Izzy at 3 Months

(This is an older post that I had left unfinished thru the month of March... decided to just publish it... better late than never)

3 month bday

Time flies, especially when watching a baby grow... Belle is now 3 months old (pic above is on her 3 month birthday)! Along the way she has hit many milestones and has grown so much!

Quick rundown of her behavioral/physical changes:

* She's a little over 12 pounds now and around 25 inches tall. She's so much easier to hold now... heavier but strong and plump. She is comfortable in just about any position... especially when her daddy holds her.
* She has been able to hold her head up steady since around 5-6 weeks...looks like a little gopher or meerkat when she does.
* She started laughing, and is very smiley... she loves her own reflection... put her in front of a mirror and you'll get the most brilliant little toothless smile you've ever seen.
* She also started to do assisted walking and assisted sitting up... she loves to move those legs and walk around. She stomps her feet when you hold her up.
* Mostly grown out of her NB clothes and some 0-3 M clothes too!
* She had her first outing on Jan 5... took her to Rudy's for lunch.
* Started formulating tears, by the end of Dec, she was able to maintain great eye contact and even started following me around the room with her eyes. Her kicks are really strong.
* She went from making no sounds except crying and whimpering, to making soft kitten like meows to louder, more pronouced cooing and babbling.
* She started to suck her hands and fingers more and more... she's a little drool machine. Hasn't found her thumb to suck on yet.
* She had her first stroll around the neighborhood in mid-January. It was a rare sunny Sunday so we took the chance to take her out... she enjoyed the first 15 minutes, and then started complaining so we brought her back :(
* Started to interact with the toys in her rainforest play gym a bit... still doesn't keep her attention for very long though.
* Hates tummy time

Jan 10 was our first day alone with Izzy after Shel's parents left. Then Jan 11 was my first day completely alone with her while Shel went to work. Overall it wasn't too bad, but what a huge change it was!

1/16/10:

1/29/10:


We've gotten more comfortable taking her out and as a result, she's had a lot of social interaction... She's met many of our friends and family members by now. The only immediate family she hasn't met are my little sis Sapna and my nephew Prakash.

1/30/10 2 month birthday:



One of the biggest milestones is that we moved her into her room the day after her 3 month birthday. We did feel sad to move her out, but it's for the better. She made the transition really well and slept through the whole night for the first 4 nights in her room! And she woke up each day in a great mood... smiley and excited to see us in the morning. Hopefully this continues :) Feels amazing to get a full night of sleep again!

2/5/10:

Life at home with Izzy is good for the most part... it feels great to be here for her. However, it does get a bit crazy at times.... on some days the only time I get anything done is when she's down for a nap. She's getting better about entertaining herself while she's up so I can get stuff done. But at the end of the day, I do long for Shel's return from work... when 5pm rolls around, I'm ready for some help with Izzy.

2/23/10:

Each day brings a new joy, new perspective and new insights into parenthood... and even at this point, everyday I'm amazed at this little girl, and feel so lucky to get to be her mommy...truly. I'm a big believer in karma and I must have done some really great things in life to deserve my precious, loving Isabelle!

Isabelle's First Month

Isabelle's first month flew by... it was busy, overwhelming, full of rewarding moments, and for me, an emotional roller coaster!

December 30, 2009 was a regular day, except it marked the end of Izzy's first month of life. We had a low key day... in the evening we sang to her and cut a small cake (Caribbean Rum cake to be exact... we had too many cakes around so didn't get her a proper cake.. oh well, she didn't mind :)).

By the end of the day, I couldn't believe we made it thru the whole month... the day we brought her home I couldn't even see past the next couple of hours. The only thing on my mind at the time was figuring out how to take care of her. Even though Shel and my Mom were around to help care for her, I felt so much pressure, mostly because I had the huge task of keeping her fed, which they couldn't help with. Believe it or not that was one of the most challenging things I've had to deal with... and it is supposed to be so natural. Yea right... not for me and Izzy!

Taking care of a newborn is hard... even with 3 adults around, we were exhausted that first week. We were totally in love with the lil one and had a ball getting to know her, but were happy to have the first week behind us! It was a milestone worth celebrating... we made it without breaking her! And to top it off, she was gaining weight steadily... which was one of my biggest concerns.

12/4/09 (Day 5):


After that, each week that came and went felt like we were getting more used to our roles as parents. I had plenty of help from my mom who kept us fed and kept the house looking great. She also helped take care of Izzy all day... and especially during the morning so we could sleep in and at night so I could get a head start on sleep for the night. I also got to take long naps... ah, the good old days!

12/6/09 (Day 7):

12/9/09 (Day 10):


Life was surely abnormal during that first month... no time for our needs, we were just consumed with Izzy and her needs. As I said, it was overwhelming, but wouldn't trade it for the world.

12/10/09 (Day 11):


She was so fragile, yet so strong... she had a whole range of entertaining expressions on her face... her arms and legs were in fully swing... usually she put her dukes up like she was about to punch us out :) Her body, arms and legs were so thin, and her skin was dry and scaly for most of the first month. Her eyelashes were short, but started growing longer week by week. Her hair was beautiful and long and just crazy... her little lips were so small and so adorable, especially her bottom lip, which I just wanted to eat up. And don't even get me started on her eyes... nothing sweeter in this world than the tender looks she gave us...

Shel and I loved how she would just lie on our chests in her fetal position... she was such a sweet little package. She frowned a lot during her first month... she would raise her brows which created deep wrinkles on her forehead... she had the look of an inquisitive little gopher. She started smiling early on... like in the first week, but usually it was when she was falling asleep, or when she had gas. By the end of the month, she was smiling much more, and didn't seem like it was just due to gas or drowsiness :)

She has such wonderful qualities, some of Shel's, some of mine and some all her own. I'm looking forward to seeing her personality develop and get a feel for who she as a person. So far, she's a little bundle of awesome.

12/10/09 (Day 11):


As Izzy gradually becomes less and less dependent on us over the years, I will surely miss her in her first month of life!


Isabelle's 1 Month Birthday (12/30/09):

Happy 2010!

2009 has been an incredible year for us... here's a quick review:

- I was laid off at IBM and Feb 26 was my last day at work. I had mixed feelings about it at the time... partly upset that I was let go, but partly relieved since I had not been too happy with my job anyway. Then I almost accepted a job offer with IBM Brazil, which I ended up turning down. Would have been an adventure, but things worked out for the best.

- In April we got the good news that we were pregnant and about to start a family! The baby was due on Thanksgiving Day, November 26.

- We planned a last minute trip to London and Italy since we weren't going to be able to take the trip to India in November since the baby was due then. We had a great time with Shel's parents, my mom and El! Cinque Terre in Italy was the highlight of our trip for sure.

- The rest of the year we spent getting ready for baby's arrival. We were blessed to have three baby showers thrown for us by friends and family, all of which were a lot of fun. We decorated baby's room as best as we could, and we were quite happy with the finished product. I made unheard of amounts of trips to Babies R Us and other stores to shop for baby related things... good thing I wasn't working so I had time for such things.

- After the much anticipated arrival of our little one was delayed by 4 days, Nikki was induced on November 30, and Isabelle was born at 3:58 pm that day. This was definitely the highlight of our year!


We spent a lot of time with our families this year... from our trip to London and Italy, to our trips to Houston to visit my family and their trips here to spend time with us and Isabelle, to Shel's parents visiting us here to celebrate the baby and the holidays.

We've also spent a lot of time with friends this year... creating stronger bonds with new friends and keeping in touch with our dear old friends.

It's been a great year, and here's to creating more wonderful memories in 2010!

Isabelle's 3 week Birthday!

Today, Isabelle is 3 weeks old (12/21/09). During the first week of her life, I couldn't really see past it... and now we've already had her in our lives for 3 weeks!

During this time, we've shared many wonderful moments with her that will live in our memories forever... all the hugs and kisses, her adorable and amusing face expressions, all the many firsts...her first smile, her first bath, her first grabbing onto our fingers and many more. We love holding her... in our arms, over the shoulder while burping her, on our chest as she curls her feet up and assumes the fetal position... she's such a sweetheart.

She still hiccups as much as she did when she was in the tummy... and she has really mature neck movement already. She has started to maintain eye contact and can follow objects for a few seconds. She is so cute when she's nursing... she makes the most adorable faces and purses her little sweet lips.

But of course, with all the good, comes a little of the not so good moments... long sleepless nights, clusterfeeding, and the poopy messy diapers to clean up :) Everyday is different... some days better than others. Such is life with a newborn.

First week Birthday (12/7/09)...Grandma got her a little piece of cake to celebrate :)


Second week Birthday (12/14/09):


Third week Birthday (12/21/09):

The wait is over... Isabelle is finally here

The new love in our life is finally here...

Isabelle Siona D'Mello arrived on November 30, 2009 at 3:58pm CST at St. David's North Austin Medical Center. She was 6 pounds 14 ounces, 20 inches tall and just perfect! As cliche as it sounds... words can't describe how we felt when she entered this world. We felt relieved, overwhelmed, proud and unconditional love all at the same time...

Our time in the hospital is a blur... we checked in Nov 30 around 7:30am and I was ready to be induced by 8:30 or 9am. Once the pitocin started dripping, it didn't take long for the contractions to start. I'm uncertain what the timeline was, but it was within an hour. They started out mild, and then grew quite intense... I used breathing techniques and various positions (and a lot of hand holding with Sheldon and Mom) to get thru the contractions but then hit a point where it was almost unbearable. At that point, I gave in and asked for an epidural... and it was in the nick of time since the pain started to get much worse after that. After I finally got the epidural and they checked me, it turns out that I was fully dilated and ready to push! Wow, things were moving much quicker than I had imagined in my head. I think it was around 2:45 or 3pm. So after about an hour of pushing, Isabelle made her entrance... or outrance. I couldn't believe the hard part of the delivery was over so quickly... in my head, I had prepped myself to hunker in for a long day and night of labor. Shel was my rock through out the labor... he didn't flinch at any of the gross or painful stuff :) Much better than mom, who started to get really sad and sickly when I was pushing. She said she couldn't stand to see me in pain... even though I wasn't feeling much pain at that point due to the epidural. Anyway, so everyone told her she should leave the room to prevent her from fainting.

Isabelle was quickly whisked away to be cleaned and weighed and all the stuff they usually do. Shel watched in amazement and gave me updates on what was happening, while I was getting cleaned up myself. I had a 2nd degree tear, but Dr. Cutler said it was only the skin, not the tissues that tore. Either way, with the epidural, still in my system, I didn't feel much pain as I was getting stitched up.

I was finally able to hold her shortly after... by that time Mom had come back into the room as well. It felt unreal to be holding my baby girl for the first time. To think that just a short while ago she was inside me was crazy. I didn't think she'd so obviously look like either one of us, but she most certainly had a lot of Shel's features... the nose and eyes were the most prominent. Of course, she was puffy and her head was odd shaped like most newborns are. Anyway, there was a lot going on in the room... Shel calling and emailing the good news out to friends and family... my Mom doing the same... the nurses doing their thing and I was just lying there wondering what was next. When things settled down a bit, they whisked the baby to the nursery to run tests, give her shots and clean her up some more. Shel went with them... and we wouldn't see them again for a few hours after that. Thankfully Mom was with me so I wasn't alone.



They moved me into a post delivery room and I ordered food and tried to rest before the baby came back from the nursery. El and Valerie came to visit and soon after, Shel returned with Isabelle. After some gushing over little Izzy, it was time for her first breastfeeding session... which didn't go too well, but they say the first few days are the hardest and I just need to hang in there.



Life over the next couple of days in the hospital was strange and surreal. I felt relieved since we had lots of help around, but I also wanted to get the heck out of there asap. Our room was a decent size, but started to feel cramped after a while. Thankfully we only spent 2 nights there. The first night we were there, Isabelle decided she didn't want to sleep that night, so Shel got his first taste of the sleepless nights ahead. The nurse told him to take care of the baby while I slept for a few hours, and Izzy decided to keep Daddy awake for a couple of hours... he had to take her out into the hall and walk around with her the entire time...



Early on day 2, Isabelle was in the nursery for a while, where the pediatrician noticed a few alarming things. She came to our room to tell us that Izzy had to be taken to the NICU for observation. When she first told me, I started crying... Shel was taking the news decently well and was consoling me. As soon as the pediatrician left, Shel started getting really emotional and that lasted the whole day for both of us. Izzy spent the whole day in the NICU and it was really stressful for us. She was so uncomfortable there... and the poor thing was so hungry but it was hard to nurse her there. We were so relieved when they released her from the NICU and finally have her back in our room that evening. Turns out they didn't observe anything interesting there and just told us to keep an eye out for abnormal behavior.

Anyway, day 2 sucked overall.. we were so exhausted and drained emotionally. I was also feeling a ton of pressure to breastfeed her... we had to eventually give her a little formula since the poor darling was so hungry. Day 3 was better and we were happy to hear that we'd be getting released that day. By 4pm that day (Wednesday December 2) we were home... and then we wondered what to do next :)



Since then we've tried to settle into some kind of routine... though there is no regularity with a newborn. The first week was really hard, but things got better in the 2nd week and even better the 3rd week. Having my Mom here with us was immensely helpful. She was there to keep us fed and take care of the baby when we really needed to get some rest. She was great!

So, here we are now, three weeks after Isabelle entered our lives... We love her to pieces. Sometimes we just stare at her and can't believe how adorable she is... then inevitably she starts crying about something or another. She keeps us on our toes, and it's hard to find much time for ourselves these days, but we're enjoying our new roles in life... Mommy and Daddy.

The Wating Game

I'm 38 weeks and 2 days now and the waiting game begins... When oh when will baby arrive? Here are some guesses:

Nikki: Nov 16
Mai (Shel's grandma): Nov 18
Shel: Nov 19
Valerie: Nov 20
Mathias mam (Shel's uncle): Nov 21
El: Nov 22
Shel's mom: Nov 25
Nikki's mom: Nov 26 (My actual due date)
Shel's dad: Nov 27
Nikki's dad, Hetal and Sapna: Nov 29


Hopefully I don't go past my due date.... if I do, my doctor scheduled an induction on Nov 30, and I really don't want to do that.

In the mean time, we're getting the nest ready. Today we worked on the baby's room a bit more and I'm happy to report it's practically done. We just need to hang some art on the walls and at some point down the line add a book shelf. We also need to put a chair in, but not needed right now. Anyway, here's the room now, after installing curtains, and some narrow shelves:

Nursery

We decided a while ago to keep the nursery decor low key and not too kiddish... and though we're not done with it yet, we've got all the basics done and hope to add the finishing touches over the next week.

Here's the progression of the room so far...

First thing to go in was the crib... Here's Shel (aka baby daddy) putting it together on 8/29:


Here's the finished product... I was so excited to finally have a crib in the room. It took some getting used to, but for a few days, I would just stand in the doorway and admire it every time I passed by the room and got a glimpse of it :)


Next came the bedding on 10/6... I couldn't decided whether to go with a girly theme or a neutral theme... with Shel's help we ended up with a neutral theme :) I really like the bedding we picked out:


The room was getting packed with all the baby things we had started to accumulate from our baby showers and things we bought. Here's a shot of the chaos on 11/3... and this wasn't even half of it... there were several other larger boxes and shopping bags tucked away in the closet and the corners of the room:


We also had a dresser by that time shown in the pic above, but moved to the center or the room.
On 11/3 we added some wall art. Here's Shel starting on the hand painted mural:



Just kidding... we are not that talented.. we used a wall decal. It's not a sticker so looks more like it's hand painted, but it's kinda obviously not :)



And... tada:


It wasn't completely done, but it got really late, so we called it a night and finished it up just yesterday (11/8). We also painted some floating shelves black the weekend before last to match the other furniture and hung them up yesterday.

After a bit of clean up, here's what the nursery looks like now:








We still have to work on it, but happy with the progress so far :) We never could decide on a paint color for the room, so we decided to stick with the beige color we already had on the walls... which means we have to bring in color in other ways... art, maybe some curtains, etc. Should be fun to see what we come up with.