Emilia's Birth Story

As promised, I wanted to share the birth story of my little Emilia...

It was exactly 1 week before my due date when the hubby and I were woken up by Evie at the lovely hour of 4:30am.  We were all dealing with colds and she could not seem to get a good night's sleep.  As my husband went to go check on her, I laid in bed and tried to go back to sleep but felt some pressure in my lower abdomen.  I assumed it was just the baby pushing down on my bladder, so I got up and went to the washroom.  While in the washroom, I looked down to see it....my bloody show.  Oh boy.  Was that a contraction and not just a need to pee??  I went back to bed just as the hubby came back from getting Evie to go back to sleep.  I whispered to him..."I think I might be going into labor!  Maybe you shouldn't go to work today."  To which he replied, "Are you sure?  Maybe just get some rest.  I'm going to go shower and maybe we can see how you feel in a bit."  10 minutes later, I felt the "pressure" again...and then 10 minutes later again.  That is when I knew things were starting.  I took a deep breath and thought OK, this is happening!  

With Evie, I did start having some contractions, but they were mild and I was scheduled for an induction that day anyways, so I didn't really have the experience of a surprise labor.  This was all new territory for me!  I told the hubby that I was sure I was having contractions and that we probably should drop off Evie at my parent's house and call my doctor's office.  With that, we started getting our things together.

I called my parents to let them know we were on our way.  The entire drive over, I was timing my contractions and they eventually went from every 10 minutes, to every 7-8 minutes.  I still figured we had plenty of time before I would need to go to the hospital.  We got to my parent's house around 8am.  At 8:30, I called my doctor's office.  I was due to have my 39 week appointment later that day and asked if I could be seen earlier since I was having early signs of labor.  They agreed to see me within the hour.  

We arrived at the doctor's office and upon an examination, I was told I was about 4-5 cm dialated and that my cervix was soft and nicely effaced.  With that news, the doctor thought I should probably just head straight for labor and delivery.  It was very convenient since my ob-gyn's office is connected with the hospital.  So, we basically just got our bags from the car and headed to get the show on the road!

I think we checked in at the hospital around 11am.  Into the lovely hospital gown I went!

  

My contractions were getting a bit more intense so the nurse called in for my epidural around 1pm.  The epidural was just like I remembered from the first time...really uncomfortable.  But, I can't imagine not getting it!  Labor contractions are brutal...I have all the respect in the world for those mamas that have natural births!  I don't know if I could do it.  I tried to get some rest in after the epidural, since my pain was down significantly.

A few hours later, they broke my water.  Soon after that, the resident doctor checked me and we learned that the baby was in a posterior position or "sunny side up."  They wanted to wait a bit to see if the baby would turn on its own.  We waited a while and the next time I was checked the doctor said I was ready to push!  They called my doctor and I did one push and the nurse told me to stop!  The baby's head was already coming out and my doctor had not arrived!!  The nurse made a call to get the house doctor into my room as soon as possible because the baby was ready to come out any minute!  Just as I was about to push, my doctor rushed in and all it took was one push and baby Emilia was born!!  It was really the fastest labor I could have ever imagined!  With Evie I was pushing for 2 hours, so this was a whole new ballgame for me!

At 5:37pm, Emilia came into this world.  She was 8 lbs. 3 oz. and 20 inches long.  She was perfect. My hubby cut the umbilical cord and my doctor placed her directly on my chest for immediate skin-to-skin.  I was instantly in love and cried in happiness.  I now had 2 beautiful little girls in my life.  I felt truly blessed.  

     

I'm back! Annnnd I'd like to introduce..... :)

Oh my...I can't believe it's been almost an entire month since I've blogged!!  Crazy!  To my defense, the last month has been such a whirlwind that I've barely had time to shower nonetheless blog!  My Ob-gyn kept telling me that baby girl #2 was measuring a bit big and that she anticipated that she would arrive sooner than my Oct. 15th due date.  With that in mind, I was trying to wrap things up at work in lightening speed, provide training to the ladies taking over for me while I would be gone, and generally preparing everything at home for the new addition.  As predicted, our beautiful baby girl decided to grace us with her presence early.  Exactly 1 week early to be exact.  On Wednesday last week we welcomed our new little princess!

I'm excited to introduce our new bundle....Emilia "Emi" :)

We are so in love with this little angel.

Her new big sister seems to be quite attached to her already as well.  It warms my heart to see these 2 little girls embracing and I can't wait for them to grow up together. :)

I hope to get back to blogging more regularly now that all the chaos has passed and now that I will be home for the next 8 weeks. :)  Looking forward to sharing my birth story and more with you all in the next post! :)

It's been a year!

One year ago I set up a blog for myself on an impulse.  At that time I had been following several blogs for a while and thought I'd try writing my own!  Never did I think I would keep at it for this long!!  As a full-time working mom, it's definitely been challenging to find time to update my blog, but I'm super happy that I have kept at it!  While I might not be the best blogger out there, I have really enjoyed sharing a little piece of my world with all of you.  I have virtually met some wonderful bloggers along the way and have really appreciated all the kind words and comments that many of you have left.  I really have a great sense of respect for all the moms out there who obviously do so much for their children and it's heart-warming to see the amount of love pouring out from many of you.  I always wanted this blog to serve as a sort of online journal of my experiences as a mom, wife, friend, etc.  I hope to look back at it one day and remember all the wonderful memories that have been created.  Now that I am expecting baby #2 in just under a month, I am looking forward to continuing to share my experiences and hopefully continue to grow my blog and connect and meet more of you!!  

Thank you to everyone who has been following along and I look forward to the next year of blogging!!! 

Click here to see my very first post! :)

Nursery Inspirations!

Happy Friday everyone! Even though this was a short week due to Labor Day, it seemed that Friday would never get here. But here we are! This weekend, we are planning on doing some major work on the nursery and transforming Evie's room into a big girl room! We have bought Evie a full size mattress and will be converting her crib this weekend. Hopefully she does well with the transition! I will be sure to share some pictures of her big girl room once we make all the changes! In the meantime, I wanted to share an inspiration board I made a while back for the nursery! I am VERY excited to start putting it all together!  We are a bit behind on everything since my due date is in just 5 weeks, but I know we will manage to get everything in place before baby girl #2 arrives!  I am going for a baby pink/aqua/gold theme.  I LOVE the Melissa and Doug giant giraffes and knew I wanted to include that as a main focal piece in the nursery too.  Hopefully it all comes together! :)

Why Hello September!

Happy September everyone!  I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing Labor Day weekend.  It's crazy to realize that we are at the unofficial end of summer and that it is almost time to say goodbye to this season.  As much as I love fall, I always seem to get a little sad when the summer months come to a close.  I have to say, changing seasons are one of my favorite things about living in Chicago. Hopefully I am not disappointed and we get a lovely fall this year!  But before I totally switch gears to fall, we wanted to get in some last bit of summer goodness this weekend.  It was the last day the local pools were open and I had not yet taken Evie to a splash pad/pool so this was our last chance!  She had a BLAST!  Our good friends Anna and Ralph joined with their 2 little ones as well so Evie was in great company!  We kept going back and forth between the splash pad area and the pool.  Evie was a little hesitant of the splash pad at first but after a while, she was running around and screaming in delight. :)  I really wish we would have taken her a few more times this summer.  But, there are always indoor places, right? ;)  

Here are a few pictures from our outing at the pool this weekend.  We spent the rest of the weekend cleaning out our office to make room for baby #2's nursery and doing some shopping!  Among our big purchases this weekend were a big girl mattress for Evie and a new crib and dresser for baby girl #2!  I'm super excited for everything to arrive and to start converting the rooms for our girls! ;)  Stay tuned for more updates!  

 

32 weeks!

So we are getting closer and closer to meeting our new little girl!  This pregnancy seems to have flown by so far!  I'm sure being crazy busy with a 2 year old has something to do with that though! ;)  And I'm sure the next 8 weeks will probably drag on for an eternity...the last weeks always do.  I've wanted to do weekly bumpdates on my blog, but that just didn't happen.  I tried to keep up as best I could though.  I'm looking forward to coming back to this blog and re-reading these updates in the future!  With that, my 32 week ultrasound is below, along with a picture of the growing bump, and some details on pregnancy this week.  Hope everyone is having a wonderful week!

HERE SHE IS!  Baby girl #2 :)

Feeling large lately ;)

How Far Along: 32 weeks

Size of Baby:  Looks like I am measuring 2 weeks ahead - at 34 weeks!  According to the doc, baby girl is already weighing in at 5lbs...in the 78th percentile!  I am really hoping she does not end up being 10 lbs when I go into labor!  Eek!

Gender: Our recent ultrasound once again confirmed it's definitely a little girl ;)

Weight Gain: Around 15 lbs.

Symptoms:  I'm so lucky to not have very much heartburn or anything up to this point.  Overall I am feeling good.  I've had some Braxton Hicks contractions and some leg cramping at night, but otherwise, all is well!

Food Cravings/Aversions: Dunkin Donuts. Mmmm. haha.

Movement:  Oh yes...baby girl loves is super active and is constantly making her presence in my tummy known.  She definitely won't let me forget she is there. :)

Sleep:  I was never a big fan of the big body pillows, but have started incorporating other small pillows to prop myself up in certain places to make sleep a little more comfortable.

Maternity Clothes: Yes.  I bought a few new pieces recently that are super comfortable.  Being pregnant during the summer is great because you can wear plenty of comfy/flowy dresses and skirts.  I'm very lucky this summer has not been too brutally hot either!!

What I Miss: I really miss sleeping through the night without having to get up and pee.  I also miss being able to climb stairs without getting totally exhausted.

Best Moment this week:  My 32 week ultrasound and getting to see my little baby girl in 3D!  It's still hard to tell, but I think we have Evie's little twin brewing inside me! 

Looking Forward To:  Nursery planning and starting to go through all of Evie's baby clothes in prep for baby girl #2!

Scenes from our weekend

Happy Tuesday everyone! Sorry for the week long break from my blog. Seems like life has been in full speed lately and unfortunately that usually means my blog takes a back seat! 

This weekend was another eventful one...filled with good and bad.  Let's start with the good.  On Saturday, the hubby and I had a "date" at the Chicago Air & Water show, held downtown.  The weather was great, we got to dip our toes in the lake, and overall had a nice time being outside!

On Sunday we had a birthday party scheduled for Evie's older cousins.  When she woke up on Sunday morning I noticed Evie seemed a bit warm to me, but I just thought maybe it was a little too warm in her room overnight.  On our drive over to the cousin's house, she fell asleep.  Upon arrival, my poor princess woke up and the minute I took her out of her car seat, she started shivering and proceeded to vomit all over herself and the car.  Not fun.  I felt really bad for her.  At this point, I could feel the heat radiating off her skin and knew we had a fever on our hands.  I took her inside the party to clean her up and give her some medication.  We decided to take it easy and hang out on the couch for a bit to see how Evie started to feel.  Lo and behold, 30 minutes later, my little lady was ready to play.  I was hesitant to let her stay, but she seemed like a brand new girl, so we stuck around for a bit.  She was all smiles to get to play with her cousin Declan (who is photobombing the picture below...haha) and to get to collect candy from the pinata outside.  By late afternoon, her forehead started warming up again and I knew it was time to go. 

Monday morning, Evie was still running a fever so I decided to stay home from work with her.  As the morning rolled on, her fever seemed to subside a bit, so we took a little walk to Starbucks for some fresh air.  My little lady loves Starbucks and was treated to some milk and cookies from mama. :)

Later that afternoon she took a 3 hour nap!  One for the record books for us, as she usually only naps for 1-1.5 hours at a time.  It seemed to help because today she seems to be back to her normal self.  Fingers crossed that the virus is wearing off.  I knew that once we started daycare that she would be getting some illnesses...so here we are!