ISN'T SHE LOVELY!

Malia Jeanne Cook, born April 23, 2009 at 10:55 am, 7 lbs 12 oz and 19 1/2 inches!!!

Here's Ben and I a few hours before she made her appearance. We had to be at the hospital at 5 am so I could be induced. I probably slept two hours the night before, but it didn't matter! Ben got a good night sleep though. He said the night before "I need to get to bed...I have a big day ahead of me!" Poor Ben had SO much work to do to get this baby here :) Pitocin really works by the way, and so does having the doc break your water. Contractions came on strong and pretty quickly, and the anesthesiologist did not come quickly. But he did come, and I did love him :) Shortly after my epidural, I was ready to push! The nurse said I would have delivered yesterday with or without the induction. Malia was out in three contractions! I kept thinking, this is just to easy. But the poor little thing didn't give us that good lusty cry you want to get from every baby right after they are born. In fact she was very quiet, which worried everyone and they whisked her away a few minutes after she was born. She spent the first ten hours of her life under this oxygen bubble......

.......and we didn't get to hold her until 9 p.m.! That whole time she wasn't able to keep her oxygen saturation up high enough, probably because she never gave us a good cry to get her lungs really going. The doc wondered about other problems, and she had an xray, EKG, had her blood gases checked, and ordered an IV started. Well, all the tests came back okay (thank goodness!) and the nurses tried and tried but weren't able to start an IV. Poor thing got poked MANY times yesterday, but still barely cried. I'm glad they didn't get the IV started because Malia ended up making a great turn around and we were thrilled that she was able to come spend a little time in our room with us.

As you can imagine, by 9 pm she was starving and I was excited to be able to feed her! She is a vigorous eater...a little too vigorous for my preferences in fact :) But that's okay, I am so happy she has no problems eating well. The doc told us she would probably have to stay in the hospital until Saturday instead of going home with us Friday, but she did so well throughout the night that she came home with us today at 4pm! We are so happy that she is doing well, and we know that people had her in their prayers and are thankful to have her home!
I'm so in love!
Ben is so in love too! We hope Riley will be in love too, but he wasn't able to meet her yesterday because the nurse wouldn't let him in to see her :(

We still haven't gotten a real good, ticked off cry out of her. She give a little "waaaa" here and there but I can tell she's working up to it and soon we will wonder why we ever wished she would cry more!

A DATE!!!

I could have kissed my doctor's feet today. He dangled a carrot (in my case more like a diet coke and a pink sugar cookie) in front of me and I snatched it up without ANY hesitation. He offered to schedule me for an induction next thursday, which is my moms birthday and also a full three days before my due date! Hmmmm, lets see, should I NOT take the offer and sit and wait and wonder if every little pain I have is THE pain that will lead to more pains that will lead to the end of this miserable fatness, or should I get induced which enables me to relax a little and plan a little and see a light at the end of the tunnel? It was an easy choice. So next Thursday it is! I've heard people say being induced is wonderful, and I've heard others say it's horrible. I choose to believe those who say it is wonderful! I can stop shaving my legs every night "just in case" and just shave them next Thursday before going to the hospital. I can know that when the pain starts to get bad, I will already be at the hospital and nearer to the blessed individual who will give me my epidural. I can make plans for Riley's whereabout throughout all this, and I can know that it won't be a frantic dash to the hospital in the middle of the night! And yay for no more doctor's appointments with humiliating weigh-ins :)

SO ANNOYED!!!

Okay, two things are bugging me so bad! First of all, trying to sell your home is the BIGGEST pain. Let me just tell you what's happened so far. We put our house on the market with an agent (who we really like, by the way) and nine days later someone comes to look and puts in an offer that very night! Great! Wonderful! We are ecstatic! So we accept the offer (it's a pretty good offer) and wait for them to get back to us.....except they don't. So we wait, and wait. Finally after a weekend wondering what the heck, their agent FINALLY calls our agent back and sais that they basically don't feel like it's the right time for them to buy anymore. Grrrrrr. Fine, so we've moved on. Then Monday our agent calls us and sais there is a couple who wants to look at our house Wed. at 10:30 am (today). So Ben and I are excited and spend last night and this morning getting our house ready and perfect for these people to look at, and at 10:30 as I'm walking over to my doctor's appointment I get a call from our agent that the guy is sick and they have to reschedule. So I am so bummed and annoyed, and have decided that selling your house is a good way to get your hopes up and have them crushed, just in case any one is looking for a way to accomplish that!
Okay now for the second thing: at about midnight last night I started have small, not too painful, but REAL contractions. I know when they are real because they are in my lower back and feel exactly the same as the ones that got Riley into the world! By 1:30 they are getting worse, and so I start timing them. About 7 to 10 minutes apart, painful, and this goes on. So I'm thinking this is it! Lucky me! 2 1/2 weeks early! So I get up, fix my hair (I know, dumb. But for some reason it MATTERS!) and then settle in to keep timing them. No sleeping through all this of course, for me anyway. Well, by 5:30 they start to spread out more, and as of right now (noon) I haven't had one for probably 4 hours. I went to my doctor's appointment at 10:40, and the verdict is that the baby is very low, her head is engaged, I am very thin (yah, I wish I was talking about my figure....but you moms know what I mean) but the doc couldn't tell if I am dilated due to the location of my blah blah blah I won't go into details :)
SO I AM ANNOYED BECAUSE I WAS SO EXCITED AT THE POSSIBILITY OF HAVING A POTENTIAL BUYER LOOK AT OUR HOUSE, AND EVEN MORE THRILLING THE PROSPECT OF HAVING A BABY TODAY!!! I think this means I deserve to go out on a date tonight. I'll have to let Ben know :)

Riley's Special Date!!!

I had this great idea last weekend that it would be fun to take Riley out for a date with Ben and I to give us the chance to spoil him a little while he is still our only child. So I reserved a room at La Quinta up in Salt Lake near this place called Hollywood Connection, and we left Saturday afternoon for a night of fun :) One little glitch which really bugs me is that somehow I managed to reserve the room for Thursday night instead of Saturday night, so we show up saturday night with no reservation and the cheapest room is $80, PLUS my card was probably charged for the Thursday night that we weren't even there ($50 plus taxes and fees). So yah, that bugs a little but what can I do?

Really can you put a price on watching these two guys romp in the pool???

Riley LOVED the hottub! The mistake we made was letting him get in the hot tub first, and then trying to persuade him to get in the pool. He just thought we were crazy and wondered why on earth he should get into a cold pool when there was a nice warm "pool" for him to play in :)

The only picture I got of Riley and I on our special weekend. Obviously I am not feeling photogenic these days! Headshots ONLY please :)

I think these swimsuits would look great on the beaches of Hawaii! Hmmm....gets me thinking!

Riley thoroughly enjoyed pushing the "unsuspecting" Ben into the pool over and over. We were the only ones in there so Ben felt free to be himself :)

One of the rides at Hollywood Connection. Just after this picture Ben decided what the heck and got on the ostrich next to the horse. Ben had to ride all the kiddie rides with Riley, and this was quite entertaining for me! I was a little jealous at first, but Ben's face practically turned green after several of the rides....plus their kiddie rides!!! So Ben felt a little silly, but all worth it to see the huge smiles and laughter from Riley.

This bus went up and around and around and made the most annoying sound. If I worked there I would probably go nuts.

The bumper cars were a huge hit with Ben and Riley. I laughed so hard when Riley's bumper car first took off and he had no idea how to steer or what was even happening. The look on his face was so funny! It would go from confusion, to nervousness, to bewilderment, to joy, to laughter, back to nervousness, and on and on. Oh and there's nothing like watching your three year old get knocked around on the bumper cars! Too funny! I hope Riley remembers this and that he always feels really special and loved and knows that nothing (not even a little sister) can EVER take his place or make him any less loved or important to us :)