Pictures of James

We are loving our little boy! It has been a major adjustment (understatement!), but each day is getting easier and easier! Ben and I have never been more excited to get 4 hours of sleep! Little James is changing so much already! He is now out of his newborn PJ's, and his feet fit into 3 months foot PJ's! He makes us smile and laugh all the time. I also have to fall asleep with a pillow over my head because he is one noisy sleeper! He also loves sitting with his Grandma Riley! In fact, we go out and visit her on the couch every morning around 5 o'clock so daddy can get some sleep. Grandma is very good at getting him to go back to sleep. Mommy is learning, and was able to get him to back to sleep in his bed last night! Yay! He also really likes to sleep in his car seat- so if he won't fall asleep in his bassinet we put him in the car seat. On Saturday he will be 2 weeks old!

James Benjamin Van Noy

I want to write down James' birth story I forget it all! It's already starting to feel more like a dream than reality and it's only been 4 days!
I am going to start at last Friday. I was told from a friend in our ward that drinking pineapple juice could help push things along with labor. I was feeling so miserable that at that point I was willing to try anything! So I thought, why not? Ben and I bought some pineapples and that night we pureed one. It was like drinking a frothy pineapple smoothie- pretty tasty. I had like 3/4s of it, and Ben had the rest. I went to bed hoping that I would wake up with contractions or my water breaking or something! At around 2 in the morning I woke up because the rash on my legs were itching and burning like crazy! I went to the bathroom and scratched the living daylights out of them. I couldn't stop scratching them so I decided to walk around until I got tired since I couldn't stand sitting still. While I was walking around I had some contractions that were a little more painful, but nothing consistent. I was finally able to fall asleep on the couch around 3am. Around 4am I started waking up from crampy contractions. I started timing them and they were anywhere from 1 minute to 5 minutes apart. At 6am I went and woke Ben up. I told him "I don't think you'll be playing basketball this morning." We ate some breakfast and called our neighbor Jenny, who is a doula. She came over and rubbed my ankles, feet, hands, and helped to relax. She had us put in a movie and stop timing contractions. So after she left we popped in Stardust and I tried to just relax. My contractions kept getting more painful, and to the point where I had to be standing up. Before the movie was even over I decided to call the on call doctor. He told me to come on over to the hospital and they would check me out. By this time my contractions were coming pretty regularly every 3-4 minutes. So Ben hopped in the shower and I called my mom and told her we were on our way to the hospital. When we got in the car I told Ben I was definitely getting an epidural.
We got to the hospital at about 10am. I was nervous that I wasn't going to be dilated enough for them to keep me, but imediately the doctor put my fears to rest. Before he even checked me he said that if I wasn't in active labor he was going to deliver me because of my rash, and he didn't want me to be miserable. I was sooooo grateful! All the nurses that helped me told me that my PUPPPs rash was the worst they had seen! But anyways, my doctor (Doctor O'Shea) checked me and I was dilated 4cm and 90% effaced! They asked me if I wanted an epidural, and I said yes! It took about an hour for the anesthesiologist to get to the hospital/give me the epidural. Right after I got it, so like an hour after we got there, the doctor checked me and was dilated to 6! He also broke my water. The epidural started making my face and chest kinda itchy, and the nurses told me in about an hour to an hour and a half the itchiness would go away. Well pretty soon after I felt like my stomach was always tight and I couldn't relax fully. I was having contractions like 1-2 minutes apart and I could still feel them to the extent where I couldn't quite relax.

 

in the middle of a contraction

I kept waiting for that hour to pass so my face would stop itching! By the time the first hour passed I was feeling A LOT of pressure. It was pretty intense so I had told a nurse and she checked me. She told me she thought I was almost complete, dilated to a 9-10! I was like "What? Are you serious?" I had been planning on trying to get some sleep with the epidural! My other nurse came in and had me start pushing. It felt good to be put to work, and it made the pressure feel better. I didn't feel like I was accomplishing anything and was getting tired, so they had me roll over to my side and try to get some rest. Well I tried for about 15 minutes, but started feeling even more pressure! A nurse checked me again and said "oh wow, I can see his head!" So I began pushing again. I even got to feel my baby's head! That was kinda weird and surreal. I couldn't believe I was actually in labor and pushing my baby out!!! Once he started crowning I was in a lot of pain and there was a ton of pressure. But eventually our little guy made his entrance! Once he was out and they laid him on my chest I felt sooooooooooooooo much better! All the pressure was gone and it was wonderful. I couldn't believe I just had our baby and he was here finally. I remember thinking his legs and arms were a little chubby but that he was so cute and little! He screamed and cried for about the first 5 minutes of his life and scored an 8 and 9 on his APGAR! I also kept saying over and over again "I can't believe how much better I feel!" I couldn't believe there was actually a little wiggly baby on my chest and that he used to be INSIDE me!

Ignore the red face- pushing is hard work!

I pushed for about 2 hours, and the whole labor process took 10 hours! Not bad for a first delivery, and for an 8 pound baby at that! After they stitched me up (I tore a little right at the end as his shoulders were coming out), Ben went with baby James to the nursery to get weighed, measured, and bathed, while I ate lunch and the nurses helped me get showered and cleaned up. James weighed 8 pounds 2 ounces and was 20 inches long!

We spent the rest of the day recovering and trying to figure out the whole breastfeeding thing! Our friends the Bennett's came and visited in the evening. They brought us balloons and ring pops :) My mom also flew in from Utah and got to the hospital at about midnight. She loved seeing her new grand baby (and us of course)!

Carter wasn't too happy

The second day at the hospital was really hard, I'm not going to lie! The doctor had taken me off the pain medicine, and the adreline I was running on the day before was gone. We finally figured out that the reason I was crying every time I had to move (especially get in and out of bed, etc.) was because I broke my tail bone! The doc gave me some pain meds again and I felt sooooo much better. Still couldn't move that great, but at least I wasn't crying anymore. We had an excellent nurse that helped us with nursing and getting me everything I needed! Ben was so cute at the hospital. He always wanted to be holding James, or helping the nurses change his diaper, etc. He was also was awesome at helping me get around and get everything I needed. He slept at the hospital both nights with me. :)

tired daddy

The next day we got to go home! We were all super excited to get our little bundle home.

ready to go home!

We love our little man!

39 Weeks, 2 Days... and Still Pregnant

Well... I'm 39 weeks now and really wishing that this little boy would come already! I really honestly did not think I would ever make it this far. It's great that I have, and I am thankful that I was able to. This pregnancy has been pretty easy since I've been able to take my medicine. I was feeling pretty good about myself and my "ability to carry babies" if that makes sense. I was going to have a wonderful end of pregnancy, and I wasn't ever going to get tired of it, and my baby would come and everything would be just perfect! It sounded great to me! Then about 2 weeks ago I started getting this rash. It is so bad now it covers just about my whole body except my chest and face. Something is always itching, burning, etc. I am taking Zyrtec (an antihistamine), multiple showers a day, hydra-cortisone cream, aloe-vera, benadryl, unisom (so I can sleep- otherwise there would be NO sleep), vitamin E lotion, and most recently bags of frozen vegetables! I think I have cried every day this week so far and complained... a lot.
Then yesterday I was crying and telling Ben how hard it was and he told me "well, just try to be happy!" Of course that did not go over too well with me and I proceeded to ignore him for the rest of the night. He fell asleep and I had the thought to look at General Conference talks. Once in particular stood out in my mind- the one about the Currant Bush! The talk is titled "As Many as I Love, I rebuke and Chasten" by D. Todd Christofferson, and you can read it here. It was EXACTLY what my prideful self needed to hear. From it I learned a lot and was humbled. The rest of the night I was in a much better mood and willing to wait for my little baby.
So anyways- here is a picture of me from today, and you also get to see what my rash looks like! Lucky you.

maternity shirts don't even cover my whole belly anymore!

close up of my arm. This picture does it pretty good justice, but not quite. This is what my legs look like too :)