Welcome to Amelia!

Mariella has a new little friend out there in the world. Our friends John, Kelly, and William welcomed a daughter into their family on Monday. Congratulations to them!

4 weeks old

Mariella just keeps on growing! She's 4 weeks old today.

Here she is modeling one of Jacob's old sleepers. I think she looks good in blue.

My two babies - Jacob always insists that Mariella be on the mat with him when he's getting changed in the morning. This also shows how huge he looks next to her. It's hard to believe that he was ever that size!

Big brother and little sister together. She often has a happy look like this on her face when Jacob is nearby. Other times, she looks terrified.

3 weeks old

Mariella was 3 weeks old yesterday. Where is time going? It really does seem like just a few days ago we were bringing her home. Here are her newest pictures. She developed the dreaded baby acne a week or so ago, which is too bad. At least it seems to be getting better already. She should be all set for her 1 month pictures, which are not yet scheduled but April 3 is NINE DAYS AWAY! I'm going to cry.

She has been spitting up slightly less, but as soon as I get hopeful that maybe things are settling down, she has a huge one again. So we're still dealing with that and doing lots of laundry. Luckily, she likes being upright a lot because that's my main way of helping her keep milk down. Today I tried her in the baby carrier for the first time, and she really seemed to enjoy it. She napped, of course. Oh, she's been sleeping more too, likely due to the same event that is causing her to want to eat more often: growth spurt! It's hard to tell if she's actually grown very much, but she has stretched out her frog legs so she definitely looks bigger.

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I've also noticed that we have quite the collection of pictures of Mariella being held by various family members. I thought we should share those too. So, here she is with:

Grandma B at the hospital

Grandpa B at the hospital

Uncle Mike at the hospital (I'm not sure how we missed Katie, so we'll have to get one next time!)

Aunt Jena (we will also have to get Ty next time too)

Grandma S and cousin Hannah--she is a month older than Mariella


Grandpa S and Hannah


And finally, Uncle Chris. He is a natural at holding little girls, as he has three of his own!

That other kid

Most of the recent posts have been about Mariella, so I thought I should give some space to that other kid that lives in our house too. Jacob has been a great big brother, though we are starting to notice that he's a little impatient with her at times. It's hard to hear that you have to wait because the baby needs to be changed. Or fed. Or a million other things. Most of the time, he's very helpful and very loving to her. He's making up for his lost attention by being a bit more bossy and demanding, but we're trying to give him chances to make "big boy" choices and give him some responsibilities that make him feel special.

He's been really enjoying going to his class, and playgroup, and the nursery at church--really, anything that is familiar from his routine before Mariella was born. He asks to play with kids a lot. It's been good for all of us to get out of the house and be with other people. Jacob really keeps me on the go!

We've had some opportunities to get outside in the past couple of weeks, and I think Jacob is wishing for it to be nice every day so we can start going to parks. I have a feeling we'll be living at parks again this summer, just like last year. He is also going to get a bike this spring, so we'll be sure to take some pictures when we give it to him.

Here are some recent pictures of Jacob:

Reading his High Five magazine in the car. We'd never seen him do this before, but he was very engrossed in it.

A favorite activity: running cars down the slide

Playing with Claire and Gracie, trying to get one of them to take a bone

Snuggling with Daddy on the couch on some lazy morning

Checking out Daddy's birthday cake (he's 30 now!)

Attempting to help Daddy blow out candles. Jacob doesn't quite get it yet, but he sure tried.

Mariella is 2 weeks old

I forgot to update last week with her 1 week checkup. She got a great report, weighing in at 8 lbs. 9 oz. (75th %ile) and measuring 21.25 in. (90th %ile). Because she wasn't quite back to her birth weight, her pediatrician recommended I bring her in for a weight check this week. We weren't worried about her weight, especially since she was a good size to begin, but I took her in today to see how much she has gained. She now weighs 9 lbs. 5 oz., a gain of 12 oz. in 10 days. They want her to gain an ounce per day, so she is right on track.

We're very happy to have her on a good day/night routine already. She doesn't sleep as soundly during the day as she did at first, but I think that's because she was getting her night sleep at that time. For now, she is sleeping 2-3 hours at a time at night, sometimes with one longer stretch closer to 4 hours. I'll take it.

Here are some recent pictures:

The official 2 week picture. In a funny coincidence, Jacob's 2 week picture was just like this one. I guess they both liked to sleep at 2 weeks old.


A smile caught on camera! It may be not be real, but it sure is cute. And a bit devilish.

Snuggling in with great-grandma Kuehn.

She really enjoyed meeting two of her great-grandparents last weekend. I think they liked her too!

One week old

I can't believe it's been a week already. We've only been home for half of that, but time has flown. We're settling in pretty well. Some sleep has been logged, many diapers have been changed, and we're getting used to having a newborn in the house again. Jacob is absolutely in love with Mariella. She is the first person he asks to see in the morning, and he loves to give her kisses. He makes sure she always has a blanket and helps to change her diaper. I think he's waiting for her to be able to smile at him, because he keeps trying to entertain her by being silly and so far doesn't get much of a reaction.

Here are a few new pictures:

One week old, and making Daddy's hands look huge

Almost a smile caught on camera, but I wasn't fast enough

Proof that she sleeps...without being held...and I was brave enough to take a picture of it without fear that she would wake up screaming at me.

Introducing...

Mariella Rose Schoenbauer

She was born on March 3 at 3:42 PM and weighed 8 pounds, 13 ounces - 21 inches long.

Here is the short version of her birth: The induction began at 10:00 AM. Yes, we were bumped again just like we were with Jacob. This time, though, on my first call back they had a spot. By 10:10 I was hooked up to pitocin and my water was broken. The doctor noted meconium in the fluid, which meant that some special care nurses would be present at the birth to make sure she was completely clear in her lungs. The pitocin was at a low dose, but the contractions came faster and stronger than they were hoping (and me). After 3 hours, I had progressed to 4 cm but the strength of the contractions was what I remembered at 6-7 cm with Jacob. I decided it was time to get an epidural.

After receiving the epidural, I progressed to 9+ cm in the next 1.5 hours. I still can't believe that. At 3:00 they turned off the epidural and at 3:30 it was time to start pushing. She was born after 4 series of pushes over the next 12 minutes. All in all, a pretty easy birth compared to the 14 hour marathon and 1.5 hours of pushing with Jacob. She was checked over thoroughly in the room before we got to hold her, but she came with a completely clean bill of health, so that was a relief.

She has been a very sweet baby. She loves to snuggle and actually lets us put her down once in awhile. We're going to have to work on days and nights, but for now she is a pretty typical newborn: eat, sleep, poop. For those who remember what we dealt with in Jacob's newborn days, you know how relieved we are about that third one. She looks a lot like Jacob, and it will be fun to see how she develops her own look as she grows. But for now, they share many of the same features.

Jacob is very excited to have a baby sister and he is so proud of her. He has been giving her lots of hugs and kisses, and always wants to know what she is doing. He can say her name, but often calls her either "Mary" or "Ella." He is going to be a great big brother, and he has already been very helpful around the house. We can tell there is going to be an adjustment period after this initial honeymoon, but Jacob has been very good at adapting to change lately and we know he'll do well with this big one. We hope that we can do as well at adapting as he can!

I'm going to get more pictures up, but that will have to wait because we are trying to prioritize rest right now. Having a new baby in the house, along with trying to give Jacob the attention he needs is a lot of work, even for the two of us together. We'll do this in small pieces!

Getting Kicked Out

I'm being induced tomorrow morning. We're scheduled to go in at 7:30, so unless we get bumped throughout the day, our baby is going to be born on March 3. Finally!

The one nice thing about doing it this way is that we won't need anyone to rush over to take care of Jacob. We can have everything and everyone in place. It will be weird going the hospital and not be in labor this time. I guess there is still plenty of time to go on my own, but I think we're going to have a pretty quiet night. Hopefully I can get some sleep!

I'll update with all the fun details and maybe even a picture after we get home from the hospital. I should get out of there on Thursday, but it might take a few days to find the time to get on the computer. We'll do our best!

41 weeks

Our February baby is officially a March baby. How about that? And we thought Jacob was stubborn...he only hung on until 40 weeks, 6 days.

Grandpa and Grandma S. are out of the country now, which is too bad. We were really hoping everyone could be here when she is born, but this little stinker decided to make other plans. Who knows, maybe she was going to wait until they get back. Little does she know, we are not waiting until 42 weeks to get this moving.

While we are not terribly worried right now because she's still pretty active for having very little room to move around, the (extremely small) risk of complications starts to get larger as you approach 42 weeks and beyond. As much as I've been hoping and feeling that I would go into labor on my own, I'd rather not let this drag on any longer. I'll get the details tomorrow, but my doctor thinks breaking the water is all it will take to get the contractions going. Most likely, I'll be scheduled for Tuesday or later to go into the hospital. I'll let you all know what's going on when I know. In the meantime, I have 15 hours to start on my own and avoid going to my appt.