Crawling!

Here is a little video of Sara crawling! She just started Saturday for the first time, actually picking up hands and feet. She's been scooting for a while, but I'm sure my days of peace are numbered. :-)

Tooth!

I'm working over at Zack's grandma's house, and I just noticed that Sara has her first tooth peeking through!

4 Months Old!

I'm astonished as I look at the title of this post and realize that it's my baby that is four months old! It certainly has been a trip...

One thing that I can say about Sara is that she sleeps great! She's on a pretty consistent routine (when we're home), where she likes to get a good nap in the morning (about 2-3 hours), and a couple more 1-1.5 hour naps throughout the day. She then goes to bed for the night around 6:30pm. I wake her up between 9:30 and 10:30 to give her one last feeding, and then she usually sleeps until 5:30 or 6:00am. She'll take another feeding then and then go back to bed until 9:30 or 10:00. It's amazing how consistent she is when there's nothing to disrupt the schedule. And the best part is that we've mastered naptime where I can just put her down and she'll go to sleep on her own. It was definitely a long road getting there, but well worth it. Originally, I had to walk or nurse her to sleep and then gingerly put her down. At first, she would wake up pretty quickly (after 30 minutes or so), but she eventually got used to being in bed by herself and would sleep for longer and longer stretches. Then I started putting her down just when she'd be going to sleep and lie down with her and hold her hands until she was asleep. And now, she loves her bed so much that (if she's not overtired!) she sometimes actually sighs with contentment when I put her down and goes right to sleep! I know the feeling. :-) In some ways it's backfired a little bit though, because she usually doesn't sleep more than 30-45 minutes when I hold her now, which makes it very difficult when we're out for long periods of time. And actually, when I say "her bed," I should really say our bed. For now, she's still with me and Zack. My goal right now is to get her taking naps in her crib (she's actually been doing that for the past 2 days)...

...and then phase her into her crib at night. I'm not really sure if I'm going to be okay with that or not (I think I'll miss her at night!), but she's starting to get so squirmy in her sleep that I end up on the edge of the bed every night. So I guess we'll see what happens.

Still no laughing yet! She often looks as though she might rip one, but just gurgling and cooing for now. :-) She smiles just about anytime you smile at her (provided she's not cranky), and she's starting to consciously reach out and grab things. Before, she was just swinging her arms aimlessly, occasionally hitting objects, but now you can see her focus on something and actually reach out for it, and then grab on. And then, when she accomplishes her goal, she starts kicking with excitement. She's also much more interested in her hands than ever before. She can spend fifteen minutes just examining them!

She sure is cute! It would seem that her first nickname is "Critter." Zack calls her this pretty consistently, and it's even led to other phrases like, "It's Critter time!" and "You've been Crittered!" With Zack as her daddy I'm sure she'll have many more (and hopefully more feminine!).

I get more attached to her every day. Zack is really great about watching her for an hour (or three) and letting me go do errands or have fun, but it's amazing to me that as much as I want and need to get away, I always end up missing her still! I guess that's the way God intended it. :-)

3 Months Old!

Boy, I wasn’t sure we’d make it this far. :-) I think “roller coaster” is too mild a phrase for the up and down we’ve been on. I had no idea it could be so difficult just to keep a little baby alive. Some days I feel like that’s all I do. With all of Sara’s feeding and weight problems, it’s been more than a full-time job just to keep her full. I remember early on, in the first few weeks, feeling like there was something wrong with either me or my baby because I just couldn’t make her happy it seemed like – she seemed to always need to eat. It was probably 10 weeks before we realized that the problem was just that, even though she was nursing constantly, she wasn’t getting full. She was screaming because she was hungry! It was so sad to see her, fifteen minutes after eating, lying there screaming, clawing at her face, and chewing on her fist. At that point, I knew I couldn’t let her go on like that, so I decided we’d give her some formula. Just giving her 2-4 ounces per day has made the difference in her gaining from a couple of ounces a week, to a pound every two weeks.

We’re still working on the tongue tie thing. We went to the MD on Monday that Carla recommended, who referred us on to Dr. Cashman, an ENT, who will evaluate her on Thursday to see if she is truly a good candidate for clipping. We’re finally reaching the end of this long process! I can’t believe it’s taken three months to discover the problem, one that’s fairly common even. And the pediatrician, though kind, was no help. He and the lactation consultant there simply wanted to make sure Sara was gaining weight, and as long as she was, they didn’t seem to really care if it was from breastfeeding or not. And the staff was actually unfriendly. So we don’t plan to go back. The most help I’ve gotten was from the La Leche League, and from Jessica’s sister-in-law (through Jessica). The leader of the LLL is Kathy Freeman, the lactation consultant at Washington Regional, and she’s the one who actually “diagnosed” Sara with tongue tie. She was extremely kind and just wanted to help us, whatever it took.

But it certainly has not been all trials! She’s nine pounds now, so she’s getting stronger, and when she hit that magic 8-pound mark, she started sleeping through the night. I went from getting 1-2 hours of sleep at a time to getting 7-8 hours a time – literally overnight. She now sleeps from about 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. every night, sometimes even more. And she smiles! God certainly knew what He was doing when He made babies. He makes their cries so horrible that you are willing to drop what you are doing and do whatever it takes to make it stop, and He makes their smiles so sweet that you forget about the hard stuff. And He makes them so cute and cuddly that they’re sure to get held a lot! It’s so fun when I come back in the room where she is and get down to smile at her and talk to her, and she starts grinning and kicking and waving her arms with excitement. Sometimes when I’m talking to her and she’s looking up at me, grinning and watching my face intently, and trying out little baby noises in return, my eyes get teary because it amazes me how much I love her. I’m quite sure that “ah-goo” means “I love you, Mama!” :-)

Even though she’s small, she’s not behind on any of her milestones. Her first “social” smile was at 6 weeks, and now at 3 months, she’s already rolled over 3 times. No laughing yet, but I can tell she’s close. Zack and I sure do love her like crazy! It’s hard to think back and remember what it was like before her, even though it was such a short time ago in the grand scheme of things. Our lives are definitely changed and not our own anymore, but we’re already excited to see who God will add to our family in the future!

Sleep!

For the past 10 nights or so, Sara has slept through the night -- at least 5 hours at a time, and most nights around 7 hours (last night was 8)! I'm hoping this lasts. :)

Sara just rolled over!

True, it was more of a flop, but Sara was up on her tummy and plopped right over on her back.  I couldn't believe it, so I flipped her back over on her tummy, and she immediately turned right back over on her back.  I guess I can't leave her alone on the bed any more!

EIGHT HOURS!!!

Sara and I went to see Dr. Sharma (my oral surgeon former employer) yesterday to see if she could be tongue-tied. He said that he usually only deals with the extreme cases, because simple cases are handled by the child's pediatrician, a pediatric dentist, or an ENT specialist. He also only does the surgery with general anesthesia, which is totally unnecessary for a baby like Sara. At her age, the frenulum is so thin that a simple clipping procedure -- with no pain-killer! -- is all that is required. Supposedly babies can nurse right away afterwards. SO, Dr. Sharma would not be doing any surgery on Sara, but he did say that though not extreme, her tongue does look tight. His recommendation was to just give her a bottle till she grows out of it, but now that I know this could be the problem, I'm going to ask her pediatrician about it today. In my mind, there is no reason to keep going through these feeding problems if it could be a simple fix.

On another note, as I've written before, most nights I give Sara a couple of ounces of formula because she sleeps so much better with a full belly. Well, last night, I decided I would see what happened if we didn't do any formula. She went to bed at 11:15, and now, at 7:35 -- over eight hours later! -- she's STILL ASLEEP!!!! No kidding! She did stir and whimper a few times in the night, but since she sleeps with me, I was able to cuddle her close and she fell right back asleep. It's hard not to get my hopes up that this will become a pattern. :-)

Two Months Old!

Sara - 2 Months

Sara Smiles

First Smiles

Concerns

Sara finally lost her "billy" (umbilical) cord, as Zack calls it, on Christmas Eve. So, 2 days later when she "blew" all over herself, she got her 1st sink bath!



Sara had a weight check appointment today since she's so little and hadn't regained her birth weight by 3 weeks. She gained 4.5 oz in 9 days, which is at the very bottom of the range of acceptable rate of gain. SO they want to see her back in 2 weeks to recheck.

Sara's Here!

Well, it's taken me a week to get this down on "paper," but you'll have to forgive me -- I just had a baby! That's right, my suspicions last week were correct; I was in labor. Zack got home from work around 5:30 and ate his dinner (that I cooked, thank you!), and my family came over then as well. My contractions were getting closer together and pretty uncomfortable, so we decided around 6:30 that I should go ahead and go. We ended up making it to the hospital a little before 7:00 p.m. Dr. Duke (who I would have chosen had I had the chance) was on call, checked me and said I was 4 cm dilated and 90% effaced. He wanted to go ahead and break my water, so about 45 minutes later, he came back (I was now 5cm/100%) and did just that. I had about 2 more contractions that were just uncomfortable, and then things picked up quickly! Zack has an actual time line of when things occurred, but for me, the next three hours passed in a painful blur.

Looking back, it's hard to remember very many specifics because I was trying so hard to relax, but I do know that if Zack and Mom hadn't been there, I couldn't have done it! There were a few times that I thought things like, "I never want to do this again!" and it was definitely the hardest thing I've ever done, but worth it for sure! Around 10:45, the nurse checked me and said I was 10 cm dilated and it was time to push. She had me give 2 good pushes, and then called out the door, "The doctor needs to come now!" The next contraction I actually had to breathe through because the baby was crowning and the doctor wasn't ready. That third push, at 10:53 p.m., Sara arrived! She was a nice shade of blue-gray, and Mom even says she had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, but she let out her first cry and within seconds, the doctor was asking Zack if he wanted to cut the cord (which, surprisingly, he did!). He did just fantastic through the whole thing, and was pretty immediately in love :) They took her immediately over to the warmer, where she was howling, until she heard her daddy's voice. He began to talk to her, and she immediately stopped crying.

Annie didn't make it until about 45 minutes after Sara was born, even though she booked it from Amarillo and made it in a record 6.5 hours. We had lots of other visitors too -- my whole family, Laura, Bro Kenny, and Jay & Betty.

We had to stay in the hospital for 2 nights, since she was born so late at night, but now we're home!

Important Day

Today marks an important milestone -- I am technically considered full term. In a nutshell, that means that if Sara were born today, she would not be considered premature (even though I have 3 weeks left until my due date).

It's not too long now...

I had a doctor's appointment this morning, and everything looks fantastic! The baby's heartbeat was strong and steady (the doctor remarked on the "excellent rhythm -- it doesn't skip a beat!"). He also told me that Sara has dropped down into the pelvis (which explains the waddle!), and that she is head-down. (Both of these are good...) He said I'm not dilated yet, but that he wouldn't be at all surprised if by next week's visit I am starting to dilate. All of this means the end is in sight! He said there was no reason to think I'd go past my due date (and implied that it might even be earlier). So I just need to keep walking so that baby's head keeps pushing its way out! By this time next week I'll be considered full term. Boy -- I need to go get that hospital bag packed!

Free Woman

I just finished my first week at home! Friday, Oct 13 was my last day of work. It sure flies by more when I'm at home. I have so much to do: clear out the baby room, paint the baby room (Mom says she'll help...), organize baby clothes, unpack gifts, write thank you notes -- I'm feeling a little overwhelmed! Add to that the fact that I keep forgetting that I can't do as much as I'm used to, and some days I just feel like doing a load of laundry and cooking dinner is an accomplishment! But it's so fun to be preparing for this exciting time to come, and my stress level is way down now that I'm not working. I'm blessed that I have a husband who wants that for me and our kids!

Are those mine??

I was blow-drying my hair today and looking down at my feet -- they're swollen! I don't have ankles anymore. Weird.....

Rumblings

I felt Sara moving this week! It was kind of like someone flicking you with their thumb and finger, but softer and duller. (Is that a word??)

It's a girl!

Click on the picture to see a bigger image. This is our little girl! (or so they tell us :)

I'm pregnant!

We just found out Friday that we're going to have a baby! Zack wasn't home, but a girl at work told me that I needed to take a test, based on some complaints I was making (like being exhausted!). When I saw the two lines, I called Zack (who was in Yellville on an audit), and said, "Well, I won't beat around the bush. I just took a pregnancy test, and it was positive!" His response: "Rrreally... Cool!"