Staying Healthy

Here's to the end of another successful week. We've made it through, once again. Elise is ten weeks old, her rate of growth continues to astound me.
We went to the pediatrician for Elise's 2 month checkup and vaccinations on Tuesday. I was a little nervous because I was taking her to the doctor by myself for the first time. I didn't know what to expect, but I braced myself for something awful. Elise and I waited for her name to be called for about an hour before finally taken back into an exam room. The room was about the size of a coat closet and just as stuffy. The nurse showed us into the room and we took Elise down the hall to wiegh her. She weighed in at 11 lbs., 8oz. This was great news. Elise had finally caught up on the growth curve and was now in the 75th percentile for her height and weight, instead of the 25th percentile that she was in at her 2 week checkup.
After being weighed and measured, the nurse showed us back to our room where she explained to me that Elise would be receiving three vaccinations that day. I should have known by the massive amounts of literature that she shoved at me that it was going to be quite a wait before the doctor came in to examine her. After reading all of the pamphlets, changing Elise's diaper, feeding Elise an entire bottle of formula, and putting her to sleep (I estimate a span of about an hour and a half) the doctor finally came into the room. She immediately went into a spiel about how much fun she had just had on her summer vacation and how she was absolutely buried in work. The woman went on and on, I was afraid that I would have to wait through a confession of her whole life story before my daughter was examined. I broke eye contact with her and paid full attention to my daughter in an effort to pursuade the doctor to get down to business. I guess she must have taken the hint because she then began her ritual of poking and prodding. She continued to talk as she shoved a small loop into Elise's ear to clear out some wax for better visualization of the ear drum. This caused Elise to bleed, and consequently, to cry. My little girl cried and cried in pain. I was horrified as this woman continued to talk, raising her voice so that I could hear her over my baby's wailing. This was the first time that I was hearing my little girl cry out in pain, I just wanted to hold her and get out of there! After much heartache, we made it through the exam and Elise was officially deemed healthy. The doctor left and a nurse came into the room bearing the dreaded syringes of terrible pain. I quickly got Elise dressed because I knew I would want to get her out of there just as soon as I could following her vaccinations. I was so thankful for the nurse who promised to give her the shots as fast as possible to minimize the time that she would be in pain. She gave them quickly and Elise began to cry harder than ever before. I picked her up and held her in the room for a while, trying my best to comfort her. I then gathered my things and left the room. To my surprise, as I began walking down the hall towards the exit, Elise quieted down. By the time I got in the elevator to leave, she was fast asleep. I put her in her carseat and took her home where she continued to sleep for another 2 hours.
The next few days were rough for Kenny and me. Elise was so sad and miserable. She was feeling icky and lethargic from the vaccinations. Our hearts sank as she moaned in our arms when we tried to comfort her. Kenny would take her on extra long walks every day which seemed to soothe her. By friday morning Elise was feeling 100% better and we were all more than relieved. I am so glad that we got through that ordeal, but I am certainly not looking forward to her next round of shots in another two months.

No more excuses

One thing that I must say that I do miss about pregnancy is always having an excuse to indulge in any junk food I wanted. I enjoyed indulging myself in any kind of craving, wacky or not, because, hey, I was PREGNANT. But now, I have no more excuse. There is no excuse for the remaining pounds that seem to be holding on to me for dear life. I am running, doing yoga, and eating miniscule amounts of terribly bland food. Bleh! This stinks! But I refuse to quit, because, as I said, I no longer have any excuse. I have about 5 more pounds to lose to get back to my pre-pregnancy size and I'm gonna make it, I swear! Kenny gives me a hard time for being so obsessed, but I just can't help it. He likes to give me a hard time about most all of the crazy things I do, you would think he would be used to it by now! He thinks I'm nuts for taking so many pictures of Elise. I am so camera happy, but what can I say, I'm crazy about this little girl. Here are a few of the latest ones.

8 weeks

Whew! I can't believe Elise is already two months old! One thing is for sure, mommy is definitely a tired girl. Elise is so sweet and just wonderful and she sure does love her mommy...ALOT. In fact, mostly, she just doesn't want mommy to ever put her down. There is an hour in the morning when she decides it's "bouncer time" when she demands to be put in her bouncer and nothing else will do. She's so funny, already informing me of her routines. I was cooking today and she decided that she definitely did not want to be left out, or put down at all for that matter. We compromised. I strapped her into her carrier and toted her around through the whole ordeal, she loved it. It worked out well, but cooking with my body facing the other way and my arm stretched as far out as possible can be quite a challenge. I love being a mom, exhaustion and all.

5 weeks

Elise is 5 weeks old today, and she seems to be quite the happy little girl. She likes to keep her mommy good and tired. This little girl is as active as I suspected she would be when I was pregnant. She does not nap at all during the day! I don't know if that's normal or not, but we are both pretty exhausted by the end of the day. The good thing about it is that we both get in some good quality sleep time at night. Kenny has been great and super supportive, though he does tend to be a little slow. He'll wake up when she's crying in the middle of the night, ready and willing to fetch a fresh diaper or new bottle, only find that I've already done it. It's pretty hilarious, actually. We are already hard at work spoiling this little girl. Most of the time, all she wants is for mommy to carry her, and what is a mommy to do? Of course, I give in and carry my little one around most of the day, I'm such a sucker. Sadly, our little one has just outgrown her moses basket and is now starting to sleep in her crib, which she is not very fond of. She has been growing so fast! She recently outgrew her "newborn" size diapers and we are now using size 1's. I am enjoying her so much, I just don't want her to grow too fast!

A second of free time

I am happy to announce that I have finally gotten a new working computer for myself. This and the fact that Elise is taking a nap allows me time to post on here again. Life has been so wonderful and so different for me as a new mom. Elise is doing great, she gets bigger and bigger every day, that little girl loves to eat. She is one month old today and we couldn't be prouder. I have almost grown accustomed to the lack of sleep, I manage to squeeze in a short nap every now and then.
I could not have asked for a better birthing experience with Elise. I was very nervous because of my issues with low blood pressure and I was worried that something would go wrong and that it would be a stressful event for me. I should not have worried so much, things went very smoothly. As I said before, we planned an induction on May 31st, as it seemed this little girl was determined to stay in there. We showed up at the hospital at 5:30AM for our scheduled appointment. The set-up process seemed to take forever. There were enormous piles of paperwork to fill out before anything could get started. I got frustrated with the whole ordeal and just had Kenny fill them out for me. The nurse set up an IV to get me started on fluids and Pitocin. It took her several tries to get it in the vein correctly. My mom, sister, and brother-in-law met us at the hospital at around 7:00AM, we were all ready to get this show on the road. We had fun laughing it up and joking around while things got started. At 8:00AM my doctor came in and broke my water, there was no turning back after that! Only after my water was broken did the nurse tell me that the anesthesiologist was in the middle of a c-section so if I wanted my epidural soon, I was going to have to wait. Needless to say, this made me a little nervous. From there my contractions started coming on fast. The pain was getting stronger and stronger and I just hoped that I could hang on for my epidural. I tried to stay calm and hide the pain because of everyone else in the room, but it was hard to do. After about an hour and a half I told Kenny to go tell the nurse that I needed my epidural ASAP! My mom laughed at my grimacing face and Kenny played around on the computer checking his stocks and sending emails. I must say, I was not a happy camper at that point. I just wanted to kick everyone out of my room! Thirty minutes later the anesthesiologist came to my rescue. My mom warned me that the epidural would be painful, but I found it actually quite relieving as it distracted me from the pain of my contractions. The epidural started working almost immediately and I felt great. I was all smiles after that. I joked around with the staff and was having a good time. Eloy (my brother-in-law) went out and got lunch for everyone to tide them over for the long wait. I watched everyone eat because apparently you aren't allowed to eat while you're in labor. We all took a quick nap and I woke up again at 1:00 when the nurse came in to check on my progress. She found that I was already 10 centimeters dilated and it was time to start pushing. I thought she was joking at first, but it was really time. She had me do a few pushes while the doctor came and then asked me to stop because the baby was coming out so fast. My doctor came in and she had to rush to put on her gloves. I was joking around with the rest of the staff, the nurse told them not to make me laugh because the baby would come out! My doctor said that if I was laughing so much during labor, that was a good epidural, and it was. A few pushes later and Elise was born. She was born at 1:27PM on May 31st. She weighed 7lbs. 6oz and was 19 1/2 inches long. We spent two nights at the hospital before coming home.
At her two week appontment we found that Elise had not gotten back up to her birth weight. It made me very sad because apparently I hadn't been making enough milk for her and didn't known about it. I've been having to supplement her with formula and she has been thriving ever since. We weigh her daily to make sure that she is growing accordingly. She is an absolutely beautiful little girl and we love her very much. We are truly blessed.

Some pictures of Elise

She's here!!!!

Just a quick update while I have a second. Elise was born on May 31st at 1:27PM. We are so in love. She is absolutely hands-down the love of my life. I will post the whole birth story once I get a chance. She's doing wonderfully and she is just great, even when she's crying at 3AM. :)