Hypocrite

Truth be told I think it's kinda strange when people post their birth stories on their blog.  Not sure exactly why...  Probably because I think some people are too dramatic or too often they say something really gross.  BUT, having said that.....I always read the birth story.  In it's entirety.  So I guess I'm the weird one.

Regardless, I am not a good journal keeper.  And after a year I seem to be forgetting  some tiny details about the day Stella was born.  So I wrote out her birth story.  But I hid it WAY back in my blog because I don't think anyone will want to read it.

If you're a weirdo who loves to read birth stories you can find it here.  But I'm sure it is boring.

Newborn Pictures

Here's a few of Stella's newborn pictures.

Check out her photographer here.

Thanks Kari!!

Stella's Birth Story

At my 37 week appointment Doctor checked me and I was 1 cm and 75% effaced.  Got slightly hopeful that I might go early: it did not happen.  My due date came and went on May 13th and I was still a 1 and 85% effaced.         

Woke up at 2:30 a.m. on Sunday, May 15th with contractions.  They were uncomfortable enough that I could not fall back asleep so I timed contractions.  They were consistently 3-5 mins apart.  At about 6:30 a.m. I woke up Andrew and told him what was going on.  I said we needed to go for a walk.  We walked for about 2.5 hours then decided since there wasn't any change we would get ready and go to Stake Conference.

We sat at the back (in case we needed to leave).  My contractions were still non-stop every 3-4 mins getting slightly painful.  Next time, I would not go to Stake Conference in this state.  I was so hot.  I had to keep fanning myself and getting up to get a drink. Then I'd walk around because I was quite uncomfortable.  How embarassing would it have been if my water broke with my whole Stake packed in there like sardines?  Thankfully it didn't.

We spent the afternoon at home.  The contractions getting slightly worse but still 3-4 mins apart.  In the evening we packed my bag.  We took it to the car and went to my mom's house for Sunday dinner.

After eating dinner we sat around with family watching my belly get tight and laughing about how I'd been 18 hours of non-stop contractions.  I kept saying that I didn't feel like I should go to the hospital yet but then we would say....it's been a LONG time....what if all the sudden it just starts going really fast??  So at about 10 p.m. we took a vote and decided I should go to the hospital to get checked to get an idea where I was at.

We got to the hospital around 10:30 p.m on Sunday.  I was fully effaced and at a 3.  They hooked me up to a machine to monitor my contractions for a couple hours.  Then left me.  They were really busy.  They came back in a couple hours later and the broken machine said I was not having any contractions.  The nurse said, well obviously you are....but you are still a 3 so I am going to send you home.

At this point, we were disappointed to go home because I knew I would not get any sleep.  I didn't get sleep the night before, how would I now?  So I told the nurse my concern and she gave me an Ambien.  She told me to take it right when climbing into bed and it should help me get some sleep.  Boy was she wrong.

It was about 2 o' clock in the morning now and on the drive home we sent our moms a text saying they should go to bed.  It looked like it was still gonna be a while.  Then the funniest thing happened.  Both moms sent us a reply text but they were both so tired that the texts did not make any sense.  I regret that I didn't write down the messages.  They were so awful that it kept us laughing until we got home, climbed in bed, and took the Ambien.

As soon as we got into bed my contractions got SO MUCH WORSE.  Thus, I never had a chance to fall asleep.  But that Ambien started to kick in and MAN do I halucinate on it.  This pattern repeated every 3-4 minutes for the next 4 hours: contraction started, I'd spring out of bed and grab my crotch saying something like "man this hurts", then the halucination would hit and I'd start rambling on and on about purses, motorcyles, bugs attacking me etc etc.  As soon as the contraction let off I'd say I needed to go to the bathroom and I'd sit on the toilet for a minute, wipe (whether I peed or not), wash my hands and get back into bed. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

By 6:30 a.m. Andrew had enough of my crazyness and took me to the hospital.  I was a 6.  They kept me.  I got hooked up and pretty quick my anethesiologist came in and gave me an epideral and our moms showed up.  It all seemed to happen so fast. 

At 8:30 I was checked and at a 7.  Doctor showed up and broke my water and there was a surprise in it....meconium!  Doctor explained that this was pretty common for overdue ladies and it just meant we would have a few extra people there at delivery.  Oh joy!  Over the next few hours I progressed a cm per hour and even squoze in a tiny nap right around noonish when I found out I was a 10!  At this point, they finally decided to give me pitocin which sounds weird but the reason being that my contractions were still 3 min apart.  They said delivery would take forever if I had to wait that long between each contraction.  So they fed me the meds while I waited an hour for the baby to "naturally" move down.

The erge to push got so strong that I didn't make it the whole hour of natural decent.  Nurse said she would let me do a few pushes while Doctor was on his way.  When Doctor got there I pushed for about a half hour and little Stella arrived.  I had quite and audience when I delivered: Andrew, my mom, Andrew's mom, my doctor, my nurse, Stella's doctor, Stella's nurse, Stella's respitory theropist, and an observing paramedic.  As soon as I had her the doors flung open and about 4 more nurses came in.  It was quite a commotion and everyone left me to be with Stella.  While Doctor was stitching me up I asked why I hadn't heard her cry and he said they were stopping her from crying while they removed any swalled meconium.  She finally cried and despite the bit of drama she was given an Apgar Score of 7 the minute she was born and a 9 shortly after.  She weighed 7 lbs 11 oz (which is exactly what both Andrew and I weighed at birth).  She was 19.5 in long. 

My epideral did not take a nice as I'd have liked.  But the positive side of that was just a few minutes after having her I was up on my feet.  I even felt good enough that I wanted to walk from my delivery room to my mom/baby room.  But my nurse thought it best I be pushed in the wheelchair.  Seriously, I was such a sickly pregnant woman that as soon as I had Stella I felt SOOOO much better.  Recovery wasn't bad at all for me.  But I did get a bit of the baby blues.  I thank my mom and sister a lot for saving me from that saddness.  They would hang out with me so I could keep my spirits up.

 

 

We had no other health complications in our hospital stay and we went home 2 days later.  My CNA's and nurses said I was the easiest patient to take care of and that I didn't ask for enough.  I didn't even know what to ask for.  We thought it was funny though that over and over again different nurses and CNA's would say.... "Please, let me do SOMETHING for you."  We had lots of visitors at the hospital which was really fun.  Everyone commented on Stella's hair.  She had so much hair and it was long.  Our camera brooke during all the commotion right after delivery so I had to rely on my many spectators for photos.

 

Our Baby Girl

Meet our baby girl....

Stella Dibb

Born: Monday, May 16th

1:35 pm

7 lbs 11 oz

Blogger will not allow me to upload any more pics... :(

But we can't get enough of our little Stella.

What's She Gonna Look Like???

For about 9 months now,

We've been wondering

What will this baby girl look like?

Andrew

is convinced that our baby girl

will look just like me.

me at 6 weeks

me and my mom

me and my little sis

I've tried to convince him

that she will probably be more of a mix.

But he stands firm.

(I don't have any baby pics

of Andrew on the computer and

I'm too lazy to dig them out of storage

 and scan them.

So just imagine what he looked like)

I think she'll be a mix.

But regardless, we can't wait to see her.

cRaZy DrEaMs

Not sure why when you are pregnant

you have the CrAZieST dreams in the world.

But it’s sooo true.

I’ve had a million crazy dreams.

Most of the time they have something to do

with being pregnant and/or the baby

but sometimes they are just wacky random dreams.

Regardless, they give Andrew and me a good laugh the next morning.

Here’s some of my CrAZinEsS--

I’m married and pregnant. But in high school. Locked in a bathroom stall sitting on motorcycle, puking all over myself while witnessing a murder and missing my calculus test.

All my family is gathered around talking about what the baby will look like and someone grabs a giant spotlight and shines it on my belly.  Miraculously the light makes it so I can literally see through my skin and see the baby inside of me.  She is all covered in the “cheese” as expected but I can see all of her features perfectly so I start tell everyone what she looks like.

There's so much more...

Do you ever wake up and say

why the heck would I dream that?

What were your crazy pregnancy dreams about?

Couponing & Building Our Food Storage

I’ve always been into using coupons, discount codes, shopping the clearance section, etc. I like budgeting and I try hard to spend less that we make, save for rainy days, have no debt. For years, Andrew and I have talked about improving our food storage. “Food storage” to me (at least at this point) is like the everyday things we eat and use. Not things like wheat...because that's way to overwhelming.  Besides still living in our condo and not having much room to store things, I’ve always been so overwhelmed with where do I start?

I finally decided to start with baby items because it’s fun to buy anything for the baby right now and I also came across and UNREAL deal how to get formula to next to nothing…..literally.

So after researching a bunch of stuff, I’ve become somewhat of a crazy coupon lady. (Like the ladies on Extreme Couponing on TLC are a 10 and I’m a 3). But I can’t believe how much money we waste on things! It’s a process and I’m still learning more but I’m proud to say that our baby storage freaking rocks and our personal food storage is off to a good start with no budget increases for us.

These are some of my favorite baby deals:

Similac Formula: Spent under $70—Retail Value of $475+

Diapers and Wipes: Yeah, there is a lot.  There's much more than you see in this pic. I get diapers anywhere from 25-75% off.

This is a little look at some of our stash.  I've also started getting a bunch of free formula from Enfamil and Good Start.  So if you use either of those brands....let me know.  I may have a gift for you.  Otherwise, I'm going to be taking a trip to the women's shelter to donate some formula.

The Pregnancy Ticker

Check out my pregnancy ticker on the right side of my blog!

I've been hesitant to put one of these up for two reasons. 

First, I hear that it can make the pregnancy drag....especially when you're getting close but not there yet (like day 50-60).  So hopefully this doesn't happen.  If it just randomly disappears one day... you'll know why.

Second, I'm pretty positive that this baby will be late and my sister, Lindsay, says that's it's pretty depressing when you countdown gets to zero and then you STILL haven't had the baby yet.   So maybe I should set it for a week after my due date.....huh

Why this baby will probably be late:

It's in my genes to go really over due with your baby.  Get this....

I was supposed to be born January 19th.....I was born February 1st.  I can't imagine thinking you are going to have a January baby and February comes and you're still pregnant. 

My sister Lindsay was supposed to be born June 1st and was induced and and born June 9th.

My sister Brooke was supposed to be born July 15th and was born July 30th.  Yes, 15 days!!!!

Luckily, they only let you go about a week over nowadays.  So I'm sure I'll be like Lindsay...the ticker will hit zero and then a week later the baby will finally come. 

My in-laws thought I would have the baby a little early so they booked a trip three days AFTER my due date.  When Andrew told his mom that our family history says otherwise, she was all worried because now she thinks she's going to miss it all. 

But we've waited 5 and 1/2 years for this girly so we'll take her whenever she decides to come. 

Favorite Quotes from the Ultrasound

"Your baby gets the award for the most stubborn and naughty baby"

"There are two awful positions for a baby to be in for an ultrasound...your baby knows both of the positions"

"Everything is perfect"



"I need a crow bar to pry your babies legs open"


and......


last


but


not


least

Surprised?  About 90% of people we talked to thought we'd have a boy.  But, nope. Girls out number the boys in the Dibb family and girls are all the exist in the Ballantyne family.  So what else would we have?  I thought it was a boy for a while, then I went through a month stage where I thought it was a girl. Then everyone started guessing boy so I went back to a boy guess.  Andrew went into the ultrasound thinking it was a girl, because he just knew that if that many people guessed boy--it would be a girl to shock them. 

So we have a very stubborn and naughty baby girl (we're not confused as to which parent she inherited that from) and a extremely modest baby who just will not uncross her legs for anything (hopefully it stays like that until she's 30).

We're super excited!! And oh my gosh, is the shopping going to fun or what?

This is the week....

What's your guess?

what'd we do last weekend?

Last weekend, Kelsie and Ethan came up from Texas.
We finally got to meet their baby girl, Abigail.

Kelsie's trying to give birth to all her kids in different states.

So far Brooklyn was born in Idaho, Abby in Texas,

and I'm pretty sure she's not preggers already...
so I bet they'll move again before baby #3 arrives. :)

The four of us stayed up WAY TOO late talking on Friday night.
The stories just kept getting funnier
and werider the later it got.

It was so fun to be with our friends.

On Sunday, we went to Grantsville for our other friends.

Goss and Kadee were blessing their baby boy Brigsen.

We don't see them as much as we'd like either.

Because Tooele county is far!!!

(Well far enough that it's hard to just stop by)

The blessing & luncheon were great.

This weekend I'm going to a baby shower and

Brian and Mindy are blessing their little boy Zander.

Wow, there must have been something in the water this time last year......

oh baby!!!

congratulations

kelsie and ethan and brooklyn!!!

baby abigail may was born

monday, jan 18th at 1:12 p.m.

6 lbs 5 oz

19 in.

she looks just like her big sis!!

wish we lived closer and could see this little pumpkin