Fish Out of Water

Have you ever read the book A Fish Out Of Water by P.D. Eastman? It is about a little boy that buys a fish. Mr. Carp, the man selling the fish, told the boy not to feed the fish too much and the boy did any way. Well the fish grows and grows until eventually at the end of the book the fish has to be put in a swimming pool because it is too big.

This seems to be the story with our Lincoln. I think he is a few days old in these pictures and the sleeper he is in is a newborn size. As you can see it is too short in the arms and legs and the feet are too little for Lincoln's feet to fit in. Needless to say, he did not stay in this sleeper any longer than it took to take the pictures.

Yes, our newborn son is already fitting in 3 month clothes. I have to admit, I was a little sad by this because we had bought some really cute newborn things. However, I was excited about the 3 month clothes because I found some really cute things that I wasn't sure he would be able to wear because I wasn't sure that the weather and his growth would match up.

At Lincoln's one week appointment he was 10 lbs 6 oz. I am excited to see what he will be at his one month appointment.

You know you are a mother when...

You know you are a mother when you can be hit with projectile vomit at 3 feet and not even bat an eye. LOL


I am not sure you can really see it in the picture but Lincoln has vomit residue coming from both nostrils and his mouth plus his shirt is drenched. What you really can't see is the burp cloth, my shirt, and my jacket that are also drenched in vomit. In addition, I am also sitting in a puddle of vomit. Yuck and yuck!

What Payton thought of her little brother Lincoln.

I missed Payton so much when I was in the hospital having Lincoln. When we found out that she would not be able to visit us in the hosptial, I started planning ways to sneak her in. :o)

When we headed home I was so excited to see her. I actually hoped that she hadn't gone to church so that I could see her when we walked in the door.

As it turned out, she was home when we got there. I could hear her talking in the other room when we came in the door. By the time I saw her I was almost in tears, I wanted to hug her so bad. When she saw Dave and I she got a big smile on her face and started coming over to us. But when she saw Lincoln she ran right past us and went straight to the baby. Threw the blanket off of him and everything.

She wanted to hold him so bad that she was trying to take him out of the car seat by herself. It was so cute and I am so glad that she likes him. He has been home for about two weeks now and she still begs to hold him several times a day. Whew!

Our happy little family.

Out With A Bang!

Heading home from the hospital is always a bitter sweet time for me. Happy to be going home and getting out of the hospital room. Happy to be able to sleep in my own bed. Happy to eat regular, non hospital food. Sad to leave those nursery nurses that pretty much beg to watch your baby during the middle of the night. :o)


One of the many things that have to happen before you leave the hospital is a nurse has to remove the security band from the baby. Well, all of that had happened and our nurse was wheeling us out to the car. As we got close to doors exiting the Women and Children's area all these alarms started going off. It was as though the security band was still on Lincoln or at least in one of our bags or something. We looked everywhere and couldn't find anything. I was convinced Dave had hidden it in one of our bags or something, he had been joking about planting it on each of our visitors. The alarm went off at each set of doors that we passed through. Good times!

David Lincoln Ahlgren

David Lincoln Ahlgren

Born January 15, 2010 at 1:46 am
10 pounds, 20 1/2 inches long

After being told that I would be having a C-Section if I didn't have Lincoln by my next doctor's appointment and then not having any action of any king all week I had pretty much been planning to have a C-Section on Thursday. Imagine my surprise when I woke up Thursday morning having contractions every 5 minutes.

I have to admit I was full of mixed emotions. Was I ready for this?

We decided to wait until after my doctor's appointment before heading to the hospital. I was so afraid of going to the hospital and being told that I was just having Braxton Hicks contractions. When Dr. Pollard checked to see how I was progressing and told me that I was 5 cm dilated and that it was time to head to the hospital I was so happy. I had been waiting to hear those words for weeks.

We left the doctor's office and headed straight for the hospital with Dr. Pollard on our tails. She checked me again and I was 6 cm, she was confident that it wouldn't belong before our Lincoln would born. She broke my water, then headed off to a staff meeting. By this time my contractions were making me pretty uncomfortable and I requested an epidural. The anesthesiologist was great. Unfortunately, the epidural only numbed my left side but he stuck around until I was totally pain free. Thank You!

Dr. Pollard came back from her meeting and I was 7 cm dilated. Pretty Woman had just started on the TV and She was pretty confident that with the way I was progressing that I would most likely be ready to start pushing by the time the movie was over. Movie over still at 7 cm...

Dr. Pollard told me that she may have to give me a mini dose of Pitocin to try and get me going again or we may be facing a C-Section for failure to progress. She told me she would give me some more time to see if I could progress any more on my own and told me to try sitting in some different positions to get that baby boy moving.

8 cm, I start feeling every contraction in my lower back. Ouch! The Anesthesiologist comes back and gives me little something that should help quicker but might not last very long. Ummmmm, OK. Pains stops.

9 cm - 10 cm pain comes back, this time it is wraping around to my front too. OUCH!!!

Time to start pushing. The nurses tell me that I am doing a great job. I hope they are telling me the truth but think they are lying. :o)

A half an hour later Dr. Pollard is there and ready to catch the baby. Or maybe I should say play tug of war trying to get him out. LOL Luckily she won.

I knew in my head little Lincoln was going to be big but never imagined he would be 10 pounds big. Even more surprised was Dr. Pollard, the expression on her face was priceless. She was amazed and said if they would of had any idea that he was that big they would have never let me try the VBAC. I am just glad that everything went OK and that he is with us now.

Dave and I are so excited. Lincoln is such an amazing baby. We can't wait until he gets to meet Payton tomorrow.

A Busted Phone

Yesterday I was feeding Payton breakfast and my phone made that beep it does when it is telling me that it has been a while since I had synced my phone. I thought, ahhh I will just look at it when I am done feeding Payton. Well, when I finished feeding Payton and went over to look at it it was dead. Dead as a door nail. Nothing happened at all. I couldn't get the phone to turn on for the life of me.

When Dave got home from work he tried and...nothing. Yikes! What a time to lose your life line.

We had been talking about switching carriers from Verizon to Sprint to get a better and more affordable plan and decided that since I was going to need a new phone that this would be as good of time as any to do it.

The good news is that Dave and I got a couple of really neat phones. Dave finally got his Palm Pre and I got the Palm Pixi. It has been fun discovering all the neat things the phone can do.

The bad news is that Sprint has been unable to transfer my Verizon number over to the new phone yet (hopefully by tomorrow) and I lost everything on my previous phone (contacts, calendar items, tasks, memos, birthdays, etc.). I spent half the day trying rebuild my contact list.

So be expecting an email from me asking for phone numbers and birthdates. :o)

Baby Update

My last doctor's appointment was on Monday. Same story as last time sat on the monitor for 20 minutes, no contractions. Although, I was a whole 2 centimeters dilated. Nice!

Dr. Pollard told me that there were a couple trains of thought when deciding what to do when a VBAC candidate hits 40 weeks with no action. Some feel that you should just go ahead with the C-Section since your chances for having a uterine rupture increase the farther past your due date you go. She feels it is OK to go a little beyond the due date to give the person a little more time to go into labor naturally. But that she likes to get a feel for what the person wants to do.

I told her that I was fine either way. She said what we could do is just set a date and if the baby hasn't come by that time then do the C-Section. I told her that that sounded good. So the plan is/was that if the baby didn't make his appearance by my appointment on Thursday that we would just head over to the hospital and do the C-Section Thursday evening or Friday afternoon.

As of this moment, still no contractions. My appointment is tomorrow at 3:15. The more I think about actually having the baby the more I want to just have a C-Section. I think it is because I have never given birth naturally and the thought of delivering a 9 plus pound baby scares the crap out of me. I really hope that we can just do the C-Secion tomorrow instead of waiting until Friday but we will see how things go.

My Due Date is here!

Today is baby boy's due date! Or should I say was his due date. It seems so wierd for this day actually be here. For the longest time it seemed so far away and now it is almost over. I am so excited to meet this little man that has been inside for so long and even though I am anxious for him to come I am so thankful he is giving me the time to recover from this sickness I have had for the past week.

I have to say that I am so thankful for the priesthood. I finally asked Dave and his dad to give me a blessing last night. Although I was not instantaneously healed, today is the first day that I have not felt worse. Yay!

Dave's dad said he got the feeling during the blessing that if Dave and I picked a name for the little guy that he would feel more comfortable in coming. Dave thinks the little guy already knows his name and is just waiting for us to guess it. LOL Poor guy might leave the hospital with Baby Boy Ahlgren on his birth certificate.

These pictures are the 3-D ultrasound pictures we had done in November. I think it is so neat to be able to see his little face. I pulled out the pictures tonight to try and help us pick a name. I have to admit that it didn't help...yet. :o)

These next pictures are of me today. Notice none of the pictures show my face. I told Dave to be creative with the prego shots because I didn't feel up to putting make up on today. He did take a couple with my face in them but I figured I would spare you the zombie shots. Ha! Ha!

It is funny to think that now when someone asks when I am due I get to say "oh, yesterday"or "a couple days ago". :o) I never thought that would happen in a million years. I honestly thought he would be here by now.

Another Rough Night

Early this week we heard that my sister's daughter Caeden had pnemonia and a double ear infection. Ouch! After hearing that Dave and I decided to call the doctor and see if we should bring Miss Payton in too. After all they had been hanging out together because Jen and I figured they had the same crud that the rest of us had. I am so glad we ended up taking her because she ended up having an double ear infection and a sinus infection. My poor baby.

The doctor ended up prescribing Payton this anitbiotics that she has never taken before and unfortunately she doesn't like it. The first night she was on it was a very long night. We put her down for bed at 8 and she was up crying a few hours later. She didn't end up going to sleep until around 6 in the morning. All night all she wanted to do was "play, play" or "book, book". If we tried to put her back in her bed she would scream and cry. So once Steven and Ashley had gotten up for Seminary we took her up and said good night. She fussed for a while but thankfully went to sleep.

These pictures are of Payton after the first night of sleeping with Dave and I. I think that was Friday night or something. She initially fell asleep in the chair with me, then woke up crying, walked to the middle of the room, layed down and was out for the count.

As for me and my ailments...I just finished the last of my antibiotics and used the Afrin for the max days it says on the box. So this morning instead of having a sinus headache on only the left side of my face it is right smack dab in the middle, accros both sides. I have decided to give up on sniffing and am close to giving up on blowing my nose since it seems neither of those things help. LOL ;o)

I will say that at least this sinus infection has made me forget about many of the discomforts of pregnancy. My head and face hurt so bad that I haven't even thought about how uncomfortable I was before this hit. Now that is looking at the positive side of things.

Tomorrow is my due date. Yay! No real action as of yet. I will keep you posted.

Nasal Lavage

Well I have to admit I was a little nervous to do the nasal lavage. Who wouldn't be? Shooting a bunch of saline solution up our nose doesn't exactly sound pleasant does it? However, it worked great! I used some Afrin so that I could at least get something through my nose and started squirting. There was no pain and the results were almost immedeate. By the time I was done flushing both sides I could breathe and most of my sinus pressure/pain was gone. I was actually able to sleep the majority of the night. Which means I went back to my normal pregnancy schedule of getting up every couple hours. :o)

Everything was great until about 5 o'clock this morning when my sinuses were all of a sudden full again. Now I feel like an addict just waiting until I can take the Afrin again and then do the nasal lavage.

I can't wait to get past this!

90% Effaced and 1 Centimeter Dilated

So my original appointment for this week was Tuesday but because I have been so miserable I switched for today. You know it is bad when your doctor tells you any of the following "Oh wow, you really don't look good", "I can't even look at you without my eyes watering, you are so packed through your sinuses", and "I hope for your sake you don't go into labor". I will probably regret saying this but I told Dr. Pollard that I didn't care if I was pregnant for another month if she could get rid of my illness. The sinus pressure is by far the worse of the symptoms, then not being able to breathe, then the nausea, and then my skin sensitivity.

So I have been on antibiotics for 2 days now, Sudafed, Afrin (nasal spray), and Tylenol. The only additional thing she could advise me to do is do a nasal lavage. Wish me luck on that one. When Dave gets back from the store with the kit I will be flushing my sinuses with a pint of saline. Yikes! Hey, I am desperate. I hope it helps.

This is a silly picture of me on Christmas. I was supposed to stand in the spot we would be taking our family pictures so Dave could play with the settings on the camera. I could totally be a model...NOT!

Anyway, after two full days and nights of contractions I am 90% effaced and only 1 centimeter dilated. I am beginning to feel like Rachel on Friends when she was in labor. Dr. Pollard said that if I haven't had the baby by my next appointment (Monday) that we would need to have a conversation about what we are going to do to get this baby out. I am hoping to have had him by then but who knows.

Sickos

On the first day of Christmas Ashley's got a cold...On the twelvth day of Christmas everyone in the Ahlgren household is sick.

Man, this cold or virus or whatever it is has really hit all of us hard. I think everyone here has a slightly different version of the same thing. From Ashley having a sinus infection paired with a really bad cough all the way to Ralph with phnemonia or broncitis. What's worse is Ashley is still sick after almost two weeks. Yikes!

I'd like to think I handle being sick pretty well but pair it with this being my third night not being able to sleep and I am a baby. My woes all started Thursday...

Thursday - getting a stuffed up nose.

Friday - contractions all day long starting at 20 minutes apart then ending up at 15 minutes apart. Friday night contractions move from 15 minutes apart to 10 minutes apart, Payton gets sick with a runny nose and cough and ends up sleeping with Dave and I. Just picture it Payton not wanting anything to do with Dave, laying sprawled on me, pushing Dave out of bed all while I am having contractions.

Saturday - finally fell asleep at around 7AM for about an hour. Contractions stop. What? Yup, well for about an hour then pick up again at 15 minutes apart. Exhausted, Contracting all day, and can't breathe. Saturday night Payton sleeps in her own bed and seems to sleep really well. Lucky girl, now left side of my face starts to feel as though it is going to explode. My teeth on top and bottom hurt. Can't sleep. Ugghh. Contractions continue through the night getting worse. I finally decide at 4 just to try and read. Then at 5 I decide that maybe a shower would make me fell better. At that point my contractions move from 10 minutes apart to 5 minutes apart. They become more and more painful over the next hour and a half. So I decide maybe it is time to pack my bag for the hospital. :O) Just as I was getting ready to wake Dave up to see if he wanted to take a shower before leaving for the hospital they backed off to every 10 minutes. So I decided maybe I will try and rest a little. For the next hour or so I woke up every 15 minutes to even worse contractions. Then all of a sudden I wake up 2 hours later and not a single contraction for a few hours. Argh, not again.

Sunday - I am very uncomfortable, sinus headache and random contractions throughout the day that make me want to cry. I finally decide to call the on call doctor about what I imagine is a sinus infection. Luckily the on call doctor is my doctor. She prescribes me an antibiotic and tells me of some other things I can take to make me more confortable until the antibitics kick in. She also says that it is not uncommon for contractions to do what mine have been doing. She said once they get to 5 minutes apart or less for an hour or two and are painful then you are considered in active labor. Painful? I thought the contractions that I had been having for the last two days were painful. Today they got progressively worse. How much worse are they going to get? When are they going to regulate again? Am I going to be able to handle them every 5 minutes? Why do I want to try and have a VBAC again?

As you can probably gather from the time of this post I am not sleeping well tonight either. I am patiently waiting for the next time I can shoot Afrin up my nose and listening to Payton cry every 20 minutes. Nice! Tomorrow is going to be fun.