23 Aug 2009. . .Finally!

Well. . . She’s here!  Olivia Louise Smith was born on 23 Aug 2009 at 9:57 pm, weighing 7 lbs 8.5 oz, and measuring 21 1/4 inches in length. She came 5 days past her due date, but we are grateful that she is here. Elise and Olivia are both doing well and they are scheduled to arrive home tomorrow morning ~9:30 am. Elise started having strong, intermittent contractions during church around 1 pm. She left church early to meet her Mom and Grandma who drove from Utah on Sat and Sun. Luckily they arrived at 2:30 pm. At 5 pm Elise and I were off to the hospital because her contractions were pretty steady and very uncomfortable. Thanks to everyone for all of your thoughts and prayers in our behalf. We are grateful for our beautiful, healthy new addition.

Peek-a-boo

7 lbs 8.5 oz

Proud Daddy

Proud Mommy

Proud Big Sister

Proud Grandma

All the Girls Together

All Stretched Out

Eyes Wide Open

Tori at the “Hospital”

Waiting

Success! We went in on Friday for an external cephalic version. We got there at 8:00 and were told that we would start at 9:00. However, since our procedure was an elective one and because there was not urgent need to start, we didn't get started on the actual procedure until 11:00. After getting checked in, and having my IV started, we waited and waited. Finally, my Dr., a resident, 2 med students, my nurse, and a nursing student all came for the procedure. They gave me my drugs and immediately started to turn our baby. The first time they tried the drugs had not started to work yet, and I must say it hurt quite a lot. I kept tensing up the muscles in my stomach and holding my breath, both which did not help the first attempt. The second time they tried to flip her in the other direction. It didn't hurt quite as much, but they barely moved her back to her original breech position. The third time however, was the charm. The drugs had taken their full effect, and things felt much better. Trevor said it looked crazy to see my belly change into all these different positions while they moved her around. We did an ultrasound at the end and she was perfectly situated in my belly. We monitered her for an hour after and she looks great! I am praying she stays so that I can have a v-bac. Thanks for all your prayers on our behalf. Now we are just waiting for this little one to come on out! We'll update you more later.

Baby Update

Today I had an ultrasound and confirmed what Trevor and I were suspecting: the fact the miss Olivia is breech. Luckily I still have 4 more weeks till my due date. However, we are planning to do an external cephalic version on July 31st in case she hasn't turned by then. This entails my doctor giving me some terbutaline (to relax my uterus) and some fentanyl (to help it feel better) and trying to push on my belly to rotate our baby into a vertex position. We are really hoping that she will turn because I am not wanting all my subsequent deliveries to be c-section. In the meanwhile, I am trying some other methods I have read about that are supposed to motivate her to turn. We'll see how it goes. Wish us luck!!

Remember Us?

Well, I keep hearing people tell me that occasionally they look at my blog and nothing has been done on it for quite some time. It's not that we haven't had things going on, when don't you have things going on when you have three kids, but I just haven't had the motivation to use my "free" time updating my blog. Since I have last posted the twins turned 1!! It was a fun birthday that we shared with Grandma Smith and Grammy (Trevor's grandma). The girls performed as expected with their cupcakes (unlike Tori who just cried and would not touch it). They were a mess and adorable. I am going to post a bunch of random pictures with this entry because if I were to write about each picture you might end up reading a small novel, and the pictures are too cute not to share, at least I think so.

The next big thing for our family was a trip to Utah. It was a long two day drive, but worth it. We are so lucky to have great friends in Denver who allowed us to stay with them, and even made dinner for us! Thanks Spendloves! In Utah we had lots of fun with family even though we really didn't do that much. It is just nice to talk face to face and play games and such. Unfortunately, Erin (my sister-in-law), broke her leg while we were out. I didn't get to spend as much time with her as I would have liked and this also limited our activities. My other sister-in-law, Katie and I however, got to spend lots of quality time together taking care a many small children. Katie is amazing and made dinner and lunch every day. It was a crazy time, but I am glad that Katie and I got to enjoy(?) it together. I love to see family!! It was just too short.

While I was in Morgan helping run Kobe daycare, Trevor took Tori down to Orem to visit his family for a couple of days until I could join him. Trevor was able to take Tori to the open house for the Oquirrh (sp?) Temple. I wish I could've been there because Tori loves temples. I am sure that they had a great time. Tori had a great time with all her cousins. We were also in town for Cameron's birthday party. He is a cute little guy and it was fun to watch him devour his cake. That little man can really eat!!

Now we are back in St. Louis and have recently moved. We love love love our new place. Carpet is a wonderful thing. I also love my kitchen that is not a hall way. I will post pictures of our place later. We love living close to people. Tori is close to her little friend and they have already gotten together a few times. They are very cute together. We also got Tori a bike and she has lots of parking lot to ride in. She has gotten pretty good and loves to go out any minute she can.

Sorry for the long post and all the pictures. I will try and stay more up to date so that I don't have to write so much next time. I will probably write more as we get closer to the arrival of Olivia. Only 4 more weeks to go!! CRAZY!! I can't believe that we will have four. Fun times!

Four Princesses

As you might have guessed we had an ultrasound yesterday and we are having a BOY!! Just kidding. Apparently we don't do boys; however, we do have very cute girls. We will be adding Olivia Louise to our family next. We are quite excited to have four beautiful princesses at our house. She looks very healthy and is growing well.

Tori, Sofia, and Adrienne are also growing well. I can't believe how big they are getting. The twins will be a year in less than a month. I never thought I would say this, but the year has flown by. I am posting a lot random pictures that I think are very cute.

Tori is constantly changing outfits. Here are a few that I found entertaining or adorable.

Random pictures of the twins.


Double Trouble. Adrienne is taking the books off the shelf and Sofia is reading them. They had a blast!

Trevor usually has all the girls asleep when I get home from a later night at work. What a proud daddy and what a happy mommy to come home to such a quiet, peaceful home.

Pictures from Trevor's spring break to come relatively soon.

Inactive Status

Well, I am afraid probably many members of our ward think we are going inactive. Our kids have taken turns getting sick and we have had the privilege of taking turns staying home. Today, we are both home with kids because Tori is sick with a fever and at 5:30 this morning Adrienne vomited all over me. The joy of kids! Everyone seems to be doing a little better now, but we did not want to take the chance of spreading our joy to everyone else. Tori is currently watching Legacy for the second time. The first time she kept asking us to turn it off. After it ended she begged us to watch it again. I think she wanted to watch it again for the angel Moroni and unfortunately also for the fighting. Oh, well. At least it is a church video. One day we are going to have all well children, I hope. Life is going well anyway. We are enjoying the time we have been able to spend together as a family.

Tori Stories

I am sorry but there are no pictures this post. Tori still amazes me with all she does. She is now back to wanting to say every prayer that needs to be said. Her prayers now tend to crack me up. I often have to try hard not to laugh. The body of her night time prayers go something like this, "Please bless mommy and daddy and Sofia and Adrienne. Please bless Tori. (She then repeats this 2 or 3 times). Please bless our lunch. Tori did not finish her lunch, because she spit. (She often spits out her food when she is done or causes herself to gag so that she can get out of eating. She always reports back on how well she did with dinner. If she ate it all, she will report that she did.) She then goes on and ends her prayer. Trevor and I have huge grins on our faces when she is done. She also is picking up on all the adjectives we use to describe her. Recently when I was on the phone with my mom, she came up to me out of the blue and told me, "Mom, I am a crack up." This is all too true. Lastly, I am very impressed with how well she learns new things. On Wed. night we were doing FHE (because I work Mon and Tues) we started to teach her the sixth article of faith. We sang it a few times last night, and tonight on the way home from dinner we played the song on repeat. When we came inside I sang it once more and Tori then sang it perfectly (not counting the words she doesn't quite understand and mumbles). I don't know how she does it, but I am constantly amazed.