Super Couches!

I love how everything you purchase in the store often comes in many languages (it's silly to think that English has any right to be the official language around here, right?) - reminds me of the days of buying imported goods in Romania and seeing a list of fifteen different language codes with their perspective translations. With this in mind, Jarom and I have been laughing for a while at the Costco diapers which, on the opposite side of the English version, proclaim the french equivalent: Super Couches. Isaac has worn many a super couch in his pre-potty trained life, and now Emilie has joined the ranks. This little girl goes through so many diapers that we've gone through the few packages we received as gifts as well as the few packages we bought, so while at Costco yesterday, I got the big box of the small size. I put one on her this afternoon and was happy to find that it fits her just fine! We'll see how long this box lasts. A week, maybe two?

Getting used to having two kids is still an adjustment and some days are still a bit of a struggle, but overall, it's wonderful having these two little people in our lives. The days go by much easier (although going back to work this week has been quite difficult), but the evenings are a little bit harder. Emilie cries a lot at night as she's settling down, then Isaac won't go to sleep if the baby is crying, and on and on. At least Emilie only gets up about twice during the night, eats, poops, then goes right back to sleep. Isaac, on the other hand, sometimes gets up more often than Emilie and wants to climb into bed with us. Oh well, at least he likes to be around us and isn't too bothered by Jarom's snoring! :)

We have less than 24 hours of owning our townhouse since tomorrow we will close on the sale and become renters again while waiting for the new house to be built. The buyers came by last night for their final walk-through and we were able to meet them. Very nice people. I hope they are good landlords for the next few months. I'm so glad to not have to move this weekend and to be able to stay here until the new house is ready for us. They should be getting the building permit any day now so they can start digging us a hole. Before going to the title company tomorrow afternoon, we're going to the design center to pick out the colors and options for the interior of the house and I'm really looking forward to that.

Lucky cat!

Jarom took Gabby in this morning and ended up needing to see the actual vet, not the tech, since she was first treated at another facility. While they were there, she got her vaccines up to date, and since her wound is healing so well, got her staples taken out and a much smaller bandage put on. I think she may even stop chewing on it for a little while. It seems to bother her a lot less. And since they took the staples out, we don't need to go back next week! One less thing to worry about and try to balance time around. For some reason, getting out and about with two kids can be a LOT still. :)

Yes, Doctor

This is our week for doctor's visits. Emilie had her 2-week check-up today and we got some great news for her! When I took her in last Monday for a weight check, she was up to 8 lbs 4 oz, which was a considerable gain from the previous Friday when we left the hospital and she was 7 lbs 8.5 oz. By 2 weeks they should at least be back to their birth weight (8 lbs 9 oz), and my little girl was 9 lbs 5 oz! Not only has she surpassed her birth weight, she has gained 1 lb 1 oz since last week! I guess this nursing thing is working out for us after all! And besides a few bottles the first few days after we came home, she's been nursing exclusively and is doing so well. I think it just took a few days for us to gt used to each other and our routine. Now, we're old pros. Here are Emilie's stats from today: length 95%, weight 85%, and head 75%. Isaac has never been in those percentiles, so this is very exciting! Who would have thought?

Tomorrow is Gabby's turn to go to the doctor/vet to get the dressing on her tail changed. She'll go back again next week to get the staples out, poor cat! We took her cone off at least (it wasn't making much difference - she could still reach her tail and it was just annoying her). So now she can at least be in the house again and is able to bathe herself. I think she spent the first 2 days after we took the cone off just bathing herself. When her tail is all healed, she'll be getting a bath. I know she'll consider it a direct insult towards her ability to keep herself clean, but she still needs the occasional bath to supplement her own bathing routine.

Then on Thursday is my turn to go to the doctor for my 2-week check-up to make sure that my c-section incision is healing properly. I haven't needed to take any pain meds since Saturday I think, so that's a good sign that things are healing. I get the occasional pain here and there still, but overall, I'm feeling great! It's so nice to be able to bend again and walk up stairs normally. I'm not quite ready to start running again, but hopefully it won't be too much longer. I'd love to be able to run another 5K by the end of summer.

A few pics

Here's little Emilie the other night after getting into her jammies. I guess Isaac wanted a turn in the crib - I'm just glad it didn't collapse on him!
Shaving with Dad. (yes, sometimes Jarom really does shave!)
Isaac enjoying tummy time with Emilie, until he decided he didn't want her lying on HIS blanket anymore.
Here's a pic from Emilie's first bath the other night.

What a week!

Here's some things that have happened this week:

• On Wednesday night, Isaac accidentally slammed Gabby's tail in the door leading out to the garage. At first we thought it was broken, but noticed it was bleeding, so Jarom took her to the vet ER and found out she had a 1 inch laceration and needed staples to close it up. She also needs to take antibiotics for a few days to ward off infection. No, it is not easy to give a cat medicine through an eye-dropper. My poor kitty has to wear a collar cone thing so she doesn't chew on her bandage, and with that she can't go through her little cat door into her bathroom, nor can she climb into her covered litter box, so Jarom set up a little apartment area for her in the garage and she will just need to stay out there until she is healed enough to have her cone off. Poor kitty cat! And no, the vet bill was not cheap, and no Jarom, we are not taking the money out of Isaac's savings account to pay for it. :)
• After Jarom got back from the vet, Isaac was going potty before going to bed, and he decided he wanted to see what the water looked like as it filled the toilet, so he stuck his head inside the bowl to watch. Needless to say, he got quite the thorough shower that night before bed.
• I took Emilie in to the doctor Monday morning for a weight check. Over the weekend (since she actually started eating again!), she actually gained almost 8 oz! She goes in for her 2-week check-up on Monday and hopefully she will be back to her birth weight. I would be surprised if she isn't at least that much. She feels so much heavier to me now. Granted, that could be because I have such a hard time setting her down. (She is asleep on my chest right now as I am typing.)
• And as for feeding, we haven't needed a bottle in a few days, yipee! I think we're getting a hang of this nursing thing and it's been so nice! I also discovered nursing in bed and it is making my nights so much better. I still put her back in bed after she's eaten, but it lets me rest a little bit while she's eating.
• And Emilie's cord came off this week, what a big girl! With that off, she got her first bath on Monday night. At first she didn't know what to think and was a little upset by it, but I put a washcloth on her belly to keep her warm and she seemed to relax and even enjoy it a little bit.
  
• Jarom's new laptop came this morning (Thank you, George W), so it looks like I will be sans husband for a few days as he's getting it all configured and set up. He's promised me that he will sell off the good parts from his old laptop that is dying to help offset the cost of the new one, so let's hope he keeps up his end of the bargain. :)
• The paper work for the new house was submitted this week. They should get the permit back from the city within a few weeks and can then start digging the foundation. We'll go back to the design center soon to pick out things for the interior, I can't wait!

Those are the more notable events of the week that I can recall, and looking at that list, that's a lot for one week! Let's see what happens next week!

Happy Mothers Day!

More than just Mother's Day, I think today is a great day to celebrate women in all our various seasons of life. So every lady out there, whether a mother or not, here's to you!

I had to put this shirt on Emilie today because it says "I love mommy" and even if I have to brainwash my child, she is going to love me. Because her shirt said so. She actually gave me the best Mother's Day present every today - SHE FINALLY NURSED AGAIN!!! I was getting so overwhelmed with the process of pumping and bottles again and was so disappointed that she wasn't going to be a nurser, but she was getting hungry so I thought I would give it a shot, and she did GREAT! I think there's hope for us after all! I just hope that she'll be willing to keep it up because it will make our nighttime routine so much easier, and Isaac won't have to keep watching me pump with so much confusion in his little eyes, poor guy. So thanks for nursing, Emilie, keep it up!Isaac just adores his little sister. After I finished changing her diaper this afternoon, he climbed onto my bed next to her and just started talking to her and telling her that he loves her (so sweet!). I loved the way they were just looking at each other and how engaged Emilie's eyes were on her big brother, so I just had to take a picture.
And I don't know how to even begin describing these next two pictures, although I'm sure Jarom is somehow involved...

Home, Sweet Home

It's been quite the week for our little family, and I'm happy to say that we are all home now. Isaac spent the week with his grandma and grandpa, Jarom floated between the hospital, his parents' house, work, and home, and Emilie and I have enjoyed having some girl time in the hospital. It's been great to have that time together so that I could really get a feel for my new little one and get used to her as I'm sure she's trying to get used to me. We started having some feeding issues yesterday. Right as my milk was coming in, she decided she didn't want to nurse any more and cried and wailed as I would try to feed her. Last night this went on for over 3 hours as I tried to get her to eat something. She's already lost over a pound and I was getting so worried about her not eating, but she ate a little better today. I'm already anticipating more problems tonight, but we'll see how it goes. As of this morning, she weighed 7 lbs 8.5 oz, so while it seems like a lot to me, I just need to remind myself that she'll have all her birth weight back before I know it.

Here's some more pics from this last week, enjoy!

She's here!

It's funny how you make certain plans and you get ideas about how things will turn out, but in the end, none of your plans matter because life has a way of making its own plans. That's how Emilie's birth ended up. We left Isaac with Jarom's parents then started heading up to the hospital, but on our way, Michele called and said that they were very busy and to come in at 11pm instead of 8pm. so we went to my parents' house and visited with them to bide our time, then finally ended up at the hospital. By about 11:30pm I was going on the pitocin and labor was underway. Progress was slow-going, and about 4am they broke my water without much significant change. After a few hours, I was still only dilated about 5-6 cm. Part of the problem was the scar tissue from the cerclage not permitting me to dilate further, and part was her head not progressing down into the birth canal. I stayed in a pretty steady laboring pattern all morning, then around 1pm, my doctor decided that the best solution would be to do a c-section. I already had the epidural in place (otherwise i never would have survived all morning!), so they just took me into the OR, upped the drug dose, and cut me open. Jarom stood by my side holding my hand and watching the action, and at 2:01pm, our little Emilie Anne was born! They held her up to let me see her (but all I saw were her little legs), but jarom got to hold her right away then brought her over so I could get a better look at her. She was crying pretty loud when she came out and was bright pink and looked so healthy! She weighed 8 lbs 9 oz and 22 inches long, and of course, we think she's just the cutest little thing ever!

She still has such a cute little cry and she doesn't like to be put down. She's a good nurser and sleeps really well during the day - we're working on sleeping at night too so that Mommy can get some rest too, but that may take a while. Isaac is still staying with Jarom's parents this week, but they brought him up on Monday night to meet her and just fell in love with her. He was so upset that we wouldn't let him hold her more and just wanted to examine her little hands and little face. I think he's going to be a good big brother, although it's going to take a lot of supervision so that he doesn't hurt her.

I think I'll be able to come home on Friday. I can be discharged on thursday, but I'm still in a fair amount of discomfort and could use an extra day recovering. But we will be home by this weekend for sure. We love this adorable little girl and are so excited that she's joined our family!

Here she is!


Daddy holding her. She's about 5 minutes old here.


Here's her proud big brother!

Just thinking about stuff

Here it is, Saturday night, and Emilie has hiccups. She usually gets them in the evening and it's funny to feel her little twitches. It's crazy to think that it's just a matter of hours until I'll be holding her in my arms, bewitched by her beauty and amazed that she will be mine. In less than 24 hours I'll be checking into the hospital (unless somehow I go into labor on my own), and then the process will start which will culminate in what I know will be another life-altering experience for my little family. After she is born, none of our lives will ever be the same again, and we'll wonder how on earth we ever got by without her. I can't wait! I don't fear the pains of labor, because I know they'll be temporary, and I'll be able to have an epidural, so that will help a lot too. I am just in awe to think that the time has finally come! Since we've gone the full 9 months, this pregnancy has really seemed to last a long time, although the weeks and months have gone by quite quickly, which I'm thankful for. According to some of the ultrasounds that we've had in the past, they could already see hair on Emilie's head (a very Hatch trait), and her hair will likely be pretty dark. Thanks to her parents, she will have blue eyes, and it looked like she'll have Jarom's toes, but I can't wait to see what it looks like all put together! Isaac has SOOO much of Jarom in him, and I hope that Emilie has a little bit more of me in her. :)

Amidst all the hubbub of getting things ready to have a baby, things are coming along with both the sale of our house and getting the building process going with the new house. We had the house inspection today. Jarom stayed home to watch that and add any perspective he had on any potential problems, and I took Isaac out to get a few last minute shopping things done. The inspection seemed to go really well with only a few little things that Jarom will need to finish before closing, but luckily the inspector wasn't one of those ultra nit-picky kinds of guys who looks for any little thing wrong. The buyer's husband was there too and Jarom was able to meet him, which is good since he will be our landlord for three months. He and his wife are leaving on vacation next week and will be gone until a few days before closing, so one would assume that they aren't too worried about the inspection or appraisal at this point and likely won't be looking for excuses to pull out at the last minute (or at least we hope that's the case). They seem to really look forward to owning the home and plan on keeping it for many, many years for an investment. I hope that it is as good to them as it has been to us. As much as I look forward to having a new house, I'm really going to miss this house. It was our first house and we've had many wonderful memories here, made such good friends, and truly felt at home for the first time in our marriage.

With things moving along with the sale, we finally made it in to the design center yesterday to start making decisions with the new house. I was hoping we'd be able to get in earlier in the week, but I guess they only have one designer now (since the new housing market has slowed down so much), and she just never got around to calling us. Finally, yesterday, they called and said that there was someone there who could help us at least pick out the structural upgrades so that they could submit the plans to the city and start getting the paper work done. Jarom was able to take off from work a little early and we went down there (which is right here in Draper, very nice!) and started taking a look at some of the options available to us. We've had the price list for a while, but it was neat to see what some of the things actually look like. They've made a few changes to the floorplan since it was initially introduced. The spec home they are building down the street from our lot has been their guinea pig and it was while they were working on that one that they decided to make some changes, which I think will be very nice, like adding a linen closet upstairs and increasing the size of the laundry room. The kids' bedroom closets are now a little bit smaller, but still plenty big, especially for a child's bedroom. They've also changed the layout for the basement too by adding a mechanical room, changing the orientation for the family room, and changing the number of bedrooms downstairs from two to one, but that will still give us 5 bedrooms which is plenty. I think the layout changes are smart and will make the basement more usable when we get around to finishing it.

I'm glad they were able to squeeze us in yesterday, because otherwise, it would be a week or longer before we'd be able to go back (with us having the baby and all). I didn't want to wait too long because we need to get going on the whole process so our house will be done before the end of August when we will need to be out of this house. We'll go back in the next few weeks and start picking out colors and more of the cosmetic things for the interior, but those kinds of decisions can wait for a little while. I'm excited about some of the features of our new house and I think it's going to be a very nice place for us to raise our family.

Well that's enough pondering for one night. It's time to get ready for bed. I'm staying home from church tomorrow so I can rest and get a few more things done, then we'll head to Jarom's parents' house for dinner, drop off Isaac for a little slumber party with grandma and grandpa, and start our little adventure at the hopsital. The next blog entry will have lots of pictures and me gushing over my beautiful little baby girl, and I can't wait!

Super-Hero Headgear

While other of my friends also entrenched in the throws of potty training have posted pictures of their toddlers with their undies on their head, in the back of my mind, I always though, at least Isaac isn't finding creative uses for his undies - yet. Well, that changed yesterday. :)
At least he's gotten to the point where he will willingly wear his briefs, and though he still has the occasional accident (the most recent one was a few minutes ago, just inches from the toilet!!!), he's
still doing so well over all. He's even wearing briefs over night and not wearing diapers at all. So I get my wish of only worrying about diapering one child! (too bad I have a Costco box of diapers that is still about 90% full, but Emilie will be needing them before I know it.)