See Rock City

Today we went to Rock City, a garden attraction on top of Lookout Mountain If you've travelled down South, you may have seen random barns along the highways with the roofs painted red and "See Rock City" painted on top - a hold-over from the Depression era (quite fitting given the current economic climate).

Rock City is one of the main tourist attractions in Chattanooga and Kirk and I had been waiting for someone to visit us so we would have an excuse to go. It's basically just a huge garden with some really cool rock formations. Unfortunately nothing was really blooming when we went but we could see the potential and will probably go back in a few weeks to see it when the leaves are changing and next spring when the flowers are blooming.

The views from the top of the mountain are pretty impressive - you can supposedly see 7 states (Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky and Virginia) from the edge of the mountain. It was a little hazy the day we went so you couldn't see that far but the views across Chattanooga were beautiful.

The best part was that Rock City allows dogs in the park! We are always sad to leave Rosco at home when we head out for an adventure and were thrilled that we were able to bring him along with us. He loved exploring the cracks and crevices around the park and, of course, peeing on all of the plants. He was a little too fearless for our liking; he had no problem walking right up to the edge of a cliff! Kirk had fun sticking Rosco's head through the various peek-a-boo attractions around the park.

The creepiest thing about Rock City was all of the gnomes that they had placed throughout the park. One section was nothing but blacklights illuminating creepy gnomes. Would have been cool if you were tripping on LSD or something but we just got a little freaked out.

Kim's Visit!

My sister Kim came in town to meet Sam today! She actually flew into Atlanta on Friday and spent Friday night and Saturday with my other sister, Christy. They drove up to Chattanooga today and we all had lunch before Christy headed back home. Then Kirk and I took Kim over the Chattanooga Market - a weekly farmer's market/craft fair downtown. Kim carried Sam around in the Baby Bjorn and got all the attention from the vendors. People love babies!

CultureFest

Today we went to CultureFest - a festival in our local park to celebrate the diversity of Chattanooga. I know, it seems like a oxymoron - diversity in the South? - but there really were quite a few cultural organizations there. They had a stage for the various groups to perform cultural dances and displays and booths set up to sell trinkets and hand out information. We took Sam over and watched some dances by the Chinese group and the Indian organization. It was a beautiful day and a great excuse to get outside!

All bundled up...

Just a cute picture of Sam getting ready for bed - all swaddled up! She sleeps twice as long if we bundle her up in this swaddle blanket. She escapes if we try to use any other blanket - she's a real Houdini!

Sleeping and bathing...

Here are a couple of cute pictures of Sam after her bath and sleeping on the couch. She loves her baths with dad. He puts her tub in the shower (we don't have a bathtub) with the showerhead pointed at her belly. The water splashes up on her face and she just sits there mesmerized! If she's fussy, a bath is one of the few things that can calm her down. Lucky for us, she's not fussy very often! When she sleeps, she loves to spread herself out. This is just one example of the funny positions we'll find her in during a nap...

Pot Point Trail

We took Sam out today for her first hike. We went out to the Tennessee River Gorge (about 20 minutes from our house) and went on the Pot Point Loop Trail. It's about 4 miles long with a significant climb on the way out and tracks the Tennessee River on the way back in. It was our first time on this trail and we really liked it. Sam loves being in the Baby Bjorn and slept the entire hike. Rosco loves hikes - he runs out in front of us and sniffs around then runs back to make sure that we're coming his way. He wags his tail the whole time and is so excited! He especially loved swimming at the end of the trial. We got him in the river and he chased some sticks for us. Nothing better in Rosco's mind then getting out in the woods, sniffing some animal trails, and finishing up with a swim!

Only downside of the hike was the bugs, on the way back we were only about 20 feet from the river most of the time so there was quite a bit of standing water. Standing water in Tennessee in September is bad news! Fret not though, Sam came away unscathed. Kirk did a great job of keeping the mosquitos off of her (or killing them while they were in the process of trying to bite her!) The rest of us were not so lucky though. Kirk and I had chigger bites all around both ankles and Kirk also had chigger bites where the Baby Bjorn pressed against his chest. Poor Rosco got it the worst though, the chiggers attacked pretty much his whole body. He recovered faster than Kirk and I though; he itched for 2-3 days while we itched for 2-3 weeks! It had been years since I had been attacked by chiggers and I hope it is another 20 years before it happens again!

Smiles!

Sam has reached her first milestone! She's started smiling while awake (she's been smiling in her sleep for a week or so). She doesn't seem to smile at us or in reaction to anything that we do yet so it's probably just gas. But it's cute nonetheless! We haven't been able to get a good picture yet but here's the best we can do.

In case you're wondering why she's wearing such a huge outfit. We bought a 12 month onesie and are taking her picture in it every month to watch her growth.

Portland - Day 3

We woke up to nasty weather today - overcast and rainy. But we decided to venture out and spend the day in downtown Portland. We bundled up Sam and went downtown. Portland has an area called the "Old Port" district which is the old part of town, complete with cobblestone streets. The old buildings have been made into shops and restaurants and the result is a great area that is totally walkable and cool. We stopped by the visitor's center to pick up some pamphlets on things to do. Then we went to have a quick lunch at another brew pub (do you see a theme here?). While eating lunch, I got a phone call from the judge I had interviewed with offering me the job. I immediately accepted and Kirk and I decided to stay at the pub and have another beer in celebration! We ended up spending a couple of hours there and just heading back to the hotel for the rest of the afternoon. We figured that we didn't need to do a lot of the touristy activities in the bad weather since we would be moving there in 11 months!

We flew out of Portland early Saturday morning and had another great flight. Sam was really good on the plane again and we were happy to pick up our Rosco from my sister's house and head home!

Portland - Day 2

I got up early this morning and went to my interview. Kirk stayed back at the hotel with Sam and slept in. After my interview, I went back to the hotel and we drove around Kirk's old neighborhood. He remembered exactly where he used to live and it was fun to see his old stomping grounds. We took Sam out to see the ocean for her first time!

After driving around the neighborhoods near Old Orcharch Beach and taking Sam out to see Maine's sandy beach, we headed up towards the city to find Maine's famous Rocky Coast. We went out to the Portland Head Light - the most famous lighthouse in Portland. From the head light, you could see down into the city, some of the islands off the coast of Portland, and got great views of the rocky coast. It was pretty windy and chilly so we didn't stay long. Didn't want to expose Sam to too much weather!

We had lunch at a famous Portland restaurant, the Lobster Shack. Neither Kirk nor I were feeling particularly adventurous so, sad to say, we skipped the lobster and fried clams in favor of cheeseburgers and onion rings! The restaurant had killer views of the ocean and the rocky coast so we spent a little time just enjoying the views.

After a nap back at the hotel, we went to downtown Portland for dinner. We went to Sebago brew pub to taste a few of the local brews. Kirk loved their beers - IPAs in Portland are really hoppy which is exactly how he likes them. We finally tried the seafood - I had a lobster roll and Kirk had fish and chips. Overall, we had a great day in Portland!

Portland!

Having decided a few months ago that Chattanooga was not going to be our permanent hometown, Kirk and I have been researching and talking about potential places to move in Fall 2009 when my clerkship in Chattanooga ends. Because I enjoy clerking so much, I decided to selectively apply for another clerkship in a different location. I applied to judges in New England and a few mountain towns out West. On Monday September __th, I got a phone call from a judge in Portland, Maine inviting me to come up there for an interview on Thursday. Kirk and I debated about whether I should go and I was on the fence. Portland was definitely towards the top of our list of places to move but I couldn't bear the thought of leaving Sam so soon. After much debate and discussion, we decided to make a family vacation out of it!

We booked last-minute tickets to Portland on miles and flew out Wednesday night. We dropped Rosco off with my sister (thanks Christy!) and headed to the airport. Travelling with a baby means you have to bring so much more stuff! We were only going for 3 days but we each had a suitcase to check and each had 2 carry-ons. Luckily we were able to get a direct flight from Atlanta to Portland; the flight was just over 2 hours long. We definitely got some funny looks from people before we boarded the flight and a few people even made semi-nasty comments about taking such a young baby on the plane. We were laughing as people at the boarding area looked at us - you could see it in their mind that they were hoping not to be sat by us. I can't blame them as I used to do the exact same thing when I saw people bringing a baby on the plane! But we were super lucky as Sam was wonderful on the plane - just a few little peeps when she got uncomfortable but she slept 99% of the time.

We arrived in Portland around 11:30 p.m. and the temperature was only about 40 degrees. We were loving it! We went straight to our hotel. We decided to stay south of the city in Old Orchard Beach because Kirk used to live down there at an environmental center over 10 years ago. He wanted to see his old neighborhood so we booked a hotel down by the beach. I had my interview first thing in the morning so we went straight to bed.

Cute picture

Just a cute picture of Sam at home. She's pretty good these days at keeping her head from flopping backwards but still doesn't have much control in other directions. She spends more and more time awake and alert and we've started reading to her and trying to get her to interact with us. No smiles yet but we're anticipating that they will come soon!

Venturing Out

We got Sam all dressed up to go meet my co-workers for lunch. We just went to Qdoba for a burrito but it was our first adventure out of the house as a family. Doesn't she look cute in her outfit??? By the way, that is Kirk's morning glory vine that looks like it's going to eat her. It is taking over our back porch swing!

The First Two Weeks

For the next 2 weeks, we pretty much stayed home and laid low. Since I had a scheduled c-section, we were able to stock up on groceries and most of what we would need to get through for a few weeks. My parents were in town for a few days after we got out of the hospital and they took me out to get the baby essentials that we would need to hunker down.

Most of my time was spent feeding Sam and trying to sleep when she slept. She had her nights and days mixed up so I spent most of the night awake feeding her and slept a lot during the day. Kirk took care of Sam when she wasn't eating and worked on some small projects around the house. We had friends over for a BBQ one night to celebrate my first beer in 9 months. For the record, the first beer was a special homebrew that Kirk had made called "Baby Wheat". He actually had just finished brewing it when we found out that I was pregnant so it had 9 months to ripen. It was awesome!

One of the big things we were worried about was introducing Sam to Rosco. He's our first baby and we didn't want to have to get rid of Sam if they didn't get along (j/k - please don't report me to child services...)

As you can see from these pictures, it wasn't a problem at all. Rosco loves his little sister! If she's crying, he stays right next to her and will lick her feet until mom or dad comes over to help her. When we take her into the nursery to change her diaper, he comes along and lays on the rug by the changing table to watch us. It really is the cutest thing ever!

This, however, is not the cutest thing ever. We call this Sam's "stink-face" which she likes to bust out right before a big yell. Kirk was a little worried when we first brought her home because she was such a quiet baby. He got over that quickly once she started to spend more time awake and make much, much more noise! Overall, she's still a pretty great baby and generally only cries when she's hungry, wet, tired or pooping/farting (which happens A LOT!)

Watching History

Gotta train her right (and by right, that means left!) We spent a lot of time watching TV during the first few weeks. I had forgotten how terrible daytime television is! Thank god the new fall shows were starting up and the two parties had their conventions going on.

Our Doula

As you may have seen previously in the blog, we had a doula, Marie, with us at Sam's birth. We met Marie through our "Prepared Childbirth" class - she was our instructor. After class one day, she volunteered to be our doula for FREE! I was a bit hestitant about having a doula at first since I am a pretty private person and couldn't imagine having anyone other than Kirk in the delivery room. But the more we got into our childbirth classes and the more determined I became to have a natural childbirth, the more I became convinced that it would be a good idea to have someone around to help Kirk. Plus, someone with a lot of knowledge about the birthing process and different pain relieving methods couldn't hurt either!

So we decided to have Marie as our doula and never regretted that decision. She was absolutely wonderful throughout the entire process. When we intially found out that Sam was breech, she came over and gave us some exercises and things to try to get her turned around. She came with us to the hospital when I had the procedure to try to turn Sam and was super supportive. She was unfazed when we had to have a c-section and explained to us her experience with c-sections (she used to be a labor and delivery nurse so she was full of information!) At my delivery, Marie was in the operating room with us and took all the pictures. It was amazing to have her there - and especially taking pictures - so that Kirk could actually be in the pictures!

Since Sam's birth, Marie has come over on a number of occassions to visit with us and check to make sure that we're doing okay. She has been a wonderful help and we can't thank her enough. For anyone out there considering hiring a doula, I would say DO IT!

Jaundice

Overall, our stay at the hospital was uneventful. The staff was great and we were well taken care of. They made me get out of bed about 12 hours after the surgery and start walking the halls to help heal from the surgery. It was ridiculously painful at first but got easier as time went on.


Sam's pediatrician came and checked on her every morning. Everything was going well until the morning we were being discharged from the hospital. Her bilirubin levels were rising and they started getting a little concerned. Bilirubin is created as your body breaks down red blood cells and is ordinarly filtered out by a properly functioning liver. When babies are born, their livers are not functioning at full capacity and it sometimes takes a couple of days to get up to speed. In the meantime, they often develop a certain degree of jaundice, or yellowing of the skin, as a result of the increased bilirubin levels in their bloodstream. It is more common in breastfed babies because they are not getting a large quantity of food until the mother's milk "come in" a few days after delivery.

The morning of our discharge, Sam's bilirubin level was on the low end of the range when they start getting concerned. They went ahead and discharged both me and Sam from the hospital but the pediatrician told us to watch her over the course of the day and call that night to see whether they would want us to go and get another test done. They told us to watch and see if she was lethargic because that is a sign of jaundice.

You can see in these pictures that her skin looks a little yellow. Sam did seem lethargic during the day (in retrospect, what 3 day old baby doesn't sleep a lot?) so we called around 4:00 that night and they told us to head back to the hospital for another blood test. Having to take your baby back to the hospital the day she was discharged was really discouraging. We checked in and registered with the Children's Hospital here in Chattanooga and had blood drawn. We decided to go home and wait for results (luckily the hospital is only about 5 minutes from our house). The pediatrician called 2 hours later and said that her levels were steady from that morning and asked us to come in the next day so that a doctor could see her in person. We felt a lot better since her levels had not risen but were still nervous.

We went to the pediatrician's office the next morning - after a long night of feeding her as much as possible - and he said that everything looked to be headed in the right direction. Sam had gained something like 6 ounces in 24 hours so it was clear that she was getting a lot of food! She was given the "all clear" for worries about jaundice and we were told to make an appointment for her one month checkup. First potential baby disaster averted!

Heading Home

We were discharged from the hospital on Monday morning. Kirk had to make 3-4 trip to the car with all of our stuff. It was my goal after the surgery to be able to walk myself to the car and I did it. It may have taken me 15 minutes, but I made it! Here's some pictures of Sam's first trip in the car and first pictures at home!

Hospital Stay

We stayed in the hospital over the weekend. It was overall uneventful. The staff was great and we were well taken care of. I had to get out of bed and walk the halls every few hours to help with recovery from the surgery. It was ridiculously painful at first but got better as time passed. Kirk stayed at the hospital we me the whole time - except for once when he had to run (literally, he ran home from the hospital) home to meet with our electrician. Leave it to us to have the last of our electrical work done while we were in the hospital with Sam. Nothing like leaving it until the last minute!










Sam slept most of the first couple of days - we had to wake her to try to get her to eat most of the time. We kept her in our room around the clock except for the few times that they took her to the nursery for check ups. If we were sleeping, they kept her in the nursery for a few hours - that was nice!










Aren't babies feet just the cutest things ever?



















We had a few visitors at the hospital. Some friends from my work stopped by with gifts. Our doula came to check on us to make sure that everything was going well (she was the best!) My parents came to visit a few times and brought a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Kirk's sister April and her family also sent us a gorgeous flower arrangement.


Overall, our hospital stay was as good as could be expected - though they really need to work on the food! Kirk ran (again literally) out and got us McDonalds once because we just couldn't take it anymore.

Naming the baby

Our poor child was known as "Baby girl Hubbard" for a whole day! Although we were pretty sure that we had a girl's name that we liked even prior to delivery, we wanted to make sure that the name fit the baby so we waited overnight to be certain. In the morning we let everyone know that we had decided to name her Samantha Lee Hubbard. We liked Samantha because it has so many cute nicknames. We now call her Sam, Samo or Sambo (among other less kind names...) The middle name Lee has special significance for both side of our family. On the Hughes side, Lee is both my and my mother's middle name (Jamie Lee and Sharon Lee). On the Hubbard side, Lee is Kirk's dad's and his oldest brother's middle name (Harry Lee and Eric Lee). So the middle name was easy regardless of whether the baby was a boy or a girl!

It all begins...

Due to the baby being breach, we had scheduled a c-section for noon on August 15. We checked into the hospital around 10:00 am to get ready. Kirk and I passed the time by reading names from our "25,000 baby names" book, since we still didn't have a name if the baby turned out to be a boy. We were pretty sure about the girl's name but had nothing decided for a boy.




About 11:45, I walked over the operating room with the nurse and had my spinal block performed. They wouldn't allow anyone else in the room while that was happening. Kirk was brought in after I was numb and laying on the operating table. We also had a doula, Marie, with us for support. Dr. Smith, my OB, and his partner, Dr. Boyd, arrived and the surgery began. Our good friend Rhys is a nurse at the hospital and was alo there to help with the delivery.

The atmosphere in the delivery room was wonderful. Everyone was joking and laughing and it was really about as pleasant as I could have imagined that major abdominal surgery could be! It only took the doctors about 10 minutes to get to the baby (crazy huh?). They pulled her out butt first and, as Kirk loves to tell it, she pooped right away, right on my stomach. Rhys got her cleaned up and took her foot and hand prints.

I could tell the minute that she arrived because Kirk's eyes glazed over with wonder. He was memerized and not paying attention to anyone or anything but her. I had a blue curtain hanging about 6 inches from my face so I couldn't see anything and had no idea whether we had a boy or a girl. Finally our doula nudged him and said "aren't you going to tell Jamie what it is?" He looked at me and told me we had a little girl. We were both suprised because we had thought for the last few weeks that it was going to be a boy.

After she was cleaned up, Rhys brought her around so that I could see her. She was very alert and looking right at me. It was amazing! (Many thanks to our doula Marie for taking all these wonderful pictures!)

Kirk asked when he got to hold her so Rhys gave her to him and he held on to her until another nurse finally asked if she could take the baby to weigh and measure it. Kirk reluctantly passed Sam over to the nurse. That was the end of the delivery and they wheeled me over to the recovery room.


Our nurse allowed us to spend about an hour with her before she went off for all her tests.

This is our OB/GYN, Dr. Smith. He was absolutely wonderful to us during the entire pregnancy and delivery. We are so sad that we won't be in Chattanooga long enough to have him help us with baby #2 (should there be a baby #2!)

My parents were in town for the delivery. They waited anxiously in the waiting room until we were in recovery. Then Kirk went to get them and they found out they had a granddaughter and came in to meet her.


My sister and her husband came up to visit us later that evening when we were settled into our hospital room.


That's the story of our delivery day. It was definitely not what we had anticipated having wanted to try a natural childbirth (no pain medications) but we should have guessed that our child would be stubborn from before she was even born! Though I didn't want to have a c-section, all things considered, it was a wonderful day and we feel really lucky to have had such a positive experience!

Jamie