Happy Valentines Day!

Our first Valentines Day as a family

MY TWO LOVES

This past year we both got to experience the greatest love there is...not only with our daughter but with each other.  I am so much more in love with him today than I was before she was born because she is part me and part her father.  She would not be the amazing little person she is if it wasn't for him.

We were snowed in yesterday and today so we got to spend a relaxing Valentines Day at home this year.  No fancy dinners in stuffy places this year and I wouldn't change one thing.  :)

Her elli-phant and Elmo book

10 Month Update!

(Originally Posted on February 3, 2014)

It's been a really really long time since I posted last. I guess motherhood is keeping me busy.

Ellie is now 10 and a half months old and we are already planning her first birthday party.

I wanted to write a quick update because I am starting to realize just how quickly time is passing for us and how quickly you forget the milestones when you don't write them down.

She is a professional crawler! She has been crawling since she was 8 months old and she is now taking a few steps at a time before dropping to the ground out of fear. I know she is so close to walking, probably only a matter of days.

She has 4 teeth on the bottom and 4 on top. She says mama, dada, baba and deh! That last one is our equivalent of peekaboo. :)

At her last doctor visit she was 18 lbs and 29.75 inches tall.

I can't believe how much she's grown and changed since my last post and I really need to be better about updating it more often.

 

 

 

Ellie and I dressed for the Super Bowl (Picture taken on Feb 1, 2014, Ellie was 10.5 months old)

Playing dress up with Mommy (About 9 months old)

Thanksgiving 2013 (8 months old)

Ellie and Daddy (Picture taken Feb 2, 2014- 10.5 months old)

Halloween 2014- (Picture taken October 31, 2013)

About 5 months old

By the way, today is also my 5 year wedding anniversary. Happy anniversary to the best husband and father we could ever ask for.  He takes care of us in so many ways and definitively doesn't get enough recognition for it.  Thank you for everything you do and to many many more years of happiness together.

Happy Mother's Day

My first official Mother's Day!

I can remember all those past mothers days that we went through the motions to celebrate with my mom but our hearts were just not fully into it.  I so badly wanted to curl up in bed and not come out until Monday but knew it wouldn't be fair to my mom so we sucked it up and did it.

This Mother's Day was different.

I woke up a few times this morning to feed my pumpkin with bleary eyes and a heart so full I thought it would burst.  Once normal waking hours rolled around my hubby greeted me with coffee, breakfast and fresh squeezed orange juice.



My raspberry waffles!

 


We lounged around the house for a while  and then went to brunch with my mom and sisters.  This may sound dumb but I've always wanted to go to Mothers Day brunch.  I've seen it in movies and always thought that's what I would do if I was ever a mother.  It definitely lived up to my expectations!  Everyone enjoyed the food, champagne and most of all the company.  We all took turns passing around the baby and taking pictures...it was so sweet.

 

Later that night we went home, put the baby to bed and watched a chick flick (my choice for Mother's Day) with some wine.  My husband had been saving that wine for the longest time for when we finally got pregnant...not realizing that when I was finally pregnant I wouldn't be able to drink!  And then once I delivered I was breastfeeding so I was still unable to drink it. Turns out I stopped breastfeeding this weekend so it was the perfect opportunity to celebrate the perfect day and all of the blessings we have been given.  

The perfect ending to the perfect day.

My miracle baby holding the gorgeous necklace my husband gave me for Mother's Day. Its hard to make out but its a heart formed by the bodies of mother and child...I couldn't have asked for a more perfect gift.

 




My beautiful baby girl in her little dress looking up at her Aunt...Not sure if you can see it in the picture but my sister's finger has whipped cream on it... she was bribing the baby for smiles with whipped cream!!



Our family



And after my baby and my husband had both fallen asleep, here I was staring at the baby monitor, still in awe of how different my life is from only a year ago and just how happy I am today.

 

Daddy putting his princess to sleep...so adorable

 



7 Weeks Old

Our little girl has been on this earth 7 weeks already (outside of my body of course). I can not express how surreal my life feels right now.

We wanted her for so long and still sit and stare at her in disbelief...but she's really here!

She has grown so much already. She was born at 5 lbs 4 oz and left the hospital at 4 lbs 11 oz. She has steadily been gaining weight and at her last appt (1 month) she was weighing 7 lbs 11 oz!

She is breast feeding and we are supplementing with formula...she is finally fitting into newborn sized clothes now at almost 2 months old.

I affectionately refer to her as my little bald baby because she has lost a significant amount of hair but you can see a new batch of hair coming through already. Munchkin's eyebrows are still very hard to see but her eyelashes have made their debut and at the moment look like her mommys lashes...she will need lots of mascara one day.

Her eyes are currently blue and her hair color looks different depending on the lighting...it fluctuates between light brown, blonde and strawberry blonde!

Sometimes it feel like time is going so slowly because I couldn't wait to have my little girl smile at me or laugh at the funny faces her dad makes and other times it feels like its going at warp speed.

Before we know it, it will be time for me to go back to work and I won't be able to be here for every second of her day. Undoubtedly I am going to miss a few milestones and of course that makes my heart hurt but I know it's a part of life and she is in the best hands with her Nona.

Let's not think about that yet. I have another 6 weeks or so before I have to leave her. I am going to make the most out of the time I have.

So at 7 weeks, baby has smiled, real smiles at funny faces not gassy smiles, she is starting to grab at things, her favorite being mommy's hair and she is starting to be able to hold her own head up for a few seconds.

This update had been a little scattered but its the best I can do on the amount of sleep I've had in the last couple of months. The fact that I can put some sentences together at all is an accomplishment.

A Long Night!

I have a couple more posts I want to put up with stats and progress the baby has made since her birth and I'm still working on those posts but I had to write this morning about something else.

We had another long night of not sleeping last night. She was fidgety and would only sleep on my chest. So after a few attempts at trying to soothe her and then putting her back in her bassinet with her crying as soon as I put her back I finally gave up and kept her with me.

As I look down at my beautiful baby girl I remember all of the promises I made to God before I got pregnant with her. I would make these crazy promises like I will never yell at her or I will never complain about the lack of sleep or the crying as long as you give me a baby...

I have already broken at least one of those promises... I know I have complained about the lack of sleep...I am human after all. But I haven't forgotten for one second how lucky I am to be holding my little girl in my arms for hours and hours until my arms ache.

Just watching her sleep so peacefully makes my heart feel like its going to burst with love and makes me miss my little boy all that much more. How I wish we could all be here on this Earth together. We have lost so much but we can not stop being grateful for what we do have.

She's too little right now to understand the depth of our love for her but she'll get it one day, probably when she has her own child.

Ellie's Birth Story

Our rainbow baby is finally here!!  Let me first start by telling you about the days leading up to her birthdate.

So we had one final appointment with the specialist before we were set to be induced on March 20th. We went into the office for one last ultrasound and the technician noticed some unusual activity relating to the amount of blood being pumped to the heart and brain.

I noticed her doing the same scan over and over again and started to get worried. My husband was at work so I was stuck there by myself with my thoughts running all over the place. She finally said she was going to get the doctor and that we would probably have to deliver her that same day...yikes!!While she went out to get the doctor I called my husband and told him what was happening. He immediately left work.

The doctor came in and rescanned the baby and said the situation wasn't as dire as the tech originally stated but she didn't want to wait until Wednesday to deliver her. She figured its better safe than sorry so they scheduled me to be induced on Saturday morning (2 days away).

At that point they sent me home and all we could do was wait.  Obviously we were completely freaked out.  The situation went from crazy serious and we would need to get her out right away to eh, we can wait 2 days.  That doesn't exactly put a mama's mind at ease.  The next two days were quite possibly the longest days of our lives.  We discussed asking the doctor to do the induction sooner and what the repercussions of that decision would be and in the end, agreed that we would take the advice of our doctor and wait.

We woke up super early on Saturday morning and started to get our bag ready for the hospital.  We were so nervous and anxious! We'd been waiting for this day for so long and it was finally here! My sisters met us at the house and drove over with us. They were SO ready to be aunts!

We were checked in and put into a room immediately. The doctor was already in another delivery so we waited for 2 hours before getting the induction started. He finally came in at 11am and got the Pitocon started and broke my water. Within 30 minutes I started to feel the contractions, holy crap were they painful!!

The rest of the time went that way. When the contractions would hit, I would move into any position that I thought might help the pain and when the contractions would go away I would just try to relax and not think about what exactly was happening. I kept a close eye on the baby's heartbeat monitor. I figured as long as she was ok, I was ok.

My sisters and hubby were doing the best they could to distract me from the pain and from what I'm told, I was not the most receptive person to it all.  Actually if I'm being honest, I was pretty mean... but I swear it was the pain talking!  Once those contractions started coming they would not let up.  They were coming fast and furious with very little breathing time in between.  Every time one hit, I would double over in pain.  I remember trying to get into all these crazy positions thinking it would alleviate some of the pain but nope... that was not the case.  Nothing seemed to help.  The doctor and nurse kept coming in and checking and I wasn't progressing very fast so the doctor came in one last time around 3pm and checked and said he was going to go deliver another patient because I still had a long way to go.  At that point my sisters also left the room to go pick up my mom who had just gotten off work.  Everyone thought we had so much time until this baby got here.  Of course as soon as the doctor left the room I felt that unmistakeable urge to push.  I told my husband that the baby was coming now and he didnt believe me.  He's like, they just checked you and you're not ready.  Well, I was ready now!  I told him to get someone because that baby was coming.  He was so freaked out because he was alone in the room!  He just kept saying dont push, dont push!!  :)

He ran out and got the nurse who came in to check me again and lo and behold, to everyone's shock, I was fully dialated and ready to go!  They ran and got the doctor.  They set me up to push and we were ready to go.  I'll never forget how calm the doctor was.  He was like "If you feel like pushing, push"  lol... I'm like, I really need a little more direction Doc.  Just tell me what to do!

So we started pushing and within 4 pushes, she was here!  At 3:28pm on Saturday, March 16, our beautiful baby girl entered the world.   It was honestly the most surreal moment of my life.  I was kind of in a state of shock for a few minutes.  I know I saw her and asked why she wasnt crying immediately, to which the doctor replied, give her a minute  :)  and once she did, there was no doubt she was healthy!  Baby girl had a set of lungs on her!  Then they took her off to the side to check her and weigh her and my husband went over with her to cut the umbilical cord all while I continued to lay there on my own, in my own little world.  I remember looking over to my right and just in complete shock that that little person screaming her head off was mine.  She lived the last nine months inside of me and now she was here and needed me more than ever.

They brought the baby back to me.  That first look at her is the definition of what love is.  I looked up at my husband and then down at our daughter and never loved him more than I did at that moment.  She was half of him and would not be as perfect as she is without him. 

It was only then that I realized my sister had made it back just in time to see her niece be born.  The doctor finished doing what he needed to do to me and then allowed my mom to come in and meet her granddaughter as well.  The joy and relief in that room was insane.

They moved us to a postpartum room where we stayed and bonded with our child for the next few days.  We had a steady stream of visitors, phone calls and texts all so happy that we finally had our little miracle here with us.  It all went by so fast though and I wish I was able to enjoy it more.  I know I was just a nervous wreck those first few days.  She was just so small so I just worried about her night and day.

When we finally got to take her home on Tuesday morning was a huge relief.  We had been waiting for this moment for so long and here it was.  The three of us were home as a family.  That's when the real journey begins I guess.  Things will change and we will have challenges but there is nothing we can't overcome together.  God has given us the biggest blessing and we won't take it for granted.  Not for one second!

Our baby bag packed and ready to go!

The stroller and car seat assembled and ready to go the day before we went to the hospital.

My sister patiently awaiting her niece's arrival

Aunt number two trying to nap before the baby's debut

Our last picture before we became a family of 3

What a beautiful moment!  Our munchkin is finally here!

Grandma and Auntie looking on as Daddy assists the nurses taking care of our princess in the nursery

Our pumpkin

36 Weeks

At almost 37 weeks, saying we're excited is an understatement. At our last appointment on Thursday the baby measured 5 lbs 4 oz! So we are all set to be induced on Wednesday, March 20. By that point she should be way over 6 lbs.

Even though our induction date is only 11 days away, the family still thinks its too far away!

So here is a quick pic of me at this point.