Maternity

This is super lame, but here's some maternity photos and pics from Social Science and High Tea that we attended right before Evey was born. I know, I should have posted these before, I suck, and we're still editing her newborn photos, so you're stuck with these.

In her cute little room, that we only go in to right now to get clothes...

Her amazing wardrobe

My "I can birth this baby naturally!" power stance

We went to High Tea two days before she was born. It was on my list of things to do before she came, and we cut it close! We went with some work buddies who had never gone so they could experience the "High Socie-tea".

Chris is not a tea fan, but he had one cup, that was good enough for me

Drew is up for anything, so glad he came to tea!

Sam and her buddy

I've worn a dress or skirt every time I've come to tea, what has Chris worn?

We're fancy

 Oh Social Science, how we love you. This we went to a week before Evey came, and Steffen, Sam, Mike and Christina joined us too!

 Good times before the kid showed up, glad we got out of the house as often as we did. Not that they're not good times now, it'd just be nice to experience life with adequate sleep and no back/lady parts pain;)

Evey Baby

Evey is now 16 days old, and what a difference a couple of days make! We went from having a newborn who had to be woken up every 2 1/2 hours to eat to a newborn who now wants cluster feeds on occasion, eating every half an hour to hour for a couple of hours, thanks to that fabulous growth spurt. And with all that eating she's gotten bigger! Her weight dropped from 6 lbs 15 oz to 6 lbs 4 oz, but shot up to 7 lbs 2 oz as of last Friday, and so that means that she's bigger than that today. She makes the best faces, faces that I like to call "Evey drunk faces" after she's done eating.

And she's ridiculously cute when you wake her up and get her out of her swaddle, she stretches really big and does a great Robert De Niro impression.

 

Chris was home for the first two weeks, which was great, and Evey and I have been on our own since this Monday, but it hasn't been too bad:) True, when I need something I have to go get it myself, but that's ok, I'm becoming incredibly creative in the ways in which I do things that originally was not cumbersome before having an infant but now is (like the fact that I currently have her lying in my lap while I type this). Granted, I'm not doing as many things as I did before, I basically live in our bedroom unless I need food, feel like cleaning downstairs a bit (this has only happened because people were coming over), or to watch TV with Chris. Other than that, everything we need is in the bedroom, so when she shows signs of being hungry/tired/irritable, everything is at my fingertips, and the same goes for me in the tired/irritable areas. 

She's had lots of wonderful visitors, who have brought food and wonderful company to mom and dad.

 

Mother's Day was wonderful, and Chris took pics with his camera, but we still need to upload them, so here's few from my phone:

 

I loved that the niece and nephews were fighting over who got to hold her next:) Isn't that dress stinkin adorable? Chris said she looks like a little girl and not like a baby. 

We've also gone out a couple times, mostly to the pediatrician's as well as to a lactation consultation, but we went to a surprise party on Sunday! It was great to be able to show her off to some of my co-workers. 

First time baby wearing, didn't go too bad:)

At the doc's

All in all this parenting gig is pretty awesome, I told Chris last night that if I didn't need sleep, then the parenting thing might be perfect! We've definitely had our trying moments, brought on by sleep deprivation mostly, as well as dealing with the changes our baby brings almost everyday...I think the best piece of advice I've heard is to be flexible. Next post I'll have pics from the photo shoot we did with her and the Mother's Day pics, until then, enjoy this ridiculously cute face!

She's Here...

Evey's here!!!! As of this writing she is six days old and she is absolutely perfect. Before we get to the good stuff, like her pics, here's her lovely birth story:

Wow, so a week ago I went into labor, somewhat unknowingly, just feeling cramps in my abdomen around 10 am. I went to work and had about 5 more and on the way home they kept coming more frequently...so around 5 pm they were 7 minutes apart. Oh contractions! The midwife said to chill and stop timing them, and see if they go away. So me, Chris and Drew had a lovely Taco Bell dinner and Drew and I later watched Persuasion, all with me sitting on my exercise ball or walking around in pain for short spurts of time. Then I kicked my nice friend out, took a bath and started timing the contractions again, and they were 3 minutes apart! Another call to the midwife and we decided to head to the hospital because I was rather uncomfortable. So in between contractions, Chris and I finished packing the hospital bag and other essentials and called Jen, who so graciously came from Gardnerville to be with us, and brought tons of food! We got to the hospital around 12:30am and I was already dilated to 6 cm! Yay! At least, I thought...it took forever for me to dilate to 8 cm at which point we decided to break my water and I soon jumped to 9 1/2 cm. Now this was around 6 am, I think, so we'd been at this awhile. But Lynn, our fabulous midwife, Beth, our fabulous nurse who had to leave at 7, unfortunately, and Chris and Jen were so wonderful throughout the whole thing in helping me. Lynn has some amazing natural childbirth tricks up her sleeve and busted them out. I had horrid back pain, however, and it definitely wore on me, especially when it came time to pushing, which I did, for three and a half hours!! No fun at all, and I went drug free, which I am still super happy about, but we decided that due to my exhaustion, the length of time I was pushing, and the fact that her head was in a funky position, we would suction her out. The doc who did this, Dr. Garcia, was amazing, as were the slew of people who came in with him in case of complications. But things went great and soon we had Evey! What an amazing feeling, I was so down after not making much progress and so tired that I worried about not being excited when I met her, but all of those negative thoughts went away when she came out and was quickly placed on my chest, crying like a banshee, but doing wonderfully. She was born 05/05/14 at 10:12 am, weighed 6 lbs 15 oz and was 19 in long.

Jen was like my doula, it was pretty fantastic! I highly recommend wearing a Pretty Pusher during labor, bu the way, lame name but super comfy!

I told you Lynn was creative with the contraction magic! Couldn't resist posting this...

She's here!!!

I'm pretty sure that when this photo was snapped Lynn was working her magic on my internal laceration, painful magic...

Proud Daddy, Chris had some tears when she came out

Aunt Jen with her new niece

On the way to postpartum, it was a strange parade

Her first bath

All clean and with fabulous hair

Aunt Pepper came to visit and brought flowers and balloons

Looking a bit tired, but it was all worth it for that sweet face

And the whole McLaughlin clan! I look cracked out in each of these group photos, but I feel I have good reason. 

Anyway, that's her wonderful birth story with some fabulous pics. I'll post pics of her at home soon, but now I'm going to enjoy my first Mother's Day with my family:)