Baby Blessing Info

We have officially decided to bless Isla on May 6th here in Arizona. I am a little sad that we live so far away because I would love to be able to have family here for it, but it's just the nature of the beast I guess. Living in Arizona = family far away:( We do have some amazing friends here so we are lucky to have them!

I am looking forward to Isla's blessing so much! I just ordered her dress online and I really hope it fits because it's handmade by some lady on Etsy and I can't return it (scary)! I fell in love with this dress the moment I saw it, I am a sucker for crochet. I can't do it myself but I LOVE the people that can do it for me!

I look forward to posting about the blessing after it's happened... Until then here is a picture of the dress I ordered today:) I can't wait to try it on her!!!

The Gym and I

The gym and I have some major conflicts with each other... I hate the gym, and the gym hates me! Before I had Isla I had maybe been to the gym 9 or 10 times in my life! I am not proud of this but it's true. Now that I  have this lovely leftover skin and fat from pregnancy I am determined to loose it, that is why I have been going to the gym every other day for the last 3 weeks... I AM proud of that, however, I still really hate the gym. I kid you not I get on the elliptical for 20 minutes and think I really might lose my leg function by the end of this and it's on the easiest setting... Steve keeps telling me I just need to keep going to get over "the hump" and it will start to get easier. When do you get over "the hump"? 3 weeks and still soooo painful!

The picture below is me in my work out attire today... I picked the most flattering picture I could get from the side. It doesn't look too bad in this pic but from the front you can tell I just had a baby:)

So far the gym has been paying off a little bit. I gained about 45 pounds during my pregnancy and have now lost 35 of it! Only 10 more pounds to go, too bad these last 10 pounds are the hardest pounds to lose:) I also wouldn't mind loosing the 20 pounds I gained since getting married as well, but sadly I don't think I will ever be able to do that. I am not complaining, I would be very content at my pre-pregnancy weight you just always have to have a goal, right?

One month old

1 month stats

Weight: 8 pounds 15 oz

Height: 22 1/2 inches tall

 Having Isla for a little more than a month now has been the most crazy and amazing experience for Steve and I. I can't believe how much we love her and how perfect we think she is. Motherhood is nothing like I thought it would be... It's harder! Obviously going from just taking care of yourself and your spouse to having a baby that is totally dependent on you in every way can be difficult. I want her to be taken care of and it breaks my heart when she cries for any reason. All in all we are very lucky! She does NOT cry that often and she really is a great baby!

What they say is true. After having a baby your hormones go crazy! I can't remember the last time I cried so much for absolutely no reason... I constantly worry about Isla and her future. What a crazy world we live in today. I just hope she finds good friends in her life that will be a good influence on her and that she will be a good example for them as well.

What I have learned about Isla her first month of life:

• She loves to look around when she is awake. Anything that I put in front of her she will just stare at intently
• She loves to be held, but she also doesn't mind being put down. That makes life a lot easier for me because I am able to get stuff done and she is perfectly content to just hang out for a while!
• She smiles a lot! I still can't believe how early on she started smiling. I have no idea if it is on purpose or not but I think it is. Nothing is better than holding my baby and staring at her smiley face. I can't help but smile myself every time I see it:)
• When she is fussy or uncomfortable for any reason Steve or I will pat her back and it is like instant relief for her. She calms down immediately and half the time it puts her to sleep. I think it is a comfort thing, I don't know why but she loves it!
• She has been sleeping in her room since night one and we love it! Most of the time after feeding her I can just put her right back in her crib and if she isn't already asleep than she will put herself back to sleep without crying about it at all!
• She loves to be swaddled at night but free with her arms in the air and by her face during the day.
• She loves to be laid on her back on some flat (soft) surface and just look around.
• She LOVES her little play gym thing that she lays in and looks at all the animal toys.
• She is strong! She holds her head up pretty good and looks around.
• She does NOT like her feet rubbed. Maybe she is ticklish on them I don't know... 

We feel so lucky to have Isla and we love her so much:) We are looking forward to bringing her to Utah in April so (most) everybody that hasn't seen her yet will have a chance.

An Obscene Amount of Pictures!

Isla is almost a month old now and my mom makes me take a picture of her everyday on my phone and send it to her. Needless to say I have accumulated a lot of pictures of her in the short amount of time since we had her... Below is a few (and by a few I mean like 20!) pictures I have taken over the past 3 weeks. I tried to narrow it down more but what can I say, I like pictures of my baby:)

Most of these pictures are from our "Play Time". I just lay out a blanket, put her on it and we play:) She is really a smiley baby and she has been smiling since about 2 weeks old.

She really enjoys tummy time so far

And she is very strong for a 2 week old here:)

Weston is curious about her and is often trying to smell her. He has been good so far with her and hopefully it can continue!

She has this owl toy that she loves to stare at! 

She stared at it for almost an hour one day in her crib.

Her latest favorite is this play gym!

She can't get enough of it and I love snapping pictures of her playing in it")

Flashback to the hospital!

 The rest of these were taken from my phone. Enjoy!

1 Day Old

Steve took a bunch of pictures while we were in the hospital and these are my favorite...

We have a daughter:)

Isla Claire Murray made her debut Friday, February 10th at 8:15 PM weighing 7 lbs 2 oz and was 21 inches long. Her birth was such an incredible experience for us and something we will NEVER forget!

We started out going to the hospital the night before so that they could give me some sort of cervical ripening medication. They needed to do that because they were going to induce me the next morning and I was not dilated at all! The medication was supposed to stay in for 12 hours and then they would take it out and induce me an hour later. Turns out the medicine was enough to start my labor on it's own! 

Around 3 am I started experiencing painful contractions a few minutes apart. They gave me some pain medication to help me go back to sleep but around 5 am the contractions were getting so bad that the pain medicine did nothing! 

Before we knew it my contractions were 2 minutes apart and very painful! I didn't realize at that time that I was able to get the epidural so around 10:00 am the nurse came in and asked me if there was some reason I hadn't asked for one yet. Once I realized I was in full blown labor I got it quick and oh how I loved my epidural:) 

Right after the epidural I was still only dilated to about a 2 so my doctor came and broke my water. Normally breaking the water is supposed to speed up the process but for some reason it slowed mine down so they ended up having to start me on the pitocin anyways. Around 5:00 pm I was dilated to a 10 and ready to start pushing!

This part was incredibly difficult for me. There was a number of things that sort of went wrong. I was pushing for a little over 3 hours and during this time they had me oxygen because the babies heartbeat was a little slow and mine was a little fast. I felt very tired and lightheaded throughout the whole process and pretty soon developed a high fever that they were worried about. They were also concerned about the length of time I was pushing for. I heard the word C-section being passed around and that eventually gave me the motivation in the end to finally push her out! In the middle of pushing my epidural also ran out... That was painful! About 45 minutes of no epidural and the anesthesiologist finally came in to refill it. 

Throughout this whole process Steve and my mom were with me and they were amazing! I don't know what I would have done without them. Steve was the best! He really took good care of me and by the end I felt closer to him than I have ever felt in my life! My mom was so warm and relaxed and totally kept me calm in the midst of chaos! Also, my doctor (and friend) Laura was awesome! She went above and beyond and even though she was on maternity leave came in to deliver me! I really appreciated her positive and caring demeanor, she was awesome and I can't thank her enough!

When Isla was finally born I was exhausted and overwhelmed but I was so excited to finally have my baby! She is perfect and even though the labor experience was hard I would do it a million times over because she is totally worth it all!

My baby just seconds old! 

 Such a proud father:)

Isla's first bath 

My baby is tall! 

 Ready to go home!

We are so grateful for a happy and healthy baby. She has been such a joy already in so little time and we can't imagine our lives without her:)

Maternity pictures

Tomorrow is officially our due date and we are celebrating by posting some pictures from our maternity photo shoot... It is really important for me to remember what it is like to be pregnant and I really wanted our daughter to be able to see pictures of me when she was inside:) Steve said the photo shoot reminded him of getting engagement photos done and in a way it kind of was like that! We think they turned out great though and are so excited to share them with you!

Also, if we don't have her by Friday they are going to induce me. I am scheduled to go in this Thursday evening to get some sort of cervical ripening drug and will stay overnight, then they will induce me the next morning. We are definitely having a baby this week!!! Wish us luck:)