First cabin trip

A couple weeks ago we took Melah up to the cabin for the first time. She did awesome, and even enjoyed being outside looking at all the snow. Poor kid has inherited mom and dads allergies, so it's already a battle trying to keep her cleared up.. But otherwise still doing great! She is getting so much bigger.. Hard to believe! Pictures of the cabin and other pictures...

2 months

Melah had her two month dr appt yesterday. She is now 11 pounds 22.8 inches. She is a healthy growing girl. The girls at daycare just love her and take "to" good of care of her.. She is so spoiled there. I had to kindly let them know they can't hold her ALL day, she can lay down to sleep as well. Nothing I should ever be complaining about :). They are so wonderful there, I'm so lucky to have found this place. Melah is on a really good routine, waking up only once for food in the middle of the night, an we are moving her back to her room. Last night she stayed in her room all night. We have tried in the past to put her in her room, but every time we walk out she wakes up screaming. So talking with her doctor yesterday, he said they have an incredible sense of smell and can tell your not in the room. So to put a used shirt by her in her crib. (We did that with our dog and it worked awesome!) so I put a shirt if mine with her last night, slept amazingly! Whew! I thought we were going to be in for a challenge. Worked great!

6 weeks

Our little girl is growing so fast! I'm back at work and Melah is at the most amazing daycare! They absolutely love her there... She is still eating and sleeping awesome, and car rides have gotten significantly better from a few weeks ago (where is was screaming for over 20 min while in there!). Although she does awesome at holding her head up, we still do belly time, and I have started putting her in the bumbo seat.. With a little extra head support. She loves her music and toys! She will lay on the ground for 30-45 min at a time and kick and jabber as she is listening to her music! Such an independent kid already! Since I have disregarded what the doc says about feeding her... And feed her what she wants... I have one very happy smiley little girl!

Merry Christmas

Melah's first Christmas is something she doesn't even know happened. We had our usual 4 different parties to attend, and she did well- slept threw all of them :). Pretty uneventful, thankfully! She did however wear some cute dressed bought by her aunt Leslie. It sure was a special Christmas for us.. Looking forward to when she can open her gifts by herself! Hope everyone was able to have an amazing Christmas with family and loved ones!

3 weeks

Can't believe it's already been 3 weeks!! Dad is back to work this week, which sucks for me cause he is a huge help, but so far it's gone pretty well! We still get out of the house everyday and its been going good. Tomorrow Grandma Payne gets to watch Melah for a couple hours while mom cashes in on a gift certificate I got for my birthday to have a Manicure and Pedicure! I'm so excited and looking forward to it! Melah is sleeping 2 4-5 hour shifts at night, so that's a huge help! She is a great sleeper but she fights going back to sleep like crazy! Some nights we have good night, and some not so good! It's a lot of trial and error still at this point, trying to get things figured out for when I go back to work! Lots of work, but we are managing it!

2 weeks

Well tomorrow we will have a 2 week old! Today we had another appt and she gained almost a pound since last week! She is now at 8 lbs 14 oz! She is a little eater!! She is a fantastic sleeper during the day, but still having troubles at night. She will sleep really good, but getting her back to sleep seems to be a problem. Still working out some kinks. :). Dr says she is healthy and looks good. She lost her belly button last night, so night it's bath time!!! Since it was 60 degrees out today, I decided to put her in our wrap and go for a short walk to the mailbox to see how she liked it! She loved it and so did I! It was so nice to carry her around without all the weight on my shoulders and feeling like she is safe! We are still getting up and out of the house everyday just to see some fresh scenery and so we don't go crazy sitting at home!

1st week

The first week at home has gone much better then I could have ever anticipated!! Hector is a HUGE help so between switching off on feedings, and diaper changes, we are both getting 6+ hours of sleep a night! For the second night in a row, she has slept for 2 shifts of 5 hrs each!!! Means mommy and daddy are getting spoiled!! Her first Dr appt this week went awesome! She is a very healthy little girl!! She put on some weight since leaving the hosptial, but we are not up to birth weight yet. We go back next week to make sure she is back up to birth weight. She is an eating sleeping machine! We couldn't be more blessed with our sweet little angel! Here are lots of pictures of our little sweetheart!

Melah Rene Ramirez

She is finally here!!! After getting to the hospital on Monday the 19th, the hospital was full!!! I wasn't feeling very good at all so after a few test, they had determined I had mild pre-clampsia starting. The Dr on call wouldn't release me to go home since I developed the pre-clampsia and I was already overdue. Since the hospital was so full and short staffed, the nurses wouldn't let the dr induce me since they didn't have the staff to take care of me. After a battle the Dr refused to release me, so I had to sit around and wait (with lots and lots of walking) until they had staff there to help work with me. By this time I have already had contractions for 4 weeks, and was still only dilated to a 1. After 16 hours of walking, sitting and napping, at 3am Tuesday morning, they finally inserted a pill into my cervix to help start dilating me. By 8 am Tuesday, I was still only a 1. They inserted a second pill and scraped my membranes (OUCH!!) hopping to see some progress, by 3 pm Tuesday afternoon, I still had not dilated to 2! I became to get very frustrated, upset and was in pain. I wanted that baby out and she needed to be out! She continued to kick and have a very healthy heart rate, so no one was concerned at any point that she or I was in any danger. They wanted to try this and that and all these other things, and I said NO! We need to move forward! When I asked the Dr about breaking my water, I was told not till I was a 3-4 would they break my water for risk of infection... However after throwing a bit of a fit, the head nurse came in and talked with the Dr and agreed to break my water. At 3 pm Tuesday, my water was broke. By about 6 I was finally dilated to a 2. Haha! So they started me on Patossin. The contractions had already been coming hard and strong, but once the Patossin kicked in, that increased intensely! By 7:00 I was at a 2-3 and in tons of pain! I got the epidural and was able to relax a bit, but could still feel the back labor. I finally started dilating and went from a 3 to a 5 (where I had to get another shot of the epidural, after getting pain shots and another shot of epidural, I was STILL having intense back labor!) during contractions Hector was pushing on my back as hard as he could to help ease the pain... I progressed to a 7, took a nap and after 1 1/2 hours was at a 10, she had dropped and they could see her hair!!! I was ready to push!! They had me do a practice push and the nurse yelled, "ok stop!!! I gotta go get the dr!" The parents weren't there yet so I said "no we have to wait! I thought we would have more time!!" So the Dr laughed and stalled for a bit.. My mom arrived and once the Dr saw her, it was GO time! The nurses said they usually don't tell patients but thought I broke a record for a first time mom pushing (not that I really did but they said it was incredibly fast!!) after 8 pushes in 15 minutes, our little Melah Rene was born! Wed November 21st, 8 pounds 6.5 oz and 20 1/2 inches long at 1:57 am! Right as she was born, Debbie and Rene made it just in time to hear the news! I tore in 3 spots and got lots of stitches. Because she had swallowed some of her poop in the water sack, they were not able to put her right on my stomach, instead had to take her and suction her out right away before she inhaled. Hector didn't even have time to cut the cord! They said NICU was full and had she inhaled we would have to been flown to Spokane or Seattle!! Thank God she didn't and came out healthy as ever!! Melah was one of 3 born a minute a part that morning.. 1:56, 1:57 & 1:58! We got the middle slot! As soon as they cleaned her up and put her on my chest, the first thing she did was push back with her strong little arms, and looked right up at me and starred into my eyes! My beautiful baby girl was so happy and healthy and we just starred at each other for quite some time! What a special memory! Wed evening we ended up getting kicked up to Pediatrics since the OB was so full and still had no room to put anyone! We had the most amazing nurse that helped us so much... She was a life savor after the poor help we received in the OB due to being short staffed and overpacked! She took Melah for 4 hrs so dad and I could get some sleep, trained her to sleep without having to be held or rocked and gave us the most helpful advise to date!! She was incredible! Thanksgiving day we were finally released around 1:30 pm! What a lot to be thankful for!! We had a very healthy little girl, loosing only 3 oz (2% body weight, 8-10% is normal). And today she is one heck of an eater and sleeper!! We couldn't be more blessed to have an amazing little girl whom we couldn't love more!! Thanks for following in my pregnancy blog, I will continue to write and post all sorts of pictures and stories! Thank you to everyone who called, sent text, emailed, face-booked me, stopped by to visit and help out! Although the labor and hospital stay was the worst experience I have ever had, all of you helped make it better! Lots of love to you all!!
The Ramirez's

40 weeks

After 3 1/3 weeks of contractions, my body and baby are both being stubborn! I am not progressing as I should be. (Or at all for that matter!) After discussing all our options with the Dr, he feels it would not be beneficial to let the baby stay in much longer.. We are looking at other complications If we wait. He tried to get things going in the office on Wed, which has seem to be unproductive. Although I don't want to be induced, I have to trust my Dr knows what is best for me and my baby. As for now I am scheduled to be induced on Monday at some point... Hopping to have the baby without having a c-section. Please pray I go into labor on my own before then! Will keep everyone posted.

39 weeks!

No I'm not smuggling a watermelon out of the grocery store.. Just my daughter locked an loaded and ready to come out! :) she is in position and has "dropped"! Could be any day at this point. Friday is my last day at work and I'm ready to walk and walk and walk until she is ready to come out! Hopefully next week I will be able to post pictures of our little girl :) keep your fingers crossed for us! Her heart rate has dropped this week to 127, which is low for her (usually she is at 147) but the Dr said that was a normal and good heart rate, and at the end it's normal for it to drop a bit. I look funny in the picture because I'm wearing Hector's pants :) which anymore these days that's all I like to wear! He had no idea he had to get enough clothes for two of us! :)

38 weeks

Today I'm at 38 weeks and ready to have a kid :) I saw my dr today and I'm still the same as last week, 80% effaced and only about a fingertip dilated! I'm having pretty constant contractions but its just early labor. This weekend will consist of lots of resting.. In between lots of walks :) Till next week...

Nursery

Although its still a work in progress... Here is the decorated nursery for our little girl :) I love going in here and just looking around and sitting in there. It's one of my favorite rooms in the house right now. The curtains are homemade from some gifts we got at the shower lol. At least it's something for now.

The count down is on!!!

We are now at the month mark! 4 weeks left till the due date of Nov 15th! I have now moved to a temporary sit down job (at my same office just as a receptionist now :) ) to help me make it through the last month! I was having troubles making it the entire day so this is much better for me! I've got incredibly swollen hands and feet and developed some pregnancy induced carpel tunnel... So I'm ready to have this baby and enjoy the heck out of her! Here is my 36 week tummy photo.. I did a side and front view... As you can see she is all out front and has dropped a bit. Still very very very active!!

34 weeks

I will post more baby shower photos in another blog, but here is hector and I at 34 weeks. Babies heart rate was 148 this week and I have started feeling the Braxton hicks contractions as well. She is still very active!