1 The Good Life

A year ago we were leaving for Puerto Rico for our destination wedding.  We stayed and were married in Rincon, Puerto Rico at Casa por Fin, Dogman's Beach.

We rented two other houses next to Casa por Fin for my family and my husband's family (Tres Amigos was across the street and Villas at Tres Palmas was next door).  The houses were bordered by a marine reserve to the south, so there was a ton of privacy on the properties.  Our wedding party stayed in the same house as us, Casa por Fin, but we had an apartment separate from the rest of the house on the top floor with its own entrance.

I'll share more wedding details on our anniversary, but for now some fun things to do in and around Rincon!

Rincon is on the western side of the island, a couple hours drive from the main airport in San Juan.  A large portion of Rincon's locals are Americans who came for the surfing and never left.

One of our adventures was visiting the Camuy Caves, which were an hour or so drive from Rincon.  The natural beauty of the caves was awesome!

Camuy Caves, Puerto Rico

Part of our wedding party at Camuy Caves, Puerto Rico

Waterfall in Camuy Caves, Puerto Rico

Camuy Caves, Puerto Rico

Another outing the entire group went on was to the bioluminescent bay in La Parguera.  I have to admit, I was skeptical the entire time.  It was an experience that sounded amazing . . . if it really worked the way it was supposed to.  You take a boat at nightfall to a bay that has microorganisms called dinoflagellates that produce a chemical spark of light when disturbed in the water.  It's supposed to be as if the bay is glowing.  So the whole boat ride out I'm nervous because this whole crazy thing was my idea, and we've got a long car ride back to Rincon where I'll hear about it!

But, the bay was just as advertised!  None of it shows up in the photos, but when I would move my arm across the water it was as if there were diamonds all over my arm sparkling - really cool!  Oh, and I can;t forget to mention how good the empanadas were that were provided on the boat ride... yum (that's what I'm stuffing my face with at 3:44 in the video at the end of this entry)!

Boat ride to the bioluminescent bay in La Parguera

Bioluminescent bay in La Parguera

Bioluminescent bay in La Parguera

We spent most of the rest of our time preparing for the ceremony, lounging at the pool, and as you'll see in the video below eating great Puerto Rican food (mmm, beans and rice, mofongo, and empanadas!)

My friend and bridesmaid Caroline brought her camera along and got enough clips together for this video.  It makes me so happy and sad to watch it!  I want to go back!!

0 Our Little Swan Princess

Our baby is already a month old.  It's hard to believe!  It feels like we just left the hospital with her.  And she's already started outgrowing some clothing she wore early on.  It breaks my heart to put it up.

Since I'm a little behind, I'll share photos from when she was 2 weeks old now.  These were done by the talented Andie Freeman Photography.  It was amazing watching Andie take the photos.  She was so patient and gentle with our little one!

Look at that expression!

1 Post weekend thoughts

Disclaimer: I wrote this post on Monday from my iPad, but didn't manage to make it to the computer to add photos until today.  Obviously I'm still adjusting to this time balancing thing with the baby.

We had a great weekend. It's sort of surreal to have celebrated my first Mother's Day!

We worked on some projects that were started pre-baby. What a wake-up call as to how much slower things go now that we have baby!

The weekend before she was born we scored this heavy old dresser at a yard sale. It was only $25 for both the dresser and mirror.  When I saw it, I knew it would be perfect for our first large piece of furniture painting project - mostly because of the price tag it wouldn't be a disaster if it didn't turn out perfectly.

Let's hope the "after" picture is a big improvement!

$25 for the dresser and mirror (in the background) and $15 for the nightstand!

Three days after we bought the dresser, our baby was born so that put a little delay on working on it. But we started on Saturday priming the dresser.  I had to stop twice to feed the little one, so most of the work was done by my hubby. I hope we will be able to finish the dresser in the evenings this week and hopefully have some pictures of a successfully painted dresser. (Fingers crossed). 

Another project we started the weekend before baby was born was painting the bathroom that's attached to the baby's room. It was an awful, awful shade of orange that was dark and just ugly. Since baby girl's room is pink with blue accents, and the bathroom is also attached to another bedroom that could be a future girl or boy's room, I thought a bright shade of blue would be perfect to brighten the bathroom and tie in to the blue in the nursery.

Halloween bathroom is no more!

The week the baby was born I also became the owner of my first ever iMac (thanks to my wonderful husband).  The oversized screen is going to be awesome for web design work, but I have to admit I've struggled a little bit converting to a Mac!  I've had PC's my entire life, and despite being very computer literate, I've never actually used Macs.  I guess I'm able to relate a little better to people I give computer help to now because I'm starting out as a total beginner on this Mac.  I keep having to Google even the simplest things (There's no button to eject the CD - how do I eject?  Oh, duh, there's a button on the keyboard).  As I become more and more comfortable using it though, I love it!

Side note: I'm halfway through my first tomato sandwich of the summer.  This is special because (1) Tomatoes gave me awful reflux during pregnancy so I had to avoid them at all cost and (2) Nothing says it's summertime in Georgia to me like a tomato sandwich.  I ate these all the time growing up.  Although the tomatoes then were much better because they were homegrown (hint, hint Mom...)

3 Must have apps for new moms

My wonderful hubby bought an ipad for me just before our baby girl was born. Let me say its been a lifesaver as far as providing a little bit of a distraction during the 3-4 hours a day I spend as a milk dispensing machine. I thought I'd share a few of the apps I've found most useful. 

Before Birth 

Full Term - I downloaded the app Full Term to my phone a week or so before giving birth. I was very glad I had this app when labor started! Since I woke up at 2:30a with contractions, this app allowed me just to click the start button to time my contractions. I timed them myself for about an hour before waking my husband. The app tells you the length and interval of your last contraction and the average length and intervals of your contractions. When you're in pain you'll appreciate just clicking start and end versus trying to manually time or trying to get your husband to time. This app made it so easy to see the interval between contractions drop from 10 minutes to less than 5 over the course of 3 hours. 

After Birth

Smallnest - When baby girl was born she weighed 6lbs 1oz, but had lost 7% of her body weight by the time we left the hospital. This is a normal amount for most babies, but since she was so little, the pediatrician wanted to make sure she was eating and wetting as much as she should be. Smallnest app is an easy way to keep track of feedings and diapers. For the first few days I marked down all her dirty diapers to make sure she was having enough wet diapers. Now that shes definitely having enough dirty diapers, I only use it to keep track of feedings. It's really helpful (especially after wee morning hour feelings) to record which side she nursed on last. Sometimes it's hard to remember what time she nursed last when she's nursing 10 times a day.  This app helps take a little off a new mom's brain, which is definitely helpful because there's already a ton of new things to process and remember!  There's a timer that goes off after 15 minutes of nursing also just to let you know the baby has been nursing for 15 minutes. It's super easy to use too. You just click the Food icon then select which side she is nursing on. It starts a timer automatically. 

Feedly - Like I said, my amazing husband bought me an iPad recently.  Leading up to delivery, I had not read many of the blogs I usually follow. I think my reasoning was that I didn't feel like doing much those last few weeks of pregnancy and I didn't really want to read about other people being productive. The bright side is now I have over 200 blog entries to read. Feedly allows me to read all of my favorite blogs easily with one hand while nursing. With one hand I can swipe right or left to go to the next most recent blog entry on the list of blogs that I follow. Of course swiping up and down lets me read the actual blog article. Sometimes when baby girl is wide eyed while she nurses I just want to stare at her pretty little face the whole time, but sometimes brain stimulation is necessary during those 3am feedings. It clears off a blog entry after I've read it so that the next time I go into the app I only see unread entries. 

Blogger - I haven't been on my computer in the last 10 days except to print shipping labels for online sales. There's no way I have time right now to sit down and write out any blog entries. Being able to draft something up on the iPad when it pops into my brain while she's nursing or during kangaroo care snuggle time (like right now as I write this...)  is wonderful. 

Games - Like nearly everyone else, I have been sucked into Candy Crush (Level 169!). When my brain is too tired to read blogs during a 3am nursing session and I just want to go back to sleep, playing Candy Crush provides the distraction I need to make time fly by (which means sleep comes faster!). Sometimes I also use it to slow my brain down so that I can nap and fall asleep faster while she naps during the day. 

So those are the apps I've been wearing out since coming home from the hospital. Anyone have any additions?  I know there is an app (I can't remember the name) that tells you what medications you can and can't have while breast feeding, but I haven't had a need to download that one yet. 

1 I loved you before you were born

Like I've said before, I read a LOT of blogs from first time moms and what to expect with your first baby. So far not too much has been surprising or shocking with our new little addition. But there has been one thing that has been strange to me, and I'm not even sure I can adequately describe it.

When I look at her sweet little face, it's like she's someone I've always known. It's not even been a week since we met, but its like she's always been there. I'm not sure how else to describe it. I don't really see my face when I look at her. Sometimes she makes little expressions that remind me of my husband. She's really a good mix of the both of us, but its not the reminders of us that feel so familiar when I look at her sweet little face. It's really like I'm looking at someone who I've known all my life.

Anybody else feel the same with their newborn? I'm curious because I've seen a lot of feelings and emotions discussed, but this hasn't been one of them.

In other news, our house has decided to fall apart now that the little one is home. Since we came home from the hospital:
- The rod in my closet fell, dumping all my clothes on the floor
- The undercount sink in our kitchen started sagging, requiring regluing. It also moved enough that it caused the drain to leak
- The day we came home the fire alarms went on the fritz and started going off every 2 hours because they're all wired together. It took us all day to figure out which one was the bad one.

For a house that's had very few problems in 4 years, that's a lot for 1 week!  It's just strange that it would be this week of all weeks. 

0 Welcome to the world, Taylor Grace

We are thrilled to welcome our baby girl to the world, nine days early. I'm convinced she's her mama's girl and wanted to make her entrance into the world before the close of April so her birthstone could be a diamond.

She's absolutely perfect and we can't stop staring at her. It's crazy the amount of love you immediately feel.

I thought I'd share a little of her birth day while I still remember it. I read so many terrifying blog entries on difficult birth stories while I was pregnant I thought it'd be nice to share a not-so-difficult story. If you had an extremely difficult labor, you should probably stop reading now.

Monday afternoon I went for my regular doctors appointment. At 38.5 weeks I was 3cm dilated. Frustrating again to receive news, but to not really know if I was immediately going into labor or would end up going late. The doctor even said next Monday we could set a "if she's not here by" date to induce.

But still since labor was progressing and my mom and Bobby's coworkers seemed so impressed by 3cm dilation I spent Monday evening wrapping up the last few "need to do this" items, including finishing off a website for a canvas printing business Bobby has partnered with and installing the carseat base in the back of the car.

Around 2:30 am I woke up for my regularly scheduled bathroom break, but was feeling some cramping in my lower abdomen. I've felt cramping on and off the last couple of weeks so I didn't think too much at first. But as I lay there in bed I noticed the cramping was a little different with definite start and stop points. So I used an iPhone app I had downloaded a few days earlier to start tracking contractions. They were about 9 minutes apart and were increasing in intensity enough that I wasn't falling back asleep. I kept tracking them and pacing the floors during the more intense ones. Around 4am my movements awoke my husband who asked what was going on. "My stomach is cramping" led him to think I meant from food. I tried to explain to him that this is a different type cramping and I'm also hurting in my lower back, which made him think I'd pulled a muscle putting carseat in. I assured him neither was true because these cramps were familiar from my days of endometriosis.

We watched the intervals drop from 9 minutes to 7 and I decided to go ahead and shower and get dressed in case they didn't subside (I was still expecting them to stop). Then they dropped to 5 and I warned my husband he should probably shower too. I'd read once they'd been at 5 minutes for an hour it's hospital time.

By this time it was around 6am. Some intervals were only 3 or 4 minutes. Since we knew I was already dilated we decided to go to the hospital to have them check and confirm I was in labor. I'd been texting my mom the whole time with contraction intervals but didn't tell her we were going to hospital because I was still sure they'd send us home.

When we first got in the car the contraction interval jumped back up to 7 and I thought for sure this is false. It was 6:22am when we got near the hospital and I told my husband to go ahead and go through a drive through to get breakfast for himself because the main entrance of the hospital didn't open until 6:30 and I wanted to avoid the emergency room. You can start to see here where this may be the most laid back delivery ever. My back cramps were getting really painful at this point so I didn't eat to avoid throwing up.

Once we got to the hospital, checked in, and sent to the triage room where they examine you to determine if you actually are in labor it was probably 6:45. They hooked me up to the machine to measure contractions and its funny but it felt so good to see the line going up that I was having a contraction. As excruciating as some cramps were, I was still worried they were all in my head and wouldn't even show up on the machine. The vindication of hearing my husband say "Wow, that one spiked way up" was more comforting than annoying. So they checked me and I was 5cm dilated. I was shocked since I'd just been 3cm 12 hours before at my appointment. I think I said something like "So I guess we're staying" to the nurse. I had to phrase "come to the hospital" a few different ways in text to mom before she fully grasped what was going on.

When I got to the "big room" - seriously the size of this hospital room puts some luxury hotel rooms I've stayed in to shame - the nurse asked if I wanted to order my epidural. I was surprised because from what I remembered from my sister-in-law and the birth stories I read, I thought the epidural came much later, like hours into labor and closer to birth (oh if I only knew!). I asked her the pros and cons of going ahead and ordering and she said the only real con was I couldn't walk around anymore. I was fine with that because walking wasn't helping my contractions and they were getting more intense and closet together. She said it'd take an hour anyway.

By the time the doctor came to check me I was 6cm dilated (wow, this is going fast) and said once my platelet tests came back and IV was drained I could have my epidural. Contractions REALLY had started to hurt at this point so I was ready for the epidural.

The epidural had been something is been worried about the whole time, but it really didn't hurt more than a pinch. Of course I never looked at the needle. My husband said if I'd seen the length of the needle going into my back I wouldn't have been ok. But I didn't and the entire process was easy and stress free.

Once the epidural took effect I was able to talk easily with the waiting friends and family in my room. No more contraction pain at all, even though we could see on the monitor they were still coming. Then the nurse came in to check me and said I'd gone to 9cm and would be delivering in 30-45 minutes. Wait, what? It was only 9am at this point. I was expecting an all day ordeal. My little girl was ready to meet us.

In 30ish minutes the doctor came in, checked me, said her head is RIGHT THERE - it's time. He sent in my family for a quick wish her well and then set up the room for delivery. My husband stayed by my side and mom stood on the other side of the curtain in the delivery room so she could hear first cry.

I pushed for 15 minutes and felt absolutely no pain while pushing. It's a strange feeling because I could still push and could feel to push, but there was zero, zilch pain. I only pushed when they saw I was having contractions on the monitor and at one time laughed while waiting for next contraction because they told me the baby's hair was sticking out enough that the doctor spiked it on her head. Yes, I laughed in the delivery room. See where this isn't like the other stories you read?

And in 15 minutes of pushing and less than 8 hours from the time I had woken up with my first sign of a contraction my baby girl was here. As if Mommy didn't already love you enough, baby girl, your easy entrance into this world makes you even more perfect!

And as if I didn't love him enough already, waking up from a nap to see my husband had posted a photo on Facebook of himself holding our baby girl with these song lyrics totally melted my heart.

"Home - is where i want to be
But i guess i'm already there
I come home - -she lifted up her wings
Guess that this must be the place
I can't tell one from another
Did i find you, or you find me?
There was a time before we were born
If someone asks, this where i'll be . . . where i'll be"

0 36.5 Weeks Pregnant

Here we are at 36.5 weeks pregnant! We've now entered that stage where we feel like we could go at any time, even though we know realistically we have the full 3 weeks (or more) to go!

The past couple of weeks I've seen some much needed relief from heartburn and acid reflux as baby girl has moved down lower in my abdomen. At last Monday's doctor visit I was 1cm dilated, 70% effaced, and her head position was -1. I asked the doctor what all of this meant and he said absolutely nothing. There was no sign I'd go into immediate labor, although its possible she could come early. I'm not sure whether its better to know all of those stats, or if I'd rather be blissfully ignorant because I've spent the last week doing google searches hoping there's a magical oracle somewhere that will tell me the exact due date based on those numbers.

Since we've entered the final weeks we are in the go to the doctor every week stage now. So our most recent appointment was this morning. Everything was great other than I was shocked to see I'd lost 6lbs since last weeks appointment. Last week might iron was slightly low so I spent the last 7 days focusing on eating red meat and greens. This meant when I was in a hurry I'd go through the drive through of Wendy's and McDonalds and order not one but two cheeseburgers. The doctor said the weight loss was okay as long as I haven't been having trouble eating, so I guess there's nothing to worry about there (I say that as if I haven't been stressing over it all day).

Not much else has been new as we're just in a holding pattern waiting on baby girls arrival! No projects have been worked on lately because we had a yard sale with my parents this past weekend so we spent last week pulling out things from our storage area to sell.

I do have two (maybe 3) weeks of blog reading to go catch up on though. I've been avoiding all blogs and Pinterest lately because I haven't wanted to be distracted by a great idea that I felt like I just HAD to implement. Now that the yard sale is over and hospital bag is packed, I think it's safe to go take a peak.