When all else fails...

...put her on the playmat.

This playmat was one of the first gifts that Emma received. It is from one of her great-grandmas. Last week I decided it was time to get it out, even if she may not be old enough to really enjoy it. I was wrong. She loves this thing. There is a little cat that hangs off of it that is a rattle. I don't know if she intentionally hits it around, but she sure does flail her little arms around and smiles when the cat rattles.

I've also discovered that it doesn't take long on the mat for her to fall asleep. I went to put her down for a nap this morning and she just wouldn't go for it in her crib. I was doing things out in the kitchen so I decided to bring her out to her mat. She played for a few minutes, and then this is what I found:

Totally knocked out. Not even the shredder running for 10 minutes could wake her up

I've got to make sure we send pictures to her great-grandma so she can see how awesome this toy has been.

going home... and going back... and going home again!

We got home from the hospital on Saturday around 1:00. Once home, we brought everything into the house, sort of unpacked some stuff, put Emma in her crib for a nap, and then Chris and I both took a nap as well. Chris headed to the airport to get my mom. They needed to run some small errands (I do t remember what, but I know there was some baby stuff we needed--more diapers maybe?) so I used this time to introduce Emma to Food Network. We watched a little bit of an Iron Chef America episode, with her falling asleep in my lap.

They got home, we ate dinner, and then I really don't remember what happened. I'm guessing we all just sat around, watching Emma. She provides some great entertainment. Kid sure did sleep well, there were absolutely times where we couldn't think of much to do, so we all ended up on electronic devices. It made me laugh. Chris taught Mom a ton about her iPad and helped her fix some stuff on her computer. I think I sat on my iPad or laptop on Pinterest looking at recipes.

On Sunday Chris went to Sacrament Meeting then came home to find Emma sleeping in her crib, and Mom & I asleep on the couches in the living room. Apparently we sleep in the exact same position, he took pictures to prove it to us. I don't have those pictures or I would show you :) We ate some yummy curry for dinner (thanks to one of my visiting teachers) and then I think we just relaxed and went to bed.

Monday was a busy day! Chris, Emma and I headed to the pediatrician so Emma could get her Hep B vaccine and so they could see if she was gaining weight. Emma was 6 lbs 13 oz when we left the hospital on Saturday, and at this appointment she was 7 lbs even (I think...). We talked about formulas since Emma and I were having some issues with latching and we wanted to make sure that she was getting enough food until we could have an appointment with a lactation consultant the next day. Mom and Chris then went grocery shopping- I think they went to Costco, HEB and Sam's Club, they were busy busy! They got all the ingredients for all the yummy things Mom was going to make us the week she was here!

FYI: this next paragraph is gross. If you don't want to hear about me throwing up (i'm not too graphic, I promise) then skip ahead to the paragraph after this one, but I can't promise it won't talk about barf...

Tuesday we headed to the lactation consult which wasn't the most helpful. Afterwards we came home for lunch and then my friend Jessica was coming over to do a newborn photo shoot. After Jess left I wasn't feeling great so I went to lay down. About an hour afterwards I threw up. I felt better, so that night I ate dinner. Threw that up too. I started eating just saltines and drinking water/ginger ale. Threw up some more. Wednesday I threw up everything I tried to eat (which wasn't a whole lot) so I called the nurse at Dr Satterfield's office to figure out what I should do. She talked to Dr S and they told me to call back if I threw up again. Then it was a little later in the day, their office was already closed but we called and Chris talked to Dr Cox who happened to be the on-call doc. He told me to just try saltines and gingerale and if I threw up again then I needed to call back and probably go to the hospital so I wouldn't get dehydrated (which I already was at this point). About 5 mintues later I headed to the toilet to barf up the few sips of gingerale that I had had since talking to Dr. Cox. Chris got Dr Cox back on the phone and Dr Cox said for us to get me to the hospital. He told us to just go to the general admissions desk and he would make sure that my orders were there before I got there.

Knowing we had to go to the hospital we did what any sane person would do-pack a hospital bag! It didn't have a whole lot in it... Chris's bag had his laptop and iPad, so he was entertained. Our home teacher Matt came to give me a blesing before we headed out. This was one of the saddest days of my life. Emma wasn't even a week old and here I was, having to leave her at home as I went to the hospital. I knew she was in good hands, Mom had been helping so much (basically doing everything to help me out as I was recovering), but it was still so hard to leave her behind. Many tears were shed, and then we left.

Once I got into my room they started me on fluids. All my nurses were nice (some were stupid [here's lookin at you, nures Kathy], but they were nice) and they asked about Emma. I threw up every single thing the hospital fed me. Some meds made me throw up. And I threw up just for the heck of it sometimes. I became really close friends with their nasty blue barf bags. I think it was Friday that they finally decided "hmm, this may not just be a virus" so Dr Satterfield sent me for an ultrasound of my gallbladder. That came back clean. Back to the drawing boards. My only symptom was throwing up. That evening Dr. de la Garza (the on call ob from Dr Satterfield's office) came up to see me and see if she could offer a new perspective. She said she wanted to try me on Protonix (a PPI used to treat reflux) and see if it was extreme acid reflux. She said it sounded stupid, but since my body had gone through some trauma (apparently giving birth counts as trauma?) and my hormones were out of wack (again... giving birth) and knowing that I had already had some intense heartburn my entire third trimester, she wanted to see if this was the problem. I got my first dose of Protonix, threw up one more time Friday night... and then haven't thrown up since.

Saturday morning I got my "clear liquids diet" breakfast -- jello, Italian ice, juice, and some chicken broth. Dr Satterfield happened to be on call Saturday, so sometime after breakfast she came up to check on me. I was feeling way better so she decided she wanted me to eat real food at lunch to see if I could keep it down. She also basically told Chris that he should go home, take a shower, spend some time with the baby, and then come back and visit me sometime. A hospital is not the place to be when you're healthy. It was decided (by everyone involved) that it was time for me to get better and leave the hospital. I had the best nurse EVER Saturday, and that nurse (Gina--pronounced Jenna) has a good working relationship with Dr S. Basically Gina was allowed to let me do whatever. After I kept my lunch down, and looked like I was feeling way better they decided they better take me off the IV fluids that I had been on since Wednesday night, to see how I was doing without the IV. As soon as they took that off I asked if I might be allowed to take a shower. I got a shower, and afterwards Gina had found me some scrubs that I could wear so I could feel a little more normal. It was amazing. I ate some snacks that she brought me, watched some HGTV, and pretty soon she was finding me some solids for an early dinner. I had to keep breakfast, lunch, and dinner down before they could discharge me. Around 4:30 Gina brought me some legit chicken noodle soup, a turkey sandwich, and some fruit. After a few bites and me being in heaven (real food! hallelujah!) she brought in my discharge papers to go over instructions with me. I called Chris to tell him to come get me, and as soon as he pulled up to the hospital I was ready to go!

I walked in the front door and immediately went to Emma's crib to get her. I just sat on the couch holding her for a while until I was ready for second dinner. It felt so good to be back at home with my baby girl.

Because you've read all of this, you deserve some pictures! I'll spare you the gross pictures of me at the hospital... you don't care what I look like anyway.

 I think this picture is hilarious. She was at under 3 weeks old in it, and I only know that because that is a newborn onesie and she stopped wearing those by 3 weeks.

 I think this is just kinda cute.

 I was trying some pajamas on her, but her feet were drowning in them. She looked pretty cute anyway! This was after one of her first baths that she actually enjoyed. Poor girl hated sponge baths and after her first legit bath she seems to really like bath time!

 And you see a little half smile.

This is one of the best smiles/happy Emma's that we've caught on camera! We've since started getting legit awesome smiles out of her, but not caught on camera yet!

Stay tuned for another update, hopefully one that isn't so gross and all about barf. Perhaps I'll do a post about the many poops of a newborn. Just kidding, I don't have pictures of that to go along with the post, so that isn't any fun.

Once upon a time... I had a baby

My last post is almost a month old... You probably (maybe you didn't notice I had started posting every Thursday???) were expecting me to post after my 40 week appointment on May 16th and say something about how I saw the nurse practioner (Dr S was in Mexico, after all) and wasn't going to be having the baby anytime soon...

Yeah, I was expecting to post that as well. I even had started the post and saved it as a draft so I didn't have to write it after the appointment. But the story of my due date is a little different than I was expecting! If you don't like labor/birth stories then you can just skip to the bottom where you get pictures... or you can just wait for my next post.

I woke up at 3:00 to go to the bathroom (not too abnormal) but was having some pains that just wouldn't go away. By 4:00 I realized that they were probably contractions and that I should start timing them, just to see if they were as regular as they seemed to be. Luckily the night before I had downloaded a contraction timer app, so I just grabbed my phone and headed to the living room so that I wouldn't disturb Chris. I started timing the contractions at 4:25 (yes, I just consulted the app to see) and they were lasting between 45 seconds and a minute and 10 seconds, and coming every 5-6 minutes. They weren't too painful, but I could definitely feel them.

Around 7:00 Chris woke up and was getting ready to work from home (he was planning on coming to my doctors appointment with me, just so he could hear from the doc how things were going). I told him that I had been having contractions for about 3 hours and how they were, he was just as surprised as I was, but quickly got on the computer and started working. This was around the time where things started getting a lot more intense. My contractions were getting to be a little unbearable, so I decided to hop in the tub, which made things feel much, much better! Then I went out to the living room and we watched a couple of episodes of The Office until it was time to get ready to go to the doctor.

By the time we arrived at the doctors office (11:00) my contractions were about 4 1/2 minutes apart and lasting just over a minute. The lady who checked me in told me that I looked uncomfortable, so I told her what was going on. She called the nurse immediately and they rushed me back into the exam room, I hardly even had a chance to walk to the waiting room before they called me back. Mary Francis (nurse practioner) came in pretty quick and checked me. I was expecting her to tell me that I was still "high and tight" like Dr S had said for so many weeks, but she gasped and said "You're about 4 cm, and 90% effaced. Do you want to go to the hospital?" She then looked at a schedule and told me that Dr Cox was the doc who was on call, so she went to chat with him for a minute and then came back and said "Dr Cox agrees, we can send you to the hospital".

Then Adele, Dr S's nurse came to the exam room with a wheel chair, and we were off! They wheeled me straight to the hospital. I was checked in and situated in my room by noon! My nurse was Melinda and she was awesome. She was quick to get my IV started so I could get the fluids they said I needed before I could get my epidural (yes, as I was wheeled to the hospital Adele asked if I wanted an epidural and I said yes. She made sure they all knew I wanted it, and soon :D). Pretty soon Dr Mullens came in to give me the epidural, and Millie came to assist Dr Mullens. Millie made me laugh, we were having a good time as they gave me the epi, and after they left and it started working, I was feeling pretty good!

At some point (I don't remember when) Dr Cox came to check me and I was 5 cm, and still 90% effaced. He broke my water, and then told me he'd be back later to check on me. I remember him telling Melinda to check me again at 4:00 and then to call him and let him know where I was at. Before it even got to be 4:00 Melinda got another patient, and that patient progressed faster than I did so Melinda had to stay with the other patient. Erin came in as my new nurse, and she was pretty fantastic too. When she checked me at 4 I was about a 9 1/2 and fully effaced. I felt like it was time to push, but I had to wait. Dr Cox wasn't available to come back yet, and when he did make it back to the hospital he had to go deliver Melinda's patient first.

Finally at 6:30 I got to start pushing, and around 6:50 Dr Cox came in the room. He noticed that my contractions were super regular but not quite as strong as he wanted them to be, so I got a small dose of pitocin to make them stronger. Pretty soon after that Dr Cox told Chris to get ready to catch the baby. He said that he would get her head out, but then it was up to Chris to catch her, that's how he likes to do things. At 7:07 Chris caught Emma and placed her on my chest! Dr Cox sang Happy Birthday to Emma right after she was born, and that was pretty awesome!

As bummed as I was that Dr Satterfield wasn't there to deliver Emma, I absolutely LOVED Dr. Cox. If for any reason Dr Satterfield isn't around/available down the road when we have another kid I would see Dr. Cox in a heartbeat.

I know that what you really want is pictures, so here you go.

Here is Emma soon after she was born:

And here is the first picture of the three of us that was taken... It's not so great, but it shows our whole family! I'll have a better family picture in the future... a friend came and did a newborn photo shoot a few days after Emma was born and we did some family pictures. I'll share those when I get them from her!

This one was taken the morning after she was born.

And this one! I love this picture. I think that Chris took this picture while I was back at the hospital a week after she was born. I'll tell that story in a different post.

And this photo was from yesterday or the day before... I don't remember which day she wore this onesie, but it was definitely in the past two days because that was when she started wearing her 0-3 month clothes!

I forgot to add... she was born 5/16/13 @ 7:07 pm. She weighed 7 lbs 3 oz, and was 19 1/2 inches long! At her two week appointment she was 8 lbs even. We love our baby girl! It's crazy to think back and realize that three weeks ago I was laying on my couch miserable having contractions, and now she's here! Time has flown.