Last Thursday we had Emerald’s newborn photos taken by the same photographer that did our maternity photos, Theresa Hermus. They turned out great, too great, in that we have no idea which ones to get printed to hang!
Em was a little angel for the photos, slept the ENTIRE time + no poop explosions of any sorts while she was naked. Win. Win.
It’s been two weeks since Emerald was born. And while we didn’t really know what to expect the first two weeks, it definitely was a bit different than we had imagined.
When you get married the first year you’re basically in the honeymoon phase. When you have a baby there isn’t that honeymoon-everything’s-perfect phase, not at all. You’re totally clueless on how to raise and take care of this baby, you are sleep deprived, hormones are insane, if you’re breastfeeding that brings quite a few challenges, and you basically have a few moments like “what did we get ourselves into”. We had to really get to know our little gem and learn her quirks, how she responds to everything and figure out a good schedule and routine and now that we are getting to that point of knowing what to expect next, everything is going smoother.
Those first two weeks it was also crucial to have someone helping us. Our church provided meals for us, my mom provided a ton of help around the house and was helpful in making sure I was taking naps. Drew was also keeping track of my meds and would text me from work when it was time to take the next dose. That sounds so crazy, like I can’t keep track of when I took medicine last, but my brain was like mush those first two weeks.
I’d say now that we passed this two week mark, everything is getting sweeter by the minute. Emerald continues to gain weight, she’s eating well, and taking naps and we’re figuring things out better and I even got the chance to do a load of laundry and vacuum today. The first two weeks I didn’t get to really spend time just cuddling and rocking her and now that things have slowed down and we don’t feel so stressed, it’s so nice to enjoy this time with her. These 10 weeks of maternity leave are going to go by way too fast! We’ve been taking lots of photos (check out Facebook and Instagram), but here are a few shots we’ve taken with our canon the past two weeks…
Along with Emerald doing great, so am I. I stopped taking the percocet after one week and now am only taking advil as needed when I get some swelling and sore around my incision. I’m also surprised at how fast my body is bouncing back. I really thought I’d be in much more pain with a c-section, but I’m feeling almost 100% most of the time. Overall, I gained 25 lbs during my pregnancy and am currently only 13 lbs away from my pre-pregnancy weight. I took a photo similar to how I was doing the week by week photos for comparison. Thank you breastfeeding!
Emerald came just in time for us to celebrate Drew for Father’s Day! He was a dad for less than a week, but he already took his job seriously and was taking great care of us both in the hospital! We love you!
We also took this quick video on Father’s Day – we’re hoping to keep documenting little moments like this throughout the year.
On Friday we got to go home! Despite her loosing 10% of her birth weight (dropping down to 4 lbs 15oz) everything else was looking great and we were both discharged.
Em was a champ on the way home, and slept the whole way. She didn’t enjoy the bumps though as every little slight bump sent her hands flying like she was riding a roller coaster.
Emerald’s birth day was such a blur as I described in another post. Because I had a c-section we expected to stay in the hospital from Tuesday-Friday. Days were filled with nurses checking in on us lots, feeding Emerald, getting rest and a few visitors.
The first evening the nurses had me up and walking and taking a few steps. The first time I got up I was so nauseous that I threw up 🙁 The next morning at about 6am they had me walking the halls and I felt so much better, granted I was on a lot of pain meds. Tuesday they also were able to remove the catheter, IV, and all the other machines that kept me tied to the bed. It was so great to get up and shower and feel like a human again. From there on out, the pain was minimal and I was moving pretty good, and was much improved as the days went on. I just had to remember to slow down a bit and take it easy.
Emerald had lots of visitors throughout our stay in the hospital as well as the first few days at home. Sometimes we remembered to get out our camera, sometimes we totally forgot. I blame sleep deprivation. Also, we tried to snap a few family photos the first few days…
We’re so excited to introduce our little gem, Emerald Joy, born on June 10th, 2014 at 10:11am, weighing 5lbs 8oz and 18.5 inches long. We seriously can not be more in love. I tell Drew all the time I’m so thankful he made this baby with me.
Emerald (who we’ll also call E, Em, and Emmy) was going to be born c-section since she has been breech for a very long time and it didn’t look like she was going to turn since she was sitting pretty comfy in there (well comfy to her, still not sure how sitting folded in half is comfy). Since an external version was not going to be successful with me being a first time mom, and since her butt was dropped too far into my pelvis, the next step was to pick out her birthday, so we decided on June 10th. It was so nice to have the date all set and know when we could expect her arrival and finish up our to-do list and start my maternity leave at work.
However she was going to come no matter what on the 10th since I started having contractions on Monday. They got to be 5 minutes apart so we went into labor & delivery only to be sent home because I wasn’t dilated since she was breech. I was hoping they would just move up the c-section but the on-call doctor didn’t want to come in. We went home at 1am knowing we’d have to be back at 8am the next morning. Contractions got worse and worse pain-wise and I wasn’t able to sleep at all, I was miserable and just so ready to have her and get rid of the pain.
We went in a few minutes and thankfully they were able to push up the c-section to 9:30am since I continued to dilate to 3+ centimeters and in an incredible amount of pain. They even offered to give me pains thru my IV, but there was a mixup at the hospital pharmacy and I ended up not getting anything. At this point I was soooo ready to get the spinal to get rid of the pain and meet our little girl.
The spinal was more painful than I thought it was, just felt really uncomfortable and he had to do it a few times since I was in so much pain and had a hard time arching my back out. Once it took effect it was amazing and I couldn’t feel anything from the chest down. Then they hung the curtain, prepped me for surgery and brought Drew in. I started getting pretty nervous, but it all went away when they started talking about how they were pulling her out and how such a little peanut she was.
They whisked her away to the warming station and I was pretty sad I didn’t get to see her quick, but they wanted to clear her airways. I could see in the direction of the warming bed, but the nurses were all surrounding it so I couldn’t see her. Drew went over then to check her out and take a few photos so he could show me them on the camera. It was such a crazy feeling, we were parents, but I could’t wait until they stitched me back up so we could hold her more in recovery.
In recovery both of our body temps were too low, so I had to wait a little bit to hold her and do skin to skin. Once we were warmed up, I got to hold her and I thought she was the tiniest little peanut ever, but so cute. We were wheeled back into our original room and pretty soon my family came to meet her.
Emerald had a hard time keeping her temp up the rest of the day so they waited to give her a bath until the evening. The rest of the day is a bit foggy due to the meds I was on and just the whole adrenaline rush. But it was an amazing day and we are so in love with our little girl!
More photos to come…