4 Months

4 Months old and our little squish is such a mover. She wants to crawl so badly, she can occasionally get her knees under her but can't actually coordinate them to move. She can really go on her belly though, it's not unusual for us to put her down at one end of her play space and find her on the other a minute later. While we don't see any teeth popping out yet, she's chewing on anything and everything that she can get in her mouth. Her hands, our hands, her toys, her clothes, my boob, my braided pigtails, anything she can gnaw on with those super strong gums. She can allllmost sit up on her own, you can watch her mind trying to work out gravity and the act of balance.

She really found her feet at 15 weeks and since then she hasn't wanted to let them go. She's been trying to get them for awhile but I think she had to wait for her legs to get long enough to reach around her fluffy cloth butt. She has such long legs for a little one, while she can wear a 3-6 month in pants and shirts, we've had to switch out all her jammies with feet for 6-9 months. To our absolute delight, she's started to laugh over the past month, this deep, belly giggle that just melts my heart right into a puddle.

She loves kisses from her mama, watching her kitties, grabbing her daddy's nose.

She raises her eyebrow and smiles with her mouth wide open when she roots in her sleep.

She's curious, tenacious, stubborn, full of joy and wonder.

Towards the end of three months, she started to hit the 4 month sleep regression, which seems improperly named to me since it's a permanent change in how her brain processes sleep. Prior to this, most babies experience only deep sleep, which is one of the reasons they can sleep anywhere. Around 4 months their brains begin to change and they start to experience a more adult sleep pattern - light sleep, deep sleep, light sleep - the natural sleep cycle. This leads to a whole lot of wake ups and some serious cranky babies and parents, but she doesn't seem to be too bad. There were maybe three days where she was waking up at night crying, she really values her sleep and has no more desire to be awake at 3am than we do, but she's been doing fairly well since. We really love co-sleeping with her, it's a true sanity saver for our family and I don't know how we'd get such good sleep without it. Feeling her breathe is the only way I know how to sleep now.

3 Months!

My sweet girl is 3 months old! She's officially out of her newborn diapers *sniff* and is getting so big. She mastered, as in not just a one off, rolling front to back at 9 weeks and rolling back to front at 12 weeks. She can scoot all over her playmat on her tummy and loves the new jumperoo we just bought her. She instinctively knew how to spin the toys and she talks to herself while she plays with them, processing her world. She's such a happy baby. 

As of right now, her likes include being outside, bath time, her fingers, books, boobie, and melting her parent's hearts. Her dislikes include naps, being put down, having to wear clothes and artificial boobies. She looks at me like I'm absolutely crazy when we offer her a bottle or pacifier. Surely, bottles can't actually be for eating, no, they must be for chewing or grabbing or throwing on the floor, but definitely not for eating.

It's Time for Dodger Baseball

Summer is here and it's baseball season! Baseball is a pretty big part of our lives, it makes up the bulk of E's summer work schedule and he's a huge fan as well. We used to have season tickets to the Dodgers for several years until E ended up working all the games. Baby A is going to grow up around a lot of sports and sports production, the only reason she hasn't already visited her daddy at work is her lack of immunities. Since I'm so allergic, we've been working hard with her pediatrician to try and find her latex free vaccines and until we get that sorted out, we're staying away from most crowds. Until then, A and I will be enjoying the games at home! 

Rockin' and Rollin'

I can't believe it but baby A is officially on the roll! We haven't been doing a lot of dedicated tummy time, most of it has been her hanging out on my chest, but we did just recently start putting her on her mat since she's beginning to be more aware of her toys. She especially likes these plastic rings my mom found from when I was a baby and they proved to be the perfect incentive for rolling and scooting.

She's been scooting on her belly since 8 weeks and can manage some serious distance when she wants something but the rolling just happened yesterday. She was hanging out on her mat, studying her rings when she just decided to go over. Then she did it again, and again, and again later when E got home. Of course the only video I could get was her rolling off the side of the mat, but it still counts. 

Of course I was hoping she'd stay stationary a bit longer, a stationary baby is much easier to keep track of when you want to say go pee or grab something to drink, but it's clear that nothing is going to keep this baby down. Holding her head up at birth, rolling over at 9 weeks, what's next, college??

When your best friend has four legs...

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Happy 5th Birthday Milou!

Today is Milou's 5th birthday! She has proven to be such a wonderful big fur sister to baby A. She watches over her while she's sleeping, comes over to see what's wrong when she cries, and if A is ever on the floor, Milou has to come over to clean her feet and ears. She adores her.

I feel pretty rotten that Milou has been out of her classes for so long, we had to stop going when I got too big to move around easily and now with baby A here, we haven't been able to go back yet. I'm still not sure if it's even possible to manage her classes with a baby, but if there's any way to do it I intend to find a way to make it work. Milou is such a good girl and I know she's really missing the exercise and interaction. Hopefully I can get her back into at least one of them as a birthday gift.

Caught a Smile

Caught one of the sweetest smiles on camera. Baby A has been smiling since between 4 and 5 weeks and each one just melts my heart. I can't get enough of this amazing little person!

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Happy 1 Month to My Sweet Love

Somehow, incredibly, baby A is already a month old. I have no idea how this happened, I still can't believe we were pregnant in the first place, and she's already getting so big. This little girl is the center of our world and we are so in love. After hearing everyone talk I expected motherhood to be more challenging, breast feeding trouble, baby blues, colic and crying, but instead it feels like we are two pieces of the same whole. I'm so happy it seems ridiculous. When she wakes up at night to eat and looks at me with those deep eyes I'm so happy to see her that I don't feel tired. She's a champion nurser, breast feeding is coming so naturally to us, and when the sleepiness hits in the afternoon, we curl up together on the couch and nap where I can feel her breathe and smell the top of her sweet head. She's been in cloth diapers for about two weeks now and those are working out brilliantly, no blow outs and E has been taking care of the laundry which is super simple. Life is good. 

 

At one month old, Baby A...

Likes:
- Left Boobie
- "Other" Boobie
- Sleeping on Boobie
- Being in Mama's arms
- Pulling mama's hair
- Sleeping in
- Napping with mama
- Being swaddled
- Bouncing on the yoga ball with daddy

Dislikes: 
- Gas. This is the devil.
- Being put down
- Mama going pee
- Mama eating with both hands 
- The car seat
- Being out of mama's arms

Basically, this baby is always happy in my arms and since I'm happy with her in my arms and never want to put her down, we'll just go on cuddling and snuggling for the rest of forever.

From Bump to Baby

My apologies everyone, I'm re-posting this because it doesn't seem to have posted correctly the first time! I think the photo might have been too so it didn't upload right.

Amelia is amazing. We're home from the hospital now and she fits so seamlessly into our lives that it feels like we've been waiting for her, saving her seat at the table before we knew there was someone else coming. It feels so much better to be home alone, just us three, after being woken and poked every couple hours in the hospital and we're able to spend all our time drinking her in and smelling the top of her downy soft head. Thus far my girl is a champion nurser, she actually worked so diligently at nursing, and screamed so loud when she wasn't immediately rewarded, that she made my milk come down on the second day when most women have to wait until day four or five. The nurses didn't believe me until they saw the milk themselves, but it was no surprise to me and E. No one makes this baby wait.

I'm working on her birth story but it was such a long experience that I don't know when I'll have the time to write it all down. I'm so grateful though that after a somewhat torturous second night with her in the hospital, Amelia appears to be an incredible sleeper. That second night, while E and I were still running on basically no sleep, Amelia was famished and my milk wasn't in yet, and they had just removed my epidural and gotten me standing after my c-section was so tough. Amelia screamed, E hid under his sweatshirt on the pull out chair muttering miserably and I tried to stand and rock Amelia despite feeling cut in half. The nurse kept coming in to assure me that it was normal, that her caloric needs at 24 hours had surpassed the colostrum I was producing and all babies had a tough time at this point, but it didn't make things any easier. She was so worked up and hungry that she couldn't nurse and E was so exhausted that he told me to give her back sometime around 4am. Sometime during that early morning she finally exhausted herself enough to latch and we were all able to get some much needed sleep.

Now that we're home, it's hard to believe that this is the same baby. We're staying downstairs, sleeping on the chaise of our new couch since I can't climb stairs, and Amelia sleeps in her rock and play next to my head for 5-6 hour stretches at night. She cluster feeds during the day, she's pretty much always attached to my boob as she was in the hospital, but we're doing so well and everyone is able to rest. E is a rock star daddy, he's changed pretty much every single diaper she's worn since birth, keeps me fed and helps haul me up and down off the couch. I'm taking my Motrin and Tramadol faithfully to stay ahead of the c-section pain and moving is still really tough, but she is so worth it. We discovered in the hospital that having a full bladder makes the pain a thousand times worse so I'm trying to get myself up and to the potty even when it doesn't feel like I have to go, I'm still weirdly numb to my bladder from the epidural and catheter.

 With E's help, I was able to walk backwards up the stairs to Amelia's nursery to take the final photo of my bump.  After 38 weeks of photos I wasn't going to mess this up so I was getting up those stairs c-section or no! I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that this tiny human was inside my body and is now here in the world, in my arms, a whole new person alive on our planet. She's incredible.

Welcome Amelia Renee!

Amelia Renee

January 22, 2016

8lbs 1oz 

20.5"

D-Day Come and Gone

As of last Thursday, our little bean is officially overdue. I always assumed she'd be late so no one is surprised,  especially since I've had no real signs that labor is imminent. No real contractions, no plug lost, no dropping. Our NST this morning showed only 1 painless contraction and a very happy, comfortable baby. The closest I can get to pre-labor symptom spotting is an increase in Braxton Hicks and my breasts starting up the leaking routine again. Thankfully, her delay is giving us much needed time to work on the house. I can't believe I'm saying this at almost 41 weeks but we still have more electrical work to do and we haven't done the little extras like hanging towel bars, toilet paper holders or blinds. If you're standing on the street, you can see straight into the baby's nursery, not exactly a good thing when you want to walk around mostly naked. If baby wanted to give us another week, I would not complain.

Nooo more wires :(

The only really surprising thing about baby being overdue is probably how normal I feel. Yes I'm big, but I don't feel miserable, it doesn't generally hurt to move around and I feel pretty much the same as I felt in the second trimester, except I can no longer reach my feet. I've been making freezer meals, doing last minute shopping, washing and putting away baby clothes and generally trying to cram a whole pregnancy's worth of nesting and unpacking a house into a couple of days. Thus far I've got authentic Bolognese Sauce for 3lbs of pasta, Turkey Chili for 3 dinners with left overs and 2 lunches, Tuscan Chicken Soup for 3 dinners with generous left overs and Stuffed Shells for two dinners in the freezer. I'm planning on making some Baked Macaroni and Cheese with chicken and broccoli, some fresh green bean and mushroom casserole and maybe some meatloaf to add to the stash if I have time. 

My only real source of discomfort that I would love to see go away asap is not really pregnancy related. Our plumbers predictions of trouble with our laundry drain came true when I tried to run a heavy duty cycle and the poor little drain couldn't keep up. We were right in the middle of washing some really gross laundry so we'd used a more mainstream detergent than my typical chemical free variety. Since it started flooding the garage during the discharge cycle and I had to stop it to move all the electrical supplies and start bailing buckets of water, the clothes didn't get entirely rinsed out. I sent them home with my mother to rewash but one wash wasn't enough and there was clearly some soap left behind. When I tried to wear a long sleeved shirt from that load, I broke out into horrible, itchy allergic hives. While the pregnancy hormones are probably making it worse, it's unfortunately pretty standard for my skin so I can't count on it magically resolving after delivery. While the baby is being wonderful about letting me sleep, the hives wake me up at night when I catch myself raking at the rash on my arms and chest, even after taking Benadryl and dousing myself in Benadryl gel and Caladryl lotion. My belly was already itchy from so much stretching but thankfully seems to have been spared the hives thanks to the full panel on my maternity leggings. 

ugh

The rash aside, since 42 weeks is creeping up, the doctors have predictably started to talk induction. My only priority is to get baby here safe and healthy, but if I could pick, I would love to have a natural birth once baby decides she's ready. Her window of opportunity for that scenario is getting a lot smaller though, I'm 41 weeks this week and if she doesn't decide to make her entrance, we're going to have to evict her. I scheduled a second NST for later this week to keep an eye on her since we're officially overdue and if she continues to look happy and healthy, we'll give her until next week to come on her own. She's definitely head down, fluid levels look good and she's finally become so big that she's unable to turn anymore. Even if she wants to be stubborn, her body knows it's time too. Either way, whether it's on her terms or the doctor's, we're going to have this baby in our arms by the end of next week. 

Pregnancy Feet

First, I am super excited to report that baby girl is head down! As predicted, she waited until she felt like it and turned on her own. She was head up when I got up to pee last Monday and somehow turned in the few hours between that and our NST. I went in apologizing to the tech that she was still breech and baby immediately proved me wrong the second the wand touched my belly. She has a mind of her own already, I just hope she's still feeling the head down position when we go in for tomorrow's NST and check up.

On the downside, E and I have spent the last few days moving boxes and unpacking and I have been overdoing it. I didn't want to track plaster dust all over a few days ago so I took my shoes off and walked around barefoot all day while j set stuff up. This of course resulted in some of the fattiest ankles I've ever seen. At every appointment my midwife has looked at my ankles and now that she's leaving for vacation I finally have the swollen ankles she's been looking for. 

Luckily, it seems to just be feet/ankle swelling. I feel fine otherwise so I'm fairly sure my blood pressure is normal. I've been doing the recommended foot exercises to help move some of the fluid and they have improved a little bit over the last couple days. I'm sure that sitting around doing nothing with my feet up would be the fastest way to improve them, but I have too much stuff that needs to be unpacked for that to be feasible. I also have a weird, circular spot on my belly to ask the new midwife about, I had though it was just another stretch mark to add to my collection but it almost looks like baby girl is busting out of my skin. I'm super curious to see what she has to say about that.

Check out those fatty ankles, I don't recognize my own feet!