2 months

The little princess is now two months old.  Sheesh....how'd that happen?  She's now 9 pounds 5 ounces and still 21.5 inches long, but the doctor thinks she's longer than that and was just scrunching up when she was measured.

She is now sleeping through the night (YEAH!!!) and I don't know how we managed that.  I didn't follow any book, or doctor's advise.  I just let her lead the way and tried different things until we found the magic formula, which is a routine of jammies, bottle, burp, swaddle, and her Twilight Turtle (this thing is a DREAM!!  Ocean sounds with a gentle light show.....perfect for her!)

She is the happiest on her changing pad....I have no idea why!  She loves to smile and laugh and coo.  She recognizes voices and faces now, which makes this mama happy when she gets home from work and gets a huge toothless grin when she sees and hears me.

I just packed up her newborn clothes last week and now she's exclusively in her 0-3 clothes (unless Daddy is watching her and then you never know what she might be wearing!) even though some of them are STILL too big for her.  At this rate, she won't be in her 3-6 month clothes until Christmas!

First trip to Bar Harbor!!

One Month

How is it even possible that she's one month old already????  WOW!

That is our little princess who has taken over her personality and has decided to live up to everyone calling her a princess.  She is our high maintenance baby!!  Clearly this child is mine as she has NO patience whatsoever....no really.  NONE!  She will not tolerate one second of staying in a dirty diaper and you better prepare that bottle with lightening speed for her or else she will let you know of her displeasure!  It's actually really comical.  My favorite quote for her is "And though she be but little, she is fierce."  Oh, Shakespeare.  You always did know what to say!

She just started fitting into her newborn clothes a week ago and now they are getting a little short.  She's got skinny little legs and arms, but her belly is getting pudgy.  She's gotten better at sleeping longer lengths and we're only up with her once in the middle of the night now.  And she hates bath time!

 The little princess

Happy princess.....

Wait, no.....I've had enough now, Mom!

She is honestly so cute and that makes up for the cranky moments she has.  She's starting to smile and coo some, loves her swing, usually does well in the car and in her stroller, and loves her blankets.

We are very excited (and very nervous) about the road trip to Maine next week.  While we can't wait for family and friends to meet Bostyn, it's going to be a LOOOONG two days up and two days back in the car with a 6 week old princess.  At times I think we're crazy for even considering this trip, but we think it'll be worth it.  My little car will be jam packed with her "stuff" for the week.  I'm hoping to get some great pictures out of the trip though (Zack.....that is your mission!!) and be able to relax some before having to go back to work on the 10th!

Playing Catch Up

WOW!  It has been so long since I posted.  Thank you, Oliver, my fat grey cat for making my laptop die right when I needed it most!  You are so lucky that you love that little princess!!

Ok....so here's a few pictures of the baby shower from June 10th (wow, two months ago!)

I worked another month after this up until July 13th when one of my doctor's said it was time to stop working because I needed to rest before she got here and I was probably getting ready for an induction which would be a tiring process.  So what to do a week before baby gets here and no work?  Wash all of her clothes and get her nursery 100% completed.  Here are the pics!

 Clothes....she needs NO MORE clothes....but we'll get more for her anyway!

 The dogs were SUCH a big help....HA!

Finished crib bedding!

I love this chair.  Love it, love it, love it!!!  And yes, that's me at 40 weeks pregnant.

The week of her due date, I had 3 doctor's appointments.  One on Monday, where Dr. L said that i still wasn't progressing and no induction date would be set yet, come back on Wednesday.  Bummer.  On Wednesday, Dr. C said still no great progress.  At this point, I had a choice.  Set the induction for the next day, knowing that I wasn't a good candidate for it and that my odds of winding up with a c-section would be higher, or come back on Friday and we could re-evaluate.  Ok, fine, I'll wait two more days.  Friday came and slight progress was made but since Tuesday would be one week past my due date and they won't let me go further than that, we decided to set the induction for Sunday night so that I would have her Monday.  I stood outside her office as she called over to the hospital to set the induction for Sunday night.  She told me to get to the L&D floor at 5pm on Sunday and set my 4 week post delivery appt before I left her office.  Got it.  Ok, Sunday night.  5pm.  L&D floor.  These details are important.  I wouldn't forget this.....really, even with pregnancy brain.

My parents were in town on their vacation (im)patiently waiting for her to get her.  Every day I was guaranteed to be asked 5 times, "Do you want to go to the hospital?" after any wince or deep breath.  I'm not a patient person to begin with, people!!

Sunday afternoon, the 22nd, came, final dinner before going to the hospital was eaten, bags were packed, and I was ready to go get this whole thing over with!

Stephen and I drove to the hospital and mom and dad stayed home with the fur babies.  We knew this was going to be a LONG process.  We arrived at the hospital at a quarter to 5 and go to the L&D floor to check in.  It was eerily quiet and I knew Sunday's were their slowest day of the week.  When I gave my name to the nurse at the desk, she politely told me that my induction was NOT scheduled for Sunday night, but for Monday night.  WAIT.  WHAT????  No, no, no, no.  Dr. C said SUNDAY.  I heard her say this 3 times and heard her tell the hospital while I was standing RIGHT THERE to book me for SUNDAY night.  Oh dear god, do not do this to a 41 week pregnant lady who is already nervous.  Poor nurse Penny.  She didn't know who she was dealing with!!  She digs deeper and sees my booking sheet from the doctor says Sunday, but whoever scheduled me in the system put me in for Monday.  She can't admit me without doctor's permission and verification of the error.  It's Sunday night.  My doctor isn't the on call doctor for the weekend.  Doctors tend to not answer phone calls from the hospital on the weekends if they aren't on call.  See where I'm going with this?  She calls my doc and leaves a message and tells me to give it 15 minutes to see if she calls back.  Nope, no luck.  She offers to call the on call doctor (who isn't part of the practice I see) and he won't override the schedule issue since I'm not his patient and he doesn't want to get in the middle of it (and honestly, I don't blame him for that).  It is now 5:30pm.  Poor nurse Penny calls another doctor in my practice to see if they will override the schedule issue.  She instead offers to call my doctor and discuss it with her before overriding the issue.  No luck.  She doesn't answer her call either.  So instead of making me go home, she offers to be my on call doc for the night if anything goes wrong and tells the nurse to admit me and stop stressing me out!  At this point, it's 6:15pm.  I've been alternately fuming and crying.  So I finally get admitted and put into a L&D room.  PHEW!  Finally, now the fun part begins.  Twelve hours of cervidil to get started.  Dr. L came in at 7:30am to break my water and start the pitocin.  I got no sleep overnight to speak of so I was already tired at this point!  I got my epidural at 10:30am and that helped ease the contractions, but I was still only 3-4 cm dilated.  The day progressed SLOWLY until about 4:15pm when the contractions got very strong and I could feel them.  The nurse checked and I was 8 cm.  Not even a half hour later, I felt the need to push through contractions, and they checked again and I was almost to 10.  They got everything ready in the room, and poor nurse Penny from the night before was my delivery nurse!  She was so sweet and so great.  Two hours later at 6:44pm, she finally emerged, just absolutely perfect and tiny at 6 pounds 8 ounces and a crazy amount of hair.  We had the doctor and the nurses cracking up after she got here because to distract me from what was going on, we were singing the ESPN Monday night football theme song and laughing.

And she's just perfect!

40+ weeks

Tomorrow night (Sunday the 22nd) we have a scheduled induction. Apparently this kid really doesn't want to come out and needs to be convinced to get out! We will update you all once she gets here!

40 weeks

Hello due date. Goodbye due date. Ok, I know most first time moms go past their due date, but I kept being told that I'd probably go earlier due to the nature of my job and being on my feet 40 hours a week. Yeah, that didn't happen. Last Friday was my last day of work per my doctor and an induction was SUPPOSED to be scheduled for tomorrow. Today's appointment did not support that plan. I was told today that if I was to be induced tomorrow with my stats being as they were today, I had a higher chance of ending up needing a c-section (which I don't really want unless medically necessary), so she gave me two options. Option 1: be induced tomorrow, for no reason other than to have her by the weekend and knowing my chances of c-section are higher. Option 2: Go back Friday,get checked again for more "favorable" stats. However, if I'm still not favorable Friday, they will induce me Sunday night because at that point they deem the induction medically necessary as they don't want me to go more than a week overdue because more complications can arise after 41 weeks. I appreciated her honesty and candor with me today even though those were not the options I wanted to hear. Obviously I chose option 2 as it seemed the more medically sound and logical choice (even though the impatient side of me was screaming for option 1!!). The families have a cluster of birthdays coming up in the next few days and I really wanted to avoid her being born on a family members birthday, but I know that's out of my control. I was just hoping she would be here by now! There's still a chance I could go into labor on my own before Sunday, but chances are still slim there. That's all for now!!

39 weeks

Sorry for no posts in so long, but my wonderful grey fluffy cat chewed the cord on my laptop and shorted out a part internally. Great job, Oliver. So I'm stuck posting from my phone. I'll have pictures posted hopefully this weekend. So I'm 39 weeks, barely any labor signs (dialated 1cm, random contractions, and she's dropped), and it's so hot here in SC!! My swollen piggy feet actually hurt now. The good news is tomorrow is my last day of work! HELLO maternity leave! She wants me off my feet because they are talking about an induction mid week next week if I don't go into labor on my own. So I go in on Monday to check progress and then we will schedule the induction. Her words to me today were, "go watch trashy tv and rest because by next Friday, you'll have a baby to take care of and your life will forever change!". I like the sound of that!!! Every day I tell her why today would be a great day to come out and greet the world, but she is stubborn.....shocker! The nursery is done! We picked up the chair this week and I'm in love with it! It's a power recliner glider in custom fabric. It's so comfortable and looks awesome in the room. Her car seat and stroller that match the pack and play are here and ready for her. My bag isn't packed for the hospital yet, but everything is together in one place. So really, we are ready for her to get here already. Stay tuned for baby shower pics, belly pics, and nursery pics! And by next Friday, princess pictures!

33 weeks

Yup, I skipped 32 weeks.  I wasn't feeling well at all and really didn't feel like having my picture taken.  I thought about using Luna as a stand in for the picture for the fun of it, but I didn't have the energy to do that either.  Oh well.

It's so weird to say I'm due NEXT MONTH.  Where did that time go?  I've had two complete strangers look at me and say, "You must be having a girl!" this week.  I find that funny.  They did have a 50/50 shot of getting it right.

I've officially gained 27 pounds....and I FEEL like I've gained more than that!  My appetite has gone down (no more room for my stomach in there apparently!), I'm drinking tons of water, but the weight keeps piling on.  Oh well, at least my blood sugar levels are good, hemoglobin levels are good, blood pressure is good, minor Braxton Hicks contractions that are few and far between, so all in all, not too bad.  Just need to stay off my feet more these days which is not happening.  The restless leg syndrome hit pretty hard last week too and I've found that keeping my feet up in bed with a heating pad over my calves has helped (thanks, Stephen!!), and I should probably stick to 40 hours a week or less at work instead of the 45 I'm averaging. 

I am halfway done with the nursery bedding.  Since my shower is HERE next weekend I really need to finish it up this week!  One day in my sewing room should fix that.  Pieces are cut, just need to be sewn together and finalized.  It'll happen.  I'm not worried......yet.  I'll be worried Sunday when people are arriving and I don't have it done for them to see!  It'll be great once it's all done though!  And just in case you want to see the invite for the shower, here it is.