more cute baby pictures

I really love these moments.

Also, sometimes I take selfie pictures just to make sure he's asleep.

Guess who doesn't hate the bath anymore?!?!

Matching outfits for church.

Looking up to his daddy already.

Precious.

One Month!

Dean was one month old on November 26. We celebrated with a trip to the doctor. He hated it. It basically combines his 3 least favorite activities: getting undressed, having a diaper change, and getting dressed again. That's at the beginning, so then he cried a lot of the time. Here are his stats:

Weight: 9 lbs 5 oz. -- 50%
Height: 22.5 in. --75%
Head Circumference: 38 cm. --50%

Here are some pics I took of him that day. Maybe I should have put his pants and socks on first, but oh well. At least you get to see pictures, right?

cutest sad face in the world

Oops, I didn't rotate the pic before and you can't do it once it's uploaded. He's trying to nurse the elephant.

He loves kicking his legs!

Glorious Day

Yesterday was full of gems. Here are the three that just REALLY made my day.

Trevor told me that when he was younger, he could either have homemade bread and jam or grand crappers and milk for a snack.

I laughed all day about that one. He even tried to say it right a few times and it just wouldn't come out! Grand crappers. Classic. (in case you didn't get it, he was trying to say graham crackers...)

We found out that ASU reimburses travel expenses for federal clerkship interviews. Score! So we will get paid back for Trevor's travel to Amarillo. Did I mention that he had an interview with Judge Robinson? If not, you just found out even more great news.

And, after 17 months of having a duvet cover, we are now proud owners of an actual duvet inside of that cover. No more just fabric for us. It feels like a heavenly marshmallow. As if I needed a reason to love being in bed even more (in high school I took a quiz in a magazine about favorite things, and a warm bed was #1 for me. Yep, #1 favorite thing).

Three Weeks!

Today Dean is three weeks old! It's gone by pretty fast. Mom was here for his delivery. Dad flew down on Halloween, so almost a week after he was born. They flew back to Utah together on November 7. Here's a four generation picture we took while Dad was here (unfortunately Grammy couldn't hold Dean because she had shingles) :

We also took a family photo:

It was SO nice to have extra hands. Since my parents have been gone, I've managed around the house just fine. Dean sleeps well enough that I'm not a total zombie (granted, I often don't get out of bed until after 10...) and I've been able to do okay with giving him plenty of attention and still getting laundry and dishes done. So yes, I am managing around the house just fine. But I don't leave the house. I tried on Monday. I made a grocery list. But then Dean was sleeping and I didn't want to wake him up, but then when he was awake he wanted held or to eat. The end of the day rolls around and I still hadn't gone to the store, so when Trevor got home, he watched Dean while I went grocery shopping. I'm glad we can tag-team.

Dean loves to sleep in the Boppy. Or at least I love him to sleep in the Boppy because he'll sleep for long stretches. And he just looks so cute all curled up.

He is starting to get fussier. Bummer. There have been more times of "I can't figure out why he's crying" lately. We go through the list. I just fed him. He's not hungry. I just changed his diaper. He's not poopy. Because he just pooped. So it's probably not that he's trying to poop. Is he tired? Just wants to be held a different way? I. Don't. Know.
*I should probably mention right about now that this is NOT a plea for advice of any kind. Just telling you how we're doing.

Even with his slight fussiness (he really isn't bad), he is still the world's sweetest and cutest baby. Ok, ok, tied with Jonah. I love when he falls asleep on my chest when I'm trying to burp him after nursing. I love when he puckers his little lips. I love when he grabs my finger.

He likes his bouncy seat and swing for about 20 minute stretches, but that's long enough for me to make myself some food or whatever. Today I actually put on makeup while he was in his bouncy seat. He also is having more and more scream-free diaper changes, so that's a plus. We're waiting for him to warm up to bath time.

I'll add the pictures later...baby's crying. Thus is life.

Dean's First Week

After the delivery and stitches, Dean was with me pretty much every minute of our hospital stay. I got to nurse within an hour of his delivery and he did pretty good. After a couple hours, we were transferred to our recovery room. The room was pretty small, but nice. The hospital had full room service for me, so I got to order some yummy things. They had a really big menu! They also had a galley on the recovery floor stocked with salads and sandwiches, so we ate very well while we were in the hospital!

Pretty quick after getting settled in the recovery room, I took a nap and Trevor went with the nurse to watch Dean get his first bath. He was not a fan.

For the rest of the day, we rested and attempted to nurse. Dean was not interested in eating! He had done so well the very first feeding that I was a little surprised, but he just would not eat. It wasn't a latch issue. He would latch on, but wouldn't start sucking. That led to the biggest concern from the pediatrician: he hadn't peed. So after a few failed attempts, we decided to supplement with formula and for me to pump to stimulate milk production. He would drink formula because it would drip in his mouth and he had to swallow. Later in the evening, Dean threw up twice. After that, they decided to pump his little tummy. Turns out that he had 14 units of amniotic fluid and merconium in his stomach. The normal stomach capacity for a newborn is 6 units (I don't remember what units), so he was super full. No wonder he didn't want to eat. He had to have his tummy pumped one other time and again they got a good amount. His little tummy had to have been very uncomfortable! Once his stomach was cleared out, he had a pretty good feeding. But in the morning, he still hadn't peed yet, so we did not get the discharge order from the pediatrician. At around 2:00 on Sunday afternoon, the pediatrician came by to do a little exam. She examined his penis to make sure the opening was there and not blocked. He looked good. Then she fastened up his diaper and started checking his kidneys. The next step was going to be inserting a catheter to make sure he was even producing urine, but luckily as she was prodding his kidneys, he peed! And a full on flood of pee, too. Then that wasn't as big of a concern, so we were pretty sure we'd be able to leave the next morning. He only peed one other time before we left, but thankfully they still let us go. He continued to have a bit of a hard time nursing in the hospital, but everyone agreed that once by milk came in and there would be something for him to drink immediately, he would be just fine. And he has been!

Here's us getting ready to come home:

And here's us once we got back to our apartment. Welcome home, Dean!

That afternoon, Dean did a lot of this:

But he was awake and alert for a little bit, too.

So far in life, his favorite things are sleeping and nursing. And pooping. He's also gotten the peeing thing down pretty good. We had his first doctor's appointment on Tuesday and the doctor said he should be having at least 4-5 wet diapers a day and to call if Dean went more than 12 hours without a wet diaper. Well, my milk came in and he eats a lot and has had no problem getting those 4+ wet diapers.

Unfortunately, his least favorite thing in the world is getting his diaper changed. He screams the whole time. He also hates getting his clothes changed. But when he has massive explosions of urine, sometimes that is also necessary. Sorry, buddy, it's for your own good.

He had his first sponge bath at home Tuesday before his doctor's appointment. He didn't like that so much either...

Isn't that the cutest face you have ever seen?!?
If he isn't getting changed or bathed, he is a very calm baby. He doesn't even really cry when he wakes up. He is very snuggly and cuddly and I love that!

Trevor has had a very busy week. He missed a midterm on Monday and had to take it Wednesday. He also is competing in the final moot court competition tonight, so he's spent a lot of time this week preparing for that. And on Saturday he takes the MPRE which is the professional responsibility part of the bar. All of that the week of having a brand new baby. He is working so hard and is still managing to make time to cuddle with Dean and have good conversations with me. He's pretty much superman.

While Dean was being born on Saturday, Trevor's family was together in Utah at his cousin Jared's funeral. He passed away exactly 5 years to the day of his mom (Anne's sister) passing away from the very same form of brain cancer. We were celebrating a new life while they were celebrating a life well lived and a life now free from pain. Life is precious, and we feel so blessed to have this new, innocent life joining our family. We love our little guy!

Halloween

Is it hard to create a costume for a baby less than a week old? NO! We're already on #2. And we have more.

Dean's Birth

Friday morning I woke up feeling crampy, but not really in pain, so Mom and I went out to run some errands to see if we could get things going. We went grocery shopping and ran to Target and DI. Then we went home to watch a movie. While we were watching, my cramps started being a little more defined, so I was able to actually start timing them. At around 6 they started getting closer together. Again, not painful, but we decided that given family history, if contractions were getting closer together and more defined, it would be worth going to get checked. We weren't in a big hurry, so we gathered up some things we hadn't packed yet just in case and then headed to the hospital. We got there around 7. On the way, Trevor totally made the red light camera go off. We hope they buy the "My wife was in labor and we were driving to the hospital" story. When we got there, I hadn't really dilated any more from my appointment on Wednesday, but my water broke right then, so I was at the hospital to stay. We called Jason to come help Trevor give me a blessing, so Jason, Brittany, and Emmett came for a short little visit. Then, it was time to get on the monitors and such. Here's a pic of Trevor and I in the labor/delivery room:

The staff at Banner Desert was AMAZING. I hear all the time about how women need to be more respected during the labor process and be able to make decisions about how they wanted things to be. That was the exact experience I had. I said I wanted to be able to take monitors off, and they were totally accomadating. I was only on the monitors for the required 20 minutes out of the hour. At around 10:00 PM my contractions had reached a point of "incredibly painful." I tried lots of things. I went for a walk, used the labor ball, took a hot shower, etc. Trevor was amazing at helping me breathe through contractions. Counting my breathing has always been helpful for me (I have to count my breaths as I run or else I pant) and he was right there with me every step of the way. Mom was always near to let me squeeze her hand and to rub my back. I had wanted to use the labor tub, but Dean's heart rate was already high and being submerged in the warm water would make it higher, but they said I could take a shower until his heart rate calmed down. It really helped a lot. But by the time I was getting out of the shower and I'd been having really painful contractions for a few hours and had only dilated a little bit, I decided I would rather scratch the tub and just have an epidural.

I had gone in to labor with an open mind about an epidural. I figured if it seemed like I would progress quickly, I would rather go unmedicated. If it seemed like I was going to be in excruciating pain for a long time, I would take the meds. It was clear to me it would be a while longer, and I wasn't sure I was going to be up for that long of hard labor. Plus, it was in the wee hours of the morning and I figured it would be good for all three of us (me, Mom, Trevor) to get some rest. Best. Decision. Ever. My regrets about getting medicated? None. I didn't really sleep after, but I was able to rest. I didn't feel a thing! But I still had mobility in my legs, which was nice.

My body finally kicked in to gear and dilated. About 5:00 I was at an 8.5. The nurse thought by shift change at 6, I would be about ready. She was right. The new nurse checked me at some point after six, but took her time with calling the doctor and such, so I was at a 10 and ready for about half an hour before anything happened. I pushed with the nurse to get Dean's head down and crowning and then she called the doctor in. He came in at 8:10, I pushed through about 4 contractions and Dean was born! Mom made sure there was a mirror in the room in case I wanted to see, and in the end I decided I wanted to. I would look in between pushes. Most of the time I had my eyes closed when pushing, but the doctor made sure I had open eyes the last push so I could see Dean's arrival. It was a pretty incredible sight! (but I won't post a picture)

Dean had pooped in his amniotic fluid (silly boy) so I didn't get to hold him right away. He had to go to  the table where doctors and nurses from the NICU were waiting to make sure he didn't aspirate any of the fluid. Trevor was able to watch them clean him up and weigh him, etc. Meanwhile, the doctor delivered my placenta and stitched me up. I'm pretty sure Trevor had more fun during those few minutes.

But then they brought me my sweet little angel boy and I was so excited to be able to snuggle my son!! It was pretty surreal. (These are not the best pics of me. There's a better one on my phone, but I haven't uploaded it to my computer yet. But I'd just given birth, so I'm allowed to not look my best.)

Out of Order

"Out of Order" makes it sound like something is broken. Well, something is broken. And that something is our bank account! So when we were charged over $200 to renew our bluehost site we opted NOT to pay bluehost and switch to blogger instead. So, really the "Out of Order" is referring to the new site and some mixed up posts. I just copied and pasted entries from our old blog, so they may be scrambled. And some pictures are missing.

Oh well. Enjoy!

And stay tuned. . . especially for a baby update!

Almost There!

Just for kicks and giggles, here’s a few more preggo pics.

My feet at the beginning of the day:

My feet at the end of the day:

Holy hugeness, batman. Good thing Trevor is very sweet to me and rubs my feet every night. We used to take turns reading scriptures aloud. Now, I read and Trevor rubs. It works out great. It’s relaxing and my feet aren’t quite so puffy anymore. Have I mentioned that Trevor is the BEST?

37 Weeks:

As of today (38 weeks) I am 60% effaced and dilated 1 1/2 centimeters. This little guy could come in about a week! We’ll see how long he decides to cook. We’re excited to meet our little man!

Pregnancy Update

In case anyone out there was wondering about my pregnancy, here are my thoughts:

1) The first 16 weeks were miserable. The end.

2) I could honestly just sit and watch my stomach move around and dance all day long and be immensely entertained. I can only imagine how fascinated I’ll be when Dean is OUT of my body!

3) One night while in Pennsylvania, I forgot to take a Unisom. And I didn’t feel awful the next day! I was so excited. I had been feeling pretty good for a long time, but only if I took a Unisom pill. But since then I’ve only taken a pill a couple times. Yay!

4) I have a super power in life. It’s called the bladder of steel. I seriously never have to wake up during the night to go to the bathroom. I have (many times) honestly thought, “Man, I kind of need to go pee, but I’m already in bed. I’ll just go in the morning.” And then I sleep through the night and just go when I wake up. I have been nervous that pregnancy would suck my super power right out of me, but so far so good. There is still time I’m sure, but for now, I am enjoying uninterrupted sleep. Although…

5) I have to sleep with my feet elevated because they are the size of watermelons by the end of the day. But I usually wake up with normal sized feet. The strange thing is that only my left foot swells. I’ve been trying to make sure I go on a walk or go jogging everyday because getting my circulation up keeps my swelling down.

6) I enjoy going jogging, but as I get further along in my pregnancy, I can’t go as far. And I run at a snail’s pace. And sometimes my bladder of steel isn’t as strong when running. Sometimes I can’t make it very far before I have to go, and there aren’t any bathrooms unlocked at the track, so I have to stop and walk. Also, my back was starting to hurt when I was finished, but thanks to Megan, I have a maternity support band that I started wearing when I run and it works wonders!

7) No one should ever attempt pregnancy without a belly band. I kind of hate maternity pants, but with the belly band, I just wear the same jean shorts I always have and just keep them up with the band. Although sometimes I just prefer elastic waist skirts that I can wear below my belly, then I don’t have to have the extra layer in this heat.

8) We have finally made decisions about what things we want to buy! It makes me relieved and excited. We’re registered at Target and Babies R Us, in case you were wondering.

9) I think Dean is in a growth spurt because I’ve been extra hungry the past few days.

10) Overall I feel pretty good. My least favorite thing in the world right now is putting on socks. My favorite thing is feeling Dean move. I’m kind of bummed I haven’t had any really weird cravings. Cravings always make the best stories. And when people ask, “have you had any weird cravings?” I want to have a cool answer. But I don’t.

And that’s about it. Here’s some pics of my bump progress:

25 weeks

28 weeks (I got MUCH bigger between 27 and 28 weeks). I accidentally deleted the pic that showed my face. But we’re all more interested in my belly anyway, right?

30 weeks

Dean Michael Cox

We had our ultrasound today (at 23 weeks, 6 days) and found out that our baby is a BOY! Here are the top reasons we are excited:

1) We already had a boy’s name picked out. Score!

2) He gets to be “protective big brother” to all our other children.

3) It seems that we will inherit quite a bit of boy clothes from siblings. And what we’ve already been given is “gender neutral” but really more boyish.

4) It’s a relief and a joy to finally know!!!!

5) Little boys with ties and spiky hair are just too adorable. Plus, it’s an easy hairstyle.

This was taken on Sunday, so about 23 1/2 weeks along.

Here is Dean’s profile. We think he looks handsome.

And here is the winner (pronounced “weener”):

These people have psychic gender-knowing abilities:

Amber, Nathan Orton, Nate Cox, Rob, Mima (Marla, Amber’s mom), Papa (Brent, Amber’s dad), Lillie, Sam, Andrew, Jared, Jon, and Katie.

They all have 2 points. Better luck in the rest of the game to all you girl-guessers…which was the majority of you.

Hindsight is 20/12

So I wrote this post forever ago. I was going to add pics before posting, but obviously that never happened. But better late than never. Maybe I’ll edit it eventually…

We decided to jump on the “year in review” bandwagon. So, here are some highlights for us in 2012 in a month by month breakdown.

January: We took a trip out to California with my roommate Courtney to go to Disneyland. We were also able to make it to see Ken and Jen. It was a quick visit for lunch on Sunday, but still so good to see them and for me to meet them! They were the first Cox family members I got to meet. At Disneyland, I got to introduce Trevor to my favorite ride: Tower of Terror. I didn’t explain the ride beforehand, and Trevor is a tad scared of heights. I think he’s forgiven me. After the initial shock he was okay and even consented to ride it again…and again. We also enjoyed California Screamin’, Space Mountain (my other favorite!) and Thunder Mountain. Trevor loves Indiana Jones and was excited for that ride. We got to experience it for a long time because we got stuck. Twice. In a row. We also got stuck on Splash Mountain and listened to Zippidy Do Dah for fifteen thousand times in a row. We just laughed about it and took pictures. Overall, it was a super fun weekend trip.

February: Our first Valentine’s Day! Trevor got my my favorite present ever: a hot pink snuggie! And a 5 lb. bag of tootsie rolls that were gone embarrassingly fast. I think it was February when Melissa came to visit. That was fun.

March: Our spring break’s didn’t actually match up, but Trevor didn’t have Friday classes, so we still decided to make a quick trip to Utah over my spring break. We drove up Thursday, spent Friday and Saturday and then drove back Sunday. Another super quick weekend trip, but it was fun to meet each other’s families. We even had Trevor’s mom come to my parent’s house for lunch one of the days so our parents got to meet each other, too.

April: My parents came to visit for Easter and it was fun to have them here. We went to the Mesa Temple Easter Pageant and played possibly the most awesome game of Duck, Duck, Goose ever with my cousins. Then it was just boring school and work until the last weekend of April when Trevor surprised me BIG time by proposing! I had absolutely no idea it was coming…we hadn’t even really talked about marriage! We were at the temple grounds and he handed me a little box with this cute note it in. It was accordion style, so there was a few more words visible each time I raised the note. I didn’t get that he was proposing until I pulled the last fold up and saw a ring tied inside. Then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him and I said, “Of course!” because I’m just so in love with this guy.

May: The last month of school!!!!!! Trevor and I were busy starting wedding prep and apartment hunting. As soon as school ended, we headed up to Utah for Memorial Day weekend. It was busy. We had only a few days to take engagement pictures, decide where to have our reception, and buy me a wedding dress! But luckily we fit it all in and buying a dress turned out to be pretty easy. We only went to one store and I only tried on 3 dresses. I loved it and it was super cheap (for a wedding dress, anyway). Score! We also bought the cute dresses for the nieces. On Sunday, we went to Trevor’s dad’s grave. I really look forward to meeting him someday and telling him thank you for being such a good example for his sons!

June: About mid-June we moved our stuff into our new apartment. Trevor stayed at the apartment and worked at the AZ State Supreme Court. I headed up to Utah for a few weeks. As it turns out, I would NOT recommend that couples spend the three weeks before their wedding separated. It was terrible! Although I did enjoy my week as an EFY counselor and was glad I decided to do it.

July: Trevor made it up to Utah finally. I was SOO happy to see him. We only had about a week before the wedding, so it was busy. We took our bridal/formal pictures which was so much fun! The weekend leading up to the wedding was busy: It was Grammy’s big 90th birthday celebration on Saturday, Stacy’s birthday on Monday and then Tuesday was our wedding day! It was perfect. We were so pleased with the way everything turned out and we’re grateful for our temple sealing. Our honeymoon was in Cody, WY and Yellowstone. We stayed at a really fun Bed & Breakfast. We went ”white” water rafting and did some walking in Yellowstone. We also saw a Cowboy music show, a rodeo, and went to some awesome shops and restaurants. We split up the drive back to AZ my stopping and spending another few days in Utah. When we got back to Arizona, we shopped til’ we dropped. It was fun…and also a little exhausting. But mostly fun.

August: Back to school–BOO!

September: Labor Day Weekend I travelled back to Utah for my Grandma King’s funeral. It was a nice service, mostly focusing on Grandma’s ability to talk to anyone and her love of service and the temple.

October: We spent conference weekend in Utah for Trevor’s Grandma Bischoff’s funeral. The service left me wishing I had been able to get to know her. But I know I will have that opportunity someday. It was great to see the whole family and finally get to meet Rob and Cynthia and their kids. We got to see them again shortly after for fall break. We went to Texas for the week and had a super fun time! First, we went to Lubbock to visit Rob and Cynthia. We were there for the kids’ primary program. We also had a fun FHE activity of lego building pictionary. Then we went to Amarillo to see Stacy and Jared. We went to the Big Texan restaurant, the children’s museum, a duck pond, and a pumpkin patch. The trip was the highlight of our semester.

November: Trevor got to experience his first Clegg Family Thanksgiving Olympics. It got a bit intense. We also had a nice visit from Trevor’s mom. She wasn’t here for long, but we were so glad she came. She helped me make pillows for our couch. I bought the fabric for wedding centerpieces with the intention of making pillows, but had never got around to actually doing it. They are such fun pillows. Thanks, Anne!

December: I didn’t see Trevor for a couple of weeks because of finals. I was busy preparing for finals myself and interviewing students for spots to go to a camp our school does. Let’s just say we were glad for the semester to be done and for us to have a break! It was lovely to spend time in Utah with family. And we got to meet Libby! She was born the day after we got married, so Michael and Cara couldn’t be at the wedding. I was happy Trevor finally got to meet the rest of my family!

And that was our year in a big nutshell. Here’s to making 2013 even more super!