Motherhood thus far...

So far, this whole motherhood thing is pretty cool. Aside from my occasional "GROSS" freakouts (like milk shooting out and squirting poor Olivia's cheek, or milk gushing out when being pumped out... I guess most of my "gross" moments are milk-related), things are going great and well!!

I feel like I'm falling-in-love with Olivia more each day...AND I just feel more bonded (and protective) of her as time passes.

When she was first born, it was kind of like, "Okay, I just had a baby. Here's my checklist of what's coming up next..." But now, it's like, "OLIVIA!!! She's our baby! She's so beautiful!"

And before she was born, I had different ideas about being strict about this or that, and "not giving in", yada yada yada... but now I feel like one of "those" "typical" "hormonal moms"... hahaha... It's hard to see her cry. I made Tim take her in to get her heel prick because the thought of seeing/hearing her cry almost made ME cry! (I had seen one of my nieces get her heel pricked several years ago, and it was no big deal... )

Anywho... I'm excited to see this little girl grow and change... I already feel like I'm going to have a hard time parting from her for too long... I LOVE being around her and taking care of her... at least right now, I can't imagine getting bored of her or needing to be away from her. She's JUST SO CUTE!!!! I love her!

1 Week Old Photoshoot!

After some encouragment from my sis., I finally pulled out a strobe and my camera and shot some pics of the babe. :)



My sister was very helpful in setting up some of the shots, and even acting AS a prop in some of the pics. Thanks, dot!!



These are some that I've edited...

Poor child... won't stand a chance in avoiding my camera in the future. hahaha...

Pictures

Me after delivery... in our room... with my dinner. Yum! i was Hungry!

Tim and Olivia. This is still in the delivery room.

Me and olivia. Still in the delivery room.

Olivia. In her bed-table thing while they monitored her temp and stuff. We had them wait a bit to put the eye-cream on her so we could see her beautiful eyes.

SHE's HERE! - Part 3 - Labor and Deliver

Okay... where was I?

According to Tim, Miss Nurse was chastised a bit by the stand-in doctor... first for calling her in too early... second for calling her in and not having "the table" or other nurses ready.

The contractions were really strong--there was just a LOT of pressure in my pelvis, along with the feeling of needing to push out a huge poop (aka the baby). I don't know if it was the strong pressure that got to me... it was more of the feeling that my legs/feet were cramping up. (I can get warts "burned" off my hands, no problem. But the minute one of my feet begins to cramp up, I'm screaming, "Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!" So I guess it just depends on what YOU consider "painful".)

Each time a contraction came on, and the "urge to push" began, it was a little hard for me to push "hard" because I felt like if I pushed too hard, it'd make my legs/feet cramp up. Does that make sense?? Anyway...

During each contraction, the doc would slowly count from 1 to 10 in three sets... I had to try and hold up my legs while pushing (AND curl my chin to my chest)... it was a workout! It was nice when Tim could help me hold one of my knees back, but I guess they eventually told him not too... supposedly it "worked" better if I held my own legs... ?

The doc/nurses would tell me "Push, push, push, push, push... Push Hard..." Honestly, it was slightly annoying b/c I had read in one of my books that the body could "push" the baby out on its own, and that if you LET it, you really didn't need to "push". Plus, you're more likely to tear-down-there if you push too fast before your body is ready to deliver the baby.

At one point, my doctor came into the delivery room and switched out the stand-in doctor. (Did I mention that my doc had a family emergency and probably wouldn't be there for the delivery? I guess once her family-thing finished up, she sped back to the hospital and made it just-in-time to deliver Olivia.)

Sometime during the pushing phase, I believe they turned the Pitocin back on to get the contractions more consistent and closer together so the baby would come faster (another "try-to-avoid" situation that some of my books mentioned).

There were points where I was thinking in my head, "I just want this baby OUT! I want this to be over!! When will this end?! Why didn't I just get the epidural? I can't do this anymore! This is all just a bad dream... this is all just a bad dream..." Yeah...I think I repeated the last phrase a few times as I kept my head buried in the pillow next to me. Yes. I kept my eyes closed, my head turned to the left, and my face buried in the pillow. I felt like an ostrich trying to hide my head in the ground (though i don't think ostriches really do that).

It was so annoying (at the time) to hear them say (I'm not exactly sure who "them" is), "Just a couple more pushes. She's almost out," and then to go through one or two SETS of 3 pushing-reps. I thought they said a couple more pushes!! Plus, I overheard someone say something like, "It may be a few more pushes," to someone else in the room.

When the baby was almost born, I think I heard the doctor say that she may need to cut (episiotomy). Honestly, I can't remember exactly what happened around this point... another couple of hard pushes and the baby came out!! (According to Tim, she thought I might tear, so she was thinking she may have needed to cut me... she gave me some numbing shots down there just in case, and then I was able to push the baby out with slight average/"normal" tearing. yeah! no cutting!) Oh, by this time, they had brought out the stirrups, and put my feet/legs in them. I think they made me feel like it was harder to push, though.

I don't remember feeling a "ring of fire" (probably b/c of the shot), but i do remember feeling the baby's limbs pass through... the only way I can imagine describing it would be giving birth to an octopus... it just felt like a lot of limbs being pulled out. Hahaha... kinda gross. sorry. She came out, they wrapped her up, then put her on my stomach. (We can't remember if Tim cut the U. cord before or after this... all he remembers is cutting the cord, and having the doctor tell him to put the scissors down...at least twice. I guess he was in a daze after cutting the cord.)

At the time, I was seriously just thinking, "I'm glad you're OUT!" But it was cool to see the baby's eyes and to see how alert she was. After a few moments, the nurses took the baby to clean her up and take her measurements, and to get a "good cry" out of her. It was a wierd sensation to feel them pull the placenta out.

The nurses began to clean me up, and my doc stitched up my tear. Afterwards, the only male nurse in the room (Rueben) cleaned me up! Slightly wierd...but whatever. My legs and body were shaking. I had gotten so HOT during delivery, but now that it was over, I was freezing! (We had turned down the A/C ealier.) And my body was just SHAKING! It continued to do so for at least an hour afterwards.

We stayed in the Labor/Delivery/Recovery Room for a while afterwards... most of the nurses and my doc left, and a couple nurses stayed behind to clean up and to finish up with Olivia. Tim had a great time watching her in her little bed-table thing.

Finally, our room was ready for us to "move into". I got up, got a new gown, I think I went pee, then got in a wheel chair and wheeled to our room. Finally getting into my hospital bed and getting comfortable was probably one of the happiest moments. :) Haha... the baby was out and healthy, and I could RELAX and ReCOUP!!

SHE's HERE! - Part 2 - Labor

When we got to the hospital, we went up to the Labor and Delivery floor, and they took us to our Labor and Delivery room. Then we waited for our nurse.

The Nurse - It felt like we were in high school. And this girl was too-cool-for-school to talk to us. SO WEIRD! She really wasn't too interested in getting-to-know-you chit chat. She always seemed to be on the defense. She just seemed very I'm-the-nurse-you're-the-patient. Her attitude was a bit of "*I* do this everyday and know what's going on, so you just need to do what I tell you." We really should have asked to switch out for another nurse (but I guess the hospital was having a TON of peeps come in that "waited till after the weekend", and so they were pretty "booked").

Changed into a gown, got in bed. Nurse hooked me up to the IV. Monitored my contractions for a bit. SHE measured my cervix to be 3-4 cm dilated and 70% effaced. Hmmm... Well, I guess it ended up being for about 4 hours (but it went by quick). Our doctor actually had a family emergency up North, but was able to stop in and say Hi. The doctor actually wanted to get me on Pitocin at about 11am so that maybe she'd be able to get there (before heading north) to deliver the baby. But I wanted to hold out. The doc said we could walk around a bit, so we made two rounds around the floor, and some "steps" onto a stepping stool. At about 12:40, I decided to start Pitocin and got it going at about 1pm.

The contractions started becoming closer and more regular, but not unbearable. It was actually pretty cool listening to my HypnoBabies tracks and getting through the contractions. I would actually almost fall asleep between contractions because I was so relaxed!

It started getting "harder" as the contractions became stronger. I changed positions a couple of times that seemed to help at first. Sat on the exercise/birthing ball, stood and rocked with Tim...
The nurse checked me at one point...7 cm dilated.

After "rocking" with Tim a bit, and trying to find another comfortable position (like squatting), it was probably about 3, 3:30ish. The contractions were really strong. It just felt like really STRONG cramps right in my pelvis. I started feeling like I needed to pee... or that I needed to poop. The "cramps" were getting so strong that I decided maybe I should get the epidural. The nurse checked me to see how far along I was... she had a hard time determining... it was either 9cm...or gone. She called the doctor the see what she wanted to do, and I think (if I remember correctly), the doctor said I could start pushing if I felt the need.

I tried pushing on my side for a little bit, and then on my back. It was hard to do! Pulling my legs back, pushing through the contractions. The nurse yelling push push push... Some of the contractions were easier than others... some of them, the pushing felt good... some of them were so tough that I really didn't know how I would get through it.

It was a really interesting sensation... at one point, the nurse called the on-call doctor in, and other nurses. Ugh... maybe it's too close to the event for me to be thinking-back on all these things. :) Taking a break now.

SHE's HERE! Part 1 - Going to the hospital

Monday - Memorial Day. Tim had work off, so we all had a nice long weekend. After going for some Chinese food in Chinatown with some friends, we headed home, relaxed, then ran to Target to pick up some things. On the way home, Tim made a comment, "I hope she doesn't come at 3 o'clock on the morning. I'd be exhausted and wouldn't be able to drive you to the hospital," (or something like that... he was teasing). He also expressed slight sadness that Baby Girl wasn't born yet, and how he might need to go into work the next morning.

We stayed up until about 10:30pm, then headed to bed. Tim fell fast asleep real quick. I was in-and-out until about 1:00am. I'd get hot, I'd have to pee, I'd get thirsty, I'd get hot, reposition... I'd fall asleep for an hour here, an hour there. At one point, I noticed that my contractions were pretty frequent, so I finally got up and started noting the times. I was having slight (and non-painful) contractions about every 2-3 minutes apart. I also noticed some slight leakage that felt like it was NOT coming from my pee hole. :)

From about 1-ish to 2-ish, I kept a record of the time and started gathering extra things together in case we had to go the hospital. I also got on the internet to checkup on some work HR stuff, and to read my cousin's blog about HER recent labor and delivery.

It was close to 3am, and I thought how funny it would be if I woke up Tim and it was time to go the hospital (since the comment he made earlier). But then I decided that if it were a "false alarm", he'd be EXHAUSTED the next day if he had to work. I remembered reading in lots of my books (and online forums) that it's best to "labor" at home for a bit, and THEN go to the hospital. I was feeling really tired, so I decided to get back into bed and get some sleep. (Plus, I guess if my water HAD broken, I would REALLY know by laying down for a while, and THEN getting up.)

Tuesday - We both woke up at about 6ish. Tim mosied around for a bit, getting his work laptop ready and making some phone calls. He came over to crawl into bed with me and noticed my pad of paper with my contraction times written on it. I told him that I didn't know if my water had broken or not, but was thinking that it hadn't yet. He wanted to call the doctor...I didn't. But he did anyway. He called her at about 7ish, and JUST as he was hanging up the phone, it felt like the baby KICKED my belly (with a slight "pop" sound), and I felt a river of warm fluid running through my body towards the exit. Woah! I hopped out of bed and ran to the bathroom. It took us a little while to get a hold of the doctor again, after which she told us to head to the hospital.

We hit a little morning traffic, but made it to the hospital in great time... so fast, in fact, that the nurse assigned to us wasn't there yet. So we got another nurse (whose patient hadn't arrived yet). What an INTERESTING nurse (interesting, in this case, was NOT a very good thing). :)

36 Week Appointment

STATS:
135 lbs
Uterus measured 35
90% effaced
3 cm dilated

SO:
My doc was like, "Well, would you like to go the hospital to be monitored?"

We came home instead. She said that I didn't look like someone in labor, so just wait until my contractions begin to get more intense. (While waiting in the waiting room for about an hour, I measured some of my contractions... they were about 10 minutes apart... but I didn't measure how long they lasted).

My sister is hoping and hoping and HOPING that the baby will stay in until Thursday so that she can be there for the birth... but I guess we'll see if we'll even make it through the weekend. :O HOW CRAZY! :)

We stopped at A&W afterwards to grab some grub.

34 Week Appointment (34 weeks and 3 days)

My appointment was originally for later this afternoon, but the PA I was going to see had a family emergency, so we went in earlier to see my actual doc.

Since it was earlier, Tim came home and we went to grab some fast Chinese food.

After waiting in the waiting room for about 15 mins, we were called back to the exam room. Urine sample. Weight (133! Must be all the rice). Blood pressure. Etc.

Then we waited for almost an hour for the doctor to come in.

My cervix is the same as it has been...about 80% effaced and 1 cm dilated. I'll go back in two weeks for another appointment. Phew!

I asked her some Q's about doulas and epidurals...

She said that the hospital I'll be delivering at has one nurse for each patient, as opposed to other hospitals that might assign 3-4 patients to one nurse.

My doc has two kids, and had epidurals for both. She said with the second one, she was thinking of doing natural, but her contractions were harder than the first so she still got an epi. She said she'd allow me to get an epi from 1cm to 6cm.

Hmmm...

"I love these baby shows!"

That is what Tim has told me as he's flipped through the channels, then stopped to watch Baby Stories on TLC. :)

"Look at them...they're so cute! I love babies," he says.

What a cutie... he'll be a great dad.

Slap-Happy Belly Dancing

So I had posted a pic earlier of this same situation... anyway...

Here I am getting our girl to dance. :) I'm really not hitting my belly very hard! It just sounds that way! (Don't worry, Tim scolded me once he realized what I was doing...hehehe).

Kinda gross looking, eh? And don't you just love the commercials playing in the background.

More Belly Dancing

This is a really short clip that I captured of some slight belly dancing (note: the "clicking" in the background is me "fishing" for Tim's character in WoW):

This is a better video... I'ved edited so just the "dancing" is in the video. (This reminds me of watching those ghost-hunter/paranormal shows on T.V....)

33 Week Appointment (Bed Rest Day 7)

So yesterday we went in for my weekly checkup. The wait was loooong. Oh well.

Everything was good!
Weight: 130lb
Blood Pressure: Good.
Baby's Heartbeat: Good...she kept moving around, so it was hard for the nurse to find it and "read" it.
Uterus Size: Good.

I guess I'm dilated 1 cm, and still effaced at about 80%. Still in bed rest...

My doc said that if we can make it to 36 weeks, then she'll take me off the drugs and bed rest.

I must say, it was SO nice to get out of the house. But even then, I started to get tired and just wanted to go home and lay on the couch. :P I guess I should have taken a pic of my "outing". Oh well...

32 Week Appointment

Tim took a pic of me in the waiting room...

Let the fun begin...

We went in for my 32 week appointment today.

Weight: good. 30 lbs.

Blood pressure: good.

Urine sample: good.

Uterus size: good. 31 inches.

Baby's heartbeat: good. 151(? Don't remember what it was exactly).

Things looked great! Chatted with the doc a bit, then Tim was like, "Okay. Cool. Are you going to check her cervix now?"

I don't know if the doc was planning on doing that, but she was like, "Okay, let's do it."

So she checks my cervix. Everything still seems quite fine and dandy... she mentions that it's thinned more and that she's glad that we've still made it this far.

Tim probes her about the thinning cervix thing, and my docs like, "Yeah, it's pretty thin now. Last time it was about 50% effaced, and now it's about 80% effaced."

What?! Tim was like, "Uh, so 'work'. Should she quit?"

And my docs like, "Yeah. Don't go in to work tomorrow. I'll write you a doctor's note."

Woah! Just like that. And I'm done. CRAZY!

She gives me a prescription for something that will reduce my contraction (Braxton-Hicks?), and then sends us over to the hospital across the way to get some shots to stop the contractions AND to help develop the baby's lungs (in case she decides to come sooner-than-later). It sounds like it should be a quick trip.

3 hours later... :P

Another urine sample. Then they put a baby-belly monitor on me and measured my contractions for a while. Then they gave me a shot in each arm (spaced out about 30-60 mins...i don't remember) to stop/reduce the contractions. They monitored my heartrate to make sure it worked right (it made my heartbeat race for a bit, and made me feel jittery for a little while), and then gave me a shot in my hip for the baby's lungs.

Those little shots "stung"! :) Tim couldn't watch the nurse give them to me (even though I asked him to...hehe). When the nurse was going to give me the shot in the hip, Tim's eyes went bug-eyed and he was like, "Woah! That's big!" TOTALLY freaked me out a bit...but it was pretty much the same as the two in my arms. I slapped him (on the arm) afterwards and told him not to scare me next time. ;)

Then the nurse brought me a menu to order some food. She never exactly said how long we'd be there. Tim was starving so he went out and found a vending machine. I ordered some food from the menu...they said it'd take about 45 minutes. So we sat around...and waited... and watched T.V. (Seinfield...the Nazi episode).

FINALLY, it's almost 8pm and the nurse finishes up. She schedules me for the final round of contraction-shots for the next day at 5pm. . OH! And I guess I have a urinary tract infection. Who knew?! She called our doc to let her know the results of our visit, and our doc called in a prescription for some UTI medicine for me. This is getting complicated. :P

On the way home, I called my manager and let her know my situation. We'll see if we can set me up to access my work emails and files from home so I can continue to do design work while on bedrest. Ugh. Bed rest.

It'd be one thing if it were like a "bed-rest-cation'...but I'm supposed to ONLY get up to use the potty, to shower, and to grab something to eat. Otherwise I'm to stay down. No walking around. No shopping. No eating out. No church! :(

My next doc appointment was supposed to be in two weeks, but she wants to see me next week. So more baby updates in one week...

Belly Dance

Wanna see a belly dance?

(I FINALLY got some good movement on video!)

Baby Shower with Tim's co-workers

This past weekend, our good friends (from Tim's work) threw us a nice baby shower. It was so much fun! About 12 people showed up (mostly couples... and mostly peeps that had interned with Tim a couple summers ago). Our friends Karen and Andrew went way out on this shower!

Below: Baby Food Taste Testing game... the person who guessed the most correct flavors won a prize.

Some of the food that they had for the party. The cake came later...

Our friend Stephanie won a prize for guessing (the closest to) my current pregnant waist size. It was funny to see how some of the guys guessed WAY too large! :)

After eating and playing some of the games, everyone sat around as Tim and I opened our gifts.

And here's the cake our friend Stephani got for us... Italian Cream cake.

These are the gifts we received... we laid them down outside of our door so I could take a pic.

30 Week Appointment

Yesterday, we went in for my 30-week appointment. We actually got in to see the doc an hour after the scheduled time...


The nurse got my:
Urine sample. Good.
Weight. Woah! 131! (After she left the room, I took off my boots and weighed myself again... 128...phew! I'm guessing a lot of it is water-weight, too.) The doctor later said that because I started so light, it wouldn't be terrible for me to gain a total of 40 pounds by the end of the pregnancy...but she said that after this next month, I most likely will not gain anymore weight...something about a "baby growth spurt" that she's seen in a lot of her patients.
Blood pressure. Check.
Baby's heart beat. Strong and loud.


Later, the doctor:
Measured my uterus. Measuring at 29. Very good.
Checked my cervix. Still thin... she said that according to their literature, anything 25cm and smaller calls for extra care and bedrest... I had measured at 26cm at the last appointment, and was still the same at this appointment. Note: when she was checking my cervix, she was like, "Woah, she's really low." Yeah, baby girl (seems to me) has ALWAYS been low. Remember when we tried to get those nice ultrasound pics? She was ALWAYS squishing her face down below...


She advised that I continue to "rest" when I can, and to take things easy. No exercise, no heavy lifting, etc. We'll see how my cervix is in two weeks... she said that she'd be very happy if the baby will stay in for at LEAST another 3 weeks.

Running out of room?

This weekend we had some nice "relaxing and rejuvinating" time at home (while the rest of my family and extended-family were in the NW for my uncle's funeral). :(

The weather was beautiful! Saturday morning, we had warm blue skies (that turned into clouds and wind by the afternoon), and Sunday it was sunny and breezy all day long.

Between conference sessions, we went out to the pool and laid out in the sun for a little bit. While laying in the warm sun, the girl-in-my-belly totally kicked/punched/pushed me up near my ribcage! What?!? This was the first time I felt her up so high... "Uh, can't you just stay down lower in my belly?" It was wierd...but cool, I guess.

So this whole weekend (probably because of all the "lounging around" we did), the little-girl-in-my-belly kept moving around and pushing OUT. Ouch!

Even this morning, after being awakened by a passing train, she was kind of pushing around. STOP! Oh boy... I don't know how much more of this I can take. ;) I hope she doesn't grow TOO much (so that she has room in there to move around), otherwise... 2 more months is gonna be way TOO long!

29 Week Appointment

So yesterday was another doctor's appointment. We went in early for an ultrasound. Surprisingly, the office was NOT busy that day, so they got us in pretty fast!

The nurse was really nice and friendly. She did all sorts of measurements of our girl--head, arms, chest, legs, etc., and of my cervix. Then she went and brought Tim in to see.

Unfortunately for us, baby girl was having a grand 'ole time hiding her face from us... she was head-down-feet-up, and pushed her face down so we couldn't get a decent 3-D pic of her. :(
She's TOTALLY taking after me! :P

Here are some of the ultrasound pictures... one nice thing: they didn't charge us for the CD this time!

Looks like a "Nuttall Foot" to me!

I think that's her arm and hand up to her face...

It was SO COOL to see her moving around! She's so big! (Well, about 2 pounds). I don't know if you'll be able to see it from the following video, but she had the hiccups. Her head is on the right, and her chest is to the left... you'll see her chest "spasm" out a bit...that's the hiccup. We have another video of just her chest hiccup-ing, but I like this one better b/c you see her head.

So now I know what it feels like when she has the hiccups... I had felt them the other night, but we thought maybe my stomach muscles were spasming b/c the "movement" had a beat...they were consistent. It was cool to feel the same sensation during the ultrasound, and to see them correspond with her hiccupping chest.

After the ultrasound, we went upstairs for my doctor's appointment. Weight and blood pressure--check check. Urine sample--check. Then the doctor came in and went over the baby measurements.

Baby Girl is doing fine! She's just a little small, but perfectly normal (I guess she's in the 41 percentile for her current size/weight). The doctor showed only slight concern at the length of my cervix (the opening of my uterus). She said it measured slightly smaller in the ultrasound, so we did a quick checkup in the office... I guess my cervix is about 20% shorter than "normal" at my stage.

From what I've read on the internet, your cervix shortens, thins, and dilates just before going into labor in preparation for delivery of the baby. SO, ideally, my cervix would NOT be shortening. But it is... so she advised that I should stay off of my feet for long periods of time... on the weekends I should just sit around... I shouldn't exercise, or walk too long, or stand too long, etc. etc. etc. BOOO! She doesn't think I'll need bed rest (at least not yet) but just wants me to be careful. Boo hoo hoo! I was enjoying my (occasional) long walks around the block, or my yoga stretches.

After the appointment, we went back home and hung out for a little while before heading back to work. . I was feeling a bit down for the rest of the day...no more exercise. :(

Random pictures of myself...

I thought I looked pretty cute today, so I decided to take a pic before I hit the shower. I think this is the first time I've paired these two blue shirts (and I've owned them both for years!). Brilliant! :)

From the front, I think I look pretty "normal".

But from the side, I'm getting pretty big! (This picture didn't turn out too well)... I guess it doesn't help when you have so many layers on--under-Gs, pants, two shirts. :)

Stats

So after church on Sunday, I wanted to take a picture with Tim. It didn't work out. So I decided to at least get a picture of my growing belly... and Tim came and shared some beef fajita with me. :) I'm glad that I have so many empire-waisted/baby-doll dresses...they're working GREAT during the pregnancy!

And here is a chart I made for myself to track my growing size. Some of the weights (and dates) might be off...I have to go back and check my calendar to see when I actually started going to the doctor.