Here is the family picture we will have hanging on our wall:

Joey said that if we wanted a picture like this next one, we would have gone to Walmart so we did not have it printed – goodbye tradition. I liked the picture (look at how cute E’s hands are) so Dave was nice and gave us this digital copy:

Dave took some great shots of us individually with E. Here are pictures of just Joey and E:

And pictures of just me and E:

And a  fun picture. You can’t even tell this picture was taken outside. So crazy but I love it.

Again we were very impressed with Dave’s work. I am happy that we got these pictures while E was still tiny

Baby Joey

Baby Janene

Here is the (long) story of his birth:

On Friday, June 25th I started having lower back pain and some bleeding so I called my doctor. They tried to fit me in but the doctor was stuck at the hospital and they had to cancel all his afternoon appointments. I was disappointed that I didn’t get to see him but the nurse told me to call the on-call doctor if I needed anything. When I got home I tried to rest on the couch but I was in a lot of pain. I called the on-call doctor and told her what was going on. I mentioned that I was supposed to see my doctor Monday morning and the doctor said “…if you’re pregnant on Monday…” When I heard that I started to get tears in my eyes. She then gave me instructions of when to call her again or go to the hospital. I kept thinking “I can’t be having this baby already! I am only 36 weeks along.” I called Joey and told him what the doctor said and he was very calm about it (almost too calm) and he said he was on his way home. I wasn’t sure if he really heard or understood what I said! He brought home dinner and I didn’t even feel like eating. Finally, around 8:00 that night I started timing the pain I was having (I wasn’t sure they were contractions) and the pain was lasting about a minute long and came every five minutes. Yikes! I called the on-call doctor and she told me to go to the hospital. Joey and I hurried and packed a bag and left.

When I got to the hospital they had me register and took me to the triage room. When I was all hooked up to the monitors you could see the contractions (a minute long and five minutes apart). I think I said something like “look at that. I AM having contractions”. They checked my cervix and said I was only 2 1/2 centimeters dilated and 90% effaced. Then they gave me some morphine and I fell asleep. After an hour or so they checked me again and nothing had changed so they sent me home and told us when we should call and/or come back. I was a little disappointed they were sending me home because I wondered how soon we’d be going back.

I slept okay Friday night but when I woke up Saturday morning I was in pain. The contractions were not as consistent but they were still coming and going. I barely ate anything so around lunch time I called the on-call doctor. It was a new doctor and she told me not to worry if I couldn’t eat or drink and advised me to keep timing the contractions. Finally, around 5:00, I begged Joey to take me to the hospital. I told him I didn’t care if they sent me home. I was in pain and wanted to go! I could barely sit in the car I was in so much pain. When we got to the hospital they took us back to register and this time we had to wait. I was hunched over the registration table and after what seemed like forever, I sent Joey to find out what was going on. The registration person finally came in the room and she said “what are we seeing you for?”. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Anyway. After we were registered, they took me back to the triage room where we waited again. After what seemed like forever again, I sent Joey to find out what was going on. He said that they had a nurse that was running late. Finally a nurse came back to help me. She mentioned they were very busy and when she was hooking me up to the monitors she said “and just for fun, what’s your name?” Really? You don’t know my name? Yikes!

After a few minutes a new nurse came back to see me. Apparently she was my nurse. She had really buggy eyes and she talked kind of slow but she was nice. When she checked my cervix she was a little rough and said “it looks like you are at a 4 1/2 and 100% effaced. You are in labor!” and I started bawling. She quickly said “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’ve never made anybody cry before”. I was crying too hard to tell her that it wasn’t because she hurt me. I was crying because I was only 36 weeks along AND because I was glad they weren’t sending me home!

When I walked back to the labor and delivery room I saw my doctor on the phone. I was glad to see him there. When I got to my room, my mom and sister were there. They had just left my baby shower (that I wasn’t able to go to) and instead of taking all the presents to my house they decided to come to the hospital. They stayed the next 13 hours. Joey’s mom came to the hospital shortly after. When I was getting my epidural, my doctor came in the room to tell me that he was leaving and wasn’t sure if he would be back to deliver my baby. He assured me that the on-call doctor was very nice and that I was in good hands. Several hours passed and everybody took turns by the side of my bed. My mom asked the nurse how much longer she thought it would be and the nurse didn’t want to say but she was nice enough humor us and estimated I would have the baby by 1:00AM.

For the next little bit, the nurse had me get in many different positions to help the baby’s heart rate stay up and to help him turn since his head was turned the wrong way. To help him turn his head, she had me get on my hands and knees. That was definitely the worst position ever! Especially since I had an epidural. She brought me an exercise ball to lean on and that helped but it was still hard. My legs were shaking and I didn’t know how long I could stay in that position. After a while (maybe an hour?) I was able to get off my hands and knees and sit in the bed and my water broke.

A couple more hours passed and we saw 1:00AM come and go. We were getting closer but I wasn’t fully dilated yet. The nurse had me get on my hands and knees one more time and I was more than done at that point. Around 3:00AM the nurse had me start pushing. I pushed for a little bit and finally the doctor came in. That was the first time I had seen the doctor. After several pushes she left the room to go to the bathroom. She came back and I was still pushing. She stayed a little bit longer and left again. After 2 hours of pushing the doctor was concerned that he wasn’t able to come out. She discussed some of our options (vacuum, forceps, etc.) but was concerned that that would hurt me and the baby. She suggested I push through 3 more contractions and see if I could get him to move down more and she left the room. When she came back I had pushed through 4 contractions the baby hadn’t moved down any more. At this point Joey and I both agreed that it was time for a c-section. The anesthesiologist came in and added more drugs to my epidural and Joey prepped to go to the OR.

The OR was freezing cold and I was shaking so hard I thought I was going to fall off the table. It wasn’t long before I heard the doctor say “are you ready to meet your son?” and we heard a cry. I started to cry and I got a quick glance at him before they took him away. I had to convince Joey to go be with our son. He said he didn’t want to leave me. After several minutes, Joey brought him over to me and I got to kiss his face. He was perfect. It made everything I had just gone through totally worth it.

Joey stayed with him for the next two hours and got to give him his bath. I am really glad they had that time together. I was also glad to hear that he was healthy enough to stay with me and didn’t have to go to the NICU. Praise Jesus!

Here’s the video of his first bath. We are so glad that Joey’s mom was there to take this video:

And that is the very long story of his birth. More pictures and updates to follow. (Hopefully they won’t be so wordy!)

Congratulations Dr. Olschewski! I couldn’t be happier for you and wish you the best.

It was so fun to see his heart, his stomach, kidneys and even his brainstem. Pretty amazing stuff.

Here is heart:

Here he is saying “Peace” with his hand:

A profile picture:

Here the technician says “I’m pretty sure it’s a boy”:

I wasn’t okay with a “pretty sure” but a few minutes later we see this and she says “Do you believe me now?”:

So far I have been feeling great (minus a nasty head cold I had for 2 weeks) and have only had some swelling in my feet and hands. A month ago my family commented that I finally looked pregnant.

Here is an Easter picture of Joey and Me:

and a close up of my belly:

Dinner was a lot of fun and expensive BUT amazingly delicious. Cucina Toscana is considered one of Salt Lake’s finest restaurants and has received numerous awards. If you are looking for the best Italian food in Salt Lake, this is the place to go. I look forward to going there again.

We have spent every anniversary so far at Anniversary Inn. It’s a nice bed and breakfast with themed rooms. Our stay this time wasn’t the best (the room was cold and our upstairs neighbors played FM 100 blaring loud for 3 hours in the middle of the night) but we still had fun.

Joey spoiled me this year with anniversary gifts. He bought me two cookbooks from America’s Test Kitchen:

and a Garmin Nuvi 1200:

What a happy surprise. Thanks honey!