7 Weeks and 7 Things about Angela

Angela is now seven weeks old. Today, in fact. She isn't doing too many "tricks" besides looking cute/beautiful or sad/pathetic to suit the situation. Instead of her achievements I thought I'd share some of my favorite things about her in general as well as some of my favorite pictures.

1. I love her hair. When it's wet and uncombed, it goes super curly! When combed, it's just wavy but oh so soft. I love to rub my cheek against the top of her head when she's lying on my shoulder.

2. She has several adorable gowns, and they're my favorite for night time. When I feed her, often her little feeties stick out of the bottom. Precious.

Look at those little feeties!

3. Angela came to this world alert and wanting to learn. She loves to stare and look around her, taking it all in. At least once a day she makes good eye contact with me and I try to have a long conversation with her. She sits and listens very well, although I have to infer a bit from her responses.

This is her at less than one week old! She's already staring intently.

4. When Angela's not alert and learning, she's eating or sleeping or crying. Being so busy makes her a serious baby. But we do get the occasional smile and it just melts our hearts!

5. She has lots of pretty faces, but she also has some pretty funny ones too. She makes a face like a pirate when she's being burped and makes a little turtle-like face when stretching. But the best one is when she's doing her "business." I laugh basically every time she poops.

See those curls! This isn't one of her better faces though.

6. Her cheeks are really filling out and I noticed her thighs are too. She may or may not be growing an extra chin.

7. I love to give her kisses. I kiss her nakey tummy, I kiss her chubby cheeks, I kiss her little hands, and I cannot resist kissing her sweet, sweet head (I sniff in the sweet baby smell while I'm at it).

Our Christmas Angel

The blog has taken a back-burner to the baby. When I went to put on my shoes to go home from the hospital, they broke. Into the trash they went. I can't help but think that was symbolic of ending a stage of life. Anyway, I know she's six weeks old now, but I better start at the beginning.

While some of you love the gory details of child birthing but I know some of you don't. So I'll try to keep it clean!

When I went for my last appointment, my doctor said progress was pretty minimal (as in half a centimeter minimal). We had an induction scheduled for the following week and he and I both expected I'd be keeping that appointment. I'd been having contractions at 20 minutes apart all week, but they obviously weren't doing much for me. Nonetheless, my mom was just waiting for the phone call to jump in the car and drive here from NM. We were worried that the crazy, unusually severe weather would keep her from coming. But things let up Christmas Eve, and her and my brother drove here in between blizzards.

We had dinner at Cafe Rio (note: everything I ate was mild thanks to heart burn, so this did NOT make me go into labor) and came home to watch our traditional Christmas movies. At 9pm (during Garfield's Christmas) I felt really sick. Contractions starting coming 10 and then 5 minutes apart. After an hour and a half I knew it was the real deal. My family, however, was skeptical. I insisted we go to the hospital and the on-call OB recommended it. My poor Mom and brother grabbed their unpacked bags (they'd only been here six hours) and followed us to the hospital. We got there at 11:30ish and I was admitted an hour later.

Yes, I had an epidural, and I am not ashamed. Once the real contractions had started, they were HARSH! I was very glad to have the shot. So I labored through the night in peace. The next morning we went to work on the pushing (most pain of my life--the only part that brought me to tears). That went on for about two hours. Then the on-call doctor came in, immediately did an episiotomy(which then proceeded to tear). And when I really thought I couldn't take it any longer out came my squirmy-wormy miracle, screaming like a banshee.

Then I really started crying. She was perfect and worth every ounce of physical pain and emotional heartache I'd felt. And it may sound cheesy, but I absolutely knew she was sent from Heaven specifically to me.