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Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Our Birth Story...

Well folks, our little Lovebug has officially stolen our hearts forever. Her Daddy has already offered to buy her not one, but TWO cars, and she is the Princess of our household. We fall asleep each night thanking God for the miracle that she is.

I suppose now ya'll wanna hear how she made her grand entrance into this world? (If not, you should definitely skip this post) Well it didn't go as I thought it would... but I'm really thankful that I had a healthy outlook before labor, and knew that things don't always go as "planned." Bri & I woke up on Friday, July 1st at 3:40am because I had started to have contractions. We got out of bed, packed our bags, made PB and Honey sandwiches and thought we might be able to go back to sleep. By 4am, the contractions were too strong to sleep through and were now 6 min apart. Our plan was to labor at home until the contractions were 3-4 min apart or my water broke. Since I didn't want an epideral, I wanted to avoid the hospital as long as possible.

Cuddling with Mommy!

ALL DAY LONG the contractions stayed a steady 5-6 min apart and grew stronger and stronger. I had breakfast thinking surely this is my last meal, then lunch, then dinner and FINALLY by 8pm they were 3 min apart and we headed to the hospital. I got checked in by 9pm, was dialated to only a 3. We called the family to tell them to come on up, even though it could be a while.

I labored naturally and quietly, "blowing the contractions away" with Bri in our private room. The lights were off, we used Bradley positions to ease the pain, and Bri fed me popsicles. Our family popped in to see how things were going every once in a while.

Tummy Time!

By 10:30 I was dialated to 6cm and by 12:30 I was at 7cm! I thought that my water would break any moment and we'd get this party started!

No such luck... by 3:00am I was stalled at 7cm and the Dr decided to manually break my water. I thought this would surely get things started!

Cuddling with Daddy's Hand!

At 4:30am, 24hours after I'd started laboring, I was EXHAUSTED. My body was worn out, shakey, and I was pretty out of it. I was ready to get my sweet baby out! The nurse came in, checked me, and with a very sad face told me there was no change... I was still stalled at 7cm. The contractions were very painful and right on top of eachother with no break in between. Brian and I began to get a little worried. There was an increasing chance that if I kept going with no medication, I'd be too exhausted to push when the time came and the possibility of C-section would be hanging over us. So... I asked for the epidural. I just needed a bit of rest so that I could have the energy to finish. Little did I know that the decision to do so would be pretty important in a bit.

I slept for an hour after the epidural kicked in. I could still feel the contractions but they were much more tolerable, and I could feel my legs and move them normally which surprised me! When I woke up, I was at 8cm... finally some progress! By 8am I was at 9cm and at 8:30 I was ready to push!

She Loves her Wubba Nub!

Here's where that epidural and rest became very important... just as the Nurse & Doctor were getting me ready to bring our little girl into the world, her heart rate suddenly started to drop. They told me we needed to get her out quick, and so with the restored energy, I was able to push her out in 15 minutes after only 4 sets of pushing! I felt immediate joy and started to cry when they laid my tiny little baby on my stomach! The doctor was surprised at how tiny she was, since she had estimated Lovebug to be about 7 1/2 lbs! She cried only for a second, and then just looked around with her big beautiful eyes, and started rooting right away! They checked her over and cleaned her up before giving us our blessed bonding time as a little family of 3!

We got all packed up after 2 wonderful days in the hospital recovering... headed home... and spent only 1 1/2 days there before an emergency trip to Children's Mercy Hospital... I'll tell you all about that suprising turn of events in my next post!

Friday, July 8, 2011

Lovebug is Here!

After 28 hours of labor, our precious tiny girl is here! Hannah Renee Edwards was born on Saturday, July 2nd at 8:47am! She was 5lbs 15oz and 18 3/4 in long! We love her soo much it almost hurts! I'll post more about her Birth Story and the eventful days following after we get all settled in at home. Here are some pictures of our Lovebug... although we can't seem to capture just how beautiful she is in person!


Came out bright eyed and beautiful!

Mommy loves her so very much!

She's a Daddy's girl... looks like him too!

Heading home! Our little family of three.

Precious. 

Friday, July 1, 2011

The NURSERY Reveal!

It's FINALLY finished! It's actually been finished for a little while, I just needed to borrow my brother-in-law's super sweet camera so that I could get some better pictures than my lil' point and shoot would take! It feels so good to have all the elements that I worked so hard on all put together! A whole lot of love went into this room and I can NOT wait to have our little Lovebug in her Woodland-themed nursery!


First of all, I need to say a big THANK YOU to my wonderful husband and his brother for painting the room the beautiful Milk Chocolate by Valspar (saw on Nate Berkus... and knew it was the one!) They also installed the chair rail, which makes the room look so amazing!


The changing table is an Ikea dresser from our bedroom at our condo in California. The post about the fabric basket is HERE, and although I planned to make my own changing pad cover, I decided that something used for diaper changing would be better bought for $10 and made by Carters- right?


The beautiful artwork was bought on Etsy at these shops: Trafalgar's Square & Loxly Hollow.


For now, her toybox is a simple canvas cube bought at Target... I'm sure she'll need more of those soon!


The bedding is was all handmade by this little Mama! I used Amy Butler's Little Stitches as the patterns for the bumpers, crib skirt, and fitted sheet, and made my own pattern for the quilt. Wee Woodland by Moda is the fabric line. The quilt was quilted by a dear friend, Lisa.


I used fabric scraps in embroidery hoops as wall art.


I used an old bookshelf from Target and primed and painted it Jade by Laura Ashley.


The adorable woodland flashcards are from Ink Tree Press on Etsy.


The Chair is from Pottery Barn Baby and is so incredibly comfortable! The post about the side table is HERE, the Happy Stacker post is HERE, and the Scalloped Bunting are HERE. The curtains and curtain rod, I already had from Ikea.


Well folks, I hope you enjoyed the tour! We're hoping to have our sweet girl here really soon!