Welcome home, baby Elise!

Here are more photos from the hospital and going home.  Unfortunately there were so many people having babies that all the private rooms were full, so I had to be in a shared room.  My roommate was a major talker and had lots of visitors, so I got very little rest.  I decided to ask the doctors if I could come home a day early, and they agreed since everything was going well with Elise and me.  Good news is the shared room is going to save us a good chunk of money, and I was very glad to get home and be with Nate and Finley again!  

Wednesday: Elise's first bath

First visitors (other than Finley), our great friends Kathryn, Chris, and Iris

Thursday: Elise with the doctor who delivered her and Finley, Grace Cheung

Getting dressed to go home

Matilda Hospital, birthplace of both our wonderful babies

Putting our little one in the car seat

Our backseat is pretty full now with 2 car seats!

Happy to be home, snoozing in her crib

Someone likes to roll to her side already!

So how are things going at home?  Well, I have a feeling this is still somewhat the honeymoon period with Elise, as she's still mostly sleeping and eating.  She's sleeping so far a little better than Finley at this age, but the downside is it's more difficult to rouse her to eat.  Like Finley, she does seem to be a bit confused about her days and nights, but I'm sure that will get better with time.  Right now she does her best sleeping in the mornings, after Finley wakes up.  (Obviously Finley's loud antics don't bother her a bit!)

Finley seems to like Elise and be very interested in her, but he's also feeling the need to test boundaries even more than normal and be a bit more emotional.  I'm sure it's hard for him to share me with Elise, and it's hard for me, too.  I'm just so thankful that Nate has his fall break next week, so we get an extra week of him being home!  He's having to take the lead with Finley most of the time so I can try to recover and tend to Elise.  Unfortunately, Nate can't really help much in the baby feeding department, so that's Elise's and my primary focus right now.  Meanwhile, Nate is wrestling around with Finley and trying to keep him entertained and out of trouble. Speaking of, here come Finley and Nate inside from the pool, so I better go help out!  More later...

Elise's Birth Story

As of yesterday, our family of 3 is now a family of 4!  Here's the story (before I forget any of the details) of how Elise Barnette Dennison made her way into the world.

Monday evening at dinner I started having frequent contractions, but they were painless and I didn't know if they would turn into anything, especially with all the false starts I've had this go around.  There was a huge thunderstorm that night and Red Rain Warning (the next to the worst).  After Nate and I got Finley to bed, we sat in the living room and watched the lightning for a little while before trying to go to bed ourselves.  I was able to sleep from about 10:30pm-midnight before waking up from strengthening contractions, but Nate kept sleeping for a while.  I probably woke him up around 2:30am or so and let him know that he should get up, shower, and start packing anything he would need for the hospital.  I think he was a little in disbelief at first that this was the real deal!  

We made our way to the hospital at about 3:30am and arrived around 4am (which was about the same time we went to the hospital with Finley).  Meanwhile, Finley slept soundly and cluelessly at home with our helper Cathrina on duty.  When I got to the hospital I was about 4cm dilated, 100% effaced, and of course the baby was very low.  Contractions got very frequent and extremely painful right after that.  By 6:50am when the midwife came in, I asked her to check me again because I needed to know that I was making progress and wasn't going to be in this kind of pain for 4 more hours!  She found that I was 8-9cm!  Since I was so close, I wanted to try to do it with no epidural, which was good because the midwife said there probably wasn't time for one anyway.  She called my doctor to come immediately and said, "You need to come now.  She's 8-9cm, her water hasn't broken, and she has no epidural."  Grace showed up at 7am, broke my water, and I was fully dilated and ready to push very soon after.

Getting a baby out with no epidural is no joke.  After laboring quietly and trying to breath through the pain the best I could, I threw all that out the window and screamed my head off pushing that baby out.  Grace said I was a pro and did an awesome job.  She commented on how determined I was to get her out quickly, but I think that's just because it hurt so much I didn't have a choice!  Anyway, we'll fast forward through the gory bits and just suffice it to say that I got her out as quickly as possible and pulled her up onto my chest on Sept. 25, 2012 at 7:45am.  Welcome to the world, Elise Barnette Dennison!

Other than a quick Apgar (9 at 1min, 10 at 5min), they left Elise with us for family bonding for a while, which is such a luxury.  Later, we went to the nursery to get her weighed and measured and foot printed.  Elise came out at 3.5 kg (7 lb, 14 oz) and 50 cm (19.7 in).  Not small for being only 37 weeks 4 days gestational age!  She has a nice head of medium/light brown hair (a bit lighter than mine).  It looks like her eyes may have a hint of brown or hazel with the dark blue, so we wonder if she may end up with brown eyes.

After spending the morning with us, Nate went home to be with Finley.  Finley got to come back and meet his new baby sister that afternoon after his nap.  He was very interested in her and wanted to examine and touch her.  (He also sang her songs over Skype that night before bed- so sweet!)

On to the photos...        

Just getting into our "delivery spa" at Matilda.  Say bye-bye to the belly!   

Brand new baby Elise!

Daddy's first time holding her.

Going into the nursery for weighing, measuring, and foot printing.

Ready to go to our room, a little swollen and bruised but doing well.

3 out of 4...

Finley's turn to meet his baby sister later that day.

First photo as a family of 4!

Weekend Fun

Nate didn't have to work this weekend, so we tried to make it a nice family weekend and enjoy this time before 3 becomes 4.  We went to a nearby beach Saturday morning, and I took a few photos with Nate's iPhone.  

People in Hong Kong like to keep song birds, and the lifeguards at the beach had out their bird cages in the morning to clean them and let the birds get some sun and fresh air.  Finley loves to chase birds around, and really enjoyed getting to see them.  For some reason, he always says "babbat" to talk to birds.

We saw some seriously spiky sea urchins on the rocks, too.  Glad we didn't step on any of those!

Beautiful day!  (It's still hot and humid everyday here!)

Another highlight of the weekend: Sunday dim sum at Din Tai Fung after church.  Oh man, do they have yummy xiao long bao!  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiaolongbao)  It's the perfect place to take Finley, because it's loud, fast, and they give him plastic dinnerware to use.  He really got in on the action today and ate rice, noodles, and dumplings!  

"Dress Baby Dennison" Party!

My dear friend Kathryn was so sweet as to throw me a "Dress Baby Dennison" party this weekend.  We had a fantastic afternoon of cupcakes, baby clothes, games, and general girliness.  We haven't really done much to celebrate this baby yet, being #2, so this was such a special time for me and made it feel more real that there is a little girl joining our family soon!

Just over 36 weeks and getting bigger every day!

Yummy cupcakes, made by Kathryn herself.

Fun times playing games.

Gifts!  So many cute little girl clothes!

The Ladies (minus Erika, who had to leave before we thought to take a group photo)

It's not a real baby shower without multiple pregnant ladies!  (Stacey is due at the end of Jan. and Noelle at the end of Oct.)

Kathryn- the hostess with the mostest, who even busted out her pearls for the occasion!

Thank you friends, for such a fun afternoon together and for your generosity!  This mama and baby feel very loved!

Made it to 36!

It's official, Baby and I made it to 36 weeks!  Now the doctor says I can go back to "normal" and do whatever I want, because we're in the safe zone!  No more bed rest, or modified bed rest, or any of that mess.

It's already feeling good to be free.  I walked home from taking Finley to preschool this morning, and I'm going to take Finley swimming at our pool this afternoon.  I have dinner downtown with my book club friends tonight, and tomorrow my friend Kathryn is throwing a little "Dress Baby Dennison" party for me.  What a way to kick off my new found freedom!

So now your guess is as good as mine as to whether resuming an active lifestyle is going to send me into labor or if this little one is going to be with me for a whole other month, only to be begged out by me at 40+ weeks!  The waiting and wondering begins...

Next doctor appointment on Monday!

Funny Finley

Here are some funny things Finley has been saying recently that made us laugh.  Hope they brighten your day, too!

• When Finley gets hurt we call it a "boo boo", but recently he decided to call it a "booby" instead. (No, he has NOT heard that word before, at least not from us!).  Combine this with the fact that Finley likes to talk about how "big" everything is, and you get him talking unknowingly about having "big boobies".  Yikes!  Need to put a stop to that one!
• I often make muffins and have them for breakfast.  Finley's only other association with muffins is the song, "Do You Know the Muffin Man?"  So Finley says to me each morning, "Mommy eat a muffin man for breakfast." 
• Caterpillar= "calopito"
• When reading Peter Rabbit, I said, "Mrs. Rabbit put Peter to bed with a dose of camomile tea, but his sisters had..."  Finley shouted, "Mayonnaise!"  Where has he even heard that word before??  We never even eat mayonnaise.
• Remote= "marote"
• I was whistling to a song the other day and Finley said, "Mom, no foof!"  He couldn't remember the word for whistle, and "foof" was as close as he could get to actually whistling himself.  I cracked up, so now he calls it "foofing" all the time just to get a laugh.

34.5 Weeks & Apartment Photos

34.5 weeks pregnant and feeling big!  I went to the doctor today, and she estimated the baby is about 5 1/2 lbs already!  She said one more week of taking it easy, and then I can be back to my normal self again.  In the meantime, I don't have to be on full bed rest (not that I really have been anyway), but I do need to keep limiting my activity and really listen to my body and lay down when I start having contractions, even just Braxton Hicks.  Super excited that the end is in sight for this silly bed rest!

I keep getting people telling me that I look like I'm having a boy.  I take that as a compliment, but it also makes me nervous!  I seriously had a random shop owner stop me yesterday, pointing at my stomach and saying, "This one is a boy?"  He was quite surprised when I told him it wasn't!

Finley wanted to get in on the action.  :)

We've been working hard (in between resting) to get the apartment under control, and we're close!  We're really enjoying the beautiful views out our large windows in all the rooms.  It makes the apartment so bright and cheery, which is especially crucial in a small space.

Here are photos of Nate's and my bedroom.  We still need a few more decorations, but we're happy there aren't shoes, clothes, and boxes filling up the room anymore!  

(That's my hospital bag, packed and ready, sitting beside the tree!)

To the left in this doorway is our ensuite bathroom.  Those are the built in cabinets straight ahead and to the right.  No actual closets anywhere in the apartment, which is unfortunately typical for HK.

More photos of other rooms coming soon...