Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme

TodaysMama (link to: http://bit.ly/tmwishlist) and GameStop (link to: http://bit.ly/gamestop10) are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you.

1. What is your holiday wish for your family?

For my husband, daughter, and I to be able to spend more time together.  Quality time is hard to come by with working opposite shifts and multiple jobs ;-/ But hopefully we can at least spend Christmas together!

2. What is your Christmas morning / Hanukkah Nightly tradition?

We spend Christmas Eve at my Grandma's.  Then head over to Nana's house to spend the night and wait for Santa.  In the morning our whole family cooks and eats breakfast together.  Afterward we go into the living room and open presents.

3. If you could ask Santa for one, completely decadent wish for yourself, what would it be?

My own masseuse!

4. How do you make the holidays special without spending any money?

Our breakfast that we have together Christmas morning is actually my favorite part of the holidays.  I love having that time for everyone to spend talking, laughing, and catching up.  Everyone helps so it takes the pressure off of one person and we can have more quality time with each other.

5. What games did you play with your family growing up?

Candy Land was always a favorite when I was younger.  As I got older card games and Pictionary were always fun.  It amazes me how many more choices there are for games these days than there were when I was a child.  I love that there are so many options for things that I can do with my daughter.

6. What holiday tradition have you carried on from your own childhood?

Going to Christmas Eve service at my church and then spending the evening at my grandmother's.  I also enjoy taking my daughter to spend the night at Nana's house, because it was something that I loved so much growing up.

7. Where would you go for a Christmas/Hanukkah-away-from-home trip?

Somewhere warm! Perhaps Jamaica...

8. Check out GameStop (link to: http://bit.ly/gamestop10) and tell us, what are the three top items on your GameStop Wish List this year?

The Kinect System for Xbox 360
Hasbro Family Game Night for Wii
The Sims 3 for Wii

Started work yesterday.  Wasn't a fun time, but I really can't go much longer without getting a paycheck.  I'm only working a total of eight hours this week, but still its better than nothing.  I didn't think it'd be a good idea starting out with a full eight hour shift so I'm just gonna do half shifts for a while.  I'll probably work more days next week, but still only half shifts.
I guess it wasn't that bad, I was just watching the clock the entire time I was there.  I'm going in again tomorrow.  I wanted to work on Thanksgiving for the holiday pay. 
I really didn't have anything to say.  Just wanted to get myself in the habit of keeping this updated :)

Arya Rayne Spencer

November 6th, 2009

7 pounds, 11 ounces, 20 inches

4:51 pm

Well...she's here!  I'm pretty disappointed with myself that I didn't keep up with this while I was pregnant.  But too late now.  No point in worrying about it.  Anywho, I started  having regular contractions on Wednesday while I was at work.  But they were nearly an hour apart so I wasn't too concerned about it.  By Thursday night they were about 15 minutes, which made for an incredibly long night.  Every time I would start to drift off another would wake me up.  I pretty much spent the whole night taking showers and then waiting for the hot water to build back up so that I could take another one lol.  By about 4:30 am on Friday they were five minutes apart so I started getting ready to go.  Woke CJ up around 5:00 and let my grandma know that we were leaving.  By the time we made it to the hospital they were about 3 minutes apart.  The nurse didn't seem to believe me when I told her they were that close :) But she did after she hooked the monitors up to me and SAW that they were that close.  Then she complimented me on how well I was handling them. 

The day was pretty uneventful.  I got my epidural earlier than I had planned to, but after I got it I wasn't sure why I had waited so long lol.  It was such a huge difference.  I could still feel them some but it was nothing compared to what they'd been.  They started having me switch sides that I was laying on to try to get her to shift into the right position.  So they ended up giving me a bigger dose of the epidural because when I laid on my right side I could feel the contractions a lot more on my left.  After that I couldn't feel ANYTHING from the waist down lol.  It was pretty fantastic.  I made it through the entire remainder of the labor with absolutely no pain.  No pressure either.  They said that I should still feel pressure... But when it came time to push they had to tell me when my contractions were lol. 

Everything went well.  She had quite a bit of fluid in her lungs but they were able to get her all suctioned out.  We stayed in the hospital for two nights, then took her home on Sunday.  The first couple nights home were terrible.  She refused to sleep in her crib.  She'd fall asleep while we held her but as soon as we put her in her crib she'd wake up and cry until someone came to get her again.  Its gotten a little better since then.  Her doctor told us to try having her sleep in her carseat for a while.  They usually like that better during the first month.  That worked wonders.  She doesn't sleep all night by any means, but at least she'll sleep for a couple hours at a time so I can get some sleep. 

We had to start supplementing with formula ;-/ She'd lost weight at her second doctor's appointment and the doctor's a little worried about it.  So now I have to talk with a lactation consultant.  Hopefully the formula's only temporary.  But I guess we'll see.

I suppose that's about it for her first two weeks home :) I'll try to do better about keeping up with updates on here...

Sad that no one readsthis anymore.  But no matter...it'll be good to look back on later :)

We're officially at 19 weeks now.  Only 20 more to go :)  I was having horrible belly pains, but I think that seems to have passed for the most part.  I still get them every now and then, but its not nearly as bad as it was.  My only problem right now is the awful headaches I keep getting.  I got them fairly often before, but they're so much worse now.  I've gotten pretty good at ignoring them though.  I'm pretty sure that no one else even realizes when I've got one most of the time.  I can FEEL the baby now, so that's exciting.  No one else has been able to though.  I suppose we have to wait a little longer for that.  CJ and I have our first parenting class tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to it.  CJ hasn't met the lady who runs them yet, but I really liked her.  I think he will too.  I'm not sure what our class is on tomorrow.  I think that its just something about the second trimester, but I can't really remember.  There are a LOT of classes that you can sign up for.  Our next Dr. appointment is on the 17th.  We'll have our ultrasound then.  I can't wait :)

Today's CJ's birthday.  I wish I could have done something to make it more special for him...but I couldn't come up with anything :(  He's at Dewayne's house with Dewayne, Sam, Bryan, and Amanda right now.  Which is good...he doesn't get to see them very often anymore.  I miss him though.  I would have gone, but I missed work because of the current migraine...so I probably shouldn't be out and about.  Got him a Wii for his birthday, which I think he enjoys.  But I seem to have made an error in game choice ; /  I didn't realize that it was one that he already has for his xbox, so it was kind of pointless.  Don't think he likes it much...

I guess that's about it.  I'm going to try to update more often.  At least once a week.  Not that anyone reads this of course...but I'd like to be able to look back at how I was feeling at different points in the pregnancy.  Might also be nice for the baby to be able to see someday. 

So...everyone should go look at my new ticker ;)