Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Phase 2: Adulthood has definitely begun

Well, she came. Early. After a few days last week of "decreased fetal movement" and "fetal d-cells" (which means her heartrate would drop) we found out that she would be joining us on Friday morning. I went to the doc's office to sit on a fetal heart rate monitor for an hour, at the end of the hour the doctor asked me "let's have a baby today, huh?" I immediately went into a dream state and for some reason obsessed about the fact that the baby would be born before I had a chance to clean the window sills in the house. I called Ryan and said "your baby's birthday is going to be April 25th." Needless to say, it took him a few minutes to grasp what was going on. We made all the necessary phone calls, Ryan went home and grabbed our hospital bags (which I literally packed the night before based on my intuition that the baby would be coming sooner than later), immediate family arrived, and by 1:10pm we had a healthy baby girl via c-section.
Maizey Louise (or Maizey Lou as we call her) came into the world weighing 5lbs 3oz and was 18.75in long. The cause of all the decreased movement and heartrate was the umbilical cord, which was wrapped tightly around her neck 3 times!!! Ryan and I fell in love with her immediately and now understand what it means to have your heart live outside your body in the form of a teeny tiny little girl.

We got home from the hospital on Monday afternoon and are adjusting to life with a baby with ease. She is nursing really well and slowly putting on the weight she lost in the first few days of life. Last night she only woke up once, and that is because I woke her up to nurse--so we feel really lucky to be sleeping so well. We pretty much feel like we won the baby lottery.

Life has definitely changed. I log poops and pees--I mean I log them on a chart and everything. I say things to Ryan like "can you rinse my nipple shield" and get excited about any amount of breast milk over 4oz, and we were ecstatic to hear that Janie and Jack sell preemie clothes. We went for our first walk as a family today and are enjoying all of these firsts. We're having so much fun that we already can't wait to do it again. I miss being pregnant already, and I never really loved it to begin with.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll post a bunch here. Because Maizey Lou is so cute I can't choose just a few, so here are a lot.

Maizey's life in pictures...
Waiting for her to arrive via c-section--excited and scared

5lbs and 3oz

Napping together, maybe the most amazing feelings in the world...

Maizey showing that you can be funny at 2 days old, this is her practicing karate

First family photo

Maizey's favorite toy--the mirrorMy familyShe loves to stretchMaizey in her bed. I get to wake up to this.My favorite picture of Maizey. She's wearing her first preemie outfit from auntie Georgia.Getting ready for her first walk.With Grandpa and Uncle Brion.She loves nothing more than being nude. It's playtime.Here we are doing kangaroo care and blogging. We're so hip.

4 comments:

Jessica Zevely said...

She's amazing! I'm SO happy for you guys.
Love, Auntie Jess

Erika said...

I CAN'T WAIT. Is it okay to spoil my Maizey rotten?

Georgia said...

Im so in LOVE!! She is too perfect!!

Beth Zarling said...

I hope my girl is as perfect and sleeps as well!