Can't believe July is right around the corner!

Cadence is now 3 weeks old. We are having a great time with our sweet baby! Here are some updated pictures...enjoy!

Ready for my first trip to church!

Our baby is very zen...

Snug as a bug...

Cadence with her 3 beautiful cousins, Emilee, Lily, and Gracie. Girls rock!

Our 2 girls :)

The proofs from Cadence's photo shoot are available for viewing online! Click on the link to visit the photographer's blog. http://www.kimmyhowardphotography.com/Blog/ Cadence's pictures are listed under "Sweet Baby 'C'." The photographer picked out what she felt were the best pictures to post. If you would like to see all of the photos that she took, you can visit http://www.kimmyhowardphotography.com Click on the picture that says "enter site." At the bottom right-hand corner, click on "client proofing." The password is: Cadence1. Make sure you use a capital "C." Please enjoy! We are in love with all of the pictures! The photographer did an excellent job!

We've been home for a week now, and boy, has it flown by! We're all doing great. We were able to get some cute pictures in the meantime. Enjoy!

Asleep on Daddy's chest

Dog and babe snoozin'

At Grandma & Poppa's for the first time!

In deep thought...

She makes a lot of funny faces!

Just chillin'

Already best friends :)

Hospital Photo Shoot

You can check out Cadence's glamour shots from her hospital photo shoot! Visit
http://www.our365.com/NewbornPortraits/MountCarmelBabyDetail.aspx?birthid=b96540ef-89b9-424e-afe4-dadf8c7b9780

We're Home!

We're finally home...and loving every moment. Danny and I could stare at Cadence all day. We absolutely love her. She's a great baby. We all came home on Tuesday afternoon. We were originally supposed to come home on Monday, but Cadence had other plans...

About 6 hours after Cadence was born (around 9:00 pm), one of the nurses who was taking care of me came into our room to let us know that while she was completing some routine tests, the decision was made to admit Cadence to the NICU. We were told that she was breathing rapidly and they were concerned with her oxygen levels. Around midnight, the NICU nurse practitioner (who knows my mom well), came into our room and told us that there were several reasons as to why Cadence might be having difficulties, but we would have to wait for more results. We were both completely overwhelmed and nervous about our baby's future.

During the early morning hours (2:00 am or so), Danny and I went to visit Cadence in the NICU. It was really hard seeing her hooked up to so many monitors! Especially since she seemed so healthy when we saw her last. The neonatologist would be making his rounds in the morning so we knew we would have to wait until then to receive the chest x-ray results and we would have to see if her blood culture results came back negative (they thought she might have pneumonia). We would either be going home on Tuesday or as late as next Saturday if she was sick .

It was nerve wracking when holding Cadence. The nurses were monitoring her heart rate, her respiratory rate, and her oxygen levels. She was also hooked up to oxygen through her nose. Sometimes one of her sensors would come loose and her monitors would begin beeping. We would get so nervous that something was happening!

Every day, Cadence graduated to a new level. At first she was weaned off of her oxygen. After that, she no longer was under a warmer. Next they were able to decrease the amount of fluids she was receiving from her IV. We weren't able to feed her in the beginning.

It was difficult being in the NICU, but the experience allowed us to meet a lot of great nurses and doctors that were able to help us along the way. Breastfeeding slowly became a breeze after all of the help we received. Cadence was eventually taken off of all monitors. It was reassuring to hear one of the nurses refer to Cadence as a "large" baby. There were so many babies around Cadence that were having a lot of difficulties. We felt blessed to have a baby that was doing so well.

Everyone at St. Ann's was phenomenal and tried their best to make Danny and me comfortable. Danny was such a great support and I don't know what I would have done without him. He is going to be the best dad.

I appreciate all of the help that we received from family and friends -- especially from my mom. She was working the night that we were admitted to the hospital and clocked out when we arrived. She was running on even less sleep than we were, but you would have never known it!

When we were discharged, it was determined that Cadence had Transient Tachypnea of Newborn (and not meconium aspiration or pneumonia). I looked online to learn more about TTN, and basically, a baby with TTN breathes faster and harder to get enough oxygen into the lungs because extra fluid still remains in the lungs after birth. If you want to learn more, you can visit http://kidshealth.org/parent/medical/lungs/ttn.html.

Here is a group shot with Dr. Jenkins. She is a terrific doctor. I had no doubt that she was going to make sure Cadence arrived into this world safely!

One of mom's co-workers decorated Cadence's crib for us! It was so cute and really lifted our spirits!

Here is Cadence in the NICU hooked up to all of her monitors, but still as cute as can be!

Here is the proud Daddy!

Grandma Iacobucci and Cadence

Cadence with Poppa Iacobucci

Uncle Mike with Cadence

Mammaw Schuerman and Cadence

Pappaw Schuerman and Cadence

Our little Buckeye!

Time to go home!!!

On our way!

First impromptu bath after (after her first blow-out!) She wasn't too thrilled, but she was clean!

Scarlet already babysitting!

Cadence and Scarlet enjoying tummy-time!

It's a girl!

Cadence Rae Schuerman was born June 5, 2010 at 3:23 pm. She weighed 7 lbs., 1 oz. and measured 20 inches! I was totally convinced we were having a boy...Danny thought it was a girl all along. :) She is the prettiest baby we've ever seen (of course we're biased). She is very calm and hardly cries (we're sure that will change in a couple of weeks). She might end up being a stubborn little girl, though. After waiting until 41 weeks to make her debut, she made me push for over 3 hours with a total of 20 hours of labor! She was worth every minute of it!

I had a doctor's appointment on Friday and we ended up scheduling an induction for Saturday morning at 5:00 am. Cadence decided that she finally wanted to meet us around 7:00 pm. and my contractions started to progress. I thought I might try to sleep through them, but that wasn't happening. The contractions became very strong and very regular. We left to go to the hospital at 1:00 in the morning and ended up having a baby without the scheduled induction! Danny was an awesome birthing coach (even without classes - mom gave us a private class at home since she's a labor and delivery RN) and my mom and Danny's mom were there to help as well. The nursing staff was great and my doctor was calm, cool, and collected.

We can't wait to start our new life with our new, precious baby!

40-ish weeks!

Now we just wait! Today the doctor said that not much had changed since last week. I was pretty disappointed. With as many contractions that I've had, I figured something had changed! I have gained 2 lbs. since last week and my belly measured 36 cm...so the baby is still growing! I am scheduled for another non-stress test on Friday. Assuming everything is fine with the baby, the doctor said I can go either way. At that point, I can decide to be induced or I can wait it out another week. There are pros and cons to either decision, but we are leaning towards being induced. Hopefully by this time next week, we'll have a new baby boy or girl! We'll keep you posted!