More pics

Jordan turned 3!

I can't believe my baby (for the next 3+ months) turned 3! I wanted to post on her actual birthday (Oct 3rd) but it was such a stressful day that there was NO way that was going to happen. We didn't own a digital camera when she was born so I've been scanning in pictures of her when she was tiny so you can all see some of the things she went through and how far she's come! I'm probably going to do multiple posts throughout the next couple days so I'm not here for hours... But all in all there will be LOTS of pictures =). Some of them will be similar but I can't not post them all =). She's such a sweet girl and we are so glad that we're able to be her parents. Even through we've gone through so many trials to help her, it's all been worth it. She's got such a spunky personality and we just love her so much! We can't imagine life any other way than with her =).

The night of Oct 2nd, 2005 was VERY eventful. Rhett was in the ER all night. He was having severe abdominal pains. He was on IV's, pain meds, and having lots of testing/scans done. We probably didn't leave the hospital until about 5 in the morning on Oct. 3rd. I was scheduled to be induced in just hours, and had NO sleep and a VERY drugged husband! Lovely! The delivery room tried calling me multiple times that morning to let me know I needed to come get checked in by guess what I was doing! That's right, sleeping! I think I woke up around 10 or so and dragged Rhett to the hospital (I think I might have been the one driving...). We got checked in okay and started on my pitocin. I got my epidural almost immediately after the doctor broke my water (I think I was maybe a 2 or 3 when he did that so it was NOT pleasant!). I'm all about the pain meds as soon as I'm able. Both my kids were coming along posterior and therefore I had MAJOR back labor, along with normal labor pains =). Jordan came pretty quickly (compared to her Brother's 36ish hours in labor...). She was born I think around 5 that evening. She had 2 9's on her apgar, weighed in at 7lbs 1oz and was 20.5 inches long. it was VERY obvious right when she came out that something was wrong with her spine. They immediately called the ICU people to come into the room (I think there's a button somewhere in the room that calls them automatically... It was really fast that they came in...). Thankfully Jordan was breathing very well on her own so they were able to keep her on her stomach the entire time. They got the "opening" on her back covered with sterile stuff pretty quickly and then we all learned that UVRMC in Provo, UT doesn't have a neurosurgeon which Jordan would need to surgically close her spine/back. She was taken by the "life flight" team (by ambulance though) up to Primary Childrens Hospital in Salt Lake a couple hours later. They had to wait for them to drive down from Salt Lake to get her- and thankfully she was so stable that they were able to take her by ambulance. Both my mom and my mother-in-law flew in that night once they got word that their new grand daughter was going to have some health problems. You might be wondering about where Bennett is during all this... The week before I delivered Rhett was in AZ for his friends graduation and had taken Bennett down there with him. My mom offered to watch him down there so we wouldn't have to worry about finding a place to take him when I delivered. What a blessing! So Bennett flew back up with my mom that night. My mom and Bennett stayed the night in South Jordan with my Grandma (after vising Jordan in SLC) and Connie and Rhett stayed in a hotel close to Primary Childrens (after Rhett was up at the hospital with our home teachers to give Jordan a blessing). I guess that night was pretty eventful at the hotel with Rhett having more stomach problems and still being drugged up... I'm glad I was able to miss that! So here I was, in Provo, having delivered my daughter hours earlier, alone and in a different city from my child. That was hard. And on top of that I wanted to nurse her so I was up frequently pumping my heart out with no baby to help =). I was discharged about 2 days later (I think!) and went up to SLC to see Jordan. She had surgery the day after she was born and that went really well. She was discharged from the hospital 6 days after she was born, which is really good for her having spina bifida. Enjoy the pics. I'll give some explaination underneath the pics.

Jordan in her isolette (sp?!) on the way to the ambulance

On her way to SLC!

Pics of our pretty princess soon after she was born. I think this was in her room at Primary's.

You can see her bandages from her surgery. She had to stay on her stomach until she was about 5 days old. Look how red her face/body is! Poor dolly. They kept her diaper undone and had what they called a "mud flap" covering her incision too so that poop wouldn't get close to it =). It was so fun learning how to clean that up =)

Finally on her back!

And with the diaper on all the way...

Some pictures at about 2 months old at Jordan's blessing. She hadn't had her shunt put in at this time so ou can see how funny looking and big her head is.

Jordan is about 3 or 4 months old. She had just had her shunt put in and was having a very hard time getting off her vent. I guess I would too with RSV and pneumonia!

I think she was off her vent here bu had her feeding tube still in her mouth.

The machine that kept her breathing

Jordan is recovering well at home. She's probably 5 months or so.

Here she comes!

Ready or not... baby number 3 is on the way! If you're surprised by this, don't worry, you're not alone. I hate saying this but it wasn't planned by any means. I'm about 16 weeks along and my due date is Feb. 3rd 2009, my mother-in-law's bday =). I hope Connie doesn't mind sharing! I had my first doctors appointment at about 14 weeks. NO sign of any problems with the baby... and by the looks of things we're having a GIRL but we were told that it's not 100% since I wasn't super far along to check for that kind of thing but I'm pretty sure we got a clear enough look to start picking out girl names. Any suggestions? We don't agree on much. I'm kind of pick with girl names. I don't like them to be very girly but I also don't like strange. Any help would be great =). Bennett will tell anyone who asks that mommy has a baby in her tummy. We're just happy that he kept his mouth shut before we decided to spill the beans.

Picture of our little one with her arm up over her read. I LOVE profile shots!

Here's the lovely "skull baby" picture. If you can't figure out what you're looking at, on the left is her face, front on, and then above that is one of her arms/hand. On the right side is her rib cage. She looks like her daddy in this one! j/k

Anyways, this should make things really interesting in Ohio. ALL of our bedrooms are on the 2nd floor. I can just picture myself trying to get Jordan up and down the stairs when she'll be 40 lbs of dead weight and me being 8 or 9 months prego. Not a pretty site =).

My parents did something SO unexpected I don't even have words to express it. They are buying us a minivan!!! I know! It's crazy! It's a 2006 Toyota Sienna and is suppose to be rated really high in consumer reports. We can't wait. It'll be nice to have a vehicle to drive to Ohio in that I'm not praying every second of the drive that it'll keep going. And it's obviously great for Jordan and her future needs (and her wheelchair right now...). We were basically speechless when my dad told us earlier today. I can't wait to be minivanners!!

Update

I LOVE my new teeth!! To clarify, I only had 3 of them put on. The new blend in really well with the other ones. If you're debating having them put on yourself, do it!! I think it's a myth that they have to shave your teeth down to nubs to put them on. Just not true, at least it's not the way my dentist does it.

Housing...
We got the housing we wanted! Some of the places we looked at in Dayton were REALLY scary. The more inward you got into the city the scarier they got. We were driving around Fairborn (the little city the school is in) on Sunday night after we flew in, just looking to see what stuff there was close to the school and we ran across these really cute town homes. There were TONS of them! We saw this guy out in front of one of them and so we stopped to ask him if they were military housing (there's a huge airforce base in the area) or privately owned or what. He told us that they use to be military housing, and still were, partially, but that they were starting to rent them out to civilians as well. We got right on that. He have us the contact info for the housing office. We showed up Monday afternoon, had them show us the homes Tuesday morning, turned in our application (which we had to fax to Rhett the night before to have him sign as well...) and prayed we qualified. We did! They're really nice. We have a 1 car attached garage and 2 extra spots in the drive way (which we don't need both but it's nice to have the space...). We have a front yard, back yard full of grass, plenty of room in the garage to put our bikes, food storage, and our grill. They have a pond/river thing that they keep stocked with fish. Bennett's going to love that! They told us we can fish whenever we want, and that we don't need a fishing license which is awesome. It's about a 10 minute drive to the University so as long as there isn't snow on the ground, Rhett will get at least 20 minutes of exercise a day! We only pay gas and electric for our utilities, and those are discounted because it's military housing. So she said that we'll average about $85 a month TOTAL for the 2 of those. AMAZING! When we're use to paying $300 a month just for electric where we're living now, this will be great. The kids will each get their own room. I get a dish washer, garbage disposal, and washer/dryer hook ups. Thank goodness! And there's plenty of room for our piano =). The ONLY downer is that all 3 bedrooms are upstairs =(. that's going to be fun carrying Jordan up and down those when she's 5 in 2 years. Yikes. She's already 30 pounds of dead weight and she hasn't even hit 3 years old... Diet time =).

Hospital...
Since we were banking on getting this housing, my mom and I took the liberty of going to the Dayton Childrens Hospital to check out the Spina Bifida clinic. I really wanted to see if they were going to be able to offer her what she needs, or if we were going to have to travel to Cincinnati or Columbus (each just an hour drive...) for treatment. We LOVED the facilities. We were introduced to one of the main spina bifida nurses there. She told us she had just a couple minutes to talk to us (which is more than we hoped for). We ended up talking to her for 2 hours! We got paperwork filled out to transfer all her records there. She said she's NEVER had someone come in before they moved to talk to or see them. CRAZY! When you have a "fragile" child with lots of medical condition, isn't that just what you do? Duh. I guess that's not the first thing people think of... Strange. You tell me Bethany S. Isn't that the FIRST thing you'd do? Find out where your child is going to be treated!? Blows my mind. So I'm really glad we made a good, lasting impression! I think Jordan will get just about everything she need through this clinic. The only thing i'm a little concerned with is that it doesn't include Pulmonology (heart and lungs I think), which Jordan will need in the future if they're correct that her spinal nerves are damaged so high up that it'll effect her breathing.

Anyways, that's the update. We got our Uhaul rented today so that's one thing checked off our to do list. Now we just need to figure out why our car doesn't run =). Small detail when you're driving across the country in it in 11 days...

BTW, we found 3 more kittens in our backyard yesterday. They're really cute. Let us know if you want any =). I'm running out of time to find places for them.

GOING ON...

It's really amazing how time flies! I had no clue that it'd been this long since I blogged!! There's not a whole lot going on right now that's really interesting to anyone but our little family but here's what's going on for us...

-Next week my mom and I are going to Ohio to look for housing. It'll be great to get something secured and to know how big of a place we're moving to so I can know how much stuff I can pack. Then I can actually get to work clearing stuff out of our house!! I've thought about doing a yard sale but I'm not sure if I'll make enough money to make it worth it. How many people are going to come to yard sales with it so hot outside? I'm still thinking about it but I'm pretty sure it's not worth the hastle...

-Monday I finally get my veneers put on!! This is a birthday present from my parents from my parents from last year. When I was younger (like elementary school age), every time I would go to skateland I would fall or be knocked over and would break my front teeth. So I think 3 of them are partially fake teeth. One's had a root canal and a couple of them have been chipping and discoloring for a few years now. So last year my dad told me to get my teeth done. I wanted to have them bleached first so they'd look nice when I had them all done but the bleaching stuff has made my teeth SSSSSOOOOOOO sensitive. So I haven't been able to get them as white as I wanted to but now they've started chipping even more so I figured it was time. Plus since we're moving, my chances to have it done are coming to an end. So we did the impressions a couple weeks ago and I go in to have them put on in 2 days!!! Woohoo!! Hopefully you don't all think I'm some rich snob having veneers put on all my teeth. It's completely cosmetic and I'm not paying anything for it. That's WAY too expensive for me!



-Another exciting thing going on is that my Diamondbacks are actually starting to play well again!! Yes! I keep this part of me hidden unless I'm at home or with family but I'm a HUGE sports fan. It drives Rhett crazy most of the time. I think I enjoy the Suns the most but I also REALLY enjoy baseball (just since AZ's had their team...). I get to go to the games a few times a year since my parents split season tickets with some friends of theirs and my dad doesn't like to go to EVERY game they have tickets to. I think it scares my kids sometimes with how worked up I get during some of the games! You'd think that since Rhett played sports during high school that he'd like how much I get into games but he doesn't =). Oh well! It's in my blood. I've been a huge sports fan ever since my dad could explain basket ball stuff to me when I was younger.

Here's a few random pictures of the kids to make reading all this other stuff worth it.

Bennett's helping Daddy and Papa McBride work on the house my parents are remodeling. He's wearing his "Handy Manny Tool Belt"

Bennett's playing with his swords that he just opened for his birthday! (It was back at the beginning of May... I'm great about keeping things updated aren't I?!)


Jordan's tired of waiting for us to get her dressed. She's going to do it herself!



Just a silly one of Bennett. Cute boy =)

Fun Little Friend

Rhett and I were laying in bed watching a little SVU last night and I looked up at the ceiling over by my bedroom window and saw something that looked a little out of place. I was wearing my glasses, which I don't see well out of, so I wasn't sure if I was seeing this correctly, and it wasn't clear what it was. So I pointed to it and said "Rhett, what is that?" He said, "Oh my gosh. That thing is HUGE!! You better go out of the room..." I freaked! I was trying to muffle my screams so I wouldn't wake everyone up but I was pretty scared. So I had to go get a jar for Rhett and some other stuff to help him catch the fuzzy guy. I just came to the door frame and threw them to Rhett =). The spider was on the other side of the room but I didn't want to be anywhere close! This guy put up a good fight! He almost made it in our closet and under some blankets. Once we had him in this jar Rhett poured some rubbing alcohol on him to preserve him (and I think it was a painful way to die- poor spidy...). Bennett has a bug collection and they're all in alcohol to keep them real looking. Anyways, he took the lid off the jar and poured a little in and the spider almost got away. Rhett slammed the lid back on the jar and the little guy lost a leg ={. Oh well! Anyways, here he is. We think he's a wolf spider but he's HUGE. This picture doesn't do him justice. He was seriously the size of our hand- like if you open all your fingers. HUGE! We think it might be a brown recluse or a desert recluse but probably a wolf. Either way, he wasn't some little thing that Rhett could just catch and put back outside. No Way! Enjoy...







Have any of you had any new friends try joining your family this summer? I can' wait for the new types of bugs in Ohio!! Blah!

Reptiles Anyone?

We're trying to find a good home for a couple of our pets. I'd rather give them to someone I know rather than sell them on craigslist to anyone...

We have a water turtle who's really quite easy to maintain. He'll come with a really big tank (I think it's 20 gallons??), a heat stick thingy (you put it in the water to keep it warm...), a light for him to bask in, and then of course all the rocks and stuff in the tank, and all the food. His tank has filters, which we have some extra right now (and you'll get those too) and those should probably be changed about once a month or so and then we use distilled water to prevent hard water build up in his tank. If you have soft water you might not have to buy distilled. I'm not sure though. Bennett loves to feed him and watch him swim. Let me know if you want to come check him out! And I can send pics too. I don't think he's a red-ear slider because his ears aren't red but he's some sort of poisonous turtle- but only if you were to eat him. So just wash your hands after you touch him and you'll be fine.

We also have a fire belly toad. This guy is pretty old. We've had him since we lived in Utah (almost 3 years ago...) and their life span is only 3-5 years (I think). But he's really easy to take care of too. He comes with a 10 gallon tank, lots of rocks, and some water bowls he basically lives in. You'll need to feed him small crickets once a week but those are really cheap at Petco or Petsmart. It's under $2 a week to buy him food. He's fun to watch also. Bennett likes dumping the crickets into his cage and watching him catch them. Oh, he also has a heat lamp that'll come with his cage, and a filter if you want to make his cage mostly water, with a little rock. It's opposite of that right now.


Anyways, let me know if you want to come look at either of them. We really need to find homes for them before I start stressing about it as the move gets closer!!