Elijah Cole's 1st Birthday!

Our little Elijah Cole turned one today! We had a birthday party for him at my parents' house on Saturday. It was ballon/ hot air balloon themed :)

I got some custom made decor from etsy and was overall happy with my purchases. We didn't want to spend too much money on a custom made cake so we just ordered a small cake from Marthas Country Bakery and put cupcake topper on all of the cupcakes for our guests. 

The color theme was teal and green:

Danny, my sister and I prepared all the food and we made too much! Life is a handful with baby so I just wanted to do something simple and not so elaborated.

Eli with Grandpa Lee- his fav!

The birthday boy with daddy at his party:

Here is a family picture of my side of the family with Eli's great grandparents, my parents, and us :)

It was so hard getting a family picture at the party, but here is our first family photo:

 Eli took his first steps this month. We've been encouraging him to walk but he was always too scared. Then out of no where, he decided he was ready and started to walk! Now we play a "walking game"- I would turn him towards the sofa and instruct him to walk there and he would wobble there and then once he is there, he would turn around and wobble back. 

Eli also learned a few more commands this month. One of my favorite is that when asked how old he is (in both English and Mandarin), he would give you one finger:

It's so hard to entertain him nowadays. He is up and about and want to touch/grab everything he sees! We are working on saying "No" to him. It's very difficult, he thinks everything is a game. For example, he loves to lick/chew on his walker, I would firmly say "No" every time but he thinks it's a game. He would on purpose does it while looking at me and when I go over there to stop him he would scream out of excitement. So nowadays I just ignore him. He's so cute though:

Mama look at me!

I'm gonna do it....

see! hahaha

again?

 I am going on a trip to Europe for 10 days with my sister and brother at the end of this week. I'm super excited since I've not been to Europe before (and God knows I need a vacation) but I'm going to miss my little guy!

We feel so blessed to have him in our lives. We are so thankful that God has protected him during his first year of life and I feel like the luckiest mom in the world!

Months 9, 10, and 11 Update

Eli will be turning 11 months old this Saturday! Life has been so good with him.

Feeding- Eli still drinks 4 bottles of formula a day and he eats 3 meals of solids. His favorite food is cheese and loves regular milk. He likes oatmeal, banana, avocado, yam, galbi jimm, scramble eggs and anything my mom makes. He is OK with carrots and he dislikes yogurt and peas. We've been trying to give him a little bit of everything we eat and it's been working. He is not picky as long as the foods are yummy. We tried just blending some beef and carrots in his baby cooker and he rejected it since it's not seasoned.

Sleep- Since Eli has been staying awake longer, we've been taking him out to restaurants since Month 9. He loves to eat table foods so it's easy to keep him busy at the restuarant. At first, we would still  have to rush back home for his naps, but by now, we can take our time and not rush. He is taking two naps now. His first nap is around 9 - 9:30AM for about an hour to an hour and half. His second nap is around 1:30 PM to 2:30PM for about an hour as well. His bedtime is any where from 6:30 to 7:30PM depending on how much sleep he had that day. For the most part I don't have to soothe him to sleep. We usually read a book or two (sometimes I skip that if we are running late), put him in his sleep sack and then I just put him down. He falls asleep usually within minutes. Sometimes though, if he is having trouble sleeping, I would have to go back in and soothe him again but it doesn't happen often. I'm much more relax about going back in since I see that he is not developing bad habits even though I have been going in when he needs me. He usually wakes up around 6AM in the morning and we usually wait at least 30 minutes before going in to get him. He likes to throw his pillow out of his crib to protest! :)

Milestones- Eli can now walk with support. He can push his wagon/walker and walk across the room now. Sometimes when he is reaching for something we are holding, he would be standing without support and not even realize it. I can't wait till he starts walking! Eli also knows a few commands now- jem jem (opening and closing his hands), clapping, shaking his head from side to side, kiss an object (he doesn't like to kiss us haha), looking at the lights, looking at the clock when asked what time it is... etc. He knows all of these commends in both Chinese and Korean, sometimes I sneak in the English version as well. It's incredible how fast he is developing.

Teeth- Eli has 8 teeth total (4 up top and 4 on the bottom). He hasn't been showing much discomfort when he teethes but he sure drools a lot.

Play- We let Eli crawl in our living room now. We just make sure that we mop the floor every week and the dogs are not allowed to play in the living room anymore. Because of that, it's been easier to care for him since we just let him crawl/roam around and he entertains himself pretty well. He still puts everything in his mouth but I'm more relaxed about dirt and germs now. 

When he is in his play area, he likes to throw all of his toys out of the gated area one by one. It's the funniest thing. We try to have his toy bins right outside of the play yard so his toys can land inside the bins and it saves us some trouble picking all of them up... so far... minimal success. 

Since I've been on summer vacation, I take care of Eli most of the time and I've been taking him out a lot. He is friendly and smiles at everyone in restuarants but still doesn't like to be held by people he doesn't know. 

Taking care of him is much easier now in the sense that he is on a good schedule where I can take him out and he sleeps independently. But it is also much harder now because I have to be on 100% when I am with him. He constantly needs to be engaged and entertained. 

He will be a year old in a month!

7 & 8 Month Update

It's been such a crazy few months and I totally skipped the 7 month update! Eli turned 8 month old last Saturday and he is thriving :)

Month 7 was a blur- Eli caught a cold soon after he turned 7 months old. He had a runny nose for about a week. It affected his sleep but he was a little trooper and always slept through the night still. Eli also started to crawl during this month. He started with army crawl and then after a week or so of practicing, he was able to push himself up to be on all fours. Then it took him maybe another week to master crawling.

We were going to set up a play room for him but after cleaning it up we realize it's really a waste of space for him right now. We will set it up later when he is old enough for his play kitchen, art station, etc. So for now, we are using the space in his room and we put a play yard blocking half of the room for him to crawl.

We also turned  our graco pack and play into a ball pit! haha, got this idea from a parenting article online and even though Eli is not too into it right now (he only spends 15 minutes in it before he gets bored), I know he'll love it later.

He also started to pull himself up to kneeling and standing position so we had to lower his crib. I am so surprise at how he is able to pull himself up... this week he mastered sitting up by himself... babies sure grow fast!

I was able to stay at home with him during Easter break. I pretty much took him out every day during the break. We went to visit my parents every day either in their store or at their home. We also ventured out to the mall for the very first time! Eli developed stranger anxiety around the age of 5 month but it suddenly went away right before Easter break. Now when he sees strangers he is all smiles and almost always wants to play with them :)

My little baby is growing up so fast. He is more like a boy than a baby now. He is also very aware of what's going on around him. He wants to touch everything. He would test their purpose by throwing it and then of course gumming it. Oh that reminds me- his upper two teeth are coming in! I just noticed it two weeks ago. He is like a little rabbit now.

Eli also realizes when we are about to leave for work. He does not like to be left at home without his dada and mama! For the first time he is showing a preference. He is currently on team mama. He would prefer me over Danny especially when he is being fussy. I'm not going to lie- it's sweet to know that he knows I'm mama. But it's also very tiring... my arms are always sore after a long day!

He also starts to really babble this month. He only does it when he is complaining about something. And his word of choice is - ma ma ma ma ma. haha! He has no clue what he is saying but he sure knows that saying it gets him what he wants.

Eli loves to play peek-a-poo. He gets bored of his toys easily and would get fussy if he is home for too long. He is also going through a phase where he would sometimes wake up in the morning crying. He has always been such a good sleeper. He used to wake up in the morning and patiently wait for us. Sometimes even falling back to sleep if we are taking too long to get him. Nowadays... he would sometimes wake up earlier than his normal wake up time and just cry. We are hoping it is a phase that will pass soon.

He dropped his 3rd nap this week. His naps started to lengthen for the past two weeks or so. If he does take a third nap it's usually a car/stroller nap at around 5 p.m. which messes his bedtime (usually around 7 p.m.). We are going to try to keep him up so he doesn't take a late 3rd nap.

It's so great to be a parent- there is nothing like it. Even though it's so hard but it's so wonderful. That kiddo can always put a smile on my face :) I can't wait till end of June when I can spend the summer being with him!

Personal Space

While I was pregnant, people often touched my belly without asking me. I did not mind but I know women that get very uncomfortable when that happens to them. I understand where they are coming from. After all, it isn't exactly the norm that you just go up to a person and touch their belly, or in fact, any part of their body. If I know you, a hug or a touch on the arm is nice when you greet me. But really, anything more than that is cutting into my personal space.

Following the belly trend, people love to just touch Eli without any regard to our personal space. It totally freaks me out when people touches him without washing their hands or using hand sanitizer. He is a baby and he has a very weak immune system. I don't know where their hands have been. How do I know you wash your hands after using the bathroom? It is totally not acceptable that you touch my baby's face, hands, feet, etc. And don't tell me that it builds his immune system. Do you take care of him when he is sick? I think not. He is my baby and I don't want him to suffer with a nasty cold. With that said, I know it's very tempting to reach out and show affection towards a baby. I appreciate the loving gesture. But you can simply smile, talk, and play with Eli and that shows just as much love.

I'm not saying you can't touch my baby or any baby at all. Be considerate and be smart. Babies are not toys, they need their space too.

6 Months Update

Eli turned 6 months old last Tuesday! Happy half birthday to my baby boy :)

First Cold
Eli got his first cold this month :( he started showing symptoms on February 7th. He was having a bit of a runny nose and some mucusy cough. I had just recovered from my cold that weekend and my MIL was getting sick so we think Eli got sick from one of us. Despite having a runny nose and coughs, Eli still slept through the nights like a trooper. His worst nights were the first few days of the cold... Friday night was the worst. He was crying for a while before going to sleep :( It was so sad not being able to do anything to help him. Overall he was still his happy self. He didn't get a fever and was completely healed 13 days later.. can you believe that? It took almost two weeks! Now I just pray and hope that he doesn't get sick anymore.

Solids
We started Eli on solids this past weekend and he didn't like it! He kept making weird faces and just spits it back out... For the most part he just played with the food... We are going to keep trying...

It gets so messy...

On A Diet
Apparently, Eli thinks he needs to be on a diet. For the past two weeks or so he has been refusing his bottle. He seems fine besides the fact that after a few ounces of formula, he would stop and refuse to drink! We are not sure what's wrong with him and for the most part we make him finishes his bottle. Dr. Park thinks that it could be his reflux flaring up so we are putting him back on his medicine to see if that helps... Otherwise it would be teething or that he is just going through a phase... boo

6 Months Wellness Checkup
Because of his cold, we delayed his 6 months check up since he can't get his vaccines until he is fully recovered. I brought him in today and he got 3 shots and an oral vaccine. As soon as we stepped into the doctor's office- he started to wail. Eli developed stranger anxiety and it's pretty severe this month. He is usually ok with strangers when they come visit us at home... I guess since it's a familiar environment... but oh boy was he crying today at the office.

Eli weights at 19lb and 3oz and he is measuring at 27inches :) My happy and growing boy

Can you see his two bottom teeth here?

Speaking Chinese
Eli has been hearing Korean from his grandparents since they take care of him during the day when I'm at work. Danny and I have just been speaking to him in English. I'm guilty of not speaking to him in Chinese. So since I'm off from work this week I've also made a very conscious decision to speak Mandarin to Eli as much as possible. Since I'm home with him by myself, it's easier to speak to him in Chinese where as when Danny is around I'm more likely to just speak English. After this week, I think I'm getting the hang of speaking to him in Chinese :) Now I just have to keep it up and hope for a trilingual baby!

Hi! Do I look like a trilingual baby? =D

Starting Solids!

We plan on starting Eli with solids when he turns 6 months (only 2 weeks away!). Last night, I bite the bullet and ordered all the things we will need for that:

I couldn't believe how expensive highchairs are. There are a lot of different options out there but the ones I like are all $200+. After extensive research, we decided to get the Keekaroo High Chair with infant insert:

Here is a popular baby food maker on amazon that I bought. It's definitely not a necessity because you can just use a blender or any food processor to make your own baby food. We don't have a food processor and the thought of cleaning our blender isn't exactly what I want to do frequently. I like how this Beaba unit is small and easy to clean. Also, it's supposed to do all the steaming and pureeing all at once:

 Eli will probably make a mess eating solids so I got these water proof Bumkins bibs :)

 Aren't these Munchkin fresh food feeders so cute? They are great for feeding Eli fresh fruits that are otherwise considered to be choking hazards:

 I also got these OXO Tot Baby Block Freezer Storage units to store away the baby food:

Last but not least.... these soft spoons :)

Can't wait to start Eli on solids!

Eli's First Tooth!

I wasn't going to blog until Eli's 6 months update but so much has changed already so here I am :)

Right after I blogged about how Eli doesn't use his hands to grab his toys... the very next day or so- he started reaching and grabbing his toys! Nowadays, he reaches for pretty much anything that you put in front of him and immediately puts it in his mouth.

I've been suspecting that Eli is teething because he's been drooling a lot and he seems to love chewing on his teething toys. I didn't think he was really teething though because he had no other symptoms... then suddenly this past Saturday morning when I was changing his diaper... I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a little bit of whites on his gum! I got sooo excited and pretty much jumped up and down laughing and that got Eli excited so he started to laugh too! Here is a picture of his first tooth (or teeth?) with Daddy's help :)

Eli is getting good at rolling! He used to only able to roll onto his right side. What I used to do was put him all the way on one end of floor matt and lay on the other end (on his right side). He would eventually roll all the way to me and then I would put him back again haha but now he is able to roll onto either side, there is no need to do that anymore.

I've been sick with a cold for over a week now. As soon as I got the symptoms, I wore masks and washed my hands 100x a day while taking care of Eli. Luckily, he hasn't gotten sick from me yet and I am at the end of my cold so hopefully he won't catch anything from me. Danny mentioned the other night that it is hard to believe that he did not get sick from me and it's truly a miracle! Must be all those prayers (plus masks plus hand washing) :)

His naps are becoming more regular again. He usually takes 3 naps a day with one long nap in the morning (either his first or second nap). On a typical day, his schedule looks like this:

6:00am- wake up, feed (with dada), play (with dada and mama)
7:45am- first nap (usually a 30 - 40 minute nap)
8:30am- wake up, play with grandma
10:00am- feed (with grandma), and then nap around 10:30am (usually a long nap ending around 12:30pm)
12:15pm- wake up, play (with grandma)
1:50pm- 3rd time feeding (with grandma), then go down for 3rd nap around 2:30pm
3:15pm- wake up and ready to play (I'm usually home around 3:15 and my MIL leaves for the day)
5:00pm- bath, nighttime bottle, bedtime stories, asleep usually between 5:30 - 6:00)

Eli can stay up for 2 hours nowadays in between naps. His total nap time is about 2.5 hours to 3 hours these days. He sleeps at least 12 hours at night. A well rested baby = a happy baby.

It's so much fun taking care of Eli nowadays. He is just so smiley and happy! He understands games now so we can tickle him, play peekaboo, airplane, and much much more. He even holds his arms up for you to hold him when he wants to be held or when you initiate holding him ;) oh the joy of having a 5 months old.

5 Months Update

Eli will be 5 months this Saturday! I am writing this post a little early.

Unswaddled!

Month 4 is a big month for us since Eli changed so much! He got out of his swaddle on January 1st (that's his new year's resolution! =P) and he is doing wonderfully without it. We did not have a problem swaddling him but we notice that Eli's head is getting flatter and flatter... we think that it's because of his sleep position. Since he is swaddled, he doesn't get to move around a lot when he sleeps and since he sleeps so well (12 hours at night), the back of his head is so flat. During my winter break, I was obsessing over his flat head and I couldn't even sleep well thinking about how I've ruined my son's head! So we decided to try napping him during the day w/o his swaddle... at first, it was a disaster because he would startle himself as he is falling asleep with his failing arms and most of the time, I have to go back in and swaddle him back anyway. But then after a few days of trial and error, we noticed on January 1st that he was able to nap w/o it! So that night, we did the unthinkable. We decided to go cold turkey! To our surprise, Eli slept so well per usual that night and ever since then, we never looked back. His naps however, became shorter but he makes it up by sleeping an extra hour or so at night and he is slowly getting back to his usual self for naps. We are so proud!

Rolling Over

Eli started to roll to his back while on his tummy back in November when he was only 3 months old. Then suddenly, he stopped doing that all together and would only roll onto his tummy while on his back. He didn't know what he was doing really because he hates being on his tummy and he would always cry for help whenever he rolled onto his tummy and can't seem to roll back. In our attempt to correct his flat head, we've been trying to put him on his tummy as much as possible and give his little head some much deserved rest while he is awake. Because of this, he has had plenty of opportunities to practice rolling over to his back while on his tummy and he mastered it this week! Nowadays, tummy time has been so much harder because as soon as we put him on his tummy, bam! he is on his back. It's effortless for him now to roll onto his back from tummy... he just turns his head and puts all his weight on that side and it's a matter of a second before he's on his back again. Also, since he finally "realized" what he was doing when he was rolling from back to tummy.. he no longer does it! Since he hates being on his tummy and he just outright refuses!

Sitting Up

We finally used our bumbo and at first, Eli hated it. But after a few more tries, he got used to it and he spends a few minutes every day on his bumbo :) 

We also got a jumperoo and Eli absolutely loves his jumperoo! It keeps him entertained and occupied so it frees us up when we have to do some work around the house. I usually put him in there when I am warming up a bottle and preparing him for his bath. He is jumping up a storm in his jumperoo :)

Feeding

Eli was on a feeding strike last week and we thought he was sick! But we brought him to the doctor's and they can't seem to find anything wrong with him. Later, we realized that he was constipated and it affected his appetite -.-

But ever since that episode of constipation, his appetite hasn't been the same. Some days, he eats fine, but some days, he would refuse his bottle after eating only 6 oz out of the 8oz he normally eats. We learn to respect his wishes and not force him to eat anymore. I used to worry that he is not getting enough food since he dropped all of his nighttime bottles since 3 months old. But I learned to not worry because he weights over 17 lb and he is already wearing size 12-18 months clothing! He is definitely not chubby though... more lean and long.

His Hands

Eli is obsessed with his hands. He always has them in his mouth! Sometimes he would make these loud sucking noises that cracks me up. I am worried that he is not grasping his toys yet. He knows how to bring the toys to his mouth when I place them into his hands. But he is not very good at reaching for them yet :( I hope he reach that milestone soon.

My Favorite Month

This is by far my favorite month. 

My favorite time of the day is bright and early in the morning. Eli always greets me with a giant grin and he is always so happy! My second favorite time of the day is when I come home from work in the afternoon. He is usually up from his last nap of the day and ready to play :) He is more and more social and he expresses his happiness more outwardly now. There is nothing like your baby's smile and babble when he first sees you when you come home from work. It melts my heart and I am just so happy to see him! Lastly, I love our time together right before his bedtime. He loves his baths so I love bathing him too. After his bath, if he is not too tired, I would sit on our glider with him on my lap and we would read a few books together. His favorite book is Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? By Dr. Seuss. When we get to his favorite pages, he would smile and look at me, and then look at the page again. Sometimes he would even imitate the sounds I am saying! 

This month has been so wonderful. I love our little Eli and I am loving being a mom! It still is full of new challenges every day but it's all worth it :)

4 months update

Eli turned 4 months last Wednesday and he had his 4 months check up yesterday. He got his second round of shots and he was so brave!

Ever since I went back to work end of November, things have been different at home. Before I went back to work, I was very nervous about leaving Baby E with my MIL. I was worried that he wouldn't adjust well to this change and wouldn't sleep well. So before I went back to work, my MIL came for a few days to learn how to take care of Eli our way lol. I made Danny stay with her the whole day and show her how we take care of Eli. He made sure she understood his nap schedule and his routine. Then it was time for me to go back to work... I was a bit nervous the first week, but then when I see that both Eli and my MIL are adjusting so well.. I was just so happy to get my life back!

During a normal week day, Danny and I both get up around 5:30 - 6 am... I hop into the shower while Danny takes care of the dogs and warms up the bottle. Eli gets his first morning bottle with Danny at around 6am... then around 6:30 when I am all ready for work, I get to play with Eli for about 30 minutes when Danny gets ready. I then leave the house at around 7am and Danny stays with Baby E until my MIL arrives at 7:30am. I usually get home around 3:30pm.

We keep a detailed log of Eli's sleep, eat, and poop schedule. So when I come home, I can easily see how he has slept and ate the whole day and knows when to put him down for bedtime. Eli takes 3-4 naps during the day nowadays. His bedtime is usually around 6 - 6:30pm depending on when he wakes up from his last nap... some days he sleeps before 6pm and some days he sleeps a little later. Overall, he is such a happy and good baby. He is so easy going and it makes our life so much easier. He has been sleeping through the night since when he was 2.5 months old and it's really a blessing.

His naps are still irregular but one thing for sure is that he has at least one long nap a day. It's usually his first morning nap. We keep him on a schedule so his naps are more predictable. He goes down for his first morning nap at around 7:30am and gets up around 9:30am (sometimes later). He gets his second bottle at 10am... then he goes down for his second nap around 11:30am... after that, he eats at 2pm and has one or two more short afternoon naps. When I get home, he is usually napping. I manage to squeeze in  a shower before he gets up at around 4pm and then it's play time for us :) I really enjoy spending the two hours with him each afternoon. At around 5pm each day, he either gets a bath (or we just washes his hands), lotion, in preparation for bedtime. He gets his last bottle at around 5:30pm and is usually out by 6:30pm.

I get my alone time after he goes to bed. Nowadays my MIL even washes the bottles for us so I don't even have to do baby dishes anymore! (Umma is the best hehe) Danny usually comes home around 7:30pm so I spend that hour usually lesson planning for the next day. He comes home, we eat dinner, watches a bit of TV and I'm usually out by 9:30pm (I know I am such a granny... but I get sooo tired these days!)

Every morning I wake up feeling very blessed because I get my sleep! haha. It's such a wonderful feeling knowing that when he goes down at night, he is down for good. I get to have my "me" time and my sleep.

Life is a bit hectic most of the time with Baby E... but I am much happier now that I am a working Mom. I love waking up every morning going to work. I love my job.

On weekends, it's always a bit busy. We have to take care of Baby E and run a bunch of errands. On top of that, I usually have to do plenty of lesson planning for the week. Sundays are always hectic because we have church. We are still adjusting to life with a baby but so far... it's going well. We try to have date nights every other Fridays. My sister has been so nice to babysit for us :) She usually comes around 6:30pm and we are usually back before 9pm to get her home. 

People always ask- How's it like being a mom? My answer is usually... It's okay... lol.. I wonder if people expect me to say- "Oh it's wonderful being a new mom!".. or "I've never been happier!". I guess I can say that.. but that would be lying lol. Don't get me wrong- I love Eli and he makes me smile and laugh all the time...  But it is SO. MUCH. WORK. being a new parent and there are new challenges every day.

One more week of work and then it's Christmas break! Now that I'm working again, I can look forward to vacation time! :)

12 Weeks Update

Our little Elijah will be 12 weeks this Sunday! Here are some of his updates:

Elijah is definitely more sociable now. He smiles and squeals all the time now! He laughed a few times before but it's hard to make him laugh haha maybe he just doesn't find me funny enough :( he is also getting much stronger. I try to do tummy time with him every day but he absolutely hates it. Once a while though, he doesn't mind as much and I can see that he can hold himself up much better. He also found his fists and constantly sucks on them. The best thing though, is that every time I go in to get him from his nap or in the morning, he would reward me with this giant toothless smile... sometimes he would get so excited that he may even squeal :) He also demands attention nowadays. When left in his bouncer or rocker for too long... he would get unhappy and demands attention from us. I guess he realize we are much more fun than those hanging toys.

His daytime nap has been getting better. As soon as I notice that he is getting quiet (usually an hour and 15 minutes after he has woken up from his last nap), I would swaddle him, put him in his crib, turn the white noise on and leave the room. Most of the time, he would just fall asleep on his own without any fussing.Yay!

He definitely is developing his first morning nap. I can usually count on an hour and half of morning nap. Some days where he is really sleepy, he would sleep for 3 hours! After his first morning nap though, the rest of the day is unpredictable. On a good day, he will have 2 more naps of an hour each and then it will be his bedtime. On a bad day, he will catnap for the rest of the day (20 min - 40 min) until his bedtime. He has also been fighting his bedtime this week. Eli has always been easy to put down for his nighttime sleep. But this week was different. He would protest for over an hour each night! We usually start our bedtime routine at 6ish and his bedtime would be around 6:30 to 7:15 depending on the day. But this whole week he would protest as soon as we put him down all the way until 8pm when he is exhausted from all that crying and fussing. Except today. Today was different. After reading some more books and getting advices from other mommy friends, I decided to push his bedtime earlier thinking he may be too exhausted to sleep at his regular bedtime. So today, he woke up from his last nap at 4:50pm, I quickly warmed up the room and gave him a bath at 5:20, gave him his bottle at 5:30 and he was all ready to go to bed by 6pm. I put him down and he started to protest yet again. I left the room thinking maybe he will go to sleep soon. But no... he screamed for 10 minutes and he spitted up A LOT. So I rushed in to cleaned him up and unswaddled him. I felt terrible because he spitted up so much from all that crying. He stopped crying as soon as I got to him. I put him in his rocker, put on some music with the light dimmed. Left him to do some dishes. The plan was to feed him again at 7:30pm and put him to bed at 8:00pm since he has been falling asleep at 8:00pm every night of this week after crying/fussing for an hour or more. After the dishes, I came into the room and just sat next to him on the glider and started to read my book (healthy sleeping habits, happy child, thanks Tina!).. he was just calmly sucking his fists and looking around the room. Then suddenly from the corner of my eye I saw him slowly closing his eyes! So immediately I swaddled him, placed him in his crib, turn on the white noise, and left the room. He fell asleep immediately and that was 7:00pm! I guess tomorrow, I'll try the same thing, I'll start bedtime routine early.. and just sit with him until he starts to doze off (hopefully) :)

Also, Elijah has been sleeping through the night (hopefully will continue to)! He dropped his night time feeding all together and woke up this morning at 6:45am :) This past week he has been waking up past 5am to eat and this morning totally broke the record! This morning I woke up because Danny kept checking the monitor and I said to him that he doesn't have to worry because we will hear him fuss if he wakes up. He then said to me "I know... I am checking because it's already 6:30am... I have to get up in half an hour to get ready for work.." I was so shocked Eli lasted all the way till 6:45am and he didn't even wake up crying! He woke up and he was happily cooing :)

I can't believe I am going back to work in 3 weeks! It's a bit stressful to even think about going back to work. Mainly because it's going to be so hard leaving Eli during the day. I am going to worry about his sleep! But it's for the best. Afterall, I love my job and I simply can't stand being a stay at home mom. It will surely drive me crazy. Plus, I think I will miss Eli sooo much that our time together will be so much more enjoyable.

Anyhow, it's Friday night and how are we spending it? Danny is bringing home Chipotle and mini cupcakes from Baked By Melissa! We are going to just watch a movie and enjoy some yummy food tonight ;) Oh life with a newborn.... 

2 Months Update

2 Months Vaccinations
Eli turned 9 weeks yesterday! He had his 2 months vaccinations on Saturday. He was very brave- only cried for a little bit when the doctor was giving him the shots. He seems to like the grape flavor oral vaccine because right after the doctor gave that to him, he stopped crying. We are so very proud of him! :) He didn't have any negative reaction from the vaccines either. He was extra tired and sleepy for the rest of the day and night so he slept a lot.

Play
Eli loves it when I read to him. He looks at the pictures and he talks back and it's like he knows exactly what I'm talking about! He is a chatterbox that's for sure.

Feeding
Eli has always been a slow eater. As a newborn, it would take him on average 40 minutes to finish his bottle. When he is really hungry, he would finish it within 30 minutes. He also spits up a lot so we don't mind him eating so slowly since it's suppose to help with his spit ups. We used playtex drop-ins because it's supposed to help with spit up. Also, their slow flow is VERY SLOW... so as a newborn, we noticed significant improvement in terms of spit ups when we used Playtex.

This past week though, he has been extremely fussy and unhappy during his feedings. He just seems angry when he eats! Because of his fussiness, it takes him at least 45 minutes (sometimes up to an hr) to finish his bottle because he would drink a little and then he would stop to express his anger lol. After talking to a mommy friend, she said her baby (same age as Eli) takes only 10 minutes per feeding! He is on the medium flow right now. So I decided to give playtex medium flow a try on Saturday morning. Turns out that the medium flow is way too fast for our little Eli. As he was eating, there was milk dripping out of his mouth lol. Frustrated from the hour long feedings, we decided to try using other bottles/nipples because other brand nipples' slow flow (level 1) is still going to be faster than playtex. We already have BornFree level 1 bottles at home so we decided to give that a try. Eli finished his feeding without fussing, at a record breaking speed of 20 minutes! Needless to say- we were over the moon. Now the challenge is... is he going to spit up? Turns out that he didn't have any excessive spit up either. So I did more research and decided on buying Dr. Brown's natural flow bottles. It's suppose to be best for spit ups and their level one nipple is very similar to BornFree so it's a good speed for him. The only down side is that there are many parts to this bottle and it takes a long time to wash. Eli has been using Dr. Brown (sometimes BornFree because Danny likes BornFree better- it's smaller and I think it's much cuter haha) and his feeding time is between 15 - 20 minutes! Thank goodness for that... because he eats 6x a day... I am saving myself and him a lot of time by switching nipples/bottles. Now he finishes eating within 20 minutes or so and the rest of his wake time he gets to play :)

Sleep
We moved Eli's bedtime from 7:30pm to 6:30pm because he seems to be overtired by the time we finish our bath and bedtime bottle. So far the new time is working out. He sleeps from 6:30pm all the way till 1am ish for a bottle and then usually wakes up around 4am for a diaper change and wake up around 6am for his morning bottle. I do sneak in a diaper change around 10pm or so before we head to bed so he is comfy and dry (and so we can snooze a little longer). He is usually dead asleep and won't even notice.

His daytime naps are still inconsistent. Some days he would have long naps (1 - 2hrs)... while other days he would catnap all day (20 - 40 mins). He usually takes 4 naps a day (2 morning naps and 2 afternoon naps). If he doesn't sleep enough during the day, he gets extra cranky toward 5pm and it's really difficult to soothe him. Luckily, I know I get a break after 6:30pm because he almost always sleeps well at night. It's really nice to know, no matter how cranky and irritable he is, I know that I can give him a bath at 5:45pm, a bottle at 6pm, and by 6:30pm or so, he is down for the night and I can breathe.


Sleep Training
I've been reading up on sleep training for weeks now.  Eli's daytime naps are just horrible. He gets so grumpy when he doesn't nap well. I've been doing everything I can to set up a nap time routine and put him down when he is sleepy but not overtired. Just as I think there is improvement, he would prove me wrong. It's quite frustrating. We plan on sleep training him at 12 weeks so when I go back to work/school after Thanksgiving (he will be 15 weeks by then), it will be easier for my in-laws to take care of Eli. It sucks to hear him cry and he is just so darn stubborn, but perhaps it's the only thing that will work.

Sleeping Through The Night Soon?

Eli lasted 8 hours last night in between feedings! We've been having our bedtime routine at around 6 PM the past week... but we realized it's too early for him b/c he would wake up after 45 minutes thinking it was just a nap. But when we start our routine at around 7PM, he would sleep through fine. So we started our bedtime routine at 7 PM last night with a bath, lotion, bottle (7:30 PM), swaddle, white noise, a song... He fell asleep around 8 PM and started fussing at about 1:45 AM so I quickly changed his diaper... then he woke up crying at 3:15 AM to eat! That's almost 8 hours! We were so surprised and not sure what had happened. Usually he would only last 5 - 5 1/2 hours at night. Now the challenge is to get him to drop this 3 AM feeding. I wish he would either feed before midnight or in the morning.

Should I wake him up before midnight to feed? Or should I just let him naturally adjust himself as he gets older? Either way, we are super happy! We get to eat dinner peacefully and had some alone time together :)

Life with a newborn

Phew! I haven't blogged for so long and it's because Eli is a handful to take care of lol

Doula
Our doula left three weeks ago and it's been a struggle without her. She was setting Eli up for failure by holding him 24/7 and rocking him to sleep. Eli wasn't even sleeping in his crib toward the end of her stay! We knew something has to be done so I asked her to leave early. Boy was it tough without her! We were so happy that she left but yet at the same time... things were so rough without an extra pair of hands around the house.

Night Time Sleep
Eli needed to be held constantly and we were both so sleep deprived and stressed. Slowly but surely though with some patience, he got better each day. Now we have our bed time routine and if we are lucky, he is in bed in his crib around 7 - 8 pm and he would feed every 5 hours at night and his wake time would be around 7 - 8 am.

Daytime Naps
Eli is a wonderful sleeper at night but he is a terrible napper during the day. At first, he would fall asleep in my arms and wake up wailing only a few minutes after I put him down in his crib. It drove me insane! I couldn't even eat during the day. But now, things are much better. I would go through our nap time routine (swaddle, white noise, a song, holding and soothing) and I would put him down in his crib sleepy but still awake... most of the time he would drift off to sleep on his own! It's happening more and more frequently. This is resulting in longer naps because when he wakes up from his nap prematurely, he is able to soothe himself back to sleep (half of the time anyway).

He used to only catnap (15 - 30 minutes) during the day but now... he would wake up 30 - 45 minutes into his nap, fuss at bit, then drift back to sleep on his own. I stare at the monitor like a hawk because I have to mark down his wake time so I know when to soothe him back to sleep for his next nap. Needless to say, taking care of a baby is a full time job. I can't really nap through out the day because as soon as he fusses and makes a sound, I have to see if he is waking up or he is going back to sleep. It's like he has a built in radar.. as soon as I start to fall asleep.. he would fuss and wake me up!

It is so draining to care for a newborn but luckily he is getting better each and every day. He will be 8 weeks old tomorrow and we can't wait till he drops his nighttime bottle. We are hoping that he would stretch it out for 6 hours between feedings this week... we'll see how that goes.

Feedings
Eli needs to feed every 3 hours or so during the day and 5 hours during nighttime. He eats about 5oz each time. He is a very slow eater though... on average it takes him 40 minutes to finish his feeding including all the burps etc. When he is REALLY hungry, he drinks it all in 20 minutes. He loves to fall asleep during feeding. We try to feed him when he first wake up so he is more alert and we've been trying our best to keep him awake since it's a bad habit to have... but it's just so darn hard to keep this baby awake when all he wants is sleep when he eats! 

Play
Eli is definitely getting more and more fun when he is awake. He loves to smile, coo, and even attempts to talk back to you. It's really a lot of fun when he is awake. He loves his play matt and spends a lot of time on it playing by himself. He also likes his mobile a lot... when he wakes up in the morning I would catch him laughing at the mobile by himself haha

  
It's so hard caring for a newborn but we are slowly getting the hang of things and hoping all of us will adjust well eventually :)

My First Love

Ewok was my first love. He was my baby before little Eli. Things have been different since we came back from the hospital. We have to crate them whenever Eli is awake to make sure the pups don't get into his room and/or near him. When I take naps, I have to take them in the room with me and crate them. When they play with each other, we have to make sure they don't bark and/or growl too loud. I don't pet them as much anymore because I am afraid to get germs on Eli. When guests come over, they are not allowed to be out like they used to be. The only time they are really free is when Danny comes home from work. They seem to be doing alright but I feel really guilty.

Week 2

Elijah Cole experienced his first hurricane yesterday and he is 2 weeks old today! :)

We went for our 2nd doctor's visit yesterday. Eli weights about 8lbs and 4oz now. He had slight jaundice last week but it's going away nicely... so we don't need to put him in the sun anymore. His belly button came off! Our doula asked if we want to keep it... it's still sitting on the changing table haha... we are not sure if we want to keep it still lol. He spits up a lot and seems to be very uncomfortable during feedings so Dr thinks he may have acid reflux (poor baby!) and suggested that we put 2 tsp of rice cereal in every 4 oz of milk when we feed him. This will thicken the milk and helps the milk stay in his tummy. We tried it yesterday and I think it's working. He doesn't arch his back anymore when we feed him and the doula said he spits up less. Eli also developed a diaper rash over the past few days :( doula blames it on my breast milk because breast fed babies poop a lot more than formula fed babies. So we are now taking a break from breast milk (I've just been freezing them) and giving him formula. It's been about 2 days he's only been on formula and I think we are going to give him breast milk today. His rash is getting better and hopefully it won't come back.

Breastfeeding- pretty much I'm a breastfeeding failure. He wouldn't latch on at all now. We think it's because he is used to bottle feeding. He has no patience to latch on and work for his food. He probably has nipple confusion too... sighs... Every time I try to breastfeed him he would cry hysterically and simply refuses... we are not sure what to do anymore...

Pumping- the good news is that I've been pumping and my milk supply has been increasing every day. A week ago, I was only pumping 11oz per day... getting about 1oz per session (2oz during my morning session). Now, I am pumping about 24 oz and getting about 2 - 4 oz per session depending on the time of the day and how much liquid I drank. I pump every 2 - 3 hours and I definitely notice a decrease in my supply when I stretch it longer than 3 hours. It's A LOT of work to pump 9 times a day. There are so many pumping parts to wash and pumping itself is so time consuming! I try to pump for 20 minutes each session and including getting the parts ready and cleaning up it takes about 30 minutes each session. With the doula here, she cleans and boils the parts but I can't imagine doing it all myself after she leaves. That's why I've been trying to get Eli to breastfeed but it's a total disaster.

Recovery- I still have a belly! lol I ordered belly bandit and it should arrive on Monday... I'm hoping it'll work hehe. My fingers are still swollen.. can you believe it? Good news is that my bleeding pretty much stopped this week. I'm recovery well and I feel normal. I am more tired than usual... perhaps it's all the middle of the night pumping sessions. I try to nap in between my pumping sessions during the day but it's hard since it's so time consuming. Everyone is telling me that I need to lie down during the day but it's really hard since I pump 9 times a day and I still have to get up when the doula needs help with the baby (i.e. when she is cooking).

Countdown- even though the doula is great for middle of the night feedings, we can't wait for her to leave! We can't wait to be able to do things the way we want and don't have to listen to her nag (Danny doesn't have to listen to her because she only speaks Chinese but he does have to deal with my bad mood afterwards lol) On our mac, we have this countdown app showing how many days till she leaves and as of today- 17 days :)


Community- I love Community! Danny downloaded all the episodes and we have been watching it during our down time :) My favorite character is Abed.

First Week At Home

Elijah is a week old today! :) Time sure flies when you have a newborn. All the days seem to be combined together as one long day. Even though we have a doula, I still feel so overwhelmed. 


Hospital Stay- When we were at the hospital, the nurses were very overbearing. They came into our room every 2-3 hours to wake us up to breastfeed Eli. We were both exhausted and Eli was not interested in feeding at all during the first day. The nurses were also very pushy about breastfeeding. They said we should not bottle feed Eli until breastfeeding has been established. Meaning he should be exclusively breastfeeding for a few weeks before being introduced to a bottle. I understand the importance of breastfeeding and would love for Eli to breastfeed exclusively but Eli has a vigorous appetite and my milk didn't come yet. After being seen by the pediatrician at the hospital, she said we have to feed him formula. The nurses and lactation consultants (three of them) made us feel guilty about feeding Eli formula but we felt it was the right thing to do. During the second day, Eli was already drinking 2 ounces! There was no way my breastmilk alone would satisfy his appetite since I only had colostrum at that time.

I also had a lot of trouble sleeping at the hospital. We had Eli with us in the room during the day and we opted to send him to the nursery at night time (11PM - 7AM). The nurses of course made us feel guilty about sending him to the nursery at night but I was so drained physically and Danny went home during the nights to take care of things. Even with Eli at the nursery I couldn't fall asleep. I asked the nurse for Benadryl at night so I can sleep better.

Semi-private vs. Private- Our insurance only covers semi-private rooms but we were set on getting a private room. One of the nurses at Mary's office told us that we should ask for a semi-private anyway because if they run out of semi-private rooms then they will have to give us a private room for free. So when the nurse asked us if we wanted a semi-private or private, I asked her if there are any semi-private rooms available. She said yes there are semi-private rooms available. In my head I was like... darn it! hehe I was hoping for a free private room! She left for a little bit to check for us and when she came back, she said she got us a really nice room. We went up to our room and it was a private room! Just to make sure, I had to ask her again... this is a semi-private room? Turns out that there were so many empty rooms in the hospital that night, she hooked us up with a private room (sharing a bathroom with the room next door) for free!

Recovery- Because of the stress from the hospital stay and being extremely sleep deprived, I was physically and emotionally drained. For the first few days home I was extremely weepy and pretty much could cry on cue. I also had trouble falling asleep. I never had trouble sleeping before, not even when I was extremely pregnant with Eli at the end. It would take me a good half an hour to an hour to fall asleep and I would wake up after only a few hours later. I think I was just very tense and still very overwhelmed with the idea of having a newborn with us. Slowly but surely I was able to fall asleep easier. By Friday, I was pretty much back to normal. Danny said that night I fell asleep right away and started to snore haha.

In terms of pain... during my hospital stay, I was taking Motrin every 6 hours to management the discomfort from labor. After 24 hours, I felt aches everywhere and I realized it was from all that pushing lol. My entire body ached as if I snowboarded for days. I also developed a headache on Day 2 and the doctors think it could be from the Epi. Since it wasn't intolerable, I opted not to receive any treatment. I just drank a lot of fluid and lied down a lot. The headache went away after a few days on its own. After I got home, I stopped the Motrin because I didn't need it anymore. I feel pretty normal... just a bit tired from time to time.

Cultural Differences- My family gave me additional stress during this period. As soon as I got home, the house was full of people- my mom, my sister, grandparents, and doula. They were having a blast making food and checking the baby out. I just wanted to rest. They bombarded me with all their advices. I was not allowed to drink or touch anything cold (I understand the logic behind it so I was OK with this). I was not allowed to drink any water except for ginger tea. I had to cover up my whole body from head to toe... it's 80 degrees outside! They wouldn't let me turn on the AC (finally they let me later but the temperature has to be above 78). I have to be on bed rest the whole time. Every time I moved out of my bed they would yell at me. I wasn't even allow to sit up. The worst is that I am not allowed to shower... !@#$%^&* (Don't worry, I sneaked in a shower today when my doula was sleeping haha... It was the best feeling ever... phew!)

My parents hired us a doula to cook for us and take care of the baby. I've never met the doula before because my mom had booked her before even asking me. She is a 65 yr old Chinese lady that doesn't speak a word of English. She is a bit slow and resistant to our wishes. We want her to use the playtex bottles for Eli because he tends to spit up a lot. She has never seen that before so she was resistant to use it. She complained that he eats too slow using this bottle (we use the slow flow nipple) and the bottle is annoying to use (because you have to squeeze the air out before each feeding and every time he stops to burp, you have to squeeze the air out again). I had to repeat myself a number of times to make sure she follows what we wanted. She also complained about how often Eli poops lol as if newborn is not supposed to poop! To sum it up, she is very stubborn to her own ways and it's a challenge to get her to do things the way we want to. But we are getting the hang of it and now she is being more and more cooperative.

The food that I am allowed to eat are very limited. I've been on a very strict diet. Danny tries to sneak in some foods for me here and there. Last night I had a quiznos sandwich while the doula was sleeping haha and tonight I am going to ask him to get me some Italian food

Breastfeeding- I pretty much pump exclusively. Elijah only latches onto my right boob and he is a very impatient eater so after feeding on my breast for a few minutes he would cry for more. My milk came in 3 days after birth. At first I was only getting half an ounce and I was pumping every 3 hours. Every day, my milk production will increase a bit. Now, I'm getting 1 - 2 ounces each pumping session and I pump every 1.5 to 2 hours during the day. I skip my middle of the night pumping session because I'm too sleepy. We tried doing the middle of the night pumping at first but we decided it's just too hard and not worth that ounces of milk. Eli eats a total of 28 ounces of milk each day (3 - 4 ounces each feeding) and he gets breast milk 2 - 3 times a day. I really hope my milk volume will increase so he can get most of his milk intake from me. I only plan on pumping until I go back to work (after thanksgiving)... we'll see how that works out.

Danny's Labor Story

1. what happened – Saturday (13^th) was supposed to be a normal Saturday. Normal as in the doctors appointment, a shake shack lunch and then we go home and just relax and wait for the baby to come.

Instead, it was a Saturday where I get a phone call from Reg heading back to the car (i wait in the car cuz dr. mary doesn’t let me in for any intrusive examinations which is something I will talk about later). Reg says we have to go to the hospital. I said what? And she repeats what she says. And I just say nooo you’re joking.

Turns out that we were a bit more lax than we should have been. Reg had a leak in her water and so she had to be induced to reduce any chance of infection spreading to the fetus.

2.  hospital or doctors office - I quickly decide we should go back home first and grab our bags and head back out again. Reg wasn’t sure what to do because dr. mary seemed concerned. While driving back home, I called my dad and asked him if he could drive us to the hospital. He replied it’s Saturday you know I’m busy on Saturday. So I just said okay got it, hung up and went back to focus on driving. I got a call back a few minutes later from my dad saying okay I’ll drive you to the hospital, when should I come? I just said I’ll call you when I get home.

So when we got home (20 minutes from Chinatown to our house!), I called my parents to come and quickly asked jeff to take care of the dogs. When my parents came, my mom rushed in and asked are you guys having the baby? I said YES WHY ON EARTH WOULD I CALL YOU TO DRIVE US TO THE HOSPITALLL!! She yells back at me you should have said that you were going to have the baby, we thought you were talking about the doctors office! DUH! I guess Korean word for that is interchangeable.

3. familiarizing yourself – for those that know me, many find me jaded. Not much really surprises me. I’ve pretty much seen it all – either in real life or on tv. I have seen the miracle of life in high school and all those annoying TLC tv shows that reg watches. However, I do think dr. mary should really consider men being included into the doctor visits (unless otherwise requested by the preggo mom). I was a bit shy to peak in when his head was in the birth canal but part of it had to do with dr. mary’s not allowing me to go into the doctor’s appointment. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed or even suppose to take a peak even when she asked me to.

The only thing I couldn’t handle was the episiotomy. I had to cringe and look away. The other thing that I remember was the pain in reg’s face when dr. mary pulled the placenta out. -__-

I have to say I have a new respect for reg. she’s a damn trooper. I cannot believe what I saw. I swear all I need to do is go to war and I’ve seen it all.

4. holding back – so when we got back home on Tuesday, I admitted to reg that I had to hold back laughing during her pushing. For a while, I was quiet due to the slight uneasiness being in a new situation but I was getting the hang of it. I realized that reg’s cue that she was going to have a contraction was “ marryyyy…. Oh mary I have to poop”. And she kept saying it EVERY time and every time she pushed she made great progress. At one point, I just couldn’t hold it in and I had to hold back a small laugh. Lol

5. penis! – yea it’s a boy. But like many have asked and know, I never cared what it was.

6. Elijah – another reason to smile more.

My Labor Story

Here it goes...

On Wednesday night (August 10th), I was having pretty consistent contractions but they were not painful. They felt like menstrual cramps and I was able to fall asleep fine so I didn't think much of it. Thursday morning comes and I noticed I had very watery discharge. I have been having very mucusy discharge all week long and suddenly it changed to a bit watery so I thought it may be that my water broke. I waited and see if it would soak my pad but I only had to change my liner once a day so I didn't think I was leaking water. Then on Saturday morning, we went in for our doctor's appointment. As soon as Dr. Wong checked me, she said that I am leaking water and my water had broke. She used the sonogram to see how Baby Lee was doing in there and she said I am low on water but Baby seems to be doing just fine. Then she told me that we are going to have the baby today!

She had to repeat that sentence a few times because I was so shocked. She told me that we need to head to the hospital and she will meet us there once I get hooked up. She seemed a bit concerned about the fact that my water may have broken on Thursday morning and it was already Saturday morning. But she reassured me that Baby seems to be doing fine, we just have to quickly get him out of me.

I left the office and I nervously called Danny (he was waiting at the car since parking was an issue that morning) and told him what Mary said to me. He thought I was joking at first lol and once I got into the car he realized that we are going to have Baby Lee that day and I think he got pretty nervous as well. We had packed our hospital bags but we did not bring it with us to the appointment (I know... we should of been more prepared) so we had to drive home first to get the bags. When we got home, I finished packing the bags while Danny prepared the dog foods for the next day so Jeff can feed the pups while we were gone (Thanks Jeff!). Appa, Umma, and Lydia arrived a few minutes later and they drove us to the hospital. On the way to the hospital I was quite nervous since Baby Lee could get an infection! I prayed to God that He would keep Baby Lee safe.

We arrived at the hospital at 11AM (speedy considering we left the doctor's office at 10) and the floor seems to be very quite. We gave all the paper work to be admitted and we had to wait for about 20 minutes for them to bring us in to a labor and delivery room. Since Mary had already called them so they were expecting me and they didn't have to check me or anything. Everything went very slowly... the nurses were working at a very slow pace I think because there were only the 3 of us on the labor and delivery floor. The nurses took their time asking me a long list of questions about my pregnancy and my preferences. They hooked me up on the IV (It was not bad at all, just like if I were to get my blood drawn), gave me antibiotics through the IV because my water had broke on Thursday and I am GBS positive, and started me on pitocin to induce labor. All that was done by about 2:30PM. The nurses and doctors would ask me if I have any questions and I really only had one question - when can I get my epidural ( lol I know I know, I am such a wimp). So even though I was not in pain they started me off on the epidural right away. Danny was not allowed to be in the room so he left the room at around 2:45PM and I was done by 3:15PM. I thought the epidural would of been really painful but it was not bad at all. It really just felt like a pinch on my back and that was it. I had to sit very still the whole time but it wasn't an issue because I wasn't feeling any contractions. After the epidural was administered they hooked me up on a catheter so my urine can be drained. I can still feel the touching down there but it wasn't painful (perhaps the epidural had kicked in already). Just as I was asking the nurse how does the catheter work, I saw the bag filling up with my urine @.@ It was quite embarrassing.

I felt numb pretty much right away and the anesthesiologist was surprised at how sensitive I am to the drug, so she lowered the maintenance level to about 12. From that point on, we were just waiting for labor to progress. Mary came shortly after and she broke the rest of my water. It didn't hurt and it soaked up a lot of wee wee pads. Apparently I had a high pinch leak so Baby Lee must of pinched a hole up top of the uterus so it started to leak but there were still a bubble of water. At that point I was about 2cm dilated. After getting all hooked up, I asked Danny to pray for us. We both cried a bit. 

We were instructed to sleep and wait for labor to progress. At about 6:30PM or so, I started to feel my contractions. Mary came in right around that time to check me and she said I was about 3cm dilated. I mentioned to her that I am feeling some cramps and she asked to make sure I am not feeling pressure since epidural does not get rid of the pressure feeling. I explained to her that these feel like menstrual cramps so she had the anesthesiologist come in to check on me. The original person went home already and a more senior anesthesiologist came in to check on me. He said that I was "shallow" and asked me if I would want my epidural to be re-done. I quickly said yes because I do not want to feel any pain! The contractions were just like bad menstrual cramps but I cannot imagine how it would be like once I am in active labor (>4cm). There was a part of me that was really afraid that I am one of those few people that the epidural won't work on me but I was hoping for the best at this point. Danny had to leave the room again so this time he went out and got a bite. The room is fulled of people now- a nurse, Mary, two anesthesiologists. I didn't feel much of anything when they put the needle in this time. But the strange thing was, I didn't feel the numbing sensation right away this time whereas the first time I felt numb right away. So I waited 15 minutes and finally it started to kick in. My legs were getting heavy but only a tiny bit. I definitely don't feel my contractions anymore. I was praying to God that this would work because I know I am going to be in active labor soon.

By around 9PM I was barely 4cm dilated, I started to feel some pain/pressure only on my right side. I was like... great... the epidural didn't work again!?! I told the nurse and the anesthesiologist came in to check on me. She told me that I should be laying on my right side so the epidural can drip to the right side as well. After half an hour of that, we know that the epidural is definitely wearing off so she gave me another dose and thankfully that worked till midnight.

By midnight I was about 6 - 7 cm dilated and I was feeling a lot of pressure from every contraction. I didn't want to get another dose of epidural because it slows down labor since it relaxes the uterus. At the point I just wanted to get it over with. So I sucked it up and tried to just wait it out. Then by 1, the pressure was pretty severe and I called Mary to check me again. Finally, I was fully dilated. I could not believe how fast that progressed. Now it's time to push!

I started pushing at 1: 20AM. It was probably the hardest thing I've ever done. I was feeling every contraction. There was just a lot of pressure. I didn't feel the pain though because I still have the epidural and Mary did not need to turn it down. The best way to describe the feeling is that I really really have to poop and I am very constipated. lol Mary was coaching me how to push and at one point I wasn't pushing correctly so we stopped and she made sure I was using my abdominal muscles. Every time I felt a contraction coming up, I would say "I have to poop... Mary! I have to poop.." lol now it's really funny but it was not at that moment. I was also sweating a lot from all the pushing and Danny was very sweet the whole time wiping my sweat away and giving me gentle encouragements. After about 30 minutes of pushing, I asked Mary if she can just take him out. Mary said: "Oh no, you are going to delivery this baby vaginally, that's why I let you drink water already" Then I asked her if she can just vacuum the baby out. She said no but she can cut a small incision to make things happen faster. I asked her what she thinks was better- to let it naturally tear or to perform the incision and she said the incision will help the baby come out faster. Danny also agreed and he thinks the incision will be a controlled tear. I quickly agreed because I did not want to push anymore. So she made the incision and she said to me that Baby Lee will come out after the next contraction and I was so happy and couldn't wait for the next contraction. So the next contraction came and I pushed but still no baby. We waited for the next contraction and finally Baby Lee's head came out and I pushed one more time, his whole body came out. At that point, I couldn't care less what was born as long as it got out of me. After 46 minutes of pushing, Baby Boy Lee was born!

They placed Baby Lee on top of my tummy and I could not believe he is my son! He was in me the whole time but he looks nothing like me haha. I started to cry a little and I helped wipe him clean. The nurse then quickly took Baby Lee to the warmer next to us and started to clean him. Mary then delivered my placenta which took her just a few seconds. I felt a tug but really no pain. Mary also reminded Danny that now it's time to take pictures so he quickly went over to the warmer and start taking pictures of Baby Lee. The nurse asked us what are we naming Baby Boy Lee and we finally announced his name- Elijah Cole :)

So that was the birth story our little baby Eli. I cannot believe how much I love him already. I feel so blessed and I cannot thank God enough for entrusting us with Eli. Immediately after birth I already forgot all that pain and I think it's all worth it to go through 9 months of pregnancy and 12 hours of labor and delivery for our little baby.

Every nurse we spoke with told us how lucky we are to have came in on Saturday because Thursday and Friday were super busy for them. There were a dozen women going into labor at the same time and they had to wait for a labor room for hours and hours. I could not have hoped for a better labor and delivery process. Throughout pregnancy, I've always said to Danny that the perfect labor and birth scenario would be that we would go in for our doctor's visit and Mary would announce that we are ready to head over to the hospital.. and indeed that happened! Also, my biggest worries were that the hospital would be so busy that I won't get my epidural on time (or my epi won't work). If we were to go into labor on Thursday when my water broke, I think I would of have had a lot of trouble getting my epidural on time and would of suffered a lot. Thankfully everything worked out and we have Baby Eli in our lives now and we feel so complete :)