Back to Reality

Well it's back to reality for this mom. After ten weeks of pure joy and bliss, it's back to the daily grind. Thank goodness I love my job and the people I work with, or I don't think I could have made it through this transition. Leaving her for 9 hours a day is one of the hardest things I've ever done, even though I know she's being well cared for. Right now Jeff is taking her to daycare in the morning and I'm going in as early as possible (630 or 700am) so I can pick her up as early as possible. My boss is completely flexible, and doesn't care what hours I work so long as I get my work done. What a blessing that has been! As much as I would love to be a stay at home mom someday, working at this point in my life is probably best for all of us. I think I would be a lazy slob if I was at home all day. I had this long list of projects I wanted to accomplish during my leave and books I wanted to read and did I do any of it - nope. I laid around all day playing with my baby and watching reruns of Little House on the Prarie and Who's the Boss. How is that for productive:) I definitely function better with a little more structure in my life.

Did I cry my first day back at work though? Surprisingly no. I choked up a few times, but made it through without shedding any real tears. However, the same could not be said for the 4 days before the big day. I don't think I stopped crying from Thursday to Sunday. My new hormones are relentless when it comes to dealing with strong emotions. For example, when she had to get her 2 month shots - I started crying as soon as I got to the doctor's office and did not stop until we got back out to the car. I'm sure the people in the waiting room thought something was seriously wrong with my child. Emery, on the other hand, was a doll as usual, and only cried when they gave her the shots. I'm sure she was wondering what on earth was wrong with her mother. Oh yes, I am definitely turning into one of "those" moms.

So how is life with a baby you ask? I can't imagine it any other way at this point. I have truly loved and savored every minute of it. It certainly helps that she is such a good baby - we just love her to death! And athough we can't seem to figure out who she looks like just yet, she is starting to show personality traits of her daddy. She's been smiling since 4 weeks and talking up a storm since 8 weeks, much to my delight. She's a good sleeper and only cries when she is hungry, tired or gassy. And her cry is still so cute - if you even call it a cry. It's more like she's complaining.

When I wasn't catching up on reruns on leave, I was enjoying visiting with some of my favorite people. My mother-in-law came over for a week, my friend Courtney from Alaska came down for a week and my cousin Shasta stayed with us for a week on her way down to her new house in New Orleans. We took two trips over the break as well - a long weekend to DeRidder, LA to visit Jeff's family and a trip to New Orleans to visit my cousin. Emery did great both times, although she wasn't nearly as excited about eating beignets at the Cafe Du Monde as we were. In fact she was konked out on me the entire time!

Okay that's all for now, folks. Pictures below for anyone interested, ranging from week 6 - 10 of Emery's life.

Baby Love

Jeff's mom has been here to help out this week, and she brought her computer with her, so I am squeezing in one more post before we are pcless once again.

Still loving being a mom. That's not to say we haven't had our challenges...learning to read and understand Emery Claire's cues and signals is a slow process. She really only cries when she is hungry, tired or gassy, but thus far the only cry I can distinguish for certain is her hungry cry. It's still a big guessing game with the others at this point, and as I'm sure most parents can relate, it is agonizing for me to sit and listen to her cry.

We took our little sailor on her inaugural boat ride this week. You can see in the pictures above that her lifevest was a tad bit too big, and I was laughing so hard at her I could hardly stand up. She was a good sport about it all though, hardly fussed at all, and ended up passing out in Mama Li's lap once we got underway.

Nursing is going okay, but it is still excruciating everytime she latches on. Her latch is not great, but she seems to be getting enough to eat, so we'll just keep working on it for now. I'm hoping once her little mouth gets a little bigger it will solve most of our problems.

We went on our first post baby date last night. I had a hard time finding something to wear - I'm afraid I'm going to have to buy a whole new wardrobe now! My stomach is still not back down yet, but it's my hips I am most worried about. I can't even get close to buttoning my pre-pregnancy pants. When I had a huge stomach, it wasn't as obvious that I'd grown in other areas. Now it's plain and clear. I told Jeff last night that I felt self conscious out without the baby. At least when she's with us, people see her and think oh she just had a baby. Without her I just look pudgy. I have not weighed myself since I had her, but I think my total pregnancy weight gain was 43lbs.

I think Jeff is enjoying this time as much as I am. It's so cute to watch him interact with her - he is such a good daddy already. It melts my heart to see them together!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Emery Claire Smith

Sorry for the delay in posting. We don't have a computer at the house, and haven't exactly been out much this past week. I'm over at my neighbor's writing this update.

Emery Claire was born on 7.7.10 at 12:43am, and we are 100% head over heels in love with her already. I fully anticipated having to have an induction, when she didn't arrive on her due date despite our best efforts, but little miss had other plans. I woke up on Tuesday at 330am having contractions. They say you'll know when it's the real thing, but honestly I did not until about 5am. By the time Jeff rolled out of bed at 6am (we were both planning to go to work that day) I was pretty sure Emery was on her way.

We wanted to delay going to the hospital as long as possible, so waited until around noon when my contractions were 3-4 minutes apart before heading in. They were intense at that point, but not unbearable. However, my water broke as we were pulling into the hospital, and by the time I was admitted to the OBR things were starting to get very uncomfortable. I'd considered not getting an epidural depending on how far along I was, but when I found out I was only 2cm dialated said sign me up at around 230pm. However, because of staff shortages and the time it takes to get admitted, did not end up getting it until 530pm, and those last 3 hours were MISERABLE!! By that time my contractions were hitting every 1-2 minutes, and I was deathly afraid I wouldn't be able to sit still for the procedure. As scared as I was it ended up being fine, and I felt much better after the procedure.

We were so blessed to have Katie Rachel as our nurse for most of the afternoon/evening. She had worked the day before, and came in just to be our nurse. But at 9pm, despite the fact that I had been contracting regularly, I was only 4cm, so she had to hand us off thinking we wouldn't be delivering until 6am the next morning. My new nurse checked me at 10pm, and I was 6cm, so they were still thinking it would be awhile. Jeff and I had just settled down to get some rest when Emery's heart rate dropped to next to nothing. Before I could move the nurse was running in yelling for the doctor, and they had me rolled over onto my side with the oxygen on and were trying to reposition her to get her heart rate back up. I've never been so scared in my life...I seriously thought we were going to lose our baby right there. Both Jeff and I were crying, but after 5 or 6 minutes they were able to get her heart rate back up. Apparently in 30 minutes my labor had progressed so quickly that she wasn't able to tolerate it. At that point I was 8cm. They called my doctor (who had to arrange childcare and drive in from brandon to deliver me - LOVE her) and by the time she arrived at 11pm I was ready to go. We started pushing around 11:15pm, and out she popped at 12:45 am. And my infamous first words to my daughter - not anything sweet mind you. They were "She's HUGE!" And she was/is, at least for me, at 8.3lbs 21.5 inches. That would explain why she was stuck for 20 minutes. I won't lie - I do believe pushing her out was the hardest thing I've ever done. I had what is called a walking epidural - so I could feel all of the pressure and some pain. I could definitely feel that she was stuck. I thought I would never get her out, and I can't IMAGINE going through all of that without an epidural.

But as they always say, it was so worth it. She is such a little doll. We are both totally in love. She is sweet, sweet baby (except when she gets hungry!) and it already bringing us so much joy. We are just eating this sweet time up with her. Jeff is off this whole month, and we're spent the past week just bonding together as a family and watching lots of episodes of 24. Our SS class has hooked us up with meals, so we've been able to focus more on taking care of baby. It's been great! You know before I had her I'd heard people say they could sit and stare at their baby all day, and I always thought that sounded so ridiculous. But now I know what they mean - I really could stare at her all day long!!

Sorry if this is kind of running together - I'm trying to rush so we can get home for our next feeding. I'm not even going to try to label the pictures, but you can probably piece most of them together. The belly shot is the last one we took at 39 weeks and 5 days. As big as I thought my stomach was, now that she's out it's hard to believe she ever fit in there!!

That's all for now. Hope everyone is well! If I haven't returned your phone calls please forgive me - I haven't forgotten about you! Take care!

Waiting on Baby

I can't believe that sometime in the next week or so, we're going to go to bed a couple and wake up as parents. Heaven help little Emery Claire!!

A friend of mine shot some maternity photos of us a few weeks ago - the first set of professional pictures we've had taken since our wedding. She put some of her favorites on her blog, which you can see below. And yes, my stomach is even bigger now:)

http://jennanassarphotography.blogspot.com/2010/06/courtney-jeff-baby-claire-maternity.html

I'm planning to work up until I deliver, so for now we're just waiting....

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!

The Past 2 Months in Pictures

And finally, 33 Week Belly Shots. I know you've been dying to see! Now I'm 35.5. weeks, and significantly bigger in my opinion.

Okay I have no idea what is up with Blogger and pictures. It's getting really annoying to try to post anything these days.

The top 2 pictures are from our Atlanta Shower on April 17, 2010.

Next one was our Supper Club Shower on April 24, 2010.

Next 2 were from my work shower on April 27, 2010.

Next 2 are from my Mississippi Shower on May 1, 2010.

Next 3 are from my birthday lunch on May 21, 2010.

And finally - she has a name - Emery Claire.

That's all for now!

Catch-Up

Sorry for the lag in posts. Between closing out my old job and learning the new, there has been little time for internet fun.

I am pleased to report that I LOVE my new job so far - everything about it. My coworkers, the work I'm doing and of course the Fridays off aren't bad either:)

We are 7.5 weeks and counting to Baby Claire's arrival - I can hardly believe it!! We've had 4 beautiful showers so far - one from our Atlanta friends, one from our Neighborhood Supper Club, one from my MS College girlfriends and one from my Performance Improvement coworkers. We have been absolutly blown away by the generosity of our friends and family - Baby Claire is spoiled already and she's not even here yet!! I will post pictures soon - no time today!!

We started childbirthing classes last week, and last night was our second session. Jeff has been extremely supportive and participative in this whole crazy process. Last night the instructor asked us what items we might want to have in hand in the car in case my water breaks at some inopportune moment. No one really said anything at first, until Jeff piped up with a very serious suggestion to bring "a compact mirror." I guess he thought if the water broke, the baby would be soon to follow, and the mirror would help guide the way!:) Needless to say we all had a good laugh about that. I also could not keep a straight face while we were doing the lamaze "he he he" breathing exercises. Leave it to me to be the one giggling on the front row while everyone else was trying to concentrate. Ha!

I had a little scare a few weeks ago after my last week in PI. I was up at the hospital at 8pm on a Friday night trying to wrap up some last minute details and happened to notice that my left foot was VERY swollen. I almost blew it off until I started reading on the internet that it could be a blood clot. I called the OBR unit (ER for preggo ladies) and they told me I needed to come down and get my leg dopplered to make sure there was nothing wrong. Jeff's parents were coming into town that night, and he was stuck at the house waiting on them, so my sweet friend Lauren insisted on coming to sit with me. I'm sure that's not how she'd planned to spend her Friday night, but she's an awesome friend like that. The OBR was not busy, but the tech was at home when I got there, so 2 hours later he finally showed up to look at my leg. Thankfully all was okay, but still scary nonetheless!

I guess those are the biggies for now. I'll try to update with pictures before too long!

Last Weekend

Last weekend some of the girls hosted a baby shower for Marjo, our friend from Memphis, who is expecting Baby Joseph about 2 weeks before Baby Claire is due. It's always fun to talk to someone who is right there with you in this pregnancy whirlwind. Plus Marjo and I were suite-mates our Junior/Senior years of college - what fun we had back in the day! Good times and good memories!

I've had a few people comment that I look like I'm "glowing" this week, but those compliments were quickly dimished after another person commented that I looked like I was waddling. Seriously people, being pregnant is hard enough without all of these unhelpful "observations," even if they are true. But I honestly don't think I am waddling just yet - I just happened to be wearing one of my new pairs of shoes that day, and was trying not to get any blisters. You know some people look so glamorous when they are pregnant but me - not so much. I have these red veins (that look like pimples) all over my chest and arms and my veins in general are so dark on my chest, arms, stomach, etc that I look like some creature from the X Files in the right light. Not to mention all the craziness going on in my legs - which I don't believe will ever be the same. Let's just say spider veings galore, and I'm just hoping I can make it through all this with no varicose veins. Again, I know it's all worth it in the end, but if I could just go a week without some new patch of veins popping up, I'd be thrilled!!

Okay that's all for now. I should have lots of fun pictures to post next week after our visit to ATL this weekend.

Sincerely - Your freakishly veiny, waddling, glowing, very pregnant friend

Happy Easter and 27 Weeks

Baby Claire is growing, growing, growing these days. I believe my stomach has tripled in size since my last belly shot at 20 weeks. It's a little scary to think I still have 13 weeks to go, but I know this is all part of baby and will be well worth it in the end.

Thankfully, despite my growing girth, I still feel good and haven't been too incapacitated by my size. I try to walk with my neighbor at least every other night, which surprisingly has gotten easier the past several weeks. I guess my body is finally getting used to all of the extra weight.

We had a lovely Easter with my family. Mom cooked a delicious ham, and we all enjoyed being together to celebrate. And to top it all off the weather was amazing - a perfectly beautiful day to celebrate Christ's victory over the grave.

I am loving the longer days and sunny weather. Being from Alaska, I always thought myself partial to cooler weather and snow. But in the south, everyone seems to hibernate from December - March, so I love seeing everyone out and about now that it's warmer. Plus, it's now light long enough to take the boat out in the evenings - which is one of our favorite summer activities. Baby Claire took her inaugural ride last night and I'm quite certain she enjoyed it just as much as her mom!




















Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!!