273 Days, 39 Weeks, or 9 Months

I can not believe it has been 9 months already. Can someone please tell Emmalynn to slow down some? We had her 9 month check up today and just as I thought, she is still perfect :) She is 17 pounds and 11 ounces now and 27.5 inches tall! She only had to have one shot today and as expected, did not enjoy it at all. But Mommy was prepared for lots of cuddles and I was able to make it all better rather quick.

At this point Emmalynn is 39 weeks old. That means we are one week shy of how long I carried her. I went into labor on my due date so I was exactly 40 weeks when we welcomed her into the world. Crazy to think how far we've come. 2013 was a huge year for us and now 2014 is upon us and I get to watch my little girl grow even more. She will learn to crawl (properly) and walk this year. And we'll get to celebrate a whole year of her in our lives in April. I have already started looking into what I want to do for her first birthday and there is so many cute and creative ideas out there. I plan on doing most everything myself though including her cake.

We will also be dedicating Emmalynn in April. Probably the same day as her birthday party but will be a different time. More private and intimate for family. I would have liked to have done it closer to when she was born but didn't know all the rules that the church we attend has about baby dedications. They are only held twice a year and we've already missed two. The next is also in April but the limitations on who you can bring is a little much for us so we are thinking about other options.

Look at this cuteness and those big blue eyes. 

I am so excited about celebrating all that is Emmalynn. I'm loving looking on pinterest and seeing what ideas I can come up with. She is my special little girl. I'm sure as plans come along I will be blogging all of the yumminess that is her 1st Birthday Party but for now, I better get off here. She should be waking up soon and I need to do a few things before the Princess arises. Ta-Ta!

Emmalynn Nichole Voiles

Wow! I started writing this post when Emmalynn was just under 4 months old. Time really does go by so fast. One of my new years resolutions was to blog more and to write daily to Emmalynn. I want to get a journal of sorts to write her letters in of how I'm feeling and things we did together. Just something to remember every little thing. I wanted to do this earlier than now but better late than never, right? I thought I would be able to remember everything but its so easy to forget the little things. Luckily, I've been keeping up with her baby book and I also post on my cell phone when she hits milestones so that I can remember to add it to her baby book later. The only thing I have missed so far is the exact dates that her teeth have come in. I know the month so that's better than nothing. When I started writing this post I was telling Emmalynn's birth story. The story of the day we welcomed her into this world and into our lives. That is a day I will never forget. I know some people have heard the story but I wanted to write it down, I want to be able to come back to this a relive every moment. Every single moment. So, without further a due...I give you the day my life changed forever.


Miss Emmalynn Nichole Voiles was on April 16, 2013 at 7:50am with a head full of hair and the most beautiful cry I've ever heard. She weighed a wopping 8 pounds and 13 ounces and was 21.5 inches long. When she came into the world, the entire delivery room went "woah!" The nurses were all disappointed that she was so dark headed, everyone was hopping she had red hair like Mommy.


I went into labor on April 15th though. I had a dream that I was in labor and was having contractions but when we woke up for school, everything seemed normal. I had already had my last day at work the Friday before so all I had that day was a morning class. As I was getting ready I noticed that I had lost my mucas plug I knew that was a good thing, but I also knew that it didn't mean anything at the same time. It could still be days before I went into labor.  But for some reason I felt like something was up so as Josh and I parted ways that morning, I told him not to lose his cell phone. That even if he went to the restroom, he needed to have it on him, haha. I didn't want to scare him but I had been having contractions all morning as I was getting ready for the day. Nothing big or spectacular, just contractions. I didn't make it through class that morning before I went home to lay down. I told Josh that I didn't feel right and I wanted to sleep some more. I didn't sleep. I had received a message that morning on Facebook asking me for an updated belly shot. Little did I know that it would be the last belly shot I took with my sweet Emmalynn still warm and cozy on the inside.

Josh drove out towards the mall to have lunch with me. At that point I told him that I was having contractions and that they were the real deal. I attempted timing them but was having a really hard time. The space between them was very sporadic. Josh joked at one point during lunch "You know, its really hard talking to you when you keep making faces like that." At that point I responded with, "You know, its really hard concentrating when I'm having contractions like this!". We were both scared to death but neither of us wanted to admit it to the other just yet. Josh went back to work and I went to get a pedicure :) Yes, I'm having contractions and I decided to go have my toes painted, lol. I did not want a room full of people seeing my feet and my toes not being cute! After the pedicure, I went walking around the mall some. Nothing big but I wanted to find a robe for the hospital. I maybe spent an hour shopping before going home. It was getting hard to walk or stand without hurting and I didn't want to be shopping, alone when my water broke.

I was laying down when Josh got home from work. He decided to come home a little earlier that day just incase. He had told his boss and co-workers that I was having contractions and that it may be time so no one even questioned him leaving. They had all been on baby watch as well. My contractions were still very spaced out and random so I wasn't even concerned. I was laying across the bed talking to Josh while he was folding some laundry when I felt this pop in my lower abdomen. I had read that sometimes when your water breaks, you feel a pop. So almost every time I felt a pop I would stop and wait, hoping it was my water. Just like before, I froze and of course nothing happened. So Josh and I went on talking when I started to have another contraction. That's when I felt the gush of water. I jumped up off the bed, landed on poor Miles and looked up at Josh and screamed that my water had just broke. His first reaction? Get in the bathroom and off the hard wood floors, haha. So I sprinted towards the bathroom and made it before the water works thankfully. My water broke at 5:22pm.

Now this is where Josh gets cute :) He grabs his phone and starts asking me about calling the doctor. Wanting to know what he needs to do. He is not actually running around but you can tell his mind is running non-stop. I look at him at one point and said that I would call the doctor in just a minute to let me fathom what was happening. So he starts grabbing our bags and getting some things together from the bathroom. I had packed a bag for me and Emmalynn, Josh just had to grab some clothes and our toiletries. Once I cleaned up some, I went and laid on the bed again and stared at the ceiling. I called Dr. Brody's office and received the after hours person who took all my information and called the doctor on call (who was NOT Dr. Brody). I received a phone call maybe 2 minutes later from the doctor on call who asked me several questions and then said he would call the hospital and let them know that we would be arriving within 1 to 2 hours. My first thought was "Wait, we don't have to go right now?! I'm about to pop out a kid and I can just show up whenever?"

Contractions at this point were fierce. When women tell you that contractions before your water breaks are nothing compared to after, BELIEVE them!! Josh called his brother to let him know that we would be needing the camera sooner rather than later and that we were heading to the hospital. I started texting the people on  my list and calling some of them. Everyone gave us the same advice, go eat something BEFORE you get to the hospital. Eat? At a time like this, you expect me to have an appetite?  So Josh and I stop at McDonalds. By the time we left the house and headed downtown, we didn't have time for much of anything and we kinda forgot to stop while we were around the mall. The drive thru is wrapped around the building so Josh parks and goes in leaving me in the car. It takes forever!! And I'm not just saying that because I was having contractions, it literally took forever. In the mean time, we have parked near the bus stop and i'm sure everyone waiting on the bus thought I was on drugs because when I had a contraction I was making some faces and every once in awhile I would let out some noises, lol.

Josh finally made it back and we drove on to Erlanger. We sat in the car, in the parking garage and ate our last meal without a baby. It was perfect. We slowed down and just soaked it all in. We were about to meet our sweet little girl. This is where I start getting nervous. I was calm, cool and collected up until this point. We have not toured the hospital either. Never really had time. I knew the entrance to use and I figured it would be labeled once we were inside where to go. It was not. Luckily a L&D nurse went at the same time we did and helped us find our way. Once upstairs, we waited for a room. Not very long thankfully. When we were in a room, they had me filling out paperwork. I was shaking so hard you wouldn't believe I filled the paperwork out. And I was so nervous that I kept writing down the wrong last name, my cell phone number was incorrect on one paper and I even had the date wrong! But we finally had all the paperwork filed away and I changed into the super stylish gown they give you and we waited. 

I was laying down and settled in the bed around 8:30/9:00pm. The contractions were still not regulating but everything else seemed to be on course. I was in a good bit of pain when they would come but I didn't want to take anything. I knew I would be getting the epidural at some point so I was holding out. No one told me that you have to go through 2 bags of fluid before they will give you the epidural.It was around midnight when I finally got the epidural. There were apparently several babies being born and a few surgeries going on so I got pushed back a little bit. But when they gave me that sucker, I was in heaven!! I was able to rest some and Josh attempted to sleep a little too while we waited.

Around 6:30, nurse Ashley (who rocked by the way) checked me and said that it was getting close. We started practice pushing when Dr. Brody came in to check on me around that same time. He left and at 7 nurse Ashley was finishing her shift and the next nurse came on. Both were taking turns coaching me and helping me along. Once Dr. Brody finished his rounds he came back in and said show time! I got really nervous then. In fact, a lot of this gets fuzzy. I was in a good bit of pain. The epidural didn't really work well at this point. I'm pretty sure it was gone a good while before I started pushing.

Funny enough, Emmalynn got the nickname Turtle from her Aunt Beth while I was pregnant. She was called that in the delivery room as well. I want go into detail as to why she got that name, but you get the picture. When things weren't moving as quickly as we were wanting, Dr. Brody suggested using forceps. I had not done enough research on these but I knew I wanted to do this myself. When he brought it up, he saw the hesitation and I asked him what they were and what would happen. I loved my doctor the entire time I was pregnant and even more so after labor. He was great. He told me that it was my choice and he would not make me do anything I wasn't comfortable with. He explained to me what they were calling them metal salad tongs, haha. When I asked him to let me keep going for just a little longer, he let me. He is an amazing doctor. I pushed maybe 2 more times and went ahead and agreed to the forceps. When I did that, the room filled up with nurses and people that I hadn't seen before. Dr. Brody put on a scrub cover and differnt gloves and opened the wrapped forceps. Apparently they are really super duper sterile and its very important. This part scared me a little because so many people were around me now. Made me nervous. But I was so ready to meet our little girl. When the next contraction came, I started pushing and with the help from the forceps and Dr. Brody, Emmalynn was born. It was 7:50am on April 16. When she came out, everyone around me went "Woah". Being in the position I was, I couldn't see a whole lot and the word "Woah" is not something you want to hear, lol. "Woah what?! Whats going on? Hello!!!" Apparently my little girl had a really big head, haha. When Dr. Brody was working on me and they were cleaning Emmalynn up, he told me that I wouldn't have been able to do it on my own. I'm now happy that I agreed to the forceps. But I'm also glad I hadn't seen the horror stories that come along with forceps. I believe that they can be bad but I also believe that the doctor makes all the difference.

 

She has never been bashful, haha.

I was laying there in the bed looking at the nurses and doctors working on Emmalynn and I cried. I did it. I delivered my baby girl and she was finally here. I watched my husband talk to her as she cried, telling her it was ok. That everything was going to be alright. And I cried. I cried happy tears as I fell more in love with my husband, her daddy. And as they handed her to me, I cried. I did it. We did it. My perfect, beautiful healthy baby girl was in my arms. Its a feeling that I can not describe nor do I think I will ever feel it again. Those beautiful blue eyes looking up at me, her mommy.

Emmalynn was perfect.

 

 Our first family photo. 

Can someone tell me where this baby is? Because the Emmalynn that is sleeping right now does not look like this little girl.

We got to go home on April 17th. We filled out her birth certificate, made her official and packed our things. I had packed a couple of outfits for Emmalynn which was a great idea considering her head was too big for the outfit I had planned for her to come home in, haha. 

Ready to go home!

Now here we are, 9 months later. So much has happened between then and now. I will attempt to post monthly blogs later but for now Josh wants the computer. My goal is to blog more regularly. Hopefully I can keep this up. Hope you enjoyed!!

Baby Watch 2013

Well it seems as though everyone is on baby watch now. Miss Emmalynn isn't due till April 17 (8 days away!!!) but everyone, myself included, is getting impatient! I can not wait to have my sweet little girl in my arms. I can not believe that we are so close. I feel like it was just yesterday that I saw those 2 pink lines and my life was forever altered. I have been so blessed with a healthy pregnancy. I wouldn't call it easy but I definitely can not and will not complain. Josh and I have been working double time to get the house ready for out of town family and guests. The nursery has slowly come together. I still need to hang a few things and find a rug but we are so excited about how it turned out. We've had to make changes here and there but it is exactly what I wanted. I'm slightly jealous, haha.

At my last doctor's appointment, my fluid levels were a little low. Still in the normal range and the doctor wasn't to worried about it. Just said we would monitor it and see where we are at my next appointment. I go back Thursday and I'm hoping everything is the same or we've progressed even farther. She has dropped even lower than the time before and everything seems great except I'm not dilating.  Several people have told me that they did not dilate until after contractions had began and they were already in the hospital. I'm hoping there will be some kind of change come Thursday. We'll see!

Please keep Josh and I in your prayers as we get ready to start this new chapter in our lives. We are both very excited but at the same time, scared out of our minds. This past weekend I couldn't help but think, "This may be our last weekend without a baby". It makes my heart race when I think about it. I'm going to be a Mommy. Josh and I created a life and we are going to be parents.

I will try and keep everyone posted and updated as the countdown continues. I appologize for lacking in the blog update but as you can tell, we've been pretty busy. Who knows, maybe the next time I update, it will include pictures of our beautiful Emmalynn.

Nursery and other ramblings.

It's hard to believe we've only been in our house going on 3 weeks. We officially moved in on President's Day (Feb 18, 2013) and have been going non-stop ever since. Its starting to come together and not be as overwhelming as it was. I made sure that the master bedroom was not cluttered and was as unpacked as it could be so that we would have somewhere in the house that we could rest. Master bathroom? Yea, that's another story. Haha. But everything is coming together and I couldn't be happier! We've even made our first house payment! We are official :)

I wasn't about to post a picture of our actual account, haha.



I'm starting to get worn out a lot quicker now than in the beginning of the pregnancy. Unfortunately, its making it harder to get anything accomplished at the house. After working 7-8 hours and going to class, all I want to do when I make it home is sit down and relax. Josh has been so amazing through it all. I feel horrible at times that I'm not contributing more than I am. He is working so hard to make sure that this house is our home. I am so blessed to have him in my life. We have come so far in our relationship and I can't help but fall more in love with him everyday.

Awe :)

But enough of the mushy stuff, haha. Yesterday was officially the 34 week mark leaving us with roughly 6 weeks till we meet Miss Emmalynn. I'm starting to get nervous and antsy. I've always been good with kids and Josh calls me a baby magnet because we can't go into a restaurant without a baby making faces and playing with me from across the room, but its different now that its MY baby. I don't want to screw this up. I want to make sure she has the best possibly life and has all her needs met. It's a scary thought that I am going to be in charge of not only my own life but another little person's life too. I pray that I will be the best mother I know how to be.  

Josh and I started working on the nursery last night. The plan was to go in, tape off,  and then measure some things but not to really start painting till tonight. Well....We got carried away. We ended up painting the first coat of pink as well. I mainly wanted to see if it was the color I had in my head and I am happy to say that once it started drying, it was! I took a few pictures but I don't want to give too much away just yet. I have a few ideas and hopefully it works out! I have looked on Pinterest and Google for weeks for ideas and inspiration and compiled several things that I liked. In the end, it was a cake that I got the most inspiration from, haha. I know right? A pregnant lady getting her inspiration for the nursery from a cake. 

Is this cake not adorable?!

Inspiration. All the different patterns blended, love this!

This is also inspiration. Love the pink and black together. 

The pink has been bought. 2 gallons of it to be exact :)

Playing in her room.

Its PINK!



Hopefully I can achieve what I have pictured in my head. Sometimes things are always better in your thoughts than in real life, haha. Oh and Josh's mom is being super awesome and making the bedding for us. I just can't justify spending $300+ on bedding. Its ridiculous the amount of money people pay for things like that. Emmalynn isn't even going to be in her crib in the beginning nor is she going to be in there that long after (or so I'm told). Crib bedding is either way expensive and/or looks really cheap. I wanted something special and something that would pop in the room but I'm not willing to fork over a lot of cash. When it came to the nursery, we didn't want something too "baby" either. I wanted something more that she could grow into and we could possibly just change furniture and decorations rather than have to paint the entire room over as she got older. Hopefully she likes pink just as much as her Mommy does :)

This is what I found and fell in LOVE with.

We are doing a hot pink instead of the light pink.

I'm sure you are all bored out of your minds now so I will leave you with a few things I ran across while playing on the Internet.



This one made me tear up a little. Silly hormones.

And yes, I have started to get stretch marks. Not too bad though.

A friend actually said this one to me the other day, made me laugh.



Official Homeowners!

On a total un baby/maternity related topic, WE ARE OFFICIALLY IN OUR HOME NOW!!! Yay Us!! Josh and I spent our first night there last night. Still feels odd, more like we are just visiting somewhere than it being "ours" but we'll get over that :) We had some able bodied friends come over yesterday and help do all the heavy lifting and such and we re-paid everyone with beer and pizza (I had a coke). Our bedroom is set up and almost complete. The rest of the house is another story but we'll get there. Its taken us so long to get to this point I just want to stop and enjoy it some.

Miles is adjusting just as well as I thought he would. He went through and marked his territory and laid down. He is so lazy. Poor Ella was slightly traumatized from the trip from the apartment to the house that once we got to the house, she was nervous and scared. I felt so bad for her. Showed them both where their food was and the litter box and she finally found a safe haven under our bed. I'm sure the smell of it and everything made her feel better. We usually shut our door at night and not let the cats in but because of everything going on we didn't want to shut her away so soon so we left the door open and had two heaters in bed with us most of the night. As soon as we turned the lights off she came out from under the bed and was on top of us in no time. All four pounds of her is almost like a tickle when she walks across you. I wish I could say the same about all 30 pounds of Miles. He feels like a small car digging into you, haha.

But waking up in our place was such a great feeling. Josh and I could not stop smiling. We have worked so hard to get to this point and I'm so happy that we can bring Emmalynn into such an awesome house where she will have room to grow and play. As we get more things unpacked, I will take some pictures and post so you can see all the hard work we've accomplished.

Maternity Photos :)

I received a free photo session with a local photographer here in Chattanooga and thought it would be a great idea. Free session, all I have to do is pay for prints of anything I like. No big deal. Well, Josh couldn't go with me so I asked my brother in law to take a few shots of the both of us this past weekend. A few shots turned into hundreds of shots. We took pictures all day and had a blast. Even froze some to get a good shot and boy did we get some GREAT shots. James has some true talent when it comes to taking pictures. Its hard to pick just one picture as a favorite so I have included several for your viewing pleasure :)

Ready to pop!

I didn't think I wanted any naked belly shots, but I love this one!!

Is this not just too cute?!

I love the way he looks at me.

One of the favorites of the day. Love the sun behind me.

Our sweet miracle, the product of our love <3

She is going to have him wrapped around his finger.

Cute little shoes!

Our family is growing by 2 feet!

Hopefully at some point I will get the proofs from my other photo session. I wasn't too happy with how my appointment was rescheduled so many times (once after I drove all the way to Soddy basically) and I didn't even get the full hour that was promised. But alas, free is free and you can't complain. The worst that happens, I don't buy anything and I get to enjoy the amazing shots my brother took :) Now to just figure out which ones to frame! 

Just an Update :)

It's been awhile since I've been able to post but we have had a really busy life as of late. We FINALLY closed on the house! Yay!!! We have literally been trying to close and move in since October of last year. It has been such a long and excruciating process but it is all done and now we can call it home, almost. We closed on January 28th and basically started renovations as soon as we could. We have been painting like mad men and Josh has even been doing some demolition in the basement where there had been a water leak. All are hard work is paying off though, we move in on Monday! And I can not wait.

In other news, baby Emmalynn is doing great. She is constantly moving and kicking and she LOVES music. I think she dances when she likes a song that is on. She is typically more active when I'm singing at church but I went and watched Josh play with the Monday Night Big Band and I have never felt her move the way she moved that night. She apparently either likes Jazz music or live instruments. It was so amazing watching her move the way she was. I don't think I will ever get tired of feeling her inside me (and yes, she has causes some slight pain at times).  We attempted to have a 3D/4D ultrasound last week and Miss Priss is sitting breech so it was difficult but she didn't help any either. She wanted to play with her feet the entire time, haha. We would watch her grab her foot and cover her face the entire time. She was sucking on her toes, haha. It was sweet but Mommy and Daddy would have loved to have gotten better pictures since we did have to pay for them. But I will settle for healthy and happy baby any day :)

These were some of the better pictures from our visit. You can see her chunky cheeks :)



And this is me at 30 weeks. All belly!

Josh and I also had the chance to visit some friends in Murfreesboro one weekend. It was nice to get away for awhile and forget about everything that was going on (we were still in the process of buying the house). We went to Nashville and protested at the capital for gun rights. It was the first time I had ever been to a protest and it was actually very interesting. So many people fighting for what they think is right. Now I don't care what your point of view is on the issue but I do believe that no matter the side, you should use your voice. Speak out and let your leaders know how you feel. Otherwise, we are just going to sit back and get ran over.

Our First Protest





After the protest, we decided to do a little sight seeing and walk around the capital. Being pregnant, it was time for a potty break so we decided to try and go inside The Capital. We went to the main door and they had it blocked off for another protest and had a sign sending us to the other side so we walked around. Went inside and the place was huge and so pretty. Eddie and myself set off to find the restrooms and eventually found some on the 2nd floor. The girls split off from the boys and as we finished in the restroom we did some sight seeing inside the Capital. Even got to see the chamber from the observation deck. Such a cool place. I'd love to go back and get an actual tour as we were kicked out of the place pretty quick. While we were looking around, all the girls recieved phone calls from their significant others instructing us to get out. They had been stopped by a state trooper and informed that the Capital was closed and we were trespassing. Oops!! When we got to the exit that we came in, I could see the guys standing outside with the trooper. When I stepped outside, the trooper had their driver's license and was calling in numbers. I was so scared! Luckily, he was just "signing them in" and making sure they weren't wanted for anything. He actually found it funny that we found our way in. We told him the door was unlocked and we just walked in, we didn't break in by any means. He said he wasn't concerned about us stealing as we were all caught on camera but that we needed to come back during normal business hours next time. It made for a great day! I have never laughed so hard in my life.

The Chamber from the Observation Deck.

I didn't want to take a straight out photo so I was pretending to text, haha.

Well these are just a few of our updates as of lately. I will try to do better about updating the blog more as we get moved in and settled. Its just difficult right now with trying to juggle school, work and moving into a fixer-upper. Hopefully things will settle down soon before Miss Emmalynn gets here :) Only 9 more weeks!!