Coming Home

During our stay at the hospital it seemed like Allie wanted to eat more than "normal." When I vocalized this someone should have immediately reminded me that I have no clue what "normal" is as she is my first child. So instead of feeding her every time that she indicate she was hungry (which in Allie language was a wide open mouth with her head turned to the side) I often gave her a pacifier because she had just eaten. Looking back I realize that she did need to eat every hour. Maybe she wouldn't have lost so much weight in the first couple days. Oh well, chalk it up to new-mom-ness. She survived with no permanent damage.
Because of this, though, we didn't get to come home when we wanted to. Allie was dehydrated and hadn't peed for a long time. They wanted to keep her there until she did. Eventually I gave in and feed her a bottle (oh no!!) of pedialite water. All those darn baby books make you scared of giving a bottle if you plan to breastfeed...nipple confusion?!? Like she is really going to remember the feel of a bottle even 2 minutes after she had one. Maybe some babies who aren't really interested in eating...definitely not my sweet pea!! I affectionately call her my "little miss piggy." Don't worry, she's in good company...I am officially a full-grown "miss piggy." During pregnancy I wasn't much more hungry than I had been before, but breastfeeding is a whole other story. I am hungry all the time!!!
We did finally get to come home. That brought me back to my original freak-out about what she would wear to keep her warm when she slept. The books said that she shouldn't use a blanket because they can cause SIDS. It's cold at night! How was she supposed to stay warm?!? We did get a sleep sack for her. (It's a fleece gown that zips over her pj's.) Even in that though it still seemed like she would be cold, so I got a brilliant (if I do say so myself) idea. In the hospital they used blankets, but they were tucked into the sides of the mattress in the bassinet. I found that the foam changing pad fit well in the bassinet (and the crib.) It was curved like the sleep positioners and I could tuck a blanket under the sides like in the hospital. It worked perfectly. In fact, she is still using it now. Hopefully she won't have trouble transitioning to sleep on the crib mattress as the weather gets warmer.

Introducing Alyssa Grace Tucker

We headed to the hospital at 6:30 a.m. They got us set up in a LDR (labor-delivery room). My mom met us there shortly after we got settle in. I was about 3 cm dilated when they checked. I progressed to about 4 cm when the contractions began to radiate through my back. At that point I pictured the photo I saw of Kelle with a bright, shining smile on her face holding up 9 fingers to indicate that she was 9 cm dilated. What was I trying to prove? All I wanted was to know what contractions felt like. I knew...so I ordered an epidural.

Wow!! Those things are amazing. I felt nothing. We had to look at the monitor to see when I was having contractions. I was about 5 cm dilated when Dr. Kooperman came in to check on me. I didn't like that I couldn't feel my right leg so I asked to turn the epidural down. When they finally ok'd my request the doc was back from grabbing a quick lunch. I was ready to go...10 cm dilated!! I didn't feel the need to push (until the end when the epidural started wearing off) so Andy and the nurse had to tell me when to push. Weird!! I could only tell if I was pushing right by what the nurse told me. When Andy said he could see the head I was much more motivated to keep going. I think he must have told me "the baby has a LOT of DARK hair!" about 15 times. :)

The umbilical cord tightened around her neck just as I could see in the reflection of the OB's glasses that she was just about ready to come out. He had to cut me. :( Really, I didn't care I wanted the baby out safely!! After 1 1/2 hours of pushing out SHE came. (We didn't know the sex.)

Andy actually did it...he cut the umbilical cord. (He was absolutely amazing throughout the entire birth!) Then they let me hold my new daughter. My first thoughts were: "Why is her skin so dark? Whose baby is this? She's not black or Hispanic." I quickly realized that she was BLUE. She pinked-up fast and I saw how beautiful she was. I got to hold her for what felt like only a few seconds...I guess they had to clean her up and stuff. :( It was a good thing we took pics because she was taken away to the nursery way too quickly. I really didn't feel like I even got to look at her.IT'S A GIRL!! But we didn't have a name. We were set on a boy's name, but I just couldn't really settle on any of the girl's names we had chosen. Andy wanted Morgan so I went along with it and the plan was to name her Morgan Amelia...but in the few minutes that I did get to see her I decided the name didn't fit. So "baby girl Tucker" was taken away from me. How can you decide on a name if you can't look at her?

We began calling people and letting them know we had a girl...7 lbs, 13 oz. But they all wanted to know the name...can't anyone understand that this is not an easy decision?!? :)

Eventually after lots of discussion and finally being able to look at our beautiful little sweet pea she officially had a name...Alyssa Grace.

Pregnancy of my Dreams

We began trying to get pregnant in June of 2006. We found out we had struck gold on the first try when we were in Costa Rica with Cindy and Kevin. Even though we were actually trying to conceive the reality of being pregnant was pretty scary. When I saw that the test was positive I think I went into shock...a mild case, but shock none-the-less. We met up with Cindy and Kevin for breakfast and as we told them the news I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or scream. After an hours or so the excitement of our future child sunk in and I was filled with joy and thankfulness.
I can honestly say that I had a pretty easy pregnancy. I did have a little back pain, but the only thing that affected was my running. I had to stop by the 4th month. It was really fun to feel the little one inside me moving around and kicking. The baby was very active!! It was amazing to watch my belly as it grew. How does skin stretch so much?!?

I didn't have any Braxton-Hicks contractions until the last couple weeks. I really was thinking that I wouldn't start labor until my due date...but I was wrong. March 12th at 3:15 a.m. my water broke. Contractions began right away and they were about 5 minutes apart from the start. They were not very intense fortunately. With the water breaking I knew there was a time limit on how soon they want the baby out so I called the OB right away. He told me to just hang out at home until 6:00 or 7:00 a.m. Did he think that we would go back to sleep?!? It was nice though to take our time to both mentally and physically get ready for the birth. I even took some time to send emails to friends and fam to let them know labor had started.