Jenna – 3 weeks

(Make sure to scroll down past this post for a post on Hunter - I don't usually post two posts in one day, but his post was giving me a hard time yesterday, so I didn't get it taken care of till today. Had to switch to You Tube for videos too, so let me know if there is any trouble seeing the videos.)

Looks like she’s saying “How YOU doin’??”

Not sure what that face is saying – maybe “get that camera out of my face please.”

The two pictures above remind me of the pictures in People magazine where they tell you to find the 10 things that are different between the two pictures – same exact pose, eyes, etc, but obviously she’s covering up her mouth in the second one. hehe

Gotta love sleepy smiles!

And tummy time turned into naptime…this baby sleeps a TON!!!

I’m the Big Brother!

Here are a couple of videos of Hunter, the Big Brother.  He really is doing great with Jenna – very helpful.

And a still shot for those of you without video access – isn’t his hair cut adorable?

The next one was taken while I was nursing Jenna, if you can believe it.  I set the camera on the back of the couch and hit record – amazing what you can capture with both hands full.  Hunter was doing this all weekend – putting his blocks in order and “counting” them.  And yes, when he gets to ten, what follows is “eleven, thirteen.”  Sometimes sixteen or seventeen pop in there, but not in this video.  :)

We visited Hunter’s new school this morning.  September 1, he starts at Lakewood Montessori.  I have mixed feelings about this.  For once, I am excited about a transition for him instead of being a nervous wreck, but Daddy has gotten into my head a bit and there is some anxiety that he is going to miss his friends dearly.  He has been in Kids R Kids since he was 3 months old – two locations, but the same company, same building setup, same format, etc.  When we moved to Cypress, that transition was a breeze – he was only 13 months old though.  Now, he comes home every night with another story about one of his friends – Bobby, Brody, Hudson, Hayden, Ainsley, Daniel.  I was concerned about this right up until we walked in the room at Lakewood Montessori this morning and saw his old friend Landon from Kids R Kids!!  I had noticed Landon was MIA at Kids R Kids probably about a month ago, but hadn’t thought to ask anyone where he’d gone.  Now I know!!  Hunter sat down for circle time by his friend Landon and settled in nicely.  I think he will do great when he starts next Tuesday.  He didn’t want to leave when I said it was time to go, and he actually cried when I dropped him off at Kids R Kids afterwards – this has NEVER happened before!!  Crazy!

Jenna – 2 weeks

Miss Jenna is doing very well after 2 weeks of life.  She weighed in at 7 pounds and 11 ounces today, so she’s up half a pound from her birth weight, which is fabulous!  Expectedly, her head circumference is in the 75th percentile – I make big-headed children, what can I say??  But it sure is a cute head!!!

Again on white…                                    …and again on pink…

One of those (probably the one on white because I did some corrections on that one to make the white whiter and all that fun stuff) will probably be used for the birth announcement.  I think I took about 20 of them, so be grateful I only posted three.  :)

Thanks to my cousin Heather for this adorable Texas A&M outfit.  Ironically, Jenna actually looks kinda like Alison’s kids (Alison is Heather’s sister) in this picture, at least to me.  I obviously couldn’t get Jenna to keep her eyes open today, which means I probably won’t get much sleep tonight.  Hopefully this isn’t a sign that our baby girl doesn’t like the Aggies, but she had her first blowout diaper in this outfit today, and also threw up on the shirt.  Poor thing!

I also have a cute video of Hunter “reading” to Jenna from this past weekend, as well as some baby pics of me and Brent that look a lot like Hunter and Jenna.  I’ll post these tomorrow or whenever I find some time.

Jenna – 1 week

Gotta love that double chin!

At first I thought she looked a lot like Hunter, but now they look so different to me.  She is much more feminine than he was – a smaller head is probably the main reason.  And the shape of their eyes is also very different.  Jenna’s chin also butts right up to her bottom lip, versus Hunter’s, which was a bit longer.  And of course, Jenna has more hair than he did, but I’m sure it will all be gone soon.  She’s already rubbing a spot on the back of her little head.  Here’s a comparison shot for you, both at 1 week.  I won’t do this all the time, but was curious how much they really looked alike at that age.

I’ll have to figure out a way to get one of my baby pictures on here because I think Jenna looks more like me and Hunter, more like his daddy, even this early.

So, to continue some of Jenna’s drama, she also has a condition called VSD, or Ventricular Septic Defect.  This is one of many types of heart murmurs, but according to both pediatricians we’ve discussed with (the one who saw her while we were in the hospital as well as Hunter’s, who will be her primary care physician), it is very common and will correct itself in time.  It’s basically a small hole between the two bottom chambers of her heart.  It is good to know about in case we are ever out of town and have to see a new pediatrician and they hear the murmur and freak out.  The hole is apparently labeled “small” which is why they do not have to do anything to try to fix it.

As for week 1, I think we are on the right track!  Her sleep patterns are still unpredictable, but overall, she is sleeping well and eating well.  Oh, and when we had to take Hunter to the doctor this weekend (yes, more drama – he has erythema multiforme, which is a rash you can get after a virus has run its course, but isn’t itchy or anything, just ugly), we weighed Miss Jenna and she was already back over her birth weight!!  She was 7 lb 5.5 oz – in the hospital, she had lost about half a pound, so it was great to see she had gained all that back, and more, in such a short period of time!  Yay!

Introducing…Baby Jenna

August 4, 2009 – We go to the hospital to be induced and luckily, I am already contracting pretty regularly.  When the doctor came in to break my water, she said the water bag was bulging and she suspects if I weren’t being induced, I probably would have gone into active labor that day anyway.  I was already 3 cm and my cervix was already thinning out on its own, and without pitocin, I was contracting every 2-3 minutes (but not really feeling it).  I actually fooled myself into thinking the contractions might not be that bad, but once that water was gone – OUCH!  I had the epidural in a few minutes after 10:00 am.  Why wait?  :)

By 10:30, I was 5-6 cm and shortly after that, the drama came.  Jenna’s heart rate had been decelerating during contractions, but was rebounding well, so they weren’t too concerned.  I guess they were concerned enough to get Dr. Tran in to take a look at the strip, and she was in the room when Jenna’s heart rate plummeted the first time.  I told Brent later on that I couldn’t hear it at all and really thought something horrible had just happened to my baby.  They moved me in so many different positions, and eventually hands and knees did the trick.  Actually, it may have just been the timing of when the terbutaline got into my system – I was basically having a never ending contraction so they gave that to me in my IV to relax the uterus and allow the baby’s heart rate to rebound.

Long story short, this happened one other time before they decided we weren’t handling the pitocin very well and they shut it off.  I had told my nurse not to give it to me that morning, mainly because I just dreaded pitocin contractions, but turns out I was right.  I didn’t need no stinkin’ pitocin – I was dilating on my own, and too fast for Miss Jenna apparently.  I was 10 cm by 1:30, but she was still pretty far up, so they sat me up for a half hour or so, to let gravity bring her down the birth canal a bit more.  I swear the epidural ran out during this time – either that or they’ve just changed the epidural for the better since I had Hunter because I felt major pressure every contraction.  I actually felt that need to push that I don’t think I ever felt while in labor with Hunter.  I strongly recommend to expectant mothers to turn down the meds before that magical time to start pushing – it was so much easier to know what to do this way, and as you’ll read below, feeling a baby come into the world can be a really great thing…

I had to push a bit more than we expected.  She was face up, so the doctor suggested possibly having to use a vacuum to help get her out.  They say this must have scared me because I pushed like a champ and she turned herself around.  But I don’t think it scared me since Hunter was a forceps baby.  I think what happened was that this time, I could feel her coming down – I wasn’t about to let her slip back up there so I continued to bear down just a little between contractions.  Once she turned, it just took a couple of pushes and there she was!  I felt everything (well, no pain, just the sensation).  Brent said my reaction when she came out was so tremendous that the doctor and nurses all looked at me and thought something was wrong.  I was just so ecstatic to see her and also feel that relief.  It was amazing.

And I know you didn’t necessarily need to hear all that – you just came here for the pictures.  So here they are.  The video has two clips – the first, I am ever so grateful to my wonderful husband for capturing when they handed Jenna back to me after cleaning her up and weighing her.  I didn’t know he was filming and when I saw it later that day, i burst into tears because it was so special.  The second clip is Hunter’s first encounter with his baby sister.  He did so good, and he gets better every day with her.

And plenty of pictures to tide you over until tomorrow, when I will post her 1 week pictures.  I am determined to post pictures of Jenna at least as often as I did with Hunter.  My guess is that I just won’t take so many this time – will only take and post the best pics instead of taking 100 every week like I did with Hunter and then picking one or two to post.  :)

Is that a smile?

Hunter’s Sibling Cake

 

Some of Jenna’s visitors while in the hospital…

     

I’m going home!!!

   

All strapped in and rarin to go.  She stayed awake until we passed the galleria – once she saw it, that was all she needed.  She slept the rest of the way home.

And I’ll admit there were about 16 versions of this last picture.  I picked the best one.  This girl is going to have bows in her hair for quite awhile!!

Picture of Jenna

Due to popular demand...will post more tomorrow. Going to sleep now!!!

Baby Jenna is here!!

She is going to be a drama queen, there is no doubt about that. More on that later. More importantly, she is here!! Jenna Loren arrived at 2:46 this afternoon. She is 19.5 inches long and 7 lb 3 oz. She is perfect. Will post pictures once we get a chance to take some pictures on our cell phones. Can't do much with the pictures we took this afternoon on the camera.

Oh, and I'm fine. Much better the second time around. Yay!!