We be Parents

At 5:11am this morning, May 31st, our little baby girl, Hazel Yoojin (유진) Neustaetter, was born!  Mom and baby are doing great, no problems at all.  Yenari started feeling contractions around 6:30pm yesterday, we went to the hospital a bit before 10pm, Yenari got an epidural, and when it came time to push Yenari was a total champ, pushing her out after only 5 minutes of pushing…unbelievable pushing and an amazing morning!  More details later…

Here she is:

Hazel at her first bath

Post bath in her bassinet

Here are the key stats:

Birth Date: 5/31/2009 5:11am
Weight: 7 pounds 10 ounces
Length: 20 inches

Yesterday Yenari crossed the 39 week mark and entered her 40th week of pregnancy…that would be 40 out of 40.  Today we went to the doctor for the weekly examination, where the doctor did an internal exam and an ultrasound.

The big news of the exam was that Yenari’s cervix is 4cm dilated – for those of you who might not know what that means, it means that Yenari is ready to pop!  So it really can be anytime now, but it doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily be in the next day or two, but the doctor was pretty sure she wouldn’t go past her due date (next Thursday). The ultrasound wasn’t too exciting, but did confirm that her ‘bag of waters’ (yes Rebecca, like Troy, I also find that term hilarious) is in good shape and has enough water.  No printout unfortunately.

So now we’ve kicked the preparations into higher gear – making sure we’ve got everything packed up in our bag, doing some cleaning, and all the other fun stuff.  I’ve also been trying to wrap things up at work so that my absence doesn’t hold anyone up.

The last thing on Yenari’s schedule before she can pop this little girl out is to watch ‘Up’, the Pixar movie that was released today.  Yenari is a Pixar fanatic and she was very worried that she might have the baby before the movie and then not get a chance to see it in the theatre.  We’ve got tickets to the midnight show tonight, so hopefully she’ll make it!

Today Yenari crossed off another week on the calendar, reaching 38 weeks of pregnancy – only 2 weeks (or less, or more) left – eeek!  Yenari has still been feeling good, but over the last week has had a big change in how she’s feeling – she’s been really tired and is a lot less comfortable moving around.  It’s a good thing she finished working last week and has time to relax.  Last weekend was really hot – temperatures ranging in the mid to high nineties…which resulted in some pretty nasty edema (swelling) in her hands and feet.  She was definitely a little upset that her flip flops wouldn’t even fit!

We had our weekly doctor’s appointment today.  This was the first week where our doctor did an internal exam to check out how the cervix is doing, whether its dialated, and other fun stuff.  She said that the baby’s head is fully engaged in the pelvis – this wasn’t new news to Yenari as she’s been carrying the baby a lot lower and walking around has been a lot less comfortable, though on the positive side she can breathe better and eat more!  The doctor said that the cervix is soft, and it’s opened at the bottom (mucous plus came out 2 weeks ago) but it is still closed at the top…though just about to open.  She said she could do a cervix massage which has a very slight chance of inducing labor, but has the benefit of decreasing the chances of becoming overdue.  Always a fan of massages, Yenari opted for it, but said that it was totally the worst massage she’s ever had.  Not quite as fun as the prenatal massage she had a few months ago.  My hand is still sore from her squeezing it so hard.

The crazy thing now is the suspense of wondering when Yenari will go into labor…in theory it could be anytime in the next 3 weeks or so.  It is definitely a relief that she is full-term and that whenever the baby is born she should be in a good shape.  Other baby related preparations have gone into higher gear recently – we have the car seat installed in the car, we’re washing the first set of baby clothes, we’ve got a beautiful bassinet from Sherry that we’ll share photos of later, and we have packages rolling in every few days with other baby gear.  Tonight’s goal is to pack the bag for the hospital, and this weekend’s (long weekend, woo hoo) goal is to do a lot of cleaning in preparation for Yenari’s mom’s arrival on June 2nd…

Today Yenari reached a major milestone – she is now 37 weeks pregnant…officially full-term!  Tomorrow is Yenari’s last day at work before her pregnancy leave starts, so the countdown is nearing zero.  The baby is definitely moving a lot, and pushing up against all sides – we can easily see her moving around and shaking, and feel her feet pushing the limits of belly stretching!

Yenari hates these photos, but I’m posting them anyway – if you don’t hear from me soon, I may be in trouble!

37 week belly shot

Yenari at 37 weeks

Catching up on this as a few weeks of Yenari being sick with a cold followed by me being sick with that same cold have led to a bit of procrastination on the blog front.  So, here we go…

Just under three weeks ago Yenari had a baby shower where we had her buddies and some of my buddies over to celebrate the expanding belly and the impending baby.  We had a great time…lots of tastey food, good conversation, and…presents!  Here’s the mother to be opening one up:

Yenari opening up a present

After showing everyone how much we both can eat we decided to up the ante with a Korean blueberry chiffon cake from Paris Baguette …mmmm….

Tastey cake

Unfortunately I did a bad job with the camera in this party, so I didn’t get a group shot with everyone, but this captures part of the crowd during dessert:

Dessert time

And here’s another shot of Yenari with some of her buddies from nursing school:

Yenari and her friends from nursing school

We had a really great time having everyone over and definitely scored some awesome baby clothes, toys, and medical stuff – gotta expect the medical stuff from a party where every other person is a nurse!  Thanks to everyone for coming and for all the great stuff!  Special thanks to Grace (and Burt) for helping with the invitations, decorations, and setup!

Work Baby Shower!

Having had such a good time at the coed ‘friend’ baby shower, Yenari was pumped to go to her work baby shower just two days later.  A bunch of Yenari’s co-workers (along with their babies) got together at one of their houses to celebrate Yenari and the coming baby.  I wasn’t there, but from what I heard it was a lot of fun and was another goldmine for cute and adorable baby girl stuff!  Here are a bunch of photos of Yenari and her coworkers:

Yenari and her coworkers #1

Yenari and her coworkers #2

Yenari and her coworkers #3

Note from Yenari: Special thanks to Rowena for hosting the party and thanks to everyone for coming and bringing all the yummy pot-luck food and all of the adorable baby presents!