July

 Where did July go? July was so busy I can't believe it's over. We went to St. George for the Fourth of July which was crazy.... One because it was a five hour drive with a five week old.  He actually did so great and we only stopped twice, two because it was 105 degrees on a cool day and 90 at night.  The girls mostly stayed in, talked and watched movies. We shopped a little and got our nails done. Stedson is such a good baby. He is so tolerable of outside elements.  The reason we went to this terribly hot place was because Travis who is Chase's youngest brother was leaving on a mission that next week, and their sister lives in St George.  So we brought the party to her.  The boys of course went dirt biking everyday except the last day they went mountain biking which sounded just as intense as dirt biking.

The next week we just spent lots of time with Trav before he left.  Travis left on the 10th to the Mission training center in Provo.  I went to go drop him off with the family... It was not very fun. I'm definitely way more emotional than I was before I had a baby.  I cry at everything now.  Weird.  Anyway Travis is going to be serving in the Oslo, Norway mission and will be speaking Norweigan.  He says the language is pretty hard, but he's getting it slowly.

The next couple of weeks we were strictly dedicated to the Ogden Pioneer Days Rodeo.  Chase was working a ton because his dad is on the committee that puts the rodeo together.  All their hard work paid off and the rodeo turned out great.  Stedson had a great time at his first rodeo.  He went to all five nights.  He was a trooper, he even had his own all area pass with his name on it.

Lastly, we are supposed to be moving this month.  We were supposed to be moving to Logan to go to Utah State University because Chase is doing Mechnical Engineering and Weber State in Ogden only has a pre- engineering program.  So he did everything he could do there.  We both looked for jobs up there but it is a college town and a lot of the jobs are minimum wage which is very difficult to support a family when we both only work part time.  We decided that we would stay in Ogden and Chase would commute with his brother Karson who is also doing mechanical engineering.  Then I can keep my nanny job which is great because I can bring Stedson with me.  And Chase will continue to work for his dad. We just moved in with Chase's parents over the weekend so we don't have to sign a new lease.. then we'll see how one semester of commuting and decide what to do from there. New adventures!

June

June we were still adjusting to our new life as parents. Stedson was circumcised and it was incredibly sad to witness. He was of course screaming the whole time. He didn't even keep the sugar watered binkie in his mouth. He healed great for the circumcision. We were able to shower him now with the belly button and circumsion healed. We have the funniest video of him in the shower. It's so cute. He's just so relaxed.

Girls camp was this month and I was the camp director. They went to the Halversons cabin in Morgan Ut. They loved it. They got to go boating, horse back riding, and fishing. I didn't spend the night, but went up everyday. It was so fun. I was able to leave Stedson with one of the leaders and  Chase and I went o a horseback ride. It felt so great to get back on a horse. That was one thing I really missed when I was pregnant.

May

We finally got to go home on May 23rd. It felt weird just leaving after all the nurses and doctors were around 24/7. Stedson was healthy and well and I was recovering great. He was having a hard time latching which was very frustrating. We lost a lot of sleep over that. My mom stayed with us that first week which basically saved our sanity. Its a lot to figure out all at once.

Chase couldn't be a better dad. He was so cute in the beginning from going down to get instruction on installing the car seat to reading everything there is to know about breastfeeding and how to get them to latch. He is so cute with Stedson and he sure loves his daddy.

He finally got to come home! We were so nervous. It took forever to get home.. 

Becoming Parents!

Our baby was due May 17th, but he decided to stay longer. On the eve of the 20th at about 8:45pm I started to have just very little contractions about 20-50 minutes apart.  I was so excited,  but tried not to think about it.. we had been trying all week to start my labor. I was scheduled to be induced on the 23rd and I really didn't want to be. We went on walks. . I walked on curbs.. I got a massage.. I used oils.. foot zoning.. ect. My contractions started to increase. Needless to say I got zero sleep and by about 1:30 my contractions were about 5-7 minutes apart. I woke up Chase and told him to get ready.. our drive to the hospital took forever and it felt like we were off roading. Thankfully there was no traffic and I kept yelling at chase to slow down but not too fast ect. Looking back on it, it was probably hilarious how much I wanted chase to slow down.. I went through the ER because it was in the middle of the night. I was handling the contractions fairly well at this point. I had to stay in triage for quite a while to make sure I was in active labor. I had to do a lot of walking and chase thought lunges, squats, and jumping was a good idea.. I basically told him once he has a uterus that is contracting I would, but until then... lol. I was only dilated to a 2 after a couple hours, but during the exam the nurse broke my water unintentionally which means you're automatically admitted because there is only a 24 hr window of your water breaking before there is danger of infection. Finally I was able to get out of triage with all the other crazy ladies in labor to my own room. I was able to zone out when chase wasn't bumping my bed or someone wasn't touching me. Lol everyone was trying to be so helpful, but all I wanted was for everyone to leave me alone so I could tackle each contraction on my own. It was around 10am ish and I had been in labor for a little over 12 hrs. I felt good with controlling the contractions, but I was exhausted because I hadn't had any sleep yet. They told me that I was more than welcome to do it naturally if I wanted to, but it could take many hours because I was only dilated to a 3 or 4.  I decided to get pitocin to soeed things up, but I got the epidural first because I had read that pitocin increases the contractions so much and so quickly its very hard to handle. The epidural can also take up to about 15 minutes. So I got that first and then pitocin. To say the least.. I was feeling good and had many random comments. I was no longer anti-social. I felt the epidural working almost immediatley. I was fully dilated very quickly and so the nurse had me push to see if the baby had dropped. I pushed and was crowning. She told me to call kylee and my mom in the cafeteria to come up cuz I was ready to push. The nurse called the OB the peds nurse ect. Everyone looked around like what are we doing here she isn't even pushing. My nurse told them it was going to go fast. I pushed twice and delivered a boy! We didn't know the sex of the baby so knowing the gender was way exciting! They laid him on my chest and he opened his eyes wide and looked right at me. It was so amazing. We named him Stedson Chase Halverson. He weighed 7lbs 9oz and was 20 inches long!

Skipping ahead ... to about October of 2012

Chase and I found out we were pregnant in September and we went to our first ultrasound appointment in October. Being able to hear the heartbeat of our child was one of the most exciting moments in our lives.  I had an eventful pregnancy. I had morning sickness until I was about 24 weeks along. I then had preterm labor at about 23 weeks..  due to a kidney infection, walking pneumonia, e coli, a fever of 105º, and contractions. They were able to give me a shot to stop my contractions. I was able to stop having fevers after about three days in the hospital.  Because of many prayers and a blessing I was able to return home and the baby decided to stay a while longer!

The beginning!

Chase & I were married for time and eternity in the Salt Lake Temple on August 2nd 2011. Chase served a misson in Viña del mar Chile. He is an incredible husband, hard worker, and valiant priesthood holder.

This is our story.....