warning: cranky mom walking

So, these past few weeks our son has decided to wake up three to four times a night. He used to only wake up once a night around 4:30 am. I could totally handle the one time a night, but four times, yikes. He has always been a pretty good sleeper and now it is awful. I have become so cranky because I am not getting enough sleep. I totally feel bad for my husband because in the morning, look out, I am not very nice anymore. I used to totally be a morning person and now it's like, stay back. We have tried feeding him the rice cereal before bed, as some other women have suggested but still not working. I have no idea why he is like this. If any of you other moms out there have any suggestions, PLEASE let me know. My husband would be much appreciative to have his wife back. Sleep is good.

stewie

so, my husband always compares our son to that of stewie griffin from family guy. for anyone that doesn't know who that is, he is the baby on family guy. he says this because our son is constantly moving and he tends to punch, kick and pull on me. i don't think he is trying to kill me like that of stewie but sometimes it sure does feel like it. he gives you those cute loving looks but maybe he is thinking like stewie that he wants to get rid of me. i know it's all jokes but he is really good at hurting me physically sometimes. i just think it's because he needs to constantly be moving. he moves so much that he does all this stuff in his sleep as well or used to anyway. we just recently started crib training him, so he isn't in our room/bed anymore. he is still an angel to me though even though my husband thinks he's trying to hurt me(jk). this has become a running joke between the two of us, since we were watching an episode of family guy.

sleep?

so, jonah has never been one of those babies who "sleeps" through the night. he has always woken up at least once to eat or be changed. it was so nice when it was just the one time but now it's more like two or three times a night. he was sleeping in our room for the first four and a half months but we decided it was time for him to move into his room. so, we have begun the dreaded crib training. i know that's why he is waking up so much and i can't blame him. he was sleeping in our room, knowing that mommy and daddy were right there. now he is in the room right next to us, but still all alone. i really miss him being in our room, but know that it's for the best.

i have really gotten use to not getting much sleep. sometimes, i do admit, i take naps when he is, which is awesome.

he also loves to start his day around like 5:30 am and some days i just wish we could get him to go back to sleep. it is really hard to be upset one the cutest thing you've ever seen is smiling and laughing. his smile can make me forget that i am totally sleep deprived. i just love that smile so much, i can't help but be happy. so, i guess getting little sleep isn't so bad after all.

it always comes back to poo

who knew that the topic of conversation about our child tends to be about poop? like i said before, when our son was first born i didn’t really know what i was doing when it came to breastfeeding. so, he wasn’t pooing. after going to the lactation consultant they gave us a chart to keep track of his bowel movements and they also showed you what they should look like. yes, that’s right, there is a chart showing you what your childs poo should look like.

i have never talked so much about poo in my life, until having my son. we were keeping track of how many poos he had a day and making sure they were the right color. it usually looks like mashed peas or mustard, which is what is normal for a baby. it’s only time to worry when you see like blood or if the poo is black.

every time he poos he tends to make this ahhhh sound. i have never laughed so hard in my life. my husband and i still laugh every time he goes poo because of the sounds/faces he makes. it’s really funny cause it sounds like he is going to blow an o ring from trying to push one out. afterwards he looks so happy, but who wouldn’t be happy after getting out what i have seen in some of those diapers. i still can’t believe how much we talk about poo in this house but i guess that happens in everyhousehold with a baby. it’s not a good morning without having a blowout with your morning coffee.

breastfeeding...who knew it would be so hard?

so, i was so excited that i was going to breastfeed my child. i thought it was going to be this totally natural and easy thing to do. boy was i so wrong about that. i always wondered why people opted out of breastfeeding and chose to use formula. i mean breastfeeding is free and is a way for mothers to bond with their babies. i now know why people choose to formula feed. though our child does consume mostly breast milk, we do supplement some formula with him.
after having jonah i was so excited about breast feeding. i had read that this would help with the bonding between us. i swear this is the hardest thing that i have ever done. after we brought him home from the hospital and were on our own i had no idea what i was really doing. he was hurting me every time i would have to feed him. i just wanted to give up and just feed him formula. my husband kept telling me that it would get better. i was thinking, easy for you to say, he isn’t ripping your nipples off. that is totally what it felt like. i would cry every time that i knew it was time for him to eat.
after a few days we had an appointment with a lactation cunsultant. this was the best thing ever. he had lost like 8% of his birth weight. i obviously had no idea what i was doing. he was dehydrated and it was just bad. they showed me how to latch him on right and position him better to get him to eat more. in no time he was gaining weight.
it has been a stuggle with him to get him to nurse since birth. he has never really been that into it and will really only do it if it’s the middle of the night. i find myself pumping so i know that he is getting the nutrition he needs. i hate pumping though, it’s so awful. i feel like a cow every time i have to hook myself up to the machine. yes, it plugs into the wall and you just see yourself spewing milk out like a cow. even though it’s awful and i spend all my breaks at work pumpin instead of eating, i know that it’s good for him developmentally.
it’s just funny how you have an idea of what things are going to be like and they turn out totally different than you expect them to. i just thought breastfeeding was going to be this totally natural, bonding thing for my child and me and it has turned out to be one of the hardest things i have ever had to learn how to do. i have never cried so much before in my life, because of the pain i went through for the first few weeks with it. it is still hard to this day but at least now it doesn’t feel like he is ripping my nipples off anymore.

hello world

so, i was able to stop working two weeks before the due date. those two weeks seemed like the longest ever. i went for walks, watched movies, and just took it easy. i kept thinking man, is today going to be the day? i never had contractions on my own though.

our due date came and went. we ended up having a check up on the due date. they checked to make sure everything still looked good. my fluid levels had shrunk but everything still looked good. they scheduled me for another appointment a couple of days later. that thursday we went in and they checked the fluid levels again. they had diminished so much they told us to go straight to the hospital. we were definitely not expecting to go to the hospital that day, so we had our friend swing by our house and pick up the bag we had packed. i called my dad that day and he scheduled to fly out the next morning. they were going to induce us.

when we got to the hospital they weighed me in and sent us to our room. it took about two hours to check in. checking in seemed like forever. luckily doctor king, who i had been seeing during my whole pregnancy, was on call that day. she was going to try and induce me by giving suppositories. this never ended up working that day. we just ended up chilling in the hospital all day and night. luckily our good friends were there with us that whole day. it was nice having some friendly faces there with us.

the next morning the nurse woke us up at 5am. i took a shower and started to have some contractions. after taking a shower, they hooked me up to pitocin. pitocin is to help kick start labor. it is also supposed to make labor more intense. i was going to try and have an all natural labor, with no drugs but that didn’t go as planned.

luckily my dad arrived about 11am. it was so wonderful to have my father by my side, for this special part of my life. my husband was great throughout the entire labor. he was there holding my hand as i screamed and squeezed the crap out of his hand. i am sure he was glad to see my dad, so that his hand could return to its original color. the pain of labor was so intense. you always wonder what will it feel like, will i know when i’m in labor. you will definitely know. it is the most intense thing you will ever feel. i was in so much pain because of the pitocin and as my labor progressed the pain became more and more intense. after about eight hours of labor they were going to up the pitocin. at that point i couldn’t handle the pain anymore and needed something for the pain. so, even though i wanted an all natural birth i ended up getting the epidural. the pain was just way too intense for me. my friend that was sitting in the labor room with me was like, “i’ll just get that when i check in.” i thought that was really funny. it’s sort of a process getting the epidural. they want you to be completely still while giving it to you. it seems impossible to be still when you are having contractions and can’t manage to hold still. if you move though you can really mess yourself up. after getting the epidural they ask what your pain is and i just looked over and said “that’s about a zero.” i ended up being able to sleep after getting that. i think the epidural is a miracle drug.

my labor seemed to progress a lot faster after getting the epidural. i was only about 2 or 3 centimeters dilated before the shot and after it seemed like no time before i was ready to push. i really had that urge to push and the nurse didn’t believe me. after checking me though, i was dilated to 9 centimeters. she had to go find the doctor before he decided to eat his dinner and she told me not to push until they got back. i was like you are crazy if you think i can hold this thing in. i really needed to push and they were telling me not to. they were gone for about a half hour and i was like f this i am going to push. my husband was like wait a few more minutes and then i will go find them. i said ok and by the time he was gonna go on a search for them they were back.

i only pushed for about a half hour before jonah came out. it’s funny though because as i was waiting between pushes, the doctor was just looking at me like i was boring him. i felt like i was in a rush to push him out because i wasn’t entertaining enough or something. maybe he was really just wishing he was eating instead of helping me deliver. thinking man i could be eating a sandwich or something. as the doctor was pulling him out, he looked at my husband and asked if he wanted to finish the job. my husband was so overwhelmed though he just let the doctor finish. finally at 7:48pm jonah entered the world. in the movies they always scream out whether it’s a boy or girl and they didn’t do that with us.like i said though we didn’t know what the sex was, so when he came out i yelled “what is it” and they told me it was a boy. he weighed 6lbs and 5oz and was 18 1/2 in. long. he was so beautiful. i just couldn’t believe i could have helped created something so amazing.

we were in the hospital for a total of three days. it was so wonderful to be going home that sunday. it was nice to be in our own home, in our own bed, with our new baby. everything was just so wonderful.

honey, we're pregnant

so, i have always known that i wanted to be a mom. i just knew that this was something that being a mom was something i was meant to be. i married my boyfriend of two years and we didn’t wait long to get started. both of us knew and talked about being parents early on in our relationship. we waited about six months after getting married to start trying for a baby. it took about three months to get pregnant. we think it was when we were on our honeymoon in ireland that it happened, at least that’s what we wanted to believe. we waited a while after our wedding to go on a honeymoon. we were lucky enough to have some of my husbands family give that trip as a gift to us for our wedding. it was the coolest trip i have ever been on and we hope to go back someday.

i knew that there was something different going on with me. i felt kinda funky and i knew it had to be that i was pregnant. i think i took three different pregnancy tests before really believing that it had happened. that night my husband got home i told him what was up but i think he knew what was going on by the look on my face when he walked through the door. even though i had taken three pregnancy tests, he wanted to make sure that it was for real. i made an appointment with my doctor and they told me what i already knew, i was pregnant. it only cost like $70 for them to tell me what i already knew, that was one expensive pee test. they recommended some ob’s for me to see. i was so excited i made an appointment right away.

the first three months were awful. all i wanted to do was lay on the couch cause i felt so sick. it was funny though cause i felt worse at night than i did in the morning. the term morning sickness is funny because it was never really in the morning i felt sick, it was always at night. i didn’t really gain that much weight at first either. i was really hoping to only gain about 30lbs but that didn’t happen, i ended up gaining 40lbs. it was really the end of the 2nd trimester and throughout the 3rd trimester that i gained most of the weight. i always hated that they would weigh you before seeing the doctor at each appointment. i kept thinking they were going to tell me that i needed to watch myself because i did start to gain so much weight. i kept thinking that i wasn’t going to be able to enjoy holiday sweets. like they were going to say no pie for you, you are getting to big. it’s funny because i always thought my tummy would get big like in the movies. my tummy never really looked like most pregnant women. i felt like i just looked like i was fat or something, not like i was pregnant. my little boy was so low down the entire time i think maybe that was the reason why. it’s funny because i would relate stuff that happened to me as not what i had seen in the movies. like when i was about six weeks along and had some spotting i had no idea that was normal. i think that was apart of the implantation. it’s just one of the things that people don’t tell you. there are so many things about pregnancy that people never tell you, i think that’s so women will have babies. if everyone knew what pregnancy was like, a lot of people probably wouldn’t have babies.

i really enjoyed being pregnant. you always hear those horror stories about women being moody because of all those hormones going on. i really was never like that. i tell my husband he was lucky, that he could have been with someone who was completely crazy during the whole thing. the only time i really freaked out on him is when he went out with his friends and stayed over at their place. i got no phone call and i was irate. i really loved being pregnant but by the end i was ready to meet our little jonah. we didn’t know he was a boy until he was born, but we sort of had a feeling it would be a boy. i always had dreams of a little boy, which is why we felt that way.

i can remember when we got to see him for the first time. it was when i was twelve weeks pregnant and we had our first ultrasound. it was so crazy that he already looked like a baby. we also got to hear the heartbeat for the first time. it was a really special moment for us. i really felt like this was real. it really stinks that you really don’t get that many ultrasounds though. you really only get to see them a couple of times. we felt lucky to see him numerous times because most people only get the one ultrasound at twenty weeks.