Nora Susan: First Few Weeks

I pretty much want to take her picture all the time because she is just too sweet. I think she's adorable no matter what she's doing, so we'll be adding another 40,000 pictures to the photo library with this child! 

 

Having her at home has been so wonderful, and the transition has been easier than I anticipated. Obviously Nora is still in her sleepy newborn stage, but for now we're enjoying this sweet little girl.

Grandparents and friends have visited and Nora has smitten them all. Love this little girl so much and feel so blessed that she came to our family.

Proud Big Brothers

These boys have been so great with Nora. They love her so much and think she is the cutest thing. They ask to hold her all the time and beg me to put her on the ground so they can just watch her.

 

This picture says it all about life with three children. Devin got Nora to hold his finger, but she didn't reach out and grab Landon's, which of course caused Landon Boy to melt down.

Since they got sick as soon as she was born, I made them stay away from Nora (and me as much as possible), which was killing them. Devin especially had a hard time not being able to be around the baby. I've been so impressed with the boys' reaction to her and with how cute they are with her. Devin is a pro at holding Nora and loves watching her. 

Landon just wants to sing songs to her and makes sure we all know that Nora loves him. Every time they hold her they want me to take their picture, so we will have many, many pictures of boys holding Nora.

One day Landon snagged my phone and got a pic of me swaddling Nora. Thought it was a pretty great shot. Before the swaddling he begged to hold Nora, sang her the intro to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, then exclaimed "She loves me!" Such a cutie.

This is a great shot of Landon modelling the dinosaur slippers Nora "gave" them as a present when she was born. They needed slippers anyway, so this was a great present.

Nora Susan: Hospital Stay

The hospital stay was pretty good, and since I felt pretty great considering, I really just wanted to go home to my own bed where people didn't wake me up every half hour. We had to wait a little though to make sure Nora was all right since she hadn't had the antibiotics long enough (or at all, the pediatrician thought they shouldn't have even tried to give them to me and should have just waited to give them to Nora after she was born), which of course we were okay with because we just wanted her to be healthy. Rich was okay that Nora was born on a Saturday because it meant we could spend most of the day watching college football!

My parents brought the boys over Saturday afternoon. They were SO excited to meet their sister! When I sent my mom the announcement text and picture the boys just gushed about how cute she was. When Landon walked into the hospital room he had a huge grin on his face and started looking around and asking for the baby, whom Rich was holding. When he saw her he just held his hands out to hold her! Pretty cute. Devin was starting to feel sick, so he had to have a mask on, which of course he didn't like, but he was just as proud as Landon and wanted to hold his sister immediately. He looked like such a pro sitting there with her in his lap--what a grown-up boy! So glad that these boys love their sister so much.

 
 

 
 

We decided we would leave Sunday night, so the boys came again that afternoon since they were staying with Grandma and Grandpa for one more night, and Wendi and Erik's family came as well (no pictures?! Tragic). After the visitors left we got ready to take our baby girl home and re-enter real life. We are so blessed to have such a healthy, perfect, beautiful baby! We are now a family of five!

Daddy's Girl

These are some of my favorite shots of Nora's first few days at home. What a great daddy Rich is. Nora is surely one lucky girl.

Nora Susan Arrives: The Birth Story

Our beautiful baby girl came in to the world on Saturday, October 17, 2015 at 5:18 am. 

She weighed 7 lb 14 oz, measured 19 inches, and was/is completely perfect in every way! I was smitten the minute they laid her on my chest and couldn't believe how lucky I was to get to be this girl's mother.

Short version:

3:30 am contractions start

4:10 am water breaks

4:40ish am arrive at hospital, dilated to 6

5:18 am Nora Susan is here

A little less than 2 hours total and only at the hospital for about 40 minutes. Quick and not very traumatic for either of us! 

The long version for my own memory:

Leading up to the birth, I was getting all antsy about meeting this little one. I still felt pretty good but was excited to meet her and just wanted her to come! I had false labor early Thursday morning and was having contractions pretty consistently every 5 minutes for almost an hour and decided that I should wake Rich up, but right before waking him they stopped being consistent, though they continued on for another hour and a half before stopping completely. Such a disappointment! I had a doctor appointment that afternoon and decided to have him help me along a little and was totally expecting to go into labor that night--but nothing happened at all, not even false labor! Friday I took the boys for a walk in the canyon and then went for some walks around the neighborhood in hopes to get things moving. I did have false labor again that night while we had family movie night, but again contractions were all over the place and inconsistent; by the time we went to bed the contractions had stopped completely.

I woke up about 3:30 with a contraction and started timing but didn't have high hopes since the next two contractions averaged about 12 minutes apart. The next contraction came only 3 minutes later, which was confusing, but then the next one was 13 minutes later. Right after this contraction I felt another coming after only about a minute, but instead of a contraction it was my water breaking! This was at 4:10. I immediately woke up Rich who jumped out of bed, and I called my mom to have her come right over. She got there fast and we headed to the hospital, arriving about 4:40ish. I got into the room and they started the antibiotics (I was group B positive) and was dilated to a 6. The contractions weren't too bad at first and didn't seem to be coming on top of each other, though obviously this changed quickly! Unfortunately my doctor wasn't available so I had to have the on-call doctor, who was kind of interesting. It wasn't too long before I felt her coming and didn't even have to push, she just came out! Hearing her cry was the best sound. After Rich cut the cord I was able to have skin-to-skin and enjoyed that for an hour. Nora was able to nurse within the first half hour, and I loved just being able to snuggle with her. 

 
We had pretty much decided on her name, but didn't make it official till a little later just to make sure it was the right one. My first comment after looking her over was that she had dark hair! I was just expecting another blonde child, but, oh, is she beautiful, and I'm so happy that she made it here safely and decided to join our family. After my skin-to-skin time I let Rich meet his baby girl, ha! He was so proud watching over her during all her tests and measuring. I love the expression on his face when he looks at her. She will be a daddy's girl for sure.