Mya is 5 weeks old already!!

Mya Evelyn has arrived and she is 5 weeks old already! I can't believe how time flies! The majority of my day consists of sitting on the couch with Mya, feeding her, and changing her diaper. I find that even though I'm "busy" I don't get a thing done during the day. I think that returning to work in 6 weeks is going to be a rude awakening!

A little about Mya's arrival into the world.  We went to the hospital on Tuesday evening 4/3/12 around 7:30pm with contractions that were 5 minutes apart, not super painful yet.  I was already 3 cm dilated upon arrival to the hospital. The doctor wanted me to walk around for an hour and make sure things were progressing before the nurse would admit me. After a million laps around the labor and delivery ward, my contractions had progressed and I was ready for my epidural as soon as they would admit me! I must say that I had a love/hate relationship with the epidural. I hated that it made me feel like a para pelagic, but the fact that I could no longer feel contractions and could relax was amazing. At 4:15am on Wednesday 4/4/12, the nurse woke me up from my slumber and told me I was 10cm dilated and it was time to push. What?! We're going to have a baby soon?!  30 minutes of pushing Mya made her arrival at 5:02am weighing 8 lbs 2 oz and 21 1/2 inches long. The best part, I didn't feel a thing!

Fast forward 5 weeks and things are going great.  Mya is a good baby.  She LOVES to be held.  Unfortunately, sometimes she won't sleep unless she is being held. Our couch and I have become good friends.  I know that someday she won't want to be held or cuddled, so I guess I should cherish this time. I feel like she gets bigger on a daily basis and it's amazing to see the changes.  Her newborn onsies no longer fit (partly because of the bulk of  the cloth diapers, but she is definitely a long and lean babe.) Speaking of cloth diapering, that is going great as well. It is actually really easy! I'm so glad we made the decision to do it and she has not had any diaper rash.

Becoming a mom has been an amazing experience and I wouldn't change it for the world.  I'm excited to see her grow and begin to interact.

Eek! 4 weeks left!

I cannot believe how fast the time has gone!  I'm going to have a baby in 4 weeks! (Hopefully in 4 weeks anyway, I don't know how much longer than that I can keep carrying Mya around.)  Lionel made a comment the other night as he was rubbing my buddah belly, that he was ready to hold her.  My reply was, "Trust me, I'm ready for you to hold her too!"  I'm not going to lie, I have had a pretty easy and uneventful pregnancy, although there are some things that have gotten harder towards the end.

Sleeping has gotten interesting. I'm the kind that tosses and turns from side to side pretty much all night (Lionel loves this about me). But flipping over to the other side is not nearly as easy as it used to be. It's kind of a process, I have to turn a little bit here, adjust this and that, turn a little bit more and so on. Bending over has gotten more difficult, grunts tend to help for some reason. And of course shaving legs and putting on pants.  It's the little things.

As we get closer, I feel like we are fairly prepared.  As prepared as we can be for first time parents, I guess.  This last weekend, I decided to start prepping our cloth diapers.  I divided them into sizes and started washing the ones that we could use right away.  As they started coming out of the dryer, I was folding and piling into huge leaning, teetering diaper stacks.  I looked and Lionel and said, "I think I might have went a little overboard with purchasing diapers!"  Oh well, at least if I can't get to washing them every other day (which was my goal), we have enough to wash every third day! I just hope that cloth diaper works for us....

36 weeks!

My almost done nursery mural...

3 more months...

Three more months until baby Williams arrival.... We are excited to meet our new little bundle of joy. A little scared, at least I am.  I mean this is another life we are going to be in charge of! We have decided on a name, she will be Mya Evelyn Williams.

Last week we had an amazing opportunity to see Mya in a 3D/4D ultrasound.  It really brought everything to reality and it was awesome to be able to see her in more detail and learn about little quirks she already has. She was being really stubborn and kept blocking the ultrasound tech from seeing her face.  She also liked the umbilical cord and her thumb already, which apparently means she will be a self soother. (I'm crossing my fingers for that accurate prediction!)  Here is one of my favorite pictures, she has her eyes open!

Here is the link to the full album:
https://picasaweb.google.com/104979972221916343145/BabyPictures?authkey=Gv1sRgCPTf3pzChZqzOA#

Also this last week, I went to Babies R Us and registered for some things in the store.  It's overwhelming, even with the book of suggested items and help from another mom, my sister-in-law.  The selection of bottles, pacificiers, diapers, etc is crazy, I just wish I knew ones she was going to like.  It would save a lot of money and trial and error! We are really lucky that my friend is letting us borrow their crib, some clothes, exersaucer, bouncer and many other baby items (Thanks Shawna!) and that my mom and dad gave us dressers. So at least the amount of stuff we still need isn't completely overwhelming!

Here's a belly picture at 25 weeks, she's getting bigger:

It's a girl!

It's been a while since I've posted, so I think it's time for an update.  I'm 18 weeks this week, almost half way! It has gone by so fast.  We just found out Thursday at my ultrasound appointment that we are officially having a girl! I have yet to go out and buy anything pink yet, but I think that will happen soon.  I said I wasn't going to be one of those mom's who dresses their baby girl in all pink, frilly, girly outfits, but girls clothes are just so darn cute! I might just have to get a few....

So far my pregnancy has been pretty uneventful.  Everybody keeps asking how I'm feeling. Well, I feel good! No sickness, no wierd cravings (yet), I'm not super tired all the time anymore. Sometimes I wonder if there's anything in there! But, there is, my belly just started popping out about a week ago and my pants officially no longer button. Hopefully someday they will all fit again.  I did have one day where my out of control hormones got the best of me.

I was out shopping for underlayment for my two new rugs I just purchased for our spare bedrooms.  I went to Lowes because I decided I just wanted to buy regular carpet padding. It's cheaper and thicker than those mesh rubber mats that go under rugs. Well, the guy at Lowes told me I couldn't use carpet padding over wood or tile because it would stain and ruin the floor. Of course I had done some research prior to see if I could use carpet padding and couldn't find a thing that said it shouldn't be used. For some reason, the guy telling me no made me so mad that I left the store and went to Home Depot. 

I found the pre-cut rolls of carpet padding at Home Depot and I laughed a little inside because right on the package it said Great for Rugs. Ha! I even asked the women in the flooring department if she had ever heard of it staining the floor. She said maybe wood, but not tile.  Great! Off to the check out.  I whip out my military dependent ID for my 10% discount, the guy actually looked at it, they never do that.  He wouldn't accept it because it's expired.  This made me so upset that I said fine, paid, and stomped out to my car and cried the whole way home.  All because of carpet padding and no 10% discount?!

Here's my first belly pic. It's still pretty little, but growing everyday!

It's official!

Three years of marriage, we added the craziest cat Pepe to our lives (actually Pepe came before marriage, oops) and then adopted a 60 pound hyperactive lap dog Daisy, bought and renovated a house, what's the next step in life? A baby!

After six months of trying to conceive, alas a missed period and a positive pregnancy test! Well, not just one... four actually, I had to be sure. I have to admit that I was little freaked out when it showed up positive, but of course excited. You try for so long and each month it doesn't happen, then finally OMG, I'm pregnant, what have we done?!

Fast forward to today, 12 weeks and it's official!! I have seen this thing that is growing inside me with my own eyes! I had my first ultrasound today.  Even though I have absolutely no baby bump yet, to see this tiny thing moving around, kicking her legs and arms. Yes I said her, the ultrasound tech said she thinks it's a girl!!!

As soon as I told Lionel, he went out and bought a gun and a chastity belt! :)  Below is the first photo of Baby Williams.