The Last 2 Years of My Life - the Pay Off!!

My fan club - Thanks Mom for making the signs!
 A Donovan Graduation tradition...

Yes, I did graduate from my 2 years of $#%^ in May. It felt great to be done but bittersweet to realize I don't have anywhere to go each day now...

John and I still like each other... I think?? :-)  It was tough but I think we'll really be glad we did it all in a few years. 

However, I'm pretty sure it was good timing since this baby is making me absolutely unproductive, lazy and huge. I wouldn't have been able to hobble around the hospital much longer and would have had to kick a patient out of bed so I could rest. 

Each one of my family and tons of my friends helped out so much in the past 2 years with listening to me complain and filling in as mom for my kids. I'd be totally ungrateful if I didn't publicly recognize there is no way I did this thing alone. 

And, although I thought my family would fall apart and die (and sometimes we all felt like that) here we are at the end, most of us smiling. And we're even expanding that afore mentioned family so it can't have been that bad right? We'll just go ahead and remember the good times, not the weekly Tuesday (my hardest day) "discussions" John and I had before falling asleep. 

I general, I didn't have many great things to say about the program, which is really sad since I gave it 2 years of my life. But the one shining star in the whole thing was the clinical leaders, who rocked!! This is my favorite one, Lauren Hayward, who gave it to you straight but also wasn't afraid to compliment you for things done well. And she just knows her stuff and was more than willing to share it. I will really miss the clinical component of school cause it finally felt like we were doing something productive. Although I don't really have any desire to ever take care of a sick old man again - bring on the babies!! 

Except for you Dad. If you get sick I guess I'll make an exception and take care of you since you helped me out so much with kids and everything.  But luckily, you don't show any signs of kicking the bucket anytime soon!!

Me and Kirsten, who kept me sane by mumbling some things under her breath when it just got to be too much and saying the things that needed to be said out loud when everyone was gonna blow!   

The friends were definitely the best part of nursing school though. Hands down. Those are who I'll miss the most and, unfortunately, most live pretty far away. Boo hoo. 

Monica, Shannon and Me - our Rappahannock Group and Teresa - my ally in Labor and Delivery!  Awesome people to have on speed dial! 

Me and Elizabeth (Betsy) - one of the only other young moms in the program. She had 5 little ones and was a total inspiration to me each day when she got there to clinicals before me!! 10 year down the road we'll open a midwifery clinic together!

Karen and Me - together since the beginning along with a few others. We made it all the way through prereqs and then both years. Way to go!!

 It's mostly bittersweet that school is over but I'm glad to have the stress of weekly exams and crazy readings to be over. I  took the NCLEX about a month after graduation and felt like I totally failed it, but then of course you find out you passed. Crazy. It's kinda like when you have a birthday and don't really feel a year older, even though you are. I'm totally a fully licensed RN now but don't feel anymore qualified than I did the last day of clinicals! I'm not even looking for a job since this baby is coming any day now, so it feels surreal.  Unfortunately, quite a few of my classmates are struggling to find anything so in some ways I'm really glad I'm not looking. For now, I'll apply all those things I learned to keeping my family healthy and hopefully happy until I start to go stir crazy again and feel the need to look for something to do. At least I now have a great option!!! 

Elias-isms

Lias (or Eli or Elias, depending on who's doing the calling) is a funny kid. Last night after dinner I was putting away food and found the gummy bear vitamins that have been in the door for months (or maybe even a year). I was looking at them and he noticed and quickly said "Can I have one?" to which I replied "No, not right now." Then he got this look on his face like he was remembering something and he goes "Please, I used the potty!"

When we potty trained him we used to give him gummy bears as a reward but he's been going potty all by himself for well over a year now. It was hilarious to hear and see him connect the two things together and watch the light bulb go off in his head. We all looked at each other, even Ava and Nathan, and just shook our heads and laughed. Then he laughed too. And, yes, I did give him a gummy bear.

His memory scares all of us sometimes because of how good it is. Just the other day he was telling me about how we went to a festival down the road from us but he wasn't allowed to jump on the moon bounce. I was halfheartedly listening until suddenly I realized that what he was saying was 100% true, but it happened over a year ago also. He had split his head open the day before we went to the festival so I wouldn't let him jump but Ava and Nathan got to. At the time, he was just barely 3 so I'm amazed he remembered it. He also told me a story the other day from when we went to Iceland, and that was like a week after his 3rd birthday so I guess his little memories start then. Guess we should start being nice to him so he doesn't have all kinds of damage, huh? :-)

Another funny thing about Eli - he doesn't just like something. He either loves it or he doesn't love it. As in, "I don't really love cleaning up the Legos, Maa (which is his abbreviated form of Mama)" or "Yes, I do have to have some more ice cream because I love it!" Oh, and if he isn't going to do something then he "amen't" going to do it - as in "Lias, please don't jump on me anymore" and he'll yell "I amen't going to jump again, Dada!!" Funny kid.

Blessings and Bummers or Baptisms and Breech Baby

Oh, why is it so hard to get back into the swing of blogging after taking a few years off? Every time I get onto the computer it's like a black hole opens up and sucks me into CNN, MyFamily.com, Facebook or Weather.com. Stupid sites that offer stupid things and yet I can't break away to blog… but I am now!!

Let's start with the fun one: Ava got baptized on Saturday! She turned 8 (which is the age in our church  when we believe children are able to understand and take responsibility for their actions) and she choose to be baptized into the LDS (Mormon) church. At this time, we believe that you make your first covenants (or 2 way promise between you and the Lord) and she did not take that idea lightly. For weeks before the baptism she would ask to talk about it and want to read scriptures or pray about it. I think she finally came to peace with it the morning of and now is happy that she went ahead and did it. John baptized her and confirmed her a member, along with giving her a beautiful blessing and conferring the Holy Ghost upon her. She is so excited to try to live the way the scriptures teach and even got her own set of new, blue, name engraved scriptures. In her own words, they were the "awesomest set of scriptures ever." For the baptism, she had lots of company: her Aunt Laurel, cousins Abby, Gordie and Lydia, her Papa Genho, her Grandpa Donovan, her primary teacher Sister Karen Greco, her best friend Cassia Gainer and family, and many, many other friends from the ward. She really is a super mature little girl with a huge heart that we're so proud of. John and I just can't figure out how she got this big or how we got this old to have a kid baptized!

Now onto another Genho girlie - the one in my belly. About 7 weeks ago I was showing a friend her position in my belly and all the sudden I felt a huge movement. The next day, sure enough, I could tell her chest was right under my ribcage as I could feel the hiccups she has 3-4 times a day move my whole rib. I wasn't too concerned since I know babies will shift around quite a bit, but by 34 weeks I was starting to get bothered. And now here we are, 37 weeks along with only 3 short weeks left and she STILL is under my ribcage. Except now her head is firmly wedged there and her little feet are dangling down into my pelvis kicking all sorts of things that should not be kicked! I've finally gotten up my courage to give a home birth a try and have been with a wonderful midwife this whole pregnancy.  However, neither one of us (thank goodness) feels comfortable with a home breech birth so I've been trying to weigh my options for moving forward with this baby. Technically, she still has a few weeks to turn but there are a few factors that are causing me to wake up at 3 in the morning and google all sorts of things.

First, we live 35 minutes from the hospital and my last 2 labors have both been under 2 hours long, from start of contractions to baby out. That's not very much playing room with getting into the hospital before something scary could happen, so it makes me nervous. Second, she's is currently what is considered a "footling breech" which means instead of her bum sitting in my pelvis, she has feet hanging down. This can lead to complications because the cord has room to potentially drop out with her feet when/if she's allowed to come out this way. It's still a rather small chance of this happening but when it does, you have major life threatening complications. And I've worked way too hard in the past nine months to mess with that!! Third, I wouldn't be totally opposed to trying a breech birth in a hospital but with issues one and two and the fact that no doctor within an hour of here would let me attempt one AND the fact that my last 2 babies have been 8.10lbs and 9.6lbs, I'm pretty much ruled out as a candidate.

Which leads me to the options I've been trying - hanging upside down in the attempt to convince her to turn. Oh, and diving down into water hoping the pressure change will convince her, and putting cold ice on the top of her head trying to get her to move, and having the kids screech over her head hoping to scare her away (Nathan's really good at getting her to jump, but not actually move), and laying with my bum up in the air and my shoulders down to try to give her more room. I haven't tried the chiropractor yet but I think it's in the plan this week, as is the attempt by the doctor to physically shove her around. This requires a hospital visit and IV and all that jazz, so I'm not too thrilled with it but our attempts by the midwife today at home didn't budge her at all. All this is in the attempt to not have a C-section, which is the last resort but may end up that way if all else fails.

I'm not excited by that option, mainly just because I've finally gotten a home birth planned and it's hard to give up on the idea of having her here in my own home, with all the kids around and everything going smoothly. I'm really hoping the version (doctor pushing her) will work on Tuesday because then I'd still have the home birth option. But luckily I've been around the labor and delivery floor and actually seen 5-6 C-sections at the hospital that I would have it done in, so I'm not too incredibly freaked out. Just bummed. And I know it's not rational at all, but I'm a bit frustrated at the baby - which I'm working on getting over. I'd like to think that maybe there's a reason she can't turn - cord trapped, not enough room or something like that rather than just stubbornness. I guess when she comes out we'll see what her personality is like and find out!!