Things Jed says

12.14.16
While playing "superheroes" (Marvel Lego Superheroes on the x-box)
"Mom, after this mission, I can be done.......After this mission, I can watch something."

12.10.16
Mom, your great ideas are awesome!

Jed is 1! ..... and 2 months...

So I started writing this earlier on my ipod - earlier meaning the week after it happened, but me being my usual self didn't save it, and then lost my ipod (it fell under the glider cushion in the nursery) for a few days, so I lost what I written. So I'm going to start again... here it goes...

For Jed's first birthday party we had a 

Bear in the Big Blue House Birthday Bash! 

Grandma and Papa Lewis; Grandma and Papa McCann; and Uncle Jason, Aunt Kylee, and Cousin Ashton all came to celebrate with us! We had Pip and Pop's Chocolate covered clams (Madeleine cookies covered in chocolate), Ojo's Bear Cub Trail mix (teddy grams, rasins, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and peanuts), Tutter's Cheese plate, and Trilo's pineapple. My mom brought chicken salad to put in croissant sandwiches, Barb brought minestrone soup, and Jason and Kylee brought deviled eggs. It was a pretty delicious lunch.

This is him eating his (gigantic) "first" cake.

Brian put together this awesome video (it's long, but I'll post it anyway in case you want to watch):

I made Jed an activity book for his birthday. He loves zippers and drawstrings and keys so I made him a book that he can take to church and play with on my lap. He just now started to get interested in it. He sat on my lap for a good 5 minutes to play with it (he is too busy of a boy to sit still during sacrament).

Jason and Kylee got him a shape sorter. Barb and Dan bought him a board book that he loves to flip the pages and walk around with it looking like he is reading it, and a big sit and stand rock out set - which he is afraid of. Every time he pushes a button and it plays music, he freaks out. I think he will love it when he is a bit older.

My mom made him a castle fort to go over a card table. They had a lot of fun with that. Since we have had it, every member in the family has played in it (including Brian!).

We also bought him 2 Bear DVDs because we were tired of watching the same ones on youtube - now we are tired of these ones, it might be time to buy him another one (maybe for his Easter basket). There were many other gifts, but I thought I would just highlight some.

Some things about Jed and being 1:

• The week after his birthday he started walking pretty consistently, and now he laughs when he chooses to crawl.
• He loves his older brother and sister and is excited when they come home from school
• He loves to play with cars... and trucks...and trains...and anything that has wheels. 
• The words that he loves to say over and over again are "zis, zis" (this) and "vat" (that)
• The words that he likes to randomly say are "woah" and "wow!" I love it when he says these because they are at choice moments as oppose to when he continually repeats this and that.
• He has started to point at everything.
• When he tries to wink at people, it looks like he is glaring at you, and then he laughs.
• He loves his Daddy. When he comes home, Jed can't wait for Brian to pick him up.
• He loves the kitchen drawers. If I let him, he will empty (and sometimes fill them back up) each and every drawer in the kitchen and dining room whether it be utensils, paper for the printer, dishes, electronics, you name it. About a week ago, he emptied out the warmer drawer of the oven (which has cookie sheets and bread pans in it), climbed in and then started putting the stuff back in the drawer - while he was in it. This morning he tried to climb into the second drawer from the bottom. 
• He likes to climb up on the dishwasher door and "help" empty it out. No matter how many times I take him off, he climbs back on. Now I try to empty it while he's asleep or occupied by one of the kids

• He LOVES the snow. Elijah took him out in it last month and he scooted around every where. They had a lot of laughs together. Jed like to stick his face in it and lift it up real quickly, then do it over and over again. But when it got too cold, he would cry and I'd pick him up, dust him off and then he'd be off again. I'm hoping we will get some good snow at Zarahemla next weekend when we go to the lodge with my family. I think he will love to play with the cousins.

Here are tons of pictures of their snow adventure:

See! He loves it!

Crawling through the snow

This is them sticking their faces in it

Jed's snow beard after dipping his head in it.

In other news:

Valentines Day

We had a fun Valentine's Party. Every year, Brian and I celebrate valentines day on a different day. It started when he had to work on the 14, and so we found out that restaurants aren't as busy on the 13th, so we decided to celebrate together on a different day, and then as a family on the 14th. I like having a family party. It gives us a reason to go all out on good food, get our fancy dishware out, and play silly games. In years past we made love letters with conversational hearts, unscrambled valentine words and other fun stuff. This year we ate our traditional sweet and sour chicken (because it's red), egg rolls, rice, and candied red hot apple sauce (super yummy). We also played some mad lib games and then finished the evening with watching a couple of episodes of Once Upon a Time - because it's a "romance" show. For dessert we had chocolate pudding with cherry pie filling and oreo crumbs. It was delicious! I took white chocolate and wrote our names for the top.

Elijah

Elijah had his priesthood preview, because he turns 12 this year! The Bishop has a fireside at his house with all the boys that will be 12 in the year. In our church, boys receive the priest hood at the age of 12 and become a deacon. They pass the sacrament, collect fast offerings, and serve the ward. In the special meeting, the parents and the boys go and talk about the significance of having the authority to do the Lord's work. It was really a cool and spiritual evening. I had meant to get a picture of Brian and Elijah when we got home, but it was so cold that night they changed into their pjs as soon as we got inside.

Eijah also had his first strings concert of the year. It was at Ferris High School. The 6th graders played, then the middle schoolers, then the high schoolers. It was fun to see the improvement through out the years.

Quianna
Quianna was in charge of the meals for 2 whole weeks! She did a great job. The challenge was to feed our family of 5 for 2 weeks under $125. It's a hard challenge, and it has taken me along time to figure out that science, but she did great! She also has started golf! She was completely outfitted this weekend. We went shopping for some Khakis and some polos, she is borrowing clubs from Grandma Barbara, and shoes from Aunt Kylee (thanks ladies!). It was fun watching her check stuff out with Papa.

She is so stoked for tomorrow's golf practice!

Introducing "Theo"

Short for Theodoros, meaning Gift from God. It's greek - which the van is an Oddyssey, and it was a gift from God, so I think it's perfect. 

Here are the pics:

It has seat warmers, a navigation system, a DVD player (and you can hook up your wii to it too), and 6 disc CD changer. The middle windows roll down (Elijah was so excited for that), it has a sun/moon roof, Lazy Suzanne storage between the first and second row, an additional glove compartment, and a place to hold my water bottle in my door. 

We love it!

And the hunt is on!

So a few weeks ago, on Friday the thirteenth as Elijah likes to point out, when I was coming home from dropping off Quianna at school our van was hit by a transit bus. Yup, I was hit by a bus.

Let me see if I can explain this clearly. I was going west on 37th ave. It was icy out so I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to slow down and stop if the light I was approaching turned yellow. I kept my eye on that light and it stayed green. As I was coming closer the green signal light that was also on in the lane beside me turned from a green arrow to a green circle. I double checked my light and saw it was still green. Then I saw across the intersection a bus facing east and stopped in the turning lane. This was all happening while I was going 30ish miles per hour. As I was just about to go trough the intersection, I saw the bus pull forward, but I thought he was just pulling forward so he could get in the intersection before turning after I went through. As I was about half way through he intersection, he turned left - right into my driver's door! Talk about creepy! I saw a bus coming at me and I couldn't do anything about it. I felt/heard the crunch and felt our van being pushed into another lane. Jed was right behind me covered with a blanket in his carseat. He thankfully slept through the whole thing. I know angels were watching over him because the blanket was securely over the whole carseat so glass didn't cut him and he was perfectly safe!

ok... so I wrote that first part a few weeks ago. Since then - lots have happened and I need to update (that's usually what my blog posts are about).
Here are the pictures of the van. Yes it was totaled.

My window was completely shattered! Notice the side mirror missing? 

There it is! Yup, it flew  across the van. I'm so lucky I didn't get hit by it.  

So, the van was totaled and we ended up getting more money than what we paid. I love getting good deals for vehicles when we buy them. We had a rental van for a couple of weeks while things were getting settled with the insurance and such. We looked and looked and couldn't find another honda in our price range. Finally, on our way (or I guess, out of our way) to the Tri-Cities, we went to Wenatchee to go look at 3 vans. We liked all of them, unfortunately the dealership didn't want to play ball with the price. They pretty much laughed in our faces, and when they wanted to charge us top dollar for the oldest one, we just left town. That usually is not our experience. Yes, we offer them a ridiculous offer, but then we always start the negotiations from there. My dad said it's because they are a small town dealer with very little competition. 

We spent our vacation in the Tri-Cities looking for another van. Brian did his usual daily 1-1 1/2 hour search on craigslist and dealers from Missoula to Seattle. We almost went over to Auburn on New Years day, but we called the day before and found out they would be closed. I'm very surprised that we made it home from Christmas in the Subaru with all our stuff. Brian is a wiz at packing. Car top carriers help too.

Last week we kept up with the usual searches and found a van in Priest River, Id. They were a very nice family who actually just came from Thailand. They were there for a few years because "God told them to." I put that phrase in quotes, because we heard it a lot. She even said that's why they put it on Craigslist because she felt that God was telling her. She just knew that a family needed it. The van was in great condition and they kept trying to make sure everything was perfect for us (cleaning the tires and windows, changing a light bulb, etc). The van has a DVD system, a 6 disc changer, leather heated seats, back up camera, and navigational system! It's a 2005, which Brian and I had been looking for because we like the newer body style and feel like the sliding doors were better manufactured. 

We ended up buying it - including the set of snow tires that were on it! We love the van and Brian wants to call it "TightyWhitie" because it's tight and it's white. I'm going to come up with a better name. Maybe Hercules - because Carrie's 2014 Honda odyssey is called Zeus. I think it needs a Greek name since it is an odyssey, but I think I might find a name that means "gift from God" because we really feel like this family that sold us the van was an answer to our prayers. 

The highlights - 11/12

Last weekend (11/2) we went to the tri-cities for a couple of different reasons, but the trip was first created to support the auction that was being put on by Donna Tracy and the two stakes to help Christina and Nathan. It was a huge success! They raised over $20,000!!! I had the privilege of creating the program and that was a great experience in itself getting quotes from Christina. It was a lot of fun decorating with my mom and sister, Carrie. I almost went to tears many times through out the day just looking at everyone helping. People I knew from growing up to people I didn't know but they knew what this was going to. It was amazing! Because I had almost cried so many times, I chose not to wear mascara when I was putting make up on for the evening. It proved to be a wise choice. During the slide show Sonja (high) Yearsly put together, I was standing next to Mike and Tallia, Brian, and Philip. With almost every picture there was a memory there and you could just feel the love between us and the tears just flowed. I am so grateful for all those who helped out that night. I don't know if we made a small or large dent in their expenses, but I do know that people came together that night to show their love and that in itself helped our family immensely. 

The other parts of that weekend we got to see Cecily be baptized and baby Clark be blessed. We also got to hang out with Brian's family and my family. Jed got to hang out with cousins... Lots and lots of cousins! Here are some pictures:

He thought it was pretty cool that Merian, Eliza, and Derek were crawling with him.

He loves to play cars.

That was when we first got there, so Jed had just woken up, so that's why he looks so out of place. 

In other news:

Elijah has been amazing with his school responsibilities. He signed up for crossing guard AND student leadership both early morning things and he (mostly) gets himself up every morning and rides his bike to get to school.

Quianna loves seminary - even though it is at 6am. For those who don't know, seminary is like Sunday school, but during the day. In the tri-cities, they have released time seminary so that it is just another class during the school day where we study the scriptures and learn more about the gospel. Here in Spokane, they don't have a seminary building across the high schools and they don't have release time so the whole stake meets at the stake center at 6:00 in the morning! Quianna is even the seminary freshmen class president!

Jed has started to raise his hands when we say touchdown! It's his new trick and he loves it!

He has also has started to try and give zurberts (sp?). The other day when we were playing on the bed, my shirt came up and revealed my belly. He saw it and bent down with his open mouth as if he was going to blow on it. It was super cute. I started to laugh and then he realized he did something funny so he did it again. Now when ever he sees my stomach, he tries to do that. Sometimes he succeeds at blowing and making the sound. 

For the months of November and December we are doing a service project each week, something that we did last December for a new Christmas tradition, and this year we extended it to November.We all came up with ideas and then Brian extended family callings. Quianna is our service project coordinator. She helps plan everything. Elijah is our financial clerk - he's in charge of our budget. We sustained them and Brian gave them father blessings to help them in their family callings. I hope it will help them find ownership on our service projects. 

9 months

Jed

• 9 1/2 months actually
• He likes Bear in the Big Blue House
• Loves music
• Played peek-a-boo with me with the shower curtain.
• Loves to be upside down
• Crawls like a bear (on his hands and feet)
• Tries to stand by himself
• Has 6 teeth!
• He loves this pumpkin
• He loves to crawl up the stairs. Once he gets to the top he either has fun upstairs or yells at the top of the stairs until I get him to take him back down stairs again.When we were at the Johnsons' house this weekend (lots of stairs!) he started to try and go down them. Thanks to my mom for being there and helping him.
• He doesn't really like pureed food, but he likes to eat mac n cheese, and apple chunks, and anything else Daddy will give him off his plate.
• He loves his daddy! When Brian comes home, Jed immediately starts crawling towards him and if Brian doesn't immediately pick him up or pays attention to him, he gets upset- even if I'm the one holding him.

My attempt at doing better...

...at blogging. I figured at least I could get one post in after each holiday and maybe that will help get me in the swing of things...

Unfortunately I don't have pictures of our costumes last night. Things were kinda crazy, and there were a couple of hours that I was panicking - which I tried to avoid that this year, but it happened anyway. This year we were going to do a hot chocolate open house, but with doing the program for Bids to Bless (i'll hopefully post about later), making all 5 costumes, and preparing to leaving town the day after Halloween - it fell by the wayside. I couldn't decide what time to make it and so didn't send out the invitations, etc. I think next year since Jed will not be going out late, we will just go to a few houses then come home and have it while the older kids go for longer.

Wednesday, I was so proud of myself because I was ahead of the game - I had cut and pinned all the pieces I needed to sew for Quianna's bolero - the last costume that needed to be done. But with having three kids - one being 9 months old, other things came precedent, like dinner and carving pumpkins, and a crying baby. I started sewing again Thursday morning, but only got so far before I needed to get ready for Visiting Teaching. VT lasted until I had to go pick Quianna up from school to go to her Physical Therapy appointment. We got home at 4:15 and then it was crunch time. Make the dough for the pizza, check email to see if I received confirmation that the program was approved - didn't. Make dough for bread sticks. put pizzas together. Put one in oven. Send off program to be printed.  finish sewing Quianna's costume. Feed Jed. Quianna's friend came over. AH! one pizza burnt because Elijah didn't hear the timer go off while I was feeding Jed. Family has dinner. I eat a piece a pizza while finishing things up. Make Quianna's crown. Go get dressed. Oh crud - Elijah says their's Trick-or-Treaters coming! Get candy in bowl. Finish getting ready. Oh yay! Brian is getting Jed ready. Quianna calls for me. Elijah calls for me. Draw Elijah's mustache. Put Quianna's crown on. Head out to car. PHEW!

Ok that was how I felt, these are the good parts of the day. I met a wonderful lady who just had a baby a few weeks ago. She is coming back to the church and is new on our VT list. She was fun to visit. We had a Jack-o-Lantern pizza. That was fun. Brian was Luigi, I was Daisy, Quianna was Peach, Elijah was Mario, and Jed was Toad. I think we looked awesome. I'll have to take pictures of us tonight (probably in the tri-cities) before we give Kylee's dress back to her. We took the kids to the neighborhood next to us because nobody is in our neighborhood. The one next to us is booming with people and so almost everyone is home and ready for Trick-or-treating. After that neighborhood, we took the kids to see one of Quianna's young women leaders because she wanted to see our costumes. Then we headed over to the Heppler's house because Amy wanted to see our costumes. She had made this coconut hot chocolate. It was delicious, but thick and rich. The kids took full glasses but ended up taking only a sip. I felt so bad about that! By that time it was 8:30 and Jed was ready for bed. So Brian took me home to feed him and take him to bed while he took Quianna's friend home.

And then, that was our night. It ended up being really fun. I wish I had took pictures. Oh well, I'll take some pictures today of our pumpkins and then tonight of our costumes.

---Pictures---

Cakes by Kimberly

I have started a cake business! Here's the website: http://themecakesbykimberly.weebly.com/

The eventual goal is to do wedding cakes, but I think that might be far off. However, I am having a lot of fun doing these cakes. Check out my website gallery of the cakes I have done in the last month and a half!

My sister Carrie has inspired me, and I think I might eventually do cupcakes too. I make a few cupcakes with each cake so I ca try out the filling and frosting combination to make sure it will be delicious, so I thought, I could do it for a business too.

4 months - boy how time flies!

Jed is 4 months old today!

It has been such a joy having him in our family. Brian mentioned a while ago that he has brought a new side out from him - a side that has been gone for a long time since the kids have grown up.

 Jed has been so much fun the last month as he has developed his personality. He goes through many stages through the day, but my favorite one is between the awake and pondering stage and the tired stage. This special stage happens right before he gets into the "I'm ready for a nap" stage. In this stage he giggles and smiles so much! He starts to laugh at something you do to him and then he'll start chuckling at his own laugh, then he just keeps going! I love it immensely!

 He likes to be hung upside down - especially by Daddy! He is still a Momma's boy, but when he's in a good mood he loves to play and laugh with Brian.

 He likes to grab things and play with him in his hands. More like pinching/needing in his hands. He will grab anything next to him when he's in those moods - a blanket, stuffed animal, or my arm!

This was this morning, he grabbed the sheet that was next to him.

 In the morning he takes about a half an hour to laugh and talk and kick his legs on the bed. He flails his arms and legs around while yelling out to the air. It's like he is getting everything working after being asleep all night.

 Oh yes, the wonderful nights. He is not sleeping all the way through the night yet. I'm starting the training next week of getting him to fall back asleep by himself in the crib. We'll see how it goes. I really don't like the "cry it out" methods. When talking to Quianna I was able to accurately express my feelings on the matter. It's as if they cry and cry and cry, then finally fall asleep because they gave up on someone coming to help. That's my emotion about it, but I have also read numerous studies stating that letting a baby under a year continuously cry releases a stress hormone that can cause emotional and physical issues as they grow older. So I will be taking my sister's approach to getting him to sleep through the night. She said to rock him (we have a special crib that rocks!) back to sleep while singing to him and patting his back... if he starts to cry too much, pick him up and he'll most likely fall right to sleep because he's so tired. I figure - let's give it a go! 

I've been pretty lucky the last few months. He sleeps pretty well. He wakes up 1-2 times a night wanting to eat and then goes back to sleep very easily. I love cuddling with him in the morning. He has also started a pretty good nap schedule. About an hour after he wakes up in the morning he takes a nap. Then he takes 1-2 naps mid day/afternoon. Sometimes one in the evening and then falls asleep between 8:30-9:15 for the night.

One of my favorite things he has started lately is grabbing my face and giving me big kisses... I love it!!!

 I don't know how much he weighs exactly but I do know he has doubled his birth weight at over 16 lbs! He's a pretty solid and chunky baby. My sister Carrie calls him chubs.

This was his first parade. He fell asleep right before it started and slept through the whole thing.

I love it when he wears a t-shirt and shorts. He looks so grown up!

This was just taken of him. He's sleeping so peacefully.

He loves screens. This was him looking at the TV while Phineas and Ferb was on.

Sorry the pictures are blurry... I don't know why...

Introducing Jesiah Edwin

I was waiting for pictures to get on my computer, but I thought I would get this started or else it wouldn't get started.

I would like you to meet our darling little addition to our family:

Jesiah Edwin McCann

(Jed)

We love him very much. Quianna loved holding him in the hospital every chance she got, but at home she hasn't been that gung ho about it. Elijah didn't like being in the hospital (only came once for the initial visit) but has loved holding him at home.

Brian misses him through out the day and very shortly after he comes home, he takes Jed into his arms and doesn't really part from him unless Jed is hungry and needs to be fed.

Jesiah was born on January 17, 2013 at 8:42 in the morning, weighing 8lbs 12 oz, and measuring 19 1/4 inches.

Here are lots of pictures from the first few weeks of his life:

Sleeping next to daddy... 1 Day old!

Day 1... I was on such a high!

Home at last!

And now for the birth story, if you're interested....

So it actually starts a few weeks before he was born. As a diabetic I was prepared mentally through out my pregnancy there was a good chance I would be induced at 39 weeks since this was my first child, and I'm a diabetic, both contributing for going past my due date. The reason they induce diabetics at 39 weeks is because before that, there's a higher risk of their lungs now being fully formed and after that, the statistics of having a still born baby increase. 

I kept my blood sugar pretty good under control. The highest A1c I had was 6.1. On December 27 I went in for my routine ultrasound and they estimated him to be 7lbs 14oz. I thought, oh crud, he's going to be a big baby. I shrugged it off, and went on with life. My next appointment was on January 4 where I learned that if he gets close to 9lbs, they will do a c-section. My doctor said that with diabetic babies, the shoulders tend to be more broad and have greater chance of being stuck during labor, causing permanent nerve damage. He said that if I went into labor naturally in the next week, then we would do it naturally, but if not, we would wait for the next ultrasound (Jan 11) to see where he was at weight wise and then we would make a decision whether I could have him naturally or c-section. I came home and started freaking out. I called my sisters, and my mom. I said, "Ok, I have a week to have this baby naturally, or I might be scheduled for a c-section. How do I get this baby commin?" 

I cut most carbs out of my diet to keep my blood sugar low. I didn't want any more weight gain on him. I went on walks, I kept preparing the nursery, I played just dance, I used prim rose oil, I did everything I could to get him to come but to no avail. 

I went to my next ultra sound where they said they weren't going to estimate the weight, but I quickly corrected them that it needed to happen so I knew if I was going to be induced or have a c-section the next week. I then went into the room to see my doctor. The nurse had me undress bottom down so he can check to see how much I was dilated. I waited, and I waited... I started getting cold. Then the nurse popped her head in and told me he was called into a delivery. She knew that I needed to talk to the doctor that day and told me I could wait. It was suppose to be 45 min to an hour... What a day to not bring my book to my appointment! Thankfully I had my binder which gave me a chance to start planning the schedule of what needed to happen with the kids when Brian and I were in the hospital. 

My doctor came in and I just looked at him and said, "How big?" he said, "he's under 9 lbs! 8 lbs something. I can't remember exactly, I'll look it up when we go outside" So we then talked about the plan for induction. Later he told me the baby was estimated at 8lbs 3 oz. 

We scheduled the induction for the next wednesday. The plan was to have cytotec inserted next to my cervix every 3 hours through out the night in order to get it nice and soft. If that didn't start the contractions, then the next morning I would be started on pitocin.

I made the schedule for that Wednesday. Brian had an All-City rehearsal until 5:30 but I was scheduled to check into the hospital at 5, but not start the procedure until 8pm. So I planned for Jamie to take me.

Saturday night I started having regular contractions, not intense ones, but they lasted 45 sec to 1 min and were every 5-7 minutes all through out the night. I was hoping that we would be going to the hospital that Sunday, but they stopped in the morning. bummer! Monday through Wednesday, I kept having contractions. Monday night we went and played basketball at the church for family home evening. Brian decided we would play full court, which meant I was waddling up and down the court all night. I didn't mind, it kept contractions going... maybe I would go in that night!

Wednesday came and still no baby. I was getting worried. I had woken up with flu like symptoms, which I had heard was also a sign of labor. Our original plan was that Brian was going to go home and get some sleep because nothing was suppose to happen until morning and I wanted him to get a good night rest. But now that I had been showing signs of labor, I asked him to change the plans and stay over night with me which he agreed to. Jamie took me to the hospital and stayed with me until Brian came and said that Elijah could spend the night at their place since he was worried about Brian not being there over night. 

The nurse came in at 8 and checked to see how dilated I was before she placed the cytotec. She said I was at a 1. A little disapointed that nothing was going to be happening soon, I told Brian to go back home, be with the kids and we would stick with the original plan. I would call him if I needed him to come back.

The nurse came in at 1am and asked if I had been feeling the contractions that had been picked up by the monitor. I told her only some. She gave me the next dose - I was still only dilated to a 1. At around 2am, the contractions picked up and I was getting really uncomfortable. The contractions were so intense, lasted a long time and were right on top of each other. They were worried about the baby being under distress so they gave me oxygen to help calm me. I asked if I could take a bath, they said yes. I called Brian and asked him to come back. At about 2:15am, my water broke so I called up Brian and he said he was saying goodbye to the kids, the car was started and packed and he would be right there. They had to recheck with the on call doctor if I could take a bath since my water had broken. Thankfully he said yes, as soon as my contractions were under control.

I am so glad that I got in the bath because I was able to sleep for a bout a half hour. Brian stayed next to me, watching West Wing while I slept. I then got out of the bath, slowly between contractions walked back to bed so they could monitor the baby again. 

The rest was a blur because I would just lay there on my side and then when a contraction would come I would say, "It hurts!" and Brian would rub my body. Sometimes I would say, "It hurts" and brian would just stay there looking at me, probably for some direction and then I would say, "Brian, I need you to do something, I don't know what, but do something" So then he would start rubbing me, or something else to help me cope with the pain. All along, he was looking at the monitor and he would sometimes say, "wow, that was a big one!" to which I was like, "uh, yeah." However, I was thankful he was watching that because somehow it felt like it validated the pain I was feeling. At this time I had contemplated getting an epidural because I was getting worried. The last time they checked me was when my water broke and I had only dilated to a 2.5 at that point. If this was only the beginning and I was in this much pain this often, what will come later?  Shortly after that thought, I opened up my eyes, looked at Brian and said, "I feel like I have to push!" 

A nurse came in around that time (I don't know if he called her in, or what) and I said again with the next contraction, " I feel like I have to push!" She said, "don't push, I need to check you..." and she started doing thing around the room, and again I said, "I have to push!" she again discouraged me and Brian had his hand on me saying, "not yet, don't push yet" I said, "I don't know how NOT to push!" The nurse, still doing things around the room said, "Control your breathing, puffs of air out." so I tried, it worked a little, but when you hit that point, when a contraction comes, your body pushes on it's own somewhat. She then came over and checked me and said, "Oh yeah, you're at a 9+. Let's get people in here"

While people were coming in, Brian asked if I wanted him to call my mom. I said yes. Apparently it went somewhat like this, "Just wanted to let you know that Kimberly is going to be pushing soon." my mom said, "Ok, well enjoy the moment!" and that was about it. 

At that time, Brian's phone started going crazy with text messages. I think my sisters were one of them, not sure which one texted, but Brian said, "Your sisters wanted to know..." and I said, "Brian, Shut up, sorry!" that was the rudest thing I said to him, and I apologized right after :-)

The doctor came in and said, "Oh boy, he's way up there. It's going to be a long time pushing."  I was thinking, "Oh great! That's not what I wanted to hear!"

I started pushing around 7ish and he was born at 8:42am. He was right, it was a long time pushing! I have heard from people that birth is so cool when you can feel them come down the birth canal and everything. Well the only thing I felt was burning and hurting as he came through! He was a big baby at 8 lbs 12 oz! 

The nurse and doctor were great. The nurse told me when to push, because I couldn't feel my contractions very much.  The nurse started with counting to 10 when i pushed, but then the doctor recognized that I was quickly running out of steam so he said, "Ok, we are going to count to 5, but I want you to save some and at 5 I want you to give it all you got!" So Brian started counting too. I was still running out of steam so the doctor said, "A little faster dad!"

When they could see his head, the doctor told me I could reach down and touch it if I wanted. I had heard about this before and I thought, "no, that's gross, I'm not going to" But I ended up doing it hopefully to help me get more strength. I don't know if it had any effect on me at all... All I knew was "It hurts!" It burned like crazy! The doctor told me that's "The ring of fire" I didn't care what it was, it hurt!

I think the cord was wrapped around his neck because I saw them pull something over his head like unwrapping it when his head was out. His head was dark and kind of blue. I don't remember him crying. I had a hard time pushing the rest of him out and so I could feel at the end the doctor pulling with my pushing. 

Once he was out they tried doing everything on my stomach, but he wasn't looking good so they took him over the baby station in my room. Brian went with them as they were sewing up my tears. It was scary seeing them using a hand pump to help him get oxygen. Then Brian said after he was breathing, he still was not responsive - they would pick up his arm and it would just plop down again. They called a NICU nurse to the room and she said they were going to have to take him for 4 hours or so. Then he started being responsive and pinking up, so they thought he could stay with us. - What a relief!

They started measuring him and weighing him, taking his foot prints. They gave Brian a tattoo on his arm. then they came and gave me one. It was fun, but I wanted my baby! Brian spoke up enough (because they ended up not doing anything with Jesiah) to get him back to me that they finally brought him to me. That was when I named him. It was such a weird experience to think he was mine, I just went through all of that to get him here to earth, to join our family, to be my son. It was such an amazing experience to hold him in my arms.