One Month Old!

Well, Julie is now one month old, time sure flies. It has gone by fast and slow. We found Julie has a birth mark on her hand and my Aunt told my mom to tell me to take pictures of it because her daughter had one on her hand as well and it vanished over the years and she never took pictures of it. So here are some pictures of her birth mark on her hand.

And after I fed Julie today I decided to take some one month pictures. She has sure chunked up, her cheeks are nice and chubby and she is growing so long. She is now in 0-3 month clothes and she is getting too long for some of them already. She is going to be a long girl. She is so super cute, I just want to kiss her all the time.

And when we can get Julie to take her binki, she will sometimes hold her hand up to it and hold it in. She doesn't hold it for very long, but I caught a picture of her holding it in.

Julie is not on a schedule anymore, except for at nights. With trying to wean her off of formula, she is eating more often. And I don't think I am going to be able to totally take her off of formula so she will still have some of both. I just can't give her enough, which is okay. Instead of 7 feedings during the day, it is now up to 10 feedings. She is one growing girl.
Whenever we change her diaper it usually takes around 10 minutes or so. She has got in a habit of unloading when we start to undress her to change her diaper. It is funny, we just talk to her and organize her room, and kiss her stomach until we think she is finished. If we change her to quickly we will more than likely use up a brand new diaper within a few seconds after changing her. Crazy kid!!
She is also on the verge of smiling, she is so close. And she is starting to coo and talk to us a little. It is super fun to see her starting to interact with us a little bit.
I still can't believe how much she has changed and grown in the last month, it is so much fun!!

Newborn Pictures and almost 4 weeks!

My sister in law did our newborn pictures and I got the CD in the mail yesterday and just had to share some of my favorites. They turned out super cute!

Julie will be 4 weeks old on Monday. She is such a good baby. Our pediatrician's office called Monday morning to let us know that the newborn tests they took last week all came back normal. Yeah!

Her schedule is:

6:30a.m. Wakes up and I feed her. Change diaper. Goes down
9:30-10:00a.m. Wakes up and I feed her. Change diaper. Has awake time and nap
1:00 Wakes up and I feed her. Change diaper. Has awake time and goes back down for a nap
4:00p.m. Wakes up and feed her. Change diaper. Usually is awake for a longer amount of time or takes a nap.
7:00p.m. Wakes and I feed her. Change diaper. We try to keep her awake until 10:00, but doesn't usually happen.
10:00p.m. Feed her, change diaper, and lay her down for bed
2:30a.m. Wakes up, feed her, change diaper, put her back down
6:30a.m. Wakes up and start all over again.

She is on a pretty good schedule, eating every 3 hours and eating every 4 hours during the night. She only wakes up once at night. I have the hardest time nursing her because she always falls asleep and whatever I do, it is hard to get her to wake back up. She definitely has an appetite though, she usually eats 3 1/2 to 4 oz. every feeding.

Although this schedule will change in. I am going to get her off formula and so she will eat more often. Gradually I am going to wean her off of formula, in hopes that my milk supply will increase. I am hoping this works.

My headache seems to be finally going away, this last Sunday we went to Sacrament meeting while my mom watched Julie. After feeding Julie at 4:00p.m. we went to my mom and dads and I had my dad give me a neck massage(he is really good at massages) and I think it helped immensely. It made a huge difference. It still is there, but just slightly now, so I think it is finally on its way out. Yeah!!
After visiting my parents, we headed for Robs parents. It is the first time since Julie was born that we headed to Robs parents. We had a nice time and everything went well. We had a lovely visit.

1st Bath

After a morning of just wet diapers, I knew we were going to have a blow out sometime later. Well, I was right! Around 6:00p.m. she got it up her back, so with her umbilical cord gone, we decided to give her her first bath. I think she quite liked it, there was no crying at least and she seemed pretty content.

She did so well as we both washed her hair and body off. She is such a cutie! I just love clean babies, her hair was all fuzzy afterwords. We used the blow dryer as we lathered her up with lotion and she loved that also. Now she is squeaky clean!

Julie is 2 1/2 weeks!

I got this picture the other day while she was in kind of a alert sleep state, and it just makes me smile every time I look at it. She must have been having a really good dream. Love this picture!

My little girl is 2 and a 1/2 weeks old, it seems like we have had her for longer than that. We had her two week well baby check up Monday morning and she is doing great.

Weight: 8 lb 3 oz 60 percentile

Height: 21 1/8 inches 85 percentile
She regained her birth weight, plus 4 oz. She is ABOVE Awesome! Go Julie!
Julie is doing wonderful, the doctor gave me some things to do to increase my milk supply, one of which is to eat oatmeal. I am not very fond of oatmeal and I have tried to learn to like it. He also says to watch funny movies, stay hydrated, eat Flax - cold milled, and Malts.
I think it is helping, it is hard to drink so much water, but I am getting it down.
Julie is on a 3 hour feeding schedule and goes for stretches of 3-4 hours of sleeping at night between feedings. She is awesome.
Her umbilical stump fell off the other day on Feb. 10, and I am so excited that it is now gone. It was getting kind of ugly. Now, we are able to give her a bath. We will see how much she likes that.
She also had her first blow out up her back, I was changing her diaper and was looking at the sides of her legs to see if it went out the sides and it hadn't so I was excited not to have to change her onesie until I took her diaper off and realized that it went up the back of her diaper, so I lifted her up and sure enough, a big brown spot on her onesie. So fun!
I still have a headache and the doctor prescribed rest, staying hydrated, and she wrote me out a prescription for Robert to give me a massage every night for 2 weeks.
It is still there, but I think it is slowly getting better.
We keep her pretty bundled up all the time, so when her arms are free she loves to move them around all over the place.

And this is a quilt her grandma Taylor made for her to match her crib set. It is so colorful and we love it. She loves just staring at it while laying on the floor.

She loves riding in her car seat(not that we have gone anywhere that much), probably since she is snuggled in with the straps and everything.

We don't leave her in there, I just took a picture of her before taking her out, she looked so comfy.

More pics and our first two weeks!

I will start with the pictures since I know that is what everyone wants to see anyways. Here is Julie laying in her daddy's lap, so content.

I put one of her headbands on and bundled her all up for a sleepy ride in her swing.

This face just cracks me up, she does it quite often, she purses her lips together. It is just the cutest thing ever. She is either stretching, or getting ready to cry. I am not quite sure, but it just makes me laugh.

Same kind of puckered mouth, but with her eyes open. Everyone is always trying to get her to open her eyes, they are so pretty. Right now they are a grayish blue color, but that could change. We will see what they end up being in about 6 months.

Before I was pregnant and while I was pregnant I made these little newborn hats, although I had no one to try them out on so I was not for sure if they would fit at all. The other day I decided to try them out and amazingly they fit. But, they won't for much longer.
Her cute little beanie hat.

This is supposed to have a visor on it, but I left it off.

I caught a picture of her smiling, having one of those good dreams.

This one is just of her sleeping in my arms, being cute as ever!

Her binkie face, she is not quite fond of her binkie. Sometimes she will take it and other times you will put it in her mouth and she will shake her head to let you know she does not want it. The head shake is so funny.

And here is one of her sleeping away in her crib, so peaceful.

Well, our first week and a half with Julie has been quite an adventure. Relatively no sleep, although we are getting better. She sleep for stretches of 2-3 hours at a time now. I don't think I realized how little sleep I was going to get. It is very taxing. Nights are the hardest for me, because you so want to sleep and every time you hear a little peep you wonder if she is going to wake up or if she is just making noises. I love it when I look at the clock and realize I fell asleep and she slept for 3 hours. She has an awake time around 12:30p.m. where she is alert and not sleepy.
Next is nursing, lets just say, does anyone know how to get rid of a tension headache from looking down so much. I have had it for the past week, it is awful. I really think this headache is the worst thing about my whole pregnancy and labor and delivery. It is just constantly there and it is hard to think sometimes. It is hard for me to turn my head, it is just a constant ache, increasing in pain at times. My first priority tomorrow is to call my doctor to get it taken care of. I know I could thoroughly enjoy being a mother even more without this constant ache.
Julie eats about every two and a half hours and has about 2 1/2 to 3 oz. of milk. I usually have to supplement 1-2 oz. of that with formula.
She does not like us to change her clothes, if her binki is in her mouth she does fine. But, she does not always like her binki. She does not like us to rub lotion on her either, probably because it is cold. I have to rub it around in my hands to warm it up a bit. But, her skin is super dry so I lather the stuff on.
It seems like she has been with us for a lot longer than a week and a half. It is just strange to think that two weeks ago I gave birth to this beautiful little child. It is just such a miracle and we love her so much.
My sister in law did some newborn pictures for us last Thursday and I am so excited to get them back and post them on here.

Birth Story

Here is our family! Our baby girl's name is

Julie Taylor

Here she is during her nap this morning, trying to get her to sleep like this during the night!

Her she is in her going home outfit

Our little pink girl in her swing!

Well, it all started probably Saturday when I noticed my Braxton Hicks contractions were lasting longer and closer together. They were around 5 minutes apart but not painful, just the tightening of my stomach. Then on Sunday they were still the same, we stayed home from church and around 3:30p.m. after I woke up from my nap, they started to hurt a little bit. They were still around 5 minutes apart lasting 60 seconds. We went to my parents house for dinner and I didn't eat that much knowing that I could have this baby soon. I kept having contractions and when I was at my last doctors appointment he said to go the hospital when you have been having contractions for about an hour at 3-4 minutes apart lasting 60 seconds or your water breaking.

So having them like that pretty much all day long, I didn't know for sure when to go, so we got ready for bed, I wasn't sure if I was even going to be able to lay down to sleep, but I got a towel out of the closet to lay on the bed just in case my water broke. At 11:00p.m. I jumped into bed and found out that sleep was not going to happen tonight, I could not lay down through the contractions, and 5 minutes after getting into bed, I felt this popping inside my stomach and then a gush of water come out. Rob was in the other room and I told him, we need to go to the hospital because my water just broke. I went to the bathroom and then Rob loaded up the car while I got ready to go. We headed out and got to the hospital around 11:30p.m., we got a room and my doctor was actually in the room next to us just finishing delivering a baby, so he came over afterwards and checked me. Dilated to 3cm, and 90% effaced. After my water broke my contractions were not quite so bad. I was hoping to be dilated a little bit more.
There was a little meconium in the amniotic fluid, the doctor was not to worried, but because of that I had to be straped up to the monitor for 15 minutes every hour. My contractions were still every 3-5 minutes and I was having AWFUL back labor. They put an IV in but I asked to have it not hooked up to anything. I was bound and determined to have this baby 100% natural, and I heard an IV could slow you down even further. So, the back labor was the worst pain I have ever felt and Rob would try to help put pressure on my back and it just wasn't helping, so I pretty much did it myself. EVERY 5 MINUTES! The hours went by pretty quick though. Those 15 minutes strapped up on the monitor came by quicker than I thought. It is amazing how quick you forget the pain, I really don't remember the pain of the contractions, just the pain in my back. Every hour they would check me and I was 1 cm dilated more every time the checked. And during almost every contraction, I just remember saying I can't do this anymore, it is so painful. But, then it would pass. During three of the contractions I threw up from the pain. I would hurry and yell to Robert to grab the container to through up in and I hate throwing up. Not fun.
At one point I tried using the birthing ball to rock on, but what I liked was just to sit on the edge of the bed and rock back and forth while holding my back. It got to be morning and still no baby. Just slow going. There was one point where they checked me and I told Robert if I was only an 8 I was going to cry. They checked me and guess what, an 8. One cm every one to two hours, ahhhh, they would ask me if I still did not want any medicine and I would say no. I was trying really hard to relax through the contractions, but with the back labor that was nearly impossible. At one point they asked if I wanted to try any different positions to see if the baby would turn, so I got on my hands and knees which might have been slightly better but didn't help in getting the baby off of my spine.
Rob was worried that I was going to get dehydrated so he asked if they could put some IV fluids in me, and so they did. I was pretty exhausted and tired and those ice chips were not enough.
My doctor came in to see how I was doing in the morning and I think I was around 9 cm dilated and there was still a little part of the cervix that was not thinned out all the way that they were waiting for it to thin. Uggh! So then I get to a 9.5, but I could not push because of that little part of my cervix that would not thin. There was one point where the contractions were not letting me rest, they were just constantly coming. And then once I got around a 9.5 cm dilated the doctor decided to put me on some pitocin so that they would come quicker and stronger to see if that would help thin me out the rest of the way. They were pretty much right on top of each other and so when they wanted to check me I would lay down, and then another contraction would come and I would have to hurry and lift myself up to a sitting position, the pain of the back labor was even worse lying down. Lying down was so much worse than sitting up was. I was to the point where I had the urge to push but I couldn't, I just had to blow through them. That was super hard, it is so hard to not bear down when the urge to push comes. I think that lasted for about an hour.I don't know quite how accurate everything is near the end, I was concentrating on the pain and my breathing that I forget. Everytime they would check me I would just pray that the little part of my cervix would be thinned, but it wasn't. They finally called the doctor to see if I could just start pushing. He said yes, and what a relief. So, they got everything ready and I started pushing, but it wasn't until the doctor came in that things started moving. The baby's head was tilted a little. There was one point while pushing where I would have my eyes closed and then I opened them and there was two other nurses in there, everyone was cheering me on. Kind of strange and nice at the same time. The last set of pushes I did without a contraction and our sweet baby was born at 12:33p.m.

The nurse told me that when the baby is delivered that they were not going to make her cry, because of the meconium that was in my amniotic fluid, they needed to suction her mouth out, so she would not suck any into her lungs. Well, when her head came out she made a small little cry, and the doctor had to hurry and suction her out. I also was not stretching to get the baby out so the doctor had to cut me a little. The pressure from the baby coming out was a weird feeling and then I had to wait until the next contraction to push again. Labor is definitely hard work, there is no doubt about that, but when you see that sweet little baby afterwords everything is all worth it. I wasn't able to hold my baby until after they cleaned her off and Rob brought her over and set her on my chest. She seemed heavier than I thought she would be. She was my angel sent from heaven, it was special.
My labor from when my water broke was 13 hours long. And I was able to have my whole labor 100% natural. I just didn't want to put any drugs into my body. I am glad that I prepared myself for a natural delivery.
After an hour I held my baby as they wheeled us up to our room. All of the labor and delivery nurses we had were awesome, and also the nurses on the third floor. We stayed for 48 hours after the delivery in the hospital, and we were ready to go home.
My back hurt for a day or two afterwords, it felt like it should have been black and blue, and then I was washing my face and putting lotion on and my cheekbones were sore. I finally figured it was from pushing, made me laugh thinking I have sore face muscles from pushing.
Life is so fun, the only complaint is the lack of sleep. Before the baby was born I would usually get around 8 hours of interrupted sleep, I usually only had one potty break. I slept pretty soundly throughout my whole pregnancy. And since the baby, I have only got around 2 hours of sleep every night, Ugggh, so not fun. And I have obviously been on my feet to long, since my feet look like elephant feet this morning, so I had to put on some gray socks.
We took her home on Wednesday the 27th, my actual due date, and it was yucky smoggy outside. She fit into her carseat pretty well.

Here is the proud father, Rob has been super in helping out and you can just see it in his face how happy he is and in love with his daughter. He is so cute with her. I love him so much for all he does for our family.

Rob right after Julie was born and cleaned off!

She's Here!

Hello everyone, we are excited to announce the arrival of our daughter, yet to be named! She was born at 12:33p.m., and weighed 7lbs 12.7oz, and has black hair, which I think might be curly. And she was 21 inches long.

I will tell the birth story in a few days. For now, here are some pictures. Don't judge, we were soooooooo tired!

39 weeks!

Whoa, I can't even believe I am 39 weeks! That is just super crazy! But, here I am. My wonderful neighbors on each side of us gave me a baby shower last Friday with the ladies in my ward. It was great fun, and I got lots of fun stuff. Two things we got were a swing and a bouncer, both of which we had not purchased yet, because we could not decide what we wanted, so instead someone chose for us. We set them up the next day and now our front room has the swing in one corner and the bouncer and also our car-seat. Looks like we are expecting a baby, HaHa!

My doctors appointment went well today, measuring 38 cm, the heartbeat was good. I am dilated to 1.5 cm, same as last week and effaced the same as well. Basically, I am just waiting for my body to start into labor. The nurse tells me I have the perfect pregnancy, which I am grateful for. My doctor is also in my ward and told me that I should have the baby around 7:00a.m. Sunday morning, because he has a meeting. I told him I will work on it. In the words of Robert, I could explode at any time now. And that I could!
This just might be my last weekly picture, but I will take one final picture before we leave for the hospital. So here I am at 39 weeks:

I feel like I am getting smaller or looking smaller at least. That could be the fact that the baby is down in my pelvis really low, just waiting to make her grand entrance.
I have two more days of work left, and then I am taking about three months off, and then I will finish up the school year. It will be strange not heading off to work every morning at 6:10a.m., I think I will really miss it. Especially the kids, they are always so happy, ALL THE TIME. Even when your not in the greatest mood, it doesn't effect their mood, these kids are just so positive and happy. What a great job!
It is harder to move around on the bus, I just get so sore since the baby has dropped so low. I am ready to just stay home and rest until this baby comes. Not much longer now.

38 weeks!

Well, I am 38 weeks and I have half my bag packed. Rob has been getting on me to get this done and I have just been slowly gathering things to put in there. I guess my thinking is, once the bag is packed the baby will come, so maybe I am just holding off so the baby won't come. Although I know it will come whether the bag is packed or not.

I think Rob is more excited than I am, he just keeps saying it will be so much fun when the baby is here. The baby is still moving around like crazy, which is how it should be. This past week I have noticed that the tips of my fingers on my right hand go numb and tingly in the morning and right before bedtime. It is really strange (doctor says it is a form of pregnancy carpal tunnel).
38 weeks:

I went to the doctor today and everything is going well. I gained the pound I lost last week, the heartbeat is good. I found out that I am 80% effaced and 1.5 cm dilated. The baby is also really low, at a 0 station, which means that my labor should be short. Wahoo, I am all for short labors! The doctor says my body has been doing what it needs to.
So, now I have just been cleaning around the house and getting everything organized. Who knows when this baby will make her appearance. My prediction is I will have her on the 25th, that is my guess.
Well, that is my update and now I am off to bed.
Good Night!

37 weeks!

21 days to go! My back is starting to hurt a little more if I don't sit up properly. I had a week and a half break from work for the holidays and started back up on Monday. It felt like I had been off forever, but I wasn't looking forward to going back to work either. I don't get as much sleep, it is just so hard to get to bed early. So, I take a few naps during the day when I can. I do not like getting up so early.

I had my doctors appointment today and everything is still looking good. I have stayed about the same weight all week and from what the doctor says I lost a pound this week. And, I also went from 37 cm last week to 36 cm this week. The heartbeat is good, my blood pressure is good and actually went down. I am not swelling, the baby is head down(he said that he could definitely tell where the head was and the legs), and everything is normal. Hoorah! He said I could go any time, now that I am FULL-TERM. I could have had him check me to see how much I was dilated and effaced, but since there really was no change and everything is looking good I decided to wait until next week for that.

Rob is getting SUPER excited, it is so cute to see him so excited. I am excited as well, and nervous. But, I just keep telling myself I can do it! I CAN!
I still have yet to really pack my bags. Any suggestions that I should stick in there that you mama's out there loved to have at the hospital?
I turned in my papers for Family leave and will work up until the 22, unless the baby decides to come before then. I feel very fortunate to have had such a wonderful pregnancy, and I just hope the delivery will go just as smoothly.

Just after Thanksgiving I made this hat for my sister. It is a kid size hat, but I modified it and added a row onto it and it turned out really cute. Now I just need to make a cute little flower that she can wear with it. She is so cute!