What a Day!

I'm in Idaho with my family right now and wow, it's been quite the weekend! We got here on Friday afternoon (Tyson, Brycen, and I ) and spent the evening with Tyson's parents, Dustin and Erika and their kids, and Angie and Steve's kids. His parents bought Jimmy Johns for all of us and we played games. It was such a blast! I love spending time with his family. I laugh my hardest when spending time with his family.

Saturday was a busy one getting ready for Brycen's birthday party with my family, as well as prep for my little brother Adam's mission farewell luncheon today. We baked cookies, made salads, set up chairs, etc. My pregnant twin came over and sat down to visit while Mom and I baked. It was fun to sit and hang out. Tyson spent the day with his mom while we got things ready. We had a small Toy Story 3 themed party for Brycen's second birthday coming up, enjoying pizza and cupcakes. Pictures to come! My siblings were all here and we had so much fun visiting and watching Brycen open his presents-most of which were Toy Story related.

Grandma O'Connor stopped by with my aunts Lisa and Bridget after the party. They came to town for Adam's meeting and stopped by for a visit. They stayed for a half hour before heading back to their hotel. Amber and Che' left soon after that. About 45 minutes later I received a phone call from Amber saying that her water broke and they were headed to the hospital. Talk about timing! Adam's meeting was the next morning at 9:00 and Amber was in labor. Her due date is tomorrow (Monday the 19th) and she has been so uncomfortable the last week or so and ready for Tayen to come. Apparently he wanted to wait till after Brycen's party to start showing any sign of coming!

Mom and I stayed up late waiting for updates from Amber and Che'. Amber was progressing really fast, about a centimeter an hour, so we thought for sure she'd have Tayen by morning. By 3:30 am she was at a 4 and was still at a 4 at 7 am. We all got ready for church with Amber and Che' on our minds. We went to his meeting at 9:00 and it was awesome. I don't think I give my little brother enough credit because he did an amazing job on his talk. He was so confident and didn't even seem nervous. I had the thought to bring my voice recorder to Idaho. It turned out to be a really good idea! We recorded Adam's talk so Amber and Che' can listen to it later. The entire meeting was so wonderful. A good friend of our family's (Bill Bush) played a missionary medley on the piano and it got all of us tearing up. The last speaker was President Ames, a member of the stake presidency and my former accounting teacher at BYU-Idaho. He really pulled everything together well and the meeting was just awesome. So awesome! I can't say that enough. Adam had so many people there supporting him. The place was full, back to the stage. So many family and friends came out and it was so good to see them there. A lot of people approached our family about the current situation with Amber in the hospital and Adam speaking at the same time. Most of the concerns were geared toward my mom's sanity ha ha. I was impressed with how well she kept so calm. I even had a couple of people come up and ask me if I was the one having the baby today. I guess I didn't realize I look 40 weeks pregnant! Good times.

Mom, Dad, and I ran up to the hospital to visit Am and Che' as soon as we got out of Adam's meeting. It was about 11:00 when we got there to find Amber in pain and only at 4 1/2 cm. She had slept for awhile on one side, which caused a lot of muscle cramping in her upper back and shoulders. Her body already has the tendency to cramp up during sleep so this was a pretty crappy situation. The CRNA (John-who is awesome) massaged her shoulders and back a little, releasing some of the pressure. It seemed to help, but she just seemed miserable. We sat and visited with her and Che' till about 12:30 when we left to go back to the house and prep for the luncheon. By that time Amber was at a 5.

The luncheon had a great turnout. I was on cookie duty, filling up the tiers full of cookies and keeping them full throughout. I loved my job! There were over 70 people who came over for lunch and celebrate with Adam. Grandma and Grandpa made shredded bbq beef sandwiches and we ate all sorts of yummy salads and goodies. It was fun visiting with people I don't get to visit with very awesome.

At about 4:45 Am was finally at a 6. It was so exciting to us! Progression was happening! After Adam's friends and all of the family left the house we opened up all of the gifts people had given him. We have so many generous family members and friends and they're all so supportive of Adam.

At about 5:45 we got word that Am is at an 8. I say "is" because that's what we know at this point! It's been 19 hours since she went into labor last night. Poor girl! Talk about a crappy experience. But we're hoping Tayen will be joining our family soon and we'll be going to the hospital soon! Thank you for all of the well wishes!