Happy First Father's Day Daddy!

We celebrated Daddy's first Father's Day! I gave Daddy a card, a picture of me to take to work and two Virginia Tech children books that we can read together- "Watching the Hokies play with Daddy" and "Hello Hokie Bird!".



Later, we went to my Grandpa Frank's house and I met my Great Grandpa Lee and spent the afternoon with the Lee family.



Here I am with Daddy and his Daddy- my Pawpaw:

First Week

Lila had a great first week! She came home Friday afternoon after a clean bill of health from the doctors at the hospital. They called her a feisty little girl!




Last day in the hospital- no sleep but still smiling and ready to go home!





She met grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and lots of friends. She went on a few walks, was read lots of books and played in her bouncer (the blanket was her Mommy's and was made by her Great Great Grandmother).




She had her first bath...which she didn't like so much:



She had her first appointment with her pediatrician and is doing great.

Our little Lila Berry:

Happy Birthday Lila Kate!

Lila Kate was born June 10th at 8:17 pm, weighing 7 lbs 7 oz and measuring 20.75 inches long. She is doing great and is absolutely adorable!

We checked into the hospital bright and early at 5am. I was officially in labor at 6:30 am and we had a long day ahead of us. We took lots of naps!




Finally around 7:15 pm we were about ready to start pushing. I pushed for only 40 minutes and Lila came out with a big strong cry.






We adore her already!

Just waiting

No news to report, we're just enjoying our last few "quiet" days until Baby Girl Whitesell arrives. My 38 week appointments went well, no major progress just a 1 cm dilated and still about 70% effaced. Everything looked great during the sonogram, and I was able to see her get the hiccups and yawn- cute! I just have one more day at work and Wednesday is the big day for our induction. We'll get started early in the morning and have been told average induction takes 8-12 hours, so hopefully we can meet our little girl that evening!

37 week appt

Hitting 37 weeks means we're officially "full term". Baby Girl Whitesell can make her way into the world at any time now. We had our appointments today and everything went really well. No new progress since last week but we're right on track. We checked more "to dos" off our list this week like getting the car seats inspected and stocking up on diapers/wipes.

Some 37 week maternity photos:

Baby Names

The Social Security Administration recently published the most popular baby names for 2008.

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/

You can look at past years too. For each of the years we were born we found that Jason was #2 and Jenifer was #1.

Here are the top 50 baby girl names for 2008:

We are still keeping the name a secret, but we can tell you that you won't find Baby Whitesell's name in the top 50!

36 weeks

It is hard to believe that 36 weeks have gone by already. I only have 11 more days of work until maternity leave starts! Jason says I'm counting down the days like a little kid counting down for Christmas. It has been a busy week getting things done around the house to get ready for Baby Whitesell. Shelves and wall letter are hung, the mobile is put together and attached to the crib, clothes and blankets are washed- and the room is now finished! We decided on our pediatrician (who went to UVA but we will let it slide since she is so highly recommended...) and tonight we went to an Infant CPR and First Aid class.

We had two doctor appointments today and they both went great. I've started getting Braxton Hicks contractions (non-painful "practice" contractions), which is normal. Skip to the next paragraph if you're not into reading details about my "progress"... I had my first internal exam today. I am not dilated yet but I am 70% effaced. This really doesn't mean anything with regards to when she will arrive but it is good to know things are progressing.

Since we've been doing belly pics every 4 weeks, this *could* be the last one! Week 9 seems like an eternity ago.

We hope you all have a great Memorial Day weekend!