Welcome to the world Seth Hansen MacKay!

we are pleased to announce the arrival of our little brother Seth. here he is! but let's not get ahead of ourselves...

we need to start at the beginning of the story! at 35 weeks i started to dilate early once again as i had predicted that i would. i was so tired of being pregnant because of things like this: 

(varicose veins)

or this (my hands and feet would swell so that my ring hurt me and i had to get a temporary replacement)

and i watched myself get more and more huge until i was the heaviest i've ever been in my life

(these were on the day i was 30 wks, 34wks, and then 39 weeks which is the longest i have ever been pregnant!)

i was so worried about what i would do if i went into labor and there was no one to watch and take care of the other kids, so my sister melissa came to save the day! she stayed with us for almost two weeks helping with the kids and the school routine and cleaning and babysitting and cooking and doing projects and just keeping me sane. it was awesome! sadly, this is the only picture i got of her (it was at natalie's birthday):

she took this gorgeous picture of jenna =o]

the kids just adore her and we were all heartbroken when she had to go because her school semester was starting. seriously, i had a little mini breakdown after we dropped her off at the train station. luckily, my RS sisters swooped in and made sure all the bases were covered. i was just worried because the kids were worried. so i did some things to help us all calm down like this: 

it's a baby watch! the kids kept asking what was going to happen and when so we made this chart so everyone would know. they LOVED it! the two random people are our OBGYN dr williams, and our pediatrician dr jabaji, but the rest are pictures of the kids and previous pregnancies. 

 the mackays arrived a couple days after melissa left. we asked them to come during the week that my mom would be driving the college kids up to idaho. here is kathy during our apple experiment. we tried lots of different kinds of apples to see which was the best. she spent countless hours playing with the kids. she is so patient and fun! i am so grateful that she was here for a full 24 hours before i went into labor so that the kids, especially jenna, could get used to her and she could get the hang of our schedule.

i had technically been in labor for a month, and had two different times when i had consistent contractions that were getting closer together but then they would just stop. i talked with my aunt wednesday night who is a midwife and she recommended i do some emotional clearing for myself and with the baby. so thursday i took a pad of paper with me to my doctor's appointment and spent the whole time working on it. it was exactly what i needed because seth came the next day! i think we were both just worried about a lot of things and i felt so close to him and to the Spirit as i wrote and prayed and talked with him heart to heart. it was a special experience. dr williams recommended that we be induced the next day so we scheduled it, even though i really wanted to have a natural unmedicated birth experience. i spoke to my sister katrina after the appointment and she gave me so much courage that i could do it and that everything would be ok. i got a blessing from kent that night which was also uplifting. again, i had consistent and painful contractions all night. needless to say i was relieved to be going to the hospital the next morning. even though it was friday the 13th, it was my lucky day!

here i am after being officially admitted at around 8:30am. talk about a WHALE. wow. i still can't believe how incredibly HUGE i was. 

i was still having contractions about every 10 minutes, and had talked the nurses into letting me not have an iv so i could still move around, when dr williams came to break my water at 9:45. he asked why i wasn't hooked up and i said i was going natural. he gave me this look and said "do you have a psychologist? you have done this perfectly three times, why do you want to mess it up now?" lol! when i replied that it is my last time and i want to have the real experience he just rolled his eyes to kent and then said "have fun!" in a sing songy voice as he walked out. he is hilarious! later he told me that only 1 out of 20 births he attends are natural/unmedicated and of that only half are by choice. i think it has a lot to do with where we live, but it was still shocking to hear that statistic. 

after he broke my water and left the real labor began. the contractions became much harder and closer together. they made me be hooked up to the fetal monitor for 20 minutes every hour but otherwise i moved around to different positions and used the strategies i had planned like pressure points and breathing. the monitors strapped to my stomach really started to bother me so when they checked me they put an internal monitor on the baby's head instead which i was grateful for at the time, but he still has a scab from it so i wish they hadn't done it. for the last hour and a half before he was born i can't really describe what it was like. it felt like i was in a tunnel or something. i could tell when the contractions would come and go obviously, but there was no relief really in between them. i'm so glad i had kent there to support me. and the nurses were so encouraging too. i had to just keep telling myself that it was going to be a lot longer and that it was going to hurt a lot worse because i didn't know how far i was and strangely that helped me. i kept telling myself to let the contractions open up the way for the baby and to relax and let the baby come. it was hard! i tried to breath low and slow when it got really bad but it became increasingly harder to keep control. i kept my eyes closed during most of that time. i don't remember this but kent said i punched the side of the bed several times lol! when they finally did check me it was pretty horrible but then they knew it was time for the doctor to come. even after he got there i was so out of it i couldn't believe it was really time to push. i felt pressure but i never really felt like i had to push until i started, and then i didn't want to stop because it hurt even worse, just in a different way. i still wish they hadn't made me labor on my back because i think that made it more painful but i couldn't exactly argue with them as they put my feet up in the stirrups, i was barely holding it together. so i pushed once. i pushed again and dr williams told me to stop. (apparently i had pushed out his head and the cord was wrapped around his neck so they had to clamp and cut it right then. i don't remember this but kent said i screamed "i can't do it" after i had already pushed out his head lol) then i pushed again which hurt just as bad (his head and his chest both measured 14cm so that is why i felt what my sister katrina calls "the ring of fire" twice). i gave one more little push and then they put him up on my chest! it was 12:47 pm. delivering the placenta was weird but not painful. dr williams was joking with us the whole time as he gave me my two stitches (which i then realized was why i felt like my body was being torn in half) and he asked me if i would do it all natural again. i don't think it is a fair question. i knew this was my last chance, and i couldn't pass up this opportunity to experience something that billions of women have done. i couldn't just set that aside with no chance of getting it back. especially if i really am going to be a doula when the kids get old enough, i couldn't not experience it. yes it hurt, but who cares? the most surreal part of the experience was how indescribably horrible it was, and then how indescribably awesome it was just one second later. i think the medication keeps you from feeling the lows, but it also takes away your high afterwards. i thought of that scripture in John 16:21 "A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world."

  i felt so close to heaven and kent and seth in those moments. i think kent was proud of me. they let me keep the baby with me until the first time he nursed, which was different then all the other kids being whisked away after a few minutes to be cleaned and weighed and such. it was such an amazing experience. we decided for sure then that his first name was seth, and had already decided that his middle name would be hansen. kent texted our families to tell them the exciting news. and then after things settled down he left to get the kids so they could meet seth. later that day i posted this on facebook: I feel so happy! I feel so blessed! I feel so alive! I feel so full of light and life and goodness! Seriously, being a mother is the best part of who I am. Families are what make this life worth living. I am grateful that my body is strong, and that I have been able to take part in this miracle of life! God's plan for us is perfect! I am grateful I can live it!

this process truly is miraculous and we as parents are partners with God in bringing these souls into the world!

here he is under the heat lamp as they bathed and weighed him and such. 

with dad =o]

with mom =o]

all swaddled up waiting to meet his siblings

when they came after dinner it was so adorable to see them be so sweet and excited! i just love my family!!

then kent left again to help with baths and getting the kids in bed so seth and i got to spend some quiet time together. the rest of the hospital stay was just a blur of doctors and nurses and paperwork and getting to talk with and text choice family members and friends and of course take a few more pictures: 

we decided to head home saturday night so kent could go to church the next morning with his parents and the kids instead of having to be at the hospital checking out. here is our little brother all dressed up and ready to go home =o]

we were welcomed home by this sweet sign on the garage door =o]

the kids were so excited to see us! jenna was already in bed, and it was hard to convince the other two to go, but eventually they believed us that he would be there in the morning. 

here are all the kids after church getting to hold him for the first time officially at home =o]

here is seth's first official tummy time, which he slept through, and during which i had to save him from being smothered with too many toys and too much love more than once. 

the next couple days seth and i slept A LOT while grandma and grandpa mackay held down the fort (kent was dealing with a huge crisis at work) grandpa did lots of fix-it projects around the house- with help from caleb of course! and grandma cooked and cleaned and entertained the kids- and made like a hundred of her famous meatballs for the freezer =o] 

there was a fire in the wild life preserve behind our house one of the days and kathy caught this picture of one of the firefighting planes.  

on tuesday night my mom arrived (after getting to see all her other grandchildren on the way back from idaho!) and the mackays headed home. 

the kids were so excited to see grammy again! she played countless games and cooked and cleaned and took care of all of us (even in the middle of the night!) and instead of a wildfire she got to experience two earthquakes with us! luckily both were under 4 points each. here are some cute pictures she got of the kids: 

they painted seth's name for his wall with grammy =o]

sponge bath time!

then before i knew it, it was sunday and grammy had to get back to madera. it went so fast! 

i am so grateful for all the help that we received from everyone- we couldn't have done it alone!
we love you seth! welcome to our family! welcome to the world!