One Lonely Photo

After much chastisement I finally got motivated to post some new photos and try to figure out how to post the cute video of Mia. I got her all situated in her rocker next to me, have my bowl of cereal here to eat while I work on it, and when I went to grab the camera, it was GONE. Joel took it today :( SO, in an attempt to fend off the angry blog readers, I'm posting a cute photo from my phone. Not the best quality, but it's pretty sweet.

Mia is still a fantastic baby, real easy going. She likes pretty intense movement which works well with a dad like she's got. There's no peaceful rocking or swinging in this family. She's gotta be flying a million miles an hour to be thrilled. She even gets scared now and then and her little arms will quiver, but if he slows down, she looks at him like, "what's your problem?".

She's all about holding her head up. She hasn't quite mastered it yet, but she sure is trying. It's pretty incredible being that she's only 2 weeks old today.

As soon as I get the camera back I promise, PINKY promise I'll post more. 'Till then, enjoy this one....

She Has Arrived!!!

I can't believe it was a week ago tonight that I started having contractions! Crazy how time flies. So I had contractions from Wednesday night all through Thursday, getting more intense as the day wore on, and we finally decided it was time to go to the hospital Thursday night around 9pm. Friday afternoon at 4pm (19 hours later) little Mia Joelle was born. She was 6 lbs, 6 oz at birth and 18.5'' long. It was just Joel and I with our midwife and nurse in the hospital room and it was a very intimate and emotional moment for all of us.

The delivery went fine, I mean, no birth is fun or easy, but I had no complications and Mia is perfectly healthy and happy. That's all we can ask for! We spent the next 24 hours at the hospital and then got to come home. My friend Wendy was able to come down here to help out with things for the next week or so, and she got to our house about the same time as we did. Her help has been a HUGE blessing for me.

Mia is definitely the cutest thing to ever hit the Earth (no bias here!) and she already has all of us wrapped around her itsy bitsy fingers. She has SO much character and her facial expressions are constantly changing. Yesterday she figured out how to smile and has been flashing us a grin now and then ever since. She has the longest, skinniest arms and legs and is constantly flailing them around. We try to keep her swaddled for naps, but those darn arms always work themselves out!

There are many more photos to come, but we've been really busy with all this new-ness, so give us a few days to post some more. This is a picture of her at when we were still at the hospital.

Nursery Pics

Ok. Here's me proving that a) I do own a camera, tee hee; and b) I have done something in the nursery. I didn't take a picture of the crib because I have not finished sewing the bumper pad and dust ruffle thingy for it. She's gonna sleep in our room for the first while anyways in a bassonett because the baby room is WAY on the other end of the house and me stumbling through the house at 1am, 3am, 5am, etc. without contacts in does not sound like fun... I'll probably have those done by next week though, to my credit :) And her room still looks a little bare as far as the walls and such go, but we have some picture frames we want to hang up, we just need her to GET HERE so we have actualy pictures of her to put in them! Oh yeah, and mom is making a bungalo looking book shelf to match the room that's not quite finished yet either, so that will add to the decor. So in a few weeks you'll probably get updated nursery pics.

Update

OK, here's my pregnancy update, and sorry, no photos :( I'll post baby shower photos as soon as I get them from my friend, but as for today, you'll just have to read.

This might just be a bunch of numbers to some of you, I'll try to summarize at the end. I'll try to leave out any "tmi" details. I am 38.5 weeks along, meaning my due date is in 10-ish days. Last week I was dilated 2 cm and 50% effaced. Mia's head was a little off to the side, but pretty low. My midwife was super excited about my progress and said that I probably won't last until my due date.

This week I'm almost 3 cm dilated, and 75% effaced!!!! And to top it off, Mia's head is WAY lower than last week (I didn't know that was possible without her popping out) and she's presenting perfectly. And to top all that off, my fundal height is 4 cm lower than last week, meaning she has dropped quite a bit in preparation for delivery.

SO... I'll explain for those of you who are like me and feel like you just read a bunch of Greek. Dilating before going into labor is pretty exciting for a first time mom. Some moms get stuck at like 2 cm and don't ever progress any more before labor starts, but I'm progressing before labor even begins so that is SUPER awesome. Especially for a first timer. Being 75% effaced means that almost all my cervix "stuff" is gone and as soon as it's 100% gone, Mia comes out. Once again, many moms don't efface at all until labor begins, so I'm really lucky to have progressed so far. The fundal height is the distance in cm's from your pubic bone to the top of your uterus. It's usually the number of weeks along you are in cm's. For example, last week I was 37 weeks, and 37 cm's. But when the baby gets ready to come out, they often drop making your measurement less. So today I should have been 38, but I was only 34 meaning she's moving into D-Day position :) And "presenting" means how she's positioned for delivery, and there is an ideal way to "present" and some not-so-ideal ways to "present".

Let me make this clear: I'm not like "super prego" or anything and it's not like I have any control over all this. So I'm no better than any other pregnant chic, I just happen to be super LUCKY at this point. I figure I deserve it for how crappy I've felt for the last 9 months where other moms have enjoyed pregnancy. Right?!?

And to clarify another point, I could still go full term or even late even with all this progress. Every pregnancy is totally different and unpredictable. However, the odds are pretty good that we'll be having a baby super soon. My midwife says she'll be shocked if she doesn't see me before next Monday. AHHHHH! That's crazy.

And one more thing, there are some tips that my midwife has given me the last few weeks to speed up the labor process that I thoroughly believe are part of the reason I'm progressing so quickly, but they might be a little "tmi" for general reading, so email me if you want to know the tips. They've worked for more than just me, and my nurse who just had a baby used these tricks and went into labor naturally 2 weeks early. Awesome. So I'd be happy to share and see if it works for you too :)

So pray for Joel and I. I think Joel's almost more nervous than I am, it's very cute! We will try to post as soon as anything changes and will definitely be sending a mass text message. If you don't think we have your number, email it to us soon so we can add you to our mass text. And providing she doesn't resemble me as a baby TOO much, we'll post photos soon after birth too :) If she looks too much like I did, we'll have to wait until she "ripens" a little. I was hideous.

Thanks for checking in on us and keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. I'm so excited!!!!!!!