It's Been A While

Ok, so that's an understatement.  It's been 2 months since I've posted.  But in all fairness, it's been a bit busy in this house.  So I'll do a few quick updates while the Nuggette is asleep on my lap and I'll start on the more detailed posts at a later date.

First thing is first - the house is pretty much finished.  Chad has done an absolutely fantastic job on getting everything ready for us to move in.  He had a bit of help the last few days, but he's done most of the work himself.  I can't tell you how blessed I am to have such a fantastic husband!  Thanks to all the parents for helping out!  We really appreciate the hard work you all did!

The next, and probably most important thing, is that our little Nuggette finally arrived - with a little motivation.  I was induced for labor and gave birth to our beautiful baby girl on Monday, April 25th at 4:26 PM.  She weighed in at 8 pounds and measured 20.5 inches long.  She had really dark blue eyes and a full head of light brown hair.  I may be biased, but she actually came out pretty (if you looked past the ick that surrounds newborns).  She didn't look like a little old man!  She was perfectly healthy and just plain perfect.  It took us a few minutes to decide between the names we had picked out and finally agreed on Charlotte Jean - aka CJ, aka Charli, aka Char, aka Miss C, aka Char-latte.  I'm sure there will be numerous other nicknames she'll receive, but these are the most popular at the moment.

So let's look back at the prediction...
Madame Zaritska, using her mystical powers, has the following prediction:
The day you deliver, outside will be cold. Your baby will arrive in the evening. After a labor lasting approximately 20 hours, your child, a girl, will be born. Your baby will weigh about 5 pounds, 6 ounces, and will be 17-1/2 inches long. This child will have dark green eyes and a little patch of blonde hair. 

It wasn't really cold outside and I'm not sure that 4:26 counts as evening.  If you start counting the labor time from when I was given the first part of the induction procedures, then yes, labor was 20 hours.  If you count only the amount of time I had serious contractions, then it was only 6-8 hours.  Actual pushing only lasted about 2 or 3 hours (and that's counting the time when they told me to stop because my doctor was still in the operating room with a c-section).  Madame Z was off on the rest of it as well.  Maybe Charlotte's hair and eye color will change to blonde and green before the permanent colors come in.  But as of her birth, Madame Z was pretty wrong.

The first day home was pretty easy, she slept pretty well.  The evening however was kinda crazy. We came home the day the tornadoes came through the SE.  The day the record number of tornadoes was broken!  Anybody that knows both me and Chad, knows that I'm the one that gets our "shelter" area stocked the moment a warning is issued by the weather service, and Chad waits until the very last minute.  This night, however, I went to bed early while my mom and Chad took care of Charlotte so I could get a head start on sleep.  Chad actually woke me up to go to the basement.  Not the first night home I was hoping for, but we were luckier than a lot of other people.  Nothing actually came too close to our area.  But still a bit too much excitement for me.

When we left the hospital, CJ's weight had dropped to 7 lbs, 6 oz.  At her first week check up she was up to 7 lbs, 12 oz and the doc wanted us to come back for a weight check the following week.  At that point, my milk had come in and she was eating extremely well.  She weighed in at 8 lbs, 5 oz!  Gained 9 oz in a week!  At her 1 month check up she weighed in at 10 lbs, 11 oz!  Definitely a good eater!

Charlotte's been getting better at sleeping during the night, but still not "long" stretches.  She started with waking every 2 hours.  Now (at 7 weeks old) she's up to a 4 hour, then 2-3 hour stretches after that.

We're both still learning, but getting better everyday, or night.