Funny faces

Ana pulls some funny faces! The best is her poo face, but I've not successfully captured that one on camera yet. Another good one is she sometimes goes cross-eyed when you clean her bum....well I suppose I would too, those wipes are cold!


Here's one of her yawning that is cute. She looks like such a little girl on this pic - I can't believe she is growing so fast already! Also notice she has ONE sticky out ear like James, while the other one is flat to her head. We are not sure what will happen with the other ear yet :)

42 weeks

I'm going to be brave and post a couple of bellyshots on the way back down. Here I am 2 weeks post-delivery. Note that I'm still in maternity clothes :( I went against Shelley's advice and tried a pair of jeans on - mistake! My 'fat jeans' don't even fit yet, and I wore them until I was about 4 months pregnant!

2 week update

I have aquired the skill of multi-tasking!! Doing things with a baby takes 10 times as long....so now I have developed the ability to do many things with one hand while holding a baby, such as preparing and eating meals, using the computer, getting dressed, brushing my teeth, etc.

Ana had a check-up at the Dr this week - as of monday she was 9lb 5oz! Everything else looks good, except she still has an elongated head. I bought her a special pillow which is supposed to stop flat head syndrome. James thought this was moderately ridiculous :)

We have had a few cranky days, but for the most part Ana is still a good sleeper. Last night she slept for 6 hours straight! We are so fortunate to have such a mellow baby. She had her first tub bath yesterday and seemed to enjoy it. She especially seems to like having her hair washed.

My mum leaves next week, so we will see how we cope on our own! We should be able to handle Ana ok, but I think the house may fall into disaray. Right now my mum is on top of the dishes, laundry,etc.....actually you can barely put a dish down before it springs back at you gleeming and clean - woo hoo! Hopefully I'll be able to do more around the house as I recover. My recovery has been slow, due to the degree of tearing I had. I went for a short walk yesterday and it was way too much for me! I'm doing better than I was though so I suppose I'll just need to be patient.

Looks like turning 2 weeks is just too much for Ana to deal with right now!

1 week old!

Ana got a 1 week birthday party, complete with a cake baked by dad that coincidentally was ready right at 10:57pm! Obviously Ana can't eat cake yet so I had to eat extra so she can get some through my milk - he he!

Hair!!!!

The old wives tale about heartburn during pregnancy and the baby having lots of hair was definately true for me!!

Tanning diva!!

Ana was diagnosed with jaundice after birth, fairly common in newborns, but she had a pretty bad case so she had to undergo phototherapy. Here she is on her "tanning bed"!

Recovery

There are approximately 650 muscles in the human body and I think I strained every single one of them giving birth! The following day I felt like I had been hit by a train. I'm slowly getting back to normal, but my biggest problem has been the aftermath of the 3rd degree lacerations I have. I can barely walk, in fact a 90 year old man overtook me in the aisle at Eckard yesterday! Going to the bathroom is also an event I need to psych myself up for all day, and this is actually the only time I've used my Lamaze breathing techniques :) My stomach is still big and super saggy. I really like squishing it though, it feels like dough. I know it takes a few months to lose the pregnancy weight so I'm not stressing about it yet. I actually feel super slender compared to how I was last week (although obviously I'm not). I think a lot of women stay heavier after pregnancy because they've actually forgotten how slim they used to be! I lost 17lb with the birth (about 9lb of baby and then the placenta and fluids and stuff must have made up the rest). This means I'm 13lb above my pre-preggo weight so I'm hoping I can shift that soon, I'd actually like to be under my pre-preggo weight by about 10lb so that is my goal (ever the optomist eh....will I ever learn?). The funny thing is I look at Ana and I just couldn't care less. She is worth every stretch mark...in fact I'm wearing them with pride, they are my hard earned badge of honor!

First days

James said "it's not the first day you think you've found heaven, it's the second" and I think that is pretty accurate. The first 24 hours were tough - I was physically exhausted and in pain, and we were both sleep deprived and here we were left with this helpless little thing that cried all the time. Yikes. Luckily my mum spent the first night with us and was able to comfort Ana while we got a little bit of rest. The second day it was just the 3 of us in the hospital and we really began to fall in love with her then. James and I just sat and stared at her for hours at a time, we also started to pick up on her personality....Ok, so if you've never been through this you are thinking 'how does a 2 day old have a personality?' ....and I'd have thought the same thing a few days ago, but she really does! She smiles when she poops or farts so she is obviously cheeky, she also feeds with one beedy eye looking around and the other closed. She likes to sleep (thank daddy for those genes) and she is very mellow, for example when she is cruely woken up from her sleep for a hearing test, heel stick, or one of the other million tests a newborn seems to need she grumbles a bit, then just sits there and gets on with it as chilled as anything. I really hope she stays like this! She is just so perfect right now I'm worried it is too good to be true and she will change into demon child next week!

Ana's Birth Story

Here is how Ana came into the world....
I was scheduled for a labor induction if Ana didn't put in an appearance on her own by Friday 11th August , well sure enough Friday rolled around and no sign of her. James, my mum, and I set off for the hospital and arrived at 7:30am. We were sent to Labor room 2 and I got into a hopsital gown then they started me on an IV drip and went through my paperwork. At around 8:15 Dr Campbell came in and checked my cervix, I was 3.5 cm dilated, 50% effaced and -2 station. Remember I was like this 3 weeks ago except then I was at a 0 station...so basically Ana had changed her mind about coming out and was actually working her way back up! So, they started me on a Pitocin drip, which is what stimulates your contractions. I started contracting right away, but so slight I didn't really feel it. From here the waiting game started! James and my mum passed time doing crosswords and other things...James even took a nap (shocker). I rested and slept a little too.
The contractions kept doing their thing, they made me a bit crampy and uncomfortable but I didn't really feel them until around 2:30pm when I started noticing them kick in a little. At 4:15 Dr Campbell came back to check me. I was 4cm dilated, 60% effaced and +1 station. She decided to break my waters to speed things along a little. Ouch...once she broke my waters all hell quickly broke loose. The contractions were VERY strong and were coming every minute. James was off getting coffee when my waters were broken so when he left I was lying there relatively peacefully and when he returned I was huffing and puffing and writhing around. My mum and James talked me through the contractions which were still coming hard and fast. When I managed to catch my breath I said the magic words....Epidural please!! I asked for the epidural at around 4:45pm and finally got it at 6:30pm....oh the humanity! Apparently they had to wait until I had an entire bag of IV fluid before they could start it. The anethologist was an old Chinese guy and pretty cool. I had to roll forward with my back arched like a cat and stay perfectly still while he inserted the 6 foot needle into my spinal column...sounds hard at the best of times, never mind when your uterus is going contraction crazy. Anyway, the medication took effect almost immediately and I was able to relax. James had to wait in a waiting room while this was done because I was only allowed one person in with me and I thought my mum might be able to handle seeing the needle better. Poor Slim... I think waiting and not knowing what was happening was probably much worse! Around 7pm I threw up (a nice little mixture of Jello and vegetable broth) and started shaking which are apparently signs of transition (the final stages of labor). I was checked again at this point and was now dilated to 8cm - yay progress! I tried to rest a little and was checked about an hour later and was now fully dilated and ready to push. James was on a coffee run again so I called him and said "hurry back, I'm starting to push". James actually only went for coffee twice but seemed to miss the big events whenever he did!
Ahhhh pushing. This deserves an entry all of its own. I really don't know what to say about this stage of labor except it was every bit as awful as you could possibly imagine...and then some. I was pushing for a 10 sec count three times with every contraction. Unfortunately I was overcome by an urge to throw up every time I pushed. In total I threw up about 5 or 6 times, but since I had nothing but clear fluids in my stomach it was nothing but bile and dry heaves after about the third time. I've not felt anything like it except for the time I drank an entire bottle of Jose Quervo on my 22nd birthday! (I still can't even smell tequila since then, so I guess this is the end of the road for me and raspberry jello). Anyway, back to the pushing. If my pregnancy has taught me anything it is that I had no idea what I was getting into. I was overly confident about some things (like being able jog until my 8th month! Ha - being able to get out of a chair was a stretch) and was wickedly misled about others (e.g. why call it morning sickness
when it lasts all day?!). But foolishly I though that woman pushes 3 or 4 times and out pops a baby. That's the way it always sems on TV right? Well anyway, I pushed and pushed, getting hotter and more frustrated all the time, for about an hour and nothing seemed to have changed. Dr Campbell came in to take a look at me and said I just needed to keep on pushing (duh) or she could take me for a caesarian

Well I sure as hell wasn't going to have a caesarian after all this - if I was going to do that I would have skipped labor all together! So back to the pushing....I tried all kinds of things to help - standing and squatting, using foot stirrups, holding hand bars, but to no avail. I was well and truly exhausted, in fact in between contractions I was so drowsy and woosy I felt like I might fall asleep! James and my mum were doing a great job of encouracing me. They had hold of a leg each and were taking it in turns to fan me. They were telling me I was doing really well, but after hearing that for 2 hours and not seeing a baby I was beginning to doubt it. Finally Dr Campbell strode in to take control of the situation. She was fantastic and terrifying at the same time. She was manipulating 'the exit' to create some room and urging me to push constantly. Finally the baby crowned - this stung like hell - and the end was in sight. I barely remember the moment she came out because I was delerious, but it was a huge release and the next thing I knew I had a squirming baby plopped onto my chest. Unfortunately the moment was short lived because Ana was wisked away to be checked over and I had to wait and be stitched back together (I sustained 3rd degree lacerations...ouch).

Finally I got to hold her - I was amazed at the sight of her, she was just so cute, and yet looked nothing like I imagined! After having carried her for so long it was just so amazing to finally meet her.

Here she is

Ana Elizabeth Cooney Hutchinson arrived on Friday August 11th at 10:57pm. She weighed 8lb 13oz (more about that later) and was 19 inches long. She is beautiful and perfect in every way!

I'll post the whole birth story when I get a chance!

40 weeks!!!

Here I am on delivery day.
Bye bye belly (most of it anyway)

Eviction on Friday

Today I had a ultrasound done and we got to see Ana on "tv" for the last time. They estimate she is about 7lb 14oz (give or take). So, not as large as initially thought which is good. The big news is that she is coming on Friday whether she likes it or not! I have an induction scheduled for 7:30am on Friday August 11th (unless she comes on her own before then). I'm really nervous now I have an actual date!

Halloween

Well, since it looks like I may still be pregnant at halloween I have decided this will be my costume!

Lessons I have learned...

I will never take the following for granted.....lying flat in bed, being able to cut my own toenails, being able to move faster than a turtle, being able to get up from the floor (without assistance), being able to walk and talk on the phone without sounding like I'm making a perverted breathless call, watching an entire movie without needing a pee break, and being able to get out of bed without making a huge production.

Things I will miss about being pregnant......not having to suck my gut in when I'm in a bikini, people offering to carry things for me, and.....erm......that's it!!

Things I can't wait to do again.....Get drunk at Poor Pauls, eat sushi, go jogging, sleep on my front, wear jeans that don't have a stretch panel front, hug James without turning sideways or making him bend forward 45 degrees, wear my wedding ring, sit down without my belly resting on my thighs!

Oh and I will no longer laugh at the size of the 42FF bras in the dept store or refer to stubbing my toe as "the worst pain ever!

39 weeks

NOTHING....nada....niente! I feel like a watched pot that will not boil :(

Dr appointment

Went to the Dr again today. I have dilated 1 more cm to 3cm. Nothing else has changed, except I gained 2lb and my blood pressure is up to 122/86. This isn't really high but it is high for me (I was 110/70 a week ago). The Dr said if I haven't delivered by next week they will do an ultrasound to check on the size of the baby again. I'm scheduled for next tuesday but I hope to be cancelling that appointment!!