Still truckin' along the Newborn highway!

Things are going OK lately. Mostly.

I recently had a nasty, nasty stomach virus for a week straight that about knocked me flat on my rear. Evan and Ally had it to a much, much smaller degree thank God.

I had an epiphany when Emily was 4 weeks old. I decided I really, really wanted to at least pump a bottle or two for Emily each day. Just when I thought I had made my peace with formula feeding, I guess I wasn't as OK with it as I thought.

Since then, I've been attempting to relactate. HOLY CRUD... that's some HARD WORK! If I would have just done it when my milk originally came in it would have been a breeze. But since airheaded Jodi decided to wait until 4 WEEKS POSTPARTUM to give her baby breastmilk, it's been a lot more challenging.

Especially after having the flu, it was like starting all over again. I'm only getting about an ounce total per day at the moment. But every time I feed it to her, it makes me feel so good knowing that I'm giving her something I made for her. And knowing that I'm giving her something no one else can.

If I never get any more volume than this, though, I'll have to hang up the pump for good. But I'm definitely going to fight the good fight for a few more weeks at least. I'm currently taking a supplement called More Milk Plus that has fenugreek and blessed thistle in it. I'm also on a drug called Domperidone which is supposed to increase my output. But we'll just have to see.

Emily is my little growing girl. She was a little over 9 pounds at 6 weeks old and about 23 inches long. She started social smiling a couple of weeks ago. OH. MY. GOODNESS. It might be the single most darling thing I've ever seen!!! She gets this huge, ginormous open-mouthed grin when you smile at her or make silly noises. I'm just soaking it all in.

Other than that, last weekend (April 24) was Ally's third birthday!!! I can't believe it!!! Sadly, we had to postpone her party since I was still pretty ill with the flu at the time. Turns out it was a blessing in disguise: we ended up having a tornado warning that afternoon and were huknered down in the basement!

But on May 8, we're going to have a princess party for our little princess girl. Instead of bringing toys (which she does NOT need), I'm having each person bring a different Disney princess costume for her. She only had one costume before (Snow White) and she *loves* playing dress-up in it. I can't wait to see her sweet face at the party!!!

5 weeks 1 day old

Emily's already a little more than a month old. CRAZY how fast time flies!

She sleeps pretty typically for a newborn, which means she sleeps for about 2 hours (3 if we're super lucky which isn't often) then wakes to be fed/soothed for an hour or more. And that process continues throughout the night. So not terrible - most nights, anyway.

Ally continues to be very, very careless with Emily. She's not even 3 years old yet (she will be in a few days though), so I don't expect her to truly understand it all. But I have found myself snapping at her a lot lately, because she's CONSTANTLY in her face, squeezing her fingers way too tightly, grabbing her, etc, etc... I remind myself constantly to calmly explain how to be gentle with Emily to her. And a lot of the times I do. But she just doesn't seem to care and just goes at Emily full-force still.

Evan continues to dote on his baby sister. He still calls her "his baby" and constantly says, "Mama, she's just so cute!". I am still amazed at how enamored he is with her. I've never seen him be so lovey to anyone before. It's SO heartwarming! Some of his other behavior towards ME is another topic altogether, though. Not something I have the energy to go in to at this point.

Postpartum blues have definitely started to kick in to gear. I've been feeling more and more overwhelmed as the lack of sleep continues. It certainly isn't anything like it was when I had Post Partum Depression, thank God. If it gets anywhere NEAR that point I'll be sprinting for the nearest psychiatrist.

I'm too exhausted to type any more updates but will attempt to later on this week. That's all I can manage to share tonight!

Great night last night!

So Miss Emily finally decided to be nice and give us a break last night! She slept from 10pm until 2:30am and then didn't get back up until 6:30am! WOO HOOOOOOO!!!!! Granted, I woke up like 5 times, checking the video monitor to look at her and make sure she was OK. I would see her move a little in her sleep and then think, "OK, she's gonna wake soon". Then she wouldn't.

I *know* this will rarely happen for now, but I sure do appreciate when it does happen!

Ally had a playdate at home with a little girl her age this morning while Evan was at preschool. She was sooooo excited! My friend Amy came over with her 2 youngest children: Ellia (about 5 mos younger than Ally) and Natalia (14 mos old). Ally kept saying, "I'm gonna play with THE GIRLS!!!". Sooo cute!

She and Ellia played beautifully together, and I can't wait to get them together again soon. Ally desperately needs some little girls to play with & she clearly enjoyed it!

My girl's got some ATTITUDE!

Tim was taking pictures of Emily RIGHT after she was born, and she promptly flipped him the bird! LMAO!!! If this is a harbinger of things to come, then we may just have out hands full with this little girl! HA! HA!!

Evan & Ally were really excited to come to the hospital and meet their new baby sister. Ally thinks she can be all rough-and-tumble with her (EEK!) and Evan is completely & utterly smitten with her! I've never seen him so sweet and gentle with anyone before; it's so heartwarming! <3

Emily was crying really hard and Evan kept laughing. I asked him, "Honey, why are you laughing? She's crying". He replied with, "She's just so cute when she cries, Mama!". Sooooo sweet!

As far as sleep goes, well, it sucks. It's everything we expected it to be. She sleeps a lot during the day and never wants to be put down to sleep at night. If we let her sleep in our arms at night, she'd probably sleep almost all night. But first of all, I can't sleep like that. Second of all (and most importantly) I'm really afraid she could fall out of my lap or something if I did fall asleep.

Oh well. At least since this is our third child, we knew what to expect. Even though we're terribly sleep deprived & a little more snippy with one another than normal, we're so very very happy that Emily's here with us now. She completes our family and I can't imagine our world without her already.

WOOPS! Apparently having 3 kiddos is eating up all my posting time...

LOL! Guess I should update my blog since Emily's 2-1/2 weeks old now, huh??? HA! HA!

Well, my induction was scheduled for Mon, Mar 15. They called me early in the morning (around 6am) and we were at the hospital by 7:15am.

They broke my water at 8:30am. Started pitocin at 9am. Checked me around 11:30-noon & reported that I was still at 3cm and 60% effaced (where I was when I arrived!).

They increased the pit a couple of times and by about 2:30pm I was finally at 4cm (still not much of an increase). But all of a sudden my contractions were coming a LOT closer together and MUCH more instense. At that point I received my lovely, lovely epidural. They checked me again at about 4:45pm and I was at 8cm! About 30-40 mins later I was fully dilated, effaced and ready to push. The doc came in and told me to push. I pushed and he said, "NOT SO HARD!!!". So I did one more tiny push and she was OUT!

I wailed and bawled like a fool for a long time. I am soooo overwhelmed and thankful to be blessed with our newest child. She's just beautiful and we're so incredibly in love!!!

Emily Ann was born on Mar 15 at 5:23pm. She was 7lbs 7oz & 20.5 inches long. She's got funny little white blonde peach fuzz hair just like her Mama used to have!

I'll post some pics from when she first arrived soon! And then I'll update the goings-on from the past 2-1/2 weeks after that.

I'm so amazingly thankful for our newest miracle. I thank God for her every day.

38 weeks, 4 days

Had my '39 week' check up today.

Looks like I've progressed to 3cm dilated... still about 60% effaced. Dr. Super said he's very encouraged by my progress and thinks we should fully expect a smooth induction/delivery on Monday the 15th - *if* I make it that long!!!!

Oh, and Emily has definitely had a major growth spurt. I told my mom that I suspected as much this morning (I've gotten huge all of a sudden). I predicted before my appointment that Emily will be about 7lbs 10oz & 21 inches long. After the ultrasound, it was estimated that she's now 7lbs 9oz. Not a bad guess on my part, eh??? LOL!

I definitely had a labor scare earlier this evening. I seriously & truly thought I was in labor! I kept having major, major pain & contractions. I couldn't get it to stop even after walking around.

But then finally (blissfully) it subsided.

I was really relieved because if it happened right now it would be really stressful to get someone here right away to be with the kids.

If it happens, we'll obviously HAVE to make it work right away. But if we make it to the induction day, I'll be most thankful!

One week from today!!!

Oh boy... we really are in the home stretch now! One week from today, I will be induced unless Miss Emily has plans of her own before then.

I cannot WAIT!!!!!!!

I slept for literally 3 hours last night because I am all out of comfy sleeping positions. So yeah... it must be about time to wrap this thing up - LOL!

I've been trying to keep myself occupied at all times, to help pass the time. Evan's at preschool right now, but after his nap, his best buddy's going to come over and play with him for a couple of hours. It's finally nice outside, so looks like all of us will be able to go out in the backyard and get some fresh air and SUNSHINE!!!! WOO HOOO!!!!!!

Tomorrow I'm going to surprise Evan and be the Mystery Reader in his classroom. I'll show up around 9am and read a couple of books to his class. I can't wait to see the look on his face when I walk in!! :-)

Wednesday should be a pretty ho-hum kind of day.

Thursday is my final prenatal appointment before the birth. And the way I've been hurting, there is NO WAY that I've had no progress since last week. I'm pretty excited to see where we stand at that point.

Friday Evan doesn't have preschool, so I'll probably just pack the kids up and run some errands to get some stuff I'll need before going to the hospital next Monday.

I told Tim this weekend we need to do as much fun stuff as possible with the kiddos, and go out to dinner as a family. Other than that, I plan on handing the kiddos over to Tim a lot and sleeping as much as I possibly can (given my discomfort) to rest up for the delivery.

It sure does feel good to be talking about these last few days. It means our newest baby girl will be in our ARMS.... SOON!!!

37 weeks 4 days

I had my '38 week check up' today (even though I'm 37 weeks 4 days).

We've had a little progress since last week. I'm now 2 cm dilated and about 50-60% effaced. So that's something, right???

And it appears that Emily has had a growth spurt (I thought she had, based on my increased size lately) and is now measuring just about EXACTLY right for her gestational age! WOO HOO! Grow, Emily, grow!!!

We're still set for a March 15 induction date. I'm praying I'll be called in some time in the morning rather than waiting around for most of the day. If I get called late in the day I most likely won't deliver until the following day.

But at this rate, we have every reason to expect it will be an uneventful and uncomplicated induction. Dr. Super said if I'm dilated/effaced enough & conditions look favorable enough, I have the option of them simply breaking my water without going straight to pitocin and see how fast I progress. That would be FANTASTIC!!! But if we need the pitocin, I'm OK with that too... as long as I don't need it for too terribly long. I was hoping to avoid pitocin too early in the induction process, so I can hold off on getting the epidural for a little while longer. I had some side effects from the epidural after my last delivery and I'm hoping that having less of it for less time will help out.

Anyhow, I'm still at a good place mentally. I'm glad I've still got a little more than a week to rest up (when I can) and spend some more time with Evan and Ally.