Eva's Birth Story

Our dear Eva is a stubborn girl. I started having contractions at around 35 weeks, but they would always go away. I tried EVERYTHING I could to induce labor naturally (all the old wives tales), but nothing worked. I had my membranes stripped three times and it didn't do a darn thing. We desperately hoped she would come before Christmas, but as the holidays drew nearer we then desperately wished she would come after Christmas. We went in to see the doctor on the 26th and he checked me. I was still only dilated 1.5 centimeters.  She was NOT coming on her own. So, we decided to schedule an inducement for the next day.

We went in to the hospital at 6:00a.

Here is my last pregnant picture. I am 9 months 1 week and 1 day pregnant in this picture. 

They checked us in and took us to our room and got me hooked up to everything. They started the pitocin on the lowest dose at 7:30a. We then settled in and waited for contractions to start while watching Iron Chef America. The first 5 hours of contractions were not bad at all. I could feel them, but they didn't hurt in the least. The most uncomfortable thing in those first few hours was being hooked up to everything and so therefore not being able to move around freely. At 2:00p my doctor came in and broke my water. The contractions picked up from there…and I could feel them at that point. After about another half hour I asked for my epidural. I was nervous because the contractions were getting more intense and I was worried that the anesthesiologist would take a while getting to my room. Much to my relief he was in there 5 minutes later hooking me up. The relief was wonderful! I sat in total comfort for the next four hours. At 6:30p I was finally dilated to a four.  I was dilated to a seven at 7:30p and then was fully dilated to a ten at 8:20p.  At that point the nurse told me that the doctor might have me wait for an hour before actually pushing, but she would go check with him. I was not happy about that bit of news and earnestly hoped the doctor would have then sense to just let me start pushing. Thankfully pushing got underway immediately. It was hard work, but not too bad actually. I think I only pushed about 7 times. Little Eva was finally born at 9:01p. They put her right on my stomach and had me hold her while Morgan cut the umbilical cord (I was so proud of him!). I had heard, when I was researching natural birth vs. having an epidural, that some people felt like because of the epidural they didn't feel totally aware when their baby came. That was definitely not the case with me. Holding her on my stomach for the first time about made my heart burst. That was MY baby! After the umbilical cord was cut they wisked her over to a table to get her cleaned up and weighed.

She didn't let out any sort of loud cry which caused some alarm. After a few minutes they decided she needed to be taken to the NICU to make sure her lungs were opening all the way.

First daddy-daughter pic. Morgan was already SO smitten with his little girl.  

I sent Morgan with her and stayed behind to get stitched up. I tore pretty badly. Having a 10 pound baby leaves its mark. I had a 2nd degree tear going down and a 1st degree tear going up. It took them a good hour to stitch me up and then another half hour to finally get to go to the NICU to see my baby.

 First family photo.

I finally got settled into my recovery room at around 11:00p, and still didn't even get to hold my baby until 12:30a. I was so anxious to hold my little one (the after birth contractions and waiting to hold her were probably the hardest parts of labor for me). Consequently, when they finally brought her in, I held her skin to skin all night and hardly slept a wink…but it was worth it!

Now our little one is already 18 days old, starting to smile and really growing! Here are her newest facial expressions.

Late Christmas Card Pictures

Well, being new parents has definitely been an adventure so far. We love our sweet little girl. She has such big eyes and is happy when she is not hungry, getting a diaper change or having a bath. We are both tired from getting little sleep, but she is worth it.

We expected little Eva to get here before Christmas so we had Christmas cards ready to go all we needed was a picture of her. Since she was late, we found ourselves taking Christmas baby pictures of the little lady on New Years Eve.

So...happy (late) holidays!

And then there were three...

Introducing…

Eva Kate Lyons

born 12-27-13 @ 9:01pm

weighing 9lbs 11oz (Wowza!!)

21 inches long

We love our sweet daughter and are so glad she arrived safely!

Christmas Time and Still No Baby

Well it's the most magical time of the year and I am currently three days overdue. Not unusual, I suppose. I finally gave up hope that "today is the day". She'll come when she wants to. We may have a stubborn one our hands. Anyway, in the mean time I have been documenting a little of our holiday season here in Provo and thought I would share. First off, being 9 months pregnant has in no way inhibited my desire to party. I am super lucky to have no aches and pains, sleep soundly and have enough energy to do lots of things while being a whale-like size. To pass the time the last few days Morgan and I have done the following:

- Went to the new Hobbit movie (very good, by the way, much better than the first one)
- Went to Catching Fire (also very good and better than the first)
- Had dinner and went shopping at the mall
- Went to dinner with some friends at Goodwood BBQ (fantastic restaurant that I would highly recommend)
- 'Finished' our Christmas cards (they won't be truly finished until baby arrives so we can get a picture of her)

On top of that, I have been continuing to work full time. I'm hoping (cross your fingers) that I won't need to go in Monday, but seeing as I have had zero contractions for the last 24 hours I find it highly probable that I will be working tomorrow as well. :(  Anyway, I am super glad that at least I don't feel terrible. I have been super blessed this entire pregnancy (with the exception of morning sickness). I'm very grateful that sleep isn't a problem because of aches or pains or largeness in general. However, we are anxious to meet our little girl. She can't stay in there forever, so someday soon we will flood the world with pictures…stay tuned.

This year (since we are staying around for Christmas) is the first time I have decorated our apartment. I found a steal of a deal on our tree (lights, ornaments, tree skirt and tree for $35) and we finally settled on some temporary stockings for the year. The house feels very homey with all the Christmas decorations.

Our tree looks somewhat scarce in ornaments because we are planning on only having colored bulbs and then an ornament for each year of our marriage. That makes the different ornaments this year a whopping two (one for our wedding last year and one for the baby this year).

I also made this gingerbread house. It didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it, but I'm glad I at least finished it.

We sure our excited for Christmas this year and can't wait to celebrate with family. Hopefully our new little family member will decide she wants in on all the fun. We'll keep you posted!

Date Night

I really like themed dates. This past Friday I decided to throw together an "American Art Date". I know, sounds fancy. For dinner we visited this new restaurant on Provo Center Street called Station 22.  Their cuisine is All-American. I got fried chicken and Morgan got pulled pork. It tasted….ok. We weren't super impressed actually, but the one thing I will forever love because of this restaurant is spiced apple cider/beer. It tastes like carbonated apple pie and is super delicious. If you find some, get it! After dinner we headed to the Museum of Art. Every first Friday of the month they do an event and have live music and refreshments. The music was a lovely trio of a violin, cello, and an oboe. It was beautiful and they had pumpkin cake and hot apple cider and hot chocolate. We walked around all the exhibits and then headed home. At home we became our artists and finger painted portraits of each other. Morgan's looked great and actually resembled me and mine looked nothing like him. We finished off the night by watching all of the scary episodes of Psych. It really was so fun to just do something different for date night! Here are some pictures, enjoy!

I just had to...

Ok, so my husband is ridiculously handsome (as many of you know). Anyway, he also was a ridiculously adorable child. I LOVE looking at his younger pictures because of how darn cute he is! So, I just have to show the world how potentially attractive our offspring will be by showing pictures of him while growing up. These pictures our courtesy of our wedding video....

And for my absolute favorite of all time...

SOOOO cute, right?

This is Halloween

Fall here in Provo is beautiful this year. We have enjoyed seeing the leaves change colors and have really been soaking up the last few days of warmth before winter sets in. Because i'm not in school for the first fall ever in Provo, I have been planning tons of activities for us to enjoy. So far we have been to Thriller by the Odyssey Dance Company, went through a corn maze and rode on a hayride at Cornbelly's, participated in a chili cook-off and took first for the spiciest chili, carved pumpkins, took a drive up Provo canyon to look at leaves, made carmel apples, went to witches night out (with Abi) and went to two Halloween parties. For Halloween, Morgan is dressing up as the National Debt Ceiling and I am Ursula from the Little Mermaid (I figured I had the perfect figure these days). I spent quite a bit of time making and putting up our fall/Halloween decorations. This is what I came up with this year.

I also managed to make the 'perfect' chocolate chip cookie (according to Morgan). I tried to make a couple of versions earlier in the fall but they failed miserably. This recipe is the tried and true Lyons family recipe.

And lastly for this month, I am now 32 weeks and I feel like a balloon. Only 8 more weeks (hopefully) to go! We are excited to meet our wiggly munchkin. I keep having dreams that she is born and I wake up confused that I'm still pregnant. So, far I have still been feeling great! So, no complaints here. My only wish is that she comes before Christmas for her sake. We shall see. Here is how the "balloon" me looks these days.

Oh, and Morgan carved an awesome pumpkin for Halloween. Here it is:

Happy Halloween!