Adilynn's Birth

**I need to replace pictures with birth pictures for this post, but they are on my harddrive. I promise I will get to it someday though!! For now, enjoy these cute ones!**

When I first found out I was pregnant with Adilynn, Ben and I were so excited!

 It seemed like it took us forever to get pregnant, and we were starting to get nervous. After 10 months it finally happened! I surprised Ben with the news, gifting him a baby shoe and the results of my pregnancy test. And we started planning. I was almost done with my degrees at BYU and working as a journalist for the Daily Herald in Provo, UT. I would have about 3 weeks left of the semester after our baby was due, but I knew my professors would allow me to bring my little bug to classes. I figured after those last few weeks of schooling I would need to get back to work in order to pay off my student loans. We were wondering who we could find to watch our baby for free, given we had no money or knowledge of government assistance at that time, and we were a little nervous. That's when Ben secured a great job as an engineering co-op and we talked with some extended family who agreed to let us live in Ben's grandparents old home for free. Talk about lucky! That meant I could stay home with our baby full-time, something I never thought I would want to do, but it all felt perfect. 

We told our families on Easter weekend 2011 that we were expecting. Honestly, no one seemed too thrilled. Perhaps they hadn't eaten enough candy Peeps yet. Ben's side of the family had just finished their annual GPS egg hunt. We got a few hugs and congratualtions. When we told my side of the family, people seemed even less enthused, some even leaving the room without muttering a word to us. It wasn't what we had hoped for, and it felt like our happy moment was darkened. Our whole pregnancy went on that way. Some family had their reasons for not wanting to be involved, be it jealousy of our pregnancy or whatever other reason, and it made us worry what our family life would be like. That's when Ben told me that we were our own family.

Ben helped me through the pains and scares of our first pregnancy. He gained the weight with me, calmed me when we wondered if I was miscarrying, helped me stay comfortable when I had to sleep on the floor at a family reunion, and tried to keep my naturally negative mind remembering the positives of that pregnancy, despite the reactions of others. I was going to be a mom, and Ben is the one who helped me know what that really meant. He is the one who helped me know what being a family was, and together we knew our baby had all the love he or she would ever need.

After our second prenatal visit, Ben and I went to visit his sister, Heather, at work. She is a nurse and had mentioned that a friend of hers did ultrasounds and could tell us the gender of our baby if we wanted. We jumped at the chance, not wanting to wait for our 20 week anatamy scan ultrasound. The friend told us we were having a boy! When we learned a few weeks later that our baby boy was actually a SHE, we were sad...for about a day. We felt like we had lost a baby, even though we hadn't. It was such a weird feeling. But the next day we went to look at baby things and all the sadness disappeared. We were going to have a girl!!! And she didn't want to wait long to make her appearance.

November 8, 2011 I was very sick, so sick that we went to the hospital because I was suffering from dehydration and we were worried about our baby. When we got to the labor and delivery room, the nurse hooked the IV fluids up and asked how long I'd been having contractions. Ben and I looked at the monitor they had placed around my belly and saw that I was indeed having contractions. They were close together, and I wondered why I couldn't feel them. Had I puked up my ability to feel physical pain!?

I was wheeled into another room where Ben and I figured we would wait till the IV fluids were gone. When a nurse came in and asked if I'd like my epidural we were so confused. What? Were we having our baby? Five weeks early? 

I agreed to the epidural, even though I hadn't felt any contractions. I was ready to sleep off my terrible night of illness, when Ben and I realized we hadn't brought anything with us to the hospital for baby or for us. Ben called his mom and asked her to bring some things to the hospital for us. She did, and then we waited. 

The epidural made my legs feel so heavy, and not the good kind of heavy you get from morphine. Still, I had heard how painful labor was and I had no energy to deal with pain after being so sick, so I stuck with the epidural. At one point I had Ben try to rub my feet becasue I felt like my bones hurt. Weird right!? I asked him to bend my toes down and he said if he moved them anymore my feet would break! Epirurals are weird. 

My labor lasted about 10 hours. My mother-in-law, two sisters-in-law, my mother, and one of my sisters all made periodic visits. When the nurse discovered I was crowning (that's right, I had no clue thanks to my pefectly working epidural), we asked everyone to leave so we could be together for our birthing experience as a couple. This really offended some people, which confused us and made us kind of mad. We hadn't had their support throughout our pregnancy, but they felt like they should be included in the birthing experience with us. Ben and I calmly explained that this was something we wanted to do together and again asked everyone to leave. That wasn't the end of the drama involving why we didn't want extended family present for the birth of our first child, but Ben and I did our best to brush all that aside and focus on the good thing that was happening: our baby was about to be born!!

Active pushing took less than 20 minutes, and little Adilynn Elva, named after her Grandma Jackson, was born, perfect and tiny and beautiful. Her dark hair was curly and her tiny features gorgeous. Ben and I savoured some time together, the three of us, in our new family, holding our little doll of a baby. The doctor who delivered Adilynn at 11pm set her directly on my stomach after birth. I didn't know if I could touch her or hold her, so i just put my finger in her hand and talked with her. Ben cut the cord, and the nurses examined her shortly after that. When Adilynn was found healthy, I got to hold her in my arms, and Ben so did Ben. I did some skin to skin and nursing with Adi for a little bit given it was a recommendation from books I had read as well as from the hoapital staff, but I didn't enjoy those moments. It just felt so unnatural to me. Plus we didn't need to bond or get to know each other. We were already best friends. 

Ben, Adilynn and I enjoyed about an hour of alone time before inviting others in. Everyone seemed to love Adilynn instantly. The grandmas gushed over her and the aunties held her with nervous excitment. Even the nurses commented on how beautiful Adilynn was. 

Despite having terrible jaundice and an underdeveloped mouth, she was perfect! We got to bring Adilynn home, although she had to stay in a lightbed for over a week to combat the jaundice. When her jaundice worsened, we learnes her liver needed more of a jump start. I pushed my guilt aside and spoon fed her breastmilk and eventually moved her onto a bottle. She immediately improved. This made me both happy and sad. Adilynn had a hard time sucking and was so tiny she was rarely awake. Breastfeeding was hard for her, which made it hard for me. I felt so guilty about pumping and bottle feeding, but honestly it is what worked for us. I continued pumping for about 2 months when Adi developed some stomach issues. We decided to switch to formula, and her stomach issues improved. I worried about judgement from others, but only one person ever made a negative comment to me about our decusion to formula feed. We were all much happier with our decision.

Having Adilynn cost us just over $10,000, draining our savings account. That made life rough, but we were okay being poor again. She was worth every penny.

The next two and a half years we spent as a family of three were just magic! Ben went to school at the Univeristy of Utah and continued to support us financially. I started teaching piano and voice lessons from our home two hours a day to make a little bit of extra money for trips, date nights, and swimming lessons for Adi. I look back now and realize we should have used that money to pay off our debt, but we had more fun making memories.

Our next post will be about our parenting style.  Here is a little preview of what it will include:

Ben and I deffinetly parent differently than most people we know. We are seen as strict and we lack the free parenting style that is so popular right now among our peers raising their families. I say to each his own! But we are happy with the way we are raising our children. We can take our children anywhere, so far (knock on wood!!), and never worry about them throwing tantrums, screaming, hitting, not listening, asking for things, being ungrateful, being disrespectful, running off, or getting bored, all things we have heard of other children doing and most parents complaining of. We attribute their "weirdness" to our parenting style and their natural good-natured attitudes (and the fact that God knew if he gave us crazy children none of us would live, ha!). We will include our schedules for different ages. Hope it helps explain why our kids are the way they are, and why we choose to be "strict."

Family Dynamics

The two founding members of the Stoddard family have been changing the world one day at a time since January 14, 2010. We enjoyed the benefits of a dual income and young legs with adventures of all sorts. It didn’t matter if we were learning to roller blade, or doing last minute one-day road trips to Disneyland, we always had fun.

Julie (CEO) has motivated all of the good changes in our life, not by force, but by the simple fact that she deserves every bit of happiness in this life. I will never be satisfied giving anything less than my everything for her. Motivation to finish school, find a good job and work hard all come from the desire I have to make her happy.

On November 9, 2011, our first daughter, Adilynn Elva, joined our family. She was followed by our second daughter, Vienna Annette, born on January 21, 2014.  We struggled through a miscarriage that broke all of our hearts on November 13, 2015, reminding us how fragile life can be. We are currently waiting for our first boy, due the end of November this year (2016). We aren’t sure what we are going to do with a boy just yet, but I’m sure we will figure it out. Here is a little about each of us:

Ben, aka Daddy, aka me: I’m the reason we haven’t needed to buy a swing set. I am the jungle gym our girls play on, and I love every bruise of it. I’m a mechanical engineer, so naturally I think I know everything. I am constantly reminded by her logic, perfect example and love, that in fact, my wife knows everything. I love to have fun, be outside, and cuddle with my wife after putting our girls to sleep each night. I lose track of time easily and sometimes need reminding of things multiple times. I work full-time and try to be home before dinner each night to play with my girls while my wonderful chef wife creates fabulous meals. I do bathtime most nights, follow my wife's instructions in cleaning (I have learned so much, including how not to shrink clothing while washing them), but my absolute favorite thing to do as a father and husband is making my family smile. They are my everything, and I’d sacrifice anything for them.

Julie, aka Mommy: Julie has an incredible ability to care for those she loves, giving her all to others. Her sense of humor has brought me to tears too many times to count. She is the life of our family. Julie fills her days with incredible activities for our girls. Whether she is teaching them about volcanoes or planning and leading a water balloon attack on her unexpecting husband, Julie does it all. The only way to get her to rest is to give her the flu… and that doesn’t even work most of the time. Julie is the most dedicated and motivated person I have ever met. She can do absolutely anything she wants in this life because she is literally good at everything she tries. I am lucky and honored to be a part of her life.

Adilynn, aka Adi: Adi is the kind of girl who will do something big in her life. Whether she cures cancer or ends a war, her little heart has the strength to do it.  She loves EVERYONE, and her cute little, curly-haired self won’t let me kill bugs, tell a lie or let me go without a seatbelt. She is the kind of girl who asks me to drive fast, but then tells on me for doing so. She is a genius, confirmed by a third party, and often comes home from preschool saying how she is re-learning most things. She loves playing with her sister, which makes me sad because I’m not always invited to play.

Vienna, aka “V”: Vienna is our adventurer. She has no fear, perfect balance, can hold her breath underwater for a long time, and has such strong muscles, all of which make for the perfect combination of giving her parents multiple heart attacks a day. She is a big girl and our baby, depending on how she feels at the moment. She will snuggle and tell you she loves you, and then poke you in the eye. Vienna looks up to her big sister, and I love watching her try and do the same things Adi does. They will be friends forever. 

Daisy, aka Our Angel Baby: Daisy is our family’s guardian angel and is always watching over us. We have one ultrasound photo of her that we cherish. We were fortunate enough to say goodbye to her and burry her together.

Baby boy: I am still in denial that we are having a boy, and we have yet to find a name we love. Having a boy will be an adventure, but we sure are excited to have another baby.
Each night we sing a song, share a spiritual story and say our prayers before we talk about our day as a family. Our days are busy, but very fun, mostly because of how we have chosen to raise our children. Julie makes it all possible. We are so lucky to have her.

Our next post will be about how we raise our family. Enjoy!

So much has happened in our lives! I feel like I need to play catch up since I stopped blogging years ago.
Ben and I LOVE to travel. We have hit up NYC, the Bahamas, San Francesco, Oregon, Vegas, San Diego, and Park City over the past few years together. We have been married 6 years now, have purchased our first home and are finally making enough money to pay our bills AND buy food. In some ways we are still on the move. Neither of us likes to sit at home. But we have slowed down a little given our time is no longer just our own.

That's right, we have two little girls, and a little boy on the way. Being parents is a lot of fun! We have had so many adventures together, and we are so glad we decided to have children. We will blog more about our family life and why we chose to have children soon.

I graduated from BYU in 2011 with my bachelor's in communications (print journalism) and minor in German. I worked for The Daily Herald until I had our first little girl. Now I stay home with her and our other little girl, teaching dance once a week at a local studio and piano and voice lessons an hour every evening from our home. 

The bulk of my day is spent with the children, cleaning and cooking. Sometimes I really suck at being a stay at home parent simply because I get bored and anxious. I am hyper organized and scheduled. In some ways that is good, but it is also bad. I will blog our schedule and why I do what I do soon, but suffice it to say I am slowly learning to relax and just play.

Ben graduated last year from the University of Utah with his degree in mechanical engineering. He works for a great company and is able to provide for our family and still find time to golf on his lunch breaks and spoil us after his 9-hour work days.

Ben has changed a lot over the past 3 years espcially. He and I will blog more about that in another post, but it should be known that Ben is a different man than the one I married. In some ways it is insane that we are still together, but as time passes, I am glad he was able to change and that he is doing all he can to make me happy enough to live with the fact that he needed to change.

We are excited to start this blog up again, because even though life hasn't always gone great, it truly is a wonderful life together.

Over the next few weeks we will be blogging about our family dynamics, how we take care of our children (which seems to be different than a lot of people we live around), our personal  goals, financial worries and triumphs, what almost ended our marriage, how our marriage is now, and goals for our family. We hope you will read along, comment where you can and enjoy what you learn.