Curls

Sean and I were giving Jillian a bath this morning and I dried off her hair and low and behold it curled. So then Sean asked, "Where did she get all those curls?" He figured they came from my side of the family. But if you know my side of the family you know we all have stick straight hair. So I looked at him kinda funny and said,"No, honey, the curls are from you!" In Sean's baby pictures he has long curly hair. In fact, his mom loved his curly hair so much she let it grow long and then people thought he was a girl because he had such beautiful ringlets. Guess she takes after her daddy in the hair department.

One week old

Can you believe it's already been a week? And what a week it's been. Jillian's had her heel pricked three times (this is after the bunches of times they do it in the hospital, they make sure the mommies are not around for that), been to the doctor three times and sat on a box radiating blue light for three days. Whew!

Hopefully, next week is better!

No more bilibed!

The doctor called yesterday afternoon and told us that Jillian's bilirubin levels were low enough she could come off the bed. So we took her right off and put some clothes on her, poor thing has been naked for the last three days because the light needs to have direct contact with as much skin as possible. She's been much happier since she's been off the light.
Since you can't really tell, I have to say that her shirt says, "I (heart) daddy". I know she really does because he is such a good Dad. He's been so helpful. And he loves her so much. Yay for daddies!

Billibed

Being a baby is hard work. Being a baby who has to sit in a Billibed for 18 hours a day is even harder. Poor Jillian is a little jaundiced and is currently spending any time she's not eating lying over a blue light in order to help her out. She's also eating a lot (which means extra pumping for me) because the way to get rid of jaundice is to poop. She's being a real trooper though, she's had to get her heal pricked twice in the last two days and then spends most of the day lying in the blue light and is hardly fussing at all. The only real problem is since she needs to be eating so much we've had to supplement with formula so she's lost all interest in breastfeeding. If anyone knows anything about this and has some good advice, pass it along! I caught her and her daddy sleeping side by side. It's tough work to be a dad too, I guess (he's the one that got to sleep last night...).

Jillian's here!!!

She's here! After 27 hours at the hospital Jillian Ivy Galland made her appearance into the world. Sean and I drove to the hospital at 7pm on January 4th where I was admitted and was put into a room. I got a pill in order to ripen my cervix (it was not oral...) every four hours. My contractions started about 12am and they were pretty manageable until about 4am when I needed some pain killers. Sadly, the pain killer only worked for about 20 minutes before it wore off and the contractions were quite painful. I wasn't even dilated yet so I knew we were in for the long haul. I finally got an epidural at 9am which made life so much better. Thank goodness for drugs!!! I still wasn't really progressing much until about 4pm when I finally was dilated to a 4 (I went from a one to a four in just an hour). I stayed at a 4 until 7:30ish when I jumped to 9 cm dilated!!! My doctor was shocked. So were the nurses. I had to have two nurses check me just because the first one didn't believe that I jumped up so quick. I started pushing 8pm and Jillian came out at 9:53pm. The doctor was nervous that she was too big for my pelvis (apparently it was a tight squeeze) but I was bound and determined not to have a c-section so I just went for it and pushed her out. I'm pretty sore today but so excited that she's here. Jillian was born on January 5th. She has a full head of dark hair and was alert right out of the gate. She weighs 8 pounds 9oz and is 20 1/2 inches long. She has dark eyes and her dad's ears. We love her so much! And we'll post more pictures later...promise!

41 weeks

It's induction day!!! Here I am, ready to go (it's 6:30am, I don't get induced until 7pm...I gotta a few hours to go). Look at that belly! Whoa baby!

The last couple of weeks have been incredibly boring for me. I've been on maternity leave but without a baby to be maternal with I've run out of things to do. So this is what has occupied my time in the last little while.

I did a puzzle. This is it on New Year's Day.

This is it today. I'm determined to finish it even though I already know we're missing a piece. Sad when that happens...

I made curtains. Well, ok, I bought curtains and then hemmed them. But I hand hemmed them because it was going to be too much work to pull out the sewing machine for a 2 minute project. And I helped hang them.

I also helped hang the toy hammock. Mostly Sean did the hanging and I handed him the screws and tools. But I think we are now ready for a baby. And I don't have any more maternity leave without a baby (because she had better come by Monday if they're inducing me tonight!!!).

Nerves

I don't know why I'm more nervous to be induced than going into labor naturally but I am. Every time I think about going to the hospital my tummy does flip flops. I wasn't nervous until I realized that tonight is my last night before I'm a parent. A little daunting. Technically, I probably won't be a parent tomorrow night either as I don't go to the hospital until 7pm but really, I'll be at the hospital starting labor. So that doesn't count in my book. Anyway, for those that are wondering I'm pretty sure that Jillian is not coming on her own so I expect her to arrive at some point on Saturday. Until then, I'm just waiting it out. And getting excited to see my mom who flies in tomorrow!!!