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… at least for 2 weeks! I went to the breast feeding class yesterday and asked a bunch of questions about Jordan’s recent behavior, and for a 2 week trial we are eliminating dairy, peanuts and soy from my diet. The peanuts part was fine- I don’t like them anyway, but dairy? I am the dairy queen!! So for the next 2 weeks, no cheese, no yogurt, no ice cream, no milk, no chocolate. Basically we’re trying to rule out the possibility that she could be lactose intollerant, or have an allergy to some food that I’ve been eating. What Susan, the lactation consultant, thinks is the problem is acid reflux. Evidently it’s genetic- sorry kid! I had a HORRIBLE time with acid reflux while I was pregnant, and my tummy has never really been normal, especially since the beginning of college. So the poor girl might have acid reflux, and that’s why she’s been screaming. She’s not really a fussy baby- she doesn’t cry for the sake of crying, or even cry to be held. She hardly ever lets me know she needs a diaper change, but the past week or so, she would be totally asleep, either in my arms, or in her bassinet, or in the swing, or somewhere, and would all of the sudden wake up screaming like she was in pain, arching her little back, and pumping her legs. I know she has bad gas right now, and now is a normal time for that, but this just doesn’t seem normal. Maybe it is, but I feel so badly for her! This is my 3rd attempt at writing this post, so we shall see if Jordan lets me get it posted! She’s asleep in her bassinet right now, with the head evevated. I’m hoping that will help her with the bubbles in her tummy. But on a good note, she’s still gaining weight, but not too quickly, so that’s a good thing! She’s up to 7 lbs, 12 oz. as of yesterday! Whee! She still weighs more than a pound less than I did at birth, and she’ll be 4 weeks tomorrow! I think I am going to try to go to the breastfeeding class again tomorrow, if nothing else for the support of the other people there! And to avoid the noise here- today they started reinstalling the gutters on our unit- right after I got her to sleep. Joy. Oh- and we go to JC Penney for her 1 month portraits on Sunday- that should be interesting to say the least!

My mom has been here this week, which has been great! She’s helped out a bunch, and even bought some fun new clothes for Jordan! Poor little Jordan is so tiny that the 0-3 size clothes that we had for her are just HUGE on her, so we now have some Newborn size stuff for her to wear. Shes 7lbs, 4oz, but even the Newborn size is big, and it’s supposed to be for babies 5-8 lbs. I have a feeling she will be in these clothes for a bit longer than that. She just seems so tiny! I know she will grow, and will grow quickly, but I just feel better putting her in a sleeper where her legs actualy come down far enough to be in the leg of the PJ’s. The 0-3 size pj’s are so long that I could tie the legs of the jammies in a knot, and she wouldn’t even care! Well, Gigi (my mom) just left, so next week I will be on my own for the first time while Mike’s at work. Thankfully I’m feeling better, so I think we’re going to do just fine. Now if I can just convince her to sleep for 3 hours in the afternoon when she’s supposed to have her long nap, we’ll be in business! She’s been doing okay at night- still waking up quite a bit, but I’ve moved the bassinet to right next to my side of bed, and that seems to be better. At least it’s better for me! I don’t have to walk across the room to get her for a feed in the middle of the night!
I have managed to get some pictures of my new hair cut on the gallery, as well as some pictures we took today while Gigi was here, so take a look!

Yesterday Jordan turned 3 weeks old! I can’t believe how time flies! I am trying to enjoy every moment, becuase I know they go by so quickly. She is still so tiny, but I know she won’t stay that way. Even the newborn clothes that we have are big on her! She swims in 0-3 clothes, too. Poor little thing! Anyway, on Jordan’s 3 week old birthday, I ended up doing something drastic that I have threatened to do for a while now- I chopped my hair! Her little hands were getting caught in it, and I just thought it would be easier. I’ll try to get pictures of it today, and get them posted, but for now, enjoy some pictures of Jordan in her third week home!

I have gotten the pictures of Jordan up on the site- I still have a few more on the camera to put up, but now there are some pictures of Jordan’s first 2 weeks! Pictures of her first bath, first trip to Target, and a bunch of naps! (Mommy and Daddy went a little camera crazy! )
Enjoy!

Jordan now weighs more than she did at birth! Yippee! As of yesterday she was 6 lbs, 12 oz- 6 oz up from her birthweight! Yeah for Jordan! I’ve now been to the breastfeeding clinic 3 times, and it has proven to be so helpful! We are on yet another new feeding plan to try to combat a problem with hyperlactation. Jordan is getting too much of the milk in the beginning, which is giving her gas, and not letting her get to the hindmilk that comes after she’s been feeding for a while. So now we’re feeding as much as every hour from 6-12, then “on demand” from 12-5, and as much as possible again from 5-10, then on demand at night. This will hopefully get her to realize the difference between night and day, and cause her less discomfort, and also allow for a nice afternoon nap- for both of us!
My mom comes to visit again next week- she’s arriving on Monday and staying for the week. Should be fun! Mike starts work again next week, too, so it will be nice to have some extra help if I need it! Jordan has a doctor’s appointment on Monday, and I go back to the clinic on Tuesday. Busy week for baby and me!

Last night we gave Jordan her first bath! Her little cord stump fell off yesterday (thank heaven!) so we decided to give her a taste of what it feels like to actually be clean! She of course cried and didn’t seem to enjoy it too much in the beginning, but she did end up okay with it. Granted, she wasn’t exactly happy, but she survived. Hopefully she will learn to like them better in the future. We did get pictures, but they are on Mike’s camera, and he has had a bit of computer trouble lately. His monitor went completely dead, and his power supply died. Thankfully yesterday his friend Joe was able to loan him a monitor to use until we can afford to buy a new one. And since Mike does computer repair, we had an extra power supply in the garage. It doesn’t fit in his computer, but it at least makes it run! So anyway, all that to say that you will have to wait a little bit for the photos of Jordan’s first bath. I believe today we will try an excursion to Target to get some baby things as well as pick up Jordan’s swing! We’ve gotten a gift card that we decided to use towards that purchase, and hopefully Jordan will like it!

Mike and I celebrated our first anniversary on August 13! Somehow it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long, but in other ways, it seems like we’ve always been together. We had a good time, just staying home with our new little one. Mike did some shopping in the afternoon, and then that night he brought home Olive Garden food, and we had a lovely dinner using our crystal goblets to enjoy some Martinelli’s. Later that night we brought out the wedding cake that had been living in our freezer, and despite it being in the freezer so long, it still tasted pretty good! We also watch a DVD that my parents had given us for our anniversary of the wedding rehearsal, and we started to watch the wedding, too, but we got too tired to finish that night, and had to finish watching it the next day. It’s amazing to think about what has happened in the past year. We have so much to be thankful for!

I have a feeling this post is going to take a while for me to publish, as I am expecting to hear my little one call for dinner at any moment, plus dinner for Mommy and Daddy is on the stove, and I have a feeling both will be ready at the same time! I said that I was going to post about my whole labor story and all that, so here goes nothing!
My mother arrived on July 27th to be down here for the big event. We had a lovely time hanging out before the birth, and I was so glad that she was able to come down before Jordan’s birth.
On August 1st, I had a doctor’s appointment where I discussed the pros and cons of inducing labor with my doctor. She basically told me that there are no risks for the baby to be induced at this time, and the only cons for me were that it would probably take a lot of time. I know there are many different views on induction and whether or not it should be done, but under my personal circumstances, induction was the right decision for me. I don’t regret being induced, even though there were complications that may or may not have resulted from that decision.
The morning of August 2 Mike and I got up around 3:30 in order to get to the hospital by 5:30am as the doctor had instructed. We were so glad to be leaving together, not in traffic, and with Mike actually home instead of stuck at work. We got to the hospital, and found out that the nurses didn’t know that I was coming in for induction, and all the beds were taken, and likely to remain so for quite some time. So we waited. And waited. And went down to eat breakfast at the cafe, and waited. At around 9:30am they had a bed for me, and we got settled in. They started the Petocin drip around 11am, and I went into labor, or at least a mild form of it, and continued all day. Around 11pm they decided that something needed to be done- I was exhausted, nothing much was happening in my body, and my doctor feared that I wouldn’t have the energy to get me through labor, so I had some choices to make. Either I get taken off everything, I go home, and wait a few days, they manually break my water and see what happens, or they take me off the petocin, but keep me in the hospital, give me a sleeping pill, and try again tomorrow. Well, I chose the latter choice, and my mom and Mike both went back to home/hotel to sleep. The next morning they started me on Petocin again after a breakfast of a turkey sandwich around 8am, and then labor began again. At around noon my water broke on its own! After my water broke, things got pretty intense. I got up and walked around through the halls with Mike, trying to walk through contractions, and by the time I got back to my room from one of my walks, (around 2pm) I was ready for the drugs!! The nurse that I had at the time seemed to want me to try to do it without drugs, but then one of the doctors on call (not my doctor, but the one who would supposedly be delivering my baby) came in, saw my face and said “Why don’t you want an epidural?” And I responded back “I DO WANT AN EPIDURAL!” I think the strongest thing I said while in labor was “I WANT DRUGS!” and thankfully I did not say anything to Mike that I feared I might. (No “This is all your fault” “I hate you” “You did this to me!”, I am happy to report! )
So at that point they checked me, and instead of being 2 cm, I was 5cm, so they were able to give me the epidural. Can I just say- I love epidurals! Suddenly the whole world seemed right after getting those drugs!
The epidural was administered around 2pm, and I continued to labor, though not feeling pain. That’s the best way to labor, let me tell you! I could still feel pressure/sensation, but not pain. Just before the epidural, my favorite nurse from the day before came in, and informed me that she would be there until 11pm, and most likely be my nurse for delivery!! Yeah!! I didn’t end up with the doctor that I wanted, but I got my nurse! Her name was Stephanie, and without her, and Mike I know I wouldn’t have gotten through the whole labor thing.
Turns out that little Jordan was facing the wrong way, so I was having pretty bad back labor, and with each push she wasn’t getting much closer to being born. By around 10pm we were wondering if it would have to be a C-section. With as much pushing and labor as I had already gone through(a little over 3 hours by this point.), I really didn’t want to have 2 things to recover from, so I decided I was going to push with all my might until that baby came out! Towards the end of my pushing, the doctors switched agan- this time to a man named Dr. Bhatia. I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of a man delivering my baby, but at that point, I didn’t really care. He came in and met me, then came back in a few minutes later and said “Let’s give her some help”, then came back in after my nurse called for a baby nurse, and then it was time to push her out! After 4 hours of pushing with little result, it was so relieving to realize that I actually was going to have this baby! At 9:54pm they got her out (with the help of a vacuum) and laid her on my tummy. Man that was a surreal experience! Crazy! It was so cool to be able to finally see her, and hold her. Mike cut the cord, and then they took her to clean her up and do all the “nurse stuff” they needed to do. She received an Apgar score of 9, and was very alert, especially since I had had the epidural for so long.
My mom came in around a half hour later, and soon after midnight I was put in my room for postpardum. At Long Beach Memorial they have a “rooming in” policy, so Jordan got to hang out with me after spending about 3 hours in the nursery making sure everything was okay. I was feeling pretty weird by this point. The epidural hadn’t worn off yet, and I still couldn’t really use my legs. This continued for quite some time, and made it very difficult for me to feel much of anything. They had to catheterize me again-yuck! And by this time the epidural had worn off- at least the pain fighting part. I can’t even count how many catheters I’ve had now. Crazy. After a while they had to put a catheter in overnight, and told me that if I didn’t feel sensation to go to the bathroom soon, I would be in for some complications. Thankfully the next morning, everything was working a little more like normal, and we ditched the bag- thank heaven! I still had a lot of problems with pain while in the hospital, and Jordan developed jaundice, and lost a large amount of weight (10%), and after a scare with her mouth turning blue while she was in my room, they took Jordan to the nursery for observation, and were talking about discharging me. I really didn’t want to go home without her, and my doctor called to see how I was- I told her I wanted to stay in the hospital and feed Jordan, and get the pain under control, so she let me stay the night. Jordan had to have 3 blood tests in the hospital, and her hearing test (which she passed), and then we were to take her in to the pediatrician on Tuesday. We went home Sunday after Jordan and I were both given a “clean bill of health”, and off we went!
Jordan has since had 2 more blood tests, each one coming back a bit more normal, so that’s good. As of today the whites of her eyes have returned to white (instead of yellow), and she is looking a lot more healthy. My infection is slowly getting better, and I’m a bit more comfortable now, so that’s also a good thing. I’m hoping to feel much better by the end of this week!
So there you have it- there’s the hospital story- finally!
We go back in to check her weight on Thursday, and I will attend another breast feeding clinic as well. I was going to try and go tomorrow, but her clinic is already full, and driving all the way to Long Beach for a 2 second weight check seems a bit rediculous. Welp- that’s the story from here!

I have just now finished putting up all the new pictures and getting them organized, but looking at how many times they have already been viewed, it looks like some of you have already seen them! I hope you enjoy them! The “labor story” (minus the parts you really don’t want to hear) will come a little later, but I will update you on the now- I am having a hard time recovering currently, as I have gotten an infection. Yuck. Jordan is doing well, but came home with jaundice, so we are trying to get her weight up, and turn her back to a normal color. As of today, her blood test came back a bit better than the one she had on the 8th, and her weight is up to 6 lbs, 3 ounces. (She was 5lbs, 12 oz leaving the hospital) I will keep you posted on the rest of her tests- she has another weigh-in next week. Also, I have added some new pics of the kitties, as well as some pics taken the night before we left for the hospital, and finally, some pictures of the crib being built!

Jordan Aleene is finally here!!!
She was born August 3, 2006 at 9:54PM. She weighed in at 6lbs, 6oz, and was 19 inches long. She was born very healthy, despite a long labor. We are finally at home after spending 4 nights in the hospital, and are adjusting to home life just great! She is truly a blessing, and just a doll! We love her so much! I promise to get pictures up, and more of an explanation of everything that happened while we were in the hospital soon, but for right now, just thought I’d post the latest!
Yeah for Jordan Aleene!!