Half a year old

Luke turned 6 months old this month! Yahoo!!! This has been such a great month filled with milestones and new experiences.

- I absolutely adore his full body smiles. He smiles from his toes to his eyebrows. I often catch this type of smile if I do a dance for him as we listen to Pandora and cook dinner. It is my favorite.
- Sleeps through the night
- Weighs 19 lbs
- Is impossibly wiggly when trying to change his diaper
- Is slightly obsessed with Mom
- Two teeth (He has only bit me once while eating, ouch!)
- Started solids this week. We are doing baby led weaning, which basically means he eats what we eat. We just put big pieces in front of him so his chubby fingers can pick it up and he can go to town. Small pieces would just make him frustrated because at this age babies can only fist their food. If it is soft enough to squish with your fingers, he can eat it with his gums. So far we have only done watermelon, bread, lemons, and baked potato fries. Tonight he will get some steak and more potatoes. Any way you feed your baby is perfect as long as it works for you. This has been a good fit for us. I'm not super into making a separate meal for the baby, so hopefully this helps him learn to eat what we are eating. He has been a rock-star with this so far!
- Jordan's brother is allergic to peanuts so I am going to do some research in the next few days to decide what to do about allergen type foods. (Eggs, strawberries, peanuts ect.) Our dr told us today to avoid all common allergens until 1, but I have read that advise is outdated and the opposite is actually found to be better. I mentioned that to him, and he did give me an explanation about how babies guts are still leaky at this age, but I am going to read the studies myself to decide what to do, and consult him of course. I respect his opinion, but I'm the one responsible to get all the facts and make sure his advise is right for us.
- He had his first stay in a hotel for my family reunion. He did so great the whole weekend. It was so perfect.
- Started to take big boy baths instead of laying in his baby tub, HE LOVES IT!

That is all I can think of for now. Below are far too many pictures:)

Dear five month old Luke

Dear five month old Luke,

You are sent from God to make me better. Each and every day I get to feed you, kiss you, snuggle you and help you learn. You are a quick learner. This month you learned so many fun things. You squeak like a dolphin and roll over like no one's business. Your chubby little fingers went from struggling to hold onto toys to being able to find and play with any toy we've given you. Sometimes you struggle with new shapes, like your big square blocks, but you quickly learn how to manipulate new objects to stay in your grasp. You stick everything into that sweet mouth of yours! You don't have any teeth, yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to see one pop through after yesterday's fussiness. Thank you for sleeping through the night, 11-13 hours, and taking two, two hour naps, most of the time. I know it is rough when you get those fat legs stuck in your crib bars. All this moving around is tough. The sleep makes mom less crazy, along with Zoloft. It has been so fun to show you new things, like the splash pad and fireworks. Your eyes get so wide and you do your best to take everything in. People always comment on how blue and wide your eyes are. They often think you are nervous about meeting new people or seeing new things, but I think you are just trying to learn as much as you can. You are the joy in my day. Your dad and I still fight over who gets to pick you up from your naps. Dad loves you so much. Only one person can watch your video monitor at a time and Daddy often logs me off so he can watch you sleep, or fight sleep, while he is at work. Thank you for letting me be your mom even though I have a lot to learn. You are the sweetest baby and I am so lucky to be with you!

Love,

Mom

Four months!

Lukey is four months old! Where has the time gone? I can tell you that we haven't slept the time away:) Luke became a great sleeper at 6 weeks old, but then we visited my parents while Jordan went to the Dominican Republic. Luke started fighting EVERY time I tried to put him to sleep. This resulted in lots of lost sleep on his end and mine. We also both cried a lot haha. After a week of this I was talking with my sister, Jen, and decided to go down to two naps to try to resolve things. I am also doing some cry it out at the moment:( Man that breaks your heart. If you think that is heartless take into consideration that yesterday I tried to comfort him, rock him, nurse him, seriously EVERYTHING I knew to help him and he cried for two hours before falling asleep for his afternoon nap. I knew nothing was wrong as we had been to the Dr for a check up this week and during awake time he was happy as a clam. This was happening every time I put him to sleep for 8 days! Now this morning when he started crying as I put him down, I dragged myself out of his room to sit in the hall. He cried for 5 min and fell asleep. His second nap he cried for 20. But COMBINED that is less than he did for one nap yesterday. I just think he is figuring out how to calm himself down to get some Zzzzzs. This is what is working for us right now.

Jordan had a great business trip! Man he missed us and we missed him, but it was so fun to hear about it. He had a hot tub in his room and went running on the beach every morning. I was envious. BUT he did work from 7am-1am every day. He got up around 4:30 just to exercise. He is dedicated.

This week my sister and her family are visiting. It has been so fun! They are at a music camp during the day, but we see them for a few fun hours during the night. Berrys, I'm sorry that I haven't put on make up or real clothes this week. I did today, so you're in for a treat when you get back;)

This has been a great month and I can't wait for more fun changes to come. This month Luke started rolling to his side while he is on his back. He will get the full roll soon! He also laughs, usually only at dad. He is 17lbs and has the best chubby legs. He has started to grab things and I love that! I especially love when he grabs my shoulder and my side as I am holding him. It is like a hug straight from Heaven. If you're lucky he will give you a 5 minute hug, but then he wants to be faced out to see what is going on.

Until next month, pray we get this sleep thing worked out in the next week or so and that I start feeling more human and less zombie.

Luke, Months 1, 2 & 3

Month 1

Month 2

Month 3

This is a giant catch up post. Sadly, I'm not sure I even remember what things were like on month 1! I will do my best to remember.

Month 1: Luke is so alert! He loves to look around at things and see what is going on. He is a GREAT eater. He eats every two hours, except at night he will go a little longer. It takes him nearly 45 minutes to eat and sadly we are on a 45 minute schedule. SO basically we eat, change diaper, sleep repeat. He is growing very well. His jaundice cleared up after a few days and we sent his billy lights back. He slept in his crib for naps, and night sleeping after the first few days. At first I let him do naps in his rocker but decided I'd prefer him to have some consistency for sleeping. Sleeping is HARD. I make sure each time I put him down he is awake, but drowsy. If he cries, I pick him up and wait until he is calm and then put him down again. Some days I did this ten times in a row! One day he didn't nap all day we just played the pick up put down game in between feedings. Some days I gave up and went on a walk to get him to sleep. Other days he did much better and fell asleep without any fuss, but it wasn't consistently. I know this isn't the way a lot of moms do it, but it is what works for us. Sleep is SO important for us. It is important for growth, learning and development. I want my babies to be able to sleep on their own without rocking, feeding or a pacifier. Yes I love to cuddle and snuggle him and I know this age doesn't last forever, but I am building a foundation of good sleep that I hope will last a life-time. I make sure to get extra snuggles in during awake time. For moms who do it differently, SWEET! I do not judge anyone for the way they are making things work. Do what works for you! It took a lot of faith this month to keep trying. We also had a lot of help this month from my mom, sisters and Jordan's family. We were able to get to church after two weeks and I know we were blessed for going.

Month 2: The bad days are got less frequent and Luke learned to sleep! He had some great nights where he would go 8-9 hours without waking up! I would say 6 weeks was the turning point. We had thrush up until then (yes for 6 miserable, cracked bleeding mom crying weeks). FINALLY the thrush went away after I pumped and fed for 3 days. This allowed my nipples to finally heal. Luckily he took a bottle like a champ. (not so much anymore. My fault, really. I just don't pump anymore.) Luke seemed so much more happy once we were sleeping well and the diaper rash and mouth sores went away. He had a week of a yucky cold, but only a day that he was fussy. It is amazing how many times I worried that he was hurting and had no idea what to do. I worry too much! I decided not to go back to work and this made Jordan and I feel so much peace. It helped that J got a big fat raise:) Luke rolled over for the first time at 5 weeks, but held out on us until after 3 months to do it again.

Month 3: SUCH a fun month. Luke was sleeping well, eating faster and spending more time awake. This month we were staying up for closer to an hour. It was so fun to see him start to smile, babble and interact. He LOVES his dad. Every day when Jordan comes home he would just smile and smile. Most of the days this month Luke went to sleep with no fuss. He'd just play in his crib for 5-10 min and sleep for an hour. He is a short napper. During the nights he would typically sleep 12 hours and wake up 2 times during that period. He really is a great baby. If we take him out I can usually get him to sleep just fine in his car seat. We only do this for church or family outings. I try not to be a crazy person who revolves around her kids nap schedule, but during the week I kind of do. Nap 1 I exercise and eat breakfast and shower. Nap 2 I do house work. Nap 3 I read or nap myself. And naps 4 and sometimes 5 I usually am cooking dinner. This month I accidentally fed Luke a bandaid:( He also had his first giggle, but no outright laughing. He moved up to size 3 diapers. WHAT? He is pretty large. He had 5 blow outs in one day from his size 2's in every brand. It was hard to face the music that he needed a bigger size, but eventually we gave in and he is happily keeping most of the poop in the diapers now:) At the end of this month I think he went through what is called sleep regression. This is where babies move from having one type of sleep cycle to having adult like sleep cycles which are shorter. This means he began to wake up more during the night:(:( I thought since we taught him to sleep on his own that he'd glide right through this phase. No such luck. He still wanted me to come say hi in the night before he'd fall asleep. Luckily, I think we are back to normal now. Knock on wood, cross your fingers and wish on a star. Sleep is hard. I think lack of sleep is the main reason I was still feeling depressed during this month. It came and went in the evenings so I never went to the Dr. But it is no fun to feel such despair! I felt capable of handling it with all the knowledge I gained in my degree. I did a lot of stress management and took some hormones that really seemed to help.

Hopefully I start blogging better so these posts don't make me cry because I can't remember things:( haha Being a mom is hard but amazing. Sometimes I wonder how I will ever have another baby. I know it will be even more difficult than this has been, but I am learning every day and I will do the same with more kids. I will just become better and lean on Christ to do that!

Luke's baby blessing

I need to be better at documenting because my memory is broken. Luke was blessed on April 12, 2015 by his dad. We had SO much support for this perfect day. My sister, Kara, and her family drove clear from Denver. My brother and Kaci brought their baby even though germs are a big concern for her this early. We had aunts and uncles, friends and grandparents travel in and love on Luke. The blessing was perfect. Luke wore the same outfit Jordan was blessed in and was wrapped in blankets from his Great Grandma and grandma. They were both hand made with love. Jordan said all the perfect words, but to be honest I should have written this earlier because I don't remember much. He is always so good with blessings. I had asked him before what he was going to say and he said, "I don't know. I'm going to follow the Spirit." Even when I bear my testimony I'm practicing in my mind what I will say! That is why Jordan is my favorite. He is really in tune with the Spirit and promptings just flow for him. We followed the meeting with a lunch in the park near our home. The food everyone brought was fabulous and the weather was beautiful.

I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for the plan of happiness. To me, the biggest part of that is families. We are so blessed to have to gospel and to be able to have a family that is sealed to us for EVER. FOREVER! Luke is really my brother and I get to be his mom in this life. I get to witness his sweet spirit grow. I get to teach him right and wrong and I have a testimony that if Jordan and I are faithful to the covenants that we have made, our family will be valiant. Every child deserves to be born to loving parents and I am so thankful that I have been given the opportunity to be a mom. Luke is going to be an amazing child of God. I know it. I can feel it in his spirit. He is already so observant. I look forward to so many things, but mostly I look forward to watching his testimony develop.

Below is the handsome boy. Is it sad that I am a little excited for him to start drooling so I can put him in his bandana bibs I made him?

Birth Story

2/16/2015- Luke’s birth story

Today I am attempting to write about a huge day, the day I had my first son, Luke. Pregnancy was coming to an end and I was very anxious to meet our son. The week before we had an awful scare with Preslie coming into the world. Preslie is my brother’s first child and they had some very serious complications with her. I had been crying all week because of the terrifying experiences they had to face. I had been having major anxiety about not going into labor naturally. My Dr. has a 1 week over limit, and I was scheduled to be induced on that day. I was ready to argue about that and get him to let me wait two weeks after my due date. Lucky for me, I didn’t need to have that conversation. On Sunday morning (2/15/15) I felt like I was leaking. I had major anxiety about my water breaking at church, and I was also not feeling very well. Jordan assured me that we could leave church if I got uncomfortable. I made it through the passing of the sacrament, and we decided to leave.

We hung out around the house for the rest of the day. By 10pm I knew I was in labor. I got ready for bed with J and tried to get some sleep. The contractions were very painful on my back. I could not sleep through them. It is hard to describe how they felt. During the contraction, I was very miserable. In between I felt just fine. I could not lay down for the contractions, so I went down stairs on the couch so Jordan could get some sleep. I made it to 1am by myself, but began to get very scared to be doing it alone. I woke Jordan and asked him to be with me. The only thing comfortable was my yoga ball, so I brought it upstairs to wait for the bathtub to fill. The bath did help, but I was still in a lot of pain. Jordan sat in the bathroom with me and read his book about Vikings. I told him to go back to sleep, but he had too much excitement for that. At 4:30 I decided we should eat breakfast and go to the hospital. We made it to the hospital at 5am and the nurse put us in a triage room. We were told I was dilated to a 3.5 and if I made progress in an hour, I’d be admitted. It was very hard to lay in the bed with the monitors on. I tried at one time to get up and sit on the ball we brought, but the monitors stopped working. I was having a very difficult time during my contractions that were about 3 minutes apart. Finally at about 7 we were admitted and I asked for an epidural right away. I got an IV and about 30 minutes later the guy was there to put me out of my misery.

The epidural was a piece of cake to get put in. I felt pressure, but no pain as it went in. It was pretty scary afterward though.  My blood pressure dropped, as did my heart rate and Luke’s. There were people trying to give me meds to help the blood pressure, a nurse trying to ultrasound Luke because our heart rates were the same and they were worried that his wasn’t beating. I did some puking, and the dr’s did their job and everything stabilized. That was the point that I told Jordan to tell my mom to come right away. After that I was able to rest. I don’t remember falling asleep, but I did lay there, not talking, on oxygen, for a good hour before they checked me and told me I hadn’t made much progress, so they gave me pitocin. That kicked in quick and the next time I was checked I was almost ready to push. My mom got here at this point and was so helpful. She held my hand and reassured me in ways I didn’t know I needed. One hour later I was pushing! My epidural was literally perfect for labor. I could feel all the pressure, but none of the pain. I could lift my own legs and feel when my contractions were coming. I pushed with all my might. The nurse had told me all along that Luke’s head was “right there.” She gave me false hope that I would only need to push a few minutes. It ended up taking about an hour. Other than being exhausted from earlier labor, this part wasn’t bad. Luke’s massive head wasn't budging so the Dr. decided to do an epiotomy to help him out. After that, I also got a nice 3rd degree tear. A few contractions later he was out. It felt like a squirmy fish once his head popped out. The next thing I remember I was holding him on my chest and the Dr. was giving me a billion stitches. Luke’s hair looked a little red, and I think I offended a red hair nurse. I remember saying, “But I don’t even know any red heads.” haha. Luke’s hair is not red, it was just the gunk from labor confusing us.

Jordan took Luke to get his first bath. J asked many questions to make sure our baby was healthy and strong. I was wheeled into recovery. I remember feeling so exhausted. I really have never felt that tired. It was great to have my mom by my side while Jordan was with Luke. The delivery of our baby was so perfect! We were over the moon to have him here safe and sound. I was able to walk quickly after I got to the room and we began the road to recovery!

The aftermath:

Since Luke's birth there have been so many emotions! We are both still recovering from the event of labor. I am forcing myself to take it easy for 6 weeks. I really do think I need that time. The thing that has been the most difficult for me is all the emotions. I said many times to my mom that, "I should have eaten my placenta." lol. I had read and had friends tell me that helps with your emotions. I have decided, though, that these hormones and emotions are what make women amazing at what they do. Yes, the crying, worrying and anxiety are part of what I have been going through, but I am also experiencing a HUGE amount of concern, love and empathy for this little being. I realized that the emotions that come with being a woman are a huge blessing. I have already began to get over my fear and anxiety, but the love and care have only grown. We are so happy to be a family of 3!

I'm pregnant, but don't feel "pregnant."

Have you ever gone through something and been shocked at how completely normal it is? You get married and life seems the same. You grow a baby and you also feel the same. It isn't that logically I thought going through pregnancy would be something that came with different thoughts and feelings, I am just constantly amazed at how normal it is. It is really cool to me that our bodies and minds are so good at adapting to change. 

I had a FANTASTIC baby shower last Saturday. So many good friends and family came to support me. My friend Sarah and her mom Mely did so much work to make it a special day for me. There were printed pictures from my Maternity shoot, yummy food, cute decorations and Sarah even recorded everyone as they shared a blessing they hope I receive. I had such a great time and am thankful for all the people in my life who make it so fun!

 Below is a picture of the gift my friend Tori gave me (left) and my guest bath (right). They were both things that made my day. The plumbing issue has been going on for over a months and I finally, stubbornly, finished it. The shower/bath did not put out any cold water. We didn't notice when we first bought the house because the water heater was turned down so low that you had to have it all the way to hot to even get warm water, which was great in the summer, but not quite warm enough in the winter. When J was sick I decided to shower here to avoid his sick germs in our master bath. I scorched my back side pretty bad and realized we had a problem. I researched and googled to find out that we needed to replace the cartridge. I followed all the right steps, but the old cartridge was STUCK. I kept trying for weeks, while many people kept telling me I might need a plumber to help. I was frustrated because I felt like I KNEW how to fix it, but it wasn't working. Finally, after my dad tried his luck at pulling it out and the darn thing started badly leaking, I called a plumber, defeated. The funny thing is he showed up and had never seen any cartridge so stuck. It took him hours to get it out. He tried pulling, melting (which set off all our smoke alarms, lovely) and using a strong lubricant to get it out. Finally I mentioned that my dad and I were planning on drilling a long screw into the stuck cartridge in hopes that the pressure would break up some build up and give us leverage to pull it out, if we hadn't called a plumber. The guy was out of ideas and energy, so he tried it. It worked! So you see I am smarter than a plumber:) Our shower now works and the plumber was very nice and didn't charge me much at all. I was really worried that the hours he spent would equate to $$$$. I think he felt bad that he made a pregnant woman go and shut off the water line in the basement over 20 times. I got my workout for the day.

 I do believe I have hit the nesting stage. I have always been a big organizer, but lately the urge to get things done is pretty intense. Sunday I made 6 pair of baby leggings in about an hour and a half. It was so fun! I was going to write a tutorial, but I kind of just wing it every time. That is definitely one of my weaknesses. Here is a link of a tutorial that is very similar to how I made them, and much better written than I could do. I used old clothes and lined up the bottoms with seams so there was less sewing and a little more of a finished look. I also like to use my double needle once in a while, because that makes them look more finished also. This project made me decide that I need a serger. I should have thought of it before Christmas!

 After all that rambling, here are two recent bump pictures, 35 and 36 weeks along. I am feeling great for the most part. I am a little uncomfortable, having a lot of braxton hicks, and sleep is getting less easy. We are getting so excited for this little guy to come out. Yesterday Jordan told me, "I miss him. Can we go to the hospital and get him out?" It is hard to explain how you can miss someone you have never met, but it is possible. I told Jordan he had to wait, but he wasn't very happy about that. It will be another 3-6 weeks before this guy is ready. I also accidentally saw my weight as a nurse entered it into her computer. Man, that is depressing! Jordan had to console me with ice cream over that one. I am doing my best at suppressing that bit of information