We were so spoiled to have Aunt Sarah here to take newborns of Eleanor when she was just a few days old. It was very convenient being able to shoot on our schedule and change our props, lighting and outfits to our heart’s content!
Newborns by Sarah Arnoff Photos.
Newborn alien eyes!
Apprentices Samantha and Amelia stepped in to assist.
It wouldn’t be a newborn shoot without dresser pics!
We will treasure these forever!
Lots of love,
Our first week home with newborn Elle was a whirlwind of feeding, late nights, early mornings, and driving the other girls around to all their activities! Thank goodness Grammy and Aunt Sarah were there to help out. The twins were still in preschool three days a week through the end of June, so there was drop-off, pick-up, lunch packing and Helper of the Day to take care of, plus swimming lessons for all three. We divided and conquered, with me handling mostly just the baby, and Grammy and Aunt Sarah taking charge of the twins, Meredith and pretty much everything else.
Our first night home with Eleanor was rough! She was awake all hours of the night and Jake and I had a few moments of “What have we done??!!!” as the sleep deprivation began to take its toll. Exhaustion and feeling like a cow are all I remember about the first few weeks! Eleanor liked to sleep a lot during the day, which we hoped would reverse into more night sleeping soon as she got used to her new environment. To add to the mayhem, due to her elevated jaundice levels, Jake and I took turns carting her to the pediatrician for her check-up and then to the hospital lab for blood work every day that week. It was exhausting and one more thing to worry about! Fortunately, her levels went down on their own by Saturday and we didn’t need to take home a special lamp for phototherapy or admit her to the hospital.
Before Eleanor was born, we worried about how Meredith would take a new little sister in our crew, but she did the best out of everyone! She was eager to help grab diapers, toys, cuddle and help feed a bottle to Eleanor. The twins were also enamored of their baby sister and showed their preschool classes pictures and made cards for her. The girls were especially excited when Eleanor brought them some “nice to meet you” presents and toys, and were also happy when anyone came to visit since that usually meant they received some “big sister” gifts as well.
Showering the new babe with love! Photos by Sarah Arnoff
Kisses for Queen Eleanor.
Meredith’s antics always make for good photo opportunities.
Who needs camping when we can have s’mores in our backyard.
More photos from Week 1 (my cell phone pics because I was too out of it to take any good ones!)
Those newborn alien eyes!
Where am I??!!
The girls loved checking the mail every day for cute baby gifts from friends and family.
Aunt Sarah and the baby queen.
Dreamy smile.
Meredith always has way too much fun with Snapchat filters.
Since Eleanor was born on the day their preschool had their Daddy Daughter day, Jake took them out for pancakes another day to make up for not being there. The girls agreed it was an acceptable trade.
Samantha and Amelia are great climbers– their favorite is practicing in a tree at the end of our cul-de-sac.
The twins were always picking bouquets for me on their walks.
Saturday morning paddle boarding adventure in Newport while I stayed home with the baby.
Our twins club had a playdate/party at the park, complete with a little petting zoo, and a traveling reptile zoo.
Meredith meets a tortoise.
Eek snake.
Snuggle time! Mmmmm that newborn smell (and the smell of Dreft) is so delicious!
Grammy and Eleanor.
Meeting Great Grandpa.
Meeting Great Auntie Lynn and Great Uncle Steve.
It’s officially summer! Let the daily watermelon extravaganza begin.
Juicy!
Lots of love,
Picking up where I left off on Birth Story Part I…
Monday, June 18, 2018, midnight: Jake snored on the couch in the hospital room most of the night, and while deeply grateful for the epidural, I didn’t get more than a few minutes sleep, tossing and turning in the uncomfortable hospital bed. Angie, our awesome nurse, and Dr. Lo came in to check on me every once in a while, but other than that it was pretty quiet. The epidural made my contractions slow down a little bit, so it seemed like the whole process was taking longer than what I had experienced earlier in the day when contractions were consistently ramping up.
Finally, around 2:30 a.m., I was fully dilated. Yay! My hopes of being done quickly were dashed when Dr. Lo said that they wanted to wait for the baby to descend a little bit more before pushing and that another lady on the floor was ready to push, so they were going to deliver hers first. I was annoyed with the wait, but what could I do?
Shortly after they came in, I started feeling the contractions again on my right side… and I began to panic! This was exactly what had happened last time with Meredith… noooo! Last time, even though the anesthesiologist had tried to give me a stronger dose and I switched sides several times, the epidural wore off completely by the time I was ready to push with Meredith. Despite taking lamaze classes during my twin pregnancy, I was not prepared for a “natural” birth at all last time and was basically hyperventilating the entire time.
My next door neighbor is an anesthesiologist, so the entire year, I had been bugging him with questions about every possible scenario regarding my epidural. His reassurance coupled with some breathing exercises I had been practicing for this exact scenario made me feel a little more prepared than last time, but I still wasn’t going to give up without a fight! I was pretty forceful telling the doc that my epidural was wearing off, and contractions were becoming painful, but thankfully, this time Angie and Dr. Lo were both on it immediately and troubleshooted right away. After another shot of pain meds, everything calmed down and I felt much better. Angie told me that even without the epidural, I was a good candidate to deliver without meds because of how calm I was and how well I breathed during contractions when I could still feel them. Um, no thanks!
Finally, at 4:30 a.m., it was time to try pushing. I’m convinced my nerve endings are abnormal because in addition to the epidural not working in certain places, my legs felt completely numb and I couldn’t tell whether or not I was pushing anything out! We’d wait for a contraction and then Angie would count to ten while I tried to push that baby out, which was a very weird feeling not being able to tell what was happening.
In between contractions, Jake, Angie and Dr. Lo chatted about their kids, work, etc., and were all having a grand time, while I just mostly sat there with my eyes closed, summoning up enough energy for the next push. This is why they call it labor! It was exhausting and after an hour, I kept telling them there was no way I could do this anymore. Dr. Lo and Angie lied every time, saying I was SO CLOSE and to try again. They and Jake were great cheerleaders, even though I knew they were lying! I was so not close. The baby was positioned transversely, and then turned sunny side up (face up), so apparently, that’s what was taking so long. Last time, Meredith came out with her elbow up, resulting in some 3rd and 4th degree tears, and after looking at my chart, Dr. Lo said she really wanted to make this birth go a little smoother than last time for me. I don’t know what’s with our kids and weird positions when they enter the world, but they definitely come out on their own terms.
Dr. Lo and Angie were both awesome, very calm and helped me relax. All the lights were dimmed and, Dr. Lo used some massage oil to help reduce tearing, and everything was pretty quiet, for the most part. It was definitely the most “zen” birth experience I’ve had!
By 6 a.m., the baby was “almost out,” but kept popping in and out… argh. She was taking her sweet time! Angie’s shift was over at 7 a.m., and I was desperate to have the baby born before a shift change! We were all hoping it wouldn’t go much longer, when finally, Dr. Lo called another nurse in to get ready to weigh and clean up the baby, etc. Just like the previous births, Jake was fascinated by the entire process, was asking the doc a million questions, taking pictures and asking if I wanted a mirror so I could see what was going on. NO THANK YOU.
After 2.5 hours of very intense pushing with no breaks, the doc, nurse and Jake were yelling to keep going because she was coming out, and suddenly, there she was! It was 6:43 a.m. when baby made her grand debut after leisurely hanging out in the birth canal forever. I felt like a balloon had instantly deflated inside me and I immediately felt a lot less pressure and heaviness. The doctor put her on my chest to hold and my first thought was, “This baby feels huge!!” She was also screaming her head off, which was a good sign. I was so tired, I didn’t really say or do anything but simply enjoyed that first baby snuggle. Jake excitedly cut the umbilical cord and went over to assist the nurse/take pictures of cleaning and weighing her.
Dr. Lo did a nice, quick job of stitching me up and it helped that even though the baby had come out sunny side up, my tearing was not nearly as bad as it was last time. My legs were still all the way numb, so that was a weird feeling, but other than that, I felt so happy to have that baby out!
Angie was so happy to have been able to be there for the birth and we all hugged before she had to leave. She was incredible. She filled in our new nurse, who was very organized and on top of everything, especially with organizing meds, paperwork and check ups on myself and the baby so that distractions were minimized instead of a zillion people coming in and out.
Throughout the night, Jake and I had discussed our short list of top names one last time and I told him he could make the final call on this one. We had two or three we were going back and forth on for months, and wanted to wait until she was born to make the final call. While the nurse was weighing her, we called her Baby Girl, and as soon as she was all wrapped up, we decided she was definitely an Eleanor Rose. “Eleanor,” a royal name meaning “bright and shining” was Jake’s favorite from our top three and we chose “Rose” because the entire year, the twins had suggested variations of that name (Rosabella being their top choice haha) for her first name. She really was a queenly, bright little rose! We call her “Elle” for short as well as by her full name.
Eleanor was so plump and chubby that it wasn’t a surprise she weighed in at 8 pounds, 12 ounces and 20.5 inches. As soon as she was dried off, she did the breast crawl and immediately started to nurse like a champ. I’m sure she was starving after we cut off her constant food supply in the womb!
Look at that conehead! Thankfully, that went away.
Welcome to the world!
WHERE AM I???
At first, we thought Eleanor looked a lot like Meredith, but after looking back at pics, we thought she was more of a mix of Samantha and Amelia!
We spent the morning trying to cuddle Eleanor amidst the flurry of nurses, the pediatrician, and people with paperwork constantly coming in and out. My OB, Dr. Price, came in to visit and we joked that she’s now 0 for 2 on my deliveries because she hasn’t been on call for either Eleanor or Meredith (for the twins I had to see a perinatologist and it was scheduled, so Dr. Price didn’t deliver them either). We also congratulated Dr. Price on being spot on with the due date of Father’s Day, even though Eleanor took her sweet time and came out a few hours overdue.
The meds were taking forever to wear off, so I didn’t get up to walk around for a few hours because my legs were still so numb, and even when I was ready, I had to have help getting around. It definitely seemed like a slightly more difficult recovery than Meredith’s.
We were sad that Jake couldn’t make the Daddies and Donuts Father’s Day breakfast at the twins’ preschool, but luckily, my mom was able to go with them. Aunt Sarah was at home to help with Meredith and the twins and Sheela helped with pickup and drop off at preschool, so all the teamwork definitely helped things go smoothly at home so we could relax with the new babe. Jake went in to the office to check on things for a little bit in the afternoon, while I lounged around with Eleanor and ordered food from the hospital cafeteria. It seemed like a vacation! After taking a shower and putting on some real clothes, I felt like a human again.
Hi, I’m new here.
Later that day, after swim lessons, my mom, Aunt Sarah and the girls came by to visit. In preschool, Samantha and Amelia had announced that their baby sister was born and were so proud! Meredith came bounding in and immediately gasped, “Oh, baby so cute!” when she saw Eleanor. Everyone took turns holding her and just stared at the new baby with complete awe. Siblings meeting the baby for the first time is always my absolute favorite, sweet moment!
Meredith became a big sister today!
After a lot of holding and being extremely interested in the breastfeeding, the girls turned their focus onto the Chick-Fil-A they had picked up and wolfed that down. We did hugs and kisses goodbye and Grandma and Aunt Sarah took the girls home, while Jake and I prepared for our first night with our new newborn. Everyone kind of assumed that since this was #4, we were pros, but no matter how many times we had done this before, we still felt slightly like we had no idea what we were doing! It was slowly starting to come back to us– the diapers, the swaddling, the super sharp fingernails, the delicious newborn smell, the feedings, the newborn grunts and little sounds!
At this point, I had been awake for over 24 hours and was shutting down fast. I went to sleep early and we had the kind nurses take Elle to the nursery and bring her back to me to eat every few hours during the night. Our favorite nurse, Angie, was back on shift that night, and made her an adorable little bow hat while watching her in the nursery. Every time they brought Elle back to eat, Angie informed us that she was making fast friends and having fun with a couple of other babies in the nursery that night!
Tuesday morning I was feeling better, but was still on pain meds and still very sore. I felt like I had ridden a horse for 24 hours straight and then said horse ran over me and bruised me up. We could have stayed an extra day or two, but I wanted to get out of the hospital as quickly as possible to go home, so our nurses helped streamline all the paperwork, and poking and prodding of little Eleanor. When the pediatrician visited on Monday, he said Elle’s lab work had come back and her numbers were slightly elevated for jaundice. After another test on Tuesday, her numbers were still going up, so he said we could either stay and have her monitored at the hospital for another day, or go home and take her to our regular pediatrician’s office to continue testing until her levels normalized. We decided the latter and were packed up and ready to go by noon.
Unfortunately, our nurse that day was our least favorite of the stay, and was MIA whenever we needed anything, getting meds, getting more diapers and supplies… and we are pretty low maintenance compared to some of the patients I had heard about! She had two kids at home and one on the way, so it was understandable that she’d be tired, but she basically complained about her job the entire time and was so negative about everything! Other than her, our hospital stay was great and we loved the staff who helped bring Eleanor into the world and take care of us afterward. A good nurse makes such a difference!
Even though we were leaving that afternoon, we had to move down to a smaller room on the level below the delivery rooms to make room for more moms who had come in that day to deliver, so that was kind of annoying. We basically sat around and took advantage of the hospital cafeteria until we were finally ok’d to go home. My favorite part of the hospital stay is all the freebies, so I grabbed as many diapers, wipes and supplies as I could and our nurse pushed me in the wheelchair out to our car while Jake loaded. Our drive home was significantly less stressful than with the twins. Eleanor slept peacefully in her car seat all the way home, while I tried to nap. With the twins, I still vividly remember sitting wedged between their two little car seats in the back, my hands gripping both of their carriers, while Jake drove, white-knuckled, 60 mph on the freeway, with me constantly barking orders to slow down, avoid bumps, and, “Watch out for that crazy driver!”
We arrived home a little ahead of schedule and Grammy was just getting back from swim lessons with the twins. They had bought all sorts of cute decorations to welcome us home, and so they quickly put those up while we unpacked and got Eleanor situated.
It was so nice to be home, even though the other three girls were crazy for our attention all evening and bedtime was a complete circus. Adjusting to our first week of life with four five and under to be continued…
Lots of love,
Grammy and Aunt Sarah had come into town Father’s Day weekend, just in time to help with the kids since I was feeling pretty heavy and uncomfortable by the end of my pregnancy. Complete strangers would come up to me at the store and inform me that I couldn’t possibly go one more day of pregnancy because of how low and huge I was carrying…. so that was getting OLD.
It was a gamble for Grammy and Aunt Sarah to come right before my due date since Meredith had surprised us at 37 weeks (the twins were 36 week-ers, but theirs was scheduled); however, it ended up being perfect timing. Since I was grumpy, huge, and basically useless, they took over and entertained the kids all weekend, going on walks, to the park, and swimming in our pool. I was feeling some contractions on and off that week, but nothing seemed to be happening imminently. I had so many false alarms over the past few weeks where I felt that THIS WAS IT, that I was pretty dismissive to any contractions at that point. At my weekly appointment, I was still 3 cm dilated and almost 100% effaced, as I had been the past two weeks. Dr. Price set an induction date for the following week if nothing was progressing so that I at least could have an end date in mind!
June 17, 2018– Father’s Day and my due date! After a big breakfast of stuffed overnight french toast (and regular french toast for Jake since he doesn’t like the casserole kind) the girls had Jake open their cards and gifts. We had a big candy bar poster for him and with help from Aunt Sarah and Grammy, the girls created a treasure hunt for Jake with the candy at the very end. They kept giving away all the answers, but thought they were being pretty sneaky.
I went to three different stores looking for certain types of candy bars– and no one had 100 Grand! I ended up printing out a picture instead. Sarah let me know she found some a month later at some ethnic store in SLC… guess I know where to go now!
Amelia’s preschool gift.
Samantha’s preschool gift.
Well said, Samantha.
We think Meredith may be color blind…
So far, a common thread is that Daddy is playful, good at working, and not so good at cleaning, ha!
Later, we went to the Exploration Playground and let the girls run around. By the time we got home, I was not feeling great, and after lunch I decided to take a nap while Jake and the twins were at church. Sleep eluded me as I started feeling contractions and they started coming pretty regularly. I figured I had better start timing them since they didn’t feel like they were going away, so I opened my phone app and recorded away. They started off about 8 minutes, apart, then 7, then 6 consistently for a few hours. I tried drinking water, walking around, changing positions, but they were still consistent. Since I was already 3 cm dilated earlier that week, I decided I better start getting everything ready in case this was it. I packed all our last minute toiletries in the hospital bag and texted Jake that he better start heading home. He was in Elder’s Quorum at the time and as he was leaving, announced that I was going to have the baby… a fun thing to say on Father’s Day!
Back at home, Grammy, Aunt Sarah and I were trying to get dinner ready so that we could eat a little bit of it before leaving for the hospital. My contractions got down to 5 minutes apart and were getting to the point where I would have to bend over and breathe through them, so it was definitely the craziest dinner preparation ever! Jake packed the car and was literally scarfing down food, with me telling him to hurry up because we really needed to get going! “JUST EAT THE STEAK! I AM NOT MISSING MY EPIDURAL FOR THIS!!!” I was shouting like a crazy person. I’m sure the whole scene was traumatizing for Aunt Sarah, who may never have kids now! The last thing we were waiting on was the steak to finish cooking, and I gave Jake about 5 seconds to wolf a little bit down, along with the carrot cake from Susie Cakes before kissing everyone goodbye and sprinting out the door.
By the time we sped away in the car toward the hospital, contractions had been 4-5 minutes apart for the past few hours and I was having to concentrate on breathing through them. In between contractions, I called the hospital on our way to let them know we were coming in hot! As soon as we arrived, I was put in a room to get vitals taken and contractions monitored. The nurse informed me I was 4 centimeters dilated, but as soon as I sat down to have my contractions monitored, they slowed down and started coming erratically. I was so frustrated and showed the nurse my the contractions timer and graph on my phone. She told me I definitely wouldn’t be leaving since I was already at a 4, but that I should go walk around a bit to get the contractions going again. Jake took the opportunity to re-park the car in the longer-term parking and grab our bags while I walked in my hospital gown, in a loop around the maternity ward. Contractions started coming again and after a little while, I needed to sit and breathe through them in the rocking chairs strategically placed around the maternity ward.
I was not in a good mood being forced to walk around the hospital and after a little less than an hour grumpily went to the nurse’s station to ask to be checked again. Just as before, contractions started coming less consistently and in longer intervals, but I had dilated to a 5, which meant I was progressing! Finally, I could officially be admitted into my room and get my much anticipated and beloved epidural! I breathed a sigh of relief that at least the walking stage was over.
My nurse for the delivery was Angie, who was absolutely awesome and fun to talk to. My OB was not on call that night, but Dr. Lo, who was on call, was amazing as well and had a very calming presence about her. After what seemed like an endless stream of nurses coming in to take vitals, confirm paperwork, and poke me a million times to get the IV in, the anesthesiologist arrived.
I immediately recognized him from Meredith’s birth and I started having a minor mental breakdown… last time with Meredith, the epidural wore off after a few hours, and even after he tried to increase the dosage of pain meds, I could feel everything and it was not pleasant! Meredith also came out with her elbow up by her face, which didn’t help. The doctor last time said the tearing was the worst she had ever seen since working at that hospital! My current next-door-neighbor is an anesthesiologist, so during this pregnancy, I drilled him with hundreds of questions about epidurals and all the possibilities of why mine could possibly not work (I’m sure he was sick of me and my questions by the end!) According to him, some people’s nerves just don’t respond the same way to an epidural and that some anesthesiologists are better than others about troubleshooting and moving the epi to a different spot if something goes wrong. Needless to say, I was not happy to have the same anesthesiologist.
After he administered the pain meds, the pain from contractions began to recede and I could relax a little bit. It was now 9:30 p.m. and we had arrived around 6. Jake fell asleep almost right away on the couch in the room and I was told to get some rest before it was time to do the hard work, but even though I felt numb from the epidural, I was so uncomfortable in the hospital bed, that I didn’t get any sleep at all and mostly turned from side to side all night, crunching on ice chips. To make matters worse, I had woken up early that morning, around 3:30 a.m. due to the pregnancy insomnia I had experienced for the past nine months, and was not able to fall back asleep, so at this point, I was beyond delirious. In between monitors constantly going off and nurses coming in and out to check me, I managed to doze off for a few minutes here and there, but overall felt pretty out of it!
A common side effect of epidurals is that contractions start to slow down and since I wasn’t all the way dilated, we knew Baby Girl wouldn’t be making her entrance on her due date of Father’s Day, but she hit it pretty close!
Baby’s birth day to be continued…
