The After Birth

No, I am not talking about the ACTUAL "After Birth". :) Just what happened at the hospital after Lyla made her appearance. The doctor got me all cleaned up and stitched up since I got a 2nd degree tear. Then we all got to fight over who got to hold her. :) I finally got to eat after 21 hours of not eating anything. It tasted SO GOOD! Chicken Fettuccine, salad, ice cream, and about 4 cans of apple juice. :)

 

Chris's sister Sarah arrived in town from Provo at about 7pm, and then Chris got to go give Lyla her first bath! I am glad Sarah got some good pictures so I could see how it went. :) The nurse told them that Chris was so cute with her and so careful, he was so afraid he was going to hurt her. I loved it.

After that everyone went out for dinner, I sent Lyla to the nursery, while I got to take a bath in the Jacuzzi tub and move to my recovery room. Once I got settled they brought Lyla back to me and we got to just snuggle together, just the two of us, till everyone got back. It was the best! We visited with our family for a little bit longer. Chris's cousins Tyson and Laura came to visit us for a little bit and then it was time for bed. I was EXHAUSTED! It had been about 40 hours since I had had sleep so I was definitely ready. We had the nurse take baby to the nursery while we slept, but bring her to me when she was hungry. Nursing was a challenge for a while. Lyla had a difficult time latching on, but 2 weeks later, she is a pro! It just took some time, patience, and meeting with a lactation specialist to finally get it down. :) Between feedings and the nurse coming in to give me pain meds and check my vitals, we were able to get a few hours of sleep. Haha

The next day was pretty relaxing. We got to just hold our little girl and had lots of fun visitors! Our Pediatrician came and checked on Lyla, and Dr. Leavitt came to see how I was doing. Lyla had a little bit of Jaundice they were watching, but it wasn't too bad. He told me to just keep feeding her and it should be okay! Chris's Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Randall stopped by as they were heading back home to New Mexico. Grandma Karma came by for a bit, as well as our friend's Jenn, Melissa, and Dain! What good friends and family we have. It made us feel so loved. :)

 

Also, that night for dinner the hospital gave us a Celebratory Dinner where I had steak and Chris had salmon, and we also had ceasar salad, rolls, a HUGE piece of chocolate cake, and sparkling cider. It sure was Yummy!

During that second night at the hospital, there was one time when I was trying to feed Lyla and she was SCREAMING at the top of her lungs! Chris was sleeping on the little couch next to me and would not even budge. She was screaming, I was yelling his name, and he would not wake up! I finally had to lean over and nudge him a bit to finally get him up. I could not believe how he was sleeping through all that! I just needed a little help with her so I could go to the bathroom. :)

The next day we pretty much just got up and got all packed up to go home. We got all of the paper work done, watched the mandatory CPR and Purple Crying videos, and got on our way! I had a cute little outfit picked out as her "going home" outfit, but things were a little busy that I didn't even get around to putting it on her. I had put on a pink onesie that was meant to go under the outfit, so that's basically what she wore with her socks and swaddling blanket. But we were so excited to head home and start our lives as a family.

 

 

Lyla's Birth Story

There aren't many photos in the beginning because I am awful at remembering to take pictures, and also, I was strapped to a bed, so that made it kind of difficult. :) I wish I would have been better at getting all of the pictures I wanted taken!

Ok so you all know that my due date was August 10th, but I set an induction date for August 8th. My mom was coming in town, and I didn't want her to come and have to leave before baby came! And I really wasn't wanting to go over my due date. :) I was so ready to not be pregnant anymore and also ready for our little one to come.

But, it looks like our little one had her own agenda! :) She did not want to be told when she could make her appearance. We went to bed Tuesday night at about 11pm. I woke up an hour later at midnight feeling contractions. They started out 10 minutes apart. I went out to the living room and waited it out to see if this was going to be the real thing. They very slowly got closer and closer together, and by 4am they were 5 minutes apart. I woke Chris up and told him we needed to go to the hospital to get checked out!

We got to the hospital and they hooked me up. When they checked me I was at a 2. So they said they would watch me for an hour to see if I had made any progress, and then decide if they were going to keep me or send me home. I was praying they would keep me cause I was in a lot of pain! With each contraction I had to grab the railings on the side of the bed, close my eyes, and just focus on something else to get through it. I even threw up twice during that hour because of the pain. The nurse FINALLY came back in the room to check me again and I was at a 3!! Yay! She told us we were definitely having a baby that day. :)

They started getting things processing, calling Dr. Leavitt to let him know I would be needing him at some point :), and we started making phone calls! About an hour and a half later I was getting my epidural. After the epidural was in, I tried to sit up to get a drink of water and all of a sudden I got super light headed and almost passed out. I then threw up all over myself and the bed! It was so embarrassing, and the nurse had to put all new bedding on the bed and a new gown on me. Ugh it was so awful :)  Things were definitely better after that though. I was able to enjoy my labor, enjoy the company that was there, and not cry in agony every 2-3 minutes. :) Dr. Leavitt came in about 9am to break my water. And he informed me that the baby had relieved herself in the sac, and when she comes out she will be covered in Meconium. She will have to be cleaned off ASAP once she comes out and make sure none of it gets in her lungs when she takes her first breath.

The next few hours were spent just relaxing and waiting. Chris's parents were there with us, and then my mom arrived at the hospital about 11:30am, and so we waited. Dr. Leavitt was supposed to come check me on his lunch break, but 2 o'clock came and he still hadn't showed up so the nurse decided to check me. They told me that since I was a first time mom that they usually don't check that often and so they weren't too concerned that I would be ready to go by then. But, the nurse checked and I was at a 9 1/2! So that's when they got things into gear! They called the doctor and told him how close I was, and he wanted the baby to drop down as much as she could on her own so I wouldn't have to do so much pushing. To help the baby move down faster, the nurse kept changing what side I was laying on. I soon started feeling the urge to push! Even though I had an epidural, I could still feel a little pressure with each contraction that had me wanting to push the baby out. They got everything set up for the doctor, and then the nurse wanted to do some "practice" pushes. So we did a few of those, and baby had moved down closer and closer with each push. And after a few more pushes she was right there ready to come! I wanted to just do one more push and get her out, but they told me I had to wait till the doctor got there! Apparently they had called him a few times to let him know and hadn't picked up. I guess he had finally gotten the message cause everyone saw him running down the hall to my room! As soon as Dr. Leavitt walked in, the pressure to want to push baby out was so strong, I asked him if I could start pushing! He threw the table down, put his gloves on and yelled GO! I pushed one last time with all of my might, and baby was out!

He put her on my chest just for a second while Chris cut the umbilical cord. I was only able to see the top of her head but what I did see was that she had LOTS of hair! :) I was very glad about that, and made all the heartburn and indigestion worth it. Haha They whisked her away for the respiratory nurse to work on her making sure her respiratory system was clear, gave her some oxygen, and cleaned her up! What a strange and wonderful feeling it was knowing that that little baby over on that table was mine. While the doctor was stitching me up, I was handed a menu to order my dinner since it had been just about 24 hours since I had eaten. :) So I ordered my dinner, and by then our baby girl was weighed, cleaned up, diaper on, and put on my chest so we could have some skin to skin contact and I could help warm her up. It was so great. I finally had my baby!

Lyla Rae Allen was born at 3:49pm on Wednesday, August 7, 2013. She weighed 6 lbs 12 oz, and was 20 inches long! She has beautiful big blue eyes, lots of  blondish/light brown hair, and the cutest cheeks and lips. We are so in love with our baby girl.

 

 

 

3 More Days!

3 more days till our baby girl is going to come and I am so excited (unless she comes on her own before then :)! We have been busy making sure we have all we need, yet I know that we probably won't have EVERYTHING we need ever. :)

She is still growing perfectly, good strong heartbeat, lots of moving. She even has the hiccups right now. Poor girl! I hate it when I get the hiccups. I can't believe this pregnancy is almost over! There were times where I thought it was never going to end, but I am so excited for this little one to come out so we can meet her!

I just wanted to do a post on the nursery! I have spent the last 9 months putting it together. It's simple, but I do love how it has turned out and am excited to finally use it. :)

This is the view when you first walk in:

The wall of headbands and bows:

The other corner:

The Crib and Wall Art:

 

Dresser:

And the Bookshelf!

36 Weeks

Baby is now the size of a Honeydew. And a head of Romaine Lettuce. Whichever you like better. :) One more week and she won't be a premie anymore! Basically all her organs are in working order, except for her lungs which need a little more encouragement. Time for her arrival is getting closer and closer!

I am so ready. I can only eat little bits at a time, and have had morning sickness return the past few weeks. I just have to make sure I eat the RIGHT thing when I get out of bed or my body will reject it. I have to visit the ladies room MANY times a day, and it feels like I am carrying around a bowling ball between my legs. Fun! Haha But I am getting very excited to meet our little one and start that chapter of life. :) She moves around a lot and likes to push very hard at my stomach. Even though it's probably because she has been running out of room and needs me to sit in a different position, I like to believe she is trying to say Hi.

I just have a few more things to do to the nursery and then it will be all finished! Then I will be able to do a post showing you all the finished product. It has been a lot of fun putting it all together. People have been very generous in giving us stuff in preparation for the baby, and I appreciate all of it! There is a lot of stuff you need for a baby and I am glad you get some time to prepare.

Dr's appointment went well this week. Baby was moving around a lot while finding the heartbeat. I wasn't dilated at all yet, but that's ok, it's still early for that! Got my Strep B test done, so we will see what those results are in a couple days. I love that I get to go there every week now! It's what I look forward to.

Carpal Tunnel

My doctor diagnosed me with Carpal Tunnel a couple weeks ago. My right hand is constantly numb, and then it will cramp up and be feel pretty painful when I use it too much. Like right now trying to type. It's not very comfortable. It has gotten pretty difficult to do my clients and other daily things. The good news is that it will go away once I have the baby. I just gotta get through these last few weeks. I have just gotten so swollen all over that it's causing more problems.

Other than that, life is good! I am awful at taking pictures, but I still wanted to do an update on what's been going on around these parts. Chris has been super helpful with me being pregnant and getting bigger and bigger. :) He is having to pull me off the couch and push me out of bed. On days that I come home from work exhausted and can barely move, he cooks me dinner, runs me a bath, and makes sure I get in bed with my favorite TV show on. I love that man. He even painted my toenails the other day! It was very sweet. While he was polishing them he commented on how hard it was and that he appreciated what I did at work more now. :) He may think that I just play all day, but it does take some skill to do what I do. Haha

 

Last weekend I helped throw a Baby Shower for my friend Katie who lives in the apartment below us. She is about 10 days ahead of me and having a girl as well! Her husband is off at Boot Camp right now for the National Guard till September, so it's just her right now. He won't even be able to come home for the birth of their baby! I feel so bad. That would be so hard. I don't know what I would do. She is much stronger than I am. But we had a very nice Baby Shower for her at the park and look what I made her!

My first time without any directions! I just looked at some pictures online and put it together. I loved it.

4th of July was pretty good. We slept in, made a big breakfast of eggs, sausage, hashbrowns, and orange juice. Yummy Yummy! Then we worked on getting the apartment cleaned up a bit. We live 2 blocks from the Snake River where all the happenings go on during the 4th. So we walked down to the river to see all the booths. I of course had to get my bag of Kettle Corn! :) It's a tradition. And so is getting Funnel Cake! So we got us a plate of funnel cake with strawberries on top and walked home to eat it there. I thought I was going to die on the way home. It was so hot and my legs could barely move. We were a block away and I was tempted to have Chris get the car and come get me. Haha But I made it. We turned the A/C on high, plopped ourselves on the bed, ate the funnel cake, and watched tv for the rest of the afternoon. It was a good day. When it came time for the fireworks, we are lucky enough that we can just walk out to our balcony and watch them from there! They ended up being delayed an hour because some guys thought it was a good idea to jump in the river a half an hour before they were supposed to start and some guy ended up drowning. Search and Rescue went to look for him but couldn't find him. They are also in charge of the fireworks, so they put the search on hold to do the fireworks, and then continued looking for him after that. They finally found his body at 1:30am. So sad.

It's been a really good summer! I have enjoyed getting lots of Sno Cones :)

And just getting ready for this Little One to come! Chris told me last night that she needs to come out now. She has done her time, and now she needs to come out and see the world. :) Haha it has definitely been an adjustment getting used to how I am pregnant and thinking about how our life is about to change. But we are ready and can't wait to meet our little girl and see what she looks like. Come on August!

32 Weeks

Well, I have made it to 32 weeks! I have been feeling pretty blessed to be able to have such a smooth first pregnancy. I know that's not the case with a lot of girls. I honestly expected to miscarry at some point or have something go wrong, but it's all been pretty nice. I feel good. Baby is growing just like she should. She moves a lot everyday, and according to the Anatomy Scan is pretty healthy! So I am greatly grateful for that and am so excited to finally meet our baby girl in 8 weeks!

So according to TheBump.com, baby is the size of a Squash, weighs between 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 pounds and about 16 inches long. I haven't really had many Braxton Hicks. Maybe a couple every now and then, but that's only if those are really what I have been feeling since I honestly don't know if it is. :) Apparently she has her finger and toe nails now. She has all of her senses working properly, and getting more plump everyday. Haha

At my Doctor's appointment this past week, we heard her heartbeat (148, which is what she has been at pretty much the whole time), which is still my favorite sound in the world. :) He was also able to give me an adjustment which was awesome! It had been so long since I had gotten one and I definitely had been needing it. My back, hips, and neck felt so good after that. And another thing was he told me that I have been drinking too much water! I didn't even know that was possible! But he told me that's why my feet have been so swollen. Look at these things!

And this picture was taken TODAY. I don't have ankles!  I have been trying so hard to drink less water, but it's hard when I get so thirsty and nothing but water makes me feel better. :) But I am trying!! And I had to stand a lot today at work and such, so that didn't help my cankles.

Other than that, things are great! My baby shower is this Saturday which I am super excited for. My diaper bag should be coming in the mail any day now. :)

And then I can finally finish buying all the things I am still lacking. I can't wait till August!

Surgery

Chris had surgery about 3 weeks ago that I am just now getting around to posting about. I am sure all of you are tired of all these posts about me and baby, so here are some other happenings in our life right now. :)
So, Chris ended up having surgery to remove his tonsils, fix his deviated septum, and they also shortened his uvula. Or his "wagger" like Chris calls it. No idea where he got that word, but it makes me laugh. :) Chris has been snoring REALLY badly for years. Like so bad that those couple months before his surgery we weren't even sleeping in the same room. He slept out on the couch. Or I would try to but he always made me go back in the bed. Before I got pregnant I would wear earplugs and those seem to work okay. But there were nights that I could still hear him through the earplugs. But once I was halfway through my pregnancy I started becoming a light sleeper and could hear everything. Probably cause I have to get up to go to the bathroom a lot, and I have to switch sleeping positions every couple hours. But I got no sleep if Chris was in there with me.
So we finally decided to go do something about it. I wanted us to be able to sleep in bed together again and when the baby comes I can't be using earplugs. We went to the Sleep Institute and got him tested for Sleep Apnea. They sent us home with a little machine that we hooked Chris up to and tested his sleep patterns, but they told him he didn't have it.

Which surprised us a lot since his Dad has it and sleeps with a machine, and if you heard his snoring you would think he had it too. So we went and saw an Ear, Throat, and Nose doctor. He recommended getting his tonsils out and fixing his nose. So we scheduled it! We had known Chris needed his tonsils out for a while cause he would get white patches on his throat a lot, and would get really bad breath sometimes.

May 23rd was the day of his surgery. We arrived at the hospital at 8:30am and got checked in. They started prepping him, taking his vitals, asking him about his history.

The Anesthesiologist came in and talked to him about the effects of Anesthesia and such. He was really helpful in reassuring Chris that he would be ok and the surgery would go well. Chris was super scared and worried cause he hasn't had the best experiences in hospitals. But put this drug in his IV that helped calm him way down and helped him sleep a little before they took him in.

The doctor was finally ready for him at about 11:30am. They put on his cap, I kissed him good luck, and they whisked him into the O.R. I ran and grabbed something to eat and came and waited in the waiting room.

They told me that the surgery would be about 2 hours, but it was only an hour later when my little pager buzzed telling me the doctor was ready to talk to me! That scared me a little cause it made me think that something had gone wrong and that's why they were already finished. But I went into the little room where the doctor comes and talks to you, he came in and told me they were all done and the surgery went really well! He said that his tonsils were very badly infected so it was good we got those out. His nose wasn't as bad as they thought and they didn't even need to put a stint in it. Stint? Or is it slint? I have no idea. But that was good news :). I went back into the waiting room while they got him back to Recovery and waited to be buzzed telling me I could go back to see him. After almost an HOUR I got to go back. He was very groggy, still waking up. But he could talk a little bit and I fed him some flavored ice chips. He kept saying over and over how beautiful I was. And that I was pretty. A little later I was rolling him in a wheelchair to the bathroom and he says, "You are so beautiful. I haven't told you that today." haha it was pretty cute and funny.

When the nurse said he was good to go, we rolled him out to the car, I took him home and got him comfy on the couch. So that's where he stayed for the next 2 weeks. Well, almost 2 weeks. He healed pretty quickly and got back on his feet fast. We made sure he drank LOTS of water to flush everything out so he wouldn't get infected or anything. That truly did the trick.

So now he is back to his old self, been back to work for a week, and feels great! And the best news of all, HE DOESN'T SNORE! We sleep in the same bed and we both sleep all night with no problems! I don't have to tell him to turn over, I don't have to wear earplugs, he is breathing so much better and feeling a lot more rested in the day. Yay! We are so glad we finally did that. :)