Welcome Amber Hope Kropman

Well believe it or not ... she is here, our precious little baby girl Amber Hope Kropman !!! Before I go on ... I couldn't get this silly thing to spell check so I am letting you know ahead of time, oh dear, sorry about the spelling !!!

Tuesday late morning I went in for my normal OB check up which included an ultrasound considering they were watching my fluid around the baby, well ... surprise surprise, my fluid was really low, just over 4cm and the lowest they like to see it is at 5cm so my doctor suggested I be induced that night which totally freaked me out, I wasn't ready !!! Yeah, yeah I know what you are all thinking, me not ready but I really wasn't ready !!! Anyway so I asked her if Amber was in any danger right now and she said, no it could wait till morning if I didn't think I could do it that evening so Tuesday afternoon I ran around like a crazy person trying to get all my ducks in a row. Thank God for my BFF Tina who had always been my plan B if Amber came before my parents arrived, she took Jade from that night till now, Dave's actually on her way to get her. Tina has a full time nanny so Jade got to skip school for 3 days and hung out with the nanny and little Layla, sounds like she had a ball, she always does there, Tina spoils her rotten and I am always told what a fun house she has :-) Anyway so now Jade has the weekend to get used to Amber before she goes back to school so it has worked out well I think ... anyway back to Amber.

So Wednesday morning we had to be at the hospital at 6h30 but I think they only really got me started on induction after 8 ish, they didn't break my water early like they did with Jade so I knew that this labor was going to take longer than Jade. Things progressed very slowly and at about 11h30 my OB came in to break my water and slowly but surely they increased my medication to push my labor along. I had my epidural at 14h30 not that I felt like I needed it quite yet, things really weren't that bad by my OB said, why not, it didn't slow down labor at all so why not go ahead and get it done and get some rest before the big push so I went ahead. I totally did not like the doctor that came in and did that but at least after a good dose of crying he was done and it seemed to be working BUT then ... I was lying too flat and instead of the lower half of me being numbed up, my chest got numb and I felt like I couldn't breath, my blood pressure went scary low and I felt like for a short time I lost touch with reality but after yet another medication they got that under control, thank Heavens. Unfortunately the epidural only lasted about two hours and then it wore off, I got topped up twice more and again had the same blood pressure issues so I really was too scared to have anymore after that so I pretty much felt the rest of labor and all I can say is ouch ... and thank God it didn't take too long !!!

The afternoon went quicker and I progressed from 4 - 8cm quite quickly and again from 8 - 10 quicker than they thought I would and before I knew it, it was time to push and all it took was about 5 pushing sessions and they told me to stop since the nurse gets you that far and then she calls the doctor to deliver the baby, now ... obviously at that point not pushing is hard and the contractions are really ouch and you think they could find my doctor, well I almost got up and tracked him down myself, that was an aweful few minutes but thank God he eventually arrived and in two pushes she was out, not too bad at all. Also they said I really got lucky and did a good job since she came out face up which is very unusual and often pushing a face up baby out takes up to 3 hours ... oh my gosh, thank Heavens I didn't have to endure that !!! Dave got to cut the cord which he missed out on with Jade so I was very happy about that !!!

Ok so she was 7 pounds 5 ounces so just .2 less than Jade, so thankfully I didn't have to carry her too much longer or she might have been a harder labor for me, she was born on the 6th May at just short of 37 weeks. She was 18 1/2 inches at birth. They had to run a bunch of tests of her because she was pre term but thank God she passed everything with flying colors :-)

Anyway here are some pics taken over our two day stay in the hospital.

This is one of the first pics of Amber, she was getting her first bath in the nursery, well her sister screamed just as loud when she had her first bath and now she is our little fish so hopefully Amber follows in her footsteps.



This is the first pic of she and I taken shortly after her birth. Look at all that hair, Jade also had dark hair but nothing near as much as that !!!



What I didn't tell you is my OB went off duty before Amber was born which was really sad coz she delivered Jade but anyway Dr Solomon once he finally arrived did a good job at catching Amber on the way out, here is a pic of him and her for Ambers scrapbook which hopefully I will get to some day.



Another one of Amber and I.



Here Jade is meeting Amber for the very first time, she was so excited and looked so cute in her Big Sister shirt which Tina got her, Tina got Amber a Little Sister shirt too which I will definitely take a photo op of later when I get my act together, mabye on Mothers Day, gosh yeah who thought that she would be here for Mothers Day. Thanks Tina for the great shirts, you are of course the best !!!



Jade holding Amber for the first time, what a proud moment !!! Jade got so emotional and excited to be holding her sister that the tears just ran from her eyes and Dave was overwhelmed with all the hormones in the room (hehehe) coz Jade brought Tina and I both to tears as well :-) So cute.



Jade wanted to see Ambers entire body, little did she know Amber didn't like to be uncovered like that :-)



I love this one, Daddy and his two girls !!!



Here Jade was fascinated that Amber could already open her eyes.



Amber trying to figure out what all the noise and fuss is about.



Here Jade asked Daddy to hold her like she was still the baby ... oh dear !!!



So it's Friday and I am home, wanting desperately to go take a nap since I really didn't sleep at the hospital like I thought I would but I wanted to get this blog updated quickly to send out to everyone as I knew there are a bunch of people waiting for pics and with all the love that was shown our way during this pregnancy, I didn't want anyone to wait a minute longer :-) Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone, you guys are the best.

Here are two last pics of her that I just took before updating the blog, she is in her bassinette with her little pink hat on from the hospital. I need to cut her nails already can you believe that, she is already starting to scratch herself.





I am sure I will update the blog a ton over the next while so if you want to see more, keep the link handy ok :-)

One last big thank you to Tina, for all you have done, I don't know what I would have done without you. Love you lots !!! Thanks for all the emails, calls etc. I got while in the hospital, I know I have a couple of you still to get back to, I will soon I promise, just want you to know that Dave and I appreciate all the outpouring of love for our new little one.

Until next time ... Happy Mothers Day to all the mom out there.