Navy's Birth Story... Better late than never!

Luckily, I did write everything down shortly after I got home from the hospital because I knew I would forget all the details. Justin actually wrote in his journal while we were at the hospital, which impressed me. As a side note, he also brought his journal to the temple when we were sealed, and left it in his locker so that he could write down the advice the sealer gave us while he waited for me to get ready. He's good with stuff like that. It's important to remember.

It was Friday, April 10th, and I was 7 long days over due. I was totally fed up with everyone at work asking me when I was going to have my baby already, and I decided even if I didn't have her that weekend, there was no way I was going back to work on Monday. I was determined for something to happen. I was extra impatient because two girls at work who were due AFTER me had already had their babies. Not fair. I was scared, and excited, and wanted to get it over with.

Thursday, the day before, I went to the hospital for a non stress test. I made Kami come with me (Justin was working), and all the nurses swooned over adorable Ruby. She was born at the same hospital only 10ish months earlier. They hooked me up, checked me and the baby out, and sent us on our way. Everything looked fine.

Saturday Morning we woke up and cleaned, and finished up some thing's in the nursery. I had another stress test scheduled for 1pm, and I had a feeling we would just be staying. So we packed our bags, and even though we were running really late I made Justin stop at Arby's on the way because I knew if they admitted me, I wouldn't be able to eat anything till after I had the baby.

We chose Lone Peak Hospital in Draper. Like I said, Kami had Ruby there the year before, and it was nice and new, and you labored, delivered, and recovered all in the same room. My doctor was Layne Smith. I really liked him because it wasn't like other places where you see a bunch of doctors, and which ever doctor is on call is the one that delivers you. Dr. Smith saw me at every appointment, and he would be the one to deliver my baby. Except, of course he was out of town that week on a cruise, and wouldn't be back until Sunday.... I met the other guy, Dr. Twede, and he was actually really great so I wasn't too worried about him delivering the baby if he had to.

The Hospital was really quiet that afternoon. If I remember right, there wasn't anyone else in labor or anything. They hooked me up, and did the ultrasound. My fluid was pretty low, so they called Dr. Twede. He told them to admit me, and get the ball rolling!

It was 3pm, I was only 1cm dilated. The nurse placed something to soften my cervix, and we waited... for 9 hours... I was starting to feel kind of uncomfortable. I was having small, sporadic contractions, but mostly it was an uneventful night. The nurse asked us what we were going to name the baby. We told her we were thinking about Navy, but we still weren't totally sure. She said she loved it, and wrote it on the white board. At midnight, they started giving me Pitocin. Justin slept, and I played on my phone, tried to read, and watched movies.  I definitely couldn't sleep. I was pretty nervous. I remember looking at the clock, and telling myself to just take it one hour at a time. That really helped.

My contractions started getting pretty bad around 7am. Justin and I walked around the halls until that became too painful. The nurse checked me around 8am, and I was only 2cm dilated. They gave me some pain medicine, and I felt awesome for like an hour, then it wore off, and I was ready for the epidural. I got it around 1pm. I was SO nervous! I just stared at Justin, and squeezed his hands really hard while they did it. They laid me flat on my back so the medicine could distribute, and I started to feel super sick. The epidural caused my blood pressure to drop rapidly, and I started throwing up. The anethesiologist came back in, gave me some medicine, and I felt fine. The epidural worked really well, and I was mostly pain free for the rest of the process.

At 4pm a doctor came to break my water. It wasn't Dr. Twede, I can't remember his name, but he was really nice. It took him like 5 minutes to break my water. He said I had a real leather Prada bag because he couldn't tear it! haha. Eventually, he did.

We waited some more, and at 7ish I was checked again. I was only 5cm dilated. I was tired, and getting frustrated. I had been telling my mom not to come to the hospital yet because nothing would be happening for a while. Justin was talking to his parents on the phone, and I was talking to my mom at the same time. Justin turned to me and said, "My parents are in the parking lot! They've been here for a few hours." I laughed, and told my mom that Mark and Kim were in the parking lot waiting, and my mom said, "Oh, where are they? I don't see their car." She had been there for hours too, just waiting! They came up to our room and we talked for a while.

The nurse checked me again around 9pm, and I was still at a 5. I was upset that things were progressing so slowly. Justin, and Mark ended up giving me a blessing. The nurse checked me at 10pm, shortly after the blessing, and I was 10cm dilated! Miracle!

I started pushing around midnight, but I was so tired, that my pushes weren't very productive. While I was pushing Dr. Smith's plane landed at the Salt lake airport! He called the hospital, and they told him I was pushing, and would be ready to deliver soon. He dropped his family off at home, and headed to the hospital. By the time he arrived I was spent... He told me she was too low to do a C section safely, and he wanted to try forceps. I said okay... and we got ready. We talked about his cruise, and he told us Flava Flave was on it. Random. He gave me an episiotomy, which was supposed to help me not tear too bad. My nurse during this was SO awesome. Her name was Megan, and I remember her telling me "one more push" like 10 times, but every time she said it I believed her. Finally, our girl was born at 3:28am. They put her on my chest just for a second, and Justin and I sobbed in relief. She had ingested meconium, and wasn't breathing, so they took her to the warmer thing and started working on her. One of the nurses said almost immediately, "She looks just like her dad!" I knew she would.

I had a third degree tear, and lost a lot of blood, so for 45 minutes after she was born Dr. Smith had to sew me up. They gave me a shot in my leg to help the bleeding stop, and that made me really sick. I also started shaking like CRAZY. I guess that is pretty common after delivery. Justin left me to be with the baby because she still wasn't breathing, and they had to take her to the nursery.
She stayed there for a little bit until they knew she was okay, then they brought her to us.

It was the best feeling to hold her for the first time. I just stared at her for hours. I knew I must be so tired, but I couldn't sleep! I was so elated, and just wanted to look at her, and talk to her, and kiss her little cheeks. I still ask Justin on a daily basis how we are so lucky to have such a perfect little angel in our lives.

4 Crazy Months

Time really flies! We had such a fun summer that obviously I did a really bad job documenting... One of the highlights was my family reunion. We started having a Tressler family reunion with just my immediate family about 4 or 5 years ago and it has been an awesome tradition. We started the reunion  at the Living Planet Aquarium. It was awesome! I was fascinated with all the animals and the kids all loved it. We then had a 3 on 3 basketball tournament for the adults.

My team didn't win... But it was a really fun time.

Some of the other events of the weekend were Seven Peaks, hiking, sleepover in my parents backyard and a movie on the projector, homemade ice cream, and a BBQ at the park. We have so much fun being together and I look forward to many more reunions like this. 

In June, Justin and I decided to buy a house. It was something that Justin had been wanting to do for a while and he finally convinced me it was a good idea. We started looking and found one pretty quickly that we really liked, and it was also a great deal. When we started looking we thought we might get stuck with a condo or townhome which neither of us were thrilled about. We loved this house because of the awesome backyard and long driveway. It's also just down the street and around the corner from Justin's parent's house, and we have an amazing view of the mountains. 

Our cute little home!

There are a lot of things we want to remodel/fix in the house and before we moved in we did a TON of painting and had new floors and carpet put in. I had a really hard time deciding on a paint color, but we ended up choosing Benjamin Moore Beach Glass, and i'm pleased with how it turned out. Here are a few before and after glimpses of our upstairs living room.

We love the new gray-ish floors

It was nice to do the floors last because we didn't have to worry about getting paint on the old ones!

It has been so fun to be homeowners and know we can do whatever we want with the place. We have several more projects to work on but we look forward to continuing to make it ours. 

We moved in around the middle of July and just a few weeks later this happened... 

We weren't really trying, and not really preventing at the time so it shouldn't have been as big a shock to me as it was. With the whole moving and house stuff I had totally forgot when my last period was so it hadn't occurred to me that I was late. Well, it finally did occur to me on August 2nd at about 1 AM. I happened to have these pregnancy tests from when I thought I might be pregnant last year so I was able to test right away. I woke up Justin and we were both freaking out. He was so excited and I was also excited and also terrified! I didn't sleep one minute that night. 

We were both so excited to tell Justin's family that we ended up doing it just a few weeks later on Kim's birthday. This will be their first grand baby so we wanted to tell them in a special way. I got a onsie off Etsy that said Arriving April 2015. It was so fun to see their reactions. 

Now I'm going to feel sorry for myself for a minute and explain my terrible first trimester. Weeks 5-14 were horrific. At first I just felt nauseous and had no appetite, then I started throwing up several times a day, I could barely eat so I started to get really weak and couldn't walk around or even stand up for more than a minute or two at a time. I couldn't go to work, and I was just a complete mess! I ended up losing about 35 pounds during those weeks. I tried 3 different medications to no avail... I even had to miss the Katy Perry concert that Kami and I got tickets to all the way back in January! It may seem silly, but this was super devastating for me to miss it.

I finally ended up at the ER one Friday night for IV fluids and medicine. That was the first time in weeks that I felt some relief.  

It was 2 or 3 in the morning so I think Justin was a little tired... haha

This would be a good time to talk about how amazing Justin has been through this whole thing. He is currently working at least 45 hours a week and going to school. Since I got pregnant he has also been doing the laundry, the dishes, cleaning our house, doing yard work, making (or buying) his own food, and cleaning up countless throw ups by me... (sorry if that's gross!). He has been so amazing. I spent so much time pleading with Heavenly Father to help me feel just a little better, and a few times wondering why it seemed He wasn't helping me at all. I felt like what I was experiencing was more than I could handle. Now, looking back I realize how blessed I was/am to have Justin and that Heavenly Father was helping me through him. 

One of the many sweet things he did/does is leave me notes in the morning.

Instant Breakfasts were one of the few things I could handle.

My worst fear was that I would stay sick my whole pregnancy, and although I still don't really have an appetite and get nauseous occasionally, I am doing SO much better. It was like magic. When I hit my 15th week I was all of the sudden SO so so much better. Yay!! 

We are finding out the gender on November 4th and we are soooo excited! Despite how hard things have been so far I already have such a great love for this baby, and am truly soooo excited to be a mom :)

Spring Time!

These last few months have been filled with lots of fun family time. We did an Easter egg hunt for my nieces and nephews that turned out really fun. It was the first time we've done it, but I think we'll make it an annual Easter occurrence.

Kami has the cutest little baby bump!

Apparently Easter weekend at the sand dunes is a big deal. Every year Justin and his dad, Mark make their way down there to race their spiffy 4-wheelers. 

They go pretty fast!

Kylie's birthday was May 1st and we did the traditional Tucanos birthday dinner followed by impromptu family pictures. We sat by a family at dinner that had 2 little boys and they couldn't keep their eyes off Kylie's hair, they said they thought it was so pretty and wanted to touch it! Haha it was adorable.

Look at cha cha's cute little face! 

We had Kami's baby shower at my cousin Ashley's house in Lehi. It was fun to see everyone and she got lots of cute stuff. Now all we need is baby Ruby to arrive! 

Lucy loved helping Auntie Kami open all her presents.

The Saturday before mother's day we went to mother daughter afternoon tea at the Grand America Hotel. It was very fancy and super fun. My sisters and I are very big fans of everything Regency era, so this experience really spoke to the Elizabeth Bennet in all of us :)

Speaking of mother's day, let me just say that I have an angel as a mother. Everyone who knows her loves her. Justin and I were both blessed with very special mothers whom we love so much. 

Recently I have been thinking about a specific memory of my mom. I was probably 7 or 8 years old and my mom and I were in Salt Lake City for one my sister's basketball games or something... (I can't remember exactly). We were driving around looking for somewhere to eat and my mom spotted a woman with 3 children and a little baby walking on the sidewalk. It was winter, and very cold outside. My mom immediately turned the car around and drove to this woman. She asked her where they were going and if we could give them a ride. The woman was very grateful and they all climbed into our van. As a side note, I was a very shy child, so at this point I was horrified and couldn't believe that my mother was letting these shabby looking strangers into our car! It turned out they were on their way to the hospital because the baby was sick. We dropped them off at the hospital and my mom asked if we could wait there to give them a ride home when they were done. I actually can't remember if we ended up waiting or not, but this story has always stuck with me. At the time I didn't really understand why my mom felt the need to help these strangers, but now I realize she was so full of charity that she wouldn't hesitate to help someone in need, no matter how big of an inconvenience it may have been. 

I could honestly tell story after story just like this of my mom's unending service. I hope one day to be like her. I love you mom :)

She's also an amazing grandma!

Recent Happenings

A few weeks ago Justin and I decided to try this Whole30 diet (we made it a week). You basically don't eat any carbs or dairy or beans. So yeah... what can you even eat? Basically the whole week felt like this

 It took a few days to get the hang of it but I wanted to share our favorite meal:
Sweet Potato hash with fried eggs and avocado (avocado makes everything taste better). It was gooooood.

I went to Montrose, Colorado last week to visit my sister, Brittany and help her with her kids while her husband was away at a convention in Chicago. We had so much fun painting nails, coloring, playing Mario Cart, and watching Frozen over and over and over again :)

They are such cuties. And baby Sloan is soooo soft. I loved kissing his cheeks. Also, I think Tess looks EXACTLY like Brittany. I feel like I learned a lot about being a mom the few days I was there. Brittany is a great example. I definitely missed Justin but it was great to be able to spend some sister time together.

My family has a lot of birthdays in March so we usually celebrate them all together at Classic Skating! The skating was a blast but Justin and Alex also had a great time at the arcade.

They are so funny together. They seem more like friends than uncle and nephew, and it's pretty comical how Alex is a foot taller than Justin. ha ha

On a more sad note, I was in a car accident a few weeks ago and the Honda was totaled! We were pretty surprised it was totaled because I was just rear ended, and it wasn't too bad of a hit but I guess there was some pretty significant frame damage. Sooooo we had to say good bye to the trusty Honda. It was sad. 

The good news is that I got a new car! It's a white Ford Focus and I am really enjoying the power windows and Bluetooth. Who knew cars were so fancy these days! 

25th Birthday

Last weekend I turned 25!! I really can't believe i'm 25. It feels really old for some reason. Aren't 25 year olds supposed to be mature, have a fabulous career, and know that their life is heading in a certain upward spiral...?  Hopefully that's 26 or 27 or 28 year olds! Luckily Justin didn't make any "you're getting old" jokes, and it turned out to be an awesome birthday. Saturday birthdays are the BEST! We got to spend all day celebrating.

Justin took me to breakfast and let us listen to Katy Perry every time we were in the car, and she, very appropriately has a song titled Birthday on her new Album.

We went to lunch with Mark and Kim (Justin's amazing parents) and then we went home and snuggled in our bed to eat mint brownies and watch a movie. This may have been the best part of the day.

We went to dinner with some of my family then went to my parents to open presents and eat cake. Sunday night we celebrated with Justin's parent's. They put 25 candles on 5 cupcakes for me to blow out. 

Justin and I are so blessed to have such amazing families. They go above and beyond for us all the time, especially when it comes to birthdays. We always have so much fun. I told Justin that in 25 years, if marrying him is the only ting i've done right then it's been a successful 25 years. As corny as that sounds, it's true! He is too good to me and I look forward to lots more birthdays together.