Slacky slack slacker

I have really let a lot go in the name of baby yummy-ness lately.  Can't really say I feel too bad about that though.  Heaven is so close with a new baby and I don't want to waste a moment. I have learned all too well how fast this time flies by. Be back soon...

Luke

Here are some more pictures from the Hospital after Luke arrived:

My mom

 I love this baby! After doing this a few times, it has gotten so much easier.  I am much more relaxed about things than I was with the first ones and I know what to expect.  I can simply enjoy most things about a newborn now.
 Look at this big little family!  Aren't they all just so cute?  This represents most of my twenties right here, ha ha.  Love my family! And look at that giant baby Dallin is holding. Holy cow, that is what having a new baby will do to your perspective.


Little Luke.  He is such a good baby.  He spent the whole hospital stay sleeping, and mostly just sleeps and eats now (and lets me cuddle him nonstop). Definitely one of my kids.


Cute hubby had the florist put 6 roses in.


At first, I was worried that Luke wasn't really nursing, but he seems to be doing just fine. He is pretty laid back all around, which doesn't surprise me because he was never a big kicker inside. His laid back nursing style is WAYYYYY easier on my body than the others, by far! I can't believe how easy it can be. What a blessing. I won't go into details here, but wow I am amazed. I have not had any post partum migraines yet either and it has been almost a week. Crossing fingers on that one.

Baby Story

Our little baby has finally come.  Here are a few details from the birth:

Wednesday night I ran a few errands even though I was worn out. I was having a lot of nerve pain and contractions as usual.  I came home and went to bed and continued to have contractions.  By 3 or 4 am on Thursday I was feeling a lot of cramping and lower back ache so I was starting to wonder if things were happening. 

Peter woke up and I let him know I was in a lot of pain.  I have had this kind of thing so much that I was very unsure of what to do.  Peter half asleep said "Oh, just try to go back to sleep...that's what I am going to do."  I think it is so funny that he would say something like that now, but at the time, I kind of felt like going praying mantis on him.  That made me think hmmmmm maybe I am in labor.  Later that morning I was even more worn out and sore from everthing so I was still just extra irritable.

As the day went on I just prayed to somehow know when it was time to go, because I had no idea other than I didn't feel well and I was really tired and irritable from contracting.  I think I called my mom and all my sisters throughout the day just to tell them I couldn't take it any more and I was going crazy.  In the mean time we had soccer and dance and so I just kept going.  As I picked Eden up from her dance, I finally got the sudden impression that it was time.  I called Peter who was at soccer and we planned to come home and put all the kids to bed first.  Peter's brother and wife came over to stay at our house with the kids and off we went.  I was feeling really bashful because I wasn't contracting regularly but I needed to follow my instict.  Peter did not think it was time to go in either, but knew not to question his pregnant wife.

Once at the hospital triage we found out I was dilated to 4 cm.  They hooked me up to monitors for about an hour and I contracted quite a bit, but wasn't really thinking I was going to stay.  Then the nurse checked again and I said I was definitely changing but not too much.  We were trying to figure out whether to stay or not when active labor really started to kick in.  That was it then, and after all the false labor, I was so happy that this baby was finally going to come.  I was feeling so done, but lucky because my last baby was 6 days late and this was 11 days early.

At around 11pm on Thursday night I had an epidural and my tired body was so relieved.  I was excited to see huge contractions come and go on the monitor knowing that it wouldn't be long now.  Around midnight, my blood pressure dropped and the baby's heart rate dropped and we had to do some quick position changing to get it back up.  Everything was fine after that, but my contractions slowed way way down, even though I was at a 6 or 7.  The baby was still pretty high up.  I remembered this happening with Lily too. 

Peter and my mom settled in for a nap for a few hours and I was thouroughly focused on what was happening with my body, but I was not in pain.  It is like a kid trying to sleep on Chrismas Eve for me, I was wide awake. The monitors quit picking up my contractions all together because they weren't strong, again, just like with Lily. The nurse was a little impatient, but I could tell he was coming down a little at a time by the pressure I was feeling.  Finally at about 4 am on Friday morning I called the nurse and told her I really felt like pushing.  She checked me and said "Oh! Don't push!" and went to get the doctor.  He seemed to take his time and with the next couple contractions I had to be really careful not to push which was hard. 

It sure seemed like the Doctor was taking his sweet time. Once everything all set up, we all just waited for the next contraction, but it wasn't really coming.  The Doctor said I could probably just push and he would come right out.  He was right!  I easily pushed the head out in a few seconds seconds.  I had a mirror to watch and my first thought was, "Wow, he looks exactly like Carter!"  He came out face up as usual.  That makes 5 out of 6 posterior births.  I pushed a little more and he was here.  The doctor put a very purple baby on me and we rubbed him until he started to cry a little bit.  He seemed pretty laid back, just like in my belly.  Once he really started breathing, Peter cut the cord and they placed him on my chest for a long time.  I love that.

It felt so good to hold my baby and such an instant relief from feeling so squished.  This was another great labor and delivery for me.  I am sure glad he decided to come early.  Did I mention that?  So so so so so so glad. 

Because of the timing we were not able to bring the older kids to the birth so Peter went home and woke them up at 5:30 am to come meet their new brother before school.  They were very cute and excited about it.  I will put video up soon.  The nurse made extra foot prints for each of them to take to school and they wore their visitors stickers so they got to go to school and show off their momentos.  It was pretty perfect. 

We struggled between 2 names right up until it was time to go home, but we finally decided on:

Luke Arthur Dickinson

8 lbs
20 Inches long
September 9, 2011
4:16 AM

(Peter has a brother named Luke and Peter's grandpa is Arthur.) 

Wondering

Lately, as I watch my children, I am amazed that they are all so different.  Every personality is distinctly different.  I love each one.  I don't know what life would be like without each part of them.  It has been the greatest joy I know to watch them develop into who they are individually. 

It has me so excited to see who this next little person will be.  It is like a large gift ready to be opened with a big red bow on top.  I know I won't see all of it at first, but I am looking forward to seeing it as he grows. 

Little baby, I will change you, nurse you, dress you, bathe you, chase after you, keep you safe and take care of every need.  All of this after months of discomforts and challenges to get you here.  It will be a lot of work. work that makes me tired to think about.  But I know that you will have come from our Heavenly Father and placed specially in our arms.  He knows you will be the perfect fit in our family.  As we care for you, I will be watching.  I will love watching you develop and become the person that you were meant to be.  To learn who you are and were before you came to this earth.  To hopefully help you fulfill what you were meant to in this life. My arms await.

10 Years

A couple of weeks ago we celebrated 10 years of marriage!  Holy moly, how did that happen? What a fabulous ride it has been.  We certainly haven't had any shortage of adventures. 

When we dropped the kids off with my MIL to babysit she asked if I would have thought 10 years ago that today I would be expecting my 6th child, at first, I thought NO WAY!  But then I thought for a second and realized, that YES, I totally would have.  It is just so who we are.  My family always teased me about being a "station wagon mom" some day as long as I could remember. But deep down, I do have to be amazed that this has all come about.  From 2 of us to 8! Wow.

There are so many other things that have happened: like finishing school together, buying our home, moving at least 7 times, buying 6 cars, Hawaii twice, Chile trip, a cruise, Disneyland twice, Countless road trips, 2 1/2 years of focusing on some special needs, an apprenticeship, and so many more adventures that I can't even list.  

This year we decided to repeat what we did last year because we enjoyed it so much.  Peter's Dad took us out on the boat for a beautiful ride on the lake. It was so serene and calm.  I gave Peter a heartfelt letter to read along the way and we just rode in the peaceful breeze.  We were dropped off at the lakeside restaurant and enjoyed a delicious dinner together.  It was so fun to talk about life.  We have so many blessings before us and so many dreams ahead of us. 

Oh yeah, we also stopped at Deseret Book and bought ourselves each a new set of scriptures.  We decided to get the "Old" people version with larger text, Ha ha!  This is the first set I have had with my married name engraved on it. 

I don't know if these are the same pictures I have put on before but I tried to pick different ones. It didn't seem right not to put some on here.  Looking through them made me realized that we have indeed aged.  I bet my waist is double the size in the pictures right at the moment too! 

I just love this man.  He is my best friend.  I don't feel like my thoughts are complete until I have shared them with him.  I want to be with him forever. We have really grown up together in the last 10 years.  I like that we have grown together and not separately.  Peter is so loyal, so caring, so selfless.  I hope to be as good as he is some day.  Being loved so much by someone like him is humbling.

10 years is nothing to think of the 17 that we have actually known each other!  That makes me feel old.

I don't see the next 10 years being as full of as many NEW things and changes.  I see us focusing on what we have, staying put and being busier than ever raising our family. I am sure whatever lies ahead, it will be amazing.

 I was the kind of little girl that loved fairy tales and wanted to live one.  That really is what I feel like my life with Peter has been and will be forever. He still sweeps me off my feet and makes me feel like a princess. I am not saying nothing has ever been hard. We have been through challenges, worked hard and grown even closer.  We continue to struggle through, but at the end of each day, we lean on each other and feel like we can do anything as long as we are together.

God's design for families is good.  That is where there is the greatest joy imaginable. 

Journaling

For some reason I get thoughts built up in my mind and it is really nice to write them down and get them out. Talking about myself is therapeutic as well.  Probably makes for really fragmented sportatic boring posts lately, but it works for me right now. 

I am still detoxing from not having Internet.  Especially because I am resting as much as I can right now. But it really isn't bad.  I discovered that McDonald's is a whole 4 minute drive away and I can sit in the parking lot and do anything I need to with their free Internet access.   My laptop was the big issue though.  It had a broken screen and no battery life.   I finally bit the bullet and bought a new one. LOVE!!! I think I spent half of what I spent on the last one and it is way better.  Funny how technology works that way.  So now, I sneak away early in the morning or after bed time for some guilt-free browsing  business.  This is a very good thing.

I have to think way more ahead now though.  I have to keep a small notebook in my purse at all times to write down my To-Do until my next Internet session.  Well, also since I have no brain power anyway, I have been writing down all my to do's, shopping lists, bank account stuff, and on and on. It really has become my external brain.  I can't retain any thoughts without it.   

With a laptop in hand instead of an iPod now, I can get back to blogging as well.  Except I haven't been taking a whole lot of pictures lately.  I just feel limited by my body and just don't have the energy to keep up my normal pace.  When I do take pictures, they aren't very good.  I'm okay with that though.  Life ebs and flows. 

With my down time at home, I have been organizing our family systems, and family notebook a lot.  It is fun to at least feel more organized.  I have many new forms and charts to help keep things going smoothly.  Especially as we start a new school year with 3 in school! I attended a few parenting courses at BYU Education Week and came home with tons of fabulous information and ideas.  Getting that all together, discussing what would work for us with Peter and implementing it has been very fun and exciting.  We have a lot of direction that we didn't have before as we are starting to have older kids (well older than toddlers).  It is exciting and scary to think that we are in the main years of full influence and we don't want to mess it up. 

I am very excited to finally be able to say, "I am having a baby this month!"  Getting down to days here, yay!  I still have thoughts of insanity, like imagining that my body is being held prisoner by a little baby boy.   Ha ha, these thoughts make me laugh.  The dreams are even weirder.  Lately life is all about the humor.  Things seem so impossibly crazy, but if we can laugh (and we do find a lot to laugh about), we can do as Dori the fish says and "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming."  Or crying sometimes helps too!

But really, I am so grateful for everything.  I have a lot of love in my life and really, that keeps me going.  Having a partner to go through life with helps so much.  Peter and I have rely on each other more than ever and it has really made us stronger.  Life is so good and I am really comforted to know that no woman has ever stayed pregnant forever (cue more funny insane thoughts).

I now know what it is like to go into nesting mode.  Definitely a real instinct.  I am feeling that very strong the last few days.  It is great, except I physically can't do everything I want to do.  If I could, every last nook and cranny would be reorganized and cleaned.  Too bad I can't take full advantage of that!