Sucker

Good, we're finally back up and running. The posting service that we use to host the family website was running a bit slow, but now we are back in business. Nothing new has really happened these last few days. Ummm, it's been a nice change being on our own again. Don't get me wrong, Ma (Trung's Mom) was truly very helpful while she was here, but now it's just us and it feels more real, like a little family. :) Oh, yesterday Lydia turned three weeks old and graduated from her Newborn diapers. Our little girl is growing up!

Okay, I have officially been suckered in...the baby has been sleeping with us these last couple nights, which is known as the "family bed". She really does sleep better with us, averaging 3-4 hours each session, while in the crib, she sleeps at most 3 hours, if she even falls asleep at that! I figured it would be okay because 1) she's still young and 2) she's going to have to sleep with us and/or the bassinet while in Houston since we're not taking the crib with us. I still try to get her to sleep in her crib as much as possible during the day, so she doesn't get "spoiled". :P

So they say in the baby books for mommy to sleep when the baby sleeps; let me tell ya, you really need it. Actually, just looking at Lydia sleep makes me sleepy.

Daddy's little girl

I know that they say you can never spoil a newborn, but when exactly is the child no longer a newborn? Well, I'm all about putting Lydia in her crib to sleep, but Trung, well, see for yourself.

Wendy's big day

Congratulations to my dear friends Nick and Wendy on their wedding day! More pics can be viewed here. Best wishes, you guys!

Coexistence

When we brought Lydia home for the first time, Sasha followed us into the baby room and peeked into the baby crib. Nowadays, she'll get close enough to smell the baby's head, but then quickly dashes off. She knows that something's different and is a little bit jealous of the lack of attention. At least she seems to know that Lydia won't do anything to her, unlike my little niece and nephew who are always trying to hunt her down when they visit. Well, for now, it seems that the cat and the baby can coexist. :)
Yesterday, I drove my car for the first time in weeks. My mother-in-law and I went to HEB to buy a few things here and there. Oh, and I got a phone call today from Babies "R" Us; my glider and ottoman have arrived. I can't wait to use them since my back has been killing me! YEAH!

Two weeks doctor's appointment

Well, it seems that Lydia is doing perfectly fine. All the concerns that I had that I expressed to the pediatrician today were apparently of no concern to her, so we are all good. As it turns out, Lydia has slept better today than the last few days. We already know that she likes car rides because of the "white noise" factor and that she likes to sleep in the living room during the day so that she can hear us. We were also initially concerned about her weight, but she has safely passed her birth weight, which is what the doctor looks for at the two weeks mark.

We've discovered that not only does Lydia like peeing on my mom, but she also likes to pee while we're in the middle of changing her diaper. Fortunately, the two times that she's done that to me, I had a diaper underneath her bum. My mother-in-law, however, was not so lucky today; Lydia wetted her own clothes and the blanket that she was on. Trung is quite proud that the baby has not peed under his watch, but just you wait! :P

Sleepiness

With Lydia solely on breast milk and Trung starting up with work tomorrow, I'm the only one up at nights now. At first it kinda sucked if Lydia wouldn't sleep because I would have to keep getting up, but these past couple days, she's been sleeping two to three hours at a time. She's still having trouble taking long naps during the early evenings though. I thought that it might be colic at first, but now I think she just likes to be held, for example...Here's Lydia taking a nap with Grandma Ly. We've got her two weeks pediatrician visit tomorrow, so maybe the good doctor will be able to offer us some advice.

Today, Trung and I were able to get out again. His mom was kind enough to watch a fussy Lydia while we went to Target. I don't know why we always end up going to Target, but we just do. You know, I haven't driven in like, three weeks! Anyhow, it's nice getting away for a little bit, but by the time we head back home, I'm kinda missing Lydia. I love my little girl!

Oops!

Today my parents came up to see the baby. Once again, my mother made tons of food, so it's a good thing we invited some friends over for lunch to help us eat most of it. The funniest thing happened while my mother was holding the baby...Lydia peed on her! My mom said she felt something warm and when she stood up, there were wet marks right around her crotch and thighs. But when we checked Lydia, her clothes were dry. Apparently, the newborn Huggies brand of diapers are a tad too big for Lydia and the angle at which my mom was holding her caused the urine to skip her clothes and go straight on my mom. I felt bad, but I couldn't stop laughing. My mom was a good sport about it though, and just blew dried her pants.

Umbilical cord

Today Lydia's umbilical stub fell off. I'm one of those kinds of people who likes to keep everything...I mean EVERYTHING, but Trung will probably make me throw it away. :( I had a bit of trouble putting the baby to sleep this afternoon. Everytime I feed her, she fell asleep...so, I would put her in her crib, but then she would wake up 5-15 minutes later and then I would feed her again; thus, an endless cycle for about two hours. Well, when Trung got home from the Asian supermarket with his mom, I handed her off and she slept for two hours! What tha? Humph! Oh wells, at least she ended up sleeping and I got to take a nap as well.

Here are more pics of our Lydia as a little burrito or as Trung likes to say, "an egg roll"...with her pacifier (which we tried to avoid , but couldn't cause she's quite a sucker)and here with mouth wide open. (welcome to my world)

Getting into the groove of things

I think that we are beginning to get the hang of Lydia's sleeping schedule and the whole parenthood thing. The early morning wake-up calls weren't as bad as I thought since Trung is usually up with me, though I don't really look forward to them every night. I think once my glider and ottoman arrive, it won't be as bad. I was nursing on a chair that leaned too far back, so now I'm on the sofa in our bedroom, but that doesn't work that well either. I'll try calling the store tomorrow to see if I can get a status.

I can't believe how fast the days go by with a baby. I remember sitting around just a couple weeks ago, just looking for something to do and now, we're so busy messing with the baby or catching up on sleep that time really flies. Oh, and we've been watching the Food Network so much, which makes me wish I didn't have to eat some variation of chicken soup every day. The daily routine goes something like this: wake up 3-4 times during the night to nurse the baby, get up around 9-10ish, mess with baby all day, take an hour nap sometime during the late afternoon, sleep after nursing the baby around midnight. Once Trung goes back on Tuesday, however, it will be harder, but at least I'll still have his mom around for several more days to help cook and what not.

One week old

Happy one week birthday, Lydia! Here's what we did today to celebrate...Ah, sleep is so nice. :)

Well, I weighed myself for the first time since I've been home and as of this morning, well, let's just say I've still got a little ways to go. I basically look like I'm 4 months pregnant again with the little pouch. It's really crazy how the body accomodates the expanding uterus though; the abdominal muscles actually split. The nurse told to lay on my back and lift just my head; when I did, I could feel the gap between my abs!!! Anyhow, now I've got to slowly do crunches to slowly bring my muscles back together again.

Tonight Trung and I went to Target and left Lydia with his mother. It was nice getting away for a couple hours even though we were buying baby stuff and I kept thinking about her when I saw other babies. I can't wait until she's a month old and I can take her places.

More Lydia pics

Here's Lydia at 5 days old! Isn't she a doll? We think that she has Trung's lips and my nose, but we'll let you be the judge of that.

Delivery details

We've been home for two nights now and are kinda getting the hang of being new parents (also known as not sleeping much). I am still trying to learn Lydia's cries, which should be easier than you would think since they can only really be cries of hunger, dirty diapers, and/or attention, but I guess when you're half asleep, it's pretty hard to figure it out. It's still all kinda surreal; I mean, just the night before Lydia's birth, I was folding her little clothes (which are still sitting in the laundry basket)...and now I'm a mommy!!! AHHH!

Okay, since I don't have any uploaded pictures, I'll take this time to explain the details of that big day. I woke up Tuesday morning at 6 AM, thinking that my water had broke. The after hours nurse informed me that my water had not broken and that I should wait until 8 AM before heading to the hospital. Well, as soon as I went back to bed, I started really feeling the contractions (I had slept through the early ones). We finally got to the hospital at 8:40 AMish and went to the doctor's office. Since the on call doctor was not in and my contractions had gone from 5 minutes to 3 minutes apart, the front desk person told me to go straight to Labor and Delivery where I found out that I was indeed in labor and was 5 centimenters dilated and 100% effaced. This part of the labor kinda sucked since no one really seemed to be very helpful. The after hours nurse seemed doubtful that I was in labor and I had to keep bouncing on my birthing ball at the doctor's office because no one would put me in a room. Anyhow...

We had a really great nurse named Corby at Labor and Delivery. She stayed with us pretty much the entire time and helped me get through the contractions; she really seemed to know what she was doing. I was given a couple doses of pain killers, but was not induced or given epidural (by choice). I don't know if I would get an epidural next time, but the labor only lasted 6 hours, which isn't bad for a first delivery.

We stayed in the delivery room until about 5:30 PM, when we were then moved to the recovery room. My parents and Wendy were there to greet us, with flowers, a balloon, and cries of happiness. We had several other visitors that night that included Sing and Maggie, my cousins, and Jason. At first I thought that I didn't want to have too many guests, but after having the baby, I wanted to share her with everyone. We actually got a pretty decent amount of sleep that night since the first night, the baby is usually still full and very very tired. The next night went by a lot slower, since we couldn't figure out the best way to breastfeed just yet. Anyhow, like I said before, it really is good to be home and having Trung's mom here has been extremely helpful with meals and what nots.

My family came up today...my brother's family to see the baby for the first time. We had a great time! Everyone's very excited about the newest addition to the family. Well, Lydia's awake now, so I gotta tend to her...my new life. :)

Home at last

Rather than talk about the weekend like I said I would, let's just cut to the chase. Trung and I proudly present the newest addition to our family (drumroll please). Here's Lydia...TA-DA!
For anyone who doesn't know what's going on, our baby Lydia was born Tuesday, September 5th at 1:37 PM. She weighed 7 lbs, 12 oz and was 20 3/4 inches long. We're so in love!

So, we're now all at home and boy (or girl, tee hee), it's nice to be home. We're not necessarily getting more sleep, actually, probably less, but at least we're at home. Trung's mom flew in from Florida yesterday at 11:15 AM and we were discharged from the hospital a couple hours later. More pictures and information soon; I gotta catch up on my zzz's while the baby is sleeping now.

Am I or am I not in Labor?

That really is the question this morning. I woke up around 6 AM, when I thought my water broke, but when I called the hospital after hours line, the nurse said it probably wasn't my water breaking. Well, after contracting for every 5 minutes for about a 1 minute each for almost an hour now, I think I really may be going into labor. I guess we'll see when we get to the hospital at 8. I'm contracting now and bouncing on my fitness ball (now known as my birthing ball) Yikes! Hopefully the next post will have some major news...until then, keep your fingers crossed for me! :)

No laboring on Labor Day

I'll be writing more tomorrow once the work week starts up again; I just wanted to say that I have not had the baby yet. Today was the official due date, but with only an hour and a half left, I can safely say that Lydia will be born past the due date. Most firstborns are born late, so I'm not at a surprised that this day has come and just about gone without much excitement. I have a doctor's appointment on Wednesday, so hopefully I will have more information as to when Lydia will join us. For now, here are some maternity pictures of me (and Trung) that were taken by our friend Debra of Everafter Images.We got this next photograph in black and white.

An ordinary day

Today I went to Gymboree to buy more super cute baby clothes for Lydia. I already had my eyes on a few items, so I headed straight to those items when I entered the store. I know I've been spending way too much on clothes, but 1) I'm returning a bunch of clothes that I had bought at the outlet because they aren't as cute and 2) I'm having a girl! 'nuff said. Then I had Taiwanese breakfast with none other than Wendy. We chilled for a little while at the house before she took off to go get her marriage license. Since then, I've been taking care of little details, like finding an electrician to drop down a phone line in Trung's office and preparing a list of numbers to call when I go into labor and when Lydia is born.

Trung just received his new computer case and hard drive and is very excited about it. Right now he's sitting on his office floor singing random songs, while putting his computer together. It's very interesting the things that make a techie happy. Gotta love it. :)

Oh, one thing I'd like to mention...I would have liked for Lydia to have been born today due to the school grade level cut-off date being September 1st. Well, now that that is unlikely to happen, we're just hanging tight and seeing when she decides to say "hi". I have the option of being induced at week 41, but I'm going to try and hold off as long as the doctor will let me and go all natural.