Arwen's Birth Story Part 1

Although you were born on Wednesday, June 3rd, this story starts the Saturday before. That Saturday was the day before your due date, May 30th. Your daddy and I had a weekend tradition before you were born of getting "special drinks", which were usually a Monster for your daddy and an Arizona iced tea for me. So, that morning, we got our drinks from CVS and decided to see if Uncle James would want to get dinner and hang out for the night (daddy's code for go to the computer superstore).

James took this picture that Saturday - the last picture of me pregnant with Arwen

About a half an hour before James came, I started having consistent contractions. I had been having some contractions, but rarely and never consistent like this. I was excited, especially that you may come on your due date, but I didn't want to get too worked up as I had heard many stories of contractions going away after an hour or two. James came out and we went to dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant, then went to the computer superstore. Through this time I was having contractions about every 10 - 13 minutes and they were lasting about a minute - the doctor says to go to the hospital when contractions are 1 minute long, every 5 minutes, for at least an hour. After James left, I told daddy (yes, I hadn't told him this whole time as I knew he would get too excited and get me worked up too), but they ended up fizzling out later that night.

After that Saturday, I barely had any contractions, let alone ones that were consistent. Daddy and I decided we would work from home pretty much until you came. At that point, we were desperate and thought you would come like 2 weeks late! It was especially nerve-wracking since Daddy had accepted a new job and it would start at the end of June. If you were born 2 weeks late, he wouldn't get his two weeks of paternity leave!

On Wednesday, we were working from home and I was thinking about what the difference between Saturday and the following days were to try and start contractions again (like I said, we were desperate to meet you!). I remembered I had an Arizona iced tea, which has caffeine and I hadn't had it or any caffeine since! We got a can of the tea and contractions started again! We decided to go grocery shopping (excellent idea by the way) and got gallons of iced tea since we assumed the contractions would taper out again. By 8PM, since the contractions had been happening for about 3 hours, 7 minutes apart, lasting 1 minute, we called Amma and Grandpa to get Moose. We called the hospital and they said to wait at home as long as possible. 

The contractions got closer and closer. We tried to sleep, but I was in some pain every 5 minutes and daddy was too excited and hyped up. I took a nice, hot shower, which helped with the pain a lot. At 1AM, we called back and said the pain was getting much more intense and the contractions were now about 3 minutes apart. They said to come in! 

Arwen Mae - One Month

Arwen, you light up your mama and daddy's life. In this first month, we have experienced so many firsts (as expected) and life has most definitely changed. 

You currently do 50% breastfeeding, 50% formula and you are rocking it and your weight has increased as it should. It did drop to almost 10% and did not want to increase at first, but we have found a nice balance with both options.

We celebrated daddy's first father's day! You wore an "I heart Dad" onesie and gave him books to read to you. It was a little hectic, as this whole month has been trying to learn you, but it was great to celebrate how wonderful you are in our life and how great of a father you have. 

Our first outing, not to the doctors, was to Qdoba and we sat outside as to not disturb anyone if you started screaming. You didn't and a lovely couple stopped by to ogle you :)

On average you sleep from 10pm to 3am, then wake up around 5/6am and you are generally up for the day around 8/9am. You take a longer nap around 11am or 12pm until 2pm or 3pm. Mama was especially nervous for the lack of sleep, but I think I'm not too crabby. 

I'm sure there are many more things to try and remember about this time, but I'm a wee bit tired. 

Outtakes:

Doctor Update: 

Weight - 10 pounds 14.5 ounces (85th percentile)

Height - 21.5 inches (50th percentile)

Head circumference - 38cm (97th percentile)