Almost 1 Month Old!

It amazes me that the last month has flown by so quickly. It seems like the days go by in 2-3 hr bits. Nicole is such a precious little girl and we love her so much, but it has definitely been an adjustment for us. I was hoping to update this blog weekly, but it has been hard to have a free hand. I seem to always either be feeding Nicole, playing with her, trying to get her to sleep, or using the time she is sleeping to get stuff done around the house. Everyone told us that we wouldn't get much sleep these first few weeks and that has really been the case. When we first got her home, we tried to lay her in the pack n' play in our room and she would not have it. She did not want to lay in her crib, her pack n' plays, her bouncy chair or her swing for more than a few minutes. The only way she would settle and sleep is when we were holding her. Last week I thought we had a breakthrough when we were able to get her to sleep in her crib for 3hr stretches. It was wonderful! Then all of a sudden, she didn't like that any more. We think most of her sleep problems are because of really painful gas. We've tried everything -- the drops, the burping, the tummy rubs, laying on her tummy, and nothing seems to really work. We feel so bad for her because she'll be sleeping and then we see the pain in her face as she struggles to let the gas go. The gas is loud and explosive and can last for awhile. I've been trying to do some research to find out if it is something I'm eating or what. We've decided it may be lactose overload, so I've adjusted the way I feed her. The other solution we found with her sleep is to make sure we don't get her overtired. The last few nights, we've been letting her sleep in her bouncy chair and she has been able to sleep for the long stretches again. Tonight we are going to try the crib again.

Shaun was able to spend the first two weeks at home with us and it was great to have his help. He went back to work last week and it has been interesting to adjust to having her all by myself. I feel like I'm always either feeding her or trying to get her to sleep. After a few days, I knew I had to find a way to get more activity in for her and more "me time." That has been getting better. Some days are better than others. Some days, I'm lucky to get a shower and then other days I'm able to fix dinner and take her for a walk. I love those days!

Nicole has grown so much since we brought her home. I put her in the outfit we brought her home in from the hospital and it almost fits. I'm not sure what her weight is, but she is definitely getting bigger. We got her pictures taken when she was 2 weeks old. They turned out so cute. We had to cut the session a little short because she got pretty fussy, but the pictures still turned out really well. She is happiest when she wakes up. I love to watch her big, wide eyes just look around and take things in. I know that people say babies don't smile at this age, but it seems like she has been smiling from the beginning. I'm not sure if she is smiling because she is happy or for some other reason, but I love to see her smile. Everyone who sees her swears she looks like Shaun. We think it is still hard to tell. I can see she definitely has some of Shaun's features though. Here are some of the pictures:

She's Here!! Labor and Delivery

Nicole Marie arrived on 18 March at 8:18am!! I know I was supposed to be prepared to go any day, but I've always heard people say they had a "feeling" the day they went into labor. This was definitely not the case with me. On Wednesday, I left work a little early because I had some stuff I needed to take care off. I went home and started working on stuff in the nursery. I put together a shelf (which was a lot harder than it should of been since I was soo pregnant). I was having contractions, but I figured it was because I was doing too much, so I figured I would just take it easy when I was done. Then at 6, the contractions got more regular. I tried lying down and resting, but that didn't seem to make them stop. Shaun got home late at 8 that night and that is when they started getting more painful. I thought I would just go to bed. That didn't work because I couldn't lay in bed. I started checking all my books to see what they said about when to go to the hospital and how to ease the pain. At 11pm, I woke Shaun up and told him it was time to go. We rushed and packed my hospital bag (I know I was supposed to have this done weeks before). We arrived at the hospital around midnight. They hooked me up to the monitors and checked me out. While they were checking me, I had a contraction that dilated me from a 3 to a 5, so they admitted me. At that point, I started getting anxious because I realized it was really getting ready to happen. I decided to have an epidural, which I got around 3 am, when I was dilated to an 8. Then the labor slowed down dramatically. It took me the next 3 hrs to get to a 9. The nurses recommended using this time to get some rest. I was able to sleep for about an hour. Then around 7, they came and asked me how I felt about speeding up the labor. We decided to have them break my water and see if that helped get the contractions going again. It helped a little, but by 7:30, they started pitocin and reduced my epidural, so we could get things moving. By 8:18, she was here. We were able to hold her right away and Shaun cut her cord. They checked her out and said everything looked great! She was still pretty small - 5lb 12oz and 17 3/4 in. We stayed in the hospital for 48 hrs. I couldn't wait to get home. It definitely has been an adjustment for us. She really is wonderful, but we need to work on establishing some sort of routine for her. I go back to work at the beginning of May. I'm not really looking forward to that, but the next few weeks will be nice to be at home with her.