July

I want to write down what we are doing at least once a month! I know I should blog every week or every other week, but once a month is a good as I can do right now!

This past month we had fun with all the fireworks friends and family! We had our friends the Sprays over for the 4^th and they took pictures of the babies!  It was a lot of fun!

We went to the Hatch family reunion again this year! It was a lot of fun as always, but a lot hotter this year.  We only staid one night, but I spent most of the time on grandmas bed with the girls trying to get out of the heat! The boys had a lot of fun at the lake looking for new adventures things to do, after a lot of contemplation, Tyson and Jeremiah decided to run his bike off the boat ramp into the water. It ended up being the form of entertainment for everyone at the lake!

The next day we staid over in Cedar City and went to the Munford reunion. It was a lot of fun to meet Tysons cousin Adam and his wife Hayley and their family. It is amazing to see Tysons resemblance to this side of the family!

My grandma came and staid with us for a week because my sister got married this month! It was a lot of fun to have Grandma stay with us and help out, the girls always love to have someone around to hold them when I just can’t! It was also fun to talk to Grandma about her experience with raising twins( my dad and his brother) She told me about how after she gave birth she didn’t even get to hold her babies until she took them home about 8 weeks later. When she got them home she would bottle their milk in a canner after she made it from PET brand evaporated milk! She also cloth diapered the twins and had four kids in diapers because they were so close in age!  She didn’t have high chairs so she would tie the boys to the chairs with dish towels to feed them. She did all of this before she was 20 years old! I have a lot to be grateful for!

As I said my sister got married! Caitlyn married Chandler on the 30^th in the Draper Temple! It was so fun to see my baby sister get married! I can still remember the day she was born, my sweet little “Baby Cakes” got married! Everything was beautiful, and everyone did such a good job with planning it all out. I loved every minute of it; it had to be the best wedding I have been to in a while!  I will have to put pictures up soon.

Isaac is starting school in the next few weeks and I don’t know who is more excited, him or me! He is going to the Solder Hollow Charter School; it is in the building that housed the cross country ski stuff during the Olympics. He went in to be tested and he knew everything, several times the teacher asked him how he knew something and he said “It’s because I’m smart”. She was thinking that he should be put in the first grade but I was a little worried about that so I think he is just going to be left in Kindergarten.

Ethan is finally going to Primary on his own! While I was on bed rest he got used to Daddy coming with him to class. I was done with that so I took him a few time and let him know I would be back when I was finished feeding the babies. He has been fine ever since then, except it is still his nap time so he will fall asleep if he is too tired!

Alayna is getting so big! I just took the girls in for their four month visit and Alayna is 15lbs and 95% for height and weight in the normal baby chart! She loves her food and still wants to eat in the night. Last night I tried to not feed her in the night and it went really well. I hope we can keep it up! Alayna is all smiles and is starting to giggle! Today we had a long day and she was so tired, Daddy was holding her and she was having a melt down and for the first time I noticed that she was looking around for me and when she saw me she was sobbing so had she was shaking, poor girl. She is such a love I felt so bad! Both girls have also discovered their brothers and it is so cute to see the girls watch for the boys and smile and get excited to see them. At the same time, the boys love to get in the girls faces and when they do that the girls are done with them and can become hysterical with fear.  So mommy has to watch them a lot!

Olivia is my little girl; I have never had a child that was this petite! She is so little I still feel like she is going to break! She was 11lbs 10oz and 2in shorter than sister! She is in the 75% for height and 25% for weight. Her neck is doing a lot better and she loves to sit up with help. I think she will be the first to sit and crawl! She is all smiles too but a little more shy than Alayna about it! I have also discovered (with grandmas help) that she does not like having noise when she is eating, she also doesn’t want to be upset when she is about to eat! If I wait too long to feed her and she can hear things, she will stop eating and yell at me. It’s not a cry ether; she will look in my eyes and squawk at me in a mad way! Even then she is my sweet little china doll and I love her!

I have been loving Heber! The nights as so nice and I love to sit on the porch and look at all the colors in the sky as the sun goes down. I wish I could make it out to play in the day, but night seems to be the easiest time for me to get out. It has been a wonderful summer but I think it will be nice to get into more of a set schedule this fall.

Girls!

We had our new friends the Sprays over at the beginning of the month, Josh takes pictures and was so kind to take these in our basement! It was a lot of fun and he is so talented, his wife Tara was such a big help! I love them!

June

I love how much Isaac looks like Olivia and Ethan looks like Alayna!

Olivia puked on Alaynas head!

Pictures

Life

Life has been crazy lately. I feel like I am running around a lot, but I wanted to get some things written down before I forget! The girls are a little over two months now and growing like weeds. At there two month appointment Alayna was 11lbs %oz (97%) 22.75in (90%) Olivia was 9lbs (50%) 21in (10%).

Alayna is my little talker (more like screamer!) she needs to know someone is hearing her all the time. She also needs to eat all day long. She is starting to smile and talk and is way too cute for her own good, she looks so much like Ethan did, but is just like Isaac as a baby; always needs to entertain and be entertained! She is such a strong, chunky, happy baby! She is such a beautiful baby with her perfect skin, big eyes and wonderful smile; I love to make her smile!

Olivia is my little angel; she is so quiet I have to make sure she is getting enough attention. She has a little quiet cry that she uses only when she has had enough, and she needs me now! She has tons of dark hair and beautiful little eyes with long lashes; she has dark olive skin and petite little features. She is not an eater and I wonder if she will ever catch up to her sister. Her neck is getting a little better but she is still not as strong as her sister. She looks similar to what Isaac looked as a baby, but she has more of Ethan’s personality. She is also starting to smile and talk and her little smile might be more of mine than any of my other kids!

Isaac and Ethan love their sisters. Some days more than others! Isaac has been a big help with the girls, he loves to feed Alayna when she just needs a bottle and I need a break! He loves to sing them songs like the A says Ahh. They will be so happy but if he stops to figure out what letter is next, the girls start screaming! Ethan loves the babies and wants to hold them and play with them all the time. It isn’t always possible, and if I tell him “No” when he wants to play with them he can start acting out. He thinks that the girls can handle toys being thrown at them……we are working on that, ugh.

Tyson is doing well, tired as ever! After ten years at Log Craft he is leaving to work for a company that he had been doing work for the past 6 months. They do anchors for large buildings and needed someone to design and engineer their product for each bid. It was hard trying to do three jobs, and after the company kept asking him for more of his time something had to give. We are sad to leave Log Craft, we have such wonderful friends there, but they are right down the road so we will have to still bug them once in a while!

Last week Tyson went to England for some training, he had a lot of fun seeing London, the Queen opened Parliament that day so he got to see her whole parade. What a lucky guy! He also had fun with his cousin Jared and family.

This summer we are hoping to finish our yard, so Tyson and Branson have been working on that the sprinklers are almost in and we have new dirt. We hope to get grass soon so I can send the kids outside and they won’t get as dirty!

Everyone asks how I am feeling, I feel wonderful! It is so nice to be up and moving around. Being on bed rest for five months can take a toll on a body, and I am grateful I feel as good as I do. Being able to exercise when I can is such a blessing and it feels so wonderful to feel my lungs sting as I work out. I want to go everywhere and do everything, but it is a little harder with 4 kids! Some days I am exhausted and if I look like I am in a coma I probably am! Sorry is you catch me on those days! Life is crazy, but I am just happy that we are so healthy and blessed!

Alayna and Olivia

We welcomed Olivia Jolene (Baby A) 6lbs 1oz; and Alayna Kathleen (Baby B) 7lbs 7oz into the world March 24 2010! I was so happy with the delivery. My doctor, Dr. Thomas Judd, was out of town this week on a family emergency, but we still had his partner, Dr. Nick Weibell. I trust him just as much as I trust Dr Judd. The girls were born at 7:06 and 7:10 pm. Doctor Weibell could not believe how big they were for 35.4 weeks! The delivery was amazing to watch, probably the coolest delivery I have ever seen. We put TLC to shame!

It was an eventful couple of days leading up to the delivery. Sunday was full of hard contractions. We decided to head down to the valley to Mom’s house that evening to be closer to the hospital in case they decided to come out. By about nine that night the contractions completely went away. We stayed the night and went to a doctor’s appointment the next morning. Everything looked great to Dr. Judd and he said we could probably make it another week; maybe more (kill me now). Then we ran over to the perinatologist’s office to have their fluid levels checked. Baby B was still showing low at 1.9 cm. Other than that, they still looked great so we went back home to Heber.

Tuesday is when the adventure came to a head. I freaked Tyson out pretty good at work. He had just started a meeting in Midway when I called him in full labor. Luckily his boss was there to finish the meeting. He came home and we loaded up the car and headed down to the valley, again. The moment we got to the hospital the contractions stopped, again. We sat there with mom and looked at the hospital for a half an hour before deciding that nothing was going to happen. We went to Burlington for a little walk (a very long one involving 3 full tours of the Baby Depot in the back of the store). Then we hit up the India Palace for our last supper and then headed back to the hospital. It was 9 pm when we got back to the hospital. I decided to get checked before heading back up the canyon. They admitted me and the contractions were strong enough to change me from a 4 + to a 6. It was enough for the doctors to let me get induced. They wanted to wait until morning for the perinatologist’s to have another look at the fluid levels.

So, morning rolled around and my perinatologist, Helen is out of town this week too. Go figure. The peri in her place finally looked me over and after about 10 minutes worth of disclaimers and reasons I shouldn’t have the babies, said that B’s water was low enough for me to be induced. YAH!

1:00 pm, Wednesday afternoon, the pitocin drip started and the contractions soon followed. They start the drip at a rate of 4 ml per hour and increase it by 4 every hour. They say that 12 is the magic number. It’s not. I was at 16 when the Dr. Weibell showed up at 5:00 pm and still wasn’t feeling the painful contractions they said I should be having. They got the epidural in, after stabbing my spinal sheathing. They wanted to break my water, but decided to wait before they got an operating room ready. I was dilated to an 8 and they didn’t want them to fall out right there. The wait was on to get a clean operating room.

The broke my water the moment we got into the room and everyone was scrubbed in. We had me, of course; Ty, Mom, Dr Weibell, RN Kathryn, and the anesthesiologist. After pushing for 4 contractions, Baby A popped out. The poor girl looked like she’d been sat out for 8 months. Right after she was out and rushed off too another room for cleaning, Dr Weibell had his hand up me looking for Baby B. She was kicking squirming to avoid his grip, but he managed to get her. She was half way out before Mom and Ty came running back in from looking at the first one. B slid out after one more push and it was all over. What a relief! Dr Weibell could not believe how big they were. Especially Baby B.

We are all hanging out in Labor and Delivery now trying to recuperate. The girls are nursing amazingly well for their gestational age and I feel like I had a rail line just run through my middle section. Also, because of the mishap on the epidural, I got to do a spinal patch to stop the leak of fluid from my spine (I don’t recommend that). All in all, we have been blessed with a wonderful delivery and a beautiful pair of girls. Thank you everyone or the love and support through this long pregnancy.

Love Jolene (and Tyson for typing this for Jolene!)

35!

I am 35 weeks! Well 35 weeks to me, if you ask the Perinatologist (Helen) would tell you I won’t be 35 till Tuesday. I go off my first ultrasound and those three days make all the difference to me!

I always wanted to make it to 34 weeks or 36, and I’m so excited I made it that far! I do have to say my mom and Helen are right behind me on being excited! Helen has told me she is so happy she has kept me pregnant this long, she thinks I should now go to 38 weeks, now that is a little mean!

Today we went to find out how much they weigh! Baby A is 6lbs 6oz they think, her head is so low it is really hard to get the right measurements, she could be bigger! Baby B is 6lb 5 oz and she looks bigger than A, but the measurements looked a little goofy so they said she could be bigger as well! I went off the medicine today that I have been taking forever and I am happy to be off it, it has a lot of side effects I am happy to be done with!

So now we are just waiting to see what my body does, I have noticed over the past week that I don’t feel as much pressure as I usually do( so nice!). I think they have gotten so big they aren’t resting on my cervix anymore and are just wedged in there really tight! Also baby A has her face sunny side up so I will be curious to see if she turns (anyone out there have this happen?) I did find out that my OB will be out of town all next week (family emergency) so Tyson wants we to have them by Monday!

I get asked if I am ready to have them, I am, but I’m not. I am so big, its hard on my body, I can’t breathe, I have stretch marks on top of stretch marks, I get really dizzy and see wonderful spots, but I want them to be ready to come out. It was good to see my sister have her babies last year because it inspires me to keep them in longer. One baby is hard, but two babies with complications and two boys’ is harder! Am I ready? I don’t know, ask me after I’m in more pain and have more stretch marks! 

Rachel's babies, Fritz and Finn after they had been in the Hospital for a few weeks. They were born at 34 1/2 weeks.