Merry Christmas

Hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas! I know we did. It was a fairly meager Christmas, but we feel so blessed to share it with our sweet new angel! Here are some pictures from our attempted holiday photo shoot...enjoy!

She wasn't a huge fan of this pose : )

2 weeks

I can't believe Kerrigan has already been here for 2 weeks! We have been loving parenthood. She is such a little sweetheart. She has already changed so much. Right now we are working on trying to get her to sleep during the night...but what can I say, my pretty girl loves to be awake at 3 in the morning! Also, nursing has been more of a challenge that I anticipated, because of her tiny size it is really hard.
I love EVERYTHING about this little girl. I love how she is drowning in newborn clothes. I love how she snores when she sleeps. I love her fingers and toes and the screeching eagle sound she makes when she cries. Bottom line...I LOVE MY SWEET GIRL!!!!!
Here are a few pictures from our first 2 weeks home.

Check out this hair:

The Details

I haven't posted for awhile for a few reasons... I couldn't find my camera cord (and I think it is frowned upon to post about a new baby without pictures) and I have been a little busy with my new job as full time mommy.

I have had a few requests for the details of the delivery...so if you don't enjoy reading words like mucus plug and epidural, feel free to skip ahead to the pictures.

So it all started when I hit 38 weeks and I was tired of being pregnant and ready for Kerrigan to be here. I started eating spicy foods (spicy Doritos were my spice of choice), pineapple and taking LONG walks. Thursday (12/4) I walked (or waddled) to Jared's work, 2.6 miles away, and he drove me home. That night I started having mild contractions (so mild I didn't ever really wake up, I just remember being vaguely aware of them as I slept).

When I got up at 10:30, I discovered I had lost my mucus plug so called my doctor (after a panicked call to Brooke where she explained what it was), and he had me come in for some monitoring. We left a little disappointed because while my contractions continued to get worse, I was only dilated at a 1.

By 2 my contractions were about 15 minutes apart, and starting to hurt. I called Jared around 4:30 and asked him to come home, and by 5:25 my contractions were between 2-5 minutes apart and lasting for 30 seconds-1 minute. We got to the hospital at 5:45- I was dilated to a 3 or 4, and by 6:45 I had my epidural.

After that it was all happened very quickly. By 8 my water had broken and I was dilated to a 6. Kerrigan's heart rate dropped once, so I had to have an oxygen mask for the rest of the time. At 8:30 the doctor came in and told me he had to go somewhere for a few minutes, but he would be right back. I told him I was feeling some pressure, so he decided to check me before he left- good thing since I was fully dilated!

After 15 minutes of pushing, the doctor got ready to give me an episiotomy. He had the needle ready to numb me, when his eyes got really big. He threw down the needle and I swear caught my baby mid-air. I guess when she decided it was time to come out, it was time to come out. I am still amazed at how easy the whole thing was, I had really braced myself for a horrible experience. And look what I got out of all of it- definitely worth every contraction!
While we were there, 2 other women from our ward had their babies as well. Here is a picture of all 3 babies (Kerrigan is the teeny one on the left- the other 2 were8 and 9 lbs). Also, one of my dear friends had her baby 20 minutes before me in Washington...Dec. 5th is a hot day to have a baby!

We also had tons of friends come to visit us in the hospital. We really appreciated the love and support- it made it so much easier to do this so far away from family. Thank you everyone for coming to see us...and thank you readers for understanding why my face is so fat and swollen!

Kerrigan Rose Stokes

At 8:46pm last night, December 5th, Kerrigan Rose Stokes was born and her parents couldn't be happier. Everything went well and all are in good health (except Dad is a little out of shape). She weighed in at 5 lb-10 oz, and was 18.25 inches long. Please come and see our new baby!

I'm even getting my hands a little dirty!

Worldless Wednesday

10 Days to Go!!!!

Have you ever seen the Friends episode where Rachel goes into labor? I watched it last night, and have never related to a television show character as much as I did to Rachel.

There is a point at the beginning where she is so tired of being pregnant she looks down out her belly and yells, "GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT!!!!!!" All I could say to that was AMEN!!!

I am ready for her to be here already. Apparently, my uterus is her happy place, and she is perfectly content to stay there.

My suspicions of this were confirmed this morning at my doctors appointment. I almost cried when the doctor checked me and said there is absolutely nothing going on down there. We were kind of hoping she would come this week, since she is due 4 days after Jared starts his new job...not the best timing in the world.

The only good news we got is she isn't huge like I was fearing...and that my belly is really smooth. That is right, the doctor must have seen the devastation on my face and thought complimenting my stretch mark-less belly would help...I guess I will take what I can get.

Here is my huge belly at 38 weeks 3 days:




Where is my baby???? Any suggestions on how to get her here would be great!!!

Monday's Memory

Today's memory was brought on by reading my friend Katy's Thanksgiving blog.

My first year of school, we spent alot of time with my roommate Rachel's (who is Katy's cousin) extended family who lived a few blocks away from us.

They were so good to me- feeding me, letting me do laundry at their house, etc. Basically, they became my family away from home.

For some reason I didn't go home for Thanksgiving that year, and so Rachel and I had dinner at her grandparents house with the whole family. Thinking there was no way we could mess it up, we were assigned mashed potatoes. Little did they know I have an uncanny ability to mess up even the easiest cuisine.

We came to the conclusion that we should buy a pound of potato per person, and since there were (according to our calculations) going to be 50 people...you do the math.

That is right, we bought 50 lbs of potatoes. We decided since there were so many we should probably start them the night before. It took 4 huge pots and 5 hours of peeling/chopping to prepare them. We were actually pretty proud of ourselves for our culinary masterpiece.

Unfortunately, they were AWFUL!!!! They were a strange shade of yellow (due to the length of time they spent soaking in water) and WAY too salty. Bless the family's heart, they managed to choke down some of the potatoes...but at the end we were left 3 1/2 pots of mashed potatoes. For the next semester, we created inventive ways to consume mashed potatoes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. To this day I still think of the Great Potato Fiasco of 2002 every time I eat mashed potatoes.