3 months old!

                Has it really been 3 months already?!  Time flies when you are having fun!  This month has been a blast.  Alethea has developed quite the personality and we are enjoying every second we get to spend with her.  She has begun to realize just how fun it is to vocalize.  Lately she has a ton to say and we are loving this, especially since she doesn’t tend to scream as much to let us know she is upset, but instead just changes the tone of her babble.  Our ears are thanking her for that!  Praise God her gas has finally seemed to settle down and hopefully dairy eating is in the near future more me again. 

                Big changes have happened this month.  She has officially learned to roll over on purpose when has been fun to see her work at and we are so thankful that Daddy has finally been able to see her do it.  She has begun sleeping amazing.  Most nights she goes to sleep between 8:30 and 9pm and sleeps until 5 or 6am, gets up and eats and then goes back to sleep until 8:30 or 9am.  Even some nights she will sleep in until 8 or 8:30 without waking up at all.  She is developing into quite the sleeper.  Yay!

My sleeping cutie!

                This month has also marked changes in our ability to go out and about.  She is becoming more of a fan of her carseat the older she gets and the more she has been able to entertain herself.  Her discovery of how yummy her hands are and as well as her frog blanket have been our salvation in the car.  It is so nice to have a happy baby in the back seat probably 75% of the time. J

                Her physical growth has seemed to level off this month too.  She ended the month at 14lbs 3.2oz and about 24.5inches long.  She isn’t chunking it up quite as much as she once was, though she still does love to eat. J 

                This month also marked a lot of fun events and visitors.  She got to go to her first wedding and see her cousin Bryant get married to his beautiful bride Jenny.  It was a whirlwind weekend, but she did great.  Family also came to stay with us for a week and so she got to spend lots of time with Mamaw, Papaw, Granpeg, and Grandaddy.  It was so much fun to see her interact with them and wonderful that she finally got to meet Granpeg and Grandaddy. J  This month also marked her first Easter and my first Mothers day since she arrived.  Both were very fun celebrations to share with such a sweet little girl.  Oh and we celebrated her baby dedication at church too!

Loving her Granpeg and Grandaddy

With Papaw 

Snuggles with Mamaw

Happy Mommy's Day!

 Her very first Easter basket from Mamaw and Papaw!

The day we publicly make a promise to raise her to know her Savior 

and hopefully make the decision to trust in Him some day

                We discovered two fun things for Mommy and Alethea to do during the day too.  Our B.O.B. stroller arrived in the mail this month and so we have been able to go out for runs together.  She still only lasts for about 1.5 miles with me, but I will take what I can get for now.  Plus we purchased an Infantino Flip carrier that she absolutely loves and we have been able to go on many walks together.

Smiles! 

Time for a run!

                What a fun month we have had and we are looking forward to enjoying many more as we watch her grow!

My Very First Mommy's Day

Wow!  It's kinda crazy still to think that I am a mom now, but it was super special to celebrate it with my sweet little girl and wonderful husband this past Sunday.  I wasn't really expecting anything since she is still so little and obviously has no idea what the day is all about, and I had simply requested one thing, not to cook.

Well Ben had other ideas, still simple, but sweet.  He got up before me and said he had to go "run" which I didn't realize meant that he had to go run to the store.  When he got back he surprised me with beautiful flowers to celebrate my first Mommy's day.  That would have been enough for me but then, when Alethea woke up, I walked into her room to find a card with Mommy written on the envelope.  Super cute!  And then I thought all was over and, when we got in the van to head to church, I found another flower and a sweet card from Ben for my first Mommy's day that he had written a very special note inside.  Let's just say I was feeling quite special. :-)

Lovely flowers from the hubby

My cards...

...so special!

On the inside I don't know if you can read it, but Ben wrote it as if it was from Alethea 

and it says that she would like Subway for her next feeding :-)

Then we went to church and had a wonderful Mommy's day service.  They did a neat presentation that pointed out the scriptural importance of moms and had all the dad's read a segment of it.  Plus they made us all feel special by handing out a single rose to all the moms as we left the service.

My pretty rose

After church, I didn't want to cook, but I also didn't want to go out to eat because with Alethea and especially with not eating dairy, going out can often be more of chore and not really relaxing.  So instead we went coupon shopping at Walgreen's and then picked up Moe's on the way home.  YUM!  And then we spent the rest of the day hanging out and relaxing at home.  Definitely a perfect first Mommy's Day!

Mommy's day photo shoot...

...with my beautiful little girl.

2 months already!

                Wow! It is crazy just how much Alethea can change in just one month.  This month has been marked by a lot of changes.  One big change is that Mommy (and therefore Alethea) have given up any foods containing any traces of dairy.  Due to all of Alethea’s problems with gas, I decided to give up dairy to see if that would help, especially since her daddy has so many issues with milk products.  To help with the gas, we also bought an exercise ball and that has been a God-send.  It seems to bounce that gas right out and she actually often falls asleep when we bounce on it, yay! The gas has definitely improved and hopefully eventually I will be able to begin eating the yogurt, cheese, milkshakes, pizza and more that I am dying to eat!

Look how much she has grown already!

                Another revolutionary change that we made this month was we began having Alethea nap on her tummy.  This has been amazing!  She went from not being able to sleep unless held and usually for only 45 minutes at the most, to now she regularly takes naps anywhere from 1.5 hours to 3 hours long.  Let’s just say I was a bit excited about that!  It made it so I finally felt like there was a bit of normalcy back in my life since Alethea arrived.  I was finally able to do things around the house as well as take time to enjoy relaxing.  I am definitely glad this milestone arrived this month and I honestly think it helps with her gas too.

 Our cute little tummy napper

                She has continued to grow like crazy this month.  At her 2 month check-up she weighed 12lbs. 15oz. and was 23.75 inches long.  She has already gained 5 pounds and 3.25 inches since birth and she has filled out so much to where she looks so different already.  This month she has begun smiling a ton; every morning I get her up she is so full of smiles and cute faces.  She is also kicking and moving around so much and developing a ton of strength.  She rolled over for the first time this month from belly to back too!  This month she has started to track people closely when they walk around the room.  She discovered that sleeping in the bouncy in the bathtub while Mommy showers is fun.  We also discovered that the key to her enjoying time in the car seat is getting good naps, but also using a pacifier to help calm her down if we have to travel too close to nap/eating time (hallelujah).  This month marked the beginning of sleeping through the night (5+ hours) and by the end of the month she was regularly only eating once after she went to bed between 845 and 9pm and only eating 5 times a day in total.  She also went to church for the first time this month and did great!  I could go on and on about all the milestones this month but these are just to name a few.

This still cracks me up!

1

This is one of my faves 

Yay for finally getting back to church!

                My little girl is growing up way to fast and I am enjoying every minute of it!

She rolled over!

1 month down

Alethea’s arrival into this world was slightly later than we were expecting and things took a bit longer for her to arrive once labor started, but we are so thankful for such a sweet blessing in our lives.  Her first month was a world-wind of firsts.  It was crazy to have another little person living with us at home and every little thing that she did was so stinkin’ cute.

So glad she finally arrived!

What a special blessing!

For the first week home Ben’s mom was here to help us out and then for her next two weeks of life my mom was in town to help.  That was an amazing blessing which also made for quite the shock for us when they left.  We realized that she was so used to being held while sleeping during the day that she didn’t want to be put down when she slept during the day once it was just me at home with her all day. Plus the day before my mom left her crazy gas problems began.  It was an adjustment at first, but that first week with just the three of us was a blast.

Grandma came to visit

And Mamaw too!

She has grown so much this month.  She was born at 7lbs. 15oz., 8 lbs. 10oz. by 2.5 weeks and by the end of this month she was over 10lbs.  Plus she just seems to grow longer and longer each day.  It’s crazy and so much fun to watch her sprout!  She is getting used to tummy time and has way more head control than we thought she would have.  She loves to be swaddled, but absolutely refuses to have her hands in the swaddle.  She lost her cord stump finally at 2.5 weeks so she got her first real bath and LOVED it!  She started smiling in response to people at 3 weeks, the day my mom left.  She went to her first party when we went to celebrate my cousin Bryant’s upcoming wedding with family.  She absolutely hates her carseat.  She is a pro at nursing and is actually quite the oinker.  These are a few of the firsts and fun things we have learned about her this month and we are excited to continue learning more and more!

Hanging out with Mommy

 Bath time!

 Loving her daddy!

 Smiles!

 Tummy time!

On her 1 month birthday!

Introducing Alethea

Happy Baby Girl Birth Announcement

Shutterfly has cute birth announcements and Easter cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

The Story of Alethea's Arrival (Sorry it is long)

Here is my labor story and what we went through before we finally got to meet our beautiful little girl:

As I think pretty much everyone knows, I was past due with the pregnancy, and when she finally decided to arrive she was 8 days past the original due date (whatever that means).  I had honestly come to grips with the fact that we would most likely be induced later on in the week.  However, once Friday night came, I began to wonder.  I started having really bad back pain and cramping on Friday night that continued into Saturday morning.  Then by Saturday afternoon I was having fairly regular contractions in addition to the cramps.

Since it was my first experience with all this, I was pretty sure heading to the hospital was imminent, but I wasn’t going to bet on it so I didn’t disappoint myself.  However by about 10pm Saturday night contractions were 5-8 minutes apart lasting about a minute and then by 2am contractions were 2-5 minutes apart lasting about a minute.  I was really nervous to call the doctor, but they tell you to call when the contractions are consistently 5 minutes apart, lasting a minute each, for about an hour so I did.  The on call doctor said to monitor them for another hour and if they stayed that way to go ahead to the hospital.  So basically at this point I knew we wouldn’t be going to church, it was just a matter of when we would head to hospital. 

Not wanting to be sent home I endured the contractions until about 5:45am and then finally told Ben that I thought we should probably head to the hospital since contractions were still so close and were getting more intense.  I was still nervous that they would end up sending us home, but I wanted to be on the safe side and get things checked out.

We arrived at the hospital at 6:30am and went through all the checking in and such.  Nerves were crazy at this point, but since they had already immediately hooked me up to the machines, I at least knew I wasn’t imagining the contractions. J  It was in the middle of change of shifts when we arrived so we had to wait until the 7am nurse arrived so that it was a consistent person measuring cervical dilation.  When she arrived and checked me, I was still only 2.5 cm dilated, but I was 100% effaced.  They contacted the doctor and she said they would monitor me over the next few hours to see how I progressed and then decide whether or not we needed to stay.

The doctor came in about 2 hours later and I had only progressed to 3.5 cm, but she basically told us that since I was over 41 weeks by that point and progressing at all, they were going to keep me there.  She said she would expect a cm dilation an hour, but she also understood our desire to go natural so we would hold off on breaking the water until the last possible time.  So at this point the excitement set in because I knew we wouldn’t be leaving the hospital until our little on arrived.

Unfortunately my body, though having plenty of contractions and walking around a ton, was not progressing as much as they would have liked.  I got to about 6cm dilated by 3pm (very slow progression) and then was still there at about 6pm so we went ahead and made the decision to break the water in hopes that would progress things.  Unfortunately by 9pm we were still at about 6.5cm dilated even though by this point my contractions were no more that 2 minutes apart and lasting for at least a minute each.  So through a lot of tears and frustration, we made the decision to use a small dose of pitocin to see if that would get things going.

The pitocin did seem to bring contractions slightly closer together and more intense, but unfortunately no significant progress and I was starting to have the shakes and really no time to recover between contractions.  Plus at this point I had already been up for 36+ hours without sleep so I was incredibly exhausted and knew that I needed something to help if I was going to make it through such a slow labor progression.  So I decided to use a little bit of nubane which I was told would dull the pain.  Yah right!  All it did was make me loopy and sleepy.  Definitely won’t ever use that stuff again.  So it got to be 3am and the doctor came in to check me one more time and I was still at only 7cm dilated.  At this point I was pretty much at my wits end and didn’t know how much more I could take because I was lucky if I was getting a minute break from contractions that lasted 1 to 1.5 minutes each.  After the doctor left, I was talking with Ben and my parents and through a lot of tears and prayer and with their counsel; we made the decision to request a c-section.  At this point I had been up for almost 48hours, I had been shivering for the past 6 hours, having intense contractions with little break between them, and I wasn’t sure that I would even have the strength to push if my body did finally progress to where it needed to be.

As much as making this decision tore me up, I knew it was the one that had to be made, and I felt at peace with it (at least as much as you can when all you can think about is the pain of crazy contractions).  We wanted things to be all natural, but really after almost 48hours of labor, 21 or which had already taken place at the hospital, each decision we made was necessary. 

It was quite the experience getting prepped for the c-section because there wasn’t much break between contractions and they can insert IVs and spinal numbing meds when you are in the middle of one. I have never been so glad to have almost my entire body numb.  When put the spinal block in that was the first time in days, I had been free of back pain and contractions and it was amazing.  Ben was laughing to himself because as he was watching the surgery, he couldn’t believe how laid back I was, but I was in pain-free heaven and knew that my little one would finally be there very soon.

It turns out that we definitely made a good decision because it would not have mattered how many hours I labored, our little one was not coming out vaginally.  The doctor said our baby was facing my right hip and that is why it was so hard for me to progress and why the baby could get no farther in the birth canal, baby was stuck.  All that labor could seem like it was a waste of time, but it was real personal spiritual growth experience as well as a time to grow closer to Ben and my parents.

It was all a bit of a whirlwind in the end, but they tipped down the curtain to show me our little one and asked Ben to tell me what it was and he was like “it’s a girl!”  Yay we had brought a beautiful little girl into this world and at this point none of the labor mattered and I could care less how she came in the world.  All I knew was that she was healthy and she was our little blessing.  They got her all cleaned up and then I got to meet her briefly before Ben went off with the nurses to clean her up and give her a little massage while they finished my surgery.  What an amazing experience and an even more amazing result. 

Alethea Lenora Hill took a long time to get here, but man was it worth it!

7lbs 15oz, 20.5 in. of beauty arrived at 4:07am Monday, February 21st, 2011