2 Weeks Old!

I took Brooklyn in for her 2 week check-up yesterday. She is now 8 lbs 7 oz and 21 in. She hasn't gained back all of her birth weight (3 more oz) so my doctor wants me to bring her back in on Monday to weigh her again. She slept 9 hours the other night! I know, I should be better about waking up and feeding her every 4-5 hours, but I have hard time wanting to set an alarm to do it in the middle of the night when she's such a good sleeper. I'm not worried that she won't gain back all of her birth weight. So, yes, she's still been an angel. She's focusing more on our faces now instead of just looking right past us. She still smiles and giggles in her sleep. The kids still adore her (good thing) and want to hold and feed her all the time. Gavin keeps asking if we can keep her forever and ever. Very sweet. The blanket she's laying on in the picture was made by our sweet neighbor, Maddy, who is only 8 years old. She did an amazing job!

Family Baby Spit Bath

My family has a traditon where when we have our first baby we have several big showers. Then after your first baby, we do just a little shower with just my mom and sisters for the rest of our kids. Over the years we've gotten more lazy with them so they end up being thrown together. So they are now known as Baby Spit Baths instead of Baby Showers. Karen and I decided to do ours together after we both had our babies. Jenny and Lauren couldn't be there because they live out of state (sniff, we missed you two) so Melissa Smith (aka Beans) came in their place.

Amy, Beans and Missy quilting Harry's blanket

Riley and Mary, born 1 day apart

Kissin' Cousins, Harry and Brooklyn

So here they all are, in order from oldest to youngest:

Riley Bethers born April 5th

Mary Alldredge born April 6th

Harry Robinson born April 21st

Brooklyn Doney born June 5th

Lindsay, Kaelynne and Kelly

Laurel, Mary, Heidi and Riley

Karen, Harry, Granny Annie, Me and Brooklyn

They gave me a new baby monitor and Lauren made those cute bows and headbands

Quilting Brooklyn's blanket. I actually only did like 4 stitches. I'm cool like that!

One week old!

I can't believe it's already been a week since little Brooklyn joined our family. She has been an angel and I hope things continue as they have. She slept 8 hours last night!!! And when she is awake, she's usually just making little cute noises and just looks around. She was looking a little yellow at the beginning of the week, so I put her by the window to get sunlight on her and that helped. I took her to see Dr. Edwards on Wednesday because he wasn't the Pediatrician who looked at her in the hopsital and I wanted to make sure the her Jaundice was going away. He said she looked perfect. She weighed 8 lbs 2 oz, so she's down half a pound since birth, but not a big deal. She has such a pretty skin tone and a perfect round head. She really is a perfect baby. The blanket she is laying on was made by Grandma Tracey.

I LOVE this picture. This was when the kids came to visit her for the second time in the hospital. I think it's precious!

Lindsay is such a good helper. She holds for an hour or two and helps feed her. She really acts mature with her.
Zane has been a little more cautious to hold her but today he asked if he could feed her and he did a great job. He really wanted another brother but when they came to the hospital and he found out that it was a girl, he said "Mom I changed my mind. I want you to have a girl."

Gavin loves her. When he came to the hospital the 2nd time to see her, he said "Hi Princess! Mommy I called her Princess!" And he still does. This morning he even said, "good morning sweetheart." So cute!

After her first bath at home. She's not too fond of being cold or being undressed (me either! hahaha!)

I still can't believe we have 4 kids!

Brooklyn smiles A LOT in her sleep. She has 4 dimples (2 on the each side of her mouth and 1 in each cheek). We even caught her laughing a couples of times today while she was asleep.

I love when Dan cuddles with our babies. I think I have a picture of him similar to this one with all of our kids.

Brooklyn's Birth

Some of you have asked for the details of how labor and delivery went. So here's a time table of the day.

8:00 am Arrived at the hospital on Friday, June 5th, to be induced (my due date). I was still only dilated to a 1 and only 50% effaced, exactly where I was the week before. Bless Dr. Curtis' little heart for letting me be induced even though I wasn't dilated much and not very effaced. But this is how it has been with all my other kids. So I knew it would be this way again.
9:00 am Pitocin started. Dr. Curtis couldn't get over to the hospital to break my water first thing in the morning so we were waiting to see if another doctor was around who could come break it. BTW, Dr. Curtis doesn't normally deliver at St. Mark's anymore since the new hospital opened in Murray (his office only allows them to deliver there now). But he does deliver at St. Mark's for only patients he's had for a long time! Phew!
9:00-12:30 Dan and I just watched some tv, I tried to sleep, Dan played on his laptop, then we watched Harry Potter, while waiting for someone to come break my water. Oh and I was starving!
1:20 pm FINALLY a Dr. Nielson, who had come to do a C-section for someone, was able to come break my water (Dr. Curtis still couldn't get over to the hospital). I was only a 2 at that point!!!! So basically the first 5 hours were wasted because the Pit wasn't doing much.
3:15 pm My contractions started getting harder and started to hurt. Did I mention I was starving????
4:00 pm Got my EPIDURAL!!! Heaven! Ok getting the Epidural wasn't heaven but it was my least traumatic Epidural that I've gotten. I think the anticipation of getting it was worse then the actual process. I was then dilated to a 3. Shortly after that I wasn't feeling very good, which is a side effect of the Epidural.
6:15 pm They decided to put internal monitors in to get a better reading and they said it would probably speed things up. Then they increased my Pit to 20. They checked and I was now dilated to almost a 5. YEA! I was progressing! By now Dr. Curtis had come and said he was going to stay there until I was ready to deliver. Shortly after that my epidural started to wear off and I was feeling my contractions. Then I started feeling lots of pressure. I DID NOT WANT TO FEEL THIS!!! And was starting to panic a little. So we called the nurse in.
7:50 pm The Anesthesiologist came in and gave me a stronger dose of the epidural and it helped almost immediately. The nurse checked me and said "Oh dear! You're almost a 10. Don't move, don't sneeze, don't laugh. I'll go get Dr. Curtis." Within a couple of minutes Dr. Curtis came in and they set everything up.
8:08 pm 3 pushes and little Brooklyn Marie was born!!!!

So I'm not sure if I should count labor from when they started the Pitocin (which would be a little over 12 hours) or from when they broke my water (which was just over 7 hours). But I'm so grateful for an easy delivery and that everything went well. Thanks again Melissa for my Leger's sandwich, chips and cookie that I devoured after I got to my room. It was dang good!!!! Also, thank you to our families for all of your help with our other 3 kids. You are all life savers and we love you! And especially thanks to my sweetheart for being such a great husband and dad! I love you!

IT'S A GIRL!!!!!!!

Brooklyn Marie

Born June 5th, 2009 at 8:08 pm

8 pounds 10 ounces 19 inches long

The very happy Mom

The proud Daddy

We brought our kids in separately to tell them first that we had a baby girl. This was their first reaction. Gavin had just woken up but he was so cute about it. He kept kissing her and saying he loved her so much.

The kids went out to the hallway with a blue and pink Mickey Mouse rattle, then held up the pink one to announce to our families and friends that they had a baby sister.

Our new little family

Gavin

Lindsay

Zane

Look at that cute double chin

Her first bath

Delivery Day!

So today is the day! The only reason I have time to blog this morning is because Dan and I got all ready by 6:00 am and called the hospital and they told us to be there by 8:00. So I have a little time, I thought I'd do one last post before having this baby. Today is my due date and I scheduled an induction for today a couple of weeks ago because I knew I wouldn't go early. Lindsay and Zane were both 5 days late so I had to be induced with them and I was induced with Gavin on his due date. So I guess my babies are comfy where they are and don't want to come out! The picture above was taken this morning (I'll probably regret posting it). So here's just a little update of what has happened the past couple of weeks with the pregnancy:

On May 18th I decided to let the kids run through the sprinklers. They had been doing so for about an hour and a half, which made a big puddle of water in the grass. I told them it was time to go inside and none of them would listen. I turned off the water and they still continued to jump into the puddle in the grass. I was getting irritated. Gavin finally came to me so I could dry him off. Then he promptly ran right back into the puddle. I was so mad! I walked (stomped) over to him in my flip flops, right into the puddle and grabbed his arm, then WHAMO! My feet slipped right out from under me and I landed hard on my backside right in the puddle! It knocked the wind out of me! Now normally it MIGHT have been funny, but not when you're 8 1/2 months pregnant. The kids knew they were in trouble. I was so mad I stood right back up and yelled at them to all get into the house. I told the boys to get into time out, while I went to change, now feeling a lot of weird pressure. All the kids were crying and then I started crying because I was worried about the baby. I called Dan & asked him to come home so I could lay down. He left work immediately. Then I called my doctor and they told me to go to the ER. Meanwhile, I tried to comfort my kids who were now very scared that the baby was hurt. Zane kept crying saying, "I hope our baby doesn't die!" It was sad. I laid down to wait for Dan and the kids came and sat by me. I felt the baby moving so that made me feel a little better. I told the kids it was going to be ok and that the baby was moving, then Lindsay said, "Oh good. My prayer worked." I thought that was so sweet. As soon as Dan got home, we took the kids to my mom's and went to the ER. They monitored me for almost 4 hours. The babies heartbeat sounded great. They did a blood test that checks the cells and it can tell them if the placenta is damaged. It came back fine. PHEW! The fall started contractions which continued through the night but obviously didn't do much because here we are today on my due date! I have felt fine since, just uncomfortable and a little irritable.

Last week at my appointment I was almost dilated to a 2 and about 50% effaced, so we'll see what I am when we get there this morning. My labors with my other 3 kids were: Lindsay 17 hours, Zane 15 hours and Gavin 12 hours. I'm shooting for 10 hours with this one! We're so excited and anxious!!! If you want to take a guess at what we're having, etc... you can click on the link on the right hand side and enter your guess! Stay tuned......

I'm such a Blog slacker!

I thought I'd better get caught up on my blogging before this baby comes. I can't believe it's been 6 weeks. BEWARE!!!! There are lots of new posts. We've been busy!

Travis and Cassie's Wedding

One of Dan's brother's, Travis, was married last Saturday (May 30th) to Cassie Crump. They are a very cute couple and we're so happy for them. They had their ceremony and reception in Cassie's Grandma's backyard and it was beautiful. We only got a little sprinkle of rain and the rest of the day was perfect. I love the colors they chose. Lindsay got to be the Flower Girl (which she LOVED) and Zane & Gavin were the Ring Bearers. They did a great job walking down the aisle. We're very happy to have Cassie join the family!!!! Congratulations Travis and Cassie! We love you!

Lindsay's Kindergarten Graduation

On May 29th, Lindsay graduated from Kindergarten. I can't believe she'll be going to school all day in the Fall. She is so excited, but will really miss her teacher, Miss Gurney. We love you Lindsay and are so proud of all your accomplishments this past year!

Miss Gurney