Another Sonogram?

I wasn’t sure if this would make the blog at first, but Chuck thought I should go ahead and post it because to him, it’s good news.

The day after giving birth to Aurora, during a routine abdominal exam, my nurse found a lump in my stomach about the size of a golf ball. The doctor came to check it out and said he was pretty sure it was a pedunculated fibroid tumor, but wanted me to recover for a couple weeks then get a sonogram just to make sure.

So, yesterday I went in to have it checked out. It was a little strange being in the same room with the same technician as all my pregnancy sonograms, but being there for such a different reason. Actually, the strangest thing was that she spoke in the same excited voice as she did during our pregnancy sonograms! Imagine this calm joyful voice saying “Oh yes, there it is! Look at it, it’s about 3 centimeters, and yes it’s just hanging right off your uterus!” as though we were looking at our baby for the first time.

Dr. Belt says fibroids are benign, but if left unchecked, it could continue to grow and cause problems in the future. She says it’s small enough now to be removed laparoscopically and wants me schedule surgery within the next couple months. The procedure will require general anesthesia, two small incisions, a camera through my bellybutton, then 1-2 weeks of recovery. Anesthesia is a little scary to me, and means 2 days of not being able to breastfeed Aurora but having to pump to maintain my supply. I may do some research to make sure this truly is the best course of action – I’d rather wait until I’m done nursing and caring for a newborn.

Of course, it may be best to do it during maternity leave, so I don’t come back to work just to take more time off. The good news is that it didn’t affect my pregnancy or childbirth, and of course that it's benign and treatable. I just have to tell myself what I told myself during labor – that I’ve seen Chuck get through much worse, and I know we’ll all be fine.

Behold the Bellybutton!

Bath time, here we come! Aurora's umbilical cord stump came off this morning, and if this just isn't just the cutest little bellybutton (and saddest little face) you have ever seen...

If only it had happened yesterday, we could've dunked her in Barton Springs Pool ;) We met up with Kim Barnett at Barton Springs last night so that Chuck & Nancy could do some swimming. It was a pretty warm evening, but that water is FREEZING! Kim, Rora & I just sat on the sidelines watching and crying (I'll let you guess which of us was crying).

Shopping & Chores

Today we went to Best Buy and Target, and yesterday we walked around the mall with Grandma Nancy. It’s nice to have her here to keep us company and help with the stroller and car seat while Chuck stays home and works. Chuck & I walk the mall all the time, doing laps upstairs and down, but yesterday just one lap on the lower level really made me feel sore. It is good to be walking around again, and I feel like such a mom pushing Aurora in the stroller!


Rora’s been a little fussier than usual these last few days and at times has trouble concentrating on eating, even when it's obvious she's hungry. When she struggles to latch on, I like to give her pep talks, or sometimes I say things like "Baby girl, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right," and "Remember what Grandpa Sandler used to say: practice doesn't make perfect, PERFECT practice makes perfect." At 4am it sometimes comes out as "Do it right or I'll never feed you again!" Luckily, she doesn't know what I'm saying (and eventually she does get it right).

Nancy has been trying to help with the baby and household chores, but she came to us with some sort of food poisoning and has been just taking it easy herself. This morning she offered to clean our bathroom, which was awesome. She doesn’t remember much about babies, and this whole grandma thing is taking awhile to sink in, but by the time Zeland is born we’ll have made her into a pro!

Grandma Nancy’s here!

Yes, it’s finally time in baby Aurora’s life when she gets to meet her grandparents. Nancy arrived yesterday, and Steve will be joining us soon. They’ll drive back to Arizona together next weekend, then just a couple days later Grandma & Grandpa Slane will be arriving.

Luckily, Aurora’s all about having visitors. On Thursday Jane brought us dinner, then Candace came over for lunch on Friday, and Amelia & Patrick brought brunch Saturday morning! Now that Nancy’s here, I may just hit the grocery store and start preparing meals myself again.

I just had to post this picture… it’s from this morning’s daddy daughter snuggle time. How cute are those Wadey noses.

The Littlest Things

I like my life to be relaxed and stress-free, but I also like to have a to-do list and accomplish as much as I can everyday. Even in these first 2-weeks, just blogging and having daily visitors has kept me feeling like me. Now I’ve started to think of all the little things I’d like to do in the next 10-weeks. Nothing big, but hey, it’s good to have goals:

• Send out birth announcements – I ordered the cutest announcements and hope to have them in the mail next week.
• Scrapbooking – I just ordered prints of my pregnancy and baby pictures and want to organize them in an album with our sonogram pics.
• Yard work – the weeds are taking over! This will probably happen when my parents visit – but it's never really DONE.
• Start taking walks everyday, and in a few weeks start going to post-natal yoga with Aurora.

Here’s a different kind of picture for you. This is me just moments after I was born. I kind of look like a tiny newborn version of my dad! At least I don't look very feminine yet. I think I look more like my mom now as an adult (though, I'm a good mix of both), so we do continue to change as we grow. I say my perfect little baby girl may end up looking like me yet!

2-weeks Tomorrow

Today we had Aurora’s 2-week pediatrician appointment. She weighed in at a whopping 7 pounds 8 ounces! We were told she should be back to her birth weight by 2-weeks, but she’s gained a full pound in the last week and a half! I guess our nursing is working after all.

I entered her stats into a baby percentile calculator, and she’s squarely in the 50th percentile. Totally average and perfect – I love it. The pediatrician said we need to start giving her vitamin drops to make sure she gets enough Vitamin D, so we stopped and picked those up. I also trimmed her nails when we got home, which she didn’t mind at all.

Oh, and Aurora got her first official pieces of mail – her Social Security Card AND her very own health insurance card! This morning I ordered copies of her birth certificate. She is now an official person. Next thing you know she’ll have her driver’s license and will be getting a job.

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at the LAF picnic. Rora let my co-workers and volunteers hold and adore her while I ate everything in sight and hugged my friends for an hour and a half. She was SUCH a good girl the whole time – no fussing at all until the very end, when she was just alerting me to the fact that it was time to go home and feed her. We were both totally exhausted when we got home, but it was a really nice day.

Tomorrow it'll be 2-weeks down... only a lifetime more to go!

Meals on Wheels

Aurora and I have been so lucky to be able to spend our first week at home recovering, getting used to nursing, and generally taking it easy. But I’ve been SO much hungrier post-baby then I ever was when I was pregnant. Luckily, my friends at work signed up to bring us food. Chuck needs to keep working and is no cook, so having nutritious meals delivered has made every aspect of this whole adventure so much easier for all of us. Here’s a recap of our food deliveries so far:

Monday – Daniela grabbed fish tacos & cheese enchiladas from Chuy’s.

Tuesday – Bianca brought a tray of mac ‘n’ cheese from Central Market.

Wednesday – We had spinach lasagna, French bread, a garden salad AND almond gelato thanks to Tara.

Thursday – Haley delivered manicotti and a huge roll of garlic bread.

Friday – Devon & Melissa came together with two days of meals. Devon brought a Greek salad, tabouleh, hummus and pitas, chicken for Chuck, and one amazing orange pound cake for dessert. Melissa made the best eggplant parmesan I have ever tasted.

Saturday – Bianca & Aaron came over at lunchtime, and while Bianca held Aurora, Aaron made his famous squash and pesto casserole right in our kitchen! I love squash.

Sunday – Kelsey & Jim stopped by with smoked mozzarella pasta salad, roasted potatoes and veggies from Whole Foods.

Monday – Daniela took a 2nd turn coming to visit, this time bringing yummy homemade lasagna.

Tuesday – Jennifer brought us manicotti, French bread and cookies!

Not only has all the food been delicious, but I’ve loved looking forward to having visitors each day and sharing Aurora with each of you one-on-one. I’m not sure how I’ll make it 10 more weeks without you guys… I guess I’ll just have to bring Aurora in for lunches in the LAF kitchen.

My First Outing

This afternoon I decided to take a trip to HEB on my own. I’d just fed Aurora and knew that she’d be out for the next two hours, and thanks to Bianca for giving us an HEB gift card, I figured I should take advantage of the beautiful day and head out into the real world.

The strangest thing about going out was that I feel so different and I’m still so sore, but suddenly everybody looked at me like my old self and treated me like any other person moving too slow - cutting me off with their carts and looking right past me. When I was pregnant, people looked at me like I was special. They'd hold the door for me and ask when I was due and whether I was having a boy or a girl. The times we've gone out with Aurora, people treated us like we were doing something really special, and wanted to know how old she was and what her name is. Today when I asked for help out to my car, the lady looked at me like “you’re kidding, right?” I think I need a sign that says “I just had a baby 10 days ago – I’m still special!” Oh well. Maybe we should just treat everybody we meet like they're special, but we don't.

I stocked up on wipes, grabbed some water, soda, juice, fresh fruit, cereal and milk (I am so hungry first thing in the morning), as well as some coconut almond chocolate chip ice cream. It’s already half gone.

Here’s a photo for you – me with the most special part of our little family:

A Good Night

Last night was our best night of sleep yet. Aurora’s fussy hour has slowly been shifting earlier and earlier in the evening, and last night she was done crying by midnight. We all went to sleep soon after (Aurora in her bassinet next to us), and she didn’t wake up until just over 3 hours later. Daddy picked her up and brought her to me while I set up my nursing pillow, and she fed for 20 minutes straight (yay!). A new diaper and we were off to another 3 hours of sound sleep before her next feeding.

During that 2nd feeding, I watched as the clear sky turned ominous, lightening started to strike in the distance, followed by clapping thunder, pouring rain, and a hail storm! I opened the bedroom door to let Tater hide under the bed, but the baby didn’t even notice. Chuck loves storms, so he woke up to snuggle Rora and called it a “magical moment.”

Aurora didn’t wake up again until 8:30am, when I fed her and gave her to Chuck for some snuggle time. They’re still snoozing, but I decided to take advantage of the quiet morning – took a shower, tried on more pre-pregnancy pants (they fit!), and decided to document our good night. I don’t know if all these details are interesting or not, but I figure the blog is as much for me to journal my experience as it is for you to share in it!

I hope you’re all having a good weekend.

Sleeping Cutie

Okay, so we’re going to call this a milk coma. If you are a mom and have experienced this phenomenon, any friendly advice you can offer is greatly appreciated, as this whole nursing thing is new to us…


Basically, once Rora’s been feeding for, oh 8-10 minutes, she totally conks out! I can tickle her feet, pump her arms and legs, rub her cheeks, burp her, change her diaper – sometimes she is just out for the count! I know she’s only a week old, but my goal is to give her full feedings, and our pediatrician said feedings should last 20-30 minutes. She also said Aurora was gaining weight fine, and I don't think milk production is an issue – so maybe her tiny tummy is just filling up fast.

I might check out the "Baby Bistro" breastfeeding support group at Seton, just to make sure we’re doing everything right. Until then, any tips or tricks in general are welcome!

One week old

Who says all babies do is eat, sleep, poop and cry? They also squirm!!!



Sue Potts told me awhile back that everything your baby does is cute – that in fact, I’d think my baby’s poop was cute. I believe I looked at her like she was a bit silly when she said that. But boy was it a true statement! You might be wondering, what’s so cute about poop? It's not so much the poop itself, but faces she makes when she realizes she’s pooping! The diapering is much easier than either of us expected it to be, but I’m not sure I’d describe diapering as adorable. Oh, and don't worry - she's not pooping in this video. Just making cute faces.

Life in the Nursery

We’ve been pretty much living in the nursery these last few days. We have it set up with everything we need, including Chuck’s laptop and Wacom tablet so he can actually work while hanging out with us. Did I mention how lucky we are to have a daddy working from home??? He claims he hasn’t been getting enough work done, but I swear – he types something, looks up at Aurora, draws something, picks her up and snuggles for a few minutes, goes downstairs for some water, gazes at her features for awhile then grabs the camera (you get the idea).

We did take a little walk through the neighborhood yesterday and introduced Aurora to a couple of the neighbors, and we've been hanging out on the balcony here and there for some fresh air. Overall, it's been a relaxing day, and a pretty neat week.