Another long, skinny girl... (1 month checkup)

Anyway, just got back from Sam's appt. She's doing great! She's 22" and 8lb 11oz so her growth is perfect for the chart. She's got the development of a 2-3 month old in terms of eye contact and physical abilities. (I think it's closer to 2 and not a 3 month old based on my videos of Ellie.) She smiles a ton, but just when sleeping or going to sleep or pooping. But I still love 'em and can't WAIT til she smiles in response to me and others!

Only *slight* issue is her hip clicks. She has to go in for an u/s to check those out within 2 weeks. They are VERY minor and honestly, I'm not concerned... My doctor is just very conservative with getting 'em checked.

Quick Sam update - sleepy baby

So.... when I went into the doctor today, she said she had wanted to see between .5 oz - 2oz weight gain a day. I took her in on Tuesday so that should have been about 4.5 days.... Well, she gained 10.5oz!!! OMG! I'm SHOCKED and so was the doctor! She said I had super milk.... (I told the doc we were feeding her breakfast sausage. LOL!) (She's only 1oz shy of birth weight - she's doing GREAT.)

The things that (I think) helped us out the most:

• Feeding from one boob each session (I couldn't do it for several - killed me). But I think that extra hind milk helped.
• "Chucking" her under the chin
• Waking every 3 hours instead of 2
• Changing diaper when she stopped. Or cleaning umbilical cord. (She hates both of those.)

So I get to let her sleep at night! I'll probably still wake her some during the day if she goes too long (more than 3.5 - 4- hours), but I won't worry at night anymore. YEAH!!!!

Samantha Birth Story - Part 1 - Not labor

So, where do I start? Do I start with going into labor on 13th? Falling on my belly on the 10th? I think just a quit recap of the 13th….

I woke at 1:15am on the 13th to contractions that weren’t really regular, but definitely woke me up… I got kind of excited thinking that not only was it Gwenan’s birthday, but that was also Chris’ dad’s birthday. And if Baby Dos was a boy, his name would have been Samuel Douglas – after Chris’ dad. How perfect to have “him” born on his namesakes birthday!

So Chris stayed home since nothing seemed to be stopping any of the contractions. I did manage to get about 1.5 hours of sleep starting at 6:45 and was happy about that. Then, since the contractions were still going on, I called the doctors office and was told to come in at 10 to get checked.

Instead of being not effaced or dilated, I was happy to be 1cm dilated - barely – and a little effaced. So we headed to the mall to walk around and try to get things going. Well, they did! Man, was I in pain for a while – unreal. I bought a muumuu to wear and some crocs shoes that were amazingly comfortable and I felt much better. So we walked some more around the mall and the contraction got to 3 minutes apart and very regular and pretty painful. (I thought.)

Into the car and off to Porter hospital…. But shortly after I got in the car, they slowed back down and I had a sinking feeling. And rightfully so. I got there and hadn’t effaced or dilated since the morning. So after checking me out, I was sent home. And had stopped most contractions by this time.

The next week plus was filled with contractions on and off and I knew they weren’t doing much – except keeping me awake and wearing me out.