Miss Riley Jean

It finally happened! Little Miss Riley has finally arrived! She was born Friday September 21st at 8:50am. She was 6 pounds 10.5 ounces and 18 inches long. Evidently she was as impatient as I was because I was actually scheduled to be induced on the 24th. I'm not complaining though!

She was definitely the easiest of my babies to get out. We went to the movies for our last night out. The movie started at 7:10. By 7:30 the contractions kicked in again. Within the first 45 minutes or so I had counted 15 strong contractions. At the point I gave up counting. We finished the movie and went home. I really wanted to make sure it was the real thing before we went to the hospital to get checked so I did everything I could think of. I drank a ton of water to make sure I wasn't dehydrated. I walked, I took a warm shower and I curled up in bed. Nothing was helping. So I told Josh he might as well get dressed. My thinking was that it was early enough still that we could go in, get checked, and if they sent me home he could still get some sleep before he had to get up at 4:30am for work.

Mommy and Riley

So we sign in to triage at 11pm. I was 4 cm dilated. So the nurse tells us to go walk in the hallway for an hour and then she would check again to see if any progress was being made. I lasted about 45 minutes before I couldn't walk so well anymore. She checked and I had made it to 5 cm. So she calls my doctor and I'm admitted! Yay! At this point I don't even care that I'm in pain I'm just super happy they didn't send me home and that my baby would soon be here.

Daddy and Riley

So at 1am they hooked up my IV and I got my much loved epidural. 5am my doctor broke my water and started pitocin cause I was still at 5 cm. At this point my contractions started getting was stronger and they had to up my epidural a little bit. Some of our plans didn't go exactly right so about 6:45 or so Josh had to run home to get Alexis. She's 14 and we promised her she could be there when the baby was born. We just didn't see the point in waking her up any earlier than we had to. The pain was pretty bad by then. Enough to make my eyes tear up a bit. I started texting Josh telling him he better hurry his ass up. Him and Lexi got back around 7:30 or 8 o'clock. When they were gone the nurse checked me again and I was at 7 cm. By 8:15ish I was at 10.

Big sister Alexis and Riley

So the doctor comes in and everybody is setting up, getting ready. Even though it was my 4th baby I was still pretty nervous about this part. Especially because of how huge I was. We were all expecting a big baby. So the nurse tells Josh to hold one leg while she holds the other and tells me to sit forward. As soon as I did though I was promptly told to STOP. Her head was already right there and the doctor wasn't even ready yet! He proceeds to tell me not to talk, laugh, push, cough ANYTHING! This just makes me want to laugh. So he finishes getting ready, I sit forward again, push once and there was Miss Riley! I guess she was more impatient than we thought. No problems, everything was perfect.

Grandpa, Aunt Destiny and Riley

We were only in the hospital for 24hrs after she was born since everything went so well. Everybody is just so in love with her already especially all 6 of her siblings and Daddy! And she has tons of honorary aunts and uncles who already want to spoil her. She will be a week old tomorrow and everything is still going great. We're a bit sleep deprived and my boobs hurt a bit from being an on call buffet, but we're happy. Josh has been amazing through all of this. I'm not used to being with somebody who is actually involved with things. He holds her and changes diapers and would feed her if he had the goods. He's so different from my other kids' Dad. It really is a relief to feel like I'm not alone this time. :)

This weekend when Anthony and Aiden are here I'm going to take a picture of all 7 of the kids together. Brady Bunch eat your heart out! lol

Kids and yucky stuff

You'd think that since I haven't written in such a long time, that our lives must be pretty boring. Actually, it's just the opposite. Seems like there's always so much going on I just can't seem to form the words to explain it all. At the moment, there's two things I'm waiting on. First, for the members of my family, including myself, to stop having yucky things coming out of one end or the other. Especially the 2 and 4 year olds! And secondly, for this baby to get out of my body already! It feels like just yesterday that I was writing on here about being pregnant. Maybe it feels like that because I hardly write anymore? But now we're on the final countdown. I have 11 days left until I get induced! Yay, yay and triple yay! It feels like it's been 9 months of invasion of the body snatchers!

Ok, totally off subject, and I will do my best to explain this, but the word snatchers just reminded me of the word snatch, which in turn reminded me of my uncle and girl scout cookies! I can see the puzzled looks on your faces as I sit here and giggle. I don't remember all the particulars but me, my aunt and her brother were talking about girl scout cookies one day, especially our favorite ones, somoias. Seriously doubt I spelled that right but anyways. My uncle pipes up with how he has his own stash of them but instead of "stash" he says "snatch". The funniest part is how he stops and looking very confused ask "Did I just say I had my own snatch?" Omg my aunt and I laughed so hard at this! So now, years later, I occasionally have to ask him how his snatch is doing. I don't know, maybe you had to have been there but it was funny!

Ok, back on track now. I really am tired of this bug that's going around. Two nights ago I was up all night vomiting, not fun when you're 37 weeks pregnant. Then last night I was up all night with Hunter, the 4 year old, with diarrhea. It was bad enough that I put diapers back on him. The funny part was that he woke me up telling me he puked in his diaper! Then today, Holly, my 2 year old, has a touch of it too. Amazingly though other than the yucky butt, you'd never know either of them were sick. And they have both been driving me completely crazy all day. I was so grateful when Josh came home and suggested a movie tonight and just as grateful that we have an awesome room mate who is more than willing and capable of watching these two little poop machines. Normally I wouldn't even consider letting somebody else care for them when there's something wrong, but especially with the baby less than two weeks away, I desperately need the break. Ok, enough babbling for one day. The kitchen is calling for me to make dinner. Or maybe that's just impatient little children I hear. Oh well, either way I suppose it must be done.

Crazy Life Catch Up!

To say that I've been missing from the blog world the last few months would be a huge understatement, so lets just not say it. Let's see if I can catch you all up on my crazy life....

For those of you who don't know, I'm currently 29 weeks pregnant with my fourth child. Not planned but deeply loved none the less. This pregnancy has been so different from the other three. I blame it on Josh since this is our first together. Did I say first? I also mean last! lol. Between us, this will be our 7th child. To say our household is crazy and busy is another understatement. But it gets even crazier! We also have three roommates! There's Josh's cousin Nena, our friend Dani, who I believe I've mentioned before, and then we have Sir Echo. The interesting part here is that my name is also Echo! So yes, as I said before, our house is definitely CRAZY!

Ok, back to the pregnancy part since that consumes about 90% of my thoughts anymore. Like I said, I'm 29 weeks and I feel freaking huge. This is the biggest I've ever been before! The other day I discovered to my utter horror......stretch marks!!! (gasp) Seeing as how this is my fourth pregnancy some of you may be thinking I'm over reacting here but except for very light ones on the sides of my boobs, I never got stretch marks before. And these new enemies of mine are right on my belly. Hell, the only reason I even found them was because I caught a glimpse of them in the bathroom mirror seeing as how I can't even see the bottom of my stomach where they have made their new home. Yes, I got lucky with the other three so I really should stop my whining but I'm not going to. lol.

Next thing on the list of Josh's faults, the glucose test. Before this baby I only ever had to do the standard one hour test. Boy has that changed! Doctor told me I tested high on the one hour and sent me to do the three hour test, with four needle pokes! Have I mentioned how much I hate needles? So I go in to drink this super sugary nasty drink after not being allowed to eat or drink after midnight the night before and while I'm already nauseous from not being allowed to eat breakfast. Get poked the first time, manage to drink the crap, go back out to the waiting room to wait one hour and then be poked again...except right at the one hour mark, I threw it all up! So they continued doing the every hour blood work hoping that enough of it was still in my system. So it wasn't much of a surprise when the following week they called and said I needed to come back in. But for some reason they said I only had to redo the one hour test that I missed. Doesn't make much sense but ok, they're the professionals right. So I get there and they have no record that I was ever there other than the fact that the recognize me. So then they tell me that I have to redo the entire test! At this point I'm frustrated and disgusted with these people so I refused the test until I talked to my doctor. Here it is almost two weeks later and I'm going back tomorrow to take the nasty test again.

So next reason this pregnancy is a pain in the butt. Last week I had tons of braxton hicks contractions all week long! Some of them were pretty strong. Finally got past that, then little miss Riley, that's gonna be the baby's name, decided to suddenly slow down on her movements. Seriously freaked me out! She seems determined to be a pain in the butt already! lol. She's back to moving a bit more again so hopefully everything is back on track and fine again, except for the stupid glucose test that is.

Well, that's enough catch up for now. I really will try to write more often again. I really miss blogging. :)

Date night and insanity

Last night Josh and I snuck out for a date night. Usually we end up at the cheaper theaters, by my insistence, but there wasn't really much playing there that we wanted to see. So we decided that if we were going to spend twenty bucks on a movie we'd make it something we really wanted to see! What was that you ask? The Hunger Games! And it was awesome. Well worth the money. And we even took the plastic soda cup and popcorn bucket with us from another movie outing so that my popcorn obsession was cheap at least. And I always stash twizzlers in my purse for him. Shh don't tell. Little Miss Riley in my belly was kicking up a storm and making me have to pee but I managed to wait. Not easy during a two hour movie but I didn't want to miss anything. Afterwards we went out for dinner where my steak craving was thoroughly satisfied! All in all it was a very nice evening!

Although the weirdest thing did happened last night on the way home from dinner. All of a sudden my left arm and hand got all tingly. It was really strange because it had never happened before and it was out of the blue. I've never had anything like that happen before especially not during pregnancy. I don't know if it's related but during dinner my vision went all blurry. But I attributed that to my allergies. It was really bad for most of the meal. I couldn't hardly read the screen on my phone to send or receive text or even focus very well on the desert menu sitting on the table.

Then  Miss Holly decided to wake me up all night for no apparent reason. I swear I think she was possessed last night. She might still be today too cause nap time is not going so well. Combine that with the way Hunter was acting yesterday and you have one very grumpy mommy. And getting grumpier by the minute! Is that finally silence I hear coming from their bedroom?! OMG I seriously hope so! Peace at last. I really hope they sleep and wake up in better moods before mommy loses her mind today! ;)

It's a....Girl!!!!!

Well the results are in and we are sooo happy! I had my 20 week ultrasound this morning and we're having a girl! Josh and I are thrilled!!! This is exactly what we've been wanting. Our little one's name will be Riley Jean. The first name just because I really really like it and the middle name after his Grandmother.

10 Day You Challenge-3 Films

Day Three...3 films:

Without a doubt number one has to be Nicholas Sparks The Notebook!!!!!! I can never watch this movie enough times. This is the kind of overwhelming love everybody should have. Usually I prefer books over movies but with this movie I've seen it so many times that I haven't been able to make it through the book yet. 



It's a little harder to pick just two for my other favorites. For number two I'm going to go with John Wayne's McClintock! I grew up watching this moviw with my Dad and it will forever be one of my favorites.



And coming in at number three is The Labyrinth. I know, another oldie huh? It's another one that I grew up watching with my Dad. I think it's a timeless family movie. We may just have to get it out for our next family movie night!

10 Day You Challenge-2 songs

I'm not doing very well on this 10 day challenge am I? Not completely my fault though. The weekend was crazy busy then Holly and I both ended up sick. Hers was mostly teething and shots, mine has been cough, fever, ackyness, all that yucky stuff. Today is a little better but still a bit tired and weak. But at least I can get back to the challenge.

Day Two...2 songs:



I love Nickelback and this song has got to be one of the most perfect love songs ever written! The only way to really listen to it is really loudly!



Josh picked song number two. Rodney Atkins Farmer's Daughter. We always get a kick out this song cause he changes the lyrics to "Landscaper's Daughter" because when we met my dad was a landscaper. Wow, that was sixteen years ago!