Sunday, April 24, 2011

week1.

here's what's happened week 1. grab your coke and popcorn, its action packed. :) and don't worry, i wont do this every week. just her first week here with us.

april 16, saturday:
finley decided she'd like april 16 to be her birthday. LOTS of family and some friends came in to meet our sweet finley. i heard they took up the entire waiting room and even had a pizza party. we stayed in the hospital that night and got a little bit of sleep. tough to do when nurses are checking me and her throughout the night.



april 17, sunday:
had some visitors over. ummm...pretty chill day. sunday night we took advantage of the nursery to get some sleep. fin would eat and then go sleep in the nursery. then she came back 3 hrs later to eat and then back to the nursery. then we kept her. it was a good decision, we felt much better monday after getting some sleep.



april 18, monday:
we got to come home!! filled out some paperwork, fin got her hearing checked (passed!), pediatrician checked her one more time and we got discharged. of course we were walking out the door when fin decided it was time to eat again. she didn't mind the car ride (slept the whole way) and that afternoon we just took it easy. everyone went back to austin, except mom who's helping us for a few days. monday night was pretty tiring. she decided she'd like to snack every hour. it wasn't TERRIBLE b/c she'd wake up, snack and fall right back to sleep. i just had to get up every hour.


april 19-22, tues.- fri.:
i'll combine these days b/c luckily we pretty much do the same thing everyday. the nights have been going really well now (knock on wood). she eats about every 3 hrs so that means she goes down to bed around 11 in her pack and play napper (best. thing. ever.), wakes up 3 hrs later to eat (around 2 or 3), sleeps another 3 hours or so, wakes up to eat (around 6) and sleeps some more. i know this can change any second, but for now it's awesome. normally at night brandon will change her and bring her to me and i do the feeding. works for now!

during the day she's been more and more alert. she just likes to look around and check things out. she wants to start lifting her head and she's pretty strong already. she LOVES to be snuggled and swaddled. i know most babies love this, but i think she especially does b/c she was so tight in me. :) we put her in the swing for the first time and she liked it once it got moving.














so all in all we're having a great time. went to the doctor yesterday and i quote "she's perfect." now THAT'S what you want to hear. she weighed 7 lb 1 oz which is great. babies lose weight during their first week of life and then should be back to their birth weight by 2 weeks. she's already just about there (7 lb 3 oz). that made me feel better b/c with nursing you really don't know how much she's eating. we'll go back in 2 weeks for another check up!

Friday, April 22, 2011

miracle.

this whole pregnancy thing is quite the miracle if you really think about it. now seeing finley in person it's crazy to think that my body just did that. not even the delivery part, but the making of her. i've been a little paranoid since the beginning about everything going well since i've never done this before. it's a relief now that she's here. and i can't believe my stomach got that big. lets take a look throughout my pregnancy. *normally i wouldn't show bare pictures of my stomach, however you really get the idea this way. and there are only a few so don't worry. :)

5 weeks
37 weeks

7 weeks

23 weeks

28 weeks

32 weeks

35 weeks

37 weeks

done and done. it's a good thing they warn you that you'll still look 4-5 months pregnant after giving birth. it's a start. :)

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

BIRTHDAY!

she's heeeeeeeeeere!!!!

if you're reading this i know you already know, however, it's just a little exciting. i'm going to try to keep up with the blog as best as possible so i can look back at it. everyone says it goes so fast and i already see that. sat. - tues. has flown by. but lets start back at sat. no, friday.


friday i went to work as usual and planned out everything for next week just in case. i thought if i end up being at work at least it'll be fairly easy b/c i've put everything together for the whole week. i was wrapping things up after school (trying not to stay too late) and talked to a few people. several people said i was definitely not going to make it to work the following monday. i was hopeful (to NOT be at work, not the other way around), but really thought i'd make it through the weekend. tamara even gave me a hug before she left she was so sure i wasn't coming back. and call it kids' intuition, but the kids were way clingier when they were leaving then normal. they were hugging on me, writing me notes, hugging and kissing on finley (my stomach of course) and saying "bye finley!! we love you finley!!" which they've never done before. at home brandon and i were super busy, like we had a feeling too. we got tons done around the house and i really wanted to make chocolate chip cookies so we ran some errands and made cookie at about 9:00 pm.

saturday morning i woke up at about 6:15 with a major cramp. a feeling i'd never had before, but once again didn't think i would be having a baby on saturday. they kept coming about every 15-20 minutes so i wake brandon up and say "i think you should put the car seat in and get your bag together." his eyes popped open and just as quickly shut as he slept for another hour or so. meanwhile, i got up and started walking around to see if that would stop them or what. had a little breakfast, paced some more and then finally REALLY woke brandon up.

i called mom to see what she thought was going on and called my doctor. mom really thought this could be it and even though i told her not to jump in the car and come, she did. turns out its a good thing. pretty soon after mike and mom got here, mom convinced me to head to the hospital-- around 2:30. my contractions were coming about 5 minutes apart and a bit more painful.

on the way out the door to the hospital. you can't see my kung fu grip on brandon's back, but it's there. this is mid contraction.


checked in to the hospital  and sge asked if i was there for a tour. i told them i THINK i'm in labor and after she examined me she said i was 5 cm and having a baby today!!! that was actually more shocking than if she had sent me home. i really just thought it was false labor or something. i guess i thought contractions would be more painful. not that they didn't hurt. they did. i definitely had to stop what i was doing and breathe. but on tv and movies people are like ripping their hair out and screaming at the top of their lungs. granted, i did get an epidural so i'm sure it was about to get a lot worse. lucky for me, everything went quick and smooth.



cut to the chase i progressed well, got my feared epidural, and started pushing around 6:45. at 7:15 our beautifully perfect daughter came screaming. i of course started crying and couldn't believe she came out of me. still can't. our few days in the hospital were smooth and being home has been good too. i'll do another riveting blog entry about life at home.

mark your calendars, april 16 is finley's birthday!!!!!!!!!!!

ta-da!!!! my delivery nurse was just as excited as we were. and she was glad she was there for the actual birth, since her shift was over at 7. she didn't want to see me through 99% of it and miss the best part!

Thursday, April 14, 2011

bittersweet.

today i told my kiddos that after i have finley i wont be returning to work. ever. they took it pretty well and i told them while my sub was in there so they could put a face with a name. i just don't want them to be worried about anything. and i didn't want them to think i abandoned them. it's weird that i only have 5 more days of teaching. i love teaching. i complain, yes, but i couldn't imagine doing anything else---except raising my finley. this has been my best year of teaching by far. i have the sweetest kids who are constantly asking how finley is doing and helping me as much as possible. this is exactly what i needed this year. i'm really glad i'm going out on a good note. maybe it'll make me want to return to teaching years from now. don't get me wrong, i can't wait to be a stay at home mom. i can't believe we're lucky enough to be able to do this. it'll just be different. and kinda perfect timing with all the budget cuts. my job would have been safe, but with me leaving someone else gets to stay. so here are some funny things i have heard from kids just this week alone.

kid: "do you take showers?"
me: "of  course"
"like, with your baby?"
"of course. she's with me all the time."
"does she get heavy in there?"
now i'm confused b/c how is that different then right now?
"well, it's just like me standing here with you right now."

saw a boy that i had last year. after giving me a hug he points and laughs at me and says:
"HAHA...you're fat!!"

i guess the dress i wore yesterday made me look uber-pregnant.
girl: "i didn't know you were REALLY pregnant!"

when a boy came in my classroom he gasped and said:
"mrs. hawkins, you look beautiful! i bet finley is going to be beautiful like you."

and this is why it's bittersweet to be leaving. i'm sure i'll have some pretty good finley stories too. :)

Sunday, April 10, 2011

casserole.

after typing that word it sounds kinda gross. anyways, mom and i spent yesterday afternoon making casseroles to freeze for after finley comes....which could be any day now or 2 weeks from now. nanny sent us salisbury steak and spaghetti sauce to keep in the freezer too. mom and i made mexican lasagna, fancy mac and cheese, hamburger casserole, and chicken and rice. we love casseroles and we love leftovers so these will be incredibly handy to have once everyone leaves us and we want to just throw something in the oven. Brandon said he is now ready for fin to come b/c he wants to eat the mac and cheese already.

I guess this is why people say it looks like i swallowed a basketball.


we also hit up the garage sale in the neighborhood across from us. it's quite a nice neighborhood and we got some good stuff. like baby clothes for $.50. cute clothes too. this one house had their garage set up like a store. it was crazy. like lamps on, nice tables set up, it smelled good, selling cookies and water. They really know how to do a garage sale. we were going to grab the lamps, but someone beat us to it. oh well. we got some cute wooden letter things for fin.

so another successful weekend that will capped off with a mani and pedi with mom later.

Monday, April 4, 2011

pool.

alright, we're close enough to her due date to start taking guesses as to when she's going to make her appearance! if we go by her due date we only have 19 days left!!

so....when do you think she'll grace us with her presence??

and i go back to the doctor tomorrow afternoon so i'm making my guess before we go and get anymore information. i'll share my guess after you make yours. that way i don't influence you. :)

and winner gets.....i don't know. something free.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

full.term.

My girlfriend at church who was due the same day as me had a c-section on Friday. We went to visit them in the hospital yesterday and THAT was a reality check. Hailey was born 36 weeks and 6 days and is doing great. 2 things crossed our mind. 1. That's inside me 2. She could come out any time now! i think i was more freaked out that finley is probably about the size of hailey.





it was also nice to visit b/c she's at the same hospital we'll be at. bridget and i have quite a bit in common like getting married at st. mary's a week apart, same due date, same doctor's office, same pediatrician. it's bizarre. her and her husband went to A&M and are both engineers. she works across the street from brandon. anyways, we got to hear first hand how methodist is and she loves it. since it's so new (first baby born there was valentine's day) there aren't very many people there. in fact there was only one other baby there yesterday. it's a beautiful hospital with big rooms and the best thing is that immediately after finley is born she stays in the room with us. like for her bath and everything--unless they NEED to take her to the nursery. they'll of course also take her to the nursery any time we want them to if we'd like some rest. everyone says to take them up on that and not feel guilty about it b/c once we go home...it's all. us. :)

And a huge sigh of relief now b/c fin is considered full term. We made it!