So the other day Brent and I were sitting at the table and June was sitting in her Bumbo when she let out this huge toot.  Brent and I both looked at each other wide eyed and started to snicker like 12 year old boys.  This first massive explosion was followed by 5 additional medium sized tooters.  Between the two of us parents there was this unspoken- I don't want to pick her up... you do it!  It ended up being a team effort and we were able to save her kitty t-shirt.  She is always pooping on the kitty t-shirt. I think it's her way of saying she doesn't want to wear it.

Some Call Me Cute

The Good, The Bad, and some more good stuff.

The Good:

-Brent is currently on a 3 week Christmas break from school.  He has vowed to hold baby all three weeks and has done surprisingly well with his commitment.  Besides that, I LOVE LOVE having him home.  He is such a wonderful husband and getting to be with him every day all day has made me one happy woman 

-Our baby is cute.  And I mean really cute.  She is just starting to coo and smile and it just melts both of us in a puddle. When she coos it sounds really similar to her saying "glue, glue, glue"! I love it when Brent is trying to get her to do something cute and I am in the other room listening to him bend over backwards to get a gummy smile out of her.  It makes me snicker because we are totally "those parents".


The bad:

-Nursing is still the bane of my motherhood.  We have ourselves a picky little lady but it is something that I so want for all of our babies to have.  Nursing your child is such a special close experience (I mean, when they aren't screaming in your face and refusing to latch).  I really feel strongly that I need to nurse our baby and even though it has pushed me to the edge almost everyday I am not ready to quit.  If it wasn't for all of the wonderful support I have then I know I couldn't have made it this long.  If anything nursing has taught me two things: 
1) Patience and love for my little one and empathy for how she feels
2)Don't you dare judge a mom- I know there are a lot of moms out there who choose not to breastfeed for various reasons and I think I was a little judgy till our experience became so difficult.  There are so many opportunities out there to find something to criticize about another mother and I am making a commitment to stay judgement free because you know what?  Raising a baby is the hardest thing I have ever ever done and so I praise every mother for her efforts.


-Tubby Tummy: this means I am still a chub.  I thought the baby was supposed to slowly eat me away and she would become the chubby one while I got my nice figure back... Well folks we are still workin on that and it might be a while before we get there. Actually it's probably all these blasted Christmas num nums that people keep bringing over.  


Some more Good:

I wanted to have 2 good sections because I truly believe that--that which we focus on expands and becomes our reality.

-It is the Christmas season and that means that we get to see family, sing Christmas songs, and focus on the Savior.  It is special this year having a little one to ring in the new year with.  Love this Christmas quote from Elder Holland: "But first and forever there was just a little family, without toys or trees or tinsel.  With a baby—that’s how Christmas began.”  

   

Chunky Monkey

Two days ago our little butterball turned a month old.  Ok, she is not really a butterball- actually she is about the size of an actual newborn now weighing in at 7lb. 11 oz and 20 inches at her 1 month Dr. appointment.  But to me and Brent she has grown so much since we left the hospital with a 5lb. 18 in. babe.  They say that babies can grow overnight and I think that is just what happened.  Last week, for 3 days straight all June did was sleep and we were starting to get a little worried, but then she woke up and was a huge baby!  We both noticed the difference and it makes us happy to have her gaining weight so well.

I guess it means you are a parent when you get excited about how much your baby weighs.  These things I never quite understood before we took the parent plunge.  I think Jim Gaffigan has a joke about babies weight.  It goes something like this... "Everytime you have a baby everyone wants to know what they weigh.  When my daughter was born she was 8lbs. and when people would ask they would always say ooooh big baby- I thought, how rude, she is only a month old, but we put her on the Atkins diet anyways."

Oh Baby...

Well Brent and I have been parents now for about 2 1/2 weeks.  It has been the best. craziest. sweetest 2 weeks ever.  We are totally sleep deprived and in love with our baby June.  I am really struggling with the breastfeeding bit and Brent is trying to stay conscious in class but other than that our life is bliss.  When we first had her I think Brent experienced insta-love.  For me, I have grown in love with her each day.  When she was first born I think I was ultra-overwhelmed and needed some time to settle into motherhood.  But now I feel that feeling everyone talks about.  It is the sweetest experience in the world to have your baby lay on your chest with their bum in the air and legs curled up just snoozing away.

I have started to feel like myself again which is helps too, because the first week after we had her I kinda just felt like I was in this time warp experiencing the longest day ever and I just thought "oh, this is my new life, I better get used to it".  Now we are so much more settled and feel well enough to take her out and go for family walks and even travel all the way to Idaho Falls... woohooo. Love Life.

Welcome to the World June Bug!

When I was pregnant (wow, it feels surreal to say WHEN I was pregnant) anyways, I loved to read the birth stories from friends and I always wondered what ours would be.  Ours all started on Tuesday Sept. 23rd when Brent and I went into our 2nd to last "birth class" and appointment.  That weekend we went to Shelley Spud days and I think every person we talked to told me how small I looked for being 38 weeks.  I knew I wasn't huge but I thought people were just being nice because when your pregnant it feels good to hear things like "oh you look tiny!"  rather than "wow girl, you are exploding!"  I brought my concern up about my belly not growing that much with my midwife and she said she would take a measurement to check on things.  Sure enough I was a few cm behind and measuring only 35 weeks.  When they do this it doesn't really conclude anything but it can help them to know what to do next, so the next step was to set up an appt. for a fetal monitoring and ultrasound to check on baby.  I went to the fetal monitoring that morning and then went home and tried to get dinner in the crock pot.  I remember telling my mom on the phone- I am so exhausted and I don't even know why I am making dinner because for some reason I feel like I am going to have a baby today.  My mom said that this is kind of what the last stretch feels like.  Then I went to pick Brent up for the ultrasound.  I am so glad he decided to come with me because I don't think I could have handled it on my own.  During the ultrasound they did a few measurements like head circumference and the femur and abdomen measurements.  I remember thinking- wow she looks so big in there- and I wasn't worried at all.  The ultrasound tech then told us some bad news.  She said your baby is only measuring 33 weeks and about 3 1/2 pounds.  I couldn't believe it.  It was one of those things where you think "this only happens to other people".  At the time I didn't really understand everything and so I thought that for the last 6 weeks my baby had just been sitting there not growing or developing and that maybe there was a chance she would be really sickly when she was born.  I felt so much dread and hopelessness.  Then our midwife came in to talk to us and told us that there were two options- 1 was to induce right away and the other was to come in every day for strict monitoring and tests.  I asked what she recommended and she said "definitely I would be induced".  Our little girl had been experiencing something they call Inter Uterine Growth Restriction or IUGR
(here is a link if you want to read more about it)
http://www.babycenter.com/0_intrauterine-growth-restriction-iugr_1427406.bc

So we decided that is what we would do and we went home and packed our bags.  On the way to the hospital I felt a lot of peace and felt that everything would be ok.  At this point I was still under the impression that I was giving birth to a pre-mature 33 week old baby.  When we got to the hospital I remember asking one of the nurses- "can you just be straight with me and tell me what is going to happen with my baby?  Everyone is being so nice but I just really want to know what I can expect."  The nurses told me that everything was going to be just fine!  They were so awesome and reassuring.  They told me that my baby may be the size of a 33 weeker but all her organs had continued developing and she was going to be just like any other baby but pretty tiny.  One of the nurses felt my stomach and she said "oh, I bet you have at least a 5 1/2 pounder in there).  We were really hoping she would be 5 lbs. or over so that we could go home from the hospital and not have to stay extra in the NICU.  The nurse then came in to start my induction- she checked me and said I was about 75% effaced already and 1 cm dilated so things should go pretty smoothly.  They put the little pill inside me and told me that they would probably have to do 3 pills, one every 4 hours to get things going.  I remember Brent and I thinking that it was kind of boring and we didn't know what to do.  My family came over and entertained us for a while and then the bishop and his wife stopped by to say hello as well.  It wasn't really until the end of the 4th hour on pill number 1 that I started to feel anything.  At this point I was about at 2 1/2 cm and 85% effacement.  After they put the second pill in I started to feel some cramps but nothing too bad.  Brent was asleep and I wasn't going to wake him for such a small pain.  I walked around a little, tried to sleep (ya right), and then took a bath.  By the end of the fourth hour pill number 2 I was starting to feel really consisted contractions and I woke Brent up to help me.  The nurse came in and checked again and I was at a 4 so she went to go get the anesthesiologist to give me the epidural.  This was definitely the worst part of my labor, but probably wouldn't have been even close to the worst if I hadn't gotten it.  However, for me, this was the worst.  I hated having to hold so still through contractions and the way it sent shocks through my body.  It also was unpleasant because I didn't get numb all the way through.  I still had feeling in one area (my birth canal), but everything else from stomach to legs were dead dead dead.  I couldn't move around but I was still having contractions and feeling them!  I got really scared at this point because in no way did I plan on having a natural birth and I didn't think I could handle it.  I started to cry a little bit and the nurse told me she would go get the anesthesiologist to see what he could do.  He came back in and started barking at me "stop crying, why are you crying" "labor is supposed to be painful and an epidural wont make everything go away"  "you have unrealistic expectations"  I just remember that all I was doing was sitting there silently crying and holding Brent's hand.  Who was this guy and how exactly did he know what labor was supposed to feel like.  He gave me an additional dose and almost immediately I started to feel so much better.  I was pain free and ready to go.  Side note: later on the boss  lady for Labor and Delivery came by and said 3 of the nurses had complained that the nurse anesthetist had been totally rude and they would like me to write a formal complaint.  It felt good to be validated that what happened to us was out of the ordinary.  On to the good parts.  From here I progressed really fast and within 2 hours I was ready to push.  It couldn't have been more that 20 minutes before she popped out.  I had wanted to see with a mirror but my midwife had to snip me and said that it would probably be better if we put the mirror away haha.  2 seconds and 1 push later our sweet baby June was born.  She was so precious and cried just like I had always hoped she would (I had this irrational fear in pregnancy that my baby wasn't going to holler after coming out.)  I could see that Brent was kind of emotional and it was so sweet to see how much he loved the both of us at that moment.  They took her to be weighed and when they told us 5 lbs. 6 oz 18 inches we were so happy!  We are so grateful for all those who have supported us in having this little baby and are excited that our eternal family has added a new member.  Welcome to the world!

3rd Trimester- The Final Countdown

 Labor day is fast approaching... and I don't mean the holiday.  Being pregnant is kind of a funny thing because it's like this train you get on that is heading to a final destination and you can't stop it and sometimes you turn around and realize that it's going really fast.  But the thing is that you want to be on this train and you signed up for pregnancy, labor, and parenthood full willing- but it is all still kind of scary and coming closer every. single. day.  Especially now that I am in my 37th week I can really feel the pressure -- like mentally and physically-- I tell you this girl is big!  I am starting to be a little more on the needy side.  This means I spend a lot of time beckoning to Brent and pointing at things I want with big eyes and a semi-pained expression.  If he ever gives me grief I just pull up this picture of my current organ arrangement on my phone and show it to him to remind him what this baby makin stuff entails.  I'm totally kidding-- I have never done that.  And actually Brent has been a super husband/dad.  If anything, being pregnant has taught me a lot about how much love that man has for me :)  But seriously, get a load of where the intestines are!

While I have completed my internship, successfully graduated BYU-Idaho and moved into nesting mode, Brent has started dental school.  Isn't he a cutie!  Actually He has been in school for about 7 weeks now and he is doing awesome. 

 

Here is the latest in the "bump update" department.  I'm sorry none of the pics are very high quality.  We are working on getting a better picture taking device.

28 weeks

30 weeks

32 weeks

35 Weeks (this shirt makes me look huge... awesome haha)

36 weeks

37 weeks (and I think she may have dropped!)

How far along?  37 weeks!

Maternity clothes: mostly t-shirts and husband’s sweat pants.  Every once in a while I get really glamorous and put on real clothes!

Stretch marks: No and crossing my fingers.  My mom said I gave her stretch marks a day before she delivered me so to watch out!  Either way I don’t know that my body will ever quite be the same but that is a ok 

Sleep: This is funny because I am writing this at 2:24 am….  So I guess you can draw your own conclusions.  It is an interesting thing this sleep because I am so so tired and yet it wont come.  I feel bad keeping Brent up with tossing and turning so after 4 hours of good effort I gave up and came to finish this post!

Miss anything? I miss hugs where Brent and I both get to stand up straight.  I also miss running, jumping, rolling over with ease haha.  Oh the simple things we take for granted when we are not 9 months pregnant.

Movement: She has really slowed down.  A month ago I would watch her bulge out both sides and now she mostly just jabs my ribs here and there.  

Food cravings: Ice Cream.  Brent and I found this one dollar ice cream shop close to our house and we are starting to frequent it about once a week.  Not to mention I can’t wait to have a baby that I can blame missing food on.  When there are only 2 of you and half a tub of Tillamook Mudslide ice cream goes missing it can be kind of embarrassing.  

Gender: Girl. 

Labor signs: My braxton hicks have just been really vamping up.  They are not painless anymore as the definition states them to be.  I will get checked on Monday for progress.  I am trying not to get my hopes up for anything too crazy but would love to have this baby a little early rather than a little late.

Symptoms: insomnia, aching hips, lower back pain

Belly button in or out? Still in but some days it is nearly flat

Happy or moody most of the time: Very content.  I am grateful that I haven’t had crazy mood swings and that this has been able to be a special time of our life

Looking forward to: meeting our baby.  I just want to see her face and hold her and be a little family with husband.

Here is a video I really liked that helped me to have faith in my choice to become a mother.