Month 7: The safe days are over

I wrote this in September, but forgot to post it, so here you go:




Audrey has taken off! She is crawling like a champ and pulling herself up and trying to climb up on everything and anything. She has this learning table that she tries to climb on top of, which seems like so much fun, until the entire thing falls over on top of her, not so fun. She loves the dog's water dish. She is always b-lining it for that bowl of water! She loves to splash her hands in it and inevitably tip it over and spill the water all over the place. I'm not sure what to do other than watch her like a hawk, I can't just put the water up where she can't reach it since the dog needs her water, so that is what we do. Speaking of the dog, Audrey and Ella share the same favorite toy, which just happens to be Ella's blue dog toy!

Whenever I go into Audrey's room to get her in the morning or after her naps, she is standing at the end of her crib chewing on the railing, waiting for me. She absolutely loves her sippy cup, which she usually doesn't drink from, but rather sucks the water out and spits it all over the place and soaks herself. She has also figured out how to use a straw. Whenever we have a drink with a straw she just has to have it, so we were letting her chew on the straw, and inevitably slobber all over it, but the other day she figured it out. Mike let her have his straw which was in his chocolate milkshake and all of a sudden she had milkshake in her mouth and then all over herself. She really surprised herself with the mouthful of cold ice cream and spit it out, but then realized that it tasted really good and wanted more! Mike built Audrey a "space ship" out of Audrey's diaper box, her diaper genie refill container, and a couple of yogurt containers. Audrey loved it!

It is getting increasingly harder to get Audrey's weekly photo. She does not want to lay down anymore, and does not want to be in the crib. Sometimes I think of quitting and just doing a monthly one, but I've made it more than half way, I can't stop now! It's not impossible yet, just annoying. We are just going to have to figure something else out when it gets to that point.






Mike and I have been busy every weekend getting ready for the wedding. We built the trellis, but we still need to varnish it, we fixed up and painted both of the porches, and painted the outside doors to the basement. A couple of unexpected things also popped up that we've had to take care of: the leak in the upstairs bathroom that Mike had to cut a hole in the wall to get to, and then cover up with a nice board and some trim (which we still need to paint). We also had to build an addition to the pigeon coop since the older pigeons beat up one of the newer pigeons, so now the newer pigeons have their own separate room, safe from the meanie pigeons. Everything is pretty much set for the wedding, and I'm feeling really good about it.

The fun month: Numero 6

This month has been filled with firsts for Audrey. She can sit up all on her own now, and not only that, but she can go from her belly or back to a sitting position. I often find her in her crib in the morning sitting in front of her mobile, smiling, which she has turned on by pressing the button, watching it go round and round. She is so smart! She has also been trying to pull herself up on things, which led us to lowering her crib because we were afraid she would be able to pull herself up on the rails and fall out. We also had to buy a mesh crib bumper because she kept getting her legs stuck (all the way up to her crotch!) in between the slats and couldn't get out, poor baby :( She has also started to crawl! She hasn't been able to really take off yet, but she can definitely move.






Mike's friends let us borrow their jumper, and Audrey absolutely loves the thing! I think she is going to be like her dad because she is always looking up at the thing trying to figure out how it works. Her first two teeth have just started to poke through her bottom gums, which has been tons of fun... not! She has been super clingy to me and will scream and cry if I try to give her to daddy or put her down or leave her sight. Poor baby, I know that her gums must hurt, but boy oh boy is it also hard on mommy! I had her in the grass the other day and the next day I noticed she had broke out in an awful rash. She had been in the grass on multiple occasions and had never had any sort of reaction, so I didn't think anything of it. Mike had just mowed the lawn though, so I wonder if that had something to do with it. Anyways, the doctor told us to add a couple of tbs of baking soda to her baths and after three days of that, the rash is practically gone.




Mike and I finally took Audrey to the Buffalo Zoo. We had always heard such great things about it, but neither of us were impressed. Mike mentioned that they had multiple animals that he has eaten, therefore their animal selection was lame. Audrey seemed to enjoy it, although she did sleep through most of our visit. She did get to see some of the animals. The ones we know she saw were a huge vulture, meerkats, and some fish. She squealed out loud when she saw the meerkats, so I think I know which was her favorite. Our favorite were the vultures. They were huge! One came right up and perched on a branch right next to the fence and we were able to get a good photo op of Mike and Audrey with the vulture in the background.




Audrey also went for her first "swim", went on her first swing and slide ride (with daddy holding her of course), went to her first bridal shower and air show. I had been wanting to take Audrey swimming for a long time, but we had never had the time to do it. So as it happened we were by Conesus Lake due to some of Mike's Craiglisting, so when we were finished with that we took Audrey to the beach to dip her feet in the water. She was fascinated by the waves, but the water was a little too cold for her liking so it didn't last long. After that we went to the playground and stuck Audrey on a swing, and she loved it. She liked the slide as well, but not nearly as much as the swing. She was squealing so loud that the security guard came over to see what was going on, laughed and told us that he was going to call the cops! Audrey also went to her first bridal shower, and I got to put her in a dress for the third time. I like putting her in dresses, but she never has any reason to wear them, so when a reason arises I take advantage of it! Anyways, there was another baby there named Charlotte who was a month older than Audrey, yet was much smaller and hadn't many of the milestones Audrey had met months before. I know every baby is different and develops at their own rate, but it made me feel like Audrey was advanced, and I kind of like that ;) Anyhow, Charlotte kept trying to hold Audrey's hand, but Audrey kept pulling it away and hiding in my chest and then whipping her head back around to look at her again. I call it flirting, I don't know if that is the correct word to use, but that's what it seems like. It was pretty cute. Then there was the air show, which unfortunately got rained out. We were there for a few hours and they had only flown three times, so when it didn't look like it was going to stop raining we decided to leave. Audrey slept pretty much the entire time, so I'm not sure she saw any of the planes, but we wanted to get out of there before she woke up and got upset because we couldn't take her out of her stroller due to the rain.

In other news, we are no longer selling our house. I am kind of relieved. Those showings are a pain in the ass! It's so hard with an infant and all the animals to keep the house spotless, especially when Mike was in Canada for work and I had no one to help me. So we are staying, at least for now. The wedding is back on, and we are both very excited for that. Mike's mom and cousin have been helping me get everything ready, which has been a great help. The wedding is going to be a small, very low key, laid back event in our backyard. Mike's job is to build a trellis for us to say our vows under. The picture to the right is what we are thinking. Initially we were going to try to get married by the "campsite" as we call it, in our yard, but the "campsite" is right by the creek and is often soggy, so we won't know if it will be dry or not on the day we've picked out for the wedding. And since the trellis is going to be so big we won't be able to move it once it's built we are going to have to put it elsewhere in the yard; we would also like to use it after the wedding and if we put it out by the "campsite" we will only be able to use it on those rare days when it's dry out there.

This one is just too cute not to post

Months 3-5

I know I have not written in a LONG time, and it saddens me, but it is really hard to find the time to do so these days. Everywhere we go people comment on how good Audrey is, and she is... as long as you're holding her! I love her to pieces, but she makes it extremely hard to get anything done. The only free time I have is when Audrey is napping, and this is how I use that time: 1st nap of the day: take care of all the animals, 2nd nap of the day: take a shower, 3rd nap of the day: make myself lunch, on a good day if I am really lucky she'll take a 4th nap and during that time I do as much housework as possible. Now it has been a little easier, because I can put her in her exersaucer or pack n play with a bunch of toys (as long as she is in a good mood) and I can get up to 30 minutes of free time! She has also been taking longer naps, which has been really nice as well.

We are also trying to sell our house, which has been stressful even though it has only been on the market for 2 and a half weeks. We had six showing in the first week! We also had an offer, but the people backed out at the last minute, so it's back to showings (damn it!). We go back and forth between whether we even really want to leave our home here, we love it so much. This other home that we have a contingent offer on is so beautiful and has so much room and potential, which this house has pretty much reached it's potential and if we want more space we'd have to put an addition on. But we love the location so much we might just stay and put that addition on, and don't get me wrong, our house isn't tiny, it's just that Mike has so much stuff!

Anyways, new milestones since I last wrote are:  Audrey has been in her crib in her room since 12 weeks, she started teething at 3 months (drooling excessively and shoving everything and anything she can in her mouth with a vengeance), she has a cyst over a spot in her mouth where a tooth will poke through soon. She is sleeping through the night most nights, but she wants to start getting ready for bed around 6-6:30 at night, which is super early and very inconvenient, but I follow her lead and give her a bath around 6-6:30 and and then she nurses herself to sleep. She is usually asleep by 7 pm, unless she has to poop, if that is the case she will not go to bed until she has pooped. She can roll over from her tummy to her back and from her back to her tummy. The other day I set her down on her back and she rolled herself across the room! She has found her feet, and guess what? They taste amazing! We've just started trying solid foods, which she hasn't really gotten a hang of yet, she still thinks the only way to get food is to suck! She loves to grab people's faces and pull, she also loves the animals and loves to pull on them as well (which they tolerate amazingly), of course I am always there to make sure they are ok with it and to try to get her to let go. She laughs out loud and screams with joy, she absolutely loves kisses and raspberries (as do I), she is ticklish :), she loves to go for "airplane rides", she sleeps in the weirdest positions, and her new thing, which is not so fun, is that only mommy and daddy are safe, everyone else is scary! 

I have also given up on trying to get Audrey to take a bottle. I tried like 5 different kinds of bottles, but I was the only one around to give her a bottle on a daily basis and she just would not take it from me knowing that I had the real thing right under my shirt! So we go everywhere together, and will for the foreseeable future. Hopefully once we get the solid foods down I can get away for a doctors appointment without her screaming the entire time with Mike trying to get her to take a bottle! Speaking of doctors appointments, I need to have surgery on my hip again. This time just to get the screws out from the previous surgery because they are causing problems and to fix any problems inside the hip joint itself. Recovery will be a lot shorter than it was with the last surgery, but I will still need to be on crutches for 2 weeks, and I will need to be done breastfeeding because of all the medications I will need to be on. So although my hip is killing me, and it's getting worse everyday, we are waiting until Audrey is at least a year old so I can wean her from the breast, and so Mike will have time off from work to take care of Audrey while I am on crutches. This should be fun! 

Month 2

So I know I said I was going to take one picture each month from now on, but I couldn't help myself; it's amazing how much Audrey changes just from one week to the next. I plan on making a photo book of every week until she's a year, it might be a little crazy, but I think it'll be cute and that she'll appreciate it when she grows up. 

Audrey had hiccups in her 8 week photo, which is why she looks so concerned. She gets those like crazy by the way, although it is getting better, she used to get them at least 5 times a day, now it's more like 2! I also apologize for the picture being sideways, I'm not sure what happened there, and I don't know how to fix it. 

Top updates this month are that Audrey is smiling and cooing like crazy which is absolutely adorable, and she has started to go 7-8 hours between feedings at night which is amazing! She had her 2 month doctors appointment on Friday and she is doing well. She is now weighing in at a whopping 10 lbs 12 oz, although Mike had thought she would be at least 12 lbs, while I guessed 11 lbs. She got four vaccines: 3 shots and 1 that she had to drink. She liked the drinkable vaccine the most I would have to say, although she hates her drinkable vitamins that she gets on a daily basis. I had always thought that breast milk had all the nutrients that baby needs, but I guess not. 

Another new development is that I will not be going back to work. I had planned on going back part time, but all they had for me were nights and weekends, which were not going to work with our schedule. Hence, it looks like I am going to be a stay at home mom, at least for now. It's not all that bad, I have always wanted to be a stay at home mom, but I never thought we would be able to afford it. It will definitely be tight, but it's looks like we'll be able to manage. Our friend that was going to watch Audrey for us had a swing that plugs in and was holding onto it to use for Audrey when she was over there, but now that she won't be watching Audrey she doesn't need it, so she has let us borrow it, which is awesome!

5 Weeks

6 Weeks

7 Weeks

8 Weeks

The First Month

It's hard to imagine it has already been 5 weeks since we brought our little angel home from the hospital; it feels like we just brought her home the other day. There's no denying it though, she is getting bigger, and quick! She has outgrown most of her newborn clothes, although most of the short sleeve onesies still fit her. I knew babies grew quick, but I always thought it was because I never saw them on a daily basis. Anyways, she is finally starting to develop a personality and is becoming more interactive, which means she is awake more during the day and is sleeping a little longer at night. Mike is very pleased with this development. He has been wanting her to interact with him since she was born!

It has really been hard to get anything done around the house now a days. It seems like Audrey wants to be held all the time and every time I try to put her down to get anything done, mainly take care of the outside animals, she screams. Although now that it is starting to get warmer I can take her outside with me in her Ergo carrier to take care of the outside animals, which is nice because there were some days when I wouldn't be able to get out there until 1 in the afternoon :/ We also recently discovered that she loves her swing. I didn't think we would need a swing and then a friend of mine gave us one and I figured we wouldn't really need it. That thing has been a life saver! I am able to eat, take a shower, do the dishes, the laundry, and even get some cleaning done. All things I used to take for granted. We are going to get a new one that you can plug in though, because the one we have now runs on batteries and with how much we use it, we'll be going through batteries like crazy, so it'll actually be cheaper in the long run to buy a more expensive one that plugs in.

I admit, I'm not as much of a neat freak now with the baby. If someone comes over to the house and it's not spotless, oh well; I have a baby that demands all of my attention, so if it bothers you that there are wood chips scattered around the wood stove, or that there are a few hairballs floating around, or a few dishes piled up in the sink, then too bad.

Parenthood has been more challenging than I had thought it would be. Especially the breastfeeding part. I am the only one that can meet my daughter's most essential need: hunger. That means I am the one up three times a night for an hour at a time. Mike has been great though. If I need him to get me something he will get it or if I am getting frustrated he will take the baby. At this point neither of us want a second child, don't get me wrong, we love Audrey, it's just really hard. Everyone says that we'll forget about this part and want another in a couple years... we'll see.

Mike had a bear when he was a baby that came to be known as Flat Bear, aka Pee Bear. The name Flat Bear came about because he would sleep on top of him and eventually he became flat. I bet you can figure out how Pee Bear came about, but in case you can't it's because of how many times Mike had peed on him. Anyways, we thought it would be really cute to take a picture of Audrey with Flat Bear every week for the first 4 weeks and then every month until she's a year. Don't worry, he has been washed ;)
Here are the first 4 weeks:

1 Week

2 Weeks

3 Weeks

4 Weeks

Audrey's Birth Story

As you may already know, we were scheduled to be induced Friday, 1/31/14 if I hadn't gone into labor before then. It was really starting to look like that would be what was going to happen, but Audrey had other plans. I had had a few contractions Wednesday night that woke me up, but I only had a few and they weren't consistent at all, so I thought nothing of them really. Then Thursday night Mike and I were watching some Nip Tuck and I started feeling funny. I wasn't sure what was happening, but it was different than anything else I had felt. It didn't feel like the Braxton Hicks I had been having, but I wasn't convinced it was the real thing. Then they started getting closer together, so I pulled out my "What to Expect When You're Expecting" book and read the symptoms of real labor and some of the symptoms matched up. Mike and I decided that this was it and called my doctor, but they didn't call me back, so we called again, but still no response. The contractions were getting even closer together, every 5 minutes or so which is when my doctor had said to go in, so we said "screw it" and called the hospital to let them know we were coming and left. When we got there I was put in triage and hooked up to fetal and contraction monitors and checked by a doctor who said I was only 1 1/2 centimeters dilated. We told her that I was scheduled to be induced tomorrow after my doctors appointment in the morning and she said they would give me a couple hours to see if I would progress, and then they would keep me if they had the staff to induce tonight, but if they didn't she might have to send me home. We were pretty upset that they would send me home when my contractions were 5 minutes apart, how would I know when to come in, when they're 2 minutes apart?! Anyways, the contractions started feeling more intense and I was sure that I must be progressing, but when she came back to check me I was still only 1 1/2 centimeters, so she went to check if they could keep me and possibly induce me. She came back about an hour later and said that they would be keeping me. Mike and I were so relieved. So they wheeled me over to labor and delivery and a new doctor took over. This doctor wanted to give me some more time to progress on my own so she left me for another two hours. The contractions were getting really bad, so I decided to take the only drug they felt comfortable giving during the early stages of labor: Morphine and Phenergan. I soon regretted my decision. All it did was make me extremely tired and groggy. I stayed that way through the entire labor and delivery. Anyways, while I was left to progress my water broke. The nurse told me that that was a good sign that I was progressing on my own and I was so sure I must have dilated at least a couple centimeters, but when the doctor came in to check me I was still only 1 1/2 centimeters. What the heck?! I didn't understand how the contractions could be getting worse, but I wasn't progressing. That's when the doctor decided to give me some Pitocin to get things moving along and said she would check back in on me in another couple hours. They started very slowly with only 4 mg/hour. About an hour after getting the Pitocin the contractions were intolerable. I decided to get the epidural, so the Anesthesiologist came in and went over all the consent forms and what not and administered the epidural between the contractions. When he was done putting the epidural in he said I should only feel one or two more contractions, and left. When I had had about 5 more awful contractions I figured it wasn't working, so the nurse had him come back and check it. He checked it and said it was working wonderfully, which lead him to wonder if I were farther along than the doctors thought. The nurse had my doctor come in and she asked me if I felt like I had to push and I told her yes, so she checked me again and thought the baby's head was my cervix at first, but then realized that I was 10 centimeters and ready to go. That's when a bunch of doctors, interns, and pediatric nurses came in and I started pushing. I was so out of it that I would drift off a little between the contractions and pushing. I remember Mike chatting it up with the doctors between pushes and everyone telling me what a good job I was doing during the pushing. At one point one of the doctors mentioned that there was another women pushing at the same time as me and Mike said that if I beat her he would make me a milkshake when we got home. Anyways, after what seemed like forever pushing the doctors started getting concerned about the baby because her heart rate was dropping and he told me that she was getting tired and couldn't take much more of this and I told him that neither could I. I started to get a little concerned that they would have to do a cesarean section. After a few more pushes he said that they would have to do an episiotomy, I told him to do whatever he needed to get the baby out. So they did the episiotomy, and that helped a little, but she got stuck again, so he said that they would have to use the vacuum extractor. After a few more pushes with the help from the vacuum extractor she finally came out. I didn't hear any crying right away and I got worried. I kept asking if she was ok and Mike reassured me that she was, but I didn't feel any better until I heard her cry and the doctor told me she was fine. Mike cut the cord and they put her on my chest before taking her away to check her out. Mike and I were both crying, it was magical. My baby was finally here and she was perfect. This was by far the most wonderful day of my life. They took her over to the warming bed to check her out and make sure she was ok and Mike stayed with me, but I could tell he wanted to be with Audrey and so did I, so I told him to go be with her. He gave me a kiss and went to be with her. I delivered the placenta and then the doctors sewed me up. I asked how long I had been pushing and the nurse told me two hours; it had felt like forever. Then I asked if I had won the birthing competition and I was told that I did indeed win and Mike said that he would have to make me that milkshake when we got home. I honestly don't remember what happened after that. The next thing I remember is moving to the recovery room and being with my beautiful little miracle.

Audrey's very first photo

Another first

Warming up

Audrey's first bath

Bath stuff

Posing for the camera

My little sweetheart

You're Late

Dear Audrey,
You are late. Today I am 10 months and 2 days pregnant with you. I'm not sure why everything we have been told tells us that pregnancy only lasts 9 months; that is a big fat lie. 40 weeks adds up to 10 months, not 9! I am increasingly sore and tired and am more than ready to be done being pregnant, but you don't seem to mind staying put. I am sure you are more than comfortable and will come when you damn please. I hate to burst your bubble (not really), but if you don't come out on your own by Friday, you are going to be forced out! I know you don't mean to be causing me pain, although I keep having this nagging suspicion that you actually enjoy it (already!), but I know you're just doing what you were made to do: survive and thrive. I just wish you would decide to survive and thrive outside of my womb!

Mike is feeling increasingly sorry for me because of how much pain I am in. Neither of us are sleeping much at all these days. I am uncomfortable no matter what side I lay on, and I can only stand an hour or so on either side before I have to switch sides, I also have to get up to pee every time I switch sides, and I am hot and then cold and then hot again, so I am throwing blankets off and then pulling them back on all night as well. This makes it hard, to say the least, for Mike to sleep. I kind of feel bad for him, but then again, not really since this is the only discomfort he has had to experience throughout the entire pregnancy, while I have been in hell. We keep talking to Audrey and telling her that she needs to come out, but no luck. I guess it's just a waiting game at this point. It's a pretty annoying game really. Anyways, we are more than ready for her. The car seat is in the car, the hospital bag is packed, all of her clothes are washed, we have everything we need for her. There's really nothing left to be done, which makes this waiting game even more boring and annoying. I sewed my own nursing cover last week, which I felt I was putting off until way too late, but I guess not. I could always sew some more bibs, but it hurts to bend over the sewing machine and honestly I am just way too sore to do much of anything. So I am left to sitting around with heating pads on my SI joint and back and reading or watching movies. I was a little worried about not having enough time to finish all my pregnancy and baby books, but apparently I had more than enough time to finish those as well.

I continue to have really strange dreams. Last night I had two dreams where I had given birth to Audrey. In the first one she was very stiff like a doll which made it really hard to breastfeed her after she was born, and none of the nurses or lactation consultants would help me. In the other one I had given birth to Audrey, but Audrey was a boy and as if that's not bad enough, he was black! I wonder if this is my mind spinning Nip Tuck into my dreams. I was so upset because I had not cheated on Mike and could not make sense of how our baby turned out to be black and because the ultrasound technician had assured us that we were having a girl. Anyways, Mike stuck around, but we had nothing to dress him in and had to put him in girls clothes. I think every woman is a little worried about whether their baby will be a girl or boy regardless of what the ultrasound technician has told them. We have had three ultrasounds with three different ultrasound technicians since the sex could be determined, so I am pretty sure that they can't all be wrong about Audrey being a girl. I just guess there's still that fear somewhere inside of me; not that I would mind if we were having a boy instead of a girl, it's just that we have everything set up for a girl, so Audrey better indeed be a girl!

Anyways, we are as ready as we are ever going to be Audrey, so please come out soon! We love you and can't wait to meet you.