Hospital

Last Sunday we had to take Kennedy to the hospital because she had a fever of 101.1. Kennedy had been acting really weird all day. I could wake her up to eat but she'd fall asleep eating and when I would try to wake her up she would just scream. So I decided to just let her sleep thinking "maybe she's just growing" how awful of a mother can I be!? Thinking my baby's so sleepy because she's growing when she's deathly ill... By 8 pm, when it was time for her to eat, she was awake but she would not eat anything. Normally she is READY to eat every 3 hours, but this feeding she would not eat. We had also noticed her feeling really warm so we decided to take her temperature. It was around 99 so I called all my sisters to see what to do. I finally called my Dr. and she had me take her temp in her bum which was 100.2. She said that technically wasn't a fever (.2 degrees away) so we should just watch her to see if it gets worse but we decided to take her to the ER anyways just to be safe. When we got there, they took her temp and it was 101.1 so they rushed her back to start testing for everything... they drew blood and put a catheter in... it was so sad watching her go through all the poking... Kennedy was so lethargic though she didn't cry at all up tho this point. So the only way to test for meningitis is through a spinal tap so the Dr.'s attempted to get spinal fluid 3 times but were unsuccessful. I didn't want to be in the room for the spinal taps but Nate said he has never seen her cry so hard before... anyways, we were transferred to the pediatric hospital and Kennedy and I got to ride in the ambulance... Once we got there they started her on antibiotics and her fever broke the the next day ... but we had to stay an extra 2 days to wait for all the test results to come back. Luckily all the tests came back negative...

This is her after she got all her blood drawn with her plastic cast that holds the iv in place.

Her hospital cage/crib.She would whack her face with her cast so her face was all sorts of scratched.

This is a picture of Kennedy a few days before we went to the hospital...This is her the day we left the hospital... she was treated real good... ate like a queen!
Also... while we were there I was able to catch a little giggle on video...




This is our healthy Kennedy today. She is growing SOOO fast!

Christmas and Blessing

Our first Christmas with baby Kennedy was so much fun! We got to spend Christmas morning with Dawn and her family and Owen and Alyssa then we got to go to Nate's parents with his family then we got to go do our own Christmas at our little apartment. It was a busy morning but it was a lot of fun!

Our first Christmas family photo!Kennedy put on her Christmas best...
Santa brought Nate tickets to the Suns game... he was stoked.

Dawn got Kennedy a life size sunflower doll... she loves it
Sunday we blessed Kennedy. My parents weren't able to come but my mom sent me the dress I was blessed in and that's the dress we blessed Kennedy in.
These are the professional shots we got of her in her dress...

The gents that blessed her...

I can't believe how fast she is growing up! It is so much fun being a mom!!! I love that my husband will work so I can stay home and do mommy things with my daughter... feed her, change her diapers, hold her, watch her sleep, etc... I am so grateful for my awesome family!!!

Kennedy's photo shoot!

Kennedy is now 2 weeks old and weighs a whopping 6 lbs!
She is the best baby in the world!!!
I love it when she holds my finger tight. I love it when she stops crying once I hold her close to me. I love all the cute faces she makes. I love all her little baby grunts and noises. I love the way her whole body goes limp when she is asleep. I love watching Nate hold her. I love falling asleep with her in my arms...I absolutely LOVE being a mom!

She's Here!!!

Kennedy Lynn Payne
11/15/09
5 lb. 6 oz., 19 in.

Here's how it all went down. Sunday Morning, I played my violin at Phanelbs primary program at 8 am. 11 am I go to church and as I am sitting in sacrament, I notice what I think to be contractions happening every 20 minutes or so. Last time I went to the Dr. he said sitting at church you'd probably notice more Braxton Hicks just sitting. So all through church I am keeping track of how often I'm feeling this. Come the last hour, they are happening every 10-15 minutes. So I go home and see if these are the real thing. These pains in my belly are coming every 10 minutes so I call Dawn, Mom, Lydia and Emily to see what their contractions felt like and just ask a million questions. They all gave me their rendition of their experiences and told me what to expect and what I should do and bring to the hospital. So Nate and I went on a walk to see if we could get the contractions to start happening closer together, when we got home, I took a shower thinking, "If I do go into labor, it'd be nice to be clean..." So, at 7 pm I took a shower. As I am washing the conditioner out of my hair.... my water broke.... I get out of the shower, and tell Nate and he is completely shocked. I get dressed and get my things and we head to the hospital. By 7:45 I was in triage having very painful contractions every 5 minutes. 1 hour later, with contractions happening every second the nurses said in order to get the epidural, I had to wait another 30 minutes for my blood to be tested because my blood pressure was so high when I got into triage. So they check and see how far along I am, and at this point, I am 4 cm and fully effaced. Those 30 minutes waiting for the epidural.... I can't even remember, I just know I was in a lot of pain... I finally get to sit on the edge of the bed to get the epidural which ended up taking 30 minutes to put in... mind you, you cannot move while your getting this done and it is nearly impossible to not move while your contracting... So 9:45 the epidural is in and I tell the nurses I am still feeling a lot of pain on my right side so they lay me on my side to see if gravity will help it get to my right side.... at this point, I tell the nurses " uhhhh I have to push NOW". They check me and sure enough I'm ready to go.... They wheel me into labor and delivery and there is one nurse in there setting up the room and I'm telling her, "I have to push NOW!!!!!" She comes over to me and puts my legs into position and I push about 3 times, then my dr. came in and I pushed maybe 2 more times and she popped out! 15 minutes after they finished putting the epidural in, when I should have started to feel the relief from the drugs, I had already had the baby.... She was born at 10:01pm.
Nate was so sweet to me the entire time. Throughout the entire pregnancy, he told me he was not going to watch anything and just hold my hand... but he actually watched the entire thing. He said everything just happened so fast and before he knew it, the dr. handed him some scissors and he was cutting the cord.... and That my friends is the story of Kennedy being brought into the world....
Here are some of the pictures from my sister Dawn who came to support...

This was a very emotional time... for all three of us...

Nate is a DAD!
We love just looking at our daughter.

Halloween

Halloween was a ton of spoooOOOoooky fun this year. A couple days before Halloween we had a little party with some of our friends and made caramel apples with crushed Oreo's and had a pumpkin carving contest...

Nate, his brother Jason and his friends Sean and Brodie made dry ice bombs (those are pumpkins in their hands, not dry ice bombs...)
Jason and Krystal
Sean and Erin
And the whole group with our carved pumpkins

Now onto Halloween night...
Nate was "A spooOoky daughter sitting on a wall"
And my belly was Humpty Dumpty sitting on a wall... (we wanted to do some sort of theme and this was the best we could come up with)


We had another little get together with our friends Sean (the peanut man) and Erin (her mother in the 80's)

We played games with a whole bunch of couples and watched a spooOoky movie. It was a ton of fun having people to do something with since we are too old to trick or treat.


Since Halloween, Nate and I have been doing little projects around the apt, getting things ready for baby....

We just redid this old cabinet door with lots of help from Phanelb...

and I've been making little bows and this little tutu to play dress ups with once she gets here.
Speaking of dress ups... you will not want to miss out on the Christmas photo shoot we plan on having with Kennedy... we have THE PERFECT Christmas ensemble just waiting for her!!


In other news.... Nate has an interview for grad school on the 20th that we are VERY excited for. This school is only 2 miles away from our little place and is Nate's top choice of schools to go to.

Belly PIctures

Since I've been pregnant, I have not been too avid about taking pictures of myself, or seeing myself in any pictures for that matter. I find that when I look in the mirror, I look totally normal. Maybe a little plumper in some areas ie. the face, arms, butt, legs, hands and feet, but I feel normal. However.... once I have a picture taken, my world gets shaken by disgust. DO I REALLY LOOK LIKE THAT?!?!?!! DAAAAANNNNGGGG!!!! I just don't understand how a camera can seem to capture every chin that's hiding and make my face look even more plump and round. This has been the cause of very few pregnancy pictures and even less with my face included in the picture.
This is at about 29 weeks.

This is around 34 weeks. Please disregard the hideous double chin.

This is 36 weeks.
As you can see my fingers look like tootsie rolls. They are huge... along with my feet...

Pregnancy is awesome though. Although I no longer have ankles, my fingers and feet have doubled in size, and I no longer have any feeling in my fingertips...it is so much fun feeling our little girl move all over, pushing out her cute little bum... (at the last Dr. apt we were told her exact position and she's ready to head out...) Nate and I are SO excited for her to come into the world so we can play with her!