Rhys Christian-The Caboose

Rhys’ story began long before he was born.  After YoYo joined our family, I knew we still had one little spirit up in heaven waiting to come down to us.  As the years went on that feeling would not leave me.  The catch is, I really don’t like being pregnant.  If children came by a stork, I would have 12 kiddos, but, alas, they don’t.  It wasn’t that I had overwhelmingly hard pregnancies in the past, I just don’t enjoy sharing my body.  Most women love the feeling of the baby moving around inside.  Not me, every time the baby moved all I could envision was the scene from the movie Alien.

Right around the time Yo turned 3, I made the biggest mistake ever…I prayed about having another baby.  I not only prayed about having another baby, I did it when I was inside the Las Vegas Temple.  The only other thing that could’ve made it a trifecta of doom was if I was fasting as well.  Of course, Heavenly Father confirmed my thoughts of having another child.  After the initial shock wore off, I began a long LONG road of denial.  I mean LONG…it took me 3 years to finally get on board with losing control of my body for at least 9 months.

Then January 2017 I told Mr. Man that I would go off birth control and give it a year.  I knew neither of us was getting any younger and the age gap between YoYo and the next one was growing.  Fast forward to summer 2017, Yo broke his leg and was in a full-length cast.  Believe it or not, in a family of boys, that was the first broken bone we had to deal with.  That summer was a whirlwind and somehow Rhys began his life in the middle of it.

Remember when I said that my pregnancies weren’t hard?  Well, that statement haunted me with a vengeance.  Week 5-7 of my pregnancy with Rhys I was hit with such intense morning sickness I lost 20lbs and due to the rapid weight loss, I ended up in the ER with gallstones.  After getting a handle on the morning sickness with amazing meds, I spent the rest of the first trimester and all of the second trimester walking a fine line of eating enough to try and gain those 20lbs back and trying not to make my gallbladder mad again.  Then the third trimester rolled around and the gallbladder pain was back.  I spend the whole trimester with chronic pain in my upper right ribs and back.  Anytime I ate I worried about whether the food I ate would be thrown back up, and if it did stay down I worried it would then make the gallbladder pain worse.  In the end, I never did gain those 20lbs back.

Morning of March 13th, I was at a lash appointment trying to take a nap while getting my lashes all prettied and the contractions began.  As soon as my appointment was done I called Mr. Man and told him he needed to come home because it was time to go to the hospital.  We were on alert because my labor with YoYo lasted only 3hrs from start to finish.  We had been warned by my OB that we could end up having a baby on the side of the road if we didn’t head to the hospital ASAP this time around.  So off to the hospital we went.  And guess what…my labor with Rhys lasted 18 hours.  It might’ve had something to do with the nurses kept stopping my labor because every contraction Rhys’ heart rate would drop.  Finally, Rhys decided to arrive the morning of the 14th.

I haven’t been able to stop snuggling him and loving on him since he arrived.  I’m sure it is because I know he’s our caboose so I’m savoring all the baby snuggles I can get.  Rhys is such a good baby, he only cries when he gets his diaper changed or takes a bath.  The 3 amigos can’t stop loving on him either.  Mr. Man and I are thoroughly enjoying our family of 6.  There is just a sense of completeness and love with Rhys in our lives.  I don’t know if I am more excited to watch him grow up and find his place among his brothers or to savor every moment with my last little dude.  Either way, I am loving my complete little family.

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