How a week flies by!

I can't believe how fast 1 week has gone! I can't believe a week ago today we were sitting in the hospital room waiting for our precious Delaney to arrive- wondering what she will look like, if she will have hair, what her cry will sound like, how big she will be, how long we will have to wait to snuggle her, etc. Unbelievable!

Kenna has been adjusting as good as can be expected. She wants to hold Delaney right when she gets out of bed in the morning. She wants to do everything herself and has needed some reinforcement that babies are small and need to be handled with care! But she does love her sister very much! We try to involve Kenna as much as possible- having her get us diapers, blankets, etc. I was worried about explaining breastfeeding to her. We just told her that is how the baby eats and she was fine with that. She calls it eating out of my belly. She asks why Delaney has to get milk from my belly. It is cute. Yesterday she tried to breastfeed her baby using her belly button.

This is Delaney's first trip out of the house. On Tuesday we had our first appt with Dr Dickmeyer. Delaney weighed 6lbs 14.5 oz. She was 6lb 14 oz the day after she was born so she is doing well. We had to see him so soon because her bilirubin level (test for jaundice) was high when we left on Sunday. Dr Dickmeyer chose not to retest it, which I agree with because her skin was slowly returning to normal color.

This is a picture of Kenna helping me give Delaney her first sponge bath at home. Kenna was totally confused since we were not actually putting her in the bathtub but she was trying to help anyway. It was cute! Of course Delaney hated every minute of it!

Wednesday night we took Delaney to mom and dad's house. We knew Kenna needed some time out of the house- and so did we. She was not listening to us and getting in to everythingso we thought it would be best to get out for a bit.



While we were there, mom set up dad's new hammock and Kenna had fun playing with it. First she laid on it......

Then she used the legs of it as her microphone as she danced and sang her way around the living room!

Yesterday we went to Parkview North to meet with the lactation consultant. I stopped in to get the hospital pictures we had done of Delaney as well. We stopped in to see a few people too. The first picture is Stacey Adams. She is the day shift supervisor of the family birthing center. She was a nurse I had regularly when I was in the hospital with Kenna. The next picture is Stacey Delagrange. She is the evening supervisor of the family birthing center. Deb Howell is the next one. She is the educator of the FBC and my preceptor when I started this job. The last picture is Jenny Dougal. She is a clinical nurse specialist for the FBC.

Just had to.....

This afternoon Tony took Kenna to the zoo so Delaney and I had some alone time. We both took a nap and had some time for cuddling too. She was wide awake at one point so I had to snap some pictures of her!

I think my favorite is the one up close of her wearing the purple skirt! She is adorable!

Tony and I decided to do the stuffed animal pictures just like we did with Kenna to help measure growth. We took pictures of Kenna every month with the same stuffed animal. It was amazing to see the stuffed animal almost seem to shrink as she grew! This was when she was 1 day old.

Look at how awake and alert she is. Absolutely beautiful!

Little hands and little feet!

We were so excited to be able to go home! Delaney didn't seem to mind the car seat at all. She slept the entire way home!

Coming in the door to her home for the first time. Look how excited she is! Asleep!



When we got home, Mom and Dad had not gotten there yet with Kenna. It was nice to enjoy the peace and quiet with Delaney for a few minutes by ourselves.

Of course the first thing Kenna wanted to do was to hold her sister. It didn't last too long, but we were able to get a few pictures. After she was done holding, she immediately wanted to put Delaney and her other babies in her play wagon and pull them around. We didn't think that was such a good idea.....

The first night was....ok..... I guess you can't expect it to be perfect. I went to bed when Kenna went to bed and Tony stayed up with Delaney until about midnight when she was hungry and needed fed. From midnight to 4am she would just sleep for small 10-15 min increments then would wake up and need held or fed to be calmed back down. At 4am Tony took her out to the living room to the swing- which she has grown to love already. From 4 to 6:30 they were in the living room together until I needed to feed her again. Then we switched and Tony went to bed and I stayed out with her. After I fed her, she fell back asleep for about an hour and a half. I was able to get a little sleep on the couch before Kenna got up too.

Tony and Kenna just left to go to the zoo. We have zoo memberships and there is a special event going on today. I think it will do them both good to have some time away. Tony stayed at the hospital the entire time with me- never leaving- so I think he was ready to get out for a bit. Before they left, Kenna gave me a hug and kiss, then ran to Delaney, hugged and kissed her and said "Bye Delaney. I love you, my sister!" It was adorable!

Delaney Grace

Well, she is here! We have been enjoying Delaney and our visitors so much that I have not had time to post about our experiences with her in her first 2 days.

We came in on Friday (our anniversary) at 7am. I was pretty nervous about how the day would progress and hoped all would go smoothly. When we arrived, the nurse notified Dr Schwartz who asked that I have my epidural as soon as possible so he could breakdown the scar tissue that was left from my cerclage. I was terrified about the epidural, although knew I wanted one. The anethesiologist was good and the epidural seemed to go in pretty smoothly at around 9;00. And we had pitocin started- which is a medication that induces contractions.

At9:30 Dr Schwartz came in and checked my cervix and found that the scar tissue was almost completely gone and I was 4cm. He also broke my water at that time. We joked that since Delaney decreased the amount that she was moving around, she was thinking "Oh no, someone broke my pool!"

Over the next few hours, we worked with the anethesiologist to get my epidural to work on both sides. It did the same thing as the one I had with McKenna. The epidural began working mostly on the left side and not on the right. The more and more medication that I was given, the more numb my left leg got. It eventually was to the point that I could not move it at all, but could still move my right one. It was a very strange feeling. I said it felt like my leg was a log!

At 1pm Dr Schwartz asked for an update and I was 5cm. I was a little disappointed since it have felt like I had been contracting FOREVER. The goal was to have my contractions ever 2 minutes and mine were varying from ever 2-4 minutes. So the nurse, Trisha, increased the Pitocin dose every 20 minutes. By 2:30 I was 6-7 cm and we were still waiting.

My contractions seemed to be increasingly painful but with one side of my body completely numb, it was difficult to tell. At 3:15 I called Trisha back in and told her what I was feeling. She checked me and I was 10cm. She notified Dr Schwartz who said to just keep him updated. After she got off the phone she had me do a few "practice pushes" to see how fast the baby would move. After those two, she decided it was best if Dr Schwartz came over because she didn't think I'd push too long.

Dr Schwartz arrived at about 3:40 and I started pushing. About 10 minutes into the pushing I became nauseated and had to rest a bit. After 25 minutes we were able to meet our beautiful little girl at 4:05. She was 7lbs 6oz and 21 inches long. She was beautiful!

She was immediately placed on my chest and the nurses were joking how since I was "competent" at suctioning, I could suction her out. Jokingly, they also asked what I thought her Apgars should be. Also, Daddy was able to cut the cord.

Kenna was the first family member besides us to see her. Of course she had a million questions and wanted to hold her all the time!

Here are some pictures to enjoy!

The big day (and a little about yesterday too)

Yesterday I decided that I didn't want to spend my last full day pregnant at home with Kenna. At first, I thought that taking her to the zoo sounded fun. I called Ashley and invited her and Abbie. After talking, we thought going to the park would be a better idea. We packed up our lunches, loaded up the car and spend the morning at the Parkview North park. I just love this park. It is very nice and so kid friendly. I know Abbie and Kenna had a great time. Lunch was a bit of a battle because there was so much going on but it was fun anyway.

After we got home, Kenna disappeared to her room for a while. when she came out, she was wearing these clothes. I had to really hold back the laughing but she looked adorable. I had to convince her to take off a few layers before naptime but she wanted to put them back on immediately after she woke up. She also wanted something in her hair. I put a pink hair pretty in her hair and we went to the bathroom to look in the mirror. She profoundly said "Mommy, I look like a teenager". WHAT!?!? I have NO IDEA how she knows what a teenager is or how to look like one!

Last night Tony made a fire in our new fire pit. We took Kenna to mom and dad's house to stay the night and came home and had a fire. It was nice to have the first fire in the fire pit and it was a little celebration of our 5 year anniversary (which is today)

This morning, I couldn't sleep with anticipation for the big day. We got ready and left the house at about 6:15 in the morning. We arrived at the hospital and got settled into room 137. Dr Schwartz asked that we have the epidural done as soon as possible because there was scar tissue from the cerclage that he wanted taken care of before I was in active labor- and doing this without an epidural would have been unbearably painful. The epidural was in by 9am. I was pretty nervous but the anesthesiologist was really good. The epidural only started working on my left side- which is the same problem I had when Kenna was born. They gave me a few bolus doses of medication and it has slowly begun working on both sides, although I cannot move my left leg AT ALL. It feels like it is dead. It really is not a good feeling when I can move and wiggle my toes on the right side and cannot do anything with my left.

Tony and I are very excited to meet this little one. The nurse just checked me and I'm 5cm. hopefully things will move fast from here!