One month old

How can Sheralyn be a month old already? She does not officially turn a month old until Thursday but if we go by the fact that I had her on a Tuesday then it was 4 weeks ago today that I had my precious baby girl! It has gone by so fast! Sheralyn was getting up twice a night in the beginning, she would nurse and then go right back to sleep. Josh had been putting her on her tummy during the daytime so I put her on her belly when I put her in her bassinet the night before she turned 3 weeks and she slept through the night! She slept from 11pm to 6am!! She has had a few nights since then that she has gotten up twice but most of the days in the last week she has slept through the night. She has really taken to a paci too, most times when she is fussy she will take a paci and be content for awhile. We had our first well baby visit yesterday and she officially weighs 10lbs 10oz!! She has her first cold and she has been sleeping a lot the past two days.

Garrett is at his dad's house for the next two weeks and man is it quiet w/o him here! I miss him so much and can't wait until he comes back! We are going to Ohio for a wedding and we are going to take the kids to the zoo. I am so excited, we have been to the Fort Wayne zoo and the Indy zoo but never been to any other zoo.

Induction Day

On Tuesday morning we got up bright and early around 4am to be at the hospital at 5. We get there right as their shift changes and basically wait around until 6 to get the pitocin started. She tried to get the IV started in my right hand since I am left handed. The veins in that hand were basically non-exsistant so she put in my left forearm. She started the pit nice and slow to see how the baby would re-act. When my OB came in around 9 to break my water he said I was 4cm and 75% effaced. I got a shot of nubain around 5 and then decided I wanted to try the epidural and that was around noon. I was so cold after getting the epi that I asked for an extra blanket and she put two flannel blankets and I was still shaking. I got to rest until about three which seems so strange to be resting while you are having contractions. When I was all set up to have the epidural I thought it would hurt and was really preparing myself for this torture and to be totally honest the nurse trying to get the IV in my hand was worse than the epidural going into my spine. I actually started feeling the contractions again in my groin area around 3 and the nurse pushed a button to "top me off" and I really couldn't tell that she had done anything. So around 4:00 the contractions were full blown and I was feeling everything- espically in my tailbone. It was not the horrid back labor that I had w/ Garrett but it was a lot worse that it was with Elizabeth. I am guessing it was the size of the baby coming through the birth canal. I turned onto my left side and was having contractions practically on top of one another and then started having the urge to push. This is when I really started freaking out about pushing, I just kept thinking I wasn't going to be able to push this baby out and that I would have to have a c-section. I almost was crying and Josh was so amazing- he made me look him in the eye and he said 'you can do this" and was so serious about it. He did so great, I really could not have gotten through this w/o his great help. He made sure to breath loud enoughto let me focus on that while trying to relax and let the contractions do their thing. OK so I am off track now but wanted to say what a great job Josh did! :o) I could feel the baby starting to come into the birth canal and just let a few contractions pass before I actually really wanted to start pushing.

I started to push through a few contractions just to get the pain to get away b/c it actually felt better while I was pushing. I was actually really grateful for this b/c w/ Elizabeth the pain never went away even w/ pushing. My OB got everything set up and lowered the table and I stared pushing. I got to this one place where I was pushing and I could feel that I was actually making progress. My OB told me after I was done pushing w/ that contraction that whatever that spot was that was where I needed to get to b/c I was making great progress. The nurse would tell me "get mad and push" and that made me really want to push. I also could tell a huge difference when I would pull my legs back and tuck my chin as to when I would forget b/c the pushing wasn't as effective when I didn't do that. I could actually feel her head crowning this time and also felt the cut that he made for the incision. He thought i would be numb down there b/c of the epi and when I yelled he said 'you could feel that?" I guess the nurse forgot to mention to him that my epi wore off. He said he only did a superfical cut so that if I did tear it would be where he wanted me to and not into my vericose veins which could have been very dangerous. So I did great pushing and from start of pushing until Sheralyn Faith Marie was born was only 9 minutes!!

I can tell I was in labor a lot longer w/ Sheralyn than with Elizabeth b/c I am so much more tired. My uterus would not stay hard b/c my bladder was so full, I bled a lot more with Sheralyn too but not nearly the amount that I did with Garrett, Isn't it amazing how you can go from being so scared thinking "I can't do this" to holding your beautiful baby girl and thinking how it was all so worth it?!