The Louis Family

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Waiting

I got discharged from the hospital around 5 pm on Monday, Jan 27th.

My mom had driven in that day.

We were for sure that Camille was going to make her debut soon and wanted to make sure someone was here to keep the bigs.

The following story needs to be documented.

Tuesday, Tom went to work.

My mom took Henry to school.

After that, she and MG went to the grocery.

When they got back, she told me it was snowing.

(Simon and I were in the basement and had no clue)

About 10 mins after they got home, I got notification that school was being dismissed in 20 mins due to the weather.

I told my mom that I didn't think the roads would be bad since it was just snow, not ice... and it had just started.

Well... I was wrong.

Mimi returned a bit shaken, having slid their way home.

Went out to play for a little while.

Kids were pretty cold.

Tom was scheduled to only work that morning, so I called him to see when he was going to be able to leave.

He told me he had already left, and was trying to get home.

Trying? TRYING?

This is what he was facing:

He actually was smart enough not to get on that road and took back roads.

Long story, short... he left his car at a dry cleaners and walked the last 2 miles..

It is only a 4 mile trip from the hospital to our house.

It took him 2 hours to get home.

When I realized how bad the roads were, I parked myself on the couch.

There was no way I was going to go into labor in this craziness.

Plus, I wasn't feeling so hot after the being poked, pushed, and prodded 2 days before.

I cried. I was a bit nervous.

(And thank goodness I hadn't gone to Bible study that morning. It took one lady 3 hours to get from Bible study to a church down the street from me!)

My view from the couch when Tom arrived home.

I was so relieved!

Thank goodness he wore boots that day and had gloves in his car.

I was sad to not go out to play with the kids in the snow, but didn't really feel like it.

Tom, Henry, and MG's snow angels

The next day we were stuck home.

Exercise videos helped get some energy out of the kids.

I thought surely getting my toenails painted would put me back into labor.

Stuck home that Thursday too.

By Friday the ice had melted and I felt good enough, so we ventured out to the McWane Center.

Tom and I went on a date to Chez Fon Fon.

Totally cropped out my backside. ha.
And Simon loves to be in pictures when he's not supposed to be ;)

Delicious.

I was having some pretty strong Braxton Hicks at dinner and we were planning how we would escape if my water broke in the fancy restaurant ;)

Surely, Camille was on her way???

My mom hated to leave, just to have to turn around and come back.

It was nice having her around too!

Back up... we found out that my Papaw, who lives in Dallas, (mom's dad) had fallen and broken his hip earlier that week.

She felt OK about not going to be with him... not much she could do to help him out.

So we watched the Olympics.

She got to go to 2 of his basketball games.

And when it warmed up, we went to Railroad Park.

Felt so good to be outside.

Sunday, Feb 9th, when my mom had been here almost 2 weeks,

she found out that her mother had a stroke.

Within an hour of her finding out, I had to say goodbye to my mother, so that she could drive to Dallas to say goodbye to hers.

My grandmother passed away 2 days later.

Sad. Very very sad.
Will be hard moving back to Dallas without her there.
I remember her teaching me "Big D, little a, double L, AS" when I was little.
Looking forward to getting together with my grandfather,siblings, and parents in Dallas later this Spring to celebrate her.

Also, tried to stay calm about what to do with my bigs in case I went into labor.

For a couple of nights, I would text a friend, to put her "on call"... hoping I wouldn't go into labor in the wee hours of the night.

I talked to PatPat and she mentioned that she would be available to come and help if I wanted.

IF I WANTED?!?! OF COURSE! ;)

I hung up the phone with her and immediately called Tom.

"Tom, your mom offered to come. Get her here!"

She got on a flight Wednesday night and made it here in a middle of a snow storm ;) of course.

What was up with this weather?!?!

Her flight was the last before they closed the airport.

Thank you, LORD!!!

I felt a huge weight lifted with PatPat coming to our rescue!

I decided that I didn't want to induce until my due date.

Wanted to put it in God's hands....

Thursday, we tried to go to the Art Museum. Closed.

To the library, closed.

Guess I should have called before driving to both.

Ended up taking the kids to Hobby Lobby- ha. They were thrilled, I tell ya.

But did have fun when PatPat took us out to Chick Fil A.

After getting the kids to bed that night, I gave PatPat the Cliffs Notes on how to get Henry to school and our morning routine, put out the kids Valentines, etc.

I had a feeling something might happen...

Random phone pics.

39 weeks 1 day... all the bigs came at exactly 39 weeks.

Hello there.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Trip to Texas

(I'm going to back track a bit)

Tom's last living grandparent, Jimmy Beth Herndon, passed away in January.

We decided that we would all drive to Texas to celebrate her life.

The morning we were to leave, Henry woke up with a weird stomach bug.

I say weird, because it wasn't full force.

So we decided to keep on keeping on and just bring a bucket.

Well, good thing we brought the bucket...

Poor fellow.

He was so uncomfortable.

And it wasn't so easy turning my 36 week pregnant self around to help him.

And poor Margaret, who was sitting right next to him

What were we thinking??

Oh yeah, that by the time we got to Texas, he would be better. ha ;)

We were to stop in Shreveport to spent the night. My parents were out of town, so we thought we could just stay there, so Henry wouldn't get his cousins sick.

Well, no one had a key to their house.

So Sarah sucked it up and let us stay there ;)

Once we got in around 10, Henry hadn't thrown up for several hours... and continued to stay well.

Larkin.
Glad Sarah risked our germs so that we could play with these sweeties.

Boxes are super fun.

Liam whipped Henry

Elizabeth brought her girls over the next morning too so we had breakfast and playtime with most of the Lagersen cousins before heading off to Arlington.

Stopped in Tyler for some BBQ.

Tom was so happy.

Got into Arlington. All of Tom's sibs were there.

Saturday morning.

Immediate family at the burial site.

Memories of Tom's grandmother were shared.

Laughter and tears.

We knew our kids wouldn't last through the memorial service,

so I dropped Tom off at the church and met up with Rocky and Amy (who were in town for a getaway) at a nearby mall.

Good to see them (and got to get my bouncy seat back!)

My poor children.

They had had it.

Not only had none of them had a real nap in a couple of days,

it was 12:30 and they hadn't eaten lunch and were exhausted.

Simon had reached his limit.

Left the mall and all 3 fell asleep before I even got out of the parking lot.

Went back to the church for lunch.

Finally got to visit with family members.

Grandmother Herndon left quite the legacy.

She had 6 children, 28 grandchildren, and 31 great-grandchildren.. so far! ;)

From her obituary:

Life was full for Mom as she navigated the challenges of managing a large family. There were many years of school projects, elaborate birthday cakes, homemade doll clothes, unique gift wrapping, Easter dresses, prom dresses, gardening, picking & arranging wildflowers, wedding dresses, the list is endless. She was woman of many talents.

Wherever they found themselves, Mom & Dad always made finding a church home a priority and the church was always the center of our family life. Studying the Bible was important to Mom and she made it a part of her daily routine. She tried to live what she learned. We, as well as countless others, are the beneficiaries of her relationship with Jesus.

I will always be grateful for the Christmas present she gave us... a day of the week she committed to pray for us.

George and Camille.

3 out of 4 of my pregnancies have been shared with Mary Pat.

She laughs how I somehow squeezed MG in there too. ha.

So glad we were able to be there.

Since we were staying with the Woods, we took a peek at good ol' Briarwood.

She looked good!

After leaving the Woods on Sunday morning,

we stopped by the Warminskis to say hello to our dear friends.

Henry really misses Luke.
So does Margaret... she wants to marry him.
But since he didn't want to kiss her, she said "I think I'll marry Witt, because Luke didn't want to kiss me"... Oh dear. What in the world.

Finally, before leaving DFW, we stopped by my grandparents'.

So glad we did.

Didn't know that this would be the last time I would see my grandmother.

Henry said "I love going to see Pappaw".

I love that my kids have gotten to know their great grandparents.

Drove back to Shreveport.

Stopped off to visit my other grandmother.

Good visit.

Kids ate all her peppermints.

Kisses for Grandmother Peggy.

Then off to spend the night at our friends, the Blanchers.

Kids had so much fun with Thomas and Evan.

And of course, Tom and I loved catching up with Kristen and Adam.

After playing Monday morning, we loaded up and headed back home.

Feeling much better.

Monday, March 10, 2014

False Alarm

I'm pretty sure most of the details are accurate ;)

Sunday, January 26th, I woke up not feeling quite right.

I felt real nauseated and my contractions were pretty consistent.

Knowing that my "go to" peeps were all at church, I thought it was ok to stay put.

But when the contractions (that weren't painful, just uncomfortable) became 3 mins apart, we decided to call our ("our"- ha... she'd babysat 2 times for us. ha) babysitter to see if she could come over.

She said she was 10 mins away and was on her way over.

I knew I wasn't in for real labor, but thought it was best to go get checked out.

When I got settled in in the Labor and Delivery triage, they checked me and I hadn't changed since my last appointment about 5 days ago- just 2 cm.

They wanted to keep me for a little while for monitoring, seeing that my contractions were so consistent.

Alrighty...

They checked me again 1.5 hours later- I had progressed to a 3... then an hour later to a 4.

Wowza. ok... here we go.

The doc on call, for some unknown reason, brought in a sono machine to make sure Camille was head down.

Well, turns out she wasn't.

Doc said if I continued to labor, she would have to do a C section.

We told her that we preferred that didn't happen and to please try a version... since I had a successful one before.

She agreed.

Pre finding out Camille was breech.

I was so happy to have some ice chips... hadn't eaten or drank anything that morning.

Got admitted to my L&D room.

They got my epidural set up.

Took me back to an OR... left Tom :( I wanted to cry when they asked him to wait outside while they tried the version.

I'm thankful I had had this procedure before with Margaret or I would have been terrified in that OR.

It was so sterile in there...cold on that table.

They gave me a spinal block... I wasn't so sure when I was supposed to say when, so it got a little high...

The doc (which was a fellow) and some residents successfully turned Camille.

They were excited about it being so smooth...

In my opinion, MG's was better... but I was grateful she cooperated!

They took me back to my L&D room and gave me a shot of Demerol to stop my contractions.

(if they hadn't slowed, they would have induced me. They didn't want to do so, seeing I was 2 days shy of 37 weeks)

This rocked my world.

The nurse told me I would feel like I had a cocktail and just to close my eyes and go with it.

I've had my shares of cocktails, and this was waaaaay worse!

Did I mention that I was numb from my chest down... waiting for the spinal block to wear off?

And then Camille's and my heart rate dropped pretty low (thanks, Demerol) so they gave me a shot of something else... man, this was rocking my world!!!!

Finally, block wore off, Demerol wore off, and contractions slowed way down...

started to feel more like myself.