I'm bad at secrets.

So let's just say that for the next 6 weeks I am going to disappear via blog land until I can safely spill the beans. In which case there will be some good reads for gossip.

Ironically by posting this I'm sure half of the "what ifs" are correct.

Sayonara suckers! 

Bad Blogger.

Coming up on 2 years now! Now gonna lie, the first year was killer hard, maybe it had something to do with hormones and swollen legs. Or maybe it was just legitimately hard. But year 2, significantly better.

And there is talk of trying for another baby...it usually results in me crying when I think about going through pregnancy again. Though we want our kids to be close in age so they grow up buddies, I think we will wait a bit longer, not too much longer, but long enough for me to accept the inevitable! ;)

Faye is only 9 1/2 months so we have plenty of time to wait. But call me crazy I want to get it done with as fast as possible whilst still maintaining some amount of sanity.

And for your viewing pleasure, here is a picture of my beautiful girl. She just gets prettier everyday. To make things better, she is finally a mama's girl. It's been all about Daddy until 2 months ago and now she can't get enough of me. And I LUHVE it, but I do feel sorry for the hubs now...just a little bit. But she is super mom needy lately. Like I can't leave her sight with out her having a full-blown panic attack. I'm worried the Squeak may have some anxiety issues already. I mean it's hereditary, but I was hoping all our kids could avoid it.

I am so bad at blogging. I think the most consistent I have ever been in blogging was when I was preggo, but that was mainly so I could whine since everyone around me was getting annoyed.  Now-a-days there is not much to whine about so not much blogging gets done! Shouldn't it be the other way around though? Seriously.

On another note: I am buying these sexy ladies

Because it's raining, like a lot.  (big surprise, it's Oregon) And I always envisioned that when I was a mom I would take my kids on all sorts of adventures outside...or in shopping malls. But the soggy grass soaks through all my boots and shoes and Faye is getting cooped up and restless. Which means I need to brave the weather. Enter in boots and an umbrella because my wallet and hubby can't handle too many adventures to the mall. If only we were rich...

  

And has anyone heard of smash* journals? I have been doing a lot of smashing lately! It's a fun, lazy man's way to scrapbook/journal/doodle. Because I loathe scrap-booking and this makes it almost *gasp* fun.

Hi-Chews you, Pikachu!

Addicted to Hi-Chews candy. YUM. While I chew on sugary delight and drool down my chin, Faye chews on my thumb and drools down my sleeve. But it keeps us both happy. And yesterday she slobber slapped me with her soggy peacock, Jacque. It seriously splashed when it made contact with my cheek. Notice said Peacock yonder left? Kind of disgusting. Also take note of Faye...she sits! Without aid from bumbo or mom. I'm so proud. 


Summer was too short, and not enough skin exposed. I bought my first one-piece suit in years and braved out in it just once. But at least I have a swimsuit now, even if it was a waste of money this year. I long for a floaty to lounge on. The closest I got this year was sitting in a kiddie pool with a slightly nervous Faye. But the view was cute, since she is an adorable little chunk with rolls you could die for. 


But I was pretty proud of myself for putting on a suit and going out in public at all. I was so worried everyone would be looking at the zebra stripes adorning my legs, but a good friend said "If a man is looking at a married woman's legs that closely, then SHAME on him and he deserves to be mortified." So I went with that attitude. 

This weekend I am throwing a baby shower, my first ever and I am totally stoked about it. Crossing fingers it all turns out well. And I'm off to make a diaper cake! 

Yoga pants.

Today I took my deflated bum to the mall and bought some yoga pants! Because nothing makes a butt look sexier than a good pair of yoga pants. But they have to fit just right, and all my old yoga pants are majorly stretched out after my 73 pound pregnancy. But since I have lost 71 pounds and barely hovering above my old weight, I figured it was time to buy some butt hugging yoga pants. And they are Sessssssy. Now I just need to get a gym membership! Someplace official to wear them, other than my couch.

Wait, did you catch that? 71 pounds... (insert scream). I have lost 71 pounds in almost 5 months. And I swear to you, I am carrying about a pound of milk in each boob. That means...I HAVE FINALLY DONE IT!!! I have reached my goal with a month to spare! I wanted to have it all off in 6 months, and I have done it in 5. 

Enough about me, time for a pip-squeak update.

Faye is almost 5 months. And I thought the moment I saw her I could never love her more. I don't think I was ever so wrong about something...as the days pass I love her more and more, and each day I swear my heart grows bigger because I thought I maxed out on April 7th. I'm like the Grinch, my heart grew 3 sizes. She is such a happy happy baby, and she has the cutest laugh EVER! It's contagious. She's still a little chunk and at 5 months she is wearing 6-9 months. At her 4 month check-up she was in the 85% for height and 75% for weight. So she is a big girl. And the way she looks at you...there is something magical about it. Especially when I am nursing her. She will be happily chugging away and just stop to look at me, in that one look it's as if I am looking into the eyes of a very wise and special soul, and not eyes of an infant. Right as my eyes blur over with tears she gives me a shy little smile and goes right back to eating as if nothing happened. I can't explain it, but I think she knows me better than anyone else...and she still loves me. It's very humbling.

Her classic Grump face.

Anyway she grabs on to her toes, rolls over, can sit all by herself for a little over 3 minutes now, laughs, whispers, screams, babbles, pulls my hair, loves her daddy, talks in her sleep, farts like a man, snuggles when she is sleepy, nurses like a champ, learning the "fake" cry, kind of a pansy, loves her Sophie, O'ball and Peacock, drools like Niagra Falls, jumps in her jumperoo, is the best thing to wake up to, always watches me, and smiles every time I look back at her. I never knew I would love being a mom so much.

10 1/2 Weeks!!

 

Do I have the cutest baby or what?? At least I like to think so. ^.^

I'm so excited, we just found out that we will be spending the 4th of July with my family!! Then at the end of July we are headed to Texas to see Ghent's family and some good friends. We will also be blessing baby Faye while in Texas. It's a bit sad because I would love my family to be there, I know it's sad for them that they will be missing her baby blessing. But it is so important to Ghent that his dad and brothers help with the blessing. So Texas it is!! 

I LOVE being a mom. I never thought I would enjoy it so much. It helps that Faye is the perfect baby though. I mean she goes to bed at 11 and sleeps until 7 then nurses and sleeps again until 9-9:30. And she has been doing that since a week and a half old! Lucky, I am. Seriously, this baby hardly cries and just smiles and coos tons now! She loves cuddling but can sit and play by herself. Ghent and I still can't believe how lucky we got. I am so in love. 

However, my body and I are not getting along right now. I could just kick myself for not appreciating my body for years. How in the world did I ever think I looked horrible? It's so funny because I spent pretty much my entire life hating it because my thighs were too big, my arms jiggled, my stomach wasn't ever flat enough, ect. Now I look back and just kick myself for not loving it and enjoying it while I had it. Because now...it's ruined forever. No one believes me when I say how bad it is, not until they see it for themselves. And then they understand. I'm terrified for this summer. I want to go swimming and play on the beach, but I can't wear a bathing suit. If I can't even look in the mirror then how can I expose myself in front of people? Is there such thing as a capri length bathing suit with tummy control? Ghent and I have decided that once I am done having kids I will get a tummy tuck...but that won't be for years. And I can't handle years of this. And even when I do get a tummy tuck then I will have a nasty scar from hip to hip. Like I said, my body is ruined. 

How do I teach my daughter confidence when I can't look at my belly without crying? How do I teach her to accept herself when someday I will resort to cosmetic surgery to fix my tummy? How do I teach her that it is not the way she looks that is important, but the way she feels about herself and others when I am selfishly obsessed with the way I look. It's not even about weight anymore, because the more weight I'm losing, the worse my stomach is getting. Prior to pregnancy my confidence was based solely on my body, now I need to learn confidence in myself without my body.

Faye can already Bumbo!!

My belly looks like a butt.

Body vent. What the hell? They don't tell you in those pregnancy books that your belly is in danger of being mistaken for your boo-hiney after it deflates. And my poor belly button...it looks like a star since it totally caved in and the surrounding skin doesn't know what to do, other than fold over it. If I lived in the biblical times, the wise men would have mistaken my belly button for the Star. I avoid mirrors like the plague now because every time I see my bare belly it reduces me to tears. And don't even get me started on those stretchmarks. I have however lost a little over 40 pounds since Faye was born, and I am not yet to my pre-prego weight because my metabolism up and died once fetal Faye planted her eggo self into my uterus. So I still have XxXx amount of pounds to lose until I have reached my old digits. And it is coming off all sorts of slow. But this Thursday marks 6 weeks, and at 6 weeks doc says I can start working out, other than walking. So I am treating myself to a gym membership! The fat is going to melt like butter and I will get thin again, even if my belly looks like a droopy butt afterwards. Ok, I am done venting. I'm taking my belly butt on a walk now.

Oh, and a picture of Faye to erase the disturbing belly butt image that is probably haunting your thoughts right now:

She's started smiling. It melts my heart.

And for the record, she is totally worth my belly butt. Crap, there goes that mental image again.

I LOVE being a Mom!

Faye's Birth Story.

 

It has taken me many tries to write a post about Faye's birth. However, every time I sit down to write Faye wakes up and realizes she is not being cuddled and I hear about it. But tonight, with the help of her pacifier, soft blanket and Enya playing I think I may have a few minutes to write of it. So I am sure it will be somewhat short and not come close to capturing the beauty of the moment, but I will try!

So as my previous post said, my doctor brought up inducing my labor, and on April 7th Ghent and I woke up early and anxiously rushed to the hospital for the scheduled 6 am inducement. No one was expecting things to progress quickly since I was no where close to going into labor, so we were all planning on a very long weekend. But I really wanted my parents there so I called and asked them to come anyway knowing that things might not happen right away. But I really wanted my mom there during the birth. I was given a pill at 9 am which was to help start contractions and if that did not work after 24 hours then I was to go on Pitocin the next morning. 

Fast forward to 12 o'clock my contractions were beginning, and my nurse was horrible!! She would not stop talking and was telling me labors horror stories and breast feeding horror stories and going on and on about her daughter. I was getting uncomfortable and trying to focus on my breathing, and resisting the urge to tell her to shut the H-Bomb up. 

Jumping forward to 3 pm I was in full labor, what my doctor called "hyper labor". Meaning my contractions were off the chart and I wasn't having any breaks between contractions. So I was going from one insanely hard contraction directly into the next. Which floored me because my birth class said we would have a couple minutes between contractions to prepare for the next one, but I wasn't getting a break and that nurse was not shutting up and I was still trying to be polite to her, but she was making it impossible to focus on breathing and trying to block out the pain. 

By 6 pm my parents arrived but I was hanging on to my hospital bed for dear life and sobbing into my pillow, already completely exhausted. My doctor came in and encouraged me to get an epidural since I was hardly dilating. And he voiced his concerns that since Faye had still not dropped and I had been in hard labor for a while that she might be too big to go through my pelvis and that eventually if she still hadn't dropped a C-section might be necessary. I told him (through snot and tears) that I didn't need an epidural and that if the time came and I needed a C-section that was fine, but I wanted to keep trying. My parents urged me to get the epidural after my doctor left, and Ghent even encouraged me to get the epidural as well. We had never heard of "hyper labor" before and it was so intense, I think for all of us. So finally I listened and called my doctor back in and asked for the epidural. Almost 10 minutes after I got the epidural I could feel nothing! It was great. And then my blood pressure dropped dangerously low and then I was hooked up to oxygen and then tons of nurses were coming into my room and trying to shift my body into different positions to help raise my blood pressure, I was given medication to raise my blood pressure, but nothing was working. And then Faye's heart rate began to drop because my blood pressure was just too low. So my doctor informed me I needed an emergency C-section because they needed to get her out of me asap, and he still feared she was too big to come out on her own anyway. So I was wheeled down to the surgery room and Ghent followed, but my parents had to wait in the room. Since I had just been given and epidural I didn't need more drugs apparently and they began cutting into my stomach. That was the weirdest feeling ever, because it didn't hurt, but you could feel their hands inside of you pushing things around. When the Doc finally cut open my uterus we heard "WOW, that is a BIG head!!" and at that moment, my epidural wore off. And it hurt so bad. And the doctor did not make the incision big enough because he wasn't expecting such a big baby. Ghent said he had a hold of her and was pulling on her with all of his strength and she was not coming out easily. And during all this baby tugging I was crying out that it hurt and the anesthesiologist was rushing drugs into my IV. But it took a while for the drugs to kick in and I felt them pull her body from mine and felt them get to work on cleaning out my uterus and I remember looking at Ghent who had an expression of extreme happiness mixed with extreme worry as he looked back and forth between Faye and me not knowing who to stay with. So I told him to go with Faye and he took off while slowly the drugs started kicking in and the pain went from intense to dull to nothing. And I woke up a couple of times while they stitched me back up, but I don't remember much. But I did wake up for good right before they finished, however I was so drugged and slow, I had no idea what was going on and all I could think about was if my baby Faye was ok, because all I remember of seeing her was purple feet. The anesthesiologist went and checked on her after apologizing like crazy for what happened and came back with excellent news! Baby Faye was perfectly healthy and weighed an amazingly large 9 lbs 12 oz. 

Faye was born at 8:11 pm on April 7th and I got to finally see her an hour after her birth. Since I was still heavily drugged I don't remember much of our first meeting, other than they placed her on my chest and she eagerly latched on to my chest instantly and all I could think about was how big she was and how loud her scream was. I couldn't tell what she looked like because I couldn't get my eyes to focus on her little body, let alone her face. But Ghent told me she was beautiful and he filled me in on what happened while I was out.  He looked so proud and so happy to be her dad. And that is all I really remember...Ghent has told me more about what happened in the operating room, but it was mostly embarrassing to hear as it involved a lot of me sobbing about how much it hurt, then a lot of my being totally drugged and asking the nurses the most random questions that he said didn't even make sense. And I guess one of the nurses thought I was stupid cause she started talking really loud and incredibly slow to me. Which I do vaguely remember that and being slightly insulted. But eventually the drugs wore off and I could focus on my little beautiful baby and take in how precious she was. And I remember looking at her and crying once again, not in pain but in love and joy. She meant everything to me in that moment and I knew I would do anything for her. 

While her birth story may not sound pleasant, it's funny because I remember the facts but I can hardly remember the pain, and all I can remember about that day is how happy I was. It was such a beautiful and spiritual day for me that I can't help but document it as one of the most beautiful moments in my life...the day I met my daughter.

So that is her birth story, and surprisingly she is still sleeping...

As for my recovery, I am doing amazing!! The first week hurt like a bugger and I had to ask for a lot of help from Ghent and my parents, but only 2 weeks after her birth I am off the painkillers and back to my normal energy and activity with little to no pain. And since it's now 3 weeks after her birth, I am trying to get a little exercise in, and I love, LOVE being a mom. Faye is seriously the best baby ever and we are all sleeping through the night. She is still big, in fact at her 2 week check-up she weighed 10 lbs 6 oz and was in the 95th percentile for height and weight. They are estimating she will be off the charts at her 2 month check-up. Crazy. And my doctor just laughs because he was not expecting her to be so big and you can't help but smile when you see those cheeks. Ghent and I are completely in love with her and every night we just stare at her, the beautiful little miracle and blessing that she is, and we can't believe how blessed we truly are. 

Getting Induced!

So as of last week, my body has done nothing to get baby Faye out, nor has Faye done anything to come out. So today my doctor admitted that since things aren't really happening, I will most likely need to be induced. He said I could wait a week and see if I go into labor, or I could just be induced whenever. So tomorrow at 6 am I am going to the hospital and starting the inducement procedure, and I am not leaving the hospital until I have a baby! I am SOOOOO EXCITED!!! :) So wish us luck cause we are going to need it.

April 4th.

DUE DATE!!! :) Finally. But no baby Faye yet. Soon hopefully.

Today I rented a Uhaul and went to pick up the futon for Faye's nursery, then unloaded the HUGE box and put it all together...by MYSELF! I was really trying to overexert myself in the hopes that my water would break, but even after cleaning up my mess, organizing the living room, hauling all that cardboard off to the recycling center, my waters are still intact. It's ok, tomorrow I will go into labor! (Hoping) I know Ghent is hoping for the end of the week cause he is crunching at work and it would help out a lot if he could finish the week up. I told him I would wait, but I didn't know if Faye would. Let's be honest though...I think she is more than content to wait it out for him. Well Saturday we went couch shopping...again. And we really wanted to buy a couch and have it delivered that day, but we did not want a brown, tan or sage green couch. We were strictly looking for grays. However, gray is not a popular couch color, so we had to either order the fabric we wanted or settle on a brown that would clash. So we ordered. And now we have to wait another 3-6 weeks for our new couch to come...(fuming) but this futon is in the living room at least until our couch comes, which is much better than nothing. Anyway this is the new couch we picked out and it is super comfy!

 

But picture it is this color:

Let's just hope it gets here in 3 weeks instead of 6, right. 

Anyway, wish me luck on baby extraction, it's going to happen any day now!