Sometimes I forget that one of my children came to us through adoption and the other didn't. Honestly. A few days ago I was talking with Jared about one of my family's physical traits and then said something like "I wonder if Kylie will inherit that?" As soon as I said it it dawned on me that probably won't be the case.

Then there's today.

I was driving home from running a few errands in town. I was thinking to myself and wondering if Kipton would be a good baseball player since "C" was really talented at that before he decided to get involved with other things. Another duh moment since "C" is actually Kylie's birthfather and he has no biological connection to Kipton.

Either that or I'm just loosing my mind.

I really wanted to write down all the details of Kipton's birth before I forget. I know "listening" to another birth experience isn't exactly everyone's cup of tea but it's my blog and no one is forcing you to read this anyway :) I've never been good at brevity so I've split this post into several sections that I will post over the next week or so.

Kipton's birth was one of the most amazing events I've ever experienced. Yes it's obviously different than our adoption experience, but very similar in the spiritual aspects of it. It's very surreal at the same time. Easily one of the best days of my life. We've been so blessed to have the children that we have. So very, very blessed.

My due date Thursday, January 21 came and went with little little excitement. I had even planned on attending enrichment that night but Jared didn't get home from work until late. That Friday both Jared and I didn't start getting ready for bed until late. Like almost 2am late. We are night owls and usually don't go to bed until midnight anyway but Fridays we are a little more lax on that. I was having trouble falling asleep and around 3 am I noticed that I was leaking some fluid and then I started having some cramping. The light contractions weren't anything to write home about, but enough that I couldn't sleep. At the time I didn't think much of the fluid. I honestly just thought my bladder had finally given out. The reality is that in pregnancy this just sometimes happens and I thought my time had finally come. Turns out that it was most likely amniotic fluid, but we didn't find that out until we went to the hospital almost eighteen hours later. Oops!

I never did go to bed that night and eventually found myself in the living room trying to relieve the discomfort with a heating pad that I had found in the cupboards. Jared woke up to the smell of burnt popcorn. For whatever reason the heating pad I kept warming up in the microwave started to give off a burning smell. It was filled with rice, but sure smelled like burnt popcorn! Sometime that morning the contractions started to pick up and I decided to take a nice hot bath. That felt GREAT! Jared started timing contractions and he discovered that he could time them pretty accurately with his gps. He could even calculate the average length and interval... you know just in case! By 10 am my contractions were six minutes apart and about 45 seconds long. Jared called the hospital to see what they wanted them at before we came in and we were told 3-5 minutes apart and 60 seconds long. So we weren't quite yet there. (Side note: Something we learned after the fact is that when timing contractions the hospital "counts" any contraction no matter the size. When we were watching the monitors I'd have the large contractions and then smaller ones I couldn't feel. But technically they counted. So I'm sure we probably could have gone into the hospital at this point but oh well. It turned out being better that I stayed home as long as I did.)

By 3 pm I decided to jump into the tub again since it felt so nice. Taking a really, really hot bath felt great!!! I decided then and there that if I was planning on birthing au-natural the bathtub would be the way to go. Because of the bath the contractions slowed down in their frequency and intensity and I was able to get in a short nap.

By around 6 pm the contractions really started to pick up again but still not quite the "stop you in your tracks" contractions that they tell you about. Ammon, Jamie and their son Kaysen (my BIL, SIL and their son) happened to be traveling down to my in laws at that time and stopped by to pick up Kylie. We had debated back and forth quite a bit whether to send her down with them at that time or to wait and see. Because of how things had gone all day we weren't really sure when I'd be going to the hospital. We asked Kylie if she wanted to go with her cousin Kaysen and she said "no!" and then we asked her if she wanted to go see grandma and we got a great big "yes!". It's a good thing Jared convinced me to send her down. It seemed like right after they left that I really started hitting my breaking point with the contractions and knew it was time to leave. By that point the contractions were just long enough and frequent enough that we were pretty sure we wouldn't be sent home. But I was still worried that we would be. I told Jared on our way to the hospital that I was worried that either we'd be told to go home or that I was dilated to a two (we learned the day before that I was 1.5 cm). I thought that it would be just my luck to labor all day and to hardly dilate!!

Next up? The hospital.

to be continued...

Poor Jared has been sick again this past week. The poor guy can't catch a break! Last Wednesday he came down with bronchitis so when I found that out I packed the little ones in my car and headed north to my parents house so we could try to avoid the rest of us getting sick.

I had another appointment today to check Kipton's right ear. Only one of his ears passed the newborn hearing screening when he was born and so I had a follow up appointment today to check the other one again. That ear still didn't pass. They put this ear piece into his ear and then all of us (including baby) have to be perfectly still for almost ten minutes. I kind of lucked out that Kipton was so sleepy when I went in today. Not sure how it will go next week (eye roll). They said that it's pretty common to have a lot of fluid, and can take several times to pass it so I'm not too concerned. The same thing happened to my sister's baby when he was born.

Today I ventured out with my two kidlets for the first time by myself. To the grocery store. Exciting, I know. Took me TWO HOURS from the time we woke up to get out the door! Not that we were in any rush but that included:

Baths for Kylie and myself
Everyone getting dressed
Diaper changes for both
Fed Kipton breakfast
Hair done
Breakfast for Kylie and I
Packing the diaper bag with needed items
Another diaper change for both right before we left

Suffice it to say that getting two children ready at the same time is much more work!

I'm happy to say that Kylie seems to be doing much better. Those first few days home were sure rough and she's really improved since then. She sure loves to help! I just KNEW this would happen at some point. Kipton had been sleeping in his swing in our bedroom and I heard a few yelps from him. I'm with Kylie in the kitchen so I mumble something to her about us going to get the baby. Kylie runs ahead of me into the bedroom and by time I've caught up to her (maybe 30 seconds behind her) I catch her in her hallway holding a little wriggling baby. YIKES!!! So today we've had to put a squalsh on the picking-up-the-baby. She's so sweet with him. I think it will really be good for Kylie to have a playmate. She's very much a people person.