Hello, World! It's Kelly!

As you know, I was scheduled to have my c-section today.  We were all ready to have this baby on July second - heck, even stubborn baby was hanging out all high up and refusing to come down!  Unfortunately, when I went for my last prenatal visit on Tuesday, the baby wasn't the only thing that was up.  I had high blood pressure and there was protein in my urine, so I got sent to the hospital for monitoring and tests.

This was how I spent pretty much the whole afternoon.

I got more blood and urine tests done.  The nurse said everything looked fine, including my blood pressure which was only slightly high - with the exception of my urine.  I forget what it was, but there was something in there that was elevated.  The count was supposed to be under 300 and mine was over 1000.  WHOOPS!  So, I was given an option - since I was already having contractions, and had been having them for a day and a half, I could wait and see if they'd progress on their own enough to have a VBAC that night.  My other option was to just say forget it and have the c-section when my OB was done with her office hours .

Since I had been in pretty bad pain, and I wasn't really dilated much, and I'd only had two hours of sleep in the previous 39 hours, I decided to go ahead with the c-section after all.  I kid you not, a mere five minutes after I told the triage nurse my decision they brought in this woman who was literally screaming at the top of her lungs in pain.  She kept yelling about her water breaking, and saying she couldn't help it so everyone needed to shut the f#*% up!  It was horrific!  Seriously, my husband and I just looked at each other in fear and finally he said, "I think you made the right choice."  LOL!

Finally my OB arrived and she said that even if my tests had come back okay, the way I was having contractions I probably would have been back at the hospital that night anyway.  They got me prepped and we headed into surgery.  I was pretty calm this time since I kinda knew what was going to happen.  A little while later I was rewarded with this:

Miss Kelly Lynn Fehling entered the world at 7:34 in the evening weighing a whopping TEN POUNDS, SIX OUNCES!!!  It was so funny, because right before surgery started my doctor was like, this is going to be a big baby - at least eight and a half pounds!  HA!

When they pulled her out everyone in the room was exclaiming "WHOA!" or "WOW!" or "OH MY GOODNESS!!!"  It kinda freaked me out at first because I didn't know what they were talking about.  Even my husband had this look of shock and surprise on his face.  Of course, right away I realized they were all smiling and even laughing, so whatever it was, it was okay.

Turns out, it was the chub that got them.  This child is almost exactly the same length that Bubba was (just under 21 inches long) but outweighed the boy by three whole pounds.  You know, the boy with whom I was induced because he was, and I quote, "getting big."  Yeah.

My doctor congratulated me on choosing the c-section.  :)

Look how big this baby is!  Crazy!

Since my ultimate plan was to pump and bottle feed, I had no issues with giving the baby a binky right away. I knew the hospital provided those green Soothies, but from past experience I also knew they didn't really stay put.  Luckily I read a blog post about these Nuk OrthoStar ones and had picked up some the week before.  They're like, a MILLION times better!

Also, I like how she was holding on to the little sticking out part.  :)

My mother in law flew in Thursday night, and on Friday my husband brought her and Bubba to the hospital for a visit.  The first thing Bubba said when he saw the baby was "MOM!  I think it's Kelly!  She came out!" So cute!  When my husband and his mom went to go grab some dinner, Bubba stayed with me in the room and asked if he could hold the baby.  How could I say no to that?

She was a little big for the side snap shirts the hospital had.  The ones they put on her were all stretched out, so I just had my husband grab some footie pjs from home and we put her in those.

She had her little fist held up here, and my husband joked that she was already saying "FIGHT THE POWER."  Then he decided he needed a photo of her first rebel moment.

On the way home we hit Starbucks where I got myself a gigantic iced chai latte.  I didn't have any caffeine during my entire pregnancy, which meant I had no chai lattes.  Seriously - if heaven has a taste, I think it would taste the way this thing did.  Sweet, sweet nectar!  AHHH!

Miss Kelly Bean was glad to be home.  I could just tell.

She was all like, Rock and ROLL, mom.

She got reintroduced to Grandma and her brother, who seems insistent that we must wake up the baby every time she goes to sleep.  That's not going to be a problem or anything, right?

While the baby slept, Bubba and his grandma hung out together and each enjoyed their gadgetry.  Well played, Apple.

I have been getting settled into my routine of pumping every three hours or so.  This was my photo for the first day of the July Photo A Day challenge - a self portrait.  This is my life right now - Gray yoga pants that are probably over a decade old (actually, my very first pair of yoga pants ever!), a puffy postpartum belly, and a breast pump hooked up to a little bottle of fresh-squeezed.

You don't want to see what my head looks like.  OY!

While I was in the hospital, I did manage to breast feed for a few days.  She had a good latch, per the lactation consultant, but my skin is just too freaking sensitive.  Finally, another LC was like, well, if you're planning on pumping and bottle feeding anyway, you may as well stop putting yourself through this torture.  I can see how she's torn you up and it's not going to get better.  Even if I was planning on sticking to straight from the breast, she said she would have still told me to take a few days off and just pump.  It was that bad.

By the time I got home, the situation was trying to heal but it got a lot worse before it got better.  I had to put bandaids on myself because I was bleeding a bit, and well, these were the only ones we had that were the right size.  This is the ridiculousness that is my life, I swear.

One of the perks to having a giant baby?  If you plan on cloth diapering, you don't have to waste money on those teeny newborn sized ones, or wait until your baby grows into the medium size that fits forever.  You just go ahead and smack a CD on that chunky little behind!  Obviously, someone was not as enthused about her fluffy butt as I was.  She showed her displeasure by immediately filling it up, if you know what I mean.

We headed out on our first outing today - a visit to the pediatrician.  I got to put the first in a long parade of vintage baby dresses on her and could have just died at the sweetness!  They had us strip her down and change her into a clean diaper for her weighing and measurement.  Immediately after my husband had removed the diaper she was wearing the girl peed all over the exam bed!  We were both horrified, as Bubba never did that, but the nurse assured us it happens all the time.

After we left there, we stopped at the grocery store to grab some stuff for sandwiches.  Please notice that the baby bucket is safely INSIDE the grocery cart and not balanced up on top of the seat!  It really ticks me off when I see people do that because it's so freaking unsafe.  You just made your cart taller than it is wide, and therefore it's at more risk for tipping when you turn corners - oh, and your INFANT is balanced at the very top, meaning she has the farthest to fall onto what is usually a VERY hard concrete or tile floor.

I've seen carts fall over like this, and it's scary.  A few months ago there was even a news story about some woman who put her baby up there and sure enough, the cart tipped and the baby fell.  It died due to it's injuries.  It says very clearly in the owner's manuals to not do this, but no one reads the manual any more.  Also, people see other people do it all the time so they assume it is safe but it's not!  Pleasepleaseplease don't put your baby up there.  Either put it in the basket, or wear it in a carrier of some sort, or leave it home with someone while you run errands.

And that concludes my ranty PSA for today.  :)