A Possible Switch

I just saw the trailer for New Moon. While reading the books I've always been a die hard Team Edward member.But Taylor Launter makes me want to switch to Team Jacob...

First Sunday

Miss Grace made her first church appearance today. It was quite fun dressing her up this morning. I may or may not have set out her outfit the night before...
Showing off the socks that Poppy gave her.

Sad Day part 2

Aaron's mom left today, which was another sad day for our little family. She was such a great help and would watch the baby so that i could get things done around the apartment. She also helped me with my first outing WITHOUT the baby. I was proud of myself. We went up to San Fransisco and saw Wicked. It was amazing! 10 thousand times better than the book.
She also made Gracie this beautiful yellow blanket while she was here. Gracie had a fabulous time sleeping with it this morning.
Grandee you will be missed!
Now Aaron and I are on our own, the first time since Gracie was born... weird.

Lazy Day

Yesterday afternoon around 3pm the apartment was still a mess:
Miss Bliss and I were still in our jammies:And it was one fabulous day.

The Best Gift Ever

I don't agree with most people that the Bay Area has fantastic weather. There are days that are unbelievably hot and kind of unbearable, especially if you don't have air conditioning. Yes, i have complained about this quite a bit. Recently things got really hot. On friday i was feeling really sick and dehydrated. Then on monday there was a heat advisory for the area that said that if you were elderly or had small children (aka Gracie) then you needed to be in a location with air conditioning. We had to plan our day around being out of the house, with a 2 1/2 week old baby. I was losing it.

Yesterday afternoon i got a call from my dad. We chatted for a little bit and then he turned into a miracle man and offered the best gift ever. He told me to go get an air conditioner on his tab. I cried. My parents are amazing, really, you should be jealous.

Last night Aaron went out and got the air conditioner and it is now set up in our apartment.
I'm in love. Our apartment finally feels normal! The best part is that i don't need to plan my day around being out of the house because the heat is bad for the baby or cooking dinner really late to avoid the heat of the oven making things worse. Today my mother in law, Gracie, and i spent all afternoon in the air conditioning. Gracie might have gotten too close to the breeze...
Dad and Mom, i really can't thank you enough. You are so nice to help us out and we will definitely make it up to you in the future! You have saved the sanity of our little family.

Didn't Make the Cut

My mom took a lot of good pictures of Gracie while she was here, but i was waiting until we had decided on the picture for her announcement before i showed all of my favorites from the "photo shoot." My incredibly talented sister Ashby finished Gracie's announcement, so here are the other pictures:
We call this one "Special Delivery" hahaAnd we saved the best for last. We've got a smiler on our hands

The Past Week

I apologize for the sudden lack in posting. My life feels very much like the movie Groundhogs Day. I wake up and feel like i'm doing the exact same thing that i did yesterday (which is actually the case) and i'm completely unaware of what day of the week it is. Although we do the same thing all the time, we have found ways to entertain ourselves in the meantime.

Some of Aaron's family visited last weekend and i was able to get a semi-complete Barnard family photo. Check out Gracie's sweet "weed-whacker" handsGrace is our main source of entertainment. Pretty much everything she does we think is "cool, funny, and adorable" all at the same time. Maybe this is due to the fact that we're delirious with sleep deprivation. Either way, its still enjoyable. She has learned some new tricks recently like:

Sucking her thumb. Or really just having her thumb land in her mouth, much to her enjoyment, and sucking on it until she pulls it out again.
And holding her head up. Any time you put her on your shoulder (and she is awake) she moves her head all over the place. We're impressed, and think you should be too. :) Sometimes we do things that we think are funny, even though they probably aren't. But honestly, this picture cracks me up.This was our most recent attempt at a family photo, and it was unsuccessful. We'll try again next week.I really can't get enough of these two. Also notice that our child is wearing nothing but a diaper. It is so hot in this blasted place that just a diaper is a common occurrence. Lastly in the events of this week Gracie had her 2 week check up. We learned that she weighed 6lbs 12 oz when we were discharged from the hospital and at our appointment she weighed 7ibs 14oz. 1 pound in a week, nice! We're hoping for some pretty awesome baby rolls in the near future. Here is a picture of G-money taking her first bath, and showing off her more filled out frame.The weirdest part about her doctors appointment was the fact that the nurse called out Grace's name. We had a kid, we named her Grace, and now she is having her own doctors appointments. This is going to take some getting used to.

Sad Day

My mom left yesterday. It was a very sad day. The combination of sleep deprivation and hormone overload did not make for an easy goodbye. It was so nice to have her here. She made the transition from pregnant to parent very easy for me and did everything around the house so that i could concentrate on recovering. She was also the best blog doula ever end made sure my blog was not neglected. Mom thank you so much for everything!! You are the best and Gracie is lucky to have you as her Mema!

The Littlest Utah Fan

Aaron's parents and sister Rachel flew in town for the weekend. Gracie's Grandma and Grandpa bought her a pretty sweet UofU knit cap and booties in honor of her Dad, Uncle Joe, and her Poppy (and possibly her Aunt Rachel) who all went/are currently going to the U. She showed off her sweet outfit before Rachel, Aaron, and Grandpa left to go to the UofU vs. San Jose State football game.While the rest of the family was at the game Grandma and Gracie got some nice TLC time in. (and maybe we rented 17 Again...again, and maybe its the third time i've seen it...)I'm throwing this picture in here because it makes me happy. These are my two favorite people.
Side Note: To you BYU fans out there, do not be alarmed, Gracie roots for BOTH teams, and was thrilled when BYU beat Oklahoma.

One Week

The little Miss hit her week mark on wednesday, so to commemorate the occasion we took pictures. (And by we, i mean my mom...blog doula AND photographer). I'm so in love with this baby.

We also took some family pictures (on one of the rare occasions that i did my hair and make-up). Its so crazy that we're now a family of three. Aaron went back to work today which was really sad. I'm going to miss having him around all the time, and i'm definitely going to miss his help.

Today i was feeling adventurous and decided that it would be fun to go to target with my mom. Getting ready and out the door was quite the production, but we made it. I only lasted about 10 minutes in the store walking around before i was ready to go home. But, it was nice to get outside the apartment for a little bit. Despite sleeping through the entire outing, I think Gracie had a fabulous time.

One More Thing

Some people have asked me if i think the reason i was having weird contractions (thus leading the the heart rate dipping and the possibility of a c-section) was due to being induced, and i tend to answer "I don't know." I've never been in labor before so i don't know any different. However, if i could go back i would definitely do it again. After the baby was born, the doctor delivered the placenta and was really surprised at how calcified it was. He turned to my mom and said "Its a really good thing she was born today, and that we didn't wait." So even though things were a little stressed at times, i'm so grateful for the option i had to get induced. Would i get induced again in the future? Definitely. Although going on my own would be ideal, getting induced brought my baby here safely.

The Birth Story

My mom did such a fantastic job as my "blog doula" i'm hesitant to take over again. She kept everyone so well informed and was on top of her game with posting pictures and updating often that there isn't much of the birth story to tell. However, i figured that i would just fill in the blanks.

We called the hospital that morning and there was room (actually when we arrived it was like a ghost town in labor and delivery). I was really apprehensive driving over there and was worried that we would be late and somehow they would give my spot away (like at a restaurant). Can i blame my hormones for not thinking like a normal person?

Once everything was set up i just sat there waiting for the pain to come. It was normal and manageable until my doctor broke my water. It got really painful really fast. I was having very strange contractions pretty early on. I would have normal contractions (2-3 minutes apart) for a little, then all of the sudden i would have 5 or 6 contractions one on top of the other with no break in between them. We called them "marathon contractions." It was during one of the sets of marathon contractions that i snapped and asked for the epidural. I always knew that i would get an epidural but i wanted to see how far i could last without it (and it wasn't very long). The anesthesiologist was the coldest person ever and had no bedside manner at all but i didn't care as long as he had the goods.

20 minutes later i felt amazing. I think i felt better after my epidural than i did when i walked into the hospital that morning. I'm a huge fan. But i will give props to those women who go natural, i'm not sure i could do it. After my epidural kicked in the whole labor process became really uneventful. I felt bad for my mom and Aaron, because there was nothing to do. We watched a lot of TV. Mostly Cash Cab and the US Open. I continued to have the strange contractions so they turned the pitocin off and let my body do its own thing for awhile. The contractions slowed a little bit, but kept doing the 2-3 minutes apart/marathon tradeoff. During one of the marathon contractions the nurse came flying into my room because the baby's heart rate had dropped pretty low. She got me going on oxygen and had me lay on my right side because the baby responded well.

Progress was SO SLOW. 1 cm every hour or two. The nurse came in at one point and checked me. I was dilated to a 7, still having marathon contractions which stressed the baby out, and the baby's head was "bubbling" meaning the uterus was pushing it down but the baby's head wasn't going into the birth canal. She told me that if i didn't progress in the next hour that i would probably have to do a C-section. She left and called my doctor (and i found out later that she scheduled me in the OR for an emergency C-section). While she was gone i started to cry. I wasn't expecting news like this and felt like i had no time to mentally prepare for a c-section. I asked aaron to give me a blessing that the baby would be okay and that i would be okay with whatever decision my doctor made. I just wanted the baby here safely. Aaron gave me an amazing blessing and a few minutes later (15 minutes from when my nurse checked me and i was a 7) my doctor came in. He checked my contractions and told me i might need a c-section, then he checked my progress. He said "Wow, i don't know what happened here but you're now dialted to an 8-9, and the baby's head has dropped." It was amazing. My mom and Aaron exchanged a look right when the doctor said that.

I was an 8-9 at 5:30pm and they felt that i would probably be ready to push around 8 or 8:30. I told my Mom and Aaron to go get something to eat before things got crazy. They left around 6:15 to get some subway. My doctor left the hospital to go eat dinner with his family, and my nurse took her break for dinner as well. I was pretty much completely alone. I was fine with it because my labor had been so slow and boring up to this point that i figured everything would be fine. I started to feel my contractions through my epidural, but i was hesitant to up the dose because my left leg was completely numb and i had no control over it. A nurse came in to check on me since my other nurse was on a break, i told her about my pain. she said that i should change positions to try to get the medicine to settle in a new spot. When i shifted to my back the baby's heart rate dropped big time. The nurse immediately called for another nurse to come in, they strapped the oxygen to my face (i had just been holding it before), shifted me back to my right side, put an internal monitor on the baby and called my doctor. They checked me and i was dilated to a 10 and ready to push. At this point i asked my doctor if i should call my husband. She said yes, that i should dial and she would talk to him. When he answered she said "This is Nurse (i forgot her name) you need to get back here right now." and she hung up. They had me push a few times. They prepped the room for delivery. My doctor showed up, then Aaron and my mom came back in the room (they both were wide eyed and really confused). Because my epidural wore off just a little i was able to feel when i should push. My nurse came back to the room and things got going. I pushed for about 40 minutes and Gracie was born.

It was an unreal experience seeing her for the first time. I was kind of shell shocked and couldn't believe that she was finally here. They immediately put her on my chest and she didn't cry. I was freaking out that she couldn't breathe, but the doctor was like "She is a great pink color, so she is breathing, she just isn't crying." They rubbed her back to try to get her to cry but she just looked around. It was a nice quiet little moment. I remember Aaron leaning down to me once they took her to get her clean and saying "She looks just like you, babe." (that assessment has changed the longer she has been here, she looks more and more like aaron everyday). I'm pretty sure that all i did was stare at her for the first 48 hours. Aaron and i are both so in love with this little girl.

I'm doing pretty well right now. The recovery has been up and down. Sometimes i feel great and other times i feel like crap. But i can tell that things are slowly but surely getting better. Its really hard to let everyone else do things for me, i didn't think that i would care, but i want to help cook, or do the laundry, but i know that it would make me so tired. I'm so grateful for my Mom, Dad, and Aaron who have been an incredible support team. Gracie has been wonderful and i'm finding the whole sleepless night/caring for a baby for the first time thing is easier than i was expecting. I think she is spoiling me, and i keep waiting for something crazy to happen, but so far so good.

Poppy's Here!!!!

Saturday, Poppy came to meet his fourth granddaughter. He flew all the way from Washington, D.C. He has spent most of his time holding Gracie.

Saturday night, the two of them watched the BYU vs Oklahoma game. When BYU won, we worried that Poppy might spike Gracie in celebration, but thankfully he did not.

The interesting thing here is that Poppy went to the U of U. His children all went to BYU. He cheers for both teams until they play each other and then he bleeds red.

After church on Sunday (which Gracie did not attend) Poppy and Mema posed for a picture. It looks like Gracie is laughing but I think we caught her mid-yawn.

Later on Sunday, Lindsey came over and took Gracie's hand and footprints.

Gracie was not happy about this.

Lindsey is going to make Gracie a plaque for her room.

After the hand/footprint trauma, Gracie recovered by watching more football with Poppy.

Well, Poppy watched, Gracie slept.

Later, she rested in her baby recliner and sucked her new yellow mookie.

Mookie is our family's name for "pacifier".

Then she cuddled with Momma, who, despite Poppy being here, is still Gracie's favorite person.

Each day Gracie becomes more and more alert and we get to see her eyes.

All of us are hoping they'll stay blue but we know there are no guarantees they will.

In our family we have eye color teams. The Brown Team has the most members by far. The Blue Team has the least. The Blue Team needs Gracie.

Monday, Poppy flies back to Virginia and Gracie will have to find another shoulder to snuggle on.