At midnight on Father's Day (June 15th), I felt my water break. My initial reaction in my head was "Wha...did that really just happen? Is it going to be go time? Now?!" I got up and went to the bathroom, and I was still unsure as to whether or not my water actually broke. I puttered around for a good 5-10 minutes, all the while thinking "is this really happening?!" before I finally decided to wake up hubby and my mom (who had only arrived three days earlier). Everyone got dressed and ready to leave, but both mom and hubby were wanting to wait to see if I had any contractions (which was one of the reasons I puttered around for so long; I wasn't having any!). Mom reminded me that when hubby makes the call to the hospital, that is the first thing they want to know. We waited for about 5-ish minutes, and I had my first contraction, which actually wasn't too bad. Minutes later, I had another and that one hurt A LOT, so hubby made the call to the hospital. That's when the contractions started to come more consistently and more painfully, so once hubby was finished on the phone, we were off to the hospital.
We had to get admitted through the emergency room, and from there they brought us up to the maternity ward. They put us into a room, where the nurse monitored me and checked everything out. By this point, my contractions were quite close together, and extremely painful. I was trying to breath through the pain, but I had a few screams that substituted the breathing. The one nurse gave me a bit of a scolding, saying that screaming is not going to really help me through the pain (but I still screamed a bit after that). Another nurse wanted to send me home, because I was only 2 cm and in order for them to move me into a birthing suite, I needed to be 4 cm. Being in so much pain and not wanting to move, I opted to stay and good thing I did: I was ready to be moved into a birthing room about half an hour later.
Once in the birthing room, I was given an epidural (which I wanted to have), and we all settled in for the long wait ahead. By this point, my MIL and my FIL had also arrived at the hospital, but my SIL didn't come until the morning (around 6-7am). I'm pretty sure that hubby and I slept for a bit (there's at least one picture of both of us conked out), and the nurses monitored me and did their checks every now and then. Since I wasn't allowed to eat, I was sucking on ice chips every now and then, but I couldn't go overboard with those either. At about 11:30 am, it was officially go time, and all the family members (except hubby) left the room.
The labor ended up lasting about 2 hours. To say that it was the most painful experience ever seems a bit redundant, but it really was. Though she came out head first, she was also face up (or sunny-side up, as the nurse put it), which made it extra difficult to get her out. I was completely and utterly exhausted by the time Miss Nugget arrived at 1:21pm, but it all melted away when I saw her for the very first time. Hubby and I had a very happy cry together while bonding with our daughter. She weighed in at 8lbs 2oz and she measured 20.5 in. With numbers like that, I'm glad that she decided to come early! Once the family was allowed back inside, everyone had a good cry, and then ooh-ed and ahh-ed over the newest addition to the family. Once all the checks were done on both myself and on Miss Nugget, we were moved to a private room, where we finally had some quiet time as a family. We ended up staying at the hospital for two nights, and brought her home on June 17th.
The first few weeks with Miss Nugget were quite tiring, but made much better by having my mom help us out with the cleaning and cooking, and basically keeping our sanity while trying to take care of Miss Nugget. She helped me get a few meals prepared for the freezer (something that I was hoping to do before Miss Nugget arrived, but oh well), which we've been slowly making our way through since she left in July. Honestly, I'm not sure if we would've survived those first few weeks without my mom! It was also pretty crazy because of family coming to visit and bond with the newest addition. Miss Nugget has been a total joy (you know, when she's not screaming her head off), and hubby and I are completely and utterly smitten by her. She will officially be two months old on Friday, so I'll be having a little photo shoot then to commemorate (I've been having loads of fun with our fancy camera that my MIL gave us at my baby shower).
Food-wise, I haven't been as adventurous with my cooking, mostly because I can only have my hands free for so long before Miss Nugget demands attention for a feeding or some cuddles. There's also the tiredness factor. ;) As I said earlier, we've been working through the frozen meals that mom and I made, plus we've been having lots of prepackaged foods (such as KD, Hamburger Helper, Delisio pizzas, and perogies). I've still been doing the meal plans, but they are certainly not as elaborate as they used to be. I've been keeping to the simpler recipes for the most part, but I still try to do a big meal on Sunday as much as possible. One thing that I'd really like to do (just haven't had the chance to do so yet) is go through the easy meals in my Food Network magazine, just to expand on that area a bit more and make things easier on me.
So what does that mean for my blog? Well, I'll do my best to still share our food experiences (I do actually have a couple ideas that I'd like to do), as well as recipes (I still have a few recipes that I haven't had a chance to add here), but it probably won't be weekly. I do very much appreciate those of you who have still been visiting, despite me not updating in so long! Enjoy the pictures below from our fifth anniversary at Ebo as well as our afternoon tea cruise, and happy cooking all!