Baby Steffan is here!

Steffan Lees Green joined our family at 1:29am, Wed 11/23/2011. He was a little early at 37 1/2 weeks but still just as big as the other two boys weighing in at 7 lbs 2 oz and 18 in long.

Had my 38 week appt earlier that day to find out I had gone from being dilated from a 1 the previous week to being dilated to a 3 AND that the baby was breech. :( My water broke for both my other boys when dilated to a 3 and 4 so we were concerned with all the contractions that it would break and cause complications with the cord since the baby was turned wrong. My doctor didn't think I'd make it to my Dec 2nd induction date and told us if we needed to get to the hospital right away when I went into labor or the baby's life would be at risk. That night I went into labor. We showed up at the hospital after 6 or7 hours of consistent hard contractions and found I was dilated to a 6 with no time to turn the baby. Therefore they got me in right away for a c-section and one hour later, little Stefan was born.

It's been a week full of surprises... On top of breech delivery, Steffan had a little mishap at the hospital. After the first day of feeding him with no problems, the second day he seemed so incredibly tired that he couldn't stay awake to eat. Now if I hadn't had two children previously, I might just think this is normal. But I noticed he seemed a little more yellow in color than he should've been and mentioned to a nurse how tired he was and wondered if I should be concerned. "Oh no" she said. "He is just being a newborn."

The pediatrician on call also came in to check on us the 3rd day I was there. I said, "Should I be concerned with how yellow he is?" I kept asking because Tate had come home on the sun lamps for his billirubin levels for a week and Steffan looked similar. The doctor also told me 'no' and checked his papers again to make sure his levels were normal. He mentioned that he could test him again for me that day but didn't think it was needed. I didn't want my new little baby to get poked and tested more than was necessary, so I went along with it. He then made a weird observation and said out loud, "You only have to be concerned if they are really yellow on the bottom half of their bodies like Steffan's legs are." (ummmm, ok... then should i be concerned?) I just let it be since he said he'd be fine. We were supposed to go home the next day and they would be doing another test in the middle of the night anyway.

At 3:30am one of the nurses came and got Steffan for his billi test. I asked how long it would be to get results and she said it takes about an hour and since she had to check on me at 5am, she would tell me when she came back. At 5:30am she came back in for Steffan and was kind of frantic. She hurried and took him with a brief explanation telling me that he had to immediately go to the Level II Nursery because his billi test score was way too high and was now in critical levels. I was puzzled wondering why this was of no concern when everyone kept telling me that even though he was yellow his test levels were low and I shouldn't worry. I started bawling and was glad that Jeremy had stayed at the hospital that night. I woke him up and told him what happened. Both of us were really confused and stayed awake waiting for someone to come in and update us on the situation.

At 7:30am two nurses came in apologizing for the mix up. Ummmm... mix up? What mix up? The nurse that had taken Steffan into the Level II Nursery said she had done some research to see why his billi levels had gotten so high and realized that his chart everyone had been looking at was actually some other baby's chart. WHAT?! They showed me the chart and said that my chart said, "Baby BOY Green" and the one they were looking at said "Baby GIRL Green". And to make it worse, it was a baby that was born at a completely different hospital. I could tell that Jeremy was fuming mad and didn't say a word. They mentioned that the nurse that pulled the charts worked at other hospitals and that she pulled the wrong chart when she printed it out because they were right next to each other. And to add on to it... there were about 7 nurses and 3 doctors that looked at it and never noticed it was the wrong chart. Plus I had even mentioned it to 2 nurses and 1 doctor about how he was looking and acting strange.

We found out that his billi tests were at 21.6 and brain damage levels start at 25 points. I was very concerned with how they could guaranty that no damage had happened at this point. We made sure to speak to legal counsel to make sure that nothing had been missed. But to say the least, there's not a lot we can do unless signs of brain damage show up later on in life other than have it all documented.

To summarize... I stayed in the hospital for 3 more days while little Steffan was out on IV's, poked and tested through out the day and lost almost a whole pound while he was there. :( It was so stressful and I cried a lot at the hospital (because on top of it all, we are still preparing our big move to Australia during the craziness of the holiday season). The nurses gave me a gift basket and sent all sorts of managers, supervisors, etc over to talk to us and apologize. We spoke to Risk Management and refused to pay our Level II nursery bills which ended up being over $10,000. They took care of that for us, but our main concern is that little Steffan is ok.

*An update on him at 8 weeks old. He is growing soooo fast. He grew a pound and and inch each week for the first month. He weighs about 13 lbs now and is already fitting in 6-12 month clothes. He looks like Teagan and has the brightest, carrot red hair you've ever seen. Ha ha. He is such a little cutie! I need to find the cord to the camera so I can post pics of him now.

Ps. Steffan was originally spelled with one "f" as "Stefan"... but everyone in the hospital kept calling him "Steven" and it drove me nuts. So I added the second "f" at the last minute. And it's pronounced "Steff-en" not "Steff-ahn". :)

Brotherhood

A few weeks ago I took the boys to Arctic Circle for lunch and they were playing on the play land. While I was watching Teagan go up the stairs to go down the slide, Tate was sitting at the bottom of the stairs watching all the kids go up. There was another little boy there about Teagan's age and he was right up in Tate's face growling and snarling at him (yes, just like an animal) while saying, "You're too little!". Teagan had looked back down the stairs right before he was about to go down the slide and saw this happening. He marched back down the stairs and got in this other little kids face and said, "HEY! That's MY brother!" and the other little boy said, "Well, he's too little!" and Teagan yelled back, "Well, he's growing!". Tate looked over at me and started crying and ran over to me. Teagan is mean to Tate a good portion of the time, so I teared up and thought to myself, "You DO love your brother!"

BUP!

So, I do not even know how to convey in words how happy this little man makes me. He has the CUTEST personality. He is so dang funny. He is definitely the comic relief in our home. He is so happy and talks, and talks, and talks... and talks. He wakes up in the morning just going through all the words he knows. It is only quiet in the car if he is sleeping, otherwise he is jib-jabbering the entire car ride. He makes the funniest faces too.

Plus, he thinks farts are called burps. So everytime he farts, he gets shifty eyes and says really loud, "BUP". You always know when he poops, cause he does the same thing. It's hilarious!

Stressful Times

Oh my gosh! Remind me to never move internationally during my 3rd trimester of pregnancy. It is super stressful!

On top of feeling, well.... fat, pregnant and tired, we are:

• Organizing
• Packing
• De-junking
• 2 Yard Sales
• Selling both our vehicles
• Trying to keep the house clean with a 2 year old and a 1 year old so people can constantly bombard us to see our place to rent
• Landscaping our front AND back yard
• Both of us are still working
• Jeremy's still going to school
• Trying to move out in less than 2 wks from and ship our stuff to Australia which takes 2-3 months to get there... and by the way AUS has the TOUGHEST customs IN THE WORLD, so it’s hard to send anything. I hate that we can’t send any of our food storage or spices.  No food at all can go into the country. No stuffed animals. No fake plants, flowers or wooden baskets. No camping stuff or anything that might contain American soil on it, including shoes. Plus the shipping company Jer's work is going through is not fastest at responding to us because they are in Hong Kong (which makes no sense to me)
• Finally found renters but I'm not counting on anything until the contract is signed and the money is in our hands (so we are still showing)
• Planning a trip to Los Angeles because Jeremy has to have papers signed by an Australian notary and the closest one is in LA. So we are making a trip of it to take the kidlets to Disneyland if we don't have a heart attack and die in the meantime. That has to be done within the next few weeks too.

I’m glad they released Jeremy from his calling at church. He was the 2nd counselor in the Young Men’s presidency. It takes up a lot of free time and it’s just something we don’t have right now. I, on the other hand am still waiting (secretly hoping) to be released from the RS chorister. I don’t know why I always get this freaking calling. It freaks me out! I’d rather be a teacher than a chorister, don’t ask me why. But, I must keep getting the same calling in every ward until I get over it. (I may have to leave it out on my RS Profile that they have new members in the ward fill out in AUS. Lol)

We are also sad to leave our little dogs behind. I think Banks will have the hardest time being away from Jeremy. He might die of a broken heart waiting for Jeremy to come home.  But, it would cost $5,000 to take them over and they would have to be quarantined for anywhere from 30 days to 6 months; Plus they would have to ride in with the luggage for a 20 hour flight.  I think that would be traumatizing for them. So we decided they would be better off staying here with Honey Coco and Honey Lona until we come home.

And, uh... did I mention I'm in my 3rd trimester? I will already be full term in 7 weeks. It's flying by! I haven't even had time to think about this pregnancy. But if you didn’t know… it’s a boy and we are naming him Stefan Lees Green. We couldn’t think of any more “T” names we liked, however, Honey Lona refers to him as “Tristan”. Lees is a family name on my dad’s side that we are passing down. I actually never thought of passing the name down until Jer and I were doing a family history class at church and I found that “Lees” has been passed down as far back as you can go on my Dad’s side. So, now I feel I must carry on the name.


And if you weren't savvy on the updates, Jeremy found out that he is staying here in UT until January because after we all got our Visa's, he had to start the process of getting government security clearance, which can take up to 3 months. The Australian government office shuts down for the month of December for Christmas, so they told him to stay here until I have the baby and come over after we can get little Stefan a passport. Jeremy might even go over a few weeks earlier to try and find us a place.

…Which brings me to my next stressful thing, HOUSING. We called the bishop over in Australia to see what we could secure in terms of temporary or permanent housing over there and were told that housing isn’t as easy to find there as in the US. Jeremy’s work will pay for temp housing until we find a place, but still, it’s just more moving around. We are not able to secure any housing until we are physically there and present. We have been told that they are so hard up for housing in Canberra that it can be a 2-3 month waiting period and even then you are competing with 10-20 other families. All we have to go off of is FAITH for this. We have both been given blessings and told this is the right thing to do for our family and that we will be provided for. But, MAN it is scary! There is so many variables that we cannot plan for.

And before the housing is even a stressful thought, the one right before that is traveling over to AUS with 3 little boys! Jeremy might take Teagan with him when he goes early and then my mom will fly over with me to help with Tate and Stefan. Still doesn’t sound like fun though. I actually think Tate will be the hardest (18 months). He won’t understand and will want to be up doing stuff. Plus he is not entertained by TV or movies. At least the baby will just eat and sleep (fingers crossed) and we have tried to tell Teagan as much as possible so that he can prepare for it. So, we will see how it all works out.

Thank you to our Mom’s that have helped us SOOOOOOOO much with the kids lately! We could NOT have gotten so much done without your help. I can’t wait til this next month is over with. Then we can have a few weeks of down time before Stefan arrives. Then… the exhaustion starts all over until we get settled in Oz.

Strange things I learned about Oz:
• They have no Ranch Dressing. What?
• They have no tootsie rolls
• They have no root beer
• There is no Arby’s
• Driving on the other side of the road will be interesting (and possibly hazardous)
• They never say, “Shrimp on the Barbie”
o Apparently they call “shrimp” – “prawns” and BBQ’ing is “grilling
• We will be living in Canberra, but it’s pronounced “Can-bruh”
• Apparently they have a great railway system
• There summer is in Jan and Feb
• They celebrate Australian Days (which is like our 4th of July) on Jan 26th with a big balloon festival in Canberra. I’m excited to be there for that.
• AUS has 8 of the 10 deadliest animals/critters there. (It freaks my arachnophobic husband out!)
• If you watch Shark Week on Discovery, you will see that many of the great whites are just off the Gold Coast, which we will be only a couple hours away from.

Ok… so this is one of the longest posts I’ve done in awhile. I’ve clearly checked out of work (which is what I’m supposed to be doing right now).

Until next time, whenever that may be…

TTFN

Going Fishing Today?

So a few weeks ago Teagan says to me, "Mommy, go fishing today?". And I say, "Who are you going to go fishing with?"
Teagan: The fish
Me: Who is going to help you?
Teagan: (and he says this with out missing a beat) Jesus. He helps everyone!

And I thought to myself, "You ARE listening sometimes when we try to teach you things." It's a great feeling. We always tell him to ask Jesus for help in prayers.

I Love these Boys!

Tate's 1st Birthday

Little Tate

While I'm at posting, I should put up a few things about my kiddos that I always "think" about and never do.

Our sweet, sweet, little Tatey-Bug...
I haven't written much about tate on here, but let it be known that it has no stance on where this little guy stands in my heart.

I couldn't have had more different children. Tate is such a little love bug. I finally got a cuddly kid, 'cause Teagan is NOT cuddly and has never been that way since the moment he was born. Tate has always been very little in size, measuring with in the 30th percentile and Teagan was always measuring in the 75th - 90th percentile. Tate will still have his daddy's hair color, but has my skin tone. Unfortunatley, Teagan got his dad's skin tone and we have to make sure to spray him down with SPF 50 every 30 minutes when we are in the sun. lol

Tate is such a little character and is our comic relief. He is very animated and jibber jabbers all day long. (Seriously, he doesn't stop talking.) He was already saying words at 11 months old and by the time he turned ONE (which I can't believe), he already had a vocabulary of about 15 words. He was even putting words together, like "Bye Bye Daddy!". Our doctor told me, "Now don't feel bad when I say this, but Tate is a FREAK OF NATURE! Kids just don't say that many words yet and he is far advanced above children that are doing well." Now, that made me such a proud mommy!

Tatey started crawling at 8 months and then walking at 12 months. He still looks so little, it is hard to believe that such big words come out of his little body that is walking around. One day we were at Walmart and he was saying "Bubbles" and pointing to the bubbles... and this lady stopped and said, "My WORD... that is a very large word coming out of this little baby! How old is he?" He pretty much mimics anything you tell him to say. He can even say "Turtle", "Cracker", "Purple", along with the simple ones - mama, papa, daddy, bye bye. He calls yogurt, "Yogi" and he even calls Teagan, "Teagy". He calls Honey Coco, "Coco".

And if you didn't know, I will tell you this little blip on the side. My kids call their grandma's "Honey". Teagan just started calling them "Honey" one day. We are not sure if it's because Jeremy's dad calls Lona "Honey" all the time or if it's because everyone calls Teagan "Honey". But he calls Lona "Honey Lona" and my mom "Honey Coco". I think it's the cutest name ever. I couldn't have come up with a better name for "grandma" on my own. Tate can even say "Honey", but it's not one of the easier words that he says very often.

But, back to Tate... He has absolutely no interest in sign language like Teagan did. And he doesn't care to watch any of the Baby Einstein movies like Teagan did either. They pretty much don't like any of the same toys or foods as one another. But, just as Teagan did, he started playing with cars and trucks and making sound effects for them right away. I don't know how boys just know how to do that at such a young age, but they do.

And that's my short update on Tate. :)

Honey Coco's Birthday/ Green Family Pics

What do all of these have in common?

Don't even know if any of you still look at this but I can't contain myself to put this up.

So, if you haven't already heard...

Our little family will be moving to the "Land Down Under" at the end of the year 2011! Jeremy has recently had an AMAZING promotion at Symantec to be a Business Critical Engineer in Canberra, Australia which is the capital of AUS. We will be living there anywhere from 1 to 4 years. He will start his new promotion as quickly as he can get his work visa... which is anywhere from 4 to 12 weeks. I am soooo proud of him! He has been working so hard and in turn has gained an awesome opportunity for our family to go to a different country and learn a new culture.

In the meantime I will be very busy getting things ready for us to move and getting ready for this little baby to join our family at the beginning of December. Jeremy will be flying home to be here on December 2nd, which is when I'm tentatively scheduled to be induced; and will stay here through Christmas. Then we will all be heading over together as a family.

Holy Cow! We are still awaiting some of the details and should know more today or tomorrow... but, can you freakin' believe this? What an exciting adventure for our family. Our little kiddo's will be coming home with Aussie accents. :) I will for sure need to get better at updating my blog when we leave.

Most likely my sister Kiley will be moving down there with us for the first few months to help out during the hardest months with the baby. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it works out that way cause my biggest fear of the whole move is being by myself with a working hubby and with THREE little boys THREE years old and younger!

PS. The pics above were taken by my friend Chelle. She did a great job and came to a family get together at my grandparents for my mom's birthday. I will have to post the other pics on here too. And yes, I'm already getting swollen from the pregnancy. If you don't remember how bad I swell up... then click on my posts from November 2008on my motoxgirlie blog (yes, my old blog) and scroll down to see my fat kankley feet. :)