Michelle-isms

not -isms exactly but cute.
Michelle can't really say Levi she says it like "Nephi" with an -L, "Lephi" it's adorable.
Levi gets hiccups, A LOT. Michelle calls them "piccups"

She loves her brother and for the most part is pretty good around him. (by the way these pictures are from his first week, he has grown a ton already)

Our Little Man

On Dec. 10, 2014 I had a Dr. appointment in the morning. My Dr asked if I wanted her to strip my membranes and I said sure (this little man was running out of space!). Once she got in there she realized that she couldn't do it without risking breaking my water bag because it was very thin and we were in a carpeted room (she didn't want to get in trouble with the office manager ha ha ha). So that didn't happen but she did tell me I was progressing! 4+ cm dilated and 70% effaced- but with Michelle I was at a 3 for 3 weeks so I wasn't expecting anything from it. The other thing my Dr suggested was to go buy some Sudafed D because Sunday I had woken up with a cold and it wasn't getting any better. Breathing is an important part of labor believe it or not.

After my Dr appointment I had to go pick up Michelle who was at my friend Sally's house. Her daughter also happens to be Michelle's best friend which works out nicely ;) Not being able to breath from being sick and being 9 months pregnant was kinda kicking my fanny and she could tell I was ready to have this baby (although I really wish I hadn't been sick when he was born). Sally joked that he still might be born today, I laughed at her and then went home to get Michelle some lunch and lay down for a while. When I got home I started having contractions but they weren't anything intense or worth timing (in my book anyways). The night before I had had braxton hicks for about 2 hrs that were fairly consistent so I wasn't taking much stock in them. Once I laid down while Michelle took a nap they stopped.

Somewhere around 2 or 2:30 they started back up again only they drinking water and laying down did nothing. I for some reason continued in denial and made a double batch of homemade mac n' cheese (so that we could have one to freeze and one for dinner)... even though I had to occasionally stop what I was doing in order to breath... I'm really good at this denial thing. By this time I was getting antsy for Joe to be home even though I wasn't sure it was the real deal. Finally 3 pm rolled around (school gets out) and I texted Joe asking when he was planning on coming home. He said he would leave around 4 meaning he would get home around 4:30. I reluctantly said OK... then about 5 min later I texted him again and said that I lied and that was not going to be ok. But he still had to make a couple stops on the way home- one of which being to buy me the aforementioned Sudafed D.
By the time Joe got home I had been timing my contractions for about an hour and they were being fairly consistent lasting about 30 sec. every 4-5 min. And yet I still wasn't 100% convinced (sound familiar to Michelle's birth story?). I still told Joe that we should start grabbing our last minute things for our bags just in case.

Then the contractions quickly became every 2-3 minutes and I was able to think coherently enough this time to realize that we should probably go to the hospital... and Joe was telling me the same thing. At that point I just kinda stopped timing the contractions because there wasn't much point, I was clearly in labor. We dropped Michelle off at Joe's cousin's house with his wonderful wife Laura and went to the hospital. On the drive to the hospital I was joking with Joe what a different experience it was being able to see this time since when we went to the hospital with Michelle I was in transition and couldn't open my eyes because I was so focused on dealing with contractions.

We got to the hospital about 5 pm and got checked in. Triage wasn't so torturous this time because well, I wasn't in transition yet. Amazing the difference that makes. When they checked me I was at a 5.5 cm so I was obviously progressing since that morning. They decided to admit me but still had to get their 20 ish minutes of monitoring the baby in before I could move to a labor and delivery room. The contractions started getting more and more intense (duh) and laying there for monitoring was not my favorite. During that time another nurse popped her head in and said that the doctor on call from my Dr. office wanted me to try walking for an hour or so. At this point I turned to Joe and made it very clear that that would NOT be happening. The triage nurse said she would go update the doctor on my progress. When she came back in the only walking I had to do was to the delivery room- which felt like plenty.

Pretty soon they had me hooked up to the IV (in my hand because I like to be difficult) and I got the mandatory fluids before an epidural. At about 6:30 I got my epidural from a lovely man named Bob. When in labor I tend to think that anesthesiologists are lovely people... The process of getting it was pretty much the same as the spinal I got with Michelle but of course the effects were different. Although I of course didn't get the total numbing I got with the spinal it was still lovely. The funny part was that when I was about to get my epidural done my friend Sally texted and asked if he was staying in today- nope! she had predicted correctly after all!

A little after 7 (we think... the time wasn't really on my mind at the moment) the doctor broke my water (which I had thought might actually break on it's own this time but didn't) and after 10- 15 ish minutes of pushing he was here. His face was a little bruised but still adorable :)

This little man weighed 8lbs 3.4 oz (for reference Michelle was 8 lbs 2.5 oz, I grow big babies and then I feed them cream) and was 20 in long

For some reason his ear was all squished. We found it quite funny. It stayed that way for several days and is still kind of pointy. Since he is our December baby we decided it is his little elf ear (although I'm sure it won't stay)

Behold the cuteness

 I love how his hair looks red here- when it is freshly washed you can really see the red to it but mostly it just looks brown

Michelle was so excited to get to meet baby brother (she was ready to just play a few minutes later but that was to be expected ;)

Some of you may remember that Michelle had pretty bad jaundice that kept us in the hospital for 6 days and then we still went home with a billi blanket. It was no fun and stressful- not being able to hold your baby is NO fun! We were concerned that this little man was going to get it too and really he was a perfect candidate, different blood type than Mama AND he got bruised during delivery but we were blessed and his levels stayed low enough that his body was able to handle it without intervention. You better believe I was ready to break out of there! (and very relieved when his levels were still ok range at his checkup a few days later)

Oh right his name ;)

We decided to name him

Levi Alexander Bidwell

Maybe I will write about it one day, or maybe I will sleep......

Getting Close!

(Well this is out of date but I wrote it so I might as well publish it!)

Only two weeks left til my due date! Hopefully we will be meeting this little man before then but he will come when he is ready ;)

This week my best friend, my neighbor and one of my visiting teachers got together and threw me a fun baby shower! I felt so spoiled and loved! I never got a normal shower with Michelle (long random story) so it was fun to see all these people supporting us and excited about our little man.

And the Christmasyness was lots of fun ( I mean unless you are my Grandma Cole how often do you have a Christmas time baby? it's pretty special)

 And behold the ever expanding belly. He sure is a growing!

Halloween

Michelle got really in to Halloween this year. I think she was most excited about getting to carry her pumpkin :)
I felt like the bumble bee really paid homage to a few certain pictures I remember in the Sampson photo albums ;)
We had a ward Trunk or Treat on Wed. and then on Friday we took her to a few houses in the neighborhood.

She even said "Trick or Treat" about 50% of the time this year.

We survived!

Most people don't realize that theatre teacher wife is synonymous with free labor. Last weekend was Joe's first high school play, he's done a couple at a middle school but this was different. I don't know that it was more work necessarily just different. And ya know I was 34 weeks pregnant with a toddler in tow and the school is 30 min away.

He put on "See How They Run" which is a favorite of his thanks to the many years of it at Playmill. For high schoolers they did pretty good ;) I'm hopeful that the program will grow over time. One bummer was that we didn't get any parent involvement despite trying to get it which meant it was all on us. Joe built and painted the set with the kids, I did all the costuming, and all the programing etc. We also decided to try concessions this time to see if that could boost what we brought back in which meant that I did a lot of baking.

I think that the most stressful thing was having NO clue what the turn out would be as far as attendance. The teacher last year didn't really do traditional productions and we didn't even have numbers from what she did so everything was a total shot in the dark. We just ran with it hoping to get close to breaking even and knowing that we were at least doing something for improving the reputation of the program.
I also took care of ticket and concessions sales for the first night (with Michelle in tow) and got them in a grove for the next couple nights.
Overall it was a very successful first show and the compliments were genuine. Apparently there were several kids who didn't enjoy their drama experience last year and after this show they regretted quitting drama ;)

Pumpkin Patch 2014

I guess this is a tradition for us now because this is the third year that we have gone to the Linder Farms Pumpkin Patch. It is a fun activity and we go on half price admission night (with Michelle still being free) so as long as we are reasonable with our pumpkin choices it turns out to be a fairly inexpensive family activity.
It was fun to see how much more into it Michelle was this year, she wanted to point out all the big pumpkins and the little pumpkins and the ones that had gotten squashed by the tractor. She was not however, interested in stopping two seconds for a picture ;)
She was also very concerned about her pumpkin the 3-4 times she fell and dropped/ landed on it. Thankfully it was a sturdy little thing ;)

 Does it get any cuter than these two? I'll let you know in a couple months ;)

The next week for FHE we painted our pumpkins. For some strange reason Joe had never done this. I am certain that I have painted more pumpkins in my life than I have carved. It didn't exactly work out as I had envisioned but.. oh well. Joe outlined the letter B using a red pen....don't do that if you are painting with cream and glitter. And I taped a chevron pattern on Michelle's with masking tape so that she could just go to town painting and I could still get a pretty cute pumpkin out of it :) good idea but I must have bought the wrong paint because it wanted to peel right off of the pumpkin- I don't remember that problem growing up.

But they still look pretty cute I think, besides they are on the ground by the front door so hopefully people aren't looking that closely ;)

Cruising Right Along

We are doing pretty good around here just keeping busy!
Joe's production of "See How They Run" opens in two weeks, so yeah, that is pretty crazy and consuming ;)
I am 32 weeks along with this little man now (well tomorrow) and still feeling pretty good most of the time. Which people are always surprised by. I mean yes, I am pregnant so I get the aches and pains and inconveniences that go along with that but I'm not so big that I can't function and I'm not sick. I can still mostly breath and I don't have swelling. In my book that means that for a pregnant lady I am doing pretty good. I mean don't get me wrong, I for sure have my days but really I know it can be much worse.
The nesting desire has set in though and that has been interesting this time. I mean we already have the main things- the crib, bassinette, car seat, etc. So it is just getting the consumables (diapers, etc.) and boy things. But also being due 5 days before Christmas is fueling my desire to have all things Christmas ready to go... because I clearly don't have two months to do so or anything- but it is a current obsession ;) Don't worry, I'm handling it reasonably.
Michelle is a little cutie pie for the most part but she also has gotten to an age where she has intense emotions. She feels most things very strongly, which means that we are working on how to calm down and express your feelings. She is very talkative around us but apparently still pretty quiet in nursery- she is seriously such a people watcher she just doesn't talk a lot when we are out but she will tell you all about it later.
She is very aware that things are changing in our family. Sometimes she has days where she will say "hold me like a baby" or "__________ like a baby". Other days it is all about being a big girl. She is very interested in baby brother and likes to show him things- which means that Mom's belly has to be readily available. If you ask her who is in our family she will tell you "Mommy & Daddy & Michelle & Baby Brother"
No. We have not decided on a name for this little guy. And no, even when we do we will not tell you. I don't care if you beg or think you are entitled, the answer is still no.