Baby Ortyl: Isla P

Ya'll are stuck with the guest blogger again tonight. There are lots of pictures below to make up for all the verbiage here at the top, so bear with me.

First of all, thank you for all the kind notes everyone sent back from our birth announcement last night. I read every one to Becky and Isla. Beck loved them all, Isla, for some odd reason, seemed disinterested. :-) They were all so thoughtful and very sweet. We really appreciated them.

Me, Beck and Isla stayed in the post-partem room last night while Connie, Sal and T headed back to our house to crash. We had a really rough night, not totally unexpected. Isla wasn't getting the food she wanted and she was sure to let us know about it. We didn't understand, at the time, what she was upset about, so it was really tough for us. Becky had to be on some superwoman medicine because she slept about 30 minutes and it didn't seem to bother her. Me, on the other hand, couldn't keep my eyes open. I tried sleeping through the crying and would wake up, ask Beck what I could do to help and she'd say "go back to bed". I ended up with about two and a half hours of sleep.

The early morning hours weren't much better since we were visited by the nurse a few times, then a diabetes nurse, then another nurse checking her hearing, then the pediatrician showed up, then the guy who double checked the car seats, then the OBGYN, then the person with the birth certificate form...every time we thought we were going to be able to relax, that damn door would open yet again! It was insane! We finally realized to put the "Mommy Is Sleeping" sign up.

But our final visitor of the morning was a God send....a Lactatian Nurse (Chris) visited us mid-morning. She assessed the situation, saw how Isla was pretty disinterested in breastfeeding, so she gave Isla a few sips of formula from a bottle and she went to town like she hadn't eaten anything!! We then had to supplement the breastfeeding with tiny drops of formula to entice little, hungry Isla to keep at it....and she did! After not eating for more than 10 minutes total her first 18 hours or so, she chowed down for 35 minutes and slept peacefully for FOUR HOURS in the nursery. FINALLY!!!!

Speaking of the nursery, I rolled her down there for the first time around noon today just so Beck could have some quiet. Connie, Sal & T headed to Cherry Creek Mall and I headed home for a power nap with Ashby. Beck had three hours of sleep, more than she'd had in the last 33 hours combined.

Here's a pic of Isla in a gown sent to us by Cathy Woodyard (the picture doesn't do the beauty of the gown justice, so we'll have to get more pics later on). Cathy actually wore this when she was a baby. Isla loved it! Thanks so much Cathy.

Shortly after Beck woke back up, we had two vases of flowers waiting for us! Thanks to Aunt Shani & Uncle Wahl and Grandma & Grandpa Ortyl!!

When I went home, I took two of Isla P's little caps that she has been wearing at the hospital. We read about getting dogs acclimated to babies and this was one of things to be sure to do. Ashby is the biggest sniffer around and I swear I've never seen her sniff so much! But she was awesome...she sniffed and sniffed and then just laid across one of them for a nap of her own. Here are a couple of adorable pics of AshAsh with Isla's tiny caps (notice the cap tucked under her arm in the bottom picture):

By the way, "Isla P" seems to be the nickname we're using for our baby girl. Not sure how it came about, but we were all using it. Beck thinks that she threw it out as a potential nickname months ago, but who knows. Regardless, it looks like it's stuck. Additionally, our little friend Ms. Moore likes to identify "rapper names" for all of her friends. So, Ms. Moore, no work needs to be done for Isla. Isla P should have her first album out in a few years. Something tells me it'll be sassy!

We just finished up dinner a couple hours ago (I picked up some carryout from Cherry Creek Grill) and the Fox girls are taking turns oogling over Isla. Sal and Christina leave to get back to their lives tomorrow, so they're soaking the little girl in!

Here's a cute little video of Sally giving Isla her first manicure. It's a classic because of Isla's adorable, yet huge, yawn right at the beginning (and of course Beck making fun of me).

Here are some great snapshots from tonight after dinner...little Isla P was right in the middle of a long ol' nap, so we all took turns holding her.

Isla P & T:

Isla & Sal:

And here's the whole Fox clan. Sal is giving Beck a tutorial on breast pumps while Connie works away on a baby blanket for Gray Broermann (Sal's youngest of four):