Stoker Crew: 2013

With the new Stoker addition coming soon, we were running out of room. At least that is the way I felt. Blake on the other hand not so much. We proceeded with finishing the basement. We had to clean out all the stuff of once what was the two of us, then the three of us, and now the four of us. I can't believe little people take up so much room. But they are sure worth it.

We started cleaning out the basement soon after Christmas was over. Blake was getting ready to travel and I being five months pregnant was not the most helpful. I did what I could.

My uncle framed the basement. He also helped redesign the basement floor plan.

Here is Blake vacuuming the basement hall area.

Kennedy thought she was helping by taking her "measurements".

The current laundry is being transformed into the new 3/4 bathroom.

Under the stairs is being finished as storage. We tried to utilize the

space the best we could.

Kennedy and her measuring. She is quite the "helper".

View of the future laundry and storage room.

Future bedroom/office with walk-in closet.

Blake and our good friend Jack installed what was needed for

the plumbing for the bathroom and laundry room.

Installation of the shower.

Now the sheet rock for the rooms.

Becomes more real instead of

just a drawing on a paper.

Laundry/storage room taking shape.

Bathroom

Walk-in closet in the bedroom. We decided to put tile in the closet because underneath

the wall on the right side, the drain was put right under the 2x4. Someone was a

smart builder when the house was first built. You can only work around so

many things. So if it did ever flood, hopefully we weren't worrying

about the carpet so much.

Area of the future throne.

Storage under the stairs.

Blake's brother Kevin and dad were so kind to help cut and lay the tile. We put tile in the laundry/storage room, storage under the stairs, bathroom, and the walk-in closet in the bedroom.

Bathroom tile.

Storage tile.

The finish work has begun. My uncle Lew also did the

finish work for us. He did some great shelving.

Shelving in the laundry/storage room.

Shelving for food storage under the stairs.

My favorite of all was the built in bookcase in the bedroom.

Kennedy was helping dad with caulking all the edges in preparation for painting.

Blake's awesome brother Kevin also helped paint.

Blake told Kennedy this would be the one and only time she would be

allowed to color on the walls. She loved the idea and got to it.

Artist - Kennedy

Paint

bedroom

Bedroom

Storage under the stairs.

Bathroom

Laundry/Storage

As part of the storage, we had my uncle build the shelving in order to keep our
freezer downstairs and be able to use the garage to pull the escape into.

Laundry/Storage

Laundry/Storage Paint

The last piece - carpet.

Carpet in the bedroom.

Bedroom

Finished sink and prefabricated cabinet.
If we were smart we would have adjusted
lighting fixture better in order for it all to be
centered over the sink. But oh, well...

More storage - As you can tell I like storage.

That's it.

I was so pleased on how the basement turned out. I won't lie, but I was quite attached. Maybe me cause we did the work. Since we probably won't ever build a home. Too stressful. But the added space for us was well worth it. Blake was a bit disappointed to move the office to the basement, because he was losing his view of the mountains to the east. He is a good sport and dad.

Finally today, April 18, 2012 was the day that baby Girl Stoker would make her grand entrance. I was hoping that we could have her on April 19th, then Kennedy and her could have the same date for a birthday. I ended up having a different doctor than my mid-wife Machel there to assist. About 4 weeks before my due date, when I went in for one of my weekly appointments Machel was moving a bit gingerly with her left arm. She was delievering another patient and was lifting that patients leg in the stirup and Machel heard a pop in her left shoulder. She had already seen a othropedic. She ended up tearing her bicep, and her rotator cuff. She was schedule for surgrey the next week. She was very optismic that she would be back to work in three weeks after her shoulder surgrey. Which I didn't think she would. I was right. In the meantime until I was to deliver, she started have me see Dr. Randy Alejo. I was scheduled for April 19. Things were good. Well, the week before I was to delivery, the doctor had an unexpected trip to Seattle for a job interview. He was leaving the Cirlce of Life Center because his wife didn't like living in Utah. They had lived in Utah for 4 years and she was ready to go back to the big city life. Dr. Alejo and his wife were originally from Hawaii. His wife felt she had tried Utah for awhile and was ready to move. Which was sad news he would be leaving. I really enjoyed him for the short duration. Because he was leaving he said he could work with us on some other dates for delivery. He gave me a couple options, 1 - change the delivery to either the 18th or 21st of April and he would be the delivery doctor 2 - keep the same delivery date, but have another doctor accomplish the c-section. I wanted to talk to Blake to see what his thoughts were. Because of my mid-wife situation, I already had one change, then have a doctor I had never met before cut me open. If I had normal deliveries, then I would have choosen to keep the same delivery date of April 19th. But since I would be cut open, Blake and I felt much more comfortable moving the delivery date up to April 18th to be with the doctor we had meet.

My surgrey was scheduled for 1:30. The hospital told to be at the hosiptal at 11:30 am. I was so nervous I would get bumped to later in the day because I was scheduled. Fortunately, I didn't get bumped. I am glad I got to the hosiptal when I did and they started hooking my up, because after I got there it seemed like the triage got really busy with women being admitted.

Blake suiting up for the surgrey.

Here they got me all hooked up. But that was an ordeal. Usually I can be poked really good the first time for my IV. The nurse stuck me once, which we thought that was good. They brought me the paper work to fill out as the fluid was dripping through the IV. I looked down at my forearm and the skin was feeling tight. My IV had been going for about 30 minutes. I had Blake get the nurse because this wasn't normal. I have had enough IVs to know how they should feel. When Blake got back I compared my left arm to my right arm. The left arm was definitely bigger and the skin was so tight feeling. Needless to say that IV was removed. My admin nurse came back and got another nurse to try to insert the IV. She stuck me lower in my left arm and when she did that my vein immediately blew. My admin nurse is now poking me in my right arm. She got it in, but the needle would not advnace throught the valve. For the fourth and finally poke they got another nurse to stick me. She finally got it in on the top of my right hand. Phew.

Prior to surgrey the anesthesiologist likes two bags of fluid prior to surgery. One bag barely got through, but they had me walk to the Operating Room anyway. Once I got in there, the anesthesiologist hooked the bag of saline, to a blood pressure cuff and pumped the fluid, antibotics, and a relaxer through the IV in a few short minutes. I love surgeries. You get so relaxed. Finally I was prepared, epidural - check, arms restrained - check, curtain up - check.

Dr. Alejo started the procedure. I couldnt feel pain, but I could feel pressure. I felt a tug. I turned my head from the right to the left where Blake was sitting on a stool. I asked him "what are they doing?" His response was "I don't know?" as his eyes rolled, back into his head as his head landed on my left shoulder, and he was passing out. In my head I thought "how do you not know, aren't you watching?" I yelled out, "he's out, he's out" just then he slide to the floor with the aid of the anesthesiologist. The anesthesiologist thought I meant the baby was out. With all the drugs going through my system, I felt my response time was so impared and delayed. Luckily Blake didn't completely pass out. He sat on the floor just as baby Girl Stoker was being pulled out at 1:54 pm. He got to hear her cry. But her cry was weak. Dr. Alejo held her to the side of the curtain and showed her to me. Hair and all. She was beautiful. She weighed 6 pounds 9 ounces. They took her over to clean her up. The staff didnt like how she was acting. Her breathing was shallow and her cry was soft. Blake went with Lexi while the doctors were stitching my up.

Blake came back later to let me know Lexi was in a transitioning unit. She aspirated a little bit and needed a bit of oxygen for her breathing. They had a nasal canula on her pushing air into the lungs to clean them out. The amount of air that was being pushed throught the nasal canula was equivalent to an adult sticking their head out the window going 60 mph. Then a tube was going into the stomach sucking out the air so she didn't get sick. In addition to that, her glucose levels were very low. Her initial results were a 45. If it had come back as a 44, then she would have been automatically admitted to NCIU until her glucose came back up. The transitioning unit nurse gave her a bottle and later that night when the glucose level was checked again it was 71.

Baby Stoker getting oxygen.

Recovering from surgery

Blake recovery
(The next day he found a scratch on his neck and a bruise on his left leg.)

Baby Stoker in the transitioning unit.

Baby Stoker getting her bath.

I was wheeled into the transiting unit to finally see baby Stoker.

She was beatuiful.

While baby Stoker was in the transitioning unit, we had some time to rest and eat. After being observed for 3-4 hours after delivery, Baby Stoker made it to my room. In the meantime we had some time to decide on her name. For the longest time when you asked Kennedy what she wanted to name our baby, she would say Fred. About a month before Baby Stoker was born we asked Kennedy what we should name our baby. She said she wanted to name her like her friend Hadly's play baby. Hadly's play baby was named Lexi. Blake loved it. He said he had say in what her first name was, since I had say of what Kennedy's first name was. Blake picked the first name and I picked the middle name. We decided on Lexi Michelle.

Lexi Michelle

We had lots of fun visitors. One of the many visitors was Great-Grandma Connie. This makes great-grandchild number 3.

Another visitor that came was Great Grandma Bev. This makes great-grandchild number 11.

I was able to convenience my cute friend Kenzie to come take some pictures in the hospital with her nice camera. Point and shoot camera's are nice, but they dont have the fast shutter speed or quality.

Look at those highlights. Women pay lots of money for

highlights and she is born with them. Lucky girl. All the

nurses made comments about how cute that was.

Little feet.

Her sweet cry.

Battle wounds from all the times they stuck with the needles.

Leg pumps so I dont get blood clots. My feet are still so swollen.

Proud Daddy

Going for a much needed walk. This c-section recovery was a

bit more painful and harder. Walking was an effort.

Lexi's feet must have been like that in my stomach.

I wasn't able to see Kennedy after I had Lexi. The hospital had a rule in place that no one under the age of 14 (including siblings) could go back in the post-partum area. The reason being is the flu counts were still so high they did not want to run the risk of infecting the new babies. Which I get but it made it hard on a mom and little girl who wanted to see each other and see her new sister. Kennedy spent the time was with my parents during my hospital stay. The night I had Lexi my parents were going to come up about 7:00 to see baby Lexi. Blake's mom and dad got there about 6:30 pm. Which ended up working out great. Because his parents could see Lexi and then my parents, while one set of grandparents was watching Kennedy. After my parents got their, Blake went with his mom and dad to go see Kennedy. They went down to the cafetria to grab a bite to eat. While they were eating Kennedy looked up to the ceiling and said "Hello mommy and Lexi through the wall." She wanted to see Lexi so bad.

The next night before Kennedy came up to the hosptial to see mom and Lexi, she was eating dinner with grandma Karen. They had shells and cheese. I suppose because they were having shells and cheese and Kennedy thinking about her baby sister Lexi Michelle, Kennedy ended up calling Lexi - Lexi shells.

Finally when I was able to walk, I was wheeled to the waiting area and see Kennedy. My right leg was still numb from the epidural. I told Kennedy on the phone earlier that day about how one of my legs felt dead. She was so concerned about my dead leg and was wondering if it was going to be okay. Kennedy was excited when she finally got to see me. Kennedy wanted to know how I was doing and wanted to see my incision. I had to decline on her seeing the incision. Then all she wanted to know about her new baby sister. She had seen pictures of her, but that is all. But one of the days in the hositpal Kennedy was able to see Lexi through the double doors. Somehow they got stuck open. I wonder how that happened. hmmm....To see how excited Kennedy was to see her new baby sister, it made me cry. Kennedy was grinning from ear to ear. I wish we could have got a picture of it.

Getting ready for the ride home

Getting ready to go home.

I asked my mom if they would bring Kennedy to the hosptial so she could ride

home with Lexi. She was on cloud 9. She loved Lexi so much already.

First time Kennedy is holding Lexi.

Kennedy's first time feeding Lexi. Such a helper.

I again convenienced my friend Kenzie to come take some pictures of Lexi after we got home from the hosptial since they change so much. I appreciate all her pictures and her time.