35 Weeks

The night of January 27, 2015 I unsuspectingly brushed my teeth as I got ready to go to bed. I stared at the way I had braided my hair that day and thought, "I hope my hair is like this the night I go into labor. This is good labor hair." And then I went to bed.

At 1:30 AM, I woke up to a little gush. "Oh. I have to go to the bathroom." I thought as I got out of bed. But then it donned on me that I don't typically leak when I have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night so I began to become suspicious. I became even more suspicious when I kept leaking even after emptying my bladder. I groggily considered the possibility that my water had broken which led me to audibly chant, "Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh." until I could come to grips with the situation long enough to explain my predicament to Jeff.

I finally swung the bathroom door open, stared at Jeff in denial and tried to convince myself and him that my water had, in fact, begun to leak. The shock of unexpectedly and prematurely being in labor left me rambling loud enough to wake Eli up. As I was debating with Jeff whether or not I needed to call my mom, Eli called from his room, "Go back to bed you guys! I'm trying to sleep!"

We quieted down per Eli's request as we shuffled through the house in an unsuccessful attempt to accept the idea of having a baby 5 weeks before we anticipated. The shuffling around the house led to more gushes of water which gave me the confidence to wake my mom with the news so she could work on getting to our house to watch the boys.

My labor with Carson was so fast, and I anticipated a similar experience with this baby. After getting as much packed and prepared for my mom as my distracted brain could handle, I sat on the couch and waited for her arrival. I noticed I wasn't having contractions and began to doubt my labor for the hundredth time.

My mom arrived looking just as unconvinced as we were that I would really be birthing a baby in the next 24 hours. She snapped some pictures of us and then sent us on our way.

We got to the hospital and I was barely leaking and not in any pain. The nurse checked me and found I was not dilated or effaced and the first test she gave me to check to see if my water had broken came back inconclusive. They did a more specific test to check my water and 20 minutes later confirmed that it had broken and I was officially admitted.

At my doctor's appointment the Friday before, the doctor offered to test me for Strep B, but I had Carson with me, so I decided to put it off until my appointment the following week in the hopes that I could protect my modesty for a little bit longer and find a babysitter for my boys for the rest of my weekly and progressively invasive appointments. My favorite joke of the morning was that I went into labor to avoid the dreaded Strep B test.

Only problem is, since I didn't get my Strep B test, they had to give me the treatment for it just in case I had it which turned out to be one of the more painful parts of my whole labor. I got three doses of penicillin. The first one I didn't notice, but I was talking to my mom on the phone for the second one and had to hang up because my hand felt like it was being electrocuted. The nurse told me my veins were sore from the first dose and that makes the second and third doses really uncomfortable.

They immediately got me on a high dose of Pitocin, hoping to get contractions started. It was super slow going at first. I was barely progressing and not feeling any contractions for the first two hours. As soon as the contractions started to become noticeable the anesthesiologist had arrived for the day and my doctor gave the okay for me to get an epidural.

The two worst parts of labor for me have proven yet again to be getting the IV and getting the epidural (plus the extra curve ball of the penicillin through my IV this time around). As soon as the anesthesiologist walked in I got all clammy and hyperventilate-y. He tried to be friendly with me and chat, but I ignored him for fear of accidentally seeing a needle or chainsaw or whatever other horrific tools he uses to remove my delivery pains.

The color drained from my face as they got me in curled back position, feeling completely vulnerable and unwelcome to the oncoming jabs at my back. In an effort to distract me from the surgical equipment being thrust into me, my nurse tried to talk to me. I hate this tactic. When I am faced with a needle, I can't help but visualize the nastiness of it going into me. *Barf* It's just what I do. And nurses try so hard to get me to not think about it, but that just makes me mad because then I have to worry about answering their silly questions to distract me while very specific and detailed images of needles jabbing through skin flash through my head. I just want to visualize my worst fear in peace instead of worrying about being nice and small talking with someone who is politely trying to ease my fears.

"What do you like to do?" The nurse asked.
"I...like...to...sew? I have a curtain business. And I have a  million orders in right now because I wasn't expecting to go into labor tonight." I spit out through clenched teeth.
"Oh really? I actually need some curtains. I just moved into a new house..." She proceeded to tell me how she needs curtains and asked if it was something I could do.

By the time my epidural was in place, I had given my nurse my name, number and email address so that she could contact me about making curtains for her. I love that I made a sales pitch mid epidural insertion and I'm anxious to see if she will follow through with that or if her making me make a sales pitch was her expert way of successfully distracting me from the horror of the biggest needle of all time entering my back.

The nurse came in to check on to see if the epidural was working and she said, "Have you delivered here before?"
"Yeah. I had my last baby here."
"Oh you did? The anesthesiologist thought he remembered you."

Uuuuuummmmmmmmm. I know I'm dramatic when faced with my worst fear, but out of all the people he sees I was extreme enough for him to remember me THREE YEARS LATER?!? What's funny is, when I had Carson I remember asking him if I was his worst patient ever and he didn't exactly say no. I asked him again this time and he definitely implied the answer was still yes.

With the epidural successfully in place, one of us was finally able to get some rest.

I started progressing about a centimeter every hour. I kept hearing my doctor calling my nurse on the phone and asking about my progress. The nurse eventually admitted that my doctor was out playing golf and was checking in between each hole to see if he needed to leave. Ha.

My doctor came in to check on me after I so kindly let him finish his golf game. I was an eight. He left and 20 minutes later I had a big contraction and felt the baby move down. It was the weirdest thing. My whole stomach shifted and I felt like he was on the verge of slipping out. We called the nurse in and found I was complete and ready to push.

My whole labor had a hint of nervousness and worry to it. With Eli and Carson it was all excitement because I was so ready to have them and I knew they were ready to come out. I didn't have the fear that something would be wrong with them when they were born. With this one, it was hard to be excited because he was coming so early, so there was the underlying worry throughout my labor of how he would react to the outside world once he got here.

Luckily I had spent the morning mentally preparing for baby to be rushed off to the NICU upon his arrival, and I anticipated he would spend some time there to grow bigger and stronger.

It took one set of pushing to get 5 pound 7 ounce Lincoln Blair Excell here, and he came out screaming! I was encouraged to hear him cry because I knew from having Eli that crying was a good sign his lungs were working properly. He looked really great at first. His color was good, he was pretty big for his age and his lungs seemed to be working properly, so they let me hold him.

While I was holding him he began grunting and started having a hard time breathing.

 He was taken to the NICU to get everything checked out.

His breathing wasn't getting better on its own, so they had to give him a breathing treatment and put him on oxygen.

Then they had to give him an IV to sustain him until he could begin feedings.

He was so teeny tiny and pliable. Ha. I love his little arm here.

Eli and Carson aren't allowed to visit Lincoln in the NICU, so they sent us home with a cute little book of pictures to take home to the boys.

In between trips to the NICU we had our "candlelight dinner." Minus the candles. Good news. The food wasn't as bad as I remembered and I actually enjoyed most of my meals at the hospital.

Then it was back to check on our little guy.

The whole first day of Lincoln's life I was really worried about his purple feet. I thought they were purple because he wasn't getting enough oxygen. It took me a whole day to realize they were just purple from when they inked his feet for his footprints right after he was born. Whew!

The nurses are so good to let us do as much as we can for Lincoln while we're there. They let Jeff change his diaper. Lincoln broke Jeff into fatherhood right away by pooping during his first diaper change and then peeing on him during his second diaper change. Ha!

He's such a cute little peanut.

We've already caught several smiles of the little guy.

Lincoln is one week old today and has made some big improvements. He is still in the NICU but he is off his IV and has started nursing twice a day. They have tried to wean him off his oxygen several times but he is still needing help with his breathing. He had a bout with jaundice but that has mostly gone away. We are just waiting for him to get strong enough to stay awake for all of his feedings and then he will get to come home, but it's hard to know how long it will take him to reach that milestone, so he's sticking it out in his womb away from home until then.

Luckily we've had a lot of help from our parents as we've been shuffling back and forth to the hospital. We love our sweet boy and it's been so fun to get to know him. We appreciate all the prayers and worry that have been sent our way. We've been feeling the love!

Third Trimester

We've entered third trimester territory. 

My belly stayed relatively small riiiiiiiiiiiiight up until this point...

And then full on pregnancy belly emerged and I was instantly SO uncomfortable and borderline miserable. Basically overnight my lung capacity decreased by at least 50%, my need to use the bathroom increased by at least 50% and my overall weight gain increased by a solid 50%.

Also I have a hernia? Or abdominal separation? Or both if those are different things. My doctor always stares at my belly in what I've determined to be amazement/confusion when I go in to my appointments now. From what I've gathered, I seem to have nothing holding baby up in the middle of my stomach. Maybe this is normal? Anyway. At around 30 weeks, I really began feeling my lack of any kind of muscle support in my belly area. At the end of the day, my whole underbelly would be so sore. I think the baby was positioned weird and it felt like his bum was always jabbing me on one side as his legs were trying to kick out of me on the other side. It was awful.

I have had smooth, mostly painless pregnancies with the other two, so it was startling to have such discomfort with my due date still so far away. I was dreading the coming months. Luckily baby must have repositioned or maybe I've been taking it a little easier, because all that pain has mostly subsided. Whew! I still get the occasional, expected uncomfortable jab here and there, but they aren't really painful anymore like they were for a couple of weeks, so we may happily make it all the way to 40 weeks after all!

Here is my 31 week picture. The program I use to cute these pictures up weirdly stopped working on me, so here is the less cute version. 
My biggest pregnancy symptom has definitely been nesting. I've had the nesting urge for a couple months now, but this month it was kicked up a notch. I went totally bananas. I think Christmas is what did it to me. The boys got a bunch of new toys, so we had to find a new place for everything which resulted in every closet being organized and everything put into a labeled bin. I was a crazy person. Every closet is now tupperwared, the pantry is suddenly neat and approachable, and even my computer went through a cleansing to clear out and back up all my old pictures. Now to see if we can keep everything in ship shop shape for the next 6 weeks.

Heartburn is a nightly occurrence with chocolate still the biggest offender.

Braxton Hicks now happen basically any time I do any kind of mildly strenuous activity. Like standing up for example.

My raging appetite has returned! Let's just say my day no longer consists of defined meals, but is now a constant stream of large snacks. Every half hour.

The boys are still cute and getting more excited about baby. We've been working on the nursery, and they get almost as giddy as I do when we rummage through all the baby stuff together. Carson the other day said while holding onto his stomach, "My belly is kicking too!" Then he sheepishly ran off as he realized there wasn't a baby in his belly after all.

My biggest source of anxiety comes from thinking about the hospital food. I'm delivering at the same hospital where I had Carson. My most vivid memory is how terrible the food was. I realize this is a completely irrelevant fear and will likely be a non issue once I'm actually there, but for some reason this is the one thing about the hospital experience that keeps me up at night. Ha. 

I have also begun to get anxious about where/when/if my water will break. My water has broken both times so far. I LOVE going into labor with my water breaking. It makes the whole am-I-really-in-labor debate fairly obvious and the hospital can't turn you away, so it's the way to go. But what if this time my water broke in a public place?!? This thought first struck me at church today. How embarrassing would it be if I popped in the middle of Sacrament Meeting?? Please baby, let my water break, but let it happen when I'm in the comfort of my own home like your brothers have been kind enough to do for me.

I think that's all of my unnecessary items of paranoia for now. Mostly we are just so so so excited to meet Baby 3. It's all we can talk about anymore. I can't wait to see what he will look like and how Eli and Carson will be with him. And I'm definitely to the point in my pregnancy where I'm excited to not be pregnant anymore. It feels like it's right around the corner! 

Gender Reveal Party!

So remember how I'm taking a picture of my belly every week to prove to baby number three that it is loved just as much as the first two? Well I missed a week. Read into that however you want, third child. But take into consideration that I was sick and puking my guts out and it would have been really confusing to see me lose my belly on week 18 and then have it reappear week 19. So I spared the confusion and skipped a week. 

We made it halfway!

The morning I hit 20 weeks, I got this friendly reminder on my phone:

Not that I needed to be reminded of the big news happening this week. I already had a party in the works!

I was doing pretty good about not focusing a lot of my attention on debating whether or not this baby would be a boy or a girl. In fact, I was kind of relishing in not knowing, because it was kind of fun to be able to daydream about the possibility of having a girl without officially knowing it wasn't a girl.

But the week of our ultrasound, I went full crazy. I was completely consumed in thinking about what we would have, and imagining life with either another little boy or a little girl. I was just ready to know and dying to have to spend the week waiting.

I deep cleaned my house. Organized all the toys. Hand scrubbed the floors. Vacuumed the dust off the fans. Cleaned out every closet in the house. Washed our window seat covers. Washed all our curtains. And that was all before 12:00 in the afternoon on my first day of dealing with my overwhelming nervous energy.

The next day I spent the day going way overboard on party planning. I made flags. I made a party logo. I made a backdrop. I made food. I was running around the house with an inextinguishable energy that would only be dissolved once I knew what we were having.

Needless to say, I didn't sleep much the night before our appointment. My sister asked me just before the appointment how I was feeling and my response was, "I fear I've set myself up for a public emotional breakdown."

I was so nervous because I had no idea how I would really feel if it came down to finding out we were having another boy. As I kept spewing texts off to my sister, I also said, "It's mostly just comical now if it's another boy." I tried to keep that mentality going into the appointment.

The baby was healthy and adorable and it was so fun to see little fingers and toes, and we had the information we needed to carry on with the evening's plans!

I made a little photo booth area for people to cast their votes on whether they thought we were having a boy or a girl. Eli and Carson were firm in their guesses. Eli was sure it was a boy and Carson was persistent it was a girl.

My mom voted boy.

My friend Ashlee was rooting for pink.

Bryan was a boy vote, Celeste a pink.

I think Joe and Kenz felt they would be betraying me if they didn't vote girl.

The Golden family was split.

And the Cox family knows just how desperately we need more girl cousins on the Excell side.

Becky took a moment to show off her perfectly colored pink and blue pumpkin dessert.

The Thomas cousins have been quite liberal lately with their impromptu, mostly cooperative group shots.

My dad has been traveling for work and had told me he would barely not be able to make it to the party. Well you can imagine how surprised I was to see him make a grand entrance! It was such a fun, completely unexpected surprise!

When we were nearing time for the reveal, we Facetimed Abe and gave him the opportunity to officially make his prediction.

We also let Jacob be a virtual guest.

With everyone tuned in and anxious to know the fate of our family, we prepared for the reveal.

Excuse my blurry pictures. I still love the excitement you can sense in all these shots despite the poor quality. We revealed by letting everyone pick either a pink or a blue balloon. On the count of three we had everyone try to blow up their balloon...

The wrong color had little holes poked in the balloons, so they didn't stay blown up.

Because not many people chose the blue balloons, everyone looked to my dad to confirm the blue balloons were staying blown up.

It became very clear the pinks were deflating and the blue...was definitely not.

A THIRD BOY! Is anyone surprised? :) You'd think Eli would have been more excited his prediction was right.

We have just started weening him off his naps and this means he has a strict 7:00 bedtime. This was at about 7:20, and Eli was in full meltdown mode. Poor kid was so tired. It had nothing to do with you, little bro!

You want to know the weird thing? I have been completely, totally, 100% fine, happy and excited about another boy. What? This was totally unexpected. When we found out at the doctor that it was a boy, I just laughed and found the whole thing funny. And then as I saw his little heart pumping, and his little legs kicking, I didn't even care whether it was a boy or girl, I just had an overwhelming feeling of gratitude that he was healthy and I already felt so much love for him.

I went on a walk right after we got back from our appointment and I was smiling the entire way. Then as I was getting ready for the party, I was still totally thrilled to be telling everyone we were having another boy. 

I had visions of our three boys being the best of buds and playing sports together and having funny little inside jokes with each other. I imagined them all being into the same things and loving to have other brothers to always do things with. I imagined them in high school, trying to figure out girls with each other. I imagined sending them off on missions. Everything I saw for our future was fun and exciting, and I think our boys are going to be really close and have so much fun together. 

I can honestly say I am not at all disappointed. Which is weird because I was disappointed with Carson, so I thought it would be even worse this time, but I think I've already mourned the potential possibility of never having a girl and I'm just ready to raise my herd of boys now. Bring 'em on!