How Brooke arrived

With today being Brooke's due date, it seems appropriate to do a post talking about her arrival!

Jen woke about 7:30 am on May 21st and discovered that her water had started to break. So, after conveniently dropping Paige off at daycare, we headed in to her O.B. office at 9am. It took only a few minutes for them to confirm that her water was breaking and was 6cm dilated, at which point they whisked us off to the hospital!

Because she was having her second child and was relatively far progressed already, Jen's doctor recommended that she have an epidural right away if she wanted one--and she did! So, after getting a half-bag of fluids, the epidural was installed...and then we waited. It took a while for the contractions to build, but she made steady progress--6 cm when admitted to 7 cm to 9 cm, and finally to fully dilated at about 4:30 pm.

In the meantime, we were waiting for Jen's parents to arrive from Pittsburgh. They were to pick up Paige at daycare and then head up to the hospital for a pre-delivery visit. As it happened, they got a bit lost on the way, and the result was that they arrived at the hospital at almost exactly the same time that Jen started pushing. Fortunately, it didn't take very long. After only about 15 minutes of pushing, at 5:03 pm, Brooke was here! She weighed a very healthy 8 pounds, 8 ounces and was 18 3/4 inches long with a full head of hair that explains all the heartburn Jen had during pregnancy.

The delivery went about as smoothly as they come, and both Jen and Brooke are doing very well. Today was Brooke's first doctor appointment since her release from the hospital on Saturday, and she got a stamp of approval. She hasn't gained weight since her release, but she hasn't lost any either. The doctor is putting her on some vitamins, but she wasn't concerned at all about her jaundice--a major problem that we had to work through with Paige. We'll watch it and her weight, but at this point there are no major controls! Jen is a tad anemic too, which caused her to faint the first night, but hopefully an iron supplement will take care of that!

All in all, we're thrilled with how things have gone. So far, Brooke has been a very good--and a very cute--baby. And Big Sister Paige has been super excited, and super helpful. Having the grandparents (two sets!) in town has been extremely helpful, as Paige is getting a ton of attention while her parents are resting and getting to know our new little one!

Brooke birth pictures

Brooke

Click the picture above to see gallery.

Brooke looking out the window

Daddy, it's bright out there!

Brooke Allison

8 lbs 8 oz, all gorgeous!

Ready for the baby!

Jen, pre-labor.

Baby is coming!

This morning Jen started to feel her water break. We went to the doctor, and found out she was 6cm--and while checking, the water really started to break! So, as I "type" this, she's at 7cm and comtracting steadily. We'll post more updates as news comes!

Also, the site may start forwarding you to a new domain soon: pbjmerry.com

That's a hint. :)

Swim lessons

Well, it looks like Paige doesn't have to share her birthday after all! Which is a really good thing because if we even mentioned another holiday or someone else's birthday yesterday in conversation, Paige would shout out "It's MY Birthday today". Justin had gotten a baseball magazine in the mail and I told him it was an early Father's day gift. Paige quickly interjected with "It's not Father's day today, IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!"

At this point I think I'd be very happy to just hang in there for another week until my induction date. It's easier to plan for and we'll know we have someone ready to watch Paige as well. I'm not a big fan of surprises.

Yesterday was Paige's first swim lesson at St. Francis. She hasn't been in a pool since last summer, so we knew she'd probably have a tough time with it. And she did. She was pretty afraid of the water. Daddy went in with her and I just sat on the side with my feet in. Swimming probably would be good for me right now, but my stomach was feeling upset yesterday so I didn't want to go in. She didn't cry all that much, just protested a little throughout the lesson that she didn't want to do anything. So for the most part she just kept her arms around daddy's neck for half an hour during the lesson. Her next lesson is this Thursday afternoon, hopefully she'll be able to make it. I'll try to post some pictures later this afternoon.

She was starting to get nervous right after she got her suit on:
Here she just sat for a few moments staring at the pool. Probably wondering what the heck was going to happen next.

It's a big class. 11 total students. Here they are playing motorboat, motorboat:Finally Paige is getting a little more relaxed and at least took her hands off from around daddy's neck to hold a toy.
After the lesson was over she was able to put her pretty dress back on and look at the pretty tulips. She's such a girly girl!

Happy Birthday Paige!

We had a low-key celebration of Paige's birthday on Sunday. She was so excited when we told her it was her birthday. She insisted on wearing a dress and her fancy white shows and twirled around all day saying "It's my Birthday, I'm 3". I think the part she was most excited about was to blow out candles.




Strawberry shortcake, with candles!
For her actual birthday today, she's taking cupcakes that daddy made in to preschool. Hopefully they will sing and let her blow out candles again!

39 weeks

Another week has passed. I'll be 39 weeks tomorrow. Today at my doctor appointment I'm measuring at 3.5cm dilated. We met with a different doctor in the practice than the previous few weeks. He was very optimistic that she'll come any day now. He offered to check with the hospital and induce me today if I was interested. But we decided to not push her to much if she's not ready. But on the other hand, I don't want her getting too comfortable in there, so we set a date for induction of 5/27/09. That's 1 day after her due date. He also told me that if I start feeling contractions that I think are real to not hesitate too much. Since I'm this far along already, she may come quickly.

These were taken today:

38 weeks - tomorrow

I'll be 38 weeks tomorrow, but my doctor's appointment was today so I thought I'd update early. I've been having quite a few contractions this week, mostly at night. But they didn't convert to very much dilation progress. I'm 2.5 cm and 75% effaced at this point. I brought up induction with the midwife and she said she'd be willing to induce anytime after 39 weeks. I told her we could discuss it more next week, but I know the baby is probably better off if I can just let her come when she's ready. It's just getting really tough on my body so I hope it is sooner rather than later.

37 weeks

I'm 37 weeks today which is considered full term. Last night I was having some pretty strong contractions about 4-5 minutes apart, but they faded away after about an hour. This morning was my 37 week check up and I'm 2cm dilated and 75% effaced. That's a good amount of progress for in a week!

For comparison (I know every pregnancy is different so this doesn't mean much) I was 2.5cm dilated and 50% effaced 2 days before Paige was born.

I'd like to make it to at least 38 weeks, but I'm not counting on going much longer than that.