Visitors!

This little miss had a steady stream of visitors while we were in the hospital:

Proud grandmother Cristy

There's the lip again...

Sweet Aunties Em and Katie


Eliza's Godmother Braden

Happy Gigi

Big Steve

Great grandparents Annie and John peering in

We haven't seen many people since we've been home as we've been working on getting Eliza and me healthy. Both of us have had a few issues since being home, so it's been nice to have this time to recover and wander around the house zombie-style in my nightgown. But we are both on the mend now and can't wait to see everyone soon!

The lip

Sweet Eliza is a happy lady most of the time, and we usually know when she's on the brink of fussbucket-dom when we see this appear. We've dubbed it "the lip" - it pops out and quivers pre-scream - and I tell her we'd feel more sorry for her if it weren't so precious:

Rub a dub dub

Miss Eliza got to go to the nursery with her daddy about an hour after she was born for her check-up and first bath. She passed her tests with flying colors and found her little lungs there...





Her M.O. is pretty straightforward - she screams briefly if she's hungry, being bathed, getting a shot, etc. but as soon as her needs are met she is instantly quiet again. She's a very relaxed and happy baby most of the time and we hope this trend continues!

Oh happy day!

So sorry for the delay in posts - I know y'all are anxious for more pictures! In addition to normal newborn craziness/sleep deprivation, we've been very busy staying on top of miss Eliza's jaundice, which has been a little exhausting and very time-consuming. I'm also healing a little better and we are starting to feel more like normal newborn parents again, so please stay tuned!

Well, what a few days it's been! Our lives are so incredibly different than they were on Thursday night at 11:00, when I was contracting one to two minutes apart through an episode of the Office. We decided it finally might be time to head to the hospital (my contractions had been close together off and on for awhile, and they still weren't terribly painful). I remained a 4 for the 2 hours they monitored me, so they ended up sending me home to sleep, saying I'd probably be back in later that morning. I woke up at 5:30 AM to a somewhat terrifying sign that could only mean we needed to get back to the hospital immediately. We made it out the door and back to the hospital in about 15 minutes, such a whirlwind and I have to admit at that point those nurses did not think the girl who was wheeled back in crying hysterically and trembling was going to go through with a med-free birth. All turned out to be just fine, but I'd progressed so they were keeping me this time and off we went!

Disclaimer: I wanted to tell our birth story in as tasteful a manner as possible for those who care to read it, and so I remember it. No mention of anything too gross, and I even left out the gooey baby pictures, but please feel free to skip over if it's not your thing!

I'd decided from early on I wanted to try labor without drugs for a number of reasons; my body doesn't always respond well to anesthetics and I had a few friends who had coached me through how it works and how it's a totally manageable and doable thing if you have the right mindset. I tried to maintain a positive attitude toward labor - it shouldn't be this scary thing we often see it as; when you fear the pain, it is much more intense as your body is working against you, tensing up and making the entire process more difficult and painful. I hoped that working with the pain - breathing deeply, being relaxed as possible - would get me through it. Remembering the pain has a purpose and our bodies know what to do. It sounds New Age, and maybe it is - not usually my style, but I think it worked.

That said, it is a very, very personal choice and there was a point (transition) when I completely understood why those drugs exist and I don't fault anyone for choosing them! Different circumstances determine different choices and I had said I'd do the epidural if circumstances made sense to. Luckily, I had a fairly short first labor (9.5 hours) because I'd been progressing at home the past few weeks, and there was no point when I was tempted by pain meds, because by the time it was too painful, it was almost over. Miller was a wonderful support to me and it went unbelievably smoothly, as perfectly as you could ever hope for it to. From 5:30 AM - 1:30 PM, I progressed each time they checked me, was still talking and laughing through contractions, and using breathing techniques to manage the pain. Because I wasn't doing pitocin, the contractions were moderately painful but manageable. Here I am at 12:15 - drinking apple juice and watching the BBC Pride & Prejudice (one of the nurses said, without knowing her name, "There are lots of cute names in this movie - I love the name Eliza!" - we took that as a sign we had made the right choice!):

Because I wasn't doing the epidural, my doctor waited to break my water until 12:18 PM, when I was in transition (this is the painful time when many women are ready to give up - it means you are getting ready to begin the pushing phase). Yowza! Man alive we were cooking now! I started pushing at 1:30, and pushed for 1.5 hours, though it seemed much quicker than that. I kept my eyes closed the entire time, I don't know why, but my body took over and I was just doing whatever felt most comfortable. I thought I would morph into that psycho lady in labor you always see on television, but apparently I was apologizing to everyone profusely for not pushing hard enough, or asking them for anything, or not being able to do exactly what they said. I also remember my amazing nurse Sarah being so sweet and encouraging, telling me how wonderful I was doing. I'd decided to forgo a doula, trusting that the nurses would be that additional support from an experienced perspective, and she was exactly what I had hoped for. But my husband was truly the best part - he did everything just right and I remember his encouragement the most.

Did you know that your body naturally produces a hormone that is in LSD for this stage of labor? In between contractions during the pushing phase, I threw my arms above my head and went into this dead sleep for about 3 minutes - which felt like 20 seconds - a completely euphoric state and it is the strangest rush I've ever felt. When you forgo the pain meds, your body takes over during this time and this hormone is its way of protecting you from the pain, and re-energizing you for your next contraction and push. It was the most exhilarating experience, and while I vividly remember how painful it was in the very end, it was instantly better when she arrived and was placed on my chest, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I'm told I burst into tears and though that makes sense, I don't remember anything but seeing her for the first time. Miss Eliza Louise entered the world at 3:06 PM with one quick cry, and then settled into my chest for a good 20 minutes of skin-to-skin snuggling before they took her to get her weight and measurements - 7 lbs, 8 oz, 19 inches long:

She was then returned for my arms for her first feeding - she knew just what to do:

Nicholas got to hold her during that time she was being cleaned up and weighed, I wish I had a picture of that but he was doing double duty as photographer. He was instantly a wonderful, protective father. We are both transformed.

An hour or so later, our very anxious "peanut gallery" of about 12 or so people came in for a quick peek and we handed out the name announcements.

Eliza is named for both sides of our family; it is a very old family name on Nicholas' side, and I am named for my great grandmother Elizabeth as Lisa is a diminutive of that name. As the first grandbaby on both sides, we loved Eliza as a tribute to our families, and Louise is in honor of my wonderful grandmother, Eliza's great grandmother, Lois Ann Mobley (Annie). We both love traditional, vintage names and it just seems to suit her perfectly.

We are very biased of course, but she has so far been just the sweetest little baby you could ask for - a wonderful bit of heaven. To say we are counting our blessings would be a massive understatement and we are so thankful for all your kind notes, thoughts, flowers and prayers these past few weeks. More to come VERY soon! XO

Welcome to the world, Eliza Louise!

Eliza Louise Miller entered the world on Friday, May 20 at 3:06 PM, weighing 7 lbs., 8 oz. and 19 inches long. She is a darling, wonderful little baby and we are so completely in love with every inch of her. Lots more posts to come - sit tight! XO

Progress

Out of ways to nest inside the house, we turned to the garden in early April. It needed a lot of work, but we are pleased with how it came out and it's been fun watching our garden spring to life. We decided awhile back that because we are already growing out of the "starter home" phase, it made sense for us to wait to buy a house, since this rent house is the perfect size for us right now and just what we need in terms of space and location. That said, it isn't the prettiest on the block, so it's been a fun challenge to work within our means to pretty it up where possible. Another fun challenge: keeping the deer from eating our new flowers. I have a few choice words for those guys.

This is what happens when I take pictures from directly above these days...our plumbago isn't the only thing growing around here.

We had a visit from our friends the Borgs last week, whose sweet baby Virginia is now 4 months old. She was here at about 6 weeks old and Nicholas was still a bit of a hesitant but willing participant in the whole baby holding arena. This time he was an old pro. He doesn't have too much practice with babies, but I know he'll be a natural.


You'd think on bedrest, I would have made a bit more progress on this blanket...but you'd be wrong. Absent a pattern, it is one of those things I have to mull over as I go. This is a chevron baby blanket done out of soft, silky cotton. I love to crochet, but am always trying to do a fresh, un-grannylike take on my projects. Usually that means a graphic pattern, lots of white, and lots of characteristic, indecisive waffling. I'm happy with how it's coming along now but I'm quite certain it won't be finished before the baby comes. I'm pretty sure she won't know the difference.

And, it turns out I wasn't going crazy; I've truly been laboring at home all this time. We have made some very significant progress from last week and my doctor said she'll be surprised if she doesn't arrive in the next two days or so. We're supposed to go straight to the hospital once the stronger contractions start, as we are already far enough along that she might not take too long once I'm in active labor. Because she is clearly ready to go, my doctor encouraged lots of walking to get things going. So last night I walked a 5K! Not going to lie, it was hard (and took forever) but it felt good to finally get some exercise after all these weeks laying around. Our neighborhood has lots of steep hills so it's not the easiest of walks. It didn't appear to do the trick, so I'm going to try and overcome my soreness and do it again tonight...Miller said he wants to follow me in a pace car like on the Biggest Loser, just in case I keel over midway through. One way or another, baby will make her debut here very soon! XO

Nursery art

Tagging onto my previous post about my little design side business, I thought I'd share some nursery art I've been working on:


I designed this poster pretty early on for the baby's room. Even though she's a girl (and thus most things aren't going to have much of her Daddy's stamp on them), I wanted to design something that would have a piece of us both in there. Nicholas is a huge Beatles fan, and has been since he was very young, so I thought this worked well to incorporate a little bit of him into our baby's room. The "sun" is a take on one of the nursery patterns I designed (also found in the blog header), and I wanted it to have a bit of a mid-century feel since it pays homage to the fab four.


This is a piece I designed for my friend Dottie in Amarillo; we are due the same week and we've had so much fun sharing our pregnancies via text and gchat - from our crazy early symptoms to nursery design, carseats and strollers, to all the highly unglamorous details that come with the territory of being 9 months pregnant. Dottie loves to paint, so we decided to do a little nursery exchange - I designed this for her, and she did a little painting for us. We share a modern aesthetic, and she used a lot of gray in the nursery (which looks fabulous!). Since she's keeping the gender a surprise, these initials are placeholders - I sent her the piece so she could find a spot for it in the room, and I'm sending her the real deal once baby arrives. This one also has a Beatles lyric in it - one of my favorites!

Print + Paper

I've spent the past week sleeping as apparently we have hit a new fun stage of pregnancy - early labor! We went to the doctor first thing Monday morning as I'd been having contractions all day Sunday and through the night. Turned out I'd made more progress, and these contractions meant we were gearing up for the main event. My doctor said the contractions could continue to get closer together and she could come that night, or in a couple of days, or in a week or two - we have no way of knowing really. I haven't been just terribly uncomfortable most of the time, but clearly my body is using a lot of energy with the contractions as I've been pretty drowsy all week - sad considering all I've been doing is laying in bed.

Monday's fire drill put us on high alert; we are now eagerly anticipating her arrival at any moment. And so we continue to wait.

I tried posting this update earlier in the week, and Blogger went down and I lost my post! Grr. Since my days are filled with little more than Oprah, snoozing, and shows I shouldn't be watching about scary hospital deliveries, I thought it might be fun to post some of the design work I've been doing. Designing invitations, stationery, etc. has been just a fun little side gig for the past couple of years, but I've really enjoyed it as a creative outlet. Here's a few highlights from the past couple of months:



Baby shower invite for my sweet friend Beth (who also was a hostess at my shower the previous weekend; she's been a busy bee!). These hummingbirds are the main event on the textiles I designed for our nursery, which will be highlighted here in just a few days. The honoree's nursery had a modern, Jonathan Adler aesthetic with decidedly un-babylike colors, and since she was also doing a bird theme, I just repurposed my birds for the invitation.


My baby stationery, which matches our nursery colors: I've been in a pretty modern place design-wise generally these days, but for whatever reason (maybe it's her sweet name!) I haven't been able to resist going vintage/classic with a lot of the elements for this baby.



Stationery for my good friend Mary Jacob - she wanted two styles to choose from and ended up deciding to go with both. Good choice, MJ. A girl can never have too much stationery!



Save the Dates for I Live Here, I Give Here's the BIG Give: I designed the logo/invitations, signage and collateral for the event last year, and they decided to keep the logo for this year's event, with a few modifications to color & style. The event this year is at the new W Hotel, so we kept it clean, simple and modern, to echo the sleek interiors.



Baby stationery for sweet Harrison and Avery: because even little ones need to write their thank yous! I did this sort of backwards; I started with some generic silhouettes for these and tweaked them to their likenesses. Funnily enough, when I did Avery's she didn't really have any curls yet, but by the time we had them printed up for her birthday, she did! Our baby may get some similar stationery eventually...I had lots of fun working on these.
Hope everyone had a great week. We officially hit term tomorrow, hallelujah! We can't wait to meet this little lady, who has already been keeping us on our toes. Nicholas says she's just like her mama - says she is ready to go and then takes another 15 minutes to get out the door! Sadly, I readily admit this is a pretty accurate statement. XO

Our mamas

We are only beginning to scratch the surface of fully understanding or appreciating the pure love our mamas feel for us. One thing we know for sure: we hit the mama jackpot.

Our mothers are different in many ways, but in the best ways they are the same: supportive, wise, understanding and beautiful. They dole out advice gently, dote on us lovingly but with awareness of boundaries, and as we approach their 30th year of making them mamas, continue give of themselves unconditionally and selflessly, never seeming to tire of mothering us to the fullest.

For our parts, we'd like to apologize for the heartstopping mom moments we've given them over the years - the car crashes (starting with an overly-curious Nicholas at age 3),

the out of control parties we threw without your permission (guess who again), and late nights past curfew when we wouldn't answer our phones. You know what they say about payback.

And I can't forget Annie. Much more than just a grandmother to me now that I'm grown, she is a very special treasure all her own. This Mother's Day - my last without a baby to snuggle and my first as a mama - I feel both blessed and daunted by the very big shoes I soon have to fill.

We couldn't ask for better role models as we embark on parenthood. Everything I know about being a mama I learned - and continue to learn - from them.

Also feeling very grateful for my sweet mom and mom-to-be friends who have shared wisdom, horror stories, and helpful advice these past few months. Happy Mother's Day to all you beautiful mamas out there.

A few of my favorite things

Happy Friday friends! Aside from Fridays, royal weddings, and of course, concluding 10-year manhunts for terrorist masterminds, here are a few of my favorite things this week.

Amy Butler's home tour:
One of my favorite textile designers, Amy Butler, gave us a tour of her mid-century home on Apartment Therapy this week.


I dig her colorful style - edited, modern, eclectic and fun. I have lots of her fabrics in my stash, but around my house they are most prominently seen on the outdoor patio pillows I made a few years back, and on the pretty quilt my stepmother sewed for the baby (well aware of my love for fabrics, she had me pick them out).

Love her happy use of color mixed in with all that white, and wood, all that light coming in the house. And that open floorplan and that fab stone fireplace...yes please. We'd probably have to tone down the girly textiles a bit for Mr. Miller, but what a happy space! Full tour found here.

POUFS:
I've had a bit of a thing for poufs for awhile now. We don't have an ottoman for the glider in the nursery and I have been coveting this pouf for ages, in white:

So, I'm fairly crazy, but not that crazy...I'm well aware that no nursery needs a $450 pouf, so I've had the idea to crochet one myself, like this pretty one, found on Etsy:

...but I doubt I'll ever get around to it. Sigh. The nursery is brimming with fun things, so maybe a pouf will have to wait.

Fabrics:
Talented illustrator & designer Julia Rothman just launched a new fabric collection for Cloud9 fabrics - a total range of graphic modern and throwback, Liberty-esque prints. All so interesting, different and fun.


Target:
Has anyone had a chance to check out the Calypso for Target line yet? I love love love Liberty and was a little disappointed in the quality of the women's clothes that came out for their Target line last year (the little girls' clothes on the other hand...precious and so soft). Liberty's hallmark is those beautiful quality tana lawn cottons and some of those pieces were...gulp...polyester. For summer! In Texas! No ma'am.

So, some of this Calypso looks airy and pretty, but I'm not sure I can get behind tie die maxi dresses. A mite too hippy dippy for my tastes. But I think I might have to have this:

Eep. $12.99! Come on, Miller. I think we can lift the baby clothes shopping ban for $12.99.

And don't even get me started on Missoni for Target...very excited to see what comes of that. My dream collaboration? Pucci. I know it's never going to happen, but I can't justify Pucci anything on my best days and oh do I love it so.

And speaking of Liberty...Assouline:
This post is a bit Liberty-happy; can you tell Liberty and I forged a healthy relationship while we were across the pond? Well, this department store, maybe my most favorite thing in London next to the V&A, just opened a Literary Lounge in partnership with the supercool literary boutique, Assouline. I love this idea and must go! I've come to realize lately that I am turning into my grandmother (who is in England with my grandfather as we speak), and thus will forever be planning our next trip to London. I'm so lucky I married a guy who feels the same way; we are cautiously optimistic we will make it over there a little before Christmastime this year. I've already decided to send the baby for a little Christmas lights tour of Carnaby and Regent Street with her father while I flip through pretty books and sip champagne in peace (Megha, are you in?). Sounds loverly.

White pants:
They're back! I decided the close to 100 degree temps we recently had, coinciding with Easter, meant it was white pants time. Here we are, at 34 weeks - still carrying SO high:




Here's a least favorite thing: pregnancy hair. Did you know pregnancy makes your hair thicker? For a gal who already has too much hair, this is not a good thing and I'm losing the battle with the humidity thrown in the mix. Thus, I rock the frizzy untamed mane 24/7 these days. On the bright side: just about everything else about this pregnancy. Self + baby are healthy and feeling great. And bedrest really isn't so bad (1 more week to go!).

Weekends:


These days, they're not much more than quality time spent at home with my favorite guy and two little monsters. But they are savored nonetheless as I know we will soon be confusing our nights and days, weekends and weekdays in one happy, exhausted blur.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Mother's Day weekend with their mamas, or are showering them with love from afar. Our mamas are another one of my favorite things, but they deserve their own post. XO