THIS SUCKS.

Finally! The pictures of Evan are here and if I do say so myself he is one good lookin’ young man! I must apologize to those who saw the previous post from this morning. I’ve had a lot of people yelling at me to get this up so here it is.

This whole experience has been so amazing. First off I must give all my respect to every mother in the world. What you go through to have your children is nothing short of awe inspiring.

We went to the hospital at 1pm on Wednesday and Evan was here at 7:05. The doctor had settled in for the long haul and predicted a midnight or 1am birth. He was just getting ready to go home for dinner when Kendra started pushing. So of course he stayed and was just as surprised as the rest of us.

This whole pregnancy journey has been one miracle after another. On the 21st of September Kendra was at 20 weeks. We went into the hospital excited to find out we were having an Evan and not an Evangeline. Then came the bad news when Dr. Vered walked into the ultrasound and said, “Kendra, you have to quit your job, you are on strict bed rest and oh yeah, you probably will lose this baby.” It wasn’t quite that dramatic but the part about losing Evan is word for word.

Kendra went through a series of doctors and hospital visits including a 30 day stay at the St. Marks Hospital through the month of November. Every week she had an ultrasound and every week the doctors said, “this looks scary.” The first week of her hospital stay Kendra asked the doctor what her chances were to make it full term and he said, “no chance.”

It’s true that she didn’t make it to 40 weeks, but 37 weeks is considered full term. She made it to 36 weeks, 6 days and 19:05 hours. So technically…Dr. Ball was right. But if they had taken Kendra’s stitch out a day later, she would have made it to the 14th (and 37 weeks) easily.

During delivery Kendra was awesome. Yes, as I said, women deserve respect for going through this. I’m not saying anything new but WOW. Because of Kendra’s situation we never did any classes. Going into it, Kendra wasn’t sure if she wanted medication or whether she wanted to do it natural. By the time she decided she definitely wanted to be numb for this, it was too late. There was nothing left to do but push. Kendra said only one thing while she pushed:     “this sucks.”

I’m sure doctors and nurses tell every new mother how great they do in delivery. But my Kendra was the greatest. The doctor said he’d been doing this for a long time and for a first time mother she ranks right up there with the best of them.

This whole experience is one of the most spiritual I’ve ever had. And I know I can speak for Kendra and say she feels the same. The day we got the news that we might lose Evan, Kendra received a priesthood blessing that said she would carry him full term. Not that she would carry him until he could be born safely, the blessing said she would carry him full term.

Kendra had multiple blessings afterward saying that if she would do what the doctors said she would be able to have this baby healthy and happy.

Having Evan around is a testimony of our Father in Heaven’s love of his children. We are so grateful to Him for everything. We are so grateful for the opportunity Heavenly Father has given Kendra and I to raise one of his precious sons and to give him the opportunity to have a body to grow and learn of our Savior Jesus Christ. We know He lives and loves us and we are so thankful that we were able to go through this experience if only to feel His love around us. We see that love every day when we look at Evan.

Happy Birthday....KENDRA!!! And Ryan

So you are all probably wondering a couple of things such as…WHERE’S THE BABY PICS? They’re coming. But first I had to put this lovely post on the blog because dang it Kendra and I deserve some screen time too! It’s not ALL about Evan. Okay so it is but you must wait because this post is here now and the baby post is forthcoming.

So on December 25th we all celebrated Christmas. Oh wait never mind, I mean we all celebrated Holiday day. Got to go PC right!? So Merry Holiday to all and to all a good Christmas. Hope everyone’s was great. As for Kendra and I we definitely celebrated the birth of our Savior but we also celebrated The RA RA’S Birthday!!! Kendra’s birthday of course is on December 25. So happy birthday Kendra! And then on the 6th of January I had my birthday. So happy slappy birthday to me too! Oh and of course Kendra gave me the mirror and I gave her the hoodie. What a good birthday it was for the both of us. Thanks for all the happy bday notes too.


And since you all want pictures of Evan, here is a picture of my mom’s cat Fluffernutter.

Oh Christmas Tree. Oh Christmas House.

Thank you Ryan for giving me a beautiful (and wonderful-smelling) tree, lighting it up AND putting up all my childhood ornaments... while I watched from the couch. Such a sweet husband. I love it. And you. And the smell. And especially you.

The house looks great too. Mr. Wolf Vanlandingham, our fine pine tree looks especially festive. P.S. DEER!

Critical week #1 - SURPASSED! Critical week #2 - Christmas Eve, here we come!

32 Weeks and looking like I could have him any second. But 32 has always been the first critical week to reach, so we're thrilled. But we're also greedy. We're going to try our hardest to go as far as we can. My doctors (I have about 5 now) keep telling me how surprised they are that I'm still pregnant. Well take that, 50% chance! Just watch me make it to 37 weeks or more.

Here's our families' guesses for Evan's birthday and birth weight. Lisa and Brad, I hope you aren't right. :)

Ryan - January 16 - 7lb 2oz

Kendra - January 15 - 6lb 13oz

Arlin - February 6 - 7 lb

Beckie - January 1 - 5lb

Kathryn - January 7 - 5lb 3oz

Dustin - January 13 - 4lb 14oz (sorry, Budens. I'll never forget you again.)

Lisa - December 25 - 5lb 8oz

Curtis - December 31 - 5lb 5oz

Laura - January 11 - 6lb 3oz

Brad - December 25 - 7lb 11oz

Sylvia - January 4 - 5lb 14oz

Joni - January 21 - 8lb 3oz

Jodi - January 4 - 4lb 4oz

Nikki - January 14 - 5lb 6oz

I finished Evan's blanket! I was actually a little worried I wouldn't get it done in time, but bedrest means you can spend nearly 100 hours crocheting in a 2 month period. What else was I supposed to do in the middle of the day when TV choices are limited to an array of soaps and court dramas? Anyway, I like the way it turned out.

The day before the turkey day where I ate turkey

Love Thanksgiving.  It's a good day!  Football, Kendra gets to come home, football, eat turkey, football, eat cheescake, football, pie is disgusting, football, you heard me, football, there is no such thing as good pie.  But the Kendra gets to come home!

Yes, you guessed it.  Kendra is still in the hospital!  In this picture that is.  But rest assured she is in reality home and she came home with a goal that she has kept up to 30 weeks so far!

So, this past week between work, driving to the hospital and back again, I have been painting Evan's room.  I think it looks pretty good!  And I must thank my mother and sisters for helping out with the project.  Especially Nikki aka the "pinenut" who rendered and helped draw up the plan for the stripes.  We still have to put up the border but hopefully we can get that done this weekend.

Step 1 the top half of the walls.

Step 2  The first stripe

Step 3 the red

Step 4 the room! without the border of course...

And here is a fun picture of The Sticker box taping up the wall.  I must say it takes a long time to do all this stuff.  Sorry rest of my kids.  You can all sleep under the stairs like Harry Potter.  I'm tired. Of paint.  Happy Thanksgiving one and all and to all eat a lot of Turkey.  And pie is gross.

My New Home: St Marks Hospital

Ahh the hospital. Adjustable bed, tiny tv, complimentary water mug. Yep, it's just about the most expensive hotel room we could hope for. Add in the every-four-hours blood pressure check and pill and it's the perfect vacation home. Who doesn't like getting woken up at 2:00 every morning?

But at least I'm still pregnant, right? Thanks to everyone for your concern and your visits. We'll get through this yet, and we'll have a beautiful baby boy to show for it.

Mmmm. Hospital food. So nice to have a weekly rotating menu of the same options. Luckily as a "long-term" patient, the nurses sneak me their cafeteria menu and I can write in whatever I want. Can you have a hamburger, fries and ice cream every meal of the day? I can. If I want to be horribly sick, that is.

At least they gave me the room with the good view. Last time I was here, my window faced the parking garage. There's supposed to be a big snow storm tomorrow that will be quite nice to watch knowing I won't be driving in it.

And here's Ryan's chair/bed. He's all wrapped up in his warm fleece blanket because I like to keep it the temperature of ice in this room.

Evan's first blanket from me unfortunately had to come from Walmart. I wanted to make his crib set, but since I can't we ordered it online. Ryan and I looked for about 2 hours on about 30 different sites for a wallpaper border and crib set we liked and where did we find it? Walmart. Weird how that worked out.

I am working on crocheting him a blanket and his grandmas I'm sure will give him more than he can use. Unless he's a spitter-upper and then I'm sure he'll go through them like crazy.

Belly Pictures

Ah the infamous belly pictures. Of course the belly feels a lot bigger than it looks. We've yet to see if I'll get as big as my sister did with her babies or if little Evan decides to come long before I get to that point.