Lily Pics!

I can't believe Lily is already 4 weeks old! It's been a wonderful month full of laughter, tears, learning, and amazement over our little girl.

We had an amazing photo shoot with a very talented and creative photographer on Monday at our house. We just got a sneak peek of some the photos and are SO excited! You can see more of them at Ashley Ward Photography. Please leave a comment on Ashley's blog so that we can get a free print...thanks! :) Here are some of my favorites:

Lily's First Week

Whew, it's been an amazing, exhausting, exhilarating first week! I can't believe Lily is one week old today. I feel incredibly blessed to have this beautiful child as my daughter. When I look at her, all the struggles of the past five years disappear. She was worth every moment of heartache. Here is our first week in pictures:

My beautiful girl.

Open eyes!

Mr. C gets his first snuggle with Lily in recovery.

Lily's going home outfit.

Sweet face.

Mr. C introduces his daughter to the internet!

Dunkin meets Lily for the first time.

Lily's first sponge bath.

We decided to announce Lily's arrival with this not so subtle stork!

Our little family.

A happy family

Mr. C still reporting in for the glowing mommy . . . We've taken mountains of pictures but can't publish them fast enough. Here we are, daddy and his girls, on our last night at the hospital. More pictures will follow once we settle in back home. We can't WAIT to get the little princess home.

It's a girl!

An EXTREMELY proud husband and papa Mr. C. sharing the good news with Kelly's virtual family . . .

Lily Carolyn was born today via C-section at 2:08 PM. She weighed 7 lbs 11 oz and was 21" long. She's beautiful with a head full of blond hair, and has a very calm disposition. Maybe that will rub off on mom and dad! :)

Mom and baby are both doing great. Daddy not too shabby either. Proud of both of my girls.

The Plan

I'm still pregnant, so our plan is in motion! I'll go to the hospital tonight at 8 pm and begin taking cytotec. That will hopefully soften and begin to dilate my cervix overnight. Then my OB will come in on tomorrow morning and start pitocin at 7 am. At my appointment yesterday, I was 50% effaced with no dilation and baby's head was still up high (+2 station). So, this whole induction may not work. If, after a few hours I haven't made much progress, we'll ditch it and do the c-section.

I can't believe that this is my last day being pregnant! I'm having coffee with a friend this morning and Mr. C. and I are going on a dinner date tonight. I'm so excited but of course nervous about what is to come. Hopefully tomorrow or Thursday I'll have a wonderful update! Thank you all for your encouragement and kind words...it means so much to me that you have followed our journey and truly care about what is happening in my life.

Favors

To pass the time lately, I've been working on a lot of projects, one of which is little favor bags to hand out to visitors when they come to meet Baby G. I made a set of pink and a set of blue since we obviously don't know which we'll need! They say either "Welcome to the world, ___ ___" or "Happy Birthday, ___ ___". (The lines are first and middle names which Mr. C cleverly blurred out in the photo!) I think they turned out pretty cute!

It's my due date and I'll cry if I want to

NO BABY YET!!! I can't believe I'm still pregnant and this little one is so happy inside! After all the time I spent in the early days hoping the baby would stay in, now I am wishing and praying for the opposite! I have truly loved every minute of being pregnant and I know I'll miss it as soon as the baby is born, but I am SO ready to meet this person. The anticipation of wondering when labor will start is pretty intense.

At my OB appointment this morning, my cervix had not changed at all from last week. Still high and not dilated. So, we set an induction date for next Wednesday. My OB said he's glad to do a c-section at any time, but if I want to try for a vaginal birth, time is what I need. SO, I'll go in the hospital next Tuesday night and get medicine to start to ripen my cervix. I'll spend the night there and the induction will officially start Wednesday morning at 7:00 am. Hopefully all those plans are for nothing and I'll go into labor on my own. The doctor's office does not let patients go past 41 weeks, so an induction has to happen next week no matter what. It helps me to have an end date in mind, though. At least I know I'll be holding my baby in less than a week, one way or the other!

Funny comment...my OB said today that my belly looks like "an olive on a toothpick" because I am thin and I have a big round belly. Pretty funny! I'll keep you all posted and will hopefully have news before Wednesday!

I am ginormous!!!