3 Weeks, and Picking up Steam

Wow, three weeks have past since Claire was born. It has gone by so fast. She has fit right into our little family so well. Despite her tendencies to want to stay awake until the wee-hours of the morning, we love having her around. Her growth in the past three weeks has been amazing, every day she is changing, growing, and becoming stronger.

We never realized how much stronger she was getting until we caught this picture of her when she thought we weren't looking.

While this picture may or may not have been altered (I am not saying), Claire really is getting growing stronger. She loves to pick up her head and look around at everything that is going on. She tries too hard to stay awake because she doesn't want to miss anything!

Suzy and I are slowly adapting to our new lifestyle, fondly remembering the days when we could go to bed when we wanted and sleep the whole night through. Now our world is ruled by this little girl who won't let us get away with anything. We have had some funny experiences as we have been adapting to this new lifestyle, but those will be the subject of a future post.

Catching Sleep Whenever Possible

This past week has gone by in a blur. I sat back for a second yesterday to catch my breath and realized, February is nearly over! Suzy and I are doing about as can be expected for new parents. At school people are always telling me I look exhausted, and I got a phone call yesterday evening and the caller thought he woke me up, even though he didn't.

Claire has been busy being a normal newborn, sleeping when we want her to be awake, and being awake when we want her to be sleeping. Last night was actually her best night yet, she fell asleep before 1 a.m. and then only woke up twice to eat, and each time fell right back asleep. Wonderful!

Two nights ago, Claire and I enjoyed the first of many Jazz games together as we stayed up together into the wee hours of the morning watching the Jazz beat the mighty Celtics. Some sad news last night . . . Larry H. Miller passed away. He is as much a part of my Jazz as Stockton, Malone, and Sloan were/are. I feel the same void now as I did when I watched the first Jazz game without Stockton and Malone. He will definitely be missed; he was a great owner and a great philanthropist to the entire state of Utah.

Included below are some new pictures of Claire. She is always pulling the strangest faces and doing the funniest things with her arms and legs that it sends us racing for the camera only to barely miss the shot. Anyway, enjoy the pics!

This one is one of my favorites.

We finally caught one of her sleeping stretches on camera! She will be sleeping soundly then suddenly her arms will shoot straight up, jiggle for a second, then slowly fall back down to her side.

Suzy with a sleeping Claire. Suzy looks so amazing. No one can believe that she just gave birth 2 weeks ago.

Claire enjoys looking around to see what is happening. Often as we are holding her she stares up at the lights.

Flowers for Claire

The Sullivans sent us some beautiful roses. They smell so great and brighten up our living room. We decided to take our family picture with them. Thanks for the flowers!

This is Claire's pouty face. She likes to make a lot of funny faces. She's all wrapped up like a little baby burrito. We like to call her a little e"claire" when she's all wrapped up like this.

Claire has the cutest little clothes. Its not a big surprise, but they all drown her. This one actually fits, but that's because its super tiny.

More pictures

Be sure to read Claire's birth story below...

The Story...

Here is the story of the labor, if you're interested.

My alarm went off at 6:30 and I was preparing to get up to go to work. I rolled over to turn off my alarm clock and felt a gush of fluid...my water broke. I told Casey he better go get me a towel, and he fell out of bed rushing to go get me one. I called the doctor and she told me to take a shower and take my time getting ready, but then to come to the hospital.

We got to the hospital around 9 and I was having only very slight and far between contractions. They put me on the monitor and told me what I already knew about the contractions and that I should try walking around for awhile. We walked around for about an hour or so and they started to get much stronger and closer. Around 11:30 they officially admitted me and put me back on the monitors where it showed the contractions were much stronger. She checked me and I was at about 5 centimeters. The contractions were getting to be quite uncomfortable and the nurse asked if I wanted to try a warm bath since they say it can cut the pain almost in half. I gladly agreed and went to the tub for about an hour.

At that point they were getting VERY painful and I told Casey I wanted an epidural and he better go tell the nurse. For some reason I thought they were going to tell me when I should get an epidural, or at least tell me it was available for me whenever I wanted it. The nurse checked me again and I was at 8 centimeters. She went to get the anesthesiologist and started the IV. It was very hard to stay still as she did the epidural as the contractions were very strong at this point. I didn't feel the epidural or even care about all the needles because I just wanted the pain to go away.

It started to kick in about 15 minutes later, except for on window on my left side where it was having no effect. They said they baby's head was so far down that she was pushing on a nerve and blocking the path for the medicine. They rolled me on to my left side and after about another 20 minutes, the medicine started to kick in on the spot where it wasn't working. It didn't work all the way, but it was enough to make the contractions comfortable. Once it was all working, the anaesthesiologist asked the nurse how long it would probably be and the nurse said she thought the baby could be born within the hour. Our doctor was in the OR that morning as they were short staffed. He also had another patient in labor. As such, they left me more or less waiting as I wasn't in pain at that point.

At around 4 the doctor came in and said we were ready to push. It took about half an hour of pushing and our little girl came into the world crying and squirming. It was such a miracle to finally meet the little person who had been kicking and moving inside of me. We both got a little teary to welcome her into the world and to know she was ours.

The birth was very easy and the only thing I would have done differently would have been to get the epidural earlier. I did tear which has been uncomfortable. Overall, it was an amazing experience and I'm so happy to have little Claire with us. She has been a good baby so far and we are trying to adjust to having this little person with us.

I was going to put some more pictures up, but it doesn't seem to be working, so I'll have to try later.