one month old

Friday Laney turned one month old! Friday morning I took Laney to a local breastfeeding support group. I weighed her there and she was 10.8.5- ten and a half pounds! Go Laney Rose! As part of the celebration the whole family went back to the Kaiser Permanente Panorama City Hospital complex for a TIPS (Thriving in Pregnancy) group reunion. Although it was a cold, rainy day and only about half the families showed up it was really fun to see the facilitator Phyllis and the midwives Ginny and Rosemary along with four of the new babies (all girls!) Owen and Gramp accompanied us and we all had fun. We shared our experiences, learned infant massage, ate cake, and received books for the babies and mugs for the moms. It was still raining when we left so we decided to avoid traffic and go to Burbank to eat. We found a nice little familly style Italian restaurant and enjoyed dinner. Laney slept on the way home but her poor brother Owen had his first experience throwing up right in the back seat of the car - all over momma! luckily momma was blocking Laney so she didn't get thrown up on.

Gramp visits

Gramp arrived late Tuesday night and we've all been enjoying having him here! Laney gets lots of cuddling from Gramp and his arms are just the right length for holding her! I will add pix soon!

Three weeks old

A new cupcake shop opened in town last month after the baker won the "Cupcake Wars" on Food Network. We decided it would be fun to take our little family of four for Valentine's Day. Saturday the 13th we tried to go around 11 am only to find out they opened at 11:30. Wait with our tots 30 whole minutes just to get inside the door? Not likely. Sunday afternoon we loaded up the car and tried again. Closed Sundays. And Mondays. They must've had lots of Valentine's Day special orders to count on since they would be turning away lots of Vday business! But Laney saved our plans by turning 3 weeks old on Tuesday so we went for 3 week birthday cupcakes. I loaded up both kids and we met daddy there after work. We had to have 3 week cupcakes anyway since for some odd reason Owen had a three week cupcake and no others. She had four flavors displayed so daddy suggested one of each.
One was called "heavenly" and was a take on the hostess chocolate cupcake with the white twirl of icing across the top, one red velvet, one double vanilla, and one lemon. O. had a couple bites of the chocolate and the vanilla, Laney just sat looking cute! The owner was super friendly. Hope the business does well. Happy three weeks old Miss Laneybug!

pix to come!

One week old

Laney's first week was very fun and busy. She had several visitors at the hospital, including Grandma and Grandpa Prichard, who brought big brother Owen on Tuesday evening. At first, Owen wasn't sure about momma in the big bed with all the machines around but by the end of the visit he approached Laney on his own and started calling her "didi", his word for baby. On Wednesday, O's godfather Dave came to meet Delaney and he brought a big balloon that Owen loved! Grandma, Grandpa, and Owen came again and Owen had a great time watching traffic below the window and walking in the halls. One or two of our nurses were the same nurses we had when Owen was born so they had fun seeing how big he was. Later Wednesday Karissa and Dana came by and spent time with us too. Daddy stayed overnight Tuesday and Wednesday at 5 the hospital served us our "celebratory dinner" Derek had chicken cordon bleu and I chose the salmon. We got tres leches cake and triple chocolate bundt cake for dessert, but didn't really have time for dessert with everything going on. Grandma stayed at the hospital overnight Wednesday while Derek went home to be with Owen. Thursday everyone came to the hospital around noon and we were discharged a little after one. Owen enjoyed having Laney next to him in the carseat on the ride home.

At first she had her days and nights a little mixed up and so Friday night momma was actually up all night. Saturday Amy came by to visit and Sunday Karina came by with the family but momma and L. were napping. Monday was our Great Starts appointment and L. had already gained back her birthweight plus some- she weighed in at 8 lb. 1.25 oz. The lactation consultant said she was getting plenty of milk, even though she was feeding for only 7-10 minutes on one side per feeding.
Tuesday Feb. 1 Laney was one week old! She started shifting her days and nights and slept 4-5 hour stretches overnight after some fussiness in the early evenings. Lots of spitting up and hiccuping going on, and of course lots of tiny diapers to change. Picking up O. after L. makes him seem like a behemoth, so solid and just BIG!

Meeting big brother Owen

Laney's Birthstory

with the nurse Sommer


A bit of a long post about Laney's debut.

Monday evening we all went to my parent's house for dinner, headed home and did the regular bedtime routine for Owen. I got up to use the bathroom around midnight and then around 1:20 A.M. I got up again. Derek always asks me where I'm going when I get up at night (while pregnant) and reminds me to be careful. I remember saying to Derek "I think I'm going to pee." but thinking in my head "I think my water just broke." And it had. So by 1:30 we were calling my parents to come over, packing a few last minute things, and getting dressed to go to the hospital. We left the house at 2:16 A.M. and arrived at L & D. around ten to three. They assigned us a room (#3) and we got settled in. It was very quiet in the wing with maybe 2-3 other rooms occupied as far as I could tell. The night nurse came in and hooked up the heplock with lots of twisty tubing all over the place. At least she did it up on the forearm this time and not on the top of my hand like last time. A Dr. Teal came in. She looked about 23; young, fresh and maybe a resident? She didn't check me until about 5:30 A.M. due to the PROM (pre-term rupture of membranes) (i.e. when the water breaks before labor has actively started) and she said I was effaced 60-70% and dilated to about 3 cm. Around 6 she came back and said they wanted to induce and start pitocin to get things started. Derek and I looked at each other. We had really wanted to avoid inducing this time, in order to help me better reach my goal of not using pain meds or an epidural. We said we wanted to wait, as I was having some contractions. She said her advising physician Dr. Mann was recommending starting the pit due to risk of infection after PROM. We said we'd wait a while longer. As soon as she left the room I grabbed my iphone and looked it up and decided to stick to my guns, that labor would progress on its own, and not to let the "pressure" of what big medicine wanted get to me. Pretty soon the night nurse came in carrying two IV bags. I asked what was in them and she said, "The pitocin the dr. ordered." I said, "No, we decided to wait on that." So she left it hanging on the cupboard and soon (luckily) both the nurse and the doctors changed shifts. Whew!

My day shift nurse was Sommer. She was amazing. She came on at 7:30 am for 12 hours and I was fairly confident I would deliver while she was my nurse. The first thing she did was remove the twisty tubing of the original heplock and put in a very simple straightforward one. Loved it. She reviewed my birth plan, sat down, and talked about the possibilities. She said that when the midwife came on at 9 we could probably see about delaying the induction, as midwives are often more laid back than the physicians. Then she explained all the options for laboring if we started the pit. I would have to be on the monitors continuously, but I could still use the rocking chair, the yoga ball, etc. near the bed. In the meantime, she would have me on the monitors for 20 minutes, and then take me off for 30 so I could move around the room, walk the halls, etc. As I knew, she explained that movement would really help with trying to move into active labor.

I heard the midwife talking in the hall before she came in the room and recognized the voice as Rosemary, the same midwife who had delivered Owen. She came in and we all hugged. She had been working with the prenatal group appointments since July also, (TIP-Thriving in Pregnancy) so we had been seen by her a few times during the pregnancy. She agreed to wait until noon to see if I was progressing.

She came to check me a little before one pm and I was only at 4 cm but since I was having stronger contractions and as Sommer said "I see a change in her demeanor," they didn't mention the pitocin again. Around this time, she said she had to keep me on the monitors and things moved fast from there. I basically went from 4 -10 cm. between 1 and 3 pm and started pushing around 3. Pushing took a bit of work since Laney was posterior (sunny-side up) with her face looking up toward my abdomen instead of down toward my back. They had to work on rotating her a bit for the delivery. Sommer kept saying "Let's have a birthday party" and at 3:26, we did! Daddy cut the cord after it finished pulsating and Laney spent the first hour skin to skin on me and nursing. They didn't even take her to weigh her until after that. Then daddy got to hold her. She had a head full of dark dark curly hair (which straightened out once it dried), dark blue eyes, and weighed 8 lbs. 20 1/4 inches. Welcome Laney!

I told Derek I really couldn't believe we had achieved the birth we had hope for without induction, pain meds, epidural, or complications. Her APGAR scores were 9 at both 1 min. and 5 min. We are beyond thrilled and sitting on cloud 9 with our little family of four!

Our first picture as a family four (nevermind that Laney is trying to hide-she's actually sucking her thumb)