The Grand Arrival

Isabel Riley Montufar has arrived! 

Tuesday, May 25, 2010.

Soo at about noon I started getting ready to go to Marlene's Graduation.  At the same time, I starting having some cramps but they didn't hurt anymore than what I had already had so I didn't think much of it.  As I was leaving for the graduation at 4:00 my mom asked me if I was sure I should go if I was feeling that bad.  I was like, yeah, I spent 3 damn hours curling my hair, and I wanna be there for Marlene's graduation, I've been looking forward to it all year.  She was like okay, well, call me if you need me.  So I went and picked up Daisy.  We stopped at Wendy's and I got a 5 piece nugget because I was starving so I thought I'd get something to hold me over until the graduation was over.  Then we stopped at Maverick and put gas in my car.  So at about 4:45 we got to the graduation and made our way inside.  I decided it would be a good idea to go to the bathroom so I didn't have to pee halfway through the ceremonies.  Lucky for me, my water didn't brake until I was in the bathroom so I put a bunch of toilet paper in my underwear, yelled at Daisy to call my mom, and we took off for the car.  I talked to my mom and told her we'd meet her at the hospital.  On the way to the hospital I texted Isai's sister so that she could let him know that Isabel was on her way.

By the time I was ready for the epidural the anesthesiologist was assisting with a c-section so they gave me some stuff to hold me over.  It was pretty freakin awesome.  By about 9 o clock I was dilated to a 6 and the nurse said I would dilate about 1 centimeter an hour after that.  When they checked me 1 hour later I was already at a 10.  She said they were going to give me about an hour to rest and then I could start pushing, but she said if I felt any pressure to let her know.  Well 15 minutes later I was feeling pressure.  They had been telling me that with a first time baby I could be pushing for about 3 hours.  After 1 hour of pushing, the doctor wasn't there yet, and we were on the baby's time schedule.  The nurse told me that when I felt the next contraction to just breathe.  She said don't hiccup, cough, sneeze, don't do anything, just breathe.  She ran out to the nurse's station and told them to stand by.  When she came back in she just yelled out the door "We're gonna have a baby in here!" and nurses came rushing in at 11:15 right as Isabel was born.  3 minutes later the doctor showed up.  My mom cut the cord and they let me hold her :D At this point I was balling my eyes out.  I had gone the whole time without crying but as soon as I saw my baby girl I completely lost it.  My dad was outside the door and heard the baby crying.  When he came in the room finally, he was crying.  I had a really high fever so he kept a cold washcloth and was wiping my forehead.  It was really cute :)  My baby is the best thing that has ever happened to me.  All 6 pounds, 13 ounces, and 19 inches of her.  Her pediatrician is the same pediatrician that I had when I was born.  He says she seems to be perfectly healthy :)  She always falls asleep before she's done eating so she wakes up about every hour and a half hungry again, so sleep for me is almost non-existent, but she's totally worth it.

And now we wait. . . . .

My doctor appointment today was.....good?  Yeah.  I guess it was good.  The doctor hurt me a lot, but I'm hoping it was worth it.  I actually weigh 2 pounds less than my last few appointments, but my belly has grown 1 centimeter.  He felt around and says she's probably around 7 lbs 4 oz, give or take.  I'm dilated 3 centimeters and I'm 75% effaced.  He stripped my membranes.  I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it hurt like a mofo.  So I could possibly go into labor by tomorrow night, or she could hang in there longer.  We'll see.  If I haven't gone into labor by Wednesday I have another appointment and they'll probably start me on Thursday.  For about the last hour I've been having some pretty decent contractions about every 15 minutes, but nothing too exciting.  It would be great if I could go to sleep right now and wake up in a couple of hours with some major contractions going on, but who knows.  And I probably won't sleep anytime soon because I lay down and my mind starts going.  I guess I'll stay up and watch Craig Ferguson and just see what happens :)  I took some pictures today, but my phone is really lame and it's been in the process of sending them to my e-mail for like an hour now, so I'll put them up when it's convenient for my phone haha.

**One hour-ish later**

Guess my phone decided to behave so here you go.

 

Haha check out that lump that is my belly button!  It's not actually poking out.  My belly button is still a hole, but the skin around it is like.....I dunno.....protruding?  It's pretty insane.  If I wasn't concerned about totally grossing you out, I would show you, but it is pretty gross.  Plus, my belly button is the only place with stretch marks, and I'm not a fan.

No Progress

I really don't have much to say, but I'm getting irritated with myself for slacking lately, so I need to post.  My doctor appointment last Thursday was the same as the one before.  Not dilated.  Not quite dropped all the way.  He measured my stomach: still 37 centimeters.  He said it's normal, but it's on the low side of normal.  I've weighed exactly 160.4 at my last 3 appointments.  So basically, I've stopped growing, and she probably has too.  So my question is WHY IS SHE STILL IN THERE?!  I'm due on Friday, I have another appointment on Thursday.  I've been told the chances of the doctor letting me go over my due date are slim, since there's no progress being made.  Then again, a lot of doctors don't like to start you on a Friday, so maybe I'll go over a little, maybe he'll start me Thursday (doubtful).  One lady told me that out of all three of her children she never dropped so they did all 3 c-section, so I guess that's a possibility as well.  I don't want to stop going to class before she's born because I want to get as much done as I possibly can, but I'm not so sure that's going to be possible because I'm out of nausea pills so my morning sickness is back, but I don't want to refill the prescription if I'm only going to need it for a few days.  *SIGH*.  Anyway, I'm getting restless.  I walk a mile every day.  Sometimes twice.  Yesterday we were at the house of some guy that my dad works with and it was suggested that I jump on the trampoline.  So I did.  My dad and his friends started freaking out and telling me to get off because I was going to go into labor.  Ummm.....THAT'S THE IDEA! 

This picture is me and Steve & Chalene's daughter, Lauren.  She's freakin adorable!

This is when I was trying to jump the baby out.  It doesn't work, just for the record.

Tour of Labor and Delivery

Alright so Thursday I had another doctors appointment.  Lame again!!!  I wasn't dilated at all.  After the appointment I went and took a tour of labor and delivery.  Umm.....it was awful.  I was doing really good at first.  The nurse giving me the tour was really nice and happy and stuff.  When we walked into one of the rooms I could feel tears welling up but I held them in.  I have this thing about crying in front of people.  I HATE CRYING IN FRONT OF PEOPLE!  It makes me feel weak and vulnerable.  Those are my least favorite feelings in the world.  So then she showed us the rooms where they do c-sections and I was still doing pretty good.  Then we got out in the hall and she got paged to go help deliver twins.  I heard the lady scream.  Oh. My. Gosh.  So she handed us off to this other nurse to finish the tour.  I found out this nurse is actually related to me.  I'm not sure how, but whatever.  So I don't remember what she said, but I lost it and I started crying.  As soon as my mom saw me crying, she started crying.  Then the nurse started hugging me and then my mom started hugging me and I was mad at myself for crying in public so I cried harder!  And since I was mad, I didn't really want to be hugged, just because that's another one of my great little quirks!  For some reason I just don't appreciate people comforting me when I'm mad and embarassed!  

The nurse asked me who I was going to have with me in the delivery room.  I said just my mom.  She asked me if I was going to keep the baby!  So then I was just crying harder.  Mommy to the rescue says "She getting married after the baby is born."  I start crying even more!  And then it's like 20 degrees hotter because I'm turning bright red and I say "I just want him to be here with me now for all this."  The nurse says "Where is he?"  I'm like "In Mex-i-cohohohoho."  It was so dramatic and awful.  So I just tried to gather myself and we walked towards the exit.  The nurse stopped us in front of the doors and she told me not to give my baby to anyone that doesn't have a pink name badge.  She said that they've never had an abduction at their facility but that I didn't want to be the first.  Okay, so let's scare the shit out of me!  Someone's gonna try to take my baby!!!  It was awful.  I cried all the way home.

I thought that maybe she would be born today.  My mom and my grama got my hopes up.  We went to lunch and I started having pains across my abdomen and in my back, but it felt a lot like when I had my first gallbladder attach.  But then the pain went away and then it came back.  So they were like OH MY GOODNESS!  And they were like, tell us when it gets worse and when it gets better and they were timing it and everything.  I didn't want to like start getting my hopes up, cause I was pretty sure that it was my gallbladder, but mom still says she's sure they were contractions.  So I dunno, we'll see what happens.  I haven't had any pains since like 3 o'clock.  Isai thinks she'll be born on Monday because that's Mother's Day in Mexico.  Soooo she can't be born on Monday because then Isai would be right, and we can't have that.  Haha, just kidding.  I let him be right sometimes ;)

"May the 4th be with you."

I never really thought much about mine and my mom's eating habits until all my friends started saying things about it.  How there's almost ALWAYS a cookie sheet of these really yummy cheerio bars above my microwave, and if it's not there, there's probably some homemade fudge hiding somewhere.  Sometimes you could find both.  Today we stopped at the grocery store just to see if they had chocolate milk because last time we went they were out of the brand that we like.  As you can see from this picture we took, they had chocolate milk.  Somehow, by the time we left, this is what was in our cart.  Chocolate pudding, chocolate milk, chocolate chips, chocolate ice cream, cherry chocolate chip ice cream, and then some random caramels.  In our defense, by the time we checked out we also had a bunch of green grapes.....but we also had a big bag of M&Ms.  I think part of my chocolate addiction comes from back when my mom was pregnant with me.  She was really really sick the whole time and couldn't ever keep food down, but for 1 week when she was 8 months along she could eat choc-o-diles (which were kind of like ho-ho's) and drink chocolate milk.  After a week she started throwing that up too.

But guess what!  I haven't eaten any of these things yet because for the past few days I've had a KILLER toothache.  It interferes with my sleeping more than the baby playing soccer with my bladder.  Okay, I went to the dentist a month ago and he said I didn't have any cavities.  Well, somehow, in the past 30 days a ginormous killer cavity has taken over half of my face.  It's giving me a headache and making me squint one eye and everything.  Today I called the dentist office, but the dentist wasn't in today.  They said tomorrow they're booked, but they could squeeze me in at 9:30.  As bad as I don't want to get up early enough to make it there at 9:30, if this toothache doesn't stop I'm going to just rip the tooth out of my face by myself.  So my fingers have been crossed all day that I won't go into labor before 9:30 tomorrow morning.

Soooo in honor of my big brother, Vic, happy National Star Wars Day.  Not kidding.  Today really is National Star Wars Day.  It's so people can say "May the 4th be with you."  Haha!!!  Get it?  Seriously, this is not a joke.  Actually, it might be, cause I just heard it on Craig Ferguson, but you never know these days.

37 Weeks

Today I am at 37 weeks.  I'm due 3 weeks from today.  I'm trying to just relax and remain calm and everything, but I'm not gonna lie, I'M FREAKING OUT!  Not necessarily in a bad way I guess.  I just want her already!  I've washed most of her clothes and all of the crib sheets.  Yesterday I put the crib set in, which is adorable!  Now all it's missing is a baby!  I'll try to put a picture up eventually probably.  I've packed a bag for me to take to the hospital and I packed the diaper bag.  Tomorrow me and mom are going to buy the carseat.  I have been organizing and re-organizing all of the drawers in my room because I'm just trying to make things as functional as possible.  Yesterday I went to the doctor.  It was a pretty pointless visit and I wanted to cry.  All he really did was hurt me and then inform me that he couldn't reach my cervix so he couldn't tell if I was dilated.  But I did get to listen to her heartbeat again, which makes me wanna ball my eyes out everytime, but I refrained.  I'm pretty sure I am dilated because it's been pretty painful down there lately.  If you've been through this you know what I mean.  I have contractions a few times a day and every day they're a little bit stronger.  I've gotta say i've kind of enjoyed being pregnant, but now I'm ready to be not pregnant and to just have my baby girl with me already!

May 12th I'm having another baby shower.  One of my mom's friends and her daughters are throwing it for me and their inviting mostly the ladies that mom work with.  My mom's friend is a way cool lady and her oldest daughter calls me her little sister.

The 15th I'm having ANOTHER one.  My mom's sisters are throwing it and it's going to be for family and the ladies from church.  If Isabel is born by the time I have my other showers she'll just be attending them with me and I can show her off :D  With the luck in my family though she'll probably be born the day of one of my showers.  The same thing happened to my mom when she had my brother and my sister-in-law with her first son.

The 'Countdown' Begins

As of today I'm at the beginning of my 37th week :)  So approximately 4 weeks to go.  However, I don't think I'm gonna make it that 4 weeks.  I don't wanna jinx myself but I'm thinkin this baby could be here in 2.  Partly because so far in my pregnancy, I have been exactly the same as the way my mom was, and she delivered all of her babies 14-16 days early.  I'm not absolutely positive, but I'm about 90% sure that on Tuesday that mucus plug came out.  Which kind of grossed me out and so I didn't tell my doctor about it yesterday because I was kind of embarassed about it.  After my appointment, though, I told my mom and she was like "I told you that when you're pregnant your dignity goes out the window and you don't need to be embarassed."  Well, forgive me for trying to hang on to just a little bit of it.  Anyways, I guess the mucus plug can come out anytime a couple of days to a couple of weeks before labor.
Then last night I felt like the baby was pushing outwards above my belly button really really hard and so I was kind of poking my belly and telling her to move, and my mom was like "Are you contracting?"  Psh, I don't know.  The doctor asked me if I had been contracting and I was like uhhhh I don't think so, but I don't really know.  I didn't really know what it would feel like to contract I thought it would feel like menstrual cramps because someone told me once that's what it was like.  So my mom was feeling my belly and it was hard allllll overrr.  She got all excited and gave me her watch and told me to time them.  It only happened like 4 times and then I quit paying attention.
Tonight I've had maybe like 7, but I'm not really sure.  I'm still not really sure what I'm feeling for.  But I guess when it's the real thing I'll know.  I'm having my first baby shower on Sunday afternoon so I would really appreciate it if she would wait until after that haha.  I need a diaper bag and bedding for the crib, and I need to buy the carseat.  Anytime after that, I'll be ready haha.  
Goodness, we're expecting about 80 people on Sunday to come to my house.  Talk about a giant baby shower.  It's mostly because after she's born I'm going to have her blessed and then after church, traditionally, in my family we have a big barbecue.  I was planning on inviting all my friends from Utah State to it, but by then school will be over and some of my friends will have gone back to wherever they're from so they wouldn't be able to come.  New York, California, and the Dominican Republic are kind of far away to just come back for a baby shower haha.  So the baby shower on Sunday is going to be co-ed.  I'm inviting all of my friends from the University and all of the people that I used to work with at Costa Vida, because, let's face it, those ladies are some of the coolest people I've ever met!!!  There is going to be tonsss of comida.  I'm even going out on a limb when it comes to the food.  I'm not even that good at cooking American food, but I've stalked up on tortillas de maiz, carne, jalapenos, cilantro, and all that other good stuff and we're having tacos!!!  I'm even gonna try to make this yummy green salsa that my friend always makes to put on tacos.  Anyways, tomorrow me and Mom are going to go buy the rest of the groceries and I think we're gonna make all of the food except for cooking the carne because all the other stuff we can just refrigerate and set out when everyone gets here.  It's gonna be a crazy busy day.