Your Second Month - January 2014

Height: 21 inches (45th percentile)

Weight: 10 pounds, 5 ounces (75th percentile)

[height & weight from January 3rd]

Sleeping Pattern: You always sleep on your tummy. You just won’t have it any other way. At the beginning of the month you were sleeping 7 hours at night consistently and a total of around 16 hours each day (including your night time sleeping). By the end of the month you were sleeping 10 hours every night, from 9:30 p.m. until 7:30 the next morning! Good girl! You have a fussy time each evening, but that has improved greatly from the beginning of the month until the end.

Eating Habits: You ate every three and a half hours during the day. By the end of the month, when you started waking up at the same time every day, your mealtimes were 7:30, 11:00, 2:30, 6:00, and 9:00 and then it’s off to bed.

Personality, etc.: You HATE the car seat! Almost every time we go anywhere you scream for 5-10 minutes before calming down. It’s so frustrating and I feel so terrible for you! I try not to go anywhere during the day if I don’t have to because it’s so bad.

Also, at the beginning of this month you did not like to be put in a baby seat of any kind. But towards the end of the month you started enjoying some time in your little reclining seat. It has two toys that hang down for you to look at - an iguana and a bee - and it’s so fun to watch you smile at them sometimes!

You like being sung to. Sometimes when you’re fussy, if I sing, or if Penny sings, you calm right down. And Penny loves to sing to you. Most of the time it’s Jesus Loves Me but sometimes it’s a song she makes up herself that doesn’t really make sense.

You like your pacifier when you are fussy or tired, but you are still terrible at keeping it in for very long.

Friends: You spend most of your time at home, but outside of that, your best friends are your cousins right now. :)

Anything else: You now have three hemangiomas. Hemangiomas are a type of vascular birthmark. Usually they are bright red and are raised a bit. One of them is on your left bun (hehe!) and was there when you were born. But since your diapers rub on it so much, it actually was irritated and bleeding so much that the raised part is gone and it’s just more of a dark purple mark that seems more like a scar. Another one showed up on your face when you were about two and a half weeks old. It has gradually gotten brighter and is raised now (it wasn’t right away) but hasn’t gotten any bigger… yet. The third one showed up when you were about five weeks old. It is a deep nasal tip hemangioma - meaning it’s on the tip of your nose and is deeper underneath the surface of your skin. It makes the tip of your nose bluish and is just slightly swollen. I am hoping it won’t get any worse and plan to talk to your doctor about it at your next appointment to see what she recommends. But even with your little blue nose, you are beautiful! And I have started to really love the little red one on your cheek. It’s so cute and special!

Photos:

Sister love...

I love this sweet sleepy face and the way your mouth falls open when you sleep!

She really loves you!

Toothless grin in your sleep. :)

Look how long your hair is in the back! I love it!

One Month Old

Matching pajamas

I thought it was so funny that you fell asleep like this!

Your First Month - December 2014

Height: At your two-week check-up you had grown by one inch to 20 ½ inches in length.

Weight: At your two-week check-up you were back up to your birth weight and then some. You weighed 8 pounds, 11 ounces.

Sleeping Pattern: It took three or four days at home for you to figure out that night time is for sleeping (or at least staying quietly in bed.) But after that you have done a great job of letting me rest! I usually put you in bed while you are drowsy but still awake after you nurse. You wake up once every night to nurse, but not at a consistent time. Sometimes you sleep four hours before waking me up, sometimes as much as seven hours. You are usually wide awake after your middle-of-the-night feeding but you always let me put you right back in bed anyway without any fussing. You are such a good girl!

Eating Habits: I have been keeping you on a somewhat flexible schedule. For this first month you nurse every 3 hours or so. You got the hang of nursing so quickly - yay! I did have a rough time the first ten days. I got very sore and even started bleeding a few days in, so for two or three days I pumped and bottle-fed you until I was healed and ready to nurse again. But once I got past that, nursing has gone very well! For the first two weeks or so you were a little slow - taking almost an hour to eat each time. But by the end of the month you were consistently finishing in about thirty minutes.

Accomplishments: You rolled over the first week you were home (December 8th), but that must have been some kind of accident! (It’s way too early for that, and you haven’t done it since.) You have also already been smiling on purpose. You save most of your smiles for your daddy, which is so cute! You’re not smiling all the time, just once or twice a day, but those smiles melt my heart!

Personality: You seem to be a bit particular. We quickly figured out what kinds of things you like and what you don’t. For instance, you are a tummy sleeper. During this first month, if we tried to put you down on your back (even for just a couple of minutes) you would get very upset and scream! So you sleep on your tummy even though it’s recommended that little babies sleep on their backs. You haven’t liked being swaddled either because you like to try to get your hands in your mouth. When you are being held you prefer to be upright, not reclining. And until the end of the month you cried every single time that I changed your diaper or your clothes. I think you are finally getting used to those things now though. You do have a fussy time each evening. You get fussy and are hard to please for an hour or so - usually sometime between 7:00 and 9:00. Daddy usually holds you during that time because he is able to keep you calm better than I can. Whenever he holds you while you’re awake you usually just stare at him. It’s the cutest thing to watch you hold his gaze for the longest time.

Friends: There have been five other babies born this month at church, so you will have a lot of friends to choose from when you get older. They are your cousin Ralee, Wesley Lathum, Alivia Gasper, and Andrew & Abigail Justice.

Photos:

Snuggling on Daddy

First bath at home. You did not like it! - December 7, 2013

Your big sister adores you!

Paci love

Penny loves to share her stories with you.

Grandpa took this gorgeous photo of you...

...and this one.

I love the sweet sleepy faces you make.

Santa came to visit!

Getting some Grams snuggles on Christmas Day!

The cousins on Christmas Day

Our first family snapshot

Spending some time with your cousin Ralee.

Your Name

When we found out we were pregnant we did one of our favorite things. We started talking about baby names. When we look at names we like to find names that are pretty (or cool - if it’s a boy name), names that are unique (nothing in the top 100 if we can help it), and names that are meaningful. I don’t care how pretty the name is, if it doesn’t have a strong, important meaning, it’s not for us. We eventually had our two names picked out - Ariani Celeste if you were a girl, Milon David if you were a boy.

I was so excited when I found out you were a girl. (Of course I was a little bummed that your daddy wouldn’t get a boy to play with, but I had secretly hoped you were a girl all along.) But I just couldn’t quite settle on your name for sure yet. It’s kind of a funny story, but there is a UFC “ring girl” named Ariany and I didn’t want people to think that’s where your name came from. I decided to look her up on the internet and then found out that her middle name was Celeste! I was so bummed because I really didn’t like the idea of you sharing your name with a girl who was so worldly and was famous for showing off her body. So your daddy and I decided to change your first name just a little bit - Ariana. The meaning was the same - “holy.” We talked about alternative middle names and decided we liked Celine, which had the same meaning as Celeste - “from heaven” or Noelle since you would be born in December. We never really settled on your middle name, although we did agree that if you came in November we would not use Noelle.

Finally it was time for you to come! We had loaded up the car with our bags, Penny was at her cousins’ house for the night, and we were driving to the hospital. As we neared the entrance I looked at your daddy and told him that for a few weeks now I had wanted to put the middle name Celeste back on the table. I thought he would think that was weird or tell me that he had already decided on Noelle, but instead he just said, “Okay. I really like that name.” I couldn’t believe he was fine with a last minute change like that! I asked him if he was sure and he said that he liked all three choices and was fine with any of them. After another moment I said, “I have been thinking about the name Ariani again too.” Again, he said he loved the name Ariani and would be fine with naming you that instead of Ariana. It should have felt like a rash decision - changing your name at the last moment like that - but it didn’t. It just felt right. I just knew that your name was Ariani Celeste - in a way, it had been all along.

Once we checked in at the hospital, I looked up the names Ariana and Ariani on my favorite baby website while we waited in the waiting area. I was surprised to see that Ariana was #74 on the list of most popular names in the US. Ariani, however, was around #400. And somehow, that confirmed our decision. Your name was Ariani.

We waited until our family came to meet you to tell them about the change. It was fun to introduce you to your grandparents and aunts and uncles, who were certain that your name was Ariana Noelle. (In fact, Grandpa had told Pastor that was your name and that’s what they announced at church the night you were born!) They were so surprised that we would change our minds so late! But they all loved the name and were smitten with you from the moment they saw you.

Your name is very important to us. We hope and pray that you will live up to its meaning. We want you to know the Lord from a very early age and to live a holy life that is dedicated to Him! And we will always see you as a very special gift from heaven, an answer to a prayer that we prayed for over two years before seeing it answered with a “yes” from God. I can’t wait to tell you the whole story some day when you are old enough to understand it!

One Week Postpartum

I thought this would be a good wrap up to my pregnancy journal. There is so much that goes on after having a baby and I wanted to record it, if for no reason other than to glance back and remember what this week was like. It has been a week of adjustment and recovery and absolute bliss. I will warn anyone who reads this that I will speak frankly about what life is like for a mommy who is just recovering after giving birth. If any of that would gross you out, I would stop reading now. :)

Recovery: I am recovering well, but it certainly does take time. Although my labor was relatively easy (compared to the last time I had a baby) the delivery was very long and difficult. Baby A never quite got into the right position and entered the birth canal at an angle. I pushed for a very long hour and twenty minutes and still required vacuum assistance to deliver her. So I am very sore. Also, I dealt with some SPD (Symphysis Pubis Disorder) during my pregnancy and expect that it will still be a few weeks before things get better in that regard. Fortunately, though, I didn’t tear at all so my recovery seems much better than last time.

Belly: My belly looks about the same size now as it did when I was 18 weeks into my pregnancy. For me, that is not too bad! I have already noticed that it is smaller than it was the day after Ariani was born.

How I’m Feeling: I am not feeling quite “human” but getting better each day. I have had a lot of muscle soreness all over my body (probably from pushing for so long) and of course have soreness from the delivery itself. I am moving pretty slowly. I have tried to stay on the ibuprofen the doctor prescribed to help with that but haven’t taken anything else for pain.

Nursing: Nursing is going great for Ariani! For me, it’s a little harder. Without going into too much detail I will say that my nipples are not ideal for nursing. So the baby latches on perfectly and nurses well but I have been dealing with cracking and bleeding. So I took a day off and pumped and bottle fed baby A, and now I am alternating between pumping and nursing until I am able to nurse exclusively again. I dealt with this exact same issue when Penny was born and I remember that around the two week mark I was able to breastfeed exclusively and never had problems after that. Looking forward to reaching that mark again!

Sleeping: I think Ariani already has her days and nights figured out. She usually stays awake between her first and second meals of the day. So she wakes up between 7:00 and 8:00 and stays awake until she eats again around 10:00 or so. We are working towards a 3-hour nursing schedule (allowing some flexibility, of course) and she is doing pretty well there. Her last meal is usually around 10:00 or 11:00 and she only wakes up one time between then and her 7:00-ish breakfast. That’s not too bad! Since I’m pumping some, I have been pumping around 9:30 and going to bed. Then my husband feeds her the last meal and puts her to bed. I have been able to average 7 hours of sleep each night (interrupted once, of course) with his help! I haven’t even needed a nap every day, although when I can get one I take one. :)

Baby’s Personality: For now, Ariani seems like a pretty happy baby. When she is awake she is very alert, keeping her eyes wide open and looking around like she is taking everything in. She doesn’t fuss much at all, but what does make her fussy is having her diaper or clothes changed. She absolutely hates that! Getting her dressed is so difficult because she just flails her arms and legs the entire time I am putting her clothes on. We have also learned that she doesn’t like to be swaddled because she likes to put her hands in her mouth or keep them on her face. (She always had them on her face when we saw her during ultrasounds!) And it looks as though she will be a paci girl. I tried a couple of different pacifiers, but she prefers the Soothie or Gumdrop pacifiers. We’re only a week in; I can’t wait to see what else we will learn about her!

Big Sister: Penny loves her baby sister. She asks to hold her several times a day. She loves to pat her and kiss her. She has been behaving much better than I had anticipated, but has pushed the limits some. I knew to expect that. Her routine has been demolished this week, not just by the arrival of her baby sister, but also by staying the night with different family members while I was in the hospital and then by the constant stream of visitors in our house this week. I will be glad when we settle into our new normal. It’s nice to have the people you love come share in the excitement and joy of a new baby, but it’s hard to relax and recover with so many people in and out of your home. This next week should be a good chance to get back into our routine.

Daddy: David has some paid paternity leave from his work. Can you believe that? He has been the biggest help this week. He kept everything organized in our hospital room because he knew that was important to me. And since we have been home he has done dishes and cleaned and straightened up. He has spent extra time taking care of Penny so that I can feed the baby without being bothered or take a nap when I need it. I cannot imagine making it through this week without him! We would be hungry and living in a pile of junk, that’s for sure. :)

Our First Days at Home: We stayed in the hospital for 24 hours and then came home on Monday evening. David’s family brought dinner that night and stayed to eat with us. The Dars came to see us for a little bit that night too. Tuesday night the Boleys brought dinner and stayed to eat with us. It was nice to catch up with them and was a nice low-key evening. Wednesday was a day full of visitors! My mother-in-law came by with Jenna Roberson and then I took Ariani to her doctor’s appointment. Not long after I got back home David’s co-worker Kalley came by. And then a little while after she left Jade and Cole came, and while they were still here Ai and Kayla came by. During the evening my parents came and brought pizza for dinner. (Three meals in three nights - how nice!) Thursday was a quiet day at home. David took Penny up to his work for a little bit and then got some groceries while I stayed home with Ariani. During the evening his Uncle and Aunt came by for a bit. On Friday we had no visitors. We did go out to breakfast and to the hospital to meet my new niece Ralee (a cutie!) Today has been an easy day. Penny went to the circus with her Nana & Grandpa and her cousin Jase. David and Ariani and I stayed home and watched football and just hung out. I am looking forward to a more “normal” week next week!

I am still beyond thrilled at this new addition to our family! When she was born I cried so many tears of joy and gratitude. Every time I look at her I am reminded that my God loves me dearly and chose to answer my prayers with this special little girl. I am looking forward to watching her grow and be a special part of our family!

Delivery Day

I plan to share MUCH more about this sweet baby of ours, but for now, I just have time to share our “birth story.” I was scheduled to be induced on Saturday night, November 30th at Saint Francis Hospital in Tulsa.

We checked into the hospital at 7:30 p.m. By 8:45 I was in bed, hooked up to monitors and an IV, and the nurse had administered Cytotec to ripen my cervix and hopefully get things going. I had contractions all evening, but nothing painful. At 3:30 the nurse said that Dr. Nilson wanted to start me on Pitocin. Soon after we started that my amniotic fluid started leaking a little bit. Still, things progressed slowly. I had expected them to since prior to checking in I was still dilated to only 1 cm and wasn’t effaced much.

The nurse checked me again at 5:00 in the morning and said that I was dilated to 4 cm but was still “thick” (meaning not effaced) and the baby was still very high - she had not yet begun to descend into my pelvis. However, the contractions were getting stronger and I asked for my epidural. Dr. Woolard came and gave me my epidural at 5:30. He was very pleasant and did a great job.

At 7:30 a.m. I was still only 4 cm dilated, not really effaced, and the baby was high. At 9:30 I was still only 4 cm dilated, but I was 80% effaced. Dr. Nilson came in and broke my water. The nurse checked me an hour later at 10:30 and told me I was 6 cm dilated but the baby was not engaging. She was face up instead of on her side like she should have been, so we tried various positions to get her to move to her side and move down into my pelvis.

By 12:10 I was 6, “almost 7” cm dilated, almost completely effaced, and the baby had turned and come down some. We were still trying to get her to move a bit more though. At 1:00 I was between 9 and 10 cm dilated, completely effaced, and the baby was almost all the way down (she was at -3 station) but she had only turned part way.

At 2:00 I started pushing. I was fully dilated but the baby was still at an angle so I pushed to try to get her to move. My epidural worked perfectly. I was not excited about having one, but knew from past experience that trying to endure hours of Pitocin without one is just too painful. I was so pleased that although the epidural worked, it didn’t numb me completely. I was able to feel the pressure and know when I needed to push. I was so pleased, especially because I ended up pushing for an hour and twenty minutes! Rather than the back center of her head entering my canal, the head had come down at an angle. She was very hard to get out! Eventually the doctor decided to use a vacuum to assist in the delivery and get her out safely. Overall, after starting the Pitocin, my labor was 12 hours.

Ariani Celeste was born on December 1st at 3:21 p.m. She weighed 8 pounds and 7 ounces and was 19 ½ inches long. She was like Mary Poppins - “practically perfect in every way.” We were home just over 24 hours after she was born and are blissfully happy adjusting to our new life as a family of four. I am so thankful that God gave us this beautiful miracle baby!

39 Weeks

Saturday, 30 November 2013

How far along: 39 weeks

How big baby is: She is a giant. :) But seriously, we’ll find out tomorrow!

Baby is the size of: a watermelon - can’t stop the produce comparisons now!

Baby’s development: As my doctor said at my appointment this week, “She’s done. She’s cooked long enough!”

Mommy’s belly: I measured my waist at the biggest part of my belly today. It was an embarrassing 48 inches! Wow! I also weighed myself this morning. I have gained 41 pounds. Of course, who wants to admit this stuff in an online blog? But for the sake of posterity, I will record it. :)

Baby’s movements: Her movements have been a bit more sporadic this week. There was one day that she hardly moved and when she did her movements were very subtle. Then last night she was wiggling up a storm! It made me want to see her so much!

Symptoms: Everything hurts, everything I do makes it hurt worse. But she is so worth it. :)

Food cravings: I still want sweet tea all the time and now that we are having cooler fall weather, I’ve been wanting a QT cappuccino every day too. (I have indulged only twice this week in that particular craving.) David has suggested our favorite hot dog restaurant several times lately and that hasn’t sounded good to me at all, so apparently, I’m having an aversion to hot dogs right now.

Emotions:I have been crazy emotional the last couple of weeks. I’m not sure how much of that is hormone related and how much of it is related to my fears after losing four babies. It has been a rough week with a lot of tears even though I am so happy that delivery day is getting so close.

Sleep: I have still been sleeping all night long, but of course the quality of the sleep hasn’t been quite what I would love. Between the discomfort and the excitement of Ariana’s arrival, I have woken up a LOT at night - at least once an hour and sometimes more. But I am grateful for the sleep I have been able to get.

Preparations: Goodness, we have been busy this week! I wanted the house to be perfect when we came home. I usually clean like a fiend before we leave for a vacation because I don’t like coming home to a messy house. This is like that. I want to bring this baby home to a house that is clean and clutter-free so that I can just relax and take care of my family rather than feel stressed about housework that needs to be done. I want my house to look nice so that when people come to visit I don’t have to feel embarrassed about how messy it is. Besides, when you come home from the hospital you bring so much junk with you - that will be mess enough without being added to a mess that was already here. A couple of weeks ago I did a big deep cleaning - similar to the “spring cleaning” that a lot of people do. This week I simply did my regular housework and made sure that things were organized. I cleaned out the fridge. My husband helped to make sure that Ariana’s room is completely finished and ready. We put up our Christmas tree last night and rearranged our living room furniture to accommodate the tree, bassinet, and baby swing. I got my hair trimmed yesterday and even gave myself a manicure and pedicure. (Let me tell you, giving myself a pedi at 39 weeks was a challenge!) Today I will pack the final little things and we will be ready to go! It feels so nice to be prepared.

Anything else: This week involved tough decision making for me. My induction has been scheduled for about three weeks now, but the doctor has always said that if I wasn’t ready this week he would postpone it for another week. I saw him Tuesday and he said things hadn’t really progressed and I wasn’t ready, but with the baby being about 9 pounds, 5 ounces (seriously) he was okay with inducing if I really wanted him to. When I asked him what he thought I should do, he said he simply couldn’t tell me. I think the conundrum was that the same risks probably exist either way. If the baby really is that big and continued to grow for another week or two, would I be able to deliver her? If I have only a week left and she has not even begun to descend into my pelvis, will she ever? Her head was measuring “out of range” and the measurements were freaking me out.

He did tell me that being induced when I am barely dilated to one centimeter and the baby hasn’t started to drop will be “brutal” but that he understood my worries about letting her get too big and knew that that could make a rough delivery as well. It was a decision I had hoped so much to avoid and one I had agonized over for the last couple of weeks. But my husband and I had talked about it a lot and I had spent a lot of time praying about it. In the end, I knew that the right decision for me was to be induced on December 1st.

I’ll be honest, part of my motivation was emotional as well. After saying goodbye to four babies already, I have struggled with anxiety during this pregnancy. My losses were all first trimester losses, but in my journey, I met and heard the stories of so many women who lost their babies after 37 weeks - many of them for reasons completely unknown. I have said it so many times - I can’t unsee what I have seen or unknow what I now know. Although baby A has looked perfect (although big) at every single appointment I have had with the doctor, the fear still grips me sometime that I could make it this far and then still lose her. I have wrestled with this fear and spent a lot of time praying, asking God to keep her safe, and asking Him to help me trust Him. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t sit around all day every day imagining terrible scenarios. But at least a few times a week I will have to stop what I’m doing, tell God how scared I am, and ask Him to give me peace and to protect my sweet baby. For the duration of this pregnancy I have always said, “I feel like she won’t be completely safe until she is out of my body and in my arms.” I know that isn’t really true. In our fallen and sinful world, there is no such thing as “completely safe.” And I know that God carries her whether she is in my womb or out of it. But I won’t be able to completely relax until she has been born and I can see that she is healthy and perfect!

So, I say all that to say that it was a tough decision that I never wanted to make. It has been difficult for me to go through basically the same thing that happened at the end of my pregnancy with Penny - say goodbye to what my plans were for labor and delivery and put myself in the hands of the doctor’s and nurses. Some people have shared their opinions with me, whether I have asked for advice or not, which has added to my stress some. But the decision has been made and I will check into the hospital tonight to get things started. And regardless of everything else, I am beyond thrilled that God has given me this baby to carry. I am so thankful for a healthy pregnancy. And I am super excited that sometime tomorrow I will most likely be holding this sweet baby that I have prayed for a dreamed of for a very long time. My God is so good!

What I’m looking forward to: Baby time! Snuggles, the smell of her head, pouring over every detail of her body - her tiny fingers and toes, her chubby fat rolls (face it, she’ll have them), her sweet little nose and lips, her sleepy eyes. That first moment when she is in my arms and my husband kisses my forehead and all feels right in the world. Watching her big sister meet her for the first time. Watching her grandparents hold her for the first time. Changing her first diaper (yes, even that!). Bringing her home and watching her grow up. Every little thing...