Kenzie's First Week Home

After an extra long checkout process (why does this always take 5 hours?) and a minor meltdown on the way home (I blame hormones and pain), we made it home around 1:30 on the 16th. The kids were so excited to see Makenzie, and to find out that she would be living at our house with us :). It's so funny to field all of these questions like 'Where will she be when I wake up? Where is she sleeping? Is she mine?' 10 times each day, but it shows me how life-changing a new addition is for each member of our family. I knew Olivia was very ready to have a baby around, but I wasn't sure how Carter would react to being a big brother, and having less mom time. He is much more attached to the grownups around than Olivia ever was. I shouldn't have been worried though, he was fascinated from the beginning, and loves his little baby.

We spent our first week relaxing and hanging out at home. I tried to capture the moments of Makenzie looking like a newborn, those days go so fast. The hardest thing to remember with Kenzie was to wake her up to eat. She slept for her entire first week, and really didn't want to be bothered to eat at all. This picture was the first time she put her plug in ... not on purpose but still cute! Her face looks so little behind that huge pacifier. This is also the most jaundiced that she ever looked. It never made it past her chest, and was never a major concern.

At her lightest, Makenzie was 6 lb 14 oz, at her 5 day appointment. I had to convince the doctor to give her a few more days, and she started gaining weight right after that. She just had to be convinced that eating was something worth waking up for :).

The next morning we got the kids outside with Dad to play in the snow. They got to play with their cousins, but they were totally thrilled to be the first people to disturb the snow in our back yard after 4 days.

We had some crazy icicle action on our garage and the neighboring houses. Olivia just wanted to eat them, but I had visions of 'The Christmas Story' going through my head, so I made the kids stay away.

My mom was in town, so we had everyone over for dinner on the 17th. I enjoyed just sitting around while my mom and Amber did all the cooking and cleaning :). In all seriousness, it was wonderful to have so much help with this baby. I love being close to family so we always have a backup plan if there is an emergency, and we live parallel lives so we see each other often. Even our out-of-town family seems close when we see them (about) once a month! Here are just a few beautiful pictures of our sweet little girl. She is known as 'Kenzie', 'Mac-k-kenzie', and 'Little One'. She lights up our days (and nights too ;)).

This picture caused a big stir for a couple months in our house. Carter laid down to just hang out with his sister, and when she started waving her arms, I made the mistake of saying 'She's trying to get you!'. Carter got all worried and scared, and wouldn't go within a foot of her until after the New Year. I learned to watch my tongue!

One of the issues of having a baby on the biggest snow day of the year is the driveway maintenance. After 4 days of only a few cars driving on it, and no shoveling happening at all, Alex went out to make it drive-able. He ended up using the back side of the ax (and the front side apparently), to break up the ice enough to shovel. He spent over an hour out there just to get tracks to drive in, and we decided to wait until it warmed up a little before tackling the rest. I have a wonderful husband :).

The next weekend Gary, Mary, and Ashley came to meet the baby. I was still getting used to being a new mommy again, and didn't get a single picture of them actually holding the baby, but I got some with the rest of the kids! They brought the kids a super fun snow painting kit! This led to fun pictures, name-writing, and me bringing my 7-day-old baby out in the snow with no hat! She was only out there for about a minute, but she had to get her picture with her name :).

I wish I had this picture of Mary and Olivia from a better angle, it was the sweetest moment of all-out running to jump into Grandma's arms :) We are so lucky to have wonderful Grandparents who play with our kids and come to see us often. I have always felt like I had some of the best Grandparents in the world, and I'm glad that my kids will have the same experience.

Seeing all the swaddling of baby Makenzie led to big-kid swaddling late one night :).

I can't even count how many pictures I have like this. Ashley will be somewhere, anywhere, doing anything, and Olivia just sits right beside copying every move. From crossed ankles to sitting with a stuffed dog, this girl wants to be just like her Aunt Ashley.

The 21st was Makenzie's one week birthday! We celebrated with a bath :).

I love waking up to a newborn. She is just so beautiful, and so alert and aware of the things around her. This particular morning she discovered her hand...and loved the taste. It put her right back to sleep :).

We had a lot of fun with Grandma, Grandpa, and Ashley while they were here. The kids love having SO many grownups to show off for and play with. Alex and I also enjoy the perspective that we get from having other people laugh at our kids incessant 'why'ing and other toddler things. It's easy to forget how precious this time is with all of our kids at home during the day. They grow and learn every day, I just hope that I am helping them grow and learn in the right ways!

After realizing that I hadn't taken any pictures of the Casqueiro Grandparents with all the kids, I knew I needed to take one of my parents while my dad was here. He came for a few days before they spent Thanksgiving in Utah. It was perfect timing for a trip, and allowed my mom to stay for almost 2 weeks, which was wonderful for me and our adjustment to having three kids. This picture could have better kid faces, but is sweet nonetheless. You can tell that Carter was slightly sick and spent that day as a mouth breather :).

And the Grandpa pyramid :)

After we made the kids get dressed for a picture, they spent a while playing with Grandma and Grandpa before they left that morning. I just love sitting and listening to their conversations (O is showing Grandpa her cool jewelry box and all the treasures she keeps inside. Carter just wanted to play catch, which is how he spends at least half of every day :).

Kenzie spent a good amount of time resting on her tissue paper bed, made by her big sister. O is always looking out for things that Makenzie 'needs', and most of the time we can let her take care of those needs. Occasionally she forgets that she is 4 and needs help when moving, holding, and playing with Kenzie, but she is a very caring and capable big sister.

...And Then There Were Three

As I reached the end of my pregnancy with #3, I started to have the same issues and symptoms that come with every pregnancy. The back pain and leg numbness becomes more of an problem with each pregnancy, as I have more kids to chase and things to do. I chose to induce Carter at 39 weeks, and had a great experience (and still a 7.5 lb baby!), so we did the same this time. 

I was scheduled to be at the hospital at 9 PM on Thursday, November 13th to start antibiotics for an induction early on the 14th. Early on Thursday, it started snowing lightly, and as the day went on Alex and I both kept getting severe weather warnings on our phones. By mid afternoon we had an inch of snow and promises of up to 6 more throughout the night. I enjoyed my last meal (see below), but was getting a little anxious.

Our original plan was for me to check in at the hospital by myself so Alex could stay with the kids for one more night, then for him to come early in the morning. We were so grateful to have Amber and fam living so close, because the kids were so excited to go play with their cousins that they didn't care at all to be away from us for a couple days. About dinner time (with 2+ inches of snow and falling hard) we decided not to risk bad roads, so Alex came with me for the night before as well. That meant an additional night of 6 kids at Amber's house...thank you SO much!

After getting the kids settled, we headed - very slowly - to the hospital. I had to stop for a smoothie and some fries on the way, and Alex was impressed enough at the snowfall to take a picture. It doesn't do justice to the amount of snow falling, it was actually hard to drive.

Spending a night in the hospital when actually not in labor was weird. There was lots of nurses, doing various checks and changing IV bags, each one telling me to relax, that tomorrow would be a big day :). I knew this, but sleep was not going to happen. I was just excited to meet our little girl! About 4 in the morning we officially started the induction with Pitosin, and got ready for an eventful day. We took these pictures of our view; the nurses all said that we made the right choice, it was a bad day to be driving. We were also the only people on the labor floor for most of the day, I think all the other babies were waiting for better weather.

Note: This is the 'birth part'...not graphic but if you don't want to read it, skip ahead :).

Labor started VERY slowly...contractions would happen every 2 minutes, then skip ten minutes, just very irregular. I knew that as soon as the doctor broke my water it would be super fast, but she wanted to wait until my contractions were regular and hard before breaking my water. So we waited...and waited. About 10:30 we had the max amount of Pitosin flowing, and contractions were getting harder. So I called for the epidural just before the doctor was coming back. Placing the epidural seemed fine, but it never started working. After half an hour of harder contractions than I have ever felt before - I have epidurals each time - I called the nurse to get the anesthesiologist to come back. After discussing options (trying the epidural again, a spinal tap), I sat up so he could look at the injection site. As soon as I sat up, one of my legs went numb, and I was sure that it was starting to work. It was the end of the time period to change anything for pain management, but I was hopefuly so I decided to stick with the epidural and just try to switch sides more to get it flowing better. I decided wrong. Besides one very numb leg, the epidural did nothing for me. I had as close to a natural birth as I ever want :). It does make me respect mommies who do birth naturally, but I love epidurals, and being able to enjoy the birth process.

At 2:09 PM, Makenzie Brooke Casqueiro was born. She was totally silent, and the slimiest of our children. I was really concerned as the nurses took her over to get cleaned up. Alex remembers me asking over and over if she was alright as she was squirming and wiggling in the warmer but not making any noise. The nurses were rubbing on her and suctioning her out, but she was just a quiet baby. They brought her over very quickly, and everything was perfect. 10 tiny fingers, 10 tiny toes, and a sweet, very expressive face. For the first hour or so, she had some majorly grumpy faces, but that didn't last long. It seems every hour they change as they get used to this new life.

She was 8 lb, 1 oz, and 20 inches long. Our biggest baby by 1 ounce :). I love the above picture of Alex, such a proud Daddy. Her pictures show her 'healthy' sized mouth which seems prominent on each of our children. Immediately I could see a stark resemblance to Olivia. We will see how alike they look as children, but their baby pictures couldn't be closer to identical.

I promised to share the next picture...Alex took the crazy cross eyed picture ...I promise she has never made that face since! She is such a beautiful baby that we laugh about these crazy pictures; every baby needs a few!

After the wonderful wide-awake stage was over, and I got all feeling back, we moved upstairs to our room in the mother-baby unit. I was feeling very good, and quickly realized that we could have the kids come meet their new sister. I new Olivia at least was anxiously awaiting the arrival of this real-life baby doll for her to play with.

Amber brought Olivia and Carter to the hospital around dinner time, they were so cute with their little sister. As per their personalities, Carter was much more interested with all the buttons on the bed and wall and Olivia just wanted to be as close to Makenzie as we would allow. They checked out all her parts, Carter was NOT impressed with her belly button. His attachment to his own has grown into a sort of obsession, and he just said 'no no no' as he pointed at hers. Hopefully when the rest of her cord falls off she can gain his belly button approval :).

Makenzie had a gift of a camera for each of her siblings, and O was quick to start snapping pictures :). She has gotten quite a few great pictures, but they are all blurry as she is moving to the next picture she wants.

For the first day or so we thought Kenzie's hair was curly, but after she got her first real bath we realized that we were wrong. It is fine and straight, just like our other kids. She does have quite a bit of red in her hair however, I'm curious to see if we will have a little blue eyed, strawberry blond kid.

One of the sweetest moments that day was Carter having his turn holding the new baby. He climbed right up and pulled her toes out to start singing 'This Little Piggy'. Such an awesome moment, I know he will be a great big brother to her.

Late that night, Grandma Terece flew into town. It may have been close to midnight, but we were just hanging out at the hospital, so we were glad to have some visitors. Amber was the best sister ever and brought snow ice cream with her! Snow may be one of the weirder things to sneak into the hospital, but I was grateful to have my favorite snack.

Our first night was good, but after quite a few diaper changes and getting up to get the baby for me to feed, Alex was worn out. We hadn't yet adjusted our sleep schedules to include getting up many times a night...and we stayed up longer each time just to stare at this little beauty. She was a much bigger fan of sleeping than she was of eating, we had to force her awake to eat every time for the first 2 days. 2 months later I can safely say that she has grown out of that newborn sleeping phase.

Saturday was a Beaver Gameday, so when the kids (+ cousins) came to visit again, we had Makenzie all dressed up for the game. This little hat was my silliest purchase for her, I knew she would only wear it once or twice before football season was over and the hat was too small, but it was just too cute not to buy. She may have been the littlest Beaver cheering them on that day.

All of our Idaho cousins were very anxious to meet Makenzie, even down to Teagen, who has always been enamored with babies. His faces the entire time were adorable.

Dan has proven to be a huge baby hog :). He always has to be the last to hold the baby, because he will hold her until she needs to eat or get a diaper change. At that point he is all too willing to pass her to me or Alex. 

Perhaps my favorite baby gift came in the form of this card from Elli, which she brought to the hospital. It's a picture of my face right before Makenzie was born, then right after. I think she probably got it pretty close!

After a while the kids were getting louder and louder, and it was time for them to head home. It's amazing how quiet the hospital is after six kids 10 and under leave! We spent the rest of the day relaxing and just staring at Makenzie. She wasn't a great eater because she just wanted to sleep and sleep. We didn't see her eyes for more than 5 minutes until she was about a week old. I may be biased, but I think she is a beautiful sleeper.

Alex spent the night at home with the bigger kids, and I was very glad to see him the next morning. It's amazing how even from 1 day old, kids know when they only have one parent on call, and it happens to be the very tired, sore one :). We got all ready to go home...then we waited for 2 hours. Checkout takes SO long! We were excited to be together as a family and may have been optimistic about the length of the check out process. Eventually, with a nurse chasing behind us to give us a Super Bowl Dip recipe (don't even ask...) we made it out and on our way home.