3 Weeks

Just thought I'd share some cute pictures from the past week. Olivia loves her bath time! Right now it's 1:30am and this little girl just won't sleep. She's not crying or fussing, just wide awake. So I figured since I can't sleep unless she is I would lay her down at least, and update my blog! Things are getting so much better... not that they were ever bad, but we are just all getting more adjusted to this new life. I'm so glad to be able to stay home with her. I could not imagine if I had to go back to work in 2 weeks or something, and had that looming over me this whole time. It's so nice to realize this is it! Every day for the rest of my life I get to be a mommy! It's funny because almost every other stage has been temporary. A student. A substitute teacher. I guess wife is also a pretty permenant title :) But ya know, like in school it was just waiting to get done... and with subbing I knew it was just temporary until I had the baby. Anyway...

Olivia started cooing today. It is by far the cutest of all things in the world. I was just talking to her saying, "Oh we've had a busy day today! Went to church, and grandma and grandpa's..." and she went "aaaaaah!" with this happy expression. I know they say it's just gas at this point, but I swear my baby girl smiles at me! She can also hold her head up pretty good, and no one will believe this, but I was changing her the other day and she rolled from her back completely to her stomach!! I quickly went online to see if this was even remotely or if I was going crazy... and apparently it can happen. Only once, so it was probably a fluke thing, but needless to say I definitely won't leave her on the changing table and turn my back for even a second! She loves to wiggle and squirm, and has earned the nickname "squirmy wormy". I am amazed at how strong she is... and I'm no longer surprised at the bruised ribs she gave me ;) Today we also made it through all three hours of church!! And the last two nights she slept great. Hopefully once she falls asleep tonight she will give me 5 hours of rest, but we'll see.

ONE WEEK FROM WEDNESDAY WE LEAVE FOR NJ!

Just a little plug for my friend :)

As I'm always looking for intelligent things to read, and enjoy the sarcasm and humor of my good friend and former favorite roommate... I'm sure you will too!

seeemilyblog.blogspot.com

Check it out!! :)

ps... emily you can pay me later ;) JK!

Blog Makeover

Yeahh... so what else do you do when your baby wants to nurse for three straight hours?? At least she fills up so she can sleep for 5 solid hours. Beautiful! I really have been blessed with an incredible baby. She has her one stretch of fussiness where she just wants to nurse for these 3 hours, but all day she is great. I really hope things continue to go so well. I'm just waiting for the inconsolible cries that leave me feeking helpless... hopefully it never happens! Right now she's pretty easy to console. Food, diaper, or just some cuddles. Love it! And Aaron is so helpful. We are leaving for New Jersey on April 9th. I cannot wait!!! I never thought my baby would be a month old before it met my family :( But I'm so lucky to be able to travel back as often as we do. I really can't wait to show her off. I know everyone will just love her to peices like we do here!!

Happy Easter!

Here is Olivia with her cousins, Katelyn and Danielle. They are identical twins, about 3 months older than Olivia! I just know they're going to have so much fun growing up together. With Olivia's dress on she actually looks a lot bigger than she is! She is soo tiny right now, compared to her cousins. For Easter we basically slept allllll day. We went to Sacrament Meeting, because I really can't imagine staying indoors for the next 4 weeks. No one really got too close, just looking at her, so I'm not too worried about her getting sick or anything. I thought she would sleep all through church, but I was wrong! She pooped during the opening prayer, and got fussy after that. She is quiet as a mouse, so probably only Aaron and I could hear her, but Aaron changed her, and then she mostly slept. I listened to hymns a lot during my last trimester when I couldn't sleep, and it's funny because they put her right to sleep! She would be awake and fussy, and then we'd sing and she'd fall right to sleep. So Sunday night at home I played some hymns and sure enough she konked right out! She actually slept from about 1-6! At first I was worried that she was going so long without eating, but she is having plenty of messy diapers so I'm over that fear. We will go to the dr. this week to make sure she is gaining weight right and all that good stuff. Today we took a lovely stroll around the temple and visited Daddy at work. Quite the outing! I have to get out a little bit every day or I will go crazy. Anyway, back to Easter... I feel kind of bad because we didn't do Easter baskets or anything this year. We didn't even get Olivia a "first easter basket"! Well she has one, in the closet, but we didn't put anything in it. I mean really... what do you put in a basket for a 2 week old?? But nonetheless I feel like I should have a picture of her in a pretty dress with her basket full of stuff... so I'm thinking of posing a fake one. lol.

Daddy's My Guitar Hero

I love his idea of quality time. Shortly after this was taken, he asked me to hold her because he couldn't use his star power with her in his arms. LOL! But seriously, Aaron is the most amazing daddy in the world. He loves cuddling with her, and doing all he can to help, even after working all day. Last night he just held her for two hours while I slept. It breaks his heart every morning when he has to leave. He hurries home every chance he gets, and begs me to send more pictures while he's away. I never really thought I could fall more in love with him, but seeing him hold our little angel brings feelings deeper than I thought I had! It's weird, because my whole life this is all I've ever wanted. A loving husband and a beautiful baby. Sitting there holding her seems surreal. I really feel like every dream I've ever had has come true.

Anyway, Olivia is doing wonderful. She's kind of figuring out her schedule. She sleeps from like 7 to about 11. Then she wakes up until about 2am. But then from 2am-7am she sleeps! Then she wakes up until about 8:30, and then she sleeps again from about 9 to noon. Then she's up from noon until about 1:30, and she sleeps until about 5! Then 5 - 7 she's up. Granted she's only like 10 days old, so she's done this 3 days in a row, so I'm assuming we're figuring things out. I'm so glad to get that 5 hours of sleep from 2 - 7! And then I sleep while she's sleeping in the morning until noon. She also never really cries unless she wants something. Once she gets it, she stops crying instantly. She loves her little vibrating bouncy chair thing. She instantly falls asleep when I put her in it. Feeding has also gotten much better. She eats like a champ! She is def getting chubbier every day. And on average she eats every 4 hours. Sometimes a little bit more frequently, sometimes less, but we're both getting the hang of it now. Well I hear her fussing so time to go!

Well things have been going well. We actually had our family baby shower on Saturday and Olivia got to meet lots of her extended family. No one could believe I had only had her 5 days before. I have had such an awesome, awesome recovery. I feel like my old self already! I'm excited to start walking tomorrow, and doing my Denise Austin post-pardum workout DVD. I don't know if I should be more worried about germs and stuff than I am. Probably after the first time she gets sick, I will be more cautious, but right now I just want to show her off to the world! Nursing has actually gotten a lot easier now that I have milk! She is also sleeping a lot more. She pretty much only wakes up to eat at night, then quickly falls back to sleep. Most of the day she sleeps with a few little awake moments where I just savor her open eyes. It's been so fun taking care of my little girl! Tomorrow my mom leaves though, so the training wheels will be off and we'll see how it goes. It's been great having her here. It's also been great seeing the service of all my friends in the ward. I just feel so blessed to be part of such a wonderful ward family! It really does feel like family. Well this laptop really is acting funny

Those 1st days home

Well I don't have too much time to post.. obviously. But things are going great... except for this laptop is on the fritz, and that would just be terrible because this is my main form of communication with family back in NJ. Anyway... learning to nurse Olivia has been challenging, but fulfilling and exciting. It's so amazing that she's here. And perfect. She sleeps great all day... then at night we are up alllll night until around 5 am when she instantly falls asleep on the hour and stays that way for about 4 hours. So that's been my time to sleep. Plus I try to nap while she's sleeping during the day, but all I wanna do is stare at her.

Today we actually took our first trip out to Target. I just had to get out of the house. She did great. Slept the whole time actually. Anyway, I feel great, she's doing great, and all is well.

I was a little excited

Okay I forgot some very important details here. Like oh maybe her name (Thanks Mallory!).

Introducing... Olivia Celeste Opie.

8lbs 8oz. Born at 11:06am on March 10th.

Yes, she was going to be Valerie Michele... but Heavenly Father said no. It just didn't feel right. Even after we told EVERYONE she was Valerie. We wrote Valerie on several documents (thank goodness not the birth certificate). But it just never felt right. It was hard to finalize it, because it was after Aaron's mom and my mom and we were worried about hurting feelings, like "We're naming our daughter after you! Tell all your friends!" Next day... "Uhmmm actually sorry we changed it." But she is def our little Olivia, and I'm sure she'll have fun telling this story some day, explaining why she has a paper in her scrapbook that says, "Valerie".

Anyway I think that's all. More to come when there's time.

SHE'S HERE!!!!!

Yes, you read/heard correctly. IT'S A GIRL! Now for some cute pictures!

Yeah the date on the camera was broken, and I didn't know.... and there's no way to remove the date! lol... but there she is shortly after birth.

And I'll get some closer ones up soon. But I'm really eager to write about the entire labor and birth.

Okay so I posted while in those early stages. Basically Sunday morning, after not sleeping at all I started to have some cramping. It didn't hurt that bad, but I noticed it was kind of patterned. I woke up Aaron around 7 and let him know. For about 5 hours they stayed about 4 minutes apart. They were very intense at all. At the time, I kind of thought they were, but now I know they were practically nothing! But we went to the hospital around 3, because I wasn't sure what to do. The contractions were staying really regular, I had some bleeding, and I wanted to stay home as long as possible, but I was also really curious, was this is? Was I already dialated to like an 8?! What was going on down there!! So I thought we could go to the hospital and in like an hour they could say, Yup, you're in labor, but you're only like 3cm, so it's okay if you wanna go home and come back, or whatever you want. Boy was I dreaming! We ended up being in triage for 4 and a half hours! It was really frustrating. They told me I could stay, even though I was only 3cm dialted, but I told them I would rather go home and labor at home as long as possible. The nurse reeeeeeeally didn't want me to do this. So she took her time letting us go. Of course by the time we were leaving the contractions started to get a lot worse. But around 7:30 we went to Aaron's mom and dad's so we could eat some dinner. Then we went home and I took a bath and a shower. Things were starting to get a lot more intense. I needed Aaron for every contraction. He was amazing, holding me, telling me how great I was doing, etc. Meanwhile my mom was flying in from New Jersey. She was going to land at 11:30. By the time 11:30 rolled around the contractions were really painful and I was ready to go to the hospital. But we waited unti my mom got there around midnight. As soon as she got there, we headed to the hospital. This time triage was so fast! They told me I was about 6-7cm! What a relief to hear that! They got me straight to a room, and my nurse was soooooooooo wonderful. I wanted to labor in the tub they had at the hospital. They have special monitors for when you're in the water, for baby and mom, but they weren't working right. Instead of telling me, "Oh sorry you can't use the tub since these monitors aren't working" she just took them off and let me be in the tub as long as I wanted. IT WAS HEAVENLY! I was able to relax through the contractions so well with the warm water and Aaron. After four hours they started to get more intense, and I was pretty sure I was in transition. The contractions were so incredibly intense. I was feeling like I was going to throw up, and I was shaking like crazy. Aaron was sooo amazing helping me through this. Well the nurse came to check me. I was sure I was like 8 or 9 cm. But no. I was "maybe" 8, then checked again and more like a 6. I tried to keep positive. I've read stories like this, where the nurse was wrong, or all of a sudden you go from 6 to 7. So I decided to get out of the tub and walk around. At this point I had been in labor for about 26 hours or so. I also hadn't slept in 48. My water also hadn't broken. So they were going to break my water. But I was petrified I couldn't handle it. The contractions were already so intense, I was so tired. So I asked if an epidural could help speed things up, if I was more relaxed. My amazing nurse was like, "You are doing so amazing. You are so in control of these contractions. You're doing great. Are you sure?" That was so wonderful to hear!! Anyway, I'm getting really long winded and I want to go hold my baby so I'll wrap things up here. After praying, talking to nurse and anesthesologist, we decided it would be best to get the epidural, break my water and see what happens. BEST DECISION! I was actually able to sleep for like 20 minutes! The other two hours I was just resting. Aaron also got to sleep. Around 10am they told me I could get ready to start pushing. All I can say is it was the most amazing experience. I had no clue how incredibly hard you had to push! I was praying my heart out between each contraction for super human strength. At 10:30 she was sooo close. They told me by 11 I'd have my baby. I couldn't believe it. The doctor came in and told me we'd do all we could to avoid a tear and it looked good. I only tore a little bit (2 stitches). And he held her up and said, "Well what do we have daddy?" And I looked, and it was all so overwhelming. I heard Aaron say girl, and I was just bawling. They put her right on me, and I wouldn't give her up. The nurses were waiting to clean her and weigh her, but I made them wait. I needed those moments to hold her and fall in love. It was so incredible. And now I need to get to my baby.

Birthday anyone?

Sooooo... since about 6 am I have been regular, hurting really bad contractions! I can't believe I'm on here posting about it, lol. Right now they are about 3-4 minutes apart, getting stronger. But I can still walk and talk through them... sort of. So the hospital said I can stay home. I want to stay home as long as possible to avoid any unnecessary interventions. So when my water breaks, or they get more untolerable we will be off to the hospital. Right now I'm living in my shower until the hot water runs out, then I'm pacing our condo until I think there's enough hot water.

Just something I want to remember... I was up allllll night, literally didn't sleep a wink because of this nasty cold. I couldn't breathe at all, then at about 5 am when I start to fall asleep, CONTRACTIONS woke me up! Anyway, I was really nervous about not being able to breathe while in labor, so I asked Aaron for a blessing. We drove to his grandpa's and he assisted. It was really a neat experience. As soon as the blessing was over I could breathe through both nostrils! And I haven't really had to cough since. I am so grateful for the priesthood. I was also blessed with the energy I'll need. Well I bet my hot water is back. Hopefully my next post isn't titled "False Alarm" or something. Hopefully it's, "IT'S A [FILL IN GENDER HERE]!!!!"

Pregnant. Sick. Hopefully neither for much longer.

Well I figure if I don't do this every day people will be wondering if I'm in the hospital or not!

So here's a quick update... I'm still pregnant. And sick.

But good news... I have been having lots more pains, one I might consider a contraction because it actually hurt enough that I had to stop talking until it passed. That was about 15 minutes ago, after walking around Tempe Marketplace and Sam's club all afternoon.

Although I'm not really sure I want the baby to come right now. I'd sure like to be able to breathe through contractions... although Aaron pointed out that the coughing might help during the pushing stage... I feel like I'm going to cough this sucker out of me already!

But one more reason I think it might come tonight... Super Smash Bros. comes out for the Wii, and Aaron wants to go get it at midnight... really bad. He's been planning on it for a while now... and it's just Aaron's luck that we'll be in the hospital at midnight tonight, our minds not even close to some game (well at least mine, and his better not be!).

must be a girl... she's already running late!

So I've been pretty happy and comfortable for pretty much my entire pregnancy... but now it's my turn to be miserable!! I am now 2 days past my due date, which isn't very much, but I never thought I'd make it to this weekend. And yesterday at the Doctor's he was like, "well your last ultrasound put you due Feb 29" Well I'm really glad I didn't know that this whole time. But I have been having some contractions... nothing serious, in fact I don't even like calling them contractions because then I think this baby should be here by now. But besides the wonderfullness of being two days past my due date... I also think I caught an upper respitory infection. Tuesday a girl at Aaron's office had to go home because of asthma like symptoms, and so I offerred to come in and work for her since I'm going insane at home. Well turns out she had a respitory infection... and since yesterday I have been coughing like crazy. Now my chest hurts, I think mostly from coughing so much. So I'm kind of hoping that the baby does wait until I'm better so I can actually breathe while I'm in labor!

Oh and update about how things went at the doctor... well I'm progressing. 2 cm dilated, 85% effaced, and the baby's head is exactly where it should be. We are on the induction list for the 15th if there's no baby by then. I can't even bring myself to think that's possible. It's only 8 days away, but that seems like an eternity. Maybe now that I'm so miserable the baby will somehow sense that and want to get out! Maybe we've both been too comfortable... so maybe all this is a good thing.

Alpine Bread?

So right by our place there's this Alpine Bread Bakery and Cafe. I had never been inside, even though we live right across the street, in the entire 2.5 years we've lived here. Well today I was out for my walk with Beth and when we walked past the bakery it smelt heavenly. So I decided after the walk to go back and check it out. I am so glad I did! They have day old loaves of bread for a $1! And some varieties are 3 or 2 loaves for $1! Then of course they have the fresh ones for $3.50, and some dessert breads, and cookies. Their credit card machine was down, and I only had $2 cash, so I got a loaf of sourdough bread and a huuuuge chocolate chip cookie :) Anyway, couldn't believe I never stopped in before... sooo yummy.

Now a question... has anyone ever gone to My Girlfriend's Kitchen, or a similiar type place where you pay a certain amount per meal, and you make it there with their ingriedients and stuff, and you go home with a bunch of meals? I have been thinking about doing this so I won't have to stress about cooking after baby's here for a couple of weeks. Just curious if anyone's tried it...

nope, no baby yet.....

Alright... since I'm getting kind of tired of talking about baby stuff, I'm sure anyone reading this is getting tired of hearing it! People keep asking me if I'm feeling "any pressure" or having contractions or any of that. Honestly I just have no idea, and find these questions frustrating! Yes there's always pressure somewhere, I'm almost 40 weeks pregnant. I have no idea what a contraction feels like... sometimes my entire stomach gets rock hard, but doesn't hurt (braxton hix?) and sometimes I have menstrual crampy type feelings. Nothing has been really that uncomfortable. So I think I have two more weeks without a baby. But we'll see. I am reeeally anxious to meet this little passenger I've been carrying around for 9 months. And that's all the news for the baby front.

Life is really great. I love my husband so much. I don't think I posted about it, but on Thursday I came home to entirely clean, sparkly wonderful house. Laundry folded, dishes cleaned, floors mopped, bed made... I mean everything!! What a guy, huh? I wanted to cry I was so happy. And we have just been getting to spend so much time together lately, it's been beautiful. Today we went for a walk (to Sonic, because Aaron doesn't like to walk just to walk...) and watched a ridiculous movie (The Man With One Red Shoe... for some reason we get a kick out of all random old Tom Hanks movies) and laughed our heads off, and just had such a great time being together. I feel so lucky to be in such a wonderful marriage! Aaaand enough cheesey stuff...

So now just trying to find ways to pass the time until it's TIME! :) So far I have some great library books to read... and maybe I'll pick up a sub job or two, but we'll see about that.