Lila's Fourth Month

Lila's fourth month has been filled with lots of visits from family. In the first half of August, my parents and sisters came to visit us (well, really to visit the baby, of course!) They were here to help celebrate Lila's 100th day birthday (a korean tradition). We had a really nice time with them and we even had some cake on Lila's behalf. We also managed to get some nice pictures taken professionally for this occasion. Later in August, Nate's brother Josh was also able to visit for a few days. Lila was so happy to meet her uncle!

As for any milestones this month: 1. Lila has learned how to roll from her stomach to her back (or at least she's done this a handful of times now, possibly by accidentally tipping over). 2. She's sitting in a highchair for the first time (her balance may not be all there yet, she still tips over sometimes so we have to strap her in tight). 3. She has now started eating solids (rice cereal) in the morning. 4. She has learned how to laugh! It's so much fun to hear her laugh and she is getting to be so much fun to play with! And check out the picture of her wearing sunglasses and Michigan gear! She already has a favorite team - Go Blue!!

Lila's Third Month

In addition to babbling a lot more during her third month, Lila has found her shreaking voice. She has definitely developed her vocal cords more! Lila also makes these expressions that look like she's laughing when she's excited, but no sound actually comes out. She smiles/opens her mouth really wide and jumps around in our arms but then turns her head. It's really cute, it's like she's shy or something when she turns her head. Also during this month, Lila has been sitting in her bumbo chair a lot more. I think she thinks it's pretty cool to be sitting up now, like an adult. She's also had a few more play dates with her friend Max and she's still captivated by Mr Octopus and Ms Goldfish (her playmat buddies). Lastly, Lila has really started increasing the drool factor. I don't know if you can tell from the one picture I posted where she's doing some tummy time, but there's a lot of drool on her face. We still think she's the cutest though!

Lila's Second Month

Lila's second month was full of a lot of firsts - her first real smile, her first walk around the neighborhood, her first play date, first immunizations and first full bath. We saw Lila's first real smile on June 20th (not just gas smiles) and boy did it melt our hearts when we saw it. We were lucky enough to see plenty of more smiles after that point too. Lila also had her first play date with her first friend Max. His mom Julie had Max just a few weeks before I had Lila. It's nice that they are so close in age and it helps me to have someone that is in the same situation as I am with having our first newborn. There's nothing like having someone that you can vent with and share notes with regarding babies. In June, Lila's umbilical cord finally fell off so we were able to finally give her a bath without being paranoid about her cord getting wet (at least I was paranoid, Nate not so much). She also had the first of many immunizations to come at the doctor's - poor baby, shots are no fun. Oh, I almost forgot - we also took Lila with us to her first social outing - the annual ER welcome party thrown for interns. She spent the majority of the time at the party just looking around or sleeping. By the way, take a look at the picture of her in the bath towel giving what looks like a little wink - how cute!

Lila's First Month

Lila's first week at home from the hospital was pretty much spent sleeping (she slept sporadically throughout the entire day but never for more than 2 or 3 hours at a time), eating, crying and pooping/peeing - lots of pooping & peeing. She ate basically around the clock every 2 - 3 hours for the first three weeks. At 4 and a half weeks, she amazingly slept through the night for the first time! You may not know this (I didn't at first), but sleeping through the night is actually only 5 hours for babies. Yes, only 5 hours. But when you have a newborn, 5 hours is a wonderful thing.

Within the first 2 weeks, Lila had regained her birth weight and she was doing very well. I was told that her weight was in the 50% percentile (perfect!) and her height was in the 95% percentile! She may become one tall lady! She definitely got more of Nate's genes than mine. If anyone had asked me before she was born about what she would look like, I would've said she most likely would have black hair and brown eyes. Boy was I wrong! When Lila was born, she did have dark hair, but she also had these beautiful auburn highlights and she also had greenish/blue eyes! And that hair - she had so much of it!!! That was usually the first thing everyone that saw her commented on.

In the month of May, we were lucky to have my mother-in-law with us to help with household chores, cooking, cleaning, etc. We were very fortunate to have her there to help us since I was in no condition, especially the first few weeks after giving birth, to do any of those things. My sister-in-law was also here the exact week that Lila was born. Like I said earlier, that was perfect timing on their part! Right after my mother-in-law left, my parents came to stay with us to help out and to see the baby. So I spent the first month with family, just trying to recover from labor and take care of the baby and of course, tried to get some sleep (ha!).

Still Getting Caught Up

This is slightly out of sequence, but I wanted to back up and write about what Nate and I were up to before Lila was born.

In February 2008, Nate and I had a chance to go to Honolulu, Hawaii - Nate had a Society of Critical Care Medicine conference he was presenting at. I fortunately was in my second trimester, which is the best time to travel during pregnancy so we kind of turned the trip into a "baby-moon". Now if you're wondering if we had a wonderful time, I would say it was nice, but not the best trip we've ever taken. I definitely appreciate the fact that we got to go to Oahu - I know many people never get the chance to go to such places, so please don't get me wrong. I definitely appreciate the fact that I was able to go on this trip, but it just wasn't the most enjoyable one for me.

When you're 6 months pregnant, you're somewhat limited to the physical things that you can do. Nate and I love to go snorkeling and we also enjoy hiking when we go on trips, but since I was pregnant, he didn't think it was the best idea to do either of these things, with the hot sun and all. (In 2005, we had taken a fantastic trip to Maui - now that was an absolutely wonderful trip - probably the most beautiful place I've ever been to. We went snorkeling, hiking, even zip-lining, which was a blast.) I didn't know what the big deal was with going swimming in the ocean, but Nate thought that salty ocean water and my belly would not mix.

So I took his advice and did neither of those things. Instead, we relaxed at the pool and went out to nice restaurants to eat. That all sounds nice, but wouldn't you know it, after laying out at the pool one warm & sunny day (note: I had my belly covered the whole time), my stomach developed this very itchy rash. It started out small, but then of course I couldn't help but scratch it, and then it got real bad. It was so bad that it ended up ruining at least a few days of our 6 day trip and at one point, I proclaimed that I hated Oahu - hated Oahu - I mean, who hates Oahu??? (My itchy belly was making me delusional.) Nate then said that I was never allowed to go on another work trip with him ever. I said I hated Oahu during dinner one night, as I grabbed for the brown bag with Benadryl in it and headed for the lady's room to slather some cream onto my ridiculously itchy belly. Now this was not the only reason I was hating Oahu. I was also in a rather sour mood due to the fact that it seemed like we were getting ripped off at every Asian restaurant we were eating at, from getting charged extra for things like the first bowl of rice, to not getting the side dishes in a korean restaurant, and automatically getting 20% tip added onto our bill for the worst service ever.

I'm sure if we were to go back to Oahu now, I would not be saying that I hate it. We did end up having a nice trip, minus the itchy belly and getting ripped off at some restaurants. We went on a very nice tour of Pearl Harbor and saw the USS Arizona Memorial. That was a very humbling experience. We also went on a nice whale watching trip for a few hours. Overall, I would say that we had a nice trip to Oahu. I was very lucky to have gone on a "baby-moon".

Once we got back from our trip, we were in high gear for finding a house to buy and move into before Lila was born. (Looking back, we probably should've started looking for a house last fall when we knew I was pregnant. But it luckily all worked out. We moved into our house just a few weeks before Lila was born - phew!) The months of February, March and April were extremely busy for us as we went house hunting, prepared for our move, attended various baby preparation classes and of course, worked. Luckily we bought a house & moved into it in mid-April. It's an older house, built about 30 years ago. It has 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths and has an attached garage - plenty of space for us.

In the middle of all the things we were doing this past spring, we also had a chance to fly back to Michigan in early March for my baby shower. My mom, sisters Jenny and Anna, mother-in-law Kathy and sister-in-law Amanda threw me the nicest baby shower. The shower was so much fun. The party favors and cake that we had were adoreable and the food was wonderfully made by my mom and sisters. I'll try and attach some pictures from the event. I appreciated everyone that was there and also missed anyone that could not make it. We ended up with so many cute and pretty things for our baby!

My Labor Story

Our daughter Lila Hayoung White was born on Monday May 5 at 12:35pm. I actually went into labor on Saturday May 3rd so I was in labor for close to 2 days.

For those of you interested, here's my story: Friday night/Saturday morning I started having cramps and my stomach hurt. On Saturday morning, I didn't think much of it but I did notice that things felt "looser down there" - i.e. my pelvic bones felt softer. But I decided to go to my regular pre-natal yoga class anyway because the cramps weren't too bad. I didn't realize that these were actually contractions - (duh!).

It wasn't until Saturday afternoon that I noticed the cramps some more. The cramping didn't get a lot worse until around 9pm that night - the cramps/contractions were coming every 10 minutes or so apart. By this time, I knew something was definitely happening! By 12:30am Saturday night, my contractions were coming within 5 minutes apart for a full hour. It was time to go to the hospital! So we (Nate, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law Amanda and I) loaded up the car and off we went! It must've been really exciting for my mother-in-law and Amanda who had just flown in that very day to visit us & hopefully be there when the baby was born. Talk about perfect timing on their part!)

When they checked me out at the hospital, I was 3 cm dilated and 50% effaced. They admitted me and encouraged me to walk around if I wanted to. Nate and I walked the hallways that night to help things progress. I'll admit it, I was actually doing certain yoga poses to help things progress (i.e. widen my hips up) down there. The nurses found this amusing & impressive, but as I told Nate, I did NOT want my labor to "take forever, like be in labor for 2 days or something like that..." (Ha, if only I knew what was coming...)

By Sunday morning at 10am, I had not progressed at all from the 3cm that I was dilated even though my contractions were coming on consistently, so we decided to go home and rest. As soon as I got home, I ate and tried to nap through my contractions. By 5:30pm, my contractions had gotten a lot stronger and all of a sudden I heard this POP sound and a gush of fluid came out. My water broke at 5:30pm Sunday evening. As Nate told me, "Great job! Now the baby's gotta come soon" as if I had something to do with the fact that my water broke, but hey, I'll take the credit.

I took a hot shower, ate dinner then went back to the hospital. By the time they checked me at 7:30pm, I was then 6 cm and 80% effaced. Finally, I thought the end was near! Well, hours went by and I didn't progress any further. I ended up receiving some pitocin to speed things along sometime that Sunday night. By this point, the contractions were extremely painful so I also received some epidural. This really helped me to get some rest during the night. By Monday 6am, I was only 7 cm dilated so we decided to receive a slightly higher dose of pitocin.

By 9:20am, I was finally 10cm dilated and 100% effaced. It was finally time to push! Well, I ended up pushing for over 3 hours and at 12:35pm, our daughter Lila Hayoung White entered the world. She was 7 pounds, 5 ounces and 19 inches long and just perfect!

Nate and I were so proud of our baby girl, but we were also so exhausted, having not really slept in 2 days. Let's just say that the nap I took after I gave birth was the best nap I've ever taken in my entire life!

I spent 2 nights in the hospital and then Lila and I were allowed to go home. The recovery process was really painful for me since my labor had taken so long. But thanks to the help of my mother-in-law and sister-in-law and of course, Nate, I survived.

Although my delivery was not the most pleasant (to say the least), it's all worth it now that we have our adoreable baby girl!

Side note: If any of you women are the least bit modest, let me just warn you that you might not want to have anyone in your labor room other than your doctors/nurses, your mom and your husband (if even). (Other than the doctors & nurses, I had only Nate in the room. Nate was such a huge help & so supportive.) Labor is the most unattractive, non-glamorous thing in the world. Let me just say that all my inhibitions went out the door when I was trying to bring Lila into this world. At that point, you don't care what you look like, you just want the baby OUT!

Getting Caught Up

I'm back, finally.....that break from my first blog took a little longer than I expected! Anyway, I've got a lot of catching up to do to get everyone up to speed on what Nate and I have been up to since we moved from Cincinnati to Richmond, Virginia. For those of you who don't know, Nate had been doing his Emergency Residency at University of Cincinnati from June 2003 thru June of 2007. At the end of June 2007, Nate and I packed up our things and moved to Richmond, VA.

Side note: I quit my job early from Sunny Delight in May 2007 to spend the rest of my time having fun with friends, visiting family in Michigan and getting ready for our move. In June 2007, I went sky-diving for the first time in my life. I jumped out of a plane at 13,000 feet and it was amazing. It was the craziest, most thrilling thing I had ever done in my life! The other crazy thing is that my sister Jenny also did the same thing in Michigan on the SAME exact day - she also went sky-diving! It wasn't planned that way. What a coincidence!

For the first 9 months, Nate and I lived in a nice 2 bedroom apartment on the West side of Richmond. I at the time did not have a job yet (I decided to wait until I got here to Richmond before looking for a job) and Nate's research did not really get started until September. So...I guess you could say we had a little free time in the months of July and August. Those were 2 fun months for us. Besides unpacking, we spent our time sleeping in, going to the movies, reading books, exploring Richmond, working out together and also going fishing. Nate and I also took a short trip to Nags Head to explore - that's an awesome place! We also had some of my family visit in August & we took them to Virginia Beach. We had a great time splashing in the humongous waves! Later that same summer, Nate's mom, sister and brother Josh came to visit & we also took them to Virginia Beach for a stroll in the sun. Then my sister Anna also came to visit for a couple of days too. To sum it up, we had a great couple of months last summer.

Sometime in the middle of all this fun in August, I figured I should probably look for a job. So I proceeded to talk with a recruiter and before I knew it, I was starting my job as an ERP Finance Manager at Tredegar Film Products in September. My summer was officially over. :( I was excited to start my new job though since it was the perfect position I was looking for - an IT Finance position.

One week into my new job at Tredegar, I found out that I was pregnant! Nate & I were so excited. Many of you know that we had been trying for almost 2 years by then, so we were definitely feeling blessed during my entire pregnancy. My pregnancy went fairly well. No major issues thank goodness. I only had the usual complaints of fatigue, nauseau for the first 14 weeks, and major heartburn. That was the biggest complaint that I had during my last couple of months of pregnancy - that and feeling just huge. I had the worst heartburn and burps, yes, burps, ever. I could not believe how annoying heartburn really was. The funny thing is that once I gave birth, the heartburn instantly went away, as if I had never had it. Amazing.

First Official Blog

Well, this is it. I've been persuaded to finally create my own blog site. Please bear with me as I'm very new to all of this blogging stuff. Uh oh, the baby's crying....be back in a little bit...