10 Month Check-up

My sweet Emily is 26 lbs and 15 oz. She is 29 inches long.

Her iron is low, so she will have to start supplementing with iron vitamins. I think it's because she LOVES food so much, she eschews her formula. So, along with the vitamins, we will start giving her formula first and then food.

She had a slight fever today, so no vaccinations. Lucy had a fever plus throw-ups over the weekend, so I'm sure it's from Lucy.

She is wearing size 18 month old clothes and can wear some of Lucy's 2T clothes.

She has 3 teeth on the top and 2 teeth on the bottom.

She is getting on to her knees and will take a few crawling steps, but her preferred way of moving is the army crawl and she is quite adept at it and will give the kids a run for their money!

She LOVES scrambled eggs, refried beans, yogurt, macaroni and cheese; just about anything we are eating she wants to eat! And she will make it known by screeching like a baby eagle!

She and Lucy are now sharing a room. They seem to be doing well. At times, we can hear Lucy moving around the room and then hear Emmy start to giggle. What I wouldn't do to be a fly on their wall!

She has foregone a stuffed animal lovey, but has a blanket lovey! She will suck on the silky part of a pink blankie that I had originally gotten for Lucy, but Lucy never wanted it. It reminds me of my childhood cat, Papa Kitty. He would suck on the silky part of all blankets and they would be soaking wet when you wanted to snuggle up to it in bed. Emmy isn't as bad, but when you pull the blanket away from her, you can see her little tongue sticking out!

Below is Emmy on Saturday at Walmart.

6 Months Update

Ms. Emmy is a WHOPPING 22 lbs (my biggest baby yet!) and is 27 inches long.

She is wearing 12 - 18 month old clothes. She loves her burp cloth and sucks on it to self-sooth.

She will grab just about anything the kids put near her. She loves to be held and will give big smiles to anyone who talks to her.

She does NOT like food. I've tried mango, peaches, bananas and rice cereal and she does not like anything! She squints up her eyes and makes a disgusted face! She did like mashed up avocado and didn't make her squinty-eyed face.

She loves her jumpy and playing with her stuffed squirrel and dolphin.

She says "papa" and "dada" and when she gets upset, she will say "papa" or "dada" over and over again like a baby swear word!

She LOVES Lucy and Andrew and will giggle and smile at them.

She has 2 teeth already (I don't remember when she got them, but it was within the last month). She seems to be trying to cut her two top front teeth too.

She sleeps in her little port-a-crib next to my side of the bed and tends to only wake up once in the night for a diaper change and bottle. There are some nights that she will wake up 2 or 3 times and that really makes for a rough day at work.

She falls asleep pretty easily, but doesn't self-soothe very well if woken up in the middle of the night.

She likes to be in the mix of things and doesn't like to be left alone anywhere.

She is in a size 4 diaper!

She has been my most explosive pooper yet. For a while, she would have explosive poop everyday and poor Cesar would have to bathe her almost daily and has thrown away many a white onsie because they were beyond salvation!

Easter 2013

4 Months Update

She weighs 17.5 lbs and is 25.25 inches long.

She is still nursing, but is starting to get angry at me (since I don't have enough milk). We've started adding rice cereal to her bottles, which seems to satiate her for longer than 2 hours.

She is still snuggly and sleeping in bed with me!

St. Patrick's Day 2013

2 Months Update

She weighs 12 lbs 14 oz and is 23.75 inches long.

Emmy loves to nurse and is very snuggly. She still takes a bottle of formula after we nurse. She still sleeps in bed with me. She is like my little stuffed animal--she is so cozy!

In The Beginning...

Whelp, it has taken me 6+ months to write down the birth story of my third child--Emily Esther. So here it is without further ado.

Emmy was causing me horrible sciatica pain for the last 4 weeks she was in utero. I was hoping that the doctors would induce me earlier than 39 weeks. (We had a set induction date of November 1st because that was the earliest they would induce). By my calculations, I thought I was due on Halloween; by the doctors' calculations, I was due November 7th.

So, I could barely walk and when they told me they wouldn't move up my induction date, I got a handicapped hang tag so that I could park closer to work. (It was taking me a good 20 minutes to walk to and from work from where I parked and I looked like Quasimodo walking across campus).

I was walking around at 5.5 cm dilated for the last two weeks prior to November 1st. I was hoping I would go naturally earlier than November 1st. No such luck, Ms. Emmy was too cozy inside of me. We had a big hurricane (Hurricane Sandy) on October 29th and lost power for a little over 24 hours (not my favorite thing, but was doable and much better than the WEEK without power during the same time the year before plus the Stroke of Mama which was not a happy time for many).

So, our neighborhood had power (one of the few in CT) so Andrew, Lucy, me and Cesar went out trick-or-treating on October 31st (which was also my last day of work, since I was to go in at 7 am on Thursday, November 1st to be induced).

Andrew was a magician and Lucy was a white bunny. I went with the kids to the houses on our street, then I went home to hand out candy while Cesar took the kids around to some other houses. They had a grand time and Lucy really enjoyed the candy even though she couldn't say "Trick or Treat".

Thursday morning I woke up at 5 am to shower and get ready and pack the last things in my bag. Cesar came home early from work so that he could shower and try to get some sleep before he drove me to the hospital. Lala was supposed to come at 6 am to get Andrew off to school and to watch Lucy while we were at the hospital.

I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but perhaps Lala could clarify in the comments, but I believe they had locked their keys in the car and had to call a locksmith and were therefore late to come watch the kids, which was fine because when I called the hospital, they told me they were running late and that they couldn't check me in until 7:30 or 8 am.

So, I was able to see Andrew and Lucy before I left as they both woke-up.

I ate something at Dunkin' Donuts and we were off to the hospital.

I thought I would try to have Emmy naturally since Lucy came so quickly after I had the epidural. They checked me in and I was still dilated to a 5.5. My plan was to wait to see if I would labor naturally and if not, then the doctor would break my water and see if that would throw me into labor, if that didn't work then I would get Pitocin to speed things along. I would avoid getting an epidural if at all possible.

Well, the doctor broke my water around 11 am, not much progression. At 2 pm, I asked for Pitocin. I didn't get it until 6:30 pm because their regular pharmacy had been in the news because of some scare where they had contaminated medicines. So they had to mix the Pitocin in the hospital. So, I had been laboring off and on since 11 am and when I got the Pitocin, the labor pains were getting stronger and stronger, but I had only progressed to a 7. So I told them I needed an epidural because I was too tired (mind you I hadn't eaten since 6:30 that morning). So, I got an epidural at 8:30 pm and after 4 pushes, Ms. Emmy made her debut at 9:40 pm weighing 8 lbs 13 oz and 21.5 inches long. She was 1 oz less than Andrew and .5 inch longer. Ms. Lucy was my smallest baby at 8 lbs 7 oz and 20 inches long.

Emmy latched on quickly and had a strong latch. We tried only breastfeeding for the first 24 hours, but she was too hungry and I had too little milk which is par for the course. So, she had formula and was happy as a clam. She was very snuggly and loved to nurse.