Updates from the Far East!

I know it's been forever since I last blogged! Life is very busy with working full time, going to school full time, and spending time with family. As most everyone knows we're moving back to San Diego in July! We would have liked to get orders to the east coast so we could do more traveling around that area, but San Diego is such a nice city that you can't be disappointed to live there.

Things have been busy here. We went to the Sapporo Snow Festival the beginning of February and Morgan got sick for the first time. She got a double ear infection and bronchiolitus. After two different antibiotics, a 15min breathing treatment at the clinic; which was torture the clinic ran out of infant face masks for the inhaler, so Ryan had to keep the inhaler in her mouth for 15min. She was a great baby for being sick though! Besides her nasty cough, you'd never guess that she was sick.

Morgan is growing up so fast. At 4 months she's close to rolling over from her back to tummy, but just can't seem to get her arm out from under her. She talks ALL the time, bats are her toys, and will put ANYTHING into her mouth. She'll chew on her fingers, get all drooly and then try to touch your face with her nasty fingers. She's such a happy baby, and so easy to take care of. She wakes up around 5-6am, which is great because that's around the time I need to get up and ready for work. Then I drop her off at my friends place (who lives right below me), pick her up around 4pm, and is bed by 7-730pm at the VERY latest. She'll sleep all through the night, which she started to do a little after New Years.

She does well with tummy time. Since being at daycare she gets more tummy time and has tolerated it for much longer periods. She doesn't show any interest of rolling to her back, but trys to pull her legs up under her. We just bought an excersaucer, and she'll play in that for about 5-7min before she gets upset. She used to spit up constantly, but since decreasing the amount she eats and changing her forumla, things have gotten much better; though she does spend her days in bibs. I think next month we'll try a little bit of rice cereal.

Here are a few pictures from the last couple of months.

Four months old: 26inches long, 15lbs 14.7oz. Doctor said she's growing on the 95th percentile, and thinks she'll be about 5'9".

Three months old: about 25 1/2inches long, and about 14 1/2lbs. (I didn't take her measurements this month either, woops!).

Two months old: 24 1/4th inches long, and 13lbs 3oz, this month she started formula and really packed on the weight

One month old: I never measured her height but she was about 10lbs

Funny pacifier Ryan bought, she is out little piggy. She usually only crys when she wants to eat, or when you're burping her because she's so mad you took her bottle away.

Love the look on her face!

Love this picture! "Please mom, can I have another bottle?"

A Christmas dress

Opening her first Christmas presents.

Baby's First Christmas!

Asleep waiting for Santa to come. I love watching her sleep, so peaceful and precious!

Gotta watch out for this one!

Pictures of our cutie pie...

Here are a bunch of pictures of Morgan, they really aren't in order I was just going through all of our files. At her 2week check up she was back at her birth weight, and doing well. She's on formula now, she eats 4 oz every 2 hrs! At night she'll sleep from 9-12, but that's the only 3hr stretch, otherwise right at 2hrs she'll start to cry to eat. I'm gonna have alittle chunkster on my hands! Other than constantly feeding her, she's doing great. Starting to make more faces, stick out her tongue and get a smile or two out that isn't from gas. Enjoy the pictures!

She looks exactly like Ryan!

Meet Morgan Riley!

Announcing: Morgan Riley Braithwaite
Born: October 24th, 2010 10:13am
Weight: 8lb7oz
Height: 22.8in

Thank you all for being patient with us posting about the baby! Everything is going pretty well. We were discharged on Tuesday but when we left Morgan had a slightly elevated bili level, so we had to have it tested today (Wed), before we left town. The limit for day three is 17.9, and she measured 17.8, so rather than getting back to Iwakuni and being admitted to a Japanese hospital was decided to stay and do the photo therapy here. After 4hrs of being under the lights she's dropped to 15.4, and she just has to drop by three I believe. So she'll get tested again in the morning and depending on the levels, if they're good then she'll be taken out of the lights and then tested again in a couple hours, and if all is good then we can finally go home! If not, then we'll be here another day doing therapy. On the 30th, I'll (Alyssia), would have been up here in Yokosuka for a month, so it would be REALLY nice to finally be home.
Well on to the birth story. My due date was last Thursday, 21st, and that day had come and gone. On Saturday we walked to the mall right outside the gate with our friends, looked at a couple stores and then decided to walk to Chili's here on base. In total from the mall to Chili's it's probably about a mile. Which isn't too bad considering we've been walking this base like crazy! I think one day we walked close to 10 miles! So we eat at Chili's and then take a taxi base to the club here on base because there was going to be a live band. We're at the club for a while and I get up to go to the bathroom and my legs felt really big and tingly, I take a look at them and they'd gotten pretty swollen. I've been really lucky with this pregnancy that I had gotten swollen this entire time, so I knew something might be up. So we go home and I put my feet up for awhile and the swelling did go down, but Ryan wanted to get it checked out just in case. We're staying right behind the hospital so it's a 2 min walk to the ER, they take my blood pressure and it was 144/93, which they don't like to see 140/90 in pregnant women. So they send me up to labor and delivery to put me on monitors. I've been having contractions for a few weeks now but nothing that was uncomfortable and that's what they saw on the monitors. The doctor checks me and I'm still 75% effaced, -2 station, and 3cm dilated. She said that since I was over due, with high blood pressure if I wanted I could be induced if I wanted; which I did. So about 1:30am I'm admitted and pitocin is started and around 3:30am I couldn't take the contractions anymore so I got the epidural, which was heaven and I don't think I could have done it without it! At 5:30am, the doctor wanted to check me, and my water broke and I was still at 3cm, so I thought I was in it for the long haul but she checked me again at 9:30am and I was at 9cm and at a -3 station. So she said at 10am I'd start pushing! So at 10am I pushed a couple times with just the nurses, then they called the doctor in and I pushed some more and it all went really quick. I pushed for about 10min or so, and she was here! The doctor didn't even have time to put her gown on, I think she thought I'd take a bit longer to push.
The entire labor went really well, I never wrote up a birth plan and I didn't need to because they were really good about asking what I wanted. Ryan did really well as a coach also; never got faint or sick and even cut the cord, when he cut the cord blood squirt all over. He also got to help out with her first bath and cleaning her up. She was one dirty girl, as soon as she came out she pooped, and pooped while he was holding her in a towel. Breastfeeding is going really well also, and everyone is doing great!
Here are some pictures from delivery.

First Family Picture!

We have some more pictures that we haven't taken off the camera yet. I'll hopefully update with more pictures when we get home and settled in. Thank you for all the congratulations and best wishes!!!

Got our bedding in!

So we got our bedding in today! I'm so excited, it took FOREVER for me to pick out the bedding and I really really like it. It goes perfectly with the colors of the walls. I need some opinions, should I put the blanket on the back of the crib or front?

A close up of the details.

This is where I found Spartacus the other morning, he wants to stay the baby.

Not too much going on here. The baby is moving and kicking away. Ryan gets back from Okinawa in two weeks, I'm looking forward to that! I need someone to rub my feet at night :) When he gets back we're going to get another ultrasound done, and hopefully get a good look at her face and make sure that she's still a girl! Here is another picture of my belly at 28 weeks.

A little update

Not too much going on here, Ryan is getting ready to go to Sgt's course next Sunday for 7 weeks and I'm going to the states next Sunday, but only for 2 weeks :( Here are a few pictures of some clothes that we got. They're so cute and small!

I've been trying to find more purple things, but there isn't a lot whole and they're more expensive. So I'm hoping to find a bunch of good stuff in the states.

I think we've finished our registries at Target and BabiesRUs and we got the okay to paint, so we're going to hopefully start that this week.

This is what we want to do above the changing table, and on the other wall where the crib is do it in the light pink and darker pink strips. I can also find the same crib bedding at Target, but I'm not sure if it's what I want to go with, but it's only an online style so we'll see.

Here is a picture at 18weeks

And here is one at 22 weeks!

I'm liking some of the maternity clothes, but still wearing a lot of my regular clothes. Mostly it's my pants I have to use my bella band with. The maternity clothes make you look a lot bigger! But glad to say that I've only gained 10lbs, which is great because my goal is only 25lbs!

This little girl is kicking away, and Ryan's been feeling her kicks! Which is great because I wanted him to feel her before he left. When he gets back in August we're going to take maternity photos, and then baby photos right after she's born!

And We're Having.........

Out of the 8 people that voted boy/girl, 6 voted boy, 2 voted girl. And the winners are.......................................................................................................................................................................................

GIRL!!!!!!

Here are some pictures from the ultrasound. She was being stubborn at first, and wouldn't let us see, then the tech got her to move. It was a great appointment, it was so nice to talk with someone who spoke English and showed us everything on the ultrasound, answer questions, and give us photos. We got 4 of them, and here at the 2 good ones.

She was breech the entire time basically and had her feet up at her face!

Her cute side profile picture, she has Ryan's lips. It was cute when we got this picture because she was opening and closing her mouth.

Our good friends Casey & Anthony are a week behind us, and they made their appointment for the same time, and they are having a girl too!

We also had a name picked out too, but now that we're having a girl I don't know if it's the right name or not, so we'll see.

Woohooo!

So Ryan is going to be at Sergeants Course from June 29th-August 17th, and I had taken vacation from June 28th-July 11th, so.... I'm going to come home for those two weeks now!!! YAY! I'm so excited! I'll actually be getting in Seattle on Sunday the 27th at 9:30am and leave Saturday around 1:30pm on the 10th.
I'm so excited because we'll be finding out what we're having the second week on June, so I'll be doing LOTS of baby shopping while I'm back. Especially for a jogging stroller, since retailers usually won't ship those. Can't wait!
Otherwise, everything is going good here. Busy with work and school. I've been taking 3 classes each term and I'm only doing two this summer term, so I'm really looking forward to that. And as far as the pregnancy goes, things are going great. I'm feeling fine, maybe a little more tired since I've been in the 2nd trimester, which is opposite since I was fine in the 1st trimester. Still haven't felt sick, and I'm getting a little baby bump, I'll have to post a picture soon. Other than that, nothing new!