Eloise Elizabeth

We welcomed our precious and beautiful baby girl Eloise Elizabeth on November 20, 2017 at 7:07 pm. She weighed 7 pounds 3 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. We still can barely believe we have this tiny human in our family now. We love our Eloise SO much and adore our time with her.

Eloise at eight days old :)

If you are interested in reading a not too graphic but fairly detailed story about her birth, read on! If not, just do a quick scroll through to look at cute pictures of our girl :)

Birth Story

I had a grand and devious "plan" to have our baby girl the weekend before Thanksgiving to force our two families to come to us for the holiday--otherwise, we would be celebrating alone because of the closeness to the due date. Of course I knew that this very specific and mostly joking plan was unlikely to come true (it was nearly two weeks before baby's due date), but I still had a small hope and was doing everything possible to induce labor, haha.

The weekend before Thanksgiving had nearly passed, and Dustan and I were laying in bed late on Sunday night chatting, still wide awake. Suddenly, I felt as I had wet my pants just a little... Within a couple seconds, I started to feel a gush of liquid. I immediately hopped out of bed in an attempt to save our mattress and had liquid gushing down my legs. Dustan looked at me shocked and said, "I think your water just broke!" This was at about 11:30 pm on November 19th.

This caught both of us completely off-guard! Having your water break before you go into labor really isn't that common (less than 15 percent of women have their water break first before strong contractions), and I had been just waiting all along for those contractions to start regularly to let me know I was in labor. We were so excited though! No more false labor signs and uncertainty, we were having a baby!

We made a quick phone call to Labor and Delivery at the hospital to make sure that we were supposed to come in immediately (we were) before getting packed up to go. We had already packed most of our stuff we needed for the hospital, but Dustan ran around getting all the last minute items while I sat on the toilet with fluid leaking out of me, haha. Dustan finished quickly and I grabbed a towel to put in my pants and we drove to the hospital, arriving and getting checked in at about midnight.

Because I wasn't in any pain yet and we had already had a hospital tour and preregistered, getting settled into a labor room went very smoothly. I got all dressed into my snazzy hospital gown and I was hooked up to a fetal heart rate monitor. Baby girl was doing great and apparently I was having fairly consistent contractions (about every 6 or 7 minutes, lasting a little less than a minute) though I couldn't feel them yet. Unfortunately, I was only dilated to a 1. But luckily, my nurses told me that when a women's water breaks, they want to have the baby out within 24 hours. So I would be having a baby within the next day! So exciting!!

At this point (now that we were sure we would be having a baby), we called up the moms. Of course they were excited and they made plans to be in Utah within the next couple days. My grand plan had succeeded ;) We called up Dustan's two brothers who live in Provo, and they came to the hospital to help Dustan give me a blessing. Then we send them on their merry way and made sure to let all our family know that we would keep them updated.

But, we still had a long way to go. The nurses checked on me about every two hours to see how I was progressing, while Dustan and I tried to get some sleep (we didn't sleep at all at first, we were too excited). 3:30 am or so rolled around and a nurse checked me--I was then dilated to a 2 and about 80% effaced. Meanwhile, Dustan and I were entertained with some very loud and rambunctious labor screaming from the room next door, haha. This was a nice distraction, since I was starting to feel my contractions at this point. They were very uncomfortable, but not too badly painful yet. It was around this time that I also requested some ice packs be brought in--I was SO hot and the room wasn't cooling down enough for me, haha. I had ice packs on my chest or neck for the majority of labor. I was also given antibiotics for strep B through my IV, and would be given a new bag of antibiotics every four hours until the baby was born. Man, those burned through my arm! Not a fan.

I was able to snooze and relax a little until another nurse came in at about 5:00 am. I was told I was a "roomy" 2 and about 85% effaced. The progress was much slower than I would have liked :( At this point, the pain from the contractions was leaving me nearly in tears. I requested some pain killers (not the epidural yet) through my IV. As soon as I received them, the whole room went spinning and I got drowsy enough to sleep through the contractions for about the next 45 minutes until the pain killers began to wear off.  Dustan was somehow able to sleep through all of this, haha. I got another pain dose about an hour later when the first wore off, but they started to make me nauseas, and I ended up throwing up what little was in my stomach. Thankfully I had requested a barf bag beforehand.

At about 7:30 am, I was again checked, but sadly no progress had been made. I was given a third and final dose of pain killers (for some reason these narcotics became significantly less effective with each dose). At this point, I was given Pitocin through my IV in hopes of helping me progress faster. As I mentioned before, the nurses and doctors wanted baby girl to be born within 24 hours of my water breaking, and I was not making enough progress! I'm not sure if it was the Pitocin or not, but my contractions got closer together and much more painful during the next hour. I threw up again and finally requested the epidural.

Receiving an epidural wasn't my favorite experience, mainly because the contractions were hurting worse with each minute. Luckily, the only thing that actually hurt when receiving the epidural was having the local anesthetic applied. Everything else just felt a little uncomfortable and a little odd. Pretty soon, I was completely numb from my stomach down to my toes and couldn't feel a single thing. I don't know if epidurals are always that strong, but I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't even move my toes. It was the weirdest sensation. I got the epidural around 9:00 am on Monday morning.

Once I had the epidural, I was finally able to get some decent sleep. (The major downside of the epidural I soon realized was now that I wasn't in pain anymore, I became VERY hungry.) Again, a nurse come in to check me around noon, and I had finally made some progress! I had been hoping for more, but being dilated to a 3 and nearly 100% effaced was at least some progress. I keep snoozing and entertaining myself until my next check. Every time I wanted to change positions, a nurse had to come in and help me switch sides.

The next check was at about 2:30 pm. Because my Pitocin had been at the highest dose for a while, I was really hoping that I was at least dilated to a 5 or so. But hallelujah, I was dilated to a 10!! Dustan and I were completely shocked, and SO excited, and a little freaked! The nurse told us that baby girl was still up a little high, so we would wait an hour so that she could drop down before starting to push. A peanut ball was put between my legs, then the nurse returned an hour later and it was time to go!!

The nurse had me pushing 3 times with every contraction, pushing for 10 seconds each. Pushing is pretty difficult when you can barely feel anything in the lower half of your body. Thankfully the epidural had worn off just slightly since I received it--I was able to feel some pressure (especially on my right side), but still no pain. When I pushed, sometimes I could tell it was more effective than other times. But because I couldn't feel much, I couldn't always replicate the effective pushing. When we started, I couldn't even tell when I was having contractions. I just relied on my nurse and Dustan to tell me when I was having one based on my chart. My wonderful OB Dr. Emma Miller came in every once and a while to check how I was doing.

I pushed for about two hours. When I was actively pushing, Dustan could see just the top of our little girl's head (and her hair!!). But I had reached that point within the first hour, and hadn't made any progress since. At about the two hour mark, Dr. Miller came in to talk to Dustan and I. I had been noticing the nurse's and my doctor's worried looks and though Dustan was very encouraging, I could tell that something was a little off with the situation. My doctor informed us that our baby had made progress at the beginning, but her head was currently stuck at my pelvis and hadn't moved or made an progress in about an hour. Baby girl wasn't in any distress (her heart rate still looked great), but obviously we couldn't stay in that position much longer. Dr. Miller said that we really needed to consider getting a C-section. But because baby girl wasn't in distress, I could continue to try pushing for just a little longer, about 30 minutes, and see if I was able to make any progress. But if nothing changed, we would need to have a C-section to get our baby out safely.

This caught me completely off guard and frankly just scared me. I knew that C-sections were fairly common and that there was nothing wrong with getting one, but I hadn't even considered that I might need one. The idea of being cut open really scared me and I knew that there shouldn't be any reason why I would need one, so I hadn't mentally prepared for the possibility. It just freaked me out. We told Dr. Miller that I would continue to try pushing for a just little longer.

So that's what I did. I pushed even harder than I knew I was capable of beforehand. And I prayed, a lot. I think I was praying nearly non-stop until we had our sweet baby girl. After about 20 minutes more of pushing after talking with Dr. Miller, our current nurse was switched out with a new one. Dustan and I really think that this nurse helped to make all the difference. Melissa was more proactive and encouraging (the other nurse had been very kind, but was so exhausted from her shift that she wasn't very helpful and was nearly falling asleep between contractions). Soon I had made progress. Not much at all, but enough that I would continue pushing a little longer to see if the progress continued.

And it did! I ended up pushing for nearly another two hours before our girl was born. The progress was slow going, but baby was still safe so we continued. I threw up towards the end (apparently this was actually a good thing? haha) and was so exhausted that I was dizzy, shaky, and experiencing tunnel vision. The epidural really started to wear off the last hour. The contractions were really painful, but helped me understand better how to push. The end was all sort of a blur.

Finally, our baby girl was born, at 7:07 pm on Monday, November 20. Dustan cut the cord (and blood squirted all over his arm in the process, haha), then the nurses wrapped her in a towed and placed her on my chest as nurses crowded around and vigorously rubbed her down. Her strong cries were one of the most wonderful sounds I've heard. After they had cleared her throat and wiped her down for a while, they very briefly took her to weigh and measure her before once again placing her on my chest.

It was then, looking at our beautiful girl, that we officially decided to name her Eloise Elizabeth. We were so happy to finally have our girl with us, and we just loved her SO much. We didn't stop staring at her for hours. We couldn't believe how instantly we just adored this little human of ours.

After some quality skin to skin time and breastfeeding (and after I was stitched up--one little tear and one episiotomy), Eloise was bathed a little better. She screamed through most of it, until the nurse started cleaning and brushing her hair, which she loved, haha. I wish I could have seen it, but I was stranded on the hospital bed, still gaining feeling in my legs from my epidural. Dustan followed her around religiously those first couple days as she was tested and checked. He didn't want to let her out of his sight. Below is a picture of the "New Parents Feast" the hospital made for Dustan and I after Eloise was born, haha. It was actually quite good!

We stayed in the hospital just a couple days before heading home. We really appreciated our families traveling to Provo to visit our little family--and for staying and spoiling us on Thanksgiving :) The following pictures are with Eloise's wonderful grandmas!

We really love our Eloise so much, it is unbelievable. Sometimes Dustan and I will just look at each other and say "We have a BABY?!" or "She is the most beautiful baby EVER." We can't believe Heavenly Father trusted us with this little human, she is just the best thing. I'm so happy to be doing this whole parenting thing with the best husband, to the cutest babe :)

Dustan here: I don't know if I have ever experienced so many emotions in a four hour stretch as when Ellen was pushing up to when Eloise was born. Admiration for how amazing and strong my wonderful wife was being, nervousness as I realized Ellen might be needing a C-section, excitement as Eloise started making progress, and complete tearful, breaking down joy and love as I heard Eloise's first cries. I've never been more proud of anyone in my life than I was of Ellen in that moment. She showed incredible strength, determination and love. Oh how I love Ellen and our little Eloise. This was truly an amazing experience and one I will never forget.

Month 9 with Baby K

The FINAL COUNTDOWN!! The next post up will be all about our sweet baby girl being born :)

This month was definitely the most uncomfortable month of all. I get Braxton Hicks all the time, many each hour of the day. And though they were rarely painful, they occasionally cause discomfort. I had a couple more instances where I had contractions without going into labor. The contractions were inconsistently about 10 minutes apart, quite painful, and lasted for a couple hours. They never progressed more than that though (to mine and Dustan's disappointment, haha). My round ligament pain got even worse. Almost any movement/position that was slightly different from simply sitting, standing, or laying (such as lifting legs to put on pants, going up or down stairs, or changing positions while sleeping) really hurt a lot. It really took away my desire to do some low key exercising to get baby out, haha. And same as last month, I just felt heavy, large, and unable to do a lot of the things that I wanted. And just so exhausted and ready and overall uncomfortable in my body.

We took a few more maternity pictures at 37 weeks, here are some of our favorites. The sunset that night was incredible on Utah Lake!!

My goal had been to work as much as possible until the week before Thanksgiving break. And I succeeded! Though I was taking a half or full day off each week to go to my baby appointments, I was working every other day. The days felt more exhausting than normal while working and I just felt so over it, but I appreciated that it helped time go by faster. I feel that if I hadn't been working about 30 hours a week, I would have been even more anxious to meet baby girl than I already was.

Notes/Symptoms:
 - Getting Braxton Hicks at least a couple times an hour, sometimes more.
 - Round ligament pain is SO painful. Probably the worst part of being pregnant this month,
 - Baby girl gets the hiccups every single day, multiple times a day. Usually right when I'm trying to sleep, of course.
 - So hot all the time, especially when sleeping. Opening the window at night even when it is below 40 degrees, sorry husband!
 - Eating so many Tums every day, but not usually completely maxing out according to my OB. The acid reflux is so bad and annoying!
 - Occasional bouts of nausea, though nothing compared to the horribleness of my first trimester.
 - Sleeping like a rock some nights because I am so exhausted, other nights I wake up every 15 minutes from pain, discomfort, bad dreams, etc. There is no consistency!
 - Very easily out of breath from the simplest tasks. Occasionally out of breath suddenly for no reason at all, like when I'm laying down at night trying to sleep.
 - About 28 pounds above pre-pregnancy weight.
 - Aversions: Tums (even the brand name ones are getting gross now)
 - Cravings: peanut butter pie, raspberry pretzel jello


For anyone interested in knowing our baby registry information, here it is!
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/baby-reg/ellen-kraus-dustan-kraus-december-2017-provo/IRA5JGTHSCTX
Target: tgt.gifts/Dustan&EllenBabyRegistry

Third Anniversary in Yellowstone and Grand Teton NP

At the end of August, we went on our annual mini trip for our third anniversary!! For our first anniversary, we spent a few days in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Last year for our second anniversary, we explored Yosemite National Park. This year, we drove up north to adventure through Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park. We also deemed this trip our babymoon, because apparently that's a thing! Whatever you want to call the trip, we loved getting away together for a long weekend alone :)

Yellowstone National Park

We left early on a Friday morning and drove up to Yellowstone National Park. Dustan had never been to Yellowstone before and I had only been briefly over a decade ago, so it was basically a new experience for both of us. I was in charge of the trip this year (we switch who plans it each year), and I was very excited to take Dustan to the awesome sites I had been looking up and researching for weeks. We also love being able to use our annual parks pass, which has been so worth it!

Our first stop in Yellowstone was the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone! We had entered the park through West Yellowstone and it took a while to drive to the Canyon, but the views were beautiful! We stopped at Artist Point that had just an amazing lookout to the Lower Falls toward the end of the Grand Canyon. It was seriously beautiful. Fun fact, the Lower Falls are 308 feet tall and are formed from the Yellowstone River (what an original name).

We had been planning on hiking down to be right next to these Lower Falls via Uncle Tom's Trail, but it was closed for road and trail renovations :( We talked to a ranger and they recommended that we hike down the Red Rock Point trail instead, which we did. This path was fairly steep and a mixture of pavement and wooden stairs. It was super short, and we reached the bottom (since we hiked down from the edge of the canyon into the canyon) in no time. Of course we took a few pictures here.

Afterward, we made a quick stop at the closest Visitors Center in Canyon Village to grab some early dinner sandwiches before starting the long drive to our reserved campsite for the night. I didn't' really know this before I started research Yellowstone, but it is a HUGE park. It takes hours to drive through. There is one main road throughout the whole park and is shaped like an 8. Because we only had about a day total in the park, we only explored the lower loop of the park during this visit. Canyon Village was about in the center of the park, and our campsite was at Grant Village, at the far south end. The drive took us about an hour with the animal traffic. The traffic was worth it though, we saw lots of bison and I very briefly saw a sleeping grizzly bear.

Once we finally reached our campsite, we checked in and set up our tent while it was still light out. Then we hopped back in the car and drove to the Great Fountain Geyser for sunset. This wasn't a big spouting geyser like many would imagine. More like some calm bubbling. The reflection of the sunset on the water of the geyser was beautiful though. And of course we had to take a couple silhouette pictures of the belly.

After this stop, we continued on the same side road until we reached the White Dome Geyser, which looks like a mini volcano ready to erupt. It had a constant stream of smoke coming out of the top and some faint gurgling noises from the geyser within. While we were taking some pictures here, we were serenaded by the sound of a pack of howling coyotes. It was really neat. We also made a short stop at some bubbling geysers on the side of the road.

By this time it was pretty dark, and we weren't going to be able to see much in the park anymore. We drove back to our campsite at Grant Village, thankful that we had already set up our tent and bed inside. We went to bed fairly early for us before 10:00 pm (it was dark, so there wasn't much to do) and so that we could get the good night of rest we hadn't gotten the night before. We really wanted to sleep well on this trip, so we brought not only our air mattress, but our memory foam mattress topper as well. It was definitely the most comfy I have ever been camping! We opted to not try and go see sunrise anywhere (ain't nobody got time fo dat) and just slept until about 7:30 am. Then, we packed up camp, ate yummy pastries in the car for breakfast, and headed to see Old Faithful! Happy Anniversary to us ;)

Old Faithful erupts on average every 90 minutes, though it actually can erupt anywhere from 35 minutes to 120 minutes apart, which is pretty crazy. They have schedules up for the next eruption time (give or take 10 minutes) in the Old Faithful Visitors Center. We arrived there and checked the time, and it was set to erupt in 15 minutes, which means it could go off almost any minute! We hustled/ran our way over to Old Faithful along with over 50 other people, and made it in time. It actually erupted a little later than expected. Though the eruption was really neat and SO tall, we didn't think it was one of the coolest things at the park. Definitely impressive though.

Before eruption

Towards the end of eruption

After Old Faithful, we drove over to the Grand Prismatic Spring, which was quite close. We first walked the boardwalk around the amazing colorful geyser, but soon realized that you couldn't get a really good view with all the steam in the way and without some height above the geyser. We did get a good look of one of the other smaller geysers, just below though. But we left and drove down the road a ways to a short hiking path that led to an overlook, starting at the Fairy Falls Trailhead.

It was HOT and sandy, and totally worth it. Seeing the Grand Prismatic Spring from the overlook was simply amazing. I can't believe such vivid colors exist naturally in nature sometimes! It was one of our favorite sights on the Yellowstone trip, easily.

Then, with just about an hour left to spare to explore the park, we took a small hike around the Norris Geyser Basin. We only did one of the loops, but again saw some amazing and colorful geyser (though none as majestic as the Grand Prismatic). We especially liked all the steam rising up from random holes in the ground and the constant bubbling and gurgling noises.

And just like that, it was already time to leave Yellowstone National Park! We made a quick stop at a Visitor's Center (I don't remember which one this time...) to get some Wilcoxin Ice Cream and buy our customary postcard and keychain. The ice cream was amazingly cheap for in park Yellowstone food and so delicious. We loved the mountain berry/huckleberry ice cream. YUM.

That night, we had reservations for dinner for our anniversary. We drove out of Yellowstone through the south entrance this time and get a sneak peak of Grand Teton National Park, which we would be exploring the next day. The drive down to Jackson Hole area took a surprisingly long time, but thankfully we arrived at our reservation just in time! We were eating at the Bar J Chuckwagon for dinner :)

Dinner was awesome! We splurged a little more than our normal dinner meal (it was about $30 each), but the meal included all you can eat meat, baked beans, baked potatoes, corn bread, applesauce, spice cake, and lemonade--all homemade of course--AND a show from the Bar J Wranglers. It was totally worth the money. The Bar J Wrangers are a country music group (guitar, fiddle, banjo, etc.) who are permanent performers at the Chuckwagon during the summer. They put on a music/comedy/cowboy show. It was awesome, and we were totally pleased with our anniversary dinner choice.

Afterward, we headed to our "hotel" reservation in Victor, Idaho. This was our one total fail of the trip. We booked what was supposed to be a charming Bed and Breakfast little cabin type place on booking.com. Typically booking.com has very trustworthy places. But apparently not! This place dubbed "Yellowstone Cabin" was totally sketchy. This crazy old guy was renting out rooms in his very scary cabin. We had rented one of the suite type rooms that had the attached bathroom. This was apparently this dude's master bedroom that he typically slept in, and we have strong doubts that he did anything to prepare it for guests. The sheets on the bed especially scared me. His toothpaste and razor were sitting on the dirty bathroom countertop. Flies and moths flew around the room. Trash was piled in one corner. Needless to say... It wasn't really the romantic B&B we were gong for on our anniversary, haha. We definitely got a good laugh out of it during and after the experience, at least after our initial disappointment. The next morning, we woke up and got ready for church and found that there was no breakfast provided and that we were supposed to pay in cash. Luckily, we actually were only short about $15 in cash and the dude said he would just take that instead. Sketchy, right? Oh well, overall it was quite the funny experience!! Aside from a sketchy hot shower, we would have just preferred camping again ;) The pictures honestly make it look better than it did!

We had a lovely time at church in Victor. Afterward, we drove back through Jackson Hole and of course stopped to get a picture under the famous antler arch in the middle of town. From there, we drove to Grand Teton National Park!!

Grand Teton National Park

Our first stop was to find a camping spot. Unlike Yellowstone, Grand Teton doesn't do camping reservations unless you have a huge group. We were luckily able to get a campsite at one of the more central campgrounds of the park in Colter Bay. Again, we quickly set up camp in the daylight (it was only around late lunchtime at this point) then headed to String Lake.

There, we had a small picnic then I forced Dustan to take a few photos with me while we were still dressed nice for our anniversary :) We hope to take pictures on or close to our anniversary every year! You can see past ones here. Some are below, but my favorite of the batch is at the very top of this post!

After some cute tripod pics, we changed into some comfier outdoorsy clothes and did the short hike/walk from String Lake to Leigh Lake. It was a short walk, only about one mile to reach Leigh Lake. It was a beautiful walk though. We were right alongside Strong Lake the whole time with the stunning mountain range in the background. Leigh Lake was even prettier, and far less busy. We lounged with our feet in the water for a while and took a short nap. Just before walking back, Dustan took a quick dip in the Lake.

On our walk back to String Lake, we encountered baby deer! They were so cute. We crossed paths with many of them. And we took some more pictures of them and the lake, of course.

By this time, it was starting to get close to dinner and sunset time. Yes, we spent a lot of time chilling on that rock by Leigh Lake, haha. We hopped back in our car and drove over to Schwabacher Landing for sunset. It was a short walk along a stream until we reach the most picturesque spot. There, we set up our camera tripod to mark our spot for photographing the sunset and ate our not so delicious dinner of canned soups and vegetables. We were soon joined by a plethora of other photographers also there for sunset--we were glad we got there early!

 The sunset was certainly beautiful. The colors in the sky were nothing particularly incredible, unfortunately, but the reflection of the Tetons on the small pond definitely made the stop worthwhile. As the sun dropped behind the mountains, there were even some sun rays that added some variety to the sky. It was a very peaceful sunset and we had fun chatting with the other photographers there.

We made a few stops on the way back to our campsite when the sky or view looked particularly stunning (it wasn't quite dark yet). The mountains made a great backdrop where ever we were. Once we reached our campsite, we quickly got ready for bed (yay for campsites with running water bathrooms!) and crashed. We once again chose to not wake up early for any sunrise opportunities, haha. But we did get an early start the next morning and were out of our campsite by 8:00 am to go on a hike!

We went straight to Jenny Lake, supposedly one of the most beautiful spots at the Park. And we didn't disagree! The lake was so serene. We were hiking to Hidden Falls on the opposite side of the Lake. We could have taken an expensive ferry ride across to the other side of the Lake, but we just decided to walk the extra mile to get there. Pretty soon, the trail started climbing and we had amazing views of Jenny Lake.

Once we reached the opposite side of the Lake (and a much higher elevation), it was only a short stroll through a more wooded area until we reached Hidden Falls. Once there, we ate a small snack while simply enjoying the pretty views--along with a bunch of cheaters who took the ferry across the Lake, haha.

After we had gotten our fill, we did the short hike up to Inspiration Point. Normally there is also an upper Inspiration Point, which we had been planning on doing instead. But after talking to a ranger that told us that the hike was over an extra mile for no different of a view, we decided it wasn't going to be worth it. The views at at the lower point were good enough for us!

After some fun pictures, we started the hike back! Again, we chose to not take the ferry and just hike back around the Lake. We made a few stops to eat snacks and take pictures, but mostly just hustled. It was beginning to get very hot! My back was starting to hurt quite a bit from the hike (baby woes), but I was really glad I was still able to complete the hike fine.

After getting back to the trailhead by our car, we rinsed off our feet and Chacos in a river off the side of the road. Then, we stopped in the Jenny Lake gift shop to buy a couple roadtrip snacks and our traditional postcard and keychain of the adventure. Then, it was time to drive back to Provo! We LOVED our short weekend away, just us two. We were so happy to be able to visit these National Parks for our third anniversary/babymoon, it was perfect :)