Proper Tea

Before we left Doha for our Christmas break, we went to the St. Regis hotel for a proper English Tea with our friends. This tea was specially planned for the kiddos and Santa even made an appearance.  We enjoyed our first ever "tea" and spending some time with our friends Dawn, Matt, Cora, Ali, Mark, Tilly, Susan, and Joe before we left for the holidays.  I learned a lot about how to eat scones and how to pronounce it if I wanted to be part of the upper class :)

Hailey's 1 Month

Hailey's first month of life has just flown by.  Our transition hasn't been too difficult due to the wonderful amounts of help we have from Nana and Grandma.  Jacob seems to be adjusting well to having a baby sister. He mostly ignores her but occasionally wants to "hold sister".   Unfortunately the doctor doesn't think she has been gaining quite enough weight so we are going to have to work on the eating thing for a while.  Here are Hailey's 1 month stats:

- weighed in at 7lbs 10 oz. so as I said before, I'm having to concentrate on my eating skills
- 21.5" long - I've gained .5" since birth.  Mom and Dad weren't really too sure about my birth measurement so it's hard to have an opinion about this
- I eat about 3 oz.  It's hard to really tell since most of the time I'm nursing off of Mom but when I do take a bottle it's 2-3 oz.
- During the day I still eat, maybe have some wake time, then sleep. I eat about every 2 hours. In the evenings I like to cluster feed and eat almost every hour to hour and half.
- I typically go to bed around 11pm and then sleep until around 4. Then I take a bottle and sleep until about 7:30.
- This first month Grandma or Nana have been giving me my middle of the night bottle allowing Mommy to get some solid sleep time.
- I really mostly enjoy diaper changes and baths! Mom doesn't know what to think about this since my brother hated them so much.
- I tend to fall asleep during tummy time.  I think once they will let me, I'm going to sleep on my tummy. 
- I was able to celebrate my first Thanksgiving.
- I have played with my brother, been to parks, gone to church, eaten at fun restaurants, and met lots of new friends.
- We are still waiting on my passport but are hoping it arrives soon

This whole month Hailey has been one spoiled lucky girl having tons of people around to hold her and cuddle.  Sadly, Grandma left right before her 1 month birthday but she still had Nana for a couple more weeks.  Hailey also has a great big brother who loves to hold her and show her all her toys.  She loves to lay on the jungle gym mat while Jacob shows her everything it can do. I'd say we've had a pretty good first month. 

Hailey's Birth

Oh man how difficult it is to keep up with a blog when you have a newborn and a 2 year old!  I’m going to do my best to catch up when I can.   Lets start with Hailey’s birth…

Hailey was born 4 days passed her due date! Needless to say, I was very anxious and ready to get the show on the road.  I went to my doctors appointment on Sunday hoping he would want me to induce or do SOMETHING to help the process along.  I finally convinced him to set up an induction date for Tuesday, Nov. 4.   We went into the hospital Tuesday morning just to be informed they had no beds for us.  FRUSTRATING! Lets just say its not good to frustrate a 9+month pregnant.  They told us to come back in the afternoon after check-out.  So back home we went to wait some more.  That afternoon we returned and were thankfully given a bed.   My doctor administered some internal medicine and literally that is the only thing they did that day!!  I thought Micah was going to go crazy.  My dr hoped that the simple medicine would give Hailey enough motivation to come on her own.  Nope. 

The next morning the dr stopped by and told me he suggested that we go home and wait for labor to start naturally.  NO thank you.  So he agreed to actually get my induction going by breaking the water and starting Pitocin a little later.  My Mom and Micah were able to be in the labor room with me until I got my epidural and then they kicked my Mom out for the rest of the delivery.   I was sad not to have her there like she was with Jacob but everything turned out ok.  

 After I received my epidural I suddenly started feeling sick to my stomach. By the time I could get the nurse to understand what I was saying  I was about to pass out.  Next thing I know there are nurses all around me and they are prepping me for a C-section.  They put oxygen on me and pretty soon I was back to normal and C-section was avoided.  After that little incident everything was smooth sailing. 

I’ll spare you all the details but at 4:26 pm our sweet baby girl was born!  She weighed in at 7lbs 4 oz and 21” long.  We were instantly in love.