It's been a crazy couple of weeks...and Daddy goes back to work at the office tomorrow, we will be lonely ladies. It seems that we have been keeping busy with doctors and hospitals and visitors and eating and sleeping...with not much spare time. Hannah had some jaundice, so we spent a night at the children's hospital in the hot box, and she's been off and on the biliblanket...but now is finally OFF! We had some issues because Hannah just doesn't seem to poop much, but the gastro doctor said she's just fine and that breastfed babies sometimes go several days without pooping.

I think the hardest thing we've had to deal with is that while we were in the hospital with jaundice, Hannah was only bottle-fed...she had my pumped breastmilk plus we supplemented with formula, and when we were finally done, she had a hard time going back to breastfeeding. It took a day or two to get back into the swing of things, but I was really scared at first that the Dr. had ruined my baby and that she might only want a bottle after that.

Overall, having a newborn is much more time-consuming than I had imagined...I only get to shower about every other day...and I don't do much laundry or any dishes...basically we just sleep and eat, it's kinda nuts.

She's so funny to me...I could watch her all day long...if I didn't need sleep, she's just so darn cute I can't help but to just stare at her for hours on end. :) So far I like being a mommy...other than feeling like I have no time to accomplish anything! It's just hard not to worry what your house looks like when you have people visiting all the time!

Our little sweetie...isn't she precious?!

Most of the pictures I have of me with Hannah are of us nursing for the whole first hour while I was being stitched up...so you get the Daddy instead, he did so good!

Craziness...
So...I took the castor oil at about 3:30 yesterday...and it definitely went to work on my insides...but I fully expected to need a few more doses over the weekend. We went to bed at around 11:30, which is late for us...but hey, it was a Friday night, and we're crazy party animals! I woke up around midnight with more cramping....I thought it was just the oil doing its thing, and spent about half an hour on the toilet....and felt awful...spent the next half hour in the shower. The shower helped a lot..for a while...so I did a little bit of blog and message board reading until I felt awful again, and spent more time on the toilet...followed by another shower, by this time I was in a lot of pain. Partway through the shower I kinda started thinking, "you know, this is REALLY painful...what if I'm actually having contractions??!"

After my shower, about 3am I got back online...REALLY starting to feel the contractions at this point, and went to one of those contraction timer websites. I was pretty sure that I was in labor now, and the contractions seemed to be 2-3 minutes apart and lasting about a minute each. The pain started to get to the pint where I has to get on my knees and sway my hips back and forth...so at 3:30 I woke Jason up saying "I think we need to go to the hospital!" I just didn't think I would be able to take the car ride if I waited any longer.

We packed things up and got to the hospital at about 4AM. They checked my cervix right away and I was 8cm dialated. I labored another hour waiting for the Dr. to arrive...it was REALLY painful, but since I wanted SO badly to have a natural birth instead of Monday's induction, I just kept telling myself, "This is what I wanted, I get to do it the way that I wanted!" and any thought of pain meds stayed far from my mind. I just felt so blessed that I was getting to do it the way that I wanted to. :)

At 5AM the Dr. arrived, and she checked me again, I was at 10cm. She broke by water and I got to start pushing. The pushing part was really intense for me...for whatever reason I just couldn't wrap my head around the idea that I was pushing a human being out of my body, it felt really crazy. At 5:38 that baby came out! She was so so beautiful...she wasn't cheesy at all...just all slippery and bloody and beautiful! I was just so so excited she was here!! I got to hold her for a while, and when the cord stopped pulsing, they clamped it and Jason got to cut it.

The worst part was that since everything did go SO fast, my body didn't have proper time to adjust and all my woman parts were torn apart. I has to lay there being sewed back together for an entire hour. :( BUT Hannah was awesome and latched right on and nursed the whole time. :)

Jason was SO good through all of this! As a guy that can't even handle an episode of CSI, I was totally impressed by his ability to watch oll of this gross bloody stuff! He can probably tell you all the yucky details that I missed.

I wish I could be more excited about it, but I was really hoping to avoid induction. I'm REALLY excited about having our baby...but mourning the loss of the birth experience I really wanted.

Last night I was awake for several hours just thinking of all the things I could say to my Dr. to talk my way out of an induction. I didn't really think I would even have to use them TODAY, usually I just have to do my NST on Fridays, and see the Dr. on Tuesdays.

The NST went well...but the Dr. wanted to check my cervix after it was done. So, I'm now 4cm dialated, 80% effaced...so I've made a little progress since last being checked. Then she started talking induction. :( She had told me last time we talked about induction that we could wait until week 41...this time she said she told me that cause she really didn't think we would have to worry about going past my due date. :( That was actually the part I was most upset about...I wish she hadn't led me on like that.

Basically, she said I could refuse the induction, but she really did think it was for the best, and she was quite insistent about it. She said because of all the extra fluid, and becuase they don't know WHY I have so much, she thinks it's safer to induce...that basically nothing would be hurt by a 40 week induction, but she felt there were significant risks in going longer.

Even though I don't think that an induction is best for baby because of the domino effect of interventions...I don't want to refuse something that might be best for my baby becuase of my stubborn pride. Sigh.

So, I guess that's why my appointment was BEFORE lunch today, instead of after like the rest of them had been(so that I could have lunch with my Sweetie afterward)...I was really upset, but went to my Sweetie's work and we went out for lunch and discussed everything. He said he would take off work early and call Coral, our Bradley instructor, for some advice.

On my way home I picked up a bottle of castor oil...I had decided weeks ago that if I needed to dodge an induction, I would drink the oil...ugh. (BTW...it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be!)

So, this weekend will be spent taking the castor oil and staying close to the bathroom, and hopefully jumpstarting some labor!

That was a little long...sorry!

So much to share this week! This is me at 39 weeks...still feeling good! (although I wouldn't mind if this baby would show up!) Today was my original due date before going to the Dr. and having the ultrasound done at 8 weeks.

We had an ultrasound this morning to check Hannah's growth, she's doing good...all of her measurements are right on, and they think she's about 8pounds 8ounces right now. Had my regular weekly appointment in the afternoon...my Dr. wasn't there, she was delivering, so I saw one of the other Drs...who seemed to want to talk me into an induction the whole time, so I kinda ignored him and told him Dr. Douglas already said I could go to 41 weeks, and that was that.

This is the artwork that I picked for the nursery, I think they're wonderful! Check out Rebecca's stuff at print*pattern*paper...I want to get the alphabet poster next, I think it would look great in Hannah's nursery!

I got the wall cards in German, just to be a little different...and I would love for Hannah to be interested in learning German and interested in knowing about Austria.

And the new stamps came in today! Yay! After grocery shopping, dishes, laundry, and all that good stuff I got to work packaging up the new stamps to send off to the design team girls...and if Hannah decides to stay put a while longer, maybe we'll get the new stamps added to the store this weekend! :)

I feel like all I blog about these days is pregnancy and the nursery. Well, today I have something different to share, something very cool:

I came acctoss this Etsy shop today, and fell in love with the beautiful rings and bracelets...at really reasonable prices!! (that bracelet up there is my vary favorite!) and I was even more impressed when I read the shop description:

WELCOME TO MY STORE Based out of Phoebus, Virginia, 2nd generation silver jewelry maker, Carl really knows how to use a fork and spoon. Not just in the utilitarian way, but he can take a piece of flatware and turn it into a piece of jewelry fit for any time of day. Pendants, rings and bracelets have been very much a part of Carl's life since the early 70's when his father had a spoon ring store. The sales from this jewelry is used to fund his short -term mission trip each year (GO) and help support missioniaries around the world (SEND). Romans 10:15 "And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" Mission Statement *The calling of GO OR SEND JEWELRY is to provide resources for the advancement of the Gospel. *GO OR SEND JEWELRY provides funding to missionaries to ensure they can complete their calling. * GO OR SEND JEWELRY is Jewelry with a local and Global mission.

I love that the proceeds are used to fund the Gospel mission, so cool.

Here I am at 38 weeks...not the greatest picture, oh well. At my appointment today the Dr. said that since I'm "favorable" (heh) she could go ahead and induce on my due date. I told her I would rather wait, but she's only giving me until 41 weeks, but really thinks I'll go before then anyway...we'll see. Otherwise all is well in baby land!

Friday night I finished my final baby room sewing project, the crib skirt....I'm pretty happy with it.

And Saturday we put up the new tiny ceiling fan in the nursery, it's pretty cute.

So, I'm officially READY for Hannah to arrive! ...as ready as I'm going to be anyway. What would be really nice is a place to scrapbook, because I'm pretty sure that by the time we get the office fixed and set-up, I'll be way too behind on Hannah's scrapbook to ever properly catch up. I'll just have to remember that I don't need to scrapbook EVERY single photo that I ever take of her, and that there's nothing wrong with simple. (If I even remember how to scarpbook by then!)