Lily, Take Two

I'd like to give her a little more time before making any rash judgments, but I'm afraid that our sweet Gemma is becoming less sweet by the day. Her usual calm and easy demeanor has been eroding a little more every day, and worst of all her sleeping is beginning to suffer (translation: my sleeping is beginning to suffer). Unless she's nursing, she'll only fall asleep in her swing with the nature sounds turned up full blast (she's partial to the babbling brook), but within minutes of laying her down in her crib, she wakes up and it's game over. Last night I tried putting her down four or five times with no success--she was just mad. Adam and I commented on how she was reminding us more and more of someone else in our house (i.e. Lily), when the thought came to me that we might try what we did with her as a baby (see below).

Lily

Gemma

I had hoped to avoid this, especially because she has been such a good sleeper for the last month, but guess what? She slept for 8 hours straight! I woke her up this morning to feed her, then put her back down, and she slept for 3 more hours!

Here is Adam with Gemma during last night's failed attempts at sleep.

And as a footnote, here is my sweet, not-so-little Lily before church on Sunday. She looks so big!

Photo Shoot Fail!

Excluding the fact that we only have a basic digital camera (on loan from my parents, at that), it's fairly obvious why I don't attempt this more often, and why we leave this sort of stuff to the professionals. I don't know which kid was more difficult to work with (not really--it was Lily). Here is a succession of photos of Lily and Gemma's first photo shoot.

Session #1

Session #2

Session #3

The End

Gemma Eleanor Denison

Well, I figured this was as good a reason as any to start blogging again (or at least to update my blog seeing as it's been over a year). Gemma is the newest addition to our family. She was born on Friday, the 27th of August, and we are enjoying every moment we've had with her. She weighed in at 8 lbs 11 oz, and is 22” long. She has been a very mellow baby so far. She sleeps pretty much all the time, and hasn't fussed too much (hopefully that doesn't jinx us). We keep waiting for the fussiness to begin, because that's all we knew with Lily, but it's been a week, and she's still pretty good. Adam's parents and sister drove up from Virginia to stay with us and help out during the time Gemma was supposed to be born, but she was very obstinate, and rather than coming early, like Lily did, she was nearly a week late. I was scheduled to be induced Monday morning, a week and a day after my due date. That happened to be the same day his family had to drive back home, so we were all disappointed about that. The hospital I was delivering at won't induce you until you are more than a week past your due date, unless there is some medical reason why it should be done prior to that. Thankfully at my appointment on Friday, after explaining the situation to my fabulous doctor, she kind of made up a reason for the hospital to admit me that day to be induced. Once at the hosptial, we waited around for several hours before they broke my water and started the pitocin, but once that happened, it was only 3 hours until Gemma was born. I was already dilated to a 4 when we got there, so everyone kept telling me it would go rather quickly. The real drama revolved around getting an epidural (which was never not an option in my mind). When I had my glucose test done back in May, my doctor noticed my blood platlets were kind of low, so she had me come back to have my blood redrawn --same results. I had it drawn again the week before she was born, and it was still the same. All I had ever been told is that low blood platlets could affect how well my blood would clot. It wasn't until my doctor was writing the induction orders for me to take to the hospital that she said, "Your platlet count should be high enough for you to still get an epidural." Wait a second. What was that? No one had ever told me that low platlets possibly translated into no epidural! I played it off like it wasn’t a big deal but was secretly screaming inside my head. I was not at all prepared for that. At the hospital they told me I was right on the border of whether they could give me one. They drew my blood yet again (that’s, like, ten times now, right?), and it was still the same, but because my count wasn't going down, they said they would do it. Such a relief—that is until my nurse came back and said that actually, the anesthesiologist would be the one to make that call. Someone sure was having fun screwing with my head. So once again it was the waiting game. Of course, at this point, my contractions were pretty strong so I was a bit of a basket case at the thought of how much worse they were going to get before it was all over. The nurse anesthetist came in to get information from me, and finally the anesthesiologist arrived and started prepping me for it, so at that point I figured it was a go. A few minutes later, life was wonderful once again, and it was probably about an hour and a half or so until she was born. This week at home has been great. Adam had the week off, which has been wonderful, and Lily has been a big help too. We got Netflix to keep me awake and entertained during Gemma’s nighttime feedings, and Adam thinks it’s the best thing ever since discovering that he can stream episodes of Man vs. Wild and Dirty Jobs. We’re getting used to the new dynamic in our house and are really enjoying being a family of four now.

The last (and pretty much only) pregnancy shot

Not Gemma's most flattering picture

Our first family photo

Gemma's first outfit ("Little Sister")

Going home!

All swaddled and ready for bed

Adam and his girls

Lily loves being a big sister