Easton William Palmer

In my head the whole time I've been pregnant I just felt like this baby was going to come early.  After Brett came 4 weeks early I was so sure something was going to go wrong and send me into labor. So about mid July I started to think that this kid could go any time. This stupid thought drove me crazy. I hurt all the time and Easton would kick so and move so hard I was really uncomfortable. I went into the dr at 36 weeks and was about 2 1/2 cm- went in at 37 weeks and was 3 1/2 cm. It was at that appointment that my dr told me he was going out of town at the end of the next week so he was planning on trying to get my labor going before he left so he could deliver the baby.  I woke up in August 11th knowing that the baby could come that day but didn't want to get too excited.  I had been thinking that a lot the last few weeks.  But to be on the safe side I spent the morning with the boys running to the store to get food, trying to keep my kitchen clean up and doing my hair.  Yes I admit it.  I didn't want to have pictures of me with the baby looking like I normally do so I got ready. I'm vain like that i guess.  =)  I did feel like crap that whole day though so I had a really hard time getting a lot done. 

I went into the dr at 2:45 and they hooked me up to a fetal monitor.  I laid back in this chair listening to his heart beat and seeing I wasn't really having many contractions.  I sent a text to Bryan saying I was so sad to think I may be going home and not having the baby.  I went in to be checked by my dr and he was asked me "have you been having contractions lately?" I told him really bad but they come and go.  And he said "well I'm sending you upstairs you are 5 cm dilated and that is considered labor. I felt pretty good leaving the office I have to say.  I started texting Bryan.  His last text to me said baby? and I said baby! Baby! it's go time! And he didn't see if for ever! I went upstairs and they set me up in a room.  I got all hooked up and starting feeling contractions around 4:30.  

I tested for strep B positive which really means I just have to be on a antibiotic for 4 hours before I deliver and since this was baby #5 for me they waited to break my water.  I told Bryan to wait to come up until then.  I just laid there and tried to relax.  I can't even tell you how relieved I was that no medical emergency sent me into labor and I finally knew what it was like to go into labor on my own.  Bryan got there and here came my dr like 15 mins later- just after 6 pm.  I was now 6cm so he broke my water.  I got my epidural soon after that.  And it hurt, a lot.  But oh is that thing worth it!! 

I had had like 5 different nurses coming in and out to help me and one of them was the nurse that had helped deliver Tyson and Brett and she is my favorite. Her name is Jolene and she grew up down the street from my aunt Martha and her brother was friends with Bryan growing up. I just love her but she was helping someone else.  Just before my dr came in she came in and said good news I already helped deliver the baby so I'm your nurse now! Seriously this day just couldn't get any better . 

Before pic at my dr's office- 38 weeks and 1 day pregnant.

After my epidural I kept getting super dizzy.  All the sudden I would turn super pale and have to close my eyes and relax because I felt like I was going to pass out.  Lucky for me Jolene could come check on me every 15-20 mins to help me. If I sat up a little more I wouldn't get as sick but it was back and forth with that for like a hour.  Jolene started getting things ready for Easton's arrival when she checked me at 7:30 and I was 7cm.  Around 8:20-8:30 about she checked me again and I was complete! They called Dr. Horsley up and started getting the nurses going.  They had around 8 mom's in labor and delivery that day and three of us were delivering all at the same time so nurses to help with the babies were in short supply.  Because Easton was doing so awesome they had a respiratory nurse come and help him. As soon as my dr got there I started pushing.  Bryan always starts chatting with the nurses and my dr when I'm pushing.  In between contractions everyone is just standing there so why not. We found out that my dr was leaving at the end of the week to Ohio to go visit his parents in Kirtland where his parents were serving a mission- and that is where Bryan went on his mission.  That was good to keep Bryan not freaking out about the baby coming.  He always gets super nervous.  

One of the best things about this delivery was that my epidural worked but I could still move a little bit.  I could feel lots of pressure but it wasn't painful either.  I had never felt my baby moving down as I pushed him out and that was a really really cool feeling.  I turned to Bryan when Easton was crowning and told him I could feel him about to come out.  Not sure how to explain how it felt but it helped me push him.  

After about 10 mins of pushing Easton William Palmer was born at 8:49 PM weighing 7 lb 8 oz and was 20 ins long.  I was scared he was going to be 8lb+ so I was way happy that he was a little smaller.  After Bryan cut his cord they handed him to me and Bryan and I rubbed him down to clean him off.  He had the sweetest cry and the cutest little face.  Seriously love at first sight.  

Easton and Dr Horsley- he has delivered all 5 of our boys. 

Easton was so awake! He has the sweetest eyes.  I loved our first snuggles.  The hospital likes to leave the baby with the mom as much as possible.  Bryan gets nervous how much they don't check on the baby.  I got to hold him for a long time and when they needed to check on me I finally let Bryan hold him.  Bryan acts like he hates the newborn stage but he really loves to hold our babies.  Not really other peoples babies but ours he really loves to snuggle.

I know I said he was 7lb 8 oz and he was.  The scale was still reading when Bryan was taking pictures.

He doesn't have much hair but has more in the back.  

Easton loves to put his hands all over his face so it's hard to get a picture with his hands down while he is awake.

This is Jolene- she seriously is my favorite nurse.  Not sure how we always get so lucky to have her.

Bryan knew a CNA from working at Wendy's years ago and when she saw our name on a list of people coming up she put us down for the "suite" which really is just the room at the end of the all to recover in.  It really was huge through with big windows.  I loved it.

By this time it was almost midnight and Bryan decided to head home grab a few things and head to his mom's where my boys were all sleeping.  Between nurses coming in to check on me and them taking care of my baby we were busy for the next couple of hours.  They took his footprints, bathed him and for the first time took him out of my room to give him a longer check up.

Easton's first bath. 

I got like 3 hours a sleep that whole night and even when I slept I was half awake.  It was awful.  Between my room being super hot and needing help to get up and go to the bathroom I felt like a zombie.  I was happy when it was morning honestly.  One of the very best things about having a brand new baby is watching my boys meet their brother.  Bryan brought them up the next morning and they were all so excited to see him.

Seriously look how many boys I have?!? 

My big family! Look how happy Stock is! 

I had all these plans of taking tons of photos of him at the hospital but between my after pains (which were HORRIBLE I was in so much pain!! Brought tears to my eyes!) and how tired I was I didn't get all the photos I wanted.  Sorry Easton! 

My room had a big window that Bryan would sit up in.  

I had Easton on a Tuesday night and we went home Thursday morning.  We laugh about how the nurses must have loved me because they would come in and ask if I needed anything and we really never did.  It's been a few years but I still remember how to take care of newborns.

It honestly feels like Easton has always been in our family. I have enjoyed him so much.  My other boys are older and not needed as much of my time so I can snuggle him more.  He seriously is the sweetest little guy you would ever meet. I'm way less stressed with him then I was with any of my other boys just because I've done this so much now.  I keep thinking about how I was trying to decided last summer if we should have another baby and not I can't imagine our lives without my sweet little guy.  I feel so blessed to be his mom.

As horrible it is to have a baby (I mean really I can name 10 different things before and after that are painful and not fun to go through) the experience is so amazing.  The whole thing really.  I look forward to it so much.  I am lucky enough to have been able to have 5 babies that all came so healthy.  And to finally have a normal delivery was so amazing!

The summer of sheep

I'm really sorry for how huge of a post this is but since this was a huge deal this summer I wanted to remember as much as I could about it. 

This summer will always be marked as the first summer we had sheep.  I’ll be honest, I was really worried how this would go.  I knew I wasn’t in any shape to do a whole lot with the sheep and was worried my boys would totally drop the ball on it.  What happened was pretty much the opposite for the most part.  Tyson really stepped up this summer.  Blake did a little but was nervous about the sheep as they got bigger. For the first couple of months we had to go out with bottles in the morning, lunch, around 5 pm and right before bed and feed our baby lambs.  We slowly got to where it was just three times a day then just morning and night.  Soon my boys would get up and go make sure they had grain and water every morning.  Most days I would look outside and see Tyson in the sheep pen chasing them around and talking to them.  There is no doubt they were our pets.  We loved them.  Well I’ll be honest, Frodo (the bigger one) started to jump on me for awhile and I didn’t like that very much.  And he would sniff at my butt where he was just the right height and I didn’t care for that either.  For the most part though he was so good.  And really good with my kids.  

Shawn is the smaller sheep and he had a totally different personality then his brother.  Frodo was super social and usually the first one that wanted to be fed.  He was the leader of the two.  Shawn has been a scared little guy his whole life.  He even was nervous with Tyson.  And he HAD to be next to his brother.  He would freak out if he couldn’t see Frodo and baaah and run around the pen.  Frodo would almost always let you pet him when you walked up to their pen.  He was like a dog that didn’t make noise.  

As apart of 4H we needed to walk them.  We would put them on a halter rope and walk them down the street and around our yard.  Blake was my only kid that didn’t really like this because Frodo (his sheep) was kind of crazy with him and would jump around. That would make Blake super nervous.  Even Brett would walk him sometimes and laugh when he would jump.  The boys called him Frods. Tyson really loved his sheep Shawn the sheep.  He, by far, paid more attention to Shawn.  If I asked Ty to check on the sheep or get them anything he would always do it.  The kid loves animals.  

Right before the fair we got Frodo sheared and cleaned up.  He looked so much worse without his wool.  He looked all wrinkled and weird.  Monday they set up their pen.  Wednesday we took Frodo down to get him weighed and put in his pen at the fair. Frodo was 107lbs and Shawn ended up being around 95lbs.  Because we can only sale one sheep at the fair we found someone to buy him for his meat. (Bryan’s boss).  We lucked out and our neighbors in our ward have sheep in a pasture a block away and are letting us put shawn there until we can get him processed.  Which I HATE even saying that really it makes me sad.  Thursday Bryan and Tyson left early for the fair to get Frodo cleaned up.  Bryan said it was really awesome to be there with hundreds of 4H kids as they washed and cleaned up their sheep.  This first day the sheep are being judged on the market value.  I was REALLY nervous on how Ty would do.  I didn’t want him to be the one kid that lost control of his sheep and watch it run off.  They have to walk it in just using their hands and no ropes. Ty came in second in line and the kid in front of him lost control of his sheep.  I was thinking oh crap here goes Frodo but Ty kept a hold of him and he did so amazing.  He held his sheep and put him in line PERFECT.  Seriously I was so amazed on how well Ty did.  Frodo didn’t score very high for his meat value which is totally fine to me because Ty did perfect.  He was like 11th out of 14 kids but really I think that is even because of where in the line he was.  They started pulling from his side of the line first to place them. Ty still got a 2nd place ribbon (they all get a ribbon) with $9 on it.  He was so proud of himself.  

I wanted Ty to did the showmanship day on Friday but Bryan wasn’t willing to wait ALL day to do it.  Ty was the last group.  Ty didn’t much care either but next year I really want him to try.  Saturday is the big day where the kids sale their sheep.  The whole reason we had sheep was for two reasons: the kids to learn responsibility and earn some money they can save in the bank for missions.  We wanted his sheep to sale for a ok price.  Bryan and I paid for all of the expenses which were a ton.  We totally didn’t make money on these sheep but Ty will. 

We had to wait for awhile for his turn but Ty finally got his turn in the auction.  He had his back turned to half the crowd but oh well he didn’t realize what he was doing.  Frodo sold for $350! A guy from a bank down in Provo brought it.  (they do it for charity mostly and sale it to these meat guys who pay them meat market price.  Frodo was about 150 bucks in the meat market so they paid about 150 in the end.) Ty had no idea when he walked out how much he had made.  When Bryan told him he was hugging and cheering for Frodo because he was so excited to have made that much money.  

Then came Saturday night when we went down to make sure Frodo had food. We knew we had to say goodbye to our pet.  We let Ty take him out and walk him around a bit.  We were the ONLY people doing that out of the hundreds of sheep.  I got pictures of all the kids with him then we took him back to his pen. These cute girls from our 4H club were in the pen next to ours just crying their eyes out saying goodbye.  I knew I was in trouble.  My boys started to hug him and it made me tear up I won’t lie. They were all heart broken to say goodbye.  Then my boy who was the most scared all summer with the sheep looked up at me and from under his cowboy hat I saw huge tears streaming down his face.  Poor Blake was devastated.  He said something like He was such a good sheep mom I don’t want to leave him.  It’s just so sad.  He cried and cried. I just couldn’t hold back the tears then to see him that upset.  Stockton was crying pretty bad too.  Tyson of all kids was holding it together pretty good even though I knew he was sad.  The hardest part of all of this is knowing this little baby lamb that we had bottle fed and loved and cared for was about to be butchered and he didn’t even know it.  He trusted us. He loved us.  It’s a hard life lesson to learn.  

Our 4H leader said something to us that makes me feel a little better about it.  Had we not taken them they would have had a lot sadder life.  Especially our little bum lambs I’m sure they would have starved to death without their mom to take care of them.  We kept them alive and gave them a good life.  I doubt many other sheep were loved more then them.  

I have to add something here too.  Bryan has really, really loved these sheep.  He was always the one who went out at night to feed them.  When they were little he would go out and hold them trying to get them used to people. He would talk to them and play with them.  The boys laugh that Shawn was always chewing at Bryan’s leg hairs.  They loved Bryan, especially Frodo.  Bryan would talk to them and just spend time with them.  He has loved them as much as Tyson.  When we would go feed Frodo down at the fair he would jump up on the fence so Bryan could rub his head.  That made me feel really bad.  Most peoples sheep didn’t really care too much about people but Frodo did.  

So would we do this again? You bet we would.  I hope we can do it next year.  So many life lessons learned from our little lambs.  

 Jumping on the tramp.  

Stockton cleaning up sheep poop.  

 How we weighted the sheep

 Frodo getting sheared.  It took like 3 hours I kid you not.  

 Poor Naked Frodo. 

 Shawn was gross so Ty and I gave him a bath. 

 Cache County Fair!!   

 In the ring to auction off his sheep

Saying goodbye to Frodo

 Frodo was Blakes sheep and he was the one to bottle feed him as a baby.  And he named him.

 Saying goodbye.  Bryan doesn't like this picture.  He said it even made him tear up to see them so sad.  Makes me tear up thinking about it.