Saturday, May 30, 2009

happy one month birthday!

I can't believe it's been one month with Molly. It seems like it was just yesterday we brought her home! But then again, I can't really imagine things without her here - so much has changed. She's a little angel! Except from the hours of roughly 8-11pm :) Just kidding - she even has an adorable cry and pouty face.

She definitely has her own agenda - sleeps when she wants to and wakes up when she wants to! Here's us trying to get her to wake up to eat:

Friday, May 29, 2009

another one

Hey friends! Here's another little video. Same thing - not too eventful. :)

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

moviestar molly

Here's my first attempt at taking a video of Molly! It's very uneventful, but if you want to see her move and make a little noise, here you go.
This is from almost a week ago, when she was three weeks old.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

latest pics

here are some of Molly's latest pics:


I've been getting the hang of things without my mom here - she left last Thursday :(. She was a huge help - helping with night shifts and taking care of everything around the house and kitchen. Thank you so much, Mom!!

Molly's doing great! It's amazing how caring for a newborn can take up the entire day. Our big outing has consisted of a walk the past couple days, which has been fun. It's all I can do to keep up with laundry and loading the dishwasher! I'm not quite sure where all the time goes... But I'm trying not to be hard on myself and just taking it one day at a time! A lot's changed in the past two weeks and things just keep getting better.

Molly keeps growing! Last Friday she was 8 lbs, 9 oz. She could be close to 9 pounds by now. She has started pushing with her feet, and grabbing more with her hands. Oh, and she just loves to projectile poop all over the changing table (I didn't realize babies were capable of that?!?).

We love her so much!!

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Mother's Day

We went over to the Crawfords' home for Mother's Day last Sunday. Molly got to meet two more great grandparents, Pops and JoJo. She was in high demand as three grandparents, four great-grandparents, two uncles, and one "aunt" Julie (a friend from wake we hadn't seen since our wedding three years ago!) got to spend some time with her.
We love our moms and grandmas so much - and we now can appreciate them even more since we understand a tiny bit of what they went through for us! (Wow!!)

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Molly's first week

Molly's doing great! Here are some pictures from the first week or so.
At our birth center 10-day appointment yesterday, Molly weighed 8 lbs, 6 oz.! Most babies lose weight at first, but she's been putting on two ounces a day on average. I was pretty happy about that... especially since one of my only jobs right now is to keep her well-fed. Yay!

Thursday, May 7, 2009

molly's birth

Hey everyone! Little Miss Molly is such a sweet baby - we are just loving every minute with her.

Here is the general birth story in case anyone wants details...
A disclaimer: after 8 birthing classes and 9 months of preparing, we're kind of desensitized to the whole thing, but I'll try not to be too gory!

Right about 7pm last Wednesday, April 29, my water broke. I was cooking dinner, was in the kitchen... lovely! haha. JC was about 5 minutes from home, thank goodness. :) Most doctors induce pretty immediately if your water breaks without contractions, but we weren't sure what the midwives at the birth center would recommend since they are more naturally-minded. We called and they told us to drive over and get checked out - make sure my water really did break, etc. We packed our last minute things into our bags "just in case" we weren't going to come home. Haha!

When we got there around 8:30 we confirmed that my water did break. The midwife got to the birth center around 9pm, and recommended we induce labor since I wasn't experiencing any contractions. She said that they wanted us to have the baby within 24 hours one way or the other! If we tried natural ways to induce labor it could be the next night we'd have the baby after not sleeping for 36 hours, and chances are we'd need to medically induce anyway. And, the risk of infection goes up the longer you wait to have the baby.

So, we decided to take her advice and take a contraction-inducing drug called Cytotec. We did around 9:20, and it worked quickly!

Contractions were really going by 10:30, and I kind of skipped over the early labor stage. My contractions were about 3-5 minutes apart quickly, and they got hard pretty fast.

JC was the best - helping me breath and being SO encouraging. At one point when I was 7cm dilated, I was like - "most women would've had the epidural by now, RIGHT??" - they assured me that yes, most women would have had the epidural. For some reason that made me feel a lot better.

Next time I was checked I was at 10cm and ready to start pushing! Pushing lasted 58 minutes, according to their record. Not so bad for a first child they told me, but dang it was hard. I couldn't fathom how I was ever going to get that baby out, but in the end it did happen!

It was such a beautiful thing - Molly came screaming her head off at 2:38am! JC caught her and plopped her down on me. After a little bit, we realized we didn't know if she was a girl or boy, so JC turned her over and announced that we had a girl - Hello Miss Molly!!

People who say they don't believe in miracles haven't seen a baby be born! We thank God for this little life. She is such a blessing. It's so overwhelming at this point it's hard to put into words!

Here are some pictures from the birth center afterward - JC gives Molly her first bath and got her dressed for the first time!

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Hooray!

Sarah here. I'm off bedrest today and have been up moving around a little more! This is crazy and fun - we're in awe of how beautiful and perfect she is - so fun to hold and cuddle and look at!!

Yay for Molly!! Thanks everyone so much for your prayers and love and well wishes. It really means so much to us!

Thanks to Mary Kathryn Wimberly for providing us with this wonderful picture.

Quick fun fact, the dress Molly is wearing in this picture was given to JC's mom 25 years ago. She never had a girl so it has been in her closet all this time. Pretty cute.

Love - Sarah and JC