Week 1

Embry 1 Week Old
11/21/08

So I've decided that I will make a blog entry every Friday to discuss details of Embry's life on a weekly basis. I'm going to include a pic of her in each post as well so it will be easy to see her change over time. I'm excited!

Embry is already a week old! I can't believe it, the time went by so fast, and I WANT IT BACK! Everyone keeps telling me that it just gets better and better, but I can't even imagine it being better than it already is. Honestly, so far she's the best baby I could ever hope for. She will sleep for long stretches of time at night (about 4 hours or so), but I always get her up around 3 hours to change and feed her. It's so weird because I will go to bed and think, 'ok I need to feed her at x:00' and then I will automatically get up at that time even though Embry is never crying or even awake, it's like I just know when to get up and that's what I do. Pretty amazing if you ask me.

Here's a rundown of the week:

Friday and Saturday: pretty much covered in the last post
Sunday: my mom stopped by to see Embry. Embry was all fussified which stressed me out because when others are around and she cries (which seriously she hardly ever does) then I think they are thinking I'm a bad mom. I fed her and she was fine once again. My mom and I went to Costco to get the film developed and pick up some stuff for Tony's mom to make Spaghetti. Embry much better on Sunday night than she had on Saturday night...very helpful. Also, Tony was extremely attentive that night, he didn't call me 'sir' or 'maam'!
Monday: Tony's mom and sis left around noon and my family (hehe) went to Costco to pick up the film. We met Tony's friend Clint in the Costco parking lot so he could meet Embry. The photo tech didn't mention anything about 'graphic' pictures being on my rolls of film and then I looked at them in the car and none of them show anything bad at all. The issue is that in every picture of Embry right when she came out, my parent's camera was focused on Tony's back instead of the baby, so the baby is blurry in all of them. I had some good pictures on my roll of the 3 of us outside, but I have yet to scan them all into my computer. We also stopped at Michael's where I figured out that the easiest way to put Embry's foot prints onto Tony's pink shirt would be to get some iron-on transfer sheets, scan the ink prints they gave us at the hospital, and then print them onto the transfer sheet and iron them onto the shirt. Apparently there is no ink that is permanent, so it would never work to ink her hands or feet and put them onto a shirt...unless you never washed the shirt again. Deb also stopped by on Monday to see Embry and drop off a delicious beef pot roast (and I even ate and liked the cooked carrots, I'm a big girl). Thanks Deb! Jamie arrived around 7:30 from Phoenix and got to meet Embry and we chatted.
Tuesday: Jamie, Tony, Embry, and I went to MOPS where I showed Embry off to all the ladies for about 15 minutes before we had to leave. We were going to go to Ihop to get breakfast but decided we didn't have time, so we went to Sonic instead which was quite nice because we got to eat outside. Then at 11am Embry had her first dr appt. I was supposed to wait till she was a week old to have the doctor see her again, but I had been a little concerned with jaundice, so we took her in early. The dr said she wasn't jaundiced at all and he wasn't even going to do a billirubin screen. He said she checked out fine in all other areas as well. She weighed 6lbs 10oz, was 20.25 inches long, and her head circumference was 34.5 cm. She was very upset about the rectal temperature and she peed on the scale. I asked my dr about putting hydrocortisone cream on my stitches (which they told me to do at the hospital) and he said that would impede the healing and it's never good to put steroids on an open wound...good to know, a little late though since I had already been putting it on. Embry goes back in 2 months for her next check up and I'm sure she'll be even more upset at that one since she'll be getting shots. Tony's mom and brother Alex arrived at our house while we were gone. Dorothea brought along 3 framed Ansel Adams prints that she had gotten from her boss which are AMAZING! One of them is actually my favorite Ansel Adams print, so that was really sweet of her and I'm hoping to get them hung up this weekend. Tony and I took Embry on a walk around the block and she slept the whole time, but I'm really enjoying this lovely weather. We took Embry and Jamie over to the other young marrieds group for their 1/2 hour of social time between 7-7:30. She was fine for a little bit, but then realized mom didn't feed her when she was supposed to (I thought she'd be comatose from the car ride) and then she started doing 'the freak out.' So we changed her and then came back home where Tony's mom had made some delicious steak curry with rice for dinner.
Wednesday: We got to sleep in a little bit and I got in some much loved morning cuddle time with my baby and husband...ahhh, one of my new favorite things! It's going to be so sad when Tony goes back to work on Dec 1 because I'll be missing one of my cuddle partners :( Anyhow, Tony's mom made us some breakfast and we got dressed up for some family pictures. After those were done, Jamie left and Alex did some yard work to help us out. Then we watched part of 'V for Vendetta' and Dorothea and Alex headed back to Phoenix. Kim stopped by in the afternoon with Haley and we got some cute pics of Haley and Embry on the floor together. It was so cute to see them together because they were so interested in each other. They're going to be best friends! At 6:30 we went to our young marrieds group, ate some delicious enchiladas (thanks Danielle), and people got to meet Embry. She's sleeping and nursing like a champ, I am so blessed that everything is going so incredibly well.
Thursday: I had a rheumatology appt at 2:30 and I had a million errands to run. I was telling Tony and he said, 'why can't I run the errands?' and I said, 'Well I guess you could, but you wouldn't want to' and he still insisted that he do them and I hang out with Embry at home. It was so sweet, I'm lucky to have Tony for a husband. :) I planned on taking some artsy pics before we left, but that didn't happen...always seem to be running out of time lately! We took 2 cars and I went to my appt and Tony took Embry to get a heel stick done to do her second genetic diseases screening. Tony said she cried for a little while and then she was fine. At my appt I got 2 steroid injections in the opposite hip/shoulder as I had done last time. The plan is to get 2 shots every 3 months alternating the hip/shoulder each time, so life should be a smidge easier from here on out in that regard...yay, thanks God! Then I met Tony and took Embry with me. We went to Michaels where I got this huge silver sparkly bow to use at Embry's first photo session at Sears scheduled for Friday. Some ladies behind me in line were asking how old she was and saying how cute she was, so I told them she was 6 days old and they told me how great I looked for just having a baby. It was really sweet and I've gotten that comment quite a bit over the past week, I don't say it to boast or whatever, but it's really nice to hear things like that when you feel like your belly is a bowl full of jelly. BTW, I'm changing my name from Pregnantrice to Flabbytrice hehe, jk, seriously if you call me that, I'll kill you. Moving on...we then stopped at the library, then Target, then headed home. Herb and Katie stopped by to meet Embry at 6:30 and brought over some delicious salad, garlic bread, and garlicy pesto pasta. Thanks Katie! I'm throroughly enjoying this whole people making me food thing, I love food, and I love it even more when I don't have to make it or clean up afterwards! Woohoo! Before going to bed I got a horrible migraine. It was not like my others because it got really bad really fast and just hit me like a truck. I think I scared the crud out of Tony because I gasped at the sudden pain and by the time he walked over to me there were tears streaming down my face...it was not fun. So I took some extra pain meds and after a while it was better and then pretty much gone this morning. Luckily Embry is such a good baby otherwise I'm sure my head would have felt a lot worse.
Friday: Today Embry is one week old. I don't know where the time has gone (well apparently I do cuz I just wrote about it, but you know what I mean). She's the cutest little girl and I'm still amazed that she's all mine and I just get to kiss her all day long and breath in her beatiful baby scent...ahhh, it's the greatest thing I've ever experienced, I can't get over it. We had a photo appt scheduled at Sears for noon and then when we were halfway there, I realized I had forgotten the bow (see Thursday) so we quick stopped at Michael's and I bought another one. We ended up getting there about 3 minutes early anyhow, so that worked out just fine. We got Embry naked and set her on top of her diaper on the big furry blanket she was going to have her pic taken on, then she projectile poos all over the white furry fabric...I expressed to her that it was unacceptable behavior and then apologized like a million times to the workers there. Yikes, embarrassing, but what can be done? Babies poo and that's all there is to it. They were extremely understanding, so I didn't feel too bad about it. She was really good for the most part. Kind of fussy sometimes, but we got a bunch of really great shots! She's sooooo cute! Somewhere in the midst of the picture taking we realized that her umbilical cord stump was hanging there by one gooey thread. The photo girl went and got us some band aids and I just suck it back on there cuz I was worried about pulling it off...now I'm not sure what to do with it. Anyhow, we ordered the package of her naked and wearing the bow with a tag that says 'A Gift From God' and then got an 8x10 of her top half naked with Tony's hand and my hands holding her. There were 2 pics of the 3 of us that I really liked as well, but the sheets were $28 each and that adds up REALLY fast! The pictures will be back on Dec 8th, good thing I made an appt when I did cuz that's almost too late to send out Christmas cards! The pics should be online within 48 hours so if you want to see them then let me know and I'll email the info to you (it has to be done through their site otherwise I'd post a link on here). We are going to go to Target to get a family picture done sometime next week and hopefully that will turn out good enough that I won't feel the need to go back and buy more from Sears. During this whole thing my stitches really started hurting. They'd been kind of stinging for a few days but it got quite a bit worse. So when we got home I called my OB's office and they said I should go to urgent care (yeh not doing that) and I asked them if I should be using the lidocaine spray that they gave me at the hospital to spray on it (to cool it and stop the stinging) and they said not to use that at all...once again conflicting information from what I was told at that hospital. So I've decided to take it easy and see if it improves over the weekend and if not then call them asap on Monday morning to go in and have it looked at. Of course if it gets worse, I will go to urgent care, but I hate that place! Now we've just been hanging out since we got home and it's great!

So the weight thing...when I went to get induced I was 166lbs and when I got home from the hospital I was 155, so I lost 11 lbs with the delivery which is pretty average. Now I'm 150, so that's 16 lbs gone so far, woohoo! 15 more and I'll be at my pre-pre-pregnancy weight. :)