Two days old

Renna hasn't spent much time in her amby bed yet because I'm still keeping her close against me so she can learn to breathe really well and so I can listen to her sounds to learn what she needs and so forth, but she really does like it!

The bink is nice to soothe her for a few minutes when she's nursed really well and burped and just wants to keep sucking to fall asleep or when I have to do something and Youssef needs to hold her for me. Lily never really liked binks. Just played with them a little bit.

Youssef held her for me while I took a shower.

Then I sat in the vibrating chair and told him how to make waffles (as it's "waffle Saturday") He did pretty good doing it all, though seemed to be a bit overwhelmed a few times. I'm really trying not to get up and straighten up the house it's starting to really drive me nuts. Youssef did laundry for me, but there are baskets everywhere and random toys boxes and other things that I just want to have put away. There are places for most things, but aparently I'm the only one that knows where those places are.

On a funny note, while we were eating dinner Lily brought me my pregnancy yoga dvd and really wanted it on! Now Youssef is doing it with her. It was really cute how she'd do yoga with me (she calls it "Yoke") Lily's been really tired lately, which makes it harder to reason with her. Youssef's gotten a little frustraited with her I think, but she's actually been doing really well with her new sister. In the morning She's been waking up earlier than usual because she'll hear me doing something with Renna and think it's time to get up, but we've just been hanging out in bed for a long time in the morning reading stories together! It's pretty fun actually. Lily likes to take showers with me too so that hasn't changed for her (as she can undress herself and come in by herself, all I have to do is cover her in bubbles and share the stream of water.) After I'm done with the shower I just let her take a bath and play while I get dressed and fix my hair. After Youssef goes to work I'll just have Renna in the bathroom too in her bouncy chair.

Well... I think it's sleepy time. Lily needs a good cuddle before going to sleep as I've not been able to give her much attention. Renna is cuddled in my robe right now so it's really easy to type, but Daddy would like a turn holding her too. :)

Even more pictures

So... what should I do when I wake up at midnight and have a hungry baby and I'm really hungry too? Have pizza and blog on Youssef lap-top while sitting in a vibrating chair and nursing my baby! It doesn't get much better than that!


Renna kept wanting to hold something or else she'd distract herself from nursing so I thought she might like holding this little giraffe blanket thing (it was actually given to Lily when she was first born, but Lily never liked it.)

I think it's so cute that she has a little toy that she likes already!

Youssef demonstrates how he can do dishes AND hold a baby at the same time. He was really helpful today. All I did pretty much was rest in the vibrating chair and direct him about how to separate clothes for laundry and where things go to be put away and pointing out other things that needed to be done.


She really likes to have her hands up by her face. I could tell that even before she was born and how she moves her hands a LOT. She's really graceful in her movements too just like before she was born. :)

Renna makes a funny face and Lily entertains herself with a toy that has a magnet in its foot.

More pictures!

These first five pictures were from yesterday,

and the first one is about a minute after she was born!

The Daddy thinks the light is just too bright for her newborn eyes. :)

Lily really did want to hold her little sister, but didn't know quite what to do when she did. ;)

I think she looks quite a lot like Lily did as a newborn. I'll have to post comparison pictures.

And now, pictures from today!

My mom came today to take Lily to the park and bring some food for the crockpot she got for me (crockpots are so wonderful!) The picture is of my Mom burping Renna and Renna was making a lot of funny faces. :)

Got a picture with her eyes open!

Lily had fun at the park!

Renna's birthday!!!

Renna Yovayla was born at 1:19 pm March 6th 2008

6 lb. 11 oz. 20 in. long (one and a half weeks early)

And my "official" due date was either the 14th or the 15th (depending on who calculated it)

The midwife who attended the birth was Beth! She was very encouraging and really helpful! I really liked having her there (she also said "Renna is a beautiful baby, and I see a lot of new borns so that is saying something.") ;)

Lily was REALLY excited to see her little sister, though by the time this picture was taken we'd all taken naps and Lily was a little upset to wake up and not get Mommy (still). She wanted to wear her robe because I was wearing a robe and she also just wanted to sit by me a little bit (she still is sitting by me).

Deeply asleep and blowing bubbles.

She likes to have her hands by her face (right after she was born she scratched her eye lid a bit so it's a little red, but she held my finger before making it too bad. She has a good grip!)

Little foot!

The birth story...

I'd been having so much pre-labor that of course I had some last night. So I didn't get to sleep till midnight and then woke up at 2 am because I was starving. I ate something and then tried to go back to sleep, but the contractions (again) were keeping me awake. Then I felt a pretty good punch or something from Renna that popped the sack of water (at 3 am) and when I stood up it gushed. I thought to myself "Oh good. Finally." It was nice to know that she'd be coming and the pre-labor was over.

All the labor that I'd been having felt just the same as the real labor except that I hadn't gone through transition. My Mom came at 7:30 and about 15 minutes later I felt some contractions that were all piled up on each other and that's when I got to get into the bath (love the "aquadural"!) It slowed the contractions just right so that I could deal with them really easily. When Beth showed up she checked me at 9:30 and I was at 5 cm. She also did a lot of setting up and taking of blood pressure and so forth that kind of distracted me so that they weren't coming as hard, so she said that Youssef should time them and we should get them going a bit more. I sat up in the water and swayed a bit to help them get going and had about four that seemed to be working better. Then I had the gigantic contraction that I'd counted 5 peaks before laying down then after 7 peaks I sort of lost track. There must have been about a dozen and the whole thing lasted 6 minutes! Ok... no more sitting up. They were working hard enough.

This labor and birth was SO different from Lily's! With Lily I didn't get to be in the water for transition and had thoughts like "I'm not having any more than one child" and "why in the world to people have more than one after this?" etc. With Renna the transition was so much more bearable in the water! It was still hard work, but I never had those sort of thoughts. However, when it came time to push I had a cervical lip that I had to get past. It hurt SO much to be pushing against that and Beth had to hold it out of the way till I'd pushed past it (the contractions were also so long for the pushing time that I got at least 7 good pushes and for part of them I had to just breathe or groan through the contraction because I wasn't suppose to push.) I kept getting cramps in my legs and the worst cramp I'd ever had in my life I got in my foot of all places! It was because for one contraction I tried pushing on my hands and knees and my toes were bent (not much room in my tub) and the top of my foot cramped. Youssef rubbed it and it was better, but the lip was still killing me. Once I'd pushed her past it (with Beth's help) She came REALLY fast. Pushing was a breeze with Lily and even though Renna is 3 oz lighter than Lily was, pushing her was insanely harder. I made much more groaning/grunting/pushing noises with Renna and didn't need to when I pushed Lily. I was also reeeeally tired by then because of the week of pre-labor and also dialating from 5 to 8 in an hour and a half (the dialation from 7 to 8 was while she was checking me and when she said how good I was doing and how I'd soon hold her I almost started to cry. Partly from being so happy and partly from how intense that one contraction was while she checked me.) I started pushing at about 12:50 and she was born at 1:19 (fortunately didn't tear, even though she came so fast.) The cord was wrapped around her neck when she came out and was too tight for Beth to get it off, but after she was born she didn't have any trouble breathing and didn't cry a whole lot. She mostly tried to look around at the bright world and couldn't focus for a few minutes. She kept hurting herself with her sharp fingernails so I let her hold my finger and she gripped it really well and didn't want to let go! By then my Mom and Lily came in to see Renna. Lily was pretty excited and interested in her little sister. There are a few pictures on my mom's camera of when we were still in the water that I'd like to get from her that I'll have to scrapbook!

Renna nursed really well! On both sides more than once and also on both sides while I was laying on my side. I was leaking colostrum and thought that maybe my body was so prepared because of all the pre-labor. It was good that she waited till today to be born. Beth thought she might have had a little harder time if she'd come earlier and also I noticed that all week while I was contracting on and off Renna started out being mostly Posterier and by Wednesday she'd gotten good and being Antierier during contractions.

I'm holding her now while I type and she's finally starting to wake up. :)

Disappointed...

I've been having what we've found out is "dysfunctional labor" since last Friday night at 9:45 pm. We didn't know that it was dysfunctional (meaning that it doesn't do anything it just makes you tired and makes you think that it will progress and it never does). Each day they've gotten a bit harder and making us think they'd do something, but then ... no baby. I want to see her so much. It's not that I'm sick of being pregnant (not that I want to be pregnant forever or anything) I just thought that I'd get to see her soon. She's still moving good though (she has hiccups right now) ... I'm just so tired right now... and can't stop crying because I wanted to see her so much... I know I'll still get to see her soon. My Mom is coming to watch Lily so that I can get some good sleep (which is suppose to stop the dysfunctional labor so that when it is really time to start it will be able to start in the right way). It could start right away or it might be several more weeks. I feel like I just need to let go of being excited about seeing her soon so that this labor can stop and the real stuff can do it's thing. I think the labor has been holding on this long because of my great desire to hold her... which is why I'm crying.. because I have to let go of that for now. Youssef had a hard time leaving for work because I was so sad (he left later than usual because we thought she was going to come today.)

When we thought she was coming on Saturday I asked Lily if she wanted to see her little sister today and she got so excited and screamed ""YEAH" and clapped her hands and everything. It was really cute how excited she was. Everybody wants to see Renna.

It was such a mentally tiring weekend with us thinking all the time that she'd come soon. I've been so much hungrier and thirstier too since my body was trying to work (though it never felt like anything but early labor... I kept wishing it would get harder actually.)

Speaking of being hungry, I'm really really hungry now (again) so I'm going to go eat something. Maybe the rest of the chocolate cake. Chocolate can fix anything, right? ;)