Back to the DOCTOR!

In the middle of the night I realized that little Ella's right eye was goopy with this green goo. I woke Jared up and he said that he had noticed it earlier that night (why he didn't tell me is beyond me). it wasn't bad. I watched it throughout the night and when she woke in the morning it was still there. I just wanted to cry because I thought that she might have pink eye and I couldn't figure out how in the world a 2 week old baby could get pink eye especially with as careful parents as us. I tried to call my mom and she didn't answer the phone so we tried Jared's mom. His dad said that it was probably a clogged tear duct and that we should use a warm wash rag and wipe down (NOT UP) and massage the tear duct. I called the doctor and they said that they wanted to see her because the discharge was green not just yellow. Well we took her in and it was in fact a clogged duct. He prescribed some antibiotic eye drops to use just while the gunk is there and said that it is something that will probably clear up on its own but may come back in the future. It could end up being a problem with the development of her tear duct which in that case it would require surgery but the likelihood of that is VERY slim. As of now, we are just caring for miss goopy eye and hoping that it gets better so that mom can rest easy. it already looks much better.

Ella's 2 week doctor visit

Today was little miss Ella pants first official doctor's appointment. We got up and got her ready for her 11 am appointment (thought it would be easier to be up and ready and on our way by now, we are still learning), then we got in the car and were on our way. we really don't do too bad. we might make it to our destination a couple minutes later than before we had Ella. They had us take all but Ella's diaper off and then they measured her head and length. Her head measure 36 1/4 cm (14.27 in) and when she cooperated, she measured 21.25 in in length. She has grown over 2 inches in 2 1/2 weeks!!!! Then we took her diaper off and went to get her weighed. Now this part was exciting, she weighed in at 8.25 lbs!!! Only .02 lbs less than at birth!!!! I am so happy for her! So even though we are still using a breast shield when we nurse, Ella is getting enough food. This is just wonderful! The doctor then came in and looked at our girl. She kept saying how good she looked. She picked out the little scab on her belly button (eesh), checked her ears, and eyes, mouth, etc. Ella passed all with flying colors. Our next visit isn't until she is 2 months old (August).

We also decided to take Ella to the hospital to have her PKU test done (this was awful!). When it was time to take Ella in to have her little foot poked, I told the nurse and Jared that I needed to leave because I was going to cry. I sat in the other room and just cried as they poked and squeezed her little foot. i didn't see her, but i heard her sniffles. I honestly think I cried more than her because she really didn't cry much at all. After the initial poke, she cried and then went back to sleep. She is such a good baby. We then went to Walmart to do some grocery shopping. We used Ella's portable car seat as we pushed her in the cart, it was nice. We filled up the cart as she slept "like a baby". Afterwards we decided that we had had enough of a day and decided to go home instead of finishing our other errands. We will do those tomorrow. Today went really well, it is getting easier every day. Ella actually slept in 3 hr intervals last night. What a relief.

One other cute thing I want to mention is that Ella got to take a shower with Daddy last night. it was really FUN! Jared came home from work and took his shower, then little miss Ella joined Daddy. She did so good! She actually liked it! No cries at all! Jared even let water get on her face and she had no response. It was soooooo much easier than washing her in the bathtub. Jared did so well! When we went to dry her off, she piddled all over her towel and I got the diaper under her before she about exploded in it. she just didn't want to get her Dad all dirty again. (that is weird, referring to me, Jared, as Dad. that's my Dad's name, not mine.) What a cutie! Life is so blissful. I just love it. I am so happy being a mommy and am so blessed to have such a wonderful husband to share this joyous parenthood with. Thank Heavenly Father for my life for it is truly blessed.

Weeks 1 and 2

Well, Ella is now going to be 15 days old at 9:47 this evening. It is amazing how fast time goes by. Our hospital stay was actually really nice. Ella did well, Jared slept a lot, the nurses took good care of us (especially the lactation consultants), and I felt good. We ended up staying 2 nights because Ella was born so late in the evening. I learned how to order food through the dining services that the hospital offered (Jared got one free meal, but I just ordered a lot of food and shared half of mine with him, lol). The food sounded really good but it wasn't that great, the best part was that I didn't have to make it. Our first night with little Ella was quite funny. She made such funny little noises and we really didn't sleep well. Grandma and Grandpa Smith and Auntie Danielle came and visited us on our night 2. It was nice except Grandpa didn't feel well and people from work came and held Ella before my mom...I was glad they could come regardless. I was discharged by about 8:00 am on wednesday morning (June 12) but miss Ella wasn't. We waited for the pediatrician to come and check our little girl and give us permission to take her home. While we were waiting the professional photographer came in and took some pictures of Ella. Now they are not great and we are not going to buy them but all are welcome to look at them by going to www.valleyhospital.org and clicking on baby faces and then looking up June 9 and finding our names. She is adorable! i agree with the preceding paragraph.

Included is our trip home from the hospital (technical difficulties...it won't load). Miss Ella was so tiny in the car seat. They told us to come out to the counter when we were ready to go, but when we did they about jumped out of their seats because we had the convertible car seat and they had to get me a wheel chair to take her out in case I fell (liability). I thought that was kind of funny. That nurse wheeled me so fast down that hallway and going over those bumps sure didn't feel very good. The nurse basically just dropped me off and left, but not before I asked her opinion as to whether or not she thought that the car seat was at a 45 degree angle. She said that it looked like it was. I think it is interesting that they are not allowed to give any advice when it comes to the car seat but they are so adamant about you having a car seat. again, i agree with the preceding paragraph.

When we first got home, it was bittersweet. I wanted to go back to the hospital because I was so upset that I was starting to forget about the whole birth experience. It was hard. I then took a shower and cried because I was washing off the stuff that was on Ella when she was born. I guess they call it new mommy blues. It was hard. I then went through a stage where I was afraid of dying. I know now that it was all the work of satan. He knew that Jared and I had just brought new life into this world (a super joyous experience) and he wanted to take away from that by making me have doubts about my beliefs and fear what I know is true and real. When I think about it now, I don't know how anyone could deny God and the beauty of his plan. A baby is a miracle, there is no way that I can deny that. I am so glad that my faith is back and that life has picked up. It is such a blessing. she was born on monday, i didn't take my bracelet off until the following monday. that is just because i had to work that evening and UPS is a dirty, dirty place.

Our first week with Ella was pretty eventful. We had lots of visitors (Grandma and Grandpa Winston and Aunts Kira and Caity and Uncle Nathan and soon to be Aunt Andrea, Grandma Smith and Aunt Danielle). It was nice to have people come over, bring us meals and goggle over our little girl.  At times I felt overwhelmed. It was hard to let people take her and hold her and it was hard to hear her cry and not want to take her away to feed her, when I knew that was what she wanted. I just felt like I was in a fog. I was just an emotional wreck. But luckily life is much brighter now. We did end up taking Ella to the doctor on the 14th of June and found that Ella had lost another ounce. They told me that I needed to wake her up every 2 hours to feed her and bring her back the next day. that whole situation irks me. it messed up Ella's 3 to 4 hour feeding schedule she seemed to be on. she is now on a 2 hour feeding schedule. also, they wanted us to get her weighed the very next day and we couldn't get the appointment until a day later. wow, must have really been important. should i mention weighing her costs $10! I did what they told me and when we took her back she had gained that ounce back. They told me that we needed to check her weight in a week and just keep with the every 2 hours feeding. 

One other thing that we did in Ella's first week is that we gave her a sponge bath, it was quite the experience.

Week 2 was a lot better than the first week. We gave our little one her first bath after her umbilical cord fell off on June 17th. 

She liked the bath as long as we kept the warm wash cloth on her belly. She was such a good sport. Daddy and I weren't very good at it, but we will learn. it isn't a matter of being good at it. we did GREAT! in my very humble opinion. We basically stayed home most of the week. We took Ella to Deaconness on Thursday to have her weight checked and she had gained 4 ounces, yay! We then took her to Learning is Fun so that she could meet some of the people that I work with. It was nice although Ella decided she was hungry as soon as we got there.

On Thursday my left breast started to hurt and I thought that maybe I was starting to get engorged, but then came a temperature, chills, headache, and dizziness. It was awful. I went to the doctor on Friday and found out that I have Mastitis (a breast infection) and now have to take antibiotics every 4 hours. I feel a lot better now that I have been doing that. This last weekend we went to my parents house and it was really nice. We went to the movies on saturday (Get Smart). It was okay. I missed the whole middle of the movie because Ella wanted to eat again and she needed a diaper change. I never thought I would be one of those people that would take a baby to a movie. She was so good though.

Finally, I just want to state my feelings about motherhood thus far. I love it. I love everything about it. Staying up all night long, losing sleep, leaking all over my baby and self when she cries and I am trying to feed her in the dark, is outweighed by the fact that she is my baby. That my husband and I created such a perfect, beautiful little person. It is funny when she cries and scrunches her nose and face...it is so cute when she sticks her tongue out the side of her mouth and sucks it while she is sleeping. It is just amazing. She is keeping her eyes open so much more and being awake so much longer. She actually is sleeping at longer intervals (sometimes) and staying awake and alert much more. Saturday night Ella slept from 1 am to 6:30 am. It was wonderful. It is so fun to see that each day miss Ella looks more like her daddy every day. Man I love this little girl. She makes my life worth so much fun. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful little family. I love my daughter and husband with all of my heart. There is only one word to describe it...BLESSED! isn't that a great picture of our little family!

Baby Ella is here!!!

It is day 8 of being a mommy and I am loving almost every second of it. :) Just kidding, every second is worth something. Ella is beautiful and wonderful and I am so grateful to Heavenly Father for giving Jared and me the opportunity to raise this sweet spirit.  Here's the update from the last minutes of my pregnancy to bringing our daughter home and so forth.

Monday, June 9, 2008 was a day that was full of excitement and nerves. Jared and I were up until about 10:30-11:00 pm cleaning the apartment and preparing for parenthood. When we finally went to bed, I kept Jared up until at least 12 am talking to him. When I finally was quiet, I tried so hard to make myself go to sleep but little Ella was just as worked up as I was and we kept each other up all night. Finally at 3:30 am Jared decided he was going to give up on trying to sleep and got up to take a shower. After spending some time on the computer waiting for Amanda to go to the bathroom, but she never did he started the shower. I got up to use the bathroom and found the door locked but because the shower was on, I assumed it okay to unlock the door and just walk in. now she decides to go to the bathroom Well I was greeted with a wide eyed husband a loud ahhh and a shut of the door. Evidently I scared him! scared, yes, but more just the fact she caught me when I wanted it to be a complete surprise! I was laughing so hard! What happened was, he was up shaving his face COMPLETELY so that he could be my focal point during labor. she was talking about using her toes for a focal point He did this same thing on our wedding day and I spent the entire time while the Temple President was talking to us staring at him. the smooth face didn't have the same effect. How sweet is he :). Jared made me breakfast of Malt-o-Meal and toast. He gave me quite a bit but it was nice to have something in my tummy. We checked in at the hospital at 6 am. They took me to my room and I was so scared that I immediately felt like I needed to use the bathroom. The bathroom had no fan and the nurse and Jared were out in the room waiting for me. I am shy, so I couldn't go. I was asked to leave a sample but all a sudden the well seemed to be dry. They decided to have me dress in a gown and hook me up to the IV and Pitocin. I was so nervous! They gave me a white gauze like glove that covered the IV ports and they called a Madonna glove :). They then put the belt to measure baby's heartbeat and another to measure my contractions. It was found that I was already have contractions that were about 5 minutes apart. I told them that I had been having this for weeks. After getting all hooked up to everything, I had to use the bathroom about every 10 minutes! I had to unhook the belts and unplug the IV. Now this was annoying because it seemed they don't use batteries in the IV thing and it would beep over and over again because it wanted me to plug it back in. we in the healthcare industry, although I really am not in the healthcare industry, do not enjoy the "IV thing" it constantly beeps! This made it very hard to concentrate in the bathroom! At about 8:40 Dr. Joy came in and checked me (I was a 3) and broke my water. What an interesting feeling. It was uncontrollable gushes of fluid being released. So now every time I had to use the bathroom, I had to walk with a towel in between my legs so that I didn't drip everywhere. After that, they just kept coming in and upping my dose of the Pitocin. The contractions continued to get worse as time went on. It felt like I had to go to the bathroom really bad. What hurt the most was not the contractions themselves, but the probe on the belt that measured the contractions. I think it was worse because they made me lay on my side due to Ella not being very active (she was tired from being up all night). At about 1:00 pm, despite my attempts at breathing through the contractions, I was feeling them in my back and decided to have them give me some Nubane (narcotic) to take the edge off of the pain. loopy! Well then the anesthesiologist came in to talk to me and I was so loopy that I had trouble looking at him straight lol. He talked to me about an epidural and explained that the Pitocin causes the contractions to be like they are on steroids and that the contractions that I had felt thus far were like I was on deck in a baseball game, so basically it was going to get A LOT worse. At this point (2:00 pm) I decided to get an epidural. It went really well and I was feeling so much better. Jared and I watched Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Saved by the Bell while we waited for my body to do what it was supposed to do. At 3:00 pm they checked me and I was dilated to a 5 and the nurse could actually feel her hair! She also attempted to put an internal monitor in to better monitor my contractions but little Ella would not allow it, lol. At 3:43 they checked me again and I was at a 6 and she was at 0 station. At about 4:30 pm the pain was back. It was in my back and it was very painful. We called the nurse who paged the anesthesiologist but it took him quite a while to come in. I was crying through the contractions at this point. He hooked me up at about 5:00 pm. It was so nice! The way that he checked to see if it was working is he scratched me with sand paper and I had to tell him if I could feel it normally at each point. Most of the time I could move my legs and feet just fine but after he upped the dose my legs were now too heavy to lift but I could still feel them. At about 6:30 pm they checked me and I was at a 9. At this point they came in and set the room up for the delivery. They checked me again at about 8 ish and she was in the birth canal and it was time for me to push. I pushed for 1 1/2 hours. Sometime in there they asked if I wanted to see her head and they gave me a mirror, I couldn't see much but knew I didn't want to see much beyond there so they took the mirror away. Dr. Joy came in about 9:15 or so. I am not sure because I was so busy pushing. At this point I could feel each contraction and it hurt to push, I just didn't want to push anymore. I was able to reach down and feel her head and her hair, it was so neat! she was amazed at it. it was really happening! I started to feel like I was going to vomit so they got me a bucket. I hate throwing up so I just kept swallowing and trying to keep myself from throwing up. They gave me oxygen after that to use between pushing. Jared was so wonderful during the pushing phase. i tried. He kept telling me how good I was doing and how much progression I was making. It was wonderful. The nurse and doctor kept trying to guess her name which was so annoying so it was nice to have Jared there to keep me going. they never did guess it, and they guessed a lot of names! Little Ella JoAnn Winston made her debut at 9:47 pm. It was such an interesting experience. I finally asked the doctor to just cut me if it would make her come out faster and she did and she was out within a couple of minutes. What a blessing. They placed her on my chest and her little white, vernix covered body was so perfect and beautiful. Jared cut the cord and we looked at our little one for the first time. She stopped crying as soon as they put her on my chest. Her nose was scrunched and she was just so perfect. She was given a 9.9 APGAR score which is so amazingly rare. It was wonderful. yup, pretty well pleased with that! Doc stitched me up while they took Ella to weigh her and measure her. We found out that she had a short, thick umbilical cord. The afterbirth wasn't exciting, but it came out well and they fixed me all up and returned our daughter to my arms. I was so in love and still am. Within an hour after her birth Grandma and Grandpa Winston and Aunt Kira and Aunt Caity came to meet our little girl. My mom, Pam also came to meet her and then we got to see her given her first bath. It amazed me that they actually put her completely submersed in the water. She is just beautiful!

Ella's stats: 

Ella JoAnn Winston born June 9, 2008 at 9:47 pm. Weight 8 lbs. 3 oz., 19 inches long, 14 inches circumference head. She was born slightly hypoglycemic so they made me supplement with sugar water mixed with formula. Her blood sugar wasn't going up so they gave her a bottle of formula. This seemed to work a little better because her sugar got better. She then had lost 8% of her birth weight by day 1 (7.8 lbs) so they made me keep supplementing her. They took forever to discharge us on Wednesday June 11 because they weren't sure if they were going to keep her longer due to her loss of weight. They made us promise to bring her in the next day to have her weight checked. So we did. well, we tried. they couldn't get us in so they scheduled us for the next day. (must have really been important to get her weighed.) we than had to get her weight checked again because they were still worried. $10 stink'n dollars for a weight check! can't complain too much because overall our insurance is really good! I will add more about our trip home and other details on our hospital stay tomorrow. I am tired and need to get a nap after the night we had last night...More to come.

Week 38 continued...

Car seat disaster is hopefully fixed, now. We decided to buy a convertible car seat (one that will grow with her and is a permanent addition to the back seat of our car). We chose the safest car seat on the market, the Britax Roundabout. What's nice about this seat is that it is smaller so it is good for use in cars with limited room in the backseat. Fortunately, it fit perfectly in our car and matches just as well! Jared and I were out in the backseat last night around 10 working on installing this seat, how exciting! The only downfall is that it is quite the expense all at once, but we would have had to spend that money in 6 months anyways so what's a few months early. Jared went to Target today to buy a, matching, head support for the seat so that her sweet little head does not flop around when her daddy is driving :) He did a great job. were there any doubts? We are going to set the swing up tonight and finish cleaning the apartment tomorrow. cleaning, something to ALWAYS look forward to. I also will pack the hospital bag with actual clothes as opposed to just candy :) I am so excited! She will be coming in less that 2 days! What a miracle!

Week 38

We just had our last doctor's appointment before our little one will be induced into this world. I really haven't progressed much more than last week except that I am about 90% effaced and at a solid 2 cm dilated. kind of disappointing that there wasn't any change. all is good though because Baby ______, ...thought I was going to give the name away? will be coming out whether she wants to or not this Monday, or Tuesday at the latest. I was grateful for my doctor today because I am very nervous about having a baby. I am not so much nervous for the contractions, although I have thought about them a bit lately. I am more nervous for the actual pushing the baby out. I know that I can have an epidural, so I am not so worried about that, but I really want to try to do this naturally. Doc said that she was going to come and break my water before she went over to the clinic on Monday morning. I am not sure if they are going to start Pitocen first or if they are just going to get me prepared and wait for the doctor. The only thing that nerves me out about that is that there is no turning back once the water has been broken. She is coming within 24 hrs regardless of what happens. Dr. answered a lot of my questions and I feel a little better, I think I am just scared of the unknown. I am scared of not being able to do it on my own, I am scared of complications, I am scared of tearing. I just worry about everything and hope that when the time comes I will be able to put my mind to the process and allow my body to do what it is supposed to do. i'll be there to help.

Jared and I decided to put the car seat in the car today. Wow, I never thought that installing a baby seat would be such a huge PAIN IN THE REAR! i got the first taste of it when i packed stuff away after the baby shower we had. We thought that there would be no problem because we have a new car with the LATCH system and everything. Yeah it has the LATCH system but to install the seat properly the passenger pretty much has to sit on the dash board. We aren't quite sure what we are going to do yet. We are going to try it how it is (passenger side, installed with LATCH system, passenger seat pushed way forward) but if that doesn't seem like it works too well, we will just be rid of the base and use the seatbelt. I am cautious on this for the sake of ease and safety, but I have read that it is just as safe as the LATCH system. I guess we will see.

As for Monday, Jared is going to give me a blessing. I asked him to. So that I can go in there with an open mind and utmost confidence and have a healthy baby. It's funny to think that in a couple of weeks, I will have forgotten all of these worries and be so in love with my child that I will want to go through this entire process all over again! :) and again...