Missionary Farewells and Benson's Blessing

June 9, 2013 was a busy day for our family. Abby and Keenan both gave their mission farewell talks in 1st ward. Abby left June 12 and Keenan doesn't leave until July 10. Their departures were close enough that it made sense to combine their farewells so more family could be there to hear both of them.  Zack and Dustin flew home from their summer jobs in Dallas. Other family in attendance was Gma and Gpa Stock, Bambie and Craig, Blake and Julie, Debbie and Kevin, Robert and Victoria, cousin Emily, and Glenn and Kathy of course.

After church and Annika's nap, we blessed our Benson boy at my dad's house. He looked darling in his khaki pants, white polo, and bow tie. After the blessing, our immediate family headed in to town for Abby's setting apart. That was a special experience to hear everyone's testimony. We came to our house after the setting apart to celebrate Zack's birthday. We sang and ate leftover cake that someone had brought me the week before with a postpartum dinner. :)

handsome boys!

triple trouble. These guys are good friends.

holding Benson for the last time before she left for the Provo MTC

Annika reading her Book of Mormon and talking about it with Aunt Abby.

all together for the last time until July 2015 

All the men who stood in the blessing circle

She loves her little brother! She loves touching his nose and saying "hi, hi, hi!"

just chillaxin' after all the picture taking

resting on daddy's shoulder

Here come's trouble!

texting on Keenan's phone. It's one of her favorites as far as phones go.

she loves Bella!

Benson Kraig Beus

May 30 at 8 pm. I had Keenan take this picture of me right before David and I left for the hospital, in between contractions, of course.

Baby #2 (same outfit I wore on the way to the hospital when Annika was born, courtesy of David's closet)

I was able to do kangaroo care (skin on skin) with Benson right after he was born.  I loved it! He was a screamer, but he calmed down pretty well while I was holding him. 

First family picture with our two babies :) We had Annika bring a blanket to us for Benson so she would feel like she was helping. He started screaming right as she was giving us the blanket. I think she thought he was crying because of her, so she started bawling. She is much more used to his crying now. :)

Uncle Keenan in his favorite shirt

Heading home. We were so anxious to get home. We didn't sleep much during the night since Benson was in the room with us. I got one hour of sleep all night. And we were anxious to be with our Annika girl.

The detailed story: I had an appointment on the morning of May 30th. I took Annika with me. That was a bad idea. She was good until we got to our room and had to wait for nearly a half hour to see the Dr. She was opening drawers and trying to take stuff out, playing with the garbage can (yuck), and dropping things from the diaper bag on the floor. I had a paper sheet wrapped around my bottom half chasing her around the room. By the time the Dr came in, I had torn several revealing holes in the sheet. I am laughing about it now, but it was very frustrating at the time and in my pregnant state.
I was had some real contractions before I went to the Dr. But they were very far apart and not consistent so I wasn't getting too excited. Dr. checked me and I was dilated to a 3 and 80% effaced. I was excited to hear I was making progress. After the appointment, Annika and I ran a few errands. We got some wood cut at Pro Build to fix the twin bed (in case guests needed it when the baby came). I remember have a few more contractions and being pretty uncomfortable before we got home. By the time we made it home, it was lunch time. I started having contractions 10 minutes apart soon after we got home.  I was starting to think we might be having a baby sooner than I thought.  I fed Annika lunch and decided I should clean our house in case I really was going in to labor.  I was a power house of a cleaner! I texted David and had him call me on his lunch break to give him an update. After I put Annika down for her nap, I tried laying down but the contractions were too uncomfortable to allow for sleep. I started writing down the time every time I had a contraction. After school, David called me and we decided my contractions were far enough apart still (6-7 minutes apart) that he should go ahead and do his scheduled Moses Lake drives for Driver's ed. He would be home by 5:30 and at most 25 minutes away at any time. Abby and Keenan were over after school. It was nice to have someone to entertain Annika. I made dinner (on the day our baby was born! :) impressive, I know). Between 4 and 5 pm the contractions started to get farther apart. Some were even 20 minutes apart. I was a little disappointed. But, around 5  pm they started to get closer together and more consistent. By the time David got home, the contractions were really painful.  I was trying to keep moving and get a few more things done before we needed to go to the hospital. I would wait for a contraction to end, then get right back to what I was doing.  I felt very productive, to be in labor and getting things done around the house. :) I called the hospital around 7 pm just to get an opinion on when to come in. I wanted to wait until they were 5 minutes apart, but they were getting really painful. The nurse suggested waiting until the 5 minute mark but to come in if I couldn't bear them anymore. Soon after I called, they started coming 5 or 6 minutes apart. We called Abby to come over to watch Annika, and I jumped in the shower. I put Annika down for bed one last time as a single child. We finished getting all of our hospital things together and we were off. I'm so glad we only live a few minutes from the hospital. It takes the pressure away of deciding when to go in, since it's not a big deal to go home. I do wish our hospital would let us pre-register! First of all, nobody was at the front desk when we arrived. I called the hospital line while we stood in front of the desk, thinking somebody might answer somewhere else, but nobody did! A few minutes after waiting, a lady walked by and said she had to check someone in at the ER and then she'd be with us. I had a few contractions before we finally got up to the 2nd floor. By this point, the contractions were painful and close enough that I was pretty sure they wouldn't be sending us home. Lena Gilbert happened to be working. It was nice to have someone we know to check me in. I had some killer contractions before the epidural was placed and the meds kicked in.  I was so grateful that I made it in time to have an epidural! About 15 minutes after the epidural was placed, my water broke. It was funny, my first thought was that I had peed in bed. With Annika, my water broke when a nurse was checking me. So it was kind of cool that things just happened on their own.  Soon after my water broke, I started getting shaky (Transition phase).  It didn't take long for things to be "complete" and then we just waited for baby boy to drop. Dr. Bunch arrived with several minutes to spare. I think I started pushing around 11:15 pm. I didn't feel as much pressure with the contractions as I did with my epidural with Annika.  I wish I could feel a little more and still have no pain. But, the epidural is DEFINITELY worth it in my book.  Baby boy needed some help getting out so Dr. Bunch used the vacuum for the last few contractions. Dr. Bunch didn't think I would tear. But, the way Benson's shoulders were positioned made it a struggle for him to get out. I ended up tearing a little bit.  I'm hoping not to tear for at least one of our future babies. I'm sure it would make recovery much quicker. Benson Kraig Beus was born at 11:46 pm, just 14 minutes before my birthday! I guess he wanted his own day. :) He came out SCREAMING and didn't settle for several minutes. I was able to have him right on my skin as soon as they cleared out his lungs. There was some meconium, but I wasn't too worried when he came out screaming. His lungs were working well. :) David and I thought he looked very similar to Annika when he first came out. A few days before he was born, we started having second thoughts about his name. We were considering Tyson. However, as soon as I saw and held him, I knew he was our Benson boy. I loved holding our little boy for the first time skin on skin. such a tender experience. I held him for about an hour. We tried nursing. It was so nice that one of us knew what we were doing. :) It took him a day or so to get the hang of it. After I held him, they gave him a bath in our room.  Then, they turned our lights off and we were supposed to try to sleep.  yeah right! We had Benson in the room with us. Apparently, they don't usually take the babies to the nursery anymore.  As I tried to rest, I felt short of breath and had a minor anxiety attack. This same thing happened after I delivered Annika. I attributed the anxiety attack with Annika to the anti nausea meds they gave me. But, I think it might just be my body's reaction to the epidural wearing off. I don't know. Whatever it was, it was not fun.  I eventually called the nurses in and explained my symptoms just to see if they had any concerns. My vitals were fine. I decided to get up and use the restroom, which is scary for the first time after an epidural and delivery. I made it to the sitting up position on the edge of my bed. Then, I threw up and felt much better. :) I used the restroom and made it back to my bed just in time as I was starting to feel nauseous again. I ate something (love that they had pudding cups:).  I tried nursing B every 2 or 3 hours during the night. By the morning, I had received one hour of sleep. Glenn and Kathy came to visit before work. Keenan and my dad came mid morning. And Abby came on her lunch break. Dena was watching Annika for us since Abby was called in to sub. She brought Annika to visit us mid morning too. I loved having our whole little family together. Annika wasn't too interested in Benson. But, I had missed her and loved having her with us. She didn't stay long before it was time for her to eat lunch and go down for an early nap. (I think she woke up early that morning) We would have gone home with her if they would discharge me that early. But, we had to wait until early evening so they could do the PKU test. I think I got one hour of sleep during the day. It was around 6:30 pm when we got home. We missed Keenan's graduation that night. Dad and Abby came over after graduation and we had cheesecake that Abby made me for my birthday and I opened a few gifts. My dad got me a cute outfit from Costco. Kathy spent the first two night over here. So nice! He didn't sleep much the first night. He slept in 3 hour stretches the second night. By the 3rd night he was sleeping 4 hr stretches sometimes. He was circumcised on Monday, June 3. David took him to the clinic. I'm so glad I didn't have to be there, but taking care of his diaper area while it healed was awful! He screamed for every diaper change and I just felt so bad for him! He cried on and off all day after they came home. I'm glad that's over. David was able to stay home with us through Thursday. He went back on Friday for the last day of school. He started working at Mosquito Control for the summer the following Monday. I was pretty worried about being on my own. Abby was here to help out on Monday. She left for her mission on Tuesday. That first day on my own wasn't easy, but it also wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'm still getting used to life with two kids. I do love being a mom with all that the job entails. :)
We love our sweet Benson boy!