1 Month

I can't believe my little girl is 1 month old today!! It seems like just yesterday that I was talking to her in my belly, begging her to come out and join the world. And wow - how time flies.
We celebrated with a photo shoot in her 1 month onesie. I'm so glad she was good - so good that I took over 100 pictures!! I had a hard time choosing just one or two, so it's photo overload today!
So, at one month, Abby:

• loves staring at the ceiling. Her favorite thing to look at is the ceiling fan, whether it is moving or not. She also love staring out the window.
• she is starting to smile a lot more. She has always been a smiler since birth, but in the last week, she smiles more and I can even sometimes get her to smile back at me!
• is still very dependent. I thought we'd have a very independent child since both Josh and I are very independent, but she does not like being put down or left alone. I can sometimes steal 15 minutes while she is in her swing or her bouncer, but if she is awake, she doesn't stay content for any longer than that unless she is in my arms.

• is still an amazing eater. During the day, it's rare for her to go longer than 2 hours without crying for her next meal. During the night, we usually go 3 to 4 hours, but luckily, she always falls right back to sleep after eating. I haven't felt sleep deprived yet!
• is getting sooo chubby! But I guess that's what happens when you are such a good eater!
• has hair that sticks up like crazy. I had to wet it down before we took pictures, but usually, it's just sticking up all over the place!
• likes to be sung to. I need to learn more lullabies, because sometimes, rocking her and singing to her is the only way to calm her down. I'm glad no one can hear me most of the time, though, because I usually just end up making up my own songs!!

• has been to church for 2 weeks now, and even though I love 9am church, I don't think she's too keen on it. We've had to sit in the lobby because I end up having to walk around with her the whole time to keep her quiet.
• is the cutest thing I could ever imagine!! I seriously could sit and look at her all day long. I can't believe how much she has already changed in 1 month!

After our photo shoot, daddy picked up Abby, and I just had to snap a few more pictures. I love my family!

Wordless Wednesday - Chubby Cheeks

My 7 Minutes of Fame

I mentioned this on my food blog, but last week, I had the opportunity to do a cooking segment on a local show - Studio 5. I was so nervous, but it really was a lot of fun. I can't believe I went on tv 3 weeks after having a baby - I still have some weight to lose, my hormones are keeping my complexion from being far from perfect, and I really need a haircut, but it really was quite and experience. And I was so grateful to have Josh there to watch Abby and for moral support. To watch the clip, click here.

Newborn Photo

I know I am a bad blogger. But here is my problem - I have a child that does not like to be put down. She eats pretty much every 2 hours during the day, but then in between, even when she falls asleep, she'll last about 10-15 minutes of being in her bed or swing before she starts screaming. And she won't let up until I hold her. Every day it's getting a bit better, but in the mean time, I'm not even keeping my house clean, much less having much time for the computer. I finally downloaded a ton of pictures, so hopefully I'll get some more posts up.

This picture is now a few weeks old. I stole this idea from a blog that I blog stalk on. She started making these onesies for her son on his monthly "birthdays" and I fell in love with the idea. She is much better at it, and her photos are way better than mine, but I still thought I'd give it a try. And I needed to post this because Abby will be turning a month old next week and it will be time for a new picture!

This was taken the day after we got home from the hospital, and Abby was not loving having her picture taken at this moment. Hopefully at her 1 month mark we'll get some happy pictures!! And I have to laugh because this was a 0-3 month onesie that I used, and she is just swimming in it. In fact, even though she was already 9 lbs at her 2 week appointment, she is just now starting to fit into some of her 0-3 month clothes. I don't know who decides how to size baby clothes, but I'm convinced now that they are not right!!

Oh, and story on the sticker on her leg - when we were in the hospital, she kept kicking off the ID tags on her legs. One night, she kicked them off, but I didn't really think twice about it. They came in to take her to have her jaundice test and pku at 3am that morning, and I didn't think about the tags until she had been gone for quite some time. When they brought her back, I found out that since she didn't have her tags, they had to go around to every baby in the hospital to match the baby to mom. And Abby got her tag stuck to her leg. I felt so bad!! But at least I know I have the right baby - although I'm sure I would have noticed if the baby had been mixed up. I couldn't get that tag off of her leg for almost 2 weeks!

2 Weeks

I can't believe my baby is already 2 weeks old. Exactly 2 weeks ago, I was in the hospital in labor, patiently awaiting her arrival. And now the last 2 weeks seem to have just flown by. We had her 2 week doctor appointment today. She weighed 8 pounds, 1 ounce when she was born, and was down to 7 pounds 8 ounces when we left the hospital. The doctor said they like for the baby to be up to their birth weight by the 2 week appointment, but she was a whopping 9 pounds. She takes after her daddy - she is definitely a good eater. I have been told to only nurse her for 8-10 minutes on each side and give her a pacifier the rest of the time - otherwise, I might start to have some problems. She doesn't really like the pacifier, though, so we are going to take a trip to the store today to find some new ones for her to try out.

We did take our first trip out of the house last night. It was my sister's birthday, so my sisters, sister in law and mom all met up for dinner. She was mostly good, although she decided to get hungry right in the middle of dinner. I'm not so good with the "discreet" nursing right now, so it was a bit of a challenge, but we made it through. And we'll see if we can make it through a trip to the store today!!

Here are some pictures - a few are blurry, but I still think she is the cutest little girl!!

She loves to smile, although I haven't been able to get a full smile on camera yet.

A typical Abby look - she always wrinkles her forehead!!

Another attempt at getting that smile!

Sleepy girl!

And just so he doesn't feel left out, I had to throw one in of Max. He's been so good!

Baby Feet

Too cute for words

Umm, not so cute!!

I just had to take a picture of my horrible feet. Luckily, this was several days ago, and a lot of the swelling is down now. This is one of the reasons blogging hasn't been so easy lately - I really have been trying to stay off of my feet as much as possible. But it's kind of funny, because over the last couple of days, I've been feeling way more "nesty" than I ever did when I was pregnant. I'm wanting to cook and clean, but I'm still trying to take it easy and rest. I think I'm mostly just tired of sitting in front of the tv. But I do have to say that I am so thankful for the tv, because otherwise, breast feeding every 2 hours all day long would be a bit boring!

Abby is doing great. I can't believe she is already 11 days old. Time really does fly. I can't complain, because she is such a good baby. She already sleeps great at night - usually only waking up once between 9pm/10pm and 5am. Our biggest struggles right now are 1 - she doesn't like getting put down. I'm working on that right now, trying to put her down in her bassinet for every nap instead of holding her all the time, and she's getting better, but she is not a happy camper when she wakes up and is not in my arms. And 2 - I think my daughter is an emotional eater! She thinks that she has to eat to fall asleep, and she has to eat when she gets up. We're getting everything figured out, though!

I'm just trying to enjoy every moment with her right now. Being a mother really is an amazing experience!!

Abby's Story

Wow - it might be a little harder to post than I thought it was going to be. I am so in love with this little girl - I don't want to put her down!!

So on Tuesday after I posted, my contractions started getting a little stronger, but nothing I couldn't talk through. We left to go to the doctor with our bags packed - I knew that even if it wasn't right then, it was coming soon. On the way to the doctor's office, I was timing the contractions about every 5 minutes, and they were starting to hurt. Right before we got there, I thought that I should have called to see if they wanted me at my appointment, or if I should just go to L&D since I knew I was close. Since I didn't call first, we went up to the office (which is just across the street from the hospital) and asked them. The receptionist went to find the nurse to ask, and came back and told us just to go to the hospital, since the doctor I was going to see that day was actually over at the hospital. So over to the hospital we went.

We went up to labor and delivery, where they showed me to a room and got me hooked up to all of the equipment. They told us that it was really busy that day and that they were having a hard time finding rooms for everyone - which made me worried that they would send me home. The nurse checked me, and I was a bit disappointed when I was still at 3 1/2 cm - same as the Friday before. But the good news was that my contractions were every 2 -3 minutes apart, and getting stronger. I was ecstatic when they came and and told me they were moving me to a delivery room!!

From here, it all went pretty smoothly. The doctor - Andrea Smith (who was on call for my doctor who was out of town) came in and checked me again - up to a 4 at this point. She broke my water to speed things along a bit. When she broke my water, she noticed that there was meconium in the water, so I had to have a tube put in me that flushed water through to try to clear it out. It wasn't bad, so they weren't too worried - just a precaution. I have to say, it was quite weird, laying there in a bed with fluids running in and out of me!

Shortly after that, I got my epidural, which was pretty painless. It took a little while for it to kick in, so I got to experience some good contractions. Once the epidural took over, my contractions did slow down just a bit, so they supplemented me with pitocin to keep things going. From this point forward, I progressed fairly quickly.

At about 10 to 8, I started pushing. I had Josh there on one leg, my mom on the other leg, and my mother in law holding my head. I have to say, I had the best team there. It was really a different experience, because I couldn't feel a thing because of the epidural. I didn't really know where or how to push because I couldn't feel anything, but they were the best coaches, cheering me on when things were good. The nurse told me I would probably end up pushing for 1 1/2 to 2 hours since it was my first, but just under an hour later, at 8:43pm, Abby came into this world.

It was all such an amazing experience. Josh and I both bawled like babies, and I haven't been able to keep my eyes off of her since. I am so in love!!

Things are going fairly well right now. Josh has been great - taking such good care of both of us and the dog. My feet are really swollen, so I've been trying to stay off of them, and I ended up needing an episiotomy (sp?) so I'm trying to heal from that. If it wasn't for those 2 things, I would feel great right now!! She's a good eater, although my milk hasn't come in yet, but she's still been a trooper. I actually had 2 periods of 3 hours of sleep in a row last night, so hopefully that will continue! The only trouble we have had so far is that she doesn't like to get put down, so one of us is basically holding her all of the time. I'm sure once she gets used to this new place that will get better.

I'm sure I'll have all kinds of photos coming up. I told Josh we will need a new hard drive to store them all becasue I've already gone crazy! And I'm planning on using this as my way to keep a journal of everything.

I love my little girl!