I have so much to be thankful for this holiday season! I have honestly never been happier and more content in my life. I never knew I could be this happy. :) Of course, I am most grateful this year for my little Ella. She is already a whole month old now, actually, she is almost 6 weeks already! People were not kidding when they said time flies and they grow up too fast! She is already almost 12 lbs, and about 22 inches long. Super chunk! The public health nurse is coming out again on the 22nd, so we will get her updated weight and length then! I am thankful for all her little milestones she has already reached, like rolling over at 3 weeks already! She smiles so much, she is such a happy baby. I never knew a newborn could have such a big personality, and I see so much of me and Doug in her. She just makes me melt with happiness. :)


Secondly, I am so thankful to have met Doug this year. We hit our speed bumps after getting pregnant a month after we started dating, for sure, but we worked it all out in the end. I remember during the hard times wondering what my life would have been like if I had never met him or gotten pregnant-but the moment I looked at our daughter and what we created... absolutely any doubt or worry left my mind. I have been very at peace since she was born. She brought us closer together in every way, we are able to laugh and play with her. People say they have a hard relationship once the baby came, but we haven't even had a fight since moving in together in September - and the only way Ella changed that was that she brought more joy and laughter into our relationship. I am so blessed to have a great guy who is very attentive and affectionate towards me. :)


My mom has always been my rock. Every Christmas is special to my mom and me, but this Christmas is extra special. She is celebrating her first grand-daughter's first Christmas. This Christmas is the first Christmas that I can feel the love she always felt for my brother, sister and I growing up. I definitely appreciate the things she did for me now, I double appreciate it now that I know exactly how much she always wanted the best for me. I don't know what I would do without her, or how I would be different if she weren't my mom. 


Overall, I am just thankful this year for the strange events that occurred and finally made my life worth living. I have woken up with a smile on my face every day since she was born. :)


Happy Holidays!!! :)

Sleepy baby :)

I have been pretty busy the last few days. We had the nurse come out to the house on Monday. Miss Ella is already 10 lbs 11 ounces! She is a little chunk! I love it. She definitely loves to eat. :) On Sunday night, the 4th, she rolled over for the first time all by herself, at only 3 weeks along. It was impressive... She is so strong and determined already, I am excited but nervous about the future - she will be such a mover and so independent so young. I want her to stay my little bean forever. :) I took some pictures today, I'll post them up here! She is so cute, I can't stand it.

She had a really rough night last night. She got to the over tired point of not wanting to sleep. It took forever to get her to calm down, I was running on only a few hours of sleep and had been up since 7 that morning with her and then up again until like 4 am until she finally went to sleep. Tonight is a lot better, she is sleeping in her bouncer while I update this. :) Anyway, I am going to head back to bed, enjoy the pictures! :)

Pictures!

Sleep deprived but can't sleep...

It is 3:30 in the morning and I should be sleeping, but I keep thinking of all the things I need to do. Angie, the Public Health Nurse provided by the county is coming tomorrow to weigh and measure Ella and answer any questions Doug and I may have since she came out last. I'm really excited to see how much bigger my little Ella Bear has gotten! She feels SO much bigger and sturdier. I just feel terrible for her, she has a really bad diaper rash right now that is starting to peel and is very painful for her to go potty. It is very hard to have to change her diaper now, she gets so mad she starts to scream. I've definitely started to cry a few times with her. We brought her in to Urgent Care today and since we haven't received her insurance card yet, her prescription creams for the rash came to 70 dollars! I won't have it until Wednesday though, so we have some maximum strength over the counter creams and powders to help, and the doctor gave us some pointers on things to do at home with her to help. I just feel so bad. 

Doug and I both applied for a few jobs around the area, and they are a great hourly wage! I am praying we both get jobs at the same place, can carpool together, and then hire Brynia to be her nanny. :) That is very exciting to me! I can't wait to go back to work, and to provide Ella with everything she deserves. Having her was the best thing that ever happened to me, absolutely. She is actually starting to fuss, I better go feed her! More later. :) 

Welcome!

I had a pretty eventful birth! I was induced on Wednesday, 11/09/11, at 9:30pm, and was not dilated at all. The doctor gave me some morphine for the contractions around 4 in the morning so I could get some sleep - I felt like a million bucks at that point! However, I was still only dilated to 1 cm at that point. Needless to say, I slept like a rock until around 8 am, when my doctor came in to wake me up and break my water to get the process going faster. That was excruciating, and she couldn't even get through my cervix to break it because I was still only at around 1.5 cm. Around noon, she tried to break my water again, and still had no luck. She upped my pitocin IV and we gave it a little more time. Finally, at about 2 or 3, she was able to break my water. That felt like such a feat, and I knew the worst was yet to come! After she was able to break my water, I progressed at a steady rate, but not as fast as I would have liked. I got my epidural at 4 pm and was finally able to sleep for a little while. (The epidural was a godsend!) I had really bad back labor at that point, although I really think it was the way I had to lay in the bed that made it so bad. I was FINALLY at 10 cm at 11:45 pm and able to start pushing. I pushed for almost 3 hours and was at the end of my rope physically, and completely wore out mentally. In the meantime, while I was pushing, I started to feel extremely sick. They had me on a blood pressure cuff that took my blood pressure every 15 minutes and the monitor showed that it shot up pretty fast. They took my temperature and it had gone up from 96.9 that morning and most of the day stayed around that temperature, to 102.1. I was so ready to be done! The doctor said that because of my fever, they believed that Ella may have a possible infection that could have passed through the cervix since my water had been drained so long ago. She said we could do the vacuum option, but in order to do that I would need at least 20 minutes of the hardest pushing I could do. The other option was a c -section. I wanted nothing to do with a c-section, so I chose the vacuum. On her way out, her right shoulder got stuck and that was probably the scariest 5 minutes of my entire life. My doctor sounded so frantic all of a sudden, shouting "Back-up nurse! Back-up nurse!" The nurse on my left started pushing with her entire body weight on the top of my belly to help push her out, and they were telling me to push, push, push! All that went through my head at that point was that she was going to die. I pushed with everything I had and they had to basically pull her out by her head and left shoulder. She was out! Doug was at my feet holding up one of my legs, and he told me later he had never been so scared in his life. He thought it looked like they were going to break her neck. I am actually thankful I didn't have to watch that like he did, because I don't think I could have gotten past the image of them pulling her out like that. It took her about a minute to cry, and it was the longest minute of my life. I thought she was dead - keep in mind I had no idea the issue was that she was stuck, just that the doctor was freaking out suddenly. The minute until I heard her cry was the longest minute of my life, by far. When I finally heard it, I asked if she was okay, and I heard the best answer I'd ever heard - Yes! My life changed for the better in that minute, at 2:36 AM on 11/11/11. 


They had to take her to the NICU because of the possible infection, although I did get to hold her for a minute or so before they took her away. It was so sad watching them take my baby away. They told me I could go see her when my epidural wore off. I had to wait about 2 hours until I could go see her. She was so beautiful! I knew in my heart that everything was okay and she had no infection, but I would rather be safe than sorry, so I just prayed for her to be healthy. This was Friday morning. They told me when I made it over to see her that she would have to stay in the NICU until at least Tuesday, which just broke my heart. Doug and I were discharged on Sunday (my birthday)- I wish I could have brought her home on my birthday, but again, I understood her safety was worth the wait. We spent every moment at the NICU that we could, and we were really able to bond with her there, hold her, I was able to nurse her - well, attempt to nurse her. Its a work in progress! Anyway, the tests came back on Monday that she was infection free, and that she would be able to come home on Tuesday for sure! We got to bring her home, and I have spent the entire time just staring at her in disbelief. I can't believe how much I love her, I never knew the capacity that a heart could truly love. She is the best thing that has ever happened to me, in every single way.

The healing process is a slow one. Because her shoulder was stuck, I tore up the side, perpendicular to the vaginal opening. That pain is almost worse than the delivery! It is getting better, but every time I go to the bathroom, my urine touches the tear and at first I would just sit on the toilet and cry in pain. One of my doctors actually walked in to my room and found me bawling in pain and gave me some Norco for the pain, which has definitely helped. Each day gets a little better, for the most part. 

I would go through it all in a heartbeat for her again. She is perfect. She is a daddy's girl already though. Doug is AMAZING with her. I fall for him all over again when he is playing with her, and singing to her, and just holding her. I have never seen such a proud papa. I am actually tearing up right now thinking about it... I have never been so happy in my life. :)