THE KENNARD KLAN: October 2013

Halloween is always an exciting day, especially at our house. It always ends up being a super busy day but a great one. Anastyn wore the Fairy costume at school. Taeya wore the angel fairy costume and Quincee was a skeleton/catepillar. We watched the parade at Taeya's school, went trick or treating at Xango, went and saw Papa and Nana, then headed home for some trick or treating. Gordon took the girls down the road to all the scary houses. After the decided they had enough candy they helped me pass out candy and glow sticks. I think Anastyn especially enjoyed this task, maybe even more than trick or treating! The weather was perfect so we had lots of cute kiddos knock on our door.

Taeya went by us in a really quick blur! Slow down!

At dance the day before Halloween Taeya had a little party at dance, we didn't know she was supposed to wear her costume so her teacher helped dress her up!

Anastyn at Xango

Quincee the skeleton/witch at Xango - 10 days old

Taeya as a fairy/angel

Anastyn ready to go trick or treating.

My awesome family - I was a little bit lame and didn't dress up this year.

My favorite skeleton/witch.

All my girls.

Taeya went trick -or-treating with flat Brielle. We miss Brielle.

What an exciting event....Here goes a long, detailed story. So my due date with Baby #3 was October 26th, on Thursday, October 17th I worked in the morning and then went straight to my doctors appointment at noon. Dr. Lawrence told me she would strip membranes at this appointment if I wanted her to. I thought that sounded like a good idea. Well at my appointment she said "I'm going to be honest, I have 3 baseball games tonight, can we strip membranes in the morning?" Of course that was fine with me. I had a million things to do and what's one more day right? After my Thursday appointment I went and got a much needed pedicure and cleaned the house a bit that night. We met on Friday morning at 8:00am and she checked me and striped membranes. She said I was dialated to a 4. She said she would be surprised if I went 48 hours without having the baby. I went home and told Gordon that, then he went off to work. I think he was a little nervous about that. He checked on me several times that day. I cleaned the house, got my bag all packed, and cleaned my car. We went to the movie that night with Seth and Alyson, we saw Iron Man 3 - Gordon was so paranoid my water was going to break in the middle of the movie! Saturday morning I cleaned the house some more, we went to a baby shower for Ariel, and a soccer game for Anastyn. Gordon cleaned out the garage and then we went to Cornbelly's. I thought it would be good to walk around - maybe get things going?? Normally we do so many fun things doing the month of October but this year was a little boring, compared to past years so I thought Cornbelly's would be fun for the girls. Cornbelly's was great, the weather was beautiful and the girls had a blast. I was having contractions on and off throughout the night. Around 7:00 I really wasn't feeling great so we convinced the girls to go home. Sunday we went to church, I went for a long walk (did the long loop), and then Alyson made us dinner. Still nothing. Sunday night I went to bed. I woke up about 1:00 and went to the bathroom, laid back down and it felt like just a few minutes later I was jumping up to go again. But this time I was a little wet - not pee wet, but not quite sure what it was cause it wasn't enough to seem like my water broke. I wasn't having contractions so I thought it was odd. I changed my clothes and laid back down. A few minutes later the contractions started. Dr. Lawrence had told me if my water broke or if I was having really intense contractions I should go to the hospital quickly cause she really thought I would go fast. So the contractions started and already were only 4ish minutes apart. Immediately I thought of all the things I needed to get done for the morning - Taeya had picture day at school on Tueday, Anastyn had dance - I needed to get clothes ready for the girls since I figured I wouldn't be home for a few days. I woke Gordon up around 3:00 and he and I debated about what to do. We ended up calling Alyson and having her come over. She just went back to sleep in our bed (she planned to take the girls to her house in the morning and get Taeya off to school).

On the way to the hospital we talked a little more about names. I was still pretty convinced we were having a boy and was going for the name Calloway, girl names were getting a little tricky. I liked Quintyn, Quin, Quincy, we still had on the list Sydney and Madalyn, but that was about it. When we got to the hospital and I kindof felt like an idiot. I just wasn't confident they would let me stay, I wasn't sure if my water had actually broken, I was still having contractions and they were pretty painful but I wasn't dying yet! We got to the hospital around 4:00. They got me in a room and asked me a million questions, then they used a pH strip to see if my water had broken - it came up negative but she said there is another test they could do where they swab the cervix and then test it in the lab. The nurse was not confident that this test would be positive and neither was I but they did it and then she checked me and told me I was only dialated to a 4. I was a little disappointed, but a few minutes later she came back and said the test was positive - I was so relieved that they weren't going to send me home and I didn't pee my pants!! They moved me to a delivery room. By this time it was almost 6:00am. Dr. Lawrence came shortly after I got to the delivery room and talked to me. She asked me if I was planning on having an epidural and I told her yes. I always think about going "natural" but then the contractions start and I remember how painful they actually are and I change my mind. The Dr. said she had a surgery scheduled at 7:00 am at a different hospital. I don't know this for sure - but I think that she loaded me up with pitocin to speed things up. The pitocin makes the contractions much more intense which was bad cause I didn't have my epidural yet, the anesthesiologist was doing a c-section. (Apparently it was a really busy weekend at the hospital). Things were getting a little painful but I'm tough:) I finally got the epidural around 7:20am, but didn't start feeling a little relief until 7:30. Dr. Lawrence stayed the whole time and was just waiting for me to be a 10! She was telling funny stories about her residency and things were going good. I quickly got to a 10 and pushed a few times. Because I hadn't had the epidural very long I felt alot of the pressure and a little burning pain as I was delivering the baby, at one point I was thinking "isn't there a button I can press to give me more pain meds?"

Since we didn't know the gender of the baby Dr. Lawrence likes the dad to make the gender announcement. Baby GIRL was born at 7:55am and we were so happy!! I did tear so she stitched me up while they took care of baby girl. She was so perfect with tons of dark hair. She weighed 8 lbs 10 oz and was 20 inches long and was so perfect! The doctor joked that she had big feet and was a big girl. Since the hospital was so busy I got to keep her with me for a good hour. I nursed her and she immediately latched on and started sucking - I guess that might be one of the benefits of a big baby:) I enjoyed my "skin to skin" time. Gordon went with the baby to get a bath and do all the other necessary test. She said she was so good and pretty much just laid there all relaxed. I ate some breakfast then they took me down to the mother/baby floor.

Gordon checked Taeya out of school during lunch time and brought the girls to the hospital to meet their new sister! Since Anastyn had been with Alyson all morning she new it was a baby girl but Taeya did not want to know. Anastyn kept giving her hints so I'm sure she figured it out but she pretended not to know. All along if you would ask them if the thought it was a boy or girl they would say "we think it's a boy but we want it to be a girl!" They were both immediately in love! She is so adorable. Taeya hated to go back to school. Anastyn hung out with us for a bit then my parents met us at the hospital around 4:00 to meet the baby and take the girls home for the night. I thought it would be better if Gordon slept at home so he could get rested. He picked Taeya up at 7:30am from my parents and took her to school. My mom and dad took Anastyn to school from 9-12 then she hung out with them for the rest of the day. I didn't sleep well that night in the hospital, too many door openings and closings, and nurses coming in and out, so I debated about going home that night. The baby did great - just feeding every 3ish hours. Dr. Lawrence encouraged me to stay and take a sleeping pill. I did end up staying and tuesday night was much better - I used ear plugs. So far this baby is amazing. She is pretty chill and a good little sucker. We will keep her! We had a super hard time with a name. By Wednesday morning we had decided on Quincy, but just didn't know how to spell it. All of us girls in the family have a "y" in our name but I didn't like the "Quincy" spelling and Gordon wasn't a fan of "Kwyncee." I liked the K spelling, I think it looks super cute but I was just worried it's not a proper spelling, no one would ever spell it right, which I'm okay with but thought it would be good to at least get the first letter right! It was a big debate but in the end we went home from the hospital with the name as Kwyncee Ella Kennard.

The baby's biliruben levels were high (jaundice) so I was told to take her back to the hospital Thursday morning to have blood drawn. While we were there we tracked down the birth certificate application and changed the spelling to Quincee. She doesn't have a "y" but I really loved the "ee" and the Q seemed much better. We can say she had a Y in her name for a day! She is an angel and we are all totally in love with her!