Nicknames

I've started calling Adele "Delly" It just seems to fit somehow, but it's an unusual nickname. I'm wondering if this is a nickname that should stick, and if it does, how do you spell it?

Time is flying!

Time is just flying by. It has been three weeks since Adele came home. She is doing just great, and we are settling into the "routine" a little bit more each day. Jeff went back to work today; our plans of winning the lotto just didn't pan out.

We went on a big outing to the Doctor's office last Monday and Adele did great. I'm still trying to figure out a way to get out and go for walks with her, but so far no luck. Our driveway and the roads are covered in snow, so the stroller isn't a great option, and I haven't found a baby carrier that works for her very well given her small size. We can use a Baby Bjorn once she hits 8 pounds, so I might be secretly giving her extra feedings just to get her there sooner!

I've been reading books about babies and baby sleep, etc. The end result is that now I pretty much second guess everything I do....it's great. One book suggests that most babies start getting progressively fussier at this age (over three weeks) until they hit 6 weeks at which point their nervous systems are more mature and they settle down. I don't know if he is right, or just the power of suggestion, but Adele does seem a bit fussier. It's all relative, she's still an easy going baby. I also read that if babies are going to be colicky, it will almost always show up by the time they hit three weeks, so I'm breathing a sigh of relief; I don't think we have that to worry about.

Here are some more pictures of her and even a couple of videos. She is just so cute.




I call this one the "drunken sailor" look. That's how the woman in a video we watched described a well-fed baby and well, it fits. It looks like she's just been on a serious bender!




This is Adele at "Tummy Time." Because babies sleep on their backs these days, they need to be placed on their tummies every day to build up muscles for crawling. It's hard for her now, but in a few weeks, she should be a pro.

Below she's just doing her thing.

Home for a week

Yesterday marked one week at home. The week just flew by, I guess worrying all the time has a tendency to accelerate time or something!

Adele is doing just great. She eats well, she sleeps well, and she has a nice disposition. Today she had a doctor's appointment and I'm happy to report that she was 5 pounds 14 oz, up 7 oz from last week. We are so very close to that 6# mark. It's still hard to believe that Jeff and I had such a small full-term baby. Babies at altitude tend to have lower birth weights, so I'm sure that explains a lot of it. We're just so grateful that she's healthy and thriving.

Here she is asleep one day last week. She has changed so much in one week! This is a crazy bassinet that one of my sister's friends gave us. It is called a "Nature's Cradle" and it is meant to simulate the womb. You turn it on and the mattress pad insides rolls gently and rhythmically and there is a heartbeat and amniotic fluid noise too. She seems to love it. I guess it has served many babies over the last 8 or 9 years and every one of them has loved it. She sleeps hard in this thing.

With Jeff:
We give Adele extra food at meal time to help her grow. We use a syringe for the feedings, and Jeff usually takes care of that part. He and Adele really seem to have a good time during these supplemental feeding sessions! She does her best to "burb for daddy" and occasionally tries to chomp on his thumb too.


Here she is yesterday in the bouncy seat. She really didn't know what to do with it, and frankly, neither did we....the experiment didn't last long.

Closeup from yesterday

More Hospital Pictures

Here are some of our nephews and nieces at the hospital with Adele, their new cousin.

We're Home!

We're home and finally we have internet again! I'm so sorry that it has taken so long to get our announcements out to everyone, but the wireless at the hospital just would not work.

We brought Adele home yesterday after 4 nights in the hospital for her and 5 nights for us (well, technically she was there too!). We were at Avista Adventist Hospital and I can't sing the praises of this facility enough. Because of the C-section, we had to stay longer and what a blessing. That gave us the opportunity to take advantage of the amazing staff there. Each and every nurse that worked with us gave us such great advise and help.

After the first night, it became clear that our little girl was getting...well....littler. She got down to 5 pounds 1 oz!!

We realized that we needed to start supplementing her feedings with formula. We feed her with a little syringe after her regular feeding. Jeff does this part and it is so wonderful for him to have that chance to bond with little Adele. The great news is that she ws 5 pounds 4 oz by the time we left the hospital.

Now that she is home, she has turned into an eating machine.

Our Room at Avista. It was a large lovely room with uncomfortable furniture....so we brought in our comfy lawn chair and my sister brought an aerobed for Jeff. Jeff had to do so much for me and Adele at the hospital, that he really needed his rest! That awful bench thing in the back would have been his bed. We're thinking about starting a business of renting aerobeds out through Avista. We figure dads will pay big bucks for a "real" bed and bedding when their at the hospital.

Birthday

So it turns out that the induction was a good idea. We went in Wednesday night to begin the induction, but the first attempt didn't do much. Thursday morning they tried something else....not much activity. Talk about getting discouraged! So, they were down to their last option and it worked. Within 20 minutes I was experiencing contractions. However, the baby's heart rate was going down and not recovering very well with each contraction. They kept trying to adjust my position, and try different things, but the situation remained the same.

After about 1.5 hours of labor, the nurse came in and said they were going to do a C-section in 30 minutes. It all happened so fast. One minute we're laying there wondering what we were going to watch on TV that afternoon, and the next Jeff is putting on scrubs and I'm signing releases.

About an hour later……we had a baby!

Adele Rose Fisher was born at 5 pounds 10 oz., 19 ¼” around 3:10 pm. She was born very alert and SERIOUSLY cute.

She has been remarkably easy and wonderful. We absolutely adore her.

Here is Adele after only a few minutes out of the womb. Somehow, we ended up with an absolute doll.

The happy family at birth!


We were surprised at her size. Jeff and I were both fairly good sized babies. Babies born at altitude are generally lower in size, so we were thinking 7 pounds or so. But, as it turns out 5 pounds 10 oz is pretty much perfect!

Halloween!

Our instructions were to check into the hospital at 8:00 at night on Halloween so that they could begin induction. Since it was Halloween……it seemed like a good idea to dress up like a pregnant nun….