Shakespear Shuffle

April 2016 - Eliza overload!!

Before the onslaught of Eliza pictures the above ones prove that I do have other children as well although it definitely won't be obvious by our photographs

I went to my OB appointment on Thursday March 31st with the hopes I had progressed even the smallest amount. Nope. For some reason I was set on having her in March I had to go home & come to terms that she was coming in April instead. I was finally OK with it & decided I'd enjoy our General Conference weekend & then she could come. Nope wasn't going to happen that way. Friday I spent the day "nesting" I guess - cleaning the whole house. After dinner we settled down to watch some Studio C sketches with the kids & a little before 7pm I started to feel real contractions. I called my friend to make sure she was still OK with coming over to spend the night with the kids in case the baby came in the middle of the night. I decided around 8:30 to call my parents to let them know we may need them the next day. They decided to come that night & were at our house by midnight. My contractions were consistently close together but not too close or too painful & sometimes it would calm down for a while. We decided to go in around 1am & I was only 1 centimeter - so discouraging! They had me walk the halls for over an hour & they checked me again around 3am & I was a 1.5 cm & effaced a bit. They decided I could stay. I knew I needed a bit of pitocin but of course they wanted me to try to go on my own. Basically it took forever - my contractions were really painful & close together & then it would spread out like every 10-15 minutes. I finally got my epidural sometime mid morning & it took him a couple tries to get the needle into my spine. It was really painful but it worked & then they gave the smallest amount of pitocin & she was born like an hour later. ELIZA KAY SHAKESPEAR was born Saturday April 2nd at 1:12pm weighing in at 7 pounds 14 ounces (3rd biggest baby) 19.5 inches long. After she came sailing out all of my worries & all of the discomforts of the previous 9 months melted away & I held her & instantly fell in love. She is perfect. She stayed in our room with us. Everyone was healthy so we were able to go home the next day Sunday. What a blessing my parents came & stayed with the kids the whole weekend! I am so grateful to them. They watched conference with the kids & did fun activities in between. My Dad drove home that night & my Mom stayed until Thursday evening then went home. Then she came back the next Sunday evening & did that for 3 weeks total. So nice!

I have been pleasantly surprised at how well the transition has been for the other kids! They pretty much loved her from the first moment we brought her home. It took Dallen a while to warm up - he liked her just at a distance & didn't want to touch or hold her for a couple of weeks. Now when she is awake he is usually right next to her. I knew Hunter would take to her really well but it's been sweet to see how much Hyrum loves this little girl too. Babies are magic!

I forgot how entertaining babies can be :) We all just sit around staring at the cute little faces she makes & laughing at the little noises.

First time he wanted to hold her (he did it for about 5 seconds total!)

First bath time at home

Reading to the baby. As she has gotten older she loves seeing her brothers & sister & enjoys getting attention from them. She smiles at them & then they love to be around her even more. It's great. I know at some point they'll annoy her & she'll annoy them but for now I'm really enjoying the love.

Nana & Poppie visited (Poppie for 3 days & Nana for 11) & Poppie went out & bought us a few fruit trees & some other plants (flowers & food). He set it all up one day. I'm nervous we'll kill them all & nothing will grow but hey we can try!

This picture was not staged at all. She was on her tummy & spit up & so Jeremy turned her over & she had a perfect milk stache! So funny & gross at the same time.