Schedule - are you kidding?

All is well in the Cancro house. So far, Ava has been sleeping pretty well. She's been feeding every 3 -4 hours with a couple of shorter stints thrown in there. Overall, it's been smooth sailing. No more projectile poopies which has been nice. :) She also had her first bath which was fun and not too traumatic. I had a lot of helping hands as you can see below.

Grandma and Grandpa Cancro were in town over the long weekend. She was so well behaved and they just loved being with her. It was nice to not only have the extra help but just to have the Cancro side of the family be part of her life so early. Especially because they are all on the East Coast. We both cried when they left but they will be back in October.







Chris is falling for her more and more every day. This morning, he got up to change her diaper while I was getting prepared to feed her. I was all set and was waiting for five minute before I called out to him to bring her out. He said, "Hold on - we're playing." Mind you, this is at 5:00am. He came out and told me all about her little facial expressions. She gave him a genuine smile - not just the fart grimace that gets mistaken for smiles. Very cute. He didn't want to give her to me.





Anyway, here are a few pictures from the weekend. Enjoy.

At Home

First, thank you everyone for all the phone calls, emails, packages, flowers, visits, etc. Boy, do we feel loved! I promise to try and get in touch with each one of you...eventually.

After 4 days in the hospital, Chris, Ava and I are all home. Although we had amazing nurses at the hospital, it is so nice to be in our own place. We've actually been home for three days now and it's gone pretty smoothly. Ava's nights and days are mixed up so she sleeps a lot during the day and then is up pretty much every 1.5-2 hours at night. I've been able to watch a lot of the Olympics which I guess is one of the few perks to being up ALL NIGHT! She is a voracious feeder and has gained almost all the weight she lost during her first few days. She isn't fussy at all and loves to cuddle. I do too which has been a double edge sword. I know I should get some sleep when she sleeps but I can't help but just sit and stare at her. I don't want to put her down.
As a result, I have been a complete zomby for the last few days. BUT, I'm getting used to the new schedule and I finally feel a little bit more human. She is also a great pooper and has already demonstrated the extent of her ability by pooping on both mom and dad. The other night she got a little cocky in her new skills and decided to show off a bit. We were both changing her and she actually projectile pooped and hit the door. Wow. Chris screamed and ran to wash his hands. I told him this is what babies do and he better get used to it. We did end up laughing for about 10 minutes. It must be love if we both ultimately came to the conclusion that it was super cute. Sigh...

My mom and sister have been up helping us since we've been home. I will need a lot of extra hands as Chris is back at work and I cannot lift anything more than 10 pounds for the next month! Grandma and Grandpa Cancro are in town and they are totally smitten too. It's been great having them here.

Here are some more pictures. I will eventually get a video up here but for now these will have to do. Now, I need to go get some more sleep!!

Observations of a baby

Post #2 from Jan - Kristy's sister.

Ava is a wonder. Kristy has already given her a new moniker: mommy's little whopper. She is amazingly content. She fusses very little and is quite a snuggler. Mom and Dad are completely enraptured with her. She has Kristy's lips and Chris' hairline and hands and feet. Baby Ava will study your face very closely as you cuddle her. She is making her preferences known: she loves to be swaddled tightly, she likes to be held vertically close to your chest, and she loves to eat! They will probably be released home Monday or Tuesday. If you have their cell phone #s, they are taking calls. When they sleep, they shut the ringer off. So go ahead and text or phone your congrats. See pics at bottom of this page.

Baby Cancro Arrives

This is a guest post from Jan, Kristy's sister. Our miracle has arrived.

Ava Corinne was born 8/16 at 12:43am. She shares her birthday with our dad, which pleases the new grandpa. She is 21.5 inches long and weighs 9 lbs, 8 oz. She was born via c section after many many hours of non-progressive labor. This big girl dwarfs all other infants in the nursery, with very large hands, ribcage, feet, and very healthy lungs. She has a healthy head of light sandy-brownish hair. Early this morning the baby fed for a good hour, prompting Kristy to call her a "rockstar." Mom, Dad and baby are doing great (albeit a little tired.) Once granted permission, I will write more of the cute anecdotes of her labor. Currently she is in room 481 at St. Vincent's Hospital in Billings, Montana. She expects to be released on Sunday. More to come later.

Finally - a date!

After the MASSIVE amounts of phone calls and emails I've been receiving over the last few days, I knew it was time to update this blog. I am now five days past my due date and more than ready to have this baby. We are scheduled to have an induction on Friday, August 15th. We'll check into St. Vincents around midnight tomorrow and hopefully have a baby by the end of the day! Yeah!! Everyone is very ready for me not to be pregnant anymore. The hormones and impatient waiting have taken a toll on everyone who's been around me - mainly Chris and my sister, Jan. I'll try to get some pictures and perhaps even a video posted on here as soon as I get home.

Oh, another quick update. To dust off my Boston vernacular, I took a major digger last week. My sister and I took a long, slow walk in hopes of starting some contractions. As we made our way through a quiet, residential neighborhood, I fell very hard - belly first - into the pavement. As you can imagine, I freaked out. We immediately called Chris and my doctor who told us to immediately go to the Labor and Delivery Unit. Both the baby and I were fine but I was kept for observation for the whole day. It was a close call and very scary but it's amazing how God designed the human body for pregnancy. I still haven't figured out why I fell but I've been banned from flipflops until after the delivery.

Contractions...I think?

So even though I have scoured and re-read many of my pregnancy books, I am still unsure if I am having contractions. I am getting sharp, intense cramps in my lower abdomen all the time now (but not with any real duration or relative frequency) but my whole belly isn't siezing up like the books describe. I hope these are the warm-up contractions because that means I am that much closer to the party starting. At this point, I am very ready to have the baby (I really don't think I can watch too much more of What Not To Wear or see the same re-run of Baby Story before I go insane with boredom) but I am hoping that I don't go until August 1st at the earliest so I can be fully covered by Chris' insurance rather than be "out of state/network" on my old insurance.

However, there are two bonuses to either going early - before 8/8 - or late. If I go early, I will almost guarantee that my current OBGYN will delivery me. This is becoming more important to me as I had to get a new one when I moved to Billings but then she basically quit her practice the day before we arrived in Montana so I had to get another one (the current one). This one seems awesome but she has to go in for some type of surgery herself on 8/7! They assure me she'll be back quickly but I'm not too sure. So, if I go around my due date, I'll have some guy I've never seen deliver me. At this point, I think I am going to ask Chris to do it. He's already delivered several babies on his own and participated in 25+. Why not his own baby? However, if I go much later, maybe my current doctor will be recovered and can delivery me. Plus, Chris' week of paternity leave doesn't start until 8/10. Regardless of when I go into labor, he'll be there for the birth but he'll probably have to be back at work until his week off. Thank goodness my mother and sister are so close. (Jan's visiting for a month.)

So, it's complicated to say the least. Anyway...for those of you reading, thanks for listening to my verbal purging. More to come later.

Grateful for central air!

After way too many years of living in crappy apartments in humid, sweltering East Coast cities, we finally decided to upgrade this time to a nice apartment with central air. God, is it nice. It's been consistenly 90-95 degrees in Montana for the past month. Let me tell you, if I had to deal with the heat all day while being 8 months pregnant , I think I would have a breakdown. Like I said, thank GOD for central air.