, my doc recommended breaking my water and also tripling the amount of pitocin they were giving me...at the exact same time... that was highly unfortunate. Up to that point, I literally wasn't even noticing most of my contractions and I was having them every ~2-3 minutes according to the monitor. Welp, after breaking my water and jacking up the meds...labor was happening and I was sure of it. I unfortunately didn't last long before I felt like I needed an epidural. I REALLY didn't want to get it but the pain increased exponentially in no time at all - thanks largely to the pitocin. Anywhos, getting an epidural was probably just a blessing in disguise because I would shortly be heading to the O.R. where they would have had to give me one anyway.

So, by 1:00 am I was ready to push. And push I did for about 13 minutes until Kinsley made her entrance! When I first saw her I was just in shock! I couldn't believe that she was mine - that God had been creating her for the last 9 months and now she was here! Unfortunately, I didn't get to see her for very long. She was taken away and then the doctor had to work on me. I'll try and spare you the details, but basically I tore, a lot, and every time they tried to stitch me up, it just made me bleed more. Doc said she had never seen anything like this happen before. So, after two failed attempts to get everything under control in LDR7, we headed to the OR. Lots of packing and a couple units of blood later, I was headed to recovery.

I find it really interesting... I was obviously nervous going to the OR and honestly, just kinda scared. I was hooked up to a monitor where I could hear my heart beat. Occasionally I would hear it begin to race and I would pray, "Lord, please keep my body calm so that the doctors can do what they need to do to fix me." And just about instantly, my heart would stop racing. So I just kept praying the whole time the doctors worked on me. And I know that tons of other people were praying as well. The entire labor and delivery, even though it sounds like it was complicated, was really quite easy. Kinsley was faced with the possibility of getting Group B strep, and so far no signs of that. Complications that I didn't foresee for myself were resolved and answered prayers were incredibly evident. Now we're just waiting and praying for Kinsley's jaundice to resolve!!

Overall, I am still feeling every emotion in the book. I'm just shocked and amazed that this little baby is mine forever...she's our little miracle! So here are just a few phone pics I have taken, but check out the link Jarred posted for dropbox on Facebook.

Last date as non-parents

The night before Kinsley was scheduled to come, Jarred and I decided to celebrate and have a little date night!
We started our afternoon by going to see a movie. We saw Promised Land at the cheap theater. Tickets were only $1.50 each!! Pretty sweet deal :-) The movie was pretty good...not too exciting but I didn't need anything too exciting at that point anyway!
After the movie we decided we needed some dinner, and a lot of it since I knew I wouldn't be able to eat the next day. Our solution? Cheesecake Factory! We never go to sit-down restaurants, let alone really fancy ones like Cheesecake Factory, so it was a pretty big deal. But we literally stuffed ourselves! Jarred got some Mexican-inspired dish and I got a spicy pasta dish...and we both got cheesecake!! Oh. My! The cheesecake was amazing!! We took a few pics, but of course, Cheesecake Factory was freakishly dark so it's hard to see, but check em out!

My giant Oreo Dream Extreme and Jarred's some-sort-of-peanut-butter thing

At home after date night, last picture as non-parents :-)

 Oh, and random tid-bit...we went to the Mineral Show that weekend before! Tucson is home to the largest Gem, Mineral and Fossil show and they have shows all over the city for literally weeks. So there was a fancy one fairly close to our house, so we went! All the minerals were on sale and they were way more expensive than I thought they'd be. Pretty much all of them were a few thousand dollars! The most expensive item we saw was a slab of gold selling for $275,000...chump change...

I haven't given an update in a while, so here it is :-)

Last Friday (not yesterday, but like, a week ago...) Jarred and I tried some new stuff! First, we went to dinner at La Salsa which was new to us. It was pretty good; not my absolute fave ever, but I'd eat there again. And for dessert, we noticed a nice little cupcake shop in the same strip mall that La Salsa was in...so we stopped in for some sweets! Should've taken pics of the cupcakes, but only got a pic of the outside as we were driving away!

I definitely liked the cupcakes more than dinner...but what can you do :-) My cupcake was peanut butter caramel and Jarred's was cookies and cream. Sweet thing is, there was as much icing on the thing as there was cake...pretty delish!!

On Saturday, grandma and grandpa came up for a quick visit and they took us to lunch at Sweet Tomatoes - which again, I think I liked better than La Salsa!! And then we played the classic game, Phase 10. It's pretty much family tradition at this point!

On Sunday, we went to church and we're still trying to find a church we can call home. We went to Calvary Chapel because we really like the teaching and the worship, but it's just harder to get plugged in there. But we had hopped around for a few weeks and needed a week of solid worship and teaching, so we went there! We learned that Jeremy Camp is going to be leading worship on Easter Sunday!!

After church, we got ready for the Super Bowl!! My intern friend invited Jarred and I over to watch the game since we don't have TV. So while Meghan and I made all the food, Jarred and Brad watched the game. We had quite the spread considering only four people were eating. The list includes chips and queso, baked potatoes, taquitos, pizza rolls, veggie sticks and dip, cookies and cream fudge and mini peanut butter cheesecakes. YUMMO!!! Big thanks to Meghan and Brad for hosting and giving us some great company!

Jarred and his food :-)

Meghan (and Brad) in front of the partially eaten table of deliciousness

And last update for a while...I'm still preggers... Here's my 40+1 pic :-)

They have scheduled to induce me on Wednesday the 13th if I don't go before then! Please keep us and baby girl in your prayers!! I can't imagine how God is going to be changing our lives!!! It's like an extreme anxious-excited-nervous feeling!!!