we celebrated the nativity hardcore...by having a baby...

well, as i mentioned in the previous post, our original plan was to spend christmas with our utah family this year, but we decided that since we don't really know what my body does with a normal pregnancy, we should probably stick closer to home around christmas, just in case. our plans then became going to my mom's house near sacramento to meet up with family there on christmas eve. at my dr. appt the week before i asked my doc if he thought it would be okay for me to travel on christmas eve--we would only be driving two hours away. he said that he didn't think it was such a good idea. sure, i still had 2 weeks until i would deliver, but his recommendation was that i not leave the area after 36 weeks. so, much to our disappointment (and my mom's) we decided we would just stick around here and have our own little family christmas.
so, on christmas eve we woke up and had a pretty typical saturday morning and afternoon--except for the contractions i had been having off and on. they were so sporadic that i didn't think too much of them. i even tried timing them at one point, but they were so far apart i lost interest. at about 6 o'clock, they started becoming a little more consistent...like every 8 minutes or so. they weren't super strong or anything, but i told my doctor if anything i would err on the side of caution and come in if it seemed like i was going into labor. i especially didn't want it to go on too long because recovery from a c-section is more difficult if you go into full-blown labor. so, even though we felt TERRIBLE, we called the friends in our ward who were on stand by in case i did go early to watch the girls. we were so embarrassed to have to impose on christmas eve of all nights! and to make matters worse, they were hosting their whole family for dinner that evening, so i felt like we were just adding to the chaos. but they truly are the kindest people ever, and assured us that it was no big deal. fortunately we only needed them to watch them for a couple of hours since my mom would be on her way up, and the weather was even cooperating--no snow on the pass!
so, we dropped them off and jordan and i headed to the hospital. when we got to the labor and delivery unit i explained that i had been having contractions and wanted to be hooked up to a monitor just to make sure i wasn't imagining things and that i was in fact in labor. so, they put us in a room, hooked me up to everything and sure enough, the contractions started hitting about every 3 minutes and i had dilated to a 2. the cute nurse that was helping us was a byu graduate and a young mother--she was so cute and so fun to talk to. go figure we would get the one mormon nurse in probably the whole unit. anyway, she called the on-call doc and told her what was happening. she came in afterwards and said that the doc wanted to put me on an iv and see if more hydration would stop the contractions. boo. i was a little bit bummed because once you are there and things start happening it's disappointing to think that you might have to go home without having had your baby.
anyway, about 10 min later the doc called again and said that she would just go ahead and deliver me because if i was having contractions and had already began dilating, there was no point in trying to stop it so that i could come back a couple of hours later with the same problem:) yes! so, they got us all ready for surgery and into the o.r. we went.
i was pretty surprised at how calm i felt during all of this. i was nervous for sure, but i think that since i had gone through it before i kind of had some idea of what to expect, and that helped. so, we went into the o.r. at about 9:10pm or so and he was here 20 min. later! it was so fun to actually be able to see him right away! a privilege i did not have when the girls were born since they had to be whisked away to the nicu. after the nurses cleaned him up and announced his weight ( 8lbs 2oz), the doc who delivered said that my dates must have been off or something because he was definitely "fully cooked." jordan and the babe then went to the nursery for a bit while i was being sewn up, but we met back up in the recovery room about a half hour later. that was when i got to hold graham for the first time--it was emotional, magical, and perfect all rolled into one. he was fleshy and pink just like a newborn ought to be--i was instantly in love. after about an hour or so of our nurse watching my vitals, we were wheeled into our hospital room. jordan then went to pick up the girls and take them home to bed and my mom arrived at the hospital not long after.

mom and jordan sort of tag-teamed being home with the girls and with me at the hospital. moms and husbands are just so darn handy to have around after giving birth. anyway, the adjustment has been interesting to say the least. the baby is a perfect angel, and not hard to take care of at all, and the girls have been doing pretty good for the most part...but my goodness, i forgot how difficult the recovery from a c-section is, and then piling all of the regular post-partum emotions on top of that--it has been a roller coaster ride for sure. i am just so so grateful that jordan has had this whole month off of school. i really don't know what i would have done if graham came when he was expected to come and i would have only had 2 weeks of jordan's help. these last 3 weeks have been long, and the recovery slow--it's hard to be patient. there would have been no way i could have taken care of it all two weeks after surgery. thankfully heavenly father knew this and gave me a couple of extra weeks with him.
anyway, about baby's name, in case you are wondering...well, like i have mentioned to many of you, boy names are super hard for us to come up with. when we found out we were having twins the first time around, i was so glad we ended up having two girls because we had zero ideas for boy names. anyway, this time around was no different...but we did have to come up with something--we had no choice! for the longest time i had thought that we would use my maiden name (graham) as our boys' middle names. this is what my parents did with my mom's maiden name (erickson) for all of my brothers, and i just kind of liked the idea of them having both of our family surnames forever. plus, graham is a legit boy name, so even better. anyway, we were discussing this one night and jordan said "what if i like graham for a first name? can we do that instead?" i loved the idea. we knew that we really wanted to use family names from both sides of the family like we did with the girls so it was a perfect fit. as for his middle name--robison is the maiden name of jordan's grandmother who passed away this past november. she was such an amazing lady and we really wanted to pay tribute to her. our new baby boy has brought such a sweet spirit with him into our home, and i feel confident that he will do wonderful things with his name.
so, needless to say, christmas kind of got post-poned at our house until graham and i came home from the hospital. when we got home that tuesday afternoon we opened presents and made a yummy ham dinner.

even though baby definitely changed our plans, it really was the perfect way to spend christmas eve--thinking about how excited mary and joseph must have been to receive their precious little baby boy. we are so grateful for the blessings that we have been given through our savior jesus christ. because of him, we will be able to spend forever with our little family. what greater gift is there?