One more video from last night... :)
Can you blame me?
Thursday, July 9, 2009
4th of July
Here are a few pics from our 4th of July weekend. My parents came down from Austin to visit their grandbaby (oh, and us too!). We went to the pool, Derek and I got to go out by ourselves while Mom and Dad watched Addy (we just went shopping, nothing too fancy)... that was about it! People in our apartment complex were setting off fireworks on the 4th, so we didn't even have to leave our apartment to get a nice fireworks show. That's what I call a relaxing weekend!
Daddy and his clean baby, all wrapped up after her bath
Momma and baby, out by the pool.
Addy looks interested in the water
"It's hot out here Mom"
Dipping the tootsies into the water
Relaxing in the stroller
Daddy and baby
Looking bored
Nova wants attention too!
Sleepy girl
Adelyn loves her Daddy
Haha, bored again! She was busy watching the TV. I love this one :)
Daddy and his clean baby, all wrapped up after her bath
Momma and baby, out by the pool.
Addy looks interested in the water
"It's hot out here Mom"
Dipping the tootsies into the water
Relaxing in the stroller
Daddy and babyPics from the rest of the weekend (and some a few during the week).
Looking bored
Nova wants attention too!
Sleepy girl
Adelyn loves her Daddy
Haha, bored again! She was busy watching the TV. I love this one :)Wednesday, July 8, 2009
More video
Three more videos to post, all from tonight. Make sure you look at them all! :)
Nova getting to know Adelyn
Another tummy time... she's getting so strong.
A VERY EXCITING TUMMY TIME!
Nova getting to know Adelyn
Another tummy time... she's getting so strong.
A VERY EXCITING TUMMY TIME!
Adelyn's birth story
One of my friends was induced yesterday morning and delivered a baby girl early this morning (congrats to the new happy family!). As I was following her progress, it got me thinking back to Adelyn's delivery, so I've decided to finish writing up Addy's birth story. FINALLY!
~~~~~~~~~
At my 40th week doctor's appointment on May 19th, I was 90% effaced and still only a fingertip width dilated. My doc and I had discussed inductions, but she said the earliest we would induce would be at the very end of May or even the beginning of June (for first time moms, they wait as long as possible before inducing in hopes that the baby comes on its own). I did NOT want to wait that long, but what can you do? Baby was coming out when Baby was ready.
I began having irregular contractions in the days following my dr.'s appointment and I was starting to feel pretty uncomfortable (sore abdomen, stomach, etc). My parents and sisters came to town that Friday, May 22, for Memorial Day weekend, and we were hoping that I would go into labor over the next few days since my family was already here. Saturday, May 23rd, was a relaxing day with no real excitement. We went to the pool (twice!), grilled shish kabobs for dinner and generally just took it easy.
Sunday (May 24th) was my birthday and original due date, so we all had our fingers crossed that things would get moving! We had a leisurely morning and decided to go to the mall so we could buy a baby book and do a little shopping. Before we left, I noticed that I had some light spotting and mild cramps so I alerted everyone to what was happening. Could this be it?? I remember feeling scared and excited and anxious to finally meet our little one.
We went to the mall and ended up buying a baby book for Derek and I to fill out for Baby Z, and while we were there, I started to get mild contractions. On our way home, we stopped by Dairy Queen to pick up an ice cream cake for my birthday (yummmmm!). The rest of the day was spent hanging around the apartment, timing my contractions. By about 4pm, they were starting to get more uncomfortable and were coming between 10-15 mins apart. They stayed like that for the rest of the day, until we called it a night at around 10pm.
Derek and I slept for a little while, but by 11pm my contractions were getting more intense and started waking me up. Luckily I was able to drift off to sleep again between contractions. This went on until about 2am when they started to get really painful and I could no longer sleep. Derek was awake with me, and by 3am we decided that we should probably get ready to head to the hospital. I got in the shower in hopes that the hot water would relax my muscles, but it didn't do much good. I took my time packing up the rest of my hospital bag, trying to relax between the contractions (now coming about 5-10 mins apart). Around 4:30am, we woke up my parents and sisters to tell them that we were heading to the hospital!
The nice thing about going to the hospital in the middle of the night is that there is very little traffic :) We got up to Methodist Willowbrook Hospital in about 15 mins. As we were walking into the hospital, I had to stop in the middle of the parking lot to breathe through a contraction. We got up to Labor and Delivery, and they sent my right over to the triage area to be monitored. After changing into a gown, the nurse came in to check me out. She asked how far dilated I was at my last appointment, etc. After telling her "only a fingertip" she said I would be very excited to know that I was now 100% effaced and 3cm dilated!!! They decided to admit me rather than send me home since I was technically overdue and had made some nice progress since my last doctor's appointment. I couldn't believe it was actually happening, we were going to have a baby! A Memorial Day baby, at that!
They sent me and Derek to my labor and delivery room, where they hooked me up with the two belts around my stomach (to monitor fetal heart rate and my contractions), and they also started my saline IV and drew some blood for tests. By about 6am, I was all set up in our room, just laboring away (and writing a post for the blog at the same time). The nurses went through a shift change at 7am, and my nurse Kalen came to introduce herself and check on my progress. They decided to start me on pitocin to speed up my contractions at 8am. Man, once that pitocin kicked in, the contractions became REALLY painful. I felt like such a wuss, but they were killer. Poor Derek, he was trying to be a good husband and rub my arm or leg during the contractions, but I think I bit his head off with the common pregnant-lady-in-labor phrase "Don't touch me!" a few times. I seem to recall saying "Man, I want to say a lot of bad words right now"... but I refrained :)
Kalen gave me a shot of demerol to "take the edge off" the contractions, but let me tell you, it did squat. All it did was make me fall asleep between contractions, and then I'd wake up in as much pain as before. I think I scared Derek once because in my loopy, half-drugged state, I tried to get out of bed because I was in so much pain. I just wanted the epidural! Finally at 10am they gave me the epidural and it was heaven. The process of administering the epidural was a bit difficult (holding still during a contraction was not easy), but it was so worth it. I couldn't feel anything below my waist. I did have trouble moving my right leg though -it was like a dead weight, very weird.
The nurse came back to check on my about 10:45am and stated I was 6-7cm dilated. Things were really starting to move along now that I was relaxed. My family made it up to the hospital shortly after that and spent some time visiting with us in the room. I don't really remember much after seeing the family arrive. I do know a doctor and nurse came back in around noon to check on my progress and they said I was fully dilated, so the doc broke my water. (Side note: my usual doc was not on call, so we had a different doc deliver the baby.) I was told to relax for about 30 mins and then the nurse would come back and we would practice pushing! The nurse kept saying how lucky I was that Baby was sitting so low in my pelvis because that would mean I wouldn't have to spend hours and hours trying to push her down into the birth canal.
At 12:30, Kalen came back and got me all set up in the stirrups. My right leg really was dead to the world, so Derek had to lift it up and place it in the holder. It really is a weird feeling, not having control of all your appendages. On my first push, Kalen said she could see that the Baby had a full head of long dark hair :) Baby was turned and facing a funny direction though, so as I was pushing, Kalen helped turn Baby. I practiced pushing for about 30 mins before the doc was called to our room to deliver our Baby. I pushed some more when the doc arrived, and after ~20 hrs of labor and with the help of the vacuum, Adelyn made her appearance at 1:12pm.
Adelyn weighed 6 lbs 5.8 ozs and measured 19.5 inches long. Everyone was surprised by her dark hair (and how much she had!). Because she had been stuck at a funny angle and we needed to use the vacuum, Addy had a large hematoma on her head. It's still there now, 6 weeks later, although it is much smaller and is barely noticeable. Just a little bit longer and it will disappear completely!
The recovery has been a bit difficult. Because of the epidural, my right leg was completely numb so I had to rely completely on Derek and Kalen to move me to the recovery room (getting me out of bed, into the wheelchair, back into the new bed). Luckily I regained sensation within a few hours. There were other problems with the epidural though. It turns out the anesthesiologist went a little too far with the spinal needle and punctured the membrane surrounding my spinal cord, letting a little bit of spinal fluid leak out. This resulted in me getting a spinal headache (happens to about 1 in 200 women). Lying flat was the only way I felt decent- as soon as I sat up or moved around, the pain in my head and neck was intense. This sucked because all I wanted to do was bond with Addy. Lying flat made nursing more challenging, changing diapers almost impossible, etc. The anesthesiologist said that the little hole would heal by "scabbing" over, but if I moved around too much or exerted myself, the scab would open again and the pain would come back. Reasonable for a new mother? I think not. Basically he had me on bed rest, made me drink tons of fluids, caffeine, taking vicodin, but still the headache didn't go away.
By Wednesday, the day we were supposed to be discharged (I delivered on Monday), I was feeling pretty bad, so they decided to keep me one more day. On Thursday the anesthesiologist performed a blood patch, where they remove some blood from my arm and inject it back into the spot where the epidural was in hopes of forming a clot. The blood patch worked wonders and I finally started to feel better. We were discharged later Thursday evening and finally got to come home! The first night home was great, so nice to be in our own bed again (poor Derek had been sleeping on an uncomfortable fold down couch the entire time we were at the hospital). We set our alarm to wake us up every 3 hrs to feed Adelyn but found that that wasn't necessary, she woke us up when she was hungry (every 2.5 hrs or so) :)
On Friday, Derek's parents arrived from Florida to visit their first grandbaby, and they spent the next 4 days taking care of Derek, Adelyn and me. Unfortunately, we think I ended up opening the scab on the blood patch when we got home Thursday night, because my headache came back. I spent the next week on semi-bed rest again, so it really was wonderful having Derek's parents in town to help get us back on our feet. After they left on Monday, Derek had to go back to work (boo) and my Mom came to take over for the Zivney's. She stayed with me, cooked and cleaned and helped with Addy until Thursday when I was finally feeling better.
Since then, things have been great. Adelyn still gets up roughly twice a night (sometimes more) and has naps during the day. She's growing quickly - she's practicing holding her head up, she's great at focusing and tracking items, she's interested in colors, she's cooing and trying to communicate... It's amazing to watch her develop! We are so blessed to have a happy, healthy baby girl :)
~~~~~~~~~
At my 40th week doctor's appointment on May 19th, I was 90% effaced and still only a fingertip width dilated. My doc and I had discussed inductions, but she said the earliest we would induce would be at the very end of May or even the beginning of June (for first time moms, they wait as long as possible before inducing in hopes that the baby comes on its own). I did NOT want to wait that long, but what can you do? Baby was coming out when Baby was ready.
I began having irregular contractions in the days following my dr.'s appointment and I was starting to feel pretty uncomfortable (sore abdomen, stomach, etc). My parents and sisters came to town that Friday, May 22, for Memorial Day weekend, and we were hoping that I would go into labor over the next few days since my family was already here. Saturday, May 23rd, was a relaxing day with no real excitement. We went to the pool (twice!), grilled shish kabobs for dinner and generally just took it easy.
Sunday (May 24th) was my birthday and original due date, so we all had our fingers crossed that things would get moving! We had a leisurely morning and decided to go to the mall so we could buy a baby book and do a little shopping. Before we left, I noticed that I had some light spotting and mild cramps so I alerted everyone to what was happening. Could this be it?? I remember feeling scared and excited and anxious to finally meet our little one.
We went to the mall and ended up buying a baby book for Derek and I to fill out for Baby Z, and while we were there, I started to get mild contractions. On our way home, we stopped by Dairy Queen to pick up an ice cream cake for my birthday (yummmmm!). The rest of the day was spent hanging around the apartment, timing my contractions. By about 4pm, they were starting to get more uncomfortable and were coming between 10-15 mins apart. They stayed like that for the rest of the day, until we called it a night at around 10pm.
Derek and I slept for a little while, but by 11pm my contractions were getting more intense and started waking me up. Luckily I was able to drift off to sleep again between contractions. This went on until about 2am when they started to get really painful and I could no longer sleep. Derek was awake with me, and by 3am we decided that we should probably get ready to head to the hospital. I got in the shower in hopes that the hot water would relax my muscles, but it didn't do much good. I took my time packing up the rest of my hospital bag, trying to relax between the contractions (now coming about 5-10 mins apart). Around 4:30am, we woke up my parents and sisters to tell them that we were heading to the hospital!
The nice thing about going to the hospital in the middle of the night is that there is very little traffic :) We got up to Methodist Willowbrook Hospital in about 15 mins. As we were walking into the hospital, I had to stop in the middle of the parking lot to breathe through a contraction. We got up to Labor and Delivery, and they sent my right over to the triage area to be monitored. After changing into a gown, the nurse came in to check me out. She asked how far dilated I was at my last appointment, etc. After telling her "only a fingertip" she said I would be very excited to know that I was now 100% effaced and 3cm dilated!!! They decided to admit me rather than send me home since I was technically overdue and had made some nice progress since my last doctor's appointment. I couldn't believe it was actually happening, we were going to have a baby! A Memorial Day baby, at that!
They sent me and Derek to my labor and delivery room, where they hooked me up with the two belts around my stomach (to monitor fetal heart rate and my contractions), and they also started my saline IV and drew some blood for tests. By about 6am, I was all set up in our room, just laboring away (and writing a post for the blog at the same time). The nurses went through a shift change at 7am, and my nurse Kalen came to introduce herself and check on my progress. They decided to start me on pitocin to speed up my contractions at 8am. Man, once that pitocin kicked in, the contractions became REALLY painful. I felt like such a wuss, but they were killer. Poor Derek, he was trying to be a good husband and rub my arm or leg during the contractions, but I think I bit his head off with the common pregnant-lady-in-labor phrase "Don't touch me!" a few times. I seem to recall saying "Man, I want to say a lot of bad words right now"... but I refrained :)
Kalen gave me a shot of demerol to "take the edge off" the contractions, but let me tell you, it did squat. All it did was make me fall asleep between contractions, and then I'd wake up in as much pain as before. I think I scared Derek once because in my loopy, half-drugged state, I tried to get out of bed because I was in so much pain. I just wanted the epidural! Finally at 10am they gave me the epidural and it was heaven. The process of administering the epidural was a bit difficult (holding still during a contraction was not easy), but it was so worth it. I couldn't feel anything below my waist. I did have trouble moving my right leg though -it was like a dead weight, very weird.
The nurse came back to check on my about 10:45am and stated I was 6-7cm dilated. Things were really starting to move along now that I was relaxed. My family made it up to the hospital shortly after that and spent some time visiting with us in the room. I don't really remember much after seeing the family arrive. I do know a doctor and nurse came back in around noon to check on my progress and they said I was fully dilated, so the doc broke my water. (Side note: my usual doc was not on call, so we had a different doc deliver the baby.) I was told to relax for about 30 mins and then the nurse would come back and we would practice pushing! The nurse kept saying how lucky I was that Baby was sitting so low in my pelvis because that would mean I wouldn't have to spend hours and hours trying to push her down into the birth canal.
At 12:30, Kalen came back and got me all set up in the stirrups. My right leg really was dead to the world, so Derek had to lift it up and place it in the holder. It really is a weird feeling, not having control of all your appendages. On my first push, Kalen said she could see that the Baby had a full head of long dark hair :) Baby was turned and facing a funny direction though, so as I was pushing, Kalen helped turn Baby. I practiced pushing for about 30 mins before the doc was called to our room to deliver our Baby. I pushed some more when the doc arrived, and after ~20 hrs of labor and with the help of the vacuum, Adelyn made her appearance at 1:12pm.
Adelyn weighed 6 lbs 5.8 ozs and measured 19.5 inches long. Everyone was surprised by her dark hair (and how much she had!). Because she had been stuck at a funny angle and we needed to use the vacuum, Addy had a large hematoma on her head. It's still there now, 6 weeks later, although it is much smaller and is barely noticeable. Just a little bit longer and it will disappear completely!
The recovery has been a bit difficult. Because of the epidural, my right leg was completely numb so I had to rely completely on Derek and Kalen to move me to the recovery room (getting me out of bed, into the wheelchair, back into the new bed). Luckily I regained sensation within a few hours. There were other problems with the epidural though. It turns out the anesthesiologist went a little too far with the spinal needle and punctured the membrane surrounding my spinal cord, letting a little bit of spinal fluid leak out. This resulted in me getting a spinal headache (happens to about 1 in 200 women). Lying flat was the only way I felt decent- as soon as I sat up or moved around, the pain in my head and neck was intense. This sucked because all I wanted to do was bond with Addy. Lying flat made nursing more challenging, changing diapers almost impossible, etc. The anesthesiologist said that the little hole would heal by "scabbing" over, but if I moved around too much or exerted myself, the scab would open again and the pain would come back. Reasonable for a new mother? I think not. Basically he had me on bed rest, made me drink tons of fluids, caffeine, taking vicodin, but still the headache didn't go away.
By Wednesday, the day we were supposed to be discharged (I delivered on Monday), I was feeling pretty bad, so they decided to keep me one more day. On Thursday the anesthesiologist performed a blood patch, where they remove some blood from my arm and inject it back into the spot where the epidural was in hopes of forming a clot. The blood patch worked wonders and I finally started to feel better. We were discharged later Thursday evening and finally got to come home! The first night home was great, so nice to be in our own bed again (poor Derek had been sleeping on an uncomfortable fold down couch the entire time we were at the hospital). We set our alarm to wake us up every 3 hrs to feed Adelyn but found that that wasn't necessary, she woke us up when she was hungry (every 2.5 hrs or so) :)
On Friday, Derek's parents arrived from Florida to visit their first grandbaby, and they spent the next 4 days taking care of Derek, Adelyn and me. Unfortunately, we think I ended up opening the scab on the blood patch when we got home Thursday night, because my headache came back. I spent the next week on semi-bed rest again, so it really was wonderful having Derek's parents in town to help get us back on our feet. After they left on Monday, Derek had to go back to work (boo) and my Mom came to take over for the Zivney's. She stayed with me, cooked and cleaned and helped with Addy until Thursday when I was finally feeling better.
Since then, things have been great. Adelyn still gets up roughly twice a night (sometimes more) and has naps during the day. She's growing quickly - she's practicing holding her head up, she's great at focusing and tracking items, she's interested in colors, she's cooing and trying to communicate... It's amazing to watch her develop! We are so blessed to have a happy, healthy baby girl :)
Monday, July 6, 2009
Tummy Time!
We have a few photos to post from the 4th of July weekend, so I will post those soon.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Wow
We had a big moment yesterday on Adelyn's 5 week anniversary!
She was sitting on the couch next to me, propped up in her boppy, busy grunting and wiggling. All of a sudden she started to coo. Not just her usual grunts, but actual talking noises! She was staring at me and cooing, so I started copying the noises she made back to her.
And then she smiled at me.
An honest-to-goodness, you-make-me-happy smile. It's not the first time she's smiled (heck, she's been smiling since the day after she was born), but this time was different because she focused her eyes right on me, cooed, and smiled. It was so beautiful, it brought me to tears. Because she's growing up very quickly. Because she's learning to communicate. And because she is truly starting to recognize me, both my face and my voice. Derek heard her coo last night, but hasn't seen her big smile yet. I'm betting that by this weekend he will have seen her do it too because she sure loves her Daddy.
Adelyn watching the monkeys that hang over her pack 'n play this morning.Sunday, June 28, 2009
Our 1 year anniversary
Yesterday was my and Derek's 1st wedding anniversary! We drove to College Station in the evening and went to Messina Hof (a delicious restaurant and winery) for dinner. My sisters were kind enough to babysit for us :) I had roasted lamb with potatoes and asparagus, and Derek had a Mediterranean mixed grill of veal, lamb and steak. Dinner was accompanied by a delicious Cabernet Sauvignon and followed by New York style cheesecake (for him) and tuxedo cheesecake (for her). The entire meal was simply heavenly. This was our first outing without Adelyn and by the end of the night we were anxious to get home to hold her, but we knew Kim and Mikaela would do a great job taking care of her - they are experienced babysitters. :) Thanks, Mikaela, for letting us stay in your apartment with you!
When we got home tonight, we broke out the top tier of our wedding cake and had a piece. It has been frozen since our wedding, and oh my gosh, it tasted as good now as it did one year ago! Delicious! Absolutely delightful. We will definitely enjoy having dessert for the next week or so as we finish it up. Wish I could learn how to bake a cake this tasty...
The lovely flowers that my husband got me for our anniversary.
Auntie Mikaela and Adelyn
Not too sure about being left alone with babysitters for the first time...
Googly eyes! Haha, they look a little crossed, don't they?
Before heading out to dinner
Family photo
Family photo
Smoochies!
Derek enjoying the wine
Lindsay enjoying the tuxedo cheesecake
Nice sunset
Mikaela and Adelyn
Sweet little peanut. Need to remove the red eye...
"I'm cute, Mom. Take my picture." That's what she told me :)
When we got home tonight, we broke out the top tier of our wedding cake and had a piece. It has been frozen since our wedding, and oh my gosh, it tasted as good now as it did one year ago! Delicious! Absolutely delightful. We will definitely enjoy having dessert for the next week or so as we finish it up. Wish I could learn how to bake a cake this tasty...
The lovely flowers that my husband got me for our anniversary.
Auntie Mikaela and Adelyn
Not too sure about being left alone with babysitters for the first time...
Googly eyes! Haha, they look a little crossed, don't they?
Before heading out to dinner
Family photo
Family photo
Smoochies!
Derek enjoying the wine
Lindsay enjoying the tuxedo cheesecake
Nice sunset
Mikaela and Adelyn
Sweet little peanut. Need to remove the red eye...
"I'm cute, Mom. Take my picture." That's what she told me :)
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