Hospital Time

One of my favorite parts of the first few days with both of my babies is that sweet hospital snuggle time.

I attempted to get a few pictures of the sweetness by just holding my camera up over my head, pointing it downward and hoping for the best.

Chris hates being in the hospital and pretty much as soon as both of our kids were born, he was ready to get out and go home.  But he always gets in on a snuggly nap as well.

But I just love to tuck my legs up, cover my lap and sides with pillows, lay my little baby out, and just stare at her.  And as soon as I start to feel sleepy, I shift her over to my chest, prop some of those pillows around us both for support and drift off to sleep.

My sweet little girl at 2 days old.

On a side note, some old lady in town knits these soft little pink and blue hats and donates them to the hospital for the newborns, in lieu of those pink and blue striped ones.  Aren't they sweet?!  I want to do that when I'm an old lady.

 

 

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Miss Hannah Louise

Baby Hannah arrived on Wednesday June 8, 2011, at 4:54 pm.

I wasn't in labor for very long, a bit less than 10 hours, and only pushed for 15 minutes, a welcomed surprise after pushing with Jayce for about 90 minutes.

She was 7 lbs 10 oz, and 20 1/2 inches long.

The doctor had told us at an earlier ultrasound that if she reached 40 weeks she would probably be about 7 lb, 11 oz.  She was 39 weeks and 1 day.  She surprised us by not coming early.  In fact, she stuck around long enough that we needed to go in after her.

It's hard to tell who is more in love, her dad or me.

Jayce was pretty interested in her.

He kept wanting to look under her hat, like it was a bit suspicious that she was wearing a hat.  But he always followed up with kisses.

It was a perfect day, and this little sweetheart is the perfect new addition to our family.

 

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Amanda's Knitted & Crocheted Etsy Gorgeousness

**For anyone who is checking, we are having a baby today, yay!!

I can't imagine I'll be back on here this week, and in the spirit of baby, I decided to share some sweet little knitted and crocheted things you will definitely be seeing adorning little lady Keith in the near future. Enjoy.**

I have some fun lovely Etsy baby goodies to share with you today, courtesy of this shop, OED & me.

OED & me is the Etsy shop of a friend of mine from Cincinnati. Her shop hasn't been open long, but as soon as I caught wind of it I was emailing her about making a few goodies for our little one. I received my package a few weeks ago and was SO excited. She makes custom items, so I wasn't exactly sure what they would look like until I opened them up. They were all wrapped up like little Christmas gifts, (or baby gifts, I guess), and I really had to restrain myself from tearing them open as soon as the package arrived. But my strong urge to photo-document everything forced a tiny bit of patience and then I was free to tear away.

First up, Amanda has a shop full of these adorable little Claire cloches, and can do other colors if you want something that isn't pictured. Aren't they sweet?! Mine is a 0-3 month size and I just love the colors. I can't wait to pop it onto baby's little noggin.

A fun thing about Amanda's shop is that she has a few "custom knit/crochet" listings, so if you have a pattern for something, but don't knit or crochet yourself, or have the time too, you can send her the pattern and she will make the item for you. Pretty great right? I thought so, especially since I had been eyeing a few patterns on Etsy that I desperately wanted someone to make for me. I just bought the pattern, forwarded it to her with some details about yarn preference, she made them and sent them to me! Which is how I got this SUPER soft baby cocoon,

and equally soft baby bowl. Have you seen these before? You will shortly. They are amazing and adorable photo props.

I also found a pattern for this fun little tasseled hat, and Amanda was more that willing to give it a shot. It's a newborn size and perfect.

Among these knitted and crocheted beauties, Amanda also sells prints and notecards of some of her photographs in her shop. She included one with my package and I was thrilled.

Little details like these are one of the reasons that I love Etsy so much! Cute packaging and attention to details makes it feel like you are receiving a special gift, not just something you ordered. (I was actually receiving a gift when I opened this package, but still, it would be no different for anyone else's order.) Here are a few other goodies from her shop.

Amanda was also sweet enough to do a guest post for me this week on Lemon Tree Creations, of her favorite "Take To a New Mom" meal. Check it out here. Yum.

Thanks Amanda!! Can't wait to have baby snuggled into all of your handmade goodies!!

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When You're Having a Baby The Next Day

Well, we've reached the point now where I am definitely and officially going to be induced. Yay!! I am so glad to finally have a "definitely" instead of all of these "maybes!" Tomorrow morning we head to the hospital to get our little girl and I am so excited about it!

We had a really nice weekend hanging out just the 3 of us. We have been aware the past few weekends that it might be our last weekend ever just the 3 of us, but it was particularly on our mind this weekend since we knew I'd be induced at some point during week 39. So we took full advantage. We played outside in the water all morning and then all took long naps. Since we knew we'd be spending so much time house-bound these next few weeks, we went out for dinner each night. We went out of town, and went to Chris' favorite restaurant and then my favorite dessert place. (We took a little "if my water breaks bag" with us.) We stopped at the store, picked up a few last minute things for the baby and nursery. We let Jayce pick out a little "bear" for his baby sister, which turned out to be a monkey. It was lovely.

I hope that today will be more of the same. Today I am officially 39 weeks and it is also our 8 year wedding anniversary. We had originally planned to have a date, but now I think we'll enjoy the day as a family again. I'm pulling for naps, sprinklers, snuggling, and dining out.

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Birthday #3

As I mentioned in this post, a large part of Jayce's birthday was spent at our baby shower.  Actually, about 3 hours of the morning was at the shower, with an additional 3 hours at the post-shower nap.  It was a hot day, with lots of sweets and running around with friends, so we all took one heck of a nap when we got home.

But that morning, before the shower, we had some festivities at our house.  Jayce woke up, got into bed with us and wanted us to sing happy birthday to him.  We obliged, and then he wanted cupcakes, with candles, for breakfast.  Again, we obliged.  Chris had bought some Toy Story cupcakes at the bakery the day before and Jayce was so excited about them, he wanted one right away.

He loved them so much that he even prayed for them for the next few nights.  Sweet boy.

Since our shower started at 10, we got ready and headed out not long after breakfast.  We asked Jayce what he wanted for dinner that night and he requested Olive Garden, so that is where we went for supper.  That may seem like a funny place to take a kid for his birthday, but it was a little tradition that we started last year and were happy to carry on this year.  Since Jayce is still at that "kind of too young to really know what's going on with his birthday" age, and we don't have family around to celebrate and make a fuss with us, we decided to use the day to celebrate our little family.  We still make a fuss over him obviously, with gifts, cake and singing, but also are celebrating the 3 years we've been a family, 3 years of being parents, and his 3 years of life.  Olive Garden is one restaurant that we all really like, and where we're guaranteed that he will eat well also, so we went there this and last year.

Olive Garden is also in the same plaza as Toys R Us, so after dinner, the boys headed over and picked up this fun little water table.  Or, as Jayce calls it, "my cool water ball toy."

I've been aware that we aren't going to be able to make it to the pool very often this summer because of the new baby, especially compared to last year when we would go 2-3 times per week, so I wanted to get something that Jayce could play in and cool off a bit and didn't take up too much room in the backyard.  Also, he loves to play with his dishes and things in the sink so much, as I've shared before, so this gave him a little "outdoor sink" to play in, plus it came with an assortment of balls.

He was most excited about the balls once he realized that he could squirt Chris with the water that was inside of them.  Pretty cool.

 

Happy birthday little guy!  You are the love of our lives!

 

 

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Shower/Birthday

A few friends were kind enough to throw us a shower a few weekends ago.  Actually, I asked that it not be called a shower, more of a "the Keiths have been house and hospital bound for the last month, so come visit with them before baby arrives, and feel free to bring girl clothes" type of get together.  It was perfect.  It was so nice to be able to visit with so many of our friends, and since it was a "bring your family" open house type format, Chris and Jayce got to hang out and visit with their friends too.

At the time of the shower I was 35 1/2 weeks pregnant, so I was technically still on bed rest.  So I planted myself on a stool in the kitchen and people would come chat with me, get some food, drop off their gifts and head outside or hang out in the kitchen.  It was a perfect set up.  I was originally worried that I'd be on the couch with my feet up and people would feel like they needed to sit and talk to the poor pregnant lady for a while, but the kitchen was a much better format, and we had lots of yummy food.

I think everyone can agree that May is a crazy month with school letting out, graduations, Mother's Day, etc.  When we were trying to figure out a date for the shower we kept running into dead ends, except for one day, May 21.  Which is Jayce's birthday.  Being on bed rest was going to limit what we were able to do on that day anyway, but I did feel bad that all morning we would be doing "shower stuff" and no "birthday stuff."  But it ended up working out perfectly.  Along with the other shower goodies, Kristen had made Jayce some birthday cupcakes, so everyone knew and wished him a happy birthday.  Several of our friends had brought him a little gift in addition to something for the baby, everyone sang to him at one point, and lots of his friends were there for him to run around and play with, so as far as he was concerned it was his party.  It worked out even better than we had planned!

It was a nice chance for us to get out of the house, and we had a great time hanging out with some friends and collecting some adorable outfits for our little lady.  Since I was chair-bound one of my friends grabbed my camera and ran around getting pictures of some of the guests and festivities, so I'm glad I have those to look back on.

The shower was in the late morning up until around lunchtime/nap time which was perfect!  We headed home, all crashed, and woke up just in time to celebrate Jayce's birthday that evening which I'll share in another post.

 

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38 1/2 Weeks and On Being Induced

It's been a few weeks since I've written about the pregnancy directly, since we've had so many other things going on.  And it turns out that, as eventful as Weeks 33-35 were, Weeks 36-38 have been almost completely uneventful.  I neglected "get 35/36/37 week picture" on my to do lists this month, but I DID manage to get pictures at 38 weeks.  I think these will be my last belly shots, because frankly I am quite over belly shots and very ready for baby shots.

It has been a rather strange climate around here because in addition to "the baby could come at any time" thing that is always going on during pregnancy, there have been 2 instances now where the doctor told me that she would likely induce me, but instead they passed us by and I am still very pregnant.  For about a month we were all thinking, "just make it to 37 weeks and the dr will induce."  But when 37 weeks arrived, there hadn't been any dips in the heart rate all week, so there was no real reason to induce, other than a mom's impatience, which isn't high on the doctor's priority list.

On Wednesday at my 38 week visit, the doctor told me to come in Thursday night for my non-stress test.  If there were any dips, she would admit me and induce me then.  So Thursday I finished up all of the (quasi urgent) "do before baby arrives" items on my to-do list, had a nap and a shower, put all of those "add at the last minute" items into my hospital bag and headed to the hospital with the happy possibility that baby might be leaving in the car seat instead of my belly.  But there were no dips, and a bit later we were all on our way home

One of my friends and I have been saying that once I reach the "safe" point (37 weeks) that I'll be climbing stairs, running all around, and doing whatever I can to try to get this baby out, but that hasn't really been the case.  Reaching 37 and 38 weeks also comes with that irrational fatigue, where I want to tell my body, "You slept in and have only been awake for a few hours, you couldn't possibly need a nap this bad!"  But then I remind myself that 2 people are using my energy, and my food, and my body, so I need to just give in.

Last weekend one of our friends went into labor and had her sweet little girl just over 5 weeks early.  That day as she texted me updates about her progress I went into crazy nesting mode.  I had Chris and Jayce come upstairs to help clean out and re-arrange Jayce's closet, shift some things into the nursery and re-organize in there a bit, wash/fold/hang the baby clothes we had received at our shower, and got everything ready in case our baby decided to come that day as well.  But the only thing that this accomplished for me, (besides getting organized) was ensuring that I felt completely miserable for the next 2 days.  I couldn't get enough sleep, and my back and sciatic nerve hurt so badly that I thought I might be having back labor.  It turns out that I can't over-exert myself into labor, so I'm taking it easier instead.  Instead of trying to figure out how I can finish up nursery projects from the couch, I'm trying to spend my couch time actually resting or snuggling with Jayce.

Now it looks like I'll be induced next week, at 39 weeks.  The day that I am officially 39 weeks is also our wedding anniversary, so we might not elect to induce her that day, but definitely by the end of the week.

So it looks like we might have one more weekend together as a family of 3.  I think we'll all hang out, rest up, and enjoy the old normal before it switches over to our new normal.

 

 

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