A GREAT DAY!

After my fairly negative-sounding post from yesterday, I thought I needed to share that yesterday Emery & I had a wonderful day! The last couple of weeks have been so hard because she has been incredibly unhappy due to pain from her reflux and gas...when she wasn't eating or sleeping, she was crying (or projectile vomiting). I'm not sure what happened, but I think yesterday was a breakthrough day! Perhaps her medicine for the reflux is kicking in or maybe she was just feeling a lot better for some reason. Either way, I'll take it - believe me, I needed a good day in the midst of 3 weeks of screaming. It really gave me hope that we'll have a happy baby after all, and that more good days are in our future!

Here are some pictures from yesterday that show just how content she was!

First, Aunt Deb came to visit - she was really sleepy all morning so she was happy to snooze on Debbie's shoulder for almost an hour. She has been going through a growth spurt this week, so she was awake & eating a LOT over the last few days - I think she really just needed to catch up! I love that Chessie is peeking over the couch in this picture.

Because of her reflux, she spits up ALL the time, and in large amounts. Therefore, she smells like spoiled milk (and so do I). Once she woke up from her nap on Debbie, I thought it would be a good time to give her a bath. She was already a little fussy because she had a dirty diaper so I thought - what the heck, she's already screaming, let's give her a bath. She has HATED all her baths and screams the entire time. She did scream for a few minutes, but once I gave her a pacifier...miraculously she stopped crying and was quiet the rest of the bath!! I was shocked! She even seemed to enjoy it!!

Below are some other happy pictures from the afternoon - Adam and I have discovered that sometimes Emery just doesn't want to be held, and she now likes to be on her back. Before, she absolutely hated it because of the reflux...it was painful. This is another reason why I think the meds are kicking in - she really seems to enjoy being independent from us and laying on her back, looking around and sucking on her paci. She spent some time in her crib yesterday, which was also new. She has been sleeping in her b0uncy chair because it's on more of an incline, but yesterday she was perfectly happy playing in her crib, and even started dozing in there!

I don't have any pictures, but we ended up taking her to a local Chinese restaurant last night - this was major progress for me because I have been petrified of taking her in public. No one likes a crying baby, much less a SCREAMING baby during dinner. She had such a good day, though, that we figured we'd give it a shot. Lo & behold, she fell asleep during the car ride over and slept the entire time...it was great! I got to enjoy a glass of wine, some yummy Chinese food (which I had an aversion to the entire time I was pregnant) and good company. All the while, Emery was angelically sleeping, even thwarting Grandpa's attempts to wake her up.

We ended the evening with Daddy & Emery hanging out together on the couch watching TV. I was so glad that she stayed good all evening, I was worried that even with having such a good day there was no way it was going to last. And yet she seemed content all night, and even slept in her crib for the first time last night! I tried to put her in her bouncy seat because I am still a little concerned about the reflux and the vomiting, but she really wasn't having it. She wanted to stretch out on her back - so I let her and we had a good night's sleep. Well, SHE had a good night's sleep...I was worried about her so ended up checking on her every hour or so.

I hope there are more of these days in the near future! Even if Emery is fussy this week, I now know that she can be happy and that there is an end in sight. Yesterday made me fall in love with our daughter all over again...to see her big blue eyes looking around and taking in the world without tears in them was amazing to me. I can't wait to see more of it.

Take care and hope everyone has a great week!

The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

I know it's a cheesy title for this post, but I think that it really sums up the last three weeks for us! Adam & I are so in love with our little girl and I know that this time will be something that we look back on with so much fondness...but boy, has it been hard. Harder than I ever thought it could ever be.

Before becoming a mother, I thought "Heck, how difficult can it be? Babies - especially newborns - sleep all the time." Um, not necessarily...and they also eat. And poop. And cry. Cry? Try SCREAM. For hours.

Emery has been a little more high-maintenance than anticipated. She's beautiful and amazing and there are moments throughout the day when Adam & I are just in awe of what we created and what we have to look forward to with her. On the other end of the spectrum, I wouldn't call our little girl an easy baby! She definitely doesn't sleep all the time and when she is awake she unfortunately isn't very happy. She still suffers from her reflux and has developed some issues with gas that make her extremely uncomfortable. She is also now going through her three-week growth spurt which makes her even more fussy and hungry ALL the time - so she is eating every hour or so during the day, which is very hard on me since I am breastfeeding. We're trying out some medicines for the reflux and I am staying away from certain foods to help her with the gas (who knows if that'll work, but hey it's worth a shot!), and these growth spurts don't last forever...so I am hopeful that over the next few weeks life might get a bit easier.

My saving grace is that thankfully she is better at night and tends to go 3-4 hour stretches before waking up to eat. I still only average about 5-6 hours of sleep a night (not consecutively, of course) but it's better than being up every 1.5-2 hours to feed her. Again, since I am breastfeeding Adam can't really help with the nighttime feedings - and since he is back at work now (boo!) it wouldn't be fair for me to ask him to wake up at 3am anyway. Needless to say, I am very tired and it doesn't help that I have a very hard time napping during the day. Emery does take a nice long nap in the mornings, but I'm up and trying to get a few things done...before she wakes up again and wants to eat and cry the rest of the day.

I don't mean to make it sound all bad - there are amazing moments when she makes us laugh, times when she makes us completely melt, and times when we look at her and just cannot believe how lucky we are to have and raise a baby. I know that these wonderful moments we have with our daughter will outweigh the hard first couple of weeks...and people say that we won't even really remember them (I hope they're right!). We're taking it one day at a time and every day I think we make a little more progress as we learn what her needs are and what soothes her. It's really a learning experience for all three of us!

Below are a couple more pictures of Emery - I think she has changed a lot over the last few weeks! At her 2 week doctor's appointment she was already 8 lbs, 10 oz! Told you she was a hungry girl. I assume that by now she's at least close to 9 lbs, if not more.

We are truly grateful to our close family and friends who have done SO MUCH to help us out - the dinners, taking her so we can get a break for a while, and just listening to us vent and offering amazing advice and suggestions. Adam and I would not have been able to make it without your support and love.

-Michelle & Adam

Emery & I having a very interesting conversation:

She fell asleep this way and I thought it was just adorable (don't worry, I didn't leave her unattended there!):

Tiny hands - and Adam's attempt to be an artsy photographer:

Welcome Emery! Birth story & a few pictures

I am so happy to announce that Emery Elizabeth Alford was born on July 3rd, 2008 at 4:48pm, weighing 7lbs 12oz and 19 inches long. For those who are interested, I'll share a quick summary of how the birth went (no gory details, I promise!) and then post a few good pictures from the last few days.

When I went for my 38-week appointment, I was still 2cm dilated and my cervix was very thin - of course, we all knew that meant absolutely nothing as far as when I might go into labor. My doctor had mentioned previously that she didn't want me to go past July 7th, so we started talking about scheduling an induction. She gave me the option of July 3rd (before the holiday weekend) or July 7th, which also happens to be our 1-yr wedding anniversary. After talking to Adam about it, we decided to go ahead and schedule it for the 3rd since (a) our anniversary is special and we didn't want to overshadow her birthday OR our anniversary and (b) I was generally done being pregnant! We also knew that we had 2 weeks for something to happen "naturally."

Well, I obviously didn't go into labor on my own, even though at my 39 week appointment I had progressed to almost 3cm. So, it became clear that July 3rd was going to be Emery's birthday! It worked out very well in the long run - I was able to finish up a lot of things at work that needed to be done by June 30th, and the planner in me just LOVED knowing exactly what was going to happen, and when. We went in on the 2nd for pre-registration and talked to the labor & delivery nurse, who explained everything to us in detail. Even though I was sad that my body seemed to be taking its sweet time in the labor department, it was awesome to not be rushed and stressed out about the whole process.

We arrived at the hospital on July 3rd at 7:45am. I was weirdly calm about everything, which is not like me at all - I tend to worry and overanalyze everything to death, but in this case Adam was the one who was jumpy and nervous. He didn't sleep at all the night before, but I actually got some decent sleep (which is good considering what lay before me that day!). We got to the room and settled in, and Dr. Davis arrived a little before 9am. She checked me and I was a good 3cm and very thin, and she explained that according to the monitor I was having good contractions on my own every 3 minutes. I was shocked - I hadn't been feeling a thing! They started the pitocin to get those contractions going a bit stronger. I felt a little discomfort, but nothing unbearable - when the nurse came back at 10:30, I told her I'd hold out for a little while longer before getting any pain relief. She promptly turned up the pitocin. Within minutes, I was feeling strong painful contractions with very little relief in between - they were about 1-2 minutes apart and never really faded...they just kept coming back-to-back. Adam wanted to call her to ask for an epidural, but I figured I could stick it out until she came back to check on me. Of course, she took her sweet time and by the time the anesthesiologist arrived with the epidural I had been dealing with those contractions for almost an hour. Let me tell you, I have no clue how people do a medication-free birth...I have so much respect for them. The epidural was a breeze and very soon I was blissfully unaware of the contractions!

At noon I was checked and had only progressed to 4cm. They told me to try and take a nap because I needed my strength for the big event! I tried, but just couldn't sleep. Plus we had a ton of visitors in & out all day, so it was hard to really focus on sleeping! Around 2:00, I started feeling some pain through the epidural - it got so bad that I called the nurse and she checked me again...I was 10cm! I had progressed from 4 to 10 in less than 3 hours. I was absolutely shocked. They wanted me to "labor down" for a while before pushing, since she was still pretty high. They tilted my bed so that my head was lower than my feet - the nurse explained it like a lime in a Carona...you tip the bottle upside down and the lime floats to the top. It was pretty darn uncomfortable being tipped that way, and she left me there for about an hour. It must have worked though, because I was feeling a lot of pressure (but no pain). After a while she came back, we did a few pushes without Dr. Davis, and suddenly the nurse said "I think I have to call the doctor - you're ready to have her!" Dr. Davis arrived she was born minutes later. I pushed a total of about 15 minutes, which is awesome - and yes, the drugs were amazing and I felt zero pain! Yay for modern medicine.

I stayed 2 nights in the hospital and we came home Saturday the 5th. Emery has been such a joy to us, even though she has her days & nights confused and she is keeping us up all night. We are incredibly exhausted but are hopeful that she will figure it out soon...in the meantime, we have to force ourselves to nap during the day (which I especially have a problem with - I feel like I should be doing something!). She had her first pediatrician appointment on Monday, and she has gained back the weight she lost in the hospital already...she is a hungry girl and nurses GREAT. The pediatrician was really impressed at her progress - she has some reflux issues, which also adds to our misery in the middle of the night, but that should fix itself as she continues to grow. Oh, and her belly button fell off today!

On a different note, Monday the 7th was our 1-year wedding anniversary. Needless to say, celebration was minimal, but having our daughter is the best gift we could ever ask for. Adam got me an incredibly sweet card and he cleaned my bathroom...how great is he? We also watched our wedding video with Emery sleeping in Adam's arms, so overall it was an anniversary to remember.

Overall, things are going really well - even though it's a lot harder than I anticipated. Adam is off from work for 2 weeks and I am so grateful for that. I don't know what I would do without him! In addition to helping with Emery as much as he possibly can (unfortunately he just can't help out with the constant feedings!), he has really taken responsibility for the house and laundry. If it weren't for him, there would be piles of clothes everywhere and the house would be a wreck. He's such a great husband and I can tell already that he is going to be a wonderful father.

Below are some pictures of Emery from the last couple of days. I'll keep everyone updated as we continue to learn about each other! Thanks to all of you for your prayers and support over the last week - Adam & I appreciate it more than you will ever know.

Love to you all!