Pictures from baby Brielle’s first day

Also, since some people have been asking, her name is pronounced (bree – eL) and means “Of God” or “Heroine of God” pending on where you look.

With Emmy the Doula

Mike and Rachel

Papa Bailly

Great Aunt Lauri

Grandpa Teodoro and Great Grandma Teodoro

Brielle’s baby butt (say that 10 times fast)

napping with mom

1st car ride

napping with dad

with her bear, Jr. Cowboyfingers

And somehow, we didn’t get any pictures with Nana or Grandma on our camera.  I’m sure we’ll have some eventually to put up.

In case anyone was wondering what forceps look like.  The doc put some serious body weight into these things trying to get baby girl out.  Turns out face up isn’t the ideal way to exit but she made it and her resulting conehead and flat nose are mostly gone now.

1st diaper change

So I just did my very first diaper change on a real, live kid.  Mine no less.  :)

It only makes sense it was at 1am.

new baby girl!

labor pics

Before the baby but after the epidural. :)

Brielle

I'll get better pictures eventually but we're going to get some sleep now.

Brielle Faith Teodoro

Born 3:49am September 26th
7# 12oz
20 1/2 in long
Mom and baby girl are healthy and happy.  The conehead is already going down.  :)  She's also got a decent amount of redish brown hair.

Pushing

Way better this time around.

Drugs are good

Val is up to 10cm now but is totally numb downstairs.  No need for pitosin they say.  We're going to wait 30-60min and then see how things are and will probably start pushing.

Numb

So Val woke up a little and asked if she was touching her stomach (she was) but could only feel the finger end....

Unfortunately she's fully lucid though.  No funny discussions yet.

Not as planned

We had been hoping to give birth at the Birthing Inn but Val was stuck at 8cm for over 4 hours and it wasn't going to happen.  She was amazing though and really did everything she could.

We transferred over to St Jo's and to get some drugs to get things going.  It was a pain getting in and everything, but Val finally got the epidural and is feeling way better now.  She's actually sleeping which she hasn't really done since Thursday night.

The plan is to check her progress in an hour or so and probably start the petosin (sp?) to start things up.

All signs say baby girl is doing great though.

Still going

Things have been pretty rough for a while.  Long hard contgractions.  She's having a temporary repreive right now though and is laying down.

Last checked, she was at 8cm but her water still hadn't broken.  The midwife is going to break her water in a littke while once the birth assistant gets here.

still going

Val was just checked at 12:15 and she's progressing along. She's at 6cm and zero station now. The midwife says she's progressing pretty textbook (about 1cm per hour and a half).

update

Val was first checked around 10:45am (5cm) and she's been walking around and having more contractions (those don't seem like fun at all). The midwife will check her around 12:15 to see if she's progressing at all.

Emmy our doula won't be able to make it until about 2pm but the backup doula Trina is here with us.

Background:
Contractions started around 1am Saturday morning. By 4am i had talked Val into letting me call the Emmy since the contractions were about 4-5 minutes apart. They were only lasting about 30 seconds though and Val said they weren't really terrible and it was something she could handle. I had predicted baby girl would come on the 24th so we thought it was a good sign that she was listening to daddy so early on. However after 6am, they started to slow down and then were much further apart throughout the day. Val was able to get a little sleep between them which was good.

We mostly lounged around the house on Saturday and she had contractions every half hour or hour. Saturday night we tried to get some sleep but contractions kicked up again at about 1am so Val didn't get much in the way of sleep. She let me sleep several hours though so i was decently rested and didn't get up till 6am. Val, however had been up most of the night.

We started talking with Emmy again in the morning and she had us call the midwives around 8am to see what they thought we should do based on the contractions and such. They had us wait and call back in an hour.

So eventually we got to the point where Val was really ready to go and we made it to the Birthing Inn around 10:30 where we've been since.

So far I'm really impressed by Val. She's awesome and is handling the pain admirably. I know it's going to get much worse and it's really hard to watch her in pain but she's doing really well.

The shower seems to help ease things for her a bit as well. It's also giving me a chance to update all of you and play some music for Val in the process. As you all know, Val really loves her music.

Having a baby

We just got to the birthing inn now.  Val is at 5cm and 100% effaced.  -1 station.

Pregnant and having fun

Who says you can’t have fun while being pregnant. Here’s a couple things I’ve been doing this last month of pregnancy.

Knee boarding. Good times. I hadn’t done this since I was a kid. Okay, I didn’t do it this time either, but the picture looks real doesn’t it! Here’s what I really did in the water…

That’s right, I floated. Really well too! Notice Mt. Rainier in the background. Isn’t she beautiful. Good thing Steve waited to take the picture ‘til I wasn’t in front of her. My belly could have easily covered the view otherwise!

Next activity… bowling.

This one I really did do! Check it out.

What form. So turns out, a big low belly does hinder my bowling performance a bit, mainly because I can’t bend down as low as I usually go while bowling, but I was still able to get a strike and a couple of spares. Unfortunately, my learning curve affected my first few frames, so the strike and spares where not enough to get above 100. :( But hey, I still had a good time, and baby girl got her first bowling lesson.

*Disclaimer: no pregnant bellies or infants were harmed in the filming of these events.

Alright, here are my standard weekly photos.

Hopefully baby girl will decide to come any day now. Steve and I are anxious to meet her. I’m pretty much ready for her now that her room and bathroom are all set up. I hope to get pictures up soon. You may have to wait until after she comes though since her name will probably go up on the wall this week and that’s going to be a surprise for all of you. (Good thing Steve and I finally know what it is though).

Oh, and if you want to see pictures of my WA baby shower, check out my sister-in-laws blog. Holy Craft It starts on this post and then she talks about it more in subsequent posts on how she created all the cute little decorations. If you love crafting, it’s a blog you may just want to bookmark, she’s pretty… crafty! Sorry, she is really talented though.

So that’s it for now. I really hope the next post will be introducing our new little girl to you all. Wish me luck!

Catch Up

Wow, it really has been a long time. Well, soon you’ll understand why. First off, let’s say pregnancy is still going well, and baby girl and I are both healthy and happy. Even though I am officially full term, I don’t mind her staying put for a while longer so I can continue getting her room to a place where I think it’s ready. If she comes today though, she has a place to sleep and clothes to put on her back, so she’d be quite content. =D

I’ve had two baby showers since the last time we spoke. I don’t have pics from the second one yet, but here are few from the one in CA.

Event Setting

Beautiful (& Yummy) Cake

Friends and Family

Nana to Be (and half the planning crew)

Great Aunt to Be (and other half of planning crew) – oh, and tummy measurement for one of the gamesSpoils from the shower. Baby Girl is going to be one well dressed child!

So on to why I’m all of sudden so busy. (Besides just have moved into a house and trying to unpack, and getting ready for a baby) Shortly after my trip down to Northern California for a baby shower, I had to make a quick trip down to Southern California for my father. Turns out he had a stroke and his roommate had taken him to the hospital for care. As soon as I found out, my aunt Lauri (Dad’s youngest sister) and I flew down to visit and evaluate the situation. The stroke had mainly affected his sight (loss of his right peripheral vision) and short term memory, but other than that, he’d been fairly lucky. With his sight restrictions, and the new diet he’d need to be on to help monitor his diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure (all of which was discovered after the stroke), we decided it’d be best to bring him up to Washington to be near family. So Steve and I talked and decided to move Dad in with us. We figured, free babysitting, why not. :)

After a few days of testing and healing, he was discharged and Aunt Lauri’s husband Jeff flew down, helped rent a van, pack up his stuff and we took a 3 day road trip up I-5 to Dad’s new home. Although traveling by van as pregnant as I was was not the most comfortable thing I’ve done during this pregnancy, we had a nice trip and all got to visit together and stop at some of Dad’s favorite restaurants on the way. Jeff and Lauri were a big help, I couldn’t have done it without them.

Once we got up here, we got Dad settled in his new digs and gave him the tour. Unfortunately, the second night he was here, he had another stroke. Steve and I took him to the emergency room and stayed with him until they were ready to admit him. Like the last stroke, this one affected his vision but to a worse extent. (Again, he was still lucky this was all it affected.) His sight is fairly hindered, only being able to see from the horizon down and to his upper left. But even that vision is not clear and he has lost his color vision. After a few more days of testing and resting, he was again released into our care and has been staying with us ever since.

I’ve been working on making sure he eats healthy and takes all his meds. He seems to be adjusting well and really enjoys when his family comes to visit. Although this isn’t something I had planned for, I’m excited for him to be around for Baby Girl since I’m not sure how much he would have seen her living in S. California. I think he’s looking forward to her birth as well. But really, who isn’t?!?

It’s been amazing to see how God has worked in our lives throughout this whole thing. I was part of a Mom’s Group Bible Study this summer on Jonah, Navigating a Life Interrupted by Priscilla Shirer. She led us through the book of Jonah and we learned how God can change our plans at anytime and how we can take His lead, embrace it and see how His plans will work in our lives. Talk about life interrupted, but I’m ready for the challenge. God had already set me up in so many ways.

-He gave me a diabetic dog when I was growing up where I had to give her insulin shots (which I don’t have to do for Dad, he can do his own), but I at least know how to prepare a needle and know what to do if I have to start.

-God gave me a wonderful husband who is willing to have his life interrupted as well, and has been supportive and understanding throughout this whole ordeal.

-God found us a house that is a split level that allows Dad to have effectively his own apartment downstairs which allows him to keep some of the privacy he had before his big move.

-Even the timing was perfect. If Dad would have had his stroke 2 weeks later, I would not have been allowed to fly down. Any earlier and we wouldn’t have had a house for him. He had it within a month of his birthday so we were able to sign him up for Medicare without any penalties.

So praise God for everything He is doing in our lives. He’s got a reason and although we may not see it yet, or ever know what it is, I feel blessed to be a part of His plans.

Now for a fun last note. With all this going on, my feet have taken to swelling a bit (and by a bit, I mean a lot), so I have finally needed to become a pampered pregnant wife. Here is how Steve has helped me in this:

This would be in our living room after washing and folding girl clothes all day (notice the boxes surrounding me). My feet are in a bucket of ice water Steve prepared for my hot and swollen tootsies, he’s given me a jar of peanut butter for me to eat straight out of and of course, the remote, so I can not use my brain for a bit. What a great husband!