It's been a week and it still seems so weird, and amazing that I have five kids. It took me a week to get a picture with all of them, and I still don't have any pictures of Allan and me with all of our kids, that may have to wait until we bless Brayden. Which by the way, we are doing on February 7th for any of you who would like to come. Life at home has been pretty busy, so I figured I better document the last week before too long.
The girls (well, 3 of them) got to come and see Brayden the day after he was born(Wednesday). Allan's mom took a couple of days off work and helped hold things down at home while I was in the hospital. After school Hailey had ballet and Ally and Natalie had doctor's appointments for their year check-ups. Allan ended up taking Lilly with them because she wasn't feeling well and we found out she had RSV and an ear infection. Lilly couldn't come to the hospital and couldn't be in the same room as Brayden when we came home. It was a little bit of a challenge, but we ended up deciding to keep Brayden in our room and Lilly out once we got home.
Hailey, Ally, and Natalie were all super excited to come and see their baby brother for the first time. Natalie had a little cough so we had her wear a mask, she wasn't too happy about it, but was willing to sacrifice to be able to hold Brayden.
On Thursday we brought Brayden home. This was his cute little outfit, I love it!
He looked so small in his carseat!
When we got home Allan and his dad made this big snowman in the backyard. I wish I would have gotten a picture of them trying to stack the snowballs, it was very entertaining.
The girls helped Allan decorate him. Lilly watched everyone and wasn't too impressed that we wouldn't let her go outside to help with the snowman.
Allan ended up grabbing her for a quick picture.
This next picture was taken on Friday, Brayden, like all of my kids, got a little Jaundice and they peak about day 3-4 and so I wanted to throw this one in to show his yellow skin.
My parents came on Friday, the girls were very excited to have them come and visit. On Monday they took Ally and Natalie shopping for their birthday's and got them some toys and these outfits. I guess Hailey was a little upset that Ally and Natalie got new clothes, and Tuesday morning when Ally was getting dressed, she went to the bathroom and when she came back she couldn't find her shirt. Hailey had taken it and hid it in the back corner of the closet. I wouldn't have ever figured it out except I happened to walk into the room when Hailey was coming out from behind the dresses. So when Ally couldn't find her shirt I connected the dots. Sometimes I don't know what goes on inside that girls head!
Tuesday we also let Lilly hold Brayden for the first time. She was very excited. Lilly loves her baby brother very much and we are working on teaching her to love him without hurting him. She is a big helper and loves to bring me diapers for him.
Here is Brayden one week old. I was excited to get a good picture of him with his eyes open. His jaundice is pretty much gone and he is really a good baby. As my dad would tell you all he does is sleep and eat and poop, but he is really good at all of them. Things are crazy around here as always, but Brayden doesn't add too much except that he is hungry all the time so he keeps me busy.
Today to add to the drama, Hailey woke up not feeling well and when I took her to the doctor found out she has strep throught. Luckily they said babies aren't suceptable and Hailey should be able to go back to school in the morning. My parents also left today, so things should be going back to our normal routine.
(this is just a funny Lilly story to tag along) A little bit after the girls were on the bus Lilly woke up and I got her some oatmeal. I tried to get her to eat it in her booster seat, but she threw a fit and I wasn't in the mood to fight her so I let her eat on a regular chair. A couple of minutes later, that bowl of oatmeal was all over the floor (like I knew would happen) so I cleaned it up and made her another bowl and put it by her booster seat and tried to put her in. She freaked out, so I let her cry and went over and sat on the couch till she was done. A few seconds later, she pushed her booster seat out of the way and pushed this chair up to her oatmeal and proceeded to eat her breakfast. At least she didn't spill the second time around!
As we were all eating our lunch, (and before) my contractions continued and were pretty hard so I asked my good friend Zoe if she would take my kids home and I could go to the doctor. She did and I headed over, but my doctor was at the hospital so they sent me over there. I had called Allan while we were eating and told him I planned on going and getting checked, so he headed home from work and got to the hospital a few minutes after I did.
Shortly after I was checked in and they checked me and I was at 5 cm. I was pretty surprised because I have never gone into labor before (always been induced) but they got me all hooked up to things and my epidural in by around 12:45. I was pretty sure it was going to go super fast because when they had called my doctor he had said he would be there at 1:00 and break my water. Well, long story short, he didn't get there until 3:30 and sitting in bed for 2-1/2 hours had pretty much completely stopped my labor. (bummer) I was hoping that just breaking my water would start the labor again, but after another hour of nothing they started some pitocen and got things moving again. When I was just about to the point that he was ready to come out his heartrate started dropping when I would have a contraction. The nurse figured his umbillical cord was wrapped around his neck but by the time the doctor was there he was ready to come out so we went ahead with a vaginal delivery. He came out at 6:01p.m. and was 7 lbs. 2 oz. and 20 in. My lightest, and also longest baby!
This little guy gave me more problems than my other four kids combined! There was also mecconium in the amniotic fluid so they had a respiratory therapist ready and the nurses took him right over and started working on clearing his lungs. After they had worked on him for a little bit and I had delivered the placenta they gave him to me and I tried to feed him but he wasn't latching or sucking. They took him to the nursery and monitered him for a little while. His heart rate was elivated and they wanted to make sure it came down. When it did come down, his blood sugar was low and they didn't want to give him a bath until it was up and he could hold his temperature better. 
This next picture is after they brought him back from the nursery. He finally ate and I called the nurses to let them know they could check his blood sugar again, but another baby had been delivered about that same time so we hung out for an hour or so because it was a slow night and there weren't very many nurses on.
When they took him I got to take a bath and get cleaned up as well, which was nice of course. Once I was all cleaned up and moved to a mother/baby room, I headed over to the nursery to see what was going on with baby. His blood sugar was up and they were just finishing giving him a bath. So here he is all cleaned up!
It took us a while (until today around 11:00) but we finally decided on a name Brayden (which you already know from the title of this post) We are super excited to finally add a little boy into our family. He is very handsome and I was surprised how different he looks from my girls who all looked very similar as babies. Because he was born in the evening and then everything was kind of crazy for a few hours and then they had school and doctors appointments and ballet, my girls haven't even gotten to come in and meet their baby brother yet! They will probably be over in another hour or two and I am excited for that! We will see how Lilly handles having another baby around!
As has been the tradition in our family for her 6th birthday she had a sleepover birthday party.
Everyone came over and we had pizza for dinner and then made these initial blocks. Some of the girls weren't so impressed that I only gave them the choice to paint them green, but I think they were happy with the end results.
Then we had cake and ice cream. I made Ally this castle cake and I think it turned out pretty cute.
Ally invited Hannah.
Of course her sisters.
And Ila.
Sydney and Maddie(who came as Hailey's guest technically)
And Bayea.
After cake and presents we did make-up and nails.
Then we settled everyone down and watched "UP." In the morning we had doughnuts and they played until parents came to pick them up.
Since this may (or may not) be my last pregnancy, I thought it would be fun to get some pictures taken. I recently, through facebook, reunited with one of my good friends from when I was little, Brittany, she lives in Utah and does photography so I asked if she would take some for me while we were down for Christmas. It was great to see her and catch up after a very long time. The pictures turned out really nice, go and check out her blog to see the results!
