Meet Adelyn Grace Conner.
Born June 9, 2011 at 7:53 a.m.
This little gal has stolen my heart already. I could just stare at her all day long. I'm fascinated even by the smallest things she does. I just love her so much already!
Here's a peek into how it all went down.
The night before our scheduled C-Section, I hardly slept. I tried as best as I could but I honestly probably only got 3 hours of sleep. We headed into the hospital around 5:30 a.m. to get checked, prepped, and ready to go into surgery. I can't really explain how I felt that morning. It was a mix of readiness, anxiety, hope, fear, relief, and anticipation. It just seemed to be all happening without me being able to keep up emotionally. Here is a picture of me before the surgery. We kept laughing because my hat wouldn't stay on right. I eventually gave up and embraced the crookedness.
So we finally got herded into the O.R. where they prepped me while Austin waited outside. After the bottom 2/3 of my body went completely numb (a VERY strange sensation I might add), Austin was allowed in. They got started right away and within 10 minutes, we hear the doctor say, "I see a head full of hair...!" and then "look at those eye lashes!" Then we heard the first cry. It was beautiful. I cried right along with her when I heard it. The doctor held Adelyn over the drape that was blocking my view. Here is a picture of that moment...
After I got a good look at her, they took her across the room (again out of my sight) to clean her up and make sure everything was ok. I could hear her crying and screaming but it was such a joyful noise. After they got her cleaned up, they brought her back over to Austin and I and let us have a few moments with her before they took her to the nursery. Here are a few pictures of that.
Austin headed down to the nursery with Adelyn while I stayed in the O.R. to get closed up. I was prepared for this and it really wasn't too bad. I think I was on such a high from seeing her and hearing her cry so much that it held me over until they brought her up to my room after I had recovered a litte.
While she was in the nursery with Austin, he got the chance to change her (and his!) first diaper. You can see 2 of the 11 family members watching from the outside. They told me he did a wonderful job.
After 30 minutes or so of being back in my room, they finally brought the little gal and put her in my arms. It was precious. One of the most precious moments of my life. I just couldn't take my eyes off of her.
At that point, we could only have 3 people in the room so our family had to take shifts to come in and visit. I actually liked that though. Between the lack of sleep the night before, the pain meds I was on, and the physical toll surgery takes, I was absolutely wiped. I even fell asleep right in the middle of Austin's grandparents visiting. Woops.
Above is what happened when Uncle Will (my brother) gets a few minutes with her. :)
Here is proud "Nana," Adelyn and I. 
I'm writing this as we are in the beginning of our third day in the hospital. We have a ton more pictures since this first day but I'll post those when I have a little more time. Between visitors, doctors, eating, feeding, etc., it has seriously taken me 3 days to finish this one post!
A few common questions we get from people:
Is she feeding well?
YES. This was something I was worried about but from the very first feeding she has done really well. Almost too well. In fact we've had 4+ nurses tell us they are very impressed with her strong sucking reflexes AND the strength of her suck. It's almost laughable at how much she constantly wants to be sucking on anything. Her hand, her blanket, someones shoulder, pacifiers, etc. Even after she's got a full belly. So you can imagine the soreness factor from breast feeding. I won't go into that too much because I know it's a good problem to have but, wowza. It hurts. I'm hanging in there.
How are you feeling?
Physically- it's been up and down. As expected, the first day and especially the first night, I was hurting. It's funny though, even though I was so physically uncomfortable, I didn't mind. I just look at that little gal and kinda forget about it. I think we've finally figured out the dosage and type of pain killer I need so keeping ahead of the pain with the right stuff has made me a different woman. Austin is doing well. We are both pretty tired but I imagine that is going to be the norm for a while. At this moment, Austin is laying on the couch with baby girl on his chest. He just told me, "I seriously could do this all day." It's so precious to see him as a daddy.
Who does she look like?
Honestly, we don't know. Both Austin and I were born with a head of hair so we aren't sure which parent the luscious locks are from. People keep saying she has Austin's lips but that is the only thing we can figure out so far.
Have you gotten lots of visitors?
Adelyn is one popular lady. We've been blessed with lots of visits from friends and family. We figured out yesterday that it really helps with people come in waves-meaning we'll have a lot of visitors for an hour or two and then we get a break and so on. It's really fun to see people meet her for the first time.
Speaking of visitors, we have some coming very soon so I'm going to wrap this up. I'm sure there are more updates to come!
On Saturday we were informed that Adelyn had lost almost 10% of her birth weight. It's totally normal for babies to lose a little weight in the first few days but more than 10% can be a bit concerning. We were told that we would need to start supplementing with formula until she was able to get what she needed through breast feeding. We were also told that they weren't sure if we'd go home on Sunday as we had planned to or if the doctor would want to keep us a little longer to keep an eye on her weight. We really really wanted to go home on Sunday so when the doctor told us we could go we were pretty happy about it. So Sunday afternoon, with my parents' help, we packed up all of our goodies and headed home!
night like a champ. However, around the 2 am hour, she decided she didn't want to sleep or be alone anymore. From 2 am to when we got up (5am) Austin and I were tag teaming getting up, checking diapers, putting her pacifier in her mouth, feeding (well that was just me), and so on. Around 5 we kind of just gave up on sleeping. So needless to say, I'm one tired chick right now. Bummer is- I doubt this night will be that different. Or the next. Or the next... yikes. And of course she's now been sleeping peacefully ALL morning. I'm actually fighting to keep my eyes open as I write this!
