Saturday, November 29, 2008

What I am thankful for!

I am so excited! Lizzie slept from midnight to 5:30 am on Thursday night! Then she woke up for a feeding and went back to sleep at 6:30, and slept until about 10:00. Yay! By the way, Thursday was Elizabeth's first Thanksgiving. Guess what I'm thankful for?! (Among many other things, of course.) =)

Then last night she slept from 1:30-6:30, then from 7:30-10:30 ish. Hey, I'll take it!

In other news, in the last week or so, Lizzie is getting much better at holding her head up. Her neck is getting quite strong! So cute. She is also smiling way more often and is absolutely the most gorgeous girl I have ever seen.

Oh, and we are also planning a trip out to Las Vegas in February! Elizabeth will be about 3 1/2 months old. I am excited and nervous at the same time. Traveling with a 3 1/2 month old! Eek!

6 weeks 3 days

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Sucky night time routine

I mentioned in the last entry what time Elizabeth goes to bed. To expand: For the last couple weeks, Elizabeth will fall asleep around 11:00 PM or so for about 20-30 minutes. Then she'll wake up and stay up until 3:30-4:00 in the morning! Then she'll usually sleep until around 9:00.

Last night we tried keeping her awake during the evening. Boy was she not happy with me! But apparently that didn't matter because she ended up taking her 20 minute nap anyway and didn't go to bed until almost 4:00.

I just hope she gets her nights and days straightened out soon.

5w6d

Sunday, November 23, 2008

A night out

Last night was the first time that I went out without the baby! Nate convinced me to go to a friend's house who was having a small gathering with our friends. I had a good time - but I missed my baby!

I carried my camera around to show off pictures of her. Everything thought that she is gorgeous. =)

My mom, my dad, and my brother came over and hung out with Lizzie while we went out. I was told that she was a very good girl. She didn't do her staying up until 4:00 am routine that she's been doing lately. I'm so glad that everything went good for them!

Friday, November 21, 2008

A Few Cute Things

Here are just a few things I want to remember of her first 5 weeks...

  • For the first couple weeks when I was feeding Elizabeth, she would drink for about 3 minutes (you could actually time it) and then almost without fail, she'd choke and cough and then immediately fall asleep.
  • Elizabeth can be found wearing one sock most of the time.
  • Elizabeth has earned many nicknames already- Little Munch and Sqeakers are the most used.
  • Lizzie has so many expressions. One of my favorites is when she looks at me when one eye open. I already have hundreds of pictures of all of her expressions!
  • Lizzie grunts like the old lady on MadTV.
  • She found her thumb for the first time (that we've seen) recently. She sucked on it for maybe 15 seconds and had her fingers splayed across her face. Then she accidently gouged her cheek, and drew blood! My poor baby. :( Since then she just sucks on her fist.
  • Elizabeth gave me her first legitimate smile when she was 3 weeks, 6 days old (Nov 11th). Since then she smiles all the time. So freakin precious.

Oh, and Elizabeth was a pumpkin for her 1st Halloween! The cutest pumpkin you've ever seen in your life. We went trick-or-treating at Grandma and Grandpa R's house. Boy did she hit the jackpot! She only went to one house and they gave her all the candy they had because she was so cute! It was really fun surprising them. =)

Thursday, November 20, 2008

5 weeks old already!

My daughter turned 5 weeks old yesterday! She's practically all grown up! I am told over and over again about how time will go by so fast, but holy crap! Maybe it just seems to be going so fast because I'm sleep deprived and things will start to slow down here soon. A girl can dream!

Here's what happened during the first 5 weeks of my daughter's life:

Mom stayed with me the first night in the hospital and Nate stayed the second night. The first night was so hard! Elizabeth had a lot of trouble breastfeeding. She wouldn't latch on very well at all. It was one of the most frustrating things! The lactation consultant spent a lot of time with us, trying to get Liz to latch on. I was getting scared that she wasn't getting enough to eat. On Thursday, she thought that we should supplement her with formula. So she did. She gave her an ounce or so. I sobbed. I thought that I had completely failed as a mother. I kept saying sorry to Elizabeth for giving her formula. That was a tough day. I don't think the hormones were raging at all. ;)

We went home Friday night around 9:00 pm. Grandpa Merle met us there and got to see Lizzie for the first time (he was out of town for work stuff). I think she got Grandpa wrapped around her teeny tiny finger right then and there!

The first week was pretty tough. We had so little sleep and my hormones were going nuts. I cried a lot. I was so overwhelmed. Just reading a little magazine that the hospital gave me on how to care for a newborn made me cry!

Plus, Elizabeth would not sleep on her back. At all. She'd fall asleep and we'd put her downin the crib and she would be awake within minutes. So she spend the first week or so only sleeping on someone's chest. Usually mine. So I slept on the couch with Lizzie sleeping on me. Very cute and cuddly, but exhausting! And we just couldn't go on like that.

So now she sleeps on her stomach. *gasp* We tried putting her on her tummy one day and she slept for a couple hours. It scared the crap out of me, and still does, because of the whole Back to Sleep thing to prevent sids. The only reason I am able to let her sleep on her tummy is because we have the AngelCare motion monitor. An alarm goes off if it doesn't detect movement for 20 seconds. I have been slowly trying to put her on her back during the day, so maybe she'll get used to it. She does a lot better, but still definitely prefers her tummy.

I also want to mention my saint of a mother. She stayed with us for 2 weeks after coming home from the hospital. She slept on an air mattress in the living room - one that had a hole in it somewhere because it needed reinflated every night. Poor mom! She did all of the laundry and dishes and general cleaning of the house, not to mention all of her help with Lizzie. She totally saved me from having a complete melt down. I don't know what I would have done without her!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

She's here!

My little angel is here and she's perfect in every way! It's still a little hard to believe sometimes. And I really can't believe that she'll be 3 weeks old tomorrow! It's already going by so fast.

So apparently I slacked off at blogging a bit during my pregnancy.

Here's my birth story:
I was induced on October 15th. We got to the hospital around 7:15. Lab came in first thing and took my blood. That was the worst needle experience of my life. She had to dig around for my vein!

My doctor came in around 8:15 and broke my water. It was really weird. I just felt a big gush. And then lots more gushes every time I switched positions. At that time I was about 2 1/2 cm dilated and 60% effaced.

At 8:30, the nurse started the pitocin. Around 10:00 I started feeling contractions. They were pretty mild and didn't hurt. Shortly before 11:00, the nurse checked me again - I was now at 3cm/60%/-2 station. Contractions were also getting a bit stronger.

Around noon I got out of bed and sat in the rocking chair. My contractions were even stronger and I mostly felt them in my lower back. It helped when Nate or mom pushed on my tailbone during contractions. After about 10 minutes of sitting in the chair, I got really nauseous, really fast. I started vomiting right before they got the trash can to me. I was still puking when the pediatrician came in to visit for the first time. Great first impression I made!

Apparently vomiting helps with dilating. The nurse checked me again after I threw up - 3cm/80%/-1 station. Some progress! I threw up several more times during labor. Each time it came on really fast.

At 1:00 PM, the anesthesiologist came in to give me the epidural. I sat on the side of the bed, leaning on the bed tray. I think I jumped a little when he gave me the first shot to numb the area. It stung a little bit, but wasn't too bad. He worked pretty quickly and was done before I knew it. Each contraction after the epidural hurt a little less. I even got to take a little nap while Nate rubbed my feet!

At 6:15, I was around 7-8cm/100%/and between 0 to +1 station. At 6:45, they had me start pushing. Then at 7:00, shift change! My wonderful nurse left and a new lady came in right after I started pushing. Nice.

The contractions were hurting again. I thought maybe the epidural was wearing off, but maybe the contractions were just that intense. I don't know. Either way, it sucked. Nate stayed up by my head and held me up when I was pushing. He also had to count to 10 A LOT. I had to push 3 times during each contraction, and sometimes the mean new nurse made me go a 4th time. I could barely make it through the 2nd push each time, so I can't imagine the 4th push ever being that effective. Several times I just physically couldn't push anymore and would just stop. Then Nate would say, "7, 8, 9, 10" really fast. Ha. I don't remember laughing at all at the time, but I do remember thinking that was funny.

Mom held one leg and the nurse held the other while I was pushing. Around 8:30 or so, my doctor came in and they started getting everything ready. I knew things were getting close! I was almost done! At one point, a nurse came in and said there was another woman in labor at another hospital and that Dr. S was available for me. She wanted my doctor to leave me! My doctor had to say a couple times that he would go there when he was done - he even sounded irritated at her! (Nate, my hero, said later that he wasn't worried about my doctor leaving - that there was no way he was going to leave the room until the baby was out. =)

When the baby was crowning, the doctor said something about her having lots of hair. To which Nate said, "Are you jealous?" Ha! Not the time to piss off the doctor! Luckily, he laughed at that!

So at 8:53 PM, after 2 very long hours of pushing, my baby girl was born. After the nurse started to take her away, mom said that I wanted to hold her. She brought the baby back and laid her on my chest. Hands down the most beautiful baby I have ever seen.

She laid there on my chest while we both cried. They cleaned her off and eventually asked if they could go weigh her. I suppose. =) She weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and was 20.25 inches long. With the one minute APGAR test, she scored an 8, and she scored a 9 on the five minute.

She totally stole my heart. I am head over heels in love with her.

Thank you God for my beautiful, wonderful, healthy baby girl.