hospital photos.

my friend morgan came and took some quick photos of eloise at the hospital so i didn't have to buy the cheesy hospital ones.  thanks morg!

eloise fullmer.

our sweet little eloise was born on monday, may 28, 2012 at 2:36pm. 7 pounds 15 ounces (she was 2 weeks early even!) and 21 inches long. its about time i record some of the events of the day while they're still fresh in my mind. 

that morning i had an 8am appointment at the hospital to re-check my fluid levels. i had literally done everything i could to make them increase over the weekend but to my dismay they were still as low as they had been on saturday.  it became clear that was the reason she couldn't turn back and a c-section was going to be the inevitable route.  the doctor gave me the option of doing it today or scheduling it some other day that week- knowing that the risk of her cord being compressed only went up as time went on.  after much prayer and phone calls/texts to family friends who had experienced c-sections (i needed a lot of pep talks!) we decided to go ahead and do it that day.  i'm pretty sure the doctor and nurses were grateful we finally decided since it took us a couple hours and we were taking up space in triage/the doctor really wanted to go home or something.  

almost immediately they sent back the "prep team".  my nurse stuck me like 5 times before she asked someone else to come put my iv in.  i ended up with a golf ball sized hematoma on my hand...ouch.  they gave cody some scrubs and we all walked back to the operating room together.  the nurse and i went in first so the anesthesiologist could insert my spinal while cody waited outside.  it hurt but luckily went pretty fast.  i laid down on the table in the cold operating room while they prepped and we waited for my medicine to kick in.  i wasn't getting as numb as i was hoping for.  at one point the anesthesiologist took a cold cloth on each side of my legs and said i shouldn't feel the cold.  my left side was good and numb but i could definitely feel it on my right.  it freaked me out because the doctor was standing in position and i kept saying "don't cut yet i can feel it!"they rotated the table so that more medicine could get to my right side but even when i was "numb" i could still feel a heck of a lot more touch sensations than i ever wanted to.  no pain though which was the important thing.  the medicine was making me shake pretty bad and the anesthesiologist told me he'd give me something to relax me after the baby was out but meanwhile i just kept asking cody to talk to me to keep my mind off things.

after lots of tugging and pulling (she was lodged way up in my ribs), eloise made her grand entrance with the sweetest, squeakiest cry i'd ever heard.  her right leg was flung up by her head (dancer?) because of how she had been positioned inside.  they took her to the warmer and cody followed.  next thing i knew cody was on the floor?  this must have been when my "relaxing" medicine kicked in because i don't remember much but i was told that cody had gotten light-headed and was taken into the hall and fed juice and crackers. to his credit though he said he didn't feel dizzy from all the blood and guts, he just hadn't eaten all day and the reality had set in that he was a dad!  they finally brought him back in and brought little eloise over so i could meet her.  definitely a surreal moment but one i wish i had a better memory of (those dang drugs!)  it may have possibly been worth it though to not be aware of every tug and pull that was going on while they were stitching me back up.  i guess the drugs made me itch or something because cody said i kept scratching my left eye to death.  turns out it gave me the craziest swollen eye i've ever seen.  i looked like i had been punched in the face and had a serious case of quasimoto eye when i woke up in recovery.

the rest of the day was a dream.  nothing better than getting to know our sweet girl and having lots of friends and family come visit and meet her.  our hospital stay was amazing! it truly felt like a week long vacation (we stayed til the very last possible moment) and we were on such a high.  the nurses were so incredible, the food was actually pretty good, and i could totally get used to being brought cran-grape juice on a whim.  oh and i didn't mind that catheter one bit for those first couple days.  tmi?  probably.  but not having to get up and pee every 20 min like i had during pregnancy?  heaven.  they did make me get up and walk at 10:30pm the first night and 4:30am the next morning.  it hurt pretty bad getting in and out of bed but even through the pain it felt great to move around knowing that it would eventually get easier.  i had staples, which made me feel like frankenstein at first but having them taken out a couple days later didn't hurt at all and my scar looks so good.

all the stress of the past week seemed so worth it when we finally had our healthy baby girl.  she is truly such a sweet, happy baby and her daddy's little mini-me. love that girl so so much!

the nursery.

i realize i have a LOT of updating i want to do.  for some reason this sweet girl of mine only naps well if she's held so here i type with one hand. before i get to my updates of the past 9 weeks i wanted to post a link to some more beautiful photos my sis-in-law, Tara, took of eloise and her sweet nursery! my mother-in-law made all the bedding, window treatments, pillows and basket liners.

go HERE to see the rest!

eloise's newborn photos.

our sweet little eloise arrived on may 28, just the day after i posted last.  i definitely have a lot of catching up to do.  in the meantime, here is a link to some beautiful photos that cody's sister took for us.

Tara Dawn Photography

also, Tara will be traveling to arizona again in a few weeks and is booking photo shoots while she's here!  i'd definitely get in touch with her asap before she books up!

baby update.

what a week it has been! i wanted to write this all down before i forget the details.

monday, may 14- went to the dr for my 36 week visit.  everything looked great.  her head was down and i was making "progress".  i was excited about this and also that cody would be done with school in just a week and we'd have a full week to get projects done around the house that i had been saving for him, before he starts his summer internship.

monday, may 21- went to the dr for my 37 week visit.  she seemed to think baby turned breech and wanted me to get an ultrasound right away.  and yes, she flipped- naughty little girl.  as i thought about it i think i felt her flip over the weekend.  we had our friends, shelly and branson, in town visiting and on saturday we went out to eat at 'cornish pasty company' in tempe.  the restaurant was playing crazy loud music, lots of metallica.  i hate metallica.  baby girl was moving crazier than i had ever felt before.  i don't think she likes metallica either because i swear that is when she turned.  so, back to monday...i'll admit it was a shock to hear after i had just heard good news the week before and turned into quite a stressful and emotional day.  i did lots of internet research and decided to schedule an "external cephalic version" for wednesday, where a doctor actually tries to manually turn the baby by basically kneading your stomach like a big ball of dough.  i was pretty nervous because the first thing my dr told me when i agreed to this was "just don't youtube it, it'll freak you out".  grrrreat.  as i did some reading online about it  several people talked about how incredibly painful this procedure is and some dr's actually administer an epidural for the procedure but with a 50-60% success rate i decided to give it a try.

wednesday, may 23- i had to be at the hospital at 10am for the ECV without eating or drinking for 8 hours just in case something went wrong and they had to rush me back for an emergency c-section.  when i got there i changed into a gown, got hooked up to iv's, then got a shot of something that is supposed to relax your uterus.  then an ultrasound tech gets you ready so they can monitor the baby throughout the procedure.  the doctor came in and started going for it.  she tried to turn baby girl by gripping her bum and her head and trying to guide them around.  she tried flipping her both ways but our stubborn little girl wouldn't budge.  surprisingly i didn't find the procedure painful, just pretty uncomfortable (it wasn't until a couple days later that my stomach felt very bruised to the touch).  i wanted her to keep trying but she said that baby girl wasn't going to move.  after the procedure they evaluated the ultrasound and realized that my amniotic fluid index (AFI) was very low (which is probably why she wasn't able to turn).  a normal AFI is 8-18cm.  Mine that day was 6.7.  They seemed pretty concerned about my levels so they told me to come back again the next day to have them re-checked.  For the rest of the day I drank lots, spent lots of time in the pool doing handstands and somersaults (swimming in general is supposed to help with fluid levels too), and laying in weird positions with my bum propped up in the air, playing music at the bottom of my stomach trying to lure her down while holding an ice pack at the top.  i even scheduled appointments with a chiropractor who is trained in the webster technique which has had success in getting babies to turn, and went to an acupuncturist and had chinese herbs burned near a point on my pinky toes.  i am trying everything i tell you.

thursday, may 24- went back to the hospital for my ultrasound AFI check and my fluids had dropped even lower to a 5.4.  usually low fluids can be caused by high blood pressure, preclampsia, and other crazy risk factors, none of which i have.  the only possible solution is that i could have a fluid leak somewhere and not know about it.  low fluids are a concern because there is less fluid to cushion the baby and the cord can be compressed.  thankfully, baby girl still had a great heart rate and seemed to be moving around really well, but they wanted me to come back again on saturday for a fluid re-check and if they hadn't improved they wanted to do a c-section that day.  over the next couple days i drank more (read: peed more) than i ever have in my entire life.

saturday, may 26- went into the hospital at 9am with our hospital bag packed.  my ultrasound showed that my AFI was 5.4...same as thursday!  after all i had drank the past couple days!  the doctor came in and said he thought we really needed to do a c section that day or i had the option of getting hooked up to iv's to see if that helped.  he said if my fluid levels reached a 7 then he would let me go home.  after 3 liters of IV fluids and a 2nd ultrasound my fluid levels reached 6.7.  i was positive that we were going to be having a baby that day but to my last minute surprise he said i could go home but i had to drink A TON, spend lots of time in the pool, and come back monday for another re-check.

so that's where we're at now.  i've been drinking like its going out of style (pretty sure all the fluid is going to my feet and ankles...elephantitis status), laying in the craziest positions of my life (hoping this buys her some more time to turn), floating around in the pool, and resting a lot.  cody has been amazing and spent hours deep cleaning the house last night just in case things happen on monday we won't have to bring our baby home to a dirty house.  he is also constantly refilling my ginormous 32oz cup the hospital gave me with water or gatorade.  my mom was awesome on saturday and ran a bunch of errands to pick up last minute baby things we still needed, and my dad drove back early from a church trip in st george just in case. so grateful for all the family and friends that have kept us in their prayers.

i've been trying to look at this the positive way- we would have never discovered that my AFI levels were so low if baby girl had never turned breech so we are grateful we are able to monitor that closely now.  it would be nice if she would turn back around for us but the important thing is that she arrives healthy.  i feel like i've tried everything i can to facilitate her turning so if it does come to a c-section at least i know i did everything i could and it makes it a little easier.  i'm sure we'll have a new update soon!

kitchen before/afters and some bump photos.

we've had a very busy past month.  we finally moved into our new house on march 10 and we love it! we've been trying to get things put together (tricky to do with a busy law school husband!).  i have a feeling it will be a long process but i wanted to post a few kitchen photos.  there is definitely still work to do and i need to add color with a rug, some sort of window treatment above the kitchen window, etc.  baby steps...

and for some bump photos...

the weeks have been flying by and i feel like i have so much to do before baby girl gets here.  8 weeks to go!  i have to say that there are a few things i won't miss about pregnancy:

1) heartburn! i had never experienced this in my life until pregnancy. if the saying holds true, pretty sure this girl will come out with a full head of hair just like i did when i was a baby. its unbelievable how many bottles of tums i've gone through.

2) charlie horses in my calves. again, something i had never experienced before.

3) probably my biggest complaint right now: my rib cage has been spreading. one of those things nobody warned me about but it is especially painful when i am sitting. my days of going to movies and driving in the car for long periods of time are over, at least for a couple months.

other than that i can't complain too much. we can't wait til june!

babymoon cruise.

i figured it was about time to post about our cruise we took in january.  we both ended up catching bad colds toward the end of the cruise and haven't been the same since.  we've gone from having colds to a nasty case of bronchitis, and now i have the flu (praying cody doesn't get this one - law school doesn't allow for sick days!) now i understand why they say your immune system is shot during pregnancy.

our trip was amazing and much needed.  cody had a nice long 7 weeks off for christmas break so we took advantage and cruised out of long beach to cabo and puerto vallarta! get ready for picture overload...

first formal night on day 2:

we ended up getting seated by a couple who had just gotten married and were from cody's home stake.  small world!

cabo - day 3:

we decided to do a snorkeling/kayak boat excursion which was so much fun!

all you can eat chips and guacamole/salsa and free (virgin) drinks - yes please.

i experienced my first jellyfish sting! (2 of them actually) while we were snorkeling i swear i kept feeling things stinging me and it actually made me scream at one point.  the guides came over and asked if everything was okay and cody said "she's fine, she just gets scared easily". as we were swimming back to the boat cody said to be careful because he did see a bunch of small jellyfish.  i didn't think anything of it until we got back on the boat and my arm was stinging/burning.  the guide saw it and poured some windex on it which helped a little but those little stings hurt so bad! later that night the burning was even worse so cody maybe peed on it, insisting that would help.  i'm not even ashamed to say it cuz it totally did!

 after our excursion we just walked around town and found a cute little fruit cart with some amazing coconut, papaya, melons and pineapple.

Day 4 - Cabo:

on our second day in cabo we took a water taxi over to "lovers beach" and just spent a few hours laying out and relaxing (praying that our water taxi guy would remember to come pick us up since we had already paid him! - and he did)

then we walked around town again where cody got his mexican shrimp cocktail

 and we found some incredible fish tacos

 then finished the day off reading on the ship deck while watching the sunset.

Day 6 - Puerto Vallarta:

we wished we could've spent 2 days here instead of 2 in cabo.  it was a lot easier to get to areas of town that were less touristy, which we loved. one thing i noticed in mexico was that people weren't afraid to point out my belly.  the women were so cute and would get so excited for us.  granted it really did "pop" this week so i guess there was no more hiding it...

we walked on the beach trying to find a good spot to lay out and ended up at a gay beach.  it was the only place that had any room so, hey it worked out!

the best part about traveling to mexico with cody is that he speaks spanish.  he had been asking several locals where we could find some good authentic carne asada tacos and ended up chatting with a really sweet lady who offered to walk us the mile it took to get there.  i think she loved that cody could speak spanish so well and she wouldn't take any money when we arrived at the taco shop.

we were finding out the next week if we were having a boy or a girl so we decided to get a little present for either gender to commemorate the babymoon.  can you even handle that tiny mexican dress? (although the little poncho would have been cute too)

Day 7 - At Sea:

 so glad we went on this trip even though we ended up getting pretty sick.  also, i don't think i've ever been able to say this but we were so sick of food by the end of the week (we tried to get our moneys worth thats for sure) - this was definitely evidenced by my weight gain when i went to the dr the following week.  yikes.