More Christmas pictures

Some pictures from Christmas morning.

Zay's favorite chair

This is Isaiah's favorite place to sit. He thinks it was built just for him. He also thinks he should take everything out and spread it all over the kitchen. Luckily he can't open the door by himself yet. I'm getting pretty good at getting things from the fridge super fast so that he doesn't have a chance to get in, but one misstep and this is what you end up with!

Christmas Eve

Jerel and Isaiah made cookies on Christmas Eve. Well, actually I made the cookie dough, rolled it, and cut it and then Jerel baked & frosted (the easy part). Jerel had great fun watching me try to let Zay help cut out the cookies. It didn't really work. Zay just grabbed hunks of dough and poked his fingers through the shapes and such. Jerel thought it was funny not because of what Zay was doing, but because my frustration made it apparent I had expected it to work out much better. Oh well. Once we got to the frosting & eating part, Zay knew just what to do!

Because we just had a baby we called off all of our Thanksgiving and Christmas travel plans and spent this one with just the four of us. It was definitely quieter than usual--My extended family has 22 people (11 kids) and Jerel's has 25 people (15 kids) so we're used to pretty noisy holidays!

Our tender-hearted baby girl

At her first doctor appointment at 5 days our pediatrician noticed a heart murmur. She scheduled another appointment for a week later to see if the murmur was still there or if it had resolved on its own. Apparently it's common for babies to have them and then they just go away. But hers was still there so she had us meet with a pediatric cardiologist for an ultrasound. The appointment was on Friday so we sent Isaiah over to his favorite babysitter (his only babysitter) and headed to the hospital for her appointment.

The cardiologist said it sounded like a hole in her heart and then took us in for the ultrasound where he found she has six holes in her heart. Two of them are "patent ductus arteriosus" which are arteries left over from the fetal stage. All babies have them but in most babies they close on their own by two weeks of age. Eliza's are still open and these two (of the six) seemed to be the most concerning to the cardiologist. Even so, it doesn't seem to be anything too serious. He said only about 1/3 of these ever require treatment (surgery) and he felt confident hers would resolve on their own.

The other four holes are called "ventricular septal defect" which is a hole in the wall between the heart's two pumping chambers. These ones he said are relatively common and generally resolve on their own in the first 2 or 3 years of life; if they don't then they have to do open-heart surgery.

Luckily for us none of her holes seem to be very serious. The cardiologist wants us to come back in six months to make sure the two PDA type defects have resolved on their own. But other than that there seems to be nothing to worry about.

Best big brother

Isaiah is such a good big brother. He's always so interested in Eliza and what she is doing. Whenever I put her in the changing table for a diaper change and/or clothing change, he drags in a chair from the kitchen so that he can watch. He spends most of the time trying to force her binky in her mouth and seems completely bewildered when she doesn't want it...he loves his so much that I think he just can't comprehend anyone refusing one. In fact, sometimes when she cries he even takes his out of his mouth and tries to give it to her. His is huge, of course, and would choke her, but it's nice of him to be willing to sacrifice for her!

Zay also likes to copy whatever Eliza is doing. If she is sucking on two fingers, he will take out his binky and suck on his fingers instead. And the other day he was drinking his sippy cup of milk while I was nursing her. He put his cup down and was sort of swatting at his back. I couldn't figure out what he was doing or if something was stuck on his back or something. Then he made this funny noise and smiled and I realized he was pretending to burp himself, including making fake burping sounds.

Anyway, here his is helping me get her ready for church. He even watches her while I run around getting the things I forgot to get for her (I think there may be some eye-poking going on while I'm not watching, but I figure it's good for their bonding). Then when we're done he throws away her diaper and puts her dirty clothes on top of the dryer for me (well, he can't quite reach, but he walks them to the dryer and reaches them as high as he can). He's a great brother and I'm happy he loves her so much already.

Cutie pie

This is how Eliza was sleeping this morning, all curled up. It only she'd sleep so soundly at night...but she's getting better about that. The first week or so was horrible. You may think I'm exaggerating, but it was bad enough that Jerel agreed to the use of a bassinet, which is strictly against his personal belief system. Fortunately a friend let me borrow one and that has helped. She still eats twice a night, but once she drops the night feedings we'll put her back in her own room so that Jerel and I can get some sleep.

First bath

In a desperate attempt to tire her out and get her to sleep, we gave Eliza her first real bath. Isaiah was already asleep and it was risky to try it since the bathroom is right by his bedroom, but tired parents are willing to take risks. We were both dreading it, remembering Isaiah's first bath and how he screamed and hollered. But Eliza barely made a peep! She only wimpered when I rinsed her face; the rest of the time she just relaxed like it was just another day at the Atkinson Spa.

It's kind of sad how she's only #2 and the first-time baby things are already so much less exciting. We gave her a bath and I was like "Huh, I guess we should take a picture, I think you're supposed to put one in the baby book or something." But hey, at least we have a baby book for her, I have lots of friends who quickly gave up on those. Of course hers is still blank waiting to be written in, but one of these days I'll get to it....

Eliza's church debut

Eight days after her arrival, little Eliza was ready to make her grand appearance at church. I had such a smooth recovery this time that it seemed silly to stay home from church when I felt so good. Don't get me wrong, I still couldn't quite stand up straight and I was partaking freely of pain pills, but compared to last time this was a breeze.

I told everyone I know not to buy any newborn size clothes for us. Isaiah was never little enough for them. Eliza came out just 4 ounces shy of Isaiah's birth weight, but she has shrunk a bit since then and has been happily wearing newborn size clothes for 3 weeks now. Fortunately at my baby shower a friend gave me a bag of newborn clothing her daughter had grown out of so that has come in handy.

So we had a dress for her to wear and the only other requirement for taking little girls to church seems to be that they have a headband with a huge flower on it. The preference seems to be for flowers that are at least as large as the baby's head. I don't think this one quite meets that standard, but it was as enormous as I was willing to go.

She did great at church and slept most of the time. We kept her in her carseat and Isaiah spent a lot of sacrament meeting standing next to it alternating between staring at her and rocking her...he's a pretty aggresive rocker so she may end up with whiplash, but it's cute to see him try to take care of her.

Isaiah & Daddy

Isaiah definitely looks like his daddy! (Dad on left, Zay on right)

Babies

Everyone asks who Eliza looks like and I don't really know. So top left is me as a baby, top right is Jerel, bottom left is Eliza, and bottom right is Isaiah.

More pictures of Eliza

You can see more pictures of Eliza here

The play by play

This post is for those of you who like to hear every last detail of the birth process.  Okay, not every last detail, I prefer to keep it PG for sure, but a more extended version than Jerel would provide (so longer than 5 words at least).

The c-section was scheduled for Monday Nov. 29th.  We didn't want her born on a day that could end up being Thanksgiving.  I was shooting for BEFORE the thanksgiving days, the doctor chose a day AFTER.  Eliza chose her own day.  I woke up Saturday morning and thought "Maybe I'll have Cheerios for breakfast...oh wait, there is leftover apple pie, I will definitely have that."  So I got up at 6am to have my pie for breakfast and wasn't even down the stairs before I realized something was wrong--my water broke.  My first thought was "Huh, I wonder if this means I'm having the baby today."  Followed immediately by "Ugh.  You can't eat before surgery, that means no apple pie for breakfast."  Definitely the biggest disappointment of the day.

So I took a shower to clean up, then tapped Jerel on the shoulder and said "Um, I think my water broke."  He responded "Really?"  Me  "Yep.  I"m not really sure what that means."  Him "Aren't we supposed to go to the hospital or something?"  Me "I dunno.  I guess I should at least call the doctor."  Now, before you conclude that I am completely an idiot, keep in mind that I was induced with Isaiah so I never had the normal labor/birth process.  Also I had no had any contractions, so it didn't seem like delivery was imminent.  Anyway, so the on-call doctor called me right back and asked if my water had broken, yes, then she said I should come to the hospital.  Me:  "Like right now?"  Her "What were you expecting me to say?"  Me (thinking great, now she thinks I'm an idiot) "Um, well, I just meant do I have time to drop off my son with a sitter or do we need to come immediately?"  Her "You have time, be here in 45 minutes."  So I told Jerel he had to get up, then called Tammy (our super babysitter) because I thought it had probably been awhile since anyone woke her up at 6am on a Saturday and told her Isaiah would be spending the morning with her.  This is when I started thinking it might have been a good idea to pack my bags early.  But remember I thought I had until Monday...so I threw a few things into a backpack and off we went.  Dropped off Isaiah and got to the hospital around 7:15.

First things first--they check to see if my water really broke.  I crossed my fingers because there was always the possibility that I just wet myself and that would be embarassing now that I'm past kindergarten. So the doctor comes in (the one who already thought I was a big dummy) and I proved her wrong by actually having ruptured membranes, so there!  I felt much better because now she probably just thought I was moderately stupid instead of all the way stupid.  Anyway, so since it was a weekend they had to call people in to assist with the surgery, so we had about an hour to wait.

A scheduled c-section was so different from my emergency one with Isaiah.  This time they actually explained everything that was going to happen.  The downside was there was more time to freak out and notice things.  For example I don't remember the epidural hurting at all with Isaiah, but this time it hurt a lot (and this time was a spinal which is a smaller needle).  Also with Isaiah I don't remember all the tugging during the surgery but this time it felt like they were pulling me all over the place.  At one point I even asked the doctor why she was sitting on my stomach.  And I made the anesthetist laugh because he put something on my arm and said it was a heart monitor.  Well I didn't want him to go around embarassing himself so I tried to discreetly let him know that the heart is not in the arm after all, it's in the chest.  It wasn't really even funny, but I felt since I'd dragged them all out of bed I should at least entertain them a bit.  It wasn't all one-sided though...when the doctor was stapling me shut it sounded gross because it sounded just like a stapler.  I didn't like hearing it knowing it was going into my skin so I asked if she could sing some kind of ditty while she worked.  She and the assistant surgeon never could settle on a song, but it was nice of her to consider it.

Anyway, the operation started at 8:56 (which I remember because 56 is my favorite number) and Eliza Mae arrived at 9:18 (by "arrived" I mean "was forcibly yanked out of me).  The doctors were all talking about how huge she was so I was picturing a 15 pound monster baby, but when I saw her she looked normal size to me.  Turns out she was 8 pounds 4 ounces, so 4 ounces smaller than Isaiah. And since I'm used to children being Isaiah's size she seems tiny to me.  But everytime I mentioned to a nurse how small she is, they looked at me like I was crazy.  Jerel reported that she is already overweight because she's only 19 inches long (Zay was 21) and when I rolled my eyes he defended himself by saying the nurse had said she seeemed a bit short for her weight.  Good, I'm glad we're all paranoid about her weight already...But really I think she's perfect. 

So after she came, Jerel left with her and they finished stitching and stapling me.  It was so much more relaxed this time.  I even remember the radio in the O.R. was playing Lyle Lovett's "She's no lady."  I also remember wishing it was playing something else because that's a dumb song to play while a baby's being born. 

The doctor said it was a good idea I had a repeat c-section (which I did because if it's been less than 18 months since your previous c-section you have an increased risk of uterine rupture, which doesn't sound fun) because there was some sort of blood clot in the uterus that would have been "dangerous to labor on."  I think that means I almost died and, therefore, Jerel should buy me presents.

Last time I took a long time to recover because I hemorhaged and even with blood transfusions was weak for quite some time, but this time was all normal and I can already tell a big difference.  Last time I was in the hosptial for 5 days, this time I stayed just 2 nights.  And they must have given me better painkillers this time because although I'm plenty uncomfortable and walked hunched over like an old lday, I feel much less pain.  I'm definitely not back to normal and still have a lot of restrictions on what I can do.  The hardest part is that I can't lift Isaiah.  Jerel is giving him lots of attention and he is doing just fine, but I miss holding him and kissing him and playing with him.

Zay loves his little sister.  He always wants to see her, so Jerel will pick him up to show him where she's sleeping.  He likes to poke at her eyes, so we're working on getting him to touch just the top of her head instead of her face.  And, smart little guy that he is, he knows those tiny binkies are not his they're hers! 

Anyway, that's all the details I can think of right off.  Thanks again to Erika for the picture.  She took them when Eliza was just a day old and although she hasn't let me see them all yet (she's editing them first, which could be quite a chore because I hate pictures that show the gross belly button...) she did send me this one which is so adorable!