Lily Blooms

I've been having trouble keeping up with my blogging because I find it very difficult to type while holding a newborn baby. ;-)

And, I'm pretty much still holding her all the time. She is a very cuddly little baby and she doesn't really care for being put down anywhere. Even while you are holding her, and you think she is sleeping, she will crack open one eye ever so slightly just to make sure you are still there. It's pretty funny. But, she is in Daddy's arms right now so I can just pop in here long enough to update the blog a bit and then try to play some catch-up. I still have to re-do the header!! Little Lily-Pie isn't on there yet!

In the meantime...

Last week Lily-Pie turned One Month Old!

Happy One-Month Birthday, Baby!! ;-)

I took another picture of her in her car seat (the first was taken in the hospital just before she came home) so I can watch the difference in her as she grows. You can already see how much she has grown!! She is clearly taller and she is really quite a bit heavier now. Dave used to carry her in her car seat (around the grocery store, or wherever...) and he said he couldn't hardly even notice her in there at first. Now we have to remember to bring her stroller because she is getting too heavy to just carry around. Her next doctor's appointment is on Wednesday so it will be interesting to see just how much she does weigh now.

It's incredible how fast they grow.

Scrap Baby!

Hi all!!

I just finished the first page of my second digitial scrapbooking project for Lily-Pie. The first project was my "Annoucement/Thank-you" cards that I made to send out to all the people who helped us to welcome our little one into the world. I had to wait a bit to show the card because one person who reads this blog was due to get one. ;-)

I had made another page for Lily-Pie but then my brand new computer froze up on me and I lost it. Technology! Got to love it! Anyway, I'm sure I'll get another page done (and properly saved) soon and I'll post it once I do.

Here's the one titled "Your Name".

First Modelling Session

We took Lily-Pie to the photographer's today. We wanted to get one of those really cute baby photos done of her -- you know, the ones where the baby is lying butt naked and asleep on her tummy while lying on a stack of towels...or in a laundry basket...or something similar. The place where we were taking her does photos like that, but they do most of it using really cool looking graphics. This means, the baby doesn't actually lie on the stack of towels, or on the laundry basket, she just lies on a black surface and all the rest of the photo is put in by computer. The photos look really beautiful, and we thought this would be easy-peasy because Lily-Pie actually likes to sleep on her tummy. It's her favourite position for getting snuggly. So, we thought we would just have to get her to fall asleep on Dave's chest and then he could put her down onto the black blankie and the photographer could snap away. Only, there was no black blankie. There was only a little, tiny, piece of black rubber. It wasn't cozy, it wasn't comfy, and it wasn't warm. And, it wasn't anything that Lily-Pie was interested in posing on in her birthday suit.

We'd get her to sleep, but as soon as we put her down on that little piece of rubber she'd wake up and cry. Poor little kid. We tried for over an hour to get the shot (picking her up and rocking her to sleep, putting her down on the table, picking her up and rocking her back to sleep, putting her back down onto the table...) and it just wasn't going to happen. Finally Dave asked if we could, maybe, put one of our coats down on the table for her to lie on instead and once we did that we were able to get 4 pictures taken...with her awake...and on her side. It wasn't quite the quiet, calm, baby sleeping on her belly shot we were going for but I'm sure it will still be sweet. I just don't understand why they didn't at least have some cozy, black, towels or blankets for the baby to lie on. What little baby likes to be cold and naked?

Not Ours!

She's Not Heavy

When Jamie was born Maddie was still a few weeks away from her second birthday and, I think, she wasn't quite ready to share her attention with a new kid on the block. That is to say...she couldn't really stand her. She didn't want anything to do with her and she would often say that she felt it was time for the new baby to go back to the hospital. I'll always remember taking them to have their portrait done and Maddie would not sit close to Jamie and, certainly, she wasn't about to put her arm around her three month old sister. I had to sit there, just out of the frame and hold Maddie's arm around Jamie. That picture always makes me laugh now because I know the history behind it. Poor little Jamie - just a wee little thing - struggling to keep her head up straight while I held her up and held Maddie's arm around her just out of view.


Luckily, Maddie eventually got over her resentment of this new kid and they are now fast friends. In fact, they would be lost without each other. But, that probably took at least a couple of years of rocky roads to achieve.


So, a question I often get now that Lily-Pie has arrived is, "How do the girls feel about their new baby sister?"




I'll tell you...What a difference a year makes!!

There's No Place Like Home!

A (not so) quick note on our hospital stay...

After we were done in the recovery room the nurse began rolling us to the room I'd call "home" for the next 3 days. I was so excited when we got there and they began setting me up by the window. I'd never had the window side before and when you are in the hospital for any length of time having a bit of a view starts to seem like a pretty special thing. What I didn't know at that moment is that I should have traded the window spot for a healthy room-mate.

Unfortunately, later in the day, the next lady they wheeled into my room was very, very, sick. She was vomiting constantly for hours and hours on end. I felt just terrible for her and, I must admit, I was getting a bit grossed out by listening to her. I assumed she was just having some sort of reaction to having given birth, or the meds. she had been given, or something like that. But, by the time she let the nurses know (obviously within earshot of me) that she had also been having (turn away now if you are squeamish...or if you are eating...or if you just don't want all the gory details) explosive diarrhea it started to become clear that something else was going on with this lady. I heard the nurse tell her, "Well, you really shouldn't be sharing the bathroom with the other women. I'll get you set up with a commode chair. And, be sure to always wash your hands really well. That is a terrible bug you have there".

Oh great.

So here I was with my brand new (read: vulnerable) baby and I've got the woman with a "terrible bug" as my room-mate. The nurse came over to my side of the curtain and said, "Have you been washing your hands well when you use the washroom?"

Well, Yes. Of course. But, has she!?

The panic started slowly there. Once they got the lady's commode chair all set up for her - the panic became full blown.

Imagine you are in the hospital, with your little baby, and the woman on the other side of the little curtain has been vomiting constantly since she came into your room and you've now discovered that the vomiting isn't her only symptom. Then, they set her up with the equivalent of a kitty litter box which is placed directly on the other side of your little curtain in which she is supposed to have all her explosive diarrhea from now on. Not only is there no noise control over that situation, there is also no smell control. And, all I could think of as this went on...and on...and on...was the aerosolization of all her germs that were just floating up into the air...up, up, up and over my little curtain and down, down, down onto me and my baby.

I tell you - I got no sleep in the hospital. Literally. None. And by 4 am on Monday morning I was up and out of my little bed and packing up all my stuff. I couldn't take it anymore! I packed up all my clothes, all the gifts that our friends and family had brought by, and all my magazines, etc. I only left out one change of clean clothes. I sat on the side of the bed freaking out and waiting for time to pass. I was desperate for the morning so that I could, basically, plead to be let out of the hospital and...if that didn't work...I was well prepared to demand it.

In the morning they started to get prepared to move my room-mate to her own private room. Great. But, unfortunately, I had already spent 3 days with this lady. I wanted out of there and I let everyone who would listen to me know it.

Lily-Pie had lost some weight since her birth, but I knew that was only because she wasn't eating much for the first day or so. She was eating well by that point and I had no concerns about whether she was going to put weight back on. My only concern was getting her out of there. The nurses decided to call my family doctor and let it be up to him. Fortunately (for everyone involved) he agreed to have us released and we just needed to bring Lily-Pie into his office the next day for weighing.

I asked the nurse how concerned I should be about having roomed with the lady who spent the first three days of her son's life puking her guts out - and she told me not to worry. Well, I was worried -- worried about what the next 48-72 hours might bring me (let alone Lily-Pie)! But, at least I was leaving.

The room with a view wasn't all it was cracked up to be, after all, and never before had the saying "There's no place like home" rang more true for me.

This is the traditional photo that Dave and I always take when we are bringing a new baby home...with the self-timer on our camera. This time we put the camera on the hood of the truck...almost worked!

Lily-Pie's Birthday

(Davey and I the night before Lily's birth)

Well, Lily-Pie is actually 3 weeks old now so I have some catching up to do. It's been hard to find the time to blog with a new, very cuddly, baby around but I'll try to keep the updates and photos coming.

Here's a bit about the day she was born...

Maddie and Jamie's births were both scheduled for first thing in the morning. This meant Davey and I had to be at the hospital for 6 o'clock. But, Lily-Pie's birth wasn't scheduled until 2pm...so we didn't have to be there until noon. That was nice because we didn't even have to set the alarm. We just got up, got ready, packed, and headed to the hospital. The only thing was, I wasn't allowed to eat anything after midnight the night before and I kept walking into the kitchen to grab something to eat all morning only to remember I wasn't allowed any food. The big girls headed off to school as usual and their Grandma was able to pick them up after school, so that was great.

When we got to the hospital we realized we didn't even know where we were supposed to go. Good thing I had delivered there twice before and as we headed to the elevators it all started to come back to me. Once we checked ourselves in we got sent into the same little room that I had been in before and I was changed into my hospital gown and hooked up to fluids in no time. Then it was just time for the wait. Two hours of sitting on that hospital bed, with my big belly, waiting to meet my little girl. That is a long two hours, I'll tell you. I could feel her moving around in me like crazy...as she had through-out the entire pregnancy...and I felt a little sad about the fact that she wasn't going to be there anymore but, more than that, I was just excited to meet her. I was so anxious to see what she would look like. If she would have a ton of black hair like her sisters did. If she would have blue eyes like her sisters did. If she would, in fact, be a she.

Just after 2 o'clock they were ready for me. I made the trek to the operating room (they have you just walk over yourself..they don't wheel ya' in) with my bag of fluids and my little gown. As I was walking there I got a little nervous about the spinal and became very appreciative of just being able to walk. I really hoped that wasn't going to be my last time walking! But, before I could stress myself out too much about that, it was time for me to hop up (can a 38 week pregnant woman hop?) onto the surgery table. I sat on the side of the bed and had to curl over slightly to allow the anaesthetist to deliver the spinal. I remember when I had Maddie that I was very nervous about it, but it really didn't hurt very much at all. When I had Jamie I wasn't as nervous because I wasn't expecting it to hurt - and it didn't very much. But, this time, it hurt. I could feel the doctor redirecting the needle and I could feel the local anaesthetic as it went in. A lot of pressure and quite sore. But, then, before you know it your legs become very heavy and as you lie back on the table you start to loose all connection with you lower body. The nurses have to swing your legs up on the table for you. It's pretty freaky.

My wonderful doctor then came into the room and said, "Hi" to me over the drapes and I could hear them starting to get to work. Only, they had forgotten to invite Dave in! Just then one of the nurses said, "Does she have someone with her?" and then someone else said, "Oh! Yes! Her husband! Go call her husband Dave in". A moment later Dave was beside me with the camera and the video camera. We weren't "technically" allowed to have either, but my doctor is so cool that she let us anyway. For Maddie we don't have any video of her birth or even pictures. We were only allowed to take pictures after she was born. That really bothers me, because we have video of Jamie's birth and it is so wonderful to have - especially to hear her very first cries on tape. So amazing. But, luckily, we were able to tape just as Lily-Pie was being born...which was so soon after they started. Seems that Lily was much easier to get out than Jamie was as there was much less pushing down on me and much less struggling. At 2:25 my doctor said, "It's a girl" and made it official. I could hear her little cry and see them carrying her over to the tables at the side of the operating room.

The very first thing I said was, "OH! She is so CUTE!"

She really was an adorable baby. So tiny, and sweet, and perfect.
Dave brought her back over to me as quickly as he could and held her right by my face so that I could see her and kiss her as the doctors worked away on stitching my belly back up. I couldn't wait to have her in my arms so that I could hold her, too.

It probably took about half an hour to finish up with me and then they wheeled me into the recovery room. That's when I finally got to hold my Lily-Pie.

The doctors and nurses in the surgery room had all been amazed that I was able to carry her to 38 weeks with my wonky little uterus. She was my third miracle baby.

I'm a lucky girl...

and she looks like she is smiling already!

Introducing...Lily-Pie!

Well, she's been home with us for just over a week now (almost 2 weeks since her birthday) so I really must apologize for the delay in getting photos up here! You see, my computer is completely "full" and it won't even let me take a photo and make it smaller to put on here. I've bought an external hard drive and I'm working on getting everything backed up so that I can start downloading more photos off my camera (which is now, also, almost full). We probably have about 200 photos of little Lily-Pie's first couple of weeks with us...so there will definitely be more to come. This is what I've managed to download so far.



Just to let you know...
the delivery went great. Our little girl weighed 6 lbs 9.5 ounces (1/2 an oz. smaller than Maddie was) and she was 20 inches long. She had a bit of amniotic fluid in her tummy so she wasn't eating much for the first couple of days, but she is gaining weight like a trouper now. The two of us were very, very, happy to go home (that's a bit of a long and kind of disgusting story that I'll tell you about another time...read it long before your dinner).



Her name is Nicole Lily. We knew her first name would be Nicole (Dave loves that name and since I got to pick Madilyn and Jamie's names, I let him pick this one...plus, I like "Nicole", too) for a long, long, time. But, we did not know what her second name was going to be. For awhile it was "Kenna" (Irish for beautiful) and we also thought about "Grace" or "Emma" and a few others. Once she was born I could not decide between "Lily" and "Grace" so we thought of naming her Nicole Lily-Grace. But, as we hung out together in the hospital I discovered she was really a "Lily" because I called her "Lily-Pie" the whole time. It just suits her.

She is such a sweet baby. I just love her to pieces. She is so quiet and inquisitive and cuddly. She just loves to be held and her Dad and I have been happy to oblige. She has been eating about every 2 hours (day and night) which is great for her growth, but has left me in a bit of a fog. Has anything I've written made sense? I have no idea. A bit sleepy around here. But we are so, so, happy and so lucky. Dave keeps asking me "So do you still like her" - I think he is teasing me because I just sit looking at her and smiling all the time.



So...
more photos to come soon, I promise.
Here are a few for now.

Thanks everyone for all your well wishes and support.