The hospital Pictures

Fingers and Toes

In the craziness that was the morning of Day 2 of the hospital stay, the photographer came in to take our pictures. The hospital had just changed photography companies at the beginning of the month, so it was a different set up than when William was born. And I have to say that I am glad - I didn't care much for William's hospital pictures. So, here are a few of our favorite hospital pictures!

P.S. There aren't a lot of pictures with John because the baby decided she was HUNGRY during his part of the session. The photographer actually decided to go shoot (with a camera) another family and come back to see us later because she was so crabby. Luckily, I knew just how to fix her up :) and I got my pictures taken with her on the return trip.

PPS Just as we were starting our session, William arrived with Grandma. Totally unplanned, but we were happy to get a few pictures of him with the baby. However, they didn't take a picture of the whole family. Why? I don't know. But, they did get a sweet one of my mom with the baby.

Day 2

We had a good first night in the hospital - we both even got to sleep a little bit. We had to wake the baby to feed her even. The longest the hospital will let them go at night is 4 hours between feeds. Overnight we began the big debate over the name selection and didn't really get anywhere. John preferred one name, I preferred the other. We finally decided we needed to sleep more than we needed a name for the baby and agreed to revisit the problem in the morning.

We had a busy morning. The baby had her hearing screening done, had another visit from the pediatrician, a visit with the OB and had her pictures taken all before lunch (I'll post the hospital pictures separately because there are a lot of them)! We also had a visit from the cutest big brother and his Grandma! The hardest part about being in the hospital was being away from William. Up until the baby was born, the longest I was ever away from him was roughly 7 hours. Even though I was overjoyed about our newest bundle of joy, I was fiercely missing me some big boy.

William and Grandma coming up for their visit - William is carrying his present for the baby. How cute is our boy?
William giving the baby "pats". He was surprisingly gentle with her - I was so relieved!
Still calling her his "baby brother", he also says "cute!" when he's looking at her!

Helping Mama hold the baby and looking at her little hands/fingers.

A favorite activity: playing cars with Daddy on the windowsill and watching the cars drive by the hospital

Hmm...turns out when babies cry, they are LOUD! So funny that he did this on his own!

After the big boy left and every one else quieted down, John and I tackled the name problem again. In the end, we put the two top names on pieces of paper and put them into a hat. Same story as what we did when William was born and we were trying to name him. The name that came out of the hat: Amelia. And so she was named.

For the record, this was not the name I had already given her in my head during our special moment the day before. However, John did not really like my name very well...and in the end he was right about her being a girl...and the paperwork was filled out and turned in...so the name stayed. But, I will tell you that I struggled mightily with the name for the first week or so. I'm guessing largely due to hormones, because Amelia was one of our top names and a name I really like. But, I was having a hard time telling people her name without feeling like throwing up and I cried about it almost every day. I didn't want to blog about it because I didn't want to write her name. It just didn't feel like her name. We talked about it quite a bit and even made some phone calls to different offices and looked into officially changing her name. And then we didn't. For a lot of reasons that are probably also hormone related and not very interesting. In the end, I wanted to give you a heads up about my feelings about her name, especially if you are planning on talking about it with me in person. If you're looking for me to be all...warm and fuzzy about it, I'm not. I love her name and we're keeping it.

I've rewritten the last few sentences 100 times now and they still sound crabby. I don't really feel crabby about it anymore - you'll just have to take my word for it.

PS And no, I won't tell you the other name.

The weekend before...

So what did we do the weekend before with family in town? I meant to post these pictures on Monday morning (3-30), but then I went and had a baby instead.

It was raining outside, so we went to the Mills inside play area. Good thing Aunt Megan was with (her first trip to our house) - she didn't mind climbing up, over and around with William!
Sometimes it is nice to just watch your energetic kid play from afar...
Buying tickets for the....
Merry-go-round!
Weeee.....! Who is having more fun?
We also stopped by the NASCAR store for a quick picture
But ended up staying for awhile to admire the cars.
Playing house with Grandpa...ding dong! Who is here?
Sunday afternoon, Grandpa and Megan had to leave. After dinner, William and daddy went out to work on their lawnmowers to get them ready for mowing season!
William loves to be a helper, so he would carefully watch what John was doing and then do his best to mimic with his own lawnmower...very cute!
And then Sunday night we got this before bathtime! Perfect time to start potty training, right? Five hours before the baby is born? For the record, I ask him if he wants to use the potty every time we're in the bathroom. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't. Usually he sits for 6.2 seconds before hopping up to do something else. Tonight he sat and sat...and revealed something pretty exciting when he finally got up. Has he done it since? Nope, but that's okay. We're going to go full force with the training late this spring/summer.

William meets his Sister

We finally started making calls around 8ish in the morning to our family. We were most excited to have our big boy come up to the hospital to meet his new little sister! The funny thing is he keeps calling her "baby brother". I think we've been talking a lot about him being the "Big Brother" he just assumes everyone is a brother? We have not started talking about gender differences yet, so I know he isn't confused about that yet...

The Big Brother coming up to the hospital with Grandma
Look! The baby brought you a present!
How did the baby know you like cars?
Helping Mama hold his new baby sister when she was just a few hours old(or "baby brother" as he likes to call her)
Grandma Kim gets her hands on her new grandbaby
Grandma and her grandchildren
Look baby! Cars!

A family of four!

She's Here!

One of the birth plan preferences* we had was to not find out the gender of our baby until delivery day. We also wanted John to be the one to announce the gender after the baby was born. After our baby was born, I looked to John to make his announcement. He studied the baby carefully, turned to me and said "It's a girl!" My jaw dropped (if you're coming in new, I was convinced this was a baby boy. Totally 100% convinced) and I said "What?!?!?!" John repeated himself clearly "It's a GIRL." I still didn't believe him and I had to sit up and look for myself. Twice. Yes indeed, we have a little girl. I don't think I've ever been so happy to be wrong.

Another birth plan preference* was for me to cut the cord if at all possible. And I did it! I'm not really one for blood and gore, but I cut the cord and am very proud of myself. We have pictures, but I currently cannot post them because...well the whole world can technically look at this blog. If I can get them appropriately cropped, I'll put them up to share.


By the time things got cleaned up and everyone was out of our room it was almost 7am. John and took a while just to admire our new baby girl. I was still in disbelief, so I kept telling John "It's a girl!" and John kept on smiling. Smiling big.

Somewhere in here, we decided it was too early to call anyone and tried to nap. John was successful in this, I was too smitten by my new baby girl to do more than doze off before waking up to look at her. While I was gazing at her, I was trying to figure out which one of our girls names was going to fit her best. At one point, a special song came on the radio (it is a long story and not very interesting) and I was pretty sure I knew what her name was.

I know this picture quality isn't the best, but it is the first picture of me holding my daughter!
John holding his baby girl
A little more cleaned up, after the cord has been cut
Weighing in...8lbs 8 oz
What our girl did a LOT of...cry. She was NOT happy when she had her clothes off!

Nor does she like having her hair washedBut, she sure is pretty when she is all cleaned up!
All cleaned up and back with Mama
I am in love with her wild woman hair! It is super soft and wavy, although with everyone touching it it gets greasy fast. This picture also gets the hair color about right. Again, with everyone touching it, it turns darker with all the oils (yuck).

*Birth plan preferences are a set of wishes that you would like to have followed during your delivery. During labor it can be difficult to communicate what you would/wouldn't like to have done, so most of the time plans are written up beforehand and signed off by both the dr and yourself. However, birth plans are not honored in emergency situations.