Bracelets

Hospital bracelets. The first of many matching mother/daughter accessories.

Lamb

Louisa got a pretty pink lamb from our friends Pam (my old neighbor -- I was the flower girl in her wedding) and Fran. This is her first stuffed animal and I'm sure they will share lots of fun together in the coming years.

p.s. Pam and Fran also bought Rock the "I'm a Big Brother" shirt in the last post.

Papa and Nana

Last Wednesday, Nana and Papa came over ALL DAY! We thought we were only going to see Nana for the morning, but instead we got them both and they helped out SO MUCH!First of all, Papa was a big help in nursing Louisa. Just kidding! He’s just using my nursing cover to protect her from the (beautiful) sunny day!Seriously, they did a lot of baby snuggling…And baby protecting – from the sometimes too aggressive love of her older brother. After they made us lunch, they helped Rock take Louisa on a walk around the neighborhood so he could show her off to all his friends. What did I do while they helped out so much? I lazed around on the couch and took a few cat naps! Thanks again Nana and Papa!

5 Days Old

When Louisa was 5 days old,we took her to her first well check-up at the pediatricians office. As you may recall, the highlight of Rock’s well check-ups was finding out how much weight he had gained. We knew Louisa wasn’t growing quite as fast as Rock, but we could see that she now has a double chin she had put on some weight from the hospital.Turns out she put on 8 oz. in her first 5 days of life! She’s no one-lb.-a-weeker like Rock, but we’ll take it! Her official stats were 6 lbs 5 oz and 20 inches long.

Daddy’s Girl

He’s already wrapped around her little finger.

Homecoming

On Saturday we gathered our things…And they wheeled us out to our car.We actually spent some time trying to make the straps small enough for this little girl. For a second I thought they weren’t going to let us take her home!After picking up some take-out at Panera (the perfect bookend to the breakfast trip on the day she was born), we brought home our beautiful bundle of joy. Jason and Auntie H took Rock to the circus (yeah, they are just that cool!) that morning so when they brought him back, we were sure to get some pictures of them with the baby. Sorry again about the first visit in the hospital!

Hospital Randoms

Doodling on the white board in our room.Sleepy Girl.A bath by Nurse Ginny…Then her first spa day ended in a wrap. Shots with our hands to show how the teeny-tinyness of our baby girl.Pretty in Purple. I just can’t stop staring at Little Lou.

Visitors

Our first visitor on Friday morning was Pastor Coleman.Later on, Nancy showed up at the same time as Carrie C. and Juju and Rock. But Nancy brought me the Chick-Fil-A shake pictured above so she gets her own picture.That night Nana and Papa came back to see us.See those pink nails? That’s proof of Nana’s visit. Rounding out the day of visitors was our good friend Chuck. Thanks to everyone who came by!

Introductions

After her crazy birth we introduced Louisa to her family.The most important introduction was when Rock got to hold her for the first time. He sang Rock a Bye Baby to her and broke his Mom’s heart his sweetness.Then Louisa gave him a special present she picked out just for him; Lightning McQueen and Chick Hicks matchbox cars. Needless to say, this made him love her even more. Although it did make him neglect her a little more.Juju and Lou Lou.Rachel (on the left) and Kari (on the right) were my fantastic nurses. It turns out that Kari was our first nurse (she was only in our room for an hour) with Rock. It took us awhile to recognize her as she had blond hair last time. No, Louisa is not hiding under my nursing cover, she’s off getting cleaned up.We showed our appreciation for them (and for all our other nurses) with some cookies.Nana and Papa wore pink to welcome their first granddaughter into the world.Rocket arrived later that evening. Aunt Susi arrived even later but we were happy for her to be able to hold her little niece on the day she arrived. For the record, Uncle Jason and Auntie H also came to the hospital but somehow we managed to get ZERO pictures of them! Sorry guys!

Birth Day

Like I said, the contractions started in earnest around 12:30 AM on Thursday morning. Although they were consistent, they were still pretty far apart. We called the doctor at 8:30 and she said to come on in to the hospital.So Rock and Fix bought me a big Panera breakfast since I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat once we checked in at the hospital. We left Rock at home with Juju...But not before we got a “Everyone-stick-out-your-bellies!” shot.In triage, I kept entering the contractions on an Excel spreadsheet Fix had set up for me. But they told me that I was having more contractions than I could feel and since I was at 5 cms and most importantly, because I needed the penicillin drip (I have Strep B which is a very bad thing to give to a newborn baby) to be in my system for 4 hours before the baby was born, they checked me in. At this point the contractions (or at least the contractions I could feel) were still 10 minutes apart so they were totally manageable. I slipped into the hospital gown that I made…And sat around admiring the hot pink pedicure I’d given myself the day before and the beautiful day passing by out the window. We invited Juju and Nana Kerry to come over and keep us company.I love this picture of the two of us decked out in pink for our baby girl’s arrival!

WARNING! THIS IS THE BIRTH STORY! I’LL TRY AND KEEP IT PG-RATED BUT IT COULD BE TOO MUCH INFORMATION FOR SOME! IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ IT, SKIP DOWN TO THE *** BELOW!

At 4:30 (when the penicillin had been in my system long enough) they checked and I was at 7cms but the baby’s head wasn’t engaged. So they sat me upright to use gravity to help. The contractions were getting stronger and closer but they still felt like they were five minutes apart so I bypassed the offer for an epidural. When the doctor came in, the head was engaged enough to break my water. This was around 4:50.

With the first contraction after they broke my water, I thought “Wow, that’s a quite a bit stronger.” By the third contraction I asked for an epidural. Suddenly I could feel each and every one of them and they were close and they were painful! I sent my mom and Kerry out of the room. The nurse called over, but the epidural man was in surgery and wouldn’t get there for 20 minutes. She said by that point it would be too late to help. I mentally FREAKED OUT but tried to keep my cool as the contractions got even more intense.

Maybe ten minutes later I was begging to push. They called the doctor who (according to my mom and Kerry) came running down the hall. She barely had time to put on her gown and gloves before I was pushing our baby out. I pushed (and screamed) maybe three times. Everyone kept saying “You’re doing really great!” but I know they say that to everyone so I didn’t think I was really making much progress. I just thought I was going to die. I turned to the nurse and said “I can’t do this.” She said “Actually, you can and you are! It’s 5:10 now and this baby will be born by 5:12.” Now THAT was the encouragement I needed! I braced myself to push once more and…

She popped out! Literally. The head and the body all came out in one push! Her birth time was recorded at 5:10 so I didn’t even have to wait another two minutes!

They placed her on my belly (completely dirtying my pretty pink gown!) and my first comment was “SHE IS SMALL!” Her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck and around her chest and back around her neck again. AND it had a knot in it. AND the doctor said it was about half as thin as it should be. These factors were all probably the result of her being a VERY active baby in utero and they probably contributed to her tiny size. Although she did make a weak cry, she was pretty purple in color so they took her away and beat on her back and gave her oxygen to try and get her wailing.

And I just sat their shaking. I couldn’t believe that A) it was over B) I gave birth naturally and C) that she was SO SMALL!***But she was here and she was beautiful! At 5 lbs 12 oz she was quite a bit smaller than her 8 lbs 1 oz brother but she beat him in length. While he was a mere 19.4 in, she measured in at 19.6 in. Now up until this point, we hadn’t picked a name – just narrowed it down to two that we liked best. We wanted to name her after we met her to ensure that the name ‘fit’ her. And it turns out that our #1 pick was perfect for her. Louisa Theo Fix

We are so glad you are here!

Introducing…

Louisa Theo Fix

Born Thursday, March 18th, 2010 at 5:10pm

5 lbs 12 oz 19.6 in

Louisa was my middle name growing up before I changed it to Brockman when I got married. I was named after my uncle James Louis who would have been 61 years old the day after Louisa was born. Louisa means FEMALE WARRIOR and we thought was fitting for such a feminine little newborn who came bursting into the world like a warrior.

Theo was Fix’s great-grandmother’s name. When I first heard it a few years back I immediately filed it under “names for babies” in my head. Besides it’s family connection, it is also a transliteration from the Greek name for God in the New Testament. Theo means DIVINE GIFT which she most definitely is!

Thanks be to God for this beautiful baby girl!

No Baby… Yet.

On Tuesday the 16th, we went to my doctor’s appointment hoping that I might be dilated enough to merit inducing. Took this picture (without makeup!) as we were racing out the door just in case I didn’t come back home pregnant.But the doc said I wasn’t ready. Sigh. Since we weren’t going to the hospital, we kept our weekly tradition of going to Story Hour and brought Daddy along.Of course we indulged in a little Chic-Fil-A afterwards…

And Daddy really pulled out all the stops by letting Rock ride the Carousel after lunch.They say that walking brings on labor, so later that afternoon Rock and I walked Baby Addy over to the park.Since no one else was at the playground and since I knew this was one of the last days I would be babying Rock, I let him push Baby Addy around on top of the play equipment. Something tells me this would be frowned upon with a real baby in a real stroller.But he really really enjoyed it. Hopefully he’ll be this enthusiastic about pushing is sister someday. Pondering his future with Shin? Then on the 17th, Annie and Sophie and Clip came over and we took another loooonnnnng walk around the neighborhood and over to the park. Again, we were hoping that we could get labor to start. It didn’t... Until 12:30 Thursday morning!