BEST BUDDYS

KATE KISSED ELIZA ON THE HEAD GOODNIGHT AND SAID

"SHE'S MY BEST BUDDY."

She loves her sister so much and takes such good care of her. I can't wait till they can play together.

KATE THE COMEDIAN

Kate is so funny. She says so many things that make me laugh and they are usually unexpected. We were giving Eliza a bath and she saw the umbilical cord scab and she said "sister has poop in her belly button." She was very concerned and wanted us to clean it out.

Then she came out of the bathroom with one of my breast pads and said that it was a hat for the baby and had to put it on her head. Then she starts laughing. She has quite the funny personality like her father. I'm sure glad to have her around to make me laugh up when I am so tired.

OUR WONDERFUL NEW FAMILY

Anxiously awaiting!! .................................Finally here! What a cutie!

My TWO beautiful girls!

Family picture July 1st....................................Family Picture July 2nd

First of many years of birthday cakes together!

We had a great delivery on July 2nd. They started me on a VERY SLOW Pitocin drip at 7am. We wanted a very slow and smooth delivery so that there was very little stress on the clot in my leg. We achieved our goal and had a safe, calm delivery with little pain or pushing. I love having Bradley by my side. He gets so excited and I just love watching his face as everything progresses. I had to stay in the hospital for 4 more days, totaling my stay to 26 days. We couldn't be happier to have Eliza here and to all be home together. We wanted to thank everyone for their prayers and thoughts. They gave us strength every day and we are so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends. Looking back now I am greatful for everything that happened, even the pain. The pain from the clot was unbearable but I am greatful it was there. Sometimes with clots there is no pain. If that were the case with me then things might have been a lot worse. So although I never want to have that kind of pain again, I am greatful I had it. I have also grown to love Bradley and Kate so much more. I was so concerned for Bradley. He would come to the hospital every day sometimes 2-3 times. He was exhausted physically and emotionally. He was just doing his best to keep us together as a family. I am so greatful to him for all he did and still does for us. This was just as hard for him to go through. I would be just fine at one visit and then in pain the next and he couldn't do anything about it. I missed him so bad and just wanted to be with him and hated to see him go. I have grown to love him even more and am greatful for the opprotunity for our love to grow even more. Little Kate, actually she's Big Kate. I missed my buddy. I didn't realize how much fun we had during the day and how I missed her. She would make me laugh and keep me entertained every day. Sitting in the hospital, I really missed seeing her all day. And when she would come in the evenings to see me, she brightened up the whole room. The nurses would ask when Kate was coming because they watned to say hi and talk to her. She has grown up so much and she is the best big sister. She loves giving Eliza kisses and loves to hold her. Eliza is a great baby. It seems like I am able to enjoy her more this time than I did with Kate. It must be that I know the late nights and all day feedings will be over soon and she will grow up so fast. She is already growing so fast and it is fun to see her explore the world around her. We are now working on living life all back together again. It is taking some adjusting but we are all happier to be together and to finally have Eliza here with us!

HAPPY BIRTHDAYS!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

ELIZA MAE ANDERSON!

BORN AT 5:39 PM ON JULY 2ND ON HER DADDY'S BIRTHDAY! WEIGHING 6'7'' AND 19 IN LONG.

WE ARE SO EXCITED TO FINALLY HAVE YOU HERE IN OUR FAMILY.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU AND YOUR DADDY!

A VERY LONG JUNE!!

Well, the month of June has been a crazy one for our family. The "fun" all started on May 29th. I started feeling pain in my left leg that wasn't too bad but enough to stop me from using it. As the days went on the pain got worse and worse. By Monday I went to my doctor to make sure that the baby was ok. He said that women get pain like this when they are pregnant and didn't think that it was anything out of the ordinary. By the end of that week the pain was so bad. I couldn't use my left leg without causing a TON of pain. The worst of it was in my left groin and it hurt bad. I couldn't stay comfortable in one position for very long. It would just start throbbing and I would move to another position to where it wouldn't hurt as bad till that spot got unbearable. I started sleeping on my recliner chair because laying flat caused too much pain. I had to crawl to the bathroom which I was dreading more and more each day. I would take baths to try and relieve some pain but that would only work for a little while and when I would get out was when it hurt the most. It was like all the pressure of gravity came back in full force and I would just moan and cry on the bed till it decreased in intensity. My niece Talia came down to help us for 2 weeks and how greatful I was for her. By the time she got there I couldn't do much of anything. She took over the house and Kate oh and babysitting me. I really didn't do anything but sit on my chair, try to stay comfortable and try not to cry. I would try cold, heat and tylenol 3. They all seemed to take the edge off but the pain was still there. My doctor suggested that I go to physical therapy to see if they could get me some relief. I went there in the wheelchair that Bradley rented for me and they thought that I had pulled a ligament in my groin and started treating me for that. I would get my leg worked on for a while and then spend some time in the pool. But once again whenever I got out of the pool the pain was overwhelming. It was no longer localized to my groin but it had run down the length of my leg and the whole thing hurt. It was red and sometimes maroon and swollen from my calf down. Whenever it was hanging down it would just throb. At this point now my calf was hurting just as bad or even more than my groin. I went to physical therapy again and they suggested that maybe I had a blood clot and to get it checked out right away. The next day my mom took me to get a doppler flow study (an ultrasound) on my legs. She did my right leg first and it seemed to go well, but I was getting nervous because she was pushing down hard at certain times and I knew that it was going to kill my left leg. She moved to the left leg and I was right. She tried to be gentle but it hurt so bad. I even tried to hide it but it's hard when tears are streeming down your face and you can't breath because of all the snot. It took about 15 minutes per leg, 15 long minutes!!! I didn't expect them to tell me anything because they usually don't at radiology offices, but when she was done she said that I did have a blood clot and that I needed to wait there till my doctor told them where he wanted me to go. I called Bradley and he came down. They said take these x-rays and go straight to the hospital. So Bradley took me down there and mom went to check on Talia and Kate. Poor Talia. She had been with us a week by that point and I had done to the doctor 4 out of the 5 days while she stayed home with Kate. It was such a blessing to have her there but probably not fun for her. We checked in at the hospital on Thursday, June 11th and didn't really know how bad things were or if it was one or several clots. Well, I held the paperwork as they wheeled me to my room and I looked down and it said "extensive blood clots!" I showed Bradley and there was our answer. Not only blood clot"S" but extensive ones at that. I got into a gown and they started hooking me up. Then the doctors started coming in. They said that I had a blood clot that started in my groin and went to the middle of my calf with a little flow behind the knee. GREAT! It was huge! They started me on a blood thinner called Heparin, which is safe while pregnant. It would work on clearing out the clot but also give it more stability. They needed to get the Heparin working on my clot didn't want me to deliver any time in the next 7 to 10 days. Then the head doctor of the NICU came and saw me. His was a relieving visit because with me being 34 weeks along, he was confident that the baby would be just fine and not be needing much, if any of his services. So, I needed to focus on getting this clot under control so that I could deliver a healthy baby sometime soon and so that I wouldn't have a pulminary embolism (where the clot breaks loose and goes to your lungs and possibly your heart causing a very undesirable outcome). I was relieved to finally know the cause of so much pain and greatful that I was going to start getting relief from it. I hadn't had any relief for a week and a half and I was starting to get really discouraged. That much pain for so long really starts to wear on you. So, the hospital days began. Every 12 hours I would have a new nurse that would listen to my lungs, heart and baby. Monitor the baby's heart beats and measure my legs to make sure the swelling was going down. Then I would have my vitals checked (pulse, blood pressure and temperature) every 4 hours morning and night. Then every 12 hours the lab would come up and draw my blood to test to see if the levels of Heparin were correct or if they needed to be decreased or increased. (which happened to be at 4pm and 4am. That's a great way to wake up!) The goal was to try to get me stabalized enough to go home, where I would give myself shots twice a day of Heparin. I started the next tuesday with the shots. I really wasn't excited about it, but knew that it was either do the shots at home or stay here. I was able to do it in my thighs but I tell you that is hard to do. It's something that I don't think I will ever enjoy. With the shots the Heparin I wasn't theapudic, meaning that we didn't have the dosage right. For the next 2 days every time they came back they wern't quite right. We were planning on a Thursday, June 18th discharge, but wednesday night they came in and said that it still wasn't right, so I wouldn't be going home tomorrow and that I needed to get back on the IV because I had been untherapudic for too long. That was a hard blow, but it's what we had to do. That night I woke up at 2 am with major cramps in my upper right stomach that wouldn't go away. I thought that it was just gas and would work it's way through. I took tumbs and gas-x but it was still there after 2 hours. I was sitting with my bed sitting all the way up, my legs as tight to my stomach as possible and my hand pushing into my stomach. I sat there watching tv trying to distract myself and finally fell asleep like that around 5am. I woke up at 6:30 from the pain. It was now getting worse and I was now contracting on top of it. The rest of the day was crazy. I called Bradley and I had a hard time getting a hold of him. He was so worried and rushed down to find me in such pain. I was so greatful to have him there to hold my hand and to focus on when the pain was too much. The morning was a whirlwind of IV's, shots and ultrasounds. The baby seemed fine but they tried to find out what the pain was coming from. They did an ultrasound on my gahlblatter and other organs to try and find the cause. That was painful again because of the pushing and me having to breath deep. It hurt a ton when I would breath. I kept having contractions and they kept trying to stop them with no success. Since we had been working with the Heparin shots they gave me another one earlier in the day because they were worried about my clot, but now that they couldn't get my contractions to stop they were worried about hemoraging during delivery. They gave me this one medicine to stop contractions and it took over my body. I couldn't breath, my heart was racing and I couldn't focus. I looked at Bradley with terror in my eyes and said distract me. He had to tell me to breath and I focused on that or I wouldn't have. Thankfully it didn't last too long. By the evening I had been in and out of it all day and was still contracting. They decited that they would remove my cerclage (the stitch in my cervex). That usually isn't a painful experience but it was horrible. I will spair you the details, but I did feel instant pressure relief when he cut it. That evening they were planning on a delivery but were trying to prolong it as much as possible for me and the baby's safety. They put me on Magnesium Sulfate which eventually slowed down the contractions. It was a nervous night for me but more so for Bradley and everyone else. I would wake up and be in pain and they would give me something and it would knock me out again. Bradley said that I was saying all sorts of weird things. Every time I woke up it was weird to see that different people were there in different positions. It was scary and I didn't want to deliver this baby. Every time my levels would come back I was still too high and the didn't feel it was safe to deliver. Things finally wore off and I woke up in the morning. I felt good. The pain in my stomach was gone and I was still contracting, but they wern't as bad or frequent. My stomach was so soar though, I had been contracting all day and my muscles felt it. Throughout the morning I continued to get better and they sent me back to my room in the Antipartum unit. (the unit for pregnant mom's trying not to have babies yet) We don't know exactly what started the pain. They said that there was some bile sludge in my gahlblatter that can be as painful as gahlstones, but they don't know if that was it. They also think that maybe the baby kicked my placenta hard and since I am on blood thinners, tore it and started into contractions. We'll just have to wait and see when I deliver. Well, I was back in my room 124B and looking like I was going to be there for a while. Every time I would try to go home, something would go wrong. So we decited that me staying here till I deliver with the IV was the safest way. With the shots the Heparin stays in my body for 12 hours (which on Thursday it stayed for over 24) But with the IV it should only 6 hours. So, I've been bunking down for the last 2 weeks and they have been uneventful, greatfully. All my pains are gone and I have been feeling good and can walk on my leg now. That has been the hardest part. When you don't have any pain you forget why you are here and you just want to go home or at least get out of this room. I do have to rememer that if anything my clot is getting better and better. This has been my 21st day in the hospital, I am 37 weeks and today was a great day. This morning at 8am they did an amniocentsis where they poke a needle through your somach to the amniotic fluid and remove some for testing. They wanted to make sure that the lungs were developed enough to enduce me tomorrow. And the tests came back mature, MatURe, MATURE!!! So at 8am tomorrow they are going to enduce me and hopefully have a safe delivery and get a healthy baby here. We are still not out of the woods yet because during delivery there is a chance that the clot could dislodge and there is still the possability of hemorrhaging. So, there is still a lot of danger but I am being highly monitored and there will be people standing by if things go wrong. I am just excited to get on with the next stage of life and to get this clot under control. I am still going to have to deal with it for another 3 months or so and I am ready to get going. I'm sure this doesn't all make sence and I have stipped a lot of what I wanted to say but my 2 hours are up with this hospital laptop and it's someone else's turn. Hopefully July will be a better month. And hopefully Bradley will have a wonderful birthday tomorrow with the best present he could ask for, another baby girl!

GETTING USED TO MY NEW SURROUNDINGS

ME WITH MY 2 LOVES AFTER THE THURSDAY SCARE

ON ONE OF MY DAILY 1/2 HOUR WHEELCHAIR WALKS

2 BEST BUDDIES

Brad and Kate have grown so close during this time. They have really gone through a lot as well. We all look forward to be back together again as a family!

BIG NEWS!!!

Kate is growing up so fast! She now can put her shoes on by herself. CONGRATULATIONS KATE!!!
(I love it when kids have their shoes on the wrong feet!)

TURNING 90!!!!

Brad's Great Grandma Mish is turning 90 next week so we had a party with all of her posterity. It was a great time and you could tell she had a great time. All the family that lives around here came to the park and had a potluck dinner and cake. Then we make a book for everyone to put notes to her. She knew we were getting together but didn't know that there would be a book. She was so excited to get the book and couldn't wait to sit down and read it. Several times she would open it and try to read it but someone would start talking to her, so she would put it down, but right when they left she picked it up again. Brad has been so lucky to know 7 of his great grandparents. And now Kate has had the opprotunity to know a great, great grandma and to know 6 great grandparents. She has so many grandparents when we tell her that we are going to grandma and grandpa's house we have to be specific because you can tell she doesn't know which one we are talking about. What a blessing.

Here is a 5 generation picture. (Great Grandma Mish, Grandma Marlene, Jay, Brad & Kate)

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Grandma Mish and my Grandma Verdell's birthdays are 2 days apart. So my grandma is turning 90 this year too and we are having a party for her also. How amazing it would be to live that long and to see so many changes in the world. Both of these ladies have seen a lot in their lifetime. What an honor it is to know them.

DID YOU EVER?

Do you remember watching TV this way? I remember laying on the ground trying out all sorts of weird positions.

FATHER-DAUGHTER CAMPOUT

Kate had a big weekend. She got to go on her first camping trip with her daddy. Brad bought her her own sleeping bag, a new hat and all sorts of treats for their outing. They left on friday after her nap and came home saturday at noon. She had a great time. They called me from the tent that evening to tell me about it. They already had dinner and were going to sleep for the night at 10pm. Kate had such a great time running around the tent and going in all the cubbies that they didn't go to sleep till midnight. Then around 6am they were awakened by the neighboring girls and so their day started early. (Kate is a late sleeper and will sleep to 9-10 if you let her) They had breakfast and played in the creek. She was the youngest one there so she was the first one in line for the pinata. I'm sure she did the most damage! She actually had a hard time considering the bat was bigger than her. She had a great time with her daddy and when they walked in she didn't want to come inside and wanted to stay with her dad. Can you blame her? She spends so much time with me inside on my recliner. I wouldn't want to come home either.

But that wasn't all the fun for the day. She got a blow up pool for her birthday and we finally blew it up. We got one big enough for me to lay in (with all my pregnancy bigness). So Kate and I played in the pool for an hour or 2 while Brad organized the shed. It was an eventful day, for Kate and Brad anyway. Brad was so busy that day. Not only did he go to father daughter and organize the shed, he also canned some powdered milk, grocery shopped, cleaned the house and did some laundry! All while Kate and I played in the pool. How unfair and unfun is that!! But he never complains and has such a wonderful attitude. He is such an example to me and how I need to be better at not complaining.

THANK YOU BRADLEY FOR ALL YOU DO!!!

THIN MINTS

Girl scout cookies...how we LOVE YOU!!

EASTER

We had a weekend of Easter celebrations. On Friday we went to the Park with the Anderson family and colored eggs and had an egg hunt. Grandma helped Kate and J.J. color the eggs and they did a great job. They were very careful and didn't make a huge mess.

Then they had an egg hunt. Thank you to uncle Matt who helped Kate hunt for her eggs. She didn't really know what she was doing but caught on by the end.

She figured out where all the goods are stored and it wasn't long before all the eggs were empty and her basket was full of garbage.

Then on saturday we went to my parents house for another easter hunt with some of her cousins. She is the kind of kid you want to have an easter egg hunt with because she's not that aggressive, as you can see. She is taking a rest on the couch right in the middle of the hunt to check out her spoils.

Then we decorated a few eggs at our house (on the ground or coarse so I can participate easier). By this point she knew what was going on and loved decorating and hunting for all the eggs.

It amazes me how quickly kids can make a mess of things.

What a fun long weekend with the family. But we were really tuckered out.