BooBooBaby

Newsflash!!! We've got a one month old!!!! 
(Actually, in full disclosure, I wrote this blog post at her one week mark. But of course, being a new parent and having a needy newborn, here we are a month later.)

Elizabeth Clara born on 10/31/14 at 12:54 PM
7 pounds and 5 ounces and 18.5 inches of absolute perfection.

And like that, one month has passed. When I look at her, I still can't believe she's ours. It's so unbelievably surreal. She's perfect in every inch of her body, and we're totally smitten. It's funny how things change once 'they're yours'. I remember telling Daniel before she was born that I didn't think I'd be able to change poopy diapers. A week later---I've been pooped on, peed on, thrown up on...and it hasn't fazed me in the least bit.

Every part of me wants to protect her with my life. It's so crazy, but thinking about the times in my past where I've had heart ache or have felt wronged in my life...I want to do everything that I can to keep her from going through those pains. AHH!! I'm staring at her right now while I blog and I'm melting everywhere. 

Our birth story isn't exactly the most epic. In fact, it was fairly calm and unsurprising for the most part. Elizabeth's due date was set for October 31st by my OBGYN. The last 9 months, though, I was absolutely convinced her due date was/is on October 19th since I knew the exact dates of conception. (It could've only been on 2 consecutive dates back at the end of January since Daniel and I only 'tried' twice, and we decided to wait after those couple of times so that we could take one last international trip before trying again. Sure enough---DTM's super swimmers did it those few times.) In any case, by the time we hit the month of October, I felt overly eager to have her out of me already. Notwithstanding the fact, that this felt like one of the most unbearably warm summers, by mid October, I truly believed she was starting to 'overcook' in my little oven. 

On October 30th, our baby still had not come, so Daniel and I tried to get some errands done for our house. We went to go pick up a range/hood when I started to feel some achy/sharp contractions. After about a good half hour of pains, we arrived on site of our construction zone of a house to meet with the cabinet guy. By this time the pain had subsided, so we continued with our day and met with our general contractor to go over some more detailed decisions about our project. Afterwards, Daniel and I went to go get some lunch and then went home to relax a little bit. This was the first time that actually sitting in the spa sounded comforting, so I changed into my swim suit and switched between the jacuzzi and sitting on our giant exercise ball throughout the afternoon. 

Spa selfie! (The calm before the storm)

The contractions had basically disappeared at this point, so I thought the morning aches were Braxton Hicks again. We headed over to the spectrum to walk around and grab some Cucina Enoteca happy hour afterwards to pass more time. 

Cucina's bruschetta with three kinds of toppings. So yum.

We had the intention of leaving McCrae at his daycare overnight in the instance that our baby decided to come, but since all the contractions had disappeared, I wanted him home with us, so we went back to go pick him up for the night. Sure enough, on the drive home from picking him up, I started to feel some pains again which I'm pretty sure Daniel was ready at this point to turn back around and leave McCrae back at the daycare. (Ha!) We got home and decided to call it an early night and headed to sleep. At 11 PM I woke to some pains again. They were more noticeable this time but still about 20-30 minutes between the next contraction, so I ignored them and tried to sleep through them. Come 3 AM----the 'witching hour' for a lot of pregnant women...and funny it's called that since it was technically Halloween---I awoke to the gnarliest contraction EVER. I swear it was about 3 minutes long, and my whole body curled up in so much angry, ferocious stabbing pain that I knew this had to be a real contraction this time. I woke Daniel up and we started timing them. 3-5 minutes apart, 5 contractions later and we knew it was time to bolt to the hospital. 

We checked in and the nurse asked that I hand over a urine sample. (Okay, seriously...when I'm contracting every couple of minutes...asking someone to pee in a cup is SUPER cruel. I'm pretty sure that urine cup ended up sitting on a table in the room thereafter anyways!) The RN said I was at 3.5 cm and that if I didn't progress shortly, they would have me try walking around, and if I still wasn't able to dilate to 4 cm, they would send me home. (The pain by now was pretty excruciating and I was DETERMINED to stay at the hospital.) About 45 minutes later, the RN came back in to check again and I was at 6 cm dilated. The pain was getting SO crazy that I swear I felt like I belonged in the looney bin. I was demanding an epidural, and because they require some blood work beforehand, everytime I had to go through a contraction, I felt like ripping off the sideboard of the hospital bed and screaming bloody murder while I waited! They quickly moved me to the delivery room where another RN unsuccessfully tried to hook me up to an IV. 4 stabs later, she resorted to using my hand vein as the IV "port". About 20-30 minutes later, the anesthesiologist came with the golden shot of glory!!! The epidural was a sting, but it was nothing compared to the contractions, and I gladly received it! 

If I wasn't a believer of epidurals before, I am now fully convinced that for me, it was the way to go--hands down. The pain had pretty much completely disappeared and the contractions were noticeable but completely bearable. At about 6 AM after some monitoring, the nurses let me sleep for a few hours at this point, and both Daniel and I caught up on some zzzz's which I now believe to have been crucial for our delivery. We woke up shortly before 10 AM when they said that it would be a good idea to start pushing. 2 hours of pushing later, out came baby Elizabeth. Easy peezy. I had no idea it would be that easy to push, and am so thankful that her delivery was smooth like butta'! 

This is Elizabeth's first baby photo post birth---all puffy and swollen after incubating for 9 months! One of the nurses had knit little, festive hats for the babies born on Halloween! What a treat. ;) 

First photo as a mommy. Look at that hair!!! So crazy!

My two sweethearts <3

In other news, our house is almost near completion. We're just a few weeks away and Daniel has kept me away from the house so it'll be a much bigger surprise to see the final product. Here's where we left off the last time I was onsite:

Where our kitchen will go.

Our master bedroom and his/hers closets.

Another master bedroom shot out of the bay window. We sorta ordered a super huge bed, so hopefully our room doesn't look too squished. Eek.

The "sunny" yellow is the raw material color, so not to fret, the house WILL be painted. We had to get at least one obligatory photo with the baby at the house before completion.

This week they're working on all the flooring and putting in the kitchen and bathrooms. After the longest 9 month wait ever, we are giddy beyond belief. 

Next up, we'll hopefully be in our house and have more to share with y'all. Till then, au revoir!