Chayla's Birthday!

We have a brand new beautiful little angel. She was born Saturday, May 8, 2010 at 9:25 am. She weighs 6 lbs 5 oz and is 19 inches long. Although she may lose a little length as her cone head rounds out :)



On Friday morning I started having contractions on the way to school about 8:30. I got to school and they were getting stronger about 8 minutes apart so I got a sub for the afternoon and went home at 11. I called Jake and our parents to let them know we might be going to the hospital. Well I guess she was holding out for the weekend because contractions slowed and eventually stopped around 3 pm. I was SO bummed. I had just gone through 5 hours of labor for nothing - oh except the wonderful back pain they brought which did not go away. In fact it only got worse as the day went on and made it very very hard to sleep or do anything really. I was able to take a nap for an hour then at 10:30 ish went up to bed. After what felt like hours and hours of tossing and turning - I had so much back pain - I got up thinking it was at least 6 am - Nope - 12:00 midnight. Wow, so I decided to take a bath which was the best. It was the first time in hours my back didn't hurt. Unfortunately I couldn't stay there forever even though I thought about it so I woke Jake up and we watched a movie- thinking that would distract me from the pain.

About 2 the contractions kicked back in pretty strong. Within an hour they went from 10 min apart to 8, 6, 5 - which of course is the magic number - and I told Jake it was time to go. I had been wandering in and out of the bathroom in misery and not being able to enjoy the movie much. Which is ok because I did catch a couple funny parts -Star Trek 4- where spock tries to use slang and talk tough and laughing was not therapeutic.

Anyway, we got to the hospital about 3:30 which is thankfully reallly close to us. I was dialate to 5 cm and 100% effaced when we checked in so maybe that morning labor wasn't in vain after all. After getting set up with monitors and IV's I was able to get an epidural - which was heavenly. Not getting it put in - although that really wasn't too bad. I guess the needles they use are pretty beastly but needles don't bother me if I don't see them so I just didn't look. After that there was a lot of waiting. I needed two doses of Penicillin for group B strep and the first one was at 4 so we had to wait until 8 to do anything. They broke my water around 5 to get things moving and by about 7:50 I was at 9 3/4 cm. So now we were just waiting on the dr. Thanks to the epidural I was able to sleep for a while. The worst part was the shaking from the epidural. Everytime I changed position I would start shaking again and couldn't control it. Jake distracted me by taking flattering (not) pictures and video and playing music on the laptop while I tried to guess the song just from the intro. He was great through the whole thing except once I told the nurse something hurt and he said to "suck it up". He was just joking but it was actually good advice, I was being a wuss.

When Dr. Nance finally got there and we got all in position for pushing it was around 9:15. I couldn't feel the contractions so the nurse told me when they we starting and I was supposed to push 3 times for 10 seconds each. They had told me that most women push for an hour or two. Well, Chayla must have been ready because after the first couple pushes the dr. said "I see lots of hair". Only 10 minutes (only 9 pushes) later that hair was followed by a beautiful conehead and a long body. I watched her being born and I still don't quite beleive it happened. It was so intense and surreal. She did have the cord wrapped around her neck but the dr. cut it and she was fine. Jake got to cut the cord closer to the belly button and video tape her as they weighed and measured. - while I got to deliver the placenta and get stitches. He did great being a brand new dad. He said it was pretty gross and crazy but the blood didn't bother him. Only her looks bothered him. He said "She looks Asian. Are you sure I'm the dad?" Which is kinda funny because that's one of the first things everyone else said too.

I was shaking so bad I didn't even hold her much until later down in our Mother/baby room. I tried feeding her but she was SO tired and weak. She didn't even cry much when she was first born. Kind of whimpered. Oh but she was beautiful. We took some pictures then I ate a big breakfast while Jake went with the nurse and Chayla down to get cleaned up and checked out. She had low blood sugar so they had to take blood for testing and give her some formula through a tube which they pushed down her throat into her stomach. Poor girl - so much trauma in so little time. She got a bath and a cute bow in her hair and was able to come be with us in the room about 11.

She was so tired for most of the day. She got to meet lots of new people but was hardly awake for any of it. She got to meet Grandma Jen and Grandpa Kelly, then 'adopted' uncle Brian, aunt Lee, and Kaidrei, then later on Grandpa Stead and uncle Remington come by (they were up here for Rem's water polo tournament) and later in the evening Grandpa Joe, aunt Nessa and uncle Jesse! It was a big day for her. She even did well breast feeding - after the nurse helped me figure out how to hold her the right way.

Chayla is of course gorgeous - she gets that from me :) She has all 10 fingers and toes. We checked and double checked. We are still debating whose toes she got, my big toe or Jakes long toes. I think she got them both and my big feet. We're also not sure about the nose but she definitely got Jake's mouth and cheeks which I love!

It has all been a whirlwind but all so special and amazing. The perfect Mother's Day present. The best part is I haven't had to change any of those tarry diapers yet. Jake has done it all (even the 2 am blowout diaper she had a few hours ago) and is becoming quite the expert. He seems to think that he is building up credit and won't have to change anymore for a long time once we go home :) He is the best dad so loving and gentle. And has been working so hard to take care of us. He has seen me through some pretty gross situations and still thinks I'm beautiful - How did I get so lucky. An amazing husband and a beautiful daughter. I'm so excited for all the great things in store for my little family!

Tour of Chayla's room

Fun project for a boy baby shower

We're having combined baby shower at my school next week for me and a teacher who just had a baby boy.  I saw a tutorial a while back for Wee Wee Wigwams and thought they were super clever and would be fun to try out.   So I made some for her.  They were SUPER easy and I think they are hilarious.  I hope they really work for her.

The Crib Fiasco

Wow!  A piece of advice - Never order anything from Walmart.com.  Never shop at Walmart again - okay so that's a bit extreme maybe.  Seriously though they have bad communication.   We ordered a nursery set - crib, dresser and changing table and it was supposed to be delivered to the Orem walmart so we could pick it up.  So Mom and Kelly even came down with their truck to help us get it home since the ones they have in the store that are similar are in huge, heavy boxes.     Anyways, we got 2 boxes of the "box 2 of 2" item and 0 of box 1.  They said that it hadn't been shipped and they were sorry - did we want a refund or wait for 1 month to get it in?   We decided to get a refund and just buy the one they had in the store.  Then they didn't know how much to refund b/c only 1 box came in so they weren't sure if we were charged for the whole order or just one box.   about 2 hours later we made it home but I've been getting emails and calls from them all week with mixed information.  Walmart.com called and said the other box never shipped but the guy at the store called the NEXT day and said they got the missing box in.   So, whatever.  

We got all the pieces set up of the one we bought and we love it.  It was pretty painless and looks nice.  It is so exciting to have her room set up.  I can't wait to put a baby in it!  Sometimes I go in just to sit in there.                                                                   
                                                                           Before:

After:

                                                                    

Birthday present

Jake got me a camcorder for my birthday.  We've been planning on getting one for when Chayla arrives. Jake says we need to have a baby soon so we have someone cute to video - he just didn't want me testing it on him anymore.  I think he's cute enough : p

It's really light weight and takes nice video.  We are happy with it so far.  Look for videos soon to come!

32 Weeks!

The doctor says everything is looking good with baby.  She is head down and will hopefully stay that way - crossing my fingers.  I'm feeling great except when I can't breathe after going up and down the stairs just once - it's all worth it though.

Birthday Fun - for the whole month

I feel like we've been celebrating my birthday all month.  It started with a great family dinner and Mom and Kelly's.  We were celebrating Josh's bday too. 

Lee's birthday is also in March so we've been celebrating with them too.  Last week we went out to lunch at Tucano's with our birthday coupons.  I think I definitely ate the most.  Chayla was just so hungry :)   Afterwards we needed to take a walk and drag the husbands to look at a kids store with us.  (they are constantly at the mercy of the scheming women in their lives)  

Lee made me the cutest notebook cover! I love it!  And I can use it forever b/c it is a removable cover - not glued on like I've made before.  She is so creative 

Awesomemest Cupcakes Ever

Lee and I have been talking about doing a cake decorating project and we finally did!   We decided to make a cupcake display that looks like a Pac Man game board.  We used fondant for the tops and decorations.  We filled each cupcake with either peanut butter or chocolate filling and stuck everything together with chocolate frosting.  It took a while but it was SO fun!   What could be better than baking + girl time + surprising your hubby at work with chocolate cupcakes?  Not much, especially since Jake like the surprise ;)

Flirty Apron :)

I finally made an apron!  I've been wanting to make a cute/colorful one for a while.  I turned out pretty good I think and was quite a learning experience!    It is 2-sided which is fun and I only had to undo part of a seam before I realized the ties and ruffle were going to end up on the inside.

March updates Galore

There's been so much fun going on in our lives that I have to share.  Let's see... where to start?  Cooking of course!   Here's a yummy dish I made that started out as 7-layer bean dip and ended up more like a cafe rio salad :)  One of my new favorite meals and SO easy - just layers of goodness.  It wound up being more like 12 layers i think.