Brown and Laura: January 2011

Baby Kate is 1 month old! Time has flown by!

Not a whole lot to report. Brown went back to work yesterday, so now it's just Kate and me until I go back to work in March. We wake up around 8, change a diaper, eat, sleep- then repeat all day until we go to bed around midnight. Exciting stuff, huh? :)

She did show us her first, big smile last night. It was so sweet. I was talking to her in a really high pitched voice and rubbing her cheek and she smiled about a dozen times. She had been giving us little smirks for about a week and a half, but this was the real deal. Can't wait till she's smiling all the time- it was so cute!

We had her 1 month check up on Friday. She is 7lbs 12oz and 21 in long, so 10th percentile for weight and 50th for height. Apparently she has a giant head, though! That was in the 75th percentile! Doctor said she was perfect and staying on her growth curve (even if she is a skinny little peanut). Here's a video of her at the doctor's office if you want to check out Kate in action. Mostly just some wiggling around and a smirk or two at the end :)

Here are are a few shots from her 1 month photo shoot:

And here's the tail end of her "real smile" - It's all I could manage to catch a pic of!

And a few more shots of her over the past couple weeks:

Baby Kate finally made her debut on December 16, 2010 at 7:16pm. She weighed 7lbs, 5oz and was 20 1/2 inches long. She is such a sweet little baby! These past 3 weeks have been really wonderful. She sleeps through the night and only cries when she's hungry. I think she must be paying me back for such a rough pregnancy!

My labor and delivery was fairly uneventful. I went in the night of the 15th for a "pre-induction", which didn't end up doing anything. When I woke up after a night of Ambien-induced sleep, I was still at 2cm. The pitocin started around 6:30am on the morning of the 16th (although, I had been having early labor symptoms and contractions for about 24 hours prior, so I kinda think she would have come on her own in the next couple days anyway). There wasn't much progress made, so at around 10:30am, the doctor broke my water. After that, the contractions got REALLY painful, but I didn't have to endure them for long. The anesthesiologist came in and administered my epidural around 11am. For me, that was the most painful part of the whole experience! My mom stayed in the room with me and Brown waited outside. Due to his significant fear of needles, we all thought this was for the best. :) He said he could hear me "screaming" from the hallway (although I think it was more moaning than screaming). I felt the needle and spinal catheter go in and then got a terrible pain in my right hip. All the pain went away quickly and the epidural took effect within about 15 minutes, thankfully. At around 11:30, I was 4cm and 75% effaced.

For the next few hours, the nurses struggled to find a good balance between increasing the pitocin and keeping the baby's heartrate up. Everytime they would try to increase it, her heartrate would get a bit irratic. They eventually found a good balance, but weren't able to turn up the pitocin as high as they had originally wanted.

By around 3:15pm, I was 6cm dilated, at 4pm, I was at 8cm, and at 4:15, I was at 10cm! That part happened pretty fast! It was a shock when they told me we were ready to start pushing (which officially started at 4:30). I could feel the pressure of every contraction, but didn't feel any pain. Epidurals are amazing! After 2hrs and 45mins of pushing (and throwing up 2-3 times), it was all over! They put my pretty baby girl on my chest and I just stared at her. It was unbelievable that this was the little baby that had been in my belly for 41 weeks! I was in shock and Brown was in awe, but we were both completely in love. It was the most surreal moment of my life.

They took her to weigh her and warm her up as both of our mothers hovered around her. I remember looking down and exclaiming, "Oh my god, my stomach is flat!" (Which of course wasn't really true, but everything's relative, right?)

We were released from the hospital 2 days later and have been mostly hanging around the house since then. Kate truly is a wonderful baby, so we've been having a great time! Brown is off work for another 2 weeks and it has been so nice having him around. We've even managed to get out of the house without baby a couple times (once for my 30th B-day on the 28th and another time on New Year's Eve) thanks to two very eager grandmothers/babysitters.

I'll close this post with some pics from the last 3 weeks. There will be many, many more to come!