Stationery Card

This is our Christmas Card / Birth Announcement!!  Turned out really cute!

Stationery Card

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One Month Old

 

 

Stats:

9 pounds 10 ounces

22 inches long

Her head measures in the 97th percentile...she has a big melon like mom and dad!

 

Here are some pictures from the month!

Trip to the doctor for month checkup and a shot (she screamed bloody murder)

 

 

First Thanksgiving!

 

Aunt Allison came in town to visit from Chicago!

 

Roark - 4 Generations

 

Bollwerk - 4 Generations

 

Cousin Marie is completely in love!

 

First trip to Target!

 

Harry had to get his picture taken...he is super jealous.

 



6 DAYS EARLY?!?!?

 

You are reading this right...Miss Charlotte decided to bless us with her beautiful self on October 29, 2013!!!  I woke up at 2:00am to my water breaking!  I wanted to make sure it was my water and not just that I had peed myself...so I went through three pairs of pants, two pairs of underwear and one whole roll of toilet paper in a half hour.  So I woke Dave up and said we had better head to the hospital to check things out.  We both took showers, loaded up the car with our overnight bags and headed to Progress West in O'Fallon.  I told my story to the nurse when we arrived on the second floor and they put me in room 207 right away.  I was dilated at this point between 2-3cm at 4:00am.

 

 

So the waiting game started.  Everyone we talked to at the hospital said they don't want you go past 24 hours once your water breaks and delivery because there is a high rate of infection setting in.  The contractions got semi painful so I got my Epidural around 7:00am.  I figured I better get it now before the pain gets unbearable.  The doctor that gave me the Epidural missed the first time and struck a vein which made me feel really weird so he had to start all over.  It took the second time.  At 9:00am the nurses started me on Pitocin due to me not progressing very fast.  By early afternoon I had progressed to 5cm dilated and my body was starting to react to the effects of the pain.  I was shaking uncontrollably and it felt like I need to poop every time a contraction came on.  I developed a fever and had to be given more drugs on top of the Epidural by the doctor to stop the shaking/pain.  I started to feel much better.  By 3:30pm I had progressed to between 8-9cm dilated and started pushing at 4:05pm.  Pushing became exhausting but by 5:24pm Charlotte Fay Nieters entered this world and has now forever changed our lives!  Here are some pics of the before and after.

 

 

The below picture is Charlotte's heart rate on the top and my contractions on the bottom.  Every time you see a huge spike, that is a contraction.

 

I did fail to mention in my last post that I went to the Chiropractor the day before Charlotte was born at 11:00am and he did some acupuncture on pressure points to hopefully get things moving along and low and behold 15 hours later my water broke.  The nurses also said that whenever a storm front moves in and the barometer changes that can help move things along too.  A big storm moved in the morning my water broke and it rained for three days.  Not sure what got it going but either way, we were glad to welcome Charlotte early!!



Week 39 - Happy Halloween

 

We are just days shy of Halloween so I decided to do a Belly Painting...something just for fun!  Trisha painted a jack-o-lantern on my belly and I think it turned out really cute!  Today at my doctor appointment I have officially dilated to one centimeter so something is starting to happen down there!  I have hoped for a Halloween delivery this whole nine months so we will see if that actually happens on Thursday!  How cool would it be to get to Trick-or-Treat for your birthday every year?

Week 38 - Dave is Out of State

 

This week Dave was out of state with work all week.  He left Monday morning at 4am and returned on Friday at 3pm.  He was in Seattle, Mississippi and Florida.  He was in all four time zones at one point or another this week.  It was a nerve wracking experience because Charlotte could have come early, but thank God she did not.  I stayed at Bill and Elizabeth's house all week so I didn't have to be by myself through the night just in case something did happen.

 

Week 37 - Getting Everything Finished Up

 

 

This week was spent getting everything bought and finished up off of our registries.  My mom and I finished deep cleaning the house so are really ready to go!  The nursery is finally complete and we are ready for Charlotte's arrival!



Baby Shower #2 - Nieters/Bollwerk - 10/5/2013

The theme for my second baby shower was Charlotte's Web...which I thought was adorable!  Here are some of the pictures from it!  My sister-in-law Angie made a family tree to look like a spider web!  It is too much and will look great on her wall in here room!