Claire-11 days old

I thought I would have blogged about our newest little princess by now but I have been too busy enjoying her! As I am beginning to type this she is waking up so we will see how much time I have! (I only made it half way through before having to put this post on hold :))

As many people know, Claire arrived on 7/21/11 weighing 7 lbs 13 oz and 20 inches long. I was induced when I reached 39 weeks exactly. The labor itself was freakishly easy, the last hour and a half was pretty painful but I seriously cannot complain.

I went in at 7 and I had my meds going and water broke around 8:30am. Around 10:00 am I was a little frustrated that nothing was happening, a nurse came down so I could go to the bathroom. She asked me to rate my pain on a scale of 1-10, I asked if I was even having contractions and she said yes. Pain rating = 0. I was allowed to stand up, I couldn't go far thanks to monitors and pitocin but standing was better than laying. Another hour-ish goes by, I call down to use the bathroom again. Another nurse comes down and asked my pain level. Again, zero. I was having contractions about 2 minutes apart and I literally was not feeling anything so she checked me. I was dilated to a 4-5 cm, yay! Throughout this entire process I was silently thanking God because I could not be happier that I was going through labor virtually painless.

The next couple of hours continued this way, lots of potty breaks, lots of popsicles and waiting. Finally around 1:30 or 2:00 I started feeling crampy and I was dilated to a 7. I went ahead and asked for some pain meds because I knew that the pain was on it's way. I had nubain and rested for awhile. The labor pains did find me at the end and about the time I started wondering why I did this again, it was time to push. Claire arrived at 3:30 pm.

Now a week and a half later we are all adjusting to our new life with a baby in the house. Makayla and Hannah are great with her when we are home alone. As soon as people come over or we are out they go overboard with affection for her, that seems to be slowing down too. Sleeping has not been too terrible, I expected to be sleep deprived for a few weeks at least and she typically only wakes up twice a night. Last night was just once!

Cloth diapering is going well, and I am suprised at how much I actually like it! Her little legs are too small for some of our newborn size so I am using half of my stash for now. I am still not sold on prefolds, I keep those for when I am going to be home and not running. Maybe once I have more skills I will appreciate them more but for now I will stick with the all in ones. I have kept a pack of newborn diapers on hand for appointment days and when Claire decides to keep filling diapers the second I get a clean one on her. It is nice to know that in almost 2 weeks we have not gone through a whole pack of diapers.

I have more pictures to upload and will sometime but for now I will take advantage of 3 girls sleeping and take a shower!