happy day

One year ago today my world changed forever. My biggest dream came true and I learned I was going to be a Mom! As explained in this post, Matt and I had been trying for some time to become pregnant with no luck. I had become frustrated and sad that it was not happening for us. I had made an appointment with a doctor to see what the hold up was and what we could do. Being diagnosed with PCOS means having children is not an easy task. I had heard all the things the doctor was telling me- hormone therapy, fertility treatments and when all else fails, in vitro. I was about to leave the appointment even more frustrated and sad with a handful of new medication to try when my doctor said she wanted me to take a pregnancy test, just to make sure. When the doctor came back into the room and told me I was already pregnant, I was ecstatic. I will never forget that day, that feeling. As I left the appointment and drove to work the whole world looked and seemed different. Everyday with my little girl is such a blessing. She is the greatest gift in the world and the best thing to ever happen to our little family.

<3

Tonight I am going to see the new Twilight movie with some of my favorite ladies and I am sooooo excited! I cannot believe next week is Thanksgiving and my little babe will be 4 months old. Where does the time go? And of course, following Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days.... Black Friday! Can't wait!

Trick or Treat

We had lots of fun celebrating Olivia's 1st Halloween. Our little cupcake had a major growth spurt last week and completely out grew her costume. So mom had to find a new one last minute, and I actually like the new one better and spent a whopping $3 on it.


We started the day at cousin Kylee's school for the Halloween Parade.
Liv loved watching all the kids in their cute costumes. Then we went to visit family and friends.

cousin KyKy

Daddy & Liv

Happy Family

Seesters

Aunt Mckell

Liv & Gav

It was a big day for little Liv, she was so happy to be home.

Time to start getting ready for Christmas! ;)

Fall Fun

I have thoroughly enjoyed this Indian summer. It has been really nice to enjoy the perks of fall without freezing our bums off. Olivia loves taking walks and looking at all the bright colors of the leaves. Last weekend we went to Gardner Village with our friends the Christophersons to take pictures of our kiddies for Halloween. Olivia was not the happiest camper that day, but we got a few cute ones

daddy & Liv

pretty girl

mommy & Liv

our little cupcake

love her :)

This last weekend our little lady turned 3 months!

She is such a cutie and so much fun. At 3 months she:

• wears size 3 to 6 month clothes
• still in size 2 diapers
• still eats about 6.5 ounces every 4 hours, but is also starting some rice cereal between feedings
• hates tummy time
• loves the bumbo
• loves the bath
• tries to sit up in everything
• still sleeping through the night
• loves telling stories
• giggles <3
• loves going to grandma and grandpa's house

Then on Sunday we celebrated Matt's 25th birthday!
We spent some time with family, then went to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen with some friends. I love my husband so very much, he works so hard for our family. He is my best friend and such a great Dad.

our little family

Jib Jab

We bought Olivia a bumbo last week and she absolutely loves it. She is such a cute baby :)

2.5 months

Today baby Liv had her 2 (technically 2 and a half) month checkup. Everything went very well, her dr is very impressed with her development and growth. She also had her first round of immunizations today, it was much harder on me then it was her. She has been battling some thrush for a little over a week now. The first medicine they gave her really didn't help, so now were trying a new one. I'm crossing my fingers this one works. Luckily it doesn't seem to be bothering her. At two months she:

• is 23 and 1/2 inches long- 85%
• head is 15.8 centimeters - 65%
• weighs 14 pounds 1 ounce- not even on the charts! (lil' chunky monkey:)
• talks your ear off
• smiles and giggles all the time
• loves her baths
• hates her swing, but loves the bouncer
  
• still really great at holding her head up
• loves her daddy, but is a total mommy's girl
• wears size 3 clothes
• just started size 2 diapers
• hates getting dressed
• loves car rides
• loves to suck her thumb
• eats 6.5 ounces every 4 hours
• sleeps through night. 10:30 pm to 6:30 am, eats then usually goes back to sleep until 9:00 am
  

Now time for some pictures of our precious baby girl

One Month

My beautiful baby is already a month old! She is the sweetest little girl, we are so lucky to have such a good baby. At her two week check up she was in the 55th percentile all around and she's only getting bigger! She is becoming so much more alert and recognizes familiar faces. At one month she:

• eats 4 ounces every 3 hours
  
• in size one diapers
• wears 0 to 3 month clothes
  
• holds her head up like a pro
• hates being swaddled- has since she was 2 days old
• loves reading stories with mom
• still has a full head of hair
  
• HATES being naked, unless she's in her bath which she loves
• loves having her hair brushed
• is afraid of her own gas sounds... its so stinking cute
• not sure about tummy time, she usually falls asleep after about 2 minutes
• car rides put her to sleep almost instantly
• FINALLY has her days and nights figured out (YAY!!)
  
• loves staring at daddy's face and grabbing his beard

Today we were listening to music while I got her dressed and Lady Gaga came on and she got the biggest grin on her face, started moving her little limbs and laughing it was the cutest thing ever! My favorite thing in the whole wide world is when she starts grunting when she's laying down and I bend down to pick her up and she gets the biggest grin on her face and reaches for mine. I'm so in love with this little girl, she is so much fun!

The Birth Story

It all started around 4:30 am on Thursday, July 21st (my due date). Matt's alarm had just gone off for work and my bladder's alarm had just gone off for my hourly visit to the bathroom. I hopped out of bed and waddled into the bathroom and as I was attending my duties I noticed the inside of my leg felt...wet. I went back to my bed and didn't see any puddles so I just assumed it was sweat. I had just started to fall back asleep and Matt came to kiss me goodbye. I asked if he could turn up the air because I was so sweaty. He came back and told me how it was down to about 63 degrees and he didn't think it was going to get much cooler. I then told him how my leg felt wet and his eyes got super big and he said "um..babe maybe we should go to the hospital". I chuckled and told him good luck getting me out of bed this early. He then kept saying "babe, I really think we should go" and then he called his boss and told him we were going to the hospital because we think my water broke! At first I thought maybe Matt just wanted an excuse to miss work. The night prior my friend Chelsey came over to do my hair and we were up until about 1:00 in the morning so I knew he was super tired. So I finally pulled myself out of bed as a frantic Matt started loading up the car with the go bags and pillows. I just chuckled as I took my sweet time, had a bowl of cereal, straightened my hair, started some laundry and we finally left at about 6:00. We checked into the hospital at about 6:30 and I told the check in gal that we were there because my husband thinks my water broke but I just think we need a better air conditioner. She laughed, had us talk to the admissions lady, took us to our LD room, gave me my sexy gown, checked my lady parts and said they would be right back when they got the results. I was sooo convinced this was not it, I was not in labor, my water didn't break Matt's just being a crazy, nobody goes into labor on their due date I mean come on! About 20 minutes after they came back in and told us my membranes had ruptured (my water had technically broken) and got us started on pitocin around 9:30. (another round goes to Matt!) My doctor came in around 10:00 congratulating us on going into labor on our due date and told us she would be in the office (which is not at St. Mark's) all day but would be in contact with my nurse all day long and if nothing happened by 5:00pm she would come straight there after she let the office. I called my mom and told her we were at the hospital and that she should come up when she gets off work but she decided that wasn't soon enough and the whole gang was all there 45 minutes later. I labored through my contractions all afternoon until about 4:00 and my nurse told me it was make it or break it time if I wanted an epidural. At the time I really didn't think I needed it. I was uncomfortable but pain wise I was doing pretty okay. I guess it was probably because I had been dealing with contractions for the past 6 weeks. I decided to get the epidural because that was my plan all along and I was pretty tired and figured if I was more comfortable I could get some sleep. Eh not so much. The epidural was horrible! Not the process of getting it, but the feeling it gave my body. I HATED it! My doctor came in around 5:40 and told me she was only on call until 9:00, which really didn't bother me (is that mean?) mostly because at that point I felt like the whole LD floor had come in and checked my lady parts and some point during the day so if another doctor ended up delivering my baby that was ok with me. At about 9:30 I was dilated to a 10 and ready to push. The nurse had me start doing a couple practice pushes first. Honestly I was so numb I couldn't tell if I was pushing or clenching, and according to our nurse I was clenching. I pushed for about an hour at which point we were all getting frustrated because I just could not feel anything. I asked the nurse when I would get to meet the doctor who is going to deliver our baby and she came right back with Dr. Sloan (our doctor). I was soo relieved to see a familiar face and we got right back to pushing business. After about 3 hours of pushing our doctor told us we either have a big baby on our hands or she is wedged too tight in my short pelvis and they could try to use forceps but it might cause serious damage to her shoulder. Uh... not ok! She said the other option would be a Cesarean Section. When I heard those words I felt so....relieved! I was so exhausted and frustrated at that point I just wanted to meet my little girl! So I scribbled some form of my signature on all the wavers, was wheeled in for surgery at about 2:00 am and at 2:30 am on July 22nd she was here!


They finished surgery at about 3:15 in the morning, took us back to our LD room so she could get cleaned up, poked and proded and meet her family! Then we went up to our post-pardum room at about 4:30am and Daddy went in to give her her first bath!
We finally, after only getting about 4 hours of sleep in two days, got some sleep at about 6 in the morning. Of course neither of us could sleep long and by about noon we started getting visitors.

I was told that with a C section the standard hospital stay is 3 to 4 days so we wouldn't be going home until Monday. Well Sunday came around and I started feeling really crappy. I had a fever and no appetite. Turns out I got a skin infection above my incision and they started pumping me with antibiotics. They also had to keep Olivia monitored to make sure she hadn't/ wouldn't contract anything. Poor baby had an IV in her little head all day
By Monday they told me they didn't like the way my skin was looking around my incision and we would have to stay one more night. WAH! Finally on Tuesday and about 5:00 pm we were all discharged and ready to go home! I was sent home with more antibiotics and I'm finally starting to not completely agonize in pain from the infection and incision. So that's it! It was a very long labor and not exactly what I was expecting but she is finally here! I had no idea how in love with her I would be! She is such an great, beautiful baby and we love her soooo much!