Visiting Cousin Oakley!

Two days after Sean and I left Rexburg, Carly went into labor and gave birth to her beautiful baby girl!! Don't worry, she did text while in labor and asked why I left haha. Anyway, all was well, and they got home Sunday. I drove up Monday with Mason and got there around 2pm. It was so fun spending sister time together with our babes! I stayed through Wednesday night and left Thursday morning around 8:15. I won't mention the horrible snow storm I drove through… let's just say it was awful and I didn't drive for like 3 days after that. But anyway, here are some fun pictures from the week!

It's hard to believe Mason was ever that little and crunched up!

Oakley just watched Mason play from my lap. She looks up to him already :)

First outing together!

I can't remember which morning this was, but Mason somehow unbuttoned his pi's in his sleep to get his feet free.

Oh yeah, and Mason learned to SIT UP while we were there!

(He could already sit, but I was always behind him. Not anymore, I can walk away and he's fine!)

Mason slept in his pack n play in the kitchen so Oakley could use her crib.

But sometimes they hung out together.

Little angel!

Proud new parents!

It was so fun to snuggle a new born! Mason snuggles less and less.

I'm so glad I was able to go up! The only helpful thing I did was give rides to the doctor and put the dishes away, but that's okay right? We had a good time together. Oh and Mason slept well in the absence of Sean, so that was nice not having to wake up in the middle of the night with him :)

Confession: Baby Clothes

Baby clothes have got to be the cutest thing on the planet. Seriously. Who doesn't love looking through the many, many, many different outfits for little boys and girls? Apparently I'm addicted. My sister-in-law, mother-in-law and I went to Target last night because I needed some new pants and pajamas for Mason. We probably spent a good hour looking through all the little baby clothes, and then the toddler clothes too (for our niece, Eve). Pretty sure if I had a million dollars, I would spend it all on baby clothes. But then where would I keep them? (It is safe to say I would also spend a lot of money on new clothes for Sean and me as well. And then probably for niece Eve too. Some of those dresses were, well… I wish they came in my size too. So cute.) It's a good thing we had a boy first, otherwise we would go broke from me buying all of the cute little girl outfits. And we aren't paying rent right now, so that is saying something…

Anyway, here's what Mason ended up with after my little escapade last night: two new jackets, 5 new pairs of sweatpants, some long sleeve white onesies (I put them under his short sleeve onesies that are too cute to pack away), and 8 new sleepers, most are fleece. I may have gone a little overboard. I'm a sucker for the ones that have little faces on the feet. And the raccoon one has little ears too!!

Oh, and when I got home, I pulled out the next size of pajamas to see what we had. Yeah, we already had like 5 pairs in the 3-6/6 month size. Oops. Hopefully they last us at least through March or so...

This one time in Sunday school...

(Disclaimer: this post was written while I was in the hospital on my phone, I just didn't have all the pictures until today.)

There was this cute boy who made a really awesome comment in response to the bishop's lesson. Then he made a really snarky comment under his breath after someone else's comment, and I was immediately interested. Fast forward 2 years and a few months, and we brought Mason Philip Parker into the world! He was born at 10:41pm and weighed 7lbs 15 oz, and was 20 inches long. 

Here's the long version:

I had an appointment with my OB at 10am that day. I was so emotionally capped (I think mostly because I was being stubborn and still working) I really was hoping my doctor would at least give me an induction date. When I got there, he put me on the non-stress test, then did an ultrasound. The cord was still around the baby's neck, so he gave me a couple options. Either I could go get induced right then and deliver by the next morning, or I could wait until Thursday night. I called Sean and we decided to go right then to labor and delivery. 

Sean had chemistry lab until about 3, so my sister Jenny left work and came up to hang out for the first few hours. She got there about 11:45. We thought there would be no rush, since my doctor said I probably wouldn't be ready to deliver until the next morning. So they got me into the gown, started me on the saline drip, and brought me a very delicious chicken wrap from the cafeteria. So yum! We also FaceTimed with Katie to help pass the time. 

yay i'm finally going to have a baby!

So since I hadn't dilated any further from Friday to Tuesday, they came in around 1 and hooked me up with ampicillin, then around 2:15 the doctor finally got there and administered this gel stuff that was supposed to help ripen my cervix, and stripped my membranes. Within 5 minutes, I had a really strong, really hard contraction that lasted a really long time, and baby's heartbeat dropped really low. A bunch of nurses ran in, rolled me on my side, and then finally on my hands and knees, gave me a shot in the arm of some medicine to stop contractions so baby's heartbeat could come back up. The shot made me shake really violently, not easy on my hands and knees. Jenny called Sean right as this was happening and he left lab early to come to the hospital. (Luckily, they were almost finished and he just needed to get some final numbers from his group.) By the time he got here things had calmed down a little, and I got the epidural. I felt so much better after that. Well, I got really cold, so they brought me blankets. 

getting the epidural

From 3pm until about 7pm, I didn't dilate very far. Then I started feeling more pressure, even through the epidural. I called for the nurse and she checked me. I had gone from a 5 to a 9 in less than an hour. She told me she would come back in an hour. Not even 20 minutes later I called her back in and I was at a 10. They got everything set up for delivery, all while I felt like I had to push. At some point they gave me an extra shot of the epidural. 

They finally had everything ready and on my first push, the baby's heart rate dropped again, so she had me stop and called the doctor in. It seemed like it took forever for him to come in. Finally after 3 contractions and 9 or 10 pushes, he was here! They got him all cleaned up and have him to Sean while I got stitched and cleaned up. 

Now all we needed was a name. I asked Sean what he thought and he looked at the baby for a minute, and said, "He looks like a Mason." So Mason it was! Then we went through some other names for his middle name, and decided on Philip, which is my dad's middle name.  

We absolutely love him and are so happy to be parents. Now to adjust to this new sleep schedule we are on...