Playin around

Lovin' tummy time.

Our Month

Our month by Instagram.

Mom for a month

I was worried how having Lucy was going to affect our marriage. I thought some how we wouldn't be us. It has been the complete opposite. We are us, on drugs. Us, but butter. More in love, more happy, more fun.

Slightly sleep deprived...ha

        My month as a Mom has been a mixture of so many things. It has been the best, but most challenging month of my life. This baby girl spends 80% of her life in my arms.. the other 20% in her Dads. I stare at her so much and just marvel that she is mine and that Todd and I somehow made something so perfect. I love every single expression that she makes. I could seriously just hug and kiss her to death. Being a Mom has been totally fun and totally terrifying. I freak out at least once a day that I've done something catastrophically wrong that is going to ruin my child forever. I google maybe 20 things each day. Anything from how to prevent diaper rash, to how far babies can see. In the beginning I had an app that would make a chart for me of how many number 1's and number 2's she did throughout the day, but realized I was being a little extreme. For the first three weeks my cell phone alarm would go off every 3 hours and I would feed her the second it went off... I've loosened up on that as well after she gained 1 1/2 pounds at her two week appointment. While we were in Idaho I found myself slathering my baby in hand sanitizer, and breastfeeding... hmm, what to even say about that? We are still learning. Oh and how about the fact that I still have to sleep with some lights on so I can look over to see if she is breathing? Gosh, how am I this neurotic and paranoid? I'm happy to say I'm chilling out a little more each day, but I still feel like I do so many things wrong, and feel completely clueless. I just want a list of rules... do this, don't do this, do this next... I just laugh at myself, who knew I was so crazy?

      Among the feelings of worry and inadequacy I have felt since being a new Mom, I have also experienced feelings that I never even knew existed. They are indescribable. Joy. Happiness. Peace. Contentment. Gratitude.Love.Fear. None of these words are close to being adequate for how I feel. Mostly I just feel like my heart is so full it could burst. I'm hoping in my second month as a Mom---
1. I become less freaked out by anything and everything.
2. I still love and everything as much as I do right now.
3. The world becomes a safe place. (I watched an episode of Greys Anatomy about a kidnapped little girl and subsequently bawled my eyes out for two hours and seriously considered buying a security system..or a dog at least) and
4.Todd magically gains a milk supply and can start breast-feeding our baby.

 Month 2... here goes.

Todds Toy

          Todd is one smitten daddy. When he is at school he texts and asks for pictures or tells me to update my Instagram, and when he is home she hardly ever leaves his arms, and if she does it is only to fall asleep on his chest. I'm afraid we might be looking at a very spoiled child in our future. I will try my best to keep him under control, but I make no promises. But really how adorable are they?

Yawn

Welcome Home Lucy

       From the second we stepped in the door, we could tell the feeling in our home was going to be different with Lucy around. Having a baby makes it so peaceful and magical. The sights, sounds, smells all seem different and better with her around. Sounds so dumb, I realize that, but it's totally true. I spend 75% of my day in the nursery and am so grateful to Todd for doing so much to make it a place I  we LOVE to be.  

The Hospital Days

We actually LOVED our hospital stay... minus the part where they gave our baby the wrong immunization and the part where my first breast-feeding specialist was a dude, oh and also the whole painful recovery from child-birth part... (a lot worse than I had anticipated)! Aside from those things we loved it. We loved that every nurse and aide seemed to be from another country. We loved that we could order Icee's from the cafeteria, we loved that our baby was with us the whole entire stay, we loved that they let Todd and I sleep in the same bed and never said a word, we loved that friends came to visit. I especially loved that my Dad surprised me and came down to visit us the first night, and Todd's parents made the journey that night as well. I love that my best friend Kim brought me an amazing care package complete with my favorite sugar cookies, she did my hair and stayed with me for what seemed like hours while me and my lovely male nurse Philip tried to work on my nursing abilities. We loved the endless flow of texts and calls from friends and fam. We loved that my Mom was there when we needed her. We loved that the midwife came to visit and just sat on my bed with us and we chatted like old friends. I loved the gloves full of ice and the oxycodone, I loved inwardly laughing at the different nurses bad habits and was just so happy to be the patient during the night shift. I love that Todd got me a big tear jerking picture of Jesus and a baby for my push present. Todd loved ditching school. But, mostly we just loved staring at our little baby girl and just being a family for the first time. We spent the majority of the time asleep just cuddling her and saying over and over again that we couldn't believe she was ours, and we couldn't believe how perfect she was, and couldn't believe how cute she was. Todd must have kissed us both 1,000 times in those first two days. I loved catching him randomly with wet eyes and his cute little content smile. Neither of us expected the love to be so intense. The love for Lucy, the love for each other, the love for our Heavenly Father.Those first days in the hospital were so special. But, now with Lucy all days seem special. We are so blessed.

Lulu Bird

Birth Story part 2

We did it...

So happy

first cry

saying hello

I couldn't stop kissing her perfect little hands

Daddys first time holding her

Todd got a little blood sprayed on him during delivery... whoops.

meeting Grandma

2.65 kg = 5 lbs 13 oz.

One happy happy mama

       I pushed my little heart out for 40 minutes. Everyone in the room knew exactly what I needed... ice chips and encouraging cheers. Between every push Todd rewarded me by dropping an ice chip in my mouth like a little doggy treat...don't ask, it was extremely helpful and motivating at the time. And then they would all tell me how awesome I was doing and tell me what a good pusher I was. It really wasn't painful and Todd had me laughing after most of the pushes. He made me laugh a couple of times during the pushes and I told him that had to stop so I could reach my full pushing potential. He kept trying to get me to hee hee who like in the movies. I tried it once or twice...not helpful. Then at 10:32 a.m after one last big push they put the most beautiful, tiny, purple-y little baby on my chest. She was here, she was crying, Todd was crying, I was crying and it was the best moment of my life.

      Thank goodness to a very skilled midwife for untangling my poor little babe from her umbilical cord super quickly . It was wrapped around her neck, her shoulder and then her stomach. The pediatric team was all in the room on standby because of Lucy's cystic hygroma. They took her off my chest and quickly assessed her and gave her gold stars. Later, the medical student in the room who was unaware of the resolved hygroma told us she thought it was so weird that we were all asking about her neck. I was impressed with how quickly they did their tests and got my baby back in my arms. It was such a sweet moment watching Todd hold her for the first time, I'm so happy my mom was there taking pictures so it can be a moment I remember forever. (She just took pictures after delivery... nothing weird or graphic)

        About 10 minutes after baby girl was here things got a little weird. They were stitching away and apparently I was just bleeding away. They gave me clotting factor and a few other things to try to get it to stop. It took a while to get under control, but eventually it stopped... obviously. They think my placenta tore away from the wall and that is what created so much bleeding. Then I spiked a fever of 104 and started shivering uncontrollably again. At that point I became really dizzy and delirious. I don't remember much for a while in there, I just remember saying repeatedly that I felt so out of it. For a few hours after labor I felt really sick and was really not all there, but by the end of the night I had perked back up. Some where in the after hours while I was sleeping Todd slipped away and went and took a dental school test... which he miraculously passed with very little studying. The professor would have let him take the test later, but he said he wanted to get it over with so he could just enjoy us and not worry about studying. My mom was my PR person who stayed by my side and let the world know little Lucy was here and healthy. Because of the fever I stayed in the hospital for 48 hours getting antibiotics. Those first few days were so surreal. Actually it is still very surreal. I have never been this happy in my whole life and have never felt so grateful and so blessed.

        We love you Lucy Lynn. Thanks for changing our world.

My not so laborious labor

        From 4:00-8:00 I listened to Lucys heartbeat on the monitor and watched Todd and my Mom try to sleep curled up on their little chairs. I cried because I had such a full heart at the love that those two amazing people had for me. I was shivering uncontrollably for most of the night which was maybe the worst part of labor.They started me on Pitocin at some point and things progressed until at 9:00 they told me I could start pushing if I wanted to. I was shocked that it was already time to start pushing. I hadn't hardly felt any contractions and had only had one cup of ice!The cart was prepared, the midwife gowned up. Todd helped with one limp leg the nurse helped with the other and we were ready to go...