Welcome Baby Sister!

Isabelle Ann Potter finally made her arrival on February 24th, 2016. After being scared she was going to be a Valentine's baby, I had shifted my worries to thinking she might not get here until Leap Day! However, on the morning of the 24th I had a dr's appt and when she checked she said I was already 4cm and had low fluid so it was time to induce! I came home to grab some clothes and meet Todd and we headed to the hospital around 1:00.

I snapped one last pregnancy pic on the way out the door since it may very well be the last time I look like that!!

When we got to the hospital, they said they had a lot of inductions that were still going from that am and no one had delivered yet. They hooked me up to an IV and the monitors and basically told us just to hang out for awhile. We could see on the monitors that I was already having contractions. They finally came in around 3 and apologized it was taking so long and asked if I wanted to eat so Todd ran out to grab us some Chick-Fil-A! Finally, around 4:30 they came in and started the Pitocin. After that I was fine until around 6 or 630 and I started to have a lot of pain from the contractions. At that point I requested my epidural and they told me that the anesthesiologist was in a C-section and someone had called right before me so it would probably take him about 30 minutes. Needless to say this was not welcome news and it was a pretty horrible 30 minutes. However, he finally showed up and after that everything was good until around 8 when the nurse came in and wanted to move me around because the baby's heart rate was doing something funny. When that didn't work she decided to check me and realized we were ready to go! They called the doc and as soon as she got there, Izzy was born about 10 minutes later. When the doctor came in she asked Todd if he wanted to help deliver the baby!!! I was not really overly enthused about the idea but he really wanted to do it so they suited him up in scrubs and everything and he actually pulled her out. He says it was really cool and I'm going to take his word for it ;) He is very bummed that we did not get a picture of him doing this but I guess the nurse who was supposed to take the pictures got busy. 

She's here!

7lbs 11oz. Her brother was 7 12 so very close!

Her feet weren't quite as scaly as his ;)

Once she was born they did some tests and realized she was Coombs positive (our blood types were incompatible) and her bilirubin levels were too high so they put her under these lights. 

At first she just had to lay on a blanket and wear these goggles but we could still hold her but then her levels kept getting higher so she needed overhead lights as well. From that point on we could only take her out for 30 minutes every 3 hours to eat. They also had me supplement her with 10cc's of formula at every feeding. The whole thing was a little stressful but she ended up getting a clean bill of health and we didn't have to stay any extra days in the hospital so that was good. 

First bath

Our poor little "bili baby" thats what they call them in the hospital.

When they finally came in (around 430pm) and told us we could go home I got her dressed in her little sister outfit I made and off we went. (funny story, I actually had another little sister outfit in my bag with another name on it, that was going to be her name until Todd found out his great grandmother's name 2 weeks before she was born and decided he liked that better!) We were still undecided on the way to the hospital but decided to go with a family name in the end. We plan on calling her Izzy but if she decides she doesn't like that someday she has options! 

Home we go!

Janis was here helping with Brooks when we got home. 

He was THRILLED with the gift his baby sister got him-a remote control Thomas!

This is when we tried to get a pic of them together...

and this is what I posted of them. So cute! I love the expression on his face. He really has been the sweetest big brother. 

Here we are...family of four now!

February 2016

This was a fun month! We finished up some getting ready for baby tasks and celebrated Valentine's Day-and most importantly welcomed a new family member!

I did a little more embroidery this month...I actually bought the shirt and just added the name for his school Valentines party.

My neighbor and I took the boys to the aquarium one day and they had so much fun!

Got to get up close and personal with the sea turtle.

Lol. I took this pic of Todd on Valentines Day with his THREE plates, he finished off all of our steaks. I think he's embarrassed?!

This was 2.15 when I realized it was probably time to think about a big boy haircut.

We met Todd for lunch at the choo choo park one day. B loves it!

Aaaaaand this was 2.19 when he woke up from his nap and I realized it was DEFINITELY time for a big boy haircut.

Haircut day! I actually snapped a pic because for some reason I thought I was going to go into labor.  Not so much!

Before...

and after! He looks like such a big boy :( He was great at the place though...no tears at all and was very into the lollipop.

I'll tackle the rest of this month in a separate post since it is pretty much all about baby sis from here on out!

January 2016

So, now that B is officially 2 years old I'm thinking it may be time to stop qualifying him as X months old. I'm not sure how I'm going to swing the blogging thing, I would like to post more regularly but for some reason it seems like once a month is about all I can manage. With baby sister about to arrive I don't want her to feel slighted, so maybe I will start posting some monthly milestones just for her and then a family recap for the rest of us.  We'll see how it goes! Does one even have time to take pictures/sit down at the computer with 2 kids? I have no idea!

Anyway, we enjoyed getting back to our regular routine this month. The weather was pretty fantastic and when I went back to look at all the photos I took most of them were from the park or playing outside. We stuck pretty close to home this month with no big trips or anything. It was nice to settle down after the holidays. We did not go out for NYE but our neighbors had us over for a nice dinner and I managed to stay up until 1:30!

He loves this "choo choo park" on Daniel Island.

My college roomies threw me a lovely little "sprinkle" for baby sister. It was so fun to get everyone together and she got some adorable little outfits. 

We had the sprinkle at a place called Tavern & Table on Shem Creek. The food is yum and I can't wait to go back for some of the cocktails :)

B and I had a couple of dates at his favorite place (the "ice cream place") this month. I am trying to soak up as much time as I can with my little dude while it is still so easy for us to get out and about.

He loves playing with his neighborhood buddy, Walker. We go on walks a couple of times a week after naps to the playground or to the boat ramp and one of their fav activities is throwing sticks in the water. 

Someone got a little pregnancy crazy around here and decided that we had to have the carpets replaced and painting done in the baby's room. Which of course snowballed into Brooks' room and the guest room because one lesson we learned the hard way is once you are doing something just do it all at once and get it over with. I laughed when people ask me "oh what color is the nursery" because this is what it looked like. 

All of our furniture had to be stuffed into different rooms and it took forever for everything to get put back together but now its done so baby will have no more nasty carpet!

I broke down one morning when I had to take B to the doctor with me and just gave him the iPad. He was in absolute heaven and it definitely made the whole excursion a lot easier on me. 

Baby's room post carpet.

just SOME of the clothes I got from my friend and my neighbor. This kid has so many clothes already its unbelievable. 

This was around 38 weeks...I decided I better take a pic in case she someday wonders why I took so many with Brooks and not with her. 

Special pregnancy treat..whipped cream in my coffee. Just one of the many things I will have to give up once the baby is born!

We got to go to the beach at the very end of the month. It was such a nice day we both got a little sunburned!

Can't beat a January beach day!