two weeks

6 days old

She came!

Lucy Mae Jensen was born on Wednesday, June 5th at 10:40 pm. She was 7 lbs 3 oz and 19.5 inches long. Quick birth story: This was the most difficult of my four pregnancies. Now it was not near as bad as some women have it, but it was hard for me. Morning sickness was bad, swelling was worse, I developed carpal tunnel syndrome that made my hands and arms numb and tingly all the time, I had to be on bed rest from 28-34 weeks for pre-term labor symptoms, baby was breech, oh the list went on and on for this little one. However, it all came out fine in the end. At 36.5 weeks, we found out that baby had turned head down. Yay!!! Many thanks to my awesome chiropractor for that! At 37 weeks, I labored for 6 hours in the middle of the night. I started to get ready to go to the hospital, then contractions tapered off. Oh I was so sad because I was so done!! But, baby just needed a few more days I guess. Wednesday afternoon about 3:50 I started having contractions 5 min apart. Within twenty minutes they were 3-4 min apart. Jeremy got home from work, my friend came to get the kids, and we headed for the hospital. By this time I had been contracting for about two hours. They hooked me up to a monitor to see if I was really in labor. I think they didn't believe me since I walked myself up to labor and delivery and was not screaming in pain. But I assured them that this was my fourth and I knew what labor felt like. They checked me and I was at 4 cm and almost fully effaced. Over the next hour, and a half, contractions got harder and became 2 min apart. They finally said they would admit me! Hooray! So, I walked myself up stairs with the nurse (I had no interest in a wheel chair). We got up stairs and into a room. By this time it was about 8 pm or so. I laid on the bed while they got their IVs and other stuff going. Not my favorite part. I always have to get poked about 10 times before they find a good spot. But, I didn't complain mostly because contractions had backed off a little and were 5-7 min apart now, but still pretty hard. I just breathed through them. About 9 pm, the doctor came in to check me and said I was at a 6 and wanted to break my water to speed things up, but not until I got an epidural. I figured I'd get one since I got one with the other kids even though I didn't feel like the pain was unbearable at this point. So the epidural guy came in and did his thing. It worked for about 20 min and I was pretty comfortable. Then I noticed that I was starting to feel pain again on my right side. I knew what was happening because my epidural with Nora only worked on one side. But, because I still felt like I could handle the contractions and I had done it with Nora, I didn't ask the nurses to try and fix it. However, another twenty minutes and I realized the epidural was no longer working on either side. I realized this when I started to feel tons of pressure and the contractions had picked back up with a fury. I was still able to breathe through it all, though, so I just thought, "I'm gonna do this natural. I've always wanted to and this is my last chance. Here we go." The nurse came in about this time to check me and told me I was just about complete and ready to go. She went to inform the doctor. While she was out, I felt baby drop in place and told Jeremy to go tell the nurse this baby was coming soon. The nurse came back in and confirmed that the baby's head was ready to go. She turned to go get the doctor quick and then I felt baby just come all on her own and I said, "No! She's coming right now!" The nurse turned back around and baby's head was born. She yelled to another nurse to call OB STAT! down the hall for the doctor. Then she said I could push if I felt like it, so I sat up to push and baby just slid the rest of the way out. Doctor didn't make it! She was just born right there on the bed with the nurse watching. I couldn't believe how quick and easy it was! I thought that there would be so much more pain without the epidural meds working. But there she was--born at 37 weeks 6 days and crying a really good cry! Doctor came in a minute or two later and helped deliver the placenta, then ran back to deliver the other girl he was with before. Amazing experience for me and Jeremy. Lucy breastfed right away like a little champ. She has been a great joy to us the last few days. I still have TONS of swelling in my feet and legs, and numbness in my hands and arms, but we're hoping that it will all be gone in a few weeks. Somehow the pain of walking on swollen feet and using my hands is not so bad now that I have a sweet little prize to help me get through it. We are very happy to have finished our family off with this precious girl.

Tiny Dancer

The only thing my girls like better than dressing up is dressing up and dancing to princess songs!

It's done. Time for ketchup...catch up.

My online classes are DONE!! Finalmente he terminado y tengo mucho feliz porque estoy muy embarazada y ya no funciona el cerebro. My classes were working toward a certification to teach English language learners in California. Thought it might be a good idea to try to brush up my Spanish skills, which have always been way better with reading and writing. I have great pronunciation, but my speaking skills are like my public piano playing skills--I just clam up when it's time to perform. Jeremy has some new missionaries in his office and they are a couple from the Spanish ward. They actually live in our ward boundaries. They are very eager to get Jeremy and I speaking Spanish again. They were not shy about letting us know they were looking for a pianist for their ward choir and a Sunday School teacher. :)

So, some quick facts about what has been going on recently:

Jeremy had a birthday on St. Patrick's Day, and wore his awesome bow tie and top hat that the senior sister missionaries got him. We got carpet in our living room--a HUGE improvement on having to clean so much tile and grout AND the echo is gone. Mommy loves a quiet house. :) The kids won't stop growing. I kind of had to let them run a little wild for the last 6 months that I've been doing my classes, and feeling sick and tired from being pregnant, but they are in for a shock. Healthy meals and fewer cartoons again! I passed my glucose screening test. Yay! I'm only 28 weeks and I already feel like the baby's gonna drop out of me every time I stand up. Really achy a lot. Bad water retention. Even at 9 am, I can already push a good half inch dent into my shins. Other than that, we are pretty happy. It was a great Spring Break that we had. Jeremy took some time off, we got a lot of landscaping done in the backyard, we spent tons of time outdoors at the park, went for bike rides, and walks, got haircuts, went out to lunch as a family, had an outdoor movie party with friends, made a family history photo book for the kids, and today we have a retirement party and a birthday party to go to. Excited to do an egg hunt in the backyard tomorrow morning since Jeremy will be out of town for Easter Sunday. Now we just chug along to the end of the school year and wait for baby to come.

Privacy Please

So, my stats show that I have some Russian porn sites referring to our blog and trafficking here. I have no idea if it is just spam type stuff or if some perverts across the world are looking at pics of my kids. I researched if I could block them from viewing or linking to my blog, but that's not possible unless I make the whole thing private and just have invited readers with a password. So, leave a message with your email if you'd like to keep reading a once or twice monthly update with pictures, videos, etc. I'm going to make this change in the next week or so. I'll contact whoever wants to keep reading with info on how to log in to read.

Shopping trials

So I outgrew my regular clothes just before Christmas. No big deal to move on to maternity clothes, except that after three pregnancies, my preggo wardrobe is stretched pretty thin--no pun intended. I have a few shirts and a couple pairs of pants. Not too bad since I don't have to really be anywhere special these days. Not like when I was pregnant with Paul and Katie and teaching and I had to be dressed up every day. So my problem is I have one skirt and one dress that I can switch between for church. I still have four months to go and it's gonna get warmer and warmer around here and I want to be able to wear something besides the two pairs of jeans I have. I went in search of maternity clothes at Old Navy, Sears, JC Penney, Kohls, Target, Walmart, Gap, EVERYWHERE!! No one here sells maternity clothes in store now. They are all in a catalog or online only. OR their selection is one tiny rack with a couple shirts and jeans. All I need is a couple skirts to get me through this!!! Finally today I found a few racks of maternity clothes at Macy's. Of course the prices were ridiculous, but I was so desperate at this point I didn't care anymore. So, I got a cute knee length jean skirt and a mid-calf cotton black skirt and paid $60--and one of them was on sale. Ugh. Oh well. Now I have something to wear on my bottom half AND they are generic enough that I can pair them with any of the tops I have to make a few different outfits. Wish I were one of those girls that can wear their regular low-waisted jeans the whole time and not have to bother with having to get new clothes for only a few months. Everyone has their challenges, right? :)