She's here!!!

What a week it was, but we survived and couldn't be happier with our sweet little addition.  If you want the short version, here it is.  I was in labor for the better part of a week, it was great...not!  They finally broke my water, then realized she was breech so they took me very quickly into a c-section.  Ten seconds before they pulled the baby out, I started to feel a little more than I was supposed to so the anesthesiologist had to knock me out and I didn't meet out sweet girl until she was an hour and a half old.  It was a crazy chain of events, but we are grateful she's here no matter what had to happen!

Here is what happened if you want the long version:

Sunday: About 9 p.m. insane contractions start.  They were the first real contractions I felt and didn't even start off gradually at all.  For four hours they were between 1-3 minutes apart.  It was a good time. :(  In hind sight, we totally should have gone to the hospital, but I was three weeks early and didn't think it was the real deal.  Plus I was terrified of what was to come if we did go to the hospital.

Monday: I go to work and Mike comes with me because he's scared to let me out of his sight.  This day was full of a lot of benchmark testing and my principal said I could have the baby if I got my benchmarks done. :)   That afternoon we went to the Dr. and I talked him into to checking me.  He doesn't like to do this unless absolutely necessary because it's so uncomfortable for me and and he said he's fairly sure that it was just pre-labor.  I end up being 4 cm & 75% and he says that he'll likely see us at the hospital tonight or tomorrow morning.  I call my boss and she asks if I'm coming to work the next day, I tell her I'm planning on it unless I have the baby before then.  She calls me an hour later and tells me that she can't legally make me quit work, but she thinks it's ridiculous I think I'm coming into work in my condition and that she has a sub for me for the rest of the year. :)  Thank goodness for her because I probably wouldn't have stopped until the baby was almost here!

Tuesday: Another 4-ish hours of contractions, but not as intense as the ones on Sunday.

Wednesday: Same deal, but about 6 hours.  Went to the Dr. again and was at 5 cm & 80%.

Thursday: Only a few minor contractions, which ended up being a blessing because my body and my brain needed a break at this point!

Friday:  11 hours of contractions.  I finally called my Dr. after a few hours and asked him what he could do for me.  I really didn't want to force labor, but this was getting ridiculous!  He said if contractions became consistently 5 min. apart to come to the hospital and he'd break my water.  Sadly, the contractions would occasionally be 5 minutes apart for a little while and then jump all over the place and I was terrified to be sent home from the hospital because I didn't think my mental health could take it.

My last belly picture, the day before Elise was born.

Saturday:  Another 3-4 hours of contractions.  They start to come consistently and strong, but I keep saying "in another half hour."  Mike finally basically had to force me into the car at about noon to take me to the hospital.  I was so mad at him and I was so grumpy with the admitting lady in the E.R.  When the L&D nurse came to get me and saw that I was standing and talking and (fake) smiling she said, "You're not in labor now are you?"  to which I looked at Mike with the most evil look I could muster.  However, once they got me on the monitors the contractions continued to progress, which surprised me because they always slowed down when I laid down.  After about 2 hours of monitoring they decided to keep me and got us set up in our delivery room.  They said that the plan was to break my water to get things going, but that my Dr. was at another hospital in the middle of delivering a baby and should hopefully make it for my delivery.  My doctor's wife is also an OB and was the on-call Dr. at my hospital so she was the one that broke my water.  After she broke it, she asked the nurse if we were sure that she just felt a head and the nurse said "I don't know?"  :( So they got an ultrasound and confirmed she was breech. I was in the operating room for a c-section about 20 minutes later.

Ready for surgery.  That was the biggest smile I could muster.

Mike ready for surgery.  They had to get creative with his shoe coverings. :)

  Things would have been great at this point, except that minutes into the surgery I started to be able to feel some of what they were doing and the anesthesiologist had to put me under.  I wasn't able to meet Elise until she was about an hour and a half old because I was so groggy and wanted to at least somewhat remember meeting my daughter.  

This is a good shot of her crazy breech legs!

Elise Nora Mabey

May 17, 2013

5:06 p.m.

7 lbs. 1 oz.

20 in.

Mike holding her while I'm in the recovery room.

We stayed in the hospital for 4 days because I was so miserable and Mike was a trooper taking care of Elise!  I didn't even change have to her diaper until we got home from the hospital Tuesday evening!  He did everything except feed her.  I don't know what I would have done without him.  My recovery after we were home from the hospital was great!  By far, the worst part of recovery happened at the hospital.  Elise slept quite a bit on and off in the hospital, but when we got home she started sleeping for 6 hour blocks at night.  I felt very spoiled, but it really helped with my recovery.  She has been so fun to take care of and we just love her!

Our first family photo.  Thanks for my friend Tesha for coming to the hospital and taking some great photos!

 All in all, we are just so grateful she's here safe.  The whole thing played out not quite how we would have liked it to, but we finally have our sweet baby in our arms and that's all the matters!

Month 8 & Half of 9

April was a great month with nothing too exciting going on, except for the continued excitement as the due date got closer and the increasing misery that my body was enjoying. :)  It wasn't that bad, but when things started to get hot it started to get a little more miserable than I was hoping for.  I did have a wonderful baby shower in April that was really great.  To be honest, I hate any type of shower mainly because of all the froofy stuff that goes on and all the attention that's on me, but I survived and it was actually fun!  My sweet bishop's wife, whose also my visiting teacher, threw it for me and my sweet relief society president hosted it at her house.  Tons of people came and I felt very loved...and was very glad when it was over. :)

April is always fun because it's the month of birthday's.  Mine is on the 9th and Mike's is on the 29th.  Then, in my family alone there are three more birthday's that month.  By the end of the month we are exhausted every year! For my birthday we went to a symphonic orchestra concert the day before directed by our bishop and out to dinner.  The day of my birthday wasn't too eventful, as we both went to work, but I did get to open my present which was a very sweet gold heart-shaped locket.  Mike helped me put a picture of him on one side and the ultrasound in the other. :)  For Mike's birthday we went out to dinner and that was about it.  I just gave him money for his birthday, since things were crazy with the baby coming.  

Additionally, the morning of Mike's birthday his Granny finally passed away.  It was truly a blessing because she had been a widow for over 40 years and was really not doing well, but we were still both quite sad that day.  She was really the only grandparent Mike ever knew in this life.  We spent most of his birthday figuring out what we should do about the funeral.  We decided to just take a few days off of work and drive up to Utah and back over the weekend.  I had to get special permission from my doctor to do that since I was 36 weeks along at that point, but he said it was ok as long as we took lots of breaks.  The drive up was just fine, but the drive back down was fairly miserable for me, but it was definitely worth it.  The funeral was beautiful and we really enjoyed getting to see so much family.  Here are a few pictures we took that day:

All of the men in height order.

The 8 Mabey kids in age order.

All Mabey's that were there for the funeral.  (I wasn't really that huge this photo is just really bad of me, or maybe it's that shirt.)

To top off seeing so much of the Mabey family, it happened to be the same weekend that Leah & Cade were blessing their new baby Audrey.  We were able to drive up to Logan and back on Sunday so that we could be there for their special day.  It was to neat to see two people that I love so much be new parents and made me very excited for the adventure Mike & I were about to start.  

March - Month 7!!!!

March was such a fun month! We started the month out by wrapping up everything for the Gilbert Temple.  We lucked out and got tickets to actually be in the temple for the dedication and got even luckier by attending the last session so we were able to see President Monson & President Eyring leave the temple.  They were so cute and friendly.  

We were towards the beginning of the line and were able to sit in a sealing room.  They fit 1800 people in the temple per session. 

The biggest change at our house this month was that we found a new home for Rocky, our turtle.  It's very weird to not have him in his spot in front of the window.  We have had him the whole time we have been in Arizona, but it was time to make a change because we knew he was going to be neglected once that baby comes.  I was able to find a science teacher at my school that wanted him, so Mike spent a morning bringing everything over and teaching the teacher how to take care of him.  

Not only did we both have spring break (on different weeks - boo!), but we also had visitors during Mike's spring break.  My Uncle Russ and his family came down from Blanding for their spring break and we got to see them a few times.  We even got to attend the Gilbert Temple for the first time with Russ & Rebecca.  That weekend we got to have the kids come over for a sleepover so Russ & Rebecca could clean their condo without the kids around.  We love those kids!  They are the sweetest/best kids I've ever known.

Next up was St. Patrick's Day.  We are trying to get better at actually celebrating holiday's. :)  So Mike made Irish soda bread and we bought Irish cheddar cheese and made delicious Irish cheese sandwiches.

Pregnancy Update:  My belly is growing, which means my baby is growing!  Yay!  The months of January & February were such a relief that I wasn't sick, but they were the months that my stomach muscles were adjusting to all they were going to have to carry around.  I had a few rough days where I was in quite a bit of pain and had to move very slow.  In March, things really started to get better and I started to feel like my body had accepted what I was doing to it. :)  I went to visit Grandma Pat in Yuma over my Spring Break and we spent a little time shopping.  It was nice to get a few more maternity clothes.  

The best part of March was that I found my Dr.!!!!!  So I have this amazing OB that I found about a year and half ago and he has been so good to us and is one of the main reasons we finally have this baby.  However, we knew he was very unhappy at the practice he was working at, but he had told us that he was going to stay there for about another year and that we could follow him when he left.  Then I got a call at the end of February that he had quit!  I thought my world was over.  My hormonal self did not handle it well and started thinking of all sorts of crazy alternatives, but lucky for me I have a calm husband that told me to just sit tight and see if he shows up. I may or may not have spent some time everyday internet stalking him, but it paid off because I found him towards the end of March and was able to set up an appointment for mid-April.  What a relief!  

30 weeks

3/4 of the way there!

The 6th Month - February

February was a fabulous and busy month!  I felt great all month!  I was able to enjoy my expanding belly and my moving baby a lot.  There weren't really any notable things that happened other than that with the pregnancy this month, except that we are getting closer to her coming and so excited!

21 weeks

24 weeks

Our whole month was comsumed up by the Gilbert Temple Cultural Celebration.  This is what the church does the night before a temple dedication to involve the youth that live in the temple district.  The Gilbert Temple serves 26 stakes, so we have 12,000 youth participating in this event! We were asked to be the "Stake Food Specialists" for our stake.  This basically meant feeding 250 youth during two all day practices and having snacks for their evening practices.  To make it nice and complicated, they didn't allow any open flames or other cooking gear.  They said we could warm food, but they weren't really enough electrical outlets to do that.  So we got creative.  Some of the meals we did were muffins, cold cereal bar, Little Caesars pizza, breakfast burritos, and Chipotle burritos.  It was crazy, but we survived.

Panorama of the practice field.  I'm not sure if this pictures gives the sight of 12,000 teenagers dancing together justice.  It was an incredible sight!

This is a picture of one of the screens they had, but it was still awesome to be so close to the Pres. Eyring and Pres. Monson.  It was really amazing seeing 12,000 teenagers get so excited to see two old men. :)

We thought we were going to luck out and not have rain, which would have been a miracle since the forecast had been 100% chance of rain all day.  However, right as the prophet pulled up in his car a half hour before the performance it began to pour and didn't stop until an hour after the performance was over.  This was particularly interesting since the kids were actually performing in a water retention basin.  By the time the performance was over they were dancing in at least an inch or two of water.  

I have never been so wet and cold in my whole life!  Talk about "soaked to the bone."

If you're interested here is a link to the Cultural Celebration:

Month 5

January was a good month!  I was finally COMPLETELY over all my morning sickness.  Yay!  So, I felt like I was actually able to enjoy this whole being pregnant thing this month.  I also started to almost look like I was going to have a baby, instead of just looking chubby. 

By far the best part of January was that Mike & I both finally got to feel her kick and move around!  It's such a great feeling and makes me feel a bond with her that I can't wait to continue once she's here.

20 weeks

Another 20 weeks.  Officially halfway!  :)

Un-baby related things that happened in January were a visit from my grandparents, the beginning of the Gilbert Temple Open House, and the usual school/work goings-on.  My grandparents came down from Blanding so they could go to the temple open house.  I took a day off to spend with them and go to the temple.  It was fun to get to be with them and the temple was awesome!

 
Another thing of note, is that I was released as young women's president at the beginning of January.  This has been a weird transition for me because I have worked with the young women for the last 4 years, but it has been a good change.  

Month 4 - December

December was a good month.  I always love December because it means a lot of family!  The first three weeks were full of school and work and the usual things.  I was also VERY slowly feeling like my morning sickness was getting better.  That was a huge blessing. By the time we got to Utah I was feeling pretty normal.

The best part of December was that we finally got to find out that she is a girl!  :)  I had been very excited to find out, but Mike was DYING to know!  We told our family right away and a few days later we told the "world" on facebook. That was a fun day because so many people made comments that made us feel very loved.  One of the many things I've learned from this experience it is that people really do love and care about our family.  There were SO many people that when we told them that we were finally pregnant they told us that they had been praying for us for years.  What amazing people we have in our life!

I love this picture because it was the first one that actually looked like a baby and not a blob or an alien. :)

The first we got to do when we got to Utah was see Leah and Cade.  Leah is 3 months ahead of me in her pregnancy.  We took this cheesy picture because we saw something similar on Pinterest and decided we better take the opportunity when it's presented itself. :)

My two favorite Christmas gifts were a hammock from Mike and these very funny onesies that my sister Melissa has been planning on buying us for years.

I also chopped my hair right before we left for Utah and Mike's awesome sister Jenny helped me figure out how to make it look cute.

Two days after Christmas we took off for St. George to be at Mike's oldest nephew, Caleb, wedding.  It was fun to go to the St. George temple for my first time and be with the Mabey's for a short time.  

Once the wedding was over we headed to Blanding for our annual New Year's get-together with the Pincock's.  We were there for 4 days and a good time was had by all.  I particularly enjoyed getting to talk to all of my aunts about having a baby and being a mom.  It started to make this feel more real!

We all started to get cabin fever, so most of us drove over to Spirit Cave and hiked down into it.  It was so neat!  There were all sorts of Native American ruins that we could explore.

December was a great month!

2nd & 3rd Months

These months were rough, I'm not going to lie.  Mike & I both wondered what we had gotten ourselves into.

The bad:

• I was SO sick!  Starting the second week of October and going a week into December I had morning sickness 24/7.  The only time I wasn't in misery was when I was asleep.  My daily routine was to get up, shower, put my hair in a pony tail, eat some oatmeal, go to work and teach from my chair all day, come home and crawl into bed and do it all over the next day.  On the weekends I literally laid on the couch all day.  I went to church sometimes and didn't other times.  It was rough!  Things that got me through were my amazing husband, my sea bands, and eventually my good friend Zofran. :)
• It is pretty rough having to go to the bathroom as much as you do when you're pregnant when you are teaching 2nd graders all day.
• I did not love being so sick and having to pretend that I wasn't.  I ended up telling a co-worker and my boss, but didn't tell anyone at church until December.  Right before I started telling people a few people started asking me if I was ok and one person even told me I looked green. Ha-ha!
• November was just not awesome.  I was sicker this month than in October and I had a lot of minor things going on that kept me busy in the evenings when I just wanted to be in bed.  I also had to go to a work conference in Vegas.  Mike came with me (thank goodness!), but really we just sat in the hotel anytime I had free time because I didn't want to do anything else.  We decided that we shouldn't go anywhere for Thanksgiving because I wasn't up for traveling, but that meant sitting in our house for 4 days with nothing to do and it was a bit rough when everyone else was celebrating.  

The good:

• We got to see out little blob for the first time on Oct. 2nd and then got to hear her heartbeat on Oct. 14th.  That was pretty incredible and I think we both teared up a little!  I tried to hold on to that sound when I was feeling like I was going to die a horrible morning sickness death. :)

• 

  Out Little Blob :)

• October was also great because I got to spend a week in Utah with family!  My parents already knew about the baby, but I got to tell my siblings and Mike's siblings in person.  It was sad that Mike couldn't be there with me, but he didn't have a break so he had school all week.  The best part for me was that my mom was feeding me and I wasn't having to do it myself.  It was also fun to get to see the Anderson family at Sharayah's farewell, as well as the Mabey's when I went to Thomas's lacrossse game.  I love Utah. :)
• In November we had two more Dr. appt and my Dr is SO amazing and did ultrasounds every time I came in just because he had worked so hard with us to get this baby and knew how excited we were.  It was pretty fun to see her moving around and healthy. 
  
  
  
  
  
• I also decided at the end of November that she was a girl.  The Dr wouldn't confirm for a few more weeks and Mike didn't want me to talk about it, just in case this picture was wrong, but once I saw it I knew it.
•   
• At the very end of November I started to show just a little bit.  It was exciting to see that she was really in there and growing.  You'll have to excuse the towel on my head and the awesome face - I just took this to send to my sister, but now it's the only early belly picture I have.  haha!

• 

Time to Document - 1st Month

Ok, it's really past time to document, but the best time is now right?

Currently I'm 25 weeks pregnant and have only written in my journal twice.  So my goal is to go back through each month and blog about what has been happening.  It may end up being long and tedious, but my memory is horrible so I better so it soon.  

Month 1:

For those who don't know or hadn't assumed we have had quite the time getting pregnant.  I've spent lots of time the endocrinologist and OB over the past 4 years.  Tons of blood tests and other tests.  We were told that I have PCOS and that my body wasn't ovulating at all, but that there isn't much that can be done about either of those things except to wait and hope.  At the beginninng of 2013 we started trying fertility drugs (Clomid) and they were unsuccessful.  My doctor was so great at doing an ultrasound each time to see if the drugs worked, which made our life a little less stressful.  When we went to Maryland things were too crazy to keep trying Clomid, but as soon as we got back I went back to the doctor and asked to try and similar drug called Femara.  I tried it in August and went in for the ultrasound and the doctor told me that I was going to ovulate.  I was so shocked!!!  We were so happy!  It was great.  I think both of us felt like it was finally our time.  Then came the month of patiently waiting to see if we were really pregnant.  I took one pregnancy test three weeks later, but the second pink line was so faint we weren't sure, so we waited a few days and tried again.  I woke up the middle of the night and was so excited to take the test that I couldn't sleep, so I just got up and took it.  So we found out at 3:30 in the morning that I was pregnant.  We both laughed and cried and were so excited!  I couldn't go back to sleep because I was so excited so I was pretty tired the next day, but who cares! :)

               We actually ended up telling all of our parents the next day.  They were all so excited for us!  Both of our moms cried. One of the reasons we decided to tell them so quickly is because they were worried about us because coincidentally the day that we found out we were pregnant we were also robbed. 

The Rafferty's were in town for a recruiting trip that James was doing at ASU, so Amy actually had come over to our house that day to hang out with Nora and she found out door open wide.  She said it didn't look like anything was gone, but she wasn't sure.  She called Mike and ended up picking him up from ASU.  He had the cops come and dust for fingerprints and file a report.  He also got our apartment maintenance to come and secure the door that night and they came back the next day to replace our door with a much more secure door.  In the end, we discovered the robbers took both our laptops and our tablet.  About $3000 worth of technology.  We were really bummed, but were having some really weird mixed feelings because we were also so happy that we were finally going to have a baby!  It was definitely a weird day.  

             We spent the month being so happy dreaming about our future and talking about plans.  It is so unreal that this is really happening for us!  

4th of July in Washington D.C.

We had a fabulous 4th of July here in D.C.  Mike's cousin Russ and his wife Kaela were in the parade on Constitution Avenue, so we took the metro down and saw them in the parade.  It was so much fun to experience the atmosphere in the nations capital on the the 4th of July.  

After the parade we went back to Russ & Kaela's house for lunch and to dehumidify ourselves.  We crammed into Kaela's little convertible for the ride there and back.  It was an adventure. :)

After lunch, we went back into D.C. to watch the fireworks.  We parked at the Pentagon and walked over to the Jefferson Memorial (about 2 miles) and found a great shady spot to set up camp.  We hung out and waited for about 5 hours.  The fireworks show was great and worth the wait.  We were exhausted once it was over though!  We still had to walk back to the Pentagon and catch a metro to get back to our car.  I believe we got home just a little before one.  

Our First D.C. Experience

For those of you who don't know, we are living in Maryland this summer while Mike does an internship with the government.  He's been here since the beginning of June, but I just got here last Thursday so this weekend was our first opportunity to explore.  Somebody told Mike that the best way to get to D.C. was to get to the nearest metro station and take that into the city.  With me not being a city girl I had never been on a city train, so I decided to document the auspicious occasion:

 The Washington Monument is under construction from the earthquake from a few years ago, but it was still awesome to see.  

 The WWII Memorial was beautiful.  Both war memorial's we went to were very sobering.

 Sorry for the poor quality of pictures, but we aren't the best at "selfies"  and I'm kind of nervous handing my phone to a stranger.  

The Lincoln Memorial was by far the thing I was most excited to see and it was magnificent!  I can't wait to go back and see it lit up at night.

At this point, we had been walking for about 3 straight hours during the middle of the day and were exhausted.  We forced ourselves to go to one museum before we headed home.  We stopped in at the National American History Museum and saw the Start Spangled Banner, President's, and First Lady (my favorite!!) Exhibits.  It was incredible and we can't wait to go back and spend more time in museums.  We have a huge list of things we want to see and have to remind ourselves that we are going to be here every summer for the next few summers and then live here for 4+ years.  Stand by for more adventures.