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. :)

What the..?!?!

Where is the baby????? It is May 29th, officially past my due date. I did not get to update this blog over the weekend because I discovered, amongst other things, that Kenny's computer will not let me do so. I really need to get my own computer running. Anyhoo, so it is past my due date and Elise still has not made her appearance. Why doesn't she want to come out?????? Despite my non-labor angst, I did manage to have a wonderful weekend. My sister Vero and brother-in-law Eloy are in town, they came just to meet Elise, and she's not even here yet! They got here on Saturday and we have been having a blast hanging out. On Saturday morning, me and Kenny went to the art festival on Paseo, it was nice. I enjoyed just walking around and seeing all the art, people, and just enjoying the sunshine. That night we went over and had dinner at my parent's house, as my sister and Eloy had arrived. My mom made me a special jello cake that I had requested, it was soooooo good! We had alot of fun just talking and catching up with my family. On Sunday we went out to lunch, and then went to go scope out strollers. We found some nice ones, but I still have not committed to any. We then went back to my mom's house to watch some movies. We saw Lady In The Water and Pan's Labyrinth. They were both good movies, we had a good time. Yesterday, Memorial Day, I spent most of the day cleaning up the house. My lack of energy was rediculous. I would sweep one room and then have to take a twenty-minute break, because I was so exhausted. I made dinner reservations for the whole family at Shogun's, we had fun watching the guy do all his tricks, and the food was pretty tasty too. Mom said that the only thing that was lacking was some hot sauce, I guess they just didn't have any. The whole weekend was pretty great overall.
This morning I got a little excited because I felt a pretty strong contraction, it's actually what woke me up this morning. I have only felt one other one ever since, so I'm not going to get myself too worked up. We had another doctor's appointment this morning at 10. Before we left, I bid farewell to my old '96 Ford Contour, as the American Cancer Society is scheduled to pick it up today, I'm gonna miss that old clunker.
My doctor is as surprised as I am that I have not delivered this baby yet. She checked me again and said that I am now 3 centimeters dilated. So, there is some progress, but still no baby. We decided to go ahead and schedule a date for induction. Past your due date, the placenta becomes drained of nutrients and is therefore not able to supply the baby with nutrients as well as it had been. We want to give Elise the best chance possible of success once she is born, with minimal medical assistance, so it was best to schedule the induction. So here it is...we are scheduled to have labor induced at 5:30 AM on Thursday, May 31st!!!! How exciting! We finally have a date! So, sometime between now and Friday I will officially be a mom, yikes!!!!! I am very scared and very excited.

Still no action

I went in for my 39 week appointment today. There has been no birthing action going on, and I'm kind of disappointed. Granted, my actual due date isn't until Sunday, but I was hoping for some kind of excitement by now! I think everyone at the doctor's office is getting pretty tired of seeing me every week. Everyone was saying things like "where's the baby?" and "haven't you delivered that baby yet?". No, no, I'm still here, still pregnant. I know that I am not going to be pregnant forever, Elise will come on her own time. My doctor said that she usually likes to induce at 41 weeks, so if I make it to my next appointment we can schedule a time to get things rolling. She said that I am two centimeters dilated now, which still does not necessarily mean anything, but only 8 centimeters left to go! Come on little one, time to see the world!