Tag William Madsen

The day we had our ultrasound and found out Sis was a girl, I made a decision.  I knew that if I had another baby, I wouldn't find out what we were having through ultrasound.  We would have clothes and blankets and such for either gender and so I would wait to be surprised.  I really overestimated my own patience.  By 37 weeks, I was ready to meet our baby and finally know what tub of baby clothes I would need to launder.  I could have over-killed it done both, but what a waste of resources.

At least one part of my impatience was brought on by the fact that for the first time in my life I was actually progressing towards labor on my own (and a little early).  At 37 weeks I was dilated to a 4.  The rest of my agitation I attribute to a nagging pain in my back.  Despite my eagerness, I willed myself to hold off any signs of labor the weekend before I reached 38 weeks.  Brandan left for a weekend of coaching basketball in Powell and then Cody.  An 8 hour bus ride away.  He left Friday morning and I felt continually twinges all day.  I had many serious mental conversations with the baby where I willed him not to come.  Forbade even.  It worked, a little too well.  I had hoped to get through Friday and Saturday and then welcome a baby on Sunday, Feb 1, but after Friday, all signs of labor stopped.  I think Dash had said too many fervent prayers that I wouldn't ruin the Super Bowl with a baby for that plan to work.  The game might be on Sunday, but Heavenly Father loves 8 year olds. 

At my last appointment, Dr. Hansen had told me to come to Evanston on Friday the 6th with a bag packed in case I had progressed enough to be admitted to the hospital.  He had no intention of starting my labor since I'm a VBAC mom, but, just in case.  I did everything I could to start regular contractions before that day, including, but not limited to, jumping on the trampoline, riding a bike and long runs.

Friday morning, I half-heartedly threw a hospital bag in the van and Brandan and I dropped Sport and Sis off with a friend and headed to Evanston.  After determining that I was dilated to nearly a 6, Dr. Hansen seemed genuinely confused over what to do with me.  I couldn't report feeling any real contractions, but he didn't really want to send me back home only to have me try and make the 40 minute drive back to Evanston in full-blown labor at a 6 with my sixth child.  I suggested he strip my membranes, let me walk around town a bit and see what happened.  After the appointment, Brandan and I wandered around Wal-Mart (actually Colt had given us an ultimatum - we were to either buy him some spray paint to make his Valentine's box with, or he would ask to borrow some from the neighbor) and then we headed over to the Evanston bike path.  We stomped along the trail for a solid 40 minutes and then got some lunch before going back to the doctor.  I thought I noticed a few twinges, but I was pretty discouraged to not feel any regular contractions.

Back at the doctor's office, Dr. Hansen was pretty discouraged as well.  He decided to leave the decision in our hands, but strongly suggested we keep in mind that with my positive Group B strep test, I would need 4 hours of antibiotics before giving birth, otherwise, we would be required to stay in the hospital 48 hours.  We decided to go a head and have our baby.

After getting checked in and having a contraction monitor attached, I was super pleased and very surprised to learn that I was having contractions fairly regularly, but just wasn't noticing them.  The IV with the antibiotics was started shortly before 3:30 so we knew the doctor wouldn't want things to hurry too quickly in order for the 4 required hours to pass.  Just a very small drip of pitocin was added to my IV and then shut off again when the contractions started coming closer together.  Brandan and I watched a considerable amount of ESPN for a few hours while we waited for the medicine to be administered.  I started noticing contractions within about an hour or so after settling into my bed, but they were very manageable.  Around 5:45, Dr. Hansen broke my water.  It was about the time the nurse announced that I was at an 8 (and just passing the point of an effective epidural) that the contractions became strong enough to get me rocking back and forth in the bed.  Just like I spent hours "banging" as a child (okay, and teenager and adult..), I spent the majority of my hard labor sitting completely upright swaying back and forth like the guy in the movie Rain Man.  Sometime shortly after 7, Dr. Hansen came back and announced that I was at a 9.5.  That seemed awfully specific.  He told me to let him know when I started feeling "pushy" and then he left to watch the basketball game on tv in the adjoining waiting room.  After listening to the sounds of ref whistles and squeaky sneakers for a few minutes, I decided that I was tired of contractions.  I wanted to push.  I definitely wasn't feeling pushy like I remembered feeling with Sissy's labor, but the idea of enduring an unknown number of contractions (who knows how many basketball quarters that might take!), was more than I could handle.  

I knew I wasn't quite at a 10 by the look on Dr. Hansen's face, but because he knew what was best for him, he told me I could push anyway and he would help by holding down any cervix that was left.  Pushing was all my worst nightmares brought to life.  It only took 3 pushes and maybe 4 minutes to deliver my baby, but in that time, I may, or may not have, but definitely did, announce that I couldn't do anymore and shout at the doctor to "just pull it out!".  (I'm still feeling a little ashamed to have to face the doctor at my follow-up appointment in 6 weeks.)

After the baby's head was delivered, I heard a nurse announce that "her head was out".   It makes no logical sense that the nurse would know the gender of the baby based on the head, but there is no logical thought process that goes through a woman in labor anyway, so I felt sure that the baby was a girl, a confirmation of the suspicion both Sport and I shared through my whole pregnancy.  So when the baby was born, at 7:48 pm, and the doctor held him up, I think the whole room said "A boy?" 6 lbs 10 oz, 20 inches, and all boy.  I was thrilled.  Suddenly it made perfect sense that our baby was a boy and nothing in the world could have made me happier at that moment.  Actually, nothing has made me happier in any moment since.  I love my little Tag William Madsen.

A Boy!

Brand New

Tag had the perfect little lip quiver the second he was born.

Howling

Still mad

Yelling in the nurse's face.

Still mad

Snuggling Mom

Calm and happy

Mom and Tag

Looking at Mom

Dad and Tag

Super unhappy about his bath...

until the warm water rinse.

All Clean!

Our Wyoming baby!

Going home 24 hours later.

Tag William Madsen

Winter Sports

When most people think of winter sports, skiing, ice skating, and hockey come to mind.  We haven't had enough snow to mention this winter, but we enjoy our "winter sports" anyway.

Indoor goal posts constructed by Dash and Colt.

An NFL playoff bracket.  Dash tracked the games and printed off the pages and Colt colored them all.

Indoor basketball "hoop".

Sport's Speech

On a Friday morning in January I took Sport to the public preschool center for a developmental screening.  We've been concerned about the clarity of his speech and we decided to get a professional opinion.  After chatting with Sport for a bit, the Speech Pathologist determined he has an articulation delay.  His language development, vocabulary, sentence structure, ect are on target, but his pronunciation needs work.  Turns out we didn't need a professional opinion.  Anyone who has heard Sport ask to play on the "pompooter" (computer), call for "Tolt's" (Colt's) attention, or describe his favorite animal the "zep-ah" (zebra) could tell you he either has a pronunciation problem, or a thick foreign accent.

Because of this delay, Sport qualified for free preschool a few hours a day twice a week.  Within minutes he was signed up to begin class the following Monday.  I was really torn.  I wanted Sport to get whatever help he needed, but I wanted to provide it.  Sport has major separation anxiety (maybe I do too) and I really didn't want both of us to fight this all the time.  Plus, Sis and I would miss him.  Especially Sis, who would in turn demand more time and attention from me.  I can be practical as well as emotional.  I called Brandan during his prep hour and he shared the same concerns.  We were going to have to think about it over the weekend.

And then, about 1:30 that afternoon, the time Sport would be in preschool the next week, I was unloading laundry when he came up and started asking questions about Davey.  It started simple (did Davey live in my belly like our new baby that was coming?), but the more I told him, the more he wanted to know.  Did he ever live in our house? How big was he? How come he died?  I finally sat down on the floor, took a deep breath, and started from the beginning.  I told him about the day Davey was born and what he looked like, his heartbeat, and fingers, and lips, the little outfit he wore, how we held him, blessed him, sang to him, and how he went home.  I held it together amazingly well (I was 8 months pregnant for Pete's sake), but even so, when I finished my story, Sport wrapped me up in a hug and buried his own teary eyes in my shoulder.  After a minute, he pulled back and very seriously told me he knows Davey is happy because he lives with Jesus now.  He said he knows Jesus makes Davey happy because Jesus makes him happy.  And then he also told me that he is sure Jesus is wearing His white shirt, not his red one, because its heaven.

It seems like all the boys about the age of four have developed their own personal connection with Davey, Heavenly Father's way of allowing him to continue in our family.  I would never claim that preschool would disrupt that for Sport, but it felt like a sign to me for me that he needs to stay home with me for as long as he can.  What a pity to have missed that moment with him, or any other that might come up.  I'm so grateful that Sport's speech has never gotten in the way of our conversations.

Other notable Sport moments:

Sport - Mom, are unicorns real?
Me -  No, honey.
Sport - (perplexed) Really? Because rainbow are.

Discussion about building our new house.
Sport - We don't have a ladder or a hammer.  How are we going to build our roof?
Me - We'll have to buy some I guess.
Sport - Or I can sit on Dad's shoulders and tape the stuff on.

During story time at the library.
Librarian to children - Who are your heroes?
Sport - (shouting) Jesus!

One day Sport dressed up in camo from head (literally, a camo hat) to toe.  He repeatedly asked me if I could see him and I kept distractedly telling him no.  When we piled in the car to meet Brandan I told Sport he needed to get his seat belt on.  Sport reassured me that wouldn't be necessary because the policemen wouldn't be able to see him other than the blue of his eyes and he would just shut them if he saw a cop coming.  Logic is airtight.  Then when we picked up Brandan, Sport posed the same question to him - Dad, can you see me?  Noticing his get-up, Brandan played along and pretended to search around for the source of Sport's voice.  Delighted, Sport tried it out with Sissy.  "Sissy, can you see me?"  Just like the child from the Emperor's New Clothes, Sissy stated with blunt honesty,  "Yes, you're right there". Sport was shocked.  Game over.

New Year's Eve

On New Year's Eve, we were invited to our friend's, the Birds, house.  There were several families with littles in attendance, so the hosts planned a NY countdown at 10 o'clock, which felt way past midnight to most of the adults anyway.

Counting down to the New Year!

Christmas Card 2014

In case we forget...Answer Key:
Brandan - All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Tooth
Candie - What Child Is This?
Dash - Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree
Colt - Run, Run, Rudolph
 Sport - Little Saint Nick
Sis - Angels We Have Heard On High

Christmas 2014

Because so many of us were either recovering from illness or still in the throes, our Christmas Eve was a pretty low key affair.  To keep up appearances, and because the boys begged us, we went over to the high school gym to play some ball.  We tried our darnedest, but Dash and Colt had to keep sitting down to rest between shots and Sis just sat on the bleachers and cried.  Sport enjoyed himself, spending his time jumping from the top of the folded up bleachers, but after an hour we gave up and went home to take naps.  Later, we opened our annual Family Game gift and spent some time playing a new version of Sorry and drinking hot chocolate.

Colt reacting to a "sorry" bump.

 Christmas Eve evening we ate our traditional pizza by candlelight and tracked Santa on the Internet.  

Dinner!

 Sick or no, we still had to put out cookies for Santa and if the Big Guy is getting cookies, so are we!

Sis and her Christmas Eve cookie.

Delicious!

Sport saved us the trouble of frosting a cookie and ate his straight out of the can.

Dash (still chilling with fever) anxiously awaiting bed time.  (A 2014 first and last)

Daddy and Sis tracking Santa.

Watching the Polar Express on Christmas Eve.

Lit up like a Christmas tree

Christmas morning.  Sissy was still making her way down the hall.  Morning comes early for a girl with a fever.

The unwrapping.

The stocking all strung on the floor with great care.

Sissy really didn't feel good, but when she opened her doll she was content to sit on the ground and snuggle her baby.

Colt opening the ants for the ant farm from Santa.

Dash with his BYU blanket from Grandma.  He also got tickets to a Jazz vs. Bucks game from Santa.  Happy boy!

In the middle of opening gifts, we paused to add the ants to Colt's ant farm.  It was a pretty intense process that involved herding escaped ants back into the container and screaming (from me and Sis).

Sport loves projects and making things.  He got an art kit from us and a tool set from Santa. Oh and the one thing he asked for from Santa was tucked in his stocking, swim goggles that aren't pink.

The boys all gave Brandan coupon books.  These can be redeemed for some of the following: a snowball fight, one perfect family scripture study, one cleared dinner plate, a game of catch, a back rub, and a clean classroom.

One afternoon, the boys spent hours at Brandan's classroom making me these posters for Christmas.  The green one is a countdown calendar until the baby's due date and the red one is full of boxes for me to record my daily exercise.  So cute!

Sport and his new gloves from Aunt Cam.

 After we had exhausted our presents and eaten our new cereal, we lounged around a bit and continued our recuperation.  Everyone was finally starting to turn the corner (well, Sis was still pretty yucky).   Then Christmas afternoon, Sport threw his blanket over himself and started shivering and dozing on his bedroom floor.  The last to fall!

Sis napping off her fever.

Dash creating an elaborate marble maze with his new set on Christmas Day.

Despite Sport's sickness (he shook it off faster than the rest of us), we loaded up on the 26th and went to Idaho to enjoy family for a couple days before Brandan had to get back to practice the following Monday.  We had a great time and by the time we returned home we were all healthy and ready to finish up our Christmas vacation in style, which included the boys attending bball practice with Brandan and lots of naps for me!

Favorite Christmas Moments:

On Christmas morning, Dash and Colt were lounging on the couch casually shooting their new nerf gun bullets at Brandan and I who were standing at the kitchen table trying to shove 500 puzzle pieces together.  After exercising all my holiday patience (already stretched thin by the above mentioned puzzle), I suggested the boys pick a different target.  Dash immediately complied, but I overheard him suggest to Colt that they pick a target close to us so that when they miss the stray bullets still hit us.

While visiting the Madsens, Gpa M, Brandan, Colt and I all headed downstairs together.  The basement was strewn with blankets and pillows from a game the grandkids had played the night before.  Colt casually asked Grandpa what he liked to do in the basement.  In reference to the mess, Grandpa jokingly replied that he just liked to come down there and build forts.  Immediately Colt quipped, "Next time you build a fort, tell one of us [grandkids].  We love forts!"

Sport was remarkably healthy while the rest of us felt ill.  I didn't think much of it at the time, but looking back its pretty funny to remember him dancing around the house, doing hand stands, singing about Frosty and Rudolph and eating all the Christmas goodies we were given without any competition.  He had a great Christmas.

Christmas morning, Sissy's sick little eyes almost broke my heart, but nothing was sweeter than her dragging her doll and its packaging over to me and asking with a croaky little voice for me to get out her baby so she could hold it.

Temple Square Trip 2014

Despite the fact that 4 of our 6 woke up with fevers on December 23, we decided to drug up and carry through with our plan to visit Temple Square.  We left earlier enough to do some shopping, but none of us felt up to it, so we mostly hung around the City Creek shopping center and watched Sport dance dangerously close to the edges of the fish ponds.

The kids at the edge of one of the fish ponds at the City Creek mall.

Enjoying a birds eye view of the street below.

Visiting the Christus statue is one of the kids favorite Temple Square activities.

 By about 5 that evening, our medicine was starting to wear off.  Dash and Colt were getting the chills, Sis was too exhausted to get out of her stroller and I was pretty done myself.  Luckily, the lights had just flipped on and we were able to still enjoy the experience before the Square got too busy.

Dad and the kids by one of the many nativities. 

Mom and the kids by the reflecting pool.