Introducing Leila Blair

Leila Blair Weatherby arrived via C-Section at 1:51 a.m. on Monday, October 22, 2012.

She's here!

Although I wasn't scheduled to have my C-Section until today (October 30th), the little girl decided that she just couldn't wait and I went into labor at 38 weeks, 2 days.  I hadn't felt well all day that day, and had been having contractions on and off for about a week.  My doctor kept telling me that I had to wait it out since everything seemed to be OK with the baby.  I now wish that I would have called and forced them to see me a bit sooner, as unlike my labor process with Kendall, this one was quick and extremely painful.  

We had a relatively normal day, and went out for dinner to celebrate Sean's birthday.  When we got home, I got in bed and the contractions became a bit closer together - about 8 minutes apart - so I debated on calling the doctor.  All of the sudden, I felt the baby move and I had a sharp pain.  Then, my water broke.  Instantly the contractions came on very strong, and were about 5 minutes apart.  We called the doctor, dropped Kendall off with Gram and Dude, and headed to the hospital.  By the time we were at the hospital (about 11 p.m.), the contractions were 3-4 minutes apart.  I could barely stand the pain and about collapsed walking into the hospital.  Dan found me a wheelchair and a nurse helped us get upstairs.  She then told me that maybe we waited too long.  Thanks.

Once we got upstairs, they ushered us into a room, hooked me up to the monitors, and we began to wait for what seemed like an eternity.  No medicine yet as I couldn't have my spinal until they sent me to the operating room.  I had to have lab work done to make sure the medicine that I was taking had been out of my system for long enough.  The contractions became stronger and longer, and were now about 2-3 minutes apart.  Then, as they were about to wheel me into the operating room, someone came into the ER with a stab wound to the neck.  So, my anesthesiologist had to leave and the had to call another one.  More waiting.  Finally, they wheeled me in about 1:20 a.m., and Leila was born at 1:51 a.m.  As they were performing the C-Section, one doctor commented that she was trying to come out on her own.  Thankfully, she waited just long enough.

We're all home now and adjusting to having a newborn in the house again, but we couldn't be happier!!

Room 4 (2012-2013)

More from our Budding Artist

Yesterday we met with Kendall's teacher's to discuss her progress over the past few months.  A parent teacher conference of sorts, but the time ends up being spent mostly on talking about the things Kendall likes to do.

One thing that Miss Oly and Miss Jessica mentioned is that our sweet girl LOVES her art. Apparently she's almost always first in line for the art projects and becomes engrossed in what she's doing.  Lately, she's really taken to drawing.  She's starting to draw faces (apparently more so than any of the other kids in her class), and she likes to tell stories to her teachers and the other kids about the things that she has drawn.  For example, she'll draw a box and tell her teachers that's a bed for her baby sister.  Then she'll go on to draw her baby sister on the box.

Here she is working diligently on a family portrait:

Here's the finished product:

I'm on the left and Dan is at the top (note the facial hair at the bottom of his face), baby sister is in the middle and Kendall is at the bottom.

Miss Oly was nice enough to save this drawing and go over some of chalk with a marker.  She then mounted the pictures and gave them to me!  I'll be framing this first family portrait!

A Couple of Weeks to Go...

Although the newest Weatherby isn't scheduled to make her arrival until October 30th, it appears that she may be arriving sooner than later.  I've been having contractions off and on since Friday, but nothing consistent enough yet to signal that I'm in active labor.  Just a lot of pain and pressure.  Since I'm officially of advanced maternal age, I now have doctor's appointments twice a week, which means more ultrasounds to check fluid levels and non-stress tests to make sure that the baby is moving around as she should be.  It now appears to be a waiting game...

In the meantime, I did want to share photos from our last growth ultrasound that was done a couple of weeks ago.  At that point everything looked great, and they estimated the baby was already weighing about 7 pounds 9 ounces.  One nurse told me, "Don't worry, that can be up to a pound off at this point".  So, you're telling me she could have weighed as much as 8 1/2 pounds two weeks ago?!?!  Either way, it appears as if she'll be big, just like her big sister.  The pictures did give us an idea as to how she might look:

It's amazing how much they can see with ultrasound machines, but we can't wait to see her in person!

Maternity Photos

One things that Dan and I did not do when I was pregnant with Kendall was have maternity photos taken.  Seeing as how this is going to be my last pregnancy, I really wanted to have pictures taken this time around.  It has also been a while since we've had family photos taken, so the timing seemed to be great.  

We decided to have pictures taken on the beach, right near the historic Hotel del Coronado.  Although the weather could have been a bit better the day we posed for our photos, the setting made for some great shots.  I love the pictures and am so glad that we had them done.  Here are a glimpse at some of my favorites:

First Day of School

Well, I'm about a month behind with this post, but I did want to make sure that I preserved the memory of Kendall's first day of school in 2012.  She's in a toddler room once again this year, after missing the cutoff for preschool by a month.

(Side note: I feel that her school should have given us the opportunity to choose if we wanted her to move up or not as she was the only one from last year's class that stayed behind, AND the cutoff does not coincide with elementary school cutoffs.  I'll leave it at that.)

Kendall has two new teachers this year, Miss Jessica and Miss Oly, and she loves them both.  She's one of the oldest in her class this year, but has met a number of new friends who are only a month or two younger than her.  It appears as if she's being a great helper in her class, helping the teachers and even playing with some of the younger kids.

Starting with a good breakfast!

And then she just wanted to take silly pictures:

I look at these pictures and it's amazing how much she's grown over the past year!!