Three Months Old!

I know I just posted, but we just took this video and I wanted to get in on here!  My sweet little boy is three months old today!  I can't believe it's been that long already and at the same time, it feels like we've had him so much longer than that.  I really love being a mom and I feel so blessed to have Dallin in my life.

I also wanted to put this video on here of Brandon putting Dallin to sleep. 

Dallin's Blessing and Henry's Lake Vacation!

Well, Spring semester ended for my hubby on the 18th.  I am so proud of him for completing his first semester of college!  It's not easy to become a new daddy just as you are starting your first semester of college, but Brandon did it!

The Saturday after school ended, Brandon's family came into town and we all headed up to Henry's Lake to stay at a cabin that belongs to a friend of Brandon's Dad.

That Sunday, we also had Dallin's baby blessing!  It was so sweet to see our friends and family support us and to see all those guys surrounding Dallin to bless him.  The priesthood is amazing!  After the blessing we went back to the lake for the week.  It was great, but we are sure glad to be home again before we go off on our next adventure!



Here we are before the blessing!







Don't you just love his bow tie?!

 

The view from the cabin.  Beautiful!

 

Dallin with Grandma Janet and Grandpa Tracey.

 

Brandon fishing!

This is pretty much the only thing we could catch... plants.  Brandon was so disapointed.

 

They had these cool canoe things that you could paddle with your feet.

Chaz caught a toad.

Going out on the wave runners!  They were so much fun!

 

We played a lot of games too.

We went to West Yellowstone and walked around the shops there.

 

We went to this place called Big Springs and we were fortunate enough to see three moose.  They were so close to us!

 

Daddy and Dallin playing.

 

We also went out on the boat and tried skurfing (skiing and surfing combined) and wake boarding.  Skurfing was much easier than the wake boarding.

The Coolest Thing I've Ever Done

WARNING:  This is a long-ish post.  Do not commit to reading it unless you have sufficient time.  If the sheer length of it puts you off and you don't read it, I wouldn't blame you. 

Dallin Copeland Lott was born on Monday, April 30th, 2012 at 4:05pm.  He was 8 lbs. 1 oz. and 21 inches long.  Everything about his birth was filled with miracles, tender mercies, answered prayers, and earthly angels.  It was honestly the coolest thing I have ever done. 

First, a little background:  I was very lucky and blessed to have an easy pregnancy.  I didn't really have morning sickness except maybe four or five times, there were no complications, I didn't gain that much weight, the only thing that I could really complain about was sore hips and occasional acid reflux the last month or two.  (Oh and crying at random times for random reasons.  That was fun for my husband!) 

So anyway, I owe this wonderful pregnancy to my wonderful mother, who also had easy pregnancies.  In addition to this however, I also knew I was going to be late.  In fact, I was about 95% sure.  All my brothers and I were late.  I was late by 12 days! 

After my due date had come and gone, I went in for another doctor's appointment just to see how things were going.  I hadn't started dilating at all, Dallin hadn't dropped, and I hadn't felt a single contraction yet.  My doctor decided to do an ultrasound to check things out and make sure the baby wasn't under any stress or anything.  During the ultrasound, we found the the cord was wrapped around Dallin's neck three times!  I was worried, but my doctor didn't seem to be at all.  He said that plenty of babies are born with the cord around their neck.  He had even delivered one that had the cord wrapped around six times!  Nevertheless, as soon as I left the office, I asked family and friends to pray that everything would be ok.

Preparing to leave for the hospital to have Dallin.

We went in to the hospital on Sunday at 8:00pm to get induced.  We had gone to the doctor the day before and found that I had dilated 1cm and at the hospital nothing had changed.  I was supposed to get some stuff to help me dilate some more along with Ambien to help me sleep through the night, but right as the nurse was leaving to go get this stuff, my water broke!  This meant I had to wait through the night through the contractions.  The nurses came to check me at 3:00am and I still hadn't dilated anymore, so they put me on pitosin.  Man, did I feel those contractions after that!  Needless to say, I didn't sleep at all that night.

When I got checked in the morning I had dilated to 3cm.  My doctor also told me that apparently my water had only partially broken further up.  He went ahead and broke it completely.  When he did so, we found that there was meconium in the amniotic fluid.  (This means that Dallin had had a bowel movement.)  This meant that there was a greater risk for Dallin to breath in the meconium either inside or when he takes his first breath after being born which could cause further complications.  Stressful!

After a couple more hours, I decided enough was enough and I got that epidural.  SWEET RELIEF!!!!!  I really wanted to try and do it natural, but after that pitosin kicked in, I just couldn't do it anymore.  Can I just say something here?  Epidurals are amazing! 

When I got checked again later, I was still only at 3cm.  My doctor said that due to the circumstances and the fact that I was just not progressing, I was probably going to have to have a c-section.  He asked me if I wanted to just go ahead and have it done or if I wanted to try and wait a little while longer.  We decided to wait even though he was sort of trying to persuade us to do the c-section.  After he left I was a little teary.  Brandon and I decided to put our faith in the Lord and we said a prayer. 

Now, I need to take a time out to tell you about my nurse:  Kristine.  I have absolutely no doubt that this woman was sent from heaven to be my nurse.  She was our little Earthly angel.  She was nothing but positive and supportive.  When she heard that the doc. said we would probably need a c-section she said, "Well we are just going to have to make sure that doesn't happen!  We need to think positive thoughts!  This room needs to be filled with nothing but positivity!  Those doctor's aren't always right!" 

This is us with Kristine right after giving birth.  She was amazing!

I was checked a couple hours later and I had dilated to a seven!  Another hour or so after that, I told Kristine that I was feeling a lot of pressure and that I thought she should probably check me.  When she did she said,  "Oh!  It looks like you are ready to push!  I'll go page your doctor and then we will start pushing."

It was amazing!  I don't even know if I can describe why or how exactly it was amazing though.  Maybe it's just one of those things you have to experience.  Or maybe it was because I sort of felt closer to heaven at that moment.  I believe that the spirit of an infant comes into the body well before the actual birth, but I don't know... maybe the veil between our world and the spirit world was thinner because... don't think I'm crazy but I wonder if there were other spirits (and when I say spirit I mean people who have not yet received a body or those who already have and then passed on), I wonder if there were other spirits in the room to sort of welcome him to Earth.  Sort of a sending off party.  Angels maybe.  Or ancestors.  Both. 

All I know is that it was a miracle.  I pushed with Kristine on one side of me and Brandon on the other.  (And might I just say that Brandon was awesome!  He gets the best husband of the century award!) 

After he was born I didn't get to see my baby boy right away.  Because of the complications he was whisked away to the NICU.  He had indeed breathed in the meconium so he was having trouble breathing and when they took an x-ray of him, they found pockets of air outside of his lungs.  His doctor explained all of the possible worst-case scenarios that all of this could lead to, none of which I really remember because I'm pretty sure all of the blood had not returned to my brain after labor and I was having trouble processing information.  All I remember is that it sounded scary.

Here's our little trooper!  He looked like he had been through a battle!

We visited Dallin in the NICU as often as we could but we couldn't even hold him until the second day when he was a little more stable and had had some of the tubes and cords removed from him.  He was in there for a total of four days.  The hardest thing I have ever done was leave my baby at the hospital while I went home.  I have so much respect for those parents who have to leave their babies there for weeks and even months at a time.

When we were finally able to bring him home it was wonderful and I was so happy.  None of the possible complications that could have happened did happen and even the doctor said he was surprised at how quickly he recovered and how strong he was.  The pockets of air had even disappeared.  Like I said, there were miracles, whether you believe in them or not. 

All buckled up for his first car-ride home!

I labored a Lott (hehe), which was definitely a labor of love.

Dallin Is Adorble

I just had to blog about this.  How could I not?  When a mother has the cutest, most adorable, most perfect baby in the whole wide world, how could she not spread the joy and share the news so everyone else knew it too?  What's that?  You don't believe me?  Well, instead of going on telling you let me just show you a few pictures that prove it.  After all, a picture is worth a thousand words:

I wear my sun glasses at night.

Hmmm...

Saying his prayers.

He likes to hold his hands like this when he sleeps.

Dad was having a little too much fun.

Such a smiley boy.

Well, there you have it folks!  I have about a million more of pictures that further prove my point but I think that by now you are nodding your head and thinking to yourself, "Yes, yes she does have the cutest, most adorable, most perfect baby in the whole wide world.  How could I ever have doubted her?"  

Happy Birthday America!

Ok, so America's birthday was this past Wednesday, but this particular blog is highlighting what we did to celebrate on that day. 

First of all, let me just say how much I love this country and all the freedoms that come with it.  Every single one of them.  People may complain about certain things that happen within this country, but the fact that they can happen the way they do happen, is evidence to just how awesome America is.  Land of the free and home of the brave.  May God ever shed His grace on thee.

Our little town had a parade so of course we had to go!  It was so long though we had to leave before it ended.  Let me just show you a snippet of the action:

We went with our neighbor's the Bybee's!  We love you Bybee's!

Big red tractor thing in the parade.

GIANT shopping cart!  It even had large grocery items in it in case you can't see in the picture.

Sleepy Dallin!  The excitement was just too much for him.

Our college even had a float haha It's a great day at BYU-Idaho!

After the parade we went to the hospital and ate food at the cafeteria.  It is seriously tasty and cheap!

And then to top it all off, we had a cook out at the park with the Bybees, Youngs, and Chaz and Andrea (soon to be married). 

Bybee's enjoying watermelon.

Dallin  hanging out on the blankets.

Man makes fire!

Dallin had a blow out... Right on Nikki's lap!  It got on my lap too because we didn't realize it till it was too late.

Happy Family.

Chaz and Andrea.  Aww... so cute.

The Youngs playing with Dallin.

We had a great day!

Introducing My Beautiful Family!

Brandon was probably my first real crush.  Or at least the first boy I liked who liked me back.  (The first boy I remember liking was Tyler from 2nd grade who was the fastest boy in school and I liked to chase him around the play ground, but that's a different story...)

Brandon and I went to church together when we were in middle school.  We would hold hands secretly by folding our arms and sitting really close together.  When he and his family moved away I thought I would never see him again and soon forgot about him as life and time moved on. 

Then, during my junior year of college at BYU-Idaho, I got a friend request on Facebook from him!  He was living in Virginia at the time serving in the United States Marine Corps. so we got reacquainted over emails, texts, and phone calls.  When I came home to South Carolina for the summer, he drove all the way down (a seven hour drive) to see me.  We dated long-distance for the next six months until he asked me to marry him on New Years night and six months after that, we were married for time and all eternity! 

Almost two years later, we welcomed our beautiful, adorable, sweet, wonderful baby boy, Dallin, into our Forever Family.  We love him so very much and are so thankful that we have him in our lives. 

And that, my dear reader, is our story in a nutshell. 

The purpose of this blog will be to update friends and family on the goings-on of my lovely family.  I will share pictures, stories, laughter, triumphs, milestones, worries, and possibly frustrations and sorrows, and everything in-between.  But most importantly I will tell you what it means to truly love a Lott.