Elsa Pics

For your viewing pleasure...

Escape

So Elsa had her first visit with our new family doctor yesterday, and all is well. She is slightly jaundiced, but given that she is already over a week old and the yellow is really only in her face (and is very mild), the doctor is not concerned. We will just keep an eye on it. She is just over the 50th percentile in weight, right at the 50th percentile for head circumference, and at the 95th percentile for length. She and I will go back for another visit next Monday.

The fact that Jarrett, Elsa, and I got out of the house for this appointment, as well as a trip to Publix, was huge. It is kind of an ordeal to see that we are showered and fed, Elsa is changed and recently fed, and that everyone gets out the door with supplies in hand. Ahh... welcome to family life, right?

Jarrett has been an unbelievable help, and I don't know what I would have done without him over the past week plus. He has the rest of this week off, but then has to return to work on Monday, with a trip scheduled to Los Angeles on Wednesday. Thankfully my mom is coming into town on Tuesday, but I will still be very sad to see Jarrett go. Hormones are raging, which isn't helping with the sadness... :)

Bearing a Resemblance: Part 2

You might remember us trying to think about what our baby might look like in a previous post -- back before we even knew whether it was a boy or a girl.

Here I (Mommy Dearest) am as a baby (as a side note, the little pink and white kimono-type outfit I'm wearing here is the same outfit we brought Elsa home in -- the one she is wearing in her carseat in the post below):

Here is Elsa in a shot my dad took not long after her birth, hanging out with Daddy:

See any similarities? I know it's pretty difficult...

I still think, though -- and there seems to be a general consensus -- that she has her daddy's forehead and brow line.

Here is Daddy as a baby:

Elsa, of course, is more beautiful by the day. And I actually got seven hours of sleep last night (only got up twice!), which makes her even more of a beauty today.

Elsa Marie Helms has arrived!

For all of you patiently waiting for the first photos... I can offer you the web's first look. :) We had to pay the paparazzi quite a bit to be able to publish these. Just a few stats:

Weight: 8 pounds 9.6 ounces
Length: 20 1/2 inches
Perfect double 10 Apgar score: the first in over 5 years at the hospital

A full head of long, dark hair and a super cute dimple are among her best traits. :)

I will be typing up the birth story for those interested a little later... I thought I would have more time than I do so I am running a little behind.

Proud Father Helms

39 Weeks

So not much has changed with Baby Helms over the course of a week... she just continues to grow, and I guess continues to contemplate when she should make her grand entrance into this world. She continues to build a layer of fat to help control her body temperature after birth, and Miss Melonhead herself (now the size of a mini watermelon) likely measures about 20 inches and weighs a bit over 7 pounds. As time passes her outer layers of skin are sloughing off as new skin forms underneath. Someone must tell her all this primping really is not necessary. We want to meet her now!

39-Week Midwife Appointment

So Labor Day passed, and still no Baby Helms. Oh well, she has to come soon, right? We're now a week out from the due date. Today was my 39-week appointment with Margaret. I was stressing out trying to get there on time this morning because my dumb alarm decided to not go off, regardless of the fact that it was set for the correct time and turned on. I still was able to get there not more than 10 or 15 minutes late, which was pretty amazing... and it turned out I shouldn't have been stressed anyway because poor Margaret was having a time of it trying to leave the hospital. Apparently about six women were in labor last night/this morning. So I guess I'm glad I didn't go into labor last night, considering there are only six labor and delivery rooms at the hospital anyway. And it wasn't even a full moon...

The appointment went well -- peed in a cup (fine), had my blood pressure taken (also fine), weighed in (I had actually lost a pound!), and then went into the examination room to see Margaret. She checked out the baby, and everything was pretty much the same. She seems to think I'll have the baby in the next week or two, but I imagine she really doesn't know any more than I do. She ended up not checking to see if I was dilated/effaced, but I believe her theory (though she didn't say so herself) is to not let me get too concerned (read: obsessed) about those numbers and just relax and let it happen. She said she will check me next week... if I make it that long. She also said that it seemed like I still had an ample amount of amniotic fluid, so there is not concern about that yet.

The baby's feet are definitely in a different spot these days, and one that is very sensitive at that. I told Margaret that, and she said that it could be that the baby is kicking my liver. That would explain it! She can also definitely still reach my ribs, but that isn't nearly as bad... although it's a little strange to feel her foot kind of get stuck up under the rib cage for a second and then sort of pop out. I asked Margaret about the loss of the pound, and she said it's fairly normal to lose some weight toward the end of the pregnancy, and that it could even be a sign that I am getting close. We shall see!

I did some cleaning/organizing over the weekend. You can call it nesting, but I probably would have felt the urge to do it even if I wasn't pregnant. I also went grocery shopping and purchased ingredients to make a homemade lasagna and big pot of chili, which I made and put in the freezer last night so that we'll have something there that we can just heat and eat in those first few days after the little one arrives.

In other baby news, Jarrett and I went to a breastfeeding class at the hospital last Wednesday, and we definitely learned a few things, though I wasn't totally astounded by the class or the instructor (one of the lactation consultants on staff). It was definitely worth it to go, though, and I'm glad that we did. Jenn, our doula, has highly recommended one of the lactation consultants at the hospital, so I have already noted in the birth plan that I would really like to see her before leaving, if at all possible.

Jarrett's office also threw us a baby shower on Friday, which was really nice of them. It was kind of a surprise for Jarrett, and they invited me to come down over my lunch hour to take part in the festivities. Lunch was ordered in from Taqueria del Sol, one of our most favorite places to eat, and they got us a lot of nice things, including a Tigger Halloween costume Jarrett had seen in Babies R Us, and was extremely excited about. It is definitely cute.

So we're still feeling ready. In fact, we are just more prepared by the day. We got some more snacks for Jarrett to take to the hospital, and he made a few Labor and Delivery playlists for the iPod yesterday evening. I will definitely have a wide variety of musical distraction, which I am quite excited about. It will be interesting to see what I think during the throws of labor.

38 Weeks

According to BabyCenter this week, Baby Helms has really plumped up. She weighs about 6.8 pounds and she is over 19 1/2 inches long (they are comparing her to a leek this time around). She has a firm grasp, which we will soon be able to test when we hold her hand for the first time! Her organs have matured and are ready for life outside the womb.

As for the color of her eyes? We probably will not be able to tell right away. If she is born with brown eyes, they will likely stay brown. If she is born with steel gray or dark blue eyes, they may stay gray or blue or turn green, hazel, or brown by the time she is nine months old. That's because a child's irises may gain more pigment in the months after she's born, but they usually won't get "lighter" or more blue. (Green, hazel, and brown eyes have more pigment than gray or blue eyes.) I have green eyes (with a little bit of blue thrown in) and Jarrett has hazel eyes, so I guess we will see what effect our genes have on her.

Our hospital bags are officially packed. We just have to make another list of last-minute items to grab, such as the iPod (Jarrett still needs to make a Labor and Delivery playlist :) ), the camera, and the frozen grapes and popsicles. Another weekend task is to actually install the car seat now that we have it. We figure if by chance I go into labor before the weekend, Jarrett will likely have plenty of time in early labor to install it... or we'll just throw the entire box in the car and deal with it at the hospital. :)