Coming up on the finish line- 36 weeks

Here I am sitting at 36 weeks and 4 days. I thought for sure these babies would be here by now. Today is my grandma Mildred's 81st birthday. I thought it would be pretty special if these babies were born on her birthday as we are naming one of them after her father. 

In my picture on Thursday (Dec 13th, Jack's birthday as well as my great grandpa Alfred Tennyson), I didn't see a lot of difference, I almost feel like I look smaller. A lot of people have said that they think I have dropped so the babies are ready to go. The problem is there isn't a baby head down pushing on my cervix to get things moving.

When I went to my doctor appointment with Shad on Friday we thought we were really going to be able to convince the doctor to take me before my December 26th C-section date, but we didn't. He said that babies just do better if they are taken when they decide to come on their own. Their lungs are developed and they are less likely to have NICU time. This convinced us enough to leave them be for a while. In the ultrasound on Thursday they were measuring 6lbs and 6lbs 2oz. No wonder I am sore by the end of the day, I am carrying around 12lbs of baby!

The hardest reality this week is that my mom flew in the day after my doctor appointment and is staying for a week, hoping that maybe she can catch the babies. I was super convinced that they would come while she is here, but now I am not so sure. Every day I feel like today might be the day and then the day passes without a hint of labor. I've been walking in the mornings and doing all of my normal routine cleaning and that hasn't stirred anything up at all. When the doctor checked my cervix on Friday I was only a 1.5cm and not effaced at all.

We just might have some Christmas babies on our hands... Although I'm not holding out hope that they come before grandma leaves on Friday.

I am just really blessed to have made it this far without any complications and bed rest. I am definitely counting my blessings and hoping that the C-section and recovery goes as well as the rest of the pregnancy has.

Gender Reveal!

Today we had our 20-week ultrasound and found out the genders of the babies. It was a pretty long and exciting day. The ultrasound took about 2.5 hours as they had two babies to do all of the anatomies for and then we went to my scheduled doctor appointment.

Both babies are healthy and active. Baby A is up and down on my right side and baby B has decided to lay transverse cross the top into my rib cage. Here's hoping they move a bit before birth, but it looks like baby A is anxious to come out first. It explains a lot as I have not yet felt much movement on my left side at all, pretty much all on the right. Baby A is also pretty active and baby B likes to tuck into a ball and find a happy place.

The kids wanted to do a gender reveal and Jack said we had to pop balloons again like we did for Ruby. I decided to do a little spin on that and get everyone involved. We invited some friends over to help us. We threw darts at a board filled with balloons. The balloons were all filled with paint. Most of them were filled with white paint, but two had colors in them (pink or blue) representing the genders of the babies.

We did a Facebook live video and it turned out to be a lot more suspenseful than I thought it would be as it took a long time to get the first one and until the very end to get the second one. Shad filled them all up and he honestly couldn't remember where he had placed the colored balloons so it was exciting even for us.

I have to admit that twin boys was the last possibility on my mind. I kept thinking that it was going to be twin girls because I was not really sick during the beginning of this pregnancy and typically I am sicker when pregnant with boys. So I thought two boys would have really made me sick.

However, this satisfies my need for some kind of pattern or even number in the order of our children. As Shad and I were looking at the order of our children we will be ending with two boys as we started. The order of our children will be BBGBGBB. This is perfectly symmetrical and just a little sign to me that everything is as it should be.

We are really excited to meet these little guys. Now to come up with two boy names that we can agree on....

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Dear family and friends,

We’re calling this our “Happy St. Patrick’s Day Letter” since that is the nearest holiday, and, like any good drinking Irish Catholics, this holiday is very meaningful to us. This has been a very eventful year for us, and I’ve been given the assignment from my superior to tell you about it.

The biggest event of 2014 was the death of Bonnie’s father Guy. He was diagnosed late 2013 with terminal brain cancer and we felt very fortunate to have so many good days with him before we had to say goodbye. Some of those good days were at a family reunion in St. George. A beautiful home was rented with a luxurious pool and hot tub. We laughed a lot. I went golfing with grandpa Guy and Haken (I didn’t know that would be my last round with him) and it was an overall pleasant week. As Guy declined, we took more opportunities to be in Centerville with him and Lori. We have found the promise in the Doctrine and Covenants to be fulfilled where the Lord said “Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die...And it shall come to pass that those that die in me shall not taste of death, for it shall be sweet unto them;” We miss Guy terribly, but we know he is engaged in the great work of the Lord on the other side of the veil, and we know he is one of those angels who “speak [to us] by the power of the Holy Ghost” and he is still an intimate part of our life.

The second biggest event of the year was the birth of our fourth child, and third son, Benny. His birth was a special day and we're glad he made it here safely. He's a good eater, and quiet cryer (I have no idea where he gets it because we're a loud bunch).

Aside from both these landmark events, here's a quick update from our daily lives. Haken turns 8 in June and is trying to finish the Book of Mormon before he gets baptized. As he's only in 2 Nephi, he may need to finish up with the children's reader version. He's become quite the little writer and is obsessed with geography. When I showed him Google earth, I think he literally died for a second.

Jack (and us) has had one year to get used to life with type 1 Diabetes. We just started to feel confident when he got the flu. It got scary really quick. But no worries, apparently we're just to expect one ER visit a year, that's the diabetic way. Anybody who knows Jack loves him, he walks around like a miniature Zack Morris (that's a "Saved by the Bell" reference) saying "what's up" to the adults and shortening all his friends name, "Hey Liv."

Grace hasn't grown in two years. I'm not kidding, she still wears some 9-12 month clothes. But she walks and talks like the almost three year old that she is. It's funny to watch people stare at her like she's this super genius one year old. I'm OK if she's behind physically, maybe she can make through high school looking like a ten year old. Her girliness is off the charts from her love of getting her hair done to her insistence on wearing only things that are pink or sparkling. She is adorable and I think we'll keep her.

Bonnie ran a half marathon while she was pregnant. (Thought I'd throw that in there because it's so hard core). She has added to her domestic goddess rap sheet a specialty in couponing, and can sell anything on the classifieds. It's really amazing. She's amazing. The highlight of our summer was getting to go to Boston, then New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio on a Church History tour. We got to spend 9 days together (thank you grandma Lori for taking the kiddos for that long) and we made some wonderful new friends.

I have been enjoying my assignments at work teaching freshmen the gospel and writing seminary curriculum. I feel like I get the best of both worlds and could keep this up as long they'll let me. I've recently tried my hand at photography and it's my current artistic expression (obsession?). And I got myself committed to running a half marathon this year. Somewhere in hell a snowball is making it.

We thank you all for your love and friendship. Please keep in touch with us. We're on Facebook and Instagram. We both blog (Bonnie: shadandbonnie.blogspot.com and Shad: shadmanderson.wordpress.com and you can check out my photography at shadanderson.photography) and you can even call us on one of those telephones things.

Much Love,

Shad, Bonnie, Haken, Jack, Gracie and Benny

And baby makes 4...

What?! Did I just say four? How the heck do I have 4 children? I remember after having Haken, having two miscarriages, and struggling to get pregnant, I thought I would never have more than one child. I wondered how people got pregnant so easy and why it was so hard for us. I wondered if I would only have one child to focus on for the rest of my life. Through my experiences in the last 6 years I have come to realize that God is good. He hears us and he knows what we need. Patience has never been a strong point of mine and He found a way to test it. Now I hear Him almost laughing and saying "you wanted more children, right?" I am very much at peace and feel his love as I sing to each one of my kids at night before they go to sleep. God is good indeed.

Although my husband has documented the birth through pictures on his blog I decided I needed to give a little more detail on our experience. The birth of our children are by far the best days that we have had together as a couple. Everything about a birth is miraculous and these days become those that I will never forget. There is nothing closer to heaven than the death of someone you love and the birth of a child.

Bennion Steve Anderson came to our family on February 9th at 9:56 AM weighing 7lbs 2 oz and 20" 

At 2:45 AM I was awoken by a dream that I had peed my pants. I got out of bed realizing that although it was a dream, I was indeed wet. Sure enough I kept leaking so I knew this was for real. The baby was coming TODAY. I was actually very relieved because during the last two weeks I had lower back pain and cramping which made me feel like I was going into labor soon. I had no idea it would actually come two weeks later. All of my other children were born around 38 weeks and this baby waited until 39 weeks. I was not overdue, but I felt like I was in comparison to my other pregnancies. Again, the Lord knew what we needed and held the baby off for a week knowing that we were dealing with a very sick diabetic Jack. He had the stomach flu all week long. After an ER visit, some Zofran, and a few glucagon shots we were able to get it under control but it was not a very fun week.

At 3:00 AM we called my neighbor across the street to sit with the kids while my mom and sister drove up. When we got to the hospital I was having contractions about every 10 minutes but not anything very hard. When I was admitted I was dilated to a 5 but not really in pain. I think I had about 5-6 contractions total before I got my epidural. I thought for just a split second about going natural, but for only a second.

I was glad that I had that epidural when the contractions started to show up on the screen one after the other. I did, however, get nauseous and throw up once due to the contractions but that was the most uncomfortable I really got.

At 9:00 AM I called my mom at my house and told her to hurry over because I was starting to feel pressure. By 9:30 I was complete and ready to push. Luckily she got there with a few minutes to spare. I pushed for two sets and then he was out.

Because we didn't know the gender of the baby, it was quite a different experience from the rest of my children. The other three births were much more emotional for me. This was more a feeling of excitement. I couldn't wait to look down and see the gender on that last push. I was surprised as I thought that he was a girl the entire pregnancy. I had guessed the other kids right but he threw me for a loop. I wasn't as sick with this pregnancy so it felt a lot like my Gracie. I was more sick with the boys. Apparently that isn't so much an indicator for me after all. I wasn't at all disappointed to add another boy to the family. He is already such a little sweetheart and we can't get enough of him.

The boys fight over who gets to hold him. Gracie is indifferent to having him there. Although I can tell she is just fine with being the little princess of the family. She will be lucky to have three brothers to watch over her.

I love having a newborn in the house again. There really is a special spirit that they bring and each time I have another I realize how quickly they leave the newborn stage and grow up. I find myself just cuddling cheek to cheek with him and not ever wanting to put him down. I am tired, but I have never been happier and can't believe I am now a mother of four.

Half way mark and it's a....

GIRL!

Today marked 20 weeks in my pregnancy and our scheduled ultrasound. I have felt that this was a girl since pretty much the beginning of the pregnancy. It has been such a different pregnancy than my boys were. I wasn't as sick, I have been gaining weight slower and measuring smaller, and haven't really felt pregnant at all until just recently. All of those signs told me that this had to be a girl. Turns out I was right. When the tech told us it was a girl Shad said that I didn't even sound surprised. I told him I wasn't, because I knew all along! Mother's instincts I guess...

We are so excited for this little girl! She will have the best big brothers looking after her and will have her daddy wrapped around her finger (although he doesn't know it yet). She also marks the end of a long streak of boys on my side of the family. Six great-grand children, all boys, and then her. I would say she is going to be one spoiled little girl! Looks like she is right on schedule too for July 11th and weighs about 11 oz (like 3 sticks of butter). Can't wait to meet her come July....or June, if she is ready.

Her cute little Anderson profile

Tiny footprint

Waving "hello" or scratching her head, you decide...

14 Weeks

20 Weeks

Not a lot of visual change yet, although I feel like she has gotten much bigger in the last week. I feel movement all the time now and I switched out most of my clothes for maternity clothes last Monday. Got a new haircut this week too!

Surprise!

Now that Christmas is over and we have made the big announcement to our family I can FINALLY post this on the blog. We found out at the beginning of November that we have another little one coming to us in July 2012. The official due date is July 11th and we couldn't be happier! Having kids 18 months apart was totally unexpected but it will be a fun, new adventure! Here's the proof!

These ultrasound pictures were taken at 8 1/2 weeks so there isn't much to see, but I did see the heartbeat. After that I could breathe a little easier.