First Doctor's Appointment

Today we went to the see the pediatrican for the first time. It was also Bailey debut to the outside world. She was perfect! The doctor said she was doing great. She was four ounces above her birth weight. When she was born she weighed 7 pounds 11 ounces and then when we left the hospital she was 7 lbs and 7 ounces. But now she was 7 lbs and 15 ounces! Wahoo! Overall, she got a clean bill of health. We were proud parents!

First Bath

The picture says it all...she hated bath time! I'm sure it didn't help that mommy and daddy were very quick.

Keep me warm!!!

Poor Louie didn't know what was going on. He sat outside the bathroom the entire time. He was concerned about his sister. Don't worry buddy, we won't hurt her!

Delivery

We have had a busy week since our last post of nursery pictures. Well here it all goes. Long story and you will get all the details...well maybe not all the details but the most important ones.

I was 39 weeks pregnant last week. However, I thought Bailey would be late, but obviously I was wrong. Tuesday I was scheduled to visit my awesome Doctor (Leigh Lewis). Around 9 am I received a phone call from her office saying we needed to reschedule my appointment because she had to deliver a baby that afternoon. Much to my disappointment, I rescheduled for Wednesday after school. Well around 10:30 am, during my class' small reading group, I thought my water broke. So during lunch I called the doctor again to see if they would be able to see me today! I was able to get in but with a nurse practitioner. I've seen her before, and she's wonderful, but she wasn't my doctor. So she ran some tests and concluded that it wasn't my water. Great! I felt so stupid for thinking it was my water. So back home we went.

In a way I was excited it wasn't my water, I had an appointment to get my toes done and my eyebrows waxed at 6. Well without knowing, my water broke before I left the house to go to the salon. I didn't think it was my water because a few hours earlier the tests came back negative. So I went to the salon and got all beautiful! :) Then I headed to the grocery store to pick up a few things. (good thing I did!) After all this running around I came home and went to sleep. Around 3 am I started to feel contractions. They were very random and weak. So of course I didn't think anything of it! Around 5 am they got a little stronger so I went downstairs, trying not to wake up Lane. About an hour later I decided to call the doctor, finally a good decision! She wanted us to come in right away. I showered, ate breakfast, then woke up Lane for what I thought was going to be a wasted trip to the hospital.

Once at the hospital, I was checked by the nurse (Ginny). And what you know, my water had broken! At that time, I looked like we were going to have a baby sometime today. Dr. Lewis came down to check me and I was only 1.5 centimeters. This was the exact same as week 38's doctors appointment. Since I had not made any progress and my water had technically broken at 6 pm the night before, she had some concerns. They started me on antibiotics as well as pitocin (a drug to speed up labor). This all happened around 8 am. I labored naturally for about 4 hours. This was very uncomfortable to say the least! I tried the birthing ball, a rocking chair, and the hospital bed, but nothing was comfortable. Around noon I wasn't getting any relief from the contractions. They were recording off the contraction chart and back to back. I decided to go ahead and get an epidural. I really wanted to try natural birth, but looking back now...what was I thinking!

I was 5 centimeters and fully afaced...making some progress! The anesthesiologist came in to shoot my back with some heavenly drugs. I believe I told him several times he was my best friend! Getting the epidural was not painful at all. Lane watched the whole thing and he got a little nauseated. It was more to it than he thought. All I know is I'm so glad I got it!

No more than 5 minutes after getting the epidural, there suddenly was 7 nurses and Dr. Lewis in the room with me. I was still laying on my side from the medicine. One nurse put the oxygen mask on my face, another gave me a shot in my arm, and the others were rushing around the room with a purpose. Finally I took the mask off my face and asked what was going on. Basically I was told that Bailey didn't like the epidural. Things had been progressing so fast then I got the drugs and my body relaxed, she didn't react well to that. They were unable to find her heartbeat! SCARY, to say the least. Once everything calmed down and both Bailey and I were doing fine, labor got easy! I was a chatty Kathy, Mom and Lane were in the room and all I did was talk for about 3 hours straight.

After Dr. Lewis saw all her patients for the day she came back down to check on me. This was around 5:30pm. I hadn't made much progress, only one centimeter in 3 hours. (after the scare they took me off the pitocin) She told me she was very concerned with my lack of change and that my water had broken for 24 hours now. So she said if I hadn't delivered by 8, they would have to do a C-section...not something I wanted. They put me back on the pitocin, trying to help things along. Well it worked and worked good and fast! The nurse checked me at 6:10 and I was ready to push! Awesome all the drugs worked!!! This was the good news, the bad news was that Dr. Lewis wasn't going to be able to deliver me. However, Dr. Reinhardt was on call and he was fabulous.

I pushed for about 50-60 minutes. The best thing about this was I couldn't feel a lick of pain just pressure. I remember during the marathon around mile 23, saying I only have 3 miles left...YOU CAN DO IT! As cheesy as that sounds that is what I kept telling myself. The end was in sight and I knew that if I worked hard now that soon I would have a beautiful daughter. And by golly did I ever get blessed with a beautiful baby girl! Once she was out, Lane cut the cord, I'm very surprised he did. And Bailey cried like a champion!

Words can't describe the feeling I had to see her for the first time. I will never ever forget it! It's an absolute miracle!

The Nursery

The nursery is finished and ready for a baby...hope mommy and daddy are too!

My bags are packed, I'm ready to go!

Check it off the list: our hospital bag is packed and in the car! We are ready...well ready to go to the hospital. But ready or not here she comes. The doctor said she could come at any time. Let's see if she listens to her mother and stay inside for about 2 more weeks. It would be nice to deliver as close to Spring Break as possible! This would allow me to stay at home for six weeks after break, meaning I would only have to go back to school for a short period of time!!!!! However, I have no say about when she comes.
On the list for this weekend=car cleaning and putting in the car seat.

When?

37 weeks! I can't believe we have less than three weeks until our little lady will be joining our lives. But the real question is when? When will she decide to come into this world? Will she be two days early and share a birthday with me? Or late and be an Easter baby? It's tough not knowing the answer! One good thing, the house and room is pretty much ready for her. However, Lane and I have a lot more to do to get ourselves ready. We still need to pack our hospital bags and put the car seat in the car. Ok so that's only two things but they are big ones! Hopefully we will do those two things soon, like this weekend. Oh and we need to pick out an outfit for Bailey to come home in...that's huge! :)
Hopefully on Tuesday after my doctor's appointment we will have a better idea of when?!

IT'S A CELEBRATION....

My 3 best friends! Jared, Phil and Keg

OK, so Amy and I have been "trippen" when it comes to posting blog updates. So here is a bunch of pictures from our "couples shower".
My two sister in laws know how to throw a great party, I mean baby shower.... Amy and I hosted the event at our new house, Becky and Liza did EVERYTHING else. It was truly a blast! The food was a hit and the decor was amazing. I cannot thank you both enough for your time and efforts.
On a side note, we started the weekend off by convincing Liza Kate(AKA L Kizzle) to fly down to Richmond from Boston in order to surprise Amy Friday night before the party. It was priceless to see Amy’s face when she walked through the door, totally surprised. We are always excited to see her and wish we could see her more often. She has always been an amazing friend and no matter where she moves we will always consider her part of our village. Friday night, I think Amy and her stayed up until 1:30am just talking about life and catching up.
Then it was the party time. IT’S A CELEBRATION…. You know it is a good baby shower party when you go to buy 3 cases of beverages and mid way through I have to run out and get 4 more. Even though we are getting older we have not lost out desire to throw down. During the party all of our closest friends and family joined us in celebration of Bailey. We were also able to catch up with friends that we have not seen in a long time. Thank everyone for taking the time and make the trip to our humble abode.

I think we should have a baby shower every weekend.

Mi Familia

Who DAT is? My Family! The 3 best things in my life! Words cannot express how much I love each of you.

- A special shout out to Kristi Mckeag, I truely thank you for taking the time to take pictures of my wonderful family. I cannot wait until we can spend more time together when Bailey is born with Auntie Kriti and Guncle Keg. We love you guys.