Random Updates

Motherhood is awesome! I love my little guy. He has to be the most precious, littlest person in the world (well, to me he is). We're getting use to each other. I'm beginning to understand all the little noises he makes, whether it means he's hungry or he's about to poop. I know that the minute he wakes up, his diaper needs changing. If I don't do so, I'll learn to regret it.

He went to the doctor yesterday and everything is great. He's gained a good amount of weight. He's up to 7 lbs. and 9 oz. from 6 lbs. and 15 oz. He also got his first vaccine, yesterday. It broke my heart to see him screaming the way he did. Poor baby!

What's been difficult has been (and still is) breastfeeding on demand. The doctor wants me to increase the feedings from 8 to close to 12 (I guess it doesn't matter that he's gained weight). I have begun pumping and freezing the milk, but I still haven't introduced the bottle to him. This means that I'm the one feeding Will and not Dan helping out (well he can't). Even if I were giving him the bottle, I wouldn't wake Dan up. He's back at work and I'm not, but man sometimes I need that extra hand.

This morning was especially tough. I think I got out of bed at around 5 am, changed him, fed him, and fell asleep on the couch. I didn't have the energy to get up to shower while Dan was still here and had a very difficult time waking up at 8 for his next feeding. I must figure out how I will shower today. Ugh...

Doing laundry with the baby is a pain in the ass. Luckily, I have an elevator in my building, but that doesn't take away from the fact that I still have to lug a bag of clothing and a baby downstairs to the laundromat. I think I'll take my chances today and wait for Dan to get home. I can't deal with this right now.

The move is happening on Monday! We're not done packing, but we've done plenty. For example, my closet is completely empty and so are most of my drawers. This weekend will be extremely tiring for the three of us. I hate moving! On the bright side, I went to see the place yesterday and it's looking wonderful. The owner put in a new kitchen with new tiles and sink! It looks great! The place is painted and they're putting the finishing touches to it. I can't wait until we're moved in. I'm very excited! Soon enough!

Well, I should go. The baby is asleep and should take advantage of this somehow! Let's see if I could get dressed! I leave you with this picture:



He loves having his arms up!

Look at my Little Munchkin!

Don't you just want to eat him? He's so yummy! I love him!

He's Here!

Here we are at the hospital. This is the beginning of my 29-hour labor, which resulted in the most beautiful and important event in our lives. Believe it or not, I was having contractions in this picture, but they weren't that bothersome.

Monday morning I called the doctor to let her know that I had a "bloody show" and was directed to go directly to the hospital. I didn't think I would be staying, but once you're there, you're there. I called Dan immediately and told him to come home. We got to the hospital and I was told that I was definitely having contractions. The doctor was contemplating whether or not to keep me there or send me home. After a good 7 hours of contractions becoming worse, she felt that I should stay just in case and also that I would be induced the following morning if I hadn't given birth overnight.

The contractions were of course getting worse and I was becoming tired. Here's an indication of what was to come:

Dan was just snapping pictures of me. I totally don't remember this one, but from the look of my face you know I didn't care. Overnight, I tried getting some rest, but the pain was pretty horrible. I had rejected taking any pain killers because I wanted to go natural. Although, I knew I would have an epidural since they were inducing me. There was no way I was going natural after I was told that.

Anyway, Dan kept on urging me to take a pain killer so that I could sleep. I was going to be induced at around 8 in the morning and needed all the rest I could possibly get. At around 3:30 am, the doctor walked in and caught me holding on to the side rail for my dear life with probably an expression worse than the one I'm sporting in the picture. She asked me again how bad I was feeling and Dan jumped in and told her that I'm downplaying the pain (which I was). She decided to give me the pain killer and I couldn't reject it.

So now that I'm not feeling any pain, I figured I would sleep until they woke me up. It didn't quite work out that way. I had a reaction to the pain killer and spent the next 3 hours scratching my face and feeling as if I wasn't able to breathe (right because I needed this after about 15 hours of contractions). Anyway, by around 8 am I was induced. By then, the painkiller had worn off and I was now feeling worse than ever. There was also a possibility that I wouldn't be given an epidural because my blood platelets had come back low.

I for sure thought I wouldn't make it through this labor. By 10 am, I had only dilated another cm. bringing me to a whopping total of 4. My contractions were constant and absolutely horrible at this point. Luckily, my blood platelets came back good and I got my epidural. Once the numbness wore in, I was able to relax for the most part. I couldn't feel my contractions (although, I did feel the pressure) or my legs for that matter.

To cut this story short, William had to be vacuumed out because his heart rate would drop with each contraction. It turned out that he had his umbilical cord wrapped around his body. No problem, everything came out just fine.

He had a little bit of a cone head, but that quickly disappeared by the following day. William was born on September 11, 2007 at 3:11pm. He weighed 6 lbs. and 15 oz. and measures 20 inches. We're both doing great, just tired. On Thursday, we were released from the hospital. We're all extremely happy and love our little boy!



Here are two more pictures of William with the both us:

A Little bit of Everything

William hasn't made an appearance, yet. Things are progressing quite well with me getting contractions (but not on a steady basis). I think by this week, I will have gone into labor, but what do I know? I keep on having conversations with him about moving on in life. Obviously, he's a little hesitant. That's fine, he'll do so when he's ready.

I'm officially on maternity leave. Friday was my last day at work. Even though I wanted to work up until I went into labor, I think I made a wise choice. We're packing up the apartment for the move. I'm too exhausted to do much (even though I try) when I get home from work. This way, I could work on my own leisure. I've also become extremely lethargic after lunch to the point that I can't keep my eyes open. Also, my coworkers just keep on trying to send me home. I think they're afraid I would go into labor at work. Since I've already begun dilating and all that fun stuff, staying home now is a good choice.

Last night, we went to see the apartment!! This time is was almost completely empty and got a better visual of where we're going to be putting stuff. Dan and I absolutely love it and the owner. She's a very sweet person. She's also very thorough. She walked through each of the rooms and told us what exactly was going to be done with repairs and paint. We gave her the security deposit and next weekend we begin to move our stuff in.

The apartment is officially a three bedroom, but we're going to use one of the rooms as a dining room/computer room (well that's what we're envisioning now). That room is adjacent to the kitchen with the wall between them open sporting a breakfast bar. It's a great open area. The kitchen has three windows! I love that. Our current kitchen is a galley kitchen with no windows. The place has plenty of closet space, which is fabulous. The baby's room is next to ours. In fact, to get to his bedroom , you have to go through ours (and no it's not a railroad apartment). We have plenty of space, which I'm excited about. I can't wait to start moving in.

Also, we met our new neighbors. They're in the process of moving in themselves and heard we were coming over. They stopped by to meet us and were very lovely. The mom and the daughter are both Virgos and were excited to find out that little Will and myself are Virgos. They seem like sweet people and I'm glad we met them. We even got a peek at what their apartment is turning out to be and love what the landlord has done with it. I can't wait!!

So that's pretty much what's been going on with me this past week. As you could see by the time stamp of this post that I'm up early again. I've been up since about 4:30 and got out of bed a little after five. I can't lay in bed if I'm not sleepy. This is the only time I'll probably get to blog today, so I figured I get up. I'm also not upset about being up so early. Since I'm not going back to work, my sleep won't be disrupted. Honestly, I'll probably fall back to sleep in about an hour, but whatever.

Well, that's about it. I'll keep you posted!

Almost There!

I went to the doctor today and as she said "You're opened a fingertip!" I then boldly asked if that meant that I would be going by this weekend. She laughed and said "no." But it could happen. It's a great sign that I'm opening up. I'm super excited about this! It could happen any day now!

You know, I've also lost 4lbs. I knew I was retaining tons of water. So my tally on weight gain is 21lbs. I'm very impressed with myself. With all the ice cream I eat, I'm surprised it hasn't been more. Well, I eat ice cream once a day (almost everyday). Regardless, I'm glad. Once the baby is born, I expect to loose if not all but all of the weight fast.

By the way, the sleep gods must have heard me because I fell asleep rather quickly after this morning's disruption. I even woke up at 8am and even though I was exhausted got plenty of my chores accomplished. When I finally made it home this afternoon, I knocked out for about an hour and a half. I would have continued sleeping, but I'm making beans from scratch (without a pressure cooker) and I still have laundry to do. Tonight will be an early night.

Can't Sleep

I've been up since 4:15 this morning. An hour has gone by and I'm wide awake. This sleep disruption will put a damper on my day because I have so much to do. Luckily, I don't have to go to work because of my doctor's appointment. I do have a lot of running around to do. I'm finishing my thank you cards from the shower, a visit to Babies R Us is a must, I'm paying a visit to my local craft store (I need to buy buttons for the jacket I knitted for William), of course I have to go to the post office (to mail out the thank you cards), and last but not least, laundry must be done.

What will eventually happen is that once the sun comes up (yeah, sometimes I wonder if I am a vampire) I fall back to sleep, which will totally disrupt any possibility of getting all of my chores done. What also sucks is that it's so nice and comfortable in bedroom (temp wise) that I don't have to push Dan away because I'm too hot. And now I'm missing out on that.

Alright, I will attempt this sleep thing again. Sleep gods please help me out on this!

September 1st.

September is my favorite month of the year. There are a few reasons why:

1. Autumn begins at the end of the month (autumn is my favorite season).
2. Beginning of the school (yes I'm a nerd, and what?)
3. My birthday
4. My mom's birthday (I was her birthday gift)
5. And now I have another reason to love September: William!!!!!!!!

Of course this September will be a hectic one for us. We started packing and have made eight boxes. Not bad. I had to take a break on the eighth box. Dan forced me to go to bed and take a nap. Not that I minded at all, I fell asleep pretty quickly. I've been up for an hour and now is when I feel some energy. Pretty soon, I'll get back to packing. I'm also going to attack my wardrobe. Goodwill will get clothes this weekend.

We did find an apartment that we're going to see again next Saturday. The owner's mom is moving out this week and we wanted to get a look at the place empty. We really like the owner because she's been very pleasant and she likes us. In fact, she won't advertise the apartment until we give her a definite answer. The fact that she's giving us first dibs is very nice.

The apartment is going to be fixed up. She's doing some stuff to the kitchen and painting it. Not that it needs a lot done, but she wants to leave it nice and ready. The place will be ready for the 15th. The place we live at now, we'll have until the 30th. This will give us time to move in. As crazy as things will get with the baby having the leeway to move in little by little is a blessing.

Alright, I have to get back to work. I have to stop slacking off.