Emma Elizabeth

Week 1

A few pictures of Emma being too cute during her first week of life.

Doctor's visit

Oma meets Emma

On Wednesday, August 24, 2011 my mom, a.k.a. Oma, flew from Mexico to spend 10 days with Emma and me. As the days go by, she says that more and more she sees me in Emma - her mouth (which I immediately recognized as my dad's), her eyes, and shape of her face all remind her of me.

Oma reading to Emma in German.

314

Room where I delivered. Only a math teacher can appreciate the humor of this. Anyone know why?

Emma's story - coming home

Monday, August 22, 2011

Emma's story - great grandomothers

Later on Sunday afternoon, two of Emma's three living great grandmothers came to meet her.

Nana

Grandmother

Emma's story - after church visitors

After church got out on Sunday, a few Morrises came over to spend time with Emma. Cousins Levi and McNeill got to meet her for the first time.

Memma and Poppa

Cousing McNeill

Aunt Amber

Aunt Rebecca

Uncle Joseph

Emma's story - Tia Alison

On Sunday, August 21, 2011, just a few hours after Emma's birth, my sister Alison drove all the way from Atlanta to come meet her new niece. This was a sweet and unexpected surprise. She only stayed for a little over an hour before going back to school.

Emma's story - first visitors

Sunday, August 21, 2011 at 3:00 am
We first call my mom through the iPad and tell her she is a grandmother!

Morrises arrive!

With a few other Morrises - Uncle Joseph, Aunt Rebecca, Uncle Caleb and Aunt Amber

Emma's story - her first bath

Emma's first bath at the hospital's nursery.

Emma's story - labor

Saturday, August 20, 2011
4:00 pm - arrive to the hospital
4:30 pm - I am checked into a room. I call Byron. I am 3 cm dilated.
6:00 pm - get the epidural, Emma's heart rate drops, 4 cm dilated.
10:00 pm - 5 cm dilated.
11:45 pm - 10 cm dilated and Emma's head is just 2 in from surface. Pushing will begin soon!

Sunday, August 21, 2011
12:30 - 1:29 am - push until Emma arrives, Byron cuts her umbilical cord.

They immediately put her on my belly for a few seconds and then rush her to the incubator right next to me. I surprise myself by crying. My little girl is here! She has a sweet pitiful cry, but it's hardly even noticeable.


Byron and I get some "Emma time" before they take her to get cleaned up. She is staring straight at us, smacking her lips, her very pink lips, at us. A few little cries here and there, but mostly just looking at her mommy and daddy.

Off to the nursery to get checked out and bathed.

Emma's story

I am going to do my best to narrate Emma's arrival story into this world through the next number of posts. This may take a few days depending on how much down time I have. Some things may be too much information for some people to know, but for the sake of memory purposes, I am going to write it down... sorry in advance :p

On Friday, August 19, 2011, eleven days before my due date, my mucus plug is "unplugged." I did not know what it was at a time, and reality dawns on both B and myself - we don't have anything ready! We scramble around the house, finish packing and get as much as we can set up and out of the way. I go to the doctor that afternoon, and our thoughts are confirmed - it may be a day, it may be a week before Emma arrives. Either way, she is not going to make it to her due date.

On Saturday, August 20, 2011, ten days before her due date, I wake up with menstrual like contractions. I am having discharges, just like I did yesterday, but they are more. Has my water broken? Can these be contractions? We begin to time them. They are already 5 minutes apart, but not very strong. We call the hospital and tell them our situation. They tell us that unless they are strong, we should not worry about them.

So I rest for a little, but become restless eventually. I hit a few yard sales and then head over to the Morrises where I take lunch for B while he works on the crib. I hang out at their house for a few hours, visiting and working on my photo albums. The discharge continues, but not too much as to think that it may be my water breaking. I called the hospital again and tell them what's going on. They tell me that it's probably still the mucus plug, but to come in just to make sure that it's that and nothing else.

So I drive myself to the hospital, get checked, and well... my water has broken! Emma's head is probably preventing it from gushing out, but it's broken. I call B, and he is on his way.

In the meantime, I am checked into a room and get hooked up and plugged into all sorts of machines. I am sad that I am going through this all by myself. B eventually arrives and I break down crying. I am so relieved he is here, and a little nervous.

My contractions become stronger and more painful. I am given an epidural and things get so much better. I felt like such a wimp getting it, but I am so glad I did because I was able to relax during my contractions and had plenty of energy during the labor time.

After the epidural. Much happier :)

Emma's heart rate drops and so does my pressure. I get hooked up to all sorts of things to monitor everything and make sure it does not happen again.

Just hanging

Our little girl's two little friends are just "hanging out" in her room, patiently waiting for her to come home.

Fifteen days until due date!

Young Married Community baby shower

I had the special blessing of celebrating the soon arrival of our little girl through a shower yesterday. My friends Sarah and Anna from my small group did a lovely job putting everything together. A special afternoon filled with good food, fellowship and special gifts. Thank you!

The group minus Sarah who was
taking the picture.

With Sarah and Anna
Check out the awesome diaper cake in the background
that Anna put together!

Melissa and myself
Both due on August 30
What are the odds?

A Santa hat for our little girl

For the past few years since we've been married, B and I have sported a Santa hat every Christmas. We even posed with them for our family Christmas card last year.

Well, we didn't want to leave our little girl behind this year and I am happy to say that we are now covered. Byron's cousin Hannah, along with hubby and son surprised us yesterday with a visit and a few gifts. One of them was a little Santa outfit which we can't wait to put on our little girl in just a few months.

Christmas card 2010

Christmas 2011

Corn dog muffins

What a fun little recipe I made this week! I wish I could remember where I got the idea from - I must have come across it in a blog a while back and have been wanting to try making them ever since. Hot dogs were buy 1 get 1 free this week at Publix, so I thought that the time had come for me to give them a try.

You start off by making the corn bread mix according to your own recipe. Boil the hot dogs for a few minutes to get them cooked. Grease your muffin pan, fill them half way up with the cornbread mix. Cut the hot dogs into a number of pieces and place them on top. Bake.

Before the oven.

After the oven.

Serve with ketchup and mustard. Very yummy! I can't wait to make these with our little family when we go out for a picnic or the zoo or something fun like that.

Great Expectations

It's with great expectations that we wait for the arrival of our little girl. It seems like every night now B and I smile at each other in bed and wish out loud we had our girl with us already.

In the meantime, for the past few weeks, every Wednesday B and I have been taking the "Great Expectations" class at University Hospital. Though I am glad it has ended, I must say that I really enjoyed it. Even though I've been reading and trying to learn as much about parenthood on my own, it was nice to have this service provided for us.

Over the past few weeks, this is what we learned in class:

- Do not hold your breath during labor.
- Bring maternity clothes to the hospital to wear after delivery. I will not be back to my normal body quite yet :s
- Must drink about 12 cups of water a day! hmmm...
- A normal labor time is 12 - 14 hours.
- If choosing to get an epidural, a good time to do this is when contractions are 3 - 5 mins apart (4 - 7 cm dilated).
- Each contraction is about 45 - 60 seconds long.
- Take deep cleansing breaths at beginning and end of each contraction. Take shorter breaths in between.
- You time each contraction from beginning to beginning.
- You can have a true or a false contraction. A true contraction will not stop when sitting down.
- If my water breaks before I begin with contractions, I don't need to hurry to the hospital quite yet. I can take it easy.
- After an epidural is given, it's very tempting for the mom to stay in one place. You must try to change positions about every 30 mins.
- A way to stop pushing is by blowing.
- If you are fortunate to have a mom or someone help you out the first few days after delivery, a good thing for them to be responsible for is cooking, cleaning and laundry, not just sighing and watching and holding the baby all day long.
- They taught us how to bathe a baby, but it's too long of an explanation, so I am going to skip it.
- Do not use lotions or powders on babies. Lotions clog their pores and powders hurt their lungs.
- Use Dr. Karp's 5 S techniques to help soothe your baby.

What other good bit of information would be good for me to know ahead of time?

Meal plan and some experimenting

This week should be a lot of fun in the kitchen. I am either trying new recipes or slightly modifying a few other ones I've tried in the past.

My first new recipe is a red marinara sauce cooked in the crock pot, using sausage links instead of ground beef. My second new recipe is pancakes. I will make a lot of them, eat a few, and put the rest in the freezer. Once our little girl comes and I want a quick lunch, I can place them in the toaster, and vuala! - they'll be ready to eat! My third new recipe is a true experiment - corn dog muffins. I will also be placing extra of these in the freezer for when our girl comes.

As of recipes with slight modifications, I am doing two. The first one is the chicken empanadas, this time I am going to add some black beans to them. The second recipe will be homemade frozen pizzas. I have cut out four 9'' diameter cardboard pieces and covered them in tinfoil. I will place the slightly cooked pizza crust on it and all of it's toppings. Then stick it in the freezer. When in need for a quick meal, just take them out and stick them in the oven to let them finish cooking :)


Monday:
L: Leftover pizza
D: Sausage spaghetti sauce over pasta with salad.

Tuesday:
L: Chicken empanadas
D: Repeat Monday

Wednesday:
L: Pancakes with fruit
D: Rotisserie chicken with corn and broccoli

Thursday:
L: Out - 2x1 coupon :)
D: Repeat Wednesday

Friday:
L: Corn dog muffins
D: Pizza

Saturday:
L: Free
D: Pizza

Sunday:
L: Out
D: Corn dog muffins

36 weeks

I am writing this post mostly for myself. I want to place in writing a few things that are going on in my pregnancy so that I can look back to them and remember them.

At 36 weeks pregnant:

* I am not dialated. My doctor said that at this point it's common to be 2 - 3 cm dialated. Having said that, she also mentioned that this does not mean anything. Makes me wonder why they even bother checking this early on.
* My doctor also mentioned that our little girl is sitting very low. She made it sound as if that was a good thing.
* I have officially gained 29 lbs. According to books I've read, you should gain between 25 - 35 lbs total. I am quite proud of myself! :)
* For well over 2 months now, I have been walking for about 1 hour every morning Monday - Friday.
* She is still a very laid back baby in my belly. Her times when she moves around the most are late afternoon right around dinner time. I like to believe it's because she hears her daddy's voice.
* And finally, it's at 36 weeks that B and I believe to have agreed on a name for her. It's still not official, and we want to keep our options open in case another one comes up that we like, but I am pleased to say that at this point in our pregnancy, our little girl only has one possible name.

Reusable diapers

One of the gifts we were blessed with from our shower were some reusable diapers. B and I have decided that "reusable" is a better term to describe these diapers (rather than "cloth"). It's amazing how the reusable diaper "technology" has advanced over the years. Forget about those bulky white cloths and pins that our parents used years ago.

Using these diapers excites me a little more than it should. Aside from them being super cute (I mean, look at the colors), they help the environment (God's creation, which we are called to steward and take care of), AND they save a ton of money! Depending on how good you are at looking for good diaper sales, you can save about $1,000 dollars per year by using these. For someone who just quit her job in order to stay at home with her daughter, this is very attractive information.

How do they work? The plastic wrap allows the reusable inserts to be snapped into it. This allows laundry not be as bulky, and hence, lesser time to dry.