The crazy, life changing month of May!

Little did we know the month of May for us this year was going to be ever life changing and totally crazy and unexpected in many good and bad ways! We have definately grown stronger as a family as Nathan and I faced our first real trials as a married couple.

At the first of this month I had reached the point in my pregnancy where I was just soooo unbelievably uncomfortable. I was waddling, not sleeping at night, just getting ready exhausted me but I was too uncomfortable to truly rest and worst of all I was having tonz of what I thought were just Braxton Hicks but since its was my first pregnancy I had no idea the pain I was feeling was much more serious. I had even talked to my Dr. about the pain I was feeling and she just kept telling me the pain was normal especially for how tiny I am. So I went on ignoring what I was feeling because I really had no idea what I was feeling.

But before all that drama happened we had an unexpected visitor from our landlord one night that brought some very bad and sad news :( He told us that because we were renting from the city the city council met and had decided they wanted to raise our rent to 50% of what we were originally paying and that we had 30 days to decide  if we wanted to stay or go. Here I am huge and pregnant in pain and uncomfortable and knowing there was no way we could stay in our little home that we had worked so hard to make ours. We had so many memories of our first amazing year there and worse than that we were right in the middle of painting Jaces' nursery. We had no choice tho and we prayed and felt the best choice was to move into my parents and get settled so we had a stable place to stay when Jace got here and then we could start figuring out a new place to live. It totally broke both of our hearts and boxing up that house and taking down all our pictures was totally braking my heart. :(

In order to avoid having to pay rent and utilities for a house we were only gonna be in for not even a full month we immediatly started getting packed up. Like I said being pregnant and emotional trying to box everything up with a huge belly was extremely hard and thats when I felt pain like I never had before that would not go away. I called my Dr. and she said to take tylenol, drink lots of water, get in the tub and come into her office if the pain didn't stop. Well of course the pain didn't stop so I called Nate he came and picked me up and I ran out of a half boxed messy house. When we got to the Dr. she told me I was dialated to a three to get up to labor and delivery and hopefully they could stop my contractions so Jace would have more time to grow.

It was May 11th when I was admitted to Ogden Regional and I was just barely 33 weeks. Little did I know I wouldn't be home until little Jace was born. But before that I would spend 4 miserable days on bed rest in the hospital. They gave me steroids to help Jaces' lungs develop and holy pain I have never had a shot that hurt so bad. They gave me all kinds of IV medicine that made me feel like crap and all I could do was sit on that uncomfortable bed all day everyday getting shot after shot trying to stop my labor.

My family is super amazing tho the Drysdales came and brought me treats and spent time with me, my mom took many days off work to be there when Nate couldn't be there, bringing me all the food I wanted and she was so cute and taught me to crochet a little blankie for my little man :). And of course Nathan spent every second he could with me. He takes such good care of me. He had to sleep on a pull out bed then get up every morning at 3:30 for work. One night he had to get up with me literally every 15 minutes and help me move all my IVs and monitors so I could go to the bathroom. I am such a lucky girl to have a husband that cares so much for me.


By Friday I had finally gone a full 24 hrs. without any contractions and was thinking I would get to home when of course the contractions started again worse than they ever have been and nothing they were doing this time were stopping or even slowing them down. I was in soooo much pain and completely nauseated that they decided to give me my epidural, not to make delivery easier but in a last attempt to stop my labor. My epidural was a nightmare. They had to do it 3 times because every time they hit a blood vessel and I would slowly black out as he would pull it out. The nurse said that she had never ever seen him hit a blood vessel more than once. Just my luck I was super worried that he wouldn't be able to get it and I would have to have natural birth which so wasn't  good. He finally got it and within minutes I was feeling AMAZING! By this time I was dialated to a seven and they still didn't want me to have Jace that night but my body was doing everything to get him out. My tempature started to rise which can be very dangerous when you are in labor so the Dr. decided to brake my water. It still didn't seem real at that point that our little baby would be there in just a few hours.

I had to deliver in the OR because it was closer to the NICU and Jace had to go straight there right when he was born because he was so early. Labor was nothing like I thought it was gonna be. Its not like the movies. There is nothing to be afraid of and for me it was fast and fairly easy! Being there with Nate and seeing Jace for the first time was the most amazing thing. I will never forget it.

Jace finally came at 4:29 in the morning,on May 14th, he weighed 5 lbs 10 ounces and was 18 inches long. A true miracle for how early he was. Jace did awesome only needing oxygen for about an hour.

Nathan and I were exhausted and slept pretty much all day on sunday and going to see our little guy in the NICU. I had to stay in the hospital an extra day because the Dr. wanted to make sure my fever was gone before she let me go home. By the time I got to go home on Monday I was more than ready to get out of the dang hospital. Unfortunately it was without Jace. Leaving that day I had no idea how hard the next two weeks would be.

Luckily while I was on bed rest my family got together and moved most of our things. My mom knew how sad I was about moving so her and my dad got our little place in the basement all ready and cute for us. And it was good that I didn't have to go back and spend to much time at the house. Especially since I had other things on my mind.

Jace spent two weeks and a day in the NICU and it was the hardest thing Nate and I have ever been through together. Feeling so helpless and not being able to mother my brand new baby was the worst. I was not happy with the NICU at ogden regional at all and I hope I never have to deal with it again. Nathan and I spent every free second at the hospital feeding Jace and holding him as much as we could. It was very hard especially since we were in the middle of moving it was very overwhelming. I don't know what we would have done without eachother.

On the other hand I have alot to be grateful for. I am so lucky that Jace had nothing more serious than just being premature. We had insurance so all his needs could be taken care of. And we were able to go home and get some good rest and get ready for our little guy to come home.

As more time went by it got more and more frustrating. One day Jace would be coming home and the next it seemed like he was moving backwords. Jace finally learned to eat really well on his own his only problem was his breathing apnea.

Jace finally got to come home to us on Sunday morning. Because he has to be on oxygen they had us stay the night with him on Saturday so we could make sure we knew how to work all his equipment.

Bringing Jace home was so amazing and everyone was so right. It really seems like those 2 weeks never happened. Jace is doing well and will be off his oxygen in about a week!! Yay! He is gaining weight vey quickly, eating like a big boy and making mommy and daddy very happy!!!

Today I had to take my poor little man to get circumcized :( it was super sad but Jace is being so tough! I am so proud of him. Thanks to my mom for coming with me keeping me sane and being a huge help!

Being a mom is definately challenging but soooo rewarding when I see Jaces big eyes look up at me I really can't believe Nate and I were blessed and trusted to be his parents! We are so super lucky! This all still doesn't seem real but I am so excited to raise my little guy!

Like always Nate has been so amazing! He even gets up in the middle of the night with Jace and lets me sleep. :) And still a hopeless romantic bringing me home red roses because I had to deal with Jace alone today.

We are now settle at my parents everything is put away and moved and I have realized whats really important in life. It doesn't matter where we are as long as my little family is together!

One last cool thing before I post pics. of  baby Jace. The week we found out we were going to have to move we were at Harmons getting a few groceries to hopefully last us awhile as we were leaving a man came running up to us and handed me a 30 dollar gift card to Chilis and said he just wanted to wish us a Happy Mothers Day. I of course started crying. Its great to know there are still good people in the world who think of others. That man will never know how much that meant to us and he was gone so fast we were never able to thank him.

After all of this I am so so grateful for the power of prayer and the priesthood! Thanks everyone for your thoughts and prayers for my family!

2 Weeks before I popped! Sooo miserable

After the Epidural feeling pretty dang good :)

Getting excited

My mom working on the blanket we are crocheting for Jace

Everyone was such troopers for staying up all night and supporting Nathan Jace and I

The 2 grandmas :) love this pic

Jace only a few min. old. My poor baby was hooked up so many machines :( so glad that is all over with

My sweet little angel

My boys mean the whole world to me!

Baby shower cake!

Braxton man at my shower

Cute decorations at my shower

Diaper cake! Thanks everyone who helped with my shower it was perfect!

Little bean man getting ready to go home

all ready to go

Getting ready for summer in his sharky outfit!

I can't believe how in love I am with this little boy!

March && April the countdown to baby Jace begins!

Ok, so update on baby Jace. The last time I went o the Dr. (about 2 weeks ago) my baby boy already weighed 3 lbs. :) My Dr. said that is pretty big for how small I am so she said I am for sure at least a week if not more ahead of my due date on June 27th. That really got us thinking, especially since our nephew, Braxton only weighed 4 pounds when he was born and he was perfectly healthy. Another thing that got us so excited and anxious for our little guy is my brother Ben and his wife Michelle had their precious little baby Isaac about a week ago. Seeing my brother be a dad for the first time was the most amazing thing! I dunno if its just because we are expecting but I paid attention to every little detail and seeing them so incredibly happy made me know that anything I have and will go through for my little boy will be soooo completely worth it. We also started painting Jace's nursery. Its a work in progress so I will post pics. when its done.

One thing we have done that has been fun tho is we have put together letters for his nursery. Nate found these cute little dinosaurs so I guess we have decided to do a dinosaur nursery. I think its gonna be super cute.

So even tho it was my idea Nate did most of the technical stuff :) He nailed the cute little ribbon on for me. He is so cute!

I also have definately doubled in size since my 17 week pic. I really feel like I couldn't possibly get any bigger but everyday I wake up and I swear I am just a little bigger mostly I can tell by how all my shirts have become belly shirts haha. At 30 weeks tho, I am still wearing my size 0 skinny jeans :) so that makes me feel a little better.

So this is 25 weeks I think and I just keep getting bigger and bigger

Another fun thing Nate and I did to get ready and excited is go have maternity pics. taken. We just went to Target but it was still so fun. I think Jace will really like seeing all the pics. of my belly when he was growing :)

So in other news not related to baby alot of other exciting things have also happened. March 20th was our anniversary :) 5 years of being together and 1 year of being married. People always say how your first year of marriage is the worst. We totally disagree! I think because we have known eachother for so long and we know eachother so well there was really no transition stage! I already knew all of Nathans little ticks and he knew mine. We just had to get used to not having to check in with our parents and saying "bye" at the end of the night which is soooo AMAZING let me just tell you! This first year was everything I hoped marriage would be and more. I get to spend every second of everyday with my best friend in the whole entire world! We have an awesome house in an amazing location, two puppies we couldn't live without, a baby boy on the way and all of our family close :) I am so excited to spend the rest of my life and eternity with Nathan William Drysdale!

So to celebrate our anniversary we used our tax return to go on one last vacation together before our little man came. We couldn't get away until April so we didn't do too much on our acutal anniversary. It actually turned out to be kind of a bad weekend. Our actual anniversary was on a Sunday and the night before I had an allergic reaction to something lol and I had broken out in hives so I took benadryl and went to bed. Nate was called into work early the next morning and when I got up I still had hives so I took more medicine and went back to bed. Of course Nate had to work pretty late so when he got home we went to the Drysdales for dinner. My mother in law Carin is so super cute. She got us this cute statue of a pregnant lady and a guy and she told us its to always remind us where we were on our first anniversary :) she also knows I love cheesecake so she bought me cheesecake. It was fun spending time with them but it always is. When we got home it was kind of late but my cute husband still had a little something planned. We had videography for our wedding which is like my favorite thing in this whole entire world because I can relive the best day of my life over and over :) So my husband put that in and we had saved some sparkling cider for a whole year that we had got on our wedding day so we watched our wedding video and drank cider :)

April came and we finally really got to celebrate. We left the morning of Thursday April, 7th, dropped our puppies off at my parents and headed for vegas. Because I booked our room in Vegas so last second we got a way good deal on it. I was really worried about the drive but I really stayed very comfortable the whole time! We stayed at the Planet Hollywood on the strip and for some reason when I booked the room they booked for 2 queen beds instead of one so they changed it to one king size and upgraded our room for the inconvienace which was totally fine with me. We got a huge room way up high looking over the strip with the biggest fluffiest bed ever and a huge seperate jacuzi tub! It was awesome and well worth the mix up. The only thing that sucked is we had to go through all the miracle mile shops and the casino just to get to our room. Once we got settled we went down and walked around and found some dinner! The price of food on the strip is the biggest joke holy cow! Nate also may or may not of gambled just a little haha. I told him he could have 20 bucks and he better use it wisely. Because I am not 21 we were a little afraid I was gonna get carded and kicked out but instead I got asked multiple times if I wanted anything to drink haha I didn't gamble of course but I sat and watched Nate loose the whole 20 in about 20 minutes to a penny slot machine haha. It was fun tho. That night was the first night my poor legs and feet swelled up :( oh the many joys of pregnancy haha.

The next morning we headed out for California. Wow what a dang boring drive lol. It was fun tho just getting to spend so much time talking and laughing with Nate. We got to San Diego around 5 checked into our room and went looking for cheap seafood. Ha yeah right all the seafood there is like double the price it is here which is so retarded. We ended up just getting me pizza and nate stuff to make pasta. My husband is thee pickiest eater and literally he eats pasta daily no matter what haha so because we had a microwave and fridge in our room we went to a pharmacey and got him a bowl, pasta and sauce in a jar and he just made pasta in our room the whole vacation :) The next day we decided to drive down the pacific coast highway so we could see all the pretty beaches and Nate could drool over all the extremely nice cars. We also knew there was a Joes Crabshack right on the water we wanted to eat at. So we ate at the crabshack in Newport then drove down to Huntington beach and got out and walked the beach. We didn't get in the water because it wasn't warm enough so we sat and watched the surfers and played in the sand it was sooo nice to just sit and relax with my hubby, especially somewhere so beautiful.

Mission Beach, San Diego

Huntington Beach

Huntington Beach Pier

Love Love Love this boy

Mommy && Jace

Writin our names in the sand

Nate gettin camera happy

Forever && Always

My cute hubby

My hubby again in the hotel

Nate making his pasta in the hotel room haha

The next morning we got up early for our loooong 12 hour trek home. I was so sleepy so I slept most of the way. Nate wouldn't let me drive because he wanted me to rest and be comfy since I am prego. I again was so surprised how comfortable I was the whole time with how prego and big I am. Driving really was one of my favorite parts. Nathan always makes me smile and laugh no matter what situation we are in.   Nathan did really well at keeping sane the whole way until I fell asleep at about St.George and when I woke up we were only in Nephi and Nate was not happy haha it was funny. We finally made it home to our little fur babies and our brand new nephew :) It was such a good vacation to get away with my hubby and spend so much time together. I def. wouldn't trade that time for anything. It was also nice to get home to my huge feather comforter and body pillow tho :)

Getting ready for the looong journey home.

In other news. Nate got a new job!!! We are so super excited! With the job he has now he litteraly is on call 7 days a week 24 hours a day! So starting Wednesday there will be no more of that! He will be done by 3 every single day!! Wahooooo! I am so proud of him for all he does for his family! He is such a hard worker and I know he seriously would do anything to provide for Jace and I and I am so thankful for that. I am a very very lucky girl!