Category: Pictures
Paige’s First Bath
These pictures were taken 2 weeks ago (we may all be filthy as of late, but we didn’t wait a month to bathe our daughter, I promise) when we gave Paige her first bath. She wasn’t a big fan of the experience, but she has since warmed up to the idea a bit more. Now if I can just get myself healed to the point where I can bathe her on my own (sitting on the side of the tub still hurts and my knees are a casualty of heredity so that option’s out as well) she’ll get to do this much more regularly. For now we have to wait until Dad or Gran are free for help or make do with a sponge bath. She hasn’t told me that this bothers her yet, so I’m just going to go with it for now. Anyway, on with the pictures.
Getting ready to wake the sleeping giant:
She was out cold:
Never wake a sleeping baby…
If only her ability to sleep this deeply would stay with her…
When she goes into “fight the power” mode you know it’s about to be on:
Double time:
“Mama, why would you let him do this to me?”:
“If I can just keep my fist in this spot, he won’t be able to make a move, right…?”
As close to a smile as we got:
“Really, Mama? Seriously?”
Holding on to her fist theory for dear life, despite its results:
Party’s over:
“Oh, Mama! Are you finally here to rescue me?”
Shot One:
Shot Two:
“And this finger is for both of you for putting me through this experience…”
Post-trauma soothing time with Dad:
Finally, some food:
I’d love to post more, but one child needs to get up from a nap and the other is deploying poop missiles in her carseat…
Liam’s First Hold
Today Liam asked to hold his “Baby Paige.” My heart swelled up to a thousand times its previous size and has been there since. I waited for Matt to get home to let him try for the first time and took these shots. Liam was beyond thrilled and so was I. I make no apologies for my lack of ability to edit these. I get teary looking at them and this just happened hours ago. There will never be too many pictures of the transformation of Liam from only child to big brother and I intend to capture as many as possible. Here goes:
Preparing for the handoff:
Handoff in motion:
Completion of handoff:
When he asked me for the chance to hold her, he said he wanted to be able to “look at her face and her hands and her feet, right here in my lap.”
My babies:
Paige isn’t so sure, but Liam’s chest was so swelled with pride that I just kept on shooting:
This one absolutely slays me:
Beaming with pride (it may look like Paige was in danger of falling, but note that her brother had a good hold around her shoulders — he’s already taking care of his baby sister…):
She’s not so sure about his grip on her, however…
Life is good.
Home Sweet Home (Roundup)
Here’s a collection of the shots we’ve taken since coming home 12 days ago. What a ride it’s been…
Tiny Mama & Tiny Baby…Meet Giant Mama & Giant Baby:
Making friends (sort of…):
(Sylvie at 4 weeks, 5 days and Paige at 3 days)
In case you wondered, these are perfect representations of the mothers of these babies…Sylvie all dressed, including matching bib and booties and Paige wearing a stained shirt we took from the hospital with nothing more than a diaper…
They weren’t particularly cooperative…
But the cuteness overrides a whole lot (even the fact that Paige appeared to be perpetually giving Sylvie the stink-eye):
Brother and sister:
“Cheese!”
Despite the current condition of the football season, she’s a little Yellow Jacket:
Snoozing with Gran:
First hold by Aunt G (It still seems totally unfair that she spent so much time holding my legs while I pushed, then holding my hand while I tried my best to bleed out, but didn’t get to hold Paige for 4 whole days!):
We tried to give her some Mylanta and this is the face we got. She’s definitely my daughter…
Meeting GG Mom:
Getting to know the Williams/Reeves clan:
Liam was very excited about his big brother present:
He shows off his James train to GG Mom:
Hanging out with Great Uncle Bill:
Getting to know GG Dad:
Hanging with Gran:
Another visit with Mo and Pok:
She may be asleep, but she knows it’s a good thing when Mo’s holding her:
The adoration is mutual:
Sacked out on Pok:
Reading with my babies:
Visit with Greatmama and Greatdaddy:
Baby leg:
First hold by Greatdaddy:
Baby feet:
Liam enjoys a little Bill and Pete with Greatmama:
The view from above:
You can almost see her dimple:
Happy big brother (at long last…):
I guess there is something positive about the fact that I’ve been waiting for a call back from the pediatrician’s office for the past 2 hours and have consequently missed my chance for a nap…I love getting pictures up, but to be honest, I would really rather have had the nap.
Oh well, tomorrow is another day, right?
Week 40
These were taken last week on my due date (9.18.10). I can’t tell you how glad I was to have a 5 day old baby as opposed to having another week and a couple of days to go as I did at this point in my pregnancy with Liam.
Retaining as much water as I was wasn’t comfortable, but I’d take water retention over baby retention anyday…
Here is what Matt thought would be comparable to the belly shots (I think it’s more comparable to other things, frankly, but I’m trying to work on the negative self-talk and cut myself a break). The craziest part? She’s smaller in this picture than she was when the last real belly shot was taken:
The End. Or The Beginning.
The Birth Roundup
Here are some pictures from our time at the hospital. The birth story is a whole different animal and one which I need help to tackle (I don’t have a great memory of all that happened during the drama that was the attempted delivery of my placenta, so I need to have help from an observer or two). At some point I will be well-rested enough to attempt that. Right now we’re hanging on by a thread and I expect this post to take a couple of days to finish. Here goes nothin’.
Paperwork:
We made it!
My first (epidural assisted) pain-free sleep in 6 months:
I’m pretty sure this was taken while I was finding out I was 10 cm. dilated:
Let’s get this party started:
First picture on the outside:
Paige on my chest while Matt cuts the umbilical cord in the background:
Her lungs were in good working order:
Proud Papa:
Wrapped around her little finger:
Diamonds (and cubic zirconia) are a girl’s best friends:
Thank God for inductions:
Daddy hand:
Baby foot:
Chins:
Daddy love:
First bath:
She wasn’t a fan…
Recovering from the aftermath:
Meeting her Greatmama and Greatdaddy:
With Granddaddy:
With Gran and Greatmama:
Through the nursery window:
Back in my arms again:
Right by my side:
Reaction from Grammie and Pop:
Baby nose:
With Grammie and Pop:
Pop gets his turn:
Meeting Mo:
Pok’s turn:
Liam comes to finally meet Baby Sister (but gets some Mama Love first…):
Peering down at Paige:
Paige gives Liam a present:
“It’s Rosie!”
Showing Mama his preschool creation:
Big Brother checks out the goods:
“Look Paige, it’s Rosie!”
Liam reads his first book to Baby Paige:
When in doubt: bribe them with chocolate:
Babies and Grandmothers:
Curtain dance:
Time for a break:
Checking on things:
Best sign ever:
Finally going home:
Home Sweet Home:
Soak this one in, because this post took 3 days to publish so I doubt there’ll be another for a good long while.
Week 39
Well, we finally made it. They tell me I won’t leave the hospital next week without having given birth. I’m choosing to believe them. Especially since “they” are those who have the power to help move things along. Clearly my body is the champion of creating enormous babies with no thought given to the exit strategy.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I measured 42 weeks at my last appointment (3.5 weeks over my actual status). I feel every bit of those extra 3.5 weeks. My theory is that she’s been curled around in a C-shape with her head down, her butt on one side, and her feet wrapped around the top of my uterus for quite a while now and that at this last appointment she was actually straight up and down, giving a more accurate picture of the situation, but who knows.
I do know that my thirst level over the past week has increased to the Liam-pregnancy levels (maybe even more). As a result I’m drinking at least 10 x 32oz. bottles of water a day. Sometimes more. I’m waking up in the night too thirsty to continue sleeping. I have to pee ALL DAY LONG (the other night I went 4 times in the span of an hour, and none of those times were inconsequential). My feet have finally puffed up to match my hands and face. My lips feel like a collagen injection experiment gone horribly wrong.
I’m still waking up every 45 minutes to turn over and/or pee and the latest I’ve woken up this week has been 5am. It’s reached the point that I’m excited about going in to the hospital on Sunday night because there’s a chance I’ll be able to sleep in that bed in a way that I haven’t been able to do in my own bed (or recliners, or couches) in months. I’m pretty sure that that’s a little insane, but oh well. It is what it is.
I’m terrified about what will happen on Sunday and Monday (hopefully not Tuesday, but with me you never know), but I’m so excited to meet this baby girl, to be finished with the pregnant phase of my life, and to begin the epic process of reclaiming my body as my own.
This week’s pictures include bonus shots from my pregnancy with Liam (since on that timeline I had two more weeks to gestate).
Week 39 in my pregnancy with Liam (Again with the horizontal stripes. Really?):
My foot and Matt’s foot at 39 weeks. By comparison, my feet don’t look nearly this bad this time (even with the week of water retention). This was pretty impressive. I mean, I have cankles even at my goal weight, but this is more accurately classified as tree trunk than anything else:
Week 40 in my pregnancy with Liam (The first one is me showing off the fact that I had “dropped.” Other than that what I notice about these is that the same bag of trash — probably birthday wrapping related, we were exhausted, but not too exhausted to remove kitchen trash — is still sitting in the hall from the week before and that my hospital bag and pillow are sitting on the bench in an act of wishful thinking.):
(Matt’s not too happy about passing 40 weeks, either…)
Week 41 in my pregnancy with Liam (This was Christmas Day, 2007. Shortly after these pictures were taken I went to sleep on the couch while Matt attempted to get his first good night’s sleep in weeks in our bed. Two hours later, my water broke and the wild ride that was Liam’s birth began.):
Week 39 in this pregnancy with Baby Girl (You can’t really tell with this picture, but I finally crossed the line and my shirt no longer meets my pants.):
The End (for real this time).
Down With OPP
Liam had his first day of preschool on Tuesday.
Here are the obligatory “first day of school” shots at the front door:
There were tears when he realized that we’d be leaving (his). There were tears when we got back in the car after dropping him off (mine). Someone’s tears lasted much longer than someone else’s. I’ll let you guess who…
He appeared to have a great day. When he spotted us at the door for pick-up he let out a distinctly Liam squeal and ran to us immediately to give hugs and kisses. There’s not much better than an unprompted kiss and hug from your toddler.
When we got in the car we tried to get him to talk about the day’s events. The first thing he told us was that he held hands with his partner Julia when they went to the playground. This is interesting because there is no one named Julia in his class. He later talked about playing with his friends Julia and Celia and we were able to explain that despite the fact that Mo and Pok’s 65th wedding anniversary party might have been as exciting to him as preschool was, Julia and Celia are his cousins and aren’t in his preschool class.
The next thing he told us was that for snack he “got to have hummus and pretzels, but without the hummus.” He also told us that he got to have orange juice to drink (which is interesting because they only serve juice on special occasions, like birthdays, but who knows — with the way the rest of the day went, he might have had a gallon of OJ — at least it would account for the bouncing off the walls routine which went on for the entire afternoon…) and he was very excited about this.
When asked about his favorite part of the day he responded “playing with the fire trucks and going to the playground.”
When we got home he basically stopped talking about preschool as his mind was completely occupied by his desire for a “chocolate yogurt.”
After his request was fulfilled, we asked him how he liked his first day of preschool and we got a thumbs-up:
We continued to get information about his experiences in drips and drabs over the course of the past several days and it’s been interesting to hear him working through this new phase of his life. On my end, it’s been super-strange to try to figure out which information is accurate and put together the pieces to try to figure out what he’s done all day. He’s been a part of our lives for 2 years and 9 months and this is the first time that I don’t know exactly what he’s done with his time. Even that is not as strange as sitting here writing this post in a quiet house. The quiet house is something I could get used to, but it’ll be another couple of years before I get the opportunity to try it out again…
Triker Boy
Today we finally broke Liam’s tricycle out of its box. We had originally planned to do so in the spring, but stuff happens and here we are in September just getting around to it. He was very excited to put on his helmet and get started. He doesn’t quite understand the concept of pushing the pedals to power the trike, but he can still scoot along at record speed and with practice I think he’ll really enjoy it. For now his favorite part might just be the bell. Here are some pictures we took of the big event:
Week 38
Mother Nature is a tricky mistress. She builds into some of us this desire to procreate. Like lemmings we oblige. She then makes it clear that parenthood is not an easy ride and proceeds to punish the mother-to-be (presumably for being too excited about the impending parenthood) by making her sick for an indeterminate period of time.
Next she decides to give (many of us) a break for several months. During this time we again get excited about our procreation status. We plan, we prepare, we dream.
Then we arrive at the end of the gestation process. At this point, Mother Nature decides that the only way we’re going to be willing to go through what we have to go through in order to hold our little miracle is to make the last few weeks of the process nearly unbearable. Our bodies ache too badly to sleep more than 45 minutes at a time. We wake up multiple times each night to relieve ourselves. We wake up at random hours of the night/morning unable to fall back to sleep. We are completely worn down by the whole thing.
This is the only thing that makes the idea of doing something as crazy as pushing something the size of a watermelon out an opening the size of a lemon seem like a good idea. Because we know deep down that this is the only way to make the pain stop.
I’m pretty sure that I am experiencing some form of PTSD from Liam’s birth. I’m terrified. I desperately don’t want to go through what I had to go through last time in order to get Baby Girl out of me. I have options. I’ve run them all over and over in my head dozens of times. There just don’t seem to be any good answers. There are assurances, but there are no guarantees. The only thing of which I’m certain at this point is that if Baby Girl doesn’t make her entrance into this world in the very near future (and by that I basically mean during the next week, preferably several hours after Matt and I have picked Liam up from his first day of preschool on Tuesday) I’m going to complete my spiral into total madness. Watch out folks, I’m afraid that things are about to get really ugly at The Connolly Ranch…
On with the freak show.
Week 38 in my pregnancy with Liam (I’m still jealous of the sweater, but at this point I’m certainly not jealous of the pants. Long live the sundress!):
Wow.
Bonus shot (Contrary to appearances, I was not doing my very best impersonation of Britney Spears, it’s just what happens when you’re this far along in a pregnancy and you have nothing left to wear that will actually cover your body but you refuse, on principle, to spend another dime on maternity clothing. You can all thank Matt for capturing this gem.)
Week 38 in this pregnancy with Baby Girl (My eyes are barely visible between the puffiness that’s a result of water retention and the puffiness that’s a result of waking up every 45 minutes all night long to turn over and then waking up at 4:30 unable to go back to sleep. It’s getting brutal and it’s showing all over my face. Literally.):
Also–if my belly looks smaller in this than last week’s pictures, don’t be deceived, it’s just the back-to-back contractions. It’s the pregnant version of holding my gut in…
Here’s to hoping that these are the last pictures of their kind and that next week’s shots include post-uterine-eviction shots of Baby Girl. Those will be much less painful to look at…