Christmas Photo Shoot

My sister Amy took some photos of Emme and I on Christmas day in her cute little Christmas outfit.

Christmas Festivities

We had a lovely Christmas this year with our new little family. We spent Christmas Eve with the Spencers, where we ate dinner and opened presents from the grandparents. It's so much fun watching all the grandkids get so excited!

Christmas morning we stayed home and made breakfast, and opened presents by ourselves. Here is a picture of what Chris asked Santa to leave in his stocking this year. Go figure.

We brought Emme out and set her in the bouncer in front of the tree, and she was a happy camper while we opened her stocking and her presents and showed them to her.

When Chris opened this one, he said "...and you got some tights and a chew toy!" Emme responded by telling her dad that she is not a dog -- those are teethers and not chew toys.

{Look at her look at Chris! She just loves her dad.}

Emme sitting in her bouncer with her adorable present outfit on.

All of the edible contents of our stockings were non-chocolate this year (due to the gassy nature of our child)...

...including the hot pockets and taquitos.

Later that day we went to the Spencers for brunch. Emme's asleep in this picture because her naps got all out of whack with all the excitement on the 24th and 25th.

That evening we went to the Pace's for Christmas dinner. And Emme finally woke up, just when it was time for her to go to bed. :)

{How adorable is her little Christmas outfit!?! Thanks, Grandma Pace!}

All in all, we had a wonderful Christmas, and we loved being able to spend it with our families. We can't wait for next year when Emme will be big enough to help open presents and get excited about toys! When we reflect upon all the changes that have happened in our family this year, we feel so blessed and so full of love. What a wonderful year it has been! We look forward to all that lies ahead for us in 2010.

Emme At 5 Weeks

She was a little cranky-pants today when we took her 5 week pictures, because her nap/sleeping schedule got all out of whack with all the festivities on the 24th and 25th. Oy. But she's still a cute little munchkin. I can't believe she's five weeks old already! I don't notice how big she's getting until I put her in the swing (which she LOVES) and realize she can hold her head up in it now. When we first tried her in it, we had burp clothes propping every side of her head because she had no control. Now she's a champ! It's crazy how fast they grow.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, from our little family to yours.

Noise

I have a niece and nephew who HATE loud noises, so I just assumed most babies didn't like them. Every time I blow dry my hair, I've been closing the door to the bathroom so it doesn't scare Emme. But I recently learned that Emme LOVES noise, and LOVES the sound of the blowdryer. I can set her in her bouncy seat on the bathroom floor and she'll just stare at me contentedly until I'm done blowdrying. It's fantastic! I've been able to actually "do" my hair almost every day lately!

Now if only my makeup were louder...

Smiles!

Emme has started smiling more and more these days! It's hard to catch on camera, and I usually only have my phone camera handy when it happens. But it just makes me melt.

Emme At 4 Weeks

Emme in her adorable Christmas outfit, with her adorable 'poof' hair. She's like a big present! With a big adorable bow! Once we got her in this outfit we realized we don't have a red hair bow. Shocking, I know, considering how many stinkin' bows this girl has!

The week Emme was due, my mom took me shopping like every day, to get my mind off of that fact that I was still pregnant and overdue. We found this little Christmas present outfit and this adorable giant stocking that week. She looks so tiny in the stocking!

My Sleeping Beauties

We had Emme's pictures taken today! I can't wait to get them back and see how they turned out. She was such a good girl during them -- wide awake and everything. As soon as the photographer left, she and dad crashed on the couch. Being adorable is exhausting.

Spencer Par-Tay

Yesterday we had the Spencer birthday celebration for Chris and our niece Hannah's birthdays. We had a yummy spaghetti dinner and a beautiful butterfly birthday cake for dessert. It was fun to get to visit with the whole family for the first time since Emme was born. She loved having lots of arms willing to hold her.

{The birthday boy and girl}

Chris got some Utah gear (his favorite), sausage (also his favorite) and a cool new GPS to use in the car. He's very excited to try it out. Happy birthday, Chris!

Emme At 3 Weeks

Emme wasn't too happy when I woke her up to take her 3 week picture. But she's getting so big, and she's changing so much that I had to do it. Plus she's wearing her cute headband from her friends Tate and Grace!

I've been feeling really claustrophobic at home these days. But with Christmas coming up, I feel like I have a lot of things to do to be ready still. I had an errand I had to run this week, so I got the diaper bag and everything all packed, and then as soon as Emme was done eating, I put her in the carseat and we were out the door. She was a champ! She doesn't love getting in and out of her carseat, but once she's in it, she loves riding in the car and riding in her stroller. We ran our errand successfully, and Emme slept the entire time. So now I have a little bit of confidence that I won't be home-stricken forever. I just need the snow and sicknesses to go away so I can take this little chica out more. :)

Visitors

Yesterday the Bambina's cousins came to visit her! It was nice to have visitors come to us, since we don't get out of the house much these days, on doctor's orders. They couldn't get over how small she was, and how tiny her hands are. Emme was awake when they first came, but she fell right asleep when Wade and Hannah and Logan held her. She loves them already!

The Wade man.

The girls! I forgot to get a picture of it, but Emme was wearing her special cousin bracelet that matches Hannah's. These girls are going to be such good friends!

How cute is this boy?

Our sleeping beauty.

The Baby Pain Scale

I was going through my pictures from the hospital yesterday, and I found this little gem. It was drawn by my 15-year-old brother Stuart, on the whiteboard in my hospital room.

He is wise beyond his years.

Emme At 2 Weeks

I finally captured a smile on film! Truthfully, this was more of a grimace and a yelp of "Mom, I'm falling over!" But you didn't hear that from me. :)

I can't believe how big this little chica's getting. She gets more beautiful every day.

Poop at the Pediatrician's

On Monday I took the Bambina to the pediatrician solo because Chris was back at work. I was feeling pretty good about myself after we got there on time, with both of us fully dressed and presentable. (Not bad for my first solo outing, right?) Until they took us back to a room.

{My little mouth-breather. And yes, that's spitup on the collar of her nightgown. A story for another day.}

They asked me to strip her down to a dry diaper. I began taking off the Bambina's clothes and matching headband as the nurse asked me questions. As I did so, we both heard the Bambina "fill" her diaper.

I knew from my short motherly experience with this chica, that she wasn't done filling it. But the nurse was waiting on me to get her changed so we could weigh her in. So I thought I could get in there and change it really quick before she "finished."

Not so.

As soon as I set her on the examination table, took of the soiled diaper and reached for the wipes, the Bambina attempted to finish what she had started. I was mortified. There was poop everywhere. I tried to cover her bum back up until she was done, but that just made it worse.

I kept apologizing to the nurse, and she kept telling me "it happens all the time." But that didn't really make me feel any better. Neither did watching her pull out her haz-mat gloves and supplies while she deodorized and disinfected the entire room. Ugh.

Baby: 1
Mommy: 0

It's a Good Day

I'm 10 days post-partum and I'm wearing my regular old pre-pregnancy, pre-swelling shoes!

And, I cut the Bambina's fingernails today without drawing blood.

It's a good day.

Emme At 1 Week

When we woke up on Saturday morning I sang happy birthday to Emme. Then we took a 1-week picture of her in her chair. I can't believe how fast she changes!

Before Emme was born I begged Chris to let me buy a new camera, because our old one had a really bad flash. I felt like the baby deserved to have some decent pictures of herself to look back on when she grows up. Chris finally gave in and we bought a camera. Since then I've been saving my Amazon gift cards that I get for various things, for a video camera.

On Friday Chris said to me, "We need a video camera so we can video tape this little girl." I said oh, should we buy one for ourselves for Christmas?

His response was that no, we need to buy one right now so we don't miss any of her growing up. Too cute. Would have been useful if we'd thought of this before Black Friday, no?

Thanksgiving Thankfulness

This Thanksgiving we're thankful for our new little family, and for the Bambina's safe arrival.

Oh, and also apple pie. Yum!

The Birth Story

40 week belly picture

On Thursday the 19th ( 1 day past my due date) I'd been having pretty decent contractions about 10 to 30 minutes apart, for the last two days solid. The baby was posterior, so I was having terrible back labor. At about 7 PM that evening the contractions began getting closer, and when they were between 4 and 6 minutes apart, we went to the hospital.

The nurses got a kick out of my twilight t-shirt. They kept asking me if I was going to the movie that night. I told them I had a movie ticket, but I would rather be having a baby that night.

After monitoring us for an hour, I was only 1.5 cm dilated and not progressing, so they gave me a shot of morphine to help me sleep and sent us home, with the instruction to come back when my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart. Needless to say, I did not see New Moon that night. :(

The next day Chris stayed home from work with me. We tried to relax and watch TV, but all I could do was wander around the house, swaying and holding onto the wall during each contraction. It hurt so bad to sit or lay during the contractions that by four o'clock in the afternoon I literally thought I was dying. We decided to bite the bullet and get checked again.

When we were admitted, they checked me and I was at 3 cm. They sent us walking and said they would check back in an hour to see if they would keep us or send us home. So Chris and I walked the halls of labor & delivery for an hour, trying to get the contractions to speed up and progress me a little. I just kept praying that they wouldn't send us home again.

When they checked us in an hour, I was still at 3 cm. I started feeling not-so-hot, so I asked the nurse to check my temperature. It was a little bit high, so they decided to give me some tylenol and watch me for 20 minutes before they sent us packing. The doctor was due to come check me one more time before they sent us home, but there were 2 emergency deliveries right at that time (we kept hearing "It's breach! It's breach!"), so she was delayed another 20 minutes. I was in agony laying on the bed with my back labor! I wasn't allowed to stand up because of all the monitors they had on me. When the doctor finally made it in to check me, to our surprise and hers, I had miraculously progressed from 3 cm to 5 in about 40 minutes.

She looked at us an said "it looks like you're going to have a baby tonight!" I immediately broke down in tears of relief, and when the doctor left the room Chris started to cry and gave me a big hug. I think it was hard for him to see me in so much pain and feel so helpless.

They got me an epidural (saints be praised!) and they let me progress during the night. At about 6 cm the doctor broke my water, and could feel that the baby was posterior so she reached up and turned the baby's head to get her straightened the right way. My contractions NEVER got closer than 5 or 6 minutes apart. They even put me on a little bit of pitocin to try to speed them up, but that didn't help either. If I'd been sent home with the directive to come back when they were 3 minutes apart, I would have had our baby at home.

About 4 am I was at 10 cm finally, and they had me start pushing. I ended up pushing for about 4 hours all total, and it was exhausting! I had uncontrollable shakes, more fever, and I threw up at least 4 or 5 times in between contractions. It was a really long battle for us.

At 7am we had another shift change and a new doctor came on call. He came to check me and decided that due to the shape of my pelvis, they weren't sure if the baby's big head would make it through, which is why I had been pushing for so long. He calmly laid out our options. He said we could try pushing with forceps, but that it may or may not work, and explained all of the side effects of that option. Or he said we could opt to go straight to a c-section.

I felt exhausted and anxious to meet this baby, but I also felt a lot of confidence in this doctor I had just met. I felt that if we didn't at least try with the forceps, all of this labor and pushing would have been for nothing. So we opted to try with the forceps.

The room was prepped and covered with blue cloths and scary-looking tools, and two NICU nurses were called down to be in the room during the attempted delivery. When everything was ready, the doctor got the forceps in place and when a contraction came, he had me push while he pulled. During the very first contraction as I was pushing, I could feel bone on bone down there. I was certain her head would never fit through. But we kept trying. Another contraction came and I pushed as hard as my exhausted body could, while the doctor literally yanked on the forceps with all his might. (Ask Chris to give you a demonstration of how the doctor kicked his stool away and stood up and yanked. It was that hard.)

At some point during one of the contractions, I could all of a sudden feel some tension and urgency in the doctor and nurse's voices. They started yelling for me to push, push harder! I pushed as hard as I ever had. I didn't know it at the time, but the baby's heart rate had "tanked" as the doctor put it. And she was wedged good and tight in the birth canal, so the only option was out -- there wouldn't have been time for a c-section. (We also found out later that both operating rooms were in use at that time.) Somehow, the baby's head miraculously fit through and as it came out, the doctor could see why her heart rate had dropped. She had the cord wrapped around her neck twice and around her neck and hand once. (That darn little rogue hand that kept us from getting good ultrasound pictures!) They snip, snip, snipped and unwrapped the cord without waiting for Chris, and handed her off to the NICU nurses immediately. She was blue and not breathing.

I remember laying there on the bed, still flat on my back, watching three nurses hovered around the warmer, with my mom and Chris nervously trying to catch a glimpse of what was happening. For a long time I heard nothing and I kept asking "Is she okay? Is she okay?" Finally I heard some raspy yells, and then some real live cries from the baby. Her first APGAR score was a 2, but her second was a 9. After they'd fully checked her out and wrapped her up, they handed her off to Chris. I kept hearing him say, "She's so beautiful, she's so beautiful." I was still getting stitched up (I had an extreme third-degree episiotomy, so almost a fourth degree) and had to be flat on my back for about 40 minutes while the doctor worked. So Chris pulled up a chair and sat down by me low enough that I could see the baby's face and touch her hands. And he was right, she was the most beautiful thing in the whole wide world.

The next morning during rounds, the doctor stopped by to check up on me. He told me that the good Lord had been watching out for us yesterday. And we know He was. We thank Heavenly Father for Emme's safe arrival every day in our prayers.

The Many Faces of Emmeline Jean

The "Shhh!-It's daytime so I'm sleeping" face

The "It's 2am, wanna play mom?" face
(AKA, the "Aren't I adorable?" face)

The "drunk-off-milk" face
(Look at those arms, lol! So relaxed.)

The "Daddy's bed is comfier than mine" face
(Seriously. She'll fuss and fuss in her bassinet but the second you set her in our bed she's out cold. What gives!?)

P.S. I promise the birth story is coming. I'm a slacker. :)

Home Sweet Home

We're home! We came home from the hospital yesterday and survived our first night without too much trouble (knock on wood!). Emmeline just sleeps and eats and is the sweetest baby. We have to wake her up in the night to feed her, otherwise she'd just keep on sleeping.


We gave the Bambina her first bath at home this morning. She loves having her hair washed but she gets sort of cold since we can't get her umbilical cord wet yet. We've decided it's definitely a two-man job having a baby at home! I'm so glad Chris is able to stay home for a few days while we get the hang of this. He is SUCH a trooper. If I ever need help with anything, even if it's in the middle of the night, Chris is willing to do anything I need. I think he's loving taking care of our little one as much as I am!


Emmeline's hair looks like a new baby chick's after she has her bath. It just goes POOF! I'm gonna have to figure out how to tame it like the nurses in the hospital did because it was so cute!

Here are some pictures of the proud daddy and his baby. She is enthralled with him -- she stares up into his eyes while he holds her and loves the sound of his voice.


We just love this little one to death! We think she's the most beautiful thing in the whole wide world. It's such a blessing to have such a pure, sweet little baby in our home. We love her so much and are so happy to be parents.