What a difference a day makes!

Today is going much better than yesterday. I am no longer downtrodden. Putting Afton in the closet was a huge success. We could still hear her, just not as loudly. AND... she only woke up twice! That was majorly exciting. (Although she didn't actually fall asleep the first time until 11:20.) Dan and I both feel much less sleep-deprived. At least for today.

Today I'm also trying to do a better job of not keeping her up for more than 2 hours. I was really good about that with Sam when he was little but it's harder when you've got one to entertain. So far she's taken two naps not in my arms. I am just so happy!

Also, after lunch, Sam had his very first popsicle. I know, I know. He's over two and never had a popsicle! That has since changed. He got that bruise and cut by his right eye yesterday at Chick-fil-a but once he had some chocolate shake and a kiss from mom, he declared himself "All better."

I don't think I've mentioned that Afton has a herniated belly button. It looks like a skin ball the size of a marble. The doctor said it should go away on its own by the time she's 5. Let's hope so! I remember seeing a little girl at a waterpark whose belly button looked like a miniature elephant trunk. I thought it was so weird. Now I know what it was.

Other random pictures.

Afton's first bath, which turned into a Sammy photoshoot.

Just hanging out

Well, things here are quiet. Mostly because I'm lazy and tired. Afton likes to grunt ALL NIGHT LONG and it takes its toll on me and Dan. We're going to move her to the closet. But don't worry. We have a large closet. We'll still be able to hear her, just not as loudly. That way hopefully we can get some sleep!

Sam is still really sweet to his baby sister. He loves to kiss her. Lately he thinks it's funny when he makes a loud noise or something and she flails her hands in the air. I'm trying to get him to stop that.

I read The Hunger Games. It was really good. I read the sequel, Catching Fire, in 2 days. I haven't started the third one yet, but I'm planning on it once I finish this post. Or maybe I should try to take a nap instead. Pictures to come! Sorry this is so lame. That's all I've got for now.

P.S. Do any of you have majorly grunty babies? And if so, what did you do about it?

Fancy Photos

When Afton was 10 days old, we took her and Sam to get some professional photos taken. We never took any with Sam and we felt bad about it. We got to choose 5 to get on a CD and here they are! After Sam saw how easy it was to pose for the camera, he got in on the action, too. Hopefully that means that next time he'll do okay and not shy away like he's done in the past.

And here's a more recent picture of Afton at 3 weeks.

Well, if I can survive the next 90 minutes (that's how long until Dan gets home), I will have survived my first week alone - albeit a short week (thank you, Labor Day) - with two children. How the heck do people have lots of kids? It is hard. One is poopy, the other is crying. One wants to eat, the other is crying. I want to sleep, one is crying!

Afton is having a hard time figuring out that night means bedtime. Sam is having a hard time understanding that we're taking things easy while "Mama's hurt tummy" heals. He's usually really sweet to me and asks to kiss my stomach. The other day he accidentally pushed really hard on my stomach. I started crying and then he started crying, too. Then he asked to give me a hug and a kiss and then said, "Mama all done sad!"

Today I took the kids to play at a big playground inside a mega Baptist church. It went well despite the fact that Afton barfed on me and herself 5 times and kids kept trying to touch her. Sam had fun, though.

Here are pictures from our lazy days this week.

And here's a video of Sam doing "somersaults".

More Pictures

Yesterday was Afton's one-week birthday. She is so perfect! We love to hold her and snuggle her. She's been a really easy going baby so far - just eating, sleeping, snuggling, and going to the bathroom. At her first pediatrician's appointment, they measured her around 20 inches, so we just think they didn't measure her very well at the hospital.

Here are some pictures!

Wearing the same baby bonnet my mom wore when she was a baby.

My mom left on Monday to go and help my sister, who just had her baby on Saturday. We sure miss my mom! She was such a huge help. She made dinners, took care of Sam, cleaned, and helped us when we got home. I like to think of myself as pretty independent, but I really don't know what we would have done without her!

(I didn't know that having a c-section meant that you also kept a 6-month pregnant belly and didn't lose any weight...)

New family of FOUR!

Sam has done really well with having a little sister. He likes to give her kisses,

hang out with daddy and Afton in bed,

hold baby sister,

and goof around!

Dan has been such a wonderful husband through everything! Despite my random mood swings and being stuck at home most of the day, he's really been a great help and I'm so glad he got to take this week off to spend with us.

That's the latest from the Durst family!

Afton Marie Durst

Today we got to bring Afton home. It's so nice to be back and not have nurses knocking on our door every 10 minutes. We missed Sam a lot, too, and he loves having his daddy back to play with.

(This picture shows her dark hair.)

Baby Girl Durst is Here!

Our adorable little girl has arrived! Here's the story.

Tuesday morning we arrived at the hospital at 6 a.m. for another scheduled baby flipping. This time with an epidural. The baby was lying diagonally. (If you were facing me, her head was down to the right, her bum was up to the left.) The doctor tried to turn her that last little bit, but she wouldn't budge. So he turned her all the way around the other direction. He was working really hard. He had one knee up on the bed and was really digging in there trying to get her turned. I'm so glad all I could feel was pressure and not pain. He eventually got her head down, but her heart rate dropped really low. He decided to wait 30 minutes to give her time to recover and make sure her heart rate stayed up. When he came back in to check a while later, she had moved to a transverse position (lying sideways). At this point he said that there must be some reason why she wouldn't stay head-down and that it was time for a c-section. So at 10:30 we got the news and at 11:10, our little girl was born! Turns out that her umbilical cord was only 1/3 the length of the average umbilical cord and that was probably the reason she wouldn't stay down. When they pulled her out, she had even turned the rest of the way back to breech and her head was up near my ribs.

I was so out of it from all of the drugs that I slept through a lot of the surgery and a lot of Tuesday in general. In fact, I'm still on pain killers so if this post doesn't make much sense, I apologize! She weighed 7 pounds, 3 ounces and is a short 18.5 inches. She is beautiful.

I'm having a rough recovery, but I'm hoping that things will get easier soon. Dan has been such a wonderful help through all of this and so has my mom. And we're still working on the name! We'll probably have one by tomorrow.

Change of plans

At my doctor's appointment yesterday, he took out the ultrasound machine and there she was - lying diagonally. Her head was down at the bottom left and her bottom was up on the right. We talked about our options and we're now planning on going to the hospital Tuesday morning. I'll get an epidural, he'll turn her, and then induce me right away. If that doesn't work, looks like it's c-section for me. I hope the induction works!

And I'm so glad that my parents came down early - it's so nice that Mom can watch Sam while we're in the hospital.

SUCCESS!

This morning Dan and I dropped Sam off at friend's and headed to the hospital. They monitored the baby and me for an hour. They also gave me some loopy drugs. The doctor came in and pushed and rolled my belly and it hurt really bad. I cried a little. I never really found my happy place (although I appreciate your suggestions). I just breathed loudly and squeezed Dan's and the nurse's hands. 3 minutes later, she was head down! And she'd better stay that way if she knows what's best for her!

They monitored us again for an hour and then we got to leave and I got a milkshake to celebrate.

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers! We really appreciate it.

Tomorrow we're heading to the hospital to try and turn the baby. (They do it at the hospital in case anything goes wrong.) I've got to find my "happy place" so that I can manage the pain...

New New Buzz Movie

I have a VHS of Toy Story that I got in high school. A few months ago we showed it to Sam and he LOVED it! He calls it "Buzz Movie." Dan thought Sam would really enjoy Toy Story 2, so he got Sam the sequel. Sam loves that even more. He doesn't watch Buzz Movie anymore. Now he watches "New Buzz Movie." He asked for it all the time.

This weekend, we took Sam to see Toy Story 3 ("New New Buzz Movie"). We thought he would love it. We took him to the 10:15 showing. He started out really excited. Preview after preview he was asking for new new buzz movie. 20 minutes of previews later, the movie finally started. Sam was really excited at first and was talking really loud while he pointed out all of the characters. After 15 minutes or so, he lost a lot of his interest and played with the armrest. Then he took his shoes off and threw them. Dan took them and put them back on. Sam took them off. And so it continued for the rest of the movie. At least I enjoyed it! I thought it was really cute. Dan didn't get to watch as intently as he would have liked. 

Little Miss Stubborn

I had a doctor's appointment today. Well, first I waited AN HOUR past my appointment time. Then I waited 15 minutes more in the exam room. After that, I waited 5 minutes in the ultrasound room. Then I waited 5 minutes to get my blood taken. Lame. I hate going to the doctor.

Anyway, she's still breech. At this point, we have a few options. If she's still breech at next week's visit, they may try to manually turn her w/ no medication. I've heard that external versions sans drugs are really, really painful. So I'm scared about that. If that works, and I can handle the pain, great! All is well. If that doesn't work, they'll try again either at 39 weeks or if I go into labor on my own before that. If it works at 39 weeks, they'll induce me that day. If it doesn't, I'll have a c-section that day. So unless it goes well next week and they turn her, I'm looking at definitely giving birth a week early and potentially having major surgery. (Plus scar number 3 on my roadmap of a stomach.) AH! I'm not ready for this.

That's all.

Last Tuesday I took Sam to Target to get his 2-year pictures taken. I thought it would be nice to have some of him before the baby came. The lady got us all set up and ready to go. Once she led us into the darkened room, Sam was not feeling it. She tried to get him to sit down. He wouldn't. She tried to get him to stand on the red dot. He wouldn't. She asked him to look at the light. He turned the opposite direction and stared at the door. I offered him poptarts, cars, lollipops. Nothing worked. We left empty-handed 20 minutes later. Sam was more than happy to get out of there. He kept saying, "Pictures taken all done!" Too bad we didn't get to TAKE any pictures! I was kind of embarrassed to waste so much of that lady's time, but she admitted that we were probably the only people she'd see that day anyway... I'll have to remember to have baby girl's pictures taken more often so that she's used to it. I've only ever taken Sam once and he didn't like it then either.

Sam and I went with some friends to the Children's Museum. He really liked it and cried when we left. We also went to the pool a few times and he has learned how to go down the slide all by himself. When I was there with him alone, he went down the slide for 2 hours straight. So now my pool experience consists of standing at the bottom and making sure he doesn't drown when he gets out.

Dan's mom sent us a lot of Dan's old toys and things when we first moved into our house. In one of the boxes was this little vest that Dan's aunt made him. Today Sam wore it all day long. Even during nap time. When I got out the camera to take a picture, Sam wanted to show me the white car his great grandpa gave him. He sensibly calls it "great grandpa white car."

Then he showed me the blue car he got for his birthday. He calls it "birthday blue car."

Finally I got some shots of his sweet vest.

This week's excitement

Have you ever heard of nutria? Me neither. Not until this week. Last week I thought I saw some groundhogs near the lake and I told Dan how exciting it was. When he told the people he hometeaches, they told him that they were most likely not groundhogs and were probably nutrias. So then I looked that up online. Unfortunately, I think they were right.

Nutrias are nasty giant rat-like rodents (around 12 pounds) that live near water. They remind us of ROUS's from the Princess Bride, just smaller.

So gross!

Tuesday night, a friend of mine hosted a baby shower for me. It was so sweet of her! It was nice to visit with friends and hear about other people's experiences. Everyone was really generous and I'm getting more excited about having a little girl. (Not that I wasn't before...) The clothes are just so cute. Here's a picture I remembered to take after some people had already left.

And here's a picture of me with Keri, the hostess.

Other than that, this week contained playgroup, storytime at the library, a doctor's appointment, the birth of a new niece (YAY!) and a playdate. At the doc, he did an ultrasound to check the baby's position. She's still breech. He talked about possibly trying an external version in 3 weeks or so, which requires an epidural. And he said the success rate for them is between 40 and 50. Not great odds. I'm going to try harder this week to move around and hope that she gets the hint.

Here's my sassy pose from last week. (33+ weeks along.)

Dan used Sam's blocks to create tunnels on his train table. He loved it!