Turkey lurkey do...

i wanted to post some pics from our visit back to gloucester for thanksgiving. emerson was loving her time there seeing everyone. the more i go home to visit, the more spoiled she is going to get because everyone holds her all the time! hehe. but she actually slept really well last night (a 7 hour stretch!) and has been good most of the day. i think the new formula is helping...i hope! hehe. anyway, hope you enjoy the pics from thanksgiving...

nana with all her grand daughters and her 1st great grand daughter!

auntie ashley with her favorite baby ever! she loves her little niece!

cute little xmas picture. she has lost so much hair!

i love this picture....and her hat and boots!

Revenge!!

i feel that it is my job as a parent to build up a supply of potentially embarassing pictures and stories to tell emerson all about (and any future boyfriends too!). although i have already worked on this by having her be a lobster for her first halloween, i took it one step further today. dressing her as a lobster was fun....but i thought i should get back at her for causing me to have a c-section and keeping me up with her screaming. hehe. and the punishment for those crimes is getting boiled like a lobster is intended to! :) And who says that you only use a halloween costume once?? hehe

Welcome to the world!!

I know it's late but better late than never! At the suggestion of my mom, I decided to start a blog for Emerson. So, I need to back track a little, since it's been a month since she was born...

Here is our story.....
My pregnancy was fantastic...except for some morning sickness that lasted, well, not just in the morning that's for sure! It was a long first 4.5 months but once I got past that, it was smooth sailing! I loved being pregnant and seeing my belly grow. In fact, I really miss it! I loved the way I looked pregnant (it helped that I didn't get any stretchmarks!...go ahead and hate me if you want! hehe)....but anyway, all was going well. I was planning a totally natural birth and planned to use hynobirthing during labor. I had read up on things (aka...obsessively researched) and was fully prepared for things. I believe that childbirth is a natural process and that it is best to do it naturally...as it has been for hundreds of years before medical science screwed with everything. Anyway, I was all prepared...up until weel 36 where little miss emerson decided that she didn't want to be head down anymore! Difficult already...and she wasn't even out yet!
So I embarked on a mission to get her to flip. I went to a chiropractor to try the Webster method to get her to turn. I took pulsatilla (homeopathic remedy) which my midwife recommended. I did handstands...headstands and various other weird exercises that swore they would help. Well...nothing made that little girl flip!
I put off scheduling a c-section as long as possible and finally allowed myself to be talked into it and scheduled it for Monday, October 20th.

And so it was that Emerson Charlotte Muriel Lancaster was born October 20, 2008 at 10:46am, weighing 6lbs 11.5oz and 19.25 inches long. She had long black hair and came out feet first! Once she was out, she announced her entry to this world with a hearty scream. :) And I got to watch the whole thing! I had insisted that I have a mirror so I could watch her birth, even though it was a c-section. The doctors/my midwife were not too keen on the idea but I fought for it, and in the end, I am really glad I did. I have a vision in my head of my daughter's birth, even though it wasn't the ideal birth I had planned. I would be really upset had I had a c-section and not been able to watch her be born. It seems so removed from the way things should be. Almost like you aren't even involved in the birth. It might not have been as convenient for the doctor or midwife but hey...it wasn't their baby's birth!

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mommy, daddy and muffin!
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Anyway, she was healthy but needed to keep her temperature up, so they tried to take her away to the nursery to be in a warmer. I insisted that she be kept with me at all times...and so they brought a warmer into the recovery room with me. So I got to spend time with her (and watch her get her thumb into her mouth not 30 minutes after being born!) while she warmed herself. I also insisted they keep her with me (and Brad too!) while they gave her her first bath. Once again, I am very glad I had them do this, even though it wasn't their "normal" procedure. I was probably the biggest pain in the butt patient they have had, but I'm glad I was a pain in the butt!

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So, we kept her with us for the 4 days that we were in the hospital (I wouldn't let them take her to the nursery ever....I spent 9 months waiting for my baby; why would I send her away to the nursery right after she was born!??!).

We went home and have been enjoying her company ever since. She likes to cry at night and we have been switching formulas to see which works best. She recently has begun smiling at us and evcen rolled onto her side from her back 2 days ago. She is pretty darn cute!

Not only has she been a gift to myself and Brad, but she is also my parents first grandchild...which is awesome. And she is my grandparents first great-grandchild. And she is Brad's mom's first grand-daughter. So she is a first for a lot of people.

So...if you have read this far, I figure you need to be rewarded with some pictures...

In my belly!
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Going home outfit!
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the new grandparents visit :)
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her first mohawk!
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Emerson's first Halloween! She was the cutest crustacean ever!
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At Green Lakes...
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Her and her daddy are so happy to have each other!
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cute shoes her Autie Ashley got her. This is Emerson at one month!
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[IMG]http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c382/thepiedpiper72/emerson/emerson271.jpg[/IMG]

okay...that's enough pics for now! Check back...more to come!

...so I am new to this whole blogging thing and I can't figure out how to make those pics show up. But if you copy and paste the address (without the IMG in front and at the end), you can see the images. Sorry. I guess in the future I will just have to include one picture in each post or something...