Jackson is Mobile!

Holy Cow! Jackson is figuring out how to get around! He isn't full on crawling yet, but he can scoot around army style like nobody's business. If he sees something he wants (usually something dangerous!) he will stop at nothing to go get it. At least until I put a pillow in his way. I can't believe he is growing up so quickly! Where did my little baby go? His newest milestone he has hit is getting up on his hands and knees and rocking back and forth. I think he will be crawling up a storm in the next few weeks. I guess I will need to go get some gates for our stairs.

Also, Jackson loves eating feet! Whenever I teach a piano lesson, I always end up pulling Jackson out from under the piano bench because he is tickling and licking my students' shoes and toes! crazy boy.

Jackson is just waiting for the day when the outlet covers are gone and he can discover the electricity!

Jackson Eats Solid Food!

So, Jackson is getting really close to being 6 months old and has been really interested whenever Jarred and I eat in front of him. He always reaches for our forks and loves taking "sips" from our water glasses. Because of this, we decided it was time to give him some food! We went to the grocery store and bought a few baby food items. We decided to try the rice cereal first since he is most likely not allergic to that. (Jarred has a lot of food allergies, so we want to be really careful with new foods for Jackson. Which reminds me, I should probably buy some Benadryl).

Anyways, we sat Jackson down into his Bumbo and strapped the bib on him and gave it a go. He loved it! He couldn't get enough of it! When it was all gone he kept sucking on the spoon in hopes that he could get some more. I hope he eats all new foods like this! I really don't want to be cleaning food off of the ceiling anytime soon.

Jarred's Graduation!!!

Jarred graduated from UVU this past April! He received a Bachelors degree in Communications with an emphasis in Public Relations. I am so proud of him!!! Technically he has one more class to take until he is fully graduated, but he was able to walk. (UVU only has one graduation a year so if you are close to graduating they let you walk early).

This was a long time coming. Since we were married (4 1/2 years ago) we have been telling people that he has about 2 years left. haha! However, we were able to get him graduated without any debt! yay! This made the journey a little longer, but now we don't owe money. I guess it's okay that college took longer because it's not like there are tons of jobs out there.

The actual graduation was pretty good too. Jarred decided to attend the commencement (the entire university) and the convocation (where he walks). I have to say that the commencement was excellent. There was a great speaker, Robert C Gay, who had some interesting stories. He also spoke about a lot of spiritual things that put a nice tone to the whole meeting. One story that I really liked was when he was graduating with a doctorate from Harvard. At the graduation, Mother Theresa spoke. Harvard decided to cut part of her speech from the official record. The part they cut went something like this:

Every child is special. The first person to openly rejoice in Christ's birth was an unborn child: John the Baptist. He leapt in the womb when he was near Mary. Every unborn child is precious and should not be aborted. If you are thinking about having an abortion, don't. You can bring the baby to me and I will take care of it.

Mother Theresa spoke at this Harvard graduation about 30 years or more ago. It's crazy to think that even that long ago Harvard was taking a stance on the side of abortion. They refused to record that part of Mother Theresa's speech. She is one of the most amazing, humble, and loving persons to walk this earth. I'm glad that Robert C Gay remembered it and was able to keep her words alive, even if Harvard wouldn't.

After having Jackson, I can't imagine anyone wanting to abort a baby. He is such an innocent and precious baby boy. I also know a lot of people who are seeking to adopt a baby and it seems so selfish to choose to abort an unborn child rather than to give it up for adoption.

Anyways... I am so excited for Jarred to be graduated. I am so excited for him to be able to just focus on work and family. School is great, but it definitely took up a lot of time away from home life. Not to mention that he was often working full time and going to school full time. Jarred is amazing and I love him so much for his dedication and hard work!

Jackson's Birth Story

So Jackson's due date, March 23rd, came and went with no sign of any real contractions happening. I was barely having any Braxton Hicks (or Jackson Hicks as Jarred calls them) Contractions. I had been dilated to 1 cm for about amonth. Because of all this, mydoctor decided to schedule me to be induced on Tuesday the 29th.We metup with our families on Sunday like usual and let them know that it looked like we were going to be induced on Tuesday night and then have the baby sometime on Wednesday. We arrived home on Sunday night around 10pm and about an hour later I started having some contractions. They weren't regular yet and I assumed they were just some Braxton Hicks again. By midnight, they started to get regular, about 5 minutes apart. So I decided it was time to tell Jarred that I was having contractions and we could start timing them together. Well, we waited at home for about 2 hours of having contractions at 2-3 minutes apart. Then at about 2 am we headed to the hospital! That car ride was not very fun, luckily there wasn't any traffic!

We get to the hospital and arrived at labor and delivery to have nobody there to check us in! There I was having contractions and having to wait about 10 minutes (felt like forever) to have someone finally show up. Luckily we had preregistered so I only had to sign a couple things instead of filling out an entire sheet. I was put back into a room where theyhooked me up to a whole bunch of stuff to check my heart rate, baby's heart rate, and my blood pressure. They monitored me for 2 hours checking my progression every once in a while. My blood pressure was more elevated than they would have like so they decided to admit me! Amazingly enough though, I was progressing enough that even if I didn't have an elevated blood pressure I would have been admitted anyways.

I had just been having contractions for about 4 hours and I decided that was long enough without any medication. I decided to get something called Fentinol (sp?) This was something I could get once an hour and still be able to get out of bed and move around. It was glorious! I was having really bad back labor pains, so I was loving life with this stuff! I ended up getting this twice and then after that I decided I was ready for the epidural. So around 6:30 am -ish the anesthesiologist came in and was the most wonderful man ever because he made all the pain disappear! Yay! After getting the epidural I slept off and on until about 2pm. My legs felt

like your mouth does after you go to the dentist. Very weird. Occasionally I would need to change positions on the bed and that was so odd not being able to move my body. It took all of my concentration and help from a nurse to turn over! Around 1:30pm I was checked again and I was dilated to 10cm! I didn't even need Pitocin. The doctor came in around 2:30pm and said we needed to start pushing.

I had heard that first time moms have a longer push time and push between 45 min-2hrs or so. I figured I would be the same. 2 extra doses of direct line epidural, horrible back labor pains, and 2 and 1/2 hours later, I still had no baby! The most discouraging part was the entire hour when the nurses and doctor kept saying they could see the head when I would push, but then once I was done pushing, Jackson's head would recede. Another discouraging time was when the doctor said that I had just done an excellent push and showed me that Jackson had moved "This far!" The distance Jackson moved was about a centimeter. Wow, what a big push! (said covered with sarcasm). I couldn't believe that was the best push ever - pathetic. It was about 5pm and I had been watching the clock in disbelief that I had not had him yet. I had a couple of problems that made the pushing last so long. First off, Jackson was sunny side up. The best position for a baby to deliver is with their head down and their face down. Jackson's head was down, but his face was up. This meant that he had to be turned to face downward. Unfortunately, the doctor could only turn him half way. Another problem was also the shape of my pelvis. Apparently it's not designed to let babies slide out easily or something.

At 5pm the doctor encouraged me to push for about 10 more minutes. In my head I was thinking that I couldn't make it through one more set of pushes let alone ten minutes! Yet, amazingly enough I made it beyond 10 minutes. I had another 30 minutes of pushing left in me. at about 5:15pm the nurses transformed the foot portion of the bed into a delivery bed and the doctor put on a whole get up that included a face mask with a shield covering his whole face. He told me that they would try the vacuum to help deliver Jackson. If that didn't work, then they would push Jackson back up and deliver him via C-Section. (They didn't even have the option to use forceps because of Jackson's positioning). I absolutely did not want to end up with a C-Section, especially after all that pushing I had already done. The doctor attached the vacuum and when I pushed he pulled. According to Jarred, it looked like the doctor was trying to start a lawn mower by how hard and how far back he was pulling! After 2 sets of pushes Jackson was finally born!!!

They had to whisk him away to the pediatric nurses because there was meconium when they broke my water. The doctor cut the cord so fast that I didn't even see it. I was also a little disoriented and I couldn't figure out where the placenta was because I thought he hadn't cut the cord since I didn't see it. Even though there was meconium and Jackson went through such a long labor process, he ended up with near perfect APGAR scores! As soon as I saw Jackson and when I heard his first cry, all of the pain and exhaustion from the pushing went away and I was just so grateful that my son was born. Some of that pain came back when the doctor was stitching me up from some tearing though. The epidural decided not to work in some places I guess. Thank goodness for local anesthetics! Once he was all cleaned up and it was decided that he was okay, I was able to hold my beautiful little boy. Jarred and I were so grateful that he was here and that he was healthy. I was also able to do "skin to skin" with him. What a wonderful bonding experience! We had family that was able to come by soon after the delivery and they were able to see him get his first bath and get taken care of in the nursery. While Jackson was in the nursery, I was finally able to get some food!!! My favorite things were the apple juice and the big bowl of fresh strawberries! I had been craving strawberries, but didn't tell anyone because I was a little preoccupied with having a baby. It was the best meal ever!

Jackson is now 4 weeks old. He did have to get light therapy for some jaundice that he had, but he was able to get over it quickly. We had a love/hate relationship with his Bilibed. We knew it was helping him recover from jaundice, but we hated that we couldn't hold him or swaddle him. Not fun.

I was talking to my mom about the whole labor process and she mentioned that at 5pm she felt very impressed by the Holy Ghost that I needed help through prayers. She called all of my siblings and asked them to pray for me. This was at the exact time that I felt like I couldn't push any longer. I had been praying in my head for help and the Lord was able to strengthen me through other prayers! The Lord answers prayers! I hope that I can listen to the spirit for promptings to help Jackson, just like my mom was able to listen to his promptings for me.

We just love our little Jackson! He is such a great blessing to our little family. We can't wait for him to meet all of his cousins that are being born this year. (Every married couple on my side and Jarred's side are pregnant or have already had a baby in 2011! Christmas this year is going to be crazy!)

On a side note, after you have an epidural your legs might not get their feeling back at the same time. That means that if you want to get up to use the bathroom, make sure that both legs have feeling in them before making this attempt, even with a nurses help. If you don't wait for this, you will wind up on the floor. : )