Sophia's Week Three

Sophia's third week was from May 16-May 22

Weight: At her 2 week appointment on May 20th, Sophia was 9 lbs and 20.5 inches long.  She is already growing out of some of her newborn clothes, so I am sure we have grown a little more since then.

Health:  Still doing great! The umbilical cord FINALLY fell off! Wohoo! We have been giving her mylicon drops before each feeding, so she is doing much better with gas.  She also had a little bit of a diaper rash, but I have been putting coconut oil on it and it has disappeared.

 

Sleep: Sleep was pretty good for week three. She slept through most of her naps and was waking about every 3 hours to eat during the day and every 4 hours at night.  I was even able to lay out by the pool one day while she slept! She is still mostly sleeping in her crib, but we put her in the swing sometimes if she's extra cranky.  That's a last resort right now. 

Social: I have been trying to get out of the house at least once or twice a week to run errands or do whatever.  She does pretty good. I usually nurse her and then put her in her car seat at the start of her nap.  I usually take a shower and get everything ready during one nap and then wait for the other one to leave. It takes a little more planning, but I make it work!

Diet: Thankfully, we are still doing great with nursing.  She is doing better with the choking and eating too fast, so I am sure that has helped some with the gas, too.  I think my supply has finally matched up to her needs.  During the night she eats on one side and then and then I will pump on the other, but she wakes up around 3 hours when she does this instead of 4.

Clothes: Still in mostly newborn clothes, although we are kinda between sizes right now.  the 0-3 month clothes are a little big, while the newborn are a little tight.

Baby Gear Loves:  We are still loving our play mat and the little awake time we have we spend tummy time on it and I am still loving my pump and milkies while nursing.  And I don't think we would survive without our swaddles. 

 

Crying: When she hungry and when she gets tired she loves to let us know!

Likes: Eating, sleeping, cuddling with mommy and daddy, being swaddled. Just for fun, here's a video of Sophia "talking." :)

 

Post Partum:  I am now down 4 lbs. below my pre-pregnancy weight! Woohoo! Thank you breast feeding! I am back in my normal clothes, too and it feels great!

Milestones: The umbilical cord falling off! Woohoo!

The day it fell off..

A few days later..

 

Sophia's second week!

Sophia's second week was from May 9- May 15th

Weight: We had our two week appointment and little miss is up to 9 lbs and 21.5 inches long.

Health:  Other than some gas issues, we are doing great!

Still loving bath time!

Sleep: During the day, she will sleep anywhere from 1-2.5 hours for naps..most average about 1.5 hours.  During the night she typically sleeps for about 3-4 hours, although we have gotten some 5 hour stretches once or twice.  I am trying to cluster feed in the evenings and do a dream feed around 10:30 to fill her up.  Sometimes I set my alarm for that dream feed and then oversleep it, so it doesn't always happen.

Social: She is starting to have some longer awake times.  And by "longer" I mean instead of 4 minutes while I am changing her diaper after she eats, it's more like 5 minutes.  As any 2 week old, she gets overstimulated and overtired really easily, which makes for some fussy evenings.

We went walking around the outlets and she loved being in the Moby carrier!

Diet:  Still 100% breast milk and for the most part, we are still doing great!  I have noticed that she will sometimes choke while eating and I think it's because my milk comes out too fast, so that is our biggest issue right now. It gives her gas because she is gulping down air. I try to feed her reclined so that gravity is working with me and that has helped some.  

Clothes: We are still in our newborn clothes and we stick to onesies during the day and sleepers at night.

Baby Gear Loves:  I am still loving my Medela pump! We also love our SwaddleMe and Halo swaddlers and use them to sleep every time!  Our Summer Infant Touch monitor has been getting a ton of use since she sleeps in her crib 95% of the time now.  I ordered some "Milkies" to use while feeding and they arrived today! After only using it for two feedings, I love it!

We love our Boppy, too!

Crying: Yes, little miss has found her voice! She is hungry and crying the moment she wakes up and we have had a couple of fussy nights from about 6-8 pm where nothing really helped. She would fight sleep during her evening nap and be really unhappy until she finally ate again about an hour later and wore herself out.

Likes: Eating, sleeping, cuddling, burping, and her play mat.

Post Partum:  Feeling a lot more like myself this week.  Recovery wise, I am still not 100% and still taking Advil for pain once or twice a day as needed.  I am back down to my pre-pregnancy weight this week as well! Woohoo! Thank you breast feeding!

Milestones:  Sophia helped me celebrate my very first Mother's day this week! 

First walk around the neighborhood

Her sun hat is a little large right now...

Sophia's first week!

Clearly, she's thrilled!

Sophia's first week was from May 1-May 8

Weight: Sophia weighed 7 lbs 9 ozs at birth and 7 lbs 2 ozs when we left the hospital. At her 1 week well visit, she was back up to 7 lbs 14 ozs!

Health:  Her pediatrician said everything looked great at her appointment.  She checked her billie levels because she was borderline jaundice in the hospital and even though they were still a little high, they had gone down so she wasn't too worried. We're still waiting for her umbilical cord to fall off!

Sleep: Her first week, Sophia fell into a pretty set schedule of waking up to feed every 4 hours. She slept pretty good during the day for naps and at night.  We made sure to not pick her up if she was already asleep and we could tell early on that she likes to sleep undisturbed in her swing the most. We had her in our room this week and we left the TV/lights on during her day time naps and nothing while we slept at night (obviously).

Social: Not much to report here, although she did get a few visitors this week! Most of her awake time happens the first 5 (if that) mins of nursing, or during a diaper change so she's not that big of a social butterfly yet. :)

Sophia did have her first photo shoot this week.  Originally, we were going to have our wedding photographer do pictures for us during labor and after delivery.  When I realized how long my labor was going to be, we decided to do newborn pictures with her instead.  It was quite a hot mess while Heidi was here because Sophia did not want to sleep like all those sweet newborns you see in pictures.  She peed and pooped all over Matt and I multiple times.  I think we went through every blanket we had in the house!  I did get a sneak peek at two pictures and somehow Heidi made the whole shoot look like it was easy peasy!  I am super excited to see the rest!

Diet: All breastmilk! This week, I had some engorgement issues, but things have tapered out now for the most part.  She is still latching on like a champ and doing great with nursing.  She loves to fall asleep while nursing so I have to work to keep her awake most feedings.

Learning all the different things about breastfeeding has been interesting.  I had no idea what letdown was, or the difference between hindmilk or foremilk and how everything effects baby.  I also didn't know that you could leak milk as much, if you hear baby crying it can cause letdown, or that baby can smell my milk if we're in the same room.  It's been a learning experience for sure!

Clothes: We had to go out and pick up a few newborn size sleepers for her because the ones we had were a little too big.  Sleepers and onesies are pretty much what her wardrobe consists of these days..

Baby Gear Loves: Loving the swing and swaddles this week, along with my Baby ESP app that helps me keep track of everything. Also, my Medela breast pump and Lanolin cream have been my BFFs when dealing with engorgement.

Crying: As soon as she wakes up when she's hungry.

Likes: Eating and sleeping, cuddles with Daddy, looking at lights and the gallery wall above her changing table.

Post Partum: The first week was a doozy for me! Trying to get settled in with a newborn is exhausting enough in itself.  Then you have to worry about not overdoing it and healing from giving birth.  Nobody told me much about the recovery aspect of the whole thing.  You think about how anxious you are to meet your little one that you don't think about what it's going to be like for you and your body once they actually get here!  I did have to get a couple of stitches, so I was in some pain this week and it was difficult to find time to soak in a bath and do everything that the Drs tell you to do to relieve pain.  I wasn't taking any hardcore pain meds...just ibuprofen because I didn't want it to get to Sophia through my milk (I'm not even sure that it can...but better safe than sorry!) so I was just toughing it out.  My hormones this week were also out of control! In addition to being sleep deprived and trying to figure out Sophia, I was feeling a lot of anxiety alll day long.  It was hard for me to sleep at night because I couldn't turn my mind off and any whimper that she made would have me on high alert. It was very overwhelming to say the least.

I've also been having night sweats this week.  GROSS! Something else nobody tells you about! I wake up for night feedings drenched in sweat and I have had to change clothes on more than one occasion.

On the bright side, I am happy to report that I am about 7 lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight this week!  I think I ended up gaining just under 20 lbs total and I think some of that was water weight at the end.  Breast feeding has definitely helped me loose the baby weight! I was pretty swollen when I came home from the hospital..more so than I was towards the end of my pregnancy and I think it had to do with the fluids they gave me during labor.  It gradually went down throughout the week. My belly still looks a little funky.  I feel like I got a pregnancy mask on my BELLY instead of my face! I have a really dark linea nigra above and below my belly button and a dark "halo" around my bellybutton.  Right now, it looks like a really bizarre tan.  We'll see how long it takes for that to disappear.  I did manage to avoid getting any stretch marks, so it's a fair trade off.

Matt was such a HUGE help this week, he made sure to have dinner cooked every night, always kept my water bottles filled when I was nursing Sophia, kept the house clean and took care of the dogs so I wouldn't have anything to worry about.  He was able to take two weeks off to help out and it was so great having him home! I lucked out in the husband department big time!

Milestones: Sophia got her first bath, had her first dr's appointment and photo shoot, took her first trip to Target, and had her first trip in her stroller all this week!

First sponge bath at home

Daddy/daughter matching in Hurley gear!

At the Dr's office

Sophia's Birth Story

Here's the short version:

April 29th around 11:00 PM- I started feeling contractions and began timing them.  They were about 5 mins apart lasting for 1 minute each.
April 30th around 11:30 AM- Checked into the hospital...I was about 3 centimeters dilated and 100% effaced.
May 1st 7:46 AM- Sophia Caroline arrived!!

Just a warning...I had a super long labor, and I want to be able to write and remember all the details, so feel free to skip all of the below if you don't have a good 30 mins to read it all. :)

And now the (super) long version:

Matt had already gone to bed since he had to wake up early in the morning for work, so I was catching up on some DVR shows in the living room. I had been having some braxton hicks and cramping for the past few days, but the first contraction was totally different.  I knew right when it happened what it was.  I waited a little bit and began timing them and sure enough they each lasted about 45 sec- 1 min and came every 5-6 mins apart. Around midnight I figured if this was the real thing, I should probably try and get some sleep.  I let Matt know that he might not be going to work the next day.  I got about 4 hours of sleep and when I woke up, the contractions were coming more frequently and were getting stronger.  They were still not painful, just a little uncomfortable.  Matt started packing the car up and I threw some cookies in the oven to bake for our nurses.  It sounds silly to do, but it helped me keep my mind off of the contractions.  We both let work know what was going on and around 8:30, we got in the car to head to the hospital.  My contractions were still about 1- 1.5 min long and they were coming on every 2-4 mins.

Last belly picture!

We called our parents to let them know what was going on and we called our OB on the way and they told us they wanted us to turn around and head in to be checked before going to the hospital.  They checked me and I had progressed to about 3 cms and I was 100% effaced, so they told us to go ahead and go to the hospital.

Our birthing room..it was so nice and big!

We got there, checked in and got settled in our room.

They started me on intermittent monitoring, where they would monitor my contractions and Sophia's heart rate for 20 mins and then let me walk around, get in the tub, bounce on the birthing ball, or whatever else I needed to do to help things progress for about 40 mins.

They checked me around 2 and I was about 3-4 cms, so they had me walk around the hospital some more.  My parents had arrived at this point, so we walked out to the waiting room to see them for a little bit.  My contractions were still relatively mild at this point and I will still ok just breathing through them.

 The contractions had picked up and were coming about every 2 mins. Sitting in the tub definitely helped with the pain, but didn't really help me progress any faster.  Around 8 they checked me again and I was at about 5-6 cms. It had taken almost 6 hours to progress 2 cms.  My water had broken at some point and the contractions picked up and were coming  one on top of the other with no breaks.

At this point, I was exhausted.  I had been up since 4 in the morning and I was working off of about 4 hours of sleep.  I was worried about not only having to get through the other 4 cms, but also the pushing.  When I made my birth plan, I wanted to aim for a med-free birth with as few medical interventions as possible.  However, I knew I also had to listen to my body and I made the choice to get some pain medication.  I spoke with the midwife about my choices and decided on the epidural.  I went back and forth a lot in my head before I even talked out loud to Matt about it.  Part of me was totally scared of the entire procedure.  The though of the needle going into my back completely freaked me out. The other part knew that because I was laboring so slowly, my body needed to rest to make it to the end.

At about 9pm they called the anesthesiologist to administer the epidural and after it kicked in, I knew it was the best decision that I could have made.  It allowed my body to relax while still progressing.

Post epidural happiness

Our parents came in for a little to visit and then Matt and I were able to try and get a couple of hours of sleep.  I was fully dilated and began pushing round 3:00 am.  I only pushed a couple of times when the midwife then realized the Sophia was positioned a little funny coming down the birth canal.  Instead of being completely head down, her ear was facing that way instead.  They had me lay on my left side with my right leg up in a stirrup for about an hour to try and get her to turn...not the most comfortable position.  Since I was on one side, gravity started causing the epidural to make my left side a lot more numb than my right, which also made me feel a lot more pain on my right side, what they call a "hot spot."  We called the nurse back in because the pain was pretty unbearable at this point.  They had me lay on the other side to try and even out the medication and came back in another 30 mins to continue pushing.

They had me pushing every other contraction for about 3 hours when I told them that I needed to rest.  I was making progress...slow, slow progress and her heart rate still looked good, so they sat me upright for about 30 mins to take a break, hoping that gravity would help bring her down some.  The pain all of the sudden got really intense and we called the nurse back in again.  I wasn't sure what was going on and it turns out that there was a kink in the epidural line and I wasn't getting any more medication.  The nurse would come in try and fix it, leave for 5 mins to get another nurse, come back and find that the bag was defective, leave for another 5 mins.  I was at the point where I just wanted someone in there who could FIX the darn thing! I started getting sick because the pain was SO intense.  Around 7:00 am our nurses and midwives had shift change and our favorite midwife was on call, so she came in to check on us.  At this point, they had stopped worrying about fixing the epidural and started focusing on me just pushing through the contractions.

 The on-call doctor came in and told us that she needed a little bit of help getting out.  He told us our two options were using the vacuum or doing a c-section.  Obviously a c-section was our last resort, but using the vacuum scared the crap out of me! That was also one of the interventions that I wanted to avoid.  However, it was the lesser of two evils, so we opted to go that route.  They let me know that a few more people were about to be in the room...I think we had a nurse from each shift, two midwives, the doctor, two additional nurses, and 3-4 people from the respiratory team (a precaution since they were using the vacuum).  I pushed about  6-7 more times and she finally came at 7:46 on Wednesday morning...32 hours after my first contractions started. They put her on my belly for a couple of minutes and then took her off to the side to make sure everything was ok.

It was the craziest rush of emotions and I will never forget that moment of looking down and seeing her on my belly.

They cleaned her up and gave her to Matt, who brought her over to me.  One of the sweet nurses grabbed our camera and snapped a few pictures of the three of us.

The baby nurse came in, took her measurements and gave her the first bath.

After they bathed her, I was able to try nursing her for the first time.  I had heard so many horror stories about breast feeding and about how difficult it can be.  I was trying to mentally prepare myself in case she didn't take to it very easily.  To my surprise, she latched on like a champ from the very beginning and has been doing great ever since!

When we were done, the pediatrician came by to look her over and said everything looked great! She scored an 8 and a 9 on her apgar test.  They had to take her to the nursery to do some blood work on her because I had a fever when I delivered and they needed to make sure that it wasn't the cause of an infection.  

While she was in there, we got moved to our postpartum room, where we stayed until we were released on Friday.  Our parents had been in the waiting room all night long and after that long, long wait they were finally able to come back and meet their very first grand baby around 10:00 AM.  The rest of the day was a complete blur as both Matt and I were exhausted, elated, sleep deprived, in disbelief, still running on adrenaline and every other emotion in between.  I will do a separate post on everyone that met Sophia that day.

Well, it only took me a week to write, and I applaud you if you have made it this far. ;)

She's here!

As most of you already know, Sophia Caroline has arrived!

May 1st, 2013 at 7:46 AM

7 lbs. 9 ozs.

21 inches long

She has a head full of hair, super long eye lashes, slate blue eyes and

 has completely stolen her Mommy and Daddy's hearts :)

Birth story coming soon...