Kimber's Pro Pictures

I had the amazingly talented Jodi Schlosser come over to do Kimber's newborn pictures. After using her for our engagement, boudoir, wedding, and trash the dress session I knew I couldn't go wrong with her... and I was right. She never fails to amaze me and she sure did capture how cute my little bundle of joy was when she was just 5 days old. She also created her birth announcement which I'm still getting compliments about!

Here are a few of my fav's:






































wearing the flower that I wore at my wedding :)
















































































I smile every time I look at these photos. I can't believe how little she used to be! (and how sickly I still looked lol) Thanks again Jodi for capturing yet another milestone in our lives, we really appreciate it!

Christmas Eve

Disclaimer: I have NO pictures of Christmas Eve. I know, I suck! I had a very crabby baby and I was a little crabby myself lol so pictures were the last thing on my mind.

Every year my side of the family gets together on Christmas Eve for our big family Christmas. A few years ago we started having it at my aunt and uncle's house because it's bigger, and believe me, we need all the room we can get. There are only 15 of us but we get about 10 gifts a piece... it still blows me away how generous my grandparents and great aunt are!

This year my great grandma isn't doing so well so we all were going to go over there for Christmas Eve. I was a little bummed because Kimber turns into this horribly fussy baby around 6-7ish and they wanted to start at 5... ok fine, I just said a little prayer that she would some how behave herself.

I started making my dish that I was supposed to bring around 3 and get a phone call from my great aunt that says they are moving it to 6. I'm not going to lie, I was more than a little upset. We are the only ones that have a newborn and I felt like it didn't matter that her schedule was going to be entirely messed up. That being said, we couldn't not go, so I just crossed my fingers that the busy house would keep Kimber occupied and happy.

She was pretty good through dinner and passing out the presents but by the time we opened one or two she was done. She screamed and screamed and screamed, and rightfully so, it was past her bedtime. My aunt took her and got her to calm down but then she started back up again shortly after. Next my great aunt took her and got her to go to sleep long enough for us to finish opening presents. We started packing everything into bags to take out to the car and Kimber just lost it. There was nothing I could do at this point to calm her down. It was a hour after her bedtime and she was pissed! I hurried up and got her ready to go and Pat packed up the car and we were on our way home sans dessert (which I can afford to skip anyways lol).

Here's some of the things we received from my grandparents and great aunt:

Pat:
hunting bag
pj pants
thermos
beanie

Kimber:
rocking horse
tons and tons of clothes
pjs
a night light
Toy Story 1 & 2

Me:
jeans for work
a couple sweaters
cookie jar
an awesome glass oil lamp

Gifts we gave:
We gave my grandparents, great grandma and great aunt a framed picture of Kimber from her pro shoot, and then three additional prints. Last year we gave them pictures on a cd and apparently they didn't know how to get them printed lol

We also got money. Kimber got a small chunk that went into her savings account and we got enough to update the kitchen, which I'm super excited about! I love my family!!!

Cookie Dough Cupcakes

I decided that for Christmas morning we were going to have an assortment of baked goods for breakfast but I wanted to try something new. I found this recipe for cookie dough cupcakes, and since I have such a love for cookie dough I decided I had to try it out.

The actual recipe has you make the cupcake batter and cookie dough from scratch but what new mom has time to do that? Certainly not this one! I just used boxed mixes and it turned out just fine. The only thing I did differently was I took the big chocolate chips out of the cookie dough mix and instead added a cup of mini chocolate chips... I'm just not a huge fan of the chocolate chips...

Directions:

Follow directions on package to make cookie dough (and substitute the mini chocolate chips if desired). Roll the cookie dough into 1 Tablespoon balls and place on a cookie sheet and freeze overnight.

Follow directions on package to make cupcake batter. Line 2 cupcake pans with liners and fill them with 3 Tablespoons of batter each. Once all the liners are filled, take a frozen cookie dough ball and place it in the middle of the batter. Bake cupcakes at 350 for 16-18 minutes.

Frosting:

3 sticks of softened butter
3/4 c. light brown sugar packed
3 1/2 c. powdered sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbs milk
1 tsp vanilla

Combine butter & brown sugar in a mixing bowl and cream together on a medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Beat in powdered sugar until smooth. Beat in salt, milk and vanilla until smooth and combined.

Once the cupcakes are done baking let them cool. Frost the cupcakes and sprinkle with mini chocolate chips.

Enjoy!

I really liked these, but they are kind of rich :) I'm not the biggest fan of the icing but it's probably because I'm not making it right. For some reason mine is still a little grainy from the brown sugar but oh well, the family loved them!

funniest thing... EVAR!

So today the husband, Kimber and I were on our way to his parents house for Christmas. I am obsessed with fountain sodas so we stopped at a gas station to get one. I was driving and my husband very kindly said he would go in and get them, so there I was, sitting with Kimber in the car.

A man walked out of the gas station, while Pat was still inside, and made his way over to the passenger side of my car. I couldn't imagine what he wanted to talk to me about but as soon as I decided to roll down the window to ask him what he wanted, the man opened the door! As I stared at him with disbelief, he proceeded to sit down in my car and make himself comfy. I started going "ummmmmm" and "uhhhhhh", thinking if I made noises he would look at me. Well, he didn't. I started getting a little worried, after all, I was alone in the car... WITH MY DAUGHTER! I quickly started thinking about what I was going to do if he asked, nay, told me to drive away.

My mind raced as he... buckled the seat belt! He looked right at me! Not gonna lie, I started freaking out just a little inside. Finally, I managed to say "umm, hello?" He looked at me again and I seriously thought his eyes were going to bug out of his head and started repeating "Oh my gosh" and "I'm so sorry"... he couldn't get out of the car fast enough. He looked around and saw his wife in the driver's seat of their car. As she rolled down her window she couldn't stop laughing. He starts going on about how he didn't even look at the car, and he just got in and oh my gosh... His wife finally regains her composure, waves at me, and with a smile says "Well, Merry Christmas!"

This seriously made my whole day :)

Accountability?

(Before I start on my rant, two things: my computer charger broke so I've been a little MIA lately because I hardly get a chance to get on the husband's computer, and secondly, I will soon be blogging about some cookie dough cupcake goodness!)

I am beyond frustrated right now.

About three weeks ago Pat and I wrote a letter to the hospital. The day we were discharged we were told that they were going to figure out what happened with the epidural and why it took the nurse anesthetist three hours to come look at the epidural pump and let us know. Well over two months had passed and we hadn't heard anything and we wanted to draw attention to the fact that the hospital had dropped the ball and to let them know we were still awaiting answers.

Here are a few exerts from the letter I received today:

"A review of the procedures revealed that all normal protocols were followed." - Seriously?

"Although the pump beeped and displayed a message that the pump was empty, Dr. G*** assured us that the pump did not malfunction or empty completely as there is a reserve."  - The pump was saying it was low at 7 pm, you're telling me in THREE hours the reserve was still there?!?!?! Obviously it did malfunction because either there was medicine in it and it was saying it wasn't (their story, which I have a hard time believing) OR the pump shut off because it didn't have medicine in it anymore (which is what actually happened as my husband SAW it)... either way you cut it, there was a malfunction!

"Our records state that L***, the nurse anesthetist visited you promptly and regularly to attend to your labor pain."- This one really pisses me off the most! I saw that witch twice the entire time I was there. Once when I was admitted, to place the epidural around 10 am, and once around 10 pm, even though the nurse called her at 7 pm to come to my room. Is three hours prompt? Certainly not to me! And don't even get me started on her piss poor attitude!

I had to get this out as I am not going to go into a 'letter war' with the hospital as it is obvious to me that they don't think anything happened outside the norm. All we wanted was a 'my bad, sorry it took so long, we were having problems with the pumps... etc.' but instead they act like we made the whole thing up! I mean if what I went through it their normal care then I truly feel sorry for the women that go to that hospital.

Lesson learned: I will NEVER go to ANY SSM hospital/facility again.

Infection

We were sent home on Monday, September 27th and everything was great. I was sleeping on the couch with Kimber in her pack-n-play because that was easier for me to get up from since I had a c-section. On Wednesday I noticed that right above the incision was getting hard. I didn't really think anything about it because I was still feeling pretty good, and my symptom wasn't on the list of reasons to call your doctor that they gave me in the hospital. Thursday night Pat told me that my incision looked red, and I had noticed that I really started feeling bad right around the time my pain medicine was wearing off. I decided to wait until the morning since my doctor's office was already closed for the day.

Friday morning I got up and had a little puss coming out of each side of the incision so I called the doctor and he said he wanted me to come in. By this time I could barely lift my leg to get in the shower, but I really didn't think anything was really wrong. I had my mom come pick me up since I still wasn't allowed to drive and we headed to my appointment.

We all settled into the exam room and as soon as my doctor came in and saw the incision he didn't look too happy. He told me it was infected and that he had no choice but to open it back up again. He said he would open one side, drain the fluid, clean it, and pack it with gauze. He gave me a shot to numb the right side of the incision and told me to take my pain meds and he would be back in a minute. He came back with two nurses and proceeded to cut open the right side of my incision. My mom said that fluid just came pouring out, like if you were to take a full glass of water and dump it over. The OB then shoved one of those big long Q-Tips in the incision, and started pushing on my stomach to try to get all the fluid out and clean the inside.

I seriously thought I was going to throw up right there, lying on his table. I've never felt pain like that. He finally stopped cleaning the right side, looked at me and said he would have to open the other side too. There was no way I could sit through that ordeal again so I started to panic. My OB started asking me when the last time I ate or drank anything was and then gave me the option to either go back to the hospital or have him open up the other side in his office. I decided I wanted to go to the hospital so he called ahead and got everything set up. He then told me I would be going back to the hospital where we had Kimber and I wasn't too thrilled at the idea that I would have the same nurse anesthetist so he called back to make sure I wouldn't have her... so nice of him :)

I tried to call Pat, he didn't answer. I text his co-worker who said he was at lunch so I tried to call him again. Finally I got ahold of him and hysterically told him what was going on. He left work to meet my mom and I at the hospital. The plan was to put me under, open up both sides, get all the fluid out, clean it really well, and pack it with gauze that I would have to change twice a day and send me on my way. I was emotionally and physically exhausted now and just wanted to feel better. I got ready for the procedure and they, once again, wheeled me into the OR.

I was pretty confused when I woke up, and even more confused at the tube that was coming from my stomach. I was then wheeled up to my room, whoa, what? Why did I have to stay? I couldn't imagine being away from Kimber when she was only a week old, and the thought made me lose it. I guess they took pity on me and got an exception to the rule and told me that Kimber and Pat could spend the night and they even got one of those carts from the maternity ward for Kimber to sleep in. They then explained that my OB decided to use a wound vac instead of packing me with gauze in hopes that I would heal faster this way, but since my insurance was closed they couldn't get me a portable one to take home until Monday. Ummm, what? I have to spend the entire weekend in the hospital... again!!!

Ultimately we decided Pat and Kimber would not spend the night with me. The room was tiny and only had a chair for him to sleep in so they left Friday night and I was absolutely beside myself. The hardest part of this whole ordeal was being away from my newborn, and feeling so helpless. I decided I would go to bed early so that the next day would get here faster and I could see my baby again. I got the nurse to get my pain meds and went to bed.

A couple hours later they decided to switch nurses and at 2 am I woke up in so much pain I couldn't move. Apparently I had to ask for my medicine and they didn't just automatically give it to me every 4 hours... that would of been really nice to know BEFORE I went to bed and went 10 hours without medicine! I called my nurse because I needed to use the bathroom and get some medicine. She came and unhooked those little leg things and helped me out of bed but I hurt so bad I couldn't go so I asked her to get my meds. About 30 minutes later she was back with them and I was able to go back to sleep.

Pat came and brought Kimber the next day and he would stay until like 10 at night, he did that Saturday and Sunday... poor guy had to spend the entire weekend in the hospital, but at least I got to see the baby:

Monday morning I finally got my portable wound vac. The wound specialist came to change the dressing before I went home. I had thought I was done with the worst part but getting the dressing changed was almost unbearable. My OB was there and kept reminding me that this would heal faster than just using gauze and that this only had to be changed 3 times a week and not twice a day like the gauze. So they changed my dressing, while I cursed profusely, and hooked up my portable vac and sent me home.

Wednesday my home nurse came to change the dressing again, and they informed me that since I had to have a nurse come to my home that meant that I was 'home bound' and wasn't allowed to leave the house. I was allowed to go to church, to get my hair done, and to the doctor, but that was it. So here is what happened three times a week when they came to change my dressing:

First they have to rip the drape off, which feels like they are ripping my skin off. Then they pull the foam out from my incision, which feels like they are ripping my insides out. They then cleaned the wound and started to put the dressing on again. Super pleasant experience... NOT!

First they shove the Q-Tip in to measure how deep the wound is and then they cut thick pieces of foam to that length. They then take the Q-Tip and shove the foam in each side so that a little piece is sticking out of both sides.

Then once the foam is inside they place the black foam over the whole incision and form a 'bridge' between both pieces of white foam.

Once the black foam is in place they put a piece of drape over and press it on my skin. Then they put the sticker with the hose on and connect the hose to the wound vac. Once the vac is turned on it creates suction and creates a vacuum seal with the drape on my skin. 

The wound vac constantly sucks all the fluid out of my incision and stores it in a canister that is attached to it... pretty nasty, huh? The suction that the vac makes on the black foam causes the white foam (that's inside the incision) to suck all the gross stuff out.

I had the wound vac from October 1st until October 20th and then I was discharged from my home health nurse on October 22nd. After that I had to pack both sides of the incision with gauze because they still weren't all the way healed but the openings were too small to use foam with the vac.

I became paranoid about me being the only one looking at this thing. I just knew something bad was going to happen again. I was afraid that if I stopped packing too soon that the opening would close and leave a hollow cavity inside that would get infected again... however, if I kept packing the openings and shouldn't then I would just be keeping the wound open unnecessarily. I had a doctor appt on November 4th and was told I could stop packing the right side. Finally about a week later the left side was shallow enough that I stopped packing that as well and by my next OB appt on November 26th I was told I was all healed!

The incision is still sore sometimes and the two ends that were opened again are making a nasty looking scar but there's not much I can do about it and it super sucks that I spent 2/3 of my maternity leave recovering! I'm really paranoid that if I have another c-section that I will have another infection. My doctor assured me that just because I had an infection this time doesn't mean I will have one next time, but I do know it happens. It's just a risk with surgery, but the worst part is not knowing. I can't do anything to prevent an infection and I don't want to assume it will happen again and prepare myself to deal with it. I want to be optimistic if we decide to have another, but honestly, there will always be a part of me that worries that I will have the exact same experience.

Between the awful birth experience and subsequent infection, it's amazing to me that I'm actually considering going through it all again!

Birth Story

Wednesday, September 22nd - My due date, and at all my weekly check-ups before then I hadn't made much progress. Heck, Kimber hadn't even dropped yet as you can obviously see in the picture below. I had a week of vacation so I scheduled my last day at work to be my due date and either she came, or I'd use vacation days, but I knew that there was no way I could focus at work after my due date!

That night we relaxed and I decided that I needed some Fritz. On our way there I kept getting a crampy feeling but I didn't want to say anything to Pat because I really didn't think I could possibly go into labor ON my due date. So, we got our ice cream and went home to go to bed.

Thursday, September 23rd (My grandma's birthday) - I woke up at 4 am to go to the bathroom and when I returned to bed I could not for the life of me fall asleep. I was uncomfortable and it felt like I had to go to the bathroom still, so I went back in and waited. Nothing happened... I still didn't want to wake Pat up because I wasn't 100% sure what was going on, and of course if I woke him up, it would be nothing. 

Around 5:45 am I lost my plug and had bloody show, which at first freaked me out a little and I had to keep telling myself it was normal. At 6 am I decided to take a shower and get ready because I just knew today was going to be the day! Pat's alarm for work went off at 6:30 am and I walked into the bedroom and told him that he was definitely not going to work today and explained what had been going on.

Pat got up and showered and then packed the car. I was supposed to go to the doctor that day so I wanted to call the office and see if he still wanted to see me or if I should just go to the hospital. I figured I should time my contractions in case they asked me how far apart they were, so from 7 am to 8 am I timed them (while eating breakfast I might add). I still had it in my head that they would be irregular or inconsistent and that this was false labor but to my surprise they were coming every 4 minutes and lasting from 40 to 90 seconds! I called the doctor at 8 am but they weren't open yet! That 30 minutes I had to wait for them to open was AWFUL, but I was determined not to call the exchange. So I called my mom instead and talked to her to pass the time, plus I needed to update her on the situation anyways :-)

Finally at 8:31 am I was on the phone with my doctors office. I told them what was going on and asked if I needed to come in or if I should go to the hospital and he told them it was up to me. I decided that I wanted to go see my OB first so we headed to his office. We got there around 9:15 am and he checked me and told us that I was 100% effaced and 3 cm dilated and that he would call ahead to the hospital to let them know I was coming! At this point it was getting harder to function through contractions but I could still walk and talk pretty easily. He told me that I would get up to a room, have my water broke and get an epidural so that we could really get things moving along and I was sooo excited at the thought in meeting my daughter in a few short hours, little did I know it would take quite a long time...

We headed to the hospital. I called my grandma and told her I would be giving her a great granddaughter for her birthday... she got a kick out of that! We checked in and walked up to the room by 10 am. I got my IV (after 3 freakin tries), they called for my epidural and they called the house doctor to break my water, in hopes to speed up my labor. The house doctor got there before I got my epidural and I started to get a little nervous that breaking my water would hurt, I mean have you seen that hook? How could it not hurt? He decided he wanted to wait until I got my epidural... whew! So they pushed a bag of fluid through me and got the nurse anesthetist to put my epidural in. She gave me the numbing shot but when she started to insert the catheter I had a shooting pain so she had to pull it out and start all over in another spot. Finally it was in and I was getting some relief! The doctor came back and broke my water and it had meconium in it so we were told that after she was born we couldn't immediately hold her like I had wanted. She needed to be looked at before she took her first breath to make sure she wouldn't inhale any poo into her lungs. 

I must admit that some things are still a blur but I know that I was on potcin for at least part of the time to try to speed everything up. Since I had been up for so long the nurses kept trying to get me to take a nap but I was just too excited. By 5 pm they pretty much told me I was to take a nap... now... and I was tired, more tired than I thought. I tried to go to sleep but my back was really bothering me, so they gave me a shot of some sort of pain medicine that knocked me out, pretty much immediately. 

I woke up about a hour later and was fully dilated! I told my nurse that my back was really starting to bother me so she tried to check me to see if the baby was face up or face down, and of course little miss was face up and I was experiencing back labor. At this point it wasn't unbearable so I was able to sit and labor down until about 7 pm but then got strong urges to push, so I started. Unknown to me at the time, my epidural pump was basically saying that it had shut off and had no more medicine it in, and my nurse had called the nurse anesthetist to come look at it. I was feeling my contractions at this point. I know people say that you confuse pressure with pain but not so much the case with me... it was straight up pain. Now my back labor was really intense and I couldn't understand why I was in so much pain, but I'd never gone through it before so I just figured it was normal. My OB got there around 9 pm and things really start to get fuzzy at this point.

I remember pushing and pushing and pushing but nothing was really happening. I was screaming in pain and crying but it never crossed my mind that something was wrong. I still had no idea that anything was going on with my epidural. I was pushing twice through every contraction, and could feel everything. My nurse kept telling me that I would get relief when I pushed and she was right, but it did nothing for the back labor which was overwhelming at this point. I cannot even begin to describe how horrible it was.

Around 10 pm (THREE hours after my pump shut off and she was called) the nurse anesthetist came in. She tried to get me numb but nothing was working, and after pushing for nearly three hours without pain meds I was exhausted and ready to give up. I'm pretty sure my OB and nurse anesthetist had differing opinions on my numbness, she thought I was numb and he didn't so he pinched me and I felt it so the nurse kept giving me meds. I started getting nervous, thinking this would never end so I uttered the words I never thought I'd say: Can I just have a c-section? Thank goodness my OB knew how much I did NOT want that to happen so he pushed me to try the forceps. I was terrified that if he tried that and wasn't successful that (in my mind) was just one more thing I failed at, because so far I had failed at giving birth. I didn't know if I was strong enough for that and lo and behold my mom comes in and reminds me of how badly I didn't want a c-section. I agreed to forceps only if they got me numb. Again, have you SEEN those things? I shudder to think but I digress... my OB checked me and I felt everything. At that point I said no way to the forceps and had no choice but to go for the c-section.

As if that wasn't hard enough for me to admit I was then informed that they were going to have to knock me out to do it. No big deal until I realized that meant that Pat could not be in the room with me, plus I had to hear all the risks of the surgery/anesthesia and I was freaking out a little. I thought there was a chance I wouldn't wake up from all of it and that scared me. 

Friday, September 24th (my great aunt's birthday) - As they wheeled me into the OR (sometime around midnight) I told Pat to take care of Kimber for me and I'm pretty sure I saw a tear in his eye which crushed me. 

Before they put me under I guess they were trying to see if I was numb or not so the anesthesiologist kept pinching me, and I kept telling him I could feel it but apparently he didn't believe me and kept asking me if I felt the pinch or felt pain... Well feeling a pinch is painful! (I even had bruises on my arm the next morning!) The next thing I remember is the nurse putting pressure on my throat, I felt like I was suffocating and at that moment I thought I wouldn't wake up from this. As comical as that is now, at the time I really thought the lady was killing me but I think it has something to do with not wanting anything to come back up the airway? I'm not really sure...

Kimber Isabella was born at 12:29 am weighing in at 7 lbs 10 oz and 20.5 inches long.

My mom, Pat holding Kimber, Pat's dad & mom

I remember waking up in the recovery room, and I remember seeing my doctor for a little while but I don't remember much after that. I don't remember seeing Kimber for the first time, or what I thought when I looked into her eyes and while it kills me to never know those feelings or to have those memories I am glad that she is here, safe and sound. 

That morning a group of three people decided it would be a good time to come talk to me about the epidural mishap after I only had 5 hours of sleep and still didn't know what exactly happened in the first place. They pretty much swept it under the rug and made me feel like I really wasn't in the amount of pain that I said I was in. The real kicker was when they told me that an epidural doesn't help with back labor, as if that fixed the problem! The morning we were discharged the head of the maternity ward came in to talk to us about what happened and we expressed our disappointment in the fact that it took 3 hours to get someone to come look at the epidural pump when it said it was shutting off. She assured us that she would get to the bottom of it and let us know what had happened, and I was glad because I wanted answers. Not knowing what happened or what went wrong is one of the reasons it's still kind of hard to talk about. However, to this day we still haven't heard anything.

I also talked with my doctor who informed me that even if he would of tried the forceps she wouldn't of come out, so that was a big relief to me. He said that she was wedged in so tight that it made a suction sound when he pulled her out lol It just assured me that I made the right call and made me feel like a little less of a failure at this whole giving birth thing!

Overall I think I am still angry. Angry that no one told me what was going on, angry that it took so long for someone to try to fix the problem, angry that the hospital obviously doesn't give two shits about our experience. What angers me the most is wondering if things would of went differently had she fixed my pump before it shut off. Maybe then I wouldn't of been put under, maybe then Pat could of been there for the birth of his daughter, maybe then I would of been awake to see my baby girl take her first breath. I just wish so badly things would of went differently. I know I should be thankful that she is here and healthy, and believe me, I am, but I am also disappointed in my birth experience. I looked forward to this day for 9 months, even longer actually, and to have it go so horribly horribly wrong is just.... upsetting. Plus, then there's the infection... which will be coming in another post...

my big girl

Held her rattle today! Before she would put it between her two fists and bring it to her mouth but today, for the first time, she actually held it! <3 Oh... and she's a whole 11 weeks old today!!!

2 month checkup

We had our 2 month check up the day before Thanksgiving and our princess got 4 shots. It was AWFUL! I must admit I shed a few tears for her.

I brought up the fact that she fights her sleep and it takes forever to put her to bed at night, hoping I'd get advice or some tricks to get her to fall asleep easier and he told me to put her in her bed and let her cry. :shock: Pat said sometimes she fights her sleep for 2 hours, and his response was that he's never had a patient die from crying.

I cannot, as a mother, listen to her cry for 2 hours. Plus at two months old I don't think that she is learning anything by letting her cry, other than I'm not being there for her. Even if the doctor is right and letting her cry will make her sleep through the night in two days, I just can't and won't do it. Do I think crying is bad? No Does my kid cry? Of course But I think there is a huge difference between her crying with me consoling her and her crying uncontrollably, alone, in her crib.

The next issue came up about sleeping through the night. After starting our routine we are getting up once a night (I say once b/c it's anywhere between 2 and 4 and then she gets up at 6 but I don't consider the 6 o'clock wake up 'at night' because once I go back to work that will be the time we get up for the day) and I'm super proud of Kimber's progress and am amazed at how she's fallen into our routine. However, when the doctor told me she should be sleeping through the night already I felt like a failure. We are doing what's best for us and to be told it's not correct, by a doctor, is just awful!

I've realized that our pedi doesn't have the 'every baby's different' mentality and so I'm 'breaking up' with him. If there is anything I've learned these past 10 weeks of being a mom, it's to trust your gut. I fully believe I am doing the best I can for Kimber and don't need to question myself every time I take her to the doctor. She is a healthy, happy baby so I must be doing something right :) Hopefully her 4 month appointment with the new family doctor will go better!

what the heck just happened?!?!?

We have been doing so good at night lately. It takes about a hour to go to sleep and then we are normally getting up once, sometimes twice a night, and I'm totally okay with that at this point. Tuesday night was another story...

I put her down for the night at 9:30 and had a headache so I couldn't fall asleep. At 11 ish she woke up screaming, stupid Huggies leaked all over her and she was pissed! I changed her, swaddled her again and put her back to bed but she wasn't havin it! 20 minutes later she was crying again so I went in and rocked her for like 30 minutes but as soon as I put her in bed she would wake up. I fed her, thinking she would fall asleep again but that wasn't the case. Finally at 1:30 I decided to put her in her swing and sleep on the couch but then I was paranoid that she shouldn't be sleeping in the swing so I headed to the internet to make sure it was ok to do. I finally got to sleep a little after 2 and little miss was up at 5 wanting to eat. I climbed in bed with her on my chest at 6 and waited for Pat to get up for work so I could put Kimber in the Boppy. Finally at 7:15 she was sleeping in the Bobby and I finally got to sleep for a couple more hours until she woke up at 9.

I must say, this was her worst night yet. I don't understand why she wouldn't just go back to sleep?!?!? I spent all day yesterday in my pj's, taking naps whenever she did... it was such an unproductive day, but after the night from hell I think I deserved it :) Thankfully last night we were back on track and this morning we pulled out the Bumbo, I think it was a success!

Empty

This is where Pat lays during our nighttime routine. He talks to me while I put our little one to sleep, but tonight he's not here :( He got a reservation down south to hunt so tonight I'm without husband and I don't like it.

I can count on one hand how many nights I've spent away from him including tonight. I suppose I can survive one night out of my nook, but I don't have to like it! However, I know my sister is lovin it since I'm having her spend the night... She is obsessed with little miss :)

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baby fever

I thought Kimber would help sooth my baby fever but she has just made it worse! I told Pat tonight that it was a good thing I had a c-section and we now have to wait a year because I already want to be pregnant again! I mean, look at this face:

As much as I want to be pregnant again, I still never want to actually have another baby. I'm still terrified that I will have the exact same experience, and I don't know that I'm strong enough to go through that twice. (I'm going to post my birth story here but need to sit down with Pat since I don't remember a lot of the details.) I thought I had it all figured out, I wanted to wait until baby #1 was like 2 before we had another one... now I'm counting down the days until our year of waiting is up! Realistically I doubt we will start trying that soon, but I guess you just never know!

Ugh I just love her! And my love for her almost makes me forget what I went through, but it definitely makes it worth it. I love that she is all smiles in the morning, I love when she stops eating to look at me with a huge grin on her face, I love watching her discover her hands, I even love that most of the time she does not wake up gracefully... it's kind of comical and she's totally like her mom in that respect. Neither one of us likes to wake up from naps :)

On top of all this new found love for this little creature I made, I love love love watching Pat be a dad. Ohhh be still my heart!

Christmas time is almost here!!!

I think this year I want to start our own little family tradition. In the past years Pat and I exchanged gifts Christmas Eve when we got off work, then headed over to my aunt's house for Christmas with my side of the family. Christmas Day we went to my mom's in the morning, since my brother and sister are still kind of young, opened presents and then headed over to Pat's parent's, then to Pat's grandma's.... whew! Talk about exhausting!

This year is obviously Kimber's first Christmas, and even though she is wayyy too young to know what is going on I would like to start our own little family thing on Christmas morning. I'm thinking big breakfast, gifts, and then watching some sort of Christmas movie. When I used to go to bio-dad's Christmas we would watch Christmas Family Vacation so that option is out :) I'm thinking maybe Grinch Stole Christmas, Charlie Brown,  It's a Wonderful Life, or A Christmas Carol... I just can't decide!

And I must share our little one's stocking:


I love it! And I cannot wait for Christmas!!!

Bedtime woes

I'm at a loss as to what to do about bedtime. I need to start doing some research to see if there are any tricks out there that can help. We have no consistent pattern throughout the day or at night and after over 7 weeks I'm getting tired. I fell into the baby led scheduling so basically whenever she cries we eat, when she's tired we sleep and apparently that isn't working out too well.

Last night I decided that we were going to start a semi-routine for bedtime. At 8:30 I fed her a bottle in her room and about half way through she started screaming. I'm guessing she is fighting sleep since she was being fed, her diaper was new, and she had already burped. It took about a hour to finish the bottle and get her to stop screaming. Finally a little after 9:30 she was asleep and I was soo excited at the thought of going to bed before midnight!!! As soon as I got into bed at 9:45 she was awake and screaming so I would go in, calm her down, get her to go back to sleep and then crawl into bed. Every time she would start crying again, and we did this game until a little after 11. It is so tiring trying to comfort a screaming baby on and off for 3ish hours, and it is beyond frustrating that she is sound asleep until you put her in her crib.

Today I thought I could put her for naps in her crib so that she would get used to sleeping in there so at 1 I put her down because she had just fallen asleep, and now twenty after one and I'm listening to her talk to herself in her crib... ahhh!!! Most days it is hard for me to find time to even take a shower because as soon as she falls asleep and I put her down, she is awake again. Maybe I need to start parent led scheduling???

Wishing...

I really wish this meant we are going to be ready for bed soon, but Kimber and I both know we will be up till midnight... Boo...

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