The Hospital

About two hours after finishing my last blog post about waiting for the baby, I started feeling contractions. Six hours later, this happened:

Wow. 

We had to stay in the hospital a few extra days because the baby's blood sugar levels were really low due to all the stress caused by labor. I was pretty bummed that she didn't get to room with us and had to stay longer than anticipated, but I'm so thankful that she is now healthy, happy, and home.

Here's some pics from the NICU.

I sure did miss this little boy. Two and a half days away from him felt like an eternity.

Although he lost interest in me and the baby pretty quickly.  He was much more interested in counting the 6,7,10 cars that were outside of our high up city view window.

Perfectly lit, high quality first family selfie:

I didn't even think to take any pictures up in our actual recovery room. Probably because we weren't there much as we tried to spend as much time as we could with the baby. After we were discharged from recovery, the little "sofa" in the NICU room was all we had to work with. Here's Darin asleep on one side and the little one on the other:

Here we are Sunday morning about to leave the hospital.

Despite the fact that we had to stay two extra days, we really loved our hospital experience. The nurses that took care of us, and our baby, were all fantastic. The midwives that worked with us were incredible. They continually checked on me and showed sincere concern for the well-being of our baby. We felt very blessed throughout the entire experience.

While We Wait

My due date has once again come and gone. We're both pretty ready to get this show on the road, but sadly we have little to zero say in when she comes. We're trying to stay positive. Some days are harder than others. But hey, the good news is, we're gonna have a March baby. When we first found out I was pregnant and that my due date was the end of February, we were both in agreement that the baby should wait a day or two so that we didn't have two February babies. Our wish has been granted. Baby girl, we are now ready for you to come.

And so we wait and try and stay busy and not go crazy with the wishing-waiting-wondering game consuming us every other minute. This is what we've been up to as of late:

Hang out time with Flavia. Shae has really been missing her since I stopped babysitting her last month. They love each other. It's great. 

Visits to Yankee Candle.

Valentine's day donut tradition. Shae was way more interested in all the ducks than he was the donuts.

Then we walked around Bed, Bath & Beyond, because what's cooler than looking at pillows and fun appliances on Valentine's day.

The night before we did get the chance to leave the boy with some friends and went out to dinner at Olive Garden. Then we walked around Lowes and Target and the General Store because we're cheap and were hoping that walking around a ton would help me go into labor. Almost 3 weeks later...doesn't seem to have helped much. However, we did get this lovely selfie of us while walking around Lowes dreaming of a someday kitchen we someday hope to have.

We discovered a fun place last week called Artfully Yours. They basically have a bunch of different crafts and different kinds of activities for kids. We went when they had their "Messy Play" which consisted of pasta and paint. It was pretty fun, although Shae is not really into getting his hands messy these days...he was more content to just paint with the brush.

I already pointed out in my last post that we've been having some fun snow time. Here's some more pics that I just got from my friend.

Most days we do lots of reading and coloring and movie watching and toy playing with this crazy munchkin. Whether he's throwing all the pillows and stuffed animals to the bottom of the stairs or wearing all of the headbands around the house or just sleeping...we can't get enough of this kid.

He was pretty excited when we put the baby's pack n' play up in our room. 

We talked about the Wise Men and what we can do to seek Christ for our FHE on Monday. We made crowns for the activity, which I promise Shae enjoyed, even though his face says otherwise in the second picture below.

Darin has kindly taken over all waking-up-with-Shae duties so that I can get extra sleep since night sleep has been so rough as of late. He's pretty serious about Shae sleeping as long as possible and as the sun continues to come up earlier, so does the boy. This was his solution. And yes, we have heard of black out curtains, but who would want that when you could have THIS:

I attempted and mostly succeeded in giving Shae his third haircut. There's quite a few spots that I can't stop looking at that need to be touched up, but given that he still cries and moves his head a bunch, I'm happy with what we got. We even watched some Youtube videos of other little boys getting their hair cut before I started. He seemed really into it and was all ready until I turned on the clippers, then he broke down... some day we'll both get the hang of it.

And so we wait...

...And continue to say things like, "Well, I guess we should stock up the fridge one more time. Maybe we should clean the bathroom one more time. Is there anything else we can add to our hospital bag? I guess I'll just read ONE more stranger birth story..."

"Patience--the ability to put our desires on hold for a time--is a precious and rare virtue. We want what we want, and we want it now.  Nevertheless, without patience, we cannot please God; we cannot become perfect. Indeed, patience is a purifying process that refines understanding, deepens happiness, focuses action, and offers hope for peace." -Elder Uchtdorf