A Rough Night

Oh man, last night was a doozy!

     I went to bed around 11 pm as usual, didn't get to sleep until 12:30 am-ish as usual, Karyanna woke up around 4 as usual. But not-as-usual, she didn't want to go back to sleep. Also not-as-usual, she could hardly nurse.  Every time she got going she'd choke because she could breathe because she has a stuffed up nose. But her not sleeping had nothing to do with her being sick, or at least I assume so.

     Also very not-as-usual, she wouldn't look at me.  I feel like, if you've seen Snuffy around me, you wouldn't believe that, because aside from the comments of how pretty she is, the second (or third) most common comment I get is how much she focuses on just me. It's always warmed my heart, but I assure people she really is a Daddy's Girl. 

     It scared me though. The child literally would not look at me. I'd move her, I'd move me, I'd make noises (good and bad) and the most I'd get was a millisecond glance. So great, not only is my child not eating, she also won't look at me. 

     I started to worry. "Oh no, is this her weaning? Is she becoming a teenager already? Did I do something that offends a 5-month-old? Is she done nursing for good." (Calm down mama, breath, she's sick, that's all.) 

     An hour had gone by, at this point I could barely keep my eyes open and she was playing, as well as not looking at me...or eating, so I moved positions and had us perpendicular on the bed. [Don't worry, it didn't bother Nick, because he's sick as well, he was snoozing on the couch.] I gave up when that didn't change anything and let myself nod off and figure she'll play until she's ready to sleep or nurse. I couldn't have been out for ten minutes when a thud and bloody-murder-screaming-baby woke me up.

     Panic. Adrenaline. Snuggles. Nursing. Puking.  That all happened within thirty seconds. Naturally then I was scared she had a bad concussion. (Isn't puking a sign of concussion?) Still the child wouldn't look at me, so I called Nick in and as soon as she was in his arms BAM! the little stinker looks right over at me!

     Awesome.  We assess that she is, in fact probably okay.  She won't really nurse, or look at me again, so I give up and move to the couch.  I'm fighting my hardest to hold back the tears and Nick takes her and BAM! she's staring at me again...even cracks a smile. Cue the most relieved sob-fest I've ever had! The whole time he was holding her she was looking and smiling at me. My baby really IS okay!

After about a half hour we move back to the bed. It's just after 6 am and Nick should be getting up soon.  We crawl in, she nurses great and we both sleep for three hours. I'm still tired now, but she's just wanted to snuggle all day and whenever I lay her down (except for naps) she starts crying...I'm alright with that though, because after last night, I kinda need the snuggles too!

A Letter to My Daughter

To my dearest Karyanna,

I love you. I can't think of any other way to put it. I watch you sleep every night and I thank God that I get the privilege of being your mommy.  I  am absolutely in awe of you. 

You are so beautiful, so fragile, and completely the center of my world right now. I'm sure that as you get older we'll have our arguments; you wil frustrate me and I will annoy you, but for now we are us. 

We literally spend all day everyday together. When it's time for you to go to sleep we are both ready for it, but after its been a couple hours, I'm ready to swoop you up and crawl into bed. Sometimes it's hard not to wake you up if you're taking a long nap, because I just miss you! 

Being your mother is truly my greatest accomplishment ever. I feel fiercely protective over you. I'm sorry if that gets in the way of things later. Hopefully, when you have children of your own you will be able to understand. 

I want you to know you will never be too old for a hug or a kiss from me (or from your dad!) there is not a thing you could do that can stop the love I have for your in my heart. Nothing can replace you, nothing can weaken how I feel. 

I love watching your little mind work and grow and gain new comprehension everyday. You have the happiest, most loving little personality. And you are SO beautiful! Everywhere I go people stop me to look at you. My darling you were designed to stand out. I pray that you use that magnetism to love on people and make lives better. 

You are my little sun. Thank you for coming into my life. I love you!

Mi propia vida

It's the Little Things

Having a baby changes you. There's no question about it.

     I've been reminiscing a lot about our life before Karyanna stormed in.  We were happy, carefree, irresponsible and perhaps a bit reckless at times. We spent almost nine years just the two of us. 

     I remember being convinced we were ready for kids seven years ago.  The picture to the right was taken almost four years ago. We stayed up too late, got up too early slept in way too late and ate entirely too much!

     Our life is drastically different. We still stay up too late, but we do get up early. Our diet is awesome getting better and better everyday.  We've become incredibly routine in our day and our biggest form of entertainment lies in watching Snuffy almost roll over. 

     And you know what? I'm one-hundred percent happier than I used to be.  Having sweet girl around though, means little to no alone time for Nick and I.  We haven't had many opportunities to connect on a real friendship level like before. Which is fine, we're both so wrapped up in our little sweetie that we haven't felt we needed it. 

     But last night we took some extra time for one another. It wasn't until this morning that I realized how much I had missed him. I almost went to bed, and I'm so glad I didn't.  We simply chit-chatted while he was doing dinner prep for tonight, but we reconnected.  I remembered just exactly why he is my best friend.

He's funny, caring and smart and I am so lucky to have married such an incredible man. I really hope nights like that happen more often, because as awesome as my daughter is, my husband is still my favorite person in the world!

Is it too late???

Is it too late to be good? As the beauty of this picture shows, "No, it is never too late to be good."  Karyanna and I had quite the last couple of days...

     Really it started last Friday. She's either teething, or catching a cold, or growing, or something because she has been whiny, snuggly, sleepy and as far as she goes grumpy. But a weekend of snuggles is not so bad really.  She rallied and was able to go out for New Year's Eve, but the day after was super fussy again.

And then it happened...

     My good friend Sarah was visiting (she lives in Hawaii) and we went into Portland to get some delicious Stumptown Coffee. It was really crowded so Nick stood in line while we went and grabbed a table.  We had been out of the house for awhile and it was time for Snuffy to eat.  I went to grab my "Hooter-Hider" and instead pulled out an apron.  Lovely.  I knew both items were in there this morning and I grabbed one of them out in an attempt to lighten the load.   As they are similar prints and the same colors I apparently took out the HH. (Side note: don't judge me for having an apron in my diaper bag. It was legit there because I had picked it up the night before a couple days earlier at my mom's house after leaving it there a month ago.) I do what I can, got creative and made it work.

     She ate like a champ, had a small burp and was sitting there having a great time. As Nick sits down with us and hands me my coffee she pukes.  Now, this wasn't a tiny little upchuck, this was full on completely drenching her shirt, the entire front of my shirt and some of the apron.  She never does that! Afterwards she was all smiles and wobbles, but man, I've never seen so much come out of a little baby before.  I handled it quite well and was super glad she had not one but two outfits in her diaper bag for me to choose from.  We went out to the car, changed her clothes (which, after I pulled her onesie off I found a cockroach like bug in it, super scary to think it may have been ON HER!) and went back inside. 

     We sat there for close to an hour chit-chatting and having a good time.  Just as we were getting ready to leave she poops. NBD right? Oh no, this was a blowout.  Are you kidding me?!? Welp ok, good thing we were planning on leaving anyway. So we go back out to the car and change, again, this time even more thankful I had two extra outfits in her diaper bag. But I used the last of the "diaper bag wipes."  

     Fast forward to the next day and she was hanging out in diapers all day. With the new year I decided to switch to Fuzzibunz (cloth diapers) and we tried it out yesterday.  Well, the infant setting was too big for her so I tightened another one down.  That ended up being too tight and she woke up because her legs were loosing circulation (awesome mommy award for me!) I switched her back to her Hawaiian Huggies (my favorite disposables because their so cute!) and she poops. I go to change her and we have no wipes at home either.  Mental  note, go to the store tonight.  Somehow I found in our box of baby samples one wipe left.  That will hafta do until daddy gets home!

    Right before Nick comes home, I like to get her dressed and "presentable."  I've read about cleaning kids faces and meeting their dad at the door. I liked it, it works for us.  He could tell the day had been bad. Karyanna looked grumpy and tired and I hadn't done anything with my hair or put on any makeup and got maybe half the things on my list accomplished (two of which were wake up and have some cocoa.) So he graciously took over and made dinner while I snuggled Snuffy on the couch...and then she poops again. And not just poop, but blowout poop.  TWO DAYS IN A ROW! I can't tell if I'm glad I got her dressed or not. It means more laundry, but it also means I didn't get baby poop up my arm, on my clothes and possibly on the couch as well.  I'm leaning towards a win for getting dressed! 

     Mind you, I ran out of wipes earlier. She hasn't pooped two days in a row for over 6 weeks, let alone twice in one day. Not even baby sharts (since her pediatrician used that word, it is a medical term in my book.)  Being the quick thinker I am, I grab a wash cloth and run it under warm water before tackling the mess. This was seriously the worst blowout she's had too. It ended up over halfway up her back, her foot got in it and she just smiled the whole time.

     After that I put her in the above shirt and like always, she makes up for her indiscretions by being the most loving, smiley and happy baby on earth! I count those as some of the bad days of being a mommy. But really, looking back, it wasn't that bad at all. I'm so thankful I get to love on this girl daily and I hope she grows up knowing that no matter what she does, it's never too late to be good!

The New Normal

Life has just kept on going by. We're right in the middle of Karyanna's first holidays and we are absolutely LOVING it!  Because of Nick's new job, he had a 2 week training in Phoenix and thankfully, me and the girl got to go with. Everyone who was there fell in love with her. I've never had so many strangers take her picture and hold her. But it was a really nice group, we even let them watch her while we stole away for a yogurt date!

     It was right in the middle of December so we basically have missed all the hustle and bustle that comes with Christmas time.  I'm super ok with that.  Although, it means we are completely booked up now through New Year's and presents are small this year, they had to fit in the suit cases :-)

     Karyanna is a whopping 3 months old now and is the biggest joy! She's starting to get the personality of a happy caterpillar, as opposed to a slouchy blob.  She smiles all the time and is starting to cut her first tooth.  I wasn't expecting this as my teeth came in exceptionally late, but I assume she is just going to exceed my expectations in everything. I'm pretty sure she's going to be sitting on her own real soon as well.

     We're starting to get ourselves out of the house too (aside from major trips, lol) and now attend storytime at the library once or twice a week.  While in Phoenix we went to a mommy and me group and made some new friends. It was really fun getting together with other mom's in basically the same stage, so I'm trying to find some groups out here.  Everything I've found so far is pretty irregular so I might just hafta start something weekly myself!

     Balance in our lives is slowly coming along. It's still not great, but I've had some incredible phone support and I'm working on not being too hard on myself. I've got big plans for the next couple months of things I would like to try...we'll see how that goes.

     Anyway, Nick's flight is about here. Time to clean up my area and greet him at the gate! (This never happens anymore!!!)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Mommyhood

Yes, that is spit-up in front of her

3:24 AM  Through tears of my own I plead "Sweet girl, why won't you stop crying?"
4:00 AM Dad picks her up and walks her around and gets her to sleep.
6:30 AM After two hours of sleep she starts stirring and wakes up again, looks at me and gives me a big smile...cue the water works.


     I feel like this scenario adequately describes parenthood.  Perseverance, teamwork and reward. Going into it, I knew being a mommy would be different than I had expected. 
I knew it would change me. 
I knew it would be hard. 
I knew it would be rewarding. 

     I also knew that finding a balance would be a challenge, and let me tell you, it has been!  Lucky for me, Nick is super patient. He's basically a saint (yes, Santa Claus music would be appropriate right now. [sorry, lame joke])  

     Before Snuffy was born, I gave myself six weeks postpartum to "loose myself." To not worry too much about the house, to not worry too much about what I ate and to just get used to being mom.  Well, she's seven weeks old now. The house seems worse than a week ago, I definitely had chocolate dunkers and a giant soda last night, and my hair needs to be done but my hairbrush seems to have run away. But it's all okay.

     I love how she looks just like her daddy but with my eyes. Also like Nick, she's easy going and fairly relaxed with whatever our schedule throws at us and like me she craves constant contact; even in her sleep she'll reach a hand out to lay on my cheek or lean her head forward until she's touching my arm.  And I feel like if I worried too much about the house or what I looked like at all times I'd miss these things.  

     Balance. I must find it, and I know I will. It may clearly will take longer than six weeks, but in the mean time, I'm going to keep enjoying my little girl. I know I'll be sad if I didn't...and I'll probably go put away some dishes while she sleeps. :-)

The Birth of Karyanna

 *Editors Note: The following contains elements which are graphic in nature (it is of course a birth story!) But if you hang around it's a pretty great story. 

     

Saturday the 15th I felt pretty run down and tired all day. I'd had an OB appt the day before and she thought I still would make it to my due date (9/26.) We were supposed to do dinner and a movie with friends (one last hurrah?) and I cancelled on them and we had dinner at my parents house instead. I really did not feel like getting dinner ready. I'd been freezing all day and both my parents didn't think it would be long. After we got home I was super cold and Nick was kinda like, "It's really warm in here, not sure what your problem is." So I took a hot shower, wrapped up and went to bed.

     At midnight I woke up still freezing cold but decided to take my temperature since I was just feeling awful and it was 101.8º  I called in and the doctor said to take some tylenol and see how it helped and if I wasn't better by morning I would probably need to come in.

     By 1:30am it was still just over 101º and I moved out to the couch since I couldn't really get comfortable in bed.  I slumped over and fell asleep. At 2:30am I startled awake and yelled "Oh no!" and jumped from our couch off the carpet and onto the hard wood floor just as my water broke in a gush! I started calling out Nick and he just kept sleeping lol! I ran to the bathroom (when did I become so agile?!?) sat down and banged on the adjoining wall telling him it was go time. We really weren't anticipating water breaking at home and had absolutely nothing for protection for the ride to the hospital (an hour away.) Then I remembered we're using Fuzzibunz diapers, grab a couple inserts!  Nick got some stuff together while I showered. Decent contractions started and I was sitting on a ball while Nick was showering when gush number two hit...wow, I was not prepared for that at all! Note: Fuzzibunz are NOT meant for adult consumption! They did little to nothing in keeping my clothes clean.

     We drove to the hospital and contractions were 5-1-1 if not closer the whole way there. I was super excited to meet our little girl, this was clearly no fake labor!  On top of that, I knew my OB was on-call later in the day, so she would be there for the birth. :) We got there at approx 4am and they checked me and I was closer to 2cm than 3cm.  Mentally I adjusted and was like, "ok long haul, let's do it!"  I had tested positive for Strep-B so they got the IV going, but since I had fever the wanted me to stay in bed for the time being. On top of it both mine and baby's heart rates were elevated. 

     Contractions kept coming steady and we were getting through them great. My doctor got there and checked me at 7:30am and I was not quite at 3cm.  I was super tired and pain had started to get up into the 6 level (pain in the legs is awful!) so they gave me something through IV for the pain so I could get some rest. It kinda helped, I was at least able to get a little bit of rest.  About this time my mom and sister got there.  They were encouraging and were there when I needed them and left when I was done having anyone but Nick with me. Mom heard me legitimately swear for the first time ever and Michelle helped me accept that it was ok if things didn't go quite how I wanted.

     It was really important to me to get up out of bed and get in that tub. The birthing team was nervous about it because baby's heart rate was dropping after each contraction, but both of our heart rates were a little concerning.  They finally let me up and gave me 15 mins in the tub, and it was so great. I could've stayed there all day and been so happy! After that I was kept in the bed for the rest of the time.  Definitely NOT how I wanted it, but I had that little Mommy check in my gut and felt things were probably more serious than they were letting on.  My doctor knew how important it was to me to do it all natural and was trying her best to make that happen.  

     After we got back to the room, I would sleep for 3-4 mins, wake up with a contraction for 1 min, then go back to sleep. Nick was REALLY awesome during this period. I was starting to mentally get exhausted and and the pain was getting worse. At 12:30pm they checked me again and I was still only 3cm. My doctor brought up pitocin but wanted to be cautious because of Karyanna's heart rate, so they wanted to do internal monitoring to make sure there were accurate readings.  It was about an hour or so before this I told Nick that if they're thinking this was headed to c-section I just wanted to get it done and not waste time.  My awesome doctor wanted to stay conservative and not go there unless totally necessary.  I knew with pitocin would be too much for me to handle, so I asked for an epidural and finally got an hour of sleep. It was really great.  While sleeping they did some monitoring and her little heart rate kept dropping after contractions and it was decided she wouldn't be able to handle any more labor.

     Very shortly we were whisked away into surgery. I had an all female team in there. It felt like I was in some high-power, pro-women television show. It all went really great. Nick got pictures. Once they opened me up we discovered she was face-up. Even more reason I'm glad we went c-section. They cleaned her, weighed her (8lb 2oz), Nick put the diaper on and then layed her on my chest while getting stitched up.  She latched straight away and it was all so incredible. She was the most beautiful thing ever! Both our hearts have been great since. She originally lost a little too much weight and got down to 7lb 3oz, but she was already up and over 8lb 10oz by her 2 week appt.

     It wasn't the birth I wanted, but I could tell that day how it was gonna go and really I have no regrets and no disappointment. Even before surgery my OB was saying on the next one we can totally still go for all natural (my brother-in-law called that job security lol) and that there was just odd circumstances with this one and that it was in no way because I gave up. The shocking thing to me is that I never felt that way.  All I wanted was what was safe for Karyanna. I'm lucky because my recovery has been AMAZING!