Our Sweet Little Abby

Our cute little Abby is already 2 weeks old, and I haven't posted anything about her yet! Shame on me. She is so sweet and so tiny! She really is an absolute angel. We all just adore her. Nathan loves to hold her, Sarah hugs and kisses her, and Matthew rubs her soft hair and says "cute" and "sweet."

She looks so much like Sarah did as a baby, that it took me a while to not call her Sarah. Check out the dimples in her cheeks.

She is such a good baby. She hardly fusses, sleeps great, and is so sweet. Lately, she's only been waking up once in the night. I don't sleep that great because I wake up constantly to check on her and make sure she's ok. I told the Dr. that I didn't know whether to cheer that she sleeps so well, or to worry. He said that since she's gaining weight well, and is alert and active when she's awake, that I should be happy, and let her sleep. Yeah!!! When we were bringing her home from the hospital, I warned her that she was coming home to a really loud house, and that she'd have to sleep through it. She listened. She sleeps through loud kids, and loud tools. Rob's been cutting tile, hammering etc. and it doesn't faze her. I am so lucky- and grateful!!!

After we chose the name Abigail, we found that it means "Father's joy" or "Father rejoices." Seems fitting.

Since this is sort-of my journal, I'll go into more details about her birth etc. Don't feel that you need to read it all. I'm too tired to try to be funny or clever, but at least I'm getting it recorded before I forget.

We had a pretty rough go of things the first week-and-a-half we had her home, but not from any doing on her part. We came home from the hospital to a sick Sarah and Matthew. They had terrible coughs, sore throats, fevers, and noses that ran like a faucet. Life was no fun at all for a while. Matthew wanted to be held all the time, which was hard to do while feeding a newborn and trying to keep him away from her. I was changing my t-shirt constantly, because he would slime me with snot. The sickies woke up many times in the night, especially when they got ear infections. Once we got them on antibiotics, things improved pretty quickly. We are so thankful that nobody else got sick, especially Abby.
So... between having a newborn, sick kids, trying to unpack my house, get projects done around the house (like getting the laundry room and master bath done), and getting Nathan to and from school 20 minutes away everyday, life has been pretty hectic. I hope that's a good enough excuse for not posting anything about Abby for so long. Life has settled down a lot, and we are doing great.

A HUGE THANK YOU to my sister TERRI, who came and stayed with our kids, and took care of all of us for several days. We wouldn't have survived without her! I don't think I've ever had to have anyone do my laundry for me before, yet she did load after load, after load. Abby was fussy her first night home, so Terri kept her for several hours so I could sleep. She took kids to school... Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The Labor

I didn't think there was any way that I would go into labor on my own before I was to be induced on the 28th. So boy was I surprised on Saturday the 25th when I started feeling a constant trickle. I had Rob hurry and sort through boxes of books yet to be unpacked, to find my "What to Expect when you're Expecting" book. I hadn't even looked at it the entire pregnancy. Sure enough, it said that some women get just a trickle when their water breaks. Going into labor on my own was completely foreign to me, so I didn't know quite what to expect. I ran around trying to clean and pack my bag (something I hadn't done yet, even though it was my due date). I wasn't having hard contractions yet, and we didn't want to have to wait at the hospital too long, so we took our time getting ready to go. I had already made an appointment to show our old house to prospective renters, so we did that then headed to Jim's to drop off the kids until Terri could get here. We hung out there for a while until the contractions got me thinking we'd better be on our way. Rob really didn't want to deliver the baby in the Tahoe, so he hurried right there.

We got settled in at the hospital around 1:30 p.m. I was at a 4 and 100% when I got to the hospital, but the contractions weren't very consistent. The nurse gave me a little pitocin, and that made the contractions come on really fast and really hard. My labor was really pretty easy, at least after the epidural! By about 3:30 I was ready to go, but we had to wait for the Dr. who got there at 4. All it took was one push, and Abby was here. Terri got to the hospital to exchange cars with us just in time. I had her stay for the delivery. She said that I made it look easy, but really- it was! Abby was crying at the top of her lungs as soon as her head was out.

In the evening, when Terri brought the kids up to see the baby, she was still in the nursery getting warmed up. The nurses let the kids into the nursery to get a good look at her ( I guess Abby was the only baby in the nursery at the time). The nurse put more ink on Abby's foot, and stamped it on Sarah's hand. She was so thrilled, and didn't want to wash her hand for days.

Now Sarah tells everyone, "I got just what I wanted, a baby sister!" And she tells them about getting her baby's foot stamped on her hand. After bathing Abby, the nurses had Sarah come back to the nursery to choose a bow to put in her hair. That left Sarah beaming as well.

Thanks to my lievert Rob, who was so good during and after the delivery. I almost broke his fingers, squeezing them so hard during contractions, and while getting my epidural. I don't know what I would do without him. Thanks Terri, for everything. And thanks Jim and Lynette, for watching the kids, with no notice. I sure miss my parents being here for this! When I called them in Guam to tell them we had a baby girl, I was almost crying too hard to get the words out. What a special event for our family. We love that little girl, and are so grateful that she made it here safe and sound!