Tutu!

It's times like these that I wish I had a nice camera, and the skill to use it. But I don't and I don't, so I get blurry, off center, washed out, dark, amateur photos. But Lydia is so cute that sometimes it's okay anyway.

My old roommate, Paige, made this adorable tutu for Lydie. I've been itching to put it on her and take pictures and finally did. I don't imagine it wiill be the last time.

It isn't unusual to see Lydia with her eyes extra wide open, like this.
Lydia also is frequently seen with crossed eyes. :)

When she cries like this, I think she looks a lot like her cousin Emmy. This is unexpected since Emmy looks just like her mom, who married my brother. When she isn't crying, I see a lot of my mom in her.

This baby doesn't seem very small to me anymore. Last week we took her to the dr. for a second round of PKU's and she already weighed 8 lbs.
While she still doesn't fit into 0-3 Month clothes, she DID outgrow a pair of newborn pajamas. Maybe they were premie sized though, I don't know.
Yesterday she smiled at me for real. I'm pretty sure. I don't think these were caused by gas, it was different than those kinds. It's good to know she sometimes feels happy enough to smile.

Big Brother

Morgan loves his sister. The thing that I tell him most often during the day is something like, "Don't touch her while she's sleeping." or "Okay, that's enough touching now." He can't really keep his hands to himself, and it's always her face he has to touch.

He frequently asks to hold Lydia. After about three seconds though, he is done.

Recently Morgan has decided what he wants to be when he grows up. First he would say he wants to be a monster truck driver and a garbage man. Now he says first he will be the monster truck driver, then a garbage man, then a baseball player, after that, a football player, and finally a basketball player. He fully intends to do all of them.

Lydia meets the Nelsons

Last weekend the Nelsons came down for a quick visit. They weren't here long at all, and most of the time we were asleep, but they were here long enough to meet Lydia.

Grandpa holds his granddaughter for the first time.

Grandma making Lydia's acquaintance. I think they liked each other.

Aunt Arielle with her first niece.
Thanks for coming Nelsons, it was fun having you here!

Lydia May

This little girl has the cutest face. So sweet to look at.
However. When Lydia is awake, she is usually crying. Her crying face is still cute, but I would rather see it content. I sometimes wonder if we will ever see her smile for real, because it doesn't seem like she's ever actually happy.
Lydia is much different than Morgan was as a baby. I think Morgan was probably the easiest baby ever, so now Lydia has to make up for the ease of Morgan's newborn days. Where Morgan was happy to be held, in a swing, lying down, whatever, Lydia won't let you put her down, and sometimes isn't happy unless you hold her just the right way.
Morgan, however, spit up 24/7. It's a wonder he grew because it seemed like he spit up everything he ate. Lydia doesn't spit up nearly as often, and hardly very much at a time. So, point for Lydia.
Nights. I think they are getting worse. I'm pretty sure colic has something to do with it. The last three nights she screamed till the wee hours of the morning before going to sleep. And then her sleep was very restless. She also has been waking up more frequently at night, and having a hard time going back to sleep.
Sometimes I think we have a drama queen on our hands. Everything is a huge deal, the end of the world! But the moments when Lydia is awake and not crying, and it isn't the middle of the night, she is so delightful. We really do love her.
Morgan loves being big brother. He is a great helper too. He is always so happy to fetch a diaper, or blanket, or the gas relief drops, etc. I can hardly keep him from touching her every moment. He is soft and gentle, but he doesn't let her sleep or eat, etc.
I hope I don't sound too negative with this post. The last couple of days have been especially rough, so it may have colored my perceptions a bit. I love my little Lydia and am so happy to have her.

Tarantula!

Last week we were driving home from Tooele. We have to cross a mountain pass to get anywhere, and we were heading down the mountain toward Dugway. I saw something on the side of the road that I could have sworn looked like a giant, ambling, spider. But that would be ridiculous, right? Still, I said, "Was that a tarantula?!"
Aaron hadn't seen what I saw, but the possibility of a giant spider drove him to turn the car around and go investigate. As we got closer we slowed down and determined that, yes, it was a giant tarantula. Aaron turned around again and pulled off the road so we could get out and get a closer look.
I had no idea that there were tarantula's here. But guess what? There are.
We let Morgan out of the car and told him we were going to look at a spider. He was excited. Then he saw how big the spider was. He was terrified. He didn't want to be anywhere near it. He was happy only when I let him back in the car where he was safe.
We'd just gone shopping and picked up some little tap light things which came in a nice, clear, plastic box with a good lid. Aaron emptied the lights and used the box to trap the tarantula.
After showing it to a suburban full of little girls who pulled over with us, we all got back into our car and headed home. ALL of us. See?



We had to keep it for a week so we'd have it when Aaron's mom came for a visit.
We fed it a moth a couple days ago and it was really cool to see it pounce on it and shove it in it's mouth.
Aaron's going to call the highschool to see if they want a mascot for their science department, otherwise we are setting it loose real soon. I won't miss it. I must admit, I'd be minding my own business, see a huge spider hanging out in my living room, and start from the surprise. I never expect it.

Dr. Appointment

Today was Lydia's two week dr. appointment. Can you believe she is already two weeks old?! And she's grown too.
Lydia was 6 lbs 15 oz at birth and 19 inches long. She dropped five ounces before leaving the hospital. At two weeks they like to see the baby back up to birth weight. Well, apparently my baby is a good eater because she now weighs 7 lbs 8 oz. And she is 20 1/2 inches long. Her head is 14 1/2 cm. That puts her in the 25th for weight, 75th for height, and I've already forgotten her head percentile. But it's big.
We really like the pediatrician. I had already decided that I liked him before he told us that Lydia had a very pretty face. He sees lots of babies, and he isn't biased, but he recognized that Lydia was exceptionally cute. We, of course, didn't argue.

Pictures

Just some more pictures. Morgan tried to get in every one that I took.



Just some more pictures. Morgan tried to get in every one that I took.

I had some milk pumped for a trip we took to town, but we didn't end up using it. So Aaron got to feed her.

This little girl has a rumbling tummy that hurts her and causes her to cry a lot. Her first week she would cry for 20 minutes before each feeding until she felt comfortable enough to eat. It has gotten less frequent, but it still bugs her.
I love watching her as she falls asleep though. Lydia makes the cutest, sweetest, faces as she drifts off to sleep. It's the only time I see her smile, (yes, I know, it's not a smile but gas.)

Little Prints

Before Lydia was born we bought one of those deals to make baby handprints. But we wanted to do one print of Morgan's and one of Lydia's to show the size difference and for general cuteness purposes.
So we did.
Morgan's hand was so big it barely fit his side of the heart.
It was a lot trickier getting Lydia's print. She stuck her thumb under her hand, and after holding it in the plaster for what she deemed too long, she grabbed a handful of cement stuff.

And...she hated it.
Here is the finished product. Hehehe. At least you can still see the size difference. And hey, it has character, right? Right?
Oh, and just for cuteness sake:

And a funny from Morgan.
Morgan was observing me nurse Lydia. He said, "Is Lydia eating you?"
Later it was Morgan's turn to hold her. He touched her cheek, which caused the rooting reflex. You know, mouth open in his direction, trying to find the food. Morgan pulled back in alarm and said, "Ah! She wants to eat me! She was trying to eat me."

T-Ball

Remember how I said that Morgan and Lydia exchanged gifts? The gift for Morgan was a t-ball set. We went out and tried about a week ago.

Setting up the ball,

Lining up...

Winding up,
And swing! Good contact.

He had fun with it. Most of the time he hit the tee, but that's okay. We'll get it.

My Labor Day

Here's the story. Brace yourself for a long post. 

Our instructions were to call Labor and Delivery at 6:00 A.M. on Thursday to find out when to go in to get induced. We set our alarms and I made the call. The nurse asked if we could be there by 7:30. Nope. It takes 1 1/2 hours to drive there and we were still in bed. So we were just instructed to go in as soon as we could. So we got up and got ready, I had a bowl of cereal, and we headed to the hospital. 

We arrived around 8:30 a.m. After getting checked in and signing papers we were taken to the room where I would have my baby. By 9:30 they had started the Pitocin. They like to start you out real easy, to mimic real labor as much as possible. So we started with 2 mg and they gradually increased the dosage every half hour. Oh, by the way, I was only dilated one cm when we got there.

They said I was very sensitive to the Pitocin. With just the 2 mg (I could be wrong about that unit of measurement, but I do know it was 2) I was already contracting every 3 minutes. I felt nothing. 

Things were kind of boring. I read some, tried to nap some, looked for something worth watching on tv, made way too many trips to the bathroom, (darn saline!) and felt my bum go numb from laying in bed all day. 

Just before 1:00 they checked me again. I wasn't even dilated to a 2 yet! That's about when they broke my water. 

Right after that I really started to feel the contractions. Ouch! But then...they got better. Anti-progress. I played a card game with Aaron. I dilated to 2 1/2.

They kept turning the Pitocin up. They said they don't like to have it higher than 20 mg. They turned mine to 24. They weren't feeling good, and they were coming less than a minute apart. What they like to see is about three minutes apart with more intense contractions. Argh! I think I may have been dilated to a 4 at this point.

Oh, and I was SO hungry. The light breakfast at 6:30 wasn't really sustaining me. 

Anyway, around 5:00 they shut off the pitocin completely. They planned to let it get out of my system and then turn it back on to a fairly high dosage and try to shock my system. It seemed to work. They turned it to 12 and the contractions really started hurting. Suddenly it felt very natural to breath in short puffs. 

At 6:30, still dilated to 4, I was ready for an epidural. I was going to try to tough it out for longer, but the nurse prevailed upon me to consider how silly that would be considering I knew I would get one eventually. Why suffer when you don't have to? But in that half hour it took for the anesthesiologist to come and numb me up I was ready to cry uncle anyway. The epidural was scary and painful, but it worked. It was weird though, it numbed my abdomen like it should, then it reached the toes of my left foot and worked it's way up my leg. My right leg never numbed though. Everything that wasn't numb was itchy.

Aaron went out to grab something for his dinner. The cafeteria had closed.

The contractions were getting hard enough that the baby's heart rate was really being effected by them. It's normal for it to dip with the contractions, but hers was getting lower  than they liked to see and taking a longer time to recover. But it got better. 

Aaron got back. Around 9:00 I started to feel like pushing might be a good idea. Only occassionaly and not very strong. Our nurse had told us that she was off to deliver another baby, but that she would check my cervix again at 10:30 or 11:00. 

Soon a different nurse came in saying that my doctor called and asked for my cervix to be checked. Boy were we surprised when I was completely dilated! This was at 9:00. Aaron was back. 

(Interesting parallel, when I was in labor with Morgan I got to 4 cm's dilated and stalled. I just wouldn't progress. I got the epidural and then sped my way to a 10.)

We waited a few minutes for our original nurse to come back in. She and another nurse brought in a bunch of baby-having stuff and started setting up. 

Then she said it was time to push and see how things went. If the baby made good progress toward the opening she would call the doctor in. Lydia was still pretty far up. 

I was giddy. I seriously was smiling during my first push. I had to apologize for bad pushing because if you can smile while you do it, you're doing it wrong. But, I did the three pushes for 10 seconds each. The monitor showed how badly Lydia was taking it. Her heart rate  plummeted and stayed under the red line for quite some time. The nurse seemed a little anxious about it. I was anxious about it. She had me roll to my side, since it was a bit friendlier for the baby. She also gave me an oxygen mask to use so the baby could have the oxygen. Then she said we'd wait for a good hour to get the baby all rested and recovered. Okay. And maybe she would make her way down the birth canal a little bit by herself. 

About an hour later the nurse was back and with my doctor. It was time to have the baby. Now, with Morgan I pushed for 1 1/2 hours. I was worried about another long time of pushing. However, it only took pushing through three contractions and she was out! 

They placed a very blue baby on my stomach and started rubbing her down. I noted the umbilical cord was around her neck once. After several seconds, she gave a squawk which started her crying. Crying soon turned her pink. 

She was so cute, even straight out of the womb. 

After we were able to get aquainted for a little while and nurse for a bit, and after I was finally able to eat, Aaron accompanied Lydia to the nursery where they did further tests and bathed her. I recovered a bit and was taken to our post-partum room.

Lydia nursed well. She still does. 

The next day Morgan and my mom came to visit. 

Morgan loved his sister immediately and gave her kisses and touched her head and face softly. 

When it was his turn to hold her he sang Rock-a-by-Baby in a very soft voice. 

We were able to go home the next day. 

Morgan and Lydia exchanged sibling gifts. We let Morgan pick out a toy for Lydia and we got him something from her. We thought that would be a good way to start their relationship. :)

We love her. She has some issues with gas. It kept her awake for 6 hours, screaming the whole time, the first night home. Oh, it was miserable. She went to sleep around 7:00 a.m. and slept for six hours straight after that. We got her some gas relief drops though so things were much better last night. But it still bothers her. 

Most of our clothes for her are way too big. Still, I love it when it's time to get her dressed so we can try new things on her. 

If she's not eating, or crying because her gasiness keeps her from eating, she is asleep. Always asleep. But that's okay. We like to sleep with her. 

We're sure glad she's here.

Announcing our new arrival

She is here.
Welcome to our family, Lydia May Nelson. We already love you.


Born Sept. 2nd at 11:08 PM. 6 lbs 15 ounces, 19 inches long.

Birth story and more pictures coming soon.

Oh, and we've known her first name for a long time, I just kind of wanted to announce it with her, so I ignored all of you who politely asked what we would name her. Sorry!