1 week

I just wanted to do a quick update now that Lily is a week old! Things are going really well here. Sean and I are both a little tired, and I know it will just get worse tomorrow when he goes back to work. We have had a steady flow of visitors since a lot of my extended family is in town for the holidays. I'm excited that Lily has gotten to meet so many of her cousins, aunts, and uncles.

I am feeling a lot better and am happy to be able to move around a lot easier. It is amazing how fast the weight has just fallen off. My feet and legs still get swollen if I am sitting in a chair for too long or standing too much. I have been limiting myself to the couch for the most part to help me remember to keep my feet up and rest. It is really hard to not get up and do things around the house.

Sean is amazing with our daughter. I love watching him with her. The two of them have a special bond. He is able to calm her down really quickly. He does a lot with her so that I am able to get some sleep, only waking me up to feed her.

Now is time to eat some dinner and hopefully get some sleep...

Birth

Warning: This post might be a little detailed and graphic for some.

I want to get the birth story out while it is still semi fresh in my mind. It has only been 4 days and I know I am already forgetting some of the details. Lily is actually sleeping and I am awake so I figure now would be as good of a time as any to write this up.

Saturday night (12/19) Sean and I were both really tired for some reason and decided to go to bed around 8:30pm. Sean got up shortly after that because he couldn't sleep but I was still tired. I woke up at 12am with contractions that were about 10 minutes apart. They weren't horrendous at that time, but definitely stronger than any contractions I had felt before and were time-able. I got up and hung out with Sean for a bit before I decided I wanted to try to get some sleep in case this was the big day. I really didn't think I was going to be going into active labor at this point because only like 5% of babies are actually born on their due dates. I went back to bed around 2 or 3am and slept very poorly till about 7am. At this point I woke up to go to the bathroom only to notice some bleeding. On the list of warning signs my Ob's office gave me it said to call them whenever you had any bleeding, so I did. The Dr that was on call told me that it was probably bloody show and that is a sign of more active labor. He told me to call back if my contractions were 4-5 minutes apart for and hour and a half. About 8 or so the contractions started to get a lot stronger and were sometimes 7-8 minutes apart and other times 3-4 minutes apart. At some point during this Sean went to sleep since he really hadn't gotten any sleep that night. I continued to monitor my contractions for the next several hours until around 2 or 3pm they were getting very strong and consistently 3-5 minutes apart. I woke Sean up at this point just because I needed support. Around 3:30 I called the doctor again and he said that if I was comfortable I could stay home otherwise we could start heading to the hospital. We packed up the last minute stuff we wanted to take and got Selene's stuff ready to take her to my parents' house. We dropped off Selene and were on our way to the hospital.

The ride to the hospital was not fun. Every bump, turn, and stop seemed to coincide with each contraction I was having. I'm not sure exactly what time we got to the hospital, but I think it was around 4:30. They got us into the labor triage and checked me out. At this point I was 4cm and contractions were about 3-4 minutes apart. They checked me in at about 5:15pm. I was told by my Ob at the appointment the previous Monday that I probably wouldn't be able to have an epidural because my blood platelet levels were too low. This was fine with me because I was wanting to go natural anyway. Once we got to the labor and delivery room my contractions got a lot worse. Sean was an excellent support person. He would get me ice and water when I asked and let me squeeze his hand during each contraction. He also talked me through each one trying to keep me relaxed. Our nurse was also amazing. She helped with showing me how to use the labor ball to be more comfortable and to help move things along. After awhile the contractions got to be really close together and pretty long so I wasn't getting that much of a break. At that point I did ask for something in my IV to take a little of the edge off because I didn't think I would be able to have enough energy to push if I didn't at least get a little rest. I was around 7-8cm at this time. They gave me just enough to give me a bit of a rest, but not so much that it would effect her. Around this time my parents came into the labor room to visit for a bit and offer some support. It was great to get to talk to them to kind of distract me from what all my body was doing. The medicine started to wear off and the contractions were getting stronger so they left.

The nurse had me get on the labor ball again because there was still just a little bit for me to go. I was basically 9.5cm at this time. The ball was great during the contractions, but I didn't like it so much in between them. I was much more comfortable during the "breaks" to be in bed but the nurse kept convincing me to stay on the ball for just one more contraction...this went on for several contractions. I kept feeling like I needed to push and the nurse said I had to wait just a bit longer. This continued after I got back into the bed. I'm not sure how long this went on for, but it seemed like forever. Sean was great during this time talking me through everything and reminding me to breath.

Finally I was told I was allowed to push. I only pushed for 4 contractions which ending up being right around 8 minutes. They had me look down once her head came out and it was amazing to see her beautiful face and long hair. There were times during the last little bit where it didn't feel like it was actually me going through all of this and that she was my baby. Shortly after she was put on my chest we attempted to breastfeed and she has been doing great with that ever since. Love at first sight is amazing.

The proud daddy

First family photo in the hospital

Christmas Eve family photo

Lily's first Christmas outfit

Pictures of Lily

Here are some pictures of our wonderful little girl. The story will come later because I am typing one handed while holding her.

Our little Christmas gift

Mommy and Lily

Sucking on her fingers to sooth herself shortly after birth.

She is not happy about the whole being born thing.

Lilian Marie Penner

Lily was born last night at 11:01pm. She actually came on her due date which one of the nurses here said only happens about 5% of the time. She weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and is 20.5 inches long. She has the most dark hair I have ever seen on a baby.

It is amazing how love at first sight works. There are times where it still doesn't feel real that I have an outside baby, but when she is here with me everything just seems so natural. Right now she is sleeping because I guess she was up most of the night in the nursery. We were hoping to keep her in our room, but we were both exhausted so we asked them to take her to the nursery for a little bit. We still didn't get much rest though because people kept coming in all night to check on me and give me updates about tests they have done on her.

She adores her daddy and quiets down soon after he picks her up. I love getting to see him with her. As much as I love hold her and cuddling, there are times where I am just as content, if not more, just watching him with her. He did great with me during the delivery as well and I don't know if I would have been able to do it without him. I will post more about the birth story, as well as pictures, a little bit later. Right now I am going to try to get some sleep as well since she is being so quiet.

Still no outside baby

So Lily still has not made an appearance. She still has 3 more days until her eviction notice is up and a couple weeks after that until she needs to be out by the doctor's standards. Still I am getting impatient. Although, I don't think I'm getting as impatient as everyone else. I have a bunch of family, friends, and coworkers that are all so excited and wanting to hold and see her. Hopefully she will grace us with her appearance soon because I want to have her as far away from Christmas as possible. Also, if we have her before Christmas then a lot of my extended family from out of town might get to meet her since they will be in Ohio for the holiday.

At my appointment this past Monday there really wasn't all that much change. She did tell me that my platelet levels are really low and depending on how low they are when I go to the hospital that I might not be able to have an epidural. I told her that is actually kind of a good thing for me since I want to go natural. It just takes that option away so I know I have to do this on my own without and chance of pain relief. She did ask that if I didn't want and epidural did I not want to be induced. I told her that I did not want to be induced just so that I could have Lily when I wanted to (ie before Christmas), but that I was definitely open to induction if it gets too far past my due date or if something is wrong with either Lily or myself. The medicine that they give you to induce typically makes contractions more painful, I don't see why I would want to do that knowing that I wouldn't be able to get an epidural. That just doesn't sound very smart to me.

There have been some things happening the last couple days that usually happen shortly before labor starts. I won't get into the gory details because no one wants to hear about that stuff. I even wish I didn't know the details. Hopefully all this means that my next post will be about Lily's birth!

Single Digits!

There are only 9 days left until my due date. Overall I feel like time has flown by since April when we found out we were expecting, but at the same time, this past week has almost felt like time has stopped. I am just ready to be able to hold my baby, not have to take over a minute just to roll over in bed, and to be able to wear other shoes than just the tennis shoes I have been wearing because of swelling.

I am starting to wish I didn't say I would work up until my due date. I know I just have today, a couple hours tomorrow and then 4 days next week, but I am still getting tired of being there. I feel like I can't concentrate completely on my work while I'm there because I am thinking about something with the pregnancy or parenting. Also, in the past week there has been a lot of added stress at work due to scheduling problems (both with patients and with one of my replacements) and with people being sick. I just wish I could stay at home and get stuff ready for her. Who am I kidding, I just wish I could stay at home and lay in bed or on the couch and relax until she comes! I have also run out of clothes that fit. I have about 2, maybe 3 shirts, and one pair of pants that fit properly enough to be worn to work. If I was just able to stay home then I could just wear sweats all day.

Sorry, this post was not supposed to turn into a giant complaint. I just feel like we have made it so far and yet I can't completely see the finish line.

38 weeks

Not much is happening here. We are just getting some last minute things together while waiting on Lily to make her appearance. There was no new progress at the doctor yesterday and she kept talking about seeing me at my appointment next week. I wanted to say something about the next time I wanted to see her was at the hospital, but I didn't.

Last night I did not sleep well at all. I was awake every 30 minutes because I either had to go to the bathroom, had a dancing Lily in me, or I was uncomfortable and needed to roll over. I know this is just to get me ready for the lack of sleep that is to come, but at least then I will have a cute little baby to play with, now I just have what seems like an alien moving around in my stomach.

The nursery still needs a lot of work. There are things just scattered around the room, but I figure that she won't be in there much the first couple months because she will be sleeping in a bassinet in our room so we have time to get it organized. Also, she won't care what her room looks like right now.