Baby J is 1 Month!

Baby J celebrated her one month on Christmas. In some ways, it feels like the month flew by, and in other ways, it's difficult to remember what life was like without her here. I can tell you on thing, it is MUCH busier at my house now. It's hard to find time to get things done, and even simple tasks take a lot longer (in order to get ready in the morning, I have a newborn and toddler with me in the bathroom. Baby J in her swing, and Little A in the shower with me. It's rare that I can get us all clean and dressed in under an hour.) There are many days I think it looks like a toy (and blanket) store exploded in my living room.

Baby J has been such an easy going baby for the most part this month. It seems to me that as she's added awake time, that awake time seems to be when Little A is sleeping. I think they have a pact to keep Mommy and Daddy busy all the time. At night, Baby J doesn't like to go to sleep until after midnight, and sometimes much later. When she does sleep, her preferred place to sleep is on Mommy. Which means I'm not getting the best rest, but I do love the baby snuggles. Little A was the same way for awhile, so I think she'll grow out of it soon. I think it will help if we can figure out how to get her spitting up under control. It seems like Baby J has filled out a lot in the past week or so. It's time to pack up all the newborn clothes again, because Baby J is too big. She wears a lot of 0-3 month outfits, and even fits well into a lot of 3 month size outfits. Mommy and Daddy are worried that she's going to grow up fast, just like her big sister did, so we're getting in all of the baby snuggles we can while she'll let us!Because Baby J's 1 month birthday fell on Christmas, E had to bake Baby J's birthday cake. What a sweet Daddy!

3 Weeks

Considering Baby J is approaching 4 weeks (tomorrow) I thought I should get a 3 week update up.

Baby J is still a sleepy girl, but she has more awake time during the day. At night she only wakes up to eat, and then it's right back to sleep. Baby J has been easy to take pretty much anywhere. She sleeps while I run to the grocery store, Target or at dinner with friends. Friday night we went to the Holidazzle parade, and had dinner at the Newsroom with friends- 6 adults and 4 kids. Luckily, we were placed in a room with one big table, and a little extra room for the little ones to run around before the food came, and to put the stroller so Baby J could snooze through dinner. She was by far the quietest of the 4 kids. For the most part Baby J seems to be a really easy going baby. The only problem we're having is that she spits up so much. It seems like she's growing (she's moved out of most of the newborn clothes, and on to 0-3 and 3 month sizes), but I hate to see so much milk bubble out after she eats. We try to keep her propped up after she eats, and that seems to help. I read some suggestions online to limit my dairy, which also seems to help, but I'm from Wisconsin, I just can't completely cut out milk and cheese! Thankfully, the spitting up doesn't seem to bother Baby J.

Baby J at 2 Weeks

At 2 weeks old, Baby J is still quite a sleepy little lady. She does wake up when I change her diaper and clothes, so I grabbed a quick shot of those wide open eyes on her changing table. This is also one of my favorite little baby outfits from Little A. The elephant pajamas are a 0-3 month size which makes me a little sad for two reasons. One, it looking at all of these little clothes that used to fit Little A makes me sad that she's gotten so big. And two, my tiny baby is outgrowing her newborn clothes already and moving up in size (not that I expected her to last long in the newborn clothes with how big she was when she was born).

She's sleeping pretty well at night for just 2 weeks old. She starts the night upstairs in E and my room, and when she gets up to eat for the first time, I take her downstairs and we sleep on the couch for the rest of the night.

We went in for a nurse visit on Friday to make sure Baby J had gotten back up to her birth weight, and she had. Actually, she was an ounce over her birth weight at an even 9 pounds. Baby J spits up a lot after she eats, so I was (am) a little worried about her gaining. The nurse said she was doing a good job gaining though, so I feel a little better. I just wish she was keeping more in!

Baby J is also a very sneezy baby. When she sneezes, it's often four or five sneezes in a row. Little A likes to say, "bless you baby," after Baby J sneezes, which is pretty adorable.

This week we also introduced the bottle. Actually, right at 1 week. I know it's a lot earlier than many people do, but our pediatrician with Little A encouraged us to start early so that E and Little A could have some bonding time, so we wanted him to have that time with Baby J too. Plus, Baby J is going to have to start day care pretty early (2 months old) so we really need her to take a bottle. She takes the night time bottle really well, but it seems to wake her up (we had hoped it would make her extra sleepy).

1 Week Old

I thought I would start Baby J's pictures in the green chair a little earlier than with Little A to show just how drastic the changes are in the first year. So here she is at just 1 week old.

Baby J's first week went so fast! I know they all will, but this week seemed especially quick. We were in the hospital for two days, and we came home on Sunday. Nana stayed until Wednesday which was a HUGE help! We were all sad to see her leave, especially Little A (she kept asking, "Where Nana is? Where Khloe (Nana's dog) is? after they headed home).

Baby J spent most of the week sleeping. I forgot just how much newborns sleep. Like her big sister, Baby J doesn't like to sleep laying flat. So she sleeps the first few hours of the night in her swing, and the rest of the night she sleeps on Mommy. When she is awake, she's eating. I feel like she's a good eater, but she spits up a lot after she eats. She's also a little "tongue tied," so we are going to take her in again at 2 weeks old to make sure she's gaining weight okay.

Overall, the first week was great! We're all in love with the new addition to our family!

39 to 40 Weeks

At 39 weeks I was big. I felt big and uncomfortable. During the last few appointments with my doctor, we had been discussing a possible induction before my due date because baby girl seemed big, I was progressing well and we were worried about what to do with Little A when it was time to go to the hospital. At my 39 week appointment, we decided to schedule the induction for 7am on Friday.
I felt good about the plan. We had friends to watch Little A in the morning, and then Nana would pick her up and stay with her while we were in the hospital. Little A, E and I had a low key Thanksgiving at home. We made dinner together, went for a long walk around the lake and did a little cleaning and organizing for baby. We definitely had a lot to be thankful for this year. One sweet little girl here, and another to come the next day! I went to bed feeling like I was as ready as I was going to get for baby's arrival (although we still hadn't decided on a name).

Then came 3am, and I woke up having a contraction. At first I thought it was just a fluke, but when they continued, I figured I was probably in labor. The contractions were 9-10 minutes apart though, so I tried to relax and get a little more rest. My contractions moved pretty quickly to being only 4-5 minutes apart, so I got out of bed and moved to the couch, hoping E could sleep a little more, and I would be more comfortable. I was thinking that I would be able to stay at home, and just go in when I was scheduled. But the contractions picked up, so I got in the shower. (Side note: I had downloaded a free contraction timer app a few weeks earlier, and it was really helpful to keep track of how far apart my contractions were. However, after 10 contractions, the app wouldn't work any more. I was very frustrated when trying to find my credit card to buy the full app while having contractions. Not cool app creators, not cool.) When I got out I called the hospital, and the doctor said to go ahead and come in.

E called his friend who was going to watch Little A (who only lives a few blocks away), and had him come over so she could keep sleeping for a bit. We packed up a few last minute things, and when M got here, we headed to the hospital. When we got there, I think there was a little confusion. Several times people who came in to my room made comments like, "Oh, it looks like you're already in labor." Apparently it wasn't communicated very well that I did not need to be induced.

After what seemed like a really long time to me, probably an hour or so, the nurse finally checked to see where I was at, and told me I was already at 6-7. I let her know that I was going to want an epidural, so she started me on fluids. I think this was right around 7am, because after that new nurses came in. After getting some fluids, my new nurses called for the epidural, but it took 3 tries before the anesthesiologist responded. He finally came to my room, and got the epidural started around 8:30am. The nurses left for a little while then to give me some time to relax. One nurse told me she thought I was probably ready to go, but to take some time to relax. I tried to relax, and it was nice to have a little quiet time, but right around 9am my water broke. Such a strange feeling! I had E try to find someone after that because I was really feeling like it was time to push. My doctor and nurses came back, and at about 9:10am I started pushing, and at 9:29am baby girl made her entrance into the world!

My doctor and nurses got everything cleaned up, and gave us some time with baby girl. We got out our name lists, and quickly decided on a name for our new little girl. Later, one of the nurses came back to measure her, and we found out how big Baby J was. E and I were very surprised to hear she was bigger than Little A. Baby J seemed so small! (And when Nana brought Little A to visit later, we were surprised again by how big our first baby suddenly seemed!)

Overall, things went about as well as I could have imagined. It was nice that we already had plans in place for Friday, but I was so thankful that I went into labor naturally. And I was relieved that everything went so quickly after a much longer labor with Little A.