The Steely's: 2011

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Getting through November...

Hello everybody, I know I've dropped the ball on my blog but, it's been really crazy around here with a newborn.
Lily is doing tremendous! We dont have another Dr. appointment until the 21st of December but I can already tell how much she's grown in such a short amount of time.
She defiently knows Scott and my voice which is so neat to witness her recognizing things and sounds that we make with her.
I have noticed that she has a few of her mommies traits. She has a strawberry mark on the back of her neck just like her mommy, and her pinky toes on her feet are shaped and turned in a bit just like mine!
Scott thinks that her hair is going to be darker when she gets older because her hair color looks like his did when he was younger, only time will tell!
We were lucky enough to have Scott's parents come and visit us for little over a week. They spoiled us and Lily rotten while they were here but we had a blast! We went to several of the local parks, visited both bases, went to a museum, visited St. Augustine, and went to the air show on Scott's base and saw the Blue Angels!
Scott's Grandma Jan also drove over from Ft. Myers for a weekend visit. We had alot of fun spending time with her even if out was only for a short period, and we to make a weekend trip to the west cost of Florida sometime after the first of the year!
Scott had big news as well! As all of you know, he was on the list to possibly be laided off from the military, we got the news a little over a week ago that we are no longer on that list! A few days after that we also found out that Scott had advanced to the next rank! Which we were not expecting at all! He is now an AT1, 1st class petty officer aviation technician, E6! Out of 1034 people that took the test in the whole us military, only 7% passed and he was apart of that small number! Lily and I are so proud of him! Defiently less stress knowing he will have a job for the next three years! Now we get to pick orders to see where we will be stationed at next year! It would be August when we relocate, so less than a year!
We also got some new family members to our aquarium this weekend two new pieces of coral, and another fish! A male mandarin dragonet, that I've named Manny! So far so good with the fish but only time will tell! Manny is very doscile and stays hidden in his little home in the live rock, so our clown fish (which funny enough don't have names) hardly even know he's there!
Well I am starting back to work on monday, but luckily my job is going to let me work from home! Lily is still on the wait list for the child development center (cdc) on base so hopefully she will be placed by the first of the year, that is when my job wants me to be able to come back and work on the office. So fingers crossed, but if not I may have a few other options that we can explore if necessary.
We had a good Thanksgiving, I was lucky enough to have Scott cook for me. We just got a 5 lb turkey breast since it was just the two of us. He also sauteed some green beans and red potatoes. We bought a store made pumpkin pie. Everything was delicious! We even skyped with Scott's family in Texas!
We plan on trying to make trips back home after the first of the year. I would like to come to Virginia maybe February or March, but I'm not sure if that is even possible with work and we are going to try to get out to Texas by the end of April. Its hard to believe that Lily will be six months old by then!

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

A few weeks in...

We are only a few weeks into having Lily here and it sure has been an experience! We have had our ups and our downs to be expected but over all we are ecstatic to have our little girl here!

Scott returned to work this week, working nights but he has been very lucky and only had to work until 7 or 8 pm the past few nights, which was nice for me. I try to let Scott sleep as much as he can during the day and about noon I will ask for some help. Lily doesn't like her crib or her bassinet at this point, but loves sleeping with us and lying on our chests. Hopefully in the next few weeks we can start to transition her to her crib etc.

We went for our 2 week well baby check yesterday and our sweet Lily now weighs 7 lbs 9 oz now! Starting out at 7 lbs 4.9 oz she has come a long way over the last 15 days! So that must mean that I am doing something right! Lily is a little pig when it comes to feeding and isn't on an exact schedule yet either. But the doctor we saw yesterday says that is all normal.

I am feeling like a cow! This week I started pumping while feeding so that when I return to work at the end of the month, (yes it changed! for now anyways!) Lily will have plenty to eat while she is in daycare. We are on the wait list to place Lily in the child development center (cdc) on base as of last week we were no. 6 on the list and the admissions lady said they would do their best to get her placed by my return to work date. If not, I am not going back to work until she is placed. I know that there are other day cares out there but I would like her to go on base, a. because it is right next to the hospital where all her doctor appointments will be at. b. It isn't as expensive as going out in the city to a local day care, mind you it still costs but they look at our combined income and base what we pay off of that. And c. Since Scott is working nights he can go by the center and visit Lily before her goes into work. So we will see how that all goes. Hopefully everything will fall into place.

Family visits! My mom came out to visit just a few short days after Lily was born and that was nice. To see my mom and for her to get to see Lily. And this weekend Scott's parents are coming in town for a week! As well as Grandma Jan is coming from the west coast of Florida to visit for a day as well! That should be loads of fun!

Now what you guys all want to see more pictures!

One of Lily's Halloween outfits from her Nonna and Paps...A bit to big, but that's ok!

Milk- coma smile!

Sisters snoozing together... <3

Scott's pumpkin lit up

Lily's baby pumpkin I painted

Our pumpkins!

Take two! Nonna and Paps sent Lily another outfit that fit way better! :)

Silly girl

Memorized by something..

Nap time!

Daddy and Lily sleeping... Has to be my favorite picture so far...

Lily in her daytime halloween outfit... Not so happy with me though, she just got a bath! :)

The back of her pants!

Karina and my brother!

We do a lot of napping!

I stole this from Taryn's facebook page! Little Felicity as piglet and her cousins dressed for Halloween!

My pumpkin lit up!

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Pumpkin Patch

We took Lily to the pumpkin patch tonight! I dressed her up in her ladybug costume, it has a matching beanie, but her Nonna sent her one yesterday that was hand knit that looks like a pumpkin! Here are a few pictures enjoy!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Lily Anne Steely is here!

Lily is here! She arrived 10/17/2011 @ 6:40 am @ Naval Air Station Jacksonville Hospital. She was delivered by Dr. Ann Mclendon, Dr. Mcnair, Liezel a RN, Scott, and Racine Brooks one of my bestest friends here in Jacksonville.

**Not too graphic, but it is about my labor so if u don't want 2 read this scroll down 2 the bottom for pics!**

The story of my labor...

I woke up 10/16/2011 about 1:45am feeling slight contractions, about an hour later I started timing them and and they were about 5 to 6 minutes apart. I woke Scott up and let him know. I took a shower and called the Labor and Delivery ward at the hospital to let them know that we were on the way. We got to the hospital about 6 am and they put us in a room. They had the Dr. on call check me out and he stated that I was 3 cm dilated but my contractions were not in a continuous enough of a pattern for me to be admitted quite yet. The nurse at the time Darien stated that I was in latent labor and I needed to go home and rest. She thought that I would probably return about 3 am in full blown labor. She told me to go home, eat, take a shower, take some Tylenol benadryl and try to sleep. So I came home about 10 am and did just that. But it was so odd, I would sleep but every five minutes I would wake up and have a contraction that hurt so bad. About 2 pm I felt a pop. I called Scott to come here and I told him that I thought that my water had broke. He then called the labor and delivery and we were on our way back to the hospital again.

Walking through the hallway to get to the elevators a big gush came down and the pain began to be even more intense that Scott was having to hold me up. We made it to the elevators and made our way up to the 6th floor again. They could tell this was real labor now and moved me straight into the delivery room side of the floor. They checked me again and I was 6 cm dilated. They wanted to know what my birth plan was. I told them that I wanted an epidural and they began to get the process rolling on that.

First they had to start an IV on my hand the first try wasn't very successful and so I had to be stuck again. They drew the labs they needed and sent them to the lab STAT, and started a fluid IV. They proceeded to call the anesthesiologist Capt. Turk. I was begging for something for relief I went over all the paperwork so fast that I can barely remember reading any of it. And signed my name that if you were to look at it now looks nothing like my signature. Capt. Turk came in and began prepping me for the epidural. They were still waiting on the labs to come back two hours later! Capt. Turk was becoming irritated and wondered what and the world was going on. The lab that they were waiting on was just a CBC, which is a complete blood count. Checks your white and red blood cell counts etc. a VERY routine blood test. He asked what my last lab was but it was from back in August and was too old to use. Another hour goes by and they finally get the results back. And Capt. Turk began to place the epidural.

Basically I sat on the side of the bed and hunched over a pillow while Scott helped hold me still in the front. All I felt was a slight sting from the numbing medication and then some pressure from when he was placing the IV for the epidural. He pushed a test dose and I felt some coldness and began to feel relief immediately! I am pro epidural! No offense to anyone who chooses not to use one and go all natural. More power to you, I personally could not tolerate the pain.

So then they sat me back and the wait began. Scott ran home fast to let Roxy out and to grab all the baby stuff. They told me to rest but due to the excitement I began to call people and let them know that Lily was almost here. I called my best-friends Krystal Engle, and Racine Brooks to come up to the hospital to visit. They got there between 8pm and 9 pm and hung out with Scott and I. Krystal had brought her daughter Abby which was fun to watch her play around and it was a nice distraction. Unfortunately, Krystal did not have a sitter for Abby Lou and had to leave and left around 10 pm. Racine was going to leave as well, but I told her that if she wanted to stay for the delivery that she could. Not ever seeing one she opted to stay.

Throughout the night I had to be re-positioned from left to right because the babies heart rate would drop a little to low for their liking or would be too high. It seemed like every hour I was being shifted around. They also placed me on 10 liters of oxygen to see if that would help as well. Dr. Mclendon came in and checked me and I was at 9 cm. Now they were just waiting to me to have the urge to push. I also began to feel nauseous which they said was a good thing because vomiting would help the baby to come down as well. I did get sick, which was horrible because the last thing that I had eaten was a sausage biscuit from Dunken Doughnuts @ 10 am and I didn't even eat the whole thing. So it was mostly stomach acid which is horrible to throw up!

Hours went by and still nothing. They were checking my temperature and it was slowly increasing. Because it had been so long since my water had broken it was making me run a slight fever. They hooked up an IV antibiotic and also started me on Pitocin to help get my contractions closer together so that we could start pushing. They also told me that after Lily was born that they would like to place her on IV antibiotics too to be proactive in case she developed the same infection that I was experiencing.

Finally I began to feel somewhat of some pressure. It was kinda hard to tell being numb from the waist down but, I finally began to feel something. We began pushing, all different ways, center, left, right, and we even used a squatting bar with a sheet tied to it so I could pull and curl over to push the baby down. Scott was on the left of me and the RN, Liezle was on the right. Racine was cheering from the side and would step in when Scott stepped away to use the restroom etc. About 6 am Dr. Mclendon came in with Dr. Mcnair and that's when I knew that this was going to happen. They got dressed in there blue throw away scrubs and began setting everything up. Lily wasn't coming down fast enough and her heart rate was dropping so they kept urging me to push harder and harder. They warned me that if she did not come out pretty soon that they were going to have to do a c-section. I started to get scared and was more determined than ever that I was going to have this baby and not via surgery.

They have an option to use a mirror to help deliver and at first I was against it but after they started talking surgery I decided to try it. I cannot tell you how much that helped! The next thing I knew Lily was here. Lily Anne Steely was born 10/17/2011 @ 6:40 am, 7 lbs 5 oz, 19 and 3/4 in long.

Scott cut the umbilical cord and when they weighed her, she peed on the scale! They bundled her up and gave her to Scott to give to me for the first time. I was beside myself with happiness and tears of joy were just streaming down my face. I was in disbelief that Scott and I had made this beautiful little girl and that we were now parents. It was and still is such an awesome feeling.

I will spare everyone with all the other details over the next three days that occurred, to make a long story short we were moved to the other side of the ward, the Maternal Infant Unit where we had our own personal room and I stayed in with Lily till we were discharged Wednesday after noon.

Now the stuff you all REALLY wanna see, pictures!