Natalie's big adventures...

Natalie is now 5 days old as of a few minutes ago...

Today we finally got out of the house for a check up at the doctor's and a quick visit to meet the Brooks Resources crew. First the check up...

She was dressed in the cutest summery outfit. She had been changed, fed and looked adorable (of course!). And by the time we reached the nurse's office, the cute outfit was soaked as was her diaper. Good start. Luckily, mother's instinct told me to pack an extra outfit for such an event. The nurse took her temperature, weighed her (she's up to 6 lbs, 11 oz. which is great because babies lose their birth weight and it takes a while to get back up to wherethey started), and listened to her heart and lungs. Additionally, she went through two more diapers during the check up which pleased the nurse a great deal (I guess it's a good sign that she's eating enough and functioning well.) She was proclaimed perfectly healthy and very alert. I knew Natalie was going to be an over achiever!

After that, we went to my office to say hi to our Brooks Resources family. Natalie was appropriately fondled and ogled from all the girls (and Michael!) in our office. She seemed to like the attention quite a bit, but when she started sucking on Romy's arm, we knew it was time to get her home and fed.

Here are a few pictures that Grandma Pat has taken the last few days. Enjoy!

Love,

Val, Jeramy and Natalie

She's finally here!

Sorry it has taken us so long to update you and post pictures of our beautiful baby girl! We've certainly had our hands full.

Natalie Jean Yost came into the world at 4:35 pm on Wednesday, July 25. She weighed 6 lbs, 13 oz. and measured a whopping 21 inches long. She's long and lean like her daddy. Her middle name is after her late great grandma.

Despite having an appointment to go to the hospital to be induced at noon on Wednesday, Natalie had other plans. We awoke early Wednesday morning (2:30am) and debated for an hour whether or not I was in labor. I was having pretty regular strong contractions. We finally called the doctor and she told us to go to the hospital to get checked. We got there about 5:30am.

The rest of the day is kind of a blur, but in a nutshell, I labored at the hospital for quite a while before receiving and epidural. Unfortunately, the epidural only worked on my right side (completely numb), but not on my left side (felt quite a bit of pain). But half pain is better than full pain! The doctor came in and broke my water and put me on pitocin to speed things along. It sure did! Finally, the nurses proclaimed that I was fully dilated and ready to start pushing. That was at about 3:30.

Mom had just driven in from Pendleton at about that time. So with Jeramy, mom and my helpful nurses, Megan & Greta as cheerleaders, I started pushing during all of my contractions. When I was just getting the hang of it, the delivering doctor and a bunch of other doctors came in getting ready to inspect our child (they discovered that the amniotic fluid she'd been soaking in had some of her pooh in it so they wanted to make sure it didn't make her sick or was in her lungs). There was a neonatologist, a respitory therapist and a pediatrician awaiting her arrival.

The delivery doctor, Dr. Weeks, was great. He and everyone else were very encouraging and it all happend so fast (thank goodness!). When she did come out, they found that her cord was wrapped around her neck twice, which didn't seem to faze her at all. They whisked her away to the team of waiting specialists who proclaimed her extremely healthy. It seemed like they took forever with her, but from what I could see from my bed, she looked beautiful. And she tested out her lungs, which worked like a charm from what I could hear.

Finally, after all the poking, prodding, testing, weighing, etc. they brought Natalie to us. She was very alert and awake taking us all in. She had a beautiful head full of dark hair (which turned a little lighter after her bath that evening), perfect skin and the cutest little mouth and chin you've ever seen! We were so happy to have this perfect baby girl in our arms...

She's now 3 days old. She's eating a lot (breastfeeding is going pretty well I must say), and sleeping even more. We cherish the time when she's awake with her eyes open because it doesn't happen often. It's exhausting being born, you know.

She is so loved--already has daddy wrapped around her tiny little finger. Grandma Pat and I baked her a chocolate 3rd day in the world birthday cake today. The dogs have been pretty indifferent about her. Toby ignores her and Emmy just watches her with a twinge of envy in her otherwise blank little eyes.

We'll certainly keep you posted with lots more photos, but for now, here are a few from our 2 day stay at the hospital...

Love to all,

Valerie, Jeramy & Natalie

what a difference a few hours make..

Quick update... After I posted that Baby Yost would likely arrive on 7/27/07, the hospital called and now wants us to arrive at the hospital at noon tomorrow to be induced. So, she will either be born on Wednesday or Thursday, depending on how quickly things progress. We leave in a mere 16 hours, yikes!
xoxo

Mark your calendars...

Here's the latest on baby news...

At my weekly check up yesterday, my doctor again expressed concern about my lack of weight gain and asked me to go in for an ultrasound to check the baby's growth with the last ultrasound I had 3 weeks ago. I had the ultrasound this morning and indeed, the baby's growth rate has slowed down, which was cause for concern. Three weeks ago she was in the 20th percentile, and today she was down to the 14th percentile. The doctor thinks maybe the placenta is not giving the baby enough nutrients and that she would grow better in the outside world.

So, much to my astonishment, the doctor ordered me to the hospital immediately so they could monitor the baby's vitals to make sure she's not in distress. After a quick stop into the office and home, I got hooked up to the machines at St. Charles. They monitored her for 2 hours and declared to her to be fine and healthy.

The doctor still wants to get her out right away, but the Bend population is apparently booming right now and the hospital is pretty crowded. So, we've been instructed to check in Thursday night to be induced by my doctor. If all goes well, we should have our little one in our arms on Friday, July 27 (pretty cool birthdate, don't you think: 7/27/07?)

So, mark your calendars for Friday. We so much appreciate your continuing thoughts, prayers and support!

Love,
V&J

Just for Rhiannon...

At Rhiannon's request, here is a photo taken on Sunday evening which is 9 days before the due date... Notice the stockpile of diapers (there's many many more stored in the closet!). Thanks, Grandma and Grandpa Yost!!!

9 days and counting...

No sign of our little one yet, but we are quickly approaching our July 31st due date! I'm hopeful she'll decide to come early but I'm not holding my breath. She seems quite cozy in there. On the contrary, I'm increasingly more uncomfortable, particularly at night. No position is comfortable to sleep in. I guess it's preparation for all of the sleepless nights to come!

This is my last week of work before my 3-month leave. It's been challenging preparing for it, as I want it to be as smooth as possible for my coworkers. It's a very strange feeling to finally be at this point!

While I'm anxious and excited for the big birthday, I'm feeling a little more nervous about how it's all going to go. I've never been in the hospital before--no surgeries, no IV, nothing! So this will be very new for me.

We'll be sure to keep you all posted if anything progresses! Thanks for all your love, support and well wishes!

V & J

What's in a name?

As many of you know, we have been very close-mouthed about what our baby's name is going to be. There was a very good reason for that... we didn't know yet!

Of course we had a handful of possible names, but we couldn't seem to agree on what THE name would be. It's a huge responsibility naming another person and we didn't take it lightly.

There was a new name that we have recently been discussing; a name we both liked for various reasons and it was very high on our list. Today we were downtown at the Bend Summerfest where there were lots of cool arts and crafts vendors, music and food. At one booth, we were looking at these cute handmade Christmas ornaments and one in particular caught our eye. It said "Baby's 1st Christmas 2007" and had a baby girl in pink riding a shooting star. The name we'd been so seriously considering was printed neatly on the star. We looked at each other, both seeing it as a sign and promptly purchased it.

So, while we said we were going to wait until we see her, our baby has an unofficial name now. Of course, we could always change our minds (we'd only be out $10.95), but we feel good about our choice. We hope you agree when we reveal it on her birthday (which hopefully will be soon)!

xoxo

"Cramming" for baby

I'm reminded of when I was in school and the teacher gave you all term to get a big project done, but you wait until the last two or three weeks before you even started it... (and of course it's worth 2/3 of your grade!)

Now that the light is at the end of the tunnel (good metaphor in this case, don't you think?), we're in full panic to cram all of the stuff we should have been doing in the last 9 months. But, we're slowly getting things done...

Last night we both received certifiation for infant & child CPR. So if Baby Yost (or any other baby for that matter) are ever in distress, we'll feel a little more confident about what to do. The class was mostly made up of new moms and young nannies. Jeramy (bless his heart), was the only male in the group. See, he's already a great dad!

Still on our to do list: figure out how to put the car seat in the car, pack the all-important bag for the hospital, test the smoke detectors, wash all of the baby's clothes, sheets, etc. (I was waiting to make sure she was really a girl before I took most of the tags off the pink items!) and I'm sure there's more that I'm not thinking of...

But it's exciting to be in the home stretch. Jeramy now counts in terms of days (19 if you were curious), but I still say 2.5 weeks.

Until next time...

Things are starting to get exciting now!

Today's checkup at the doctor's went well. I gained 2 whole pounds since last Monday. I guess all that ice cream really paid off! The doctor also checked me and I'm 1 centimeter dilated already. That doesn't really mean much in terms of timing (women walk around for weeks dilated), but knowing I only have 9 more centimeters to go is pretty cool. Also, today for the first time, I felt contractions. This is rather normal to start contractions in the weeks leading up to "go time". The doc was actually surprised I hadn't felt them earlier. But since this afternoon, I've already felt three. Even Jeramy felt my rock-hard abdomen one minute, the next, it was back to normal. It doesn't really hurt, just a tightening feeling. I guess my body is warming up.

The doctor also confirmed that just because the baby is measuring small, doesn't mean that she'll come later. She may be small, but could be mature enough to be born anytime. They want to make sure I continue to grow and pack on the pounds though.

In other, non-baby news, Jeramy is enjoying his new Trager grill. We had really yummy pork tenderloin tonight that he smoked for a few hours. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Yost!

Signing off for now...

Baby Yost--small but cute!

So this is our very first posting to the Yost Family Blog! We hope this will be a place where we can keep you up to date as we prepare to welcome baby girl Yost to our family!

Today Jeramy and I went to get an ultrasound. At 36 weeks, the doctor was a little concerned that I wasn't gaining enough weight (I'm eating as much Ben & Jerry's ice cream as I can, I swear!). Anyway, she thought it would be a good excuse to take a look at the baby and make sure she's growing and healthy.

I was anxious to confirm that she was indeed a she. Luckily, that was one of the first things we got to check out. And yep, girl parts were present and accounted for. After that we got to see her face. This was our 4th ultrasound in the last 8 months and for the first time she really looked like a real, live baby! She had chubby cheeks and all! And I must say, she's the cutest baby in the world, even in grainy black and white! She spent a lot of time with her hands by her face and sticking her lips out as if she was blowing us a kiss. We even saw that she has hair on her head! We were relieved to learn that she seems perfectly healthy... just a little small for her age. They estimated she weighs 5 lbs., 7 oz., but they admitted their estimations are often inaccurate, sometimes by as much as a pound. At her current size, they estimate she should be born August 12. Well, that made me a little anxious as I feel ready to have this baby now. But I keep reminding myself that the doctors and technicians just guess a lot of the time and she'll come when she's good and ready! But she did look pretty content and cozy in there, which makes me nervous...

That's all for tonight... take care!