Friday, March 21, 2014

Rhett's Birth Story

Well Rhett Odean Barnum was born on March 9th, 2014. I was 37 weeks 6 days pregnant, so he came just a few days earlier than my other kids. Like my other kids he wanted to cause some excitement with his birth. So here is his story:
 On Sunday evening we were sitting in a special church meeting to split our ward. Soon after it started I felt a contraction that was painful, I have a lot of contractions usually but this one was more intense. I looked down at my cell phone and the time said 6:46pm. 5 minutes later I had another intense one, I let myself time one more and then decided we needed to leave the meeting. We got out to the car a little after 7pm. We texted some friends, the Paynes, in our neighborhood to see if they could take our kids and drove the 20 mins home. My labor was escalating quickly and we got our kids changed out of church clothes and sent them off. We got back in the car and knew we would not be able to make it our hospital downtown and decided to drive to the closest one which is about 25 minutes from where we live. My labor continued to get very painful and intense and I was getting scared because I knew baby Rhett was still breech and I didn't know if I was going to have enough time to get prepped for a c-section. We got to the hospital and it took us a few minutes to figure out where to go. The lady in registration of course wanted our info but got me into a wheelchair and upstairs soon after she saw that my contractions were 2-3min apart. In OB triage I was already to the point where I could barely talk, but told them I have fast labors and needed a c-section. This is a smaller hospital so they didn't have a doctor there and had to page someone at home : / They said he was 30 min away...Michael and I started getting really nervous about how we were going to get this baby out. It took the nurses only a few minutes to realize that I'm not joking about having fast labors and they started to scramble to get me an IV etc. They put me in a delivery room and I had a midwife and 3-4 nurses in my room when I told them that I had to start pushing. The pain was excruciating and I kept thinking this baby is not going to be able to get out. My water broke when I started pushing, my second push and his whole body came out, I then lost the urge to push but knew I had to since his head was stuck. The midwife tried to apply some pressure above his head and I finally had another strong contraction and got his head out. He didn't cry immediately and I was so nervous that he was hurt, but finally he did and he started to pink up. In the end he was born at 8:27pm and was breathing and healthy! He only weighed in at 5 lbs 9 oz, my smallest baby yet. I think he knew he needed to be small for his delivery. I can't say that I would choose to go through that again but am so thankful now to be holding a healthy strong little boy. We stayed the night and went home after his 24 check the next night.

He's tiny but a good nurser and has had no breathing problems or jaundice. He is a pretty content baby and will sleep a couple 3 hour stretches at night which is good for my babies : )





Sunday, March 16, 2014

Rhett's Pregnancy

Going into this pregnancy I of course planned on documenting everything and taking pictures so that I could look back later and remember. Did that happen? well no not really : ) Life gets busy and before you know it, the baby is here. Here are just a few of the pics I took during my pregnancy. Everything went well, I got a big belly quick like I usually do and it got hard towards the end to carry it around. I was able to keep working right up to the end, even though my blood pressure and swelling started to rise the last couple of weeks. We found out the baby was a boy by 15 weeks and had several ultrasounds showing us so. Rhett was breech from about 25 weeks and of course stayed that way too.
18 weeks

25 weeks

31 weeks on my birthday

Almost 36 weeks, and the last pic I got of my belly.

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

New Years Eve!!!

To celebrate New Year's we had a family party and let all of the kids stay up to ring in the new year. We all make our favorite appetizers and treats to eat and find activities to keep everyone busy. This year we decorated gingerbread, did fun white elephant gift exchanges, and a few minute to win it games. When it gets close to midnight we pull out our party hats and blowers and make a lot of NOISE! We made fun memories at our New Years Party and can't wait to see what 2014 brings. 















Visiting Family and Cousins!

After Christmas each year we usually head up to St.George to enjoy Michael's family. We always have a blast with all of the cousins around to play, and this year was no different. We had fun hanging out with everyone and doing our own little Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa Barnum. 











Christmas Day


Christmas Day we went over to Grandma Sandy's for a little bit to see my family. 


The kids were very anxious to getting opening more presents!

Uncle Michael holding baby Peitin.

Avery got her first Barbie and couldn't put it down.

This is sweet Taryn's cheese face.

Dena & Tyler

Maddie & Ryan

Aaron & Tanya

When we got home that afternoon Dad finished the trampoline and the kids were ready to try it out.

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Christmas Eve and Morning

We had a good Christmas this year. We were home and able to have Grandma Connie come stay the night with us on Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve we had dinner, watched the movie Elf since Grandma had never seen it and watched a video about the first Christmas. We opened new Christmas jammies like we usually do, Avery had a red tutu on hers and the boys got Chima pjs.




A picture right before we went to bed. Always one of my favorite moments, everything is laid out and ready and the house is quiet, just waiting for all of the excitement of the morning. The large wrapped box in the foreground is the trampoline with a note that Santa decided to let the kids help Dad set it up.




Dad getting ready to open his smoker. A gift actually not getting returned, yeah!




Friday, January 24, 2014

Visiting Santa

We had almost given up on seeing Santa this past season. We missed the ward party where there was a free Santa and we didn't want to stand in the line at the mall for 2 hours and have to pay for expensive photos. Lo and behold one night while getting a family dessert we saw a Santa  set up in the corner of a little shopping center. There was no one waiting and it was just perfect. Avery was not afraid at all in fact she ran right up to him. Even Ethan was eager to talk to Santa. It was magical indeed, Ethan gave a real smile in the pic which is unlike him but he was afraid of Santa not thinking he was a good boy.
The kids told Santa what they wanted for Christmas and Santa let them know that he had been talking to Jack our elf on the shelf.