The birthday continues & One proud Momma!

In my last post, I shared what a great day I had on Monday celebrating my birthday. Well, I was lucky enough to keep the birthday celebration going when my Dad and Step-Mom treated us to dinner at a local steakhouse on Tuesday night. My mom helped me by babysitting the girls so we could get out and enjoy some adult time!

I took this picture of myself right before we left so I could text my sister to show her I was wearing the Estee Lauder lip gloss she bought me!  I'm not a big lipstick wearer, so the glosses Dolly bought me were perfect.  I liked the first one I tried because it was really natural looking. :)

I had my Step-Mom take this picture of Fernando and I.  And Danielle, if you're reading this.... we ate at The Swiss Chalet, which is under new ownership and is just called "The Swiss" now. :)

This week has also been full of some special and proud Mommy moments for me!  Alyssa got her first ever Student-of-the-Month award and I was so excited to go down to the school to see her receive it!

She also got a few other awards for excelling in reading and math, which is so awesome to me!  We've worked so hard over the last year and to see her grow and learn to read makes my heart so happy.  She has such a strong will and we've had lots of battles, but she's become such a go-getter and I've loved seeing how much she's grown this year.  For the reading and math awards, they gave the kids some fun dog tags and Alyssa was so proud to show them to me when I picked her up at the bus!

My Audrey also made me proud this week when she sang in front of the entire church with the other pres-schoolers in her class!  This was HUGE for her because she is so shy and has been known to melt down more times than I can count.  I was a wreck waiting to see how she'd do, but she amazed me when she sang all three songs without any trouble! Totally a God thing!

Here's a super quick video I took of her with my phone.  She's the one in the middle wearing black pants...

Well, it's been a great "birthday week" as I like to call it and I can't believe we only have nine more days left til Christmas!  The time is going way too fast these days!

Just Like Old Times (only now I'm married with three kids)!

I have so much to share about what we've been up to lately so I'm thinking today I'll start with something fun we got to do last Friday and then work my way through the past weekend in the next few posts!

On Friday I had the fun chance to get together with a sweet friend from high school.  We reconnected through Facebook last year and have been talking a lot on there but hadn't actually seen each other in person in 13 years!  The funniest thing about it...we live in the same town! She actually moved away and then came back and well me...I've been here the whole time.  I'm so boring! :)

Nightingale loves photography and asked me a while back if I'd be interested in letting her come over to photograph us to capture what a typical day looks like.  After several months of talking about scheduling a meet-up, we were able to finally able to make it happen! The girls and I had such great time visiting with "Miss Nightingale" and they felt completely comfortable with her, which was so great :)  Visiting Nightingale was like old times and we agreed at the end of our visit that we are pretty much both the same people we were back in high school...only this time around, we're both married and I have THREE kids! We laughed together when she said to me that she still couldn't believe that I have three!

What's so cool to me is that Nightingale, or "Nightie" as we always used to call her, is also a blogger!    After our day together, she wrote up a really neat post on her observations of the day and it was cool seeing what she captured and reading about what our life looks like from the "outside.  You can go HERE to read it! It would mean so much to me if you went over to her blog and checked it out! While you're there, please try to ignore my yucky hair!  There was no time to style it that day, and I am way over due for a haircut so I've pretty much gone into lazy mode with styling it!

Well, I'm really looking forward to more chances to hang out with Nightingale and maybe even get to meet with both her and her Hubby together!

P.S.  When you hop over to Nightingale's blog, you'll see the mommy shirt I'm wearing.  I've been meaning to blog about it for ages but just hadn't done that.  Jodi made it for me and I love it!

Turtle Treats

Today I thought I'd share how to make some yummy treats I made last week for my nephew's housewarming party!  I'm not really sure what the proper name for these are, actually. All I know is when my sister made them for me for Alyssa's birthday party back in June, she referred to them as "turtles."  If you're a big fan or chocolate/caramel and nuts, then these are for you!  I think they're a fun little addition for a party or a shower!  I'm just gonna call them Turtle treats!

Basically, all you'll need is three ingredients... round butter flavored pretzals, Rollo candies and walnut halves...

First what you'll  need to do is set your oven to 250 degrees.  Then while the oven is pre-heating, arrange your pretzals on a baking sheet covered in wax paper.  Then you take your rollos and put one on each pretzal, just like this...

Once all the rollos are on the pretzals, place them in the oven for about three minutes.  This will allow the rollos to get soft but not melt them completely.  Once the three minutes have passed, carefully take the pan out of the oven and take your walnut halves one at a time and gently push each walnut into the softened rollo. 

Here's what you'll get when you do that...

Continue doing that for as many as you wanted to make and that's it!  I allow mine time to set and that's pretty much all there's to it!

They are so easy to make and SOOOO yummy!

Back to the Barn

This week has continued to fly!  It's been full of tons of running around and staying busy!  I've been meaning for days to post about our little trip from over the weekend to the Avila Valley Barn, so I'm finally getting to that today!

Last year around this exact same time, I posted about my trip to the Avila Barn with my sister Yvonne and our girls.  We had a lot of fun there both last summer and during the fall for the pumpkin patch trip, so on Saturday when we had some free time, my Hubby and I loaded up the girls and took the twenty minute drive back to the Barn.

The last time we'd been there was in October for the pumpkin patch and I was excited to be able to take Livvie along with us, since the last time she'd been there was when she was still in my belly! 

When we first got there, the girls had fun feeding the animals they have there.  At first Alyssa was nervous about the animals biting her, but after a while, she got the hang of things and did a great job feeding them.  I think the expression on her face in this picture is so funny.  She was having a really good time.

After we got done feeding the animals, I made sure to get my Hubby to take a picture of me and the girls.  I hadn't really been able to get a good picture of all of us since Livvie's was born, but I think this one might be a new favorite of mine.  I love how Audrey's doing her own little thing with Alivia here.  So sweet...

I even laughed after going back to last years post about the Barn and noticed I wore the same exact gold hoop dangly earrings on our trip out there.  How funny, huh?

After we finished our little photo shoot, it was off to the girls' favorite part...the sweet shop, where they have homemade ice cream and sorbets.  They also sell a TON of salwater taffy!

They also have the best ever cobbler there and of course you know I had to do a redo of last year and get me some olalaberry cobbler a la mode.  It was soooooo good!

 My Hubby was rolling his eyes at me when I took the picture of my dessert.  I'm not sure why he thought I was being silly considering I take pictures of almost everything these days.  Even food! :)

When I'm there, I always love taking pictures of the flowers they sell.  I'll never forget the year I was pregnant and almost due with Alyssa, and my Hubby and I went there for the day to celebrate our anniversary.  He got me the prettiest bouquet of flowers there and we went home and cooked our own lobster tails we'd purchased from Port San Luis Pier, another neat place down the way from the Barn.

Being at the Barn always brings back good memories and I can't wait until October to go back for the pumpkin patch experience!  This time we'll have Livvie to take along with us to make even more new memories!

If you're even in my area of California, taking a trip the the Barn is a must.  It's so much fun and a great place to check out!

P.S.  On a totally different note, I just wanted to say thanks so much for all your help and suggestions about getting ready for school after my post on Monday.  There was so much great feedback and all of it helped out so much!  I was even able to go down to the school yesterday to turn in our paperwork and got many of my questions answered.  We have orientation on the 13th and then three days later, school starts!  Not much longer now!

Great News!

Just a super quickie post to say thanks again for all your prayers for Livvie!  I just got a call from her Nurse Practioner's office and they told me that the test results for her having whooping cough came back NEGATIVE!  Awesome news, huh?  God is GOOD!

I don't have much more time for blogging today since I've been using my spare time to make my new flower clippies.  I am so excited about the way they're turning out!

Since we've been cooped up in the house a bunch lately, my super sweet Hubby offered to stay home with both Audrey and Alivia so that Alyssa and I could have some one-one-one mommy daughter time tonight.  We're going to go see this movie...

It's been forever since we've been able to get out just the two of us and we're so excited!!!

The week I must have said the word "pottty" at least a zillion times...and a winner!

Well, I hadn't talked about it at all here on the blog, but this week, I decided to work on getting Audrey potty trained!  She turned two back in March and she's been talking so much more lately that I felt that it would be a good time to take the leap! I decided to start on Tuesday after our long weekend when I knew we'd be home a lot. 

Audrey's actually been using the potty for a while now and is really good at telling me when she needs to go number two.  I hoped this week would go smoothely and guess what? 

It totally did!

We've spent a ton of time in the bathroom this week and I cannot tell you how many times I've uttered the phrase "Do you need to go potty?"

She caught on so quickly and it's pretty much safe to say that we're on our way!  She only had like four accidents all week and she's wearing her big girl undies full-time during the day now!  I am SO excited at the thought that I now only have one child in diapers.  Woo hoo!

So that's pretty much my big news of the week!!!
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Also...since a few of you might be wondering who won my giveaway from this week, here's more on that...

It's been a really long while since I've announced a winner with a video, so I figured what the heck, let's do it that way this time.  With two sisters who fight to do the same thing, it took about four takes to just get to the part where we picked a winner without screaming involved.  Welcome to my world! :)   Here is the result...

                          
Walmart giftcard winner from Veronica on Vimeo.

Congrats to the winner and please feel free to email me by clicking on the "Contact Me" link above!  Thanks!

P.S.  So sorry it took me all day to get this posted!  Thanks to everyone who entered and I hope you have a great weekend! :)

Seriously?

The big girls aren't feeling too well today so we've just been bumming around the house in our jammies.  I put everyone {sounds like I've got a whole crew when I say "everyone," huh?} down for nap and I didn't even get a fight, which is a miracle.

This morning, Audrey decided it would be fun to get her hands on Alyssa's container of beads up on the counter here and you can already imagine where this one goes...

You can tell my girl was not feeling well here :(

+

=

{Try to ignore the stain on my carpet.  We are long overdo for a shampoo over here...!}

I was right there when it happened, and all I could think was just "seriously?"  It was so NOT fun picking up all one hundred billion little beads but on the bright side it gave me something to blog about today! :)

I'm hoping these girls will get better soon already.  We need to get out and get some exercise.  I've been struggling in the eating good department and after this past weekend's festivities, I have some work to do!!!

Thoughts at midnight

Now that I have a small baby, I find myself up at all hours of the night.  It's after midnight and it's not really a shock that I'm sitting here at the computer.  Seems like times like these are the only ones I can really use to catch a little break.  I really should be getting to bed soon considering that a certain little someone will be waking me up to be fed before I know it, but for some reason here I am, typing anyway. :)

I find myself wanting to sit and get caught up on what I've missed over the holiday weekend while I tried to put the computer down and spend time with the family.  I feel bad for being so behind with blogs and stuff but it was nice just being able to take a break from the computer and relax.  We had such a fun weekend of doing pretty much nothing but hanging out and enjoying the beautiful weather that finally decided to come our way! 

Alyssa had a fun time going to the movies with her Grandma S and her cousins to see Shrek 3 on Sunday.  You can totally tell from this picture who Alyssa looks like...! :)

Lately, I've been realizing just how much time I spend here on the computer.  I LOVE having a blog to be able to share what's on my mind and getting to make such sweet blog friends, but I guess I've just been having a tough time balancing everything out between handling regular life stuff and getting all caught up in blogland.  Can anyone else out there relate?

I find myself getting all wrapped up in things and before I know it, it seems I've spend a ton of time just sitting on the computer.  This is nothing new really, I guess, but just something that I've been struggling with again lately.  Over the weekend, I even had the thought of just stopping the blog so I could just get re-focused on other stuff, but I know I would be so sad if I did that.

Now that summer's here, I want to make it my goal to get out more with the girls and have some fun.  I think in the past, I've let the fact that I don't have a lot of close in real life friends to hang out with stop me from taking the girls out and just going on adventures.

I want that to change. 

I don't want to keep the girls all cooped up in the house because of my insecurities.  I want them to get out more and have some fun. 

These are just the thoughts that have been running through my head lately and I'm hoping that I can get things figured out so that I can continue doing what I love to do while being a good Mommy to my girls at the same time.

Well, guess I should probably get to bed for real now, but before I do that, I just had to share my new favorite picture.  I have the hardest time getting Audrey to sit still these days for pictures, so I was SO excited when we got this picture today.

Don't you just love her sweet smile?

P.S.  Sorry if this post sounds all jumbled.  I even got a nap in today but I guess staying up late will cause a person to get a little rambly! :)

Hitting the wall

At Alivia's first check up a couple of weeks ago, her Nurse Practioner asked me how I was doing.  It was only my fourth day in as a Mommy of three and I told her I thought I was doing pretty good.  Sure, I had barely made it to the appointment on time and I never did get a shower that morning, but I was feeling like I had a pretty good handle on things!  She asked me if I was getting enough help and reminded me that I needed to make sure to get plenty of rest and to sleep when the baby slept.  I thought that was pretty funny considering that I have two other little ones that sometimes have their own agendas which don't always involve napping.

And then she said something that stuck with me.  It's important that you get your rest when you can because if you don't, by week three you're going to hit the wall.  I told my Hubby about what she said when I got home so he could make sure that I never got to that point.

I at least made it into week four but let me tell you, today I felt like I was close to hitting that wall.  The girls were extra rambunctous today and I had a little baby girl who just wanted to be held. 

It didn't matter that today I felt like actually styling my hair and trying to look decent for once or that I had chores that needed to be done.  She just fussed and fussed until I could hold her.  When she started getting fussy again tonight I just sat in her room with her and cried.  I told her I was right here and felt so frustrated that I just couldn't figure out how to comfort her.  I think it was also the tired me just feeling a little beat down.  I've been thinking I can do it all and I don't need to rest, but boy have I been wrong.

Well, I'm thankful that it's the end of the day!  I'm also so grateful for my wonderful Hubby who's been working his regular job and comes home and helps me make dinner and do the dishes even when he's dead tired.  I am so blessed and even though today was a rough one...I am so thankful for this life we have.  I wouldn't want it any other way...

Home Sweet Home

So I've been meaning to get back on here and post about how we've been doing over the last few days since our sweet girl came into the world, but I just haven't had much computer time.  Hmmm, I wonder why? :)

Everyone knows I have the toughest time just keeping things short, but today I'm going to do my best!  My sister took the big girls out for a frozen yogurt, so I've got a little quiet break in before it's time to wake Alivia up to feed her!

Okay...so where do I start?  I gave birth to our girl on Monday evening at 8:30 after only having been in the hospital for about an hour before delivering.  I can't wait to share how that whole day went, but I'll have to work on that for another day!  Anyhow...we were allowed to go home on Tuesday evening at 8:30, since it had been an entire 24 hours since Alivia had been born.  It was a little strange getting to go home so late in the day, something I didn't do with the other girls.  It was just amazing to me that 25 hours after being admitted into the hospital, we were getting to go home with our girl!

Since coming home, everything has been pretty good.  Alivia has been such a good baby and the only issue we've really been having is that she seems to have her nights and days turned around.  I'm hoping that we can work through that soon so we can all get a little sleep at night!  When I look at her, I'm still trying to get used to having a dark haired baby again! :)  For the last two years, Audrey's been my little light complected baby, and now I've got another dark haired girl!

As for the big sisters, they're doing as well as can be expected.  I was thinking I would have more trouble with the way Audrey was going to respond to the baby, but the one who's really having a harder time is Alyssa.  Both girls love their baby sister, it's just the whole thing of trying to figure out how they all fit in.  I know it will take some time for all of us, but four days in, we're doing pretty well!

Don't you just love them in their Big Sister shirts that Kristin made for them?!?!

And here's my favorite picture of the week!  All THREE of my girls!

I seriously can't believe that only four days ago, I was still pregnant!  God is so good and I can't wait to share more of just how He's blessed us!!!  In the meantime, I hope you all are doing well and I hope to get caught up on everyone's blogs and hear about what you've all been up to!  Thank you all again, so, so much for all the love you sent our way this week!

Have a great weekend, everybody!  I'm off to feed my girl!!!

A Butterfly Birthday!

Yesterday was the BIG day!  Our family got together to celebrate Audrey's 2nd Birthday!

(The birthday girl snuggling with her Auntie Dolly here)

Like I talked about last week, my goal was for the party to be just an easy and small party just for the family.  The only problem was, in my book, there isn't really such thing as just a simple party.  I love making all the extra treats and decorating to my heart's content.  Normally I can handle it all, but this year was different.

I thought I had it all together but time just seemed to fly by and I didn't really feel like I had a good handle on getting everything done by the time I wanted to.  Somewhere in the middle of the day yesterday, I had a meltdown.  (THANK YOU, PREGNANCY HORMONES)!  I sat in my room, cried like a baby and then re-grouped.  With the help of my two awesome sisters, Yvonne and Dolly, everything fell into place and we were able to get things done by party time!  My sister Dolly helped bigtime to get dinner made, which included homemade chicken enchiladas, beans and rice (thanks for the help on those, Mom), while Yvonne finished up with all the yummy treats!  

I ordered all of our party decorations from Birthday Direct.  Their prices are always so good and what was even cooler was that I was able to use part of my $100 gift card that Betty Crocker gave to me through MyBlogSpark to buy the decorations.  What a blessing! 

I baked these butterfly cookies and Yvonne did the best job decorating them.  So cute, huh? :)

On Friday night, we put these goodie bags together and attatched some tags I made on my computer to give the treats some personalization. 

And somewhere in between making all the other treats yesterday, Yvonne and Dolly managed to make these yummy chocolate covered strawberries too!

And... if those treats weren't enough, we also made these yummy cupcakes too!

Here's my birthday girl chowing down on chips and dip!  It's kinda hard to see her t-shirt really well, but it was made especially for the party by Kristin!  It had the cutest butterflies on it with her name just under the butterflies.  So, so cute!

And last but not least, here's the cake we ended up making with some help from Betty Crocker.com!  If you go HERE, you can even watch a cool video they have on their website that shows you exactly how to make this cake!

Let me just add in here that I am far from a professional baker!  It was a bit of a challenge to decorate the cake just like the one that Betty crocker provides on their website!  Since I only had one chance to get the wings right, I decided to put aside my perfectionist tendancies and just go for it with decorating the cake!  I probably should have practiced a little bit before I started, but in the end, I think it turned out okay.  With the help of the glittery sprinkles, and the other candy decorations, I think it turned out pretty cute and it tasted delicious!

All in all, it was a great party!  What made it even more special was that I got to take some video with my new Flip video camcorder that was also given to me by Betty Crocker through MyBlogSpark!  Here's just one video of us (I'll work on sharing more this week) singing the Happy Birthday song to Audrey!  It will give you a little glimpse of our silly family and you'll even see me and my ever growing belly!  Only six more weeks to go until the next big event!!!

Happy Birthday, Audrey! from Veronica on Vimeo.

P.S.  A big thank you to Betty Crocker and MyBlogSpark for providing me with the awesome blessing of the VIP Betty Crocker coupons, the $100 gift card and the Flip camera!  It will be a party to remember!

God's Gift To Me

Well, the Big Day is finally here, my Audrey girl turned one today. Here's a couple of pictures I took this morning.

The Birthday Girl and her Big Sis...

The Birthday Girl...CAUTION...It's gonna be a long one today...

Right around this time one year ago today, I was blessed with a special gift. My beautiful little girl, Audrey Grace came into the world. As I look back on that day, I still stand in awe of how the Lord works. My birth experience with Audrey is a story you don't hear every day.

It was an early Tuesday morning two weeks before my due date. I woke up around 4:00 a.m. with the kind of cramps that you have when you need to use the restroom. So of course, I got up and headed straight for the restroom. After I finished there, I laid back down in bed and tried to fall back asleep. As I laid there, I started to feel that old familiar cramping coming back again. So I sat up and put both of my hands on my belly. I could feel my tummy tightening. My next thought was "Are these contractions I'm having?" I was still trying to wake up. I continued to sit there in the dark and see what would happen from there. I didn't want to wake up Hubby if there was no need...it was a work day for him, afterall. Within minutes, I came to realize that yes, these pains were definitely contractions, and they were coming rather quickly. Before too long, the moaning sound I was making with each contraction woke up Hubby. He asked me, "Are you having contractions?" I told him, "Ya...I think so." He immediately sat up and turned on the light. We were both still trying to process everything. All we had at the point in time for a previous reference in childbirthing was our experience with Alyssa. When I had her, I was in labor for almost 24 hours in the hospital before I delivered her, and she was almost two weeks late! Little did we know, this experience would be nothing like the first.

We decided to start timing the contractions. They seemed to be coming every 5-7 minutes. I couldn't believe it, and thought maybe I was making it all up. After all, weren't contractions supposed to start off further apart at the beginning? It was so strange because they were close to begin with. In the weeks before my due date, Hubby and I discussed what I wanted to do as far as laboring. With Alyssa, we went into the hospital a lot sooner than we needed to. It was our first time, so we were just so anxious. I ended up being stuck in the hospital bed for several hours, and hated it. After taking a Lamaze Refresher Course, I also had decided that this time around, I would do all that I could to labor for as long as I could in the comfort of my own home. We even talked about the idea of trying not using pain meds like the Lamaze teacher had talked about. I didn't really know how that whole idea would pan out, but I was willing to give it a try.

In the last few weeks before I was due with Audrey, a friend of mine lent me a copy of this book.

It's actually a companion to another book called Supernatural Childbirth.

It was such a great book to read to help me build up my faith in believing for a wonderful birth experience. At that time I was not attending church but still believed in God and the power of prayer. This mini book focuses on scriptures in the Bible that you can stand on to believe in faith for many things--from believing to conceive to the delivery of the baby. I remember reading a certain part of the book that gives accounts of mother's who prayed for no pain during childbirth and God answered their prayers. I must admit I was pretty skeptical at the notion of no pain during childbirth. I mean, we all know that the pain we all experience in childbirth is all part of what happens to us as the result of Adam and Eve's sin in the Garden of Eden. Besides that, I didn't know anyone who had ever had a baby without experiencing pain. I didn't know what to think about that whole part of the book. In the last few weeks before my due date, I decided that when I prayed, I would start asking the Lord to help me have as little pain as possible. I thought it would be a lot to ask God for no pain, but looking back, I think to myself, Who was I to underestimate what God could do? I also stood on the scriptures that the book gave for believing for no fear--something that I have dealt with for a long time--not just in the area of childbirth. I wish I had a copy of that book right now, so that I could list a few of the scriptures that I used because I know a few people who might be reading this are either pregnant or wanting to become pregnant and could really use these scriptures to stand on. It's definitely worth the $6.99 it costs to purchase it.
Anyhow, fast forward to the part where I was having contractions at home. 7:00 a.m. rolled around, and I was still having contractions in the same intervals. I was uncomfortable but other than that I felt fine. I tried to rest because I knew I had some work to do later! Alyssa woke up and laid in bed with us a while until she was hungry for breakfast. Hubby got up to feed her so I could continue resting. I decided to take a shower. The warm water felt good, especially when the contractions came. Time continued to go on, and I became more uncomfortable, but the pain was not nearly as bad as I remember it being with Alyssa. I kept getting the feeling like I needed to go pee. I must have sat on the toilet at least 20 times that morning! The contractions kept coming, still close together. I resisted the idea of going to the hospital as I kept thinking to myself that it was still too soon. I prayed that I would know when I needed to go. Around 10:00 a.m., the contractions were coming every 3-5 minutes. I was starting to feel a little more pain, but still nothing I couldn't handle. I decided that it would probably be a good idea to call my Mom to come watch Alyssa and we would finally get to the hospital.
I should also mention that I didn't call any other member of our family during my laboring process at home. I didn't want to worry anyone and besides that I wanted the delivery to be a special time for just me and Hubby. I also wanted to be able to breastfeed right after I had the baby, and I knew that if the family came in right after she was born, it would be hard for me to try to nurse. Besides that, I knew everyone would have plenty of time later to be able to meet our little girl.
My Mom arrived at our house sometime after 11:00 a.m. By then, the contractions were getting a little more intense. I still remember the only thing that helped during that time was sitting on the couch on my knees, holding on to end of the couch trying to breathe through each contraction. When my Mom saw me doing that, she knew it was serious. She urged me to get going to the hospital. It was so emotional leaving Alyssa there, knowing that when I came back, she wouldn't be my only girl anymore. On the drive to the hospital, the pain that I had been having at home seemed to calm down and at one point I even questioned if we should just turn the car around and go back home. We decided it would be best just to go to the hospital to get checked out.
When I got to the hospital they got me right in. I got changed into the gown, and they started asking me all of the usual questions. The contractions kept coming. Before I knew it, I started shivering and I didn't know why. I was very nervous and the reality of everthing started to kick in. I WAS GOING TO BE HAVING A BABY!!! Fear started to creep in. After the nurse got all my info it was time for her to examine me. I laid there not knowing what to expect. I waited for her to tell me how far along I was, and I almost freaked out when she told me that I was already 9 centimeters!!! I could not believe what she had said, and I turned to my Hubby and said, "What did she say?" He repeated what she said and I was in shock. How did I make it that far without pain medication? With Alyssa I waited until I couldn't take it anymore, and I had them give me one of those one time shots for the pain, called an Intrathecal Narcotic. That was at 6 centimeters.
I immediately asked the nurse about getting some pain medication...I decided that the idea of natural childbirth was not for me. How I was going to push without medication? She informed me that I was already too far along for drugs. I would have to go natural. The shivering I was experiencing was actually the result of being in the "Transition" phase of labor, the part that comes right before its time to push. At that point the nurses scrambled to have me fill out paperwork, take my blood, call my doctor. Within minutes, I started feeling the urge to push. I started to panic, because I knew...this was it. Without realizing it, I started to push, because that's what came naturally. The nurse ran to call another nurse to get my doctor quick. Audrey was coming so fast she did not want to be the one to deliver her. They raced to get my doctor ready and in under 4 pushes, my little Audrey girl came into the world at 1:03 p.m., weighing in at 6 lbs 11 oz. and was 18 1/4" long. I was in shock. She was so tiny compared to Alyssa when she was born. It was such a blessing to be able to see and hold her immediately. When Alyssa was born, they had to rush her away due to her aspirating her meconium (pooping in eutero, then breathing it in). I didn't get to see her for several hours after she was born.
With Audrey, things were so different. Hubby even got the honor of cutting the cord this time, also another thing we were not able to experience the first time around.
Well, I cannot express all of the things I am feeling today, but I am just so thankful for this special gift he gave to us. I am thankful for answered prayers and for the Lord loving me so much that he went above and beyond in making my birth experience better than I ever could have asked for!
Here's a picture of Audrey and I as we were getting ready to leave the hospital...
And the day after we brought her home. Note the yellow blanket...it's a special blanket because it was a blanket that my mom made for me, and a blanket she used when she brought me home from the hospital. I also used it to bring Alyssa home!

I love you so much, Audrey girl. Happy 1st Birthday!!! Love, Mama