my baby is 12 weeks old today

Well here I am, just got Alana down for a nap but she probably won't sleep for longer than 30 minutes so I may have to make this short for now or just save and post another day.

Alana is 12 weeks old today... here is her 12 week photo shoot a la walgreens

here is a recap of the last 12 weeks...

I never even got to post my last belly photos, I will be working on a final collage of all the belly pix together so you can see the progression

last series of belly shots
38 weeks pregnant
taken on Father's day

Alana was born Friday June 20th at 9:40pm after a long crazy labor. I actually wrote down what I remembered of it about a week after the birth and will post it here for your reading pleasure

What I wrote was very long and here and there so it's a lot to read

Alana was 6'lb 6 oz and 19 inches long at birth. She was down to about 5lb and maybe 11 oz when she left the hospital but she has grown so much in the last few months.

1 day old

Her first doctors appt on June 26th she was up to 6lb 1 oz and they actually measured her at 18 5/8 inches long. Her next appt was July 2nd and she was 6 lbs 12 oz no length measurement

first doctor's appointment
6 days old1 week old

On July 17th st her 1 month appt. she was 8lb 4 oz 20 3/8 inches long. And her last appointment was on September 3rd for her 2 month appt and she was a whopping 12lb 3 oz and 23 3/4 inches long

4 weeks old6 weeks old

11 weeks old

I had coworkers and Scott and Ryan who visited me at the hospital. Mom came to visit during the second week of her being born. David's mom came to visit the 2nd week in August and she flew back with me so Alana and I could visit more family back in Va. for 2 weeks.

Alana's Hospital Portrait

I've been really bad at writing down milestones, but we still have so many to go so hopefully I can keep them posted on here to remember and write down.

This last week Alana has begun to really like to suck on her fist, she hasn't really figured it out that she can suck on her fingers so she just tries to stick her whole fist in her mouth and suck

She smiles and coos and squeals all the time now. She can hold her head up most all of the time except when she is tired. She still has to sleep all swaddled up but the last few weeks she has been sleeping longer and longer at night

when we were in Va. she started to sleep as long as 5 hours at a time at night and when we came back home, I tried to keep her on that same schedule and the first week she was giving me 6-7 hours at night and last night she slept from 8:30 to 6:00. WOOHOO! I hope its not a fluke thing and she keeps it up. The only difference during the day is that she won't nap longer than 30 minutes and she nurses every 2 hours on the dot.

She always wants a nap around 10 am but her after noon nap is different all the time. She is napping now and its 1pm, which is about normal for her (well she just woke up at its 1:45)

As for nursing, it is going better than ever. I hear all the people who have such hard time and I feel really lucky, she latched on perfectly from the beginning. I had a lot of engorgement and leaking this whole time but it is now getting better at 12 weeks. The toe curling pain lasted about 5 -6 weeks but that was mostly the right side. Pumping is going great too. I was a little discouraged at first because when I first tried it I was getting like barely even 1/2 and ounce just some drips here and there and now I'm a full on dairy queen. I swear that right side could pump forever. The strange thing is that I can pump twice as much on my right side than my left side but my left side is easier for her to nurse on. I now have learned from this that I have two completely different boobs :0)

Well I've been typing a lot so now I'm gonna go try and put some pix in the middle of all this text. Whats a blog without pictures.....boring

here is my birth story...... get comfortable...this was posted on my birth board on 7-1-08

if you can make it to the end there are pictures

Alana Adele is Here

arriving June 20th 2008 at 9:40 p.m.
6lb 6 oz 19 inches
EDD July 2nd

It all seemed to start after our doctor's appointment on Thursday morning, June 19th. We had a normal appt, legs were still super swollen but no mention of any urine or blood pressure issues. We had our first exam showing no dilating but a small amount of thinning of my cervix

for the rest of the day I felt a little crampy, but nothing to worry about, I just assumed it was from the doctor's exam. I wanted to make sure we could have her at least while my mom was here and not later so per doctors orders I was trying to walk a lot that day.

I walked to get my lunch late that afternoon. I had some random person yell at me across the street telling me "your gonna have that baby today". I looked across the street but only saw one person who didn't seem to pay me any attention. It was kinda funny, I was like "yeah right :0)" After eating I felt a little more crampy but felt more like I had gas or ate something bad.

It got progressively worse through the early evening, I just felt a little stomach ache like, gassy or telling myself that I probably ate something bad. As I drove home my stomach was hurting more, I even sat in the car for a minute or two before getting out just feeling really uncomfortable

I got up stairs and decided to lay down and laid there for an hour without even turning on the t.v. just wondering why I felt so gassy.

David got home at 8pm and looked at me as soon as he walked in the door and immediately asked if I was okay, apparently I didn't look too good. I just laid there the rest of the night watching t.v. just feeling uncomfortable

about 10pm we decided to go to bed and as soon as I laid in bed the pain got worse and a little regular, david said to start timing them as he said I looked like I was in labor. I blew him off just kept saying I probably ate something bad that day and after a few hours we noticed these "gas" pains were coming on about 7 or 8 or 10 mins apart and lasting maybe 30-40 seconds

I got out of bed and tried to call my mom because I had no idea if I was having contractions or not, I finally got a hold of her and she was already awake, not able to sleep that night. she listened to me as I got the pain and convinced me I was having contractions. they were getting progressively more painful, longer and closer together and at about 1 a.m. I started writing down the times and they were coming every 5 mins and lasting about 1 minute long.

I tried contacting the doctor on call to ask what I should do but she never called back. at about 2p.m. we decided along with my mom to go the hospital and by then my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart, strong and lasting at least a minute long

we got to the hospital at 2:30 am and a care extender from L&D was downstairs at the entrance and walked us up to L&D. I was immediately hooked up to the monitors and they took a sample of my urine and took my blood pressure.

I was then told my blood pressure was very high and I was spilling 3+ protein in my urine, with 4 being the highest. My doctor was paged again and they decided to put me on a magnesium drip to prevent me from having seizures due to the high blood pressure

a couple hours later (the next morning) my doctor arrived at the hospital. she checked me and I was still not dilated. She said even though I was in early labor normally I would be told to go back home to dilate but because of the issues with my blood pressure and protein in my urine and the dangers of it the only cure was for me to have the baby as soon as possible. They could give me an epidural which would lower my blood pressure and then give me pitocin to speed up labor so I would dilate and hopefully have the baby naturally but a c-section was an option if that didn't work.

They just wanted to get the baby out soon to help my body and the baby. So then I was given the epidural which immediately lowered my blood pressure followed by the pitocin to start my dilating

I felt much better after the epidural, because I no longer felt the contractions! woohoo! I really thought I wanted to do this all natural but after it being medically necessary to have the epidural I realized how wonderful it was. I was able to breathe through the painful contractions and finally getting a break after contracting every 2-3 minutes was
very nice

soo fast forward 18 hours after being admitted to the hospital. the epidural wore off 3 times and I had to feel about 45 mins to and hour of very painful pitocin induced contractions where I thought I was going to die, not really, but they hurt unbelievably bad and this was 3 separate times... before they could get the epidural working again. The second time the epidural wore off I was given a bolus 3 times and still no relief so the Anesthesiologist came in and gave a dose he said was half of a c-section dose. Finally some relief but then that caused the baby's heart rate to go up and down so they had to put a heart monitor on her head (inside me) which caused my water to break. I was told I was 5-6 cm only a few hours after the pitocin was given and then was told I was 9.5 cm at around 4 or 5pm and was very excited to hopefully start pushing soon.

there was a nurse shift change at 7pm and the new nurse, not really a new nurse, the same nurse from 2 am that previous morning, was back for the night shift again. I was getting really anxious and annoyed that the previous nurse told me I was 9.5cm and I was still laying there 3 hours later with no baby yet. The new nurse checked me and said I was only 6-7 cm.

I had been laying there for 18+ hours, only moving from left to the right side of my back, no food, no water, dealing with the epidural wearing off multiple times and thought I was 9.5 cm only to be told I was probably only 6cm. I officially broke down at that moment. I had technically been in labor for over 24 hours and had just given in

I started crying I was so upset, so hungry, so thirsty, so freaking tired of laying in that stupid bed unable to move on my own without the nurse telling when I could change sides I was laying on. UGH! the epidural was wearing off again there was a new anesthesiologist who had no idea what I had been through, trying to make my pain go away and and not doing it I started to have back labor because of the baby's position. My back was in so much pain and they were not helping me at all

I was crying from pain and everything else when my doctor came in. She saw my blood pressure rising up drastically and me in pain and distraught and said thats it we have to do a c-section, your not dilating enough, your baby is in the wrong position and with each contraction her head is trying to push out but its not big enough and her head is getting deformed, or pushed into a cone head

I looked at my husband an we agreed it was best for me and for her

so 10 minutes later I was on the OR table, still having very bad back labor, they were trying to get me to lay flat but my back hurt sooo bad I couldn't. the anesthesiologist was then trying to give me meds for the c-section but couldn't get my right side to get as numb and my left side. they had me sit up and he re adjusted my epidural and tried again. finally my right side was starting to get numb and they started prepping for the c-section

I didn't feel any pain thankfully but just all the pressure of pushing and pulling and then what felt like someone sitting on my chest and very quickly Alana was born and I got to hear her cry but didn't get to see her yet. Because I had been on the magnesium drip all day for my blood pressure, they had a nicu team standing by in case it affected her breathing in any way. Thankfully she was okay and very healthy. they said she even had her eyes open as they were cutting in , looking at them as they took her out.

oh but its not over yet. As they were I guess putting me back together I felt them pushing at the this one particular spot and holding pressure there for a long time but as they kept pushing it I kept feeling it, not just pressure but pain and they just kept pushing at this one spot and it kept hurting more and more, I was yelling from the pain, the Anesthesiologist couldn't
seem to help the pain and I think I started yelling so loud they decided to sedate me. I don't really remember since I was apparently sedated so I would stop yelling I guess. After who knows how long I remember being awake but very loopy and seeing double vision talking randomly and looking for David and my baby

I only heard her crying, David said they did eventually show her to me but I don't remember seeing her.

I went to recovery afterwards and eagerly awaited to see my baby but I was still so sedated I had to wait for 4 hours before I got to see her, I was so upset about that but I was so sedated I wouldn't have been able to hold her anyway.

We went back to another labor room to spend the night and I finally was able to see my baby and nurse her, she latched on perfectly the first time :0)

I still had high blood pressure and still was leaking protein in my urine at the same level. the next morning they had me stand up and take a wheel chair to our postpartum room to spend the next 4 days.

I was still on magnesium and had a catheter for the next day and night, I think I finally got off of those on Sunday. I still had the swollen hands and legs and feet up until Monday when it finally started going down. The blood pressure was up and down and was still up at my visit last Friday to get my staples out.

I now have my ankles back but still have tingly fingers, I have a 6 week check up where they hope my blood pressure will then be back to normal. I weighed myself the other day and have had a 25 lb weight loss since the birth which obviously shows how swollen I was and why I was gaining weight so rapidly towards the end of the pregnancy.

We are all now happy and healthy and at home enjoying our firsts with our new baby girl.