"Sweet Baby of mine, you embraced my heart and stole my breath away."

So today was a really good day for Evelyn. We went by this morning and she had had a good night, all her levels were staying stable and they had been able to lower some of the levels of her meds and such which is so good! They told us that if she stayed stable for awhile longer at those levels then were going to try taking her off the ventilator and see how she does off that. So later when we came back at 3, they had just taken the ventilator off and later at 8 she was still off and keeping her levels very stable.

So she's got a great chance of not having to go on the ventilator again, which is good cuz she HATED it. She's not loving the CPAP (the nasal piece giving her some extra oxygen before they let her go at it on her own) but it's much better than the ventilator. The other big issue is her blood pressure which they've been steadily decreasing the amount of meds for that all day and she's been maintaining a good blood pressure so everything's looking up today! She's been a lot more active today since they haven't had to sedate her as much (she would get so agitated if she woke up too much on the ventilator which would upset her levels so they sedated her quite a bit, now not AS much :)

So that's the news for today! The nurses said tonight that she's on the upside of overcoming the infection so hopefully she keeps up her quick improvements and we can bring her home! Here's some pics from today.

(The cute name tag the nurses made for her)

(Her CUTE little hand in mine! Mom can't get over her hands and feet...they're so big and long!)

(No more ventilator!)

(Daddy saying good bye for the night :)

(So much tubing! We watched the nurses switch out the tubes today...boy what a process!)

"A new baby is like the beginning of all things - wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities."

Well as most of you already know, little Evelyn arrived on Thursday October 8th at 1:48pm, 7 lbs 5 oz, 19.5 inches long. Overall the labor went pretty well, as much as can be expected from being in labor anyway, Mark was amazingly great through it all, I'm so glad I had him! Mom was there too but she just kinda hung out in the corner but that's alright. :) I'm super glad she's here!

(getting to the hospital)

(such lovely attire!)

Boy was I ever relieved when she came out though! She is amazingly wonderful and beautiful and we just love her to bits! She was quite the crier when she came out and when she finally got back to me she was grunting which they said was a sign of breathing problems so they took her up to the nursery where she seemed to perk up but then went pale so they took her up to NICU to be cautious and she's been in there ever since!
(7 lbs 5 oz)

(look at that mouth! I love this pic!)

(first time holding his girl)

(I couldn't believe I was holding my baby!)

(Grammy and Evelyn)

Things just kept going wrong though so they've kept her there. She was breathing too quickly so they had her on oxygen and now a ventilator to keep her on track, then she had low glucose (it's fine now), hazy lungs (on the x-ray, which is clearing up nicely), low blood pressure (that's getting better), and now they think the overall problem to cause all of this is an infection. So right now she's on antibiotics and is expected to stay in the NICU for 7 days. So right now she's very stable, she just needs to get to the turn around point and bounce back to good health!

She's a tough little cookie though and SO CUTE! She's got nice big eyes (her daddy's), a cute little nose, a nice big mouth, LONG fingers and feet, and adorable little round ears. All of the nurses that have dealt with her have mentioned how feisty she is, and she is! I've been spending as much time as I can up there with her and so has Mark. He's been smitten with her from the very first hour, I told him he would but he didn't quite believe me but it happened. :) He's so cute with her! We're both just wanting to hold her right now but can't until she gets off the ventilator, which hopefully should be soon. They are weaning her off of it and she's responding well, yay!

Anyway, I just got home an hour or so ago and we're going to go back tonight to see her. Then we're going to go out to eat with Whit and Richie. So here's some more pics of my beautiful baby. We do want to thank you for all your thoughts and prayers! We really appreciate it and know they are helping! She's really doing good and should recover quickly and hopefully without too much further trouble :)

(Thursday night, the proud papa!)

(Friday morning)

(Friday night)

(Saturday afternoon)

(Look at those long fingers! So dainty!)

"I'm as big as a house. All I want to do is lie in bed and eat pie." Vivian- Fresh Prince of Belaire

Now that my pregnancy is SO CLOSE to being done, I've been thinking on some things that I am NOT going to miss about it! So I thought I would share that list with you as I'm sure many of you can relate to them and can look fondly back on your own pregnancy days....hahaha...

So here goes!

Tara's Top Eight Things She Won't Miss About Being Pregnant!
(I couldn't think of 10 so 8 is all you're getting)

8. Stretching/itchy skin!
7. Getting tired/worn out from little things, like trying to tie my shoes, boy is that hard to do now! (Also another reason why I mostly wear flip flops, so much easier to put on! :)
6. Gaining weight (although I know it's for a "good" cause...I just don't look forward to having to work the excess off! I'm not the most motivated exerciser...)
5. Swollen/sore feet.
4. Having only a few pairs of pants that fit anymore (unfortunately most of my prego pants I got are capris and now its getting cold!)
3. Pelvic pressure! Man is that uncomfortable...
2. Having to sleep on my side all the time! I'm SO tired of sleeping on my side!
1. Having to pee so darn freaking much!!! Especially at night...that's the worst! I likes my sleep.

Here are a couple of things that I am proud of with my pregnancy though.

1. I only threw up ONCE this whole freaking time! Boy do I feel lucky with that one (although that doesn't mean I didn't feel disgustingly nauseous in the beginning...I just didn't throw up. :)
2. I can still see my feet when I look down!
3. I still have a major innie belly button! :)

Overall though I think I've had a pretty decent experience being pregnant. I've had nothing major to complain about/go wrong...I'm healthy, the baby's healthy...I wasn't too sick, didn't gain too much weight (well I feel pretty ok with what I have gained so that's all that matters right? :), and for being 39 weeks I'm not massively uncomfortable as I thought I would be! I have my moments but overall I can't complain too much...I've had a wonderful patient husband to help me when I did need help or was having a bad day and I appreciate him so much! He's so good to me :) He's going to be such a great dad too! I'm so looking forward to meeting our little girl and especially seeing him with her!

"Relief Society is God's evidence of love for His daugthers." -Sister Barbara Thompson--

Last weekend was the Relief Society Meeting of General Conference for my church and I got to go up to the Conference Center in SLC to watch it! Mark's aunt and cousin got tickets from their ward and invited me and Amy to go with so we went! :) They got pretty awesome tickets too cuz the people in the choir were people from their ward/stake so their stake got the good tickets and they were SO good! We were only like 15 rows away from the front where the First Presidency sits, it was pretty fantastic. I've never gotten to sit so close, I didn't even have to look at the big screens, I could look straight at the podium to listen to the speaker...well except that one of the cameras was kinda in the way, but it was still cool.

(Me and Kathleen)

(Amy, me, and Kathleen)

(Me and Amy. We did get a pic with Aunt Janet but it's on Kathleen's camera)

Anyway, the meeting was really cool as well...The entire Relief Society spoke as usual, I especially liked Sister Thompson's talk, she is one of my favorites! Then President Eyring spoke and he is always amazing as well. I really, really enjoyed being there, the spirit and feeling of the whole thing is just so wonderful! And it's especially awesome to see the entire conference center (well except maybe three sections) filled with woman of the gospel, so cool! (Lots of chit chat in the beginning and end though, I tell ya! It was pretty amazing to see how ridiculously silent it got when the prophet walked in, I don't think there's really much else in the world can get that many women to be quiet all in the same instant!)

(Here's a pic of Elder Russell M. Nelson and Elder Neil Anderson of the Quorum of the Twelve and Elder Bruce C. Hafen of the Seventy...sorry the pics aren't so great, my camera was being dumb that day...I'm hoping for a new one soon :)

(And here's a pic of the Relief Society Presidency)

(The First Presidency! They are all so amazing!)

(Elder Nelson and Elder Anderson with President Eyring)

So yeah, it was wonderful to be there, especially since this is pretty much the last time I get to go to the conference center for a looooonnnnggg time! So thanks again Aunt Janet! It was wonderful to hang out with the fam too...I rarely get to see Aunt Janet or Kathleen (Kathleen and I have lots of fun when we get together so I'm sad that it doesn't happen much).

Other than that this week has been pretty chill...both in that I haven't really done much and with the weather! It was really nice this weekend and on Monday/Tuesday and then yesterday it got freakishly/ridiculously cold. It stormed the night before, lots of thunder/lightening/rain and then it rained and snowed during the day (well it snowed up in the mountains anyway but still!!! It was the last day of Sept for Pete's sake! It's not supposed to snow!!!!) So yeah, it was really cold and I hated it. Luckily today isn't as bad. So fall has hit us pretty darn quick, I was hoping that last week's beautiful weather would last a bit longer! I guess I was asking a bit too much to have one beautiful/nice winter in Utah...ah wishful thinking. So here's a picture from this Sunday, me and Mark went out to a park for awhile and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine. I'm so glad we did too!

(Pretty fall colors!)

Oh and here's my most recent prego pic :)
(39 weeks)