Chelsea's Blessing

Even though Chelsea is only 16 days old, we took her to church and blessed her today. Jacob's parents are in town to see their new granddaughter so the timing was great. Here are some pictures from our photo shoot this evening!

This is her beautiful dress, made with lots of love by Grandma Melinda :)

Chelsea's Birth

So it has taken us awhile to update again...but it's been busy getting used to having a little baby to care for! Here is the rest of the birth story for those of you interested:

On Thursday, February 19 I started having contractions when I woke up that morning, about 8:30 or so. My stomach was hurting really bad, so I called my visiting teacher and canceled our appointment that morning. I called my mom and then laid back down for a while. Jacob didn't have to work until noon, so we eventually got moving and he took me over to my parents house so I could be with my mom so if I did need to go to the hospital it was a little bit easier. Anyway, the contractions continued until about 3:00--they were somewhere between 3 and 20 minutes apart. Around 3 they seemed to stop for a little over an hour and started back up a little after 4. I had mentioned to my mom that I didn't think anything was going to happen until after Jacob got off work at 5. Sure enough, right around 5:00 that evening my contractions were about 3-4 minutes apart. I called the doctor after an hour, and the midwife that was on-call called me back. (I was happy to know that it was the midwife that I had wanted to do the delivery). I talked to her and she said that since it was my first pregnancy there was no rush to get to the hospital because my water hadn't broken. She said that I could either wait around for another hour before heading there or I could go and they could check my progress. I figured it was a little after 6, and by the time I got there it would be about an hour or so later. So Jacob and I packed up our stuff and headed to the hospital.

We got there about 7, registered, and I was back in triage by about 7:30. They checked my progress and I wasn't even 2 cm...I was frustrated. I was in so much pain, and had been all day, and then it didn't seem to be helping things move along. The nurse called the midwife (she was over at the other hospital) and they decided to have me walk around for a half hour or so and see how things were after that. The baby had apparently turned around because I had started to have back labor, so walking around the hospital wasn't a very easy task. Jacob and I went down a floor where there weren't as many people to watch me struggle to hold myself up :). Anyway, we walked around and then went back to triage. She checked and I was 3cm, so they were going to admit me! Apparently there had been alot of people who went into labor that day, so I had to wait for a delivery room to be cleaned.

We got to a delivery room sometime around 9:00-9:15ish. I told them I wanted to epidural, so I was put on the list. There were a couple of other patients ahead of me, so I had to wait. By this time the midwife, Laura, had arrived so she was in there with Jacob and I. The contractions were incredibly painful, but Jacob said as soon as Laura arrived I seemed to be able to breathe better and seemed more comfortable. I got the epidural about 10:30 or so. My parents were in the waiting room, so after I got it they came into the room. At about 11:30 or so, Laura broke my water and checked my progress. I was between 6 and 7cm, and the baby was facing the wrong way. I was told to lay on my side with my leg up in order to get the baby to turn around. Laura had another patient in labor as well, so she said she would be back around 1:30 to check things, figuring that since I still had 3-4 cm to go it would be at least a couple of hours.

After the epidural, the pain was gone. It was amazing. At about 12:15 am or so, I started feeling a lot of pressure. Laura happened to stop in at about 12:30 and when I told her that she checked and I was 10cm, so it was time to push! She told me that I would probably have to push between 1 and 3 hours, but it seemed like a relief that the end was actually near! They brought in everything for the baby and by about 12:50 I was starting to push. Chelsea was born at 1:09 am on Friday February 20th. Everything was fine, but her blood sugar level was too low. It went back up after she was given some formula, but the whole time we were in the hospital it was monitored.

We got to come home on Sunday. It was nice to be home, but a little scary that there weren't nurses to take care of everything anymore. Well, except my mom :). But anyway, we are still adjusting to life at home. The first night home was terrible, but it has gotten better since then. Chelsea does pretty well at night now, or at least has been for the last week or so. She slept a couple nights in a row for the entire night--about 8 hours straight. Last night she only woke up once, I fed her, then she went back to sleep. I don't expect this to keep up, but it sure would be nice if it did :)

Here are some pictures from right after she was born and some random ones from being at home. Most of the pictures she has her eyes closed since she still sleeps most of the day, but when she actually has her big eyes open she is very alert. She likes to stare at lights, but that is about the only thing we can tell for now :) Hopefully we can do better about updating since now there is actually something exciting happening in our lives! Jacob's parents come into town tomorrow, and we are blessing her this Sunday. My mom is making her blessing dress, so stay tuned for pictures!

This was right after she was born.

Our first family photo :)

I really like this one of Jacob and Chelsea.

Wide awake!

The color is a little bright, but I like the picture.
Ready to go home! I was worried that she was going to be a big baby and not fit into newborn anything...but everything is huge on her!
She has such a hard life, she's exhausted already!

Getting ready for bed.

Bright Eyes.
It's a little blurry, but I thought it was cute. She was sleeping in the recliner with Jacob. She opened her one eye just a bit when I went to take the picture.

She's here!

Our Beautiful Baby Girl was born early early on Friday morning (1:09am) after only twenty minutes of pushing ... and lots of contractions. But she's here! She scored a 9 and 10 (because she's perfect). She was 21 inches long, 7 lbs 2oz, looks to have something close to strawberry blonde hair, a dimple in her chin, Whitney's face, and maybe Jacob's nose. We'll write more later, but she's here and she's wonderful!

A week might as well be a year ...

That's about how Whitney feels right now. She's ready for Baby Girl to come and so is Jacob. 39 weeks is long enough, right? Apparently Baby Girl doesn't agree because tomorrow is her 39 week mark and there are little to no signs that she'll be coming soon (but of course that doesn't mean it can't happen sooner).


But we think her room is finally ready! Baby Girl that is. Or at least that we have basically everything that we need: crib, mattress, bedding, cute stuffed animals, clothes, car seat, baby rocker, toys, stroller, diapers, wipes, cute wall decorations, more clothes, pack-n-play, toiletries, nasal aspirator, etc. We're pretty set until she comes and then we'll realize everything we don't have. We're just ready for her to come!


See! Everyone seems to think that Whitney hasn't gotten that big. A lot of people have said that she looks good (which of course is true). But she feels terrible.


She looks good though! We're just both ready to meet Baby Girl. We're excited, but very very ready.

Five Weeks and Counting ...

Somehow we've made it through 35 weeks! Whitney feels like she can't get comfortable. She's having trouble sleeping. She can't bend over. The medicine works most of the time, but she can't go without taking it. Even when she does, she gets nauseous almost every night. Despite all of this, everyone tells us that these last several weeks are going to drag on. We're excited though! We can't wait to meet our baby girl, despite how hard it's been for the last eight months. It's going to be great!

Jacob set up the crib about a month ago. It's a beautiful cherry wood. We hope it lasts for years and years, but it didn't take long to discover that it appears to be a pretty soft wood. We have the mattress sitting inside with a couple packs of diapers and wipes. We're just waiting for a baby. Jacob thinks the baby is going to come early, but she doesn't agree. She thinks the baby is going to come right on time. That or on Valentine's Day. We bought a "stinking cute" Minnie dress today that is obviously supposed to be for the holiday and what better day to celebrate our love child than Valentine's Day?

She's Showing!

We've been wanting to take some pictures of Whitney's stomach because she's showing, but we didn't get around to it until just now. So, here she is--beautiful Whitney!

Today at work, one of Jacob's coworkers was really excited to see that she was showing. He's been tracking her progress as she stops in from time to time. He likes to comment about it. So, we guess that everybody else can too. Baby's getting big and before we know it she'll be ready to meet everybody. On yeah, did we mention that she's a girl?

According to the technician all of our little baby girl's limbs and little budding parts are perfect! Here is her hand. You can see her extended thumb.

She's a girl!

 

And here is one of her feet.

 

And her profile. Whitney wants her to have Jacob's nose, but not his ears. It looks like she just might get what she wants ... at least the nose that is.

We're so excited! Little by little we're starting to get baby girl some clothes. No, we don't haven't decided on a name, but we're open to suggestions! Our list is growing (just like baby) so if you have any ideas let us know. We want our amazing girl to have an amazing name. So what do you think?

Poetry, Anchovies, and Pirates

July 22, 2008 (Disney Trip Continued ...)

 

Each morning Jacob wrote a couple of poems for Whitney that he gave her with a small gift. He and Kolbein had made a plan to do something special for the girls each day. The trick was to sneak it past them. To avoid any problems, Whitney's mom went out and bought the treats for them. Jacob made a list of themes for each day which Melinda (Whitney's mom) followed when buying the treats. On Tuesday, the plan was to eat at the Crystal Palace (Magic Kingdom) where Pooh and his friends greet everyone. We decided against it after arriving, and so Jacob had to try and compensate for it when he wrote his poem for the day:

When you drop by the Thousand Acre Woods

Here is a treat to make a good

First impression with that silly old bear

Here’s a hint – It’s got honey, so you better

“bee” ware!

The first treat was a bag of "Bit-o-Honey". The second treat was to match our plans to eat at EPCOT. We'd made reservations for Le Chefs de France. Here's what he wrote:

If something’s amiss

I can help you with that

The food here, you see,

It’s made by a rat

But that’s okay, he’s a friend of mine

A cousin of sorts, so dig in and dine!

The treat was some candy rats. Jacob was pretty proud that Melinda was able to find something to go along with Ratatouille.

We got up early, like every other day, and jumped on the bus to Magic Kingdom. Ashley and Kolbein weren't ready so we made plans to catch up with them later. It was strange being at the park so early because they would let you in, but most of the park was still blocked off from access. We rode the Winnie the Pooh ride and then made our way over to the Haunted Mansion. Whitney loves this ride! Last year, she was so disappointed that it was closed. We'd learned that there were supposed to be some major renovations and we were excited to see them ourselves.

As we made our way through the house in our Doom Buggy Whitney commented that this was probably her thrill ride for the day. Not riding big rides was tough for her all week long. She was glad that she could at least ride the Haunted Mansion.

We still had some time so we trekked over to Pirates of the Caribbean. Several months before we'd bought Hidden Mickey's, a book that has scavenger hunts for hard to find Mickey shapes and other subtle character outlines in the parks. As we made our way through Pirates we tried to find these clues, but some were more difficult than we thought. Even when we rode it later, we had a hard time. It was fun though. It's a good book to check out!

After meeting up with Ashley and Kolbein we jumped on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. The ride is simple; you sit down and it takes you on a tour through Tomorrowland. The best part though is that you hardly ever have to wait to get on, and it's something to do to rest your feet. Well, when we got a longer trip than normal because the ride broke down. We're not even sure how long, but it was a while. This picture above was during that wait. It was fun, but we were glad to get moving again. The breeze always feels so nice!

After a few more things we rushed over to EPCOT. Well, rushed might not be the right way to put it. We waited for a long time for the monorail to take us between parks. We were almost late for our lunch reservations. It was hot too. Whitney wasn't doing very well, and as we rushed to Le Chefs de France, we had to take a break or two, because she wasn't doing well. But she made it and after a short wait, we got into the restaurant. And not a moment too soon either! Shortly after being seated the clouds let loose and everyone outside got soaked. It rained most days. We were glad to miss this downpour.

I don't know why, but throughout this trip Jacob kept ordering fish. He likes to try things he hasn't had before and our trip to France at EPCOT was no different. Whitney got quiche and Jacob sot a salad, but Jacob couldn't just get a "salad." No, he had to get the Tuna Salad. Sounds pretty safe, right? Well, it was a wonderfully large salad with a huge block of tuna, two strips of anchovies placed on top, and something that looked like caviar spread on a small piece of bread. He just had to take a picture:

Whitney knew she had to be careful with fish, but this wasn't something that she would have ever ordered under any circumstances. But she likes tuna okay.

We spent the rest of the day at EPCOT. We spent a while at the French Pavilion where we watched a movie and shopped. Then, we mulled around before it got dark. We watched some of the firework show, and rode on Maelstrom, a simple water ride at the Norway Pavilion. It was a fun day, but a fishy day--A great day at Disney World!