Photo Shoots

Last week, my youngest sister came to visit.

While she was here she did a few photo shoots of our precious little one.

She took so many adorable pictures it was really hard to narrow it down,

so I did the best I could.. lol!

I love this one because our little one LOVES her arms and hands!

When we burp her or lay her on our chests, she always tucks her arms under her head like this.

 She also LOVES her hair! And will play with it often.

Also, an easy way to calm her down is to play with her hair,

and her favorite part of getting a bath is getting her hair washed!

 These next two crack me up, it looks like she's talking on a cell phone or something.

 And it must have been a very intense call! 

 I love her little "O" face!

And I just love this one

 I love how peaceful she looks when she sleeps,

 although she's pretty peaceful when she's awake too.

 We had to document the door and other decorations we were greeted with when we came home from the hospital!

 We went to my parent's home this past weekend and my sister did more photo shoots for us there too.

 During the BYU football game, so our little one is in her BYU gear!

 We also had her take some family pictures for us.

 I love this one of my sweet husband!

I saw a picture frame in Hobby Lobby while I was waiting for one of my doctor appointments that said,

"I never knew how much I loved your father, until I saw how much he loves you!"

Over the past 19 days, I have realized just how true that is!

Every time I see my sweet husband look at our sweet little girl, my heart melts and I fall more and more in love with him!

See what I mean?!

 She had pretty much had it with pictures at this point.

Thanks Sister! We love these pictures so much! And you of course!

Also, a shout out to my Momma for letting me borrow her shirt, 

I spilled ranch dressing on my shirt right before we were going to take pictures.. lol!

Starting her young

If I haven't told you this already, it is something you should know:

My sweet husband loves airplanes!

So when we were at Pearl Harbor and he found an ABC book about airplanes,

we knew it had to come home with us for our sweet little girl!

When she was 4 days old, he read it to her.

And she actually paid attention and was fascinated by it!

I thought it was one of the cutest things ever.

See for yourself:

 Family reading time

 Grandma helped by holding her so she could see the pictures.

Welcome Baby Girl!

So remember how I felt like a ticking time bomb, every bomb eventually blows right? Well, I had my 39 week appointment on Thursday the 4th. At my appointment the doctor told me that I was dilated to a 5 now, since we live an hour from the hospital and our doctor was on call that day she suggested that she break my water. Since I was so far dilated and progressed the doctor didn't think that I would make it back to the hospital if I went into labor on my own. As we thought about it we decided we agreed with her. She asked us to stay around town that day because the hospital was full at the moment so they would call us when they had an opening. So we spent the day there; we went to a movie, out to eat at Macaroni Grill, window shopped, bought some books, went to the park and read, went out to dinner, did some more window shopping. At this point we decided to call the hospital, they were still full and we decided to head home and wait for them to call there. We were tired and knew it could be a long night if they called at 1 am. So we drove home, my parents arrived soon after that, and then we went to bed.

At 4 am the hospital finally called! We quickly got ready and headed down. We arrived just before 5 am. They took me into the room and hooked me up, asked us all sorts of questions, had us fill out a few forms, and then we waited for my doctor to arrive to get the party started. The doctor arrived around 7 am and broke my water. She said to have us wait until 9 to see if my body would start contractions on their own and if they hadn't by 9 to start pitocin, which I really didn't want to have to have, so I prayed I would start on my own.

All hooked up

By 8 am I was definitely feeling the contractions, or thought I was. I kept looking at the monitors and it showed pretty much a flat line for my contractions. I almost died. I keeping thinking, I'm the biggest whimp! My plan was to try to go as long as I could without pain medication, but then when I couldn't take it any more to get pain meds. My sweet husband was an AWESOME coach! He rubbed my back and coached me through each contraction. After a while of these contractions that weren't showing up, my sweet husband went to get me some more pillows to put in between my legs. He talked to the nurse and she came in to see how I was doing. As she came in I was having a contraction, it still wasn't showing up. She checked my monitor, adjusted it a little and all of a sudden the monitor shot up, I was most definitely having contractions. And they were coming fast. I felt much better then, apparently I wasn't as big of a whimp as I thought. The contractions were coming about 2-3 minutes apart and were about 1.5-2 minutes long! My sweet husband was awesome, he helped me through each one and told me when they were almost over. He kept telling me how good I was doing. 

Around 8:30 our doctor came in to introduce us the new on-call doctor, who would most likely be delivering our baby. They also came in to see if we were having contractions, and boy were we! So they left and let us keep going. At 9 I asked for some IV pain meds, oh was that nice. It took some of the pain away and made it so I could relax a little more in between contractions, in that short little window of time. The nurse asked if I wanted her to start preparing me for an epidural, I said, "Yes, please!" So she started that process and my sweet husband kept helping me through the contractions. The nurse checked me around this time and I was at a 6 or a 7. Around 9:30 the anesthesiologist came in to give me the epidural. He said that I would feel a little pressure, after those contractions, getting the epidural was nothing! After a few minutes all I could feel was a little pressure during each contraction. After all the action of feeling the contractions right on top of each other, we started to feel a little bored.. lol! We read a little and when the pressure started to get a little more intense my sweet husband rubbed my back some more and helped take my mind off the pain. Around 10 the nurse came in and put an oxygen mask on me because the baby's oxygen levels were a little low. Around 10:30 my sweet husband started to read to me because I was trying to focus during the periods I felt the pressure. At about 11 I said to my sweet husband, "I think I need to push. I'm not entirely sure what the feeling is supposed to feel like, but I think I need to push." He said, "do you want me to call the nurse?" The nurse had said that she would come in and take the oxygen mask off in a little while, so I said, "let's just wait until she comes back to take the mask off." So we waited for about 5 minutes and I said, "Uhh, no I think I really need to push, either I need to push or I need to go to the bathroom." My sweet husband said, "I'll call the nurse." So he called the nurse and after a while she came in. She said, "let me check you." She looked at me and said, "Uhh, yeah, you are fully dilated and the baby is at a plus 2! I'll go call the doctor and see if she wants us to have you push while we wait for her to come over" (our hospital is in the same parking lot as my doctor's office, it's a group practice so the on-call doctor also works there). She came right back and said we'll have you push a few times before the doctor gets here, we just need to prep a few things. After they finished preparing things and about a million people came in.. lol, they got me ready to push. So with my sweet husband by my side we started the process. We did one set of pushes as the doctor walked in.

The doctor got ready, we did about 4 or 5 sets of pushes, and at 11:37 am our sweet girl was born! It was really quick! I was surprised at how quickly she came because I'd read about other people pushing for 1 or 2 hours with their first baby. Not this little one, she was ready to come I guess! They immediately gave her to me, as she was on top of me they rubbed her down a little to clean her off a bit and then they let us do skin to skin for about an hour. They measured her and checked her vitals all while she was on me. I thought that was really nice. The only time they took her from me during that first hour was to weigh her. She weighed 7 lbs 1 oz and was 20.5 inches long (we are little confused at how long she really was because her little tag in her hospital crib said 21.5, but all the doctor's notes I read/saw said 20.5, so I think we'll go with that. That's what the pediatrician has on file). She came out just perfect, screaming and pink! She also came out ready to eat and nursed like a champ!

Fresh Beautiful Baby! Getting weighed

First time Daddy held her

My sweet husband held her for a bit as well. Then after an hour or so the nurse came in and gave her her first bath. My parents and one of my sisters had arrived by then as well. Daddy held her after her bath and then everyone else got a turn too. It was heaven! After a little bit longer they moved us to a recovery room, which was pretty similar to the delivery room, it just had a more comfortable bed. My sister's husband came around that time too. We just enjoyed our time enjoying our little one. Our family left around 5 or 6 and then we had the night together. It felt a little weird to be just the three of us, but it was also a very sweet time together!

Just after her bath

Daddy with his perfectly clean baby!

First Family Picture

Baby Girl with Grandpa L

Baby Girl with Grandma L

Baby Girl with Aunt S

Baby Girl with Uncle J

Baby Girl with Grandma L and Grandpa L

Baby Girl with Mommy

By the next day we were ready to go home. They told us that she needed a few tests right at 24 hours, so we waited for those to happen and then we waited and waited and waited for them to let us leave. Finally around 3 or 4 we were on our way home! My sweet mother-in-law arrived just before we did and my brother arrived just after we did. We spent the rest of Saturday watching the BYU football game and enjoying our baby girl! And some delicious cake her grandma brought!

Baby Girl with Daddy, all ready to go home!

Baby Girl with Uncle P

Baby Girl with Grandma C

Baby Girl, Mommy, Grandma C, and delicious cake Grandma C brought

And for your viewing pleasure: Baby Girl making funny faces with Daddy, lol!

Ticking Time Bomb...

For the past three weeks, I've been dilated to 4 and 100% effaced.

I've felt an awful lot like a ticking time bomb.

Especially at my 36 weeks appointment when my doctor first told me that I was that dilated.

You see, my sweet husband had left that morning for a work trip,

my sister thankfully was able to come to the doctor appointment with me so I wasn't driving alone.

As the doctor told me this I had flashes of Father of the Bride 2 going through my mind,

(Annie's doctor tells her that the baby is at least a week away, so her husband goes on a business trip to Tokyo).

Thankfully, my sweet husband was only going to Ohio and only going for about a day 

(he flew out Thursday and flew back Friday).

As you can imagine, I started to freak out a little,

I really want my husband with me throughout the labor and delivery process.

I wish I could have seen his face when I told him the news.

I actually thought he was still on the plane so I just sent him a quick text telling him what the doctor told me.

He responded back with, "What?!!!"

Apparently, he had to change planes and I sent him a text just at the right time, the layover was like 15 minutes.

He also asked if he needed to come home that night.

I told him that the doctor was having me schedule my next appointment so I think he'd be fine.

Thankfully, he didn't come home because here we are three weeks later, and still no baby.

But we're okay, she can come when she is ready,

I thought Labor day would have been a fitting day for her to come, but apparently she felt differently... lol!

Labor Day was also exactly 39 weeks so technically she still has another week to bake if she'd like.

She was also very nice to her mom and my water didn't break while playing the organ,

this was a fear I had. How awful would that be, I mean seriously! August was my month to play, so thankfully we made it through!

I've had a lot of time to think recently and I have learned a few things that I would like to share.

I'm so grateful that we can learn from each other.

The night I got home from the doctor I read just about everyone of my friend's blogs that had talked about their birth story. It was very helpful to see what they went through and how they handled the situation. I'm so grateful for people who share, it really helped me! Infertility blogs really helped me as well during our battle with infertility. I'm so grateful that we can learn from each other.

On a side note, I've been thinking a lot about something one of my sister-in-laws said to me, it was during my first trimester, possibly the beginning of the second, I can't remember for sure. But she asked if I was sick. I said, "No, I've been really lucky." She said, "That's great! I'm so happy for you!" Then she said something along the lines of I'm sure many people have told you they hate you because it's so unfair that you aren't sick and they were so sick, or that they are super jealous. She said, "Why do women do that? Why can't we just be happy for people when they have good things happen to them?" That really made me think. As I thought about it more and more, I decided that I need do what she said and just be happy for people when good things come their way.
I'm so grateful that we get to continually learn and become better!