1 Week Old - Happy Birthday!

Kind of an eventful day in the Leonard household. Jessie got her drivers permit! Mike took her to take the test after he got off work. I've been letting Jessie drive for a few years (where it's safe), so I knew she'd pass the first time.

Today also marks Tristyn's 1st week! She's growing up so quickly LOL. She has been a little fussy, but I told her to go ahead and get it all our during daylight hours, instead of the middle of the night.

I went to Wal*Mart to buy a mini cake to celebrate both achievements. I happened to park around the corner from the garden dept to avoid pedestrian traffic, and spied a white rocking chair - on clearance - as I was walking in. Perfect for Tristyn's room! I've been desperate for a chair but couldn't easily find what I was looking for. Ahem, $27!

Day 7

Day 7

Last night was even better. Still some crying and sleeplessness, but no where near what we went through a few nights ago. She smiles a lot now, and kinda chuckles.

Tristyn, her Dad, and her cat all took a nap on our bed today. Kitty XL is twice as big as her! I supervised of course - but he was a good boy and I had nothing to worry about. I have a feeling this will be a recurring theme with three of them - its their favorite Sunday afternoon activity. Just wait until football season starts!

Me & Tristyn in her Room - Day 6

Day 6

Photo by GP

She cried quite a bit last night, but just for 2 hours. Much better than the night before. Hopefully it'll get better each night.

My sister came out from San Diego to meet her niece, and my parents came over with her. Peg took this photo of Tristyn and I in her room. It's my favorite pic of her to date. I cropped myself out of it and asked GP to print it out on her nice printer for me. Our neighbors brought over a baby gift of a classical CD, clothing sets and a beautiful glass frame etched with "Our New Arrival". The pic will be perfect for it. She changes so much everyday, so I've been taking a few pics of her each day to capture the beginning of her life.

Ready to Meet Nana - Day 5

Day 5

Tristyn cried allll niiiight last night. From 1 am to 6 am. So as not to disturb other household members, I stayed on her bedroom floor with her the whole time. Chase came in about 3:30 and took over for a good half hour - trying to work any magic he could. Nothing worked. She'd be fine for a few minutes, then start wailing again. Just as soon as I'd doze off, she'd scream again, and again. Over and over.

Finally at 5:50 she fell asleep "for reals" and I jumped up and put her in her crib in our bedroom, did a couple of chores and hit the hay. I thought my bed felt good the day we came home from the hospital - that was nothing compared to how good it felt after desperately attempting to soothe a crying baby all night while laying on a hard floor.

Later in the day I put her in a pretty little dress with flower appliques and we took her over to meet her Nana for the first time. I thought Nana would appreciate the flowery dress. Her aunt and uncle visited her for the second time later that evening as well. Tristyn pretty much slept through all of it - getting ready for the night I guess :(

Rockin out in her Rainforest bouncer - Day 4

Day 4

I over did it activity-wise yesterday a little, so I'm sore and tired today. Tristyn was ok through the night, some crying spells - but what do you expect? Mike of course is all worked up about it, and I keep trying to remind him crying is a babies only source of communication, and they can only sleep for a few hours at a time.

My Dad came over to hang up a couple of shelves in Tristyn's room for us, and stayed for dinner. Nikolas was happy to entertain him with his Governator impressions, taking requests, and generally being, well, Nikolas.

Scrunchy Face - Day 3

Day 3

Tristyn had a doctor appt at 9:30 today. I wanted to stay in that shower forever - but we had to get moving. I felt fine, just tired from getting up so often from the night before. Nothing too fussy, just feeding and changing duties.

The receptionist assumed she was a boy when she looked up the patient name in the computer. Hhhh that was the whole reason in spelling Tristyn with a y. What boy would spell it with a y? Anyway, she checked out ok, and we scheduled a follow up appt in 2 weeks. She weighed 8 pounds 9.6 ounces (babies loose weight the first day after birth), and measured 20.5 inches long.

Afterwards we made our first family trip - to Target. A place Tristyn can expect to visit many, many times with her mama. Mike laughed and said it was an appropriate first place for me to take her, since I go once a week - more since I've been getting ready for baby.

For some reason we looked through the sporting goods section at the different items they sell for kids. Like she's really going to start golfing next week, right? Just planning I guess. After we bought out supplied we headed home for a much needed nap for everyone. Tristyn's only cousin Nikolas came over to visit her, and so did my mother. We all took turns holding and cuddling Tristyn for the rest of the night.

Day 2 - Going Home

Day 2 - Going Home

After being told we'd be released the previous day, then that we'd be released at noon today, by the time 2pm rolled around I was about to scream. I wanted to be at home desperately.

Baby was released, we watched the required release video, all we were waiting on was my discharge from my doctor.

Because of this, I didn't want to I sign the birth certificate yet, since we still had time. I finally deciding on spelling Tristyn with a 'y' and not a 'e', for femininity and uniqueness, but I almost changed her name to Avery at the last minute. I also almost went with Lee for a middle name because of its family ties, well really I just doubted myself, I don't think I ever was really going to change it from Evangeline. It's a family name as well - my mother's middle name, that's why I chose it. The only other middle name options were Mike's suggestion of Michelle, after my sister, and my suggestion of Yeager, my maiden name.

I knew her name would be Tristyn Evangeline before she was actually born, but I just didn't want to make it official, and I really took this time to make certain it fit. Much to the dismay of the clerk who desperately wanted me to sign and hand over that certificate, I took most of the morning to mull it over. During the mulling, I fell asleep. Mike said she came in to check if I had signed it, and he not realizing I had done so already, told her I was sleeping and to come back later. He said she looked like she was going to cry. He felt so bad for her, he later took the certificate and walked all around the place looking for her to deliver it. Uhh, sorry, its an important task and I was not going to let her rush me.

Finally the midwife from my doctors office came to discharge me. She literally talked to me for about a minute and a half, and that was it. I waited alllll daaang morning and half of the afternoon for a stinkin pep talk. We coulda been out of there at 10am! Whatever as soon as she walked out the door I sprung up and we headed home. I hadn't been outside since early Sunday morning, I had no idea how muggy and gray it was out there. More of an August-type weather than a sunny July afternoon. Mike got the truck running before we came out so me and baby wouldn't be too hot. We strapped in and headed home - finally!

Faux-hawk Tristyn

Day 1 - continued. Our First Night.

The morning my water broke Mike was supposed to go pick up Jessie - she wanted to be here for the birth. Luckily my water broke before he left, and not when he was a couple hours away.

Stuart offered to go get her, which was a big help. Mike went home in the morning to shower and get in a nap after such an exhausting experience. He came back to the hospital and brought some snacks and let me get in a shower while we waited for Stuart's phone call to meet him to get Jessie.

After Jess arrived and we all ate pizza around my hospital bed, the baby greeted Jess by projectile spitting up formula on her. Love ya sis!

My mom stopped by for a bit too. Mike and Jessie left to go home pretty late. It was just me and the baby for the night. I was kinda freaked out someone would come in a take her while I was sleeping. Not that I got much sleep. She wasn't fussy, but as I said I was a little worried about security, I had to keep on top of her feeding and changing schedule, and in general I have a hard time sleeping in strange places. So, instead of sleeping, we got to know each other a little better. This is when I fell in love with her. I think she was in the bassinet for a total of 20 minutes that night, and that was just for diaper changes and when I went pee myself. She's a total cuddle-buds. I thought I would be clueless with what to do with her, but it all came naturally and she thought I was a pro :)

Guess She's a Billy Idol fan - Day 1

Day 1 - That was the longest 24 hours of my life to date, but at the same time it also seemed to fly by. I threw up what I was allowed to eat, and experienced some insane pain, but finally got an epidural and was able to sleep for 2 hours before the birth.

She was born 'sunny side up', which evidently just means stronger pains for mommy. I had pain even through my epidural, and the nurses turned it down AFTER I complained! The anesthesiologist was upset with them and turned it back up, and remedied them "she veddy tall ledy". The nurses later apologized, and subsequently forgot to turn it off after the birth!

Mike was awesome through it all. He helped the nurses and was involved with everything, never leaving baby's side. He and the nurse gave the baby her first bath, and was even adventurous enough to attempt using my digital camera to capture a few first photographs. He's a great Dad.

My parents came in for a visit and brought me some breakfast - which I scarffed, and shortly after we were moved to the recovery wing a quarter mile wheel chair ride away.

She's Here!

Tristyn Evangeline Leonard
Born July 23 at 5:06am
8 pounds 14.6 ounces

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A Little Progress

So we got moved into a private room about an hour and a half ago. Mike is glad - his chair is much better than the previous. He also just took over the remote - even in the hospital I'm not allowed control of the remote and the dang thing is wired to my bed LOL.

So I'm having some mild contractions - have been for a few hrs now. Nothing too painful, just uncomfortable. They are going to start administering Pitocin (to bring on stronger contractions) at 7pm. Because of this, they let me eat. Mike went out to Denny's and brought me back a turkey sandwich, fries with ranch, and didn't even forget the requested pickles. It amused me that I really wanted a pickle because its so cliche, and I really haven't had any cravings during my pregnancy. But that pickle was good!
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Beginning Stages of Labor

So I'm at the very beginning stages of labor. I'm stuck in triage until someone else gives birth and frees up a room for me. If my water hadn't broken, I'd be doing this at home. Since it did break, I'm stuck here at the hospital for the whooole ride.

I'm glad it happened before Mike left this morning tho - he was supposed to go pick up Jessie 2 hrs from home. Except I only got 3 hours of sleep last night, and now that I'm here at the hospital I can't eat anything at all. I think knowing that is making me starving, cuz I'm already hungry

Oh great...here comes the IV...
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On The Way

Well we're on the way to the hospital right now. Kitty XL woke me up at 5 because he for some reason thought that would be a goof time to demand I feed him his 'good foods' that he gets for dinner. He insisted. Repeatedly. So while I was dumping the stinkiness into his bowl I felt a little something funny, and I just stood there thinking "No way!". I think I was trying so hard not to go into labor on Chase's birthday that as soon as that was over bam! Luckily we had time to take him and Chelsea out to The Chop House for a nice dinner last night.

So anyway, after I admitted to myself what was about to happen, I went and put some makeup on and got dressed, trying my hardest not to wake Mike up. He did wake up a couple times but I pretended I just had more insomnia issues and to go back to bed. When I was enough ready I suggested he get in the shower because my water broke. He stared at me for a bit before asking if I was sure about 700 times. OMG we're here at the hospital already pulling in...
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Rock and Roll Saved My Baby

Friday in the middle of the night I decided that the baby hadn't been moving as much as normal, so I started semi-freaking out. Since Mike had to work at 5am, I didn't want to wake him up. I decided if I had to go into the hospital, I'd just sneak out and tell him what was going on when he woke up. That's kind of mean, I know. But I figured it would take forever just to get there and get processed, so I'd let him sleep for the time being, and if I needed him to come, he could come then. Luckily, it didn't get that far.

So I got up and ate something, and waited. I went outside with the cat and sat with my Princess Fiona feet in the pool. It was still a zillion degrees out - at 1am. She moved enough in the allotted time given as per my baby literature, so I went back to bed. I still couldn't sleep and wasn't convinced nothing was wrong, so at 3 I got up again and did the same thing. Ate, then waited. This time at least it had cooled off outside. Again, her movements were appropriate, but I still felt uneasy. I knew I was going to the doctor Monday, and since she was within the criteria I decided to wait until then, and change my appt from 4pm to as early as they could see me.

I told Mike about it the next day and I think he's asked me "Is my baby moving?" every 5 minutes since then. It must be weird being the Dad of something inside your wife. Anyway Saturday night we went to the outdoor Rock Yard at Fantasy Springs Casino to see the Chili Peppers cover band. When they were through with their set another cheesy band started playing covers for the after hours stragglers I guess. Surprisingly, she liked them better. She really started moving. The music was cool, they played some Metallica and AC/DC, but I couldn't take the singers voice anymore so we left for home.

Sunday her movements were pretty normal all day, so I decided not to move up my appt up and kept the 4pm appt. I told them what (I thought) happened, but that she had been okay since, and they suggested we hook up to the monitor to see what she looked like today. Well she was just going loco while I was in the waiting room, so I knew they were going to think I was crazy. Sure enough her movements were good, "beautiful" to quote them. They also did an ultrasound to check my amniotic fluid levels, which were good as well. I didn't get out of there until 6pm!

Oh, I also asked if they could guesstimate her current weight. The doc felt my belly and said she was defintely 7 pounds, sumpin ounces. With less than 3 weeks to go, I wonder how much bigger she'll get!

Her Daddy painted her bedroom over the weekend. We're a little behind where I'd like to be on it ideally, but we moved Chase out of that room and into the former guest room, which took some time. Now that he's all set up in there we were able to move ahead on her decor. Here are a couple first pics: Image1 and Image2.

In The Clear

So I'm 37 weeks now, which means I'm full-term. So I'm in the clear as far as prematurity. If the she is born anytime from today on, although she would still be considered early as far as her due date, she would not be considered pre-mature. Yeah! Another little pre-birth milestone to celebrate. Maybe we'll enjoy a MamaRita (non-alcoholic margarita, recipe below) tonight with dinner. I had a few with the chipotle steaks we made for our Independance Day dinner.

MamaRita
1.5 oz sweet and sour mix
0.5 oz lime juice
0.5 oz OJ
Pour over ice
Garnish with lime wedge

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