Becoming a Model

We had Adelyn's newborn pictures taken this morning. Apparently most newborn photos are supposed to be taken of the baby sleeping, because it's easier to pose them that way. Adelyn pretty much does her own thing so she was awake the entire time. While it wasn't as easy to pose her, I was actually kind of glad, because now we'll get to see her pretty blue eyes in the pictures.

Jaycie, the photographer, wanted to do the naked baby shots first. Wil was undressing her and noticed a spot of poop in her diaper. That usually means she's about to poop, so we decided to wait another minute before completely undressing her.

We waited several minutes before we finally gave up...maybe she didn't actually have to poop? We finished undressing her and laid her on the photographer's beautiful green blanket in a cute little basket. A few short minutes, and several adorable photos later, came the lovely sound of projectile poop spraying all over the blanket.

Jaycie assured us that it was okay and not to worry about it (I've never thought about how nice baby photographers have to be - because it was totally gross and she's my kid...I can't imagine someone else's kid spewing poop all over one of my blankets - EWWW!)

We cleaned her off and moved on to some different shots. Later, we tried putting her on a big fluffy pillow - also adorable...until she PEED all over it and the floor. That's my girl!

Luckily, Jaycie is super nice and did a great job of pretending she didn't care that my baby relieved herself all over Jaycie's stuff. Coming soon to a blog near you - the final pictures. I can't wait to see them - I think they're going to be great!

Baby's Room

Adelyn's room has quickly become one of my favorite rooms in the whole house! We're still working on some of the finishing touches, but thought I would post some photos of what it looks like now.

First, we needed a dresser. Inspired by a friend who refinishes furniture from thrift stores - you can read her blog here - we bought this hideous thing at Goodwill for $30. It was UGLY (seriously, this before picture doesn't do it justice!), but it had potential.

Wil stripped and sanded and refinished until it looked like this...

I felt so loved every time I heard the sander coming from the garage! I LOVE the way it turned out! Wil did an AMAZING job! We use it as her dresser/changing table and it has worked out perfectly so far.

When Wil told me he would paint the room for me, I was shocked! He HATES painting - and since I was pregnant, I couldn't exactly help. We (and by we, I mean Wil) painted one accent wall a chocolate brown color with white wall board on the bottom. I love, Love, LOVE it!

The fan in the baby's room was super old and super ugly. My aunt and uncle gave us my cousin Lynda's fan (that she's had since she was little) in exchange for installing the new fan they wanted in her room. We repainted Lynda's old fan (it was red with black polka dots and flowers to match her current room) with the same paint we used for the wall. I think it's the perfect addition to the room.

Still to come - we have a large mirror (it came with the dresser) that Wil is going to figure out how to frame that we can hang on one wall. I also want to spell Adelyn's name in wooden letters and get a vinyl saying for the wall above her crib...I'm just not sure what I want it to say yet. Any suggestions?

Ice, Ice Baby!

Adelyn has her days and nights a bit confused. She's happy to sleep from 5 a.m. - 9 a.m., wake up for a quick diaper change and feeding and then go back to sleep until 1 p.m. At night however, sleep is boring! She's mostly happy when she's awake at night (mostly), but she wants to be held and does not want to lay down! We had several 2:30 a.m. nights last week - which makes for excessively sleepy parents!

We tried waking her up more during the day, but she is extremely stubborn and would only wake up on her terms. We tried tickling her, changing her diaper, sitting her upright, singing obnoxious songs while waving her arms and legs, making her dance, biting her feet, but nothing worked!

I asked the pediatrician how we could get her to sleep more at night and was told to wake her up more often during the day. So I asked how to wake her up because I thought we'd tried just about everything. The pediatrician told us to do this...

Yep, that's ICE that we are rubbing on my baby's foot! She was NOT a fan - and we couldn't do it for long because it made us feel bad! But, she did sleep better that night!

Meet Cute

We weren't sure how Elvis would react to Adelyn. Their first meeting went well. He calmly sniffed her and then went and laid down on the rug. Wil and I have been impressed by how calm and gentle Elvis has been around her.

Homecoming

When they told us Tuesday morning that we would be staying another day, I was grateful. I wasn't quite ready to go home only 15 hours after having a baby.

But, by the time Wil and I woke up Wednesday morning, we were ready to head home - we'd been there since Sunday evening! We packed all of our stuff, and Wil took it down to the car so we would have less to carry later. The pediatrician came in to check on Adelyn and we were expecting to be told we could go home - but instead we were told we had to stay the full 48 hours from when she was born, which meant we wouldn't be going home until around 6 p.m. Ugh! We were SO ready to get home!

We spent the day napping and trying to keep ourselves entertained while the hours slowly ticked by. Around 4, we dressed Adelyn in her going home outfit, double checked to make sure we had everything packed and took some pictures while we waited (we had to do something to entertain ourselves!).

Adelyn looked teeny-tiny in her car seat! I don't think I've ever seen Wil drive so carefully in my entire life. I spent the drive home watching the car seat to make sure it didn't tip over (I was SURE it was about to tip, even though it was securely installed in the backseat) and Wil spent the drive going extra slow around turns and watching all of the other cars on the road like a hawk!

Introducing...

Adelyn Mariana Gonzalez

March 28,2011

6:34 p.m.

7 Pounds 11 Ounces

21 1/2 Inches

The Walking Worked!

Sunday, March 27, was a lazy day at our house. I was exhausted, so we decided to stay home and relax for the day. It was WONDERFUL! We laid in bed and watched movies, napped, I'm not sure I could have asked for a more perfect day!

The closer we got to the end of my pregnancy, we learned everyone has a theory about how to induce labor. Most people agreed that lots of walking would help. Around 4 p.m. we decided to get out of the house and take a little walk (for me it was more like a waddle!). We put Elvis's leash on, walked around the park, let him play at the dog park for a while and then headed home.

I had left my phone on the counter while we were out, and I noticed there was a message when we got back. It was the hospital, calling about my induction. I listened to it and then put it on speaker for Wil to listen to it. The message said, they were calling about my induction Sunday at 4 p.m. Ummm...my induction is scheduled for the 31st - I wasn't supposed to check-in until 10 p.m. on the 30th. Wil convinced me they meant they were calling about my induction, and they were leaving the message Sunday at 4 p.m. The brief panic subsided as I realized he was probably right. But just in case, I looked at him and asked, "if they want us to come in now - are we okay with that?" Yes, but that's not what they're going to say, we thought. They probably just want to give us directions for when we come in later this week.

So I called back...and the nurse asked if we could come in right then. NOW? I asked - you should have seen the look on Wil's face. :-) We were mentally and emotionally prepared for Wednesday/Thursday...not today! Yes, now. About ten minutes later another nurse called and asked me if we could wait to come in until about 7:30 that evening.

We promptly showered, finished packing my bag, did the dishes (we had been having a lazy day up to this point, so they were not done), installed the car seat and ate dinner. Then we sat and waited, trying to calm ourselves down, because let's be honest this was our first child and I was kind of scared and we were both freaking out!

We reported to Arrowhead Hospital at 7:30 on the dot and were checked-in and taken to the labor and delivery room. Except for when I was born, I've never been a hospital patient before - in fact, I don't think I've even been to the emergency room for myself (urgent care yes, but I don't think I've made an emergency room visit). The only time I've had stitches was when I got my wisdom teeth out and I don't remember ever having had an IV - although it's possible I had one when I got my wisdom teeth out as well, I can't remember.

Never having been a patient before, I was a little nervous about the whole thing! There were consent forms to sign and a long list of family history and pregnancy questions to answer. Then they had to put in my IV. I have horrible veins, so it took not one, not two, but three tries to get it in - I still have brusies from all three tries. I was scared to move my arm for hours, worried the tube would pop out (I actually think the IV might have been the worst part!). Then they wrapped two bands around me, one to measure contractions and one to measure the baby's heart beat and told me to try to get some sleep - yeah, like that's gonna happen!

A little after 9:30 p.m., they gave me my first dose of medicine to soften my cervix. After the medicine, you lay in bed for an hour, get up and walk around for an hour and then get more medicine. My doctor came in early Monday morning to break my water and they started me on Pitocin to increase my contractions. I got an epidural later that morning (a wonderful thing!), and Wil and I hung out at the hospital - okay, so after the epidural I mostly dozed in and out of sleep while Wil sat in the chair next to me bored out of his mind!

I naively thought that if we checked in around 7:30, I would probably have the baby around 7 or 8 Monday morning...HA! She definitely wasn't born until 6:30 p.m. Monday...we had been there almost 24 hours and it's a good thing she came out when she did because I was starting to lose hope that she would ever be born!

The epidural made it easy, and to be honest, I'm still not sure how she fit inside of me...or how she came out of me. I was there, I know it happened, I just didn't really have to feel it, so I have no idea HOW it happened!

Ever since then we've been absolutely in love with our perfect little girl!

And, in case you're curious, Wil and I are totally believers now that walking brings on labor - it worked for us! :-)