Welcome Baby Steele

He has finally arrived! Steele Victor was born on April 5th at 2:25 pm. He was 8 lbs 10 oz and 21 inches long. He has a full head of hair and is quite handsome. I was induced that day and the doctor thought he would come a lot sooner than he did. He took his time showing up and there was a short period when we thought I would have to have a cesarean. He finally decided to come though and was much bigger than anyone thought he would be. I had only gained 16 lbs through the pregnancy with having a few illnesses and so I figured he would be a bit smaller than Ember was (they were the same weight at birth). He had a little difficulty breathing at first so they had to give him some oxygen immediately but he was fine shortly after and hasn't had any problems since. His middle name is after his grandfather on Josh's side and his first name is just because we really like it. We have noticed that people either love or hate it when we tell them what we named him. I came home from the hospital on Saturday and have been adjusting to life with two kids. My mom was here to help for a couple of days but now I am on my own and it is definitely a lot more work, although the 2nd child is so much easier than the first because there are so many things that don't bother you as much, like a little bit of crying. I am much more relaxed the second time around. Here are some pictures of our little guy. We love having him!

Photos and Emberisms

A friend of mine asked me to take their family pictures. I was a little intimidated, mainly because it has been years since I took pictures that I thought were of high enough quality to frame. And secondly, because I have a new camera that I don't know the ins and outs of yet. So, in preparation for this photo shoot and because, shameful as it is, Ember had never been there in the 2.5 years of her life, we took a trip to the Mesa temple for a photo shoot. Here are some of my favorites. She isn't much for posing and would much rather be looking at the pictures then getting hers taken but some turned out okay.She has been saying all sorts of crazy things lately so here are a few of my favorite for your entertainment:
* If mom gets on the table, it will break (gotta love that)
* I walked into her/our room at 9:15 at night thinking, of coarse she is asleep by now. With no other explanation she informed me "You like the yellow one and the red one and Daddy likes the green one" Yup, she got that right. Sure glad she was staying up late to solve that riddle.
*She has been doing a lot of things with her toys lately that reflect what she does. She puts them in time-out, or puts them to bed then will come tell me all about it. My favorite is when she fake hits me with one of her toys then will put that toy in time out for hitting mommy. It is very cute.
*We bought a Curious George book at Goodwill and she has been loving it. One day she was getting into everything and I told her that she was curious. You would have thought she got a prize for how much she lit up. She began telling everyone (including me about 500 times in the next hour), "I'm curious!" Then she would smile proudly. At least I didn't use a different word to describe her. *I was packing up our house and needed something to distract her so I could get things done. I found some rocks that we used as decorations at our wedding. They are black rocks that have words on them such as Love, hope, kiss, smile, etc. I gave them to Ember to play with and she was content for a little while. I was so relieved that I could actually get some things done. I went into the other room and began packing and soon she came bounding into the room and said "Here you go Mom" and handed me a rock. I looked down and the rock said "Listen". I suddenly felt very ashamed for not taking the time I should have for her. I sat down and we played together with the rocks and she talked my ear off for awhile. It was really a lesson to me about how important it is to spend time with her. You know, everything got packed up in time too, even though I spent that half hour with her.

Adventures in OK

We made it through the move, unfortunately it wasn't as uneventful as we had hoped. We packed up the UHaul on Wednesday then my Dad and Josh drove it all night. Ember, my mom, my brother, and I flew in the next afternoon and we all arrived at about the same time. After unloading everything (them, not me. I just kept Ember out of the way), my Dad and brother flew home and Josh, my Mom, and I started unpacking. Things were going great and were starting to fall into order. The next day we continued through most of the day and had a good portion of the boxes unpacked when I started to feel sick. I had a sharp pain in my side and so I sat down, then tried to lay down, then I started throwing up. I tried everything I could think of to help myself feel better but nothing seemed to help. Finally around 8 at night I had Josh take me to the hospital. At first everyone, including me, thought that it was my appendix. I was in a lot of pain and was dehydrated from the nausea which sent me into having contractions about every 3 minutes. The doctors were afraid that I was going to have to have the baby immediately so they gave me some steroids to help develop the baby's lungs. After some pain medication, and medication to stop my contractions, I was able to calm down some. They did an ultrasound and found that the pain wasn't in the area of my appendix so I didn't get a CT scan. They think that in the unpacking I must have gotten a torqued ovary and the pressure of the uterus was causing the pain. I spent two nights there and by the time I left I was virtually pain free. I came home on Sunday and the pain was off an on for the next couple of days. What hurt the most was trying to roll over in bed. My whole stomach was sore from the strain and I have finally given up on it. Now I just sleep sitting up. I went to my new doctor on Wednesday and he could tell I was still in a lot of pain so he gave me a prescription for pain medications which have helped so much. I am okay most of the time, but the baby will sometimes kick me in my sore ovary which is so painful. I am also having contractions still, and although they aren't regular, they are very hard, sometimes to the point where I yell out in pain. I am now on bed rest for at least 3 weeks so that the baby can make it to at least 38 weeks. For awhile I thought there was no way I was going to make it that long, but I am starting to feel like I can. My Mom has been so great through all of this. She finished unpacking for us, took care off Ember for us, and made all our meals for the first week. She has gone home now, but took Ember with her since I really can't care for her the way I would need to. I am so lucky to have had her here and I hope she knows how much she is appreciated! It is so quiet now, Josh is working nights so he sleeps during the day. I just hope I don't get too bored in the next few weeks. I know I can't do anything strenuous but it is so hard to look around and see all the things you would normally do in a day- if you weren't stuck sitting all the time. At least I am at my own home though, rather than stuck in a hospital and at least I am feeling 100 times better than I was. Now if the baby will just stay put for awhile longer it will be good.

Oklahoma

We are moving to Oklahoma in two weeks. I have never been there so it is kind of surreal to be up and moving. I haven't blogged about it, but Josh has been living in Wyoming/Colorado/Oklahoma for the last year for work so I have been home with Ember (and working full time too). My last day of work was Thursday and so now we are packing up and getting ready to move. Josh has a permanent office job now so he won't be traveling and although he will have to work a lot still, we will at least see him for a few hours every day. It will be so nice to be together after enduring a whole year apart with only sporadic visits every few months. Ember is pretty excited too. Whenever we talk about Oklahoma or moving she follows up with "And then we will see Daddy" with a big smile on her face. I am a little scared though, because I don't know anyone who lives there and I am currently 7 months pregnant. It is not very fun to worry about finding a new doctor, a new hospital to deliver at, someone who is willing to watch Ember while I am in the hospital, and living in a new place without any family support with a new baby. I guess I just have to trust that everything will be okay.
We had an ultrasound taken last week to get a better facial profile and he is doing well. We took Ember with us and she had a really rough morning. She cried through the entire ultrasound which is very unusual for her. Contrary to what the people in the office probably thought, she is generally a pretty well behaved girl- granted that she is only two-and-a-half and has her share of difficult moments. I could just see the looks from all the people working there that seemed to say, "Why did you bring the kid here"(okay so they may have thought *Brat*). Poor Josh didn't get to come to the first ultrasound and then had to hold a screaming kid through this one. I felt terrible. One fun thing that the technician said though is that he has hair already! Ember did too when she was born. Other than that he is healthy and growing well.
I have only gained 10 pounds so far with this baby, which anyone who saw me would probably think was a lie. I am huge already. My doctor said that I should gain at least 10 more in the next 10 weeks so I am trying to eat more without going overboard. I need to take a picture to see how my belly is with this pregnancy as compared with my last one. My sister in law, who is due in three weeks commented yesterday that I am definitely bigger than she is. I must just carry my baby all in front. I got asked the other day when I went to the temple if I was going to be okay through the session. It was quite funny because I could tell the woman was sure I was about to go into labor any minute. She probably would have felt bad if she knew my due date wasn't for another 2 months!

Happy Birthday Josh

So my attempts to get a good Happy Birthday picture were thwarted by a little girl who wanted to draw on her chalkboard. As soon as I gave it to her to hold up she immediately erased it and then scowled at me for trying such a silly think. What was I thinking?
Anyway, without the nice picture, Happy birthday Josh/Daddy. We love you lots and can't wait to see you again. We are so lucky to have you as our husband/Dad. I hope you know how much you mean to us and how much we are looking forward to being a real family again. We love you and hope you have a very happy birthday.