We Are Home!

Baby Ellie is home!! After seeing my doctor, her pediatrician and getting another lesson from the lactation consultant we were released around 12:00. We somehow managed to get all of our things into our car and were on our way. Ellie enjoyed the car ride home and has settled in just fine.

We are trying to get some of our Christmas things put away and do all those things we thought we had another month to do. Luckily we have a lot of much needed help.


Missy and Milo really didn't care much at all about the baby at first. They were more excited about seeing us. The both eventually came over curiously to check her out and have done fine. Milo generally doesn't care that she is around. Missy is a little nervous when she cries but this was greatly confounded by the fact that it is New Year's Eve and the fireworks remind her that she is majorly gun-shy. Overall they have both done really well with her so far.

Welcome Eleanor Claire Hamilton!

Baby Ellie is here!  

She was born December 29, 2008 at 4:20 in the morning and weighs 6 lbs. 7 oz and is 20 1/4 inches long.  She has cute brown hair and is quite the snuggle bug!  Although she was born at 35 and 4/7 weeks she is doing great!

More details about the whole wonderful ordeal later. 

We are all doing great....recovering from being up forever. More pictures later today.

We are so in love....

Happy Birthday Baby!!

All weekend I had been going a little crazy trying to get things done around the house. We managed to get the Christmas decorations taken down and get our bedroom picked up. Sunday I started having cramps that were a little worse than I'd been having but I figured it was because I'd been exerting myself a little too much trying to get things done. I just kept thinking that I'd have to go back to work after the holiday and so this was my chance to get things done. Jason convinced me to relax and go get a pedicure which was great. Sunday night we went out to Target to pick up some bins because I wanted to organize our bathroom closet... I guess you can't stop the urge to nest :). We went to my parents and let their dogs out and then came home and I worked on the closet. I started getting ready for bed around 11:00 and my water broke! Jason was downstairs playing Rock Band on the Wii so I yelled for him to come up.

So the excitement went on from there. Here is Jason's time line that he typed up at the hospital:

11:01 - We called the OBGYN and they paged the doctor for us

11:11 - Dr. McKenzie called back and told us to come in

~12:00 midnight- We arrived at the hospital

-Got into Triage, and on monitor. Katy was at 2cm. Shortly after the nurse came in and told us that because of several emergencies, and Katy was the most stable, we will wait a little while for a room. Nurse said this was the busiest night she can remember.

2:30- We were taken to the delivery room

Around 3:30 Katy said she was in a lot of pain and was worried that if this was early labor she'd need something to help with the pain. We wanted to see how far along she was, to determine if she needed to start medicine or not.

3:00-The nurse checked Katy and she was beyond 8cm. She told us we probably couldn't get an epidural but we could do narcotics. We decided it was close enough to being over that we could do it without. The nurse paged the doctor and had the room set up for delivery. She also called in the doctors for a "35 weeker"

She started pushing right after 4, and Eleanor was born at 4:20 AM!

Dr. McKenzie put Eleanor on Katy for a second and let Jason cut the cord, and then three people from pediatrics checked her out under the heater. Eleanor started crying which made us feel a little better. After a few minutes they said she was okay to go the regular nursery rather than the NICU and we got to hold her for a while (15-20 minutes) until they took her to check her out and give her a bath. Jason checked her frequently through the window and Katy was able to get up and look at her before moving down the hall.

Katy was taken to the postpartum room around 6:00. She had some troubles with bleeding which was scary but the doctor and nurses got it taken care of right away.

The baby was in the nursery until about 7 AM when we asked the nurse to check on her for us and they brought her in shortly.

She was beautiful and 6lb 7oz and 20.25 inches long at birth.

The birth was quick and honestly not as bad as I expected. It was hard but I think it is one of those things that the result is so awesome that it helps make the whole experience better.

Belly Pictures! (One day before baby!)

35 week update

I started having some pretty bad cramps today and so we went to the doctor to make sure everything was okay. She checked me out and said that I looked alright, the baby sounded good and to try to make it two more weeks. They would prefer the baby make it to 37 weeks because that is considered term so she told me just to take it easy and call if it got any worse. At this point we are kind of thinking she may be early (considering she said try to make it two more weeks) but I don't think she wanted to say either way. So now the nesting is on full blown!

My family is all out of town...they are going to Iowa to see family and then will make their way down to Alabama to see Zoe twirl in the Papa Johns Bowl. Everyone has been teasing me that she'll be born when everyone is gone.

We are officially trained and ready!

This weekend we had our Labor and Birth class. We opted for the weekend version of the class because of the timing of the baby it was difficult to find an evening class that fit with the holidays and exams, etc.

We went into the class expecting it to be not so great but we actually learned a lot and were very impressed with the teacher and content. The teacher was really good about talking about all the different options for labor and delivery but not being to pushy. We practiced the goofy breathing and relaxation techniques (nice for me!). Check out our practice for back labor- ha! (I say that now but for sure hope we don't have to go through it for real)



It was also fun to see all the pregnant women who are due right around the same time as us and compare bellies. Yesterday we took a tour of the hospital and saw where our baby will be born. I remember the facility from when Zoe was born which was kind of neat. I think it is pretty much the same. We saw some super cute babies in the nursery which was a lot of fun.

It was fun to go to class and start thinking about how soon she'll be here. I can't tell you how grateful I am to have Jason. I know he'll continue to be wonderful husband through the labor and delivery and will be an amazing dad :). Check him out playing the doctor in our class--- they had all the dads act out a C-section:

So we are all educated and ready (I guess... :)

Just in case you are wondering...I'm sure you've noticed I posted a million posts today. I have had them waiting and ready for pictures but I haven't figured out how to get the pictures from our new camera onto the blog. So I finally decided just to post them and then add the pictures later (say Wednesday after Jason's last final)

She is head down!!!

Today we had another doctor's appointment and I am very excited to report that the baby is head down! The doctor told us that there is only a 4% chance that she will flip back to a breech position so it sounds like she is ready to go! I think the doctor felt bad because there was an emergency and we ended up waiting in the room for almost an hour so he was a little overly kind and helpful (according to Jason) He actually was my favorite doctor so far. I was joking with him because I gained almost 4 pounds in the last two weeks. He assured me that 32 weeks is a time when many women do this because of water retention and not to worry that it wasn't Thanksgiving food and it wasn't fat! I hope he wasn't just being nice :) Overall he said everything looks great and gave me some suggestions about the terrible leg cramps.

I must say leg cramps are my biggest complaint about pregnancy. They are terrible. I wake up in the middle of the night with terrible pain from cramping calves and then they are sore for the next 2-3 days. Ahhh! So hopefully his suggestions will work.

Today I also got my kick counting sheets so that I can monitor fetal movement and my "white sheets." The white sheets are just the papers from my chart that have all the information from each of my appointments and they want you to keep them with you at all times from 32 weeks on just in case you go into labor.

Wow! I guess things are moving along...

Thanksgiving...Shopping...Football

We had a nice (but to fast) Thanksgiving holiday! We enjoyed spending time with Grandma Lois, Jesse, Mike and Vera, Carissa, and the rest of the local gang. We ended up spending time with Jason's family on Wednesday and then eating at Glenn's house on Thursday. He made two turkeys and then we all chipped in with the rest of the food. It was yummy! My only complaint is that I couldn't eat as much as a normal Thanksgiving. I guess there isn't so much room for my stomach right now! Oh well.

Friday morning we woke up super early (like 4 AM) and checked out the crazy people shopping. We walked in and out of Kohls because the line was wrapped all the way around the store. Then we checked out AC Moore and Staples and we actually did find some pretty good deals on Christmas presents, etc. Jason was excited to get 3 FREE memory cards for our new camera (after mail-in-rebates). It was a fun but tiring time!

Saturday was NC State's last football game. We hadn't planned on attending but at the last minute I checked Craigslist and someone had posted two tickets in my parents section at half-price due to terminal illness. I called the guy and he said that his mother was dying and would probably not make it until the kick-off :( It was super sad but he wanted someone to have the tickets so we went to the nursing home and picked them up. It was a great game! NC State ended up beating Miami and Zoe looked great.