A Tale of Two Sisters: January 2011

Well friends, it's been 8 weeks since Felicity touched down. And WOOO what an 8 weeks it has been!! It sounds so cliche but the whole thing is totally an adventure. Joel and I have no clue what we are doing, but Felicity seems happy and that's all that counts!

In the last week or so she has started to smile!! But like a true diva, it will only happen under certain conditions: Must be well fed. Must have clean diaper. Must be mid-morning. Must have lavender scented candle burning. Must have Fiji water in her ~~dressing room~~ nursery. If we meet these needs she will light up like a Christmas tree, and it gives me goosebumps every time. It's like getting a really sweet gift over and over again. Joel says it's the first ROI (return on investment) the baby gives you for your hard work.

I mean honestly...like really?! I can't even stand it.

It's fun to see Joel with the baby, and life with him now is seriously like being in a FULL TIME musical. All he does is sing things. To Felicity, to me, to the cats. It's pretty awesome. I love how happy he is. He is so cute with the babe, and just like everyone says...you really do fall in love with your husband all over again.

A quiet moment. Le sigh.

So far I think I'm a pretty OK mom. It's still really insane to me that I am someone's mom. And that I birthed her. HAHAHA. It's so weird say. Felicity has NO CLUE what a spaz I am...and for that she is lucky. I mean eventually she will get her whits about her and the jig will be up, but right now her cluelessness equals my awesomeness. She is my bestie and I just love being with her.

1 month photo

She is a really good baby as far as I can see (although I'm bias). She just hangs out and likes to be with the big kids. But sometimes she gets upset. I call her cries "requests" which helps me stomach the fact she can wail like RIGHT IN YOUR FACE! And so I tell her, "Miss Felicity, I've heard your request! Yes, you've made your request perfectly clear! No need to repeat yourself!!"

Even though she has been around for awhile now, and provides hours of entertainment (read: blogging material), I want to write about her birth story. I want to look back and be able to read about the details of the experience, you know? I'd like to have the whole thing written down while it's still pretty fresh in my mind.

So the day I went into labor, November 14th, I woke up in a serious funk. It was a Sunday, and I was crying about a lot of things. I was upset about being swollen. I was upset about being tired. I was upset that Chick-fil-a was closed. I was just UP. SET. And I felt like everyone around me was having their babies. I was all, "Why does our baby hate us?!?! WHY DOESN'T SHE WANT TO MEET US!?!?!" I went about my day feeling sorry for myself. Around 4:30 that afternoon I was working on a little home project, and was in my garage when all of the sudden...WOOOOOSH! my water broke. I was so convinced I wouldn't know when my water broke because people says it's not like the movies where it's a gush. That most of the time it's a trickle and it's hard to know. But this was from the movies. So we raced to get the go bag and feed the cats, and got to the hospital by 5:30 pm. And what did I do on the car ride? Touched up my make-up, obvi. Because I have priorities, people. And the priority is to not look busted.

Once we got to the hospital I changed into that killer gown, and settled into the room. Pretty much the hours of 8 pm to 5:15 am were my labor hours. I started getting contractions, and I could REALLY feel them by 11ish pm. I was in back labor, and I was in pain. They shot me up with The Good Stuff around 11:15 pm so I couldn't feel the contractions. After that things were pretty uneventful. We watched Sunday night football. And by "we" I mean Joel. (If you know me at all, you know that this should have been deemed UNacceptable). We also watched Sarah Palin's reality show. Which is really boring. But Sarah is super cute with her prom hair. (Sidebar: That Willow daughter of hers is a giant B. She is so rude, and definitely is in her angsty teen years.)

At 4 am my mom showed up with a ham sandwich for Joel, and Vanity Fair for me. She knows what's up. It was nice to have her there to distract me from the fact I was about to GIVE BIRTH. We listened to music, watched the news, and chatted. She said I looked like I was, "smokin' & jokin'" which to me is the highest compliment one can receive while in labor. Thanks mom!

At 5:15 am Melissa, my nurse, gave me the green light to start pushing. Now let me stop and tell you about Melissa. She was my super lovely, fun, sweet, helpful, motivating nurse. I had a crush on her. (And Joel did too.) Melissa pretty much did everything. Yes the doc checked in a few times, but Melissa was there through it all. We totally bonded. At one point I asked her if it's ever annoying to labor with someone all night, only to have her shift change at 7 am with no baby in sight. She said yeah it was. So I looked her dead in her eyes and said, "Melissa! I'm going to get you a baby by the end of your shift if it's the last thing I do!!!" And I did! I poured my little soul out to her in a thank you note after it was all said and done. I thanked her for making the whole situation THAT much better. She was really really great. (Fair Oaks Hospital, raise up!)

And speaking of being awesome, Joel was super supportive with giving me the positive affirmations I needed. I told him I didn't need any of that massaging, or calming touch crap they teach you in labor class. I told him I needed him to frequently remind me that idiots have babies every day, and they live to tell the tale. That if those fools could do it, so could I! That was my motivation to push. (Poor guy didn't know what he was getting into when he married me.)

Pushing is way more anti-climatic than I thought it would be. It was just me, Joel and Melissa. Having Joel helping me push made me so nervous at first because I thought it may require him TO LOOK. I think it made him nervous too. We both were SOOO not prepared for him to be looking into The Eye of The Tiger. Looking into The Heart of Darkness. Looking down into the Belly of the Beast, if you will. But thank goodness he has self control and never ventured a peek. At one point Melissa asked me if I wanted the mirror and I barely let her finish the sentence before I gave her a giant HELL to the NO. Listen, I don't need to smell the milk, to know it's badddd.

Before I started pushing I had asked Melissa an over under on what time the baby would be born. She said she bet the baby would be here by 6 am. Well 6 am came and went and I said, "What the French Melissa! You said six!!" And she was like, "OK, well we will have a baby by 7 am!" Um, no thanks. I needed this baby NOW. I couldn't handle pushing for 60 more minutes. So I pushed until I could push no mo, and Felicity was born at 6:25 am. The last five minutes of pushing were a whirlwind. The doc and all the various nurses came rushing in. Oh and this random lady. It was so weird this woman was standing by the door, with this rolling table contraption in front of her just staring. But not like watching with anticipation/joy/empathy/excitement on her face. Watching like she was watching an Oxy Clean commercial. Totally bored. Totally over it. On the verge of snoozing. It was weird. I remember mid push looking at her and thinking, "Ummm so sorry I'm boring you. So sorry you find my BIRTHING A CHILD so incredibly uneventful." As soon as the baby was born, she was outtie500. Creepy. Funny BUT creepy.

Everyone started wishing miss Felicity a happy birthday, and that was adorable! My doctor did a great job and was being really sweet to her. Overall he was so amazing. But at one point he turns to me and in his really soft spoken voice says, "You may not want to aim to gain so much weight next time." ERRRRRRRR. STOP THE MUSIC. WHAT?!?! Yeah. I "aimed" to gain sixty pounds. I "aimed" to get so swollen that I felt like a circus freak. I "aimed" to haunt my local Chick-fil-a. I most certainly did not AIM to get so big. Apparently being swollen was requiring little Felicity to work extra hard to make her adventure into the world. (Plus side of water retention is instant weight drop once the baby is born. Hurrah!) I of course didn't say any of this and instead wussed out being like, "Oh woops. I'll work on that next time." LOCK IT UP, CHAR. LOCK. IT. UP.

After that my family started visiting and everything was just a blur. I was so tired, excited, nervous....THE WORKS. Felicity is the star of the show.

Get on with your bad self, girl.

Oh my goodness so now she is here. And it is wonderful!!! We are so so blessed and lucky. Felicity is the PERF addition to our family.

Anyway, so that's the story morning glory. Sorry it's so long! I was really trying to remember everything. (Even the silly stuff!) I'm going to continue to blog, although I know it won't be as frequent as it used to be. I love blogging, and I don't want to give it up!! 2011 will be my year of time management, I just know it.

And with that I'll leave you with some more pics!