Overdue

I know a blog post is long overdue. Unfortunately, so is Jessica's baby! Winter was due April 11, and there is no sign of her.

Jessica has been wanting to go to the beach, so we went twice. Jasmine had late start due to the testing schedule so was able to go the second time.

River is getting so big. She can walk, climb and get in to everything. She is 15 months old. 

She loved the sand. Especially putting it all over herself.

We went to a different beach both beach days.

River helps me test new toys for the shop.

Tara, Sierra, Adam and Kiki came over for a bit before leaving for the beach. Here are the girls. Wish Jessica and River could have joined us, but they did meet us at the beach.

Have fun with photos. Ty was still asleep!

Glad to have so many together, but sad we are not yet approved for child #9.

Flying kites on Easter. A Haitian tradition.

Hopefully we will have baby news for you soon.

It's Official

 I am going to be a big sister!

River is Here!

In the midst of doing our list from the girl's blog HERE or parenting blog HERE, we took time out to have a baby--well, my daughter did. Here's a brief account.

Monday night I went to bed knowing Jessica was going in to be induced at 4 a.m. Tuesday. For many reasons including that one, I couldn't fall asleep until 1:00. Then I woke up at 3:30. A lot of the reason was also a four hour conversation with a fiction coach that gave me plenty to rewrite so things were spinning in my mind. I got up and started writing in what felt like the middle of the night.

At about 9:00 I got the call Jessica was in labor, so Jasmine and I left for the hospital. I had a new "Gigi" shirt.

Jessica was progressing very slowly, so I suggested we get her out of bed and sit her on a ball. I've heard it helps. Everyone looked at me weird, and the nurse wasn't in favor of it but I got bossy :)

You can't see the ball under Jessica, but you can see it under Lisa, Jessica's mother-in-law, who is a bit mischievous.

Gigi and Mimi waiting. (What do your grandkids call you? I am Grandma Kathy to my step daughter Ashley's kids and will be Gigi to River)

Jessica was making progress on the ball, but they decided she needed an epidural to help her relax so she would dilate better. Well, that just didn't happen, and she got stuck at 8. 

Finally just before midnight a decision was made to do a C section. It turned out to be a good idea. The baby was stuck in the birth canal face up. They think she'd been stuck about four hours!

Unfortunately she started breathing before she was out and swallowed fluid. Then she wasn't breathing well at all. 

She was rushed out of the room without Jessica even holding her and hooked up to various machines and things to help her breath better and was transported to another hospital. It was about 2:00 a.m. by time she'd been stabilized and ready for transport. Jessica only got to touch River's hand through the transport unit. She remained at the hospital she was at while River went to NICU at a nearby hospital.

I would love to show pictures, but Hunter doesn't want any pictures posted of River with the tube. However, I was able to snap a quick one as they whisked her by us to get ready for transport.

Yesterday I went to see River at NICU. I was only able to place my hand on her leg. They don't want people to touch her because they don't want her stimulated right now while they are working to regulate her breathing.

I went up again today (Thursday the 31st) and while I was there they took out the breathing tube in her nose.

They took out her feeding tube so now she can eat.

Jessica should be discharged tomorrow (1/1/2016) from the hospital she is at, and she will be able to go to the hospital River is at and hold her for the first time.

Baby Names

Jessica's doctor asked her what she was going to name her baby. When she said River, the doctor said, "She's going to get made fun of with a name like that" or something along that line. He was very abrupt about it, but he was just speaking his mind. I don't think he meant to be unkind, although it came across that way.

I said something like, "Well, she's going to be a really cool kid so no one will think of making fun of her name." I also told him the obvious--ever since River Song on Dr. Who (don't watch it but Jessica is a fan), the name has become much more popular.

I looked up the meaning of the name River:

Everyone has his or her own preferences in names. For myself, I avoided naming my kids longer names that had a nickname (Jeff is my only child I didn't name)--No William who is called Bill or Margaret who is called Maggie or Peggy. I think this is because my mom named me Katrina but called me Kathy. That is confusing because Kathy is normally short for Kathryn or Kathleen.

Names have definitely changed over the years. Here are the top baby names from when I was born and now.

1962:

Michael    Lisa

David       Mary

John         Susan

James       Karen

Robert      Linda

Mark        Patricia

William   Donna

Richard   Cynthia

Thomas   Deborah

Jeffrey     Sandra

2014

Jackson  Sophia   

Aiden     Emma

Liam      Olivia

Lucas     Ava

Noah      Isabella

Mason    Mia

Ethan     Zoe

Caden    Lily

Jacob     Emily

Logan    Madelyn

The interesting thing is that many of the girls' names are very old fashioned names that have become popular again.

I wrote more about names and trends on my parenting blog HERE.

And My Future Granddaughter's Name is.... (drum roll)

This is from our name reveal game at Jessica's baby shower.

Only a few people came, but we had a  lot of fun. But for Jessica's sake, I wish her friends, coworkers and church acquaintances would have come. But we are in a busy time of year.

We hosted the party at our house. Her friend Delisa wanted to do it, but she has a very small house.

I picked three games, and Delisa picked one.

For game one we melted five kinds of candy bars and smeared one kind in each of five diapers. People had to identify the candy bar by smell. Fun game, but it looks gross! (It's supposed to I think)

 Game two was baby twister. The non pregnant people had balloon babies. You couldn't lose your baby during the game.

We let everyone try this one. The guys had been in the back watching Batman.

Delisa passed out ribbon and everyone had to cut it to be the right size to go around Jessica's baby bump. One lady had it almost exact. I didn't get  pictures of it. She's in the picture below.

They are not being weird, this is the name reveal game. We put the beads with the letters of the baby's name in a ziplock bag along with navy beans. With eyes closed, they had to find the letter beads and arrange them in order with eyes still closed. No one got them in the right order. But once they saw the letters, it was easy to guess the name. What other word has those letters?

River

She received lots of nice presents.

There's an afghan from my mom not shown in the pictures.

I had everyone write a message or good wish to Jessica or River on the tablecloth. I left a blank in mine for River's name because we hadn't revealed it yet.

We had little sausages both rolled up and in a crock pot with BBQ sauce, meatballs, a cracker tray, a fruit tray, cake and cupcakes. Delisa had brought pinwheels but they were forgotten in the freezer!

Walmart didn't have the cake ready, then they just threw it together. The one in the order book is really cute. This one not so much. Guess we'll go to Publix next time!This is what it looked like in the book:

All in all, the shower was fun, but I wish more  people had come. Her mother in law and step mother in law are having one for her too. They have the advantage of having lots of relative in town and also living much closer to the others. So it should be well attended. The disadvantage is for us that it is the same day as breakfast with Santa and the big Christmas parade.

I now have four blogs. Part of it is because I divided them out--one for girls (my readers--although none of them read the blog!), a parenting blog, my family blog, and a new blog for teens. So I added two blogs. The reason for the teen one is that a publisher has asked to see the full manuscript of my teen novel. They are very interested in having authors who have a presence online--like Karen Kingsbury with her 350,000+ followers on her author page. I do not think they are going to be impressed with my 43 followers. Please click to follow each blog (I can't find a follow button for the new blogs!) and my author page on facebook (Katrina Cassel). Please comment on the posts if they are relevant to you. AND please recommend them to others. If you have a teen, teach teens etc, please send them to my blog. And let me know if there are certain things you'd think they'd like to read about. If you know a really amazing teen, I'd love to interview him or her for the blog. Here are the links:

Parenting Isn't for Wimps

 Just4Girls

Rock the Journey (teen blog)