Melody's Surgery

Wednesday, November 19th, 2014

Melody went into Primary's Medical Center for her surgery. She had a strip craniectomy. Her skull had fused together too early in the middle of her skull. This was allowing her head to grow back to front, but not side to side. So her skull was getting elongated. So they took out a 1 inch strip in her skull and reshaped the skull to allow for normal growth. She will have to wear one of those baby helmets for about 7-8 months, but she won't get it for at least a week. She stayed overnight in the hospital and will probably need to stay one more night. Hopefully not more!

Here are some pictures and a video that I have taken over the course of the last 2 days....

Josh took her early for a blood draw and this is when I came to the hospital...still awaiting surgery.

got tired while waiting for our plastic surgeon to get started with the surgery

They had to shave part of her head for the surgery :(

she might lose more hair with the helmet on anyway

This was after I went to dinner the first night, she's all drugged out at this point.

This is from this morning (Nov 20th)....still drugged out a bit, but wanted to keep looking at me.

After finally having a wet diaper and getting 2 ounces of formula in her. She also has an IV fluid in right now to get her to get wet diapers because she isn't eating much.

I had to sneak in a picture of this beautiful angel!

This is Emily's (Josh's cousin) baby Kendra. She has Down Syndrome and had heart surgery the day before Melody so we had both of our families at Primary's. (they have been here and will be here longer than Melody will have to be)

Melody (2 months) and Lucas (15 months) checkups

Melody turned 2 months on the 14th and Lucas turned 15 months on the 16th. So they both had checkups this week. 

Melody is getting bigger (although still small compared to what the boys ever were) , she is up to 11 pounds and is 21 inches long. She is such a sweet baby. She is smiling A LOT now and loves to watch what her brothers are doing (except when they get too close lol). She loves to stick out her tongue a lot and "lick" the air as evidenced by this picture.

Lucas is a whopping 28 pounds and 32 inches tall. He is always on the go, go, go.....he NEVER wants to sit still. He's been walking around since 12 months (not too long after that checkup did he really start walking all the time) and he loves watching himself in mirrors or videos or pictures.

Melody's Blessing/Primary Program

Yesterday we blessed Melody in church. She had a beautiful dress that I borrowed from Mandy, a friend in our ward. Lots of people commented on how beautiful she looked and I would have to agree :)

It was also the day of the primary program. They have been learning this year about Eternal families. Aidan was a pill and made daddy sit on the stage with him. He would occasionally cry while sitting there and Josh said Aidan said multiple times "not Aidan's turn". When it was his time to get up with his classmates for his part, he said his part with help.....all the while crying. But he did get through it and I'm proud of him!

I'm sure lots of my family members that where there were laughing along with me.....it was too cute!

Aidan's 4th Birthday

Yesterday, my first born son Aidan turned 4 years old! We had a family party. (I am going to try and attempt a friend party for him next year) He got some Leap Frog learning DVD's, a DVD of "Elmo in Grouchland", a Lightning McQueen car that moves by itself when you shake it, 3 books, a shirt, a boxing Spider-Man toy, and a velvet coloring page with markers.

Here are some pictures from each year of his life-

2010:

family photo shoot

his first Christmas

2011:

wandering around with a bucket on his head

first time back to church for this (once) inactive family

2012:

starting his love of trains :)

playing in the snow with no gloves

"I'm hiding"

2013:

Santa hat

holding brother Lucas

loves Superman stuff

2014:

silly boy in Melody's bassinet

birthday morning

Spider-Man toy.......he boxes and you can hit his gloves too to "show him what you've got"

I couldn't be happier to have this sweet, smart boy in our family!

Melody Paige 1 month old!

I can't believe she is a month already, I hate how fast they grow!

She is such a doll and a joy in our home! Aidan just adores her (will always let me know when she is crying, sleeping, happy/sad etc.. and loves to say hi to her) and Lucas is slowing getting there (now instead of always hitting her, he will come look at her and smile....I still have to watch his hands though so he doesn't hit her).

She is a good little sleeper. She is still wearing newborn clothes (Aidan and Lucas never fit in anything newborn.....she seems so tiny compared to them!) She has given 2 genuine smiles to me and a few to daddy. She has the funniest mad faces I've ever seen (she has already perfected "the scowl") She is slowly starting to eat more in one sitting (for the longest time she'd only drink an ounce, so she'd want to constantly be feed throughout the day), now she gets about 2-4 oz at every feeding so we are having to do it less.

I love having another girl in our house, for a while I thought I'd be the only women in the house. I am very grateful that she came into our lives when she did.

Here are some of my favorite photos of her short little life:

her "lovie" she loves to hug

I love baby headbands!

cute outfit from Aunt Amy

staring at mama

asleep in mama's lap

First Day of Preschool

Today is Aidan's first day back to preschool! This time, he gets to go through the whole school year!

He is so excited that he is ready hours before the bus arrives.....and he was so sad last night around bedtime that the bus wasn't here for him yet. I'm glad that he likes going to school and riding the bus!

Melody's birth story

My original due date was August 20th. When I went to my last doctor's appointment (August 7th), he told me that he could induce me in a week if I wanted to. I told him YES! because I was SO DONE BEING PREGNANT! 

That morning, I called the hospital at 6 am to see if they were ready for me. They told me that they were busy at that point and to call back at 8 am. I call back at 8 and they told me they were short staffed, but trying to get another nurse in. They told me they would call me when they found someone and could then take me. Josh came back from somewhat of a "third interview" for a new job at about 8:30. When he got home, he had the thought that since we were playing the waiting game, we could play it over at his mom's house since she would be watching the boys for us anyway. Josh had just told Aidan to get his shoes on to go in the car and the hospital calls right then and asks me to come in.

Since we needed to get there, we just loaded the boys in our car and would meet Linda there for her to take them. We got there just a few minutes from the time we told the hospital we'd be there, so I went up to labor and delivery while Josh waited to hand the boys off.

The nurse they had to bring in turned out to be the nurse that would be with me in the labor room. We got me started on the pitocin and decided to give me a higher dosage than others (we think because they wanted things to move along and they thought if they didn't give me a higher dose, that it wouldn't move along quickly).

Long story short (haha) I started having some contractions about 10 minutes after getting the pitocin. I had my water broken by someone and there was a LOT of liquid, more that they have seen lately! The anesthesiologist had 2 scheduled c-sections that he needed to give epidurals to starting at noon and he got to my room about 5 minutes before noon to get mine started. He had just marked my back as to where things would go and I just started to feel intense pressure and I just started SCREAMING!  I was screaming so loud that I wasn't really hearing anything anyone was saying until the nurse got right in my face and said "Sarah, what are you feeling?!" and I said something like "I think she's coming". (obviously from my screaming I don't remember what I said)

They had about 3 people move me to lying on the bed and the nurse checked me and said "she's right there!". My doctor was nowhere to be seen and all of a sudden there is another doctor there telling me to push. The whole time I was pushing, I was just screaming (I didn't stop screaming until she was out)

Melody Paige Bowe was born at 12:17 pm on August 14th!

My mom and dad got there as I was being stitched up. My doctor finally showed up and said "I didn't even know you were here!" (The nurse I had tried to page him around 11:15, but he obviously never got the page.)

First day out

The next morning after a feeding

going home with dad, mom, Aidan, and Lucas

Sunday sleeping the day away