The arrival of Rebekah MaeDean Howell

I had my doctor appointment at 4pm on Wednesday. He checked my cervix and said I was dilated to a 4 1/2 and still 90% effaced. He also stripped my membranes a little. He said I might go into labor that night or the next day. I didn't really believe him because he had said that a week ago haha. I went to my parents house to pick up Noah (Sean was at work). We decided it would be nice to go for a walk at the mall and take the kiddos to play in the play area. Amanda, Dad and I took Noah Cortney and Joshua to fiesta mall at 5pm. My mom an Justin met us there at 6pm and then Corey and Andrea showed up shortly after. It was a family affair! Haha like everything we do.

We watched the kids play and chatted. Justin and I went up and down the stairs a dozen times, I did some lunges while walking Joshua in the stroller. I was having a few contractions but nothing that hurt. 

We left at around 7pm and went back to my parents house. I was getting tired from the work out and a little disappointed that labor hasn't started. Sean was still at work but was ready to leave anytime he needed to. I decided to just go home and put Noah to bed and rest myself. I ate a sandwich and watched a movie. At 10:30pm Ondalynn came over for a blessing from Sean. He came home shortly after Onda got t the apartment. We talked for awhile, I decided I wasn't going to labor til the weekend. Onda left and Sean and I talked some more. 

I think the thing that really put things in action was something married people do (wink). I went to sleep right after and then woke up nauseous. I threw up a couple times and then tried to go back to sleep. Sean said he thought it was starting to happen because I threw up while I was in labor with Noah too. Turns out he was correct. I laid back down and started to have contractions that actually kinda hurt. At that time it was 12am.  I'm a bad judgement on pain level because I can handle a lot. In fact Dr Hazzelrigg said he doesn't trust my judgement of if they hurt and that once they are 5 min apart to rush to the hospital because he had a feeling it was going to go quick. Boy was he right!! 

The contractions were five minutes a part right when they started. No build up at all. But still they didn't hurt too much at all so I wasn't sure. I called Amanda and she called the rest of the family. Sean got the diaper bag ready for Noah and I got last minute things for the hospital bag. I asked Sean for a blessing which he gave me. Im so grateful to have a husband who is a worthy holder of the Priesthood. It's such a blessing to be able to partake of receiving blessings from The Lord. I felt so much comfort after it and knew everything was going to go smoothly and that I would be able to handle it. 

 By then it was around 12:30am. He called his mom to meet us at the hospital and take Noah. 

Everyone was there before we got there. Sean's mom came and just took our car home with Noah. Amanda, my mom, Andrea and my dad all waited in the waiting room while we were in triage. Even during the registration I wasn't feeling the contractions too bad. Once we got into triage though they were stronger. I just counted through them and closed my eyes. Sean stood by not doing much but being here. That was enough for me. I don't like to be touched during labor. Having him there beside me taking and giving me words of praise are for enough for me. He did a great job. He had to remind me to breathe the entire time because I would forget. The nurses were pretty impressed with my demeanor during the contractions and that I was still so nice and calling Sean sweetie and honey haha. It made me feeling good and even stronger each time one of them would complement me. Sean was amazing and helped me get into whatever position I needed to. Since I tested positive for the strep B I had to be on an IV. It actually wasn't too bad either. I did throw up a couple times so they have me some anti nausea medicine in my IV which didn't work because I still threw up the whole time. The nurse checked me and I was dilated to a 6. By the time we got to the labor room I was dilated to a 7.  My mom dad Andrea and Amanda all came in shortly after we were moved. They talked about who knows what while I was in labor. I was just concentrating on my counting and breathing. With the help and encouragement of Sean I mostly remembered to breathe. I kept wanting to push and even did so a couple times because I couldn't control my body. Dr Hazzelrigg was on his way and they didn't want to break my water til he had arrived. They checked me and I was dilated to an 8 and 100% effaced. They said after my water breaks it should push me to a 10 and I could push. I went back and froth between being in a sitting up right position and on my hands and knees or child's pose (yoga position). I was in the child's pose when I felt the need to pay and did a little on accident. Dr Hazzelrigg had just walked in and turned around to get a mask on. Right then my water burst. It was perfect timing! I stayed in child's pose for two more contractions. Then turned over to my back and Sean said he could see her head! I pushed twice then started to tear. Before I did Dr asked if I wanted to or to have an episiotomy. I asked to be cut. He did and one more push and she was out! We waited for the cord to stop pulsing and the Sean cut the cord.  She was born at 3:12am Thursday the 13th. She weighs 7lbs 8.9 oz and is 20inches long. Big baby for being born 2 1/2 weeks early. She had a head full of hair! Dark like her daddy. I just love her. Right now her and daddy are sleeping next to me. 

It's crazy how fast it all went. 3 hour labor and 3 pushes and I have a baby! It wasn't even that hard. I mean obviously it did hurt but I was so concentrated on her coming and distracting myself with counting and breathing that it wasn't horribly bad. At the end I definitely felt the pain and grunted "ouch" quite a bit I think. Haha Sean stood by holding my hand and telling me how close she was to coming and how great I was doing. He is wonderful. 

I had the shakes for a half hour after the delivery. I forgot about that part. My body was just so tired and my hormones all out of wack. 

After I delivered her we tried breast feeding and she latched on! It was amazing. But after that first time she was confused and kept putting her tongue on the top of her mouth. Noah did the same thing!! Silly kids. Luckily I just saw the lactation consultant and she helped us figure it out together. 

My family stayed for about an hour and then left. The three of us slept til 8am. Then around 9:30am Elizabeth came with Noah. He was excited to see his baby. He even pointed to her and said "new sister, friend, baby Bekah" I cried, it was so precious. Noah seemed so big at that moment. He was talking to Bekah using big boy sentences and kissing her head. I love my family and they are mine forever. I'm so grateful for Sean and our marriage and how wonderful we are together. And the beautiful children we make :) Andrea took some notes of all that was said and happened so I have a good timeline of how things went down. This is what I remember though. I'll make a post of her notes later. 

This was during a contraction. I threw up after it. That's why the tray thing. 

My dad. 6th grandbaby on the way

Sweet hubby giving me liquids 

Pretty sisters 

Dr Hazzelrigg! He came in right after the water broke 

She was purple when she first came out. The dr and nurses weren't concerned but Sean and family were. Good thing she was fine. 

I was talking so high pitched afterward and was on a natural high haha

Daddy loves

Kisses for my hard work 

Beautiful 

Daddy talks are fun 

Look what I delivered. 

Loves. 

Cortney kept saying how beautiful she is 

Pointing my finger up like " hold on a minute" I did this a lot during contractions so they knew I was having one. Haha 

My Grandpa Roland

Did you know I am named after my Grandpa Roland? His name is Roland Dean Ellsworth. I got my first name from his middle. He is my moms dad. He is very sick and probably going to pass away this week. We have known for weeks now that he was dying. He has lung cancer and his doctor thinks it has moved to his brain now. He has been hallucinating and reverting to his time in the Korean War. It's been really hard for my grandma and mom to see him go through this. My mom has been going over everyday to help take care of him. I am going to miss him so much. But I know that I will see him again. Being pregnant and knowing that Rebekah can come at anytime now and also knowing that grandpa is going to be passing away anytime was hard for me to think about. I didn't want to be selfish but I just wanted to have Bekah before grandpa dies. I didn't want it to happen the same day and was so worried it would. I'm feeling much more peace about it all now.

This afternoon at work my mom called and said that grandpas heart rate had gone down really low and that he won't make it past the weekend. His bishop came and gave him a blessing saying he was released and can go to Heavenly Father. It was really emotional. Amanda was there and she told the bishop about my concerns with being pregnant. The bishop said some wonderful words. He said that the two things that remind us most of the atonement are birth and death. And that Rebekah being born will be a comfort to the family and remind us all that we will see him again. 

Amanda and I were talking and joking that we should name Rebekah after grandpa. We should name her Rolanda. Haha. Or Deana. Haha. But then I said how about Rebekah MaeDean at first jokingly. But then the more I said it the more I loved it. I asked Sean and he said he does too and said it would be great. I called Amanda and told her we decided to name her it. She told mom and grandma. Grandma said "bless her heart.  Grandpa will be honored. " everyone in the family loves it and I think it gives us all a lot of comfort. So there you have it. We changed or rather added to Rebekah's name to honor our grandpa. It's going to be hard when he does pass but we can at least find comfort in the Gospel :) 

Oh side note: I had a dr appointment today and I am now dilated to 4cm, 90% effaced. Dr Hazzelrigg said she could be coming this weekend. 

Birthday Man

IToday is my loves 31st birthday. He is such a handsome man. I just love him and am so grateful for all that he does to bless our family. He is caring, silly, kind and loving. We are lucky to have him :) thanks to his mom for making such an awesome guy for me to find and marry. I love how he has random input in conversations that make everyone laugh, I love his integrity and honesty, I love that he is a worthy priesthood holder, I love how he is such a wonderful father to our babies, I love that he has such a manly beard, I love how smart he is and I love that he loves me.

Sadly he has to work a double shift today but that leaves Thursday and Friday free of work! Yay. Did I tell y'all that he is full time at his work now? If not I just did. He is now full time and is mostly doing night shifts from 2pm-10pm and doubles on Saturday. He has to do five shifts so if he does an extra double on a day he gets another day off. It's kinda hard because I don't see him all day but it's nice for Noah. He gets all morning with daddy and then evening with mommy. Hopefully Sean will be getting more day shifts though. 

Anywho. Back to birthday boy news. I'm an awesome wife and got Sean the best gifts this year! I got him the newest book by Dan Brown. It's part of the Divinci  code series, titled Inferno. Sean has already started reading it and is loving it. The second gift was ingenious. I bought him a subscription to The History Channel magazine. There are all sorts of perks included with getting he magazine every month too. He gets entered to win trips to historical sites, discount on their store, and a gift package for signing up. When I told him about it he was so excited. He said that its something he never would have thought to do but that it's perfect for him and he is glad I know him so perfectly. He loves history. I'm glad I did so well at picking out the gifts and that he appreciates them so much. I just love making my honey happy. Now I will get to hear lots of stories about the new things he learns in his magazine :) 

Since my honeybear works all day today we are going to celebrate on Friday. We are just having friends over for a game night but it should be a blast. We have pretty awesome friends. 

I was able to visit Sean at work for dinner though. My mom watched Noah for me and she even made a delicious dinner for us. Hamburgers, baked beans, lemonade, and ice cream! Best mama ever :) she takes care of us. 

I love you Sean! Thanks for being so cute and giving me lots of kisses. You're the best and I'm so grateful I get to be yours forever! 

Impending plans

Hey guess what peeps?! I'm having a baby sometime in the next month. I just had my doctor appointment today. I got the strep b test and will get the results back next week. I'm onto weekly appointments now :) I'm currently 35 1/2 weeks pregnant.

At my appointment dr Hazelrigg checked my cervix and was surprised to say that I'm 3cm dilated and 75% effaced and he said he could feel the top of her  head down right on my cervix. Locked and ready to come anytime. He is guessing anytime in the next two weeks! How great would it be to have a baby in two weeks ?! Everything is ready to go at home so I'm perfectly happy havin her whenever she is ready! 

Transition from Babyhood

I know Noah hasn't been a baby for many months now. He is a toddler. But it's hard to not think of him as my little baby. It's so crazy all the things he has learned to do and say. He is such a little toddler child. Not a baby anymore. Yet I find myself clinging to his babyhood sometimes. It's going to be a shock when I have Rebekah seeing how big Noah is compared to her.

He is such a sweet spirit. I love seeing him point out Jesus in pictures. And when he finds a picture of someone in the family he gets excited to say who it is. Sometimes I send pictures of myself to Sean and when Noah sees them Sean says he blows me kisses and says "hugs". He uses sentences quite a lot now. He is such a smart little guy. Sean said yesterday Noah decided his stuffed lamb needed a diaper. He grabbed a wipe and started wiping the lambs bum saying "poopy, ya poopy, clean it" haha. Then he brought the lamb and a diaper to daddy so he could put it on for him. 

Potty training is still going, slowly, but still going. It depends on his interest that day. He is pretty good at letting us know after he has gone. In fact he has on nuermous occasions brought us the diaper and wipes and laid on the ground for us to "change it" as he says haha. I'm sure once he really wants to be potty trained it will be easily done. 

He has been having nightmares a lot lately. Sean says he is enterninf he age that he starts to understand fear. He wakes up crying and sometimes screaming and all we can do is just hold him and squeeze him. Soon he calms down and hugs us back and goes back to sleep. I hope he grows out of this soon. I feel so bad having him so upset and sad. 

I can't believe he will be 2 years old in 2 months. Pretty crazy how fast it goes. 

Some fun things about Noah 

-he has such an adorable laugh. Especially when he is tired. It gets loud and fast and he shoves his fingers in his mouth

- he loves to "work out" he pulls out my yoga mat and does his version of jumping jacks on it and does tumbles. He also tries to do push ups and sit ups like he has seen daddy do. 

- he loves to point out body parts on babies. Like their eyes piggies, nose, mouth

- he gives closed mouth kisses now. But most of the time if you ask for a kiss he just leans in so you can kiss him 

- he says "no k!" When he doesn't like something. 

- he is a pro at the stairs and can go up and down with just holding one of our hands. 

- we are working in getting him in the toddler bed. He likes to come out to get kisses or hugs or water. So we end up putting him in the crib. We have heard of some suggestions on what to do with getting him to stay in bed. I will blog more on that later. 

-he loves the muppets! Sean plays this video of them singing the bohemian rhapsody song and Noah just is inthralled with it. He gets excited and does his dancing back and forth and saves his hand saying "hi muppets! Hi" over and over. He even sings some of the words to it. He also loves the Cookie Monster. He has a stuffed one and loves to watch YouTube videos of him. 

We just love our Noah child. Thanks for picking us as parents and blessing our lives Noah ! 

33 1/2 weeks

Had the ultrasound. Not as exciting as I thought it would be. Rebekah is facing my back and head is low in my pelvis. Not a bad thing though since that's the preferred birth position. Tech says she is about 4lbs now so at 40 weeks she should be about 7.5lbs. We shall see!! Also my Dr said that I'm the perfect patient and look great.  He was surprised that I don't have any swelling except in my hands. Every time he has seen me he has complimented my skinny ankles  and weight gain and cute belly. I love going to my appointments because its such a self esteem boost!!  He said that I should have a whole bunch of babies since pregnancy seems so easy for me and im good at it. Haha good thing cuz that's the plan!

He said that seeing as how she is so low and that I had Noah early he is expecting me to not go past 38 weeks. Now that it's in my head I will probably be disappointed if she is later. No worries though baby girl it's all in your hands so do what's best for you. I'm just excited to meet you. The hospital bag is packed and the pre-registration at the hospital is done! Baby time is in less than two months. Somewhere between 4 and 6 weeks. Yay!!

Shower of the Baby variety

II had my baby shower this past Saturday. I loved it! It was a long day though and I was happy to go home and relax and go to bed early afterward.

That morning my family had a funeral to go to. It was a beautiful service and the spirit was so strong. It was for a guy that went to my home ward from when I was young. He fought cancer for 4 years and passed last week. He had a wife and a young child. It's so hard to think about but I know they are comforted by the knowledge of the Gospel and that they are sealed for all time and eternity. 

After the service we went back to my parents house and had lunch. My dad and Sean had work so they missed out. We ate and let Noah and Cortney take a nap. Then us girls left to Ondas house to set up for the shower. Corey and Justin took the kids to the mall. 

The theme to the shower was Dr Suess. I got a lot of ideas off Pinterest. It turned out so cute! The food table was full of Dr Suess books to go with each food item. My favorite was the cake. I'm not usually a cake person. Our wedding featured a giant muffin and little mini muffins instead of cake in fact haha. But this cake was as delicious as it was beautiful. My sister Amanda had her friend make it. She is crazy talented and never went to school for it either. She just taught her self through the Internet. Amazing right?! My sister Amanda and brother Justin are lovely people and paid for the cake for me. How kind right :) I saved pieces for the guys in the family to have too a d they were very grateful. We saved the bottom half of the cake to use for a birthday cake for either Noah this year or Rebekah. Maybe we will do a party for when she comes home. We will see. 

The shower was pretty chill which was nice since last shower for Noah was way packed and loud since it was coed. I think it was appropriate and fun that time since it was the first child and a boy Sean wanted to be there. But this time having a girl I wanted it to be more girly party. We only played two games, the guess how big mommys belly is and gift bingo. After the game and gift unwrapping we cut the cake and ate of it's deliciousness. Most people left after the cake but the ones that stayed painted their nails and chatted more. I loved painting our nails. It was girly and fun. It was nice seeing all my friends and getting lots of adorable outfits for Rebekah. Also it was pretty funny that there were three newborns there and 3 pregnant women not including me. Tis the time for babies in my group of friends. 

Rebekah you are one lucky girl. Not only do you have a very loving family and cute cute clothes to come home to but you also get lots of friends for play dates !! We love you sweet girl. Only 7ish weeks til we meet. I'm now 33 weeks along. You are kicking and moving like crazy as usual. Daddy calls you his wild one haha. Love you! 

My mother in law took a bunch of pictures but hasn't sent then to me yet. I will post then as soon as I get them. For now here are the few I took.