First bath (at home)2weeks old

Cute little bug!

Not too sure about this water stuff.

Definitely not! She pretty much screamed the whole time.

Still angry. Poor little thing! It's rough being little.

Mad and hungry.

All better!

Orange Peel

OH-NO!!

A while back while I was feeding Jemma, I asked Olivia to get me something out of my room. Well, she was gone for quite a while and when she finally came out I noticed her hair looked a little different.

This is the other side. She is crying because she knew she was in BIG trouble!

All of her pretty hair! Of course this had to happen the week before school started.

The 4th

The cousins at the 4th of July parade in Hurricane.

Colin lighting fireworks! Derrick authorized this and it looks a little scary, but they did just fine.

Mason's turn.

My kids love fireworks and the 4th of July. We a so thankful for our freedoms, especially the one that allow small children to have multiple tats all over their bodies.

Home Sweet Home

All four! When I see them like this it's kind of crazy to think they are ALL mine.

Baby girl, 2 weeks old here.

Daddy and Jemma taking a nap.

Mommy and Jemma, oooh I just love that sweet little face!

My two girls. Olivia and Jemma.

Olivia LOVES being a big sister. She just can't get enough of her baby Jemma and has even told me a few times that she is her mommy too.

So precious! Hairy back and all. I'm so in love with her.

Binki girl.

Primary Children's Hospital

We really are very fortunate to live fairly close to such an incredible hospital. The whole reason for being Life Flighted to this hospital was mostly precautionary in case she might need surgery if there was an obstruction. Apparently this hospital has some of the very best surgeons for this situation and this is where we would need to be if that were the case, which thankfully it was not. Here she is all hooked up to EVERYTHING. Basically they shut sown her intestines, only allowing her IV fluids, resulting in jaundice. She had to wear this mask and be under the lights, nearly all day for 3 or 4 days.

Somehow, with being moved around so much and having tape put on for this and that, and then being removed, we noticed this smiley face on her tummy.

This was Jemma's nurse, Rondie. She took such good care of her and kept me company for many, many hours. I sort of felt like I was living there sometimes. At first it was really hard, because I didn't know where anything was or who anybody was and I was alone almost all of the first day. It all seemed a little surreal. After going back though, day after day, I met a lot of really nice people.

They ended up doing a lot of different tests and a water enema which totally helped clean her out. After that they allowed her to eat, only small amounts at first and then more later. Once she was eating and things were moving through her properly, the jaundice went away and she no longer needed the IV.

As things started getting better I felt more comfortable leaving her. Nothing fancy just out to pizza with the kids. This is THE BIGGEST pizza I have ever seen. It filled that whole box! This picture just does not do it justice. We only ate like an eighth of it and gave the rest to the college kids working behind the counter at the hotel. We stayed at the Marriott just a half a mile from the hospital. The beds are great and they allow a discount for guests with patients at the hospital, such a blessing. Our children stayed with us for 2 nights and at Derrick's bothers house for the other 3. That was a tremendous to us, I don't know what we would have done without their help. The kids actually though of this like a vacation. They played with cousins and birthday parties. Visited Temple Square and rode the Trax to the Children's Museum.

Eventually all of the cords came off. Derrick is burping her. He has always been better at that than me.

Finally, it was time to go home. Derrick and I had to pass a few tests first, like CPR and car seat safety, but after 6 long days we were definitely ready. I suppose since Jemma is our last baby, she felt like we needed to go out with a BANG! It was definitely an adventure. I'm just so grateful our sweet baby girl is healthy.

Life Flight

So Before I went to sleep on Friday night, I fed Jemma and she pretty much threw it all back up. I just thought maybe she ate too much and that was it, but just to be safe I felt like she needed to stay in the nursery during the night. Around 4 a.m. the nurse woke me up to tell me she wasn't keeping anything down and they were a little concerned and that she was in the NICU.

I spent most of the morning with her not really thinking that anything was really wrong. The Dr. explained to me the best he could the different things he thought might be going on. Life Flighting her to Primary's was very last on the list and he didn't think that would be the situation. He had taken an x-ray of her stomach which seemed to be bloated and he noticed a lot of miconium ( the sticky black poo babies have when they are first born) and he thought that was why she wasn't keeping anything down. The tube in her mouth is pumping out her stomach just in case anything from her intestines was to come up , it kept making her gag and it was so hard to just sit and not help her. They tried to place an IV and failed so it ended up in her belly button which was awful! It kept oozing and bleeding. I felt so sorry for my baby girl and I couldn't even hold her. Around 11:30 a.m. I took a break for lunch and was having a really hard time. I tried watching a movie to get my mind off of things, but I couldn't stop crying and I wasn't really even sure why. Well, while I was having my little break down, the Dr. came in to tell me that they were going to Life Flight us up to Primary Children's hospital and that we would leave in about an hour. I totally started to cry again and the Dr. was so sweet to me and reassuring. I guess I must have somehow known earlier and that's why I was so emotional. I threw everything from my room into my bag in about 10 mins and went back down to the NICU and they were already loading her up. I have never been discharged from a hospital so fast!

We rode in an ambulance to the air port. This is the inside of the plane. It really wasn't very big at all and we had quite a bumpy ride. I kept thinking she was going to have brain damage because we were bouncing around so much, but she did really well and the Life Flight team was really great. Thankfully, it only took an hour.

Here we've just landed and they are unloading the incubator.

Getting ready to load into the ambulance. She looks so tiny in that big box, just 28 hours old.

From one NICU to the next. This was her little bed for six days.

Our precious little "Jem"

On June 25th, 2010 my water broke at 5 a.m. I've never had that happen before but it was kind of cool. No laboring at home to make sure you're dilated enough for the hospital to keep you. We arrived at the hospital around 6 a.m. and I had an epidural about 2 hours later. It really only worked on one side though so I still had to breath through contractions.

This is Derrick trying to pass the time, playing bubble breaker or solitaire. June 25th is the day Michael Jackson died one year ago, so we watched a lot of his old music videos and the World Cup replays.

Still waiting.

Here she is, and it only took 6 hours and one push! Born at 11:58 a.m. She weighed 6lbs. 2 onces and was 18 1/2 inches long. It's crazy that she was born 4 weeks early and already had chubby rolls and cheeks and a little double chin. D and I have agreed that this is our last baby, so even though I always have thought labor and delivery is such an exciting experience, it was a little bitter-sweet this time because I will never get to do it again and as much as I really don't enjoy being pregnant, there are things I will miss; like feeling the baby move inside of me and the way my skin clears up and my hair gets thick and long. I really feel ready to be done having children though and people always say that you'll just know, and it's true. However, I feel so blessed for the opportunity that I've had of being able to do it four very special times.

Daddy, Mommy, and Jemma. Derrick was already spreading the word!

Jemma Kay Esplin. So sweet!

Big sister Olivia is sooo happy her baby sister is FINALLY here.

Proud big brother Colin

A very cautious Mason, holding her for he first time.

Our family - Colin 5, Mason 7, Olivia 3, Jemma 1 day, Andrea 30, Derrick 30 (Wow! I'm not sure why my face is so swollen???)

9 Months

Me, 9 months huge with Jemma. Any day please!!!

Little League

In April Mason played on the A's Little League team. This was his first year batting with machine pitch and it took a little getting used to.

The balls actually come at those little guys pretty fast.

In the outfield.

Here he is trying to keep warm. Every game was FREEZING!!! Most games we spent watching him from our car because it was so windy and cold. He didn't love it either so I'm not sure we will sign up for this again next year.