Monday, October 20, 2014

Birthday Bonanza


With Dot's Due date falling between Bailey and Chloe's Birthdays,.... (I don't even know how in the free world that was possible!?!  Seriously,.. Bailey's Birthday June 30th, Dot'e Due Date July 2nd, and Chloe's Birthday on July 3rd,.. My uterus really likes October apparently,.... I better be careful!)

My Dr. had me scheduled for my C-section on Bailey's Birthday and she was prepared to share her birthday with her baby sister.  Luckily Dot decided to come 2 weeks early,..Hallelujah!  I was even able to be home to help Celebrate.

In years past, we have always combined Bailey and Chloe's birthday's and done one big fat party.  It was understood that Bailey wanted HER OWN party this year, and Chloe wanted one too.  So we compromised and neither had a party! :D

Let's be honest, I was not about to throw a party 1 week post baby!  So they each got their breakfast in bed, as per Robbins Family Tradition, a lunch date with 1 friend,.. they both chose their best friend cousin, and then a special date night with Daddy, so mommy could pass out in bed!


 Bailey's breakfast was a doughnut, toast, eggs and Milk.  



Chloe's breakfast of champions:  oatmeal, grapes, watermelon, and,... a tuna fish sandwich!! 





Let's be honest though,.. they got the best birthday present they could have ever asked for!!  And they really, truly love their new baby sister!






The last week of June/ First week of July will always be a crazed celebration in our house,.. and Peter is not allowed to touch me in the month of October ever again!! ;P

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Dorothy Ella Robbins

Baby Dorothy Ella Robbins joined our family on June 22nd, 2014.  7 lbs. 14 oz.  and 19 1/2 inches long.  We are so very smitten by her perfection.

As soon as I hit 37 weeks, I was determined to get this baby here,.... before my Doctor went out of town.  Apparently I can make my self fake labor,.. One night I got my contractions to 4 minutes apart and strong, but I knew as soon as I stopped pumping they would stop, and they did.  My Dr wouldn't even check my progress because I was having a scheduled c-section, no need to wake the beast I guess. So I woke up on Sunday the 22nd (38 weeks 3 days) to a really cute message on my mirror that Peter left me,.. and slowly got my prego body ready for church.  I. felt. awful.  I didn't have an appetite and I felt upset to my stomach.  It was a weird feeling.  Before we left for church, I opted to eat a tiny sliver of a quesadilla and headed out.  I plopt my self next to a good friend in relief society and we laughed at the size of my ankles,.. or calfs,.. or thighs,.. you couldn't tell them apart from one another, and then laughed at the bouncing baby rolling around inside.  As I was leaving church I mentioned to 2 of my friends how awful I felt and how ready I was to have this baby.  My friend Emily joked, "I'll bet you'll have that baby today!  I always felt so sick when I was about to go into labor."  Haha,.. funny joke,.. I can wait till Wednesday, I thought.  Got in the car, and BAM,... contractions kicked in.  We got home and Peter knew I wasn't feeling well and made the kids dinner while I moaned on the couch about having intestinal distress(results of not having a gallbaldder, and I knew intestinal distress can itrritate the uterus, blah blah blah.  I tried to go to the bathroom and was so uncomfortable,.. I called my mom and she laughed at me and told me to calm down, I probably wasn't in labor.  So I started to time my contractions.  4 minutes apart,......... I couldn't talk through them anymore.
On our way to the hospital

At 5:30 We dropped the kids off at Peter's brothers house and headed to the U.  Valet was closed, which made me mad.  And so we ended up parking FOREVER away from the doors.  Because it was Sunday, the hospital was pretty quiet, and there wasn't anyone at the desk, and I didn't know where to go.  I was going to figure all that out the day before my scheduled c-section when I went to get my bloodwork done.  So we get up to labor and delivery and walked all over kingdom come, until we find a group of ladies walking into start their shift,.. and they helped us figure out where to go.

They start checking me in, asking their millions of questions.  By this time I was so HELL bent on making them deliver me, I would have poured water down my pants and lied that my water broke.  :D Peter is standing behind me cracking his usual, worst husband and father jokes, to the nurses, thankfully he was joking.  As soon as I mentioned I had a bladder sling, the nurses kicked into high gear.  I could see their almost panic get the show on the road.  I wasn't even sure they were going to keep me there.  but as soon as I knew I was staying, I'm pretty sure I quit contracting. hahaha,.. or maybe I just quit noticing because I was so excited.  Luckily I hadn't really eaten at all that day, they just had to time things right so that my bloodwork would be done by the time the c-section was done, incase I hemmoraged again(like I did after Chloe) and I needed a blood transfusion.  Before I knew it,.. Peter was donning his sexy scrubs, and hair net (I'll never understand why they make him wear one!?)  And I was in the OR getting prepped for the big cut.

This was right after they told me they were admitting us and we were going to have our baby!!
They gave me the spinal and I laied down and immediately my nose was OUT OF CONTROL itchy.  They had strapped my hands down and I had to keep asking the Anesthesiologist to scratch my nose, which was under an oxygen mask.  It was SO ANNOYING!!  I finally talked them into giving my one of my arms.  (I couldn't believe how much it itched, and how swollen my nose was the next morning, from all the itching)
They finally brought Peter into the OR.  It seemed like it took FOREVER for them to get Dot out.  I kept asking, is she almost out?  Finally at 8:58 our little Polka Dot was born.  I kept waiting to hear her little cries and they weren't coming.  I kept asking Peter if everything was okay, and he kept reassuring me by just saying "she is so cute".  I knew something was up, but they didn't want me to freak out.  I finally made him walk over to see if she was okay and when he came back, he told me they were having a hard time getting her to breathe, but she was okay and he showed me some pictures. (he was a liar)  No one led on that there was some panic in the room, but they let me see her for just a second and whisked her away to the nursery and put her on CPAP for a while.  I was really sad I didn't get to hold her and do Skin to skin right away like I wanted, and had to beg them to let me do in the first place.  I made Peter leave and go check on her, and he came back about the time they were finishing stitching me up.  He didn't realize they were about to drop the drape, and when they did, I turned to tell him he better turn around and he was already out the door.  It made me laugh really hard.  He doesn't deal well with blood and stuff.  He was a LOT better with it all this time than with Cy.  They took me back to my recovery room, and a little while later, after asking a million times, they finally brought me my baby.


Instant Love.  There is just no way to describe that connection you feel when you lay eyes on that little baby.  She was my biggest baby, and I could tell right away that she looked a lot like Chloe but I also saw more Batemen in her than I ever saw in any of my other kids.  She was(and is) delicious.  She latched on right away and continued eating like a champ.  They hooked me up to Duramorph and HOLY CRAP.  That stuff is GOOD.  I continued to make a giant fool of myself,.. luckily mostly it was just to Peter.  I kept asking him stupid questions.  This is what he posted to facebook that next morning, after hours of being on "silly juice"(that's what I call it)

"Some interesting conversations when your wife is on drugs. So far she's asked me if I brought my baseball bat to the hospital, if she is getting pizza intravenously, why Rapunzel cut her hair, and told me we should get a coupon for the rodeo in the phone book. "We should run a 5k...like right now!" A: "it's a zombie elephant!!"
P: "what's a zombie elephant?"
A: "I don't know! What IS a zombie elephant?"
"What would you say is the average shoe size for a man?"
"We should have a dance party!"
As well as making best friends with the phlebotomist when she came in to draw my blood,.. seriously,.. I told her i loved her when she left.  She was there for all of 2 minutes, no joke.

I was able to finally pull my self together before Grandma Patti and the kids came to meet their new baby sister.  They were so cute, and very cautious.  I was just worried someone was going to step or push on my stomach to get snuggled up to me,.. but we were able to avoid that thank goodness. Grandma and Grandpa Robbins were pretty much the last ones to know of Dot's arrival.  I had told Peter a bunch of times to call them, but we had really bad cell service in our hospital room and it all happened so fast, he didn't get a chance to tell them before my surgery.  They were at a New Mission President Seminar/Training in Provo, but came up the next evening to meet their new grand-daughter.  It was really fun to sit and talk with them for a while that evening.  We were all glowing the light of this beautiful angel.  

I was anxious to get out of there ASAP.  Those hospital beds are AWFUL!  And my room was bloody hot,.. and the mixture of the two were about to send me over the edge.  So my mom offered to take my kids to her house for the rest of the week so I could come home and recover there.  So the hour that I COULD be checked out I WAS checked out.  9:00 pm.  The night shift people were in a panic because they don't usually discharge patients,.. but I was able to stop and get my meds and go home and sleep in my own bed.  It was wonderful.  Dot and I just laid in bed and slept and ate, and slept and ate.  My mom brought the crazy home a few days later and she stayed to help me adjust to the new wonderful craziness of my life.     









Friday, May 16, 2014

Pregnancy Update

I am more and more convinced with every pregnancy how little you remember of last pregnancies,.... well,.. the horrible things that you don't enjoy anyway.   I feel like I've been complaining a LOT about this pregnancy,.. and it HAS been my most difficult,.. but all that aside, I LOVE being pregnant.  I love feeling that life inside of me.  It always amazes me that anyone could doubt God's existence after being pregnant, or even knowing someone that has been pregnant.  Such a miracle.

At our 20 week ultrasound, we learned little baby Dot was happy and healthy, but there were some minor complications about the pregnancy.  She has what is called a Single Artery Umbilical Cord,.. which is USUALLY not an issue at all.  In some cases it can correlate WITH heart issues(not cause them) but can sometimes CAUSE kidney problems, or effect her growth, at which point we would have to have her early.  I am still measuring right on track, and will have an ultrasound next week to check her size and make sure her kidneys look good and healthy, and will probably have a few more before she is born, just so I can rest assured that she is doing alright in there.  We(I don't know if it's HER'S or MINE,.. so I say "we")  have what is called a Circumvallate Placenta.  Which also can be nothing, but could potentially cause her to stop growing as well.

Initially when we had our 20 week ultrasound and found all this out,.. little spazzy baby wouldn't hold still enough for us to get a good look at her heart,.. so of course when I found out all these things, and did my own WebMD research, I had a good long month of sleepless nights worrying about this little baby, seeing as how the Umbilical cord issues can coincide with major heart issues, and then not getting good images of her heart,... I was kind of a wreck.  Thank goodness her heart looked perfect at 24 weeks!  We are counting our blessings, for sure.

Dot's room is coming along nicely,.. I had decided to just paint one wall and throw some dots on it, and call it good, and quickly realized that the pink I had picked and the neutral we had up already, with the white trim, it all looked like neapolitan ice cream when put all together,... so I just painted the entire room,..........the EXACT same color I just painted Chloe and Bailey's room.  (I was trying to be conservative by using the same paint, instead I just ended up slathering 2 rooms in it.   Good thing I like the color and it's not too much. We had to buy another crib, seeing as how Cy still sleeps in the old one as a toddler bed because we are missing so many parts to it, we couldn't put it back together to make it a real crib again. Hopefully Dot doesn't chew it apart like Bailey did!!

I found this crib bumper and fell in LOVE with it.  The floral with the Dot's,.. I couldn't tell my self no. Chloe and Bailey had destroyed the old crib bumper anyway,.. so I was in the market, and the stars aligned and I was able to get this for around $30, with a coupon, and an old gift card I forgot I had, AND it was on sale.  See,.. it was meant to be.
Daddy doing the precise measurments to make the Dots literally perfect(minus the ball point pen used, which doesn't just wash off)
I mean really,.. her name is Dot for heaven's sake,.. she had to have polka dots on her wall.


I am entering the uncomfortable stage, where rolling over in bed is a work out, and bending over only happens in Emergencies (thank goodness for big sisters that are good little helpers at picking stuff up for me.  Peeing every hour is getting really old, especially at night, refer to issue Number 1.  I have had a nasty head cold the last 2 weeks, that I think I am finally getting over.  I forget how limited you are in the pharmaceutical department,.. and even more so when you are looking for a decent decongestant.

32 Weeks
(I hate belly shots, but don't have any from when I was pregnant with Bailey and SHE is sad about it)

It has been so fun to see the excitement of the kids, awaiting the arrival of their sister.  If I am sitting on the couch or somewhere Chloe can come snuggle up to me, she DOES, and wants to feel her baby sister moving, and will talk to her.  It's pretty much the cutest thing ever.  Cy likes to rub my "big baby belly" and will Say he is "hoding Baby Dot's Hand".  Bailey has become more and more reserved and unsure about this sister of her's.  She always prays that "Dot will make it here safe and strong and healthy".  She was very aware of what was going on when her sweet cousin passed away at 35 weeks, and was heart broken.  The further along I have gotten the more anxiety I see her exhibiting.  We talk about it a lot and we say lots of prayers, not only for Dot, but also for Bailey to feel comfort.  We have lots of talks about forever families, and Heavenly Father's plan.  It's hard to see her so uneasy about it all, but I think we turned a corner last night.  Cy and Chloe went to bed early and Bailey and I worked on her homework and she climbed up on my bed and I asked her if she wanted to feel Dot kicking,.. I kind of had to force it, but she quickly came around.  We laid there staring at my belly move every which way and rumble with movement.  I could see the joy in her eyes as she made a connection with her sister in that moment.  It was very tender for me.  I've been so worried about her hesitance and deliberate avoidance of being excited and happy about being a big sister again.  I always knew, once Dot got here that would change, and was so relieved I saw a little bit of change in her last night.







Thursday, April 17, 2014

Spring Break

We had such a fun Spring Break in St. George.  It was the prefect pregnant vacation.  Normally on Vacation I like to "go and do", but when I'm pregnant I like to "go and do", and then take a nap, and then "go and do" a little more.  So this worked out great. just low key and chill.
 Jacob Hamblin Home in Santa Clara
 My little beauties
 She's not animated at all, is she?
 I laughed for a good 20 minutes when I uploaded these pics on my computer and found this one.  She kills me, and will HATE me when this is in her wedding video or put in her Senior Yearbook or something embarrassing.
 Batman didn't really like the Splash Pad
 We found our happy place in the little river though.
 Until Bailey biffed it and tore up her knees.  Poor girl!
 The Children's Museum in St. George is AWESOME.  It's free,(and packed) but there is a lot of fun stuff for kids.
 My Grandma would be so proud, kinda.  Not so proud that it's fake or that Cy thinks a horse says Moo,.. baby steps.
 Farmer Cy

 Dinosaur Musuem, and cheesy smiles.  (what is Bailey doing??)  

 Brigham Young Winter Home

 This picture is such an accurate description of these two's relationship.  They are best buddies.
 We had a LOT of fun hiking around Snow Canyon State Park.  The girls LOVED feeling like they could hike ahead of us and pave the path.  We saw some lizards and lots of pretty little flowers. 
 We had a lot of fun playing in the sand(I still feel like I'm cleaning sand out of everything.) 
 This kid LOVES his dirt and digging and rocks and all things Southern Utah.  He had a BLAST!

 Over all Dixie Rock was Bailey and Chloe's favorite destination.  They loved all the holes you could climb in and finding the "diamonds" or broken beer bottles.  And here is the only evidence I was even on this trip.  Love these crazy kids.


It was so fun to escape home for a few days, and not cook any dinners, and just be together as our little family.  There was minimal fighting(miracle) and lots of smiles, scraped knees, dirty socks, swim suits, and smiles.  Doesn't get better than that!