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!

Hospital Tour

This past Sunday, we went to the hospital for a tour. After running around a bit to find the classroom, we joined a huge group of people there for the tour. We missed the first half of the "presentation", but still got some valuable information. Then we were off to see the Labor and Delivery floor and rooms.

I had a wheelchair. Yeah! :) When I had signed us up, I requested a wheelchair since I'm on bedrest. I think some of the other moms-to-be were a little jealous. Hahaha... ;)

The hospital was really cool! It's a hospital that has been around for a while, but they have recently built a new wing, and are in the process of renovating the rest of the building. Nice! First we went up and looked at the standard recovery room, and then one of the upgrade suites. Nice, typical hospital room. Poor Tim... the bed/couch/cot looks like it'll be a little small.

Then we headed up a floor to the Labor and delivery area. We went into one of the LDR rooms and our "tour guide" (who was pregnant herself) told us how things would typically go. I guess she also teaches childbirthing classes, and she recommended that once you arrive at the hospital, try and stay off your back (and out of the bed) for as long as possible. She recommended leaning against the bed, or using a birthing ball, or just walking around the room a bit... she told us that the belly monitors had really long cords attached to them, so unless you had an epidural already administered to you, you should try and stay up and about. (Hmmm... as she talked, I got the feeling that she would be a "natural" birther...)

She also went over the "rules" of the hospital (i.e. only 3 guests can be in the delivery room with you), how the nurse-patient situation would work (i.e. one patient per nurse...if you don't "click" with the nurse, request another one), and what exactly might happen after you've given birth (i.e. you can request to hold the baby immediately after birth, or you can have them clean it up first).

As we walked down the hall back to the elevator, we could hear some lady moaning out. :P Ick. hahaha... At one point, we paused in the hallway and a nurse came out of an LDR room. Tim looked in and said he saw a lady with her legs up and everyone surrounding her. He was like, "Woah, I want to watch." hahaha...so maybe he WON't faint. :)

Just before leaving, I asked the tour-guide-lady some questions. She was pregnant with her third child, and her first two did come naturally (w/o an epidural). She said she just used a "wait and see how I feel" stance, and decided that her contractions (aka "birthing waves") weren't too bad, and so declined the use of the epidural. She told us that once we got to the hospital, the nurses would most likely automatically start prepping for an epi, but that we should let them know that I want to "wait and see", or whatever.

As we were leaving, I ran into a coworker of mine who's wife just gave birth (via c-section) to twins that past Wednesday.

I brought my camera...but OBVIOUSLY forgot to take a pic of me in the wheelchair. Darn! Tim says we'll get a picture later. :) it would have been a good one, though...we both had some nasty bedhead.

Nesting for the Baby!

This weekend (before I got sick) I spent a TON of time preparing for baby. I cleaned. I rearranged the 2nd walk-in closet/storage room. I cleaned and rearranged OUR closet. Phew! Got SO much done! It felt great! (And at first, I thought maybe I had done too much b/c my body started getting sore...but it was the stomach flu).

Not only that, but I pulled out all the baby clothes/stuff that we've been given and threw them in the wash (as per my sister's suggestion).

Bought a few things from Target to help keep things organized, and oila!

Here's a pic of a HUGE bag of girl clothes from Tim's sister. My sister had said, "Just throw all the baby clothes in the washer, that way you know for sure they're all clean and if she gets an allergic reaction, yada yada yada..." Well, I TRIED to fit them all in the wash. I fit about 3/4 of the bag in, but then discovered that I had to rinse THAT load (half and half) to get the soap out! :P hahaha! It was good that I had more than one load, though, b/c there were some more baby (and maternity) clothes from my sis that needed a washing.


Tada! After some slight rearranging of my clothes, all the clothes fit! Next step: Organize the clothes by 0-3 months, 3-6 months, etc. Got some hangers from Target for a decent price...just wish they were in white!

Bit Sterilite storage bin from Target. Holds shoes, socks, pants, bloomers, onesies, burp clothes, blankets, etc.

I don't think we'll need anymore clothes for this little girl for a little while. :)

PPP: Pre-Pregnancy Planning

Contrary to what we may have told SOME people, it was planned. Completely planned. SO "planned" that even my SISTER knew the week we'd OFFICIALLY started "trying". (A little wierd, I know. Even wierder still is that she knew the exact NIGHT for someone ELSE in my family!)

For some reason, Tim thought we'd have problems getting pregnant. And for some reason, *I* knew that we would not. HE would have liked to start earlier than we did (while I could have waited another month), but we had to time it PERFECTLY with a January '09 Family Reunion coming up--a cruise, to be exact. And cruisers are not allowed on the ship if you're more than such-and-such weeks along.

In August, we bought an ovulation test kit to see if we could determine my most "fertile" days. Sounds fun, eh? The kit didn't work. According to the pee-strips, I don't think I ever ovulated. :)

In September, it was time. We tried "timing" it to get a girl. Tim thinks we won't have a problem having a girl (since my sister has 4 girls, no boys). I think we won't have a problem having a boy (since his TWO brothers only have boys). Whether we have a boy or a girl, we'll be happy. I just think it would be *nice* to have a girl first. :) SO, we tried the "timing" thing. We'll let you know if it "worked" for us in a few weeks. (Of course, we weren't very good "test subjects" since there was that ONE night...)

October finally came and went. TOM (aka Time Of Month) did not. For some reason, I thought we might just "forget about it", then 6 months later realize that we were pregnant. (Honestly, how do some ladies do that?! Don't they feel the "fatness" coming on?? Or the sluggish feeling??? Or the TIREDness?!? Come on!!) *I* at least TRIED to forget about it...but Tim was like a watchdog. "You're three days late... you're a week late, can we get a pregnancy test? ... You're over a week late, let's get a pregnancy test." He went and bought a two-pack test. I pee-ed on the stick. It changed colors. One was dark, the other light. Tim scoured the internet about the results. Apparently, seeing TWO lines (regardless of shade) means you're pregnant. I wanted to wait a week before using the other one (just in case). He insisted I use it the next day. :) IDEALLY, he would have had me use it that same night, but I didn't want to "waste" it for the same results.

Again, I wanted to try and keep the news "under wraps" for a while, which was a little hard since my sister has the memory of a computer hard drive and knew the date of my last period AND when we "started". We figured that once SHE knew, then "everyone" would "don't-tell-them-I-told-you-but..." know. :) After avoiding her questions (and sometimes phone calls) didn't work, we finally spilled the beans, and were surprised to find that she would keep our "secret" for a while (unless her girls were in the room and overheard the convo. Smart sister she is, she told them that our "secret" was that we were getting a dog).

So! We are very lucky and very blessed. Since moving to Texas, I have met SEVERAL couples who are having various issues with getting pregnant. I am definately grateful that we were blessed to get pregnant so easily and so fast. And I DO/DID try to remind myself of that...but that first trimester was a killer. :P

Prepare for my next post...