The Story of Ford's Birth

A week after Ford was born I sat down and wrote out the story of his birth.  And now that he's turning two years old tomorrow (so crazy!) I thought it was about time I told the story of February 8th of two years ago.

Here's the short version: At 39 weeks pregnant, I realized I was having contractions at 3:11 am.  We got to the hospital not too long after that and I was already dilated to an 8 the first time they checked me.  There was no time to have any pain medication or really do much of anything.  Ford was born at 5:31 am, perfectly healthy and strong.  We were on cloud nine and so happy to have him with us.  My labor was quick with Eleanor and proved to be even quicker with Ford (although not as frantic and rushed the second time around).

And now for anyone interesting in knowing all my thoughts and feelings, here's the longer version that I wrote that week after Ford was born...

I woke up Sunday morning (Feb. 7th) and decided that this baby was probably never going to come.  I was 39 weeks pregnant.  I had not felt a single braxton hick at this point and there were no signs he was coming soon.  Of course, there were really no signs of Eleanor's birth--one night I went to bed and the next morning she was in my arms.  So every night I went to bed this time around I made sure that the house was clean and everything was in order because I could go in to labor at the drop of a hat.

We went to church that Sunday (I was bummed I had to scrounge up yet another Sunday outfit to fit my large belly, ha) and I told person after person that I didn't think the baby would be here soon.  We came home, had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner and put Eleanor to bed by 7 pm.  I worked to complete a bunch of Stake Young Women assignments and e-mailed them off so that I wouldn't have anything lingering when the babes came.  We did the dishes and picked up the house and headed to bed around 10 pm.  We brainstormed for a minute about things I could do this week so I'd have something to look forward to and then we drifted off to sleep.

Sleep hasn't been my friend lately--with mild heartburn and some back pain being the main offenders--so I didn't think any of it when I kept tossing, turning and getting up to go to the bathroom.  I would try to go right back to sleep but kept having this same repeating dream where I needed to figure out how to fold a pamphlet to take to early morning seminary the next morning (so random!).

After many, many trips to the bathroom, I started to think, "Is something up?  Am I feeling more discomfort than the norm?"  My lower abdomen was feeling tight but again nothing to really take note of.  When I had Eleanor, labor had started with cramps, lower back pain and bleeding.  I could see how my tight stomach could possibly be the beginning of cramps but there was no blood when I went to the bathroom so I kept pushing aside the idea of labor.

I resisted looking at my phone to see the time as that just drives me crazy and keeps me up more.  Finally though I admitted defeat on sleep and clicked my phone's home button to learn it was 3:11 am.  I sighed and decided to go get a drink of water.  While in the kitchen I wondered what I should do, maybe sit on the couch?  I decided to hang out in bed instead and debated if I should tell Aaron if something was up or not.  I was still VERY unsure that this was anything to speak of and I knew that the minute I told Aaron I might be in labor that he would jump into "go" mode.   He had been trying to convince me for the last 9 months that right when I felt anything we would head straight to the hospital.  I wanted to be sure it was "something" before committing ourselves to a middle of the night hospital visit.  Plus, Aaron was sick and I knew he needed a good night's sleep.  And going to the hospital meant waking up Jessica and making her come over to our house and I really didn't want to do that unless I knew it was the real deal.

I was debating all of this as I climbed back in bed.  Thankfully Aaron turned over right at that moment and seemed partially awake so I decided to just fill him in.  I told him I was having a hard time sleeping and that my stomach could possibly be feeling crampy, but I wasn't sure.  He was surprisingly calm and said, "Ok lets just talk a little and see how you're feeling."  It was probably 3:20 am at this point.  We talked for a couple minutes and I was starting to notice the crampy-ness was coming in subtle waves.  I really had the urge to take a bath so Aaron said he would go start one for me.  We were both wide awake at this point and talking like it was the middle of the day.  It's amazing how adrenaline kicks in.

As I got in the bath, Aaron started gathering up the last minute items for the hospital bag (I kept a list on my phone of what we still needed).  He came to me holding up a BYU shirt and said, "What do you think about this being the first shirt my son sees me in?"  I love being married to this man and I love that he loves his Cougs.

The bath felt amazing and I never wanted to leave it.  Aaron said we should probably call Jessica to give her time to come over.  At this point I was pretty confident that this was the real deal and said I would call her if Aaron brought me my phone.  When he came back with the phone though I started having a contraction that was uncomfortable enough that I asked him to call her.  He said that she answered and perked up right away, "Ok I'm ready!"  We have had Jessica on high alert for weeks now (the poor girl) and she's been telling me that every night she turns up her phone in case we call.  She was at our house in two minutes flat. She's amazing.  I had climbed out of the tub, made our bed and got dressed in comfortable clothes.  Aaron was putting stuff in the car and I was trying to tell Jessica some quick instructions about Eleanor before we left.

Finally, there was nothing else to do but go so I hugged Jessica, grabbed an apple and got in the car.  The time on the clock was 4:11 am when we pulled out of the driveway.  I had been up for an hour and had been having contractions for an hour.  I tried to keep track of the timeline because I love remembering the details of events.

While we were driving and I was eating my apple, Aaron called the doctor's office to tell them we were going to the hospital.  The operator lady said that our doctor wouldn't be on call until 7 am so most likely he would be there to deliver me seeing as it was only a couple hours away.  Aaron told her that we hoped so but that I have babies quickly so we should still notify the current on call doctor to be ready before 7 am.

We kept talking about life and this baby.  Once I finished my apple, I decided to put on some mascara.  This was all so ridiculously more calm than our drive to the hospital with Eleanor.  That drive was all about speed and I had been writhing in pain constantly in the front seat.   This drive we were laughing and I was putting on mascara, it seemed absurd and also wonderful.

We pulled in to the Emergency Room side of the hospital since it was after hours and I told Aaron I was feeling great and could walk in to the hospital.  For some reason I really wanted to walk because it would show just how different this whole experience was to when I gave birth to Eleanor.  The car clock said 4:24 am as we pulled in.

We got to the desk and started checking in.  I was rubbing my lower abdomen as it hurt but I was able to carry on a conversation with the check-in lady.  I kept thinking, "They probably think I'm silly for being here so early because I'm not acting like someone who is just about to have a baby."  The lady though said it was good we were coming in early because they had been having several moms deliver at home accidentally and having to come in by paramedic.   That was Aaron's worst nightmare (and of course mine too), so I smiled at him thinking, "Look how responsible we are being this time!" (Side note: When I arrived at the hospital for Eleanor's birth, Aaron was sprinting me down the hall in a wheelchair.  I was dilated to a 10 when I got to the hospital and Eleanor came just 40 minutes later.  It was so crazy and quick. We were determined to avoid all of that craziness with Ford's birth.)

They had us walk over to the hall and sit on chairs to wait for someone to come get us.  We sat there taking silly selfies.  It felt like we were there for longer than we should be. Shouldn't people be rushing around when they hear you are in labor?

Finally a nurse came and asked if I wanted a wheelchair.  The desire to walk was still strong and I said, "I got this."  I got halfway down the hall when a strong contraction came on.  I took a few more very slow steps and then couldn't walk anymore.  I told Aaron that I should probably ride in a wheelchair after all so he ran to get one.  In hindsight now I can tell that this was most likely the moment I was hitting transition because the contractions got a lot stronger after this.

I rode in the wheelchair and swore that if we ever made it big one day that I would buy the hospital more comfortable wheelchairs--I felt every bump and jerk in that thing.

We pulled into triage and they had me get out of the wheelchair and go to the bathroom to do a urine sample.  I asked Aaron to come with me because I remembered getting stuck with pain in the bathroom when I had Eleanor.

We then made it over to a bed and they handed me a gown to put on.  As I climbed in to the bed, I said out loud, "I just hope I'm at least a four."  I was in more pain at this point and just really wanted this whole laboring to go pretty quickly.  I thought I was past a four but was just preparing myself to learn I was not too far along.  It felt so much less rushed and stressed than when we had Eleanor so I knew that I wasn't completely dilated already.

The nurse hooked up a monitor to my belly and then checked me.  "You're already an 8," she said.  I laughed and Aaron laughed.  How do I progress so quickly?  I'll never know.  I am grateful for it.  The same flurry of excitement, shock and sudden activity set in with all the nurses in triage as it did in the hospital with Eleanor when they told me I was a 10 after just getting there.

They wheeled me in the bed to a labor and delivery room.  As we entered the room, I saw the little bassinet waiting for a baby and thought, "My baby is going to be in there!" It helped put the pain and discomfort into perspective and I got even more excited for this baby to come.

It was about 4:50 am when I got to my room.  They had me climb off that bed and into another bed in the room.  I laid on my side which felt awesome and asked Aaron to start massaging my back.  I really wanted to climb into a warm bath but the room didn't have a bathtub and they were already hooking me up with an IV so I knew that the bath wasn't going to happen.

The nurse did a rush job on the IV and man did it hurt.  She put it in such an awkward place on my arm that after Ford arrived I could barely nurse him.  They ended up having to move it after he came but there was no time for adjustments before.

They checked me around 5 am and I was at a 9 and the on-call doctor was on his way.  I was so relieved that I was progressing quickly because I was hurting a lot at this point.

As I laid on the bed with Aaron massaging my back through contractions, the nurse went through all the standard hospital check-in questions (did you bring in any valuables? a wallet? a camera? etc. etc.) and I kept thinking, "Can this wait til I am through this contraction?"  I feel like any other time you are in tons of pain people stop and cater to you and reassure you.  However, when you are in labor and writhing around they act like it's totally normal and ask you a bunch of random questions as if you are having a conversation over sandwiches at a cafe.  So weird.

I could feel the contractions come and go.  The small break between contractions was such a relief.  I just kept asking Aaron to push harder and harder on my back.  It felt so good and made it possible for me to keep going.

The doctor arrived and introduced himself and confirmed I was a 9.  I asked him urgently if I could start pushing right away when I reached a 10.  I just wanted it to be over and I knew I was close.

At about 5:20 am they said I was a 10 and asked me to roll on my back so we could start pushing.  Laying on my back was incredibly painful because there was so much pressure on my lower back.  I would have given anything to get off my back.  They had me put my legs in the stir-ups and the doctor coached me on how he wanted me to push.  I started pushing at 5:24 am.  Up until this point, I had felt like everything was tolerable and I could handle the pain, but pushing felt like the hardest thing I had ever done.  With Eleanor, pushing felt like a relief but this time it just burned.  I am in awe of anyone that pushes for a long time.  It took everything I had to push for those five minutes.

The doctor would have me push and then pause.  He said he was going to try really hard to keep me from tearing so even though going slow was painful I was hopeful that it would all mean I wouldn't tear.  I do remember being in between pushes and looking up to see everyone (the doctor, Aaron, a couple nurses) all looking at me.  I put on a big smile and looked at each of them as if to say, "Well isn't this a funny situation we have found all of ourselves in?" It is odd to have a room full of strangers helping you through this incredibly personal experience.  Anyways, they seemed shocked I was smiling in the middle of pushing so they all kind of smiled in shock back to me.  The happy moment was over quickly though and it was back to pushing.

Finally, I felt Ford's head make it through and there was an instant relief of some pressure.  I looked down to see my baby and there was this wave of emotion rush over me.  There he was!  All this waiting and I couldn't believe I was finally getting to see him.  With my first delivery, I had all these feelings rush through me at the sight of my new baby.  Then I had felt the weight of becoming a new mom and had lots of random thoughts ("Whoa she was just in side of me!  Wow, that's my baby!  I'm a mom!  I don't know how to be a mom! This little baby needs me and is totally dependent on me now!").  With this second delivery though, I didn't have to worry about adjusting to motherhood.  I was already very comfortable with my identity as a mom and as a result I could just focus on my sheer joy that this adorable baby was now apart of our family.

I was able to push his whole body out with the next push and there he was!  It took a second to hear him cry and even then it wasn't a super strong cry.  They carried him over to that bassinet I had spotted when we first came in the room to kind of rough him up and get him crying more.  They kept him for longer than I would have liked (although it must have only really been a matter of minutes) and I just kept asking, "Can I hold my baby? I really want to hold him."  It was this innate urge to hold him on my chest.  They brought him over and I loved having him on me.  He was so handsome!  I was just in awe and loved the cuddles.

I wanted Aaron to connect with Ford too as soon as possible so after a little while I handed Ford over to him.  I always feel a little shaky right after birth so it also felt safer for Aaron to hold him at that point.  There's not much better in life than seeing your husband hold your new sweet baby.  He was so cute introducing himself to Ford and saying, "I'm your daddy.  You're my son!" The sweetest.

My recovery was a million times easier after this second birth.  There were some challenges still--the IV in my wrist caused me so much pain those first two days and Ford didn't seem interested in breastfeeding at all those first 24 hours.  On the whole though, I felt great and was up and moving around easily pretty quickly.  We stayed in the hospital just one night and then made it home to introduce Eleanor to Ford, which was such a highlight of life for us as parents.

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Now two years later, this all seems a little dreamy to be reading through again.  I can't believe this active, sweet little boy we have running around was just our tiny newborn two years ago.  Ford has brought so much joy to our family and we love him to pieces.

Introducing Ford Eldon McKell

We are thrilled to announce that 

Ford Eldon McKell 

joined our family on February 8, 2015.  

Born at 5:31 am

6 lbs 12 oz, 20 inches long

He is the cutest and cuddliest little boy we could have hoped for and he's making all our dreams come true.  We are all in heaven and doing well.

Finding out the gender

I was supposed to have my ultrasound to find out the gender when I was 18 weeks along and we were stoked.  My appointment was set and we were counting down the days.  The day before the appointment came though the ultrasound place called and said they changed their policies and no longer took our particular insurance.  So just like that they dropped my appointment and our dreams of knowing baby #2's gender were dashed.  I worked quickly to get an appointment at a new place but the soonest they could get me in was in 4 weeks.  It was torture waiting so long (I didn't get to find out until I 22 weeks along!) but for some reason I was determined to hold out for that main ultrasound appt to find out the sex instead of going somewhere and paying to learn the gender.

So finally October 7th rolled along (which ended up being the same day we got the keys to our house!) and it was gender reveal time.  I dropped Eleanor off at my friend Lindee's house and then Aaron and I drove over to the children's hospital where my ultrasound would be.

Our ultrasound tech was everything you'd hope an ultrasound tech should be.  She was talkative, enthusiastic and detailed.  She quickly identified all the key components of the baby's body and went on and on about what a healthy looking baby we had.  Such a wonderful thing to hear that!  Aaron held my hand the whole time and we kept squeezing hands every time we learned something new.  Despite all the challenges of being pregnant and of raising children, I could be pregnant ten more times just so I could have that ultrasound experience over and over again.  It's just an amazing, exciting feeling.

Part way through the ultrasound, I could have sworn the baby was a boy. I didn't know for sure though until the tech honed in on the area.  Sure enough our guesses were right...a BOY! Everyone guessed we would be having a boy so I can't say that we were shocked, but we were 100% stoked.  I can't remember what we said in the moment but there were a lot of happy statements and excited hand squeezes.  The tech went on to tell us that we better not name him anything crazy like Achilles to which we reassured her that we would keep it as normal as possible ;)

We drove back towards Aaron's work, dreaming up what it would be like to have a boy.  It's all just so new to us seeing as we are so entrenched in girly things (the amount of pink in our lives since Eleanor arrived is ridiculous).  The thought of having a boy just seemed so hard to wrap our minds around.  And yet, we couldn't be happier.

We stopped in the parking lot before saying goodbye and filmed a quick video to send to our families.  Watching this video now makes me kinda cringe as it is totally cheesy, but oh well, we are just going to go with it :)  I guess I just get cheesy when I'm excited.  So here it is for your viewing pleasure...

We can't wait to meet our boy!

Baby #2!

Even though I've already talked about being pregnant on here, I thought I'd back up and give this whole pregnancy a proper introduction.

Finding out 
We found out that we were expecting on June 4th.  It was a Saturday and I had conked out on the couch during both of Eleanor's naps.  Aaron was convinced I was pregnant but I thought there was no way.  Around 9 pm that night Aaron went to the store to pick up a home pregnancy test because he was so sure.  I took the test, left it in the bathroom and said, "There's no way."  (Side note: we had been trying and of course I wanted to be pregnant but I just felt like it was way too soon to tell.)  So Aaron went into the bathroom after the three minutes, walked out and looked up and said, "You're pregnant!"  If you know Aaron then you know there's a high possibility that he is joking so I didn't believe it until I went over and saw the two lines on the test myself.  We were blown away but also crazy excited.  We took a slew of selfies to capture all of our emotions.  I can't seem to find them in the abyss that is iPhoto but hopefully I can come back and add them later.

The First Trimester
That first trimester was a major doozy for me.  For some reason the nausea felt much more intense than it did during my first pregnancy and I ended up laying on the couch for a good month while tossing Eleanor toy after toy to try and keep her occupied.  This was when we introduced her to one episode of Daniel Tiger a day, which felt majorly guilt inducing for me but also totally life saving.

I had my first doctors appointment at nearly 10 weeks and the ultrasound showed the cutest little peanut.  I felt this feeling of pure love wash over me for that baby.  I looked over at Aaron to say, "Do you see the baby?!"  Aaron was trying to wrangle Eleanor in the patient chair but he was able to pause for a moment to really take it all in and it seemed to hit him hard too.  We found out that my due date was February 14th so we officially dubbed this baby our "love baby" given its predicted Valentine's arrival.  We went out to lunch afterwards to celebrate.

Telling the Family
We FaceTimed my mom and dad for my dad's birthday (July 20th) and as part of my dad's present we told them that we were expecting another baby!  My mom said she had already guessed it because of how tired I'd been looking in all our previous FaceTimes.  Mothers always know.  We then texted the rest of my family with the ultrasound photo above to fill them in and it was fun getting their texts back.

The following week we were in Riverside with Aaron's family so we were able to tell them in person (I wrote about it here).  It was so nice to have the cat out of the bag because hiding your exhaustion is never an easy thing.

The Second Trimester
This pregnancy has on the whole been a great experience, especially after getting through the morning sickness.  I started feeling kicks much earlier (around 15 weeks!), which is seriously the greatest part of carrying a baby.  It's all just such a miracle.  My clothes were getting tighter much earlier on too and I started rubber banding my pant button around 16 weeks (if not earlier).

At 22 weeks, we found out the baby's gender (more on that soon) and then at 29 weeks I took the awful sugar test to check if I had gestational diabetes.  The lab messed up my results so I had to go back and do it a second time.  I don't know why but it was so much worse this second pregnancy.  It's a miracle I didn't throw up.

We started talking to Eleanor about "the baby in mommy's belly" pretty early on but it's really hard to measure how much she gets it all.  She points to my belly now when we say "Where's baby brother?" so that's something at least!  We have a couple books about being a big sister too, which seems to be helping.  Eleanor absolutely loves babies though--real ones and fake ones.  She carries her baby doll around all day long, changing it's diaper, putting it down for naps, giving it a bottle, folding it's arms for prayers.  It's really incredible how much she gets the whole mothering thing.  She also prays for all the real life babies in her life by name, the most frequent ones being Molly, Winnie and Ophelia.  All of these signs lead me to believe that she will love this little brother like crazy.  I do get a little stressed though when she panics at the sight of me holding another baby.  She'll love the baby but maybe won't love sharing her mama so much.

Documentation
I did a terrible job taking pictures of myself while pregnant.  In fact, I really lost the desire to take any pictures at all.  However, I tried to round up some pictures of me throughout this pregnancy and here's what I found...

16 weeks along:

^^The first time I attempting photographing the bump, even though I felt it appeared much earlier than 16 weeks.

17 Weeks:

^^Not a great view of my belly by any means but those shorts definitely were not zipped up.  I was feeling in the pudgy stage here for sure.

19 Weeks:

^^At my friend Annie's wedding

25 Weeks:

 
^^Ahhh, there's the bump for reals. Weeks 20-29 really are awesome.  You have a legit baby bump happening, you can still stretch many of your normal shirts/sweaters and you just feel (a little more) "pregnant cute."

28 Weeks:

^^At Annie McKell's wedding (more on that soon!).  Hello huge belly.  

30 Weeks:

^^Aaron's holiday work party.  This bridesmaid dress from Annie Jamieson's wedding was a life saver for this Christmas formal event.  I couldn't zip the dress up in the back (hence the sweater) but it still fit around my middle, thank goodness. 

32 Weeks:

^^Christmas day! Gotta love Eleanor's face here.

35 Weeks:

^^Lounging around the house with Eleanor.  I wasn't feeling awesome that day so we turned on the tv and laid in my bed together.  Eleanor had been flipping through Aaron's bible and ended up holding it like so for the whole tv watching session.  Super cute.

^^Date night

^^Hospital pre-registering.

How I'm feeling Now
I'm 38.5 weeks along now, dilated 3 cm and feeling like this baby could come any time.

Every night I go to bed thinking, "Tonight could be the night!" And then I wake up and realize I'm still pregnant.  Bummer.  But then the other day when I picked up a book about nursing and I remembered what a doozy nursing can be in the beginning, I was suddenly fine to wait a couple more days.  Aaron also keeps reminding me that the longer this baby cooks, the bigger he will be, which we both believe translates into a better sleeper right off the bat (or at least we can hope!).

So I waffle between being super antsy for him to come and super ok to wait just a touch longer.  Oh the things that pregnancy does to your sanity!

Eleanor's been asking for "baby brother" a lot though these past two days so hopefully he comes before too long :)

37 Weeks Pregnant

I'm going to interrupt my updating with a current post because I am 37 weeks pregnant now and this baby boy is coming soon!

Before I jump into my thoughts on nearing the end of this pregnancy, I thought I'd share some pictures because we are officially at BIG status (and people kindly tell me so ;)).

I haven't been stellar at taking pictures of myself this pregnancy (which I'm really ok with) but I did make a point one weekend to have Aaron take a couple pictures of me so that this baby can look back and say "that was when I was in Mommy's tummy!"  So here I am at 35 weeks on a Friday night date night (getting them in while we can)...

And then here I am again at 35 weeks (the morning after that date) when we went to the hospital to pre-register.  I took a similar photo outside the hospital when I was pregnant with Eleanor (you can see that here) so it was fun to take one this time with Eleanor as a two year old, accompanying me for her baby brother's sake.  Eleanor was extra good during the whole hospital visit so Aaron bought her a banana as a treat and then we couldn't get it away from her for the picture...

^^The angle here is so deceiving. My belly is much bigger than it appears.

Enough photos though, here's where my brain has been lately...

I went to my 36 week doctor's appointment last week and found out I was already dilated to a 2, which made me very jittery and excited.  I have no gauge on any of this dilating stuff because my last doctor with Eleanor didn't check me in my final weeks.  The first time anyone told me I was dilated was the nurse at the hospital when she looked at me stunned and said "You're already a 10."

So hearing I was already a 2 at 36 weeks put my buns in gear.  I texted Aaron a long list of things we needed to get down asap because this baby was coming!  He immediately then texted our home teacher and the next day we had four amazing guys over at our house helping to finish paint our master bedroom.  Thank goodness for an amazing husband and really great friends.

Just after the doctor's appointment, I picked up Eleanor from Jessica's house (Jessica has been an angel to watch Eleanor during my doctor's appointments) and I quizzed her on if she thought I was going into labor soon.  So glad I have her around to talk about these sorts of things, especially since both of our first labor/birth experiences were pretty similar.

After chatting for a bit, I loaded Eleanor into the car and we headed to the local cafe for macarons   because my one-on-one time with this girl is limited.  I probably looked ridiculous to the people in the cafe for using my large DSLR camera to take pictures of my baby girl eating a macaron across the table, but I just really wanted to capture that moment of her looking so grown up.  She is my pal and has become this adorable, talkative, smart and silly 2 year old that I really enjoy being around.  Things are going to change a lot here soon and I just want to savor the present.

So here we are, now at 37 weeks and I am feeling a little calmer about it all.  My hospital bag is mostly packed and we are finishing our last pre-baby painting project tonight (Eleanor's room).  The baby's room is finished enough for now, the baby's clothes are washed and the house is in decent shape.  There are still a lot of things I need/want to get done (including attending my own baby shower this weekend!) so I'm really hoping the baby doesn't come for another couple of weeks, but if push came to shove then we would be ready for this cute little boy to join us.

I just can't believe that the time is actually here and that we really are going to have a baby again!  We are crazy excited, and if I'm being honest, a little terrified too.  Those first six weeks with a newborn were really hard for me the first go around.  Wonderful, yes, but full of lots of emotions, little sleep and a lot of pain.

I keep telling myself that this time though I have some new advantages up my sleeve, namely experience and perspective.  I already know what it's like to be needed all the time, I already know what it's like to have days and days at home just sitting around (and yet feeling totally busy and overworked) and I already know that one day in the future I will sleep again.  I am already a mom and have gotten into my motherhood groove, so I won't have the same major identity, life altering shift that I went through two years ago.  Of course, I will need to figure out how to be a mom of 2, which seems daunting, but that seems to be a little more about logistics than about identity (maybe I'm wrong but I'm going with it for now :)).

Anyways, I'm rambling but I wanted to capture all my thoughts at this point in the game.  I love feeling those (very strong) baby kicks and I love thinking that I have a nearly fully developed boy inside of me that I get to meet any day.  We have a couple names for him in mind but think we won't officially decide til we see his squishy face.  I never thought I'd wait to decide on a name til having the baby but here we are nonetheless :)

I have my 37 week appointment this afternoon so we shall see where we are at.  Either way though, we are meeting this kid sometime in the next 3 weeks!

Allred Reunion and McKell Family Vacation

We gathered in Riverside at the end of July 2015 for the Allred Family Reunion (Aaron's mom's side of the family) and had a total blast.  I loved finally getting to meet the remaining cousins and to see everyone in one room together.  The cousins were the cutest with Eleanor and even taught her how to "pound it."

We bbq'ed at the pool, swam at the beach, watched Ratatoullie, had a dance party, played lots of "Cover Your Assets" (a card game you need to buy) and played backyard games (including an epic water ballon fights with these).

The night before all the Allreds arrived, we decided to tell the immediate family that I'm pregnant.  I was 13 weeks along at this point and we had been holding out to tell them until we were in person.  We had ordered Eleanor a big sister shirt, and while everyone was sitting down to eat dinner, we stuck the shirt on her and walked out. 

Aaron's mom was the first to put two and two together and started to jump up and down saying, "I knew it! I knew it!"

We loved seeing everyone's reactions as they each started to figure it out.  Announcing baby #2 isn't nearly as shocking as announcing baby #1 (everyone starts to expect that "it's about that time") but it still is exciting nonetheless.  Eleanor didn't know why everyone was jumping up at the sight of her (she wasn't clued in to her shirt's message) so she started crying from all the attention.  She calmed down though and we all had a good dinner.

Here's the proud big-sister-to-be:

And now for all the rest of the reunion pictures...

I love this series of Papa and Molly together...

^^I try to capture those wispy curls as much as possible :)

We ended the reunion with a family photo session.

^^Eleanor has this photo in her room and can identify nearly everyone in the extended family

After the Allred Reunion ended, all of us McKells stayed for a couple extra days for some immediate family bonding time.  A highlight was going to the Redlands Temple for Annie to receive her endowment.   Nothing is sweeter than when you get your whole family in the temple together.  We are incredibly proud of Annie and think she is the greatest.