Happy Valentine's Day!

I love her so much it makes me want to explode.

Seriously! It's overwhelming. Jason and I find ourselves just staring at her... she's really ours???

Life is good. God is amazing! My hormones are leveling out, I'm a little teensy bit more confident, we seem to be getting a good little groove... that is NOT to say we're on any sort of schedule, Charlotte is still pretty unpredictable - but it's getting better! Nursing is even getting better! (And a side note to all of my friends that didn't have nursing issues.... I hope you don't take that for granted! lol. That's harder than any job or any exam I've ever had to contend with...).

As of her 3 week pedi appt, Charlotte finally passed her birth weight - she now weighs 7lb 7oz. The outfit below is actually a premie outfit, but it fits her better than anything else she has - and we still have to roll the pants up so that they don't cover her feet completely, and the sleeves up so that she can find her hands. She's an itty bitty!

We're still on house arrest/quarantine - our pediatrician said she's seen really high numbers of babies with the flu and RSV this season - and wants us to stay at home for 2 months. She's particularly concerned with going to church because so many people will want to hold her... we miss church! Jason had to go to Chicago for a few days last week, and Rachel and Suzanne came and staged an intervention of sorts. Making a delicious lunch, helping with some stuff around the house, and just giving me some adult company... it was the greatest gift. They may not have realized it, but I was on the verge of an anxiety attack and the distraction was welcome, lol. Then, that evening (our first one alone), my best friend since childhood - Miranda - came over and kept me company for a few hours. Miranda was actually in the delivery room with us when Charlotte was born, and helped Jason & I a lot during the scary parts of my labor... she has a daughter who is 4months older than Charlotte, so we're going to be forcing best-friendedness on them.

We have a pass to hang out with friends and go to the store, though, so if you see us mindlessly ambling about Target - that's why. Be warned before approaching, we probably smell like spit up and if you start talking to us, it could be hard to break free - we may latch on and not let go.
We also took a walk around the neighborhood with Daddy last night (um, why is it almost 80 degrees the first week of February!?!?!?)... the walk included checking the mail. Very exciting stuff, people!

As for who she looks like, I dug up a few pictures of myself at that age - and the resemblance is pretty obvious. Only she's WAY cuter. :o) But her feet are IDENTICAL to her fathers. She even has the same random crazy toe that wants to point the wrong direction.

Here are some pictures from this week...

The strap was in front of the lens when I took this picture, but it CRACKS me up... she's SO ANGRY!

Whoah! We're outside! THE INSANITY!!!

What a difference a week makes!

In the past 7 days, my world has forever changed. Charlotte was born on Jan 10th, at 9:15 in the evening. She's beautiful and absolutely perfect - but I may be a bit biased. I went into labor on my own, Praise God - and while my birth story isn't what I would have planned, the result is a blessing from God.

I've been poked, prodded, monitored, watched, panicked, given birth, thrown up, been thrown up on, been peed on, been pooped on, laughed, cried, fallen deeply in love - and been completely overwhelmed by the entire experience. How will I ever adjust to the demands of this new little person that I don't really understand, and how was this world ever enough without her in it?

A few hours old...

A day and a half old...

Home, where we've been waiting...

In the 60+ year old baby gown, passed down through Jason's family...

Damn the paparazzi.

Someone please explain to my Mommy and Daddy how to care for an infant... they're OBVIOUSLY clueless.

My lazy uterus.

What's a girl gotta do to get some contractions going around here?

Just a quick update - had a doctors appt yesterday (80% effaced, dilated b/w a 1-2, he didn't mention station but she was +1 before, and based on pelvic bone pain, she feels a bit lower). So we're making progress, but not enough. He set her eviction date as this Friday. :o(

Assuming she doesn't come before then, we check into the hospital Thursday night at 10pm. It's hard when you totally trust your doctor, and totally don't want to do what he wants you to do. Very conflicting. I need to really quit trying to figure out a way to control this situation, and let God be in charge of planning her birthday... and her birth, as it stands.

But in the meantime - lol - I had eggplant parm for dinner last night, I've eaten more pineapple than you could possibly imagine, I'm drinking Red Raspberry Leaf tea, etc etc. I asked my OB about Castor Oil... he said it wouldn't be pleasant, and he doesn't think it works, but that it wouldn't 'hurt me', per se. We bought a bottle, but I haven't done much more than stare at it, as of yet. I have several girlfriends who have been telling me all along "just take castor oil!" but the idea of being dehydrated at the start of labor doesn't sit well with me. I'm not convinced that it will result in anything better than what the pitocin will do, so we'll see.

Charloooootttttttttte.............. come out, come out, wherever you are!!!!

Will blogging stimulate labor????

At this point, I'll try anything!

Yeah - it's been forever. I know. Maybe now that I'm officially on maternity leave - with no baby - I'll get into the swing of this... maybe.

Charlotte is doing great! Just over 6lbs, according to the perinatologist's calculations - which is small for her gestation, but she's fantastically healthy. Now if she would just come out to play! She has so many friends waiting to meet her.... *sigh* And her mommy is really worn out, truth be told. I considered myself so well-prepared for the aches and pains of pregnancy, but it turned out that my chief problem is one that I'd never even known anyone else to have - carpal tunnel syndrome. It's getting increasingly severe - my right hand is at least 50% numb all of the time, and moves into fiery pain up through my shoulder several times a day, keeps me up at night. LAME! That's what I think about that. Leave it to me to get the one random thing that there's absolutely no cream, no chewable tablet, no therapy for at all. I just hope it goes away quickly after I deliver, or else it's going to be an issue with newborn care. :o(

Her room is done, though! The only thing left to do is to hang her window treatments, and I hope to get that accomplished in the next day or so. Everything is laundered, and folded, and ready - I just need a baby!

Here are some photos...





In non-Charlotte related news:

Quite a bit has happened in the lives of some of my sweet friends. My friend, Niki (whom I requested prayers for back when the hurricane was hitting her family in Jamaica) gave birth to her sweet little girl, Sydney, in October - at barely 26 weeks. You can read about her amazing journey here.

Then, in December, another girlfriend of mine - Ana - gave birth to her sweet little boy, Jayan, at only 24/25 weeks. You can read about him here.

Both of these babies are incredible fighters, and I can't imagine how challenging and scary it must be to be the mommy of someone so tiny. But both are proof of just how big our God is.

My dad is still in Iraq - he gets another vacation in March, then should be home for good in July. Keep him in your prayers, if you think about it... the stations he is training the PO's at are increasingly dangerous, and in rather remote areas. We were accustomed to hearing from him every 2-3 days, but now it's every 15-17.

Alright, I'm off to eat some pineapple.

Hi there! Remember me?

The worlds crappiest blogger. Checking in!

Things are all around pretty good, though... my dad is home from Iraq for 3 weeks, and since he won't be here when Miss Charlotte makes her grand debut - we surprised him with a 3D sonogram today. He was over the moon! It was super cool, but we didn't get quite as good of a look at her as we had hoped. She had her cord all bunched up in front of her face - and the tech was able to adjust the concavity of the sound waves, making the cord more transparent, but that resulted in it giving her nose and forehead a very flat appearance. So when she's born, it will still be a surprise what exactly she looks like because most of our views were slightly distorted.

I'll share some of them, though! Wherever you see dark spots - those are where her cord was... the tech adjusted it to make it more transparent, but there is only so much she could do. The cord looked like mardi gras beads everywhere, and our sweet little one kept swatting them out of her face. She was also grabbing her feet!!!! She's so advanced.



At our last perinatologist visit (which was Monday) she was 'breathing', and meeting all of the developmental milestones that she should. Based on her measurements, she's appx 2lbs 4oz. The doctor went to great lengths to explain where we're at risk-wise these days, and even went over the survival rate for babies born in that hospital, at that gestation (almost 100%!!!!). All of that adds up to one conclusion... it appears as though we're going to have a baby. Cuh-ray-zee!

We're working on getting ready, too. My personal goal is to have everything that requires purchase taken care of by Thanksgiving... I have no desire to go stand in line during the holidays, hugely pregnant.

So far we have the furniture mostly assembled, we're only missing the glider (a friend graciously gave us one, and is going to recover the cushions), and a pretty good diaper stash building up. I can't wait to see her little bottom in some of those super cute fluffy diapers....

Here's her crib. :o)



I actually have some interesting stories to share... but I'm too tired right now. Stay tuned. /famous last words? hope not!

So maybe posting once a month will just be *my thing*...

We've had an exciting few weeks!

We spent a week in Chicago - I attempted to go exploring on my own, I met a girlfriend at Navy Pier for a day, we had dinner with Aron & Suzanne (& Maggie, of course!), we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo, we took the El, I saw my family, I made a few too many stops at the Moonstruck Chocolate Shop.... it was a lovely trip. And exhausting, as well. Aron & Suzanne were the best! Great conversation, delicious dinner, perfect weather - Jason & I are both looking forward to getting to know them better, and watching Maggie grow. Her personality is already infectious.

And on the way home - American Airlines oversold our flight, so we volunteered to take the next one and each received a $300 voucher for it. That's our flight to New York next spring! Woot!

This weekend I started having contractions... since I'm only 22 weeks, it was obviously somewhat concerning, but I just kind of blew them off as braxton hicks. Then I read somewhere that you should call your doctor if you have more than 4 an hour. Oops. So I called this morning, him and my perinatologist had me rush in for an exam and a sonogram. Good news is that my cervix is still perfectly long and closed - the bad news is that I shouldn't be having so many, so strong. They're running some tests and hopefully it's just an unsymptomatic-infection of some sort, but I'm going to be on weekly progesterone injections from now on. One of the tests they ran is the fetal fibronectin test, which normally happens at 24 weeks - fFN is the "glue" that holds the fetal sack to the uterus, and if they can detect it's presence then that means that the "glue" is beginning to disintegrate - predicting preterm labor. I really, REALLY doubt they'll find that. My instinct says that nothing major is going on... just a little something is out of whack, and we'll get it fixed. My OB said that the progesterone injections will help "soothe my crabby uterus." I really feel like I'm blessed, the care I'm getting from both of my doctors is very cautious, very compassionate and super nice to me. They rock.

Here's the latest pictures of baby Charlotte. She's a doll, isn't she? I'm so in love.