The story of Ethan's arrival...

The alarm went off at 3:15 a.m. with the idea that it was going to take us awhile to get up (I am a slow waker in the morning!).  But, with all the anticipation, I was wide awake and ready to get going…so I headed to the shower and was ready to leave by 3:45 a.m. – over a half hour early! Marion on the other hand took his time and while I paced around the house, trying to remember all the things I’d forgotten, he got his breakfast, turned the eggs in the incubator, warmed the pickup, and tried to keep me calm!  Soon enough though we were both out of things to do and so we headed off to the hospital!

 

One of the things I will remember is that nice slow drive!  It was very peaceful and relaxing to just  have those moments with Marion before the baby came.  Once we arrived, we took some pictures going into the hospital and checked ourselves in.  I was pleased to find out that I had gained just 20 lbs total with this pregnancy (and if I remember correctly the hospital’s scale is a bit heavier than the clinics).  By 5:30 a.m. we were checked in and waiting for the surgery team to take us back to be prepped.  I had requested that they use a local anesthesia to get my IV started because my veins are very hard to find after not having fluids.  I was assured that Dave the anesthesiologist would be doing the IV to help avoid some of the nightmares we had had with the other kids! 

 

Finally around 6:00 a.m. we were wheeled back to the pre-op room and Marion was sent to get gowned up!  Dave came in and tried for his first IV prick….unfortunately, it didn’t go…neither did the second or third…after 45 minutes and  EIGHT tries we finally got an IV to stick and it was in my upper bicep area.  AND, as you can imagine, we were very behind in prepping for the delivery!

 

I was supposed to have this whole bag of fluids before the op…well, that didn’t happen!  The epidural took 3 minutes to get in but then everyone started doing things all at once…I specifically remember getting my catheter at the same time as Dave was testing me for sharpness with the epidural…now you tell me…how can one focus on both at the same time?!!!  I tried to be as honest as I could and they did test several times, but things were just NOT the same as the previous three! 

 

Dr. Pankratz was anxious to get started since he had another procedure following and clinic appointments too, so as soon as they could they got things underway.  The first cut was at 7:11 a.m. and Ethan was born at 7:14!  That was the most intense, painful, and shocking 3 minutes of my life!  Both doctors were pushing will all their might on my STOMACH – up high- and the anesthesia was NOT in that area!  I about puked from the pressure!  Dave had to give me oxygen because I was holding my breath trying to deal with the shock of the intense pain I was NOT prepared to have!  Usually, I feel some pressure and some pulling but not PAIN – at least not until they put the uterus back in – and then Dave just makes me real sleepy to get through that!  Not this time...I told Dave I didn’t care if he put me OUT…I know it was apparently pretty bad because Marion was getting antsy and worried beside me…something he doesn’t usually do!  (later he did tell me that he was pretty worried about me because I was obviously hurting.)

 

I think it was 7:40 a.m. when they took me to the recovery room and I was begging for pain medicine!  I finally got my first look at Ethan and he nursed like a champ!  We were so very blessed by Dr. Overmiller, who came in to see how we were doing and prayed with us as a family!  Once we were more stable, Marion headed out to make the calls announcing Ethan’s arrival and they finished recovery procedures and took me to my room!  I think EVERYONE was amazed when I moved myself over to the bed from the gurney…does that tell you how well the epidural was working?!

 

Ethan’s temp was low so they put him in an incubator, other than that, he was doing great!  Me on the other hand was still suffering from pain even after several doses in my IV (and those that know me well, know I have a high pain tolerance) and my blood pressure was rather high!  The one good thing was that I had warned them that I itch TERRIBLY after the surgery and they were very liberal with the Benadryl and other itch relieving medicine!  I was still very sick to my stomach and would start gagging if I moved my head or looked around too quickly!  I vaguely remember the rest of Monday…I know we had some visitors and if you were one of them and I was a zombie…I apologize…it was a very different and crazy delivery!

 

The bottom line though…we have a beautiful and healthy baby boy!  Welcome to the family Ethan William Schlatter – we love you!

One week update...

Well, Ethan and Mommy had to have a 1 week check up with the doctor.

For Ethan, they wanted to check his billi ruben count. They called later in the day to say it was within range and that they'd just watch it and repeat next week if necessary. They also checked his weight which was 6 lbs 12 oz...down an ounce from when we came home. He wasn't overly concerned at this time, but if he doesn't gain the 7 ounces back before next week, they may have to look into why he isn't gaining weight. He is eating like a little champ and poops & pees alot! The bigger issue is that he sleeps very well at night and only eats one to two times during the night! (of course, I am very thankful for the sleep, but we may have to change that to get him some extra feedings...who would have thought I'd be saying THAT! ;0)

For Mommy, my blood pressure was still high (I know, I haven't gotten the birth story up yet so most of you didn't know I was having blood pressure issues, but after the birth, it went up and hasn't come back down). My pressure was 150/90 which is about as low as it has gotten. Again, he said he'd give me another week to see if that balances out, if not, then we may have to do something about it. One contributing factor to the higher blood pressure may be that I started a deep mucusy cough on Saturday which has NOT been fun with the incesion. Since I've been struggling with sinus issues for three months, he finally decided to whip this in the bud and gave me a high powered antibiotic! I am so excited...I pray it works well cuz I'm sick of this stuff!

Also, as an update on Nathan...his fever is finally down after about three days of battling it with motrin and tylenol and acts his normal honory self...but we have noticed he isn't very interested in eating and he still sleeps alot! So far no one else seems to be showing any signs of getting it so we are very thankful for that!

Truly overall we are all doing very well. The kids love their little brother and Jonathan especially asks to hold him all the time! Thanks again for all the prayers and support we've gotten...we love and appreciate you all!

We are home!

Well, I’m not going to chat long cuz I need a nap, but I wanted to let everyone know we are home!  Apparently I heal very fast.

 

I’ll try to write a complete story update with more pictures after my nap or within the next few days, whichever happens to come first…hehehe!

 

Thanks for all the well wishes and prayers, we are all doing well. 

 

Until later…

 

PS…I just had to say THANK YOU to Grandma Schlatter…she had lunch ready for us when we all got home.  It was so very nice not to have to worry about that and it was very yummy too!  I am so very blessed to have you so close!  Thanks!

He is here

Ethan William 7lb 3oz 19 in

Test

Picture

(WAY COOL....I have tried e-mail pics before but couldn't get them to attach the picture...fortunately, I figured out how to send pics from my phone and they show up...so now...maybe everyone will get to see Baby #4 sooner!)

It's been awhile...and may be longer!

Well, I see that I haven’t done any blogging since the 3^rd of March.  Really, not much has happened that I can think of.  We’ve just been trying to keep things up around the house and prepare for this coming week when Baby 4 arrives. 

 

At my last doctor’s appointment everything was fine:  I hadn’t gained anymore weight and all my numbers were good.  They did lay out the plan for the delivery which includes a trip into Smith Center on Sunday morning bright and early to get some lab work done and blood typed!   They also moved the surgery up from 7:30 to 7:00AM and I’m told that Dr. Panktatz is very particular at starting ON TIME.  So, we should have a baby by 7:20 at the latest!  Bright and Early!  (we have to be at the hospital by 5 AM)

 

Seeing that everything is happening so bright and early, we might not get everyone called immediately upon delivery!  For those in western Nebraska, it would be VERY early for you all! :0)  I’ve been trying to figure out how to activate my cell phone so I could text a mobile message into Facebook but haven’t been able to get that to work.  I do think I can send e-mails to my blog which would post to Facebook eventually.  I am going to try to test that maybe today.  The down part to all of this is that I won’t be able to get pictures up until I get home.  (and I doubt Marion will even want to try to do it…that really isn’t his sort of thing)  So, sorry, but pics will have to wait until we get home later in the week!

 

We do have one other thing going one right now on the farm, but I’ll post that as a separate e-mail!  See you all on the other side of delivery!

 

Hatching Chicks

Well, Marion decided to go ahead and try hatching some chicks of his own. We also got some eggs from Aunt Sharlyn so we have around 60 eggs in the incubator on the porch.

After careful consideration, Marion went ahead and started them so that they would be hatching by March 31st and be done by April 2nd for sure. So, if all goes well, we will have baby chicks hatching for Easter!

I'll have to keep you posted on how many of our 60 eggs actually do hatch. Marion has been amazed at all that goes into hatching eggs...he is thoroughly enjoying his first experience with this!

Baby Update

Alright…well, we had another checkup yesterday with the doctor.  We had three things to address…extreme thirst, sudden swelling, and lower abdominal pressure when walking!  All my numbers looked good…blood pressure was 128/66, I did gain 7 lbs but he agreed most if not all of that was the water retention, and baby’s heart beat was strong!  When we discussed the three issues he felt that the thirst was just the diabetes and so he wants to watch that closer still.  He said sometimes in the last few weeks they have to add in insulin so he wants me to monitor my sugars daily now!  However today was really good at 86! 

 

The swelling he said wasn’t a concern unless my blood pressure was high too, but since my blood pressure is doing good, he felt the swelling was just 9 month pregnancy stuff and recommended continuing what I was already doing about putting them up and resting.  Which went along with the lower abdominal stuff too…he said if walking longer distances brings that on…then I need to not do that!  :0)  Really the pressure doesn’t bother me too much unless contractions start too...THEN they stop me in my tracks…so he just said to stop that!  Overall, the doctor felt that things were going very well all things considered and just encouraged me to hang in there two more weeks!

 

We did decide to add in some Tylenol PM to help with the leg aches that come with the swelling and to help me get to sleep.  I’ve been struggling with sinus congestion for about three months now and two rounds of antibiotics and allergy medicine hasn’t taken it away (though it has helped it hasn’t gone AWAY)!  The doctor felt that if we can just get me to delivery then he can pound what he believes to be a bacterial infection with a hardcore antibiotic which he can’t give me while pregnant!  I did manage to sleep for close to 5 hours straight last night which was the first time that has happened since I can remember!  So progress is being made! 

 

Well, I have a few other cute things to share with you but I’ll put those in another post!  (hopefully today sometime)

 

 

Natural Instincts

Okay, I just HAVE to share this...

The boys were waiting for daddy to finish doing chores so that they could go with him to haul corn to town while Abi and I went to my doctor's appointment. (Grandma Schlatter was going to watch them, but she got the bug that we had just been fighting and didn't want to re-expose us-thanks Grandma!)

Anyway, I was sitting in the living room recouping after moving the car seats around and what to my surprise were the boys doing: hunting pheasants!

Yep, they have never been on a hunting trip nor have they ever seen Daddy hunt anything but there they were! They would both hop on the couch facing the side and make motor sounds like they were driving, then they'd reach their destination, hop out, get their 'guns' (the stick horses turned backwards), and proceed to find a stuffed animal to shoot! Once a stuffed animal was located, they'd make gun sounds, pick it up, haul it to the 'back' of their truck, put their guns in and hop in to 'drive' to their next destination!

How crazy is that! By the way...they are very good hunters...they got a pheasant EVERY time!


And since I don't want to leave the cute things Abi does out, when we were in town eating lunch after the doctor's appointment, I made some comment about us having a girl's day out and how it had been a long time since we had done that! Abi cutely remarked "I have the rememory of when we painted my nails." We then embarked on a discussion of other 'rememories' she had of us doing things just the two of us! Don't you love those REMEMORIES!

YAY Nathan...

Oh I am so excited…Nathan actually named his letters A-I for me today!!!! 

 

For those that don’t understand why this is so huge…we have been working with him for months to NAME his letters…he’ll tell you their sounds, he’ll tell you how to make them…but he has struggled with NAMING them…today we did a flashcard game online that I found and after doing it a couple of times he was naming them BEFORE the lady said the name…and it grew faster as it went!  I am so excited…THEN we did some handwriting practice and he named them all for me again!  You really have no idea how excited (and relieved) I am that he is finally getting this!  He is also doing great at naming all his colors and shapes (even pentagons and rhombus’).  Now if we can only get him to write his name…he knows the letters that goes into it, but rarely puts them together on his own!

 

This site also has tons of other flashcards as well…Just for the fun of it…I put Jonny on my lap and went through the colors…He did surprisingly well…He got blue, yellow, orange, green, and purple right off and after a couple rounds got red, black, “whipe”, and brown!

 

Today we are going to start Abi on simple subtraction.  She has been doing great with her flashcards up to 4s in addition and with the new touchmath that we have introduced (which is what they use in Smith Center now), she has been doing very well with adding even larger numbers.  While at Grandma’s one day she learned to count by two’s up to ten and just yesterday I heard her talking to Daddy about what number comes after 100…so there is some definite progress in math concepts!  I can hardly believe that we only have about 50 days left of school with Abi to finish out Kindergarten! 

 

It is so awesome to watch your children grow and learn and develop!  God is truly amazing in how He created us!

 

 

 

Abi's New Dress

Well, I got the dress done for Abi to wear to church on Sunday, but I wasn't pleased with the sleeves nor the hem. I was able to fix the hem Sunday morning before church easily enough but was at a loss as to what to do with the sleeves.

After talking to a few people, I decided to cut the sleeves off and try something different. The result was MUCH better. The dress is a bit big on her, but truly that was the point. I didn't want to make something she'd only wear a few times. I also left me some room to adjust the dress as she grows so hopefully if the Chiffon holds out, she can wear it for some time down the road!

Here is Abi modeling the finished dress for you:


A close up of the finished sleeve...much better then the wrinkled, bunched, thread showing catastrophy that it previously was:

And here is the back...Abi is holding the chiffon out a bit so yu can see the layers...

Overall, it is long and pretty but most importantly Abi loves it...If I get up enough courage, I just might try the other style chiffon dress that is similar to this one with a little different cut. We will see!