Birth and Newborn Pics!

What a busy month! First I'm just going to post a few of my favorite pictures from my baby's birth and the newborn photos that my favorite photographer sister did. Then I'll try to actually
make a few posts with some extra photos. :)

She arrived safe and sound! (although that clock was wrong!)

Getting her first kisses from Mommy.

First bath! (She does not look too happy here.)

Sleeping Beauty

Mommy getting to hold Sadie for the first time.

Snuggling with Mommy for the first time. :)

Snuggling up to Mommy for more kisses. :)

Just one of my faves.

Sticking her tongue out at Aunt Cynetta.

Sharing kisses with Aunt Cynetta.

More snuggling and kisses with Mommy.

Goofing off and showing off those long legs!

Newborn photos done by Cynetta of Simply Sweet Photography. Well, all of the photos were actually. :)

Baby is here!

The long wait is finally over! We now have a beautiful little girl. She was born September 15 at 8:16 pm, was 20 and 3/4 inches long, and weighed 7 pounds 13 ounces. We named her Krystal Sadie Marie. I went to the hospital at 4 am but wasn't dilated enough to be admitted. I walked around the hospital for two hours and went back to the Labor & Delivery triage as instructed by the doctor there. At 6 am I was at 6 cm, and the doctor admitted me. The contractions I had been having since 12:30 am had significantly intensified while I was walking around the hospital. Every contraction was excruciating by this point, and I couldn't sit still or stand still during them. By 7 am I was situated in a room with monitors on me. The only way I could deal with the contractions was to sit on a ball and rock back and forth, but I kept knocking the monitors off. The nurse told me I would need to sit in the bed because they couldn't keep the monitors on me while I was sitting on the ball. Even after I got into the bed, I still kept knocking the monitors off during the contractions. Around 8:30 am I received an epidural that kicked in within a few minutes and took the edge off. Unfortunately it also seemed to slow the labor progress to a crawl and by late afternoon I was no closer to delivering a baby than I was that morning. At 4 pm, the midwife who had been there all day came in to say good-bye before she left for the day. She wished me well and hoped that I would deliver soon. Two hours later, the doctor came in and told me that they wanted to make a c-section delivery available to me if I wanted it. My birth plan had covered a situation like this where if I wasn't progressing, I wanted a c-section to be an option. Still, making that decision was pretty nerve wracking. I wasn't quite ready yet, and the doctor assured me that she would make sure the oncoming shift knew and would be prepared to perform a c-section if I chose to do so later. She assured me that I was in no danger right then and neither was my baby, and I could choose to continue labor without any risks at that point. I chose to continue labor for another 30 minutes. The nurse turned up the pitocin, and we tried to get some productive contractions. It still didn't work. At that point, I realized that I may not be able to easily deliver this way and decided I was ready to go for a c-section. My sister encouraged me to not be afraid of it and told me I was going to be just fine. After she told the doctor that I was ready for a c-section, I told her that I realized that if I kept laboring at that point, I may have to go through everything she went through when she had her oldest son, Noah. I didn't want to go through all of that, and she didn't wish for me to go through it either. She agreed that was a good possibility and stayed with me for the c-section, camera ready to take pictures of the baby right away. The doctor came in to talk to me about the c-section and brought paperwork for me to sign. After that, it was a flurry of activity. Multiple nurses and doctors came to my bed to introduce themselves and tell me what job they would be doing for this delivery. In short order I was wheeled into "Delivery 1" and prepped for surgery. Once I was prepped, my sister was allowed in with her camera. She stayed by me and told me I was doing great. She knew how nervous I was at that point. Before long, I heard the doctor announce that we had a girl and the time. Then I heard her crying. I cried too. It seemed an eternity before they brought her to me to see her. The held her down near me, and I said hello and called her name. She turned her head, looked at me, and smiled. The nurse held her down next to me, and I was able to kiss her cheek before she was whisked away to be cleaned up completely. She was beautiful and perfect. I couldn't believe she was really mine. I sent my sister with her to take pictures. The doctor put me back together and stitched me shut. Then I was taken to Recovery. After an hour there, my little girl was brought to me. The nurse handed her to me and told me I could hold her while they wheeled me to my room in the Mom & Baby ward. I didn't want to put her down. The staff at my hospital took wonderful care of me. My nurse the first night was amazing. She explained everything she was doing to me and did her best to make me as comfortable as she could. I only wished my sweetheart was there with me. Unfortunately he had an unexpected work trip come up and broke down before he could make it back to me. I'm grateful my brother and his fiancee came to be with me until my sister could get there. My mom even drove in from out of state to bring me home from the hospital and stayed for the week to help me. I don't know how I would have gotten through it all without my family. Fortunately my sweetheart came home shortly after I did, and my mom was able to enjoy herself as Granny. :)

Finally ready!

Well, we are finally ready for Baby! These photos show the room from the door looking in. The only thing we want to do is get an area rug for the center of the floor. We have seen one that we like, but we will get it once we have the extra money to spend on it. I eventually want to put some valances up over the blinds and maybe put some of my many pieces of artwork from around the world on the walls. The goal was to get the nursery ready for Baby to come home, and we have succeeded!

This is the closet door with a little organizer full of small baby items all ready for when Baby arrives. The fan may go away later. You can see it on the very edge of the picture. The closet is full of Baby's things.

This is from the corner by the window with the radiator under it. Thanks to Loralee, Baby has a box of clothes sitting on top of the dresser. We ran out of room in the closet to stack things!

The bassinet is all ready. It won't stay in this room once Baby comes home. We just don't need it in our room yet.

A nice cozy bed for my favorite sister to sleep in when she comes to visit. I already had the sheets and comforter from when I was on a ship. I wasn't there too awfully long and everything was still in like new condition, so I decided that this would be a good place to put them. The sheets are cozy and the comforter is nice and warm for a chilly night. :)

Baby's bag is packed and ready to go! It even has a special outfit from Aunt Cynetta for coming home and pictures. I'm sure Baby is going to adore Aunt Cynetta. :)

More nursery updates!

Today has been a bit of a rainy day due to Hurricane Irene blowing through here. Baby's room has moved along quite nicely though. My friend threw me a nice baby shower a couple weeks back, and I got quite a few nice things for Baby.

We finally got the dresser together, and I started putting things away.

The last major thing to do in there was to freshen up the paint on the baby's crib. In the pictures it doesn't really look any different than it did before, but close up, you can see that it is much brighter now. I'm quite pleased with how well it turned out.

Butter Roasted Chicken

 
So this Butter Roasted chicken turned out wonderfully! I got the original recipe from Allrecipes. Then I modified it to suit what I had available. Here's my recipe:

1 3-4 pound whole chicken
1/2 c. butter
1/3 c. fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 1/2 tsp. smoked Spanish paprika
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. brown sugar
1/2 tsp. dried, crushed rosemary
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Put chicken in ungreased glass baking dish. (I used 9x13x2, but whatever suits your needs will probably work fine.) Mix remaining ingredients in small saucepan and bring to boil. (I used medium heat.) Remove from heat and pour over chicken and inside cavity. (I brushed it out with a silicone basting brush just to get a good coating.) Put in oven and bake for about 1 1/2 hours until juices run clear. Baste occasionally. (I basted every 30 minutes.)

The white spot on the chicken is where I couldn't resist and pulled a small piece of skin to taste it!