Cienna Came Home! Lots of Pictures!

Getting ready for surgery


She's here!


First time seeing her after surgery.

First time holding her
Jace seeing her for the first time. His first statement. . "Oh my gosh! She's so cute!" haha Just like his aunt Jessica.
One of her wonderful Nicu nurses

Daddy!

Her spot. She stayed there the whole week except sometimes when I would feed her they would bring her to my room but still hooked up.

My Best friend Karah came to visit. Love her!

Chillin with Aunt Jessica

Trying out the headband
More of her awesome nurses
Me and my girl the day before she got to come home.


Going home!
First time Jace held her
Kisses from brother
Don't know what Jace is doing in this one. lol

Grandma Stubbs

We are loving having our sweet baby girl home! However, there is a new stress. . . We discovered tonight that Jace is starting to get sick. . . Yeah I am super worried. Because he has been around her a lot and has given her lots of kisses. Time to bump up the sanitation and no more contact, while sick, from brother.

He is real

These last couple of days I have been able to feel and learn a lot. As I have watched my baby girl eat, I see her struggle to do her best to get the nourishment she needs and most the time has been unsuccessful in completing a feeding on her own. She is exhausted and has given her best effort and although unsuccessful only proudness wells in my heart at her progress and the effort she makes. I can see how hard she tries. And then the thought occurred to me that our Heavenly Father probably feels the same way when he sees us struggle and give our best and give all our energy but we usually end up falling short. His heart too probably beams with pride as he watches us do our best and give what we are able to give. And just like my baby girl is able to get the remaining nourishment that she needs, our Heavenly Father gave us the Savior to make up for what we can't do on our own, through the atonement.

I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father and for my Savior. This past week I have felt he is very near and aware of each of us. He loves me and loves Cienna and loves my little boy who is missing his mom but is being such a good patient little person, we have had to explain things to him and he has done really well in understanding, even when he is sad that his mom isn't around, or when I was on bedrest and couldn't do anything for him.

The Savior is real and he lives to comfort us in time of need. I couldnt do life without him

Cienna Silvia Walker

Cienna Silvia Walker was born on Tues Sept 6 at 36 weeks and 2 days. She weighed 6 lbs 9 oz, 20 inches long. She is in great health. She was born breathing great and all was well and healthy with her. However, she is not eating as often and regular as a full term new born would, she sleeps a lot. So she has a feeding tube and as of right now they are having to feed her through it every other feeding and I am feeding her the other feedings. She is doing great at nursing when she does nurse. So I am very proud of her. I am being released tomorrow, but she will most likely have to stay here in the hospital until she has the energy to eat every feeding on her own. And I will commute here to nurse her or stay here in the hospital on what they call "boarding" in the hospital until she can come home. I will post more on her and more pictures when I can. But for now we are loving our baby girl

Unexpected Pregnancy Update

So I said I would do a pregnancy update and now have an update that I wasn't expecting to give. So on Tues I went with Joe to Las Vegas for his first interview for PA school. We had a great time and it was really relaxing and fun. Jace really enjoyed himself, especially going swimming in the hotel. And Joe felt like his interview went good and really likes the school. So it was just a really fun and good family trip. But anyway, on our way home on wed night I started having some harder contractions and they were becoming pretty regular. Joe suggested that we should maybe go to the hospital. But I was so tired from the trip that I just really wanted to get home and go to sleep. So that's what we did and the contractions continued the same way through out the night, by morning I was so sore and could barely walk. Also where my incision was that I had with Jace's C-section was feeling a little sore every time I would walk and also when I would have a strong contraction. I knew at this point we did need to go to the hospital and I was right. They checked me in and were concerned about the soreness I was feeling where my incision was and also my contractions started picking up again and started to become more regular, so the doctor decided to keep me over night and to monitor me and stop my contractions. They started off with shots every hour to try to stop my contractions but the contractions continued. So then by that night they had me on stronger medicine to stop my contractions and they still didn't fully stop but at least they were less strong and not as often. So by morning even though the contractions were still there they said I could go home but that I would have to be on "limited activity/bedrest"and continue to take the medication to keep the contractions down, but that if they started to pick up again that I needed to come back. So that's where we are now. I am here on the couch. My wonderful sister volunteered to come up and help with Jace and Joe has been awesome and already has done a lot around the house. So hopefully this little girl decides to stay in a little longer, but my contractions continue (some hard and some not, so it worries me) and I feel the soreness every so often.

Also, side note, the reason why my doctor is so worried about the soreness of my incision is because I have a really thin uterus and they think where the incision is may be separating. But I am only 35 weeks tomorrow, so they don't necessarily want to deliver me yet, but they might have to because they don't want the incision to erupt. So I guess we will just see what happens. I have an apt on Monday morning. Until then I will continue to lay here cause I know everyday counts that she can be inside me. I also know that 35 weeks is a lot better than if the baby was born earlier, which is comforting. :) So yeah there's the update on the pregnancy. :)

4 years

Joe and I had our 4 year aniversary on Aug 17th. And what a great 4 years it has been. Every year I realize even more how perfect Joe is for me, no he is not perfect :), but he really was made for me. Our imperfections and strengths compliment each other in ways that I couldn't have planned. Good job Heavenly Father on matching us up and giving us both the impression that we were a good match from the very beginning of our relationship, because you were right. He is so patient, respectful and kind. He has actually never criticized me for anything and is always complimenting me and making me feel like I am the best thing that happened to him. I don't deserve him huh? He is a great man and I truly am lucky to be his girl. Thanks for a great 4 years babe!


I couldn't find one of our wedding pictures, but here's one of us when we were engaged, it was taken at my parents house.


And this is us celebrating our anniversary a couple of weeks ago. We got to spend the night in a hotel (talk about amazing air-conditioning! I actually got cold. It was amazing.) We ate out at Olive Garden and went all out on what we wanted, with no thought in how much it was costing, not a usual thing for us. Then went to see the new harry potter movie, not too bad of a movie. When we came back we went swimming in our hotel, it was a lot of fun and felt like we were kids again haha, and it felt really good on my belly, full support and I felt so light. :) Then the next morning we went Suit shopping for Joe for his interviews coming up. It was just a really fun and relaxing weekend. Thank you to my mom for watching Jace so we could go celebrate! It was a great anniversary

Ps. Yes, I am beginning to retain water some. :( Im trying to keep it under wraps and water is overwhelming gross with how much I am trying to drink it, but am slowly beginning to accept that it's just what happeneds when I am pregnant. Pregnancy photo and update soon to come. :)

Feeling hopeful!

So my dearest husband has been working so hard these past few years to be able to get into a PA (Physician Assistant) masters program. Not the easiest process in the world at all. He has spent the lsat 3 years of our marriage working low pay jobs to get patient experience (since they like to see around 2,000 hours of patient experience or more) going to school to get the prerequisites and retaking classes to make his GPA better, which he eventually got his degree in Physiology and developmental biology. As well as getting other certifications such as the CNA and EMT certifications and a lot of other things to help make his application look good. He applied last year in hoping that it would be enough to get in and received rejection letters back from every school saying his application wasn't competitive enough. So that made him work even harder this last year to make his application better and I have never seen him so determined or work so hard. With so many discouraging moments all along the way. . . He has been invited to interview with a school in New Mexico and a school in Las Vegas!! When he got his first email requesting an interview he was speechless and I just cheered and cried. We have been praying for the chance for him to show a school that he has what it takes and give him a chance. We are feeling so blessed and grateful to our Heavenly Father who really does answer prayers :)

So we are hoping with everything we have that he gets into one of these schools and gets to be the PA he has been working so hard to be. But until then we are celebrating the interviews he has been given and hope they go well. I know that if they can see Joe's desire and passion for the field, and his determination (that blows me away sometimes) and how hard he has worked they won't be able to turn him down. I just pray they see it :) I love my husband. I just had to let the world know a little about how great he is and how proud I am of him. So yeah, GO JOE! You can do it!

Zoo

So we made our once a year trip to the zoo a few weeks ago. And as always it was fun to go see all the animals. However this year I decided not take a picture of every animal we saw, since they don't change much from year to year and we dont have the space or reason to keep them on our computer :) I think the best part about this year was watching Jace recognize all the animals. Last year he only looked at them like, what is that thing?

I did however take pictures of my favorites, the giraffe and the elephant.



Jace loved the playground just as much or maybe even more than the animals.


Us on the train :) Yay Zoo!