The Walkers

Something big that has happened in the last 4 years since I last did a blog post is we had our 4th baby! 💗👶💗 Brooklyn Jill Walker was born June 4th, 2019 at 3:48am. She has been such a blessing to our family and is the perfect little caboose. Sadly, she is my last baby, and I shed many tears over the baby chapter of my life ending. But four is a great number for us and we feel that she completes our family.

(Ignore how haggard I look, haha....it was 3:48am 😴)

She was 7 lbs 15 oz and 20 inches long. She came at 38 weeks, just like her older sister Claire, and she was my biggest baby. My water broke at home at about 1:30am, and she came not too long after. (That was a crazy thing to experience, I have never had my water break when I wasn't already at the hospital.....all of my labors have been fast, especially after my water breaks, so Keith drove REALLY fast to the hospital). My mom came over to be with the kids, so it was fun because in the morning they woke up to the surprise of her baby sister being born! It was really really special. (I am going to include her birth story at the end of this post that is way more in depth, for my own memory's sake).

Some pics from the hospital & when the kids got to come meet her in person:

First pic as a family of six!! 😱 (I still can't believe I have 4 kids sometimes)

(My heart just wanted to explode when I saw all my kids together with her 😭 there is nothing like it)

Since I'm making a very quick and condensed post about Brooklyn, here is a little compilation of pics from her first year:

I was so excited when I found this cute blanket, it felt like the perfect thing since she was our rainbow🌈 baby 💗 (I had a miscarriage in Sept of 2018).

I really tried to cherish every moment with her, knowing she was my last baby. During the first half of her first year, we were living in a temporary rental in Spanish Fork while we waited for our house to be built (I'll do a separate post on that later). It was squishy and she was sleeping in our room with us most of that time, so we were very ready for our house to be done. Then in January of 2020 we moved, so the second half of her first year was spent in the new house.

Just cuz I love this picture of her 😍 she was about 10-11 months here. I feel like I could do a million more pics of her first year, but thankfully I have all of those saved on Instagram.

By March of 2020 we were living through a pandemic. It was a very crazy time. But I'm grateful we were in our new house and we could all be together. Keith started working from home, which was a blessing in disguise because he got to see more of her during those last few months of her "babyhood".

Thankfully by her 1st birthday the lock downs had relaxed a little so we were able to do a birthday party for her. We were able to get enough grass put down in our backyard to have a party back there and it turned out so cute! I had a lot of fun planning it.

She DEVOURED her cake, it was so funny!!!

Its so unfair how fast the first year goes by. But I'm so grateful we were able to have a 4th baby and that I got to experience it one more time. Now she is 15 months old and she is BUSY!!! I would daresay she is in 2nd place to her brother Isaac with how busy she is, and that is really saying something. She just figured out how to climb on the kitchen chairs and gets right on top of the table!!! 😱 we have had to turn the chairs around to deter her but she still does it. It's crazy how fast they go from being a little newborn who can barely move, to climbing on the furniture. Motherhood sure is a crazy ride! We sure love this little cutie!

Brooklyn's birth story:

Birth story: Part 1: I had a OBGYN appt that morning (the 3rd) and was disappointed to find out that I hadn't progressed at all from the previous week (I was still 1cm and 70% effaced). I really didn't want to make it to my inducement date on the 11th because I didnt want Claire and Brooklyn's birthdays to be a day apart. I had been having a lot of pressure, back pain, etc that I thought would have helped me progressed. I did have a bad cold the week before though, and had been trying to rest as much as I could to get over the cold before the baby got here, so I think that set me back. After the appt I took Malea to an art camp she was doing and then after that was over we decided to go to the splash pad. I took the kids to the splash pad and had to park kind of far away because Art City days was starting that week. We got set up fine and the kids played. I ran in to a mom friend of mine and at one point while I was standing there talking to her I suddenly felt like I was going to pass out. It was really weird. So I went and sat down and after that I didn't feel great. Keith happened to get off work and was heading home right then, so he met us at the splash pad and helped us get all the stuff back to the car (I didnt know if I would be able to do it by myself since I didnt feel well). I went and got the kids snow cones. It was actually a really fun outing and I'm glad we were able to go do that since I ended up having the baby that night. That afternoon we kind of just hung out and lounged around. I had been having contractions off and on but they were irregular so I didn't think anything of it. As the evening went on they started getting a little more regular. Keith and I sat outside that evening and watched the kids jump on the trampoline, it was such a nice night and it was fun to just sit and watch them. While I was sitting there I was having crampy contractions so I started timing them. The timing of them were random (like every 10 min, then 20 min, then 15 min) but I kept timing them anyway. We got the kids to bed and then as it got later they started becoming more regular. I started to wonder if this might be it. By about 10-11pm Keith went to bed and said to wake him up if anything changed. I stayed up and decided to clean up the living room & kitchen, I took a shower and shaved my legs (Haha) and then wrote out instructions for my mom in case I did end up needing to go in. By about midnight/12:30 or so I decided maybe I should just lay down and try to get some sleep. At that point my contractions were more steady at about 10 minutes apart. I debated whether to tell my mom but I didnt want to wake her up in case it was false labor. I fell asleep for a little bit and at 1:30am I got woken up by a painful contraction and then felt a "popping" feeling. It was such a weird sensation I can't even explain it. It felt like someone popped a water balloon inside my stomach. So weird! I said "oh my gosh!" And stood up really quick and ran to the bathroom. I went pee and then when I stood up water just kept coming out on to the bathroom floor. I knew then that my water had broken (I was pretty out of it haha). Keith had gotten up right then to go pee too (in a different bathroom) and when he came back in the room I said "my water just broke!" So we started scrambling to get everything ready. He called my mom and she said she would come over to be with the kids. In the past when my water has broken (which every time has been in a hospital bed in active labor) I have delivered really quick after that, so I was honestly a little scared that we wouldn't make it to the hospital. Thankfully the contractions hadn't been super close together yet, but once my water broke the contractions went from 10 minutes apart to 5 minutes and they are getting stronger. We didn't even grab my suitcase or anything, just my phone and purse and a towel to sit on. We left the front door unlocked and left, and my mom got there a few minutes later.

Part 2: Keith drove really fast to the hospital because he knew how fast my labors go, especially after my water breaks. He called ahead to warn them that we were coming. We got there at about 2:10am and got checked in and since my water had already broken they admitted me right away. I told them that my labors went fast so they did a good job of getting me hooked up and going with everything quick. After I got my IV and everything they checked me and I was already a 4.5-5 cm. It was crazy that just that morning I was only 1cm and hadn't really progressed since the week before. They asked if I wanted an epidural and I said yes definitely. So the anesthesiologist came and started the epidural. It was ironic because I had the same nurse and anesthesiologist as when I delivered Claire, so the whole thing felt very dejavu. It was interesting too because the same thing happened as it did with Claire, which is that it only numbed half my body at first and the epidural didn't quite kick in fast enough for delivery. After the epidural was done they checked me and I was at a 7cm. That was probably only a half hour later or so, so things were progressing fast. They had me lean on one side to help get the epidural to move to the opposite side. I could tell she was going to be coming soon. It is a stressful feeling knowing that the baby is coming soon and the epidural wasn't going to keep up fast enough! Not long after that I started feeling the urge to push. They had called the doctor by that point and he was on his way. (Unfortunately Dr. Harward wasn't on call that night so Dr. Young delivered her. He did a good job). When my water broke there was a little bit of meconium so they made sure to have a respiratory therapist there when she came out. When I started to feel the urge to push she checked me again and I was at a 10cm. They got everything ready and I started pushing. I could still feel a lot and was in a lot of pain. It was hard for Keith to see me like that so he just hung back to the side (plus he gets queesie). I started pushing and she did not want to come out. In my past deliveries I only had to push a few times and they would be out. This time felt like it was taking an eternity. I knew something was wrong since she wasn't coming out as easily. After a while the doctor said that he needed to use forceps because every time I pushed her heart rate would go down. The forceps really hurt but as soon as he used those I pushed one or two more times and she was out. Turned out that the cord was wrapped around her neck once so every time I pushed it would pinch it off. I'm so glad she got out safely and there were no problems. She came out and they took her and sucked out everything and then I got to do skin to skin. I was so happy she was finally here! All those months of discomfort and sickness and she was finally here. She had lots of hair and I noticed right away that she had long fingernails, which was kind of funny. They went to weigh her and she just pooped and pooped and peed all over. She ended up being 7 lbs 15 oz but they said had she not pooped so much she would have been at least 8 lbs. My biggest baby! And 2 weeks early! Once I was stitched up and all taken care of everyone left except for my main nurse and Keith & I just held her and stared at her for a while. She was so perfect. She was born at 3:48am and by the time everything was said and done it was closer to 4:30-5am. I hadn't slept much at all (maybe 45 minutes or so) but I was so happy and excited that I didn't even feel tired. We knew that the kids would wake up soon and be super surprised that my mom was there. We planned on video calling them after they woke up in the morning so they could see her.

I've decided to bring this blog back from the dead!! 🎉 For the past few years I've posted most of my family pictures on to social media, which was fine for a while but I'm getting to a point where social media is getting so negative and bad for my mental health, so I decided I'm going to focus more on my blog. I find myself getting sucked in and suddenly I've wasted an hour just sitting there scrolling. Between the covid pandemic, the upcoming election, protests, etc its just gotten so bad on social media. I cannot believe the amount of trolls and cyberbullying that goes on, mostly with grown adults! Its crazy! There is also a lot of worrisome things I have learned about trafficking and I just want to be more careful about keeping my kids safe while still being able to keep in touch with people and keep track of important memories. (I will actually be making this blog private soon, so if you would like to have access to it let me know!). Keeping a record of my kids' milestones and special accomplishments has been really important to me, and I've had my Instagram account synced up to my chatbooks for a few years now, so I will keep posting there as well but I will go in to more detail here and share things that are a little more personal. I have found that I want to share things for my own memory but I feel a little silly sharing it over social media. I also want to eventually get this blog printed out, because I've got years worth of blog posts and pictures/memories that I want my kids to be able to look back on. I feel a little overwhelmed at the thought of having to go back and do catch up, so I'll probably just start from today on (although I do want to do a separate post about Brooklyn, our newest addition to the family since my last post on her 4 years ago). Anyway! Just wanted to give a little update for the 3 people that read this blog 😉 (do people even read blogs anymore? Haha). Anyway, I'm excited to start trying to spend less time on social media and more time focused on what is most important. 🥰