Colten Matthew Hunt

 As December went on and on, without the arrival of our baby, I grew nervous.

I was afraid that he was going to be HUGE, and that my mom would come and go before the baby was even born!

At my 38 week appointment, a Monday, I brought up my concern about his size with my doctor.

Cayden was 23 inches, and 9 pounds, 4 oz when he was born and had problems throughout the delivery and with his lungs after he was born because of his size.  I was worried that since we were having another boy, he would also be big, and we might have similar problems.

I also felt a lot different with this boy than I had with the girls.  He felt bigger to me; I felt very tight in my stomach, I had a lot of pressure and was getting really sore.  Some nights I felt like I could hardly walk!  I thought it was all because of his size.

I asked the doctor if he felt big to her; she guessed that at that point he was a good 8 lbs, at least.

So I asked her about induction, just in case...

Of course, I always get the doctors and clinics who have a policy against induction, unless the baby or mom isn't doing so hot.  Which unfortunately (or rather, fortunately) is never the case with me.

But she did listen to me, and said that she'd talk it over with doctor in charge and let me know.

Well, that week passed.  My mom flew in from Colorado that Thursday and we went about the business of preparing for a baby.  We made food and froze it, grocery shopped, cleaned, made our Christmas cookies, wrapped presents, went to movies, and all sorts of other things.  The baby STILL showed no signs of wanting to come out.

My Dad called almost everyday, telling me that I really needed to have that baby, because my mom was supposed to leave the next Wednesday. 

Thanks Dad, I was pretty aware of that!  Too bad I really couldn't do anything about it!

Unfortunately you can't schedule your baby, and my due date was kind of vague.  Based on ultrasounds (and I had a LOT this pregnancy), and on my date, the due date was anywhere between December 10 to December 19.  And even though Cayden was 2 weeks late, the girls each got earlier; Mason was 10 days early.  So I just figured that even if this 5th baby wasn't more than 10 days early, chances were that he'd be earlier than my due date.  So I told my mom to come around the 10th.  Which she did...  But the baby did NOT.

Anyway, Monday (2 days before my mom was supposed to fly home) my doctor called around lunch time.  She said that they had set up an induction for me, that Wednesday.  But she wanted to see me one more time before the baby was born, so I went in to see her Tuesday morning.

I hoped that they would be able to strip my membranes, which would hopefully put me into labor naturally that day.  That's how it worked for Mason; she was born less than 24 hours after they did it.

Well, it worked like a charm. 

After I left the office in the morning, I could feel that something was finally happening.  My mom made some phone calls and was able to change her flight to Friday without penalty.  I was so thankful that she'd be there until I got home from the hospital, allowing Andy to stay with me, and I wouldn't have to worry about my kids being a burden on someone else.  Thank goodness for small miracles!

I took my mom and two little girls to the lovely Springfield Mall and we wandered around, shopping the day away.

My contractions started getting regular about 8 or 9 that evening.  I tried to go to bed, hoping that I could catch a few hours of sleep before we had to go to the hospital.  I may have dozed a little bit, but not much.  I woke Andy a little after 1 and we went in.

Fort Belvior is about 30-40 minutes away from our house, and I was a little concerned about getting there in time, so we left a little earlier than I usually like to, and Andy sped there!  Which is probably a good thing, because I was hurting pretty good by that point.

When we got checked in, and the nurses got all the monitors hooked up, they were a little concerned about the baby.  His heart rate was lower than they liked, so I had to wear an oxygen mask and have an IV drip to try to help him out.  I think he stay low the whole time, but didn't dip below 80.  Cayden had the same problem, but went down to 50.

I ended up having an epidural because I was so tired.  The nurse also said that if I were to have a C-section because the baby was having problems, it would be a lot better to have the epidural in place.

This was a fabulous epidural, and it was so nice not to be hurting anymore.  I even got to doze a little bit!  Unfortunately, it also shut down my labor.  My contractions totally went away.  Right after I had the epidural I was dilated to a 9.  Two hours later I was still at a 9.  If I had just held on, the baby would have been born a few hours earlier, but as it was, I dozed, Andy watched the monitors, the baby stayed put.

I had to have pitocin in order to get things moving again, and our baby finally came at 5:57 am, December 15.  He was 21 inches long, and weighed 7 pounds, 13 ounces, which lands him smack-dab in the middle of our pack.  Cayden and Ashton were bigger, Lillian and Mason smaller.

He was not as big as I feared.  Thank goodness!

We had pretty much settled on naming the baby Colten by the time he was born, but had no ideas for his middle name.  We actually didn't chose one until 4 or 5 days after he was born.  We came up with a list of names, narrowed it down to a few, and then let Cayden choose.  Matthew it was.

Andy and I napped a little through out the morning while Colten slept.

In the afternoon Andy went home to be with the kids and sent my mom to the hospital for a few hours before he came back with the whole family.

Cayden, Ashton and Lillian were all so excited, but also I think a little aprehensive, to meet their brother.

Mason had no idea what was going on.  She didn't even notice him, or care that there was a baby for a good 20 minutes.  But then she was all over him! 

Cayden was the first to hold Colten.  He already loved that little boy so much!  He was very gentle, but was afraid of hurting him.  He didn't feel comfortable holding him for very long, and would rather just look at him and pat his head.

Ashton is completely different.  All she wanted to do was hold that boy!

She just took him over, and started rocking him and bouncing him.  She's just like a little mommy.

Lillian also fell in love.  And she claimed the feeling was mutual.  She kept telling everyone how much the baby liked her already.

We all love our new little boy.  Colten is a joy to have in our family.  I'm so thankful that he was born healthy and well.  I'm grateful my kids are so excited about him, and accepting of the craziness this new baby brings to our lives.  And and I love Andy so much for being such a good Daddy.

I'm excited to see what life has in store for this little cutie! 

How lucky I am to be his Mommy!

A Stocking For the Baby

With our new baby due before Christmas, our kids were very concerned that we didn't have a stocking for him.

I didn't see that it was a problem; we weren't really planning on getting anything for him for Christmas anyway.

Really, what do you get a new baby, who has 4 older siblings?

But when my mom got here, she took control of things and made a stocking for that little boy.

The big kids could now rest easy, knowing that their little brother would not be forgotten on Christmas!

My mom is amazing, and she doesn't even think so.

She took a look at the stockings we already had, and our stocking holder, and came up with a design for the new one.

Then we went to JoAnn's, had fun picking out and buying fabrics, and she got to work.

She made this stocking for us in one afternoon.

I wish I had even a tiny bit of that talent...

This stocking holder was used for inspiration. 

I think it turned out really cute.

So now we have a full SEVEN stockings, hung by the fireplace with care...

And here's Andy, sleeping through the fun.  He had to stock up on his sleep before the baby got here!

Whatever, Andy ALWAYS has to stock up on his sleep!

Thank you MOM!  We sure were spoiled while you were here!

Can you come back yet?

Decorating for Christmas

As soon as our Thanksgiving guests left, and we straightened up the house again, we started putting up our Christmas decorations.

It was still November, which is actually pretty early for us.

This year, though, I wanted to get them up before our baby came, so that we'd actually have them up in time for Christmas!

Our kids always have so much fun getting things out, and playing with everything.

We put on a Christmas movie, had hot chocolate and caramel corn.

Andy also told me that I could pick out some new decorations this year.

I ended up buying a whole other Christmas tree!

But, just a little one.

We put this one up in our family room, and put all our old ornaments on it and used it for the kids' tree. 

We'll keep our wrapped presents around this one.

The kids loved the idea of their very own tree.

Once we got the ornaments up, they were constantly taking them off and moving them around.

This isn't quite what I had in mind, but they're having fun.

I also bought some new, matching, ornaments for the other tree in our living room.

This one appeals to my need to for things to be just so.

Of course, the kids decided to take all the ornaments off this one too, and move them all around.

Oh well.

They are quite proud of their work.

And I'm exhausted!

Merry Christmas!

Family Pictures in Nauvoo

For our last trip of the summer, we drove almost 1000 miles to Nauvoo, IL to spend a weekend with my entire family.

With all of our traveling this summer, we were able to see every single person in Andy's and my immediate families, except for one brother-in-law.  Pretty amazing for families consisting of over 60 people, and spread all over the country, and even as far away as Korea.

We were definitely blessed.

BUT, it was a TON of driving for us!

My family hasn't all been together since Jennifer and Ryan were married almost 5 years ago.

AND we've added 7 more grandkids (with 2 currently on the way) to that last gathering.

So five years ago was our last Christensen family picture (my mom LOVES family pictures!), so of course we had to do another one since everyone would finally be together.

Unfortunately (for me and my sister, Jennifer) I was 7 months pregnant, and Jen was almost 5 months pregnant at the time.  So although we were thrilled to see everyone, we weren't so excited about be photographed in our current large-bellied states.  Especially since this picture would probably have to serve for the next 5 (or 10, or more) years.

So here I am, 7 months pregnant, ready to be remembered!

Well, we survived and the pictures went surprisingly well for a family of 10 adults and 11 kids.

We met in the Women's Garden at the Nauvoo Temple Visitor's center.

The day was perfect and sunny for the end of September.

In between taking pictures, the kids all had a marvelous time climbing all over the statues, and picking flowers.

 Silly little monkeys!

Even Grandpa and Grandma (aka Mark and Kaye) got in on the fun.

Cayden loved picking the berries of the trees.  We had to convince him not to eat them, or put them in his pockets, or throw them into the girls' hair.  Such a boy...

After we exhausted the scupture garden, we moved to a nearby barn.

Here the kiddos ran around in the grass and were entertained by a galloping horse just across the fence.

 My sweet kids, on top of a small water tower.  I was so happy they all cooperated.  Especially Ashton, for some reason she has issues with getting her picture taken.  It offends her sensibilities, or something...

How blessed we were to see each other again, and have professional, photographic evidence!