My Baptism

I was baptized on Sunday at St. Ferdinand Church. My Wujek Mikolaj and Aunt Kimmy are my Godparents. Mamaw, Pampaw, Babcia, Dziadek, Great Aunt Marilyn, Great Aunt Sue, Great Uncle Rick, Mommy & Daddy were there too. My Mamaw made my christening gown...it was really pretty, but REALLY heavy! It had buttons from her wedding dress on it.

Everyone said I was such a good girl. We got to church while mass was still going on, so we stayed in the back until it was time for my baptism. Mommy held me and rocked me to sleep. I didn't wake up until right before the ceremony started. When I woke up, I was smiling and laughing the whole time. My baptism was fun, and now I am a child of God.

Afterwards, everyone came to my house. Babcia made a lot of food and everyone ate until they were beyond full. Mommy opened my presents, but I was so tired that I fell asleep sitting up while Mamaw held me!

I was so happy that my Great Aunts and Uncle were there to share my special day. I am also really happy that my Babcia, Dziadek and Wujek Mikolaj came all the way from Michigan to spend time with me. I had so much fun!

1st Christmas!

This has been a busy week for me. My Aunt Kimmy came in the Sunday before Christmas. I hadn't seen her since I was 1 month old! Then on Tuesday morning, my Babcia and Wujek Mikolaj came to see me. Babcia was here in November, but it was my first time meeting my Wujek. Tuesday night/Wednesday morning (delayed flight from MI) my Dziadek came in. It was my first time meeting him too!

Christmas Eve I went over to Mamaw & Pampaw's house with Mommy so we could help them cook and get ready for the family. Cousins Julie, Ian and Brendan came over early and we played a lot! Everyone came over and they had dinner. It smelled really good, but all I could eat was my bottles. When it was time to open presents, I was napping with Dziadek. I got a lot of good presents.

Christmas day Mamaw, Pampaw, Aunt Kimmy and Great Aunt Marilyn came over to have dinner at my house. We had a lot of fun playing with my new toys, and everyone took a lot of pictures of me. It was a really fun Christmas and I can't wait until next year!

Catching Up

So...

I've been a little busy with family in so I have some catching up to do on the blog. Look for posts about Amelia's 1st Christmas and Baptism soon!

BIG GIRL!

Amelia has been trying to do so many new things lately. She's a lot more "conversational" with her noises now, and she can blow raspberries. She's been trying to sit up on her own. We sat her in her Bebe Pod and it was a success!!! She likes it! :)

She's also been trying to roll over. She'll get on her side and then kick her leg to try to roll over then give up and lay on her back. Tonight she accidentally rolled over. She was falling asleep on our bed and rolled over. I didn't catch it actually happening, but here are some pics from the aftermath!

Big girl rolled over:
This isn't so bad:

Completely over it:

3 Months Old!!!

Amelia is 3 months old! Time is flying by. She tries to talk and tries to crawl. She likes playing with her toys and watching tv with Mommy.

She's in size 2 diapers and wears 3-6 month clothes. We don't go to the doctor until 4 months, so our best estimate is that she weighs more than 13 pounds and is about 23 inches long. She's a big girl!!!

St. Nick Day!

St. Nick came on Friday night! He brought me a toy, my 1st Christmas ornament, and three books: "The Story of Christmas," "The Velveteen Rabbit," and "Counting Christmas." I must have been a really good girl!

We did a mini photo shoot at Mamaw and Pampaw's house on Friday. We had lots of fun! Here's one of Mommy's favorite pictures.

I can't wait for Christmas!!!

1st Thanksgiving!

Amelia had quite a special 1st Thanksgiving.



Our family came in from Maryland and we were able to spend the holiday together. They hadn't been to St. Louis since Alex & I got married 2 years ago. It was awesome to see my two beautiful cousins and my aunt & uncle! Cousin Brad & Christy also came in. We missed my sister Kim, but she'll be in really soon for Christmas.



It was also cousin Brendan's 1st Thanksgiving! He was very interested in Amelia and we can't wait until she's old enough to play with him.



We had a great time with everyone, and are thankful for so many things. Above all, we are thankful for our beautiful, healthy, happy Amelia!

10 Weeks

Today I am 10 weeks old! I love to play with my toys, and laugh and smile. Sometimes I sing when I play. I'm kind of too cute for words! I hope you enjoy the video of me singing at the end of this post!

2 Months Old!

I turned 2 months old on Saturday! I went to my doctor and he said everything is great. I'm still in the 50th percentile for everything. I weigh 11 pounds, 4 ounces and am 22 1/2 inches long. I'm growing!!!

I also got my immunizations on Saturday. I don't really know what they're for, but I had to drink something and got 4 shots! I cried and cried because I didn't like them. The rest of the day I was really tired and slept a lot. But I still found time to smile and play!

My 1st Halloween!

My 1st Halloween was very busy! I was going to visit all of Mommy & Daddy's friends at the law firm, but I was way too fussy so we're saving it for another day. Instead, we went to Mamaw & Pampa's house.

Halloween is my Pampa's birthday, and this year it was extra-special because he retired on his birthday. He only "worked" half a day, so we got to spend the rest of the day together.

When Daddy got home from work, we took some pictures with my first pumpkin. Then I got changed into my costume...I was a peapod! When I was in Mommy's tummy, everyone called me "Sweet P", so my costume was very appropriate. I don't really get what all the fuss with getting dressed up is all about, but everyone kept saying how cute I was. I just mostly slept!

Overall, it was a good Halloween. Next year I can go door-to-door and MAYBE get some candy! I have a feeling Mommy & Daddy will eat it all though.

Some pictures!

Not much to talk about...Amelia is doing better and is getting cuter every day! As proof, here are some new pictures:

She smiles & laughs!!!

Sleeping on Daddy!

She's so cute, it's ridiculous!


Playing with toys!

Aunt Kim's Visit

Aunt Kim visited Amelia this past weekend. She stayed with us and we had so much fun! Amelia loves her Auntie!

Here are some pictures from the visit:

1 Month Old Already!

Time sure does fly by!


Amelia gave us a scare 2 weeks ago. She started vomiting and spiked a fever. Then she wouldn't eat and wouldn't stop crying. She finally slept and ate when she woke up, but her diaper had blood in the stool. Every dirty diaper that night had blood in it. When she vomited for the 2nd time, we took her to the ER. They examined her and did some Xrays, but couldn't determine what was wrong. Our pediatrician referred us to a Pediatric Gastroenterologist.


The GI is fantastic, we really like her. She initially suspected Amelia has an intolerance to the proteins in cow & soy milk, so she switched her formula. That night, Amelia spit up a TON and still had blood in her stool, and was generally inconsolable. We paged the GI and she advised us to monitor Amelia and take her to the ER if we felt things worsened. We made it through the night, but the doctor called in the morning and told us Amelia had been scheduled for an Upper GI that morning. So we took her to the hospital and she was such a little trooper during the procedure. Fortunately, they found nothing wrong. She does have a little reflux, but nothing serious enough to require treatment. The doctor seems convinced now that Amelia has a protein intolerance, and that the formula she was taking was not right for her, so we switched her to yet another formula that has proteins that have already been digested.


So far, so good. We haven't had any more bloody stools that we can detect, and she tolerates the new formula pretty well. She's sleeping 3-4 hour stretches at night, which is great compared to how it used to be!


And overall she's doing well. Amelia weighed 9 pounds, 2 ounces at her 1 month appointment. She's now 21 inches long. This puts her right at the 50th percentile, so she's perfectly average, which is great for a premature baby. She's starting to play with toys and is generally more alert. She smiles & laughs, and follows you with her eyes.


We look forward to having more visitors, hopefully soon!

I'm 3 Weeks Old Today!

It's hard to believe that we have a 3 week old baby! Time has gone by so fast.

New baby Amelia

1 Week Old

2 Weeks Old (First Bath)

3 Weeks Old

Amelia's Birth Story

Sorry this has been delayed...we haven't had internet at home! It was supposed to be installed last Monday, but Amelia decided to make her appearance so we missed our appointment. But it's all good now!

After my last OB appointment, I had been having sporadic back pain and contractions. I was, of course, feeling more and more uncomfortable. My last day at work was Friday, and that night we went with my parents to a furniture sale to buy a dining room table. Saturday we went to order a crib for the nursery. Sunday we went back to the furniture sale, looking for chairs (no luck). We had my parents and aunt over for dinner that night, and I was having slight contractions during dinner. Alex & I went to bed early, but I woke up at 1:30-ish having extreme back pain and contractions. I tried timing them before waking Alex up, but it was too hard so I told him to start timing my contractions. They were about 5-6 minutes apart so I called the exchange and was told to go to the hospital.

We left at about 2 am, expecting to be sent home due to false labor. When they checked me, I was 4-5 cm dilated and my contractions were 2-3 minutes apart so I was admitted. The back pain was HORRIBLE! I had planned on holding out without an epidural for as long as possible, but I ended up getting one at 5-ish. I progressed pretty fast, with a little help from Pitocin. I was stuck at 9 cm for hours because it turned out my pubic bone was protruding, and it was preventing her head from fully descending. They thought I might have to have a C-section.

I was mostly comfortable and in good spirits, but the epidural wasn't that effective. They had to inject my epi line with half a C-section dose 2 times. The first time, I had no problems. The second time it caused extreme chest pain and shooting pain down my right arm. I really thought I was having a heart attack. Luckily, the pain subsided fast. The anesthesiologist suspected that my epi wasn't in correctly (great).

My doctor decided to see if pushing made any progress getting her head past my pubic bone, so I started pushing around 6 pm. I was making progress, but had to stop pushing because the right side of my back hurt tremendously. At that time, they decided to take out my first epidural and give me another one. This time it was in correctly and I rested comfortably for about a half an hour.

At a little after 7 pm, I started pushing again. It really wasn't bad at all, I was in the zone and ready to have my baby. She was born at 8:24 pm.

I can't believe she is a week old today. Time flies so fast. I will update with more pictures later...we have to upload more to the computer.

Meet Our Daughter!

AMELIA KATARZYNA PONTUS made her arrival at 8:24 pm on September 8, 2008. She is 20 1/4 inches long and weighs 7 pounds, 2 ounces. She is beautiful, as you can see!!!

Everyone is doing well...we are having a good time getting to know each other. We'll be home from the hospital on Wednesday.

I will post her Birth Story later this week...now it's time to sleep!

PROGRESS!

My due date is exactly one month from today! I had my 36-week check up this morning...

The baby's head is down and I'm 1 cm dilated, 50% effaced!!!!!! I know it doesn't mean anything until labor actually starts, and lots of women walk around dilated for weeks, but it's a big deal to me! It means my body is doing exactly what it should be doing and this baby will be here soon.

Everything looks good. The baby's heartbeat sounds good, and the doctor thinks I'm doing well. The baby is measuring right on track, so we're hoping for a 7-8 pound baby.

On the downside, I am extremely uncomfortable. Because of the baby's position, walking is really difficult. And I'm just plain tired. So, this Friday is my last day of work. I promised Alex and my bosses that I would stop working when my body told me to. It's time for me to relax and prepare for this baby.

Stay tuned...my next appointment is a week from today. We'll see if I've made any more progress!

Settling in

What a weekend!

Alex & I moved into a 2-bed, 2-bath condo in St. Charles this weekend. We moved all the baby stuff on Friday with my parents help. Saturday we moved our stuff from the storage unit. Ok, "we" is totally incorrect. I did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to help. We had an AWESOME moving crew -- my parents, Aunt Joanie, Aunt Ree Ree, Alex, Aaron, Dan & Andy!!! We couldn't have done it without my amazing friends. They moved us in 2 (yes, 2!!!!!!!) hours! It was incredible.

We're still in the process of unpacking and getting everything set up, but we're taking our time. The actual moving process was a little overwhelming for me and I over-exerted myself a bit. The bottom line is that we LOVE our new place! We'll take pics this weekend and post them later.

We decided NOT to have a housewarming party. With the baby coming, it's just too stressful. But our door is always open, and visitors are welcome!

A Few Things...

I am now 34 weeks pregnant. Not 19 like the little Widget baby to the right is saying...I can't fix it, no matter how hard I try.

Our little girl is doing really well. She's a regular mover & shaker! The Olympics are really interesting to her, especially gymnastics, since she seems to try to imitate all the movements we see on tv. We really like to watch all the belly movements!

We had our 34-week Dr. appointment on Wednesday. Things are coming along well. I had been having pretty strong & frequent contractions and was worried that I was starting to dilate, but I'm still closed for business! The doctor doesn't like all the contractions I had, so I've been ordered to "relax" and "stop stressing". So, I am trying to take it easy. You all can help out by not stressing me out! : ) Baby's heartbeat was still in the 140's, going strong. I'm measuring right on track.

On a related note...I'm going to have to stop working soon. I'm really trying to hold on for as long as I can, but I'm just getting so exhausted and uncomfortable. My goal is 2 more weeks but we'll see.

And finally, we're moving!!! Alex & I are renting a condo not too far from my parent's house, and we love it! We move in a week (YIKES!). We're both looking forward to getting settled in and having this checked off our "Things To Do" list so we can focus on other things...

like having this baby!!!!!!!!

30 Weeks?!? Holy Moly!

This week I hit the 30-week mark. Unbelievable! On one hand I feel like I've been pregnant FOREVER (especially on those 95+ degree days), but on the other hand I feel like time has just flown by.

I am well into the 3rd trimester, my last one. Overall things are going well. I have the "normal" 3rd trimester gripes. I'm tired all the time, my belly hurts from stretching, my legs are swollen from my knees to my ankles (shockingly, my feet are NOT swelling yet), I'm a bit emotional (Alex would probably put me on the "highly" emotional side of the scale), and I'm not sleeping well at night because of hip pain and a stuffy nose. Congratulations--I'm a normal pregnant woman!

I had my 30-week check up this morning. As expected, my doctor told me that everything I'm experiencing is normal and that everything with me and the baby look great! Baby P's heart rate was 154, right around where it always is. I'm clear to travel to MI next week, and I'm good to keep working as long as I feel up to it. I'm on "every-2-weeks" appointments now. Eventually I'll go every week.

Oh yeah! I forgot the most EXCITING part...I passed my Gestational Diabetes (GD) test!!! Every pregnant woman gets tested between 28 and 30 weeks for GD, and it was my turn last weekend. I had been monitoring my blood sugars for weeks with a glucometer and everything had been normal, so I expected no problems. But you just never know and I was a little worried. We got the results that I passed and I couldn't be happier!

Baby P is still an active little baby. We're convinced she's going to be a Ninja warrior! They say I'm supposed to be able to detect her sleep patterns, but I'm pretty sure she never sleeps. Well, it's either that or she 1) sleeps at night while I'm sleeping (in which case, I can say my baby already sleeps through the night, yay!), or 2) moves while she's sleeping. In any event, Alex & I really enjoy watching the Baby Show!

No new pictures...yet! My belly is quite large and I know everyone wants to see it, but we always forget to take pictures. Maybe I'll have a new one up this weekend...STAY TUNED!

More Baby Pics!

Alex & I had a 3D ultrasound last Saturday. It was incredible!!! We were able to see our baby's face in such detail. She's beautiful!





We have a CD with 53 (!) pictures, so here are a few. You have to see these... (click on the pictures to see them larger, hit the back arrow to return to our blog)

AMAZING!!! She looks a lot like my baby pictures, but her profile in some of the shots (especially the 2nd one above) she looks EXACTLY like Alex.

Belly Pictures

I know, I forgot to add pictures of my ever-expanding belly. Sorry! Better late than never. These were taken over a 3-week period. I'm bigger now, I'm sure, because they are a few weeks old already!

Ignore my yucky hair & make-up...these were taken after getting home from work. I promise I look a lot cuter BEFORE I go to work!

Oh yeah! How do you like the new layout??? I thought since we were having a GIRL, we should have more of a girly layout!

Enjoy!

Another appointment, all's well!

I had my 23-week appointment this morning. On top of the usual 1-hour earlier wake-up time to make our appointment before work, I only had about 4 hours of sleep the night before. We had some bad storms and our electricity went out at 2:59 am and didn't come back on until 5:30. That meant no a/c...and it's hot here in the STL. So, I didn't get a lot of sleep.

Despite all the sleep challenges, the appointment went well. I'm doing fine -- experiencing normal pregnancy stuff: discomfort, slight swelling of the feet, etc. AND Baby Girl is doing great! All the results from our big ultrasound in May were completely normal. We got to hear the heartbeat again. Baby P was so active that she kept kicking where the doctor placed the Doppler on my belly! :) It sounded like "woosh woosh woosh THUMP!" Our baby sure is entertaining!!!

We have our next appointment July 2nd. I'll be 27 weeks and entering the 3rd (and LAST!) trimester...I can't believe it!

Oh yeah, I guess I should talk about how weird it is that complete strangers ask about my pregnancy! When am I due, how am I feeling...but the WORST thing I hear is how MISERABLE I'm going to be this summer!!! Gee, thanks. I kind of figured it would suck, but could I get a little encouragement??? :) I am already not looking forward to Summer in St. Louis, let alone going through it big & pregnant. Did I mention it's supposed to be 92+ degrees tomorrow? Good times. Oh well, I'm trying to stay positive and remain COOL! I'm drinking so much water, I'm going to float away.

I have belly pictures, but they're on the other computer so I'll add them this weekend!

About the name...

We've already had several people ask us if we have a name picked out yet. So, I thought I'd talk about it here.

We do not, 100%, have a name picked out. And, if we did, we aren't telling! A few months ago, Alex and I had "the talk". Do we find out the sex of our baby? He didn't want to at first because he wanted to be surprised. I wanted to know because I am a planner. After much discussion, we decided to find out for the first baby and be surprised the next time. We also decided that we wanted to keep the baby's name private until she was born. There are several reasons...

• We've already told the world we're having a girl, we'd like the name to be a surprise.
• We still have a LOT of time to figure out a name...it's such a huge decision, picking a name she'll have for the rest of her life, we don't want to rush it.
• We might change our minds a few times...I'd had a girl's name in mind for about the past 5 years, but now I don't like it. We don't want to tell everyone one name, and then decide to change it later.

And the best reason (one we'll probably say a LOT to our child(ren) over the next few years) is:

• BECAUSE WE'RE THE PARENTS AND WE SAY SO! : )

So please don't take it personally if we don't tell you the name, we're not telling ANYONE! I can assure you that we won't pick out a weird name, we're not crazy. Alex & I are too "normal" to name our child "Fallulah" or "Posey" or anything like that.

It's a...

GIRL!!!

Our appointment today was AMAZING! She was really active and not shy at all. The very first picture shows the girl-parts (they're circled). She loves her hands and we saw them in almost every picture. We saw her rub her eyes, make kissy-faces, and yawn! So cute!

I can't believe how much you can see in these ultrasounds. We were able to see her brain, heart, stomach, spine, and all her arms and legs. She looks good and seems healthy. She kept flip-flopping around in there, so we've got a gymnast on our hands!

Alex & I are thrilled! And it looks like my gender-prediction was right again.

Yesterday was my first Mother's Day. It was quite memorable. Our electricity went out at 6 am!!! It didn't come back on until about 2:30. My dad and Alex made me and my mom yummy breakfast, and then we opened cards and presents. My mom made me a beautiful bracelet with the baby's birthstone. Alex gave me a (much-needed) spa day for today. It was awesome! I got a pre-natal massage, a facial, and a mani/pedi. I definitely feel pampered. Overall, it was a great day!

So, enjoy the pictures of our BABY GIRL!!!