Sunday, February 21, 2010

Family photo shoot

We had the pleasure this weekend of spending time with Josh's parents, as well as his sister and her husband and son, Coleman. This weekend was the first time that Lila and I were able to meet him, and I think that the cousins like each other already! He is so adorable and about three times the size of her. Maybe she'll catch up one day! Josh's mom (we call her Mamu-sounds like mamoo) bought Lila and Coleman coordinating outfits from Children's Place for a family photo shoot on the beach out in front of my parent's condo in Crystal Beach. They were so adorable in their blue outfits! They were surprisingly well-behaved for the pictures given that they are only 2 and 9 weeks old. Here are the pictures from the photo session:


Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Newborn Pictures

http://www.marlaandshane.com/gentrynewborn10/

I'm so excited to see these pictures that Marla took of Lila last Wednesday! I think Lila is used to pictures by now since she has had a camera in her face since the second she was born! These pictures turned out so great (as I knew they would with such a great photographer!!)! Now I just have to narrow it down to one to use for her birth announcements...I don't know how I'm ever going to do that!!!

Josh goes back to work tomorrow after being off for two whole weeks. I'm trying to enjoy today and not think about it but I can't help but be sad! His schedule is like what a fire-fighter's would be where when he is working, he has to spend the night at the station for two to three nights depending on the rotation. That makes his going back to work a little harder for me to imagine at this point, but life has to get back to normal eventually, right?!?! I'm sure Lila and I will be just fine, but I know she'll miss her dad! She's such a daddy's girl already, it's a little ridiculous!

Have a good day everyone!!!

Friday, February 12, 2010

Life with Lila

I can't believe Lila is already over a week old! Life is already going by way to fast!!! I take about 50 pictures a day knowing that she will continue to change everyday! I'm surprised that I'm not as tired as I thought I'd be after many consecutive night with interrupted sleep. For the first few days at home, she would sleep for about an hour an a half at a time. Now she sleeps about 3 hours at a time, which still gets very tiring each time she wakes up, but she is so precious that I really cherish our nighttime together. I'm not going to start her on a bottle until she is 3 weeks old, so it's just me as the primary food supply. After three weeks, I will get a little more sleep with Josh being able to help feed!

On Wednesday we had Marla Carter come to the house to take newborn pictures of Lila. She was awake for half of them, and then we had to lull her to sleep to get the really cute, sleepy newborn poses. Marla is so talented, and I can't wait to see how they turn out. I'm sure they will be so wonderful!

Josh's parents are here this weekend to visit. They are called Mamu and Big Pop to the grandkids. It's so nice having family within a driving distance to visit and help out! My mom is still here and is such an amazing blessing!!! I don't know what I'm going to do when Josh has to go back to work and my mom leaves, but I'm sure I'll be alright! Next weekend the Gentrys will be coming back along with Josh's sister and her husband, as well as my dad and my sister. We will have a lot of visitors next weekend, and then everyone goes home, Josh goes back to work, and life gets back to normal. I'm not really looking forward to all that quite yet :-) Here's some new pictures that we've taken over the past couple of days.
Just after her bathFirst trip to the doctor
Me and Lila in matching pajamas from Old Navy

Sunday, February 7, 2010

At home with Lila

We got home from the hospital Friday afternoon, and I have to say, it feels great to be home! My mom is here and she had cleaned the house and washed our clothes and sheets so that everything was ready when we got home. It has been so nice having her here to help with things around the house!!! When we got home, all Josh and I wanted to do was stare at Lila. I swear, I wonder when we will get anything done!?! I tried to watch some of the TV shows that I had DVR'd while at the hospital, and I ended up having to rewind about 100 times because I would be staring at Lila and not watching the show. Josh and I just can't believe we made something so perfect! My mom offered to have night duty the first night  home, which doesn't mean much to me since I still have to wake up to feed her whenever she's awake, but Josh thoroughly enjoyed the help, and I enjoyed talking to my mom during late-night feedings. Lila is such a joy already! She makes the cutest faces, and we've taken literally over 100 pictures of her the past two days. We gave her a bath at home yesterday. Well, my mom gave her a bath while Josh and I nervously watched. I'm really going to have to get used to that before I can do it myself! She hated her bath, but that's to be expected. We've already changed her clothes a bunch too, and every outfit is so adorable. Needless to say, Josh and I are enjoying being parents so much! What a wonderful blessing from God!

Her going-home booties
Her going-home outfitIn her pack-and-play staring at the animal mobileDad playing with her while Chevy watchesMommy kisses in the hospital

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Welcome to the world Lila Elizabeth Gentry!!! 2-3-10 MY BIRTH STORY


We were so blessed this morning to welcome our precious baby girl, Lila into the world at 7:38 a.m. I know you are all probably thinking that I'm crazy updating the blog on the day I gave birth, but luckily it went very smoothly, I feel great, got to sleep a little this afternoon, and Lila is out like a light! She weighed 7 pounds and 9.3 ounces which is surprising because I never felt like I got that big! She was 19 inches and perfect in everyway! It's still so surreal that Josh and I created this human being, and we are completely in love with her already!!! She has already met both sets of grandparents, one set of great-grandparents, and one of her uncles. She had a very busy morning, and stayed very alert for the first 4 hours of life. She is worn flat out now from all of the excitement! Here are some pictures of her first day of life:

Getting her first bath-she loved getting her hair washed!
But she didn't love the full body part of her bath!
Showing off our matching hospital bracelets


MY BIRTH STORY

            I'm including my birth story on this post so that I don't forget the day that our sweet baby girl was brought into this world! It all started on Friday, January 29th at my 38-week ob appointment. I had been 1 cm dilated and 60-70% effaced the week before, so I was eager to see if I had progressed at all.  Sure enough, I was 2 cm dilated and slightly more effaced, about 75%, than last week's appointment. Dr. Esses was on-call at the hospital that weekend, so she asked if I would like her to strip my membranes to hopefully jumpstart labor. Of course I agreed, anything to bring on our little girl faster! Boy, was that painful! I thought to myself, if that was so painful, what will the actual birth feel like?!? I didn't feel any contractions Friday, which was a little dissapointing because stripping your membranes should bring on labor within 48 hours, if it was going to work. I told my parents about my doctor's appointment and they decided that it was time for them to go ahead and come down from Atlanta. They were originally going to come on February 5th, as my due date wasn't until the 9th. However, they felt like she would debut early and they didn't want to miss it. Josh's parents decided the same thing and came down on Saturday. I started to have mild contractions on Saturday, but they weren't regular. Again, I became a little disappointed. We spent the day walking, walking, and walking trying to get the baby to hurry up and come out! But, I had been walking so much from day 1 that I don't think it made much of a difference. Finally on Sunday the 31st, my contractions were getting much stronger. Towards the afternoon they started to get regular also, coming every 7-10 minutes apart. I knew I had to wait for them to get even closer, but they were getting more and more intense as the day and night progressed. At around 5pm, my contractions were coming every 7 minutes on the dot and hurting so bad I wanted to cry. My mom had EXTREMELY fast labors, so I decided that it would be better to be safe than sorry, so at around 11pm, Josh and I went to the hospital to get checked out. They checked my cervix when I got there, and I was still 2cm dilated. They hooked me up to the monitors and made me wait it out for an hour before they checked me again to see if I made any progress. After an hour of painful, but irregular again, contractions, I still was 2 cm dilated. Dr. Esses gave me the option to stay the night and be induced in the morning, or to go home and wait until the contractions became closer together and even more intense. Josh and I decided to go home and get some rest, however, we went to my parents condo instead because it was only 10 minutes away from the hospital just in case we needed to come back quickly. I had a restless night with painful contractions coming every 7 minutes, but never any closer! Disappointment again! Monday morning, February 1st, the contractions seemed to stop so I could rest for a couple of hours, but come 11 am, they started back up every 7-10 minutes apart. I couldn't go back to the hospital until they were about 3-5 as told by the nurses. So, we spent the day walking, walking, and walking some more!!! Monday afternoon my contractions were getting worse, but still about 7 minutes apart. All day and through the night the contractions were getting stronger and stronger but never getting any closer together. Needless to say, I had another sleepless night! I was getting nervous because I hadn't slept for two days (except for an hour here or there), and I didn't want to go into labor with no strength or energy! Tuesday, February 2nd, was the same deal: stronger contractions about 7 minutes apart. I was in so much pain by this point that I called Dr. Esses's office to see what I should do. She told me that if I still felt contractions and couldn't sleep Tuesday night, that I should come in Wednesday morning to discuss options and possible induction. That made me feel better at least knowing there was an end in sight! We were all (my family and Josh's family) at my parents condo until about 4pm when I was in so much pain that I had to go back to my own house and be away from people (except my sweet husband, who was absolutely wonderful during all of this!). We had some time to ourselves that evening, and then later on, our families decided to come over for a visit at our house. I tried to be as social as I could, but I really just wanted to go to the hospital and get an epidural to put me out of my 2-day misery! I kept telling myself that it will all be over soon and Lila will be here! Tuesday night I tried to sleep, but of course the contractions were coming on stronger and stronger. I didn't fall asleep once because I was timing every contraction which were now about 5-7 minutes apart, but still not 3-5 like I was supposed to wait on. FINALLY at 4 am my water broke. HALLELUJAH!!! I could finally go to the hospital to have my baby! It broke while I was in bed, and boy did it break. We heard this loud POP, but luckily I was awake and got up really fast so it didn't mess up our sheets! Josh woke up right away and started putting all of our bags in the car while I put my contacts in and got dressed. I wanted to put on some makeup, but he decided that we needed to hurry, and thank goodness we did! Poor thing, Josh was so excited and was trying to talk to me during the ride over, but I couldn't talk through the pain so I would just give him smiles and nods. We got to the hospital at about 4:30 am and the nurses quickly got me hooked up to the monitors and called my doctor (who lives in my neighborhood so it was going to take her about 30-40 minutes to get there as well). The nurse checked my cervix right after I was in the bed and hooked up, and I was already dilated to 8 cm! My first thought was "OH my goodness, can I still get an epidural??? I've been feeling contractions for 3 days now! Even if it's just for 30 minutes...PLEASE!" So, they rushed my bloodwork and I had my epidural just in time for our families to get to the hospital (around 5:30 am). They had to call the on-call doctor, Dr. Graham, because I was so dilated, just in-case Dr. Esses didn't make it on time. The nurses kept telling me not to push or even think about pushing. I wasn't thinking much about anything except how excited I was that I would be holding my little girl soon. The epidural made me feel like a whole new woman!!! Sure enough, Dr. Esses comes in at about 6-6:30 am and checks me, and I was 9.5 cm. She told me that that was good enough for her to let me start to push. The thing was, my contractions NEVER got closer than 5-7 minutes apart, even when I was pushing. To speed things up, they gave me pitocin to make my contractions closer together so that we could push more quickly. Sure enough, I pushed for about 40 minutes (even though much of that was down time waiting on my slow-as-Christmas contractions), and Lila was finally in this world at 7:38 am! I cannot even begin to describe the feeling that came over me once I saw her and got to hold her in my arms. Josh even got a little teary-eyed when she came out! What a perfect miracle that God gave to us!!! She is such a blessing, and I pray that He does great things in her life!

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