Some Lainey love

Just thought I'd load a few pictures while Lainey is snoozing. She is such a blessing. We can't get over how much we treasure and adore her!!

She has really big feet. They didn't even fit on the crib card, let alone the box on the card. They had to do them sideways and there's no room for my fingerprint. :)

Our first moment as a family. I will never forget seeing her for the first time. It was so amazing.

Hanging with Uncle Kyle yesterday.

My favorite picture from a photo shoot John did the first night we were home.

First night home in her going home outfit!
That's about all I have time to add right now, but John is really close to posting her new website with photos, videos and everything!

Lainey is home!

Elaine Marie Hudgins arrived Friday October 31, 2008 at 12:55 pm. She weighed 6lbs. 14 oz. and was 18 3/4 inches long. We have been in baby bliss since she arrived! John and I are amazed by her every move. She's such a blessing and we just love her to pieces. Her delivery was relatively uncomplicated. I had had what I thought was going to be another round of false labor that evening, but around 12:30 it started into the beginnings of real labor. I decided at 2:30 that it was the real thing and we went to the hospital at 3:30. I tried to labor as long as I could on my own and made it to 4 cm before getting the epidural at 6:30. From there things moved along quickly as my body was able to relax. Her birth was amazing. I've never felt such a rush of emotions. They had concerns about her aspirating meconium, so she was not able to be given to me right away. Waiting for her to come back to me was the longest few minutes and the hardest part of the whole thing. She did not have any trouble though and was in my arms soon after.

She has had lots of visitors. My Mom was there with John and I when she was born, helping to take pictures, videos, and of course to help me too. My Dad flew in in the afternoon and John's parents and brother David drove in. My brother Kyle drove in too! My stepdad, John, flew in today and he, Mom, and Kyle will head home sometime tomorrow. John's Mom and sister Michelle will be coming on Tuesday for a few days to help out and spend time with Lainey. We are so blessed to have such a supportive and loving family. Once our family have left, our wonderful church family has offered to help us with meals.

We've had a great first two days with her. She is a pretty quiet little girl and her cry is very petite. She likes to look around and study whatever is in her field of vision. She knows her Daddy's voice and turns her head when she can hear him talking. We are having a little trouble with breastfeeding right now (not unusual for new mom's at this stage I'm told) and have had to use a little bit of formula supplementation. She had tested coomb's positive for ABO blood type incompatability and this increases a newborn's risk for jaundice. She's had great bilirubin numbers so far and we've not had a problem. We will go to the doctor's tomorrow for another blood draw to make sure that she's in the clear. As long as her numbers are good, I think we will be able stop the formula supplementation completely.

I will continue updating here as often as I am able to. John is working on putting together Lainey's very own website with pictures, videos, and other fun stuff. This way we will have a great way to share her with all of our far off friends and family. In the meantime, thank you for all your prayers. I will leave you with a picture of Lainey and Daddy on her birthday. She is our light in the dark!

Still waiting...

We went to the doctor this morning. I am still dilated to one centimeter which is no progress from Sunday. I had another round of contractions through the night last night. I am pretty tired today, but the contractions have stopped again. Dr. Newman said that my guess is as good as his as to when she will decide to come. He didn't think it'd be today though. I am supposed to continue resting and doing kick counts to make sure Lainey is doing OK. We'll be going in tomorrow to the hospital for another round of monitoring. I will be 42 weeks on Tuesday and the doctor said that it is dangerous to continue waiting past that point. Lainey will be safer on the outside after that. His scheduler is going to call me today to set up a date for next week to induce when he will be available. It will probably be Sunday night for delivery on Monday. She still has a few days to decide to come on her own. I am hoping it won't be tomorrow, but it just might be! Apparently I am the most pregnant person my doctor has had since he opened his new practice more than a year ago. Glad I could be the one. :) In the meantime, I'm trying not to be discouraged and just rest. I suppose I have waited for three years to get pregnant and then nine months to get to this point, so what's a few more days?

We are moving in the right direction!

Last night after dinner my back started to hurt and I had really bad heartburn. We settled down at home and watched some reruns of The Office and I started to feel better. That was a little disappointing since I'd hoped the back pain was the start of something. Then at about 12:30 I started feeling really nauseous. That rolled into more back pain, and the start of contractions! They weren't terrible but they were enough to keep me awake and uncomfortable. So I thought we were really on our way, but Lainey decided she wasn't quite ready yet. I fell asleep at about 5 and woke up feeling better with no more contractions. But I think we are moving in the right direction. I lost the mucus plug last night, and that should mean that we are really close. I am just hoping and praying that she comes by tomorrow. I would really rather that she's not born on Halloween and I think if she doesn't make it by tomorrow then we'll be having a Trick or Treat baby.

I still feel kind of sick to my stomach. So I think I might take it light on the meals today. Nothing sounds good anyway and I really don't want to eat anything that is going to be terrible to have coming back out. We have a few errands to run that I could pass on, but I think I will go to keep moving and hopefully encourage Lainey to scoot! Please pray that we have real labor sometime today so that she can get here soon!!

This morning's tests

Everything looks good! My amniotic fluid level went up to 7.7 cm and Lainey scored another 8/8 on the biophysical profile. She's already a straight A student. :) We will go see the doctor on Thursday morning and then possibly go in to the hospital for another round of monitoring depending on what Dr. Newman says.

I have been having some contractions, but they are still nothing to get excited about. We are trying to determine when to induce if it should come to that. With Halloween on Friday, I am definitely not interested in inducing Thursday night. We may induce on Sunday night, but I will still be short of 42 weeks by then. And as long as Lainey continues to show good vital signs on her monitoring tests, I am hesitant to push her to come out earlier than she wants to.

Our plan is to take a little trip to Costco this afternoon and maybe grab dinner and a movie. We will just be waiting for the signs that she's ready to come out! It's getting harder and harder to be patient though!

No news...

Nothing exciting happened today. I wasn't going to post an update, but I was afraid some people would think I didn't update because I was having Lainey. :) Not today. We will be going tomorrow around 11 am to recheck my amniotic fluid and Lainey's status. John has been predicting she would come tomorrow, so we'll see if he's right. We are all getting pretty antsy waiting for her to decide to come. I will update tomorrow afternoon after our monitoring at the hospital. Hope you are all having a great week so far.

Another day gone by!

We went to church this morning and had some friends over for lunch today. I was a little bit worried that my water was leaking today, so we decided to go to the hospital to get checked out. I wanted to be safe even though I wasn't sure there was anything to be worried about.

They said that my amniotic sac appears to be intact. They also had me on the monitor again. Lainey's heartbeat was very steady and strong throughout the time we were on the monitor. I had a few contractions, but still nothing that is painful. They decided to do an ultrasound to check to make sure that I still have enough amniotic fluid. When you go past your due date, loss of amniotic fluid is possible and an indicator of placental function. My fluid levels were a little bit low. I was at 6 cm of fluid. Lower than 5 is dangerous, over 10 is normal. 6-8 cm is what they called a "gray area" in terms of how to proceed. Since we were in that gray area, they had the ultrasound tech come back to do a biophysical profile test on Lainey. They said that this test helps to prove that the placenta is functioning well enough to support the baby. To pass, you have to have a pocket of amniotic fluid that is at least 2 cm, the baby has to show practice breaths, flexion and extension of an arm or leg, and trying to roll over. They have 30 minutes to do all these things. Lainey did it all in about 5 minutes.

Since she is showing such healthy signs, the on-call doctor said we should come back for a repeat of the biophysical profile and heart monitor on Tuesday morning and Thursday morning, then see my regular doctor on Thursday. Of course, she could decide to come at any point. I am now dilated to one centimeter, so we are making progress!

Other than being overfull from eating Olive Garden tonight, I am still feeling pretty good. I think we will get a good night's sleep tonight and see what tomorrow brings.