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!!!

Conviction

As you probably know by now, I'm preggers. So, most of my posts have been about that, the internship or some fun, random happenings we have done. See...I'm 39 weeks preggers today.

But, with all the excitement of the pregnancy and our impending delivery I had this random flash...a random thought this morning. I thought, "I sure do talk a lot about my pregnancy and baby Kinsley and her arrival." and then I thought, "As much as I think about Christ's second coming, why I don't I talk about it more?"

If you could ever be inside my head, you would know that every time I see a plane in the sky or a bright star or planet or some bright light in the sky, I always wonder if it is Christ coming. I know His second coming is going to be much more majestic and triumphant than a plane in the sky (I have had many a "rapture dream" about this topic...) But regardless, the second coming is so frequently in my thoughts. But why don't I talk about it? Why don't I share the Gospel like I believe people's salvation, their eternal salvation depends on it? Why don't I talk about Christ's coming as much as I talk about Kinsley's coming?

Unfortunately, I can't give you an answer. I can't... But it was a thought that I had today. And, I suppose, I've always grown up with this concept of, "people will know I'm a Christian and know what I believe by the way I live my life." But, over the years I have met so many wonderful people that don't know the Lord. While some may say actions speak louder than words, my thought for today is that my words need to be spoken.

38+1

My current state is one of denial. Often I think, "I feel pretty good so therefore Kinsley must never be coming out - I'm just going to stay preggers forever." Other times, I want so badly for her to just come!!!! I'm running thin on patience! However, I must admit, part of my lack of patience is quite selfish. I am really not enjoying my internship rotation as much as I did the clinical rotation. Right now we are doing Foodservice Management and I just really don't feel like I'm doing anything beneficial but instead just doing the assignments my boss gives me, just to cross them off the list. You can tell I'm in the Foodservice rotation in the picture based on the fact I pulled my bangs back - I have to wear a hairnet most of the day :-/

I'm not generally that pointy - Kinsley was protruding and the more I asked her to cooperate, the more she stuck out

But despite my lack of interest in Foodservice Management - I'm very blessed. My fellow interns haven't yet told me to just SHUT UP about being preggers, but instead (they at least pretend) to be very interested and supportive of my pregnancy. Also, I have had awesome contact with friends and family from all over the country!! I had an awesome Oovoo session with some amazing friends from Tech, had two great phone calls from two more amazing friends, and I've gotten some snail mail this week - which, brings me to my next point...Kinsley's room!!

We received this beautiful blanket from my high school Academic Team coach, who was also my elementary art teacher and overall wonderful mentor. Check out how pretty it is!

And, of course, you can also see the bed that is in Kinsley's room. It was our guest room but once Little Lady comes, Jarred and I will be crashing there. Above the bed are some homemade decorations that Jarred and I put together...Jarred wanted to make a shelf so I found this idea on Pinterest. And I had this old canvas with another painting I had done, so I just painted over it :-)

Shout out to Hannah (aka our secret sibling) for the picture frame on the shelf :-)

And here is the dresser that we found on Craigslist and Jarred refinished and we will use it as her changing table - how cool did it turn out?? We also have a handcrafted mirror hanging above it.

And there is the crib, packed with our hospital bags! We're ready to go whenever she is!!

And, this was our last major purchase, thanks to my Grandma Frakes - our swing! I had picked out another swing/bouncer combo but then decided against it when we got a coupon in the mail for this swing. We use them in our NICU and I've heard great things about them - so, since there wasn't much of a price difference, we went with it! You'll have to google it or something - it's called a Mamaroo. Oh - and I might add, I assembled the whole thing all by myself :-) It's kind of a big deal!

And here's a view of the whole room from the door. I still have two small decorations to hang between the mirror (that's above the dresser/changing table) and the painting, but other than that, I think we are all done and ready to go!

Please continue to pray with us as we prepare for some major life changes! Please pray for us to have wisdom and to continually seek the Lord. We know He is provider, which He has proven over and over, but pray for us to have continued faith in Him and to always seek His counsel. It's amazingly true that His strength is made perfect in our weakness. The closer I get to parenthood, the more I realize my need for Him.

Winter in the Desert

Lately, it has actually been cold here! And, not just like, "cold for the desert" but like, actually cold. We've set some record lows the last few days! So, in order to keep the winter feel going - we've been burning a fire in our fireplace the last few nights. And...whenever there is a fire, it should be a requirement to make s'mores. So, that's exactly what we did!!

The wonderful fire constructed by my wonderful hubby!!

My final product - yummy s'more!!!

Showing off the valuable supplies!

Putting it all together!

Almost done!

Eating just a few shmellows to top him off!!

More pics from Christmas Break

Welp, we went to California over Christmas - as you already know. But here are just a few pictures from Jarred's phone during our trip :-)

The Black Pearl was at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

Part of the Berlin Wall outside of the library

Jarred could be the president...pretty sure...

Ronald Reagan loved Jelly Belly's and so does my dad

And this is what the ocean looked like on Christmas day :-)

When we got back from CA we spent a few days with my grandparents and then Jarred and I both needed to work... Jarred actually had to work and I just had to finish my study guide for the internship. But, we managed to sneak in a bit more fun before going back to the daily grind. First, we started by seeing an Arizona basketball game. This was the crazy game Jarred posted about on Facebook with the very controversial last-minute buzzer-beater... I personally think the Colorado player beat the buzzer, but I won't complain. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures of us because we were in the dark nosebleeds...but here is the stadium!

The funny blimp thing flies around and drops T-shirts

And then we went on a couple of hikes! We hiked around Sabino Canyon - which I have shared pictures of before.  But Jarred really likes the purple cholla plants - so here is a great pic of one :-)

We also went to a new place to hike in Oro Valley. Surprisingly, we were sweating during the first 30 minutes and we touched some snow towards the end of the hike. Overall, it's a great place with lots of trails but little shade and it's expensive to get into!

Jarred with some pretty good looking Saguaro's!

Some Saguaro's will form a "crest" on top - this one has a crest with arms coming out of it - very unique!!

I just LOVE fresh water streams!! Favorite part of God's creation!

Me at 35+3 weeks preggers.