Veronica, day 2

Actually, these could have been taken on her first full day of life, but we’re not going to split hairs. The Bella Baby photographer came by our second day in the hospital and took these fabulous photos of Veronica. We purchased the CD and the rights to the images, so now we can print and post them to our hearts’ content!

Isn’t she beautiful?

Yeah, I’m totally not biased.

So sleepy

So pretty

So serene

So smiley

So sweet

Veronica Belle

We welcomed Veronica Belle into this world on October 16th, 2009 at 12:08 p.m. after a 9.5-hour, all-natural birth.

She weighed 6 lbs. 15 oz. and measured in at 19.5 inches. She’s a cuddly baby with soft brown/blonde/red hair and a sweet little smile we get treated to when she’s a little sleepy.

Here is our beautiful little girl’s first few days on this planet:

On my tummy, right after birth

Getting all cleaned up

Exhausted, happy mommy with her bright-eyed little girl

Daddy and his baby girl

Veronica's first bath!

Post-bath baby

Snuggles!

Going home!

Finally home

38 weeks 4 days

38 weeks 4 days

Another Baby Update

I know this is a little late, as I’m reporting on information I received from this last Friday’s baby appointment, but it’s been a particularly stressful end of the week/weekend. A neighbor’s tree landed on our house after taking out the neighbor’s garage. It was a 300-year-old oak tree, and it caused more damage than we had thought–it ended up causing some leaking into our den (which is also my office) that we didn’t discover until during a rainstorm on Friday. Everyone is fine, and the house is finally on the mend, thanks to some speedy work by our landlord, his insurance company, and a great general contractor. I’ll try to post more about that later.

Now for happy baby news!!

As of Friday, October 9th, she was measuring in at around 7 lb. 1 oz., which is around 38 weeks, and considering I was 37 weeks, 5 days, we’re right on track! She’s very healthy with a heart rate in the upper 130s/140s (it always jumps up a little when they’re getting the reading)–she’s consistently in the 140s when they measure, so that’s great! She’s still head-down, of course, and she’s still facing my right side. She’s pretty tightly snuggled in there, but she still can get my belly moving quite a bit when she starts moving her arms and legs around. I think that’s about all she can get going these days!

As for me, I continue to have feet and ankle swelling on and off, but my blood pressure is great, and I’m “a good” 1 cm dilated and 80% effaced. Of course, I could be like this for the next two weeks, but considering I wasn’t dilated at all and only starting to thin out the week before, this is definitely steady progress, according to my midwife. She said she wouldn’t be surprised if Baby Girl makes her big appearance sometime this week. We’re not holding our breath, but we’re keenly aware of the fact that she could honestly and truly come any day now.

We’ll keep you all posted!

Hugging Laughter

A couple of weeks ago, the hubby and I were sitting on the couch, and he made me laugh really hard. When it turned into giggles, he nodded to my belly and said he had noticed how my stomach muscles pull in when I’m laughing. He said, “She’s going to think that a laugh is a hug for a while after she arrives.”

Baby Update

I’m now going to the midwife once per week, so one would think there would be an update once per week, right? Yeah, I’ll try. Promise.

I saw Danette, one of our midwives, yesterday, and Baby Girl is measuring in big–between 36 and 37 weeks! I was 35 weeks 4 days yesterday. Danette estimated that Baby Girl is between 6 and 6.5 pounds already. Big girl! But it’s a good thing. A really good thing. It means she’s healthy and growing well. And she is moving a lot still. There’s no more “kung-fu baby,” as Amy, our childbirth class instructor calls it, where the baby does crazy flips, kicks, and turns. She’s just too big for that now. It’s a little squished in there. But I do feel every little move she makes, and it’s always such a comfort to feel those movements. She still gets the hiccups several times a day, and now that she’s bigger, you can sometimes see the hiccups shaking my belly! The hubby got to see them the other day, and he thought that was just too darn cool. And he saw her moving around in my belly, something that he seems to always miss because she never likes to “perform” when he’s watching. Again, he was in awe. Her heartbeat was in the 140s–we can’t say she isn’t consistent!

Anyway, all is well here in baby-growing land. My feet have decided it’s time to swell up–just my feet and ankles, not my hands or anything else–so that’s pretty obnoxious and a little painful. But it goes away almost completely overnight, and I’m taking it easy, drinking lots of water, and lying on my left side whenever possible during the day. No other signs of preeclampsia, for those of you who know one of the symptoms of that is swelling. My blood pressure is great, but my weight jumped up. When I told her that it was fine the other day but now it’s up a little more than I had expected, she said it’s because of the swelling and not to worry. Danette is really good at making me feel better about things that are beyond my control.

So that’s about it! Besides the swelling, I’m doing really well. I was able to snag a ton of sleep last night, and you all know how impressive that is for me! I feel pretty darn good today. That will probably end sometime around 4 p.m. when I’ll crash from the sheer effort of growing a little one inside of me. Not complaining, of course; it’s just a lot of work! And, actually, I think it’s more so the contractions/tightening of my uterus that I experience 2-4 times each hour that wear me out. Again, totally normal–my body’s preparing for the birth–but they can be pretty exhausting after a while. I find it amazing that my body knows just what it needs to do and it’s practicing for the big day. I am continually amazed by this process, and how no matter what modern medicine figures out or finds advances in, the body always know. I just have to keep remembering that!

Preparing for Breastfeeding Class

I’ll admit that I was a little concerned that the breastfeeding class the hubby and I were going to attend was going to be kooky, way-out-there weird. I had been warned by a co-worker that her breastfeeding class instructor started out by asking who was going back to work, and after a show of hands, informed them that they should all quit their jobs and stay home to breastfeed their babies. And this class had been offered through the hospital! So I was prepared to get chastised for heading back to work after a 12-week maternity leave.

Boy, was I surprised.

Our instructor, Maribeth, was fantastic. She has been teaching various child birthing and baby classes for the past 8 years (obviously my co-worker didn’t have Maribeth as her instructor!), and she informed us at the beginning that the breastfeeding class is her favorite class to teach. She is an RN for the hospital system we’re delivering with, she has two children (a girl who is 11 and a boy who is 6), and she successfully breastfed and went back to work (meaning she pumped as a nurse! Not an easy task, mind you) after only 6 weeks home with each child. She breastfed her daughter for nearly a year and her son for six months. She gave us her phone number and her email address, encouraging us to contact her if we have any questions now or after our babies are born.

During the three-hour class, it felt like we learned everything:

• the anatomy of the breast and breastfeeding
• benefits for mom and baby
• correctly latching on
• nipple confusion and how to avoid it
• breastfeeding positions
• hunger signs
• how to tell if your baby is getting enough
• the dad’s role in breastfeeding
• breast care
• potential complications (like getting sore nipples, thrush, mastitis, a plugged duct, etc.) and how to treat them at home (and when to go to the doctor!)
• breast pumps/pumping at work

She said her main goal was to have us feeling a little bit better about the concept and act of breastfeeding before we left the class. The hubby and I feel so much better now! There was some breastfeeding terminology we didn’t know, and she covered all that. I feel like I can ask the questions I have for my midwife without feeling like an idiot who doesn’t know what they’re talking about (not that my midwife would ever make me feel that way, but I like to be informed). I do have some questions for my midwife that Maribeth wouldn’t have been able to answer, but they’re more like making plans for our birth than anything else. It feels good to have questions, though–I think it means we’re really starting to take all this stuff in and process it!

And, by the way, we totally got to use baby dolls with diapers and side-snap shirts on to practice positions. Sounds really corny, I know, but it was so helpful to get some hands-on experience. And the hubby got to “burp” the baby between positions. Maribeth acknowledged the dorkiness of it, but I think it helped. And the hubby looked so cute with his fake little baby.

When we were standing in line at Potbelly’s, waiting to order our sandwiches for lunch after the class, the hubby turned to me and told me he’s excited for the baby to get here. Yeah, me too, I told him. Me too.

Naming my belly

I think it’s hilarious that people still call my belly a “baby bump.” I politely correct them by smiling and saying, “This isn’t a baby bump. It’s a baby mountain.”

Baby Class #2

We had our second baby class on Wednesday night, and it went really well again. Did you know that two hours of regular pushing during delivery is equal to running 15 miles? Yeah, great to know–makes chubby me feel all prepared for the big day. But Amy told us this not to scare us; she wants us to know that we need to prepare but also set our own pace when the time comes.

I’ve been pegged the “all-natural” girl. That’s because on the first day, when Amy asked if anyone was planning on going all natural with their birth, I was the only one–the only one–out of 8 or 9 couples that said they were going to try for all natural. That was a serious shocker. So whenever she refers to something for an all-natural birth, she looks at me or glances at me or waves her hand in my direction. And I’m cool with that. Makes me feel all special-like. And when she said that the national average for a medicated birth is something like 94 or 96% in the U.S., I’m not really surprised that I was the only one raising my hand.

Amy is really good about discussing both options–medicated and non-medicated–for childbirth and the different stages of labor. We went over epidurals in the second class, and yeah, there is no way in hell they’re putting that thing in my back. The whole leaving the catheter in my spine thing gave me the willies. As always, more power to women who can have an epidural and know that’s what’s best for them, but thank you very much–no on the needle for me. I mean, it may happen that I have to have one. And I’m going to do what is best for my baby (love the fact that epidurals don’t cross the placenta and affect the baby) and for me, but really, if I have a choice, I’m going to push through the pain. That damn needle scares me more than anything else in this world–even more than centipedes! (*shudders*)

And the thing they use to break your bag of waters looks like a really long knitting needle. Just so you know. Thought it was kind of funny, actually. Me and my sick sense of humor.

I guess we’re only going to have three baby classes. The next one isn’t until the 23rd–she’s going to be out of town next week. She said she schedules four normally, knowing that she will only have three because of the winter months and the unpredictable weather (well, the unpredictable roads, is more like it). The hubby was kind of pleased because he’s been working copious amounts of overtime, and this allows him some extra sleepy time next week to recover and start working on baby stuff over his weekend. He’s all ready to get our bags packed for the delivery and out into the car, and to get the car seats installed and inspected. Amy recommends accomplishing both of these by week 35 because it’s really hard for practitioners of Western medicine to stop labor at 35 weeks, and because your baby is probably full term (her lungs are developed, etc.), they’re probably not going to stop it. So one must be prepared! And the hubby is taking that very seriously.

This means that I really need to get on my laundry list of “Things to Do Before Baby Gets Here,” which includes making curtains for her room and play mats for the living room–lots of sewing. And before that I need to run all of her bottles through the dishwasher and get them put away, along with the nipples, rings, and covers. We need to call and set up the diaper service, though that’s tough because we don’t know when she’s going to arrive, of course. They do this all the time, so I’ll just ask them what’s the norm. We need to finish setting up her room, too. All of the furniture is put together and arranged, but we need to organize her “stuff” and find places for burp cloths and bibs in the dining room. And all the stuff that’s going into the living room needs to find a home too, but we really can’t do that until a couple of pieces of furniture are removed, and we have no control over that (landlord situation; very long and arduous story). I could go on for days about what needs to be done, and we’ll get it all taken care of in the next few weeks. Somehow. ‘Cause she’s gonna be here before we know it!

Baby Class

At least that’s what we call it. I think it’s actually called Child Birth Education, but baby class suits us better. It’s more sassy.

Anyway, we had our first of the four sessions last night, and it went really well–better than we had anticipated, really. I guess we didn’t know what to expect for the first night. We knew each session was to last 2 hours, and the labor & delivery RN, Amy, who teaches it was going to generally cover what to expect during a delivery, breathing techniques, birthing positions, etc.

I asked the hubby before we started if he thought we were going to watch the Miracle of Birth tonight. He rolled his eyes and said he hoped not. He had seen that when he was younger (I never did), and it really wasn’t informative at that point. I’m sure it would be different for an adult about to have a baby, but still, his point was well-taken. We did watch a labor and delivery movie, but it was more so about the stages of labor and delivery and what to expect as the soon-t0-be Mom and Dad. It was really interesting and informative, and yes, we did see a baby being born, and no, it didn’t freak either of us out. Actually, it made us feel better. I turned to the hubby when it was done and said, “That wasn’t nearly as gross as I had expected.” He concurred.

Besides the birthing video, the nurse (who is absolutely hilarious and honest about everything) covered what to expect when you arrive at the hospital, techniques to help along early labor, what to expect with the remaining weeks of our pregnancies, what are Braxton Hicks contractions and what aren’t, how to tell you’re going into labor, what to pack for the delivery, how long a first-time delivery normally lasts and what to expect with one, etc. Lots of info!

We’re pretty excited for the next session, which will be in a week. I don’t have any questions just yet, but I’m sure the hubby and I will have a few as we go along. It’s all so exciting and fun to prepare for this. And a little scary (I think any relatively conscious person who is being honest would say as much at this stage). Just 7.5 more weeks!