Chasing Life

Here is how my 4th day with 4 kids ages 4 and under started... In anticipation of being woken up by the baby every hour for feedings, I went to bed early the night before (around 8:45pm). Despite those hourly feedings, my day started out with a bang at midnight when I woke up to find that both my nursing bra and the towel I had put on my bed were both soaking wet with milk. At 5:45am my 19 month old decided it was time to wake up (apparently he didn’t get the memo that Mama had a newborn). Although I don’t ever go and get him until 7:30am, his babbling in his crib was enough to keep me from being able to go back to sleep. I decided to take a nice hot shower instead. About 5 minutes into the shower the baby wakes up and starts crying. So much for the relaxing shower! I dry off, nurse the baby back to sleep, and then start looking for clothes to wear to the bible study I was going to that morning. Between being engorged and having to wear breast shells for nursing, I looked ridiculous ...

So Jolie is 3 weeks old now and today my life as a stay at home mom of four kids ages 4 and under begins! It was supposed to start last Monday, but my in-laws were kind enough to give me a break for one more week by taking the two older kids home with them for a few days. But now they are back, Paul is at work, and I am here with the four little ones trying to carefully plan my first steps in hopes that they will lead us down a path where we can flourish as a family of six. To celebrate, I am going to start blogging on a regular basis in hopes that it will keep you all more updated, me more accountable, and serve as a type of journal for my kids to be able to read when they get older.

So it turns out I was in fact in labor when I last wrote! Pretty sad that this was my fourth pregnancy and it still wasn't clear. I ended up being completely dilated by the time we got to the hospital. I think I probably went from 7-10cm just during the walk from the hospital ramp to the labor and delivery room because I was having contractions that stopped me in my tracks every 30 seconds. Not fun! We got to the hospital around 11:45pm and Baby Jolie was born at 2:24am. The first hour was spent waiting for my doctor and the anesthesiologist to get done with a c-section down the hall before they could see me. Since I was fully dilated when we arrived I could not get an epidural, but I was able to get an intratheacal shot to help with the pain. We waited another 30 minutes for my water to break, but that never happened so the doctor ended up breaking it for me so that my pain meds would not wear off before the baby was delivered. About 15 minutes later we decided it was time to st...

Jolie Sophia Nystrom was born @ 2:24 AM, August 7, 7# 11 oz, 20" long. Everyone is doing well and will give more info when they get home.

So it's been a LONG time since I've done a Nystrom update, but I thought me going into the hospital to hopefully have our 4th child was reason enough to finally do it! I'm not having regular contractions spaced nice and evenly every 4-5 minutes like you're supposed to have to go to the hospital, but I've been contracting pretty hard every 10 minutes since around 3pm and they are quite painful so I'm gonna at least go in and get checked and see if anything is progressing. If not, I'll either stay at the hospital and walk the halls until something does happen or they'll send me home. Either way I won't be getting any sleep tonight. I'll be sure to have my mom send out another update when baby actually arrives. Until then, I'd appreciate prayers for a quick, smooth delivery and a healthy new baby!

Our biggest news (for those of you who haven't already heard), is that one week after my last update in November we found out we are pregnant with our fourth child. I actually found out on Monday that it is a GIRL so I am ecstatic! Our family will be nice and balanced like I like things, two boys and two girls. When the baby arrives in early August, we will have four kids ages 4 and under. That is a bit overwhelming to think about, but it is exactly how we wanted it. All the kids will be about a year and a half apart and we hope, as a result, they will be great friends growing up. The holidays were pretty relaxed for us this year. We had my sister and her family over for Thanksgiving, which is when we first announced our baby news. The following day my sister and I did a little early morning black friday shopping, and I finally broke down and bought a GPS and a new tv (both of which Paul has been bugging me about for years). For Christmas we had planned to go to Paul's parents...

It's been almost 5 months since my last update, so my guilt has finally motivated me enough to get another one written. I got so used to writing about our moving and traveling adventures that it is difficult to just write about everyday stuff now that residency is keeping us in one place! Back in July, Paul was fortunate enough to only have to work one shift over 4th of July weekend. We decided to go up to my parent's place on Mille Lacs Lake (where I spent my summers growing up). It was little surreal being able to do the things with my own kids that I did as a kid on the same lake that I did them (fishing, tubing & skiing, playing on the lake shore, etc). And there is nothing that makes me still feel young more than doing active things that require some physical skill (such as water skiing). Unfortunately I only caught one fish, but I guess that's better than getting skunked! We were also able to go to my parent's other house in South Haven a couple weeks after t...

Let the fun begin! Yesterday was Paul's first official shift of his Emergency Medicine residency here in MN and we're off to a wonderful start. He had a busy night in the ER, got home around midnight, slept for a few hours before having to go back to work for morning conference, came home and saw the kids and I for 30 minutes, and is now sleeping again until he has to go back to work for his second shift in the ER. THIS is why we have not been looking forward to residency! But, it is my residency resolution to try to look at the bright side of things...we are now down to 2 years and 364 days until residency is over! :) Seriously, besides the long work hours, we don't really have much to complain about. We are happily married (most of the time), have three wonderful children (most of the time), are living in a great house with family nearby, and pretty much all of our needs are met. I am working on finding a church and establishing a social network here, but that is obviousl...

Just wanted to report to those who don't already know that we bought a house! I went back to MN on 4/3 and had a signed purchase agreement three days later!!! Although I can't even stand the thought of having to leave San Diego, knowing we have a great house to move into helps me cope. Paul was home with the two older kids (yes, he survived on his own for 10 days), so he hasn't even seen it yet. I was able to take a video of the house for him though so he has at least gotten a virtual tour. It's so hard to believe we only have 42 days left before we move. I swear we just unpacked our boxes (oh wait, we did just unpack our boxes!). We're headed up to LA this weekend. Paul is going to the CrossFit games qualifier (surprise surprise) and I am going to Mamma Mia with a girlfriend. Then on Sunday we are going to check out Saddleback Church (home of Pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life). The following week we have two different sets of friends coming into...

I will start this update by telling those of you who don’t already know that we will be moving back to Minnesota after Memorial Day. Paul got matched to his number one choice of programs, Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC), in Minneapolis. Needless to say he is quite excited and I am just happy to finally know where we will be living for the next three years! We will most definitely miss San Diego, but we have been waiting a long time to be back close to family (4 years, actually) and so it will certainly be nice to go back ‘home’. Paul starts his orientation on June 15th, so we don’t have very long to get situated once we arrive. Paul is taking some time off from work to stay home with Kade and Jacey while I fly back to MN for 9 days with Kye to look for a house. Hopefully we will find one before we move. If not, my parents have a house near St. Cloud that we can stay at while we continue house hunting, but it would be quite a drive for Paul to go to work everyday (almost 90 minute...

Happy 2009, everyone! As I write this update we are awaiting news as to where Paul’s career will be leading us next (again), raising a newborn baby (again), and living in a new house (again)! Back in December, Paul finished his 10 days of interviewing for residency programs back in the Midwest. He felt very good about how they went so we are hoping he will get selected by one of his top two programs (HCMC in Minneapolis or Regions in St. Paul). We find out what residency program he will be joining in mid-March. Hopefully the time will pass quickly. As I wrote in my very brief update about a month ago, our third child Kye Aaron was born on 12/20. It took him a couple of weeks to catch on to the whole nursing thing, but he is apparently doing just fine now as he has already gained 3 pounds in one month. We’ve already got him onto the Nystrom sleep schedule of going to bed at 6pm. Now if he would just stay sleeping all night that would really be something. Kade and Jacey have adjusted to ...

We are happy to announce the birth of our son, Kye Aaron Nystrom. He came quite fast (5 hours total of laboring and pushing), making his first appearance at 4:39pm on Saturday, December 20th. Despite my previous c-section, it was a normal vaginal delivery with no epidural (not by choice this time...he just came before they were able to get it put in). He weighed 7 pounds and was 20 inches long. We are home already and are very excited to be able to sleep in our own bed tonight. Kye has spent most of his first 28 hours of life sleeping, which we really hope he plans to continue!

Hello again. I’m less than a month away from my due date now so I thought I’d better get another update out before the baby comes. In October we went camping with our small group at Lake Henshaw, CA. It’s only the second time we’ve been camping since Paul and I met, so despite being 7 months pregnant I thought it would be a fun adventure. Well, it surely was an adventure, but I’m not sure I would describe it as fun. It got down to 37 degrees at night and we definitely were not prepared for that, especially now that we have adapted to San Diego weather. I can’t remember EVER being that cold. We did enjoy hanging out with our small group friends, however, and were also able to take a nice hike on a mountain above the lake and treat ourselves to the infamous caramel apple pie and fresh apple cider in Julian afterwards so it wasn’t a total loss. After camping we headed up to Joshua Tree National park for one night since it was a long weekend for us. We did a couple of short hikes that Kade...

It’s that time again, to let you all know how we’ve been the last few months and share with you which exotic places our travels have taken us to most recently! First of all, Jacey turned one on June 21st. First birthdays aren’t too eventful in our house, but we did still get some good pictures of her eating her sugar-free, whole wheat corn bread cake and opening her very exciting gifts of a whistle, a bracelet, and a pair of shoes! Then Paul and I went to our first Padres game the following weekend. They were commemorating a military operation during the pre-game activities, which is why Paul wanted to go. We’re not big baseball people, but it’s always good people watching and it was interesting to see the new Petco stadium from the inside. Our friends from Phoenix came to visit us again for July 4th weekend, and we were able to watch fireworks from our bedroom porch (which was very convenient since our kids had already been sleeping for almost 4 hours by the time the fireworks started...

Since the last time I wrote, we haven't had too much going on (which is a change for us). We did hand out hygiene kits to the homeless people in Balboa Park and downtown San Diego with our small group. We included McDonalds gift cards and also gave them some punch to drink and they were all so grateful. Before we were even out of sight we saw many of them already washing up with the wet wipes from the kits. Such a simple thing to do that was so appreciated! We also had several visitors in May. First some friends from VA stayed with us for 5 nights while they did some house hunting. They will be moving out here in July, so it will be nice to have a couple of familiar faces from the past living close by. It was in the 90s the whole time they were here so of course that was the time that our portable air conditioners decided to stop working! We were able to get them working enough to keep us cool but not without a lot of headaches! A friend of mine from IA also came into town for a wo...