How are we doing?

That seems to be the "question du jour" (does that mean "of the day?" I don't actually speak French). In any case, that is the question that everyone wants to know lately. The answer to the question?

Well....it depends on the day. Actually, it depends on the hour.

But I continue to believe this is all normal and to be expected. Right?!? Right.

Anyway, Baby Riley is now about 3 1/2 weeks old. CANNOT believe that! She? Is perfect and wonderful and fantastic and amazing and the love of my life and....should I go on? I can finally tell that she is getting bigger. I only know this because she actually feels heavier to me now. Our scale at home is super crappy, so I have no clue what she actually weighs now, but it's got be at least 8 1/2 pounds. She still doesn't fit well into any of the 0-3 month size clothes, so she's still wearing LOTS of newborn gowns, but that's OK - they are easier, anyway! So, in addition to being bigger, her behaviors are changing some, too. She is doing a great job of lifting her head when she's on her tummy. Sometimes, she also likes to sit straight up in my lap and pretty much balances her head all on her own. She seems like a much older baby to me when she does this!

I think the hardest thing I'm dealing with when it comes to "taking care of baby" is that she's rather inconsistent. Meaning that every few days, she changes her routine. She'll have one routine for a few days and, just when I'm starting to adjust and get used to it....she changes the routine! Argh!

All in all, though, our girl is a really good baby. She only cries when something is truly wrong and, even then, she doesn't really "cry" much. Having a dirty diaper doesn't always make her cry, even! She does get fussy sometimes, but she generally quiets down VERY quickly if someone will just hold her. I'd say that's her biggest "thing" right now....she just wants to be HELD sometimes. I think she just gets tired of sitting or laying by herself. And who can blame her? I'm sure the rotation of "lay in the pack n play," "sit in the bouncy seat," and "hang out in the swing" gets old sometimes. Currently, her three favorite things to do are:

1. Be held so she can stare (fixate?) at the ceiling fan in the living room

2. Be held and snuggled down all cozy enough to sleep in someone's arms

3. Have "tummy time" on mommy or daddy's shoulder/chest. She almost always falls asleep when we do this, but still. She loves it.

See?

OK, so now you know that Baby Riley is doing great.....wanna know how I'm doing?

Well, the short answer is, "I don't know." I'm hanging in there and I have a TON of great support - which is truly awesome. That's all I feel like saying for now.

I can tell you that, over the last week or so, I (and we) have gotten out of the house a lot more! I've been out by myself, mostly just to run errands and do grocery shopping and stuff, but it's still nice to get out and about. We've also had some outings together - with AND without Daddy, even! We went to see Daddy at work last week and drove out to my mom's house to visit. My mom and I also took Riley on her first shopping trip last week! We went to both Target and Sam's. And, just like any daughter of mine would do, guess when was the ONLY time she woke up on this outing? While inside TARGET, of course. Clearly, she didn't want to miss her first visit to our favorite place. That's my girl!! :-)

OK, how about some more pictures? Remember those black and white pregnancy photos we took and hung on the wall in the nursery? Well, one of my goals for her first few weeks of life was to take some black and white photos of her to hang there, too. I kept meaning to do it earlier, but it just didn't happen. We finally took some the other day. These are the three that I think we've decided to frame and put up in her room:

This one wasn't "planned"...but it just turned out to be too sweet to NOT put up (I think I've already shown this to you, actually):

This one was sort of planned. I knew I wanted a "baby feet" picture on the wall, but I wasn't sure what I wanted it to look like. Then I saw some gorgeous newborn photos on this bloggy friend's website. I just HAD to copy the idea! (hope you don't mind, T!)

Then there is this one. This one was also sort of planned in advance. I've known for a LONG time that I wanted a picture of Baby Riley all curled up in her Daddy's hands/arms. My original "vision" was to do one where he is holding her entirely in his two hands. But.....I think we waited a little too long and she got a little too big. So, we laid her over his arms instead. And I am JUST as happy with this one. I LOVE IT!!

OK, I want to show you one more. I don't think this one will hang on the wall (we are out of space and frames), but I love this shot, too. This one was H's mom's idea....I think his cousin did one like this with her little girl. Our wedding rings hanging from her sweet little toes! :-)

Oh, and MOMS-TO-BE.....stay tuned!! I'm working on my "stuff you should know" post! :-)

The first TWO WEEKS!

Yesterday marked the day that our sweet baby girl has been in this world for two weeks. I thought I'd try to update on what all happened and how things have been going during that time. (warning---this could be another long post!). First of all, there are a couple of things I thought of from our time in the hospital that I forgot to mention in the last post.

Hospital stuff: I forgot to talk about the one "scary issue" we had during my labor. Everything is obviously OK, but this was a big deal to us at the time. See, at some point during labor (I honestly can't even remember WHEN during labor this was happening...), my blood pressure was repeatedly dropping too low. Everytime this would happen to me, it would cause the baby's heartrate to drop in response. This was very concerning to the nurses, which made me freak out, but only a little bit. They finally decided to give me some kind of meds through the IV to stabalize my blood pressure and that seemed to do the trick - both for me and the baby.

I also forgot to tell you how many WONDERFUL visitors we had during our days in the hospital! Obviously, all of our parents were there (including H's dad and stepmom from East TN, whose visit to town that weekend was coincidentally well-timed). My brother and SIL and my three nephews, who were all adorably excited to meet Baby Riley....H's sister....H's "brother/cousin"....a TON of my good friends.....just loads of people who all couldn't wait to ooh and aah over our sweet girl! (We've also had some fantastic visitors since we've been home, which has also been nice!)

The first few days home: We came home from the hospital on Sunday 1/17/10 (the hospital staff said we could go home on Saturday if we wanted to. Um....thank you very much, but NO!). We live literally 2 miles from the hospital, but that drive to our house seemed to take forever. Honestly, those first few days at home are kind of a blur to me. My mom stayed over for the first four nights to help out -- what a lifesaver! It was nice to have an "experienced" hand here, not to mention just having the extra set of hands, period. H was off work that whole first week, too. There's NO WAY I could have done it without both of them that week! Riley decided that her "fussy time" was going to be from about 9 or 10:00pm until about 2:00am that first week. I would go to bed around 9:00 those nights and my mom and H would stay up and get her through that fussy time. That way, I could get up again in the middle of the night and feed her and take over til the next day. It was exhausting, but it worked pretty well. Here is a picture of her first "bath" (she's only getting sponge-style baths at this point):




And speaking of feeding her....

Breastfeeding: So, I was completely unsure of this before I got pregnant....actually, I thought I would really never be interested at ALL in breastfeeding. After I got pregnant, though, H and I had several conversations about it and I did some "soul-searching" over it. I decided that I wanted to at least give it a try. H really believes in the benefits of breastfeeding for the baby and I just couldn't deny the cost-saving aspect of it. I knew before she was ever born that, even if breastfeeding worked for us, I couldn't get too "attached" to it, since I have to go back to work after 6 weeks of maternity leave. Anyhoo.... the nurses in the hospital were SUPER helpful to me in learning how to do it. And, I'm happy to say that it has been going very well - much better than I ever expected!! No, if you're wondering, I haven't gotten all crazy "La Leche League" over it or anything, but it is working for us and I'm happy about that. I like it because it's easy...I don't have to mix bottles, or wash bottles or any of that, which is awesome. Especially in the middle of the night! The only thing I sometimes DON'T like about it is that it puts all the responsibility for feeding on me. I always have to be "on" and ready to feed her every 3 hours or so. But, I've overcome that one hitch by letting H or my mom give her a bottle of formula every once in a while, so I can have a break (usually to get some sleep!). And, speaking of the breastfeeding working well, here's how I know it's working.....

Pediatrician visits: We've had two visits to the pediatrician now and both visits have been absolutely FANTASTIC!! I love this doctor so much. He is the same doctor that H went to as a child (which made me think he was going to be ancient, but it turns out he's not!). Our first visit was the Tuesday after she was born. She weighed in at 7lbs, 6oz that day (down only 4oz from her birth weight of 7lbs, 10oz) and she still measured 20" long. He spent a lot of time looking her over and he gave her an "A+" in all regards. He actually spent most of the time talking to us (me) about breastfeeding. He is very encouraging and very down to earth - I love the way he explains things in a real-world way for us! He wanted her to be back up to her birth weight by the next visit, to make sure that the breastfeeding was working. Here's a pic of that first visit:




So, our second visit was a week and a half later, on 1/28/10 (Riley was 13 days old at this point). I couldn't believe it, but Riley weighed in at 8lbs, 1oz!! She gained 11 ounces since our first doctor visit. Wow! She also measured 20.5" long. The doctor came in and asked me how the breastfeeding was going. I said, "OK, I guess." He was all, "What do you mean you GUESS??" I wasn't sure how to take this question and then he just smiled and patted me on the shoulder. He said, "I don't know exactly what you're doing, but KEEP DOING IT, Mama, because it's working!" Phew!! This was so reassuring!! It was exactly what I needed to hear! He checked her all out again and gave her another fantastic report! We had a ton of questions for him and he patiently answered every one. We also wanted to know how important it is to keep her on a strict schedule for feeding.... because everything I've read says she must be eating every 3 hours. But most of the time, once she gets tired and falls asleep for the night, she does NOT want to be woken up to eat! He said it's perfectly OK to let her sleep. He said she'll wake up if she's hungry enough, or I can wake her up if I "need" to feed her. Otherwise, we can go as long between feedings as we're both comfortable with. He explained that the longer it's been between feedings, the more she'll eat, so she'll still get as much as if we were feeding more often. THIS WAS SUCH A RELIEF! Hooray for letting a newborn and her mama sleep!! :-)

Here's a picture of us on our way to the second doctor visit. It was really cold out, so she got to wear her adorable little "fuzzy bear" cover up thing:




Um....about me: You know how you hear about new mother's emotions being a bit out of control? Well, uh, I've been a textbook example of that these past two weeks! More than anything, I've been completely overcome with love and complete amazement for this precious baby girl. I never knew it was even possible to feel love like this! It truly surpasses anything I've ever known before. And I've been lucky that even on the roughest, most stressful of days (or nights), those feelings I have towards her have never faltered one bit. I look at her sweet little face and I know without a doubt that this is THE greatest love of my life!



Now. Since I was so honest in that last paragraph....I think it is equally important to be honest when I talk about this next bit. So, here goes.

I have had MORE than one "mental breakdown" in these first two weeks. The first came last Saturday, after we had been home for one week. As I already mentioned, my mom stayed overnight the first four nights, from Sunday - Wednesday. Looking back on those days, I think this allowed me to get enough sleep to keep going. We were feeling pretty confident about things, so we tried it on our own for Thursday and Friday nights. H still took the evening shift (aka, at that time, Riley's "fussy time") and allowed me to sleep for a couple of hours until I got back up in the middle of the night with her. I was getting sleep, but it was obviously in 2-3 hour periods, between feedings. This interrupted sleep was NOT something I was used to.

So...fast forward to Saturday. I had a huge mental breakdown. I literally cried all day long. I couldn't tell you now what got me started, but once I got going, I just could not stop. H and my mom were both great and very supportive -- as were a couple of my best friends who I talked to on the phone. Obviously, I was sleep deprived, exhausted and feeling more than a little overwhelmed with everything. I was feeling like there was no way I would be able to do this; I just couldn't understand how anyone makes it work. I wanted to give up on breastfeeding and just ask my mother to move in with us and be the "night-nurse" or something! Obviously, I didn't do either of those things. I took some time to myself and H and my mom took over for the ENTIRE night on Saturday night, so I could get about 7 hours of UN-interrupted sleep. That night's sleep did wonders for me! On Sunday, I knew that was just what I had needed! I felt refreshed and I didn't want to give up on everything anymore. Yay!

Since then, I've had a few other breakdowns, but not quite as extreme as that first one. I've done a lot of talking to H, who has been great and has somehow managed to understand what this is like for me. I've also done a lot of talking to some good friends, all of whom have BEEN THERE AND DONE THAT! They all gave me great advice! Things like:
--accept help from anyone who offers
--sleep or nap whenever she is asleep, even if it isn't a "desirable" time of day
--feeling overwhelmed and totally stressed out is NORMAL
--it's OK if I need to just "walk away" sometimes
And, they ALL offered to come stay at my house overnight and help with the baby if I wanted them to! How great are those friends?? Pretty great, I know!

The rest of our time: This past week has actually been pretty great! H took one extra day off of work on Monday to help me out, but he went back to work on Tuesday. I was very nervous about this, but we did OK. Honestly, it's not the days that are hard -- it's the nights. I have just figured out that I am NOT the kind of person who does well with sleep deprivation. But, I think my body is adjusting. We had my mom come over one more night this week to help from about 9:00pm - 1:00am (so I could sleep), which was a huge help again. And, for at least several nights this week, Baby Riley has done a better job of sleeping at night. WOOHOO!! She still sometimes wants to stay up til 1 or 2 am, but then she's all about sleeping from then until 10:00 the next morning (well, you know, with one feeding in between). So, I just try to follow her schedule, instead of wishing that she'd follow mine! :-)

Overall, things at our house are great! I may LOOK like a zombie most of the time -- I rarely get out of my "stretchy pants" during the day, my hair is always in a ponytail and I never have on makeup anymore -- but it's all OK. I wouldn't trade one day with my little girl for anything in the world.

I love watching her discover this world a little more each day.

I love the way she gazes around the room, taking everything in. You can just see the wonder and amazement in her little eyes.

I love stroking her soft head while she's eating or napping in my arms.

I love the way she feels curled up on my chest and hearing her soft little sighs as she settles down.

I love the way she "smiles," even if it is while she's sleeping. It makes me wonder what she must be thinking or dreaming about.

I love the way she loves to be held close by her mommy and daddy.

I love the way she makes funny faces - ALL THE TIME! See, look, I'm not kidding:

I guess you could say I love EVERYTHING about this precious baby who has changed our lives in so many unimaginable ways!

Labor & Delivery Story -- FINALLY!

Hi. So, yes, I am aware that my child is now 12 days old....and you've been wanting to read updates on her/me/us for DAYS now! Well, I've been wanting to actually have TIME to give you those updates for DAYS now, too! This "being at home with a newborn" thing is sooooo much harder than I ever could have imagined. Seriously.

Anyway..on to the story of my labor and Baby Riley's delivery! (it might be long....get settled in!)
I think the last thing I updated on was our decision to go into the hospital for an induction on the evening of Thursday, 1/14. That afternoon, my mom, H and I went out for lunch and then H and I went home to try and rest up for what was to come. We got all the last-minute things we wanted to take with us, made sure the car seat was ready and I even managed to nap for a couple of hours that afternoon. You should know that I was also still having pretty steady contractions all afternoon, too. Sometimes they were totally bearable, sometimes they were intense enough that I had to just freeze, focus and breathe to get through them. For most of the afternoon, they were anywhere from 2 minutes to 6 minutes apart. But remember, not all of them were bad, so I was making it through them OK.

Fast forward to 8:00pm....we arrived at the hospital. My mom and dad met us there, too. H's mom was at a different hospital with her mother, unfortunately (crazy timing, I know! H's Grandmother has had a rough time of it, btw, but it is looking like things will be OK.) We had to check in at the ER, even though we were pre-registered and they made me ride up to L&D in a wheelchair, for goodness' sake. I felt so silly, since I was fine to walk! They took us straight to our room (you don't ever have to change rooms at this hospital-yay!) and the nurse gave me a gown to change into. Turns out, I knew my overnight nurse from when were kids, cheering together. Small world! She was the first of many FANTASTIC nurses!!!

The PLAN for induction was to start me on Cerv.adil around 9pm, which is used to soften and thin out your cervix to help get things ready for the medication that makes you dialate. I would stay on this all night and then they were going to start me on Pit.ocin in the morning, which is the medicine that causes you to dialate. The cerv.adil is some kind of "insert" and as the nurse put it in, she told me that it would probably also cause my contractions to intensify. She gave me some Am.bien to help me sleep (and hopefully help my body relax, even though I was having contractions), and she gave me some pain meds, but I don't remember what those were. We were hopeful that we'd be able to get a little bit of sleep throughout the night. H got his cot all fixed up and put it right beside my bed, my mom and dad came in just to check on us and wish us well (they were headed home for the night, with my mom planning on returning in the morning). So, we settled in for the night and all was well.

THEN....I found out just how correct my nurse was when she said my contractions would intensify! HOO-BOY!! They intensified, all right, and increased in frequency, so they were steadily coming every 2-3 minutes! ALL of the contractions became the intense kind, during which I was just trying to remember to breathe and trying to will my body to relax through them. That worked pretty well for a couple of hours. H was fantastic. During every contraction, he would hold my hand (if I wanted him to) and rub my back or my arm, just to try to help keep me calm. He kept reminding me to breathe and relax. The am.bien was sort of working, and I was sleeping for a minute or two between each contraction, but each one would wake me up because of the pain!

So...after a couple of hours of breathing my way through the pain, it started to get to the point where I was feeling like I couldn't do it anymore. The intensity had probably started around 10pm and by midnight or 1:00am, it was nearly impossible to get through each one, b/c it hurt so damn badly. I felt like the pain meds she had given me weren't doing anything at all to help. I wanted something more or stronger, but the nurse told me she had given me all she could. She checked my cervix a few times throughout those first few hours, but I was still only dialated to 1cm. So, from about 1am-3am, I was absolutely miserable. I was trying really hard to keep up the breathing and the relaxation, but it was so hard. About every third contraction or so, I would just cry and tell H that I couldn't do it anymore. He kept trying to reassure me and help me along, thank goodness. During those hours between 1 and 3, he also tried telling the nurse how bad I was hurting and tried to get me some more pain medicine, but she told him the same thing--she couldn't give me anything else.

Finally, at about 3am or so, I had just HAD IT. I knew that my body could not take any more pain. I hit the nurse call button myself and cried out, telling her that I couldn't take it anymore. She came in and checked my cervix one more time. I was having another contraction and crying and trying to breathe and focus and all that, so while I could tell she said something to H, I had no idea what it was. During my contraction, I hear H say, "Good news, babe!!" I remember screaming at him that, "I CAN'T LISTEN TO YOU RIGHT NOW!!" So, he waited til the contraction was over. I looked at him and heard him say the most glorious words I'd ever heard. "You're at 3cm! You can have the epidural!" Oh. My. God. I've never been so happy in my whole life!

It took about a half hour for the anesthesiologist to get there and when he did, he made H leave the room during the epidural (hospital policy). I wasn't happy about that, but my desire to get rid of the pain far surpassed my frustration over this rule. My nurse was GREAT during the epidural. She stayed in front of me the whole time, helping me stay in the bent over position and letting me squeeze the crap out of her hands while I was contracting, and simultaneously having to remain totally still while he had that needle in my back. So, how was the epidural process? Not that bad, compared to what I had been feeling for the last 4-5 hours. I felt the needle go in, but it wasn't that bad. The weird thing was that I could feel it moving around in my back or my spine or whatever, as he was finding the right place. That felt totally bizarre. He had a little trouble getting it to the right spot, so I think mine took a little longer than most. But then it was done. And, holy crap, the relief came SO fast!! I started going numb on one side faster than the other, but soon I felt NOTHING from about the middle of my back/abdomen all the way to my feet. It was fantastic. H says that by the time he came back in the room, the possessed, maniacal wife he left there had been replaced by his normal, friendly, talkative wife! :-)

I didn't feel another single contraction the entire time I was there, even though they kept coming stronger than ever! H and I were able to get a little bit of sleep, even! Around 5am, the on-call doctor from my doctor's practice came in check my progress. I think at that point, I was dialated to somewhere around 5cm (remember, the original plan was to start me on pit.ocin early in the morning). He was pleased with the progress I'd made and he made the call to NOT start me on pit.ocin, since I was progressing on my own. Yay! He also broke my water while he was in there. Water breaking? Yeah, I didn't feel a thing! Within an hour after breaking my water, I'd made it to 6cm and the nurses were just waiting on my doctor to come make morning rounds to evaluate me herself. She came in around 8:00 or 9:00am, I think (the details are all a little foggy) and I had made more progress. I remember, she looked at me and said, "So, you weren't really 'induced' after all. You were in labor and all this would have happened overnight anyway!" That made me feel better, since we had struggled with the decision to induce in the first place.

I can't remember if my doctor came in once or twice before the pushing and delivery began, but I do remember that by 9:00am, I was fully dialated to 10cm and they said I was ready to start pushing! Woah!! That freaked me out. A lot! I got really scared, but H and my mom and his mom (who were all in the room) kept reassuring me that everything would be OK. I also remember my doctor looking at me, very seriously, and saying, "You need to prepare yourself for the fact that you may not be able to deliver vaginally. I'm thinking that your pelvic bone may not allow the baby to come through." That freaked me out, too, but I just said, "OK. Whatever is best for the baby is all I care about." And that much was very true!

So, around 9:00am, they started prepping the room and the bed for delivery. My new nurse (the day nurse) was the most fantastic woman on the planet! I really felt like she was placed there directly from God that day. I could not have asked for a better nurse on our delivery day. Anyway, she explained how the pushing would work and what I was supposed to do. I had H on my right side and his main job was to support my back and help me crunch up as much as possible for each push/contraction. My mom and H's mom were on my left, with my mom closest to my legs and his mom by me head. His mom was counting with the nurse each time I had to push. My mom was taking pictures (waist-up only, mind you!), and helping push my other leg up (since I couldn't actually control my legs, you know). And this is how we stayed. For TWO HOURS. That's how long I pushed to try and get her out. Oddly enough, it didn't seem like two hours at all. I kept looking at the clock and I'd be amazed that 30 minutes had already passed by. It's very odd to be doing something with your body that you can't even really feel. More than once, I asked if I was "doing it right," since I couldn't really tell.

My doctor was supposed to come back in at 10:45 to see how thing were progressing. At about 10:45, or close to it, she wasn't there yet, and our nurse had asked for her several times. Finally, I remember her tone of voice changing and telling one of the other nurses to call the doctor and get her here, NOW. I remember thinking, "Oh, Lord. Sherry (the nurse) is going to deliver this baby all by herself." (Which she totally could have, by the way!) But, the doctor came in after just a few minutes and got ready to coax Baby Riley out the rest of the way. I pushed a few more times and then my doctor looked up, directly at me, and said "OK. You have to push right now harder than you ever have. Right now." I knew she was worried about something and, in my head, all I could think was, "Oh, sh*t. I don't know HOW to push any harder than I am already. I CAN'T FEEL ANYTHING!" But, I guess I did it, because within the next minute, Baby Riley was out and they laid her up on my stomach! WOW. I repeat, WOW!

(As it turns out, the doctor was worried about something. She could see enough to know that the umbilical cord was wrapped about the baby's neck, so she wanted her out ASAP. There weren't any problems from the cord around her neck, thank God, mostly because it was only partially wrapped around, not enough to hurt her.)

There absolutely are not words to describe how it felt to have her there, living, breathing and CRYING, right on top of me. The nurse was toweling her off and H and I both just kept our hands and arms around her, totally amazed. I was also crying like a maniac, by the way!

After a couple of minutes, the nurse took her over to the little baby-cart thing and finished cleaning her up. She had a pretty good amount of fluid that they had to suction out, which took a few minutes longer than expected, but she was perfectly healthy!! H went over to watch her getting cleaned up, while the doctor finished up on me. I didn't have to "do anything" to deliver the placenta. In fact, I didn't even know that part was done until I asked. I had to have a few stitches after tearing a bit and having to have an episiotomy, but it didn't even seem like a big deal at the time.

After what seemed like only a few more minutes, they had everything with me and the baby all cleaned up, and they brought Baby Riley over to us, all cozied up in her blanket. Her eyes were wide open and she seemed to be taking everything in - very calm and thoughtful-like. H and I just kept staring at her and kissing her and looking at each other in disbelief. It was truly the most amazing feeling I've ever known in my life.

So that's it.
That's how, at 11:08am on Friday January 15, 2010, my life was changed forever.

A Picture Post

I have been thinking a lot about doing a more detailed post on the labor and delivery story...but that's about all I've done so far....THINK about it. :-)

In the meantime, here are a few pictures (I know that's what you really want, anyway!):

Here is one of the first pictures of her after being born....see how red her hair is under the bright light?? :-)

And here is our first "family picture".....please ignore the fact that I look horrendous.....having a baby takes its toll on your appearance, you know!

Here is our sweet girl all dressed up for her hospital pictures in her "going home" outfit.

And here is our new family on the day we headed home from the hospital.

And, last but not least (for now), this is a picture of Riley in the car on her first "outing"...to the doctor on Tuesday!

I'll keep working on that labor and delivery story and hopefully, I'll have time to catch up on reading some of your blogs soon (but bear with me as I get further and further behind on your lives)!

Baby Riley is here!!

Hi! Most of you know this by now, but Baby Riley made her grand appearance on Friday!

Here's the big info:

Riley Katherine
born: Friday, January 15, 2010
time: 11:08 am
weight: 7 pounds, 10 ounces
length: 20 inches

She is beautiful, perfectly healthy and perfectly wonderful! We are head over heels in love with her already!!

I'm doing fine, just zombie-like right now. We came home yesterday and little Riley seems to think night-time is for waking and being a bit fussy - neither one of us got any night time sleep before 4 am. So...we're trying to fix it all and work it all out.

I promise pics will come soon...but right now, I don't even know where the camera is, let alone can I upload the pictures. :-)

Thanks to everyone for your love and support!!!

Where we are NOW and the plan

So....this is going to be really short and to the point (sorry to those who are begging for the long story).

At the doctor on Tuesday, I'd made no progress, dialation wise, and she really preferred that we just wait one more week, see how I was doing on the 19th and then schedule induction for NEXT Thursday night if things still weren't happening. We asked about inducing at the "one week past due date" instead and she said that she would agree to that, so we were trying to decide if we wanted to wait it out or go ahead with the induction for Tuesday 1/19, which would be a hospital admission on the evening of Monday 1/18. I was supposed to go back to do on Friday morning for a re-check and to let them know my decision.

Well, yesterday morning (Wed 1/13) I started feeling crampy as I was getting dressed for work. Contractions continued all day, spaced anywhere from 2-7 minutes apart, varying intensity. We went back to the doctor so they could watch my contractions. Doc (NOT my regular doc) said my cervix still showed no progress and the contractions just weren't intense enough to bring about the cervical changes necessary to make it "real labor." So, she sent us home with instructions to go to hospital if the intensity jacked up to a point where I felt like I couldn't really take it.

We did about 45 minutes of walking on Wednesday afternoon and then fast forward to about 8:00 Wednesday night. That intensity? Well, it was jacking up, alright. By 8:30 or 9:00, I thought we should head to the hospital and so did the nurse we called. So, off we went. They took me to L&D triage, hooked me up to the monitors again and watch for a little bit -- all while asking me about a BAZILLION questions (at least H was there with me, to help out with answers and give support). Nurse #1 was asking questions and doing all computer input -- lover her, so nice and sweet. Nurse #2 was doing all the physical stuff -- HATED her, she was so rough and hurting me. She did the MOST painful internal check I've ever had and said there was still no dialation. Damn.

After talking to the doctor on call, Nurse #1 decided to put me on pain/relax/sleepytime IV drip, fill me with some fluid and watch what happened to contractions. Her theory was that nothing would slow down "real labor" and if the pain/sleepy/relax meds slowed the contractions down, then it was either very early labor or just not "real." I was also dehydrated, which she said was contributing to the contractions. About 2 nanoseconds after starting the drip of Sta.dol, I was drunker than a skunk and soon fell asleep. They monitored me that way for 30 minutes - 1 hour (I don't really know) and the contractions slowed down to about every 8-9 minutes and were barely waking me up. So.....they sent us home.

I had plenty of meds in me to sleep really well and I woke up about 5:30 this morning to go to the bathroom. I still felt groggy from the medicine, but I was OK and only noticed a few mild contractions at this point. **TMI alert!!** In the bathroom, I finally lost the mucous plug. I went back to bed and got up between 8:30-9:00 and called my doctor's office. Filled them in and discussed everything from last night. They decided they wanted to see me, so off we went again this morning.

The doc I saw this morning (NOT my doc) showed that I had dialated to 1cm (finally!) and she tried stretching it a bit more (hurt, but OK -- necessary). She wanted us to take home a prescription for meds that would help the pain and help me sleet at night, so I could work through this early labor in the comfort of my own home - with my bed, my stuff, my shower, etc, etc. She figured we'd either progress all the way to full blown labor on our own, or if I still needed to be induced on Monday night, I'd be better rested and prepared for it, after having spent so much time at home. We had her call my regular doc at the other office, just to see what she said. (btw....we had asked about just going in to be induced tonight, so that I wouldn't have to potentially go through days and days of this painful early labor).

My doc said we COULD induce tonight, if that's what we wanted. She just wanted to see some kind of cervical process before inducing me and I guess getting to 1cm was enough for her. So, what did I do, now that I was facing this option I had been hoping for?

I cried, of course.

My mom, H and I sat in waiting area for about 30 minutes trying to figure out what to do. In the end, I just decided to go on in TONIGHT and get the induction started. In the event that I had tried to tough it out at home for a few more days, the thought of going through all that work and pain, only to find that my cervix still wasn't cooperating.........well, that was just more than I could handle. Yes, yes, I know that I'm going against my OWN plan of trying things as naturally as possible and not interfering with meds and such, but, you know, I changed my mind.

So, anyway.......the three of us just went to grab some lunch, H is running last minute errands, Munners is hanging out at our house and I'm getting ready to take a couple of hour nap before the big show tonight. We go in at 8:00 pm and they will start cerv.adil overnight, hoping to thin things out. Then the plan calls for pit.ocin starting tomorrow morning. We'll see how it goes.

I'm very nervous, about a LOT of things, but I'm trying to stay both calm and positive.

Any prayers or positive thoughts you have would be appreciated!

(btw...no internet at hospital, so we are limited to what we can do on our phones and H's ITouch.....we'll try our best to keep everyone updated and I'll be back sometime soon.)

Quick 40-Wk Doctor Update

Hi there. I wanted to do a very quick (and boring) update from my doctor's appointment this morning, for those of you who have been anxiously awaiting some kind of news.

Sorry to disappoint....but there still isn't anything to report. There's been no dialation or effacement, so clearly my body is still not ready to do what needs to be done. Was I bummed out? Yes, to say the least. Was I surprised? No, not entirely.

It actually turned out to be a rather stressful morning for me, because I left the doctor's office feeling totally and completely unsure about what to do. Short version - we have to decide whether to wait it out (and, if so, how long?) or to induce (and, if so, when?).

Sound like an easy decision to make? Well, it isn't.

I'll be back later today (or tomorrow) with a full weekly update.