The Many Faces of Sophie..

Sleepy

Hungry

Happy

Really happy

Really really happy

Not so happy :(

Serious

I'm not sure what this one is, but it's still cute :)

Week One

Where do I begin? Our first week with Sophie was quite the whirlwind. For one thing, we noticed this...

She has webbed toes! How weird! They kinda creeped me out at first, but now I'm used to them :)

Mommy enjoyed the stay at the hospital because Sophie was in the nursery during the night -they just brought her in when she needed feeding.

But, it was eventually time to go home, which meant we were on our own to take care of her. Let's just say, our first night home with her, I don't think she slept at all. At all.

The day after we brought her home, she started living in this:

She had jaundice and had to be under bili lights. Because the lights can be harmful to her eyes, she needed constant supervision in case she pulled her mask off.

For 3 nights Jonny and I took shifts sleeping so one of us was up with her at all times. Thank goodness her levels are now back to normal!

The bad thing about the lights was that they made her very sleepy, which made it very hard to feed her. She couldn't stay awake long enough to eat! But that is no problem now. If there were an olympics for breastfeeding, Sophie would take the gold. They told me to feed her for about 15-20 minutes in order to empty me. She can drain me in 5 minutes flat! I was worried at first that she wasn't getting enough but as of Monday, she had already gained back 4 oz and my Dr. said she must be eating like a champ :)

Little Sophie also had problems going to the bathroom. After 2 days of being plugged up, we had to use a suppository (I made Jonny do it). It was gross :( Thank goodness, it did the trick and she goes just fine now.

So now that she's eating and pooping just fine, that just leaves...

sleeping.

She sleeps just great during the day. A little too great. We can't seem to get her on the whole "awake during the day, asleep at night" thing. Any suggestions on how to do this are more than welcome :)

On top of a few eating/sleeping/pooping issues with Sophie, I got mastitis. It hurt worse than giving birth (not an exaggeration - it really did). Luckily, that is cleared up now as well.

So life with Sophie started off with a few little hiccups. They really weren't bad at all - nothing serious. But anything dealing with your baby seems like the end of the world when you are riding on birthing hormones (they finally seem to be going back to normal, but it was pretty bad.) So it of course made everything seem a lot worse than it was.

Now, however, if we could just solve this sleeping problem, I think life would be perfect. I'm not sure how much longer I can go with getting 2 hours of sleep a night.. It's a good thing my little bean is sooo worth it! I mean, just Look at her!

Yep. Totally worth it.

PS- Today is her due date and she's already 10 days old!

Sophie's Birth Story

I decided I better go ahead and write about the birth before I forget too much about it, so here it goes (prepare yourselves, this is long!):

On Monday morning (Valentine's day) we went in for my 38 week appointment. I told my doctor I was a little concerned that I was leaking, but not much, so I didn't know if my water had broken or not. He checked me out and did the test and my water was not broken. But, he had me have an ultrasound to see how much amniotic fluid I had and it was pretty low. One of the nurses said "well, looks like you might have this baby sooner than you think!" I remember trying hard not to get my hopes up though, because the tech didn't seem concerned at all about the low levels.

So when Dr. Harward came in and said "Well, there's no reason to keep you pregnant so why don't you come back tonight and we'll do an induction" I was pretty shocked! Jonny and I just stared at him for a second and said "uh.... ok?" We went over to Orem Community Hospital (which is connected to my Dr's office) and I got a non-stress test done. By the time we finished it was after noon and our time was running out. We ran some last minute errands and tried to get things cleaned and ready the best we could. We also tried to sleep, but I only managed about a 1/2 hour.

We got to the hospital at midnight and they started me on pitocin. They put me on the lowest dose because I was already dilated to a 3 and having steady contractions (and they didn't want things to happen too quickly because I needed time for my antibiotics to kick in- I was group B strep positive). Everyone was really surprised when they hooked me up and saw my contractions. They said "are you SURE you don't feel anything? Most women would be in a lot of pain by now!" I had no idea I was even having contractions though!

After an hour or so I started to feel the contractions and got my epidural around 2:30 am. It was wonderful :) As my contractions got stronger and stronger though, Sophie's heart rate would drop with each one. This was because she had the cord wrapped around her neck. They had to lower the pitocin (which they had been raising up to this point) and I was put on oxygen. This fixed the heart rate problem but prevented me from dilating any more.

Jonny tried to put my hair in a ponytail. It didn't look the best, but it worked :)

After who knows how many hours, I was still only a 3. Yuck. This is when they told me I would most likely have a C-section. Double yuck. They decided to slowly raise the pitocin and found a good level that got my contractions strong enough but without affecting her heart beat too much. I finally got dilated to a 10, but this was only 1/2 the battle. I now had to push her out..

Jonny, anxiously waiting..

They said I would still most likely have a C-section, but we would go ahead and try to push just to see. We were very happy to see her little heart fighting and staying strong. After 16 hours of labor (and about 30 minutes of pushing), little Sophie Lynn Katseanes made her entrance into this world.

She had quite the conehead!

She weighed 7 lbs 12 oz, so I'm pretty glad she got to come early, who knows how much she would've weighed by the time Feb 25th came around! She was 20 inches long, but has probably lost at least an inch now that her head is much less cone-shaped :)

We are now adjusting to life as a family of 3. It's exhausting, but so much fun.

We love you, Sophie! :)

After all of the...

nausea,

heart burn,

restlessness,

headaches,

fatigue,

swelling,

stretch marks,

sleepless nights,

hormonal breakdowns,

charlie horses,

vomiting,

discomfort,

back pain,

drooling (yes, drooling..)

shortness of breath,

cramps,

dizzy spells,

and of course, waiting...

she's here.

My baby is finally here.

And she is absolutely perfect.

38 Weeks!

Car seat/stroller travel system...........check

Pack n play................check

Diaper bag..............check

Baby clothes..............check

Bottles/burp cloths/binkies..............check

Nursing cover/boppy..............check

Blankets/bedding..............check

Baby bathtub and toiletries..............check

Swing..............check

Bouncer..............check

Stockpile of diapers/wipes..............check

Baby..............Working on it

I think we are completely ready for baby's arrival, which is exciting! I want to do a quick shout out to everyone who has helped out along the way. Babies require a lot of stuff (see above) and we were lucky enough to barely have to buy any of it. Between the baby shower and the generosity of family and friends, we were able to get the last things we needed with gift cards we had recieved. We feel so blessed. So thank you to everyone who has helped us out in one way or another, we appreciate it!

I am officially full term, which means my little one could come any time now! I am not counting on that though.. My Dr. said he'd schedule an induction less than a week after my due date, so I'm just going to plan on that and if she comes on her own, then great! I don't want to drive myself crazy thinking she could come early :)

So for now, I'll just keep waddling around, playing the waiting game...

yes, I really am that big :)