One Month Old

Ella is one month old today! Her well-check is tomorrow, so I don't know how much she weighs yet, but at her 2-week well-check she had already gained a pound and I know she has gained more! She is almost too big for her newborn size clothes and she is starting to get chunky in her legs and has a little double chin too. She's getting big fast! But she is doing really well. I am SO grateful that she is a good baby! She hardly ever cries and goes right back to sleep when I feed her during the night. She has been great so far! Hopefully she will continue that night-time routine!

I haven't really posted since she was born, so I have a little catching up to do. For those who are interested, I will tell her birth story. If you're not into those kinds of details, go ahead and skip to the next picture... I was induced at 39 weeks. Logan and Tolan had already been born (without induction) by then, so I was feeling pretty big and anxious to be done being pregnant. I was kind of nervous about being induced, having heard that it takes longer and the contractions are stronger and come faster. Since I am okay with getting an epidural, everyone I asked who had been induced before said it would be no problem. I really wasn't too worried about it, I just didn't want it to take longer. Anyway, so we went in and started getting all set up in the hospital. I think my doctor was ready to get it started b/c he came in and started putting the monitors on my belly and everything. I was kind of surprised and impressed he was doing it b/c the nurses always do it, but he came in and got it started. They wrap two monitors around your belly. One to monitor the baby's heartbeat, and I think the other one is for my heartbeat. I had just had a check-up the day before and had noticed how quickly the doppler they use in the office picks up the heartbeat as soon as it touches my belly. So when he was moving this monitor all over my belly and I wasn't hearing anything and then he started kind of pushing on my belly and trying different places on it to get the heartbeat I started getting REALLY worried. Plus, I wasn't feeling her move around in response to all the pushing. My doctor assured me it was just him not knowing how to hook it all up right, but I was starting to get really scared. I think he picked up on that and got the nurse to come in and do it. He had it on backwards and the baby was fine! So much for me being impressed that he was helping out by doing the nurse's job!

After finally getting all set up, my doctor checked me and I was only 2 cm. They started the pitocin at 3:10 pm and Ella was born at 6:00 pm! When they started the pitocin, the nurse said, "Now, you might not start feeling anything for a while. Maybe an hour." I started feeling contractions almost immediately and was getting my epidural after an hour! A little while after that it was time to push. I pushed through 2 contractions and then she was out. It was definitely the easiest labor I've had. Getting the IV put in was the worst/most painful part of the whole thing, so I think it went pretty well!

Here are a few pictures from her first bath:
And here she is today with Logan:
Immediately after she was born, Justin and I both agreed that she looked like Logan did when he was born. Here are a couple of examples...

Logan:Ella:
Logan and Tolan definitely do not look like eachother, but now that I'm looking at all the pictures, Tolan isn't that far off either.
It was harder than I thought it would be to find good comparison pictures! And just to throw it in there, she also looks a lot like Justin as a baby.

(Sorry, these pics were in one file - I didn't know how to separate them, but Justin is the baby)

and here is the comparison to Ella: If you are bored by now I know what you're thinking. "All newborns look the same." So I will move on to her teeth and be done.

She still has only one tooth. The other has not come in yet, but the one she has is now loose. So I took her to the dental clinic at Children's Hospital. I hate that hospital, but I figured they have probably seen this more than anyone else and will know best what to do. For the most part, they lived up to my past impressions of them and it was a hassle to get an appointment scheduled and then when I showed up for it, they did not have me on their schedule. Not surprised... anyway, they saw me anyway and fortunately the dentist herself was very nice and HAS seen this frequently (I asked). She also said that Ella's case has the best prognosis of any she has seen recently.

She said the tooth is about 40% loose and she could pull it out if I wanted her to, but she would have to use tools to do it. I did not want to do that. She said she only really needed to do it if I was really worried about her choking on it. I wasn't. I just went b/c the pediatrician recommended it and I really did not want someone to yank a tooth out of my newborn baby's mouth. She also said that because it isn't that loose and because there is another tooth under the gums next to it, most likely it won't get looser, but tighter b/c the root will probably continue to develop. She also said that usually this tooth is the baby tooth, so if we pull it out she probably wouldn't have a tooth there until her permanent teeth came in. So we are leaving it for now and going back in a month to see if it's looser.