Charlotte's Birth Story

My sweet pea celebrates her first birthday tomorrow!  I can hardly believe it.  She has been such a joy to us from the minute she was born.

A year ago today, we were preparing to go to the hospital for her birth.  Paul's mom came up to help with Joey and we enjoyed dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant (it's a Losavio family tradition).  Early the next morning, Paul and I arrived at the hospital at 5 a.m. for induction.  It was so bitterly cold - the parking garage was iced over and Paul nearly fell on his arse as we were walking in.  Better him than the pregnant one, I'm sure he'll admit.

It was a busy day in Labor & Delivery and we were very lucky to get the last available room.  I would have been devastated if they had sent us away, but fortunately that didn't happen.  Believe me, I changed into that hospital gown and jumped into the bed as quickly as I could; I did not want to give up our room!  Our nurse started Pitocin around 7 a.m., but my labor officially started at 8:45 when my doctor broke my water.  My pain was tolerable, but the nurse anesthetist was extremely busy so I got on the waiting list for an Epidural.  By the time she got to me, the pain was still fine, but I was going to get my drugs while I could!  Once the Epidural kicked in, and the Pitocin was increased, my contractions were coming 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 minutes apart and were pretty intense.  Fortunately I couldn't feel a thing.

Around 3:15 p.m., after 6 1/2 hours of lazing watching TV resting labor, my doctor came in to check my progress.  And to her surprise, there was a head (I had a really good Epidural).  My doctor scrubbed up and the prepared the room for the delivery superfast.  After two rounds of pushing, not even 5 minutes, Charlotte was born at 3:29 p.m.  She initially scored a nine on her Apgar for her color, but when she was reassessed she scored a ten.  She weighed 7 lbs, 1 oz, and was 19 1/4 inches long.

Joey adored her baby sister from the moment they met.  She would hardly let anyone else hold her and became very concerned whenever Charlotte cried.

Here is the video from when Joey and Charlotte first met:

When Joey met Charley from Paul Losavio on Vimeo.

And some more pictures from Charlotte's first year:

birth

1 month

2 months

3 months

4 months

5 months

6 months

7 months

8 months

9 months

10 months

11 months

Party Planning Committee: Fabrics

For Charlotte's birthday party, I decided to create a banner and coordinating table runner out of fabric.  I could have used scrapbook paper for the banner, which would have been just as cute, but I wanted it to match the table runner.  Plus, I think that the banner will look precious hanging in Charlotte's room when the party is over.  Soooo, I assessed what I already had and then when to Fabric.com to choose some additional fabric.  I plan to do basically the same thing for Joey's birthday in February, so I ordered plenty for a second project.

These are the fabrics that I'll use for Charlotte's party decor:

And this is her party invitation, for reference:

The fabric and invitation are not matchy-matchy, but each fabric includes at least one color from her invitation.

Last night I started working on the table runner.  I did not take pictures to document the process, but the project is very straightforward.  I used my rotary cutter and self-healing cutting mat (thanks, Paul!) to cut strips of varying lengths but (fairly) uniform width.  And then I stitched them together to form a long strip.  Sorry, no pictures, but imagine something like this:

That's not an accurate representation by any means, but get the picture?  Okay, good.

Now I just need to trim up the edges and stitch the runner and the liner together.  For the liner I'm using a couple of yards of cheap off-white broadcloth, cut to the size of the runner.  I'll stitch "right sides" together on three sides (like a pillow case) and then turn inside-out and stitch the fourth side closed.

Next on the agenda will be making her banner(s) from the above fabrics.  I will cut the fabric into triangles and attach a fabric backing.  Right now I'm thinking of using a no-sew method - Heat n Bond - so that the little flags will be stiffer.  Imagine that it will look something like this,  but hopefully with nice straight lines:

I'll share pictures of the actual table runner and banner soon, if only to prove that I can cut a straight line.