I am a two and a half week old mom

Motherhood: My thoughts on this subject are growing everyday. I have been amazed at the challenges, great and small, that come along with raising a baby. I am loving this little girl more and more each day. There is still a part (a guilty part) that would have her be just a little bit older. It is difficult to work so hard to feed, bath, clothe, diaper, and make sure all of her needs are met, with out so much as a smile in return. I long for that day. Until then, I will just try and be grateful, that Lucy is so good. She is a great sleeper and eater and most of the time very content. Lucy has a very good nature. I'd say that she got most of her looks from her handsome daddy, but so far she's got her mother's temperament. James is pretty easy going himself, but according to all the family stories, he was quite a wild child.

I love being home, now that I am feeling better and my body is feeling more like my own, and not subject to another. Lucy and I take daily walks, and we like to see how many things we can check off the list in a day. (Usually we are happy when we can check off one thing, and have a tidy house. We don't have very high expectations.) We also ventured a first trip to church on Sunday. Lucy did great during Sacrament meeting and James had her out for Sunday school. I panicked during Relief Society and took her home. I have got to overcome my anxious mom syndrome and realize its okay for a baby to make a little noise in a congregation of people.

Life is good. All is well. I look forward to having more life changing updates for everyone in the future. I also decided I need to take some photography lessons. I have taken lots of pictures, but can't seem to get a decent picture from all my efforts.

I am thankful for James' post. He did a really great job describing all that we went through to get Lucy here. I am afraid if I had written it, I might have added a few more unnecessary details about the pain and suffering that took place during our hospital stay and the few days that followed. I was actually amazed how much we are required to endure as women to bring these precious souls into the world. It was a good experience now looking back on it, but it sure was awful going through it at the time. If you were to ask me a week ago or even 5 days ago if I would consider having another child, I might honestly tell you no. What I know now that has changed my mind, is that it is all so temporary. Even the swollen ankles and feet that were just the most annoying thing to add to everything else, is gone after a week. I didn't know that before. If you don't know when the end is, it's very difficult to see it all through, but knowing there is an end makes it all very bearable.

Lucy is doing great. I don't know if I am doing something wrong or she is just an extra great baby, but she will sleep about 5 or 6 consecutive hours during the night, which is a huge blessing. Maybe that will change, but for now I'll take it. When she is not eating, (which she is eating or hungry all the time it seems) she sleeps, poops, and crys a little here and there. That's the life she leads. I think she is getting used to James and I as her parents. We are getting used to having her in our family and loving it.

My mom came up on Monday and spent the week with us, helping us learn all the tricks to parenthood. We all really appreciate her help. She went with us to all our doctor apointments and errands, and helped to give me a rest when I started to wear down. I will start Monday on my own, and I pray that all will go well.

Lucy is One Week Old

We sure do love this little girl. I will write more later, but for now things are going very well. I am recovering quickly and trying for now to get the hang of this motherhood thing. It's tough but a lot of fun.

BABY BORN!!!

Little Lucy, who weighed 7 lbs., 11 ounces and was 19.5 inches long, was born February 25th at 1:47 am. We have all made it home now. With lots of time, effort, and exhaustion from her mother, Lucy has become part of the Stewart clan. Mom and baby are doing great, especially since we got Lauri all of the prescription and medication that she needs. You know, everyone talks about the pain of childbirth, but I have never heard anyone talk about all of the things that go on afterwards. I'm sure that most people will probably just look at the pictures in this blog more than read the words that I'm currently writing, but I'll tell the story about our little girl Lucy who is just a darling.
On Wednesday, Lauri had a check-up with the doctor. After he checked things over he simply asked Lauri, "How about coming in tomorrow at 5:00am for an induction." The doctor had already told us that Lauri would probably be going in for an induction, so this wasn't a complete surprise. We just went with what the doctor said. After a blessing from Lauri's Uncle Gwain and myself and almost no sleep during the night, we left for the hospital at 4:45 am. We filled out paperwork, got Lauri hooked up to an IV, and the nurse did some check-ups before things got started. Lauri made sure that she got the epidural before things really got started. After that they started her on the petocin, a chemical that helps start contractions, and by about 9:00ish the doctor came in and broke her water.

I'll tell you what, I have not seen Lauri so calm and relaxed and comfortable after she recieved the epidural. At least, she hasn't ever been quite like she was during most of her pregnancy. We sat and waited and waited and waited and waited for something to happen. We became pretty good friends with some of the nurses. We watched TV and a movie. Lauri's mom was there with us for part of the time as well. Lauri and I both slept, as much as you can while waiting in great anticipation. The clock turned from 9 am to 9pm pretty quickly without much progress. Lauri started out dilated to a 2 and had only gone to about a 4 during that time (for those who don't know, you have to be at a 10 in order to start the pushing process). The did tell us that the cervix had gotten really thin though, about 90%. From 9pm on, we were really worried that Lauri might have to have a C-section. The nurses told us that they wait until 18-24 hours after the water breaks to do that and that our doctor would be patient and wait to see what happened first before having to go into something like that. We prayed that everything would go well and that Lauri wouldn't have to have a C-section (and the Lord blessed us!)

Somewhere around 10pm I was really tired from doing nothing and not really sleeping that I laid down to get some rest. About an hour later, I woke up to Lauri having a hard time and in lots of pain. It seemed that the epidural was wearing off and not alleviating the pain. We're really lucky because we had taken the advice of Lauri's Aunt Gale to study LaMas. You're never sure what might happen, she said. (I would give the same advice to anyone else after going through what we did.) So we started going through the "he he hooos" of breathing. I'm sure that the only way that I remembered what to do was because the Lord reminded me of it. From then on out, we had to continue using breathing techniques until Lucy was born. They did give Lauri more medication, but she tells me that it didn't really help much. Everything really hurt. I'm really proud of Lauri! It's not an easy thing to do what she did, especially coming in with the expectation that she wouldn't feel much of the pain.

There was rapid progress during the first hour of doing our breathing. They checked Lauri and told us that she had drastically changed from a 4 to a 9 and that she was really close. The doctor does a rest and descend approach. This means that he has the mother wait for about an hour before starting to push and during that time the baby comes further out of the uterus. Lauri was so exhausted that she probably couldn't push for that long anyway. We kept on using the breathing techniques and then a nurse eventually came in to start the pushing. I had no choice, the nurse had me become part of the process (I'm glad I was though because I felt much more involved). I helped hold up her legs and push them to her chest as she pushed with everything that she had. After a few rounds of pushing the nurse checked and saw that Lauri was making great progress and sent for the doctor.

I was never expecting so many people to come in. We had the doctor, two or three nurses, and a respiratory specialist. They set everything up and we started the pushing process once again. It seems like Lauri only pushed for about a 1/2 hour. The doctor used forceps to turn Lucy the right way and to save Lauri some energy to not push for so long. Again, I am so proud of my wife. As exhausted as she was from all of the breathing exercises and waiting all day long, she still was able to give her all so that Lucy was born. There were times when she said she wanted to give up. "I'm done. I can't do this." were many of the things that she repeated, but she never gave up. Just like she always says, "I can do hard things because I've done them before." This is probably the hardest thing she's ever done in her life.

I watched the whole thing. Again, I helped with the pushing. I saw the progress Lauri made with each push. I saw Lucy's head starting to come out, with all of her dark hair. Her head was huge, at least in comparison to what she was coming out of. And then she came out. It was the most miraculous thing I've ever seen in my life. The doctor gave me the scissors and i cut the umbilical cord. Lauri cried in the emotion of the moment and I was awestruck. After all this time waiting for her to come, Lucy was finally here.

Right now I am sitting here writing this and have Lucy on my lap. Similar to many things in life, I have made the realization that I love this precious little girl more right now than I did the day she was born. I also know that through the years, I will love her more then than I currently do at this moment. I feel very grateful to my parents, for all of their hard work in raising me. I hope that I can carry on their tradition of the love and compassion that they have showed me to my little girl. Such is the cycle of life.

Waiting for Lucy to come and partying until she gets here

I apologize for not writing more consistently. I have the vision that this blog will be put to better use once Lucy decides to grace us with her presence. I have the same vision for our camera and video camera that wait to be used everyday. And so we continue to wait and wait. I felt like January flew by, and the first couple weeks in February went by pretty quick too, but the last few days even though there has been plenty to fill them have gone by super slow. We are so anxious to meet our little girl and have her life fill our home. We can hardly stand it.

Nurse Lisa, she is the one that taught our prenatal classes, had a phrase that she liked to use a lot. She said "this is a time to party." We have been doing our best to take her advise to heart. It has been great to have some really fun things to look forward to as we have been waiting for Lucy to come.

Monday, we thought she might be coming early. I was having pretty regular contractions all night long starting on Sunday and they were progressing in strength and getting closer together at work on Monday. I went in just to get checked, but they started to slow down, and have continued to slow down. That was a little frustrating, but it is okay because we had made plans.

Tuesdays we have been attending a marriage class at my work, entitled, "bringing baby home." It has actually been a lot of fun. The material is based on a bunch of research that Dr. Gottman and his wife have done, talking about the pressures that enter a marriage when a baby comes into the mix. The class is adjusted to a lot of the parents that we work with that have children with disabilities. Because adjusting to a new baby isn't enough, add a child with a disability and the pressures on the marriage increase even more.

Thursday we had Jacob, Emily and Carly over for dinner. Jacob was one James' boys at wyview when he was an RA. He just recently received his mission call to Berlin, Germany. While working as an RA James got really close to this apartment of boys. Four of them came down and attended our wedding. Carly and Emily were always over at their house so we got to know them as well. It was fun to entertain. I planned to put on a German spread, best I know how, but ended up making Chicken pot pie (decorated with the German Flag, and every other flag that includes three horizontal lines. Pot pie is so international), a salad and German chocolate cake. It all turned out delicious and we had a really great time with them in our home.

Friday, we went to the temple. It will probably be the last time we will make it to the temple before Lucy comes. It was nice to be there with James and think about her arrival and our part in her creation.

Saturday we have had planned for quite some time. We purchased tickets over a month and a half ago, to attend "A Tale of Two Cities" the musical. Being so close to the due date, we took our chances, glad to have something fun to look forward to, but willing to pass them on to someone else if we were going to be able to meet Lucy a little sooner. I am really glad that we got to go. The play is fairly new, just off Broadway. It was phenomenal. I had to stop my pregnant self from bawling up a storm at the end. The talent was amazing, the music absolutely fantastic. This is probably my favorite play we've seen at Hale Center Theater to date. They always do such a good job.

We stuffed ourselves at Texas Roadhouse after the play. James had never been. You should never lie, but if it is your first time eating at Texas Roadhouse, you should let them know. They brought us a free half rack of ribs and steak fries, because it was his first time there. If the rolls aren't enough to fill you up before the food you order hits the table, we were treated with that surprise.

We have done our best to party it up before Lucy comes and we can party all over again. We don't have big plans this week, other than marriage class on Tuesday, so she needs to come soon.

This is a new post. (I couldn't think of a better title)

I've given up on a tidy blog. I can never get pictures where I want them or text in the right place and just end up frustrated and cursing, which isn't very encouraging when trying to keep up a blog or stay in touch. So from now on, I will type what I am meaning to say and slap on the pictures and the reader can put the two together. I think that 5 years of yearbook layout designing made me a tad to particular about these things.

I would like to report that things are winding down at work and we are just waiting around for Lucy to make her presence into this world, but this is not the case. I've never been so busy at work since I started with Kids On The Move. I've been working 9 and 10 hour days this week and won't be slowing down for the rest of February or whenever Lucy decides to come. Needless to say, I'm exhausted. I think my body finally decided it was time for a rest, because I woke up with a head cold this morning. I've been sleeping all day and feel quite a bit better. I've been grateful for the busy days, however. They make the time go by really quickly. I am now heading into my last 4 weeks of pregnancy. From what I've read, the last two months really slow down, and expectant mothers wonder if the date will ever come. Keeping so busy helps me to keep my mind occupied and will make the break from work all the more wonderful.

For those who are wondering, I will be returning to work after Lucy is born. But not with out a good 2 months off before returning. Being an employee of Kids On The Move is really a blessing at this time in our life. KOTM has on-site childcare, so I get to bring Lucy with me to work everyday, and she is not far away. I can check on her whenever I want and feed her when she is hungry. My schedule is very flexible and I can work from home as often as I need to. I know that this job came just at the right time in my life. I have had a lot of different jobs in my life and was never really satisfied with any of them. I wondered for a long time if there was a job that I could be satisfied with. But I have finally found my niche. Early Intervention. Didn't even know it existed, but I love it.

With a busy work schedule, I sure look forward to the weekends. James and I have spent the last few weekends making preparations for Lucy. I might have mentioned in my last post that Lucy doesn't have a room to paint or a crib to set up, but we did clean out our coat closet in our front room and converted it into "Lucy Space." Yesterday, we purchased a pack n' play that will act as her crib probably for the first year of her life. People ask me all the time if we are ready for her to come. This is a really hard question in my mind. I feel like we have an ample amount of clothes, diapers, and other essentials to last us for quite a while. I drive around with an empty car seat in my car, so that I can bring her home when the time comes. We have a bed to place her in. James and I have attended pre-natal class, and I feel like we have a pretty good handle on what to expect labor and delivery to be like. (I feel better about it anyway). So am I ready??? I think I'm ready... Except there is this sort of lingering worry about taking on the title of "mother." That's what I don't feel ready for. It's a lot of responsibility and it all seems really hard. I can do hard things. I've done lots of hard things in my life. This is just a new hard thing, and it's a little more permanent than the hard things I've done in the past. So I hope I'm ready, but I can't be sure.

On a different note, it is Anna's Birthday today. We celebrated last night. I've never been much of a Twilight fan. I tried to read the first book, and couldn't make it to the end. I watched the first of the movies when I was in Mexico. I wasn't impressed, but for some reason have felt that it was important to see all of them as they have come out. I think out of curiosity. Anyway, Anna and I made James watch the second one with us about a month ago, and thought it would be fun to make him sit through the third one too. It was fun. I am still not a fan. On the contrary, I think the movies are silly. But we had a good time. I tried making a Boston cream pie from scratch for her cake. It tasted pretty good, but a cake mix would have done a much better job. The home made pizza made up for whatever the cake lacked, so all was well and our tummies were happy. Happy Birthday Anna.

It's BABY TIME!!

We are getting closer and closer to being ready to have this baby. With just a short 5 weeks left before my due date, we decided that we should probably start making some preparations for baby Lucy to come. My mother provided a very nice baby shower that helped us get started. Not only because we got lots of great clothes, diapers, and blankets, but it also got us motivated so that when we got home we just kept going with preparations. We've spent the last three days organizing our small apartment, creating some room for Lucy and all of her stuff. And... We got a car seat! Now really can have this baby, and bring her home.

Back to St. George,... thanks to everyone that joined us for the baby shower. I enjoyed seeing all of my friends and people I love down there. We appreciate the love and support we recieved. The weather was so nice we ended up staying an extra day soaking up the sun. I love that St. George weather!!!