Dane Meeting Avery and James

Avery and James finally got go meet Dane Monday afternoon. My mom drove them downtown and they came and found me in recovery with Dane. They were so, so excited and also very sweet and gentle with Dane. Both of their faces lit up and they couldn't stop grinning. They wanted to touch him of course, and also were very exciting about checking everything out: Avery wanted to see his toes and his ears, they both wanted to see his hair, James was really interested in his belly button and my incision, etc. We got a few pictures, but I am looking forward to getting some better ones over the next few days.

Everybody stayed in recovery with me for a while and then it was time for them to take Baby Dane up to the nursery for a bath and some check-ups etc. Everybody left to go watch Dane through the nursery windows and I had to stay down in recovery...for 3 hours!!! I thought I was never going to get out of there! I was the only person in there and I don't know what the hold up was, but it was a very long three hours. Al kept texting me to see if I was ever going to show up to my hospital room and I FINALLY did at around 6:30 at night. By that time everybody was starving and the kids were starting to get a little restless in the hospital setting. But they still did very well. They all ate and took turns 'holding' Dane with some heavy supervision and assistance. Avery still has a cold which I'm not thrilled about...but what can you do? Oh well...lots of antibacterial wash going on here :)

Little Dane's Arrival

Dane was born at 2:19 pm Monday. We arrived at the hospital at 11:30 to get checked in. After getting all of the paperwork filled out and information in the computer we were put in a small room where they monitored Dane's heart rate for a while and also started my IV. We were told at first that they thought they were running ahead of schedule, but they ended up running a little behind by about half an hour. Not too bad for a busy hospital!

We had an attending and a resident from anesthesiology and Al knew both of them, so they were super happy, friendly, and excited for us. They do spinal blocks instead of epidurals for c-sections here. But in the end the result is the same :) It wasn't too long after they started when they brought Al in to sit by me, and then not too long after that Dane was born! This is the only time that they've lowered the sheet so that we can see him being born. Al had been peeking over the top of the sheet to get a couple of pictures, but then the techs lowered the sheet for us and we got to see little Dane for the first time. It was so exciting. Dane was already crying a sweet little cry and his arms were flailing around. We could see right away that he was a chub! His arms and legs were already filled out. We could also tell that he had a ton of hair :)

The anesthesiology resident took over as photographer and got some good pictures of the three of us, and one with the doctor as well. Everybody in the OR was oohing and ahhing over Dane and his cheeks and the little dimple in his chin. It is the cutest little thing. He also has a dimple in one of his cheeks.

It took a while to close me up, but we were able to hold Dane the entire time which was so fun. When they were finished with me they wheeled me up to recovery. We got to keep Dane in there for a long time too, which I haven't gotten to do before. It was great just to be able to hold him right after he was born for a long time before they sent him to the nursery.

More pics and stories coming soon...

2 Teeth Down

It's been a big week at the Tanner household. My birthday, seeing Santa, Avery's last day of school before Christmas, a couple of different Christmas parties and more. But maybe the most exciting thing is that Avery lost her first two teeth.

She has been waiting and asking about losing her teeth for a while now, since some of the older kids in her preschool class started losing teeth. I told her that it might be a while because I didn't lose my first tooth until I was in the 2nd grade...but she must take after Al in the teeth department. Over Thanksgiving my brother's family and my dad took her to see Puss in Boots and she came home from the theater with a very wiggly tooth. She said it was the popcorn that did the trick. But after asking about losing a tooth over these past several months, when the opportunity finally came she wasn't sure it was that great. She asked my older brother to pull it out and I think she wasn't prepared that it would hurt a little...because he gave it a yank and she ran out of the room crying. After that it took a lot of prompting to even let us see the wiggly tooth, let alone try to wiggle it out. Avery would work on it from time to time, but mostly just let it sit. We had noticed at one point though that actually both of the two bottom middle teeth were very wiggly.

On Tuesday Avery and James had asked for some chocolate milk to drink. They walked back into the family room and just a couple of seconds later Avery came running back into the kitchen holding her tooth, almost in tears because she was so excited. It had fallen out all on it's own. She made a few phone calls that day bursting to tell people all about how she lost her tooth.

The next morning Avery was getting ready for school. She was eating breakfast and had just finished when her other bottom tooth fell out on its own. Two teeth in less than 24 hours! Avery was beside herself.

That night we were eating dinner before we went to see Santa and Avery was telling us all about how she went to school and told everybody about her lost teeth. It went a little something like this:

Avery: I told Mr. Hanak (one of the music teachers) that I lost a tooth!
Me and Al: What did he say?
A: He said, 'Yeah, you sure did!' Then I told the cafeteria worker about it.
M & A: And what did she say?
A: She said, 'How exciting!' Then I told the other cafeteria worker about it and she said 'neat!' And Coach Christy said, 'Wow!' And then I told Coach Budd.
M & A: And what did she say?
A: She said, 'yeah, you already told me.'

Then Al and I just laughed and laughed. I'm sure Avery had walked around most of the day telling anybody that would stand still.

Avery's two permanent teeth are already growing in and I can see that we have some orthodontia in our future...hopefully she takes after Al in that department too and not me! It's all kind of bittersweet. Avery is so excited that she's lost teeth now, but it makes me and Al kind of sad. There little faces just change so much when their permanent teeth grow in. Our little Vee Vee is getting older for sure.

Going To See Santa

The night of my birthday we took the kids to see Santa. We had told them that if Al got home at a good time we would go to Bass Pro Shop and see Santa there. It is just down the street from us and they do a really cute Christmas display. Avery and James were super excited and talked about it for the days leading up to the 14th. Al ended up getting home early that night so we were able to go!

We took the kids last year and had to wait in line forever, but this year it wasn't busy at all. I guess we picked the right night to go. We only waited 5 to 10 minutes and then it was our turn. Avery wasn't shy at all and walked right up to Santa. James, who had been talking about it for days excitedly, panicked at the last minute and started to cry. So Al carried him up to see Santa. Avery told Santa she wants a "green nutcracker with a sword and a crown on its head" for Christmas. They have been talking a lot about the Nutcracker ballet at school and Avery loves it. She tells me something new about it every day. I think it's neat that her teacher is teaching them about the ballet, but I'm not sure what Avery is going to do with a nutcracker...James said he wanted "toys." After Al prompted him to say cars Santa asked James if he liked Lightning McQueen and Mater. That melted the ice a lot and James finally went and stood by Santa. He didn't really want to sit on Santa's lap still, so he and Avery just stood in front of Santa for the picture.

Besides seeing Santa there are a lot of other fun stations set up in their winter land. James was most fascinated by the electric trains and it was so fun to watch his little face be so excited as he controlled the trains. Avery spent some time on the trains as well and also sat at the table to write Santa a letter. There were several other things to do but after the trains and the letter Al and the kids took off to go see the boats that were for sale. It was a really fun night.

Dane at 27 weeks and 3 days

Today I had two ultrasounds. The first one was for my gall bladder. I had to go in fasting, which was rough...they shouldn't do that to a pregnant person. I am still feeling sick from it. Anyway, I had a half hour block for the gall bladder ultrasound. The tech was really talkative and she also had a student with her so she was explaining everything, which is how I found out that I have gall stones. Right before she started the ultrasound the tech explained that she was going to take some images, give them to the radiologist, he would write a report and send it to my OB and then my OB would go over the results with me. But as she was sitting there explaining everything to the student I joined in the conversation. It was interesting! So at one point I said to the tech, "Is that my gall bladder?" and I pointed to a white round marble on the screen. She said, "No, that's a stone." It was funny watching her try to track everything down since the pregnancy has displaced all of the organs. And once we saw a little foot up by my organs :)

After the gall bladder ultrasound I had to go to a different part of the hospital and get a baby anatomy ultrasound. My new doctor just wanted to take a look at things since he wasn't my doctor at the time of my last ultrasound. This was really fun. The tech said that Dane weights 2 lbs. 6 oz. right now and is measuring right on my due date. This ultrasound lasted a half hour as well, and there was another student in on this one, so the tech was talking a lot to both of us. I walked out of there with a ton of pictures! It is so fun to see Dane at this stage. Al met me in the hospital lobby afterwards to see the pictures. He thinks that Dane looks like James :)

Tomorrow is a regular OB appointment, plus the diabetes test. My OB is also going to run some labs on my liver and just see what is going on at this point. I am not having symptoms yet of cholestasis, in the past it shows up for me around 30-32 weeks.

Two Little Bats

We had two little bats this year for Halloween. Avery had her heart set on being Wonder Woman for the longest time. I'm not even sure how she knows who Wonder Woman is...but about a month or so before Halloween she changed her mind and said she wanted to be a bat and she never wavered on it. I thought it would be cute for James to be a bat too. My mom and grandma sewed the costumes and sent them out to the kids. They loved them! The black parts of the costume are made out of a crushed velvety type of material. And you can't really tell in the pictures, but Avery's purple wings were sparkly. I think my favorite part of the costumes is the ears. I love how those cute pointy ears just stick right up.

Avery and James were crazy about the costumes. They have loved flapping their arms and running around the house...so much so that I finally had to have them take off the costumes because my sanity was at stake :) We were able to get quite a few wears out of the costumes. Avery had a birthday party to go to a couple of days before Halloween that she wore her costume to. Then we had the ward Halloween Trunk or Treat, and then actual Halloween. They don't wear costumes to school here, or even have a Halloween party here. Al and I both thought that was sad! We both remember several of our classroom parties and how fun they were.

Al had Halloween off this year which was so fun! He has worked the last two Halloweens. I know he loved going out trick or treating with us. The kids did really well and James caught on very quickly to what he was supposed to do. After we left every house the kids would call out 'Thank you!' and then James would add, 'Happy 'Ween!' Very cute. James would stop and focus on every Jack o'lantern and ask Al if he could blow out the candle. Avery was more focused on getting to the doors :) James was very possessive of his pumpkin bucket and wouldn't let me or Al help him carry it, and it was heavy! The kids loved coming home and dumping all of their candy into a pile. Then we had fun sorting it all out.

I don't really have pictures from it, but Al and I went to a couple's only Halloween party the weekend before. It was a lot of fun. Our costumes weren't that great...we didn't have money to put into it, and we don't have a collection of Halloween stuff to choose from. And I don't have a sewing machine. Not to mention that neither me or Al is super into dressing up. So we decided to go as Juno and Paulie Bleaker from the movie Juno. But the night before the party I found out that my good friend Kim and her husband were going as Juno and Paulie! So then Al thought it would be great to go as ghosts. Just the super classic, lame, white sheet ghosts. I thought it was kinda funny too. Al 'borrowed' some sheets from the hospital which I was totally against. I don't care that he 'borrowed' them. I cared that they had been used in a hospital!! But Al said that they were from the children's ward (he's on pediatric surgery right now) and that he had gotten them from the fresh laundry and that the hospitals actually throw out the sheets very frequently so they never even get used that much. Whatever. I still wanted to wash and dry them again. Al thought I was crazy. Then as we were cutting up the sheets I noticed a small blood stain on the sheet Al said was mine. Al didn't believe me, but then I showed it to him and he was like, "Um...I'll take that one." In the end the ghosts didn't really turn out how we expected, and I was still freaked out about the sheets, so we didn't use them. We ended up being football players...sort of. Al wore his high school jersey and I wore this football jersey t-shirt that I have. We didn't win any prizes for our costumes, but we did win the pumpkin carving contest! We only had 15 minutes to carve, but we did awesome! Avery had suggested before we left that we go with a super mario theme. So Al carved the Boo ghost on his big pumpkin and I carved a one-up mushroom on the tiny pumpkin. I wish we had pictures of the pumpkins 'cause they really were cute.

We are having a...

BOY!!!

We are very excited :)

I took Avery to the ultrasound with me this morning. Yesterday morning she was nearly in tears saying she didn't want another brother, so I was a little worried about how today was going to go.

Avery had a paper she had made that had a box labeled boy and a box labeled girl and she was all prepared with a pen to mark the correct box when the time came. The ultrasound tech was great at explaining everything that she was looking at. They have a big flatscreen on the opposite wall so it was nice to see everything on the big screen instead of craning my neck to look at the little computer. The baby is developing perfectly and measured just 1 day ahead of the estimated due date, so he is growing right on schedule and weighs almost a pound :)

When it came time for the gender reveal Avery was hopping from one foot to the other, barely containing herself. When the tech told us it was a boy Avery started jumping up and down and exclaiming, "It's a boy! It's a boy!" And then she marked the right box on her paper :)

When we left the ultrasound room Avery told everybody in the hallway, "We're having a boy!!" And of course, everybody smiles back and says congratulations. Then Avery said to me, "Mom, I always wanted it to be a boy." Ha ha ha! Well, good! She did say she was upset she wouldn't get to share her room with the baby. I told her she was probably the only person I knew that was upset about not sharing a room!

I texted Al immediately. He had tried to get the day off, but it wasn't in the cards. Right before I went in to the ultrasound he had texted me saying he was in the OR, so I knew I wouldn't be able to call him. I just texted him, "Little DANE looks healthy and perfect, measuring just 1 day ahead of due date." He ended up calling a couple of hours later. He scrubbed out of his surgery because he just couldn't wait any longer and he said that everybody in the OR was so excited too. I didn't get to talk to him for long because he had to go scrub back in, but it was good to hear from him.

We will be naming our little guy DANE WILLIAM TANNER. Al and I both love the name and are so very excited.

Girl or Boy?

I don't know if it's too soon for this post, but I thought maybe it was time to put our guesses out there for what the gender of baby #3 is going to be :)

Here is some input that may or may not be helpful:

- I really think it is a boy
- I have been wrong with both of our other kids :)
- Al has a 100% track record of guessing
- He used to be confident it was a girl, but now he is only semi-confident
- Avery of course thinks it is a girl
- James thinks it's a girl
- James doesn't understand the question :) Or that a baby is coming...
- We have a great boy's name picked out. I am really excited about it!
- We have a blank slate for a girl's name...
- All of my pregnancy symptoms/morning sickness etc. have been different with each pregnancy, so no use comparing.
- One Chinese calendar I saw said boy, another said girl :)
- If we follow Al's older sister's family pattern it will be a girl :)
- If we follow my older brother's family pattern it will be a boy :)
- It is great having one of each already, because I will be thrilled no matter what! I just want a healthy baby.

My ultrasound is on Wednesday, October 5th, less than a week away! Finally! I will be almost 22 weeks at that point. I'm thinking of taking Avery with me. I hope the next few days pass quickly!!

Avery's First Week in Pictures

As you can see Avery's first week of Kindergarten was well documented. And she embraced the khaki and navy blue :)

Avery had a great first week, she loved it. The school is grades K-4 only, which is kind of nice. There are two music teachers and so Avery goes to music class twice a week. They have a PE coach too and Avery goes to PE twice a week as well. They also go to the library once a week. Avery was very impressed when I told her that Grandma Louona used to be a school librarian. Avery is starting to get to know the kids in her class and gives us little details on her classmates. It's amusing :) She brings home a folder every day that has a printout for the first six weeks of school that lists daily homework assignments and a daily behavior report I sign off on. And then it also has the handful of papers that Avery worked on that day. This morning Avery asked me when she gets to go back to school. She is hooked already.

As for me, I did much better on Tuesday when I dropped her off. But then Tuesday night I got really sad again thinking that she was going to be gone the whole next day too. Still adjusting I guess. The rest of the week got better with each day. It is nice/weird being on a routine after a long summer. Wednesday was the last morning I got to walk Avery to her classroom. From now on I can just drop her off at the school entrance. The school had a huge sign posted in the lobby on Thursday morning that said, "Hug them, kiss them, then tell them good-bye!" Ha ha ha! So that's what I did. I can see why they have to have a cut-off though. Avery is fine, but I would walk her every day to her class room if they let me :) And there were a few little kids having freakout/meltdowns as their moms left them in the lobby. That was hard to watch and I'm glad that Avery didn't go through that. Gotta make the separation some time I guess.

James is adjusting too. We have cuddled a lot this week. He's always been a cuddler, but I think it's increased since Avery's been gone. He watched Nemo everyday and sometimes he would come and get me and pat the couch next to him so I would sit by him. Then he would lay his head on my lap. I've spent a lot more time playing on the floor than when Avery was home too. I also think he's starting to talk more! Or maybe I am just hoping he is talking more ;) Thursday morning James threw a fit when we had to drop Avery off at the door. I thought it was because he missed Avery and I felt bad for him. Then Friday morning he insisted on taking a book bag on the walk to take Avery to school. Like Thursday, I dropped Avery off at the door and watched to make sure she headed the right direction. I only watched for a few seconds and then I turned around to look at James in the stroller...and he was gone. I started calling, "James! James!" and was starting to panic when a dad said, "Are you looking for a little blonde boy? He went inside." I don't know how I missed it, but he snuck right in the school. He got a good way into the lobby, with his bag over his shoulder. I grabbed him before he got too far and he had another meltdown. I guess he wants to go to school too :)