Playdate

Today I took Kiran & Sienna to a playdate with my MOPS group. We went to a park downtown that has a part where fountains squirt up from the ground and the kids can play in it. I was really surprised to see there was a lifeguard/first aid guy working there. Although pretty much all he did was holler at the kids to stop running. Anyhow, Kiran really enjoyed the water and we will definitely go back to this free fun park. I would have taken pictures but I couldn't carry anything else. I had Sienna on my front in my Moby wrap (which I'm LOVING! I'll have to blog about it later). I crammed all the swimming stuff, picnic lunch, diapers, wipes, extra clothes, etc in Sienna's backpack diaper bag on my back and I pushed Kiran in her stroller. But we made it. And it was fun. And today was better than yesterday- keeping those expectations low and Kiran's showing signs of her normal self at times.

Chunker

Sienna had her one week dr's appt today. She's 9 days old and she weighed 8lbs 6oz at birth. Today she weighed 8lbs 15oz! Her dr said well that's impressive. The goal is for exclusively breastfed babies to be back to their birth weight by two weeks old. Oh Sienna.... she's gained a pound since we discharged from the hospital last Monday.

Kiran thought Sienna wanted to play with her baby dolls

Well, Kiran, Sienna & I survived our first day home alone. The morning was stressful. But after successfully lowering my expectations of how an almost-two-year-old should act when having a new sibling come into her life, the afternoon was much better. Plus Not-Aunt-Lauren came to visit!

LP and Sienna

Eating, Sleeping, Eating, Sleeping...

There hasn't been much to post about this week. We've just been sleeping and eating for the most part. One of the joys of being close to home has been sharing this first week with our families.

Sienna has so much cheek that they overflow onto the carseat straps.

Sienna spent lots of time sleeping....

...and bonding with her sister. Every once in a while she'll stay awake and chill with us.

Sisters

Sienna Alice

In 2007, we went on a vacation to Italy. While in Tuscany, we took a day trip from Florence to a little town called Siena. While we walked the streets, Jonathan and I fell in love with the town and I thought if I ever have another little girl, I want to call her Sien(n)a. We talked about many other names too- our last two were Sienna and Eleanor (Nora). When she was born though, we decided she was a Sienna. The town only has one n but we decided that since we were giving her a more uncommon name that we would at least spell it the more common way. It is actually gaining in popularity- it was the #169 most popular girl's name in the US in 2007.

Alice is Jonathan's mom's middle name as well as both of her grandmothers' middle names. We knew from when we found out it was a girl that we wanted to use Alice as the middle name so we had to make sure the first name went with it. That was when Alex was cut- Alex Alice. No.

We are home and enjoying being with both our girls! Thanks for all your comments, emails, calls. We feel very loved!

Birth Story

*warning birth story- I tried to keep it short and not too descriptive but I'm wordy so.....

Friday morning I woke up to a few small gushes of water. It kept coming slowly so we headed to the hospital around 10:30am. When we got there, it was amniotic fluid but it had stopped coming. The nurses said it had probably torn and resealed itself and that it often does that right before it breaks. They kept me around a little hoping hoping it would go ahead and break but it didn't. I had a few major contractions while there but they were about 30 minutes apart. They sent us home around 12:30pm saying that they would see us back shortly!

We had a fun 4th of July- cookout with J's family, birthday celebration with my extended fam (for cousin Emily June 27, brother in law Brooks July 4, nephew Brody July 6 and Baby Girl Caskey who was represented with a pink question mark on the cake), and we got to go to our favorite 4th of July party. All day I had contractions that were intense and long (averaging 60 seconds) but not regular. A few times they had gotten to 5 minutes apart so we decided to send Kiran home with my parents to spend the night. We got home about 11pm and soon after my contractions started to regulate- every 8-10 min apart. They were pretty intense and long. Then they jumped to 2 min, 3 min, 2 1/2 min apart. I could tell my body wasn't dealing well with it- I was already shaking and getting nauseous so we headed back to the hospital. We arrived at 12:45 and I had dilated from 2-3cm that morning to 5cm. By 3am I had gotten my epidural (I loved it!) and we slept off and on till 6am. Unfortuntaely the epidural didn't do anything for the throwing up- this baby was going to make me throw up from day one till the very end. About 6:30am my water broke completely and I was 9cm. My dr arrived a little after 7am. I started pushing through contractions at 7:20 and she was born at 7:43am. Her head came out and then she tried to turn her body which caused a slight tear but that was it. Everyone in the delivery room was surprised at how big she was!

Someday I need to list out all the differences between Kiran's labor and delivery and Sienna's. It was all so completely different. Everything from the place and the culture to the way my labor started to how big the babies were. This birth was so calm and peaceful and pleasant. It was wonderful. My labor and delivery team was awesome. Our parents were all here and got to see Sienna right after she was born.

Now we are recovering and resting and we will head home from the hospital tomorrow morning. Sienna has checked out well so far and she likes for us to hold her all the time and not put her down. Maybe she will be our snuggly baby?

Sienna is Here!

Sienna Alice was born at 7:43 a.m. on Saturday, July 5. She weighed 8 lbs., 6 oz. and measured 20 3/4". The name is pronounced see-EN-ah.

Sienna has a full head of dark hair!

Mommy and Sienna

Daddy and his girls