Better late than never

So, I am finally (2.5 months later) getting around to posting Isaac's birth story.

On August 24th, 2010 I had my 39 week appointment with my OB. He checked me and said I was 3-4cm and 80% effaced. Everything was looking good and I made an appointment for the following week.
At about 6pm that evening, Mike and Diane arrived from Twin Falls and we all headed to county fair. Mike and Diane were planning on going to see the Dooby Brothers at the fair while Aaron, Eva, and I saw the dinosaur exhibit and rode rides. When we all go to the fair, we headed to the dinosaur exhibit for a little while and then Mike and Diane got in line for the Dooby Brothers. After spending a little more time at the dinosaur exhibit, Aaron, Eva, and I went to get something to eat. Diane ended up not getting into the concert because she left the line to get something to eat and by the time she got back, Mike had already gone in and they would not let her in even though he was saving her seat. Luckily, Aaron checked his phone and saw that she had called and we met up with her by the covered seated area and we all ate something and then took Eva one some rides while Mike was at the concert.
I started having contractions at about 7:30pm and Aaron took out his Droid and starting timing them with www.contractionmaster.com. They were about 3 minutes apart and were lasting about a minute each. By the time we all got ready to leave the fair at about 8:40pm I was having to concentrate pretty hard during contractions. I had to slow down in order to walk and talk while I was having a contraction.
We decided to go straight home and get our bag packed and have Mike and Diane put Eva to bed and we would head to the hospital. I was started to say "I don't know if I can do this" and so Aaron knew we were getting close to baby's arrival. Mike and Diane (who were in a separate vehicle) wanted to go get some food at Jack-in-the-Box first since Mike hadn't had dinner but luckily Aaron told them they needed to come by the house first so Mike dropped Diane off at our house so she could put Eva to bed and then he went to go get food. After a 40+ minute drive home, 30+ minutes of getting the bag packed and getting Aaron's parents settled in and a 20 minute drive to the hospital, we arrived at the hospital at about 10:30pm.
As we walked down the hallway, I had to stop when I had a contraction and kind of rock and concentrate to get through it. Aaron hurried ahead and let them know we were here. A nurse came out into the hallway and said "Just making sure you're not having the baby out here in the hallway" and helped me to our room. They had me change into a gown and were going about things really leisurely until they checked me and saw that I was 8-9cm dilated. They immediately called the on call doctor and when she came in she checked me she asked if it was ok for her to break my water. I agreed and so she broke my water and then told me I was complete and could push whenever I was ready. I was feeling the need to push and so I got ready to start pushing. I remembered how hard the pushing stage was with Eva and I was dreading it. I said out loud, "I'm not ready for this." But then my body took over and started pushing. I couldn't stop if I wanted to. I kind of yelled "I don't want to do this" and the doctor told me I could stop and take a break if I wanted but my body wouldn't stop pushing and I yelled, "I can't." After 2 minutes of pushing, Isaac was born at 11:04pm. They placed him immediately on my stomach and dried him off and put a blanket over him. He was so beautiful. They got ready to cut the cord but I told them that we wanted to wait to cut the cord so they did. When we were ready to cut the cord, Aaron cut it. Since everything happened so quickly and we had the on call doctor that we had never met before, Aaron was great about letting the nurses and doctor know what our birth preferences were and everything happened just how we wanted. Since the pushing stage was so short, Isaac had a lot of fluid in his lungs and was coughing up a lot of fluid at first. Other than that, he was absolutely perfect at 8lbs, 7oz., 20 inches long and a head full of dark hair. Grandma and Papa Faulhaber and Nana Hutchings came in to meet him and the next morning Papa Hutchings and big sister Eva got to meet him. And around midnight on August 25 we brought our baby boy home.

Eva decided to give herself a haircut

Yikes. Time to make sure all scissors are out of Eva's reach.



I told Eva as I was trying to fix her hair that I was so sad about her hair and she said, "It's ok mama, I'm beautiful." Smart girl. I could probably learn a thing or two from my 2.5 year old daughter about beauty....it's not what's outside that counts.
Here she is again after I tried to fix her haircut. Pray that her hair grows quickly.

It's August!

Less than a month before we get to meet Isaac! It still doesn't feel real yet. I am really excited to meet him and cuddle him but have been missing Eli a lot lately too. It's really bittersweet.
Here's my big belly at 36 weeks. Not too much longer. Good thing too, I'm not sure I have much more room to grow.

Birthday weekend

This past weekend we celebrated the birthday of two special little boys. Noah Jones, son of our good friends Dave and Emily, had his 3rd birthday party on Saturday and then our nephew Luke had his 4th birthday on Sunday. It was a fun filled, action packed weekend. Noah loves his trains so his mommy (and aunt, and grandma, and daddy) made an awesome train cake for him. Luke's birthday theme was "Up" (from the movie) and his cake was a house in the clouds with balloons and there had to be hundreds of balloons for decorations as well as a crazy water balloon fight. I made both of them t-shirts and I think they turned out pretty cute.

Eva's first haircut

Before...


and after...

Baby boy finally has a name

We finalized baby boys name on Father's Day. His name will be Isaac Aaron Hutchings. Isaac was always one of our front runners (even when we were picking boy names when we were pregnant with Eva) and the meaning behind it is what sealed it for us. Isaac means "laughter" which we like. We hope to do a lot of laughing with him. But, the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac was especially meaningful to us. Isaac was Abraham's promised son from God. And after losing Eli and then getting pregnant again and it being another boy, we feel as though this baby boy is our promised son from God that he is blessing us with.

3D pics of baby boy

Here's baby boy at about 29 weeks. Is he cute or what?

26 weeks

So, this past week I was pretty much a big mess. 26 weeks is when I gave birth to Eli and so hitting 26 weeks with this pregnancy hit me pretty hard and I was in a pretty dark place. Each day of that week brought back sad memories. The last day that I felt Eli move, the day that we confirmed that there was no heartbeat. The day that I went to the hospital to be induced, and then finally, the day that I birthed my baby boy's lifeless body. I felt as though I was in a pit that was too deep to get out of. I was feeling hopeless. Don't get me wrong, I would get out of bed in the morning because of Aaron and Eva but it seemed that was all I could do, get out of bed. I couldn't live life beyond that. I was just in the grip of depression.
We had our all church retreat this weekend up in McCall and it was just what I needed. First of all, just the 2.5 hour drive up gave me and Aaron time to talk and to just be together and I was able to express my feelings to Aaron. That helped me a little bit to not feel so alone. The Holy Spirit was really moving during the weekend and I feel like I am learning to live again. I found hope. I found purpose to live. Leave it to God to give me just what I need at just the right time. If only I would learn to always lean on Him and trust in Him instead of trying to survive on my own.
Ok, enough of the heavy stuff. Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.
Here's my 26 week belly.

And some pictures from the retreat.

Life's not fair

We all know that, right? But sometimes, it really just sucks. Today, a wonderful woman and her husband lost their forth child. Their first two, twin boys, were born at 20 weeks when I was still pregnant with Eva. Then, somewhat recently, they miscarried their third child. Today, at 20 weeks, she gave birth to another son. I pray that they will continue to lean on God as they have in the past and that they will find some comfort and peace in his loving arms. As I grieve for them today and revisit once again the pain of losing a child, this song is in my head. It was written by the lead singer of Selah and his wife after learning their sweet daughter Audrey had a condition that was "incompatible with life" while they were still pregnant with her.

I Will Carry You
There were photographs I wanted to take
Things I wanted to show you
Sing sweet lullabies, wipe your teary eyes
Who could love you like this?
people say that I am brave but i`m not
Truth is I`m barely hanging on
But there`s a greater story
Written long before me
Because he loves you like this

So I will carry you
While your heart beats here
Long beyond the empty cradle
Through the coming years
I will carry you
All my life
And I will praise the one who`s chosen me
To carry you

Such a short time
Such a long road
All this madness
But I know
That the silence
Has brought me to his voice
And he says

I`ve shown her photographs of time beginning
Walked her through the parted seas
Angel lullabies, no more teary eyes
Who could love her like this?

I will carry you
While your heart beats here
Long beyond the empty cradle
Through the coming years
I will carry you
All your life
And i will praise the one who`s chosen me
To carry you

Another sneak peak

Here's baby boy at 24.3 weeks.


He kept opening and closing his mouth. Eva said he was laughing.

I love yard sale season

We went to a yard sale this morning and picked up some cute clothes for baby boy. The guy who lived there was a BSU basketball player and had a little boy who was probably about 18 months old. So, there was lots of cute little boy clothes including several BSU outfits (unfortunately, most of these were the wrong season). Our little boy already has a great wardrobe thanks to consignment sales, yard sales, and of course grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles. Today we scored 4 pairs of jammies, a pair of wrangler jeans and another pair of jeans, a BSU romper, 2 adorable sweaters and 2 cute long sleeve onesies.

Baby's homecoming outfit

So, while searching for something cute for baby boy (that's right, still no name) to come home in when he is born, I saw some super cute onesies on etsy.com. I decided that I could make them myself and yesterday I headed to the fabric store and picked up everything I needed. I think it turned out pretty cute if you ask me. I plan on pairing it with some brown pants and maybe a cute little newsboy type hat. :)

Eli's blog

I finally got around to making a blog for Eli. It tells his story from the beginning. If anyone is interested you can check it out here. http://babyelihutchings.blogspot.com/ (warning, it's long) I also posted a link to it on the right hand column under Friends and Family blogs.

Fabulous find Friday

So, we picked up this little beauty (the guitar, of course) at a yard sale today for $0.50. Eva is loving it.


And just because I can't handle how cute she is, here are a few more recent pictures.

20 weeks....halfway there

Curtains....finally!

I finally got around to making a curtain for Eva's room. I didn't have enough of the bird fabric so I had to piece it together with another fabric but I think it turned out pretty cute.

Making pancakes

Eva insisted on helping make the pancakes the other morning. She had so much fun. It was a little messy but worth it.



And here are the pancakes that she made by herself.

Quad screen results

So, at my ultrasound last week my high risk doc encouraged me to get the quad screen blood test. Since it was just a blood test for me and didn't pose any risk to baby I went ahead with it (I usually opt out of any extra testing during pregnancy and definitely wouldn't do an amniocentesis or CVS test which pose risk to baby but are the only way to test for sure for Trisomy 13). If you don't know, the quad screen tests for things like Trisomy 21 (Down's Syndrome), Trisomy 18 and 13 (Eli had Trisomy 13), and Neural Tube Defects such as Spina Bifida and Anencephaly. Anyway, the good news is that my numbers all came back great. 1 in 25,000 chance of Down's Syndrome, 1 in 6,000 chance of Neural Tube Defects, and no high risk for Trisomy 18. Yay!

Easter 2010