she's here...!!!

Carrington Lorraine Smith has arrived! After a fairly short labour (only 3 1/2 hours from my waters being broken to her arrival) we got to meet our precious little girl. Her stats: born at 12:32pm on Friday 1st May, 2009; 8 pound 8 ounces (3.86kgs); 52cms long; 35cm head circumference. With dark hair, deep blue eyes and a 'cuddly' body, Carrington looks just like John did when he was a baby. She is such a good girl and is already into a routine. She feeds well, settles easily and sleeps, well, like a baby.

As you can see from this photo, it was a lot of hard work! I managed to do it all without an epidural, but I had a shot of Morphine 20 minutes before she arrived, which left me feeling very sedated and sleepy. I was able to feed Carrington straight away before having to be wheeled away into surgery. Carrington's shoulders got stuck as I was pushing her out and her heart rate dropped considerably, so they had to just reach in there and grab her out, resulting in a 4th degree tear.

Lachlan loves his new sister. He is so gentle with her and is very curious. He loves to give her kisses, cuddles, hi-5 and knuckles. I hope they always share this special bond.

count down...

I am now down to my final days before our baby arrives. At my recent Hospital appointment on Tuesday (28th April), the Doctor booked me in to be induced tomorrow- Friday 1st May. He was fairly confident that I would go into labour naturally before then as I was already 3cms dilated, but I think the baby has since developed stage freight and decided to stay where it is nice and cozy. The reason for the induction is that it seems I have developed Cholestasis again- the same condition I had with Lachlan which saw me induced at 37 weeks with him. This time around I have at least gone further in the pregnancy and tomorrow I will have reached 39 weeks.

With that in mind, we wanted to take some 'family' photo's as a memory of our last day before the exciting arrival of baby number 2.

I am feeling so many things right now, from elation (that I get to meet baby sooner than expected), to terror (remembering what really is involved in getting a baby from "in there" to "out here"), to anxiety (what happens if they don't end up inducing me and I am all preped and ready), to delight and happiness.

Wish me luck as I await the arrival of this precious child we are all eagerly awaiting.

updated pics...

Things have been a bit hectic around here lately... John has been busy converting part of our garage into another room, we have had family come and visit, and I have been hooked on reading the "Twilight" series. So I thought I'd add some pics of other things we have been up to in the past couple of months...
One of John's work colleagues go married last weekend, so we got to dress up! Lachlan was babysat by his Auntie Caley so John and I could enjoy mingling with adults without having to run after him (which is getting increasingly difficult for me!). This dress makes my bump look HUGE.. I am currently 32 1/2 weeks.

Swimming lessons! We started Lachlan in lessons mid February. He went to 2 before we had to stop due to John's chaotic work roster and other 'home reno' projects. Lachlan LOVES being in the water and we look forward to getting him back into lessons soon. (He had to wear a swimming cap as part of the pool regulations, hence the funny look on his face.)

Ahoy there Captain Feathersword! Lachlan went to a friends dress-up birthday party in February. Being only 22 1/2 months old, he doesn't know who any of the super-hero's are, but he does love the Wiggles! I made this little outfit for him and surprisingly he left most of it on for the duration of the party.

australia day...

Yesterday we celebrated Australia Day as a family by having a good old Aussie BBQ lunch. John was due to start work at 2:30pm, so that's all we had time for. We tucked into some of our favourite foods, and couldn't go past enjoying some Tim Tams with our lunch. We got into the spirit of things by putting on removable tattoos of the Australian flag. John and Lachlan went with their arm, but I thought I'd be a little original...

Happy Australia Day!

i love ice-cream...

The title of the post says it all... Lachlan loves ice-cream! He has tried it in the past, but we have limited the amount he gets and he has certainly never had his very own. So today when everyone else was having one, I thought we'd give him a real treat. Thank goodness we were outside because it proved to be very messy. Lachlan absolutely loved the independence and took his time with it, not realising that the longer you take, the more it melts away... just like my heart when I look at him- awwww!!!

hot days...

The past 2 days have seen Sydney reach temperatures of extreme heat, reaching over 40oC in some areas. Our suburb probably got very close to that, and boy did we feel it! Here's a glimpse of how we combated the heat...

Day 1- yesterday

We invited John's sister Julie and her son Liam over to splash around in our clam pool. The boys had a great time, and we adults cooled off too by dipping our feet in at every opportunity.

Day 2- today

John didn't hold back this time around, and donned his board shorts to join Lachlan in the pool. We lazed around while enjoying some homemade ice-blocks. Needless to say all the fun in the pool really exhausted Lachlan and he slept for about 3 hours both afternoons- fine by me!

christmas day...

I realised that I hadn't put any of my photos of Christmas onto my blog. I don't have that many as we chose to capture most of the commotion on our video recorder. But here are a couple from the big day...

Christmas morning began around 7am when Lachlan woke up. We began opening presents pretty much straight away. Lachlan enjoyed ripping the paper off his presents, but wasn't that interested in any of the gifts until we started to set a few of them up, in particular his new keyboard. He was so excited with it and loved yelling his gibberish into the microphone, banging away on the keys and generally making a lot of noise! After our pancake breakfast, we got ready and headed up to Glenorie to Joanna and Andrew's home for Christmas lunch. After exchanging a mountain of gifts, we enjoyed a yummy traditional hot Christmas lunch. We were all so full after that! John got ready for work and left there around 2:30pm, returning again an hour or so later in his Police car...

After his visit (and a photo opportunity), John headed back to work and we headed home with a car full of generous gifts and left overs to keep us going for days. We all slept well that night...