January News and New Baby Boy!!!

The main event of the month was the birth of our sweet little Hodson. We were happily surprised on January 10th at 2:00 pm when the doctor asked me if I wanted him to strip my membranes. Knowing that everything at home was ready to go I asked Joseph what he thought and he said, “it’s up to you.” So I told the doctor to go ahead. I waited through the evening wondering if anything was going to happen since I had the same thing done with Brigham, but nothing happened that time. We went to bed and then at 12:30 I woke up to a semi-painful contraction. I laid in bed and a few minutes later I had another. Nothing was real serious at that point so I got out of bed and came downstairs and mixed up some milk so the kids could have cereal for breakfast. I got on the computer and researched when to go to the hospital. At this point I wasn’t sure if this was the real thing or not. By 1:15 I knew I was in labor, but decided to wait a while. By 1:40 the pains were getting more intense and so I woke up Joseph. He asked me if we needed to go to the hospital. I told him no, but that I was going to get things ready. We both gathered our toiletry items and got dressed. By 1:50 it was time to call the sitter. Joseph called Sister Watts. A neighbor in the ward that the kids just LOVE. She got here at 2:00. We drove the 20 minutes to the hospital. (Thankfully is was in the middle of the night and there was not traffic and all the stop lights were green, otherwise, this is normally a 25 minute drive.) At this point my contractions were getting pretty serious, but were still every 5 minutes apart. It took us 5 minutes to walk up to the labor and delivery floor. While we were checking in I starting having contractions pretty much every minute or 2. I was doubled over in the waiting area while Joseph was trying to get me checked in. The triage nurse came to get us and had to wait for the contraction to stop before taking us back. I had another contraction on the way back to the room. It was crazy at how quickly the contractions were coming now. The nurse gave me the gown to change into. As I was changing through contractions I remembered that I wanted a quick final pregnancy photo like I have for the other kids. Joseph snapped the picture and then the nurse came in. She checked me and I was completely surprised to hear her tell me I was dilated to a 9. They quickly took me to a delivery room and hooked me up to the monitors. They had already called the doctor on call who was sleeping in a nearby room. He arrived shortly. They quickly prepared the room for delivery. The doctor broke my water, which was a huge relief of pressure. We told the doctor we didn’t know what we were having and he’d have to tell us. He said I’m not telling you Dad will get to do that.
I pushed probably about 5-6 times and out came little (or should I say big) Hodson. Just a short 15 minutes after the photo that was taken in the triage room. The doctor said that feels like a 9 pounder. I laughed thinking no way my biggest was 8 lbs. Sure enough the nurse took him to the scale and said 8 lbs 13 ounces. Wow, what a big boy. I’m glad the doctor let me go a few days early. We spent the morning enjoying our new little guy and trying to rest a bit. Joseph left at about 7:00 to go get the kids to come to the hospital before school. They were all very excited. Gammon was so excited. He came in the room and said, “Your baby out mom?” He has adjusted well. A little whinier than usual, but loves his little brother. I’m looking forward to all the time they will spend together. I hope they will be best buds. We came home from the hospital on the 12th, Celebrated Daniel’s birthday with icecream on the 13th. He enjoyed the rollerblades I got for him. I was happy I got them earlier in the week otherwise he would have had to wait for his gift.
That night Brigham started what ended up being a rough week of the stomach flu for all of us. It was like a domino effect. One after another. Poor Gammon had a rough time getting over it although he felt good he kept throwing up every day. It took him a good week to get over it. We all took our turn with it except for Kyler. She dodged it completely. Oh and we aren’t sure if Grandma got a small case of it or not because there was one day she didn’t feel real great, but didn’t feel sick either. We were glad to have Grandma and Grandpa here to help take care of things since it took all for of us to keep things going at one point. Poor Hodson lost a pound those first 5 days. He was struggling to eat and 2 days later was at the same weight. I decided to stop trying to nurse him and just pump milk for him. It is going well now. He is chunking up and growing oh so fast.

I am getting a hold of this 6 kids thing. I have to work really hard to balance my time and use every minute possible to get things done.