The crying....

Well, there has been a lot of crying in these first 7 weeks....mostly Meredith! I won't go as far as saying that she is a colicky baby, but she has done her share of crying. For the first few weeks if she wasn't asleep or eating, she was pretty much crying. Her first few days home from the hospital were so bad that she made herself hoarse. It was so pitiful hearing her cry with such a hoarse voice. We can't really pinpoint what the problem is. Sometimes I think it's gas, then sometimes I think she is just hungry, so I'll feed her yet again, but the not knowing has been the frustrating part of being a first time parent...I don't know any of this stuff and it makes you feel so helpless! Of course the pediatrician is no help, they just say that she'll grow out of it blah, blah as they are looking into my bloodshot eyes!
She has definitly improved, but there are still moments where I have no clue what to do to help her. When she hit 6 weeks there seemed to be a pretty good improvement and so far the 7th week hasn't been too bad, but she has been crying off and on the entire time I've been typing this and I know she can't be hungry, she has a clean diaper, and I think I burped her well after her last feeding, so who knows what the problem is?
Everyone keeps telling me that it gets better and she'll grow out of it....I sure hope so, but that is really kinda hard to hear when you are in the midst of the madness! Then there are the people who say their baby was content all the time and hardly cried. Just a hint...if this is you and you are talking to a new mother with a baby that cries all the time, just don't say anything!!!
This picture breaks my heart, but it's also a little funny too :) It was after her first bath and she was not amused at all.

Baptism

It's amazing how hard it is to get a few minutes at the computer these days!
Meredith was baptized on February 19th. Yes, she was 17 days old and yes, I was kindof a wreck! I am Lutheran and we definitely believe in having the baptism as an infant, but usually the baby is more like 3 or 4 months old. We decided to do it so soon because my grandmother had been staying with my parents for a few months to escape the majority of the nasty Michigan winter and that Sunday was the last day she would be in town, so we decided to seize the moment and go ahead with it. The unfortunate part was that Tennessee got hit with some bad weather and Chris's mom, step-dad and sister couldn't make it; however, we had his dad, step-mom, grandmother and grandfather here. Meredith's godparents are my three sisters, Elizabeth (who lives in Michigan), Hillary and Allison as well as Chris's best friend Randy, who flew in from Arizona for the occasion.
Meredith was an angel and slept through not just her actual baptism, but the entire hour and a half service with organ blaring and everything! Of course, she should have been tired since she slept for maybe three hours the night before. Chris and I were total zombies, but were quite relieved that she didn't make a fuss.
We had everyone over at our house for a brunch afterwards that thankfully my mom and sisters put together since at this point my level of functioning was still at a bare minimum.
It ended up being a lovely day and I am thrilled that my beautiful daughter has been blessed with the sacrament of baptism :)

Oh yeah, the dress she wore is a family heirloom worn by my aunt, myself, all of my sisters and my two beautiful neices...

Well, the first few weeks were certainly a challenge.....
We came home from the hospital on a very rainy Saturday afternoon (2/4). It was really nice to get out of the hospital even though we couldn't send Meredith to the nursery for a few hours of peace and quiet anymore! My mother-in-law stayed that night and helped out a lot so that Chris and I could get some sleep, but Meredith was not a happy girl at all. There were a couple nights where we never made it to bed, just slept in the living room while she decided to sleep. She most definitely had her days and nights mixed up and I know one night she slept on my chest for several hours, so Chris just covered us with a blanket and we prayed she would stay asleep. Her bouncy seat also came in quite handy since it seemed like that was the only thing she would sleep in. Things are better sleep wise now, but those first 2 or 3 weeks were really rough, only gettig 2-3 hours of sleep at a time. Last night she actually slept for almost 6 hours, which is totally amazing. Chris and I have talked about it ever since bringing Meredith home and as much as everyone tried to tell us we would be sleep deprived, neither one of us was truly prepared for this. We knew that she would need to eat every 2 or 3 hours, but we thought that meant she would eat and then sleep for 2 or 3 hours....we weren't prepared for all of the crying that would come in between and the stress of getting her to eat at all!! I guess parenthood is really something that you have to experience to understand!
We went back to the pediatrician that Monday after coming home from the hospital and her weight had dropped from 8.3 went we left the hospital to 7.8, so they were a little concerned and wanted us to give her some formula as a supplement. She cried the entire time we were at the doctor and both of us were really stressed out. They wanted her to come back the very next day to check her weight and she still cried the entire time again and I was by myself
this time because Chris had to go back to work already and I was totally stressed out and totally sleep deprived and hormonal! She had already gained enough weight back that the doctor felt more comfortable and so did I. I was amazed at how quickly she could gain weight, but quite relieved.
Well, her weight certainly isn't a problem anymore. At her month check up she weighed 10 lbs, 12 oz and had grown almost an inch! Her weight is in the 90th percentile!
She certainly loves to eat....she got that from both her mom and dad :) My biggest problem with her eating has been that she is quite a 'snacker' meaning that she only nurses for about 10 minutes or so and either falls asleep or decides she is done, but then she is hungry again within the hour. It has been quite frustrating since I can't manage to get anything done since I am constanly feeding her. She has gotten slightly better with that over that past week or so, but it is still a challenge. We have been giving her a bottle of formula at night so that she sleeps a little longer. I wish that I could say I am in love with breast feeding, but it has been prettty tough and I'm planning on getting her to at least 2 months, but after I go back to work and start classes again, I just can't imagine how I'm going to do it. We'll see how it goes...

Meredith Grace

Well, Miss Meredith is almost 7 weeks old already and I'm just starting to write about her! She hasn't given me much time to myself in the first few weeks, so I am going to try to add as much as I can remember about the first month and a half. She is currently sleeping, so hopefully I can get a good post today...btw, I have never 'blogged' before, so this is all new to me, but decided this would be the best way to document my little girl's developments!
This picture is the one that we had made in the hospital when she not even a day old. She looks totally different already, but thought I'd start with this picture.
I guess the best way to begin is with her birth story... I was almost a week past my due date (1/25) and went to the doctor for another check up on Monday morning 1/30 and he decided that I needed to be induced the next day. So, Chris and I both decided not to go into work since the next day would be the big day. Well, we called the next morning as instructed and found out that they didn't have any room at Rex because every other woman in Raleigh decided to go into labor at the same time, so we'd have to wait. Well, Tuesday came and went and then Wednesday, 2/1 we didn't get into the hospital until 4:00. Meanwhile, my mother-in-law, father-in-law and step mother-in-law had all come into town since we thought we would be having the baby on Tuesday. I was feeling a bit of pressure (completely self inflicted) about not being able to have this baby on my own and had a minor (Chris would say major) emotional meltdown over the whole thing.
Anyway, we finally made it to the hospital and they started my pitocin at about 5pm and then the waiting game began. Nothing was happening at all. They kept upping my pitocin and then they had to break my water around 11pm, which really started the contractions, but they wanted me to wait to get the epidural until my contractions were at a certain level since an epidural can sometimes slow things down. Well, I definitely was feeling the contractions and finally about 3am I was able to get the epidural, which was an event in itself.
The very un-friendly anestesiologist managed to hit some sort of nerve in my spinal cord and my right leg kicked involuntarily 3 times and it felt like an electric shock was running through me. Let's just say that at this point I wasn't sure if I was going to get through this thing since I thought this thing was going to make me feel better!! Once they got everything fixed with the epidural, I was quite happy to get some rest after it took effect.
Well, there was quite a bit of talk about a potential c-section since Miss Meredith didn't want to drop down at all and I wasn't dilating nearly enough, but thankfully my doctor let me go through the night trying some different positions to see if it would help her move further down. My blood pressure was a little touch and go through the whole thing, so I was stuck in the bed the entire time. I can't even tell you how many things I was hooked up to in order to monitor the baby and me.
Luckily, by about 1:00 the next afternoon, I was fully dilated and ready to go. We decided to use a method called labor down, which means that once you are fully dilated you rest for about and hour or so before you start to push. So, Chris took a shower and I rested for a bit and then started to push. I really only had to push for about 45 minutes, which wasn't all that bad. I definitely was feeling quite a bit, but am glad for that. There is nothing to describe the feeling of seeing our baby for the first time. Chris was an incredible coach and really helped me get through the whole thing.
I didn't get to hold her immediately because her heartbeat had been questionable during labor, dipping during contractions, so they whisked her over to the station where the special care nurses checked her over thouroughly. We found out that her heartrate was dropping because her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. Nothing too serious, but that explained it. She definitely tried out her set of lungs immediately and she hasn't stopped using them since! She was perfectly healthy and Meredith Grace was born on February 2nd (Groundhog's Day) at 3:05pm, weighing 8 lbs 5 oz, and 21 inches long. I of course think she was gorgeous from the beginning, but then again I am a little partial :)