She's here!!!

A week past my due date, our little bundle of princess finally arrived via VBAC (yes!!!) The night before my scheduled induction, I finally went into labor, but I waited until my appointment anyway to go in. I was only at the hospital for five hours before little Ari arrived, so everything went much faster and easier than I expected. It actually probably would have went even quicker, but my OB kept having me stop during pushing because the baby was having some stress, and when she came out she was BLUE and completely silent and it was so, so scary. It only took a minute or so for them to clear her airways and pink her up, and after that she's been totally fine.

Ari Katherine

                                                     First hold before they took her off to be cleaned and weighed!

                                   Dad and his baby girl in our room at the hospital

                                                           Some hospital bed snuggles

                                                                        1 week old!

                                                 Wide awake! Doesn't happen too often at this point...

                                           Time for some girl talk on mommy and daddy's bed

                                                                   Superdad at work...


Oh, and if you're wondering how the G baby is doing...

He's doing good. This is him looking very solemn with his "big brother" hospital bracelet. Our nurse gave it to him so he wouldn't feel left out, since they had Eric and I wear hospital I.D. bracelets. G baby takes his responsibility very seriously. 

So now for the awesome/awkward points of Ari being here so far.

Awesome:

No C-section or induction! With G baby, my water broke but I wasn't in labor yet so I had to be chemically induced, which led to my placenta rupturing and within 15 minutes I was whisked into the OR. Ari was a week late and the idea of being induced again after what happened last time was pretty scary. Luckily, she came just in time!

This baby sleeps. She has been sleeping at least one three to four hour stretch a night since we brought her home. She's also not that hard to get back to sleep once she wakes up and is changed and fed. It makes me wonder WTF was up with G baby because he was impossible to get to sleep and never stayed asleep very long. Just goes to show that babies can smell your panic...

BABY GIRL CLOTHES!!! Need I say more? 

Eric is out of school for the summer and is home to help me every day. It makes the transition from one to two babies so much easier. He really is an amazing Dad, and I'm really glad G baby is going to get a heavy dose of father-son time this summer. 

Weight. I don't have a reliable scale at my house, but this stuff is really melting off. It is amazing how fast your body transforms during and after a pregnancy. Of course things are a little stretched out and kinda saggy at this point (10 days post-partem), but I can recognize a bit of my old body already. Besides just the health of your child and how economical it is, this is another reason why I am super-pro breastfeeding-it gets your body back into shape so quickly, not to mention the porn star boobs. Which are also pretty hard to believe. 

Awkward:

The aforementioned porn star boobs. They hurt, and leaks are a pain in the butt. I am going through nursing pads like crazy.

Baby dresses. All of Ari's adorable newborn baby dresses are kinda big or just don't fit right and it's totally bumming me out. Good thing all the onesies and pjs are super-cute too!

"Little Foot". This is what we have been calling Ari as a nickname, due to the fact that one of her little feet was horribly bent up after she was born. Her pediatrician says he believes it is just from where she was stuck in position in the womb, and it's actually straightening out already. But it provided me with a serious dose of uneasiness those first couple days. (The nickname is cute though, right?)

Money. Always tight for us (my husband is still in pharmacy school), it has literally flown out of our hands this month. All those little baby purchases and you just don't see coming, no matter how much you prepare. sigh.

And now for something that is both awkward/awesome:

The pacifier. 

Any tips/advice/info? G baby never took one, but Ari loves hers. She just needs a good dose of comfort sucking during the day, and my boobs just aren't up for the job, I already asked. I'm glad that all it takes to calm her down is putting a paci in her mouth, but it makes me really uneasy, because I don't want it to get out of hand or cause problems down the road. We have tried saving it for emergencies only, after other methods of comfort have failed, so mainly we've been only using it at night or out in public. I would like us to avoid having any nasty paci-weaning in our future, but I don't want to stop letting her use it just yet.

So...there's what we've been up to. As I ease back into wearing my own clothes, hopefully I will have some outfit posts up soon!

xoxo,

L