Rylea Esther Hadlock

Early in the morning on May 14th, we headed to the hospital.  A couple weeks prior, baby girl decided to turn sideways, so we felt it best to go ahead and schedule a C-section instead of going for a VBAC.  As we were on our way, we noticed a full moon, it will be a busy day for the nurses.  :)

 Rylea Esther Hadlock was born around 8:18am and weighed 7 lbs 14 oz. and was 20 inches long.  She was our biggest baby.

Now for the story, and then a whole bunch of pictures.  We got to the hospital and got everything all prepped and walked back into surgery.  I was not looking forward to the epidural/spinal block because with Jaron I had a horrible experience.  This one turned out to be not so different.  I got several zinger in the legs and back before we finally had the spinal block in, but then nothing was happening.  They were getting me all prepped (which really hurt when you're not going numb like you should), but I was not going numb.

By this time, I'm just tying to hold back the tears and I have Morgan by a death grip on his hand.  Finally, they decided it's not going to work and it's too risky to give me another shot of the spinal block, so they have to change plans and put me all the way under general anesthesia.  Not fun!  I was scared, but Morgan was the calm one this time and they did let him stay in for the surgery, even though they normally don't in this case.

She was pretty tangled up like Jaron which made us feel a little better about just scheduling the c-section a little early instead of waiting to go past the due date.  When I woke up, I was so drowsy and in a lot of pain because I never went numb.  I felt like my eyes were butterflies fluttering all day the first 24 hours or so.  Luckily I was coherent and alert enough to feed Rylea a few hours after she was born.

She was an angel in the hospital.  It was so sweet and fun to just snuggle her and hold her all the time.  Before we went in, we decided that it would be best for me to stay as long as insurance would pay since it would be my only time with just my baby girl.  It was a good thing we did too because a couple days postpartum I was having some terrible migraine headaches that turned out to be spinal headaches.

Morgan was on his way home from the father and sons campout when we decided to do a spinal patch to see if that would take care of the headaches, basically it was like getting an epidural, but then transfusing my own blood back up my spine to clot whatever tiny puncture was causing the leak in fluids (mostly likely from the spinal block that never worked).  I was pretty nervous, but everything went okay, only a couple zingers to get that done.  Afterwards, Morgan and my dad gave me blessing and I finally felt like everything was going to be okay and I was ready to go home.  I still had to basically stay in bed laying down for the next 24 hours though, and it just happened to be my last 24 hours in the hospital.

It's been a long recovery and everyday I feel a little stronger.  If I knew ahead of time how this was going to be I would still do it a million times over to have our precious little girl in our home with us.  We are still getting used to having a baby and I'm finding I have to really lower my expectations of what I can really do (which is really really hard for me), but the boys are doing great and love her to pieces.  They are so helpful in bringing me diapers or blankets or burp rags and giving her lots of love and kisses.

She had the cutest, chubbiest cheeks when she first came out.  She has since then grown into them a little bit better.

I love it when she smiles, gas or no gas, I don't really care, it's too sweet.

Morgan is one cute daddy and totally smitten by his baby girl.

We've had some pretty busy days these past few weeks and sometimes you just can't stay awake.

Ty and Rachel and Ada came down over Memorial Day Weekend and he stopped by and brought some snow cones, of course Damon wanted blue.  I think his mouth was blue for an entire day.

Damon is quite the engineer when it comes to his little connector toys.

And yes, I think I took a picture every single day for a while just to capture her cuteness.  We did do newborn photos which I will post next time, I'm still waiting for the disc of pictures, but the preview pictures were awesome!

My mom was able to come and spend a week with us after school got out.  It was so nice having her here this time around.  When Jaron was born she wasn't able to stay as long because she had to go back to school, but we took full advantage or her being here and being close by.  I think her and Rylea had some good grandma bonding time.  Hopefully we will be able to visit Grandma Hadlock soon, they haven't been able to come down yet since Papa Hadlock had to have heart surgery about the same time I was having the baby.

We had some family fun over Memorial Day weekend, the cousins got to play and see the new baby.  Auri is especially fond of her and wants to hold her all the time, it was really cute.

And the boys are right back to being boys.  Since the backyard isn't finished yet, the boys love to play in the water and the mud and create rivers, and waterfalls, and puddles, and lakes.  It's a mess, but it's a fun mess. (Morgan can't wait until we can finish the yard and get grass back there)

Grandma and Rylea

Sometimes she loves to snuggle and sometimes she just wants to stretch out.  We are so grateful for our baby girl and that she made it safely to our home.  Until next time....

Another, just before baby comes

I found a few picture pre-baby.  Part of my nesting came in the form of sewing.  I loved this little onesie dress.  I had accidentally bought the wrong size of crib sheet, but I loved the material, so I turned it into a dress.  I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with this baby girl.  :)

 Jaron fell asleep mid bite in the car one day while we were picking Logan up, I missed the picture, but he had his hand up to his mouth for a good five minutes before it finally came down.

 Jaron loves just chillin' in his chair watching Team Umizoomi.

 I've been trying to get the boys some outside time in the mornings before it gets too hot.  Everytime they go outside they ask if they can play in the water...

 ...so finally we said yes.  The neighbor had a fun little pool, so we went over and let them play, unfortunately, it was a crazy day with lots of wind and much cooler temperatures than the rest of the week.  Oh well, they still had fun in the sandbox afterwards.

 Since I was sleeping on the recliner in our living room the last month or so of pregnancy, it seemed like the boys always came and snuggled with me while Morgan was enjoying the King Size bed all to himself.  :)

 I do love my boys and boy is our world about to change.

 We are excited for baby girl!  Until next time...

Catch Up Before Baby Time!

The boys have been so good lately to play with each other.  Tragon and Jaron especially have been able to play without as many fights.  I think it helps that Bear is a little older and doesn't always try to wreck things now.  :)

 Tragon wants to learn all the games that Logan and Damon play.  They have been really into chess and checkers lately.  We're working on tic tac toe with Tragon.

 Logan's Birthday - this should probably have its own post, but I may not get to it.  Logan turned 7!  I can't believe how big he is getting.  Of course, he feels like he's practically a teenager.  He really wanted to go to Fiesta Fun for his birthday.  He got to go on the bumper boats with Daddy.

 And Damon got to go with Papa!  They had a good time.  Grandma helped me with the younger boys in the play area.  All Logan wanted for his birthday this year was a robe, a kickstand for his bike, and to go to Fiesta Fun.  Pretty easy to please I'd say.  Although, when we were trying to fix his bike, we ended up busting it even worse, so in the end he got a new bike too.

 Damon and Bear love to do puzzles together.  We haven't had the puzzles out in a while, so it's nice to get them out and they spend hours doing them.

 Easter - Summer Easter fun.  We always do our treats/gifts/etc on the Saturday before Easter so that on Sunday we can talk about and celebrate the true meaning of Easter.  On Saturday we got to go to Grandma's house and do an Easter Egg Hunt.  The kids had a blast.  They love eating popsicles and ice cream on the trampoline.

 The boys each got a new Easter shirt, one that dries really fast when it gets wet.  Perfect for hot St. George weather this summer when they ask me every day if they can play in the water.

 We even made a small pile for baby girl.  Damon picked out the bow for her and he is absolutely convinced she will love it.  Those boys are going to be so cute with her, I can already tell.

 Jaron loved being able to dig into his treats.  He had a cookie or treat in each hand and couldn't decide which to eat, so he just kept taking a bite out of each hand back and forth.  I'm surprised we didn't have more tummy aches this day.

It has been so fun to be able to spend time with family.  The boys love their cousins and getting together.  Hopefully, the next post will have pictures of our cute baby girl.  Until next time.....