What will the mood be...

So my baby who was happy 100% of the time disappeared. For a while there I could never predict what kind of mood she would be in. Some days she cried all day whenever she was awake, then screamed at night right before bed. I *think* that she has been having some tummy aches, though, that are causing her to be cranky. When that happens, she looks like this:

I started her on Mylicon with every feeding (starting last night) and today has been a much better day. She has either been awake and content, or sleeping. We were able to spend some time outside. We had some playmat time. We visited with Uncle Wayne and Aunt Vicki (which she cried about a little bit, but then calmed down). Now we are sitting on the couch and she's sucking away on her paci watching the ceiling fan. I am a happy mama and I have a happy baby. I hope that it is a resolved tummy ache that is making her so happy so that I can look forward to many more happy days.

PP Survey and pictures

The After-baby Survey (almost 3 weeks post partum)

How far along were you when you had your baby? 39 weeks, 2 days

How long was labor? 16 hours (although it really didn't seem like that long and I could have been done in 13 if the doctor was on time...)

Total weight gain: 35 pounds

Total weight loss since: 28 pounds.

Back into your own clothes yet? Yes, some of them! Woohoo!

Did you get stretch marks? No, thank goodness

Did you deliver vaginally or by c-section? Vaginally

Best moment this week: Hearing Kate giggle in her sleep. :) So cute, I can't wait until she's smiling and laughing socially.

What I miss about being pregnant: Having her with me all the time (without giving up the use of my arms), feeling her move.

How big is baby: At her 2 week check-up she was 9 lbs 2 oz.

Baby's temperament? She's a good girl. So far (knock on wood) she doesn't fuss too much and pretty much all fussing can be stopped with food or a snuggle. Especially snuggles from her daddy.

What I am looking forward to: being able to make her smile



Alright, here are some pictures just for fun:

Her second bath (since I slacked and didn't take pictures of the first one):

Mohawk baby:
Some school friends stopped by to visit:
In her sling:

1w4d - Firsts

We have had a bunch of firsts this week. Here are some highlights:

First Bottle
Since Kate is such a good eater, we decided to go ahead and get her used to eating out of a bottle now, too, so that other people can feed her the milk I pump. I wasn't too worried about nipple confusion since she's had a good latch from day one, but I was worried that she wouldn't know what to do with a bottle. I was wrong. She latched right on and did a great job. K has started feeding her a bottle every night, so she's had 3 bottles now and has done a great job each time!

First Time in the Sling
I got a Hotsling to use when I'm doing things around the house and need to cart the kiddo around with me. We decided to give it a try the other day just for fun (even though I still couldn't do a whole lot around the house - we unstacked the dishwasher). I got her in and out without any problems and she really seemed content in there. Gives me hope for later when she decides she wants to be held all the time.

First Real Bath
This came after the spit up/blow out fiasco on Tuesday. She didn't like it very much. She was ok at first, but then got a bit fussy. She did like having the warm water poured over her, though, and seems to like having her hair washed. Bad mommy didn't take any pictures - I was too busy trying to keep her warm and snuggly and get poo bits off her back. I'll have to take a picture of her second bath...it's almost as important right?

First Paci (we are in mourning - RIP paci)
We registered for and received about 4 different kinds of pacifiers because we heard that babies can be fussy about which ones they want. The big surprise to us? She wanted NONE of them. The hospital gave her one while we were there and that is the ONLY one she would use. We tried every other paci in our arsenal and she spit every one out and cried. She had to have THE paci. The problem? I was scared to death that we'd lose it and be SOL in paci land. It was a paci I hadn't seen before. Yesterday I finally looked at the name on the paci: gumdrop. So I looked it up online and found out that it is made by the same people who make the soothies (which we have and tried). This paci is so much better than the soothies, though. It is lighter weight and softer. And it is smaller, so it doesn't cover half her face. And it has a hole in the tab so you can use a pacifier attacher. I highly recommend them! (http://www.gumdroppacifier.com). I decided I better go ahead and order some direct from the manufacturer. No joke, half an hour after I placed the order THE paci got eaten by one of the dogs. I died. And then I cried (hormones - it was her first paci after all). And then I did a dance of joy that I looked at the name on it and placed the order before it was eaten. Our new pacis should be arriving in 6-10 days. Pray we make it that long without. :)


Here are some "just for fun" pictures:

1w1d - Little Moo

So I call my darling girl "Little Moo" because she's basically like a baby cow. Which, yes, makes me the mother cow. Let me tell you how my Little Moo has been eating...

Everything I have read about breastfeeding says that the baby should eat for 10-15 minutes on each side, stopping to burp in between. Well, from day one my kid did not like to wake up to eat. So switching her in the middle meant taking her off one boob, only to have a sleeping baby with no interest in eating on the other side. So we switched tactics - I decided to do the one boob per feeding thing to see how that went. Well she still would only eat for 10-15 minutes on the one side before falling asleep or hopping off. Boo. Being the paranoid new mother, I worried and worried and finally decided to take the recommendation of the lactation consultant and bring her in to the doctor for a weight check. As I said in my previous post, babies are supposed to re-gain their birthweight by 2 weeks old. That means that Kate has until next Monday to weight 8 lbs 3 oz. Well today, at one week (and a day) old, Little Moo weighed 8 lbs 11 oz! Holy eater, Batman! I guess I can stop worrying about her quick feedings and just feel blessed that my babe is so efficient.

Ok, chubby cheeks aside - let me tell you about our day. As I said, we went to the doc this morning. She went from content to starving in 2 minutes flat on the carride home, so by the time we got in the door she was very upset with me that I hadn't fed her yet. She was in such a tizzy that the boob didn't even help satisfy her and she kept latching on and then falling off and crying, then latching on again...it took quite a while to get her settled in. She finally did and ate for her 15 minutes. Afterward she was wide awake, so I put her in the swing by me. Aaand she spit up. Not just a little spit-up either, oh no. It flowed down her face, onto her chest, into the swing. Lovely. So K came and took her to clean her up and I cleaned up the swing. Afterwards, K took her in the bouncy seat in the office with him.

About 5 minutes later I hear "Oh no!" I go in....she did it again. Lovely. Seems that all that air she gulped while crying/eating was getting the better of us. So we got her and the bouncy seat cleaned up (luckily there was barely any on the bouncy seat). Once she was all settled down and clean, we put her back in the bouncy and she slept for a good 2 hours.

When she started getting fidgety, K says "How bout you feed her before she cries so we don't do all that over again." Good idea. So he picks her up to change her and says, "Oh no!" Our first blowout. The kid had poop up her back, down her side, in her belly button (which is going cordless these days - yay!). Oh man. So AGAIN we changed her, cleaned her up best we could and I fed her. Needless to say, she got a very detailed bath as soon as she was done eating and is now cleaner than she's ever been. :) Oy, what a day. And it's still only 4:00.

First few days home

Kate has had 2 doctor's appointments to re-check bilirubin levels (which are fine, jaundice is not an issue for her). We had one appointment Thursday and one Friday. Thursday she weighed 7 lbs 13 oz, which the nurse said was great -less than average weight loss. When we brought her back on Friday, she weighed 8 lbs 2 oz! She almost regained her birthweight (8 lb 3 oz) already! I was so excited! The nurse that we met with is also a lactation consultant, so on Thursday she had me breastfeed Kate while we were there so she could give us some pointers. She said that Kate is an expert and is doing great and really didn't have many tips for us - we got an A+. Go, baby, go!

Can I just say how much I love this little girl? She is so sweet and has been a great baby so far. I love to just cuddle her and stare at her. It's amazing how much I love her already and I've only known her for 5 days. We are settling in very nicely. She already has several nicknames including:
Kater Gator (usually when she's in an eating frenzy)
Kate-apoo
Little Moo

Breastfeeding has been our biggest challenge so far - even though we got a pat on the back from the lactation consultant. My little darling likes sleeping better than eating. I have a hard time keeping her awake to eat sometimes. It is getting better, though. My milk (aka Katorade) has definitely come in - that was an unmistakeable change that happened Thursday afternoon. Talk about boobs! Holy moly!

So all in all our first few days have gone really well. I am so happy and feel so lucky to have such a beautiful, sweet little girl. :)

Here are some pics from the past couple days:

Lily LOVES her new little sister and watches over her constantly.

Happy sleeper.
In her swing.

Kate is here!

It appears that my letter to Kate at 39 weeks worked because I went into labor the very next day! Here is my birth story:

On Saturday night, about 11:00, K and I were watching a scary movie (I don't like scary movies) and I started to get a couple sporadic contractions. I tried to time them, but they were really in no pattern and not very strong. I went to sleep and during the night I woke up about 8-10 times with really uncomfortable cramps in my ute and back. I was half asleep and didn't realize they were contractions until I woke up at 7:00 in the morning with bloody show. I woke K up and said, "Do you feel like meeting your daughter today?" As always, K was very enthusiastic and said "Why?" :)

I wasn't completely sure that I was in labor, it wasn't until 9:00 that the cramps and back pain started to become timeable and they were about 8-10 minutes apart. I still wasn't 100% sure this was it, but I went into a little bit of a panic mode and began frantically cleaning the house. I did the dishes, vacuumed all the carpets, put things away... basically did all the nesting that I hadn't been doing previously.

The contractions started to get closer together, but it wasn't until about 1:00 that they really started to get painful and close together. By 2:00 I was having to sit and breathe through them and they were about 4 minutes apart. Since we're 40 minutes from the hospital we decided to head out...you know, just to get it checked out. We still weren't convinced I was going to have a baby. When we got to the hospital we even left all the bags in the car because we didn't want to look silly going in with them for false labor.

We got to the hospital around 3:00 and they hooked me up to the monitors and saw that I was contracting ever 2-3 minutes. They checked me and I was 3 cm. Woohoo! This was it. We called our parents and told them to head down. I was getting very uncomfortable at this point and was breathing/moaning through the contractions and asking how long it would be before I could get some pain relief. They got me going on saline and gave me a shot of pain meds that took the edge off a little and made me feel drunk. I really enjoyed that drunk feeling, it made labor seem like a party. :)

Around 4:00 they checked me again and I was 4 cm. I was progressing right along. At 4:30 I got my epidural and was instantly feeling great. The epi was a piece of cake to get and I'm so glad I did. From that point until about 10:00 I labored, laughed, and waited with our families to get to 10 cm.

I progressed at exactly a cm an hour, so at 10:00 I was pretty much complete. The doctor had been called an hour earlier and still hadn't arrived. When she did get there, she had to do a c-section on another lady, so I was stuck waiting. While I was waiting, at around 11:00, my epi wore off. I started feeling the contractions again. The doctor arrived in my room at 12:20 and broke my water. They had me start pushing right away and at 1:03 am on July 6th little miss Kate arrived! I had a 1st degree tear, which took 2 stitches to fix. Not bad.

Kate weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and was 21 1/4 inches. Long like her mama and daddy. :)

Recovery has gone well so far. I'm a little sore, but not bad. Kate has been such a wonderful baby. I never understood the "instant love" people talk about when having kids until she arrived. I cannot imagine life without her and she has only been in mine for 3 days. Here are some pictures of my little darling:

And because I promised some people, here is a post-partum belly pic. This is comparing 39 weeks to 3 days pp. What 6 days will do!

Overall my labor and delivery was a lot easier than I expected it to be. I am so amazed by my daughter and love her to pieces!!!

We now begin this fantastic journey as a family of three!

39 weeks - Dear Kate

Dear Kate,

Hi! Mommy here. Hope everything is going well in there. I know you're running out of room, I can tell by the way you push on me as though you're going to bust out the side of my abdomen. And I know you're probably tired of hearing me grunt and groan as I try to do basic things like sit up, roll over, and bend down. It is difficult to do those things with a watermelon in my belly and a hiney in my lungs. But I do love having you in there! I really do, even when you get the hiccups 3 times a day and shove your head into my cervix and make me yell out in surprise. You know what would be even more fun than bouncing on mommy's bladder and kicking her in the ribs? Coming out to meet everyone! That's right, we have plenty to entertain you here in the outside world. Daddy and I have worked very hard to get your room ready for you and there are so many people waiting to hold you and love you. When I went to the doctor this week, the doctor told me that you are engaged in my pelvis, which means I know you are getting ready to come out. But mommy's cervix isn't ready. I need you to use your head and work on that for me, ok?

Daddy and I can't wait to meet you. We only have a week until your due date. It is ok if you show up a little late, we'll try and be patient until you're ready. But if you take too long, the doctor is going to come knocking on your door to hand you an eviction notice. So be sure you stay on top of it and come out soon! We love you!

Love,
Mommy