Oct. 2010

Elizabeth Louise was born naturally on Sunday, Oct. 24, 2010 at 10:52 pm.  She weighed 8 lbs 11 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long.  She had blue eyes and dark hair (and lots of it!).  The doctor explained the birth as 'fast and furious'.... perhaps more on that another day : )  Nothing will ever compare to holding my precious little baby...... I would have held her all day if I could have!  Oct. 16 was my actual due date.... so you can imagine how 'ready' I was by the 24th.  I work (as a K teacher) until the 15th.  Elizabeth's first smile was for Daddy at the hospital.... she was already 'Daddy's Girl'!  We had lots of visitors (and gifts) at the hospital, at one time we had 15 people in there.... a little over whelming!!!!! 

We took her home on Wednesday the 27th during a terrible wind storm!  We went back to the doc on Thursday  and she was down to 7 lbs 14 oz.... she wasn't nursing well (later to find out basically not at all.....).... wasn't sleeping well and crying lots, I'm sure from starving : (  After a few days of this the doc suggested pumping and giving her a bottle.  Oh, what a happy baby to finally eat!  *Not until May did we find out she was actually partially tongue tied and was probably the reason she couldn't nurse........ We gave it a good shot, but eventually it wasn't for her.... I pumped until she was a year.  I was able to do it exclusively until she was 8 months old, which is when I had to start supplementing with formula (I wasn't too happy about that : (  All, in all, I was very happy to giver her the gift of BM for an entire year, although the pumping was a challenge, I'm sure nursing would have been also. 
Elizabeth tried sleeping in the bassinet but didn't really 'enjoy' it.... She ended up liking her bouncing chair the best (she slept there until she was 6 months old!).  After about a week she was in her own room... mommy and daddy were too noisy for her... she actually slept better in her own room!  She's already so independent!!!!
She loves to have her hair washed... she just lays her head back and closes her eyes... so precious!
 
For Halloween we dressed like a flower.... cutest little flower ever.....  October was a wonderful month!!!! Audie and I feel so blessed to have her and think she's just an absolute angel.  Daddy calls her 'the sweetheart'.