Week 1 Down

I can't believe it's already been a week. We have gone through so much already. Everyday, we love Miss Lila even more. I can't stop looking at her. She changes each day and always has a new face to show us.

Week 1 has been a wonderful week of ups and downs as is the case with most babies and their parents during their first week home. Lila is a pretty good baby overall. Like most babies, she hasn't developed a routine yet. I'm not sure I'm doing what I need to to get one established either. I feel like it's never too early to start a routine, but at the same time, I know that she is so little and helpless and sometimes all she needs is to feel the comfort of her momma or daddy...so we hold her. I'm guilty of it everyday and I don't care at all. :)

Lila went to the doctor on Friday last week and was down to 6lb 4oz. I was totally freaking out because I'm breastfeeding and have no way of knowing how much milk she is getting. I started pumping to see how much and was getting about 2 oz all together every 3 hours or so. She's not cranky or begging for food, but I was still nervous!

I struggled all weekend with this and it made things very hard. We went back to the doctor yesterday and Lila is back gaining weight. She was 6lb 8oz and I was relieved! I can't tell you how much better I felt when I saw those numbers. We really don't want to have to go to formula unless it's the last option possible. Breastmilk is the best thing for a baby and we want to give her the best there is.

Last night after a feeding she completely conked out. I had to share this picture because I think it's just hilarious!

That being said, we're healthy and gaining weight. Lila and I went on our first stroller ride today and she absolutely loved it. We walked to the high school where my dad is a teacher to be the guest speakers for his psychology class. The class is learning the phases of life and they are on infants now. Lila knew the perfect time to come into this world so Grandpa (or whatever we're calling him) could use her for a demo. We tested her reflexes and she did wonderful.

Needless to say we are so blessed to have this little girl in our lives and look forward to all things Lila!!!

Lila Jane has arrived!

WOW! This is my first post as a mother! That is so weird to say, but I LOVE it!

Lila Jane was born on September 20, 2010 at 12:58 pm. She was 6 lbs 9.9 oz and 20 inches long. She is perfect. And that is an understatement. Momma and Daddy have survived the first few days with her. We are still alive and so is she...always a good thing. We love her more and more everyday!

So here's how it started; the labor, I mean.

I woke up with a period like cramp at 5:30 on Monday morning. I'd been having some similar cramping for the past few weeks so it didn't really alarm me too much. Because I was up, I thought I'd just go ahead and go pee. I knew if I didn't, it would just be another half hour before I had to get up and go anyway. When I stood up, I had a little leakage, but not enough to be sure. So I went to the bathroom and lost a little more fluid. I still wasn't "sure" so I went back and laid down. Of course I couldn't fall back asleep so about 5 minutes later I got up again. I was pretty convinced after that trip to the bathroom. I was still having some cramping, but nothing too bad, although it was pretty regular.

About 5:45, I went in and woke up Neil. It was priceless. I tried to explain to him that it was just slowly leaking, but coming from a dead sleep he kept thinking that I had a gush and he needed to clean up. :) How sweet! Neil got up immediately and we started getting the last minute things together and packed. I got in the shower because I had to shave my legs. I knew that my water would break on a day that my legs needed shaved! By the time I got out of the shower, my contractions had gotten a little more intense and were only about 2 minutes apart. I thought for sure that this was wrong. We were supposed to be at the hospital when the contractions were about 5 min apart. So we hurried up and got everything thrown in the car. We even remembered the car seat! We said goodbye to the dogs and briefly explained that we wouldn't be coming home the same and that we would be back in a couple of days.

Now the hospital is a good 45 minutes away...on a good traffic day. This day was not. There is a lot of road construction going on en route to the hospital. Throw in that we were on our way during morning traffic and I'd say it took us about and hour to get there. Contractions getting more and more intense the whole way, still not painful, just very uncomfortable.

We got to the hospital and of course hadn't done pre-registration, which knowing now, I could kick myself in the shin! We were asked 1 million questions as I laid there, contractions intensifying by the minute. I was checked by the nurse and was 3 cm dilated when I got there. By the time I finally got to my birthing room, I was dilated to 5 cm. This kinda surprised me since all I've heard and been prepared for was a labor that would last, at the shortest, about 12 hours.

I had been feeling nauseous and thought I was gonna throw up with each contraction. I went to the bathroom...a pretty good one too... and then got back in bed. It wasn't but a couple contractions later (about 5 min) that I was puking my guts up. My guts, by the way, consisted of nothing since I didn't eat breakfast and had some remains of a DQ Blizzard the night before for supper. It was at that point that I decided that I definitely needed the epidural. So I sent my Mom or Aunt Lisa out there to relay the message to the nurse.

To my surprise, something they don't tell you in the childbirth class, you have to take in a bag of fluid before they even let the anesthesiologist come up. This could take an hour, the nurse said. At this point, had I taken karate as a child, I'm pretty sure someone would've gotten chopped in the throat. Good for the nurses, I know nothing about fighting. :) Luckily for me too, that bag of fluids went through me in about 35 min. All this time, Neil's poor fingers were breaking due to my deathly grip on them. He had it bad because I had taken BOTH of his hands hostage until I got some other type of pain meds.

About the same time as the fluid intake they were able to shoot me up with some pain killers. Now as far as this goes, it didn't really help with the pain as much as it kinda helped me calm down in the 45 seconds to a minute I had between each contraction. They were literally right on top of each other. I had told myself all along that I was gonna try to avoid the epidural if I could. Now this is a VERY heavy statement, but looking back, had I known that things would progress as quickly as they did, I could've maybe told myself that I could do it, but hindsight is 20/20 and at the time, I thought I was in hell!

About 10 minutes (I think...time was so blurred this entire time) later, the anesthesiologist walked through the door. Usually once you call them, it could take another 45 minutes for them to get to you. And no matter what I thought, I wasn't the only person in that hospital that day. But thankfully, God happened to be watching me at the moment and he sent the doctor straight to me. Once he got it in, I only felt about 2 more contractions. This is when I can kinda start remembering again!

Neil was able to come back in to the room. The nurse told me to rest up for the pushing, if I could. The pain killers were still in my system a little b/c I started feeling pretty drowsy. Mom went to eat and Neil stayed with me for about 15 minutes before he went out to talk to his family that had just shown up. About 10 minutes later, the nurse checked me again and told me I was 9 cm. I really couldn't believe it. 10 seconds later, my mom and Aunt Lisa came back in and I told them what the nurse had just said. Like I could make a joke at this point, my mom thought I was lying. Not even a minute later, the nurse said I was at 10 cm and would start pushing soon.

Dr. Tsung was eating lunch, but hurried his little butt up to my room to help get this baby in the world. At 12:49 pm, I started pushing. It felt like an out of body experience. I was just doing what people were telling me to do when they told me to do it. 9 minutes later, baby girl, Lila Jane, was here. She was absolutely gorgeous and had a head full of blonde hair, which she got from her daddy.

Everything from then on moved so quickly. We had the paparazzi in the room and everyone just kept talking and talking while I laid there getting sutured up. It's funny how everyone was talking to me and telling me things until the moment she arrived and then everyone just kinda turned and started talking to each other, except Neil. He stayed with me the whole time, looking over to see if Lila was ok. I finally told him to go see her! I knew he wasn't sure where he was supposed to be. Plus, I pretty much had no idea what was going on.

After the press left and the paparazzi had gotten all the shots they needed Mommy and Daddy finally got to see a clean little baby. She was so hungry and latched on perfectly! We got moved finally and Lila went to get a bath.

From then on it was just people coming and going...still is!

We are so excited about this new step in our lives. We are so blessed with everything we have and Little Miss Lila is the icing on the cake.

Football

For the last three weeks our house has been football crazy. We LOVE college football altogether. I don't think either one of us have one team that we are crazy about; we just like to watch it. Tonight is all NFL! I used to not care for the NFL as much, but even since Neil has had a fantasy team (the last two years), I've been really getting into it more. Call me crazy, but I can't get enough.

So we're just sitting here watching some football and letting the dogs relax in the house before we condemn them to their outside palace and of course I'm thinking, "Next week we could be watching football with Lila in our arms". How awesome is that gonna be! Of course we'll have to watch our cheering and how loud we get, but the more I think about it, the more excited I get. I have to say, Neil is pretty excited as well. As anxious, nervous, scared, whatever other emotions there are that we have, we are still so ready for her. Lila being here will make us all so happy, no matter how hard it is in the beginning.

I wanted to share some pictures that I have of the pups and the love they are getting from Daddy before little sister comes around. I hope you all enjoy them!!

Happy Thursday!

I'm feeling much better today than I had been the last few days. I have been really focusing on exercising. It's helping me to keep my mind off of the fact that I want Lila here! I know she will come when she's cook and ready...and cooked, but I've been having a really hard time facing the fact that I can't tell her when to arrive!

Yesterday I was surprised by a package in the mail from one of my best friends in the whole world! Mir sent Miss Lila some adorable outfits. She got a "littlest pumpkin" onesie that I cannot wait to put on her! The matching socks have little pumpkins on them too! She also got a new dress and matching tights and another onesie with a fun pattern on it!

So needless to say, this package made my day during a week that I really needed it! Mir always knows when to come through, even when she doesn't know that I needed it at the time! Love her so much!

I'm also trying to finish a book. I'm reading the Sookie Stackhouse books. I started the series a while back and then took a little break from them. Now I'm on the Dead to the World and I need to try to finish it by Sunday night so one of my co-workers can take it on the road when she travels for the next couple weeks. I'd also be traveling right now if Lila wasn't expected to come any day! I'll take the trade though. It's probably worth it. Doctors appointment tomorrow morning and Neil finally gets to go again! He hasn't gotten to go since the ultrasound at 18 weeks, I think. I'm sure he'll really like the experience of what goes on at the last month's appointments!

Here's my 38 week pic! Enjoy it! I still don't think I've dropped yet! Ugh!

Running and Sleeping

Most of you know, I've been trying to stay relatively healthy throughout this whole pregnancy.  By healthy, I mean exercising because I certainly haven't been getting all of my food groups in on a daily basis.  I've decided that I'm going to start using gravity in my favor.

Gravity is always talked about as such an awful thing.  Saggy boobs, wrinkles, etc...  Now while I've considered that I don't necessarily want these things, I'm looking into the immediate future.  This means getting Lila to shift downward and out of the uterus.  I know that she thinks that she's happy in there, but we all know that she will be so much happier and less claustrophobic out here where we can all love on her.

So I've been running.  I am still feeling pretty good so tonight I decided to go extra long.  Keep in mind I'm not able to run the entire time so I have to break this up with little spells of walking.  About 5 months ago when I was able to start running again after my first trimester hibernation period, I was very frustrated with the fact that I couldn't do what I used to do.  Now I'm just appreciating the fact that I can still move since I've feel like an elephant when I'm running.

Today I upped my mileage to 6.  I was able to run a lot of it too.  It felt really good.  A lot of you think I'm crazy, but according to many many studies, exercising during pregnancy is really good for you, IF you did it before you conceived...which I did.  Runner's World magazine had a great article on this.  I LOVE this magazine!

Now that I've run myself  ragged, cooked a delicious dinner with Neil and updated my blog for everyone, I'm gonna relax, watch some TV, and get some rest.  Tomorrow I'll be 38 weeks!

Running, walking, squatting, and.......

I'M FULL TERM!!!!!!!!  Finally 37 weeks is here!  Little Miss Lila can come whenever she's ready.  And I hope that's soon.  She has been head-butting and/or punching me in the cervix.  For those of you who don't know what this feels like....it's not good!  There isn't a good way to describe this.  All I can say is Miss Thang isn't nice so far!

Doctor told me the last couple weeks that I was dilated to 1 cm and about 75% effaced.  Maybe all this punching has progressed me a little more since then...and then again, maybe not.  I know of people that dilated early and then had to be induced at 42 weeks because they had no progress.  I've already decided that I will take matters into my own hands and use the knife set that we got for our wedding.  Now, I know what you're thinking, but I've taken some health classes, read a lot of books, and they showed a cartoon video of how a C-Section is performed in our childbirth class, so I pretty confident that I can do it!

So I know there are a lot of suggestions of how you can "move" things along a little quicker.  I have been trying most of them.  I'm hoping that sooner or later gravity is gonna play nice with me and be my friend.  So until then, we'll just keep truckin' along and haulin' my wide ass around with a smile on my face!