A Whole New Experience.....

We got to leave the hospital yesterday about 5:00 pm, probably one of the most terrifying things we have ever done. The first night home actually went pretty well, still a very long night but at least we were in out own bed. Hannah is sleeping in our room, probably until I go back to work. She was not a big fan of the pack n play last night which wasn't shocking to us since she wasn't a fan of the bassinet we had her in at the hospital but at about 6 am this morning when we still hadn't slept for more then an hour we put her in her car seat and she slept for over 2 hours, the most sleep I have had since I went into labor!
Here are some pictures of leaving the hospital....



And some of the grandparents....

Ha, I can't believe it!! Hannah arrived 9 days early. At my last doctors appointment I was only dialated to 2 cm, the doctor did a few things to maybe help move things along but you never know if that kind of stuff will work or not. Friday night we also went for Mexican so that might have had something to do with the contractions that started at 2 am. I was up all night timing them, they weren't bad and they were anywhere between 7 and 10 minutes apart so I just stayed in bed, watched movies and the clock. At about 8:30 am my water broke and the contractions got a ton worse so we headed to the hospital.
Hannah was born on 11/22 around 4:00 pm, she weighs 7lbs 5oz and she is perfect! I'll write more later but I wanted to get some pictures posted of our beautiful little girl.

Hard to believe that 3 weeks from this past Monday is my actual due date!! Scary!
Here is the 37 Week update I received...
Congratulations — your baby is full term! This means that if your baby arrives now, his lungs should be fully mature and ready to adjust to life outside the womb, even though your due date is still three weeks away.

Your baby weighs 6 1/3 pounds and measures a bit over 19 inches, head to heel (like a stalk of Swiss chard). Many babies have a full head of hair at birth, with locks from 1/2 inch to 1 1/2 inches long. But don't be surprised if your baby's hair isn't the same color as yours. Dark-haired couples are sometimes thrown for a loop when their children come out as blonds or redheads, and fair-haired couples have been surprised by Elvis look-alikes. And then, of course, some babies sport only peach fuzz.

At my last appointment we found out that our doctor is going out of town on December 6th. She is the only doctor in her practice which means I will be having this baby sometime before that!! There are two ways to look at this, 1) thank goodness there is an end in sight, I am tired of being pregnant and I can't wait to finally see what she looks like or 2) Holy Crap!

Well we can't completely finish our nursery since we don't have the crib we ordered 17 weeks ago!!! (I am not bitter at all) But this weekend Chuck and I came as close to completing it as possible!! I love it, took a little work to figure out how we actually wanted the room set up but I think it turned out cozy.
I took some pics!

Tonight we have a newborn class, this will teach us the basics such as diapering, burping, bathing and all that fun stuff. Neither Chuck or I have really had the opportunity to be around newborns so this will be a really good class for us.

My weekly update...
Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. She now weighs almost 6 pounds (like a crenshaw melon) and is more than 18 1/2 inches long. She's shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered her body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected her skin during her nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of her first bowel movement.

At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term. (Full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term.) Most likely she's in a head-down position. But if she isn't, your practitioner may suggest scheduling an "external cephalic version," which is a fancy way of saying she'll try to coax your baby into a head-down position by manipulating her from the outside of your belly.

The fun thing that I have had to deal with this week is our crib! We ordered our crib on July 16th and we were quoted a 12-16 week lead time. I have been calling since 12 weeks and each time they have told me it would be in the first week in November. So I call on Monday and they tell me it will be another 3 weeks, but can't even promise that. Well that puts us at my due date and that just made me mad. I know she won't be sleeping in this crib when we first bring her home but I want the nursery to be done, I want to hang things on the walls but I can't do that until the crib gets here and we know it fits where we think it should fit! Due to the issues we have had USA Baby is providing a "loaner" crib, which I think is totally stupid but at the same time it will give me an idea of how the nursery can look and I can get everything put together and hung on the walls. The one nice thing about all of this hassle is now USA Baby will also be bringing us our crib whenever it decides to come in and putting it together for us! The loaner crib is scheduled to be delivered to us on Friday so hopefully I can take pictures this weekend!

October 31st has always been one of my favorite days! I love Halloween, I love the time of year, I love dressing up and I love candy!! This year was a little different, Chuck and I didn't get dressed up and didn't go to any Halloween parties but my work did throw me a baby shower. My boss thought it was cute to have it on Halloween, since "being a mom is scary!". The party was amazing and I just couldn't believe how generous everyone was! We got so many items that we really needed, it is so great to just be able to cross all that stuff off our list! Here are some pics of the fun party at FHLBI....


My department got Chuck and I our Pack n play!!! Something we really needed since our crib has not arrived!! Chuck put it together on Saturday and we set it up in our room so its official we can bring her home and she will have a place to sleep! I love it!