Morgan Nicole Messano

We had Chelsey come in and take some pictures in the hospital for us when Morgan was born. Chelsey and I have been friends for a long time and she came and took pictures of Brooklyn in the hospital too. There is just such a special spirit with a newborn in the hospital in the first few hours after they are born and I wanted to capture some of those moments. Here are a few of my favorites:

Here She Is!

She is here! Morgan Nicole Messano was born on December 6, 2013 at 5:40pm. She weighed in at 7lbs 12oz and was 20 inches long. She is happy and healthy and beautiful in every way.

I had my appointment on the 4th and was dilated to a 4. Because my official due date was not until the 18th, Dr. Leavitt couldn't induce me. He sent me home but told me he would probably see me sooner rather than later. I continued to have contractions that day and the next, but nothing consistent enough to go in. Finally, the morning of the 6th, the contractions got strong enough and close enough that I called Carly to come stay with the kids and Jason to come home and get me. I showered and packed my bags and we headed in. My contractions stopped about the time we left the house so we went and walked around the store for a little bit. By the time we were done my contractions we consistent again and we went to the hospital. I was dilated to a 5. The nurse told me that I had to progress even further in the next hour or they would send me back home (crazy) because they can't help my labor along if I am more than a week early. We were just about to start walking the halls when Dr. Leavitt called and told them to hook me up. Since it was my 3rd baby and he knew my history, he knew I would progress fast at the end. It was a relief to me since I was afraid we wouldn't make it back to the hospital in time if they sent me home.

I tested positive with group B strep this pregnancy, which means I had to have an antibiotic while I was in labor. The problem is that it takes 4 hours to start working once it is in your system. They made me lay down and did everything they could to slow my labor down. We checked in a noon and they got the antibiotic in by 1. That meant I couldn't (or should try really hard not to) have the baby before 5 that evening.  We hung out, watched a movie, I got my epidural (lovely!), and I slept. At 5:20 Dr. Leavitt came in and broke my water. I was at a 7 when he broke my water. At 5:30 I was ready to push and at a 10. Jason suited up to deliver with Dr. Leavitt. He was able to deliver Brooklyn and he got to deliver this time as well. At 5:40 Jason handed me a beautiful, red-headed little GIRL!!

Jason was right, again. He said we were going to have a girl and we did! I was expecting a little boy with dark hair and I got a little girl with red hair. I was in shock! We were thrilled and she was beautiful.

This labor and delivery was by far my easiest yet. The epidural they gave me was not as strong as the one I had with Brooklyn, which was actually really nice. With Brooklyn I wasn't able to move my legs or even walk until about 10 hours later. With Morgan I was up and walking as soon as she was born. I was able to watch her take her first bath - which I missed with both of my other kiddos.

Carly and Will brought Carson and Brooklyn up right after Morgan was born to meet her for the first time. They were instantly in love, especially Carson. He had been so excited for the baby to come and he wasn't really sad at all that she was a little girl. He wanted to hold her, love on her, kiss her, sing to her, and be next to her at all times. He is such a good big brother!

First Family Photo

Carson was not very happy when the nurses took Morgan into the nursery. He stood at the window and watched her every move and kept telling the nurses to be nice to her. He didn't want to leave the hospital until he knew she was going to be ok.

 

April bought Morgan her going-home outfit and it was adorable. She looked so cute in it and so tiny!

I was worried about how Brooklyn would react to having a baby in the house. She is such a strong willed little girl that I thought she would be mean to the baby. I was wrong. She loves Morgan and wants to help me and hold her. She is so sweet to Morgan and always wants to help her when she cries. The kids have adjusted really well to having Morgan here and we are all so in love.

Carson's Dentist Experience

Last summer I took Carson to the dentist for the first time for a cleaning and exam. He had just turned 2 and had all of his teeth in. I was a little bit nervous for that first appointment because I hadn't been the best at brushing his teeth every night and wanted to make sure things looked good. Things looked great and I breathed a sigh of relief. I vowed that from that point on I would be really good about making sure we brushed his teeth every night and flossed. For the most part I was pretty good about it! In fact, Carson liked it when I flossed his teeth and he liked the taste of the toothpaste so he didn't mind brushing his teeth that much either. Some nights he would fight me, but most nights it was ok. 

Watching "Monsters Inc." during his cleaning and exam

In February it came time for his cleaning and exam again. I took him in knowing that he probably had two cavities close to his gum line on 2 of his teeth because I could see the discolor. The dentist confirmed that I was right and we scheduled a time for him to come back and be sedated so they could fill them.  I brought him in and they have him some medicine to make him a little loopy before taking him from me. They said they would do x-rays to make sure they didn't miss anything and then they would fill those 2 cavities. They would come get me if anything was wrong.

Loopy Carson getting carried away from me

Well, they came and got me about 10 minutes later with some bad news. Carson had 14 - yes, you read that right - cavities. All of them were small and between his teeth because his teeth were so tight together. I was devastated and felt like the worst mom EVER! We had to schedule a time at the hospital to bring him in an completely put him under so that they could fill all of the cavities. I felt horrible. My poor baby!

So sleepy while the laughing gas wore off

On April 1st, Mommy and Carson woke up really early to be at the hospital by 6:30. We packed Carson's backpack with games and toys, stayed in our pjs, and off we went.

He did such an awesome job while we were there. Doctors and machines don't scare him anymore since he has been around them his whole life. They have him a stuffed dog and some coloring stuff and he was in heaven. My sweet little boy. When they came to get him he let them carry him down the hall and waved goodbye to me like it was no big deal. My sweet, brave little boy.

The dentist came and got me when they were done and ready to wake him up. He was having a hard time breathing and they knew he would be a little upset when he woke up. The poor kid was gasping for air and coughing horribly! It wasn't that bad with either of my kids when they got their tubes in, so I wasn't ready for that. They gave him a breathing treatment (which he HATED) and I finally got him to calm down and fall asleep on me. He kept asking to go home.

As soon as I got him home he was bouncing off the walls like normal. Silly kid! His mouth was a little sore for about a week, but it seems to be just fine now. They actually shaved a little off of his teeth on the bottom front to create space between his teeth. It took care of all of the cavities (since they were so small) and hopefully prevented future ones. His breathing never really got better after he woke up so I took him to the doctor the next day. Turns out he caught croup! Darn kid can't catch a break! I sure hope he doesn't ever have to go through something like this again!

Brooklyn's Tubes

 My poor baby girl has had an ear infection since the beginning of October. She has been on 6 different antibiotics, lots of home remedies, and nothing was helping. She was miserable, and so was I. I finally took her into Dr. Hanks to talk about tubes. He did Carson's and we really liked him. He took one look at Brooklyn's ears and said we needed to get it done. We scheduled it for the day after Christmas. We had to be at the hospital at 5am, but I couldn't feed Brooklyn after midnight. That was so hard! I woke her up at 11:45 to nurse her, thinking she might sleep until we had to leave. Wrong. She woke up at 1:30 and could not understand why I wouldn't feed her. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the night up with her trying to occupy her while we waited.

 When we got there they gave her a tiny yellow hospital gown to change into and put us in a room to wait. I remember Carson being in the same tiny hospital gown, but he was 14 months old when we had his down, so Brooklyn looked itty bitty in hers. We had to wait for another 2 hours before they took her back into surgery. Another miserable 2 hours trying to preoccupy her since I couldn't feed her. They finally took her back and sent us to the waiting room to wait for her.

 We were able to watch the whole process update on a screen in the waiting room, so we knew when she went in for surgery, when it was over, and when she was on her way to post-op. When they called to tell us what room number to go to, I could hear her screaming in the background. Poor thing!

When we got to the room we only had to wait for a few minutes before we heard her coming down the hall. A nurse had picked her up off her bed and was running with her to me. My little girl was not very happy and was VERY hungry. I was able to feed her and she feel asleep in my arms while we waited for the doctor to come in and release us. They brought the bed in a few minutes later. Apparently it had been too slow for Brooklyn. :) Everything went great and she seemed to feel a lot better. She slept most of the day (as did I) and was back to normal that night!

Knee Surgery

I have been playing soccer on and indoor co-ed team for Melaleuca and was having a blast! I was trying to get back into shape after having Brooklyn and playing soccer will definitely do that! I was having so much fun on my team playing with people I work with.

On the 20th of September we played a really aggressive team. I was playing keeper the second half of the game and went to catch a ball. Just as I caught the ball, a girl kicked my knee in from the side. I instantly went down and knew right away what happened. I tore my ACL. I heard it tear and it felt just like it did when I tore my ACL in high school. As I was lying on the field trying to catch my breath, all I could think was, "How am I going to carry a baby on crutches?"

2 weeks later I had surgery on my knee. I had completely torn my ACL, my MCL, and part of my meniscus. Pretty painful. Luckily, my mom was able to come up from New Mexico to help me take care of my kids. I don't know what I would have done without her! She was seriously a life saver.

I stayed over night in the hospital before I was able to go home. I was in a lot of pain so they gave me some pretty strong painkillers. The bad part was they would cause me to have an allergic reaction and break out in hives, so they would have to give me Benadryl. The combination of all the medication would make me wired and I wasn't able to sleep. I spent the first few nights wide awake pinning things on Pinterest. It took about 2 weeks before I felt like I could walk without my crutches. It was a very miserable 2 weeks. It's a hard thing to go through alone, but add 2 kids that need their mom on top of it and it makes it really rough. I had a great support system of friends, family, and ward members who all helped me out. Just 6 weeks of physical therapy and wearing a brace, and 6 months before I can play sports again.

The machine that moved my leg for me so it wouldn't get stiff. I had to take it home with me and have my leg in it throughout the night. 

My knee a week after surgery

Week 1

Tubes

Carson has had so many ear infections that the doctor finally suggested that we get tubes in his ears. We woke up super early in the morning and got to the hospital at 5am so Carson could go into surgery. He looked so cute in his little gown and slippers with his diaper sticking out the back. He thought the nurse was pretty cute and he let her hold him while she entered stuff in the computer.

The nurses at the hospital gave him a little yellow bear to hold on to when he went into surgery. He thought that was pretty cool.

When they took him back to the prep room, they gave him a medicine to relax him so he wouldn't mind when they took him from us. It was HILARIOUS to watch him! He was so funny! He acted like he was drunk and smiled and laughed at everything. We have a video of it that I will try and post later.

He did great while he was in surgery and everything went really smooth. He was, however, super cranky from the anesthesia when he came out. They said he had such a large buildup in one ear that he almost didn't have any hearing out of it at all. We are so glad we got them in when we did or he could have had problems with his speech and balance. Hopefully this will slow down the amount of ear infections the poor little boy gets!