Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Abby's first bath

After nearly two weeks, we decided that it was time for Abby's first real bath. Her belly button fell off a couple of days ago, but then we entered into the "gas wars" and it just seemed to much for all three of us to give Abby a bath during that time.


I have to say that she wasn't all that fond of the bath, but we all survived. Afterward, I lathered her up with the Johnson & Johnson bedtime lotion and she fell promptly to sleep in her bouncy chair.

Here are some pictures from the momentous event.

Gas issues

We've got gas issues. Well not exactly, Micah and I, but Abby. It appears after almost two weeks of being the perfect baby, we've developed a little gas issue. Actually it is a BIG gas issue. She's got it. Lots of it. Yesterday was the worse. She woke up at 4 am and didn't really go back to sleep until about 2 pm. It was a rough morning.

I did some research on the Internet (Thanks Dr. Google) and found that the bottles we were using had caused gas in other babies. A couple of other moms recommended using the Dr. Brown's bottles. So off to the store I went to purchase these magically bottles. (Earlier I had to make an emergency trip to Rite Aid to purchase gas relief drops. They seemed to work, but still didn't completely get rid of the gas.)

We've used the bottles for the last five feeds. The seem to help. She isn't taking in as much air, but she still has gas.

I called the Dr. this morning to see if we should try changing her formula. She said we could try that, but it wasn't a guarantee that it would help. She might just be a gassy baby and it will get better as her digestive system matures.

So for the time being we are sticking the course with what we are doing. And trying to get as much sleep as Abby allows it. For the past two days, the only time she really sleeps in on one of us, which I can't really blame, because if I was uncomfortable, I'd want to be held by my mom and dad.

Any suggestions for gas relief are welcome!

Saturday, December 27, 2008

More pictures

It is official, we've become those parents that takes pictures of every cute thing thier child does. We have TONS of pictures of her sleeping... well that is just about all she does at the moment. So because I've taken all these pictures, I now need to share them with people, so here you go.

Finally found my thumb!

Playing on my mat!


Looking at the butterflies



Hanging with Aunt Jill


Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Falling more in love

I didn't know it was possible for fall in love with someone more and more each day. But you can. Each time I look at Abby, I fall more in love. It is truly amazing!

Micah and I are adjusting to having Abby in our lives as well as we can. She is a great baby. We struggling just a little bit with nighttime, but what can we expect from a five-day old. She loves to sleep during the day and only likes to sleep in our arms from midnight to 5am. We are trying a couple different things to try and resolve this, I'll let you know if anything works.

Mom and Dad Sizemore have been here since the day she was born and have been a great help. Simply doing the dishes, cleaning the bathrooms and doing laundry are a huge help, especially since there are times when Micah and are seem to be walking around like zombies.

Abby had her first peds appointment. The doctor reports she is doing great for a 5 day old baby. She lost a little bit of weight from birth, but that is to be expected. I did try breastfeeding, but I was putting a lot of stress on myself, that combined with Abby's amazing sucking ability, it wasn't fun for either of us. I struggled with the decision, but decided to switch to formula feedings. I'm happier, Abby's happier and now Micah can help with feedings, which I think that he enjoys. (Feeds are a great bonding time for all of us.)

Jill and Miles arrived yesterday. They are just as in love with Abby as the rest of us. Now if I can only get Jill to change a dirty diaper. :)








Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Adding to the family

Abigail Mira Gelman made her arrival at 2:44am, weighing in at 8lbs 6oz and measuring 19 inches long.

As I mentioned briefly yesterday, we arrived at the hospital at 11:30pm for a labor check, I was having pretty intense contractions. However, once the resident checked me, we found I wasn't dilated. After conferring with the attending on call, I was told to walk around the hospital for a couple of hours and come back and get rechecked. So Micah and I hit the halls of Sinai, walking up and down the bottom floor of the hospital.

The walking seemed to help a little. When I went back to get checked I was 1 cm. The resident checked again with the doctor and because of my contraction patter and the fibroid, they decided to admit me to see if I would progress over the evening. I got all hooked up and was given medicine to help me sleep. In the morning I was rechecked by the resident and was still only 1 cm.

About an hour later, around 8am, the attending came into check me I had progressed to a "nice" 3 cm. So know we were on our way. The ended up augmenting my labor with pitocin, as I wasn't contracting and progressing fast enough on my own. At noon, they broke my water and shortly after I asked for the epi (What a life saver)!

Over the next twelve hours, I slowly progressed to 10 cm. It was so slow, that we talked with the several of the doctors about a possible c-section, but I kept plugging along. Due to going so long since they broke my bag of water, it appears that I developed an infection and started to run a low grade fever. I was giving antibiotics so that it wouldn't effect Abby.

By 1am Wednesday morning, I was 10 cm and began pushing. That in itself is another story. I pushed for about 1hour and 45 minutes, much longer that I would have liked. Abigail was born screaming. She was taken over to the warmer immediately by the NICU team because there was mechonium (baby's first poop) in my bag of water. We met up with her two hours later once I was moved to the mother baby unit. She has been with us every since. She is caught on to breast feeding quite well and already has had a couple of poopy diapers. Micah has become the diaper changing champ.

We are so in love despite how tired the past 48 hours have been.





Sunday, December 14, 2008

Cake Pops!

Thanks to my wonderful Aunt Cyndi, who turned me on to http://www.bakerella.blogspot.com/, I attempted cake pops this weekend. If you haven't checked out this website, and you love to bake, you need to. It is great.


Last night we had our annual Hanukkah Party and I brought dessert. I decided to try the cake pops. The came out really good, however, slightly time consuming. (Although when you are awake at all hours of the morning, what better way to spend you time then dipping cake balls into chocolate.)

I forgot to take pictures of them while I was putting them together, so I had to have a friend take a picture at the party so everyone could get the idea of what they looked like.


I did find that if the cake balls get to warm, they fall off the stick. I ended up doing two or three balls at a time, leaving the rest in the fridge to chill. I did a simple chocolate cake with buttercream frosting. I'm ready to try some of other flavors shortly as well as some other designs. I can see these becoming a fast favor!

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Thanksgiving

Sorry for the delay in getting this post up. I was waiting for pictures for mom and then once I got them, I had problems with my email. I know it is a poor excuse. Deal with it!

This year, since Micah and I were on what he called a 'ground stop' due to the impending arrival of Baby Gelman, we hosted Mom and Dad and Gram and Grampy Goldman. It was quite a full house, but a lot of fun. Everyone arrived on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, so we had plenty of time to catch up. It was so nice to visit!

On Thanksgiving day, Mom and I were up early (actually both of us were up early every morning. I know why I was, not sure why mom was). So we started getting cooking early. We were so prepared that we were able to go on several walks through the day. The menu was the traditional Thanksgiving feast. We had turkey, tators, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, rolls and jello mold (this was a new addition and I messed it up, but it did taste good.) For dessert, I made two pies, Bourbon Walnut Pie and an Apple pie. The walnut pie was the hit! (Thanks Mom Gelman for the recipe!)