Pictures of hospital guests and more

Here is a smorgasbord of pictures from my hospital stay. They are out of order, but oh well! Blogger is such a pain when you need to organize pictures in a post! :)

First time holding Elina
Playing with our girlie accessories (this is so much fun for me!)

More from the first time holding her.

Meeting Grandpa Groen for the first time

Meeting Grandma Groen for the first time

First pic of me and Eric with Elina

Meeting Papa for the first time

Meeting Mimi for the first time

Meeting Aunt Danielle (my college roommate) for the first time

Lil Miss E

More pics from Elina's birthday

Here's the last belly pic before we left for the hospital.
Me with the boys before they became big brothers.

Pic of the family that morning. Everyone seemed pretty excited Elina was coming that day.

Here Eric and I before we left.

I had a picture like this taken of me when I was waiting to have the boys. We were so excited!

First time holding Lil E. It was true love right away.

Introducing Elina Marie!!!

Elina Marie Groen made her debut on Monday! She is just the sweetest thing and we love her to pieces. She was born at 11:39 am. She weighed 7 lbs 4 oz and is 20 inches long.

Eric and I left the house at around 8 am to get to the hospital by 9. On the ride over, we were talking about how weird it was to have an appointment to have a baby. It was just a normal day, yet we were going to have a baby in a few hours.

We arrived a little early, but they were already ready for us. I did all the lovely pre-op rigmarole which included an in-depth Q&A session about my post partum complications with the twins. We also learned that two OBs from the practice I go to were at the hospital that day. One was the doctor who I had requested do the surgery. The other OB was the one doctor from the practice I had not met. What are the changes of that? Anyway, it was decided that Dr. Axelrod, the doctor I'd never had a prenatal appointment with, would do the surgery. He came in and introduced himself. Everyone who came in my room seemed to already know Eric is a resident, so they would basically say hi to me and then just started talking to him. Dr. Axelrod also did this by assuring me he'd done two c-sections (he he...Eric and I liked his humor) before and then proceeded to talk medical talk with Eric and guess which actor he looked like. Needless to say, it was a pretty laid back atmosphere while we waited for the big event! We both really liked Dr. Axelrod and were happy he was going to do the surgery.

Around 11 am, they came and got me and walked me to the operating room (again, still so weird to walk into room to have a baby surgically extracted from you). While the anesthesiologist was prepping me for the spinal block, Dr. Axelrod asked me if there had ever been any discussion about taking my spleen out. WHAAAAAAT?? This made my heart drop. Immediately I thought my weird blood problems were back, they weren't going to do the surgery, yadda yadda. Apparently my platelets were low. Now too terribly low (117 to be exact), but they didn't know if it was related to my splenomegaly or just a pregnant thing. Anyway, I was reassured everything was fine and they were going to continue with the surgery.

The surgery began and Eric was brought in. Eric and the anesthesiologist chatted a bit and after a little while, they pulled Elina out and showed her to me briefly before passing her off to be cleaned up. There was a tense moment for me and Eric as Elina didn't cry when she came out! The boys were immediately vocal, but Elina took a little while to start crying. That made me pretty nervous. I guess she needed to be suctioned out and there were medical students being taught how to suction out a baby. I guess they need to learn, but did it have to be my baby?:)

Eric was taken back to the nursery to be with Elina as they cleaned her up and took her stats. I was put back together and then Eric met me in the recovery room. I got sick and puked for about an hour. Then I was brought to my post partum room where they brought Elina to me.

I was so excited to be able to see the little girl so soon. With the boys, I had them and then couldn't see them until around midnight. I wasn't able to touch or hold them until the following day. To have my baby and be able to see her and touch her so soon was amazing.

Overall, the surgery and hospital stay was much more enjoyable this time. The surgery wasn't near as scary, the recuperation wasn't as bad, and I was able to see the baby soon after I had her.

Meeting Santa Clause

****Sidebar: I can't believe lil Miss E is going to be here so soon! T minus 4 days!!!****

Today my mother-in-law and I took the boys to see Santa Clause. I guess I didn't really know how they were going to act or respond to jolly Ol' Saint Nick. I thought Brandt would be intrigued by Santa's beard and if anyone was going to be upset, it would be Carter. I was wrong. Really wrong. Carter acted like he went comatose. He had no reaction. He just sat and looked straight forward until I took him off Santa's lap. In hindsight, it was as if he was thinking, "Maybe if I sit really still and be good, this will all be over soon." Brandt cried the entire time. Poor guy...Santa Clause really scared him.

Hope the boys have more fun meeting Santa next year!























As you can see, Carter's expression really didn't change at all!

















After meeting Santa, the boys got special hats. It looks like Carter's thinking, "WHAT just happened to me?"

After the Santa encounter, the boys were really interested in the train that was next to Santa, but they were still a little too young to ride it. Instead, we took them on the carousel and they had so much fun. Carter was really getting into it and by the time the ride was over, he was only holding on by one hand. Such a big boy!

A Resemblance?

Here's a recent picture of my sister-in-law, Laura, with her six week old bundle of love, Madelynn.

I saw that picture and thought Madelynn really looked alot like a little fellow I know. I found this picture of Brandt when he was also six weeks old.

Don't they look alike?