Raiah's Birth Story

I have to write down her birth story before I forget the details. It was so fast and nothing really crazy happened (besides, ending up with a baby!!) and I was pleasantly surprised at what a weirdly great experience it was.

I had a pretty smooth pregnancy. second and third trimester were especially nice. I kept thinking that I'd miss being pregnant because I felt really healthy, didn't gain too much weight so I was still pretty active and the belly wasn't really getting in the way, and I loved how nice friends and perfect strangers were while I was pregnant! I'd go for walks around the office during breaks and almost everyone would congratulate me or ask if it was a girl or a boy. I felt pretty special :) I kept thinking that if pregnancy is so smooth, labor and delivery will make up for it in pain and complications (i know, not very positive). I just kept hoping that she'd wait till after my mom and dad got back from Iran but I really didn't want to go past my due date either because I wanted delivery to be over and to spend my time off with the baby. My time off started on monday the 14th which was the day my parents came back and I had planned on trying to induce labor that tuesday or wednesday. that wednesday morning, at 3am I woke up with some cramps. I didn't think anything of it because the braxton hicks contractions I had been getting since 34 weeks felt really different. The cramps kept coming and going irregularly all morning. At 11am, I called labor and delivery and described the pain and told them that I really didn't think I was experiencing contractions but I was worried why I was having cramps. they said to wait and see if they went away. Scott had the day off and we had planned on a date day full of outings so we were both bummed that I couldn't really leave the house. We kept thinking damn, the one day we wanted to have a cutesy day out, I had to go and get sick! haha! Anyways, the cramps kept getting more and more intense to the point where I couldn't talk through them any more. They were about 3-4 minutes apart at 9:45pm when we called labor and delivery and they told us to come in. Even then we weren't convinced that I was in labor. we took our bags and I told my mom and sister to meet us at the hospital but kept saying "they'll probably send us home but come anyways". in the car we kept saying how nice it was to be so close to the hospital cuz this could be the first of many times we'd go in and be sent home :)

when we got there, I was already at 4.5 centimeters! It was the real deal! we were both so surprised. They asked me if I wanted an epidural and at first I thought, maybe not, but then decided that the reward after labor is the baby whether or not you get an epidural so I opted to get it and so glad that I did!! I was close to 7 centimeters by the time I got it. my water broke when they were checking me. After I got the epidural, I was able to relax and actually enjoy the experience! It was fantastic! I pushed for about 15 minutes and could feel everything except for pain, and she was out! I can't say it was easy and painless because it wasn't, but it was smooth and uncomplicated. they put her on my chest and it took her a minute to let out a cry but she was perfect! and just like that our lives did a 180. she was born at 5:51 am on 11/17/11 at 7.69 lbs and 18.5 inches tall. we're in love.

kitchen

wow, 3 posts in one night! I'm on a role :)

kitchen mini remodel:

when we were shopping for a home, we looked at the condo we eventually bought in the very beginning of our months-long search. we didn't like it. it had a grody kitchen with yucky/chipped laminate counters and a gross/chipped porcelain sink.... we had high expectations.... after looking and looking, we came back to it and realized, we didn't hate it after all. i think we actually started seeing the potential it had. it was the most space we could get for our budget at the time, and we were ready to move in and make some MAJOR changes. we moved in, made it livable and then started to look into renovating the kitchen. by this time, home prices had dropped so much that anything we spent on renovation, would really not bring our price back up that much. so we decided to hold off.

we held off for years as our value kept dropping until we got this really cute foam baby bath tub as a present and got so excited about giving our little girl baths in the kitchen sink. only problem was that the foam tub wouldn't fit in our sink :( what's a new parent-to-be to do??!!! put in a new sink of course! and you can't just put in a new sink without changing your counter tops to durable and shiny granite, right? so that's what we did. and i think it looks awesome :) now all we have left is getting stainless steel appliances and possibly resurfacing the cabinets.

BEFORE:

in process with plywood countertops and a big hole where the sink is gonna go:

AFTER:

my favorite room in the house :)

it's the brightest and happiest room ever :)

this is what it looked like after the baby shower. thanks to our awesome friends and family, we're SO ready! My parents bought us all the baby furniture (you can't even see the dresser in this picture), bedding, car seats, stroller, etc. so thankfully all of that was already assembled before the room got filled with gifts.

we decided to make our old guest room into the nursery instead of the bigger room that scott has turned into his man cave. we ended up turning the man cave into a man cave/guest room/office cuz it's pretty big and it could accommodate a queen size bed for guests as well as all of scott's music and recording stuff. so now scott's man cave has pretty yellow curtains :) no pictures of that yet but it's dark gray and yellow.... we had already painted the old guest room a light shade of green thinking that we'd eventually turn it into a nursery and wanted to keep it gender neutral. it's a pretty bright room.

it went from this:

to this!!!

my sister and I made this mobil. it took us almost a week! i LOVE it!

baby shower

I'm just gonna put mess of pictures here because I need to catch up on a few posts. I don't want to forget anything...

My awesome family threw me the sweetest baby shower on September 24th. It was perfect! I'm so grateful that our baby is SO loved and so thankful for my family who have never hesitated to go out of their way to make life easier and better for us. Honestly, I don't know what I would do without them!

present from my nephews to Daddy-to-be :)

oh baby! :)

my last post was WAAAAAAAAAAY back in january! ha! i have a great excuse tho. i've been baking a bun in my oven :) it's been a very exciting, interesting and tiring few months to say the lease. we suspected that we were expecting while visiting scott's family in Gridley. i wasn't really feeling like myself and got sick after eating the BEST homemade pizza i've ever had. we took a pregnancy test when we got back and it was really faint so i thought maybe i'm just a little pregnant (haha, i didn't really think that!). waited another few days and got a digital one and it was POSITIVE!!

the next few weeks (up to week 14) i was a mess. my body felt like it had ran a marathon every day, nothing was appetizing and i just felt yucky and uncomfortable, couldn't sleep and couldn't throw up for the most part. after week 14, it's been much easier! we found out that we're having a baby girl and now we're busy making the perfect baby girl nursery :) my parents got us all the furniture a couple of weeks ago and i can't wait to finish decorating so i can put up some pictures. they're super excited cuz she's the first granddaughter on my side of the family. as much as all my nephews wanted a boy, i'm glad she'll be the first and only girl!!! lots of boys in the family to protect her and scare off the future boyfriends. scott's been hitting the gym really hard lately and i think he's secretly trying to get buff and strong to fight off the boys (or maybe he's feeling outnumbered with all the estrogen in the house, i don't know). she'll be the second granddaughter on scott's side of the family which is wonderful cuz they know EXACTLY what to do with a girl and we're gonna learn so much from them :)

there's been lots of other happenings and travels and cool stuff this year too but i've got baby brain and can't talk about anything else. oh well.

2011 so far...

ok, so christmas wasn't in 2011 but i'm so far behind that i'm gonna clump it all in one post.

This year we went to Santa Barbara for christmas. we spent christmas eve at my sister-in-law's aunt's house for Posada. We sang worship songs in spanish, ate tamales and rocked baby jesus to sleep. yes we did :)

we spent the rest of the weekend at my brother's house opening presents and doing christmassy things like making hundreds of tamales and watching movies (mainly The Christmas Story a few times). scott's parents stopped by on their way up from Los Angeles too which was really cool!

NYE :)

my birthday came and went without any visible damage. i did get my first gray hair so i guess that's visible but i died it right away :) i'm officially in the last year of my 20's. i'm kinda looking forward to 30 actually. i feel like i can justify doing all the things i've always wanted to do when i turn 30. most of the big things are out of the way now and i can start enjoying everything. i have big plans for the next decade :) you know all the things you say "oh, i'll do that in my 30's" ?? such a good destination age.

this year for my birthday we wanted to take a trip. we decided NYC cuz neither one of us has been to New York. we booked our trip and were all packed to go when i got an email from Priceline that our flights had been canceled due to some stupid blizzard in NY. so with hours left till our vacation time, we took whatever refund they'd give us and booked another trip to Vegas! i think we salvaged the situation pretty nicely after such a frustrating turn of events. i was SO BUMMED!!! i mean, we've been to vegas a million times! scott even lived there for a while so it has no novelty for us but we hadn't been there together yet and we hadn't gone on a vacation with just the two of us in so long that it didn't really matter where we ended up going. we had a great time in Vegas. the weather was in the 70's and we did everything from shows to gambling to clubbing to shopping to etc. we couldn't have done any of these things in NY cuz it was below freezing there that whole week! ha! suckers!