Mission: Getting Baby OUT!!!

So if you recall, my original estimated due date was June 2nd. Our baby was born on June 18th. That's right, sixteen days later. The longest sixteen days of my life. Those sixteen days took longer to pass by than the entire previous 40 weeks.

Short of drinking castor oil, which I was vehemently opposed to doing, I tried everything in the world to encourage labor. All the old wives' tales, walking, bouncing on a birthing ball, walking, acupressure points, walking, eating fresh pineapple, walking, having my membranes stripped, walking, and of course, the thing that got me into the whole thing. Did I mention walking? We walked a lot.

I even went as far as cutting my hair. 20 inches to be exact. I had no intentions of getting it cut, but the Saturday after my due date had passed, I realized that I wanted it gone. So I cut it all off!

In the end I was given two options: I could be induced by the midwives, or I could let my body go into labor on its own, but I would have to switch to the OB's in the practice if I went over 42 weeks. I didn't want the latter so I went with the former.

Next time around I hope to avoid Pitocin at all costs. That stuff is brutal!

it's been a long long time...

a lot has changed in the past 3 months!

Our little girl made her arrival on June 18th at 11:23 pm, after 14.5 hours of labor. She was 16 days overdue, and I had to be induced. She just did not want to come out!

We came home a day and a half later, and it's just been an amazing experience. The first few weeks went by so very slowly, but since we hit 5 or 6 weeks, they've started to fly by. Natalie is already 9.5 weeks old! She's really a great baby; not sleeping through the night, but we'll get there eventually.

I'd really like to keep up with my blogging, but my brain is just fried these days. Between the lack of sleep (she does go up to 4 hours at a time at night, but usually it's more like 2.5 or 3), working from home while caring for the baby, and the "pregnancy brain" (which by the way, I never believed in before getting pregnant, but now that I've been there, it's TOTALLY a real thing!! It gets even worse post-partum!!), I'm not sure how well I'll be able to keep it up.

So much has happened over the past 9.5 weeks, that it's not worth it to go back and write about it all. I'll never be able to! So instead I'll just start with the present...

Today we left baby Ellie with a "babysitter" for the first time for an extended period of time. We've left her before with our moms and my sisters, but never for more than an hour. Today she went to Andy's parent's house while we went to the State Fair with my sisters and oldest niece. We had a good time at the fair (they had a Lactation Station!), and grandma, grandpa and uncle Kevin had a great time with the little one.

Right now Andy is laying on the floor with Ellie while she has her "I'm not sure what I think of this" tummy-time. They're talking to each other, but mostly she's chewing on her hand (something she's just recently discovered and seems to like to chew on more and more consistently the past couple of days).

Life is good.