Week 1 - 6 days old

Anika is 6 days old today. I thought this picture with Monty would put her size into perspective - though you should know we took this picture on day 5. Monty is adjusting well to having her here. He is very cautious and tentative with her, and mostly in an attempt to get past her so one of us will pet him. She hasn't really noticed him yet - she's mostly in a sleep/nurse cycle with very little time for looking around. And here is a picture of the two of us. See - I swear she smiles already.

Labor and Delivery Photos

Here is Anika on Tuesday at 1 day old. Doesn't it almost look like she is smiling for the camera?
Isn't her hair impressive?
This would be us walking the hallway to try and get labor going.

After 33 hours, Mom and Dad were really happy to be able to see her.
A little Daddy daughter bonding right after birth
Here she is just after birth.

This is me in very early labor at my largest
Here we are walking the streets trying to help labor progress. Mike made an excellent helper during contractions.
At one point, Monty decided I needed comfort and curled up in my lap during contractions. Petting him was actually very comforting and helped take my mind off the pain.
I feel much better, but he still looks worried!
Finally to the hospital, 4 cm dilated

Happy Birthday Anika Sage

Well, after 33 hours of labor Anika was finally born at 11:48 am on Monday August 11th. She was 7lbs (actually 6 lbs, 15.5 oz) and 20 inches long. Giving life has been one of the most incredible experiences of my life, possibly the most wonderful, exhilarating, scary, joyful experiences I can even imagine.

And since I imagine many of you would like to see her, I will include some pictures. She does not look at all as I imagined her, but I still think she is beautiful. During labor, she was a trooper. She never even went to sleep during the last 6 hours, which is pretty unusual, and it wasn't until the very end that the contractions even seemed to change her heart rate. Once born, she didn't have a wet diaper for 28 hours, and the pediatricians wanted me to supplement with formula to make sure the plumbing worked after 24 hours of being dry. But I knew she would figure out what to do and we were right. No formula for us. Then they were concerned because she hadn't had any poopy diapers (though she did poop during delivery - too much information?) and although they knew the plumbing must work apparently it is worrisome because they don't want her billiruben count to go too high. So they said we had to go visit our real pediatrician if she hadn't pooped by this morning. But once again, she was just on her own time and has since provided the required poop.

So the moral of the story is - already she is her own little unique person and people just need to let her be herself.

"Here we go"- from daddy

In between resting her eyes and body in the recliner and moaning with a low primal voice during contractions (which is somehow so sexy), Julie has asked that I update the bog. So here goes....it's time.

Julie was having braxton hicks all day yesterday and woke about about 3 a.m. this morning with some back pain. She laid in bed for awhile, eventually got up, took both a shower and a bath, and around 5:30 woke me up. Her contractions have been very frequent ever since 6:00-- lasting about a minute per contraction and 3 minutes between them. Leslie, one of our midwifes, said that Julie seems to be in labor and even though the contractions are frequent, since they are not extremely strong yet (Julie is still laughing and joking), we are in the early stages still and should call back around 9 with an update assuming everything stays on its current course. We, however, probably will not be updating the rest of you until Anika makes her appearance. (fingers crossed)

Mini Watermelon week

Week 39 - Anika is "due" in 8 days and according to the web is roughly the size of a mini-watermelon. So go out to the grocery store and cradle that watermelon, cause she is almost here.

As we are preparing for birth, one of the suggestions we found was to imagine the animal that most said "motherhood" or "labor" for us, and draw a picture. I drew a kangaroo - perhaps influenced by A.A. Milne as the symbol of mothering, and Michael drew a killer whale. What? you might say? How are killer whales motherly? Well apparently he wanted to make a fish, but then realized that they lay eggs and don't "give birth" so he had to think of a sea mammal, and voila, the killer whale.

But actually, killer whale birth is totally awesome. Lots of them just spiral around and use centrifugal force to push the baby out. You can watch the head first birth at this website to see what I mean. It is awesome.
http://www.seaworld.org/animal-info/info-books/killer-whale/birth-&-care.htm
I wish I could just do it that way.
:)