Home Sweet Home

I'm a bit late on posting this...but Sunday we got to come HOME!

But let's back up a bit first...
On Saturday daddy brought the boys to come visit and meet their sister the first time. We didn't know when we could bring her home. Each day was day by day, but we wanted the boys to meet their little sister. :)
They loved her, of course. Each of the boys got a chance to hold her, several times. We had to rotate turns because they were fighting over who got to hold her! She is much smaller then she looks in pictures - so the boys were surprised at how little she is.
Billy Jr's first words when he saw her was that she was "so cool"!

Then Sunday at midnight she had her nightly weigh-in and she had gained a whole ounce! A few hours later the doctors gave us the good news that she could go HOME!

The ride home took quite awhile. We left Seattle around 3pm and got home just before 9pm. It is usually a 3-hour trip. However we had to stop every hour to let baby out of her carseat (because its hard work sitting up right like that for a tiny baby for too long). She had to eat one of those stops also, and that takes her around half-an-hour to finish.

Adjusting at home has been difficult. I've been gone for three weeks (plus a week of strict bedrest in which I couldn't do anything anyway), so saying that our house is in disarray is an understatement.
I'm just hoping to slowly get things back to normal...but it may take a couple months!

In more big news...the oldest three boys went back to school this week. I was hesitant and felt like we were giving our homeschool dream. However, I do see how its important for them to be back to a routine, around other kids, and doing school work. I couldn't imagine doing school work with them on top of everything else right now. So I know its a good thing, but I feel like I failed at homeschooling. :(

Baby Abigail will be 2 weeks old on Monday. Her check-up today showed she's still gaining and is now within 2 oz of her birth weight! YAY!! 
Our schedule is pretty crazy right now. Every three hours I wake her up to feed her, which can take 30-60mins depending on how sleepy she is. Next I have to pump for about 15 minutes. Then I have to repeat the whole cycle again three hours from when we STARTED. This is 24/7... So it was a big sleep adjustment for me at first. I was pretty emotional for a few days, running on very little sleep and dealing with "baby blues". However I feel better now. Each day I feel more and more "human" again and am slowly getting things done.  Like today I gave the little two boys haircuts they desperately needed.  Tomorrow I may fold some laundry. lol

Okay, enough update - TIME FOR PICTURES!

Owen loving on baby sister:



Gabe kept giving her kisses...we didn't tell him to!


Billy jr was so proud!



Biggest and littlest...



Brayden and Abigail:

Bunches O' Boys...and one little girl!

We are proud to welcome our little drop of pink in our bucket O' blue....
Miss Abigail, born Jan 2, 2012!

She decided to come early, but we are happy to announce that besides being a tiny little thing - she is totally healthy!

Here is her birth story, and yes pictures too!

Our original plan was to induce labor on New Year's Eve. However, everyone's baby decided to come that day as well! Since I was stable and not in labor, we kept getting bumped from the schedule. All the labor and delivery rooms were full!
We kept waiting and wating and waiting all day. Finally that evening the doctors said they'd tried Cervidil over night to see if that would help get things started. But when the Dr. checked me I was 3 cm so no need for Cervidil! The plan was to use Pitocin bright and early in the morning to start things.
As the Dr. promised, we had a room at 5:30am and started Pitocin within the hour. Not much progress at first, to our disappointment.
I had contractions every 3 min or so but I didn't feel them much. Finally, I started to just get a little uncomfortable and I opted to have them start the epidural incase things went fast.
When I was checked, I was found to be 4 cm. The doctors said the Pitocin wasnt really kicking things into gear yet (labor).
More and more waiting...it was all still the same.
Finally around 9pm the doctors decided to stop the Pitocin for the night and give my uterus a rest to resume in morning. Talk about disappointing!
Laboring all day, to try again in the morning. We were all worried and just wanted her out. :( So I asked the Dr. to check me and see if any progress was made all day at least. She did, and I was 6cm. So they decided to keep going on the Pitocin through the night to see how things go...
Hubby and I went to sleep (epidurals work so great lol). At some point the nurse woke me up to tell me to turn over on my other side and that they were taking me off the Pitocin. I think baby wasn't tolerating it well and needed a rest. I was tired, no problem.
Back to sleep I went.
Then I was woken up a couple hours later with the doctor in the room saying she needed to check me. I thought that was weird since I wasnt really feeing any contractions and they turned the Pitocin off. Epidurals work great. lol I was found to be 9 cm!!

There was a little bag of water cushoning baby's head, so the doctor broke that and had me push a couple times to see if it brought baby down. She was still so high, that the doctor said she'd never seen someone dilated to  9cm and the baby being so high still!
Well that worked and baby came down nicely. The doctor told me to stop and rest and she'd get the rest of the team ready. Now I felt the pressure and it was hard not to push!
Finally, everyone was in place and I could start pushing. It took about two good pushes to get her head right there, and then several small pushes to get the rest of her out.
Pretty easy actually. ;) I felt like a dream..I was still waking up!

 Afterwards she did great and hubby went with her to the progressive care nursery (not NICU) to help with her bath, etc. Took an hour to get an IV in her, poor thing. :( And her hands and feet are so sore from all the poking from IVs and various blood sugar, etc tests. She was 5 lbs 1 oz and 18" long.

She's done great with breathing and eating from day one. She had a tiny setback with maintaining her temperature and had to be put in an isolette (incubator). However, she's getting taken out of that tomorrow and should be in my room with me!
The nurses can't get over how hungry she is, waking up to eat every 3 hours on the clock. They joke that she doesn't seem to know she's 6 weeks premature.
We should be on schedule to take her home by the end of the week...but some things are day by day, so nothing can really be predicted.

So with that...we welcome little miss Abigail to our family! The boys haven't met her yet, but I can't wait for when they do.