Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Life Recently and Lots of Pictures of Benji


Brian and Eila came to visit right after Benji was born.

 Grace loves to hold her little brother. She asks to hold him all.the.time. She's very sweet with him and just loves him to death.







 Ruby also loves her brother a lot. She, however, is slightly less gentle with him. She's just 2 and it's hard to be soft when you're 2. :)







 Emily came to visit us. We had a delightful time hanging out. We went to the farmer's market, Southlake Ranch (from the show Dallas), ate delicious food (I discovered jalapeno jelly and oh.my.goodness. I am obsessed), and just had a great time together.


Ruby loves her Daddy and this is how she greets him sometimes when he comes home.

Grace is hilarious when she talks to Ben. She has the funniest little mama voice that she uses and the funniest terms of endearment for him. Every time she is near him she gets close to his face and tells him how "cutey wooty" he is and that's he's so "chubby wubby" and so on. It's hilarious and slightly annoying :) Don't mind me in the video, I was trying to nap and Grace has had a cold that I don't want him to get.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Halloween

 Halloween was a little nutty this year seeing as we had a baby 2 days before, but we did our bes.

The afternoon before Halloween we carved pumpkins. We let the girls choose what their pumpkins were carved as. Ruby wanted Minnie Mouse and Grace chose a witch. I'm not sure what we were thinking not doing the triangle eyes and grinning mouth :)


Grace wouldn't touch the insides of the pumpkin, but fearless Ruby dove right in :)


Ruby helped Ben make sure his bouncer was always bouncing :)

This year Grace was Ariel and Ruby was Minnie Mouse. Grace's hair is still pink from the red hairspray not washing out!







Grandma and Grandpa snuggled Benji and handed out candy on the front lawn (that's how we roll here in Texas...it's still really warm!). 

It was fun, if a little haphazard what with a newborn and all. I'm just really glad that he was born before all the candy came to live at our house because with the diabetes, that would have killed me!

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Welcome Benjamin Bunker Carter

This is the story of Benjamin's birth, consider yourself warned :)

It's crazy to me that each pregnancy and birth can be so different. With Benjamin, I was borderline diabetic and had to have a special (mostly, haha) sugar-free diet which wasn't a problem with the girls. I was also a bit sicker and felt different with his pregnancy than the girlies. And his labor was totally different. With the girls, I had no signs of labor until I was in labor, with Ben I had all the signs and wonders that normally mean that labor is imminent starting a week before he was due. 

This time around we opted to give birth at the Allen Birthing Center. It's a really cool old house that has the regular appointment rooms downstairs and upstairs are two birthing suites. Each suite has a four poster bed and looks like a regular bedroom with a bathroom attached. It is so neat that it's so comfortable like a home and not a hospital. I also love that you end up knowing everyone really well who will be at your birth. I had a great experience with giving birth there.

Rob's mom came the week before I was due and I was sure that I was going to have him before she even got here. I was having a lot of strong contractions, but they just never got consistent, so she made it in time for the birth. For the next week and a half of her visit I would have lots of strong contractions then they'd fade away. My due date came and went (I was seriously surprised that he was hanging in there!). The Tuesday after my due date I was dilated to a 4 and 70% effaced and had my membranes stripped which I thought for sure would put me into labor, but no such luck. When the midwife was checking me she made a funny little surprised sound and told us that his little hand was on top of his head and he was playing "handsy" with her. How long can you walk around at a 4? Apparently at least a week. That Saturday, Rob's mom left without him having been born. It was so heartbreaking. I really don't know how we would have survived that painful 2 weeks of waiting and being uncomfortably pregnant and cranky without her! The girls loved having so much attention and playtime with grandma.

 My parents got here that same afternoon that Annette left. Saturday night I had a ton of really strong contractions that I had to stop and breathe through, but they were mostly in the lower part of my abdomen without much in the way of tightening my whole belly. They were weird. Not surprisingly, by the time we went to bed, they had petered out. Sunday morning I woke up with more strong uncomfortable contractions and we opted to not go to Stake Conference because I didn't want to be left alone in case they got stronger. By mid-morning {shocker} they had stopped. By this point I was so frustrated that it didn't seem to matter what the contraction was like or how many there were, they would stop as soon as I started to get excited about them. Little stinker was playing mind games with his mommy! That afternoon I was having scattered really strong contractions. At one point we were Skyping with my brother and his wife when one came on. I motioned to Rob that I was having a contraction and that he should take over talking. He started talking for me teasing my brother and making me laugh harder and harder. Laughing during a contraction that strong was one of the most painful things I have ever experienced! Afterward, I warned him that if he made a habit of being funny during contractions he wouldn't be invited to the birth :) 

All Sunday night, I was having more contractions every 10-20 minutes, but they never got very consistent and by the time we went to bed they had pretty much stopped. As soon as I laid down though I was woken up every 10 or so minutes with a crazy contraction. Finally around 1:30 am I had a really strong contraction that made me want to wake Rob up, so he was awoken to me grasping for his hand, which to his groggy self apparently felt like me hitting him  :) I was also shaking uncontrollably. It was scary to me that I felt so out of control of my body with the shaking. I learned later that the shaking is caused by a hormone rush. Rob called the midwife and we woke my mom up and headed to the birth center. I found out later that about a mile into the 7 or so mile trip the gas light came on in the car which my sweet, smart husband opted not to tell us about that part until later :) When we got there, the midwife checked me and I was at a 7, which was great, but sadly there wasn't going to be enough time to fill up the big birthing tub. Instead I got into the claw-foot tub to relieve some of the discomfort from the contractions. The tub ended up being too small to be comfortable to me when it was getting really close, so I got out and headed back to the bed where I labored for a bit more and finally Benjamin was born at 3:40 am an hour and half after we got to the birthing center. At one point I was having trouble focusing and being calm so Rob crawled up on the bed with me so I could focus on him to relax. It took every ounce of self control I had to focus on him which resulted in what he likes to refer to as the "death stare" I gave him. Sadly, I never really gained control of my relaxation after being awoken by the crazy shaky contractions, so his birth was a bit more exciting than Ruby's :) I'll just say that I can do better next time!

He had the cord wrapped around his neck, but it wasn't too tight so he came out and then they unwrapped the cord. Amy, the midwife, put him on my chest and I fell in love with him. He looked so small and we were all surprised that he wasn't bigger, but then they weighed him. He was 9 pounds 1 ounce, which looked so small because he was really long, measuring in at 21 3/4 inches. We got all cleaned up and Benji got all checked out, then Rob got into bed too and we took a little nap with our sweet new little baby between us for a couple of hours before my dad brought the girls to meet their new brother. We got home around 9 am that morning. It was so nice to be home and resting in my own bed without anyone poking and prodding me.

Relax and focus
Cutting the cord
The birthing room. How cool is that bed?!
Happy Grandma
Ruby trying to hold her baby brother

First family picture
Proud Papa

We are so glad to have our sweet Benjamin here finally!

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Recently

 Well, Brother hasn't made his appearance yet. He is due tomorrow (Sunday), but all week I have had contractions and he's so low that I thought for sure I wouldn't make it to my due date, but here we are :) Rob's mom, Annette, got here on Tuesday to help out. It's been awesome to have someone to do fun things with and distract us from the waiting.


This morning we went to a pumpkin patch and rode horses, jumped in bouncy houses, did a petting zoo and took a hayride.



 


We decorated our door for some Halloween spirit.
Ruby tried her fit in the doll bed.
Snuggling sisters :)
We've been going on lots of walks to encourage Brother's arrival.
The birth center where we'll be giving birth. We're on the porch if you look closely.
The best part of the birth center is the porch swing, if you ask the girls.
Snuggling with Dad watching BYU play. The girls are getting pretty good at the fight song (at least the Rah! Rah! Rah! part).


 
A not so cute picture of me and my belly for anyone who cares (I'm always curious) :)
 Ballet class


Trying on Grandma's glasses.
Making cookies and (trying not to) eat dough.
With excellent timing, Rob got Bronchitis this week. Here's the pharmacy that they prescribed for him.
 
Tonight was the ward Halloween Party. Grace dressed up as Ariel and Ruby as Minnie Mouse.
In another bit of awesome timing, Ruby learned how to climb out of her crib, so here she is first night in her big girl bed. She is so excited to be big like Grace, but is having a hard time staying in bed.

That's all for now folks. Hopefully we'll have some more exciting news soon!