This is my life:: May 2009

Well, all of the visitors have stopped coming for the time being, Nick went back to work, so its just Eva and I at home during the day. Which seems very quiet at times.
Eva is already starting to surprise me with how quickly she is developing. Yesterday I noticed that she has started to hold her head up off of my shoulder on her own and look around. I have a feeling things like that are going to be surprising for a bit.
I told Nick the other day that before we know it she will be 5 and headed off on her first day of school!
I feel like we don't deserve her. I actually get misty-eyed thinking about this incredible gift we have been blessed with. There are too many emotions to list about what this experience is like. So for now I will just say that I am grateful. So grateful that God gave us a healthy little girl.
"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." James 1:17

Well after waiting and wondering what our little person would be like for so many months we finally found out on Thursday May 14th. One day before my due date.

The night before I was having contractions off and on, but nothing that I couldn't handle, and when we timed them there was no pattern. So we went to bed just figuring they were practice contractions and that we still had a ways to go. At my Dr appt the day before I wasn't very dilated, so we honestly didn't think she would be born before the weekend.

Thursday morning I woke up at 5:30 having contractions every 7 minutes. I woke Nick up and told him to be prepared to jump out of bed because they weren't stopping and definitely weren't slowing down. By 8:00 they were 4 minutes apart so we left for the hospital. After being checked they confirmed I was in labor and was dilated 3 and a 1/2 cm! At that point we just waited, my Mom drove up from PA and Nick's Mom came to the hospital as well to keep us company.

By the time late afternoon rolled around I was in some serious pain, (we discovered later that Eva was face up rather than face down so the entire day I was having back labor - OUCH!)

I had a dose of a drug called Nubane which didn't make the contractions go away, but I was able to relax much more between them. I had been trying to stay upright and walking to help the process along, but when I had the medicine my Dr suggested I get in bed and try to "sleep" to prepare for what was ahead (yeah right!). Only problem with that was that staying in bed kept my cervix from dilating. So next they gave me some Pitocin to bring on stronger contractions, which it did and I went from 7 cm to 9 and 3/4 in 1 hour! At that point I was begging for more pain relief but it was too late to give me anything. 15 minutes later I started to push, and according to my Dr I was very good at it. Usually with a first time baby they expect you to push for an hour or 2, I pushed for 15 minutes and she was out! I don't remember much of the last hour, except being in pain. I remember reaching down and feeling the head crowning and hearing Nick tell me that she was right there and he could see her hair. They brought her up on my chest, but I honestly can't remember anything except thinking "I'm so glad she's out!" and that I started laughing and crying at the same time.

The next 3 days were spent trying to get Eva to eat and gain weight. She really likes to sleep and has had trouble with the whole breastfeeding thing so she lost quite a bit of weight. But otherwise she is healthy. Finally on Monday they let us come home. We're trying to adjust, Nick and I tag teaming through the first night when she didn't really want to settle down. Even though the breastfeeding is hard and frustrating, and I haven't had much sleep, it doesn't really matter. God has immeasurably blessed us with this beautiful baby girl. We are enjoying getting to know her and can't wait to see what God has in store for our new little person!

Here she is, fresh from the oven! 7 lbs. 15.4 oz.