Clara's First Smile

Clara had her first real smile yesterday at 5 weeks old. I was playing with her and squeezing her cheeks when she smiled at me. She did it 3 times in a row and today she can't seem to stop doing it. I might be a little biased but she's the cutest kid in the world!

Easter and Clara is One Month Old!

Clara had her first bottle at 4 weeks. She was a champ and didn't have any problems drinking from the bottle with Dad.

I meant to take a picture like this right after Clara got home from the hospital but it didn't happen. We used a bunny since she was one month old right at Easter. Hopefully I'll remember to take a picture with Mr. Bunny every month so we can watch Clara grow! At first she enjoyed checking out Mr. Bunny...

...but after a few pictures she'd had enough!

Clara's first Easter basket from Mimi.

Clara's first picture with the Easter Bunny! She wasn't too sure about those teeth. Don't you love her beautiful little dress! It was me and my sister's dress when we were babies. Clara had it on for about 5 minutes before she spit up all over it, which is the norm around here. Grandma King got her the matching tights.

Easter was followed by Me, Brian and Catherine getting a terrible virus. Mom came to Raleigh and looked after Clara while we were sick. That was followed by me getting a plugged milk duct because I got dehydrated, then Clara got the virus. Needless to say it hasn't been a very good week at the Henderson household. Everybody seems to be on the mend today at least. 

Clara's first bed. She is now sleeping in the pack and play but the laundry basket worked great for the first two weeks.

Clara's first time in the swing. She's a big fan. It makes a great napping spot.

Clara's first bath in her own tub!

Clara's umbilical cord finally fell off when she was 15 days old which meant time for a real bath! She went from not liking it at first to liking it until I wet her head which she was not a fan of.  We are greatful that she can finally have real baths because the spitting up is kind of out of control and she gets in desperate need of a bath pretty often.

Clara's Newborn Photo Shoot

Clara's 2 Week Appointment

Today Clara went for her 2 week appointment at the pediatrician. She weighed in at 7lbs 9oz and 20 3/4 inches long. The doctor had said that as long as she was back to her birth weight we didn't have to keep waking her up at night to eat, so we are super excited to possibly get a sleeping stretch more than 3 hours tonight!

I can hardly believe she is already 2 weeks old! It seems like its gone so fast already and I know that isn't gonna change. Brian and I have enjoyed every second with her and feel so blessed to have her in our lives.

First Bath

Clara had her first sponge bath at home the day after she came home from the hospital. She wasn't a big fan and screamed through most of it but since then she has gotten use to them and today she didn't cry at all.

Clara's Birth Story

Clara started her trip into the world around 2AM Friday, March 9th. Friday was suppose to be my last day at work since my due date was the following Monday and I was starting to feel too miserable to be at work all day.  I had been to the doctor Thursday afternoon, the day before, and Dr. Alvarez had checked me. I had been at 3 cm and 100% effaced. That night I woke up in the middle of the night and just felt kind of strange. I got up to go to the bathroom and my water broke. I told Brian to go ahead and sleep, that I was gonna take a shower. About 2 minutes later I had my first contraction and it was a huge one. I told Brian that on second thought put everything in the car we were going to the hospital now! After that first contraction they continued to come about every 2 minutes then soon they were one on top of the other with no break. I kept telling Brian that this wasn't how it was suppose to work, what about everything they said in that stupid birth class about it taking 17 hours.

By about 2:45AM we got checked into the hospital and instead of taking me to the triage area they took me straight to a room. Apparently if you are acting like your dying from the pain you get to skip the triage step! They checked me and I was at 7cm so they started doing my blood work and getting my IV in. I was in a crazy amount of pain and kept telling them I wanted my epidural NOW but they didn't have my blood work so they gave me some medicine that they said would take the edge off but I couldn't tell any difference in the contractions. By now it was a few minutes after 3:00AM so they checked me again and I was at 10cm. Suddenly there were about 10 nurses in the room and they were telling me I didn't have time for an epidural that I was gonna have to push. I pushed through 2 contractions then Dr. Alvarez came in and checked me and said that Clara wasn't in the birth canal straight and that I was going to need to labor on my side a while and see if she would move. On the plus side that meant there was time for an epidural! At first they were afraid for me to sit up because she was already so low in the birth canal so they tried to give me the epidural laying down but it wouldn't work. Dr. Alvarez wanted me to have the epidural in case he had to do an inversion if she wouldn't turn so they decided to let me sit up. Amazingly they got the epidural in the first time once I sat up. About 3 nurses were having to hold me still because I was in so much pain I couldn't stop moving. At first the epidural only worked on my left side but after a while it started working on my right side about 75%. After laying on my side for an hour they decided for me to start pushing even though Clara was still crooked in the birth canal. After pushing for 3 hours Dr. Alvarez decided to do an inversion which thankfully was successful. I pushed for 30 more minutes, during which time the epidural started to wear off but it still was a million times better than not having one at all, and Clara was born at 8:57AM. She got an 8 on her first apgar test then a 9 on her second test. They had brought in an extra nurse for when she was born because they were a little worried about her since I had the inversion plus I had pushed longer than they would have liked. Luckily she came out absolutely perfect, screaming her little head off.

The labor was a lot more painful than I had anticipated but I think a lot of that was the fact that I dialated to 10cm in a little more than an hour. One of the nurses told Brian that if she hadn't been crooked in the birth canal that she might have been born in the car! Praise God that didn't happen! I am really freaked out that when we have another kid I might not make it to the hospital.

Finally seeing the precious little girl I've been carrying around for 9 months was the most amazing moment of my life. Brian and I are loving every moment with her and have been so fortunate that she has been such a good baby. She eats and sleeps really well but HATES to have her diaper changed. We can't wait to see more and more of her personality each day.

Clara Gray Henderson is Here!!

39 Weeks

38.5 Weeks

Ugh... I am such a slacker. I have about a million things I need/want to put on the blog and yet after being at work all day all I want to do is take a nap every afternoon. Its Friday so maybe I will be productive this weekend... don't get your hopes up. Yesterday I had my doctors appointment and I am 90% effaced and 2 cm dialated. The doctor said that is great progress, especially since its my first baby. I asked her if that meant the baby was coming soon. She said she could come tomorrow but she has also seen women walk around for 2 weeks like that. Not encouraging! Here is my last pregnancy survey! Thank goodness!!

How far along:  38.5 Weeks 
Total weight gain:  20 lbs (it would probably be more by now but the week I had the kidney stones I lost 2 pounds; now I'm back even where I was before that)
Heartbeat: 130bpm (the doctor said that was perfect) 

Maternity clothes:  I'm down to 3 pairs of pants and about 4 shirts that completely cover my belly. I can't wait to wear normal clothes again although I know that is gonna take some time.

Sleep:  I wake up about 4-5 times a night but I sleep pretty good in between so I guess I can't complain

Best moment of the week:  I've got 3 more days in this week... I'm hoping I can say the best moment is when I went into labor!!

Food cravings:  I haven't really had any cravings this week.... nothing really sounds appetizing at this point. I just eat because I'm hungry, not because anything tastes particularly good.

Food aversions:  Anything that will make my heartburn worse (which is basically everything)
Movement:  I feel her move a lot less now since she is basically out of room in there! She kind of rolls from side to side periodically and makes my stomach look completely lopsided.

Gender:  Girl
What I’m looking forward to:  Being a normal size again after this baby comes! Not feeling like I need a crane to get me up off the couch. Seeing that sweet baby face!!!

The first thing I want to eat after this baby is born is a delicious gooey over easy egg! Its one of my favorite foods and I haven't had one since June!!!

Week 36 = Kidney Stones!

Week 36 has definitely been the least fun of this pregnancy! Sunday night I started having some lower back pain but I didn't think much of it since at this point something is hurting me pretty much all the time. Well the back pain kept me up most of the night and was worse the next morning. The pain seemed to be coming and going with contractions but there wasn't any sort of pattern so we thought maybe it was back labor that was just starting. By Monday afternoon the pain was pretty bad so we went to the doctor and they said it was just painful braxton hicks that had increased in frequency and intensity but I still was only dialated 1 cm. We went home and the pain just got worse so the next morning we went back to the doctors office to be diagnosed with a kidney stone. I've been through some pretty painful things in my life but nothing compares to that kidney stone!! On the up side, Dr. Zim said that the kidney stone is way more painful than labor and giving birth so I should be good to go when Miss Clara decides to come.

We also had two awesome baby showers last weekend that I have lots of pictures of but I haven't gotten the camera uploaded yet for obvious reasons. Below is a pic my friend Shelly took of our accountability group. Leslie made my beautiful corsage for the shower! We meet every other week for a Bible study and some girl time. Clara will make baby number 5 in our group, but the first girl!

Nursery - Before

Brian and I are almost completely finished with the nursery!! All that is left is putting up a few more picture frames and that should be done in the next day or two. To prepare you all for the big reveal I thought I'd post a few "before" pictures so you can see how far we have come!

The room had been painted green, a color chosen and painted by the previous owners. Green is actually my favorite color but there was just something weird about this shade of green. We knew this room would eventually be the nursery so when we painted when we first moved in, we left this room as is because we weren't really going to use it for anything anyway. It quickly became the junk room where we would store stuff until we made a trip to donate to the goodwill.

Our first purchase for the baby room was an old dresser I found at a thrift store for $75. It was pretty ugly (think bronze knobs and dark 1970's finish) but just the right size and made out of solid wood. I took a "before" pictures but I can't seem to find it. Here is one I found on the web that is pretty similar.

First we removed the knobs then Brian sanded off the old finish. He also had to replace the tracks the drawers slide in and out on with baby safe ones that don't pull all the way out. Our good friend and LifeClass teacher Brian S. did us a HUGE favor by letting us bring the dresser over to his work shop and use his paint sprayer so that the paint was a nice even finish. I thought this would take about 2 coats of paint but I think by the time everything was finished he had put about 8 coats of paint on the thing!

34 Weeks

Brian and I had some maternity pictures taken this weekend. Here is a sneak peak. I think this one is my favorite. The background are the curtains in Clara's room. More to come.

Apparently Clara took the doctors to heart when they said 34 weeks was the safety cut-off where they wouldn't be terribly worried if I went into labor. At 1:30AM, after being 34 weeks for a whole hour and a half I started going into labor. At the hospital they were able to give me a muscle relaxer and stop the contractions since its still pretty early. Hopefully she will be content in there for at least another week but I guess we will just have to wait and see!

30 Weeks and the NAME

I can't believe we are already at 30 weeks! Its crazy she is gonna be here so soon! I got the call back yesterday for my glucose test and I PASSED! Woohoo! I was honestly a little worried because over Christmas Brian's mom made me my own special batch of gluten free sugar cookies and I may or may not have eaten almost the entire batch! But hey, your suppose to splurge at Christmas right.

Also here is a survey update since I haven't done one of these in a while.

How far along:  30 Weeks 
Total weight gain:  15 lbs
Heartbeat: Her newest trick is kicking the heartbeat monitor when they put it on my stomach... crazy girl.
Maternity clothes:  I'm starting to outgrow some of the smaller maternity clothes I have... geez!
Sleep:  Terrible! I wake up 5-6 times a night and have to re-adjust because of pain in my hips or because I have to go to the bathroom....again.
Best moment of the week:  The nursery is almost done and it looks sooo adorable!
Food cravings:  I eat a bowl of rice krispies cereal almost every night before I go to bed and I can't get enough fruit (which is weird because I really didn't eat any fruit before I got pregnant).
Food aversions:  Anything that will make my heartburn worse.
Movement:  ALL THE TIME! My babybook says that little one should be moving less now as she runs out of room in there. Apparently noone has told her that.
Gender:  Girl
What I’m looking forward to:  Being a normal size again after this baby comes!
Name:

Clara Gray Henderson

Clara is from my dad and grandfather Willis whose first name is both Clarence. I've wanted to use this name for a long time so I'm really glad Brian decided he liked it too! Gray is from my grandfather Upchurch, its his middle name. I always wanted to use that name for a boy but Brian really liked it for Clara's middle name and I have to agree that it sounds pretty nice together.

Glucose Test

Today I got to spend all morning at the doctor's office doing the 3 hour glucose test. Unfortunately I failed the first one and had to go back for the extended version. Getting poked by needles 4 times in one day is NOT my idea of fun but hopefully I'll pass this time. Baby girl has been moving around like crazy the past few days, day and night. I guess she is depriving me of sleep now in preparation for when she gets here. On the positive side, she should be plenty healthy to be moving around like she does!

Picture from 26 weeks

I'm a little behind on pictures but here is one from 26 weeks. A friend of mine took some pictures of us at Pullen Park to use for our Christmas card (which are all currently somewhere in UPS never never land). This was one of my favorites other than the one we used for the actual card. 

This past week I was in Texas with work. It was a perfect 80 degrees every day we were there and I had some of the most terrific Mexican food ever! We think our pot lucks are good, we have nothing on the hispanic people!! I got to try two new dishes which were terrific, chorizo beans and pazole, not to mention the homemade tamales. Thank goodness I don't get food like that more often because I would be MUCH bigger! We also had some delicious, fresh, right off the tree grapefruits! I've been eating lots of citrus to try and bump up my vitamin C because I'm pretty sure a guy on one of our flights had the plague.

24 Weeks!

Well according to my baby book, little girl now weighs approximately 1.5lbs! It may be a little more than that since at the last ultrasound she was several ounces heavier than the book said. I've still been feeling really good except that its kind of hard to breathe sometimes. Here's the pic for week 24!

22 Weeks!

Here we are at 22 weeks, more than half way! All the full body pictures turned out really dark for some reason so you get a headless shot this week. We had a check-up yesterday and her heartrate was 150bpm which they said was right on target. She is still really active and I can feel her 5 or 6 times a day moving around and kicking. I had my first TERRIBLE leg cramp this week so needless to say I'll be increasing my intake of bannanas and kiwis. My total weight gain at this appointment was 9.5 pounds. That seems like a TON but the Dr. said that was right where he wanted me to be.

Baby Girl Room

I finally finished my design board for baby girl's nursery. Doing one for a girl was a lot harder than for a boy. I feel like there are a lot of cute bedding sets out there for boys but all the girls ones are covered with lace and butterflies. Anyway, I finally decided to just get the crib sheet and skirt custom made on etsy so then all I had to do was decide on some fabric. Here is what I came up with.

1. The pink ruffle curtains are from urban outfitters
2. The fabrics are from the Valorie Wells Nest collection
3. The rug is from urban outfitters, but I found a do it yourself tutorial online on how to make one from a plain Ikea rug so I might give that a try
4. The curtain tie back is also from urban outfitters
5. The polka dots are vinyl and I ordered them from mamabargains last week in white since we are painting the room grey. I'm only going to do an accent wall with the polka dots instead of the whole room.
6. The knobs that are going to go on the refurbished dresser are from anthropologie
7. The crib is from Ikea
8. The owl night light is from land of nod
9. The pom poms are a do it yourself project with fabric

There are also several other things that are going in the room that are going to be repurposed: a night stand and toy box from my sister's old apartment, a rocking chair that has been in the living room, a lamp that is in the spare bedroom that I'm going to paint and a quilt that my great great granmother made. Hopefully everything will all come toegether by March. Time is already moving too quickly!!