Paige's Birthday Luau!

Yesterday we celebrated Paige's 1st birthday with Nate's family and my mom. We made some great "Luau" food, and 2 cakes that turned out pretty cute. We all had fun. Paige was really confused about her little cake when we put it in front of her. She kept looking at us like, "Are you sure I can eat this?" I was hoping she would dig in, but she mostly picked at it. It was fun though.

Birthday Party... coming soon

So, we're celebrating Paige's birthday this Friday with a Hawaiian Luau! My mom is coming to visit, and it seemed to be a good time with Nate's family too. So stay tuned for pictures. Paige can't wait to P-A-R-T-Y!!

This arrived today!

I love it! Its a darker green than in the picture, and I like it even better than I thought I would. We pretty much haven't had nice bedding at all in the past 4 years that we've been married, so this was really exciting for me!

House Update

Here is the house as of today! We are scheduled to have our "walk-through" with the builder next week to make sure everything looks good. Then they have one week to fix whatever problems we see. Then we can move in. So we're thinking July 30th or 31st. We can't wait!

Paige's Birth!

Paige Kennedy was born one year ago today (July 17th) in Spokane Washington. Here is the story... By the way- this might be way more information than you ever wanted to know, but oh well. Here goes...

On Monday, July 16th I went in for my 39 week appointment and my doctor said I was between 3 and 4 cm dilated!!! I was so excited. At the end of the appt. he said I was in "latent labor" and that he would be surprised if I made it through that night without going into active labor. I was thrilled. Then he said, "Let's get you registered at the hospital for tomorrow morning. If you don't go into official labor by then, we can give you some pitocin to speed it up." I was like, "Sounds great!"
All that night I had contractions, but they were never regular. We headed to the hospital at about 7 am. I was so excited and nervous. I was still between 3 and 4 cm, and they started me on pitocin at about 7:30 am. The contractions got more intense and regular pretty quick. They were painful, but definitely not as bad as I thought they would be.

At noon, I was still at 4 cm. The contractions were getting more painful, but I was still trying to put off the epidural. I didn't want to be stuck in bed all day once I got it. And I secretly wanted to do it natural, but I was scared that I would regret it once I started pushing. The nurses kept suggesting I just get it over with so that I could relax, so finally at 5 pm I was only about 5 cm dilated, and I decided to get the epidural.

That was a very unpleasant experience. The anesthesiologist was new (lucky me) and had to try 3 times. It was pretty painful and scary. Luckily, the pain went away pretty fast and I was able to relax. However, less than an hour later it started to wear off quickly. They put more medicine in, but it started to wear off again. I was somewhat numb, but not completely, and it was getting more and more painful. My doctor broke my water at this point and then the contractions were coming even closer together.

Two hours later I started to feel TONS of pressure. I told the nurse I needed some more drugs or something because my epidural just wasn't working. So the anesthesiologist put a "longer lasting" drug in my epidural thing. It lasted about an hour! I was pretty miserable. At about 8:30 pm I felt like I was gonna explode down there. It was a horrible feeling. There was so much pressure, and I started shaking uncontrollably. Then I threw up. I had imagined that once I got the epidural it would be smooth sailing. It wasn't smooth at all- let me tell you. So Nate went and got the nurse. She came in and Nate told her what was going on. She said, "That's great news! It means the baby is moving down and its almost time to push!!" I had read about those signs (extreme pressure, shaking, vomiting), but I forgot everything I had read at that point. She checked me again and I was 10 cm!! I had gone from 5 cm to 10 cm in 2 hours or less. She said it was time to start pushing.
That's when I really started freaking out inside. I was thinking, is it too late to get a c-section? I can't push this baby out! But at the next contraction she had me start pushing and from then on it was by far the most insane experience of my life. The contractions were about a minute apart and I just pushed like crazy. Nate could see her head almost right away when I started pushing. He kept telling me I was doing a great job. I could hardly think straight because it hurt so bad. I was SO focused on getting her out. They put a mirror up and I could see her head starting to crown, which terrified me. It made the pain and burning feeling worse when I could see what was happening down there. Yikes.

Anyway, after 45 minutes of pushing, Paige was born at 9:24 pm. As soon as she came out, the doctor laid her on my chest and Nate and I started bawling. We were so amazed. She was so sweet and perfect. I thought she was the tiniest little baby ever, and the nurses were like "umm, not really." She was 7 lb. 10 oz. and 20 inches long. Nate thought she looked huge. Anyway, it was a great experience, and once she was out, I couldn't feel the pain anymore. Sort of. :)

We love Paige so much, and we're so thankful that she chose to join our family.

Paige talking! Kind of.

One of the best days of my life...

Tomorrow Paige will be a year old! I can't believe a year has past already. I have a post coming later to celebrate her wonderful birth, but I wanted to start at the beginning. This is gonna take a while...

On November 15th, 2005 I found out that I have endometriosis. I was extremely devastated because I have always wanted children badly (endometriosis can make it difficult to get pregnant for some people). I assumed the worst- that I would never have children, or that we would be trying to conceive for years, while spending thousands on fertility treatments. Nate is always so positive, and he tried to keep me sane.

About 7 months after I was "diagnosed", we started trying to get pregnant. For about 4 months, I obsessively took my temperature every morning to see when I was ovulating and all that stuff. I read lots of books about getting pregnant and it was all I could think about. I probably took 10 pregnancy tests during those few months, and they were all negative.

During the 5th month of trying, I finally got sick of obsessing and I realized that it really wasn't up to me. I stopped taking my temperature and just tried not to think about it. A few weeks later, on November 15th 2006, I started to really think I might be pregnant. My period was just a day or two late, but I was feeling exhausted all the time and I would wake up starving in the middle of the night, which was really weird for me. I told Nate that I might really be prego this time, but he didn't take me seriously because I had convinced myself I was pregnant a million times.

The next morning, I dropped Nate off at the BYU-Hawaii library so that he could work on a group project, and then I drove to the Laie pharmacy, without him knowing. I got a pregnancy test and rushed home to see if my suspicions were right this time. Almost as soon as I set the little stick down, I saw the plus sign starting to appear. I started bawling right away. I had really convinced myself I was pregnant so many times before, so I just couldn't believe this was actually it! I felt incredibly blessed. I had to tell Nate right away.

I wanted to plan a cute way to tell him, but I just couldn't wait, so I just put some baby clothes that I had collected, along with the positive test, in a little bag and drove to the library (yes, fellow TVA residents- I drove the tenth of a mile to the library). I found Nate and pulled him out of the study room where he was busily working with his business group. He didn't have a clue what could be so urgent. I gave him the bag when we got outside and said it was an early Christmas present. He was really confused. He opened it up and said, "You bought more baby clothes?" :) And I said, "What else is in there?" He pulled out the test and said, "Are you serious?!!" He was so happy, but kind of skeptical. He kept saying, "Are you sure?" We were both so thrilled. It was by far one of the best days of my life. Two weeks later I started throwing up everyday, which continued for about 2 months, but it was all worth it.

I took this with my phone since we didn't have a camera at the time. Not a great picture- I know.

The highlight of Paige's day

This is pretty random, but I just read this book and I its really great. I think everyone should read it. It will open your mind and change your life. Maybe...

Well, it changed mine anyway. Nate has been reading all of Robert Kiyosaki's books quickly and he said I need to also if we're ever gonna be business partners and make millions. :) I resisted at first, but I'm glad I read it. Have you read it?

Hiking and swimming

Today we hiked around Liberty Lake (where we live) with Nate's family, and it was pretty fun. Paige enjoyed it too! Then we all swam in our apartment pool for the first time this summer. I don't know what has taken us so long. It was really nice because its been about 100 degrees for the past week or more. I'm really not a fan of hot hot weather. I like it about 78 degrees-ish. Anyway here are some pictures of our day.

Dieting

Being on a "diet" is really depressing. It is amazing how it affects your mood when you know you can't eat whatever you want. But luckily, when you see results, you realize that its all worth it.

I guess "diet" isn't the best word because it makes you think of crazy fads or starvation. Anyway, for about 2 weeks I've been eating extra healthy, and also eating a lot less than I normally do. I'm a huge fan of food and up until a couple weeks ago, me and food had been getting a little too close. I guess you could say we were BFF's. But thanks to swimsuit season, I have decided to end our unhealthy relationship. I've lost 3 or 4 pounds so far. Its really exciting seeing results, and hopefully I will be able to lose about 5 more.

Also, I just got the book "The Best Life Diet" by Bob Greene. He is Oprah's trainer and he always has really good, sensible advice. I haven't started it yet, but I have high hopes that its gonna be life changing. Maybe its the title... it sucked me right in. Anyway, has anyone read it?

Paige's Eye Surgery

Here are some pictures from Paige's surgery today for her clogged tear ducts (in chronological order). We had to wait for 2 hours before she finally went in, and that was really hard because she was really tired and hungry. She was not allowed to eat beforehand because of the anesthesia. There were some fun toys in the waiting area though, so it wasn't too bad. When they finally took her away to the operating room we decided to run down to the cafeteria to get some breakfast real quick. As we were finishing up, we heard an announcement on the intercom: "Will the parents of Paige please call the operator." I was kind of freaking out because I thought something was wrong, but it turned out that she was done and they were looking for us. I felt like a neglectful parent! As we came into the recovery room, I could hear Paige crying a little bit and she was just waking up from the anesthesia. She was looking all over for us and all she could see was strangers. Then she saw me and reached for me to pick her up, but I couldn't because she was hooked up to some monitors. She had bloody tears running down her face and she looked so sad. But I was able to nurse her right away, and then everything was fine. We're home now and she is asleep. I think she will sleep a lot today. We're just really hoping the surgery was a success and her ducts will stay open.