Holy Crap!

I have changed 4 - count 'em FOUR - poopy diapers since 6:00 this morning.

It's now 11:00.

And these are not "oh-cute-little-amount-of-baby-poo." These are "full-on-come-out-the-side-of-the-diaper-one-even-blew-out-onto-her-leg-baby-poo."

I should have taken a picture of the one that exploded onto her leg, but I was in too much of a hurry to keep it from getting all over everything.

Did I mention she pooped like 3 times yesterday too? So it's not like she hasn't gone for a few days or something.

Like I said, Holy Crap.

My little strawberry is a month old!

She can't believe it either...

Karly absolutely adores her dad. If she's fussy, she calms down really quickly once she gets into daddy's arms.

This is a perfect combination for getting this girl to sleep: laying on daddy's chest, with a pacifier in her mouth while daddy pats her back (she loves having her back patted, but HATES having it scratched or rubbed).

I think she wants to be like her mommy (this was not posed).

She's already got some stellar dance moves as well. Maybe the combination of her dancing (she is seriously the wiggliest baby ever) and daddy's "magic sleeping hold" is the reason she's started sleeping 5-6 hours a night! Mommy LOVES that. :)

We sure love you Karly Jane!

Post Pregnancy Lesson #1:

Stop trying to fit into pre-pregnancy clothing less than one month after having baby.

You will only feel depressed.

And fat.

Listen to your husband when he says "It will get better. You can't even exercise yet - don't be hard on yourself until you can actually do something about it."

Also, remember the words you read that said "It took you nine (ten) months to get pregnant, so it could take that long to get back to where you were."

Sigh...

(Wedding Day, June 8, 2006)

3 Years!

Nate and I are celebrating our three year anniversary today (and by celebrating, I mean we're going to dinner - not much you can do with a three week old at home...). In honor of our impending anniversary, these last few days I've been going through old pictures from when we were dating and engaged. 

(Engagement picture - April 2006)

Aside from marveling at how different I look (thinner, my hair did what I wanted, nice skin) and how much Nate looks the same, maybe even better - aside from that, I've been thinking about how much we've changed inside too. 

(Temple Square, Conference Weekend 2006 - about 2 weeks after we got engaged)

The first year of marriage was a hard adjustment for me (ENTIRELY my fault - sometimes I'm amazed he stuck around) and I have just been thinking about how different things are. This might sound totally cliche, but I feel like we've been together longer - we definitely are much more similar in thoughts, ideas, etc. than we were when we were dating/first got  married. 

(March 13, 2006 - the night we got engaged!) 

I am a very lucky girl. I am married to a terrific guy who works so hard to provide for me and Karly. He's funny (unfortunately, no one else gets to see the extent of his goofiness - he's too shy to share his sweet dance moves) and keeps me from stressing out too much about things. I can't imagine what a wreck I would be if I married a high strung person. On the other hand, he's very analytical and researches everything, so we always know what we're getting ourselves into. 

(Temple Square, early February - pretended we were engaged :D )

I'm excited to spend eternity with him. He is a great dad and I know he always will be. But more importantly, he's a great husband and friend. 

(January 13, 2006 - 2nd date according to Alisa, 1st date according to Nate)

Love ya babe! 

I'm posting something not related to my daughter. Gasp! 

It's mostly to spite her, since she won't sleep or NOT cry unless I'm holding her. Little stinker. :) 

But anyway...

I'm excited for this: 

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1394934553/

I know it's already in theaters, but I'm not THAT excited for it. :) We're too cheap to see too many movies in the spendy theater. But really, I'm excited to see it. 

And this: 

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1061421849/

THIS I will probably see in the theater. At midnight. On opening night. 

And this: 

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi8782361/

It has a bigger budget this time. And a new director who is known for his CGI work. Sweetness! That means totally cool looking wolves and stuff. 

Plus, this girl is Jane: 

Imagine her with Red eyes. Totally creepy. 

Also, I want to see this, but it's not really in my list of "I really want to see this!" movies: 

http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2385969945/

Okay, so it totally looks like "13 going on 30" (even has the same girl!), but I want to see it. 

There are lots of others on my list too, but I just wanted to share those ones. Yay for good movies! (since it seems like there haven't been many lately...) 

Already 2 1/2 weeks!??!

First time taking a bottle...

Can you say Little Miss Independent? 

Okay, so I'm a little slow getting her two week stats posted (for those who care ;D ). 

At two weeks, Karly was: 

*8 lbs, 6 oz -- around the 50th percentile

*21 1/4 inches long -- still around the 95th percentile (how did we get such a tall baby?!?!)

*Head circumfrence was around the 50th percentile (at 4 days old, it was around the 30th percentile, so does that mean her head grew THAT much in less than two weeks? Percentiles are weird...) 

For the most part, she is a VERY good baby. As far as sleeping patterns go, she's usually awake a lot in the evenings (so she can play with her daddy), then she'll eat at midnight, sometime between 3 and 4, then sometime between 6 and 7 and sleep until 9 or 10. I know, I'm VERY lucky. Usually she'll sleep quite a bit in the day (except today she decided she wanted to be awake and fussy the WHOLE day so mommy couldn't get anything done. Silly girl). 

She still goes cross-eyed and makes her "O" face all the time. And I still love it. She also has smiled once or twice, but mostly just stares intently at you. I love that too. 

Also, Nate's parents came this weekend to see Karly -- we were so glad they were able to come! We had a great time and Karly was definitely spoiled - I don't think she got put down the entire weekend! We went on a hike, went to lunch and just enjoyed being with them. But I don't have a single picture to prove it - Dan took them all! :) 

Oh, and they did say Karly doesn't look ANYTHING like the pictures on this blog. So if you want to see what Karly REALLY looks like, you'll have to come visit! :) 

Have you ever seen anything so cute? 

She makes this face ALL the time - I think she knows how much it makes her mommy laugh. 

I know everyone says they have the greatest mom in the world, but I actually really do. 

Mom was able to come out and stay with us for a week after Karly was born and I'm pretty sure I would NOT have made it through that week without her! (I'm beginning to wonder if I'm going to make it through THIS week without her). She did EVERYTHING! I felt almost guilty at times at how much she was doing and all she would say it how lucky she felt that she gets to be the one to be there to help her kids after they have babies. 

She cooked dinner every night, bought us lots of yummy food, did the laundry, cleaned the house, took Karly in the mornings for a couple of hours so I could get more sleep,  reassured me that I am going to be a good mommy, gave back massages to half the people who came over, and the list goes on and on! 

I LOVED having her here and getting to spend time with her and just chat with her. 

I'm so lucky to have her for a mom and have such an amazing example of what a mom should be like - most of you who read this blog already know what a terrific person she is and she's like a mother to many of you too, huh? I'm not sure I could even count how many people in her life have considered her a 2nd mom. She's an amazing woman. 

I love you mom! Thanks again and again for all you did and all you do! We miss you already! 

Hope you're not sick of this girl yet - we sure aren't! 

My mom and I decided to play dress up with Karly this morning, since she has so many super cute dresses (we told my dad that and he said "she's not a TOY you know." We said "we know - she's WAY CUTER than a toy!"). 

So here ya go! (there's a lot....)

These two are my favorite. Mom said it was a Karly dress - it just looks like it was made for her! 

We put a little white  onesie under this one and she's wearing it today. I must say, she looks even better in person. 

LOVE this. 
Yeah, this one is still a little big....

Check out her toes in this one! SO CUTE (plus, she's going cross-eyed which is just awesome) 


In other baby news (let's be honest, it's the most interesting part of our lives), she had a doctor appointment on Monday and seems to be doing great! First of all, she's eating VERY well. The first time she nursed in the hospital, she latched on immediately and the nurse was completely shocked and how quickly she got it. Anyway, back to her doctor appointment: she weighed 7 lbs 15 oz, which is a normal amount of weight loss for a new baby. As far as percentages go, she's in the 58th percentile for weight, 95th for height (I know, she's TALL - how it that possible with such short parents? :), and 30th for head size. 

The doctor was concerned about some white bumps on the back of her throat - he thought either the respiratory therapist was too rough when he was cleaning out her throat, etc., or that she might have herpes (if someone with a cold sore had held her or something). He said he was pretty sure it was the first thing, but herpes is deadly in babies, so he didn't want to take any chances. He ordered some blood tests, so the poor little thing had to get blood drawn. They tried from both arms and couldn't get a vein, so they poked her heel and basically got the blood drop by drop. It took like 30 minutes and she cried the whole time. And I cried most of the time. It was awful. But she's doing great and it turned out to be nothing, so it was just a traumatic experience that she'll never remember. 

We sure love this little girl. Nate is enamored with her and loves to hold her on his chest: 

She always hangs her leg off the side like this. Super funny. 

Since some of you have been asking how it all went down, I'm taking a few minutes to sacrifice much needed sleep to share my labor and delivery story with you. That's how much I love you. :) 

I'm sure there are some people out there who really don't enjoy hearing these things, but I always love when people share their delivery stories, so here goes!

As I mentioned earlier, I was borderline toxemia at my appointment on Tuesday, so my doctor was concerned about letting me go any further. We scheduled me to be induced early Thursday morning, but going to the hospital Wednesday night to get Cervidil (medicine to soften the cervix as I was at 1 cm at my appt the week before and apparently still at 1 cm at this appt). 

I drove to the hospital Wednesday at 4:00 PM (it was kind of funny driving myself to the hospital to have a baby since I had always pictured I would be in labor and in too much pain). Nate was in class and would join me there as soon as he was done. I got the Cervidil at about 5:00 PM and just stayed in my hospital bed the whole night. I had to have the Cervidil in for either 12 hours, until I was dilated to a 3 or until my water broke - whichever happened first. Nate and I went to sleep about 11 and I slept soundly until maybe 1:30 - after that I started having painful contractions and really didn't sleep a whole lot.  Nate woke up around 3:30 when the contractions were painful enough that he could hear me trying to breathe through them and he wanted to sit with me and help me through them (I'll probably say it again, but he was SO good through the whole thing - I have an awesome hubby). 

A little before 6, my nurse came in a took out the Cervidil and said they would be starting the Pitocin soon. I asked her if I could have them do the Epidural at the same time they did the Pitocin because I was already in a lot of pain and was apparently only dilated 2 1/2. She suggested I wait at least until 7 because that's when the new shift for the anesthesiologist came in, so he'd be fresh and not at the end of a shift. I agreed reluctantly. :) 

The nurses changed shift at 6 and my new nurse Jill (who was WAY awesome) said they needed to draw some blood to check my platelet count before they could give me an epidural, since I had had blood pressure issues. I continued to have ever increasingly painful contractions through all of this. 

Then came the traumatic part of the day. The anesthesiologist came in and with his amazing bedside manners (ha) basically told me my platelet count was too low and I probably wouldn't be able to get an epidural as "blah blah lots of medical terms like hematoma and paralysis." So because my platelet count was so low, giving me an epidural COULD cause problems that could cause me to be paralyzed from the waist down. My the time he told me this (about 7:45), I was in a TON of pain and REALLY looking forward to that epidural. I just broke down and cried. He said they would take some more blood at 8:30 and check my platelets again. If they had stayed at the level they were at  OR gone up, I could get the epidural. If they had gone down at ALL, I wouldn't be able to. 

After he left, they started me on Pitocin and the doctor came in a broke my water, so everything would start moving more quickly. At 8:30, the nurse drew more blood and we all waited (some more patiently than others) for the results. I spent much of the time trying to prepare myself for not being able to get an epidural and having to deal with all of the pain (which was getting worse and closer together since the Pitocin was in my system now). 

I got the results back a little before 9:00 - my platelet count had risen 20 points in about 2 hours, so I could definitely get the epidural! Oh man, you've never seen me so relieved. Unfortunately, there were two other girls in labor at the same time as me, so the anesthesiologist was giving them their epidurals first. He {finally} got to me a little before 10. Let me just tell you how hard it was to hold still while he put the needle in since I had about three in the time he was getting everything ready. He started the medicine and after 20 minutes I was still in pain, so he came in and upped the dosage a bit. I could feel my legs getting numb and feel the pain lessening. 

So about 10:00, I was FINALLY able to relax and get some sleep (I was, by the way, STILL only at a 3 at this point) - I slept  until 11:30 when my nurse came in to see how I was doing and see if I had dilated any more. She was a little worried about the baby because her heart rate kept dropping - sometimes lower than she was very comfortable with. So she checked to see how dilated I was and said "Oh, you're kidding me.  Would you believe me if I told you you're complete?" So in an hour and a half (all of which I was sleeping), I had gone from a 3 to a 10! And I was ready to push! However, my doctor wanted to have me wait about an hour to let her head get a little lower so I wouldn't have to push as much. PLUS, he had two other deliveries to do, so as soon as he finished those, he'd be in to do mine. 

At about 12:30, he came in and got everything ready. He's an expert with forceps and since my blood pressure had been high he didn't want me pushing too much and making it go higher. So he used forceps and I pushed about 4 times and she was here! 

My in-laws are anxious for more pictures so here are some of the latest. 

This was taken after her first bath at home (which she hated by the way). She was better once we wrapped her in her robe. FYI Our nurse said that you no longer have to wait for the cord to fall off to bathe them. 

This cute dress was complements of auntie AJ.  That is where the Jane in Karly Jane came from.
Like her cousin Graham, this is also her favorite position. 
We're not really sure where she got these long skinny feet and toes from.

Karly Jane Frakes
8 Pounds 2 Ounces
21 Inches
12:54 P.M.

My doctor is the coolest. 

So I went to my doctor appointment today.

I have no idea how dilated or effaced I am. He didn't tell me. 

He did tell me I have two options: 

1. We can let nature take it's course and let her come when she comes. However, since my blood pressure was back up a bit today and there was protein in my urine (meaning the onset of toxemia) and I'm so swollen with water retention, they would need to do stress tests every Thursday and Monday until she's here. Hmm...

2. Put me in the hospital tomorrow (yes, TOMORROW), give me Cervidil around 4 pm, and let me sleep the night there. They would then induce me 12 hours later (so about 4 am) and she would come sometime on Thursday (doctor guessed early afternoon). 

He told me I could go talk to Nathan and let him know. I told him I didn't need to as I already knew what Nathan would pick. 

Any guesses on which option I chose? 

"Okay, your room is ready. You can come now." 

I know I've promised pictures of the crib and other things in the past, but I'm super anal and wanted to have the whole thing done before I posted anything. We got most of the nursery completed a couple of weeks ago, but I was still working on the crib bumper pad. 

Can I just tell you that was WAY more work than I thought it was going to be? 

But it looks great and I'm pretty proud of myself. I know it's not a difficult project as far as sewing goes, but I make quilts. That's all. So it was impressive for me. So without further ado, here are the pictures of the little munchkin's room: 

Here is that sweet crib I was telling you about. Here's the quick version of how we got it: this guy bought out a business that was going under that sells really nice cribs - Italian made beechwood that usually retail for about $700+. His business doesn't sell cribs, so he just wanted to get rid of them, so he was selling them BELOW wholesale prices. We ended up spending more than we had planned on for a crib, but WAY less than what we would have normally for that quality of crib. 

As I said, I made the crib bumper - here's a picture of it in the crib already. I cut the individual squares (32 in total) and all the ties (40 in total) and sewed all of it together. Like I said, it was a lot of work, but totally worth it! (and it kept me busy all these days I haven't been working AND saved us a bunch of money since we didn't have to buy the expensive store bedding sets). And my mother-in-law (who is an AMAZING quilter) is going to make a  quilt to go with it! 

Here is a closeup of the bumper with a little more detail. I LOVE the cute little safari animal design. 

Here are baby's first stuffed animals. We're silly, excited new parents and couldn't decide on just one. So she gets two. 

You can't tell very well in this picture, but the curtain rod is a bamboo pole. Fun  huh? 

Did I already mention that we got an amazing deal on this recliner? I love online classifieds (if you live in  Utah or Salt Lake county and are looking for ANYTHING used, go to KSL.com - it's WAY better than Craig's List).

This part of her room was, without a doubt, the most time consuming. After we got the crib, Nate didn't want to get anything that was the crappy particle board or plywood. If we were going to have a quality crib, why not get a quality dresser too? The problem is, there aren't many solid wood dressers out there (at least that don't cost hundreds), so we looked for over a month. We FINALLY found one that this crazy lady had done a horrible job staining (for those of you who don't already know this, stain is NOT like paint - okay?). We sanded off her horrible staining job (which took HOURS), stained it a color we thought was close to the crib, put it in the room, didn't like how different it looked from the crib, went to Sherwin Williams and had them create a stain that would make it closer to the crib, RE-stained it and then put a finish on it. I wish I could explain better  how much time all of this took. It was a lot. But here is the finished beauty. We LOVE it. 

The whole view, including the little bamboo plant we bought, the mirror we stained the same color (and added some cute little safari stuff) and the little lamp we bought for the room. 

And closeups of all those things: 



So there you have it! Our pretty little girl's jungle/safari room! 

In other news, I have a doctor appointment today, so I should find out where I'm at and how things are going. I had contractions for like 6 hours Saturday night (that made for a fun night of sleep for both Nate and I, as he wakes up every time I make a noise - poor guy) and have them often during the day and also at night. I'm really hoping all that uncomfortableness means I've progressed. 

Wish me luck!