Spring is in the Air

The weather has been so nice lately.  The kids have been playing outside a lot and it's so nice to feel the sun on our skin.  The trees have been blooming and look like popcorn.  Mina and Dalia point out every popcorn tree the see when outside.  Mina started to catch on, though, and realize that it isn't actually popcorn on the trees.  We went to the store one day and when Dalia saw the trees in front of the store, she got excited and told us that she saw the popcorn trees.  Mina said that she didn't actually think it was really popcorn, and that they were really flowers.  She asked if we could go check one out to see if she was right or if Dalia was right.  Of course, Mina was right and she happily exclaimed that she was and that Dalia was wrong.  Haha.  They wanted to take a picture in front of the tree and then when we were done shopping we headed to the park.  Rory got to ride in a swing for the first time.  I thought he would have been a little more thrilled, but he was super tired.

Rory is 6 months!

How has half a year gone by already?!  Sheesh.  Time needs to slow down.  Rory continues to be the sweetest baby ever!  Seriously.  I don't think they come any sweeter.  He rolls over all the time.  He gets up on his hands and knees to rock in preparation for crawling, but mostly goes backwards.  Occasionally he propels himself forward.  He grabs at everything and puts everything into his mouth.  He's working on cutting 2 more teeth and still learning to eat anything other than breast milk.  He will take a bite of a new food and then shut his mouth as tight as he can to prevent any more from going in.  Silly boy.  He's growing and healthy.  That's what matters.  He smiles at everyone.  He has the cutest laugh and it's so easy to get him to laugh.  He loves Mina and she is willing to entertain him at all times.  He sleeps in his own bed in his own room.  He still wakes once or twice a night to eat, but I bet that will change once he starts getting more solid food in his belly.  It's hard not to smile when he's around and we just love him so much.

Birth

1 month

2 months

3 months

4 months

5 months

6 months

Dalia is 3!

Dalia turned 3.  Where did the time go?  Dalia is still a little sweetheart... most of the time.  She's definitely 3 and she definitely loves pushing her parents' and her sister's buttons.  She can be pretty feisty.  Dalia told me that her favorite things right now are watching TV, getting star stickers (for doing chores) and eating chocolate.  She's actually a really good helper with the housework when Mina isn't around.  Dalia is also very loud, like all the time.  She loves to sing and dance and to make people laugh.  She loves books, is very efficient on the apple devices, knows her alphabet and can count to somewhere in the teens.  She can copy letters and almost has her name down.  She draws people and balloons a lot and a bunch of made up stuff.  She walks on her toes a lot.  She loves to copy Mina, which I think is adorable, but Mina finds irritating most of the time.  She's gotten so much better at not being so attached to Dru and me and finally started going to nursery without crying this year.  Sometimes she'll tell me, as I drop her off, that she isn't going to play with her friends or toys while in there.  She potty trained a few months ago and that is both awesome and not.  I don't like having to drop everything I'm doing to rush her to the potty, but it's nice to not have to change her diapers anymore.  And she's so cute in panties.  Her favorite foods are cinnamon chex and carrots.  She really loves carrots right now.  But, she'll eat almost anything.  She loves Caillou, My Little Ponies and anything princess.  Frozen is her favorite movie right now and it's so fun to watch and listen to her sing the songs.  She's making friends and learning how to share better and how to have fun with friends.  We love watching her grow and learn.  She is so much fun to have around.

Birth

1 year

2 years

3 years

Welcome, Rory

Rory Mark Jorgensen

Wednesday night, October 2, we were watching the show, 24.  It was around 11:00 pm when I felt something pop in my stomach.  I didn't really think much of it.  The show ended and I used the bathroom downstairs before heading up to bed.  On the way up the stairs I felt like I was leaking so I ran to the toilet in my bathroom and I knew my water had broken.  There was a stream of liquid coming out of me.  I cleaned up a bit and called the hospital.  The nurse I spoke with told me she wasn't so sure it was my water that broke (ha, there's no way it hadn't) and that I should call back in an hour and to report how things were going... like how much more I was leaking.  I had had some minor contractions earlier in the day, but nothing was going on at that moment.  I called back and reported that there were gushes every time I stood up.  She informed me that my doctor allows his patients to stay at home for up to 4 hours after their water breaks.  So, it was 12:30 am when I called back and she told me to be in by 3:30 am.  I let my mom know what was going on and Dru and I packed up and tried to take a nap.  Dru succeeded, but I was too anxious to fall to sleep.  Contractions started about an hour later and were about 7 minutes apart and lasting more than a minute each when we headed to the hospital at 3:30 am.  We got there about 3:45 am.  We got all checked in and I got into my lovely gown and laid on the bed for a bit.  The nurse checked me and I was dilated to 4 centimeters.  The contractions were not yet very painful and so Dru and I walked around for about 45 minutes.

By 5:00 am I was in the bed and contractions started picking up, but still manageable.  About an hour later I was dilated to 5 centimeters.  Another nurse had come in and wanted to get an IV hooked up to me in case I wanted any intervention or if something happened that they would need to get something in me quickly.  I kind of freaked out thinking they were going to put me on Pitocin which I absolutely did not want.  I was trying my hardest to do this labor all natural.  Since the contractions still weren't terribly painful I asked if we could wait a while because I didn't want a needle in my hand for so long.  That was a mistake.  The contractions immediately picked up and when I asked for an epidural my nurse tried 2 times to get an IV going in my arm/hand and failed.  She had to call another nurse to come get it in and said the anesthesiologist was still a half hour from being able to come give me the epidural.  It was probably somewhere between 6:30 am and 7:00 am at this point and contractions were on top of each other.  There were no breaks and these were the most painful I've ever felt in all of my labors.  A few minutes later I told Dru that I needed to push.  Dru told the nurses and they called my doctor and now there was no time for an epidural.  My doctor was on his way and the nurses would not let me push until he got there.  I was so mad.  They kept saying, "just breathe in and blow out like you're blowing out a candle."  A bit after 7:00 am I heard them call my doctor again and found out he was in the parking lot.  He got there a few minutes later and we got right to pushing.  3 pushes later, Rory, at 7:37 am on October 3, entered the world.  I can't even describe how wonderful the feeling is when a baby finally leaves your body and the pain that you've been experiencing just stops.  What a relief.  And then I had to get stitches.  I received a few numbing shots and the doctor stitched me up.  Luckily, it wasn't nearly as much tearing as with Dalia and Mina, so it went pretty quickly.  He weighed 8 pounds 13 ounces and was 21.5 inches long.  He has the least amount of hair of all our kids.  There's not much on the top front part of his head, but it's abundant in the back.  (His hair looks really light in a lot of the pictures, but it's actually very dark.)  I enjoyed having my brand new baby cuddled in my arms.  I love that this hospital lets babies stay with their parents pretty much the entire time you're staying.  The only thing they take the baby away from you for is the hearing test and then for circumcisions for boys.

We got cleaned up and settled in and I just got to hold my baby for a couple hours before he was even given a bath.  We didn't have any cell phone service in our room, so Dru left for a little bit to make a couple calls and send some messages to people.  My mom and the girls came around noon and stayed until around 4.  Dru left to take the second part of his DLPT during that time.  I was so happy to see my girls and sad when they had to leave.  They were so good while visiting, too.  We all had lunch together and Mina couldn't wait to hold Rory.  Dalia didn't want to hold him, but was very interested in looking at him and "petting" him.  She told us, while petting him, that it was "kind of like a dog."  Haha.  Then when Rory cried, Dalia started cracking up and would say, "the baby say, 'AHHHHHHHHHHHH!'" And she would just laugh.  Both girls kept calling him "the baby brother" instead of by his name.  It was funny.

So, my mom and the girls left and Dru and I looked forward to being able to go home the next morning.  I was so uncomfortable in the hospital bed that I had Dru sleep on it and I slept on the little couch in the room.  They took Rory sometime in the night to do his hearing test and then the next morning we waited on the doctor to come do the circumcision.  Well, he got there too late to do it that morning and said he would be back after lunch.  That meant we wouldn't be able to go home until late afternoon.  That frustrated me, but we got everything else taken care of so that that would be the only thing we had to wait on.  But then the nurse came in to tell me that they had read Rory's blood type wrong earlier and that I would have to get the Rhogam shot after all.  But, they had to take my blood first, test it and then give me that shot.  Grrr.  So, then we ended up waiting on that.  Finally a little after 4:00 pm we got into our car to go home.  I hate being cooped up in a hospital.  Though I appreciate all the care the wonderful nurses gave me, I was so glad to be home with my little family.