Adella Rose

Honestly there is so much I want to write about the pregnancy, the labor and delivery, the hospital stay and the past three weeks.
I just put Adella down and expert her to erupt in tears any minute so I'll do my best to share before I am torn away.

Labor and Delivery
AKA: The EASIEST part of parenting so far...
I had technically been in labor for nine weeks when I woke up on Dec. 11th. I had been put on bed rest at week 31 to prevent the Braxton-Hicks contractions from progressing. I had become quite accustomed to the pesky false labor so I knew that the contractions were different and I told Michael to stay home. We made it to Kaiser Baldwin Park around 8 in the morning and I was feeling the pain! I was admitted and in a bed by 9. My nurse, Karen, was wonderful and she had paged Dr. Teng (the magic needle man) almost before I could moan the word "epidural". Dr. Teng arrived and gave me the epidural which inflicted about as much pain as a flu shot. I guess he numbed my back with a tiny needle before the gargantuan spine needle was shoved in because I asked him to tell me when the needle was in and he told me he had already pulled it out! Once I had the epidural I was given an oxygen mask and I was in heaven! I felt no pain and was in a fantastic mood that was similar to the one laughing gas gives!




uh oh...
she turned on the waterworks...
be back soon...

Quickie

I am officially a mommy!
Adella was born on Dec. 11th at 3:27 in the afternoon.
She was 6 lbs and 7 oz and 19 inches long.
She has blue eyes, light brown hair and looks like a doll!
I will post pictures and details as soon as I get a chance to do the following:
-shower
-eat
-laundry
-dishes
-empty the diaper pail (gross-mustard-baby-poo)
-sleep
Be back soon (hopefully)!
:]

Ugh

Today is week 39 and two days.
Hopefully I will go into labor today.

Leaves of Gold

My mother-in-law gave me an old book that she found called "Leaves of Gold". It is full of little poems, quotes and such. I read one below last night and it really made me think about what it means to be a parent and how to best teach little Adella. I hope you enjoy it.



Sermons We See
By Edgar A. Guest

I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day,
I'd rather one should walk with me than merely show the way.
The eye's a better pupil and more willing than the ear;
Fine counsel is confusing, but example's always clear;
And the best of all the preachers are the men who live their creeds,
For to see the good in action is what everybody needs.
I can soon learn how to do it if you'll let me see it done.
I can watch your hands in action, but your tongue too fast may run.
And the lectures you deliver may be very wise and true;
But I'd rather get my lesson by observing what you do.
For I may misunderstand you and the high advice you give,
But there's no misunderstanding how you act and how you live.

Update

Today marks 38 weeks and 3 days and I am beyond ready for Adella to be born. In many ways it is hard to believe that I will be parenting more than a strech-marked belly! I can't really picture a baby...I just picture myself pregnant...forever.
I've been to Kaiser twice with false alarms. The first time I thought my water broke (wrong) and the second time I was having contractions about six minutes apart but they were not getting closer together (in fact, five minutes after I got hooked up to every type of monitor ever invented, they vanished). Aside from the false alarms I have all of the common complaints:
blah blah can't sleep blah blah blah back pain blah blah...I'll spare you the rest.
Michael and I have been "nesting" quite a bit. I must give the majority of the credit to Michael because he is much more nesty than I am. He's cleaned and organized every drawer, cabinet and closet in our house. All of the stuff that I look at and think "Hmm..that is kinda dirty and gross..." he has thoroughly scoured (including every single ceiling fan blade and the dark corners in the coat closet). The baby's room is finished and all of her clothes have been washed (twice) and put away (in the dresser, then in the closet, then in the dresser again because I couldn't decide which was better).
I'll post some photos of the room and such soon!

Cankles

I've got 'em people and it's not pretty.

What's In A Name?

Michael and I have picked a name for the baby! For a long long long time we just called her Baby Sweetie. It was difficult to choose a name. We didn't want anything super common but we didn't want anything super weird...we wanted to make sure that it would be easy to spell and easy to say...we wanted a name that had meaning but not one where the meaning was absurd...we wanted a name that could fit a cute little girl playing on the monkey bars as well as a grown woman.
We pondered for months and many people (family and friends) thought that we were keeping the name secret! The truth was we just could not find one that we thought fit her. That was until Michael was driving home from the gym and came up with the name Adella. He said that it just popped into his head. We looked it up online and found out that it means "noble and serene" (who doesn't want a serene newborn?!). We also found out that it was really popular in the early 1900's and then it pretty much fell off the map (not common but not bizarre either). We decided to go with Rose as a middle name because my mom LOVED it and since I am not a huge fan of the middle name I share with my mom (Sue...can it get anymore country?) I thought it would be a nice gesture to let her pick the middle name. Thus, Baby Sweetie became Adella Rose!