Isla's Bath and a Tired Girl

I finally gave Baby Isla a bath. I realized with Hudson I went a little overboard with the baths, drying out his skin, so I gave her just small wipe downs last week and today was her first official sponge bath :) She hated it.

Before:

After:

She is such a sweet little girl and H and her have both been so good today. Brandon is out working on our picket fence, so I am on double duty. :) Loving these little tiny ones.

International Day

Hudson's school hosted an "International Day" at the Denver School of Science & Technology. His class represented Greece and did a Greek dance. We also had to make a Greek dish and had to be there saturday morning for the giant festival and potluck. It was great and H did fantastically with his Greek dance. Here are a few pics:

The Greek Boy:

Isla's Nursery

Here is an updated photo. I will be posting more soon.

Baby Girl!

Thanks Ellie-Bubbie for the gorgeous stork announcing the birth of our first baby girl!

The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous. Loving fall in Colorado, especially on maternity leave!

Isla Vivienne Albano

Our baby GIRL was born October 17, 2013 at 7:04 pm. She was 6 lbs 11 oz and 20 3/4 inches long. She is a tiny peanut and such an amazing, sweet baby. We are absolutely head over heels in love with her, as is Hudson.

Baby Isla sleeps a lot, when she isn't sleeping she is content to look around and only gets upset when either cold or hungry (like her mommy lol). Her birth was amazing. We went in the morning of the 17th, only to find that the fluid was lower than it had been tuesday. I must have had a leak, as I had suspected on tuesday. We were sent over to labor and delivery for an induction and we were nervous about the entire situation. At 11:15 am, I was given a cervical ripener to try to spur on labor. I went from zero centimeters dilated to 3 cm in a few hours. After that, the midwife on call broke my water. Following that, hard labor started (as it had with Hudson), I labored on the ball for a while then went into the bathtub and labored with Brandon and our Doula, Julie until I was about 8 cm. I got an epidural at 6:30 pm, and felt an intense urge to push right after that. The doctors asked me to wait for a bit (my dr was on her way!) and with ten minutes of pushing (3 pushes to be exact), our sweet, teeny tiny baby girl was in the world. I will remember until the day I die how absolutely gorgeous she was and how grateful we were for her health.

She is tiny but fierce and her heartbeat stayed strong throughout labor.  We couldn't be more grateful for our gorgeous son and daughter.

Brandon is on paternity leave and I am LOVING my maternity leave. I am off until January 30, 2014! (taking about 14-15 weeks). Hudson still goes to school for part of the day, but overall we are having a cozy fall together as a family the next few weeks. I can't wait to have a Christmas shopping partner this season too!

Here are a couple of pics of baby Isla.

 She literally looks like and acts like a darling baby doll.  Baby girl, your daddy and I are absolutely in love with you.

39 Weeks

39 weeks today and our appointment is in a couple of hours. I will update everyone regarding the plan :) I have literally drank my weight in water the past 24 hours, so hopefully the fluid looks great and we can just proceed naturally on waiting until Baby A decides to show up.

I proceeded with the acupuncture yesterday in Boulder and it has already increased activity/ contractions. Just trying to prepare this morning in case we meet our baby today or tmrw! :)

It is supposed to snow tomorrow morning of course :).

Until I have more information....signing off.

Update

Hi all-almost 39 weeks here and contractions coming pretty often. Was admitted for some monitoring today when I thought I might have a bit of a fluid leak. Turns out my fluid is on the low end of normal, so if it doesn't increase by thursday, I will have to be induced. I am drinking tons and tons of water and just trying to get things to normalize. I spent the day in depositions so that probably was a bit of an issue in causing the situation. The depositions went well-I just went straight to the hospital afterwards upon suspecting something being up.

I was discharged today and will head up to Boulder tmrw to try to continue to spur on this natural labor to avoid medication thursday just in case the levels haven't increased.

I will keep everyone updated. In the meantime, it was fun to see contractions on the monitor for 2 hours today every 3-4 minutes. My body is getting ready to meet this baby!!! It was a "mock" run and now at least we know how to get to labor and delivery. My doula will send me more natural induction methods tonight :)

Pumpkin patch and still pregnant

We had a great day at the pumpkin patch today. Heading to complete my 39th week soon and contractions on and off. Looks like this baby will likely be slow like his/her brother :) We are waiting and excited but definitely enjoying our last time as a family of three. The weather has been beautiful but chilly here. Loving fall!  Hope everyone is well!

Due Date Fast Approaching

Our due date is fast approaching and no sign of baby #2 except for on and off contractions every other day or so. Any guesses out there as to a date this baby will make an appearance? Halloween? I am anxious while realistic. More than anything, I just need a sign so I can wrap things up at work in an orderly manner. Every day I go in I create more work in getting back out LOL. My desk is piles of work that need to be handled. Hoping to make an orderly exit this time.

On another note, H has been under the weather and we kept him home today. He is such an adorable little guy, so sweet and caring. I bet he told me he loved me no less than 50 times today. Oh little boys, so sweet and wonderful.

Brandon has finished 18 posts for this picket fence-in the ground, concreted, level and ready to set the stage for our new picket fence. So exciting. I am working on getting some additional lighting replaced in the house to make things feel a little more like home before the holidays hit and we have a house full of family :)

My mom will be painting the playroom this week :) I am so excited about that. She is painting it Jicama by Benjamin Moore. I will then order some toy storage and some furniture including sleeper sofa and ottoman.

Well, as you can tell I have insomnia. Signing off :) Always trying to stay rested just in case!

Weekend :)

Yesterday we attended a wedding for a dear friend and it was beautiful, and we ended the day with my sweet Grandmother's birthday dinner. It was a great day. The weather here has been amazing. Today we have been cleaning and organizing the house while Brandon builds a picket fence around the entire front and side of our house. Poor guy-it is so much work and quite a lengthy perimeter. He almost has all of the posts in the ground though and it is only his second day working on the fence. We will finish that up, get it painted white and call it for outdoor projects for the season.

I have gotten out the baby swing, rocker/ vibrating chair, infant carseat (waiting to be installed in our garage), and a lot of gender neutral baby clothes today, as well as the bottle drying area just to be ready in case we have a new member of the family this week! Hoping this baby holds off another week or two to give us a little more time to prepare for him/her. :)

I am feeling good these days, although pretty tired at the end of the day. I have had series of contractions on and off but nothing that sticks around too long.  My body is getting ready.

This time around we hired a Doula named Julie and really looking forward to that experience.

H keeps us busy but he is such a good boy and doing really great with potty training (even going on his own when we are at home).

Next weekend we will do the pumpkin patch saturday morning :) Hoping to finish up a lot of the fence this week and next so we can hire out the painting before the next snow.

I will leave you with some pics from H's class this week. They are learning about Greece and the first picture is of their Grecian dance they will be performing at the Denver School of Science and Technology for International Day on the 26th. They also have had safe child training this week and on the 17th go on their first field trip.

Two months in school and H hasn't gotten a single illness. He did start coming down with a cold yesterday. Hoping he is better by morn and can go to school :)

We are full term!!! :) Won't be long now....

We are full term and the baby is the size of a watermelon! I am doing great, sleeping pretty well, but definitely very tired at the end of the day. Luckily Hudson is so good and really helps out when mommy is resting (even using the potty by himself with no prompting now).

The nursery is just about done-I am waiting on the rug (it is backordered for another two weeks), and need to pull out some final stuff from the basement to prepare but my stuff is packed, and I think we have all of the essentials ready to go. Any day now! We are so excited to meet Baby #2! At our last detailed ultrasound we were told the due date is likely closer to October 20 .... so it is anybody's guess when this baby will arrive. BUT-I am not working past October 23 and I only have 14 days of work left before leave!

The weather is changing here in Colorado and it is gorgeous. :) But snow is in the forecast for tmrw. Hopefully we are spared! I will update everyone when I go into labor! For now, signing off for another work day!

It is October...and it won't be long now! Baby Albano will be here in a few weeks!