At the hospital before Aliyah's arrival

At Medical City getting ready to give birth...As you can see I am smiling since this pic was taken after I was given the epidural:) Gals, ALWAYS ask for Epidural!!!

Poor hubby...he was worn out

Dr. Vernon, Kim delivered both Jared (years ago) and our daughter Aliyah. She is the best Obstetricians I have ever had. In D Magazine, Dr. Vernon was voted by her peers as “one of the best doctors in Dallas” in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.

She was being checked to see if both her ears can hear well and it sure passed the test

My sis finally got to hold her after waiting outside my delivery room asking for every nurse to let her in:)

Two weeks old

first picture of the three of us

Grandpa holding Aliyah for Cousin Caroline...how cute! Caroline is almost 2 years old and she seems to enjoy having a younger cousin since her brother 'Luke' is older. I bet she can't wait to try to teach her the things her brother thought her:)


Dr. Vernon, Kim delivered both Jared (years ago) and our daughter Aliyah. She is the best Obstetricians I have ever had. In D Magazine, Dr. Vernon was voted by her peers as “one of the best doctors in Dallas” in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Aliyah sucking her thumb again...

Two weeks since Aliyah has been Booooorn! I have to say I wasn’t completely ready for all the surprises and the “NO SLEEP” nights for the first couple of days. I was completely wiped out from all I've been through -- the delivery, the constant feedings, the overwhelming newness of it all. But it was and is all worth it. I have to say everyone has been very helpful and made our life a lot easier and we are grateful for that. THERE IS NOTHING LIKE YOUR FAMILY AND GOOD FRIENDS!!!

Her week one has been all about listening to her and doing whatever it takes to not have her cry. It almost hurts when you hear your baby cry. This week, we were much better recognizing her cues almost immediately. She usually cries only when she is either hungry, wants to be held or needs a diaper change. Our Aliyah wants to be fed pretty much around the clock like her daddy:) Overall it is becoming a lot easier than the first week and I am sure it only get better.

More pixs of Aliyah!!!

Aliyah Belay Cahill has entered the world!!!

Trying to burb her...

My peaceful angel sleeping

After enjoying her in my belly for almost 40 weeks, our little Angel was born at Medical City of Dallas on December 10, 2008 at 3:07PM. She was 7 pounds and 13 Ounces and 20 ½ inches.

On Tuesday, I went into the doctor's office for my regular visit and the doctor mentioned that she thinks the baby is almost 8 pounds and it would be good to go ahead and get her out now before she is too big and would have to do C-Section later. At the time, my cervix was completely closed and I wasn’t dilating at all so she advised me to either induce that day or do a biophysical profile on Friday to determine the condition of the baby and then induce. She was quite adamant that she would not allow me to be more than one more week late – considering the size of the baby. J and I discussed our options and decided to go ahead and be induced that day. We went to the hospital at 9:00PM and were given cervidil around 11:00PM to loosen my Cervix since it was completely closed. By 12:00PM, I started feeling my first contractions. Not too bad – I was able to breathe through them without any problem and was up walking around. By 1:00AM, my contractions were hurting so bad I had to call and tell the nurse I need any pain medication she can give me. She went ahead and checked me and said I was already dilated almost two cm by then and decided to give me the epidural. After the epidural, the pain was gone within five minutes. Before the epidural, it was the most painful thing I have ever felt in my life. I laid back in bed and relaxed after that since I was able to push the button to add more medicine, I was a happy person. By 12:00 PM the next day, I was 10 centimeters dilated and ordered to push. I was so exhausted I could barely push since I was up pretty much all night but I was ready for Aliyah to come out. I was placed on a birthing bar to help – this is a bar attached to the bed. I placed my feet on the bar and used a sheet attached to the middle of the bar in order to pull myself up with pushing. J and the nurse held my legs up while I pushed for about two hours, and was beyond exhaustion. The nurse called the doctor after pushing for about an hour and half and they were ready to take Aliyah out. They took her out within 20 min and it was the best feeling I have ever had when she was out and crying.

My sister was able to change her flight and came to see me and my mom will be able to come on Sunday and stay with me for about a month. Js family, which has been supportive thru out my pregnancy and our friends have been coming to visit our precious baby and us.

Now, I am at the hospital and enjoying the bundle of joy in my life. It is almost like a dream – I'm afraid that I will wake up any moment and find that this was all a dream but of course, it is real.

A Peek at my 37 Weeks Maternity Pixs!

"Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward."
~Psalm 127:3~

We decided to take some more pictures since I have gotten a lot bigger since last time I took pictures. It's amazing how you see your body change everyday. You think you can only get so big, but then its all a blessing from God.

In the nursery...

What should I say...I am just a happy mommy-to-be

As the 'BIG' day gets closer...

I did my last sonogram 2 weeks ago and everything looks good. Our daughter weighs about 6.8 pounds and about 19 1/2 inches long. We are now wondering about what she will look like, what color her eyes will be, what her skin will look like, her hair and etc..

As my pregnancy progresses farther along and the end is in sight - only 11 days to go- I have been stressing things that need to be done before our daughters arrival and also decide what we will be needing for that "Big" day. I have been going to yoga classes to ease my labor. I have heard every delivery experience there is from so many different women and I hope mine will be an easy one with less pain but of course I expect the worst just in case. We got our hospital luggage ready and I am ready to take off work on Friday, Dec 5th and looking forward to the new challenges that motherhood will bring me.

J and I have taken all the childbirth classes there are out there :) It is very helpful especially for first time parents like us to learn what to expect from labor, the days afterwards, breastfeeding, CPR and a lot of other things you have never heard of from other people. We also took a tour of the hospital where they show you where the delivery room will be and what to do when you get to the hospital when its time.

Of course you never know whether you will be having a C-Section or a natural birth until its time but I much rather have natural birth so we will see. Some people say no drugs and beg for drugs once they are in it and I am sure I will be taking them! My thoughts before this, actually, have been - No epidural! But now it is bring on the pain killers since I do not want to be in pain.

I am hoping to be breastfeeding about a year after listening about all the pros which include helping you loose the pregnancy weight, the benefits for the baby, cost effectiveness and much more…

“What brand of diapers will you be using?”

Anyone who has ever had a baby or is about to has heard the question, "What brand of diapers will you be using? Some will swear that there is no difference between brands, while others are fiercely loyal to one or the other. I never thought about much of it when I first thought about diapers. I just thought they were all pretty much the same and you just go pick whatever. After few researches I have made over the Internet and reading people’s opinion, I have found out that Huggies diapers, manufactured by Kimberly Clarke, and Pampers diapers, manufactured by Proctor and Gamble, are probably the two best known brands of diapers.

For our little girl that is about to be born I think we will go ahead and try Pampers since I have heard that Pampers Swaddlers work the very best for newborn babies. They are made in such a fashion that they are soft enough to not irritate a newborn baby's skin. Also, the top band of the diaper reaches to just under the umbilical cord stump, so as to not irritate that sensitive area. The Pampers Swaddlers also feature very good Velcro-like side closures. When we took the parenting class the hospital also mentioned that pampers Swaddlers are typically the brand of diaper that are handed out in the hospital when the baby is born. So we will let you know if we made a good choice or not.

My 34 Weeks Maternity Pictures!

Seeing how I have a baby belly and a desire to document my pregnancy, I figured I'd try a maternity photo shoot to remember for later. I wanted to go get professional pictures taken but then I had a friend ask me if I wanted a photographer she knew that just relocated to Dallas that would love to take my maternity pictures. I was pretty hesitant at first but then I went ahead and gave it a shot. I didn't think I would like any of the pictures but surprisingly some turned out to be good. I guess the photographer (Joy Neville Photography) did great after all.

Posing for the pictures was a lot harder than I thought since my body wasn't cooperating at all and I have never been good at posing for pictures:) Let's just say it was hard!!!
Here they are …

My lips look a lot bigger than they actually are:)

O...My shy hubby

Getting the nursery ready for our little angel!!!

Well we are counting down the days till out little angel comes. One of the most exciting times of this pregnancy has been setting up the nursery. Since this is our first child – J and I have started from scratch with shopping for baby supplies. For both of us – we like to analyze all items and read reviews before making any large purchase or any purchases at all. The crib was our first item purchased. I looked at a lot of different cribs and read many, many reviews of what people liked or disliked about them. It is amazing the different types of cribs that are available – but the trend does seem to lean towards these convertible style cribs. These items grow with the child – starting off as the baby crib, and then changing into a toddler bed, daybed, and finally a full-size bed. The only pain that I can foresee about this style of crib is keeping track of the hardware for all the different conversions over the years.

I think the most fun, though, was decorating the room. Starting with a blank, white room to deciding to paint something neutral since we did not know we were going to have a girl or a boy. We had the joys of deciding of what color palette to go with. Even though we did not know whether we were having a girl or a boy, we knew we would always stay far away from the color pink. I think that some parents can go overboard on using that color for painting a girl's room. Pink on pink can be a touch too much – and difficult to find things as well. Since we chose cherry finish on the furniture – we decided to go with purple and green colors for the walls. Then we allowed our creativity to come into play with decorating on the walls or maybe painting on the walls later:)

Overall, it has been fun readying the room for our daughter's arrival. Stocking the changing table with burp cloths and wipes for now since we haven't bought the diapers yet. Dealing with the small details, such as arranging stuffed animals around the room, hanging the most adorable clothes in the closet, putting the swings and the stroller together and so on. Now, comes the hardest part – the waiting. Waiting for the big day when we get to show our daughter her new room. I hope that she likes all the work that went into it – at least you will know if she doesn't cry much in her room since she wont really tell us whether she likes it or not. The only way to find out is if she is happy in her room and sleeps thru the nite:)

Ok, we finally picked a pediatrician!

One thing we had left to do before our little one enters the world was to choose a new pediatrician. Your doctor and all the pregnancy and baby books give you a detailed method on how to choose a doctor to care for your newborn. You should interview about 4-5 doctors, asking about their hours, what privileges they have at the hospital, how do they deal with colic - before choosing one that you feel comfortable handling your precious child. We interviewed 2 so far which one was recommended to us by my obstetrician and the other one by my sister in law’s friend and my obstetrician. We were never open to having a male pediatrician until this one was referred to us by two people and wanted to give it a try.

Today was the day we did our second interview with the male pediatrician we probably will go with. We liked most of the answers he gave us for our questions and was happy to see all the advance technology system the office uses. I have always believed that younger doctors are better so they can relate to us better and they don’t just assume things before they do any kind of tests when your child is sick. Now all we have to do is sit back and wait for our little girl to be born...

60 DAYS TO GO...

I can't believe we only have 60 days to go before our daughter is born... we have a parenting conference we will be going to this coming weekend that was given to us by J's brother and his wife K, we are looking forward to that. I am sure it will be different and we will be trained on various topics related to parenting. It starts on Friday night with an evening of entertainment with comedian Tim Hawkins. Teaching sessions and breakout courses are scheduled throughout the day on Saturday. It is held at the Marriott....Breakfast is included at the hotel and will have lunch voucher at different restaurants in the area. I think it is a really cool idea and I am glad they got it for us as our baby gift!

J and I are counting down the quiet weekends we have together till the little one comes. We just opened up our gifts from the shower and put things away and still have more to do. I am so glad I did my shower ahead of time that way, we have plenty of time between now and delivering. All we have been doing lately, or at least try to do is relax as much as we can and go to the movies since that's the only fun thing to do for pregnant woman:)

My Baby Shower...

I looked around and saw all my family and friends who came out to celebrate and I was happy. My mom came all the way from Ethiopia, my aunt from Los Angeles, my cousin from Charlotte, my sister and brother from Detroit and my other brother from DC. I felt so special that everyone had dropped their schedule to fly and see me...all of them having played a special part in my life in one way or another. I just got the warmest feeling looking around the room and I realized how lucky I am to have such dear family and friends! I had the best time catching up with them all.They had a game planned which was answering questions about baby names, how many diapers are needed for a year and so on; my smart aunty was pretty much answering them all, not giving anyone else a chance to answer:)

Then everyone showered me with the most amazingly precious gifts. I got ALL the big and expensive stuff bought off my registry which always helps:) And my baby girl has more clothes than I do ALREADY. In fact, I am thinking of adding an extra clothes pole in the nursery closet! While I was opening my presents, unexpected guest arrived and surprised me…my brother with my little nephew. I was not expecting to see him at all since things didn't work out and he wasn't planning on coming. I was sooooooooooooo happy to see my 22 month old nephew who I haven't seen in a while. Then my other brother followed in from Detroit….I was so happy to see them all there. The moment reminded me again how lucky I am.

Then the day came to an end. I didn't want it to be over as I saw everyone heading out one by one. It made me realize even more how important the close people are in your life and that we should all try to find the time to spend with those special people.

So, thanks BIGTIME to my FAMILY and FRIENDS and SPECIAL thanks to everyone who threw the shower and gave me one of the best days in my life! And thanks to all my other gals who took time out of their busy schedules to be there. I realized how crazy I have been lately and I need to stop and smell the roses more often. So I have made a vow to do that (somewhere in between the diaper changing, burping, breastfeeding, and blessing of a very, very special little girl about to come into my life:)

How my life is changing...

These past two weeks we have been rushing around trying to get to childbirth classes and prepare our baby's room while still taking care of all our other daily tasks. Not only I have started eating for two but also started craving for so many different kinds of food lately. I have been tired a lot lately but for some reason I have not been getting enough rest so I will do my best to rest this week.

My shower is on September 20th and I have family and friends that will be coming from out of town. Last month September 20th seemed like it was years away but time went by so quick it is already here and i am trying to do as much as i can before i get even bigger. I am pretty excited to see my mom and the rest of my family. .. I am the first girl in the family to be pregnant so I am sure everyone is excited about it like I am!!! I almost wish September 20th was my due date since I can't wait but then I have this great connection with her inside my belly so I guess I would love for my daughter to stay in there for a little longer:)

I am finally BIG!!!

After trying on all my dresses for about an hour to go to a wedding, I realized that none of 'em fits me and would have to go get one...lets just say it was a long afternoon for me to find anything anywhere. I wanted to wear pink since I am having a girl and finally found a regular dress NOT a maternity in size ___.

After looking at this picture that was taken this past Saturday, I realized I am finally BIG...It looks like all of a sudden I blew up overnight!!! Or it might just be because the picture was taken too close-up:)

23 weeks and NOTHING fits me!!!

I'm 23 weeks and so far I've been living in between the skirts I have and the two maternity pants I bought that kinda fits me. They are the only thing I own that fits. I've tried that bella band and I can’t stand it. It constantly rolls up and feels to constraining. I looked in maternity stores and I don't fit into those clothes yet but then I look in clothes that are my regular size or even bigger and they are way too small around my belly or too big around my shoulder. It looks like sweat suits is what I have to look forward to for the next few months…But then I can’t wear those to work so have NO clue what I will do!!!

Js Birthday!

I had a surprise birthday party for J yesterday since life will change once the baby comes. We only had family over and had a great time...I wanted to be in the picture so bad so I can atleast have some pictures since I never took one lately. It looks like I gained a little bit weight every where but not a whole lot yet atleast! J gained it all for me tho:) I will post more pictures as I get bigger!!!

New Life Growing...

Upon going far for my Third Sonogram and seeing our baby move around, I got emotional and realized at that moment there was a new life growing inside me that would embrace us. It was beyond miraculous. Words just can’t describe it. Today, we went to go see our little girl again did another sonogram and confirmed the sex. Eventho we think technology is so great and doctors are always right but there has been times where people were told it was going to be one gender and find out it was a different gender that they were expecting.I am starting to show a little now while our little girl is growing bigger and bigger and I promise you I will be posting pictures soon. I know most of you guys has asked so I promise I will have pictures on here soon.

50% of my pregnancy is completed...HORAAAAAAAY!!!

Well everything is good so far so we are pretty happy about that. There was a time where I felt like I can hear our baby’s heart beat but I think I was just imagining it. It is funny how people say they don't want to find out the gender of the baby till birth! Isn’t waiting for our baby to come to us enough waiting/Surprise????? We were just told that we will be having a
G I R L!!!!!!!!!!!! You have no idea how happy I was eventho I convinced myself ahead of time either way I would be happy. It is just so much fun to have a girls as your first child...

A BOY OR A GIRL???????

When you're pregnant, there's one question that everyone asks — is it a boy or is it a girl? Well lets turn around and ask you those questions??? What do you think it will be? Everyone seems to have their own myths and predictions of what the sex will be.

We are very ANXIOUS to know...especially since it is our first child we just can't wait to find out...When you have no idea whether it is going to be a boy or a girl, you start looking at stuff that can be for both boys or girls and picking out names for both ...After a while it gets tiring and you just WANT TO FIND OUT so we did an early Sonogram and they said they are pretty much sure it is a ------------- Sorry can't tell you yet...just wait another month and we will know for sure...

Houston

We took a trip to Houston in April 08'...We both kinda had a feeling that I was pregnant but we didn't find out til we got back to Dallas. We figured it might be our last trip before the baby if we found out I was pregnant so we decided to have a good time and we had a BLAST!

Pregnancy!!!

Don't know where to start but pregnancy is something you think you know, asked so many questions and understand, experienced it but it is sure full of surprises everyday!!

Our story begins when Jared and I met about 3 years ago, and got married and thought we have years before we start a family but life is full of surprises and we got P R E G N A N T! I am four months pregnant now expecting to deliver on December 15th God willing... Its pretty exciting don't get me wrong. I love kids and always have just never thought I will have one anytime soon since we all seem to think we are too young.

I am sure you are asking how big I have gotten already?! It is funny but I actually don't look pregnant but I do look FAT! Who would ever want to look fat?! Well never thought I would but I actually ...so I refuse to upload my pictures yet...I will once I actually look pregnant:)